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  1. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
  2. <feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
  3. <title>Regular Flolloping</title>
  4. <link href="https://regularflolloping.com/atom.xml" rel="self" />
  5. <link href="https://regularflolloping.com" />
  6. <id>https://regularflolloping.com/atom.xml</id>
  7. <author>
  8. <name>Shaun Kerr</name>
  9. <email>s@p7.co.nz</email>
  10. </author>
  11. <updated>2019-06-06T00:00:00Z</updated>
  12. <entry>
  13. <title>ReligiOS</title>
  14. <link href="https://regularflolloping.com/posts/religios/index.html" />
  15. <id>https://regularflolloping.com/posts/religios/index.html</id>
  16. <published>2019-06-06T00:00:00Z</published>
  17. <updated>2019-06-06T00:00:00Z</updated>
  18. <summary type="html"><![CDATA[<article>
  19. <section class="header">
  20. Posted on June 6, 2019
  21. </section>
  22. <section>
  23. <p>its really been quite a while since i wrote the kind of piece that ill look back on in however long and think</p>
  24. <blockquote>
  25. <p>wow what a pseudo intellectual kant</p>
  26. </blockquote>
  27. <p>and that my future employer overlords will find and think</p>
  28. <blockquote>
  29. <p>wow what a pseudo intellectual <del>kant</del> piece of property i own</p>
  30. </blockquote>
  31. <p>so without further ado, here we goooo</p>
  32. <h2 id="hot-take">hot take</h2>
  33. <p>computing, computing theory, computing culture, cool cyb soykaf, its all a religion, and further more…</p>
  34. <p>its a religion that is being <em>actively</em> discriminated against by governments, corporations, and the mainstream public.</p>
  35. <p>yup thats a pretty <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs8brE4RrvU">bold</a> take but fuark it well go along with it</p>
  36. <p><strong>computability</strong> gives us something to reason about literally <em>everything</em>, and understand our world in ways we never knew how.</p>
  37. <p>its the single most eye opening thing ive ever learnt about in my life (outside of the time i realised the bol in spag bol stood for bolognese and not bowl)</p>
  38. <p>the cyb community is probably the most genuine community ive ever been a part of. people bought together by a mutual love of anything, appreciating people who appreciate <em>anything</em> in the domain, regardless of how much they argue.</p>
  39. <p>sports teams for the new generation, a new way of expressing comradery without forcing unanimous agreeal.</p>
  40. <p>and everyone with a blog, a fedi account, a website, a git repo, any form of personal server…</p>
  41. <p>anyone giving a shit about their digital identity, hoping to live on in some way in <strong><em>The Wired</em></strong>, that right there is the closest weve gotten to a true afterlife.</p>
  42. <p>crafted identities, fake, yet genuine, someone we all wish we could be, and can due to the miracle that is computing. its really quite beautiful.</p>
  43. <p>and people want to take it away from us.</p>
  44. <h2 id="no-corps..-leave-our-bits-alone">no! corps!.. leave our bits alone!</h2>
  45. <p>ahh but of course, we cant have any nice things if they come at the expense of the global domination of corporations and the global elite.</p>
  46. <p>and the control runs all the way down to normans perception of actual computing and cyb shit.</p>
  47. <blockquote>
  48. <p>but tA! why are you encrypting your hard drive if you have nothing to hide? you must be doing something illegal!</p>
  49. </blockquote>
  50. <p>first of all, <em>yes</em> its true that I mayyyyy have tried to pirate an episode of rick and morty so that i could see them all and finally be smart enough to remember <code>tar</code> flags, but thats just Gettier knowledge and doesnt have anything to do with my encryption</p>
  51. <p>second, im doing it because its <strong><em>my shit</em></strong> and i dont want anyone snooping through it because its <strong><em>not their shit</em></strong></p>
  52. <p>i seriously dont understand why thats so hard to understand, but somehow people who wouldnt be ok with people installing a window in their bathroom, are ok with people installing a window in their windows.</p>
  53. <blockquote>
  54. <p>but tA! the corps built this software, its ok for them to track anything they want in it!</p>
  55. </blockquote>
  56. <p>yeah but thats dumb as hell, but for arguments sake lets say sure.</p>
  57. <p>then why is it ok for corps and governments to <strong><em>actively persue removing my options for not using their crap</em></strong></p>
  58. <p>its getting harder and harder to self host every day. aussie has some law about E2E encryption now because boo hoo its too hard for them to spy when people use that <code>:'(</code></p>
  59. <p>google (more like <strong>booooo!!gle</strong> amiright?) making it basically impossible to self host email unless you place your lips in just the right way and use them to tell google anything they want to know so they can link it to your dossiere that they have of you.</p>
  60. <p>seriously its so hard to not have self hosted mail end up in googles spam folder. so so so so hard, and i say that as someone who once used a monad in a program once.</p>
  61. <p>the mainstream people wanting to censor anyone, pass around mass block lists of anyone who doesnt fit the status quo, villianise anyone who gives a shit about whats happening under the hood of that magic box <del>and anyone who wants a site that isnt tens of megabytes in size</del></p>
  62. <p>we have the potential for <strong>truly</strong> unlimited access to the entire worlds sum of all knowledge, and its being closed off, regulated and culled because people want money. its absolutely <em>disgusting</em></p>
  63. <p>imagine a world where everyone, the corps, the governments, and the people, <strong>all</strong> actively tried to shut down christianity, or islam, or whatever.</p>
  64. <p>thered be hell.</p>
  65. <h2 id="on-that-note">on that note</h2>
  66. <p>heres a good one for the armchair psychs out there, and i say this <del>mostly</del> not really in jest.</p>
  67. <p>not only is computing a religion, its a <strong>true</strong> religion, that most if not all organised religion is simply trying (badly) to imitate.</p>
  68. <p>organised religion is the equivilent of corps trying to tell us what frameworks to use each week.</p>
  69. <p>its the equivilent of governments banning sites, information and access to things.</p>
  70. <p>it claims to be this <em>magical pathway</em> to <strong>true enlightenment</strong> and whatnot…</p>
  71. <p>as long as you follow exactly what they say and make sure to not think any differently or forget to donate to the church <code>:^)</code></p>
  72. <p>also the governments get in on it too because we cant have organised religion paying taxes like everything else.</p>
  73. <p>but after all, thats nothing new.</p>
  74. <p>the government has been helping massive corporations dodge taxes for years…</p>
  75. <h2 id="cyan-elk">cyan elk</h2>
  76. <p>blah blah blah religion makes me mad and people annoy me but (deity of choice) damn computers are cool and so is computing theory.</p>
  77. <p>one day ill manage to project my entire soul into a monad and forever live on in the wired, and hopefully ill see you all there.</p>
  78. <p>if google doesnt take over first.</p>
  79. <p><code>:wq</code></p>
  80. </section>
  81. </article>
  82. ]]></summary>
  83. </entry>
  84. <entry>
  85. <title>The Poets System</title>
  86. <link href="https://regularflolloping.com/posts/poets-system/index.html" />
  87. <id>https://regularflolloping.com/posts/poets-system/index.html</id>
