When you're trying to find the MAGA rally, but somehow accidentally end up at the DSA chapter meeting. https://t.co/3G64emC8I9
— Jordan Weissmann (@JHWeissmann) May 17, 2020
Grimes asked him to change one single diaper and he gave himself a logical paradox instead. pic.twitter.com/kSDE7UltzZ
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) May 17, 2020
what if the AI killed elon and replaced him with a markov chain trained on twitter https://t.co/LojA9ue5hL
— Starfish Who Had Fun For An Hour (@IRHotTakes) May 17, 2020
a happy ending https://t.co/BHsKY1qzfB
— Zeddy (@Zeddary) May 17, 2020
Explication, per the AV Club:
… Earlier today, rich person Elon Musk tweeted the phrase “take the red pill” along with an emoji of a red rose—a vague and seemingly political statement that requires some familiarity with the internet. The rose emoji is used a symbol for people with far-left political beliefs, while “red pill” (a reference to The Matrix) has been co-opted by people with far-right political beliefs/misogynist assholes to refer to the moment when they discovered the supposed true nature of reality—which is to say that it’s their right to be an asshole and that anything and everything bad in their life is someone else’s fault. We’re not saying that’s what Musk meant, but that is more or less what people understand “red pill” to mean.
But wait, there’s more! Ivanka Trump, who is what you’d get if Veruca Salt’s dad just bought Willy Wonka’s factory for her at the end, retweeted Musk’s post with the comment “Taken!” (as in, “I’ve taken the red pill” and not “I got the name of the movie wrong,” we assume). This is where Lilly Wachowski comes in with one of those rare tweets that actually makes the mountain of bile that is Twitter seem briefly worthwhile…
…. because Lilly Wachowski is half of the team responsible for The Matrix.
It’s fractal.
West of the Rockies
Is Grimes a first name? Most unfortunate…
Baud
This seems more like Inception than The Matrix. So many levels.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
still not sure I get it– I saw that movie and enjoyed it, but don’t remember the pill thing–, but I’m guessing that Princess Grifterella has heard the rumblings that Musk is whining about his factory (?) being closed, and thinks she can draw him in as a famous trump person?
MattF
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Could be just Ivanka being stupid.. red = Republican.
Another Scott
Twitter is destroying human conversation.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Laurence Fishburn tells Keanu Reeves that he can take two pills. The red one shows him the reality of the Matrix. The other color (can’t remember) sends him back into the Matrix and he doesn’t become a hero.
With Love from MA
Oh! Yay! A new thread.
I just emailed Anne Laurie with this information, in fact, but I thought I’d post it here, since I noticed quite a few people in the threads complaining that they’re trying to order masks online and either not getting them OR not getting what they thought they were ordering.
No one knows me. I’m just a long-time lurker on BJ going back to when John Cole was still a Republican.
I just wanted to pass on two companies that I have ordered cloth masks from and have liked…albeit for different reasons.
Refried Apparel (Massachusetts): https://refriedapparel.com/products/sustainable-protective-masks
These masks are pretty good if you’re going out for a walk/run around the neighborhood. Lightweight, cool, and sweat absorbent. Beware though. These require you to tie them. So people with mobility issues might want to give these a pass. Since I’m in eastern MA, I got mine within 3 days or ordering.
American Quilt Co. (New Hampshire): https://www.americanquilt.co/collections/face-masks-shield
Very comfortable, but also heavier than than Refried Apperel masks. Perfect if you have to go shopping or hit up a store for supplies. Veeeeeery comfortable, with elasticized straps that go around the back of your head (not the ears). My brother and 78-year-old mother stole my first batch from me, so I had to order a second batch for myself. My brother is also ordering more for himself. Only draw back…you don’t get to choose the design. Got my masks within 3 days or ordering.
Just one caveat: Wash in a mesh laundry bag in cold with colors. Tumble dry low or let air dry.
I just wanted to pass it on for people in the Juicitariat who are having a hard time finding masks.
I hope this information helps someone.
Bill Arnold
Dang, just came here to post that exchange. Very good to see it frontpaged, thanks AL.
Baud
I for one am proud that the douchebags are all against us.
