markjgsmith

2023/11/14 #

Character cameo extravaganza - What s strange morning it's been. I asked Satan a question on Bluesky, then tweeted it, and wouldn't you know, there was a regular character extravaganza. As I walked to where I needed to go to this morning, I must have crossed paths with regular characters on pretty much every single major road I walked down. It was one after another after another. I can't tell you how unusual this is. Also just generally a lot of pointing weirdness, at practically every single junction someone poped up exactly as I walked past and pointed the direction I was already about to go. It's hard to describe. Also general level of random aggressiveness quite high.

You are probably wondering what I'm going on about. What are regular characters anyway? Well it's quite a loose term. I made it up. Generally speaking it's people you see again and again, often you have interacted with them in some way. Like an aquaintance, but even less formal, you might not even have spoken, but they are noteworthy in some way. Like bike guy with all the layers of clothes for example, though I actually didn't see bike guy this morning.

Regular characters tend to pop up every few days. It's really unusual you see a whole load of them one after another in a short space of time. That's what happened this morning. Super weird don't you think? #

Posh audio doppelgangers - My over-active doppelganger pattern matcher has been triggered by Lord Miles on the TFTC podcast, Mat Ryer on the Changelog podcast and none other than esteemed astro-physicist Martin Rees on the Into the Impossible Podcast.

How is it these 3 blokes all sound so similar? Is it just a british regional accent I have been unnaware of all these years? It sounds more like a speach affection than an accent. I hope that's not derogatory, it's not meant that way at all. Is it specific to a particular posh public school? Do schools have accents too? Are they related, like brothers or father-son? Is he a time traveler? Or maybe he's a hostage being forced to be multiple people? Perhaps it's currently the year 1002023? Do some humans live to be 300 years old? Maybe they are generative AIs? Is it just part of the most elaborate prank of all time? I could go on with these questions but I won't.

Reguardless, really enjoyed all three podcast episodes, each one is amuzingly bizare and 'out there' in it's own way.

I would have thought the possibility for all 3 to be completely distinct and unrelated humans to be quite remote, especially seing as the episodes have been published virtually at the same time. But maybe there is a perfectly normal explanation. #

Today’s links:

  • Cameron's return revives memories of Greensill finance scandal - Certainly an interesting turn of events, on several levels. I don't recall a previous priminister ever returning to government. But this lending scandal by the company he was lobbying for sounds like it could be quite bad. I always thought Cameron made quite a good Priminister, but to be honest I've never really followed UK politics that closely. So that's based more on him looking and sounding the part rather than his actual policies or accomplishments. Interested to read more about that and what position he's back in for. www.bbc.co.uk #

  • International mafia bust shows US-Italy crime links still strong - Interesting story. I've wondered for ages how modern tech is going to affect these big crime families. Things are going to change at an exponential rate, and I'm not sure that our societies are ready for it. It might get very difficult at the edges. These things are dufficult to talk about too. Families are tricky for regular people, but I bet things get insane complicated in these crime families, because they have such big influence, so it's not just the families, it's all the affiliated families and groups. Looking at it from a purely system's architecture perspective these are likely going to be enormous migration projects. The only thing similar I can think of was how the british royal family has been modernized over the past 30 years. And that was very very painful, in that case for an entire nation. Remember Diana's death and the outpouring of emotion that happened then? Well I wonder if we aren't going to see lots of smaller family modernisations, and somehow our societies are going to have to absorb that. I'm not passing any judgement here, just saying that we might need to think about how best to make such a transition easier. The only thing I would say would be that you probably don't want to over complicate things, could get quite narly for all. The jolly bloke pictured looks very familiar for some reason. www.bbc.com #

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