  88. <published>2019-06-01T00:00:00Z</published>
  89. <updated>2019-06-01T00:00:00Z</updated>
  90. <summary type="html"><![CDATA[<article>
  91. <section class="header">
  92. Posted on June 1, 2019
  93. </section>
  94. <section>
  95. <p>i read an article talking about the three types of programmers (you can read it <a href="https://josephg.com/blog/3-tribes/">here</a> and it got me thinking (as a pretty staunch poet tribalist)</p>
  96. <pre><code>/me puts a dollarydoo in the &quot;talking about urbit&quot; jar</code></pre>
  97. <p>were talking about urbit!</p>
  98. <h2 id="the-poets-system">the poets system</h2>
  99. <p>urbit is the operating system for the poets, its nice, its clean, its <del>esoteric</del> elegant, and most of all, its</p>
  100. <p><strong><em>fizzityucking rad as shit</em></strong></p>
  101. <p>but why so?</p>
  102. <h2 id="implementation">implementation</h2>
  103. <p>actually running your code is just an implementation detail, and thankfully for all us <del>lazy people</del> <del>bad programmers</del> <em>theory enthusiasts</em> tlon seems to think the same way.</p>
  104. <p>how so? well the entire os is just a lisp enviroment essentially, and everything that isnt nice has been mashed into <del>a monad</del> a tree thing, with every single part of the system using that tree.</p>
  105. <p>no more million different places to do anything, no more hundred different init systems, no more <code>conf_init(8)(42)(69)(1337)</code> and bash environment variables meta programming and storage system.</p>
  106. <p>just nice, <del>easy to read</del> readable hoon code, throughout everything.</p>
  107. <h2 id="prog-system">prog system</h2>
  108. <p>the worst part about operating systems is that you have to do things in them, luckily for us, every part of the urbit system…</p>
  109. <blockquote>
  110. <p>if i may interject for a second, what youre referring to as ‘urbit’ is actually ‘arvo/urbit’, or as ive come to call it, ‘arvo+urbit’</p>
  111. </blockquote>
  112. <p>yeah yeah whatever, i bet youre gonna go on about getting blockchain out of your system too because you havent <del>read the docs</del> watched all of brick and mortimer.</p>
  113. <p>the entire system is malleable using the lisp and brainfuck lovechild, hoon.</p>
  114. <p>its incredible, its all the powers of using emacs, with the upside of not having to run emacs.</p>
  115. <h2 id="yeah-but-what-about-my-shit">yeah but what about my shit</h2>
  116. <p>oh no i cant live without my openlibframeworkjss of the week, i need all my <del>shit</del> shit</p>
  117. <p>look, youre talking to someone whos having a blast with an os that is <em>literally</em> the joke about emacs being a great os that lacks a <del>decent</del> text editor.</p>
  118. <p>no one actually appreciates an operating system as a, well, <em>system</em>, its all about word size and LDD_LINKER_PROFILE_FLAGs and whatnot.</p>
  119. <p>its all about stuff that doesnt matter like &quot;my system has the native ability to decrement numbers in <code>O(1)</code> time.</p>
  120. <p>its just boring, gimme my fun, poetic system.</p>
  121. <h2 id="fin">fin</h2>
  122. <p>in conclusion, urbit is rad, its code is <del>scary</del> awesome, and i hope it takes off, if not for the privacy, if not for the multipass, but just so that us poets have a fun os to talk about.</p>
  123. <blockquote>
  124. <p>beeteedubz theres a crypto also called urbit, its not that and we came first.</p>
  125. </blockquote>
  126. <p>for more info visit <a href="https://urbit.org/primer">the site</a></p>
  127. <p><code>:wq</code></p>
  128. </section>
  129. </article>
  130. ]]></summary>
  131. </entry>
  132. <entry>
  133. <title>A Thought About Thought</title>
  134. <link href="https://regularflolloping.com/posts/thought-about-thought/index.html" />
  135. <id>https://regularflolloping.com/posts/thought-about-thought/index.html</id>
  136. <published>2019-05-27T00:00:00Z</published>
  137. <updated>2019-05-27T00:00:00Z</updated>
  138. <summary type="html"><![CDATA[<article>
  139. <section class="header">
  140. Posted on May 27, 2019
  141. </section>
  142. <section>
  143. <p>regardless of all other factors, our minds define who we are, our true identity</p>
  144. <p>the thing behind <em>everything</em></p>
  145. <p>how can we hope to understand the limits of our minds without first undingstanding what our mind is</p>
  146. <p>according to physics our entire world is deterministic, if someone knew the initial state of every atom in the universe, they could apply physics to all the particles to figure out how theyll react to bumping into each other and slowly…</p>
  147. <p>very slowly…</p>
  148. <p>theyll progress through all time with a <em>perfect</em> model of literally everything ever</p>
  149. <p>thats pretty fuarken overwhelming.</p>
  150. <h2 id="what-about-us">what about us?</h2>
  151. <p>the more or less of it is that all of our choices and even our complete mental state is the result of some function, no choice at all.</p>
  152. <p>were all just robots on rails following a predetermined path</p>
  153. <p>buuut also maybe not, who knows.</p>
  154. <p>maybe the quarks really are <del>rng that wont fuck me</del> true rng, and were characters in a much shittier to live in game of dnd, played by <del>azathoth</del> <del>really azathoth</del> <del>im telling you its azathoth</del> noone</p>
  155. <p>maybe theres <em>cool stuff</em> that exists in the sense that it has a physical result in our reality somehow, maybe even just bumping a particle, but doesnt have any <strong><em>physical presence</em></strong>, and thus we cant ever detect it outside of observing those impacts</p>
  156. <p>hell that could even be the thing that moves the quarks</p>
  157. <h2 id="hey-thatd-be-pretty-cool">hey thatd be pretty cool</h2>
  158. <p>yeah wed all just be our souls or conscious or whatever playing dnd with our mates but also playing in a crappy dnd setting (outside of all of you cool friends out there, lain remembers you) for whatever reason and now our physical selves have to deal with it</p>
  159. <p>what a dick</p>
  160. <p>thats all folks this <del>long rambling intro</del> story has come to a close.</p>
  161. <p>rocks fall, ACKs stop, NAK NAK NAK</p>
  162. <blockquote>
  163. <p>tA we get it youre a homestuck fan</p>
  164. </blockquote>
  165. <p>oh fucc</p>
  166. <h1 id="anyway">anyway</h1>
  167. <p>so i had a thought about where our thoughts come from that i thought was pretty neat, although probably proven wrong pretty easily by people who have seen all of rick and morty</p>
  168. <p>im sorry pals my <del>torrent</del> legally bought copy of</p>
  169. <pre><code>&lt;strong &lt;?php
  170. print &quot;how do i print something i dont know the syntax&quot;
  171. return ricardoSoundingWord ++ &quot; &amp; &quot; ++ mariatiSoundingWord
  172. /?php&gt; /strong&gt;</code></pre>
  173. <p>was missing one episode, so im forever destined to be a dumbass</p>
  174. <h2 id="what-deterministic-universe-means-for-us">what deterministic universe means for us</h2>
  175. <p>if our thoughts and decisions are all accounted for by physics, deterministically, then the key is that our thoughts exist as a function of the changes in our brains physical state</p>
  176. <p>our determininistic thoughts are all basically a side effect of existing in the fourth dimension</p>
  177. <p>maybe we could learn to exist in that layer alone, the one that exists in the changes and shape of time, how everythings changing</p>
  178. <p>if we could somehow exist, the entirety of our mind, in this layer that is the sole thing we were missing in order to not be still, thoughtless snapshots, then thatd be pretty cool</p>