Feathers
Reposted from downstairs thread, because probably dead. I’ve been sewing masks with ties, but wanted to go out for my walk, but hadn’t done laundry. Remembered seeing this, so made it. There was a study saying that men’s t-shirt material was actually great for masks, so I don’t know how this compares to my other ones. You could definitely wear one layer of this under the regular home sewn version for extra protection, which I probably will do for my next grocery run.
Repost: Here’s a link to a good no sew T shirt mask, without ties. You cut out a hole for the ears and then twist the fabric around before putting it on, which creates the tight fit. I like it because I am able to trim the fabric so that it covers my nose without getting up into my eyes. It has seven sizes, Youth Small through Adult XL, with sizing based on the measurement from ear to ear. I haven’t been using a filter on any of my masks, but you could cut one to wear between the two layers here. Make a No Sew T Shirt Mask
Notes on working with knit fabric: Knit fabric does not fray, you can just leave the edges raw, no need to hem. You do not need to sew the two mask layers together, they will stick. Use sharp scissors. Cut out the mask pattern and then trace the cutting lines onto the fabric, taking care not to stretch it out. This is much safer and more accurate than pinning the pattern to the fabric and cutting out, like you do with wovens.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I’ve never seen The Matrix but I’m pretty sure the other color is blue.
HumboldtBlue
Supporter calls with Waren and Biden.
zhena gogolia
@With Love from MA:
Thanks!
Bill Arnold
So profoundly irritating that red pill/blue pill has been co opted (not entirely) by the asshole right. Neither Ivanka Trump nor Elon Musk have ever been presented with an actual red pill/blue pill choice. Delusional twits. Loved the epic reply from. Lilly Wachowski.
Anne Laurie
@West of the Rockies: Grimes is her professional name, like Vanity.
The ‘bad’ (refusal to face reality) pill is blue. There’s been Repub japery about good-red-GOP vs. bad-blue-Democrat choices since the movie came out, even though the Wachowskis have always publicly rejected that interpretation. Presumably Musk has run across the I’ve been redpilled! warcries, announcing that one has rejected
common sense / decency‘the matrix’ in favor of boldly Going One’s Own Way (with all the other MAGAt cultists), and embraced what he now thinks of as ‘his people.’Patricia Kayden
zhena gogolia
@Anne Laurie:
Wow. So pretending the virus doesn’t exist is the red pill?
HumboldtBlue
Some sad news out of Kamloops, B.C.
Anne Laurie
@zhena gogolia: If you’ve seen The Matrix, one becomes A Hero by rejecting ‘consensus reality’, which enables its hero to bend space & time. Presumably Musk believes that if enough heroes reject the reality of coronavirus, it will… no longer exist? Or at least only infect the weak-willed blue-pill sheeple?
SiubhanDuinne
@With Love from MA:
Thank you for this information. I’ve saved your suggestions for future reference. I especially appreciate your annotated commentary.
Baud
@Anne Laurie:
If rather be a battery for computer overloads than regard Musk as a hero.
WaterGirl
@HumboldtBlue: That is very sad.
zhena gogolia
@Anne Laurie:
I’ve never seen The Matrix. And probably never will. I do like Keanu, though — The Lake House! As You Like It!
JWR
Completely O/T (unless one counts the dumpster fire love-fest between Elon and Ivanka), but this was breaking news last night, and today there’s some truly awful footage of what the firefighters went through:
Jackie
@HumboldtBlue: That’s very cool!
tokyokie
@WaterGirl: I just rewatched the first half-hour of The Matrix, and the other pill is indeed blue. I was remembering it as being green.
mad citizen
I also have never seen the matrix. Karma suggests the Elon Musk will contract the virus soon, though.
I also appreciate With Love from MA’s mask reviews and reccs. I have a couple arriving soon from L.A. I think and will report in later days.
TaMara (HFG)
@Anne Laurie: When in truth, all of these Trumpers have really taken the blue pill and believe whatever reality the robots tell them to believe.
Mnemosyne
@Feathers:
If we’re talking masks, I’ve had very good luck with Etsy sellers. I can post specific links if people are interested.
If you wear glasses, be sure to get cloth masks that have a wire at the top so you can shape it to the bridge of your nose. It doesn’t stop fogging entirely, but it helps.
HumboldtBlue
@JWR:
Holy hell.