  179. <p>we could all live forever without fear of decaying away or dying or anything</p>
  180. <p>if our current thoughts are all deterministic, we could learn to encode them into this layer, and <strong><em>upload</em></strong> them so to speak</p>
  181. <p>a true ascension</p>
  182. <h2 id="what-about-thought">what about thought?</h2>
  183. <p>theres a few thoughts about this</p>
  184. <ul>
  185. <li>the way time moves us is still determininistic</li>
  186. <li>its not :shrug:</li>
  187. </ul>
  188. <p>if its deterministic still that could be bad, wed still have no free will, and we could never die, but itd still be cooler than where we are now i think (ironically)</p>
  189. <p>the worst would be that we cant function properly with the “programming” we have, without the appropriate enviroment, and we all become basically brain dead without input, and retreat away into the smallest mind anything could possibly have</p>
  190. <p><strong><em>oof</em></strong></p>
  191. <p>buuuut maybe the flow of time is influenced by those cool quarks too and were now in tgs favourite…</p>
  192. <p><strong><em>Free Form Roleplay</em></strong>, <strong>Roleplay</strong></p>
  193. <p>meta right? maybe people could get to choose, and wed all be gods that create realities and program ourselves into certain situations to see how it plays out</p>
  194. <p>good on them thats pretty rad actually</p>
  195. <p>hell we could be in one of those now</p>
  196. <p>maybe we actually do have true free will, and its just something we havent found the reason for yet</p>
  197. <h2 id="fin">fin</h2>
  198. <p>thought it was a neat thought, being able to exist solely on that dimension that gives us thought, at least in a physics-esque world</p>
  199. <p>at the very least it would make a cool setting for a story</p>
  200. <p><code>:if my blogs bad its because of the quarks i cant help it haha:</code></p>
  201. </section>
  202. </article>
  203. ]]></summary>
  204. </entry>
  205. <entry>
  206. <title>Telephone Boards</title>
  207. <link href="https://regularflolloping.com/posts/telephone-boards/index.html" />
  208. <id>https://regularflolloping.com/posts/telephone-boards/index.html</id>
  209. <published>2019-05-23T00:00:00Z</published>
  210. <updated>2019-05-23T00:00:00Z</updated>
  211. <summary type="html"><![CDATA[<article>
  212. <section class="header">
  213. Posted on May 23, 2019
  214. </section>
  215. <section>
  216. <p>theres a lot of weirdos in this world, me included.</p>
  217. <p>for some reason people think its, well, weird to be a weirdo, and they might be right.</p>
  218. <p>but its something thats pretty useful, and heres why.</p>
  219. <h2 id="prog-soykaf">prog soykaf</h2>
  220. <p>anyone whos actually reading this is probably no stranger to programming, and therefore knows about the</p>
  221. <p><strong><em>hundreds of thousands of millions of different ways to program</em></strong></p>
  222. <p>concept space is infinite, and programming is unbridled choice of abstraction, given human readable form (unless you program in APL)</p>
  223. <p>any, single, thing, that you can program, you can translate into another form and use that instead, you can repeat this as much as you want until you have an ever-moving lovecraftian blob of code.</p>
  224. <p>and thats the beauty of programming.</p>
  225. <h2 id="minds-eye">minds eye</h2>
  226. <p>whatevers in your minds eye dictates how you do it.</p>
  227. <p>you think about how this function works, and you say to the soul thats hearing your thoughts “its a bit like a phone board, like the old timey ones with the patch leads” and all of a sudden the entire programs architecture is telephone patch lead inspired.</p>
  228. <p>we come up with all these random equivilencies that six months from now youll look at and think</p>
  229. <blockquote>
  230. <p>le grill? what the hell is a le grill?</p>
  231. </blockquote>
  232. <p>and thats the beauty, thats the charm and character and poetic tism that we should be celebrating in programming.</p>
  233. <p>i want to look at a program like you would an art piece, like you would an arthouse movie, and think</p>
  234. <blockquote>
  235. <p>i wonder what was going through their head in order to influence this</p>
  236. </blockquote>
  237. <p>i want to redo older programs in different “styles” just to see how they would differ.</p>
  238. <p>i want to find the weirdest way i can do something, just in case we learn something from it</p>
  239. <p><del>i want it to be socially acceptable to use cool anime profile pictures on linkedin</del></p>
  240. <p>and most importantly…</p>
  241. <p><code>i just want my code to work :wq</code></p>
  242. </section>
  243. </article>
  244. ]]></summary>
  245. </entry>
  246. <entry>
  247. <title>Best Bug</title>
  248. <link href="https://regularflolloping.com/posts/best-bug/index.html" />
  249. <id>https://regularflolloping.com/posts/best-bug/index.html</id>
  250. <published>2019-05-21T00:00:00Z</published>
  251. <updated>2019-05-21T00:00:00Z</updated>
  252. <summary type="html"><![CDATA[<article>
  253. <section class="header">
  254. Posted on May 21, 2019
  255. </section>
  256. <section>
  257. <p>my pal and i accidentally introduced a bug in our code that sorta took up a personality of its own, heres the story.</p>
  258. <h1 id="the-setting">the setting</h1>
  259. <p>at university comp sci, me and my buddy entered a programming contest that was run by a health company. it was free, and we thought we might be able to get some of the prizes.</p>
  260. <p>the goal was to create an engine to play last card, and all the entries would be run against each other and ranked.</p>
  261. <p>this was in about two hours in one of the uni labs.</p>
  262. <blockquote>
  263. <p>pretty boring stuff</p>
  264. </blockquote>
  265. <p>it had that yellow glow of the lights as well, because it was getting dark outside.</p>
  266. <h1 id="the-fun">the fun</h1>
  267. <p>we started implementing a pretty basic card counting thing, and to pass the time a bit were talking about our ‘ai’</p>
  268. <blockquote>
  269. <p>its super good at card games, even the basic ones</p>
  270. </blockquote>
  271. <blockquote>
  272. <p>its like outta yugioh, its kaiba or something</p>
  273. </blockquote>
  274. <blockquote>
  275. <p>yeah jojos poses every turn, better than the rest</p>
  276. </blockquote>
  277. <p><em>etc etc</em></p>
  278. <p>so we finished up after…</p>
  279. <p><strong><em>having to deal with whatever maven is</em></strong></p>
  280. <p>i still dont understand the hundred different package management things, why do they have to keep changing? <code>/rant over</code></p>
  281. <h1 id="uh-oh">uh oh</h1>
  282. <p>we ended up placing second, losing to the guy that already worked for the company running the event.</p>
  283. <p>we lost points because we didnt understand the state format correctly, but i believe we understand it right.</p>
  284. <p>what theyd done is <del>super gross</del> <del>logically wrong</del> had any collection of cards as the java version of <code>Maybe Cards</code> such that rather than an empty list being <code>[]</code>, the whole thing was a <code>Nothing</code>.</p>
  285. <p>a collection of cards that has zero cards in it is still a set, and therefore should be represented by <code>[]</code> or equivilent. <code>/rant over</code></p>
  286. <p>the affect of this on ol` kaiba boi (aka kAIba which added to the charm) was that if it was the first player of a game, it would crash, timeout and the game manager would default to a pass.</p>