TaMara (HFG)
@JWR: Damn
Lapassionara
@With Love from MA: Thank you. Just what I was looking for.
Another Scott
Zooks!
Cheers,
Scott.
Uninvited Guest
I like the Matrix for what it is, but I have always loved the Animatrix so much better. Check it out if you get the chance.
Kay
Ivanka didn’t get the directive they’re going to try pretending to care about people starting tomorrow.
It won’t work though. It’ll be like the obscene political event where they woodenly and freakishly…handled that poor baby. They can’t even mimic normal behavior for 20 minute stretches.
Yutsano
@Kay: …
Someone really needs to find that reboot switch here soon.
HumboldtBlue
@Jackie:
Yeah it is.
@Another Scott:
“But how did the police know?”
“Someone squealed. OK I’ll see myself out.”
Sab
@With Love from MA: Thanks!
Patricia Kayden
lumpkin
Musk thinks he’s being ironic. Ivanka is a vapid twit.
JWR
@HumboldtBlue: @TaMara (HFG):
I know, right? I think I’ve had a soft spot in my heart for firemen from reading so much Vonnegut in my youth, (he often wrote about volunteer firemen), but that fireball was horrific. And the same business blew up 4 years ago, under the same name, “The Toke Shop”, at a different address. Heads should roll.
MomSense
C’mon jackals, you have to watch the Matrix movies.
ThresherK
@Uninvited Guest: A series of short animated films, all in different styles, as a prequel?
Spousal Ms ThresherK and I caught them on MTV or Cartoon Network at 1am, eons ago, and they were engrossing. Very absorbing late-night fare.
Of course, we also went to all the Spike and Mike Animation Festival showings in the days before The Internet, so we were primed.
Kay
@Yutsano:
It’s the “charm offensive”. But rest assured it will just be offensive.
They have never successfully pulled off a “normal human emotion” performance.
Omnes Omnibus
@MomSense: YOU’RE NOT MY SUPERVISOR!!!!!
Dan B
@JWR: A friend from my Chicago Gay Liberation lives near there. His building looks nearly identical. Yikes!
Benw
@Omnes Omnibus: I hope you know that this will go down on your permanent record…
Omnes Omnibus
@Benw: YOU’RE NOT MY SUPERVISOR EITHER!!!!!
Bill Arnold
@TaMara (HFG):
This is true. It’s a rare condition, but almost all right wingers have complete color blindness and they are mostly tricked into taking the blue pill, because the pill-offerers loath them.
HumboldtBlue
@JWR:
My father was a volunteer in Landsdowne, PA in the late 60s early 70s and one of my earliest memories is of my mother telling the story of me being with him at the firehouse on a Saturday when the alarm bells started going off and the engines started firing up.
I immediately began screaming in terror and he set me on a workbench while he and another moved the ladder truck out of the bay.
He once came home on a freezing winter Sunday night with a heavy bandage on his eye after an ice-laden branch broke off and caught him.
He was the father of eight children all under the age of 11. His volunteer career didn’t make it to spring.
My brother served 25 years in the fire service and I spent five years as a firefighter as well.
burnspbesq
@HumboldtBlue:
That absolutely kills. Thanks for the link.
Jeffro
We are, as someone far smarter than I put it years ago, amusing ourselves to death.
Although I guess the next edition, updated by Postman’s son, will have to be something like, “Amusing Ourselves (and Abusing Others) To Death”. That pretty well sums up social media.
Ohio Mom
Humboldt Blue: That little clip is the best thing I saw on the internet today — a reminder there is good reason to hope,and I needed that. I should probably turn off the screen now while I’m feeling good.
RSA
@Anne Laurie:
Also, a Hero is free to murder dozens if not hundreds of innocent (if misguided) people, without a sign of remorse.
What a coincidence!
JWR
@Dan B:
Heck, ALL the buildings in downtown L.A. look identical to me. ;)
@HumboldtBlue:
Thank you, and your brother too! I truly honor your service! But firemen, they’re just so damn good at what they do.
Jeffro
@Kay: I think I saw where they’re now “going to focus on trumpov’s PR”. Sure thing, guys, sounds great! Why, you’ll be neck and neck with Uncle Joe on the empathy thing in no time!
He won’t even make it the week, obvs.