  287. <h1 id="neato-bug">neato bug</h1>
  288. <p>this cemented the persona of this bug to be a kaiba-esque dramatic dickhead, threatening to fall off buildings if he loses, but saying:</p>
  289. <blockquote>
  290. <p>huh! first player advantage? thats for <strong>noobs</strong>, you take it</p>
  291. </blockquote>
  292. <p>and yeeting the other player first turn.</p>
  293. <h1 id="fin">fin</h1>
  294. <p>memorable bugs are the best kind of bugs, and have a life all of their own. part of the magic of programmation is finding these so you gotta pay attention.</p>
  295. <p><code>:wq</code></p>
  296. </section>
  297. </article>
  298. ]]></summary>
  299. </entry>
  300. <entry>
  301. <title>A Beachside Tale</title>
  302. <link href="https://regularflolloping.com/posts/a-beach-tale/index.html" />
  303. <id>https://regularflolloping.com/posts/a-beach-tale/index.html</id>
  304. <published>2019-05-14T00:00:00Z</published>
  305. <updated>2019-05-14T00:00:00Z</updated>
  306. <summary type="html"><![CDATA[<article>
  307. <section class="header">
  308. Posted on May 14, 2019
  309. </section>
  310. <section>
  311. <p>its a sunny day on the beaches of ga-wahi. matoran of all types are running around, discussing the latest kohlii match, going on adventures, and having a grand time in their unity. some are working, gathering leaves and vines for use in mending the houses, while others polish up kohlii balls and teach the game.</p>
  312. <p>watching over are the noble turaga, vakama and nokama, however their attention is not on the matoran, but the two other, noticably different indivduals joining in on the fun.</p>
  313. <p>two toa are present on this beach, something that has given the turaga much to think about, much to rejoice over, and perhaps, a little to worry about.</p>
  314. <p>the first is a massive toa in blue, with white and silver accenting. shoulders easily wider than a matoran is tall, and a bright blue noble huna almost boxed in by the sheer size of her body. her legs taper to more slender feet.</p>
  315. <p>she is ohsha, the toa of lightning, brandishing a truly gigantic silver scythe, although the sheer amount of mass in the blade may push it into the warhammer category, regardless of how sharp. three matoran are sitting on the blade while ohsha swings it around her slowly, another two matoran are perched on her shoulders enjoying the ride.</p>
  316. <p>a short while away, a much smaller, skinnier toa is lounging on a piece of driftwood, while several other matoran sit around him in the sand, listening, or rather questioning, the “story” hes telling them.</p>
  317. <p>he is dankro, the toa of plantlife, green and blue, with some minor yellow accenting. shoulders skinnier than some matorans, nobbly knees and elbows, with a large metallic leaf emblazened on his chest. he dons a green great huna, and a thin, long weapon, with an axe on one side, and a trident on the other.</p>
  318. <p>“…im being serious! dume was talking to a mirror, prove me wrong” he states as if stating objective fact. the matoran just look at him puzzled, while vakama gives a puzzled look to nokama.</p>
  319. <p>“who even is dume? youre making no sense” an onu-matoran pipes up.<br />
  320. “yeah dankro, tell us a better story!” another le-matoran suggest.</p>
  321. <p>ohsha interrupts, “dear if you dont tell a better story, ill let slip that your real name isnt dankro, and you just decided to change it one day and never went back”, with a smile.</p>
  322. <p>“whaaat? why would you change your name?”, the matoran seem confused.</p>
  323. <p>“yeah <em>dakkro</em>, why would you change it? especially in such a small way” she says with a chuckle.</p>
  324. <p>“SSSHHHHHHH!”, dankro puts his hand to his mouth, “you’ll get us sued again!”</p>
  325. <p>ohsha rests her head in her hand, “i swear to mata nui dankro, no-one on this island will ever understand what you’re talking about”. she sits down next to dankro and motions for the other matoran to gather round.</p>
  326. <p>“lets tell you all the story of how we first came across this island, and the lot of you”.</p>
  327. <p>vakama and nokama look concerned.</p>
  328. <p>“its been so long since we had a full team of toa on this island, may the time be approaching for a new lot of heroes to step up?” nokama mused, worried.</p>
  329. <p>“it truly is a blessing that we’ve managed to find these two, its just so unfortunate about Wavvu…” vakama replied.</p>
  330. <p>“if we can find his toa stones, it might be the start we need to protect our way of life” nokama hoped.</p>
  331. <p>“we have not found them as of yet, and ohsha and dankro are still very sore about their fallen friend… i doubt we’ll hear that story being told around the beach any time soon.”</p>
  332. <p>“still…”, nokama said sullenly, “his legacy could live on, and kickstart a new era of toa heroes…”</p>
  333. <p>back on the beach, the last of the matoran had gotten comfortable. dankro tried to pull ohshas scythe over to use as a seat, pulling it with all his weight, only for it to not move an inch. “ahh, the perfect place” he announced, before slumping on to it, causing everyone else to reshift their positions.</p>
  334. <p>“gathered friends” dankro started, “listen again to our legend… of the bionicle”</p>
  335. <p>“whats a bionicle?” a couple of the matoran asked.</p>
  336. <p>dankro continued on without answering.</p>
  337. <p>“a long long time ago, me and ohsha were a toa duo, working to protect our land against the dark hunters, evil beings, and sometimes even evil toa, all working to destroy the way of life we, our toa brethren, and the matoran and turaga had made for ourselves, the land we had built”.</p>
  338. <p>ohsha piped up, “we must stress <em>our</em> land here, some of you might not realise, and some of you might not understand, but we come from another land, not just another land, but an entirely different reality”</p>
  339. <p>“one that, amongst many many other things, had a much wider variety of toa than the six you will have heard stories of, leading to our <em>unique</em> appearence”, dankro stood up and held a pose, some of the le-matoran giggled, the two turaga smiled, and ohsha simply put her head in her hand.</p>
  340. <p>“anyway… this time, we were tasked with stopping a rather cruel toa, although i would hardly call them a toa at this point. they had murdered matoran and toa alike, they had helped ravage villages, they took wa…” ohsha trailed off, and turned to dankro. he had a sullen look on his face, surprising some of the le-matoran who had never seen him look so serious in the entire time they knew him.</p>
  341. <p>“they did a lot of bad things” dankro piped up, “and they had some pretty nasty powers. their name, we never bothered to learn it, we knew them as ‘the sympath’, and he had control over all sorts of kanohi masks”</p>
  342. <p>“even the ability to activate masks of his own, on to other people” ohsha said grimly, “i saw many of my village suffocate after he forcefully made them able to breath underwater… <strong>only</strong> underwater”</p>
  343. <p>dankro smiled to ohsha and turned to the group “but fear not! the mighty duo, ohsha and dankro, came up on top at the end!” he yelled, jumping in the air to do a kick.</p>
  344. <p>the matoran turned from silent and scared to pumped up and excited to hear the story. ohshthanked his ability to inspire the others like that. he may not have been the strongest, but he certainly had his own merits.</p>
  345. <p>“we’d managed to track him down to an underground cavern, that legends had hinted contained a powerful kanohi mask, not just great, but truly legendary” ohsha continued the story. “the sympath had hoped it to be, we suspected, the kanohi iden, which combined with his power would allow him to destroy even the greatest of toa with ease. we could not let that happen.”</p>