Martin
@Anne Laurie: It’s not the GOP so much as the Men’s Righters, which was then co-opted by the white supremacists. Red Pill as a meme is quite a bit more extreme than mere GOP dabbling, it’s a more broad rejection of cultural norms set up since the 60s, to an even more extreme degree than the GOP would typically embrace. Ivanka is too young to not know the difference. Elon is too connected to not know either.
zzcool
Jesus christ!
The red pill/blue pill shit is dumb.
The pill itself had no effect other than as a tracker so that they could find Neo when he was flushed out.
What the pill really represents is a choice to go against everything that Neo has believed up until this point and to actually make a difference in the world.
What these assholes believe is that the pill is a reinforcement of everything they already believed in the first place and everyone else saying they’ve taken the red pill is a validation of those beliefs.
They don’t want to make a change that benefits the people that exist in their world.
If anything, they want others to conform to the rules of their Matrix rather than realise that the religion, politics and beliefs they want to force on others are all just part of the construct used to control them.
It’s what makes Morpheus’ statement so powerful: ‘You think that’s air you’re breathing?’
Anne Laurie
With all due respect… NO, no ‘we’ do not.
I watched the first one. When the fully-awakened Neo / Keanau, now capable of bending time & space, responded to a dire threat by solemnly announcing We’re gonna need guns… lots of guns [cue spontaneous appearance of multiple gunracks]… I made a noise that actually scared the Spousal Unit.
Yes, they are cultural touchstones. Like many other revered artifacts that have been fondled & slobbered over by innumerable others, best to handle them only via media-waldo.
LeftCoastYankee
This reminds me of an old word problem from math class:
A person convinces other people to give them money, and they become rich. Because they are rich they become famous. One day this famous person argues with 2 other similarly famous people in public.
Using the formula X to the N power where N is the number of famous people in the argument, and X is the number of times any of them have been described as intelligent in this problem, calculate the intelligence of this exchange.
Show your work.
Martin
@JWR: That’s a lucky to be alive situation there.
People don’t realize that LA is the largest manufacturing hub in the nation. Tons of industry spread all over the city and proximity to such a large port is really beneficial.
HumboldtBlue
@burnspbesq: @Ohio Mom:
Yet again it displays the yawning gap between the smart, warm, empathetic people and the crude, vulgar hateful mob currently running us aground.
@Martin:
That’s what I associate it with, the MGTOW crowd. I’ve never seen the movie.
@JWR:
Kinda comes with the job.
This fits in with the theme of the open thread.
LeftCoastYankee
@LeftCoastYankee:
We will also accept the Old Irish version:
Three idiots walk into a bar….
zhena gogolia
Forgive me if somebody else has already posted this, but this Monk update for quarantine is really good:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4W2xmqjvx4
cain
Well, just the first one. The second two was just an exercise of special effects. I mean really good special effects, but bah.
‘mr. anderson…”
“my name is Neo!”
love that movie.
JAFD
Re: earlier thread which I just got around to reading.
To SiubhanDuinne, patrick II, and cckids;
hoping that your loved ones get very much better soon.
Sending whatever healing energies I can summon their way
Kay
I hate watch Ben Sasse. It’s a guilty pleasure. You know it’s bad for you and will just make you mean(er) but he’s so insufferably smug you can’t believe he actually exists. He wrote a whole book scolding high school students. A book!
@haunttamale
JAFD
@HumboldtBlue: Am a former Lansdowne resident (well, actually, the strip of Upper Darby between Lansdowne and East Lansdowne), though in 2005-10.
NotMax
“Have you tried turning the country off and then back on again?”
//
Occurred to me it likely will be right around the time of the R convention that the number of Covid dead will surpass the number of the living at Dolt 45’s inauguration.
NotMax
@MomSense
Gotta go all Bartleby on that and give out a hearty “I prefer not to.”
;)
Trollhattan
@HumboldtBlue:
Is having good, decent and smart people on our side a good strategy? God, I hope so.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The context I’ve seen with the red pill is from the supposed to be some hard right men’s think that you’ve woken up to the left, particularity liberal feminists , are the true fascists. I suppose that’s popular with Musk’s techy dude bro fanboies.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Anne Laurie: I’m going to disagree, I think if you’re interested you should watch the first.
I saw it on a date with a computer programmer and afterward he could not stop talking about how brilliantly it understood programming. We agree that it represented a truly effective interpretation of Buddhism as simulacrum: if the reality we believe we inhabit is not real, but computer-generated, then the Buddha would be someone who could show the way to understand that what we believe is not real.
Of course, where the movie parts company with Buddhism is the red pill scene, because once everyone is convinced that the world is an illusion everyone then wants to get at the truth, and in Buddhism there is no true reality, only attachment to illusion. But that don’t make for compelling storytelling.
Still, the original Matrix is very cool and very different and can be enjoyed apart from its subsequent political accretions.
JWR
@Kay: I hate watch Ben Sasse.
Wow. Sounds like Ben Sasse had a really bad sophomore year. Hell, in my sophomore year, I not only met my first True Love, but also got pantsed by the football team for running so much faster than them. (They had to surround me to gang tackle me.)
And I remember a lot of it, too!
Trollhattan
@cain:
Fishburn, Carrie-Anne Moss in leather, multi Mr. Smiths, bullets traveling at sloth velocity, worth the time. Do not sign up for the theme cruise on Carnival.
HumboldtBlue
@JAFD:
We went to school at Ardmore Avenue Elementary, We still have plenty of footage of the parades, Halloween and the parade, all that stuff. Then moved to Dover where I spent my school years.
@Trollhattan:
We don’t have any choice.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@JWR: damn, those guys on the ladder. Even more amazing to see them get up and walk away.
Scuffletuffle
I can honestly say that I neither take advice from nor place any value on anything said by either Elon Musk or any Trump of any kind, name or nature.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
At the end of the second movie while in the reality Neo stops the drones with lighting from his hands. In other words the Red Pill just dumped them into another illusion.
JWR
@HumboldtBlue: Kinda comes with the job.
Dang! You guys are humble, too! //
;)
Kay
Noted.
I like to think of them trying to imagine what a real President might sound like. Space Force was a flop, apparently.
NotMax
@Kay
A campaign to improve the image of hemorrhoids would carry a vastly greater chance of success.
JWR
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: damn, those guys on the ladder.
Like going through a frickin’ blowtorch. As I said earlier, heads should roll for this one, mainly because, at least according to local news, the storefront was not properly marked.
Years and years ago, my dad got pulled over for something or other, and was cited for forgetting to take the magnetic “Flammable” signs off of his truck, even though he’d just unloaded. Police told him that if there were an accident, and they saw the Flammable signs, they would react accordingly.
jl
” Reboot This Simulation, the Glitches Are Multiplying ”
At first I thought this was a post about some problem with the BJ blog IT mechanics. Was the blog falling apart again? Thank goodness not.
I read a few comments trying to figure out what Musk was saying. I don’t see that anyone did better than me, and I have no clue.
JR
The wingnuts were far more entertaining when they were riffing on John Milius. At least he’s one of them.
jl
@Kay: “BREAKING: the White House has started a PR campaign to improve Trump’s image”
Trump could just resign. Cheap, effective, quick, easy. I bet that idea did in fact cross the mind of one of the poor slobs assigned to brainstorm on the project.
dmsilev
@Kay: How is that Breaking News? The only thing this White House does are PR campaigns to improve Trump’s image. Well, that and steal and break things.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Or Trump at lest trying to do something positive to deal with crises beyond “die for me my minions!”
NotMax
@jl
One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that Elon gives you
Don’t do anything at all
;)
With Love from MA
@SiubhanDuinne:
You’re welcome. I wasted some money trying via Etsy and Amazon trying to get cloth masks (I had disposable surgical masks on hand due to allergies), so I could feel everyone’s pain on either not getting the masks or getting something that wasn’t even close to what I expected. Then I found out these local (to me at least) companies were making masks and figured I’d give it a shot. I’m pretty happy with both so far.
With Love from MA
@zhena gogolia: Glad I could help!
Yutsano
@jl: Ruins his “I never quit” image. Never mind that he’s walked away from so much in his life. It’s all about image with him. He needs to be projecting a “manly” image at all times. It’s also why he doesn’t wear a mask. Beyond the make-up smears, he thinks* it’s a sign of weakness.