  346. <p>“i ran through, silent on my feet” an excited dankro continued, “she may be able to lob you from here to space, or manage to swing this hunk of metal as if it was made of paper, but i can zip around wherever we need to be silently, and with ease” he boasted. “i waited in the shadows while ohsha, invisible due to her mask, caught up, just in time for the sympath to still be struggling to open the door”.</p>
  347. <p>ohsha chuckled to herself, “what was it you shouted? i still never got an explanation for that”</p>
  348. <p>dankro struck yet another pose and pointed his arm towards a nearby tree, “HERMIT PURPLE!” he shouted, as a vine sprung from his hand and wrapped aronud a branch. he swung around before landing back on the scythe. “ill explain it if we ever meet this universes jovan”</p>
  349. <p>“but its not even purple?” she quizzed, as the matoran chuckled, by now more than used to dankros <strong><em>quirks</em></strong>. “anyway, dankro here managed to catch his leg and drag him back to us, as i lined up for what would should have been, by all accounts, the last blow that scum would ever take” ohsha slammed her fist on the log, and a couple of the matoran jumped.</p>
  350. <p>“what happened next?!” the matoran were itching for more.</p>
  351. <p>“dankros the brains here, im the brawn, ill leave it to him to explain” she motioned next to her.</p>
  352. <p>“the sympath has amazing control over kanohi, he can swap them out at will, faster than ive ever seen before, and the effects of his masks are often quicker or more powerful. if i had to take a guess, he swapped to his kualsi, the mask of quick travel, and managed to blink out of our vines to the other side of the room” he explained, making sure to do a little jump to imitate the blink.</p>
  353. <p>“the worst bit” ohsha sounded sullen, “id already lined up my hit, and this thing is pretty hard to stop once it gets going, even for me… i managed to completely destroy the door to the final chamber”.</p>
  354. <p>dankro continued on without hesitation, “it looked <strong><em>awesome</em></strong> though, it almost blinded me the amount of lightning that coursed through that stone”</p>
  355. <p>ohsha lightened up a bit, “his retaliation was pretty brutal, but we managed to survive. his mask was changing so quickly it became a blur, and we lost track of the different powers at work. when it was over dankro was on the floor, hurt badly” she went back to her sullen ways, this story obviously had some hard points for the pair.</p>
  356. <p>“i mean… if we’re being honest, i actually managed to dodge most of the attacks, but i tripped on my vine near the end and ended up on my rear” he laughed, and the matoran joined in.</p>
  357. <p>“it all went to plan though! because you see, it was two against one, we had the power of unity on our side!” the matoran were engrossed, and dankro was lapping it up.</p>
  358. <p>“i channelled my inner ohsha, and with the entire limits of my strength, roughly the same as ohshas left toe, i threw my axe at the back of his head, while he foolishly, and…” he whispered to ohsha - “(maybe deservedly) thought me to be out of the fight, knocked the mask off his head!” there was a cheer from the crowd, and a couple decided to throw sticks across the beach in imitation.</p>
  359. <p>“but that was not the end” dankro continued the story, “because through the chamber door we could see it, not the iden as we had thought, but the golden glow of the kanohi olmak, the great mask of dimensional gates”</p>
  360. <p>there were gasps from some of the ko-matoran, and puzzled looks from the others.</p>
  361. <p>“for those of you who dont realise what this would mean, it would allow the sympath to forcefully transport his enemies out of our universe… forever…” ohsha looked sad, “all those friends, our home, forever gone…”</p>
  362. <p>“but! we were a smart pair of toa!” dankro bringing the mood back up, “and we knew that as soon as he saw this mask, he would hatch a plan to grab it and escape, and i thought it was pretty suspicious how long he’d been in a coma for, so we needed a plan fast”</p>
  363. <p>“i wanted to hit him while he was down” ohsha admitted, “he was too dangerous to be left alive, but our pal here managed to convince me otherwise”</p>
  364. <p>“ohsha went invisible, and made her way as fast as possible to the alter with the mask” he was building up to a big climax, and the crowd were loving it. “i was the one to attack him while he was down, and much like id thought he might, the second my trident came near him, his kualsi materialised on his head again, and he blinked towards the alter, he’d simply been lying in wait for one of us to try and attack him, so he could get a counter in”</p>
  365. <p>“and thats when i bought down this scythe with all the strength i could muster, and then some!” ohsha beamed, obviously she had been waiting for this part of the story. “right into the spot dankro had guessed he’d blink into”</p>
  366. <p>there were cheers from the crowd, but some matoran were puzzled</p>
  367. <p>“so the sympath is gone right?” a worried looking ta-matoran questioned</p>
  368. <p>“of course!” dankro said in a weird voice, cupping his hand over his mouth for reasons that ohsha had long since stopped wondering about. “nothing on this land could stay standing after a direct hit from this mountain” he beamed at ohsha, patting her on the back.</p>
  369. <p>“so how did you two end up here?” there were puzzled looks all around.</p>
  370. <p>“ahh…” ohsha looked a little embarrassed, “well you see… its a bit hard to not hit collateral with this thing” she patted the handle of her scythe.</p>
  371. <p>“the mask was destroyed in the blow, and the next thing we know, we were falling from the sky, in this land” the matoran were shocked.</p>
  372. <p>“now a word of fair warning everyone” ohsha, sounding official, “normally, as im sure most of you have already learnt, you should take any cool story dankro says with a word of caution, but in this situation i can confirm he is actually telling the truth about how we survived”</p>
  373. <p>a dankro with a pumped up ego stood up to the limelight, “it was nothing, really, all i did was create…” he paused for dramatic effect, “more vines than ive ever managed to do in my life!”</p>
  374. <p>he spent a few seconds spawning vines all around him, creating something of a throne to sit down in.</p>
  375. <p>“i made rudimentary parachutes, vine swings, tried to catch on to anything that i could, anything that would slow our fall”</p>
  376. <p>“it wasnt easy for him” ohsha intterupted, “as im sure you can guess, it was pretty hard for him to slow me down enough, theres a lot of mass” she chuckled.</p>
  377. <p>“but! we did it anyway, and with a lot of vines, and a little help from the ol’ shield special” he tapped his mask, “we managed to survive, barely”</p>
  378. <p>“we did lose some very… special stones we had on our person, but one day we shall find them again” ohsha switched back to sullen at that line.</p>
  379. <p>“and that, is how we appeared here, and honestly, i wouldnt have it any other way” dankro put his arm around ohsha and bowed to the matoran.</p>
  380. <p>the beach was alive once more, matoran play fighting, and swinging from the vines that now littered the beach. a few matoran had taken it upon themselves to find the biggest stick they could and swing it around, albiet very slowly.</p>