*Yes I am giving that word a lot of weight here…
With Love from MA
@Lapassionara: Glad I could help! I was lucky to have disposable surgical masks on hand when everything went to hell (they’re useful to have when you have allergies and the pollen count is high), so I had some time to root around a look for cloth masks (not craft, cannot sew, and I’m likely to hurt myself trying to make a no-sew mask). After wasting a bit of money via Amazon and Etsy, I found out about these two relatively (to me) local companies making masks and decided to take one more chance. I’ve been happy with both for what I use them for.
NotMax
@With Love from MA
Only an hour ago was finally able to apply for a refund for a shipment of masks ordered on April 22 to be sent to Mom in NY. Package is now listed by Amazon as lost.
Annoying yet understandable that Amazon’s customer service conducted by phone is shut down for the nonce. Takes entirely too much trial and error to figure out the refund regimen online.
J R in WV
@HumboldtBlue:
Thanks for your service !!
I was trained as a firefighter in the US Navy and spent weeks training at Charleston SC naval station in around 1972 or so. Was interesting, thankfully i never had to fight a real fire on board our ship~!!~ I saw film of the USS Forrestal fire, that was a terrifying thing to see.
I put a house fire out in my old farmhouse with the 3rd extinguisher I pulled, it was a glove box sized dry chemical device. The first two were inoperative, no propellant left.
Afterwards I realized that the shack was insured for 5 times it’s replacement value, too late, the fire was out. Now I have big fire extinguishers with metal valve bodies!!
J R in WV
@JWR:
My sophomore year I got drafted / volunteered before the draft board could catch me!
SFAW
@NotMax:
Pretty slick reference.
danielx
@Kay:
GTFO! Seriously?
NotMax
In case no one else has mentioned it, comic character actor Fred Willard died at 86 the other day.
His last (?) appearance is as the Secretary of Defense in Space Force, coming to Netflix near the end of the month.
HumboldtBlue
@J R in WV:
My eldest brother went to Nuke school in ’77 and spent 15 years in the Navy and we spoke many times of shipboard firefighting.
In fact, at one of my first Naval training events at Pearl Harbor (I was stationed at Hickam and was initially assigned to the structural side of the house, the other was the crash (airfield side) we did a joint session with Navy Federal crews at a burn house.
I was on the nozzle with a fellow rookie on my back and my training captain behind him and we were to enter the structure simultaneously with a neighboring crew a few doors down (think concrete blockhouse specifically built for fire training).
They didn’t enter, however, and as I was spraying the ceiling and working the nozzle pattern the captain realized something was very wrong because it was getting HOT and he was forcing both of us lower and lower until we were crouching and then he physically grabbed both of us in each hand and yanked us from the building (he was a big strong Boston mofo) and he was not a happy man. The heat melted our plastic flip-down face guards and scorched and blackened our helmets.
Shipboard and aircraft training always bugged me because of the tight spaces.
And I say “FUCK NAVY!” “GO ARMY!” because I initially joined the Penn. Army National Guard (28th Infantry Division) in 1983 and served for two years with three training stints at Ft. Benning before moving to California and eventually joining the Air Force after the Army told me I would have to go full time as 11B and couldn’t change my MOS for a couple of years.
Feathers
Actual footage of coyote chasing roadrunner: https://twitter.com/mtbogan/status/1261719156866428928?s=20
piratedan
whatever is being done to try and improve Trump’s image, there’s one thing I will take as a constant. It will not involve anything resembling work or effort on Trump’s part, just more paid professionals (probably on the taxpayer dime) doing the usual turd polishing and spin doctoring and I suspect that the usual suspects will suddenly croak in unison that’s its somehow newsworthy.
Chetan Murthy
@Mnemosyne:
Yes, please!
Another Scott
@Feathers: Less drama than I was expecting. His ACME order must be running late.
:-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@HumboldtBlue: Imagine fighting a fire on a submarine. The Navy worries about such things…
https://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=77429
Cheers,
Scott.
Jackie
@NotMax: Thanks for the ear worm ???
HumboldtBlue
@Another Scott:
Oh yes they do.
Yutsano
@Another Scott:II’ll have to ask my dad if he ever ran into that. I know it’s a HUGE thing.
NotMax
@Another Scott
“Waste of money. My great brain knows all they have to do is open a window.”
– Dolt 45
.
//
HumboldtBlue
@Yutsano:
They train hard and it begins in basic training at Groton.