  381. <p>the two turaga came up and tugged on ohshas arm, while dankro was already off telling the remaining seated matoran about “illegal building techniques” and “if lewa was still here he’d tell you all to be drinking milk” despite none of the matorans knowing what milk is.</p>
  382. <p>“you know, we’ve been discussing those stones with the other turaga…” nokama whispered.</p>
  383. <p>“we know youre scared about whether the stones are still pure” reassured vakama, “but we cant afford to just leave them scattered around the island, theyre too powerful and we neeed new toa!”</p>
  384. <p>“i know we do vakama, but after what happened to wavvu…”</p>
  385. <p>nokama placed her hand on ohshas, “its okay, we have faith in mata nui, he wouldnt allow us to fail”</p>
  386. <p>“i guess youre right…” ohsha looked over at dankro, “i guess we need to find those stones”.</p>
  387. </section>
  388. </article>
  389. ]]></summary>
  390. </entry>
  391. <entry>
  392. <title>I Have No Life</title>
  393. <link href="https://regularflolloping.com/posts/i-have-no-life/index.html" />
  394. <id>https://regularflolloping.com/posts/i-have-no-life/index.html</id>
  395. <published>2019-05-07T00:00:00Z</published>
  396. <updated>2019-05-07T00:00:00Z</updated>
  397. <summary type="html"><![CDATA[<article>
  398. <section class="header">
  399. Posted on May 7, 2019
  400. </section>
  401. <section>
  402. <blockquote>
  403. <p>…and i must work</p>
  404. </blockquote>
  405. <p>theres one thing that makes me sad everytime i think about it, and no waiting because we all know what it is its <strong><em>technical debt</em></strong> <fanfare></p>
  406. <h2 id="tech-debt">tech debt</h2>
  407. <p>is seriously the digital equivilent of a plague or a religion.</p>
  408. <p>everyone is so engrossed with all this crappy new tech being peddled to and by businesses, and now everyone in the world has to deal with technology that as based on our workflow fifty years ago, everytime we have to deal with some crappy network protocol with a hundred layers of fixes, everytime we have to deal with slow websites because we need to build upon the last hundred layers of crap we added, everytime we have something permanently built into an OS just to fix a fuarkup.</p>
  409. <p>in the wise words of john cleese:</p>
  410. <blockquote>
  411. <p>it makes me mad.</p>
  412. </blockquote>
  413. <p>buuuuut, weve talked about tech debt a lot here, so its time to move onto something that ive only talked about a fair bit instead of a lot</p>
  414. <h2 id="meatspace-tech-debt">meatspace tech debt</h2>
  415. <p>drumroll please you know what this is about…</p>
  416. <blockquote>
  417. <p>my hands are shaking, sweat is dripping off my brow. i nervously fumble with the cue cards in my hands, before gazing out to the audience and mumbling “m-m-more like uhh, <strong><em>crapitalism</em></strong> amiright?”</p>
  418. </blockquote>
  419. <p>thats right folks capitalism is fuarked as ever, and basically the meatspace equivilent of all our mountains of technical debt.</p>
  420. <p>just think for a second, how much our technology has advanced, how much even the crappiest of computers has helped our workflow, and how easy it is to do things that would once take up someones entire job.</p>
  421. <p>yet somehow, not only has the average working week hours stayed the same, in someplaces <em>cough</em> china <em>cough</em> its actually <strong>increased</strong>, nani the fuck?</p>
  422. <p>just like we have a tonne of technologies that are essentially pointless, all in the name of layering new buzzwords, we have hundreds, of thousands, of millions of jobs that are pointless</p>
  423. <blockquote>
  424. <p>hello my names jerry smith and im a <em>Project and Team Developmental Adviser to Management, and Advisement Manager Assistant Specialist</em></p>
  425. </blockquote>
  426. <p>that only exist because we have this big system of business that exists, which, despite it (pardon my french) <strong><em>literally skull-fuarking everything thats good in this world</em></strong> people still are bought into this lie of working being the one true purpose in life.</p>
  427. <h2 id="lyfe">lyfe</h2>
  428. <p>we are defined by our interactions, our experiences, and our differences to others. we live in a world that is ripe for exploration, people to talk to, get to know, make enemies, live alone, live with others.</p>
  429. <p>we have countless hobbies to explore, to form opinions on, to master, or hate, or ignore.</p>
  430. <p>we have literally endless numbers of things to create, to publish, to share, to hide.</p>
  431. <p>and no-one has the time to do it.</p>
  432. <p>everyone is too busy working 40+ hours per week per the global capitalist agenda, to actually go out and live life, and rather than make use of the huge advancements in technology and automation, we instead just end up doing mork work in the same amount of time, and getting told working hard is the most noble thing we can do in life.</p>
  433. <p>work hard, save some money (not as much as the giants will be earning though), use the tech giants software to distract yourself and collect data, then start a family and raise your children to work hard, collect data, and one day enter the capitalist hell hole that is corporatism.</p>
  434. <p>the really sad thing is that even if some miracle we did manage to automate the essential businesses (agriculture being a main example) then it’d be done by google and collect a hundred million ounces of everything ever on us, and everyone would just be fine with it, and we’re in the exact same place as before.</p>
  435. <h2 id="thots">thots</h2>
  436. <p>in conclusion, fuark tech debt, fuark data collection, fuark crapitalism, fuark corporitism, and just let me live my life expanding my knowledge, finding people i get along with, and enjoying what life has to offer, instead of working, thinking about working, and sleeping because i have to get up early for work.</p>
  437. <p>chur pals, sorry for the angry rant today</p>
  438. <p><code>:wq</code></p>
  439. </section>
  440. </article>
  441. ]]></summary>
  442. </entry>
  443. <entry>
  444. <title>The End is Nigh!</title>
  445. <link href="https://regularflolloping.com/posts/the-end/index.html" />
  446. <id>https://regularflolloping.com/posts/the-end/index.html</id>
  447. <published>2019-04-23T00:00:00Z</published>
  448. <updated>2019-04-23T00:00:00Z</updated>
  449. <summary type="html"><![CDATA[<article>
  450. <section class="header">
  451. Posted on April 23, 2019
  452. </section>
  453. <section>
  454. <p>ladies, gentlemen, and esteemed misc, i have come to inform you of the single greatest threat we have ever had.</p>
  455. <p>this is an <strong><em>S LEVEL THREAT</em></strong>, i repeat, <strong>S LEVEL THREAT</strong></p>
  456. <p>its been under our noses this entire time</p>
  457. <h2 id="the-subject">the subject</h2>
  458. <p>“the last action hero” was released in 1993, and was a pretty okayish movie if we’re being honest, not bad, but something easily forgotten.</p>
  459. <p>we should never forget though.</p>
  460. <p>part of the movie has the potential to <strong><em>literally change our lives forever</em></strong>, and not for the better.</p>
  461. <p>in fact, i believe an artifact from this movie is <em>the great filter</em></p>
  462. <h2 id="nani-the-fuark">nani the fuark?</h2>
  463. <p>the great filter is an idea to try and explain the lack of intelligent life in the immediate galaxy. it states that there is some <strong><em>thing</em></strong> that eventually targets all sufficiently intelligent life, and kills it all.</p>
  464. <p>this is meant to explain why we are the only intelligent life we’ve seen, because all previous intelligent life has hit this filter and died out.</p>