SectionH
@NotMax: I laughed ridiculously hard at that comment.
eta: nice little edit to the song ref in later post, too…
Bill Arnold
@Chacal Charles Calthrop:
One iconic clip from that movie (post Neo’s red-pill choice):
“I Know Kung Fu”, “Show me”, The Matrix, 1999, 5:26
(I might have once been prodded with that clip[1] as a challenge. A […] very big mistake was made. The consequences were serious.)
[1] shorter one, with subtitles
mapaghimagsik
@NotMax:
I love this and may use it every time Mr. Blood Diamonds speaks.
Frankensteinbeck
@piratedan:
He is horribly lazy, true, but he has shown that he does not think showing off is work. He loves photo-ops and giving speeches about his own greatness. What it will not involve is him changing in any way, so he will fuck it up. It will very much be polishing a turd. The turd will remain a stinky pile of shit, no matter how much they try to make it gleam.
SectionH
@Feathers: Gotta say thanks for the link to that particular piece on T-shirt masks. I’ve put together a few different ones, but sewing’s hard for me these days even with my 42 yr old Singer (bad OA in my hands, means I have to use tweezers to thread needles etc). Mr S much prefers the mask with rubber bands – 1st one I made, it originally was held together by little safety pins – so I like the idea of a no-sew I can cut ear loops in.
Feathers
@Another Scott: ACME is putting the safety of its workers first, as always. ;)-
Feathers
@SectionH: Thanks! It is much more comfortable than the ones with elastics and easy to make a pile so that you don’t need to worry about running out. It is also easy to make multiple sizes to see what fits best.
I think it would be great for making one layer and wearing it under a store bought N95 mask that is being reused, so that it doesn’t get mucked up.
Villago Delenda Est
The Matrix: Decent action flick with pretensions to philosophy. Mostly pulls them off.
The Matrix Reloaded: Snooze fest except for the freeway chase scene, which must be seen to be believed.
The Matrix Revolutions: REALLY pretentious attempt at philosophy, also a muddled mess of a story, also sleep inducing.
The Wachowskis say they had this grand design, but it breaks down in the second one and implodes in the third.
rikyrah
@With Love from MA:
Thank you. I will add these places to my list for masks
JWR
@J R in WV:
Ah well, different strokes… ;)
rikyrah
@Kay:
It won’t work because neither one of them is capable of basic human empathy
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay:
My god they’re desperate. Two questions: Who thinks Melania’s presence helps any situation? and how much is she charging the campaign to show up?
Chetan Murthy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The more she charges them per photo-op, the more I will think of her (when we learn that that price is). Of course, “hope she dies spewing up her liquefied lungs after weeks of agony” is low enough, that there’s a long way to go, to get to gutter slime, so there’s that.
Matt McIrvin
@Chacal Charles Calthrop: I am also a programmer and my initial reaction to The Matrix was that, its revolutionary visual effects and importation of kung-fu-movie wirework aside, the movie was kind of dopey and not as original as it thought it was. The red-pill/blue-pill scene itself was almost a callback to the best scene in Total Recall (a movie that was itself kind of frustrating, but that’s another story). The entire reality-is-illusion shtick was covered in that earlier movie, and in much of the Philip K. Dick oeuvre that it was loosely based on, and in countless other works of science fiction, so maybe it was too much to expect but I wanted a more original spin on it than The Matrix provided.
There were various logical lapses that are not worth going into because they’re peripheral to the point of the movie, but what bothered me more was all that blithe ultraviolence at the climax. Neo realizes it’s all a game, all a big simulation, so those people he’s gunning down are just NPCs, right? But they’re not! They’re probably the avatars of other human beings who are in the Matrix, and by that point we’ve established that this movie uses the silly virtual-reality-thriller convention that dying in the Matrix somehow kills you in real life. So Neo and Trinity are actually murdering all these people, which kind of sucks. They don’t seem to even give a damn. That didn’t sit well with me.
Bumper
@Dan B: that video could have been taken from my in laws apartment (not saying it actually was). They have a place in that building, very near that corner, and on one of the lower floors. Fortunately they are sheltering far away from there.
Anya
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I like how they’ve convinced themselves she’s some sort of a secret weapon. She’ll just awkwardly stand there looking like she’s some alien trying to simulate human expressions.
NotMax
@Anya
“It’s your call, ma’m, but it might be preferable to leave the I Don’t Care coat hanging in the closet today.”
//
Sister Golden Bear
@Baud: Late to the party, but worth noting that at the time “The Matrix” was made, estrogen pills (also taken by trans women as part of hormone therapy) came in—you guessed it—red pills.
eddie blake
they kept saying the matrix was based on ghost in the shell, but other than the cyberpunk aspects, i don’t really see it.
megazone 23 part I and II on the other hand? RIGHT on the nose. you only THINK you’re living in tokyo in the eighties, but you’re REALLY on a megazone on a generational orbit around the devastated but recovering earth. the military is in cahoots with the computer known as bahamut that’s pulling all the strings, and only the biker gang called ‘trash’ knows what’s really going on.
good shit.
i really liked the second matrix. loved the idea that our mythology, such as it was, were disgruntled programs, loved the freeway chase- hell, i figure the whole film works until the very end, where neo has his powers in the ‘real’ world. third film TOTALLY failed to stick the landing. if they were going for layers and layers of control, as the architect says, you would think zion was ALSO a simulation. the next peel of the onion
eta, a lot of the wachowski’s films involve transfigurations and metamorphosis. figure their life experience really informs their film work.
eddie blake
@Matt McIrvin:
they have a pragmatic in-universe reason. there’s a whole scene where they explain it.
the entire ‘girl with the red dress’ simulation is designed around the problem they encounter every time they run an operation. the agents can jump into the avatars of any human still plugged into the battery-plant, instantly transforming them into heavily armed, super powered juggernauts. clearly they feel the lives they will save by winning the war justifies cutting off the agents’ access to their ops by killing those in closest proximity to their objectives, who happen to be cops and security guards.
bjacques
Really late to this, but after seeing the second Matrix, I hoped the third would reveal that those human batteries were running down because living in the Matrix made them stupid, so The One was the computer’s attempt at a solution, testing each candidate with violence and temptation until one passed. Widespread knowledge of the Matrix would be a price the computer was willing to pay, hopefully resulting in symbiosis as a better outcome than more of the same.
Sort of like how Battle For The Planet Of The Apes offered a way out of the closed time loop of enslavement, destruction, revenge, and final destruction with a few survivors escaping back in time to, ironically, kick it all off.
Uncle Cosmo
@Another Scott: At the end you can almost hear Wile E mutter, Aw, fuck, guess I better go dig up a rodent for lunch…
PenAndKey
Given what the audience learns in the Animatrix shorts (specifically the two-part “Second Renaissance” ones) this would have made perfect sense. In the Matrix universe humanity is responsible for the Earth being destroyed after they waged war against AI for the “crime” of declaring themselves to be alive and worthy of the rights of self-defense and personal autonomy. The AI won against the odds, and rather than wiping out humanity they found the only solution they could to keep them alive but no longer a threat. Making “The Real” just another layer of the program to keep the more rebellious and violent humans contained would have fit that storyline perfectly.
chopper
@Kay:
i think the only way they can improve trump’s image is gonna be to first make covid-19 more popular.
Emperor Lew
@HumboldtBlue: I lived a block-and-half over the Lansdowne/ Drexel Hill border for almost 15 years. I went running past Ardmore Elementary often. Hello, neighbor!
eddie blake
@PenAndKey:
i agree. totally. yeah, the animatrix was very informative, a VERY good movie and a very useful bridge between the films.
Jess
@With Love from MA: Thank you! I live in MA as well, in lovely Fitchburg–where are you?
moops
@bjacques: That is likely the story as it was originally written. The problem with that is it makes the Architect actually a genius and aligns the Architect with the Oracle and relegates The One to part of his plan. I suspect the script was reworked to make humans the rebels and have Neo come up with the compromise and be the hero against a new common enemy: Agent Smith.
Matt McIrvin
…I do remember being bothered by the dumbness of using humans as energy sources for the machines (you have to give the humans nutrients to keep them alive, right? Why not just burn the food? Seems simpler).
But I heard somewhere that the Wachowskis wanted to use the idea that the machines were somehow harvesting the intelligence/computing power of human brains, which would have made more sense, but the studio said that was too hard to understand.