  465. <p>what is this filter? youre guess is as good as mine, or would have been, up until i saw this movie.</p>
  466. <h2 id="the-filter">the filter</h2>
  467. <p>what i am about to say may shock you, it may take a moment to process, and if you find yourself speechless, that is only proof that you are still human.</p>
  468. <blockquote>
  469. <p>there exists an item that is capable of transporting between fictional and non-fictional universes, and we have seen it.</p>
  470. </blockquote>
  471. <p><em>the</em> ticket, in the movie, allows the user to travel into a movie or fictional visual media, and interact with the world, including taking characters and things <strong><em>out</em></strong> of the movie, back into the non-fictional world (relative to the user).</p>
  472. <p>let me repeat that.</p>
  473. <p>this ticket, that we know exists in the universe of “the last action hero”, is canonically shown to be able to travel to the universes of other films, many of which exist in our own universe, and move things between them.</p>
  474. <h2 id="so-what">so what?</h2>
  475. <p>let me set this straight.</p>
  476. <p><strong><em>any universe</em></strong> that has a depiction in visual media of some grim reaper like figure, is now, through this ticket, able to be made a reality in the viewers universe.</p>
  477. <p>this being is unkillable, kills with a touch, and its only shown limitation in the show is not being able to work on characters not from the viewers universe (however, that character could be killed by their own form of death).</p>
  478. <p>this being may only have limitations because of the specific movie it was taken from, and any movie about an unlimited grim reaper figure, or any form of mass weapon, is now reality if this ticket makes it to our universe.</p>
  479. <h2 id="what-are-the-chances">what are the chances?</h2>
  480. <p>it is canonically shown, that the movies universe, which we must take as an existing universe relative to our own due to the nature of this ticket, shares movies with us.</p>
  481. <p>what does this matter?</p>
  482. <ul>
  483. <li><p>there are possibly an infinite amount of magic tickets, and they are capable of moving around the multiverse extreme quickly, given access to a way of watching movies.</p></li>
  484. <li><p>it is very likely that any universe can be traced, through its selection of visual media, to any other universe relatively quickly, ala six degrees of seperation.</p></li>
  485. <li><p>given time, assuming multiple tickets, its fairly likely that the human condition will cause someone holding the ticket to use it to attempt to gain power, which, whether on purpose or not, can cause an extinction level event for our world.</p></li>
  486. </ul>
  487. <h2 id="what-are-our-hopes">what are our hopes?</h2>
  488. <p>we can only pray that the ticket never reaches our world, and that no-one who holds the ticket in a universe that has a cinematic depiction of our universe, cares enough about that movie to travel to it (thus taking the ticket with them).</p>
  489. <p>we can only hope that travel between universes using the ticket is inherently one way, otherwise any universe that shares a movie with us is basically next door, and its much more likely that the death ticket will find us.</p>
  490. <p>finally, we can only pray that whichever beings made the tickets never learn of our existence, for those beings are obviously the final evolution of the soul, and compared to their immense power, we might as well just not exist.</p>
  491. <p><code>:wq</code></p>
  492. </section>
  493. </article>
  494. ]]></summary>
  495. </entry>
  496. <entry>
  497. <title>Furi Curi</title>
  498. <link href="https://regularflolloping.com/posts/furicuri/index.html" />
  499. <id>https://regularflolloping.com/posts/furicuri/index.html</id>
  500. <published>2019-04-15T00:00:00Z</published>
  501. <updated>2019-04-15T00:00:00Z</updated>
  502. <summary type="html"><![CDATA[<article>
  503. <section class="header">
  504. Posted on April 15, 2019
  505. </section>
  506. <section>
  507. <p>i first saw <em>Fooly Cooly</em> when i was in highschool, which possibly was the perfect time to see it. i have seen it many times since, and it has cemented itself in the rung below Lain and Eva, one of the greats.</p>
  508. <p>the pillows became part of the soundtrack of my life, the casual counter-counter-culture vibes became something of a lighthouse for the younger, angstyer tA, and it offered a nice counterbalance to the black hole that is ‘the effects of neon genesis evangelion on a developing psyche’</p>
  509. <p>the original fooly cooly was a show that, like many others who had seen it, i never thought would get a sequel.</p>
  510. <p>it was a wacky coming of age story, with more than its fair share of wackiness, and turned out to be far more genuine than you would expect from first glance.</p>
  511. <p>we followed naota and his thoughts on what it meant to grow up, and we reached the end of his story, and that was it.</p>
  512. <p>so when <em>FLCL: Alternative</em> got announced, i was fairly, as the french say, <strong><em>blah zay</em></strong>, i never looked into anything past the announcement “we’re doing season 2”, and i never bothered to watch it when it came out, or even read what people thought about it.</p>
  513. <p>the story was done, there was no more to be said.</p>
  514. <p>the magic would be ruined if we got explanations for harukos side of the story, and her side being unknown is part of what made the original work so well.</p>
  515. <p>fast forward to last weekend and i finally watched both Alternative, and the third season <strong>Progressive</strong>, and as it turns out…</p>
  516. <p>i have some thoughts.</p>
  517. <h2 id="progressive">progressive</h2>
  518. <p>was absolute garbo, everything fell flat, the animation was wonky, the jokes were lame, the characters were boring (even the old characters we once loved) and overall the entire season felt like theyd gotten the script mixed up with an AO3 self insert fiction of a highschool teen girl who doesnt particularly care about being heroic, just about being <em>in the middle of things</em>.</p>
  519. <p>now that last statement, if this had happened in <em>alternative</em> i might have called it a meta statement about the series, abstracting out the originals core plateau and moving it a layer.</p>
  520. <p>this isnt the case for progressive, its just that its garbage.</p>
  521. <p>honestly theres not even that much to say about this series, if you wanna hear your favourite characters do <strong>semi okay quips</strong> at a much slower pace than normal feel free.</p>
  522. <p>if youre a weeb who likes self insert stories about people doing…. things? not much at all tbh? in desolate ruins of schools, and the only thing stopping you from talking to someone you like is <strong><em>literally society and any reason to live existing</em></strong> then go ahead i guess?</p>
  523. <p>maybe if you really like hearing the main characters yell the names of the other main characters <strong><em>so. fuccing. much</em></strong></p>
  524. <p>otherwise, give this a skip, or watch it, but watch it knowing what youre going into, which is a show that was half written by an angsty teenage girl, and half written by a massive board of corporates, and overall doesnt really do anything right at all, the least of which is capturing that classic <strong>FLCL</strong> charm.</p>
  525. <h2 id="alternative">alternative</h2>
  526. <p>lets cut to the chase before we get to unedited rambling;</p>
  527. <blockquote>
  528. <p>FLCL: Alternative is a type of sequel that more shows should attempt, and it does a damn good job of it.</p>
  529. </blockquote>
  530. <p>what do i mean by this? alternative is a show that aims to capture the feeling of the original, and tell its own story, rather than either a direct sequel, or a new take.</p>
  531. <p>so the real question here becomes;</p>
  532. <h3 id="what-is-flcl-at-its-core">what is flcl at its core?</h3>
  533. <p>ive thought a lot about this, and im not sure ill ever have the right answer, but heres a stab at it</p>
  534. <p><em>furi kuri</em> has this weird, multi layer metaphor core, allow me to explain:</p>
  535. <p>the actual plot of the story follows from a metaphor, something that a lot of shows do at this level, for example;</p>
  536. <blockquote>
  537. <p>seeing other people be grown up is like seeing them hit a perfect home run, it is something that i dont believe i can do</p>
  538. </blockquote>
  539. <p>or</p>
  540. <blockquote>
  541. <p>seeing people close to me grow up and move away, or go their seperate ways, is like watching them all move to mars</p>
  542. </blockquote>
  543. <p>fooly cooly then takes this metaphor and makes it real, and gives it a reason to happen.</p>
  544. <p>people actually ARE swinging their bats all the time, and naota is going to need to as well because theres a massive asteroid coming to hit earth if he doesnt bat it away</p>
  545. <p>people actually ARE moving to mars, because theres an alien threat on earth, a threat that kana is going to have to deal with somehow, sooner rather than later.</p>
  546. <p>this mirroring of reality and the characters mental situation is what allows the characters to shine through. harako fits so well into this world because this is a world where any aspect of the main characters pysche can exist.</p>
  547. <p>the core goes a step further, however. the main characters dont solve their problems physically, they solve them mentally, they understand their feelings, they finally swing the bat, and the physical problem gets solved as a result.</p>
  548. <p>they are living in the real world, observing the wacky world, and solving their problems in the real world, with the wacky following suit.</p>
  549. <p>its a very neat way of being able to have this crazy, memorable cast and vibe, yet keeping all the emotional aspects of the show grounded in reality, and also what leads to Alternative being so good.</p>
  550. <h3 id="what-is-alternative">what is alternative?</h3>
  551. <p>alternative is exactly what it says on the tin, its an <strong><em>alternative</em></strong> telling of the core <strong>FLCL</strong> experience.</p>
  552. <p>the core experience is the same, we have haruko doing whatever it is that haruko does, and bringing some helpless kid along for the ride.</p>
  553. <p>we have amarao being <strong><em>one of the best characters of the season</em></strong>, really they hit the ball out of the park (subtle nod i know) with his character.</p>
  554. <p>we get kamon and his noodle store being a fair bit chiller, but just as <em>kamon</em> as last time.</p>
  555. <p>and we get a completely new set of characters, kana and her crew, to follow.</p>
  556. <p>the core of kanas story is pretty simple, growing up can be tough, and it requires us to face things we would prefer not to face, it requires us to get used to things we’d rather not, and it requires us to say goodbye.</p>
  557. <p>i think the plot here is actually rather unimportant. theres some nice moments for sure, and the push to actually talk about your feelings is something a lot of people could do with, but thats not where <em>Alternative</em> shines.</p>
  558. <p>where alternative shines is how that plot fits in with the core fooly cooly experience.</p>
  559. <p>amarao guzzling the spiciest noodles known to man because “my taste buds are so much more mature than others”, when all he wants in the end is some cold, unspiced soba, is what this show is about.</p>
  560. <p>watching a relatively low-key, slice of life weebshit about highschool students coming to terms with growing up? yeah, its not quite the feeling the original had, but maybe its just because my tastes are more mature than yours, we as <strong><em>adults</em></strong> dont have time for wacky shows, we need emotions, for a more <em>mature</em> watching experiance.</p>
  561. <p>and so in a way, this new direction, arguably <strong><em>the</em></strong> new direction this season took, is its best feature.</p>
  562. <p>not because its better than the first, because its not.</p>
  563. <p>but because it understood what fooly cooly was about, and delivered a story that fit in with that core, while highlighting parts of the key philosophy that made the first season what it was.</p>
  564. <p>kana doesnt get her storybook ending, she doesnt get the boy, stick with herfriends forever, or solve all her problems, but she does start to <em>understand</em> them, just as naota did, and by climax we see the first step towards growing as a person, realising that people have flaws, but we can live through them, and moving into a world that is just a little wackier than it was before.</p>
  565. <h2 id="fin">fin</h2>
  566. <p>fooly cooly is a show about growing up, for people who had trouble growing up. its about the people who needed an extra push to come to terms with whatever it is they needed to come to terms with, and come out better off because of it.</p>
  567. <p>its a show that has two very good seasons, and one absolutely garbage season, and you know what? thats ok.</p>
  568. <p>is alternative as good as the original? hell no, but it would do us all some good to pour a pot full of chilli flakes on it, and enjoy it like the grown ups we are.</p>
  569. <p>life is about balance, learning whats on each end of the scales, and alternative is a very good alternative to the flcl we know and love.</p>
  570. <p><code>:wq</code></p>
  571. </section>
  572. </article>
  573. ]]></summary>
  574. </entry>
  575. <entry>
  576. <title>Glasses</title>
  577. <link href="https://regularflolloping.com/posts/glasses/index.html" />
  578. <id>https://regularflolloping.com/posts/glasses/index.html</id>
  579. <published>2019-04-12T00:00:00Z</published>
  580. <updated>2019-04-12T00:00:00Z</updated>
  581. <summary type="html"><![CDATA[<article>
  582. <section class="header">
  583. Posted on April 12, 2019
  584. </section>
  585. <section>
  586. <p>im a bit abrasive on the outside, qeustion anything, forge your own path.</p>
  587. <p>but ill tell you a secret…</p>
  588. <p>i actually wear glasses! but i wear contacts in public</p>
  589. <h1 id="section">~</h1>
  590. <p>conflict over! we’re actually quite good people, and im proud to display that by wearing these glasses</p>
  591. <p>now we can head towards our happy endings…</p>
  592. <h1 id="section-1">!</h1>
  593. <blockquote>
  594. <p>theyre fake</p>
  595. </blockquote>
  596. <p>people see different things, what actually happened, who knows?</p>
  597. <blockquote>
  598. <p>&lt;</p>
  599. </blockquote>
  600. <p>the abrasions arent that simple, the conflict is but an occurance, as is in life.</p>
  601. <p>people are not simple, and in doing such i am defying this false image.</p>
  602. <blockquote>
  603. <p>&gt;</p>
  604. </blockquote>
  605. <p>i have grown past previous thought, and am now my path, i no longer fear that which i did</p>
  606. <p>i am now displaying my preference, important as it was, it is now such an accesory</p>
  607. <p>an aesthetic expression, nothing more</p>
  608. <p><code>:wq</code></p>
  609. </section>
  610. </article>
  611. ]]></summary>
  612. </entry>
  613. </feed>