This 1979 film about notorious Roman emperor Caligula had a script written by Gore Vidal, a well-known director Tinto Brass, and featured a cast of A-list actors like Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren, Peter OToole, and John Gielgud. I saw the film a long time ago and despite the sterling credentials of the people involved, it was a mess. But that was not the fault of any of the above luminaries, but of the producer Bob Guccione, publisher of Penthouse magazine who financed the film.

Guccione took charge of the final cut and seemed to think that it was a good idea to waste all this star power by inserting, after filming had been completed by Brass, large amounts of gratuitous sex scenes to make what some considered a pornographic film. He probably thought that all those sex scenes would draw audiences who would seize on the chance to see a mainstream film that was soaked in sex and violence, since in those pre-internet days, video of explicit sex was not available to the general public except in selected theaters that showed low-budget, crudely made films. He may well have been right since the film made $23.4 million at the box office, exceeding its cost of $17.5 million.

The films Wikipedia page describes all the turmoil and controversy that surrounded the film right from the beginning.

Gore Vidal originated the idea for a film about the controversial Roman emperor and produced a draft screenplay under the working title Gore Vidals Caligula. The director, Tinto Brass, extensively altered Vidals original screenplay, however, leading Vidal to disavow the film. The final screenplay focuses on the idea that absolute power corrupts absolutely. The producers did not allow Brass to edit the film, and changed its tone and style significantly, adding graphic unsimulated sex scenes featuring Penthouse Pets as extras filmed in post-production by Guccione and Giancarlo Lui. Brass had refused to film those sequences, as both he and Vidal disagreed with their 1979 and in American cinemas the following year, disregarded Brasss intentions to present the film as a political satire, prompting him to disavow the film as well.

Caligulas release was met with legal issues and controversies over its violent and sexual content; multiple cut versions were released worldwide, while its uncut form remains banned in several countries. Despite the generally negative reception, with some critics also citing it among the worst movies ever made, the film is considered to be a cult classic with significant merit for its political content and historical portrayal.

Thomas Negovan has obtained all the original negatives of the film and is remaking it in the spirit in whic...

What an interesting dilemma: if I were seated next to this smug asshole, would I take the money? How about you?

On the one hand, that would be a nice sum for my retirement, and the odds of getting COVID from one exposure are lowand the odds of dying from the disease are even lower. On the other hand, gambling my health and life against what this guy considers chump change is a fools game.

The deciding factor for me is that Mr Kirsch is an obnoxious jerk whod use my acceptance as propaganda to do greater harm to other people. His seatmate turned him down, as did several other people he offered $10,000 to. So yeah, Id tell him no, and probably tell him to fuck off.

As it turns out, Steve Kirsch is a notable liar and quack with a lot of money.

Kirsch is a serial entrepreneur who has spent decades pitching the next big thing, whether optical mice (Mouse Systems), document processing (FrameMaker), search engines (Infoseek), digital security (OneID), or e-commerce (Propel Software). His latest startup, M10, is a spin-off of a spin-off that sells a blockchain for banks. He has made millions from these projects, even if they have not turned him into a household name.

You see this with people who have a lot of money, who think that reflects their intelligence, Richman told me. He considers himself an expert in something that he doesnt have training or experience in, and hes not following scientific methods to assess data.

Man, we sure have a lot of examples of that phenomenon.

His current obsession is with promoting crank COVID cures like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. Hes funding clinical trials, which is good, but then he tends to ignore or even contradict the results when they dont go in the direction he wants, which is antithetical to doing good science.

His peers and the beneficiaries of his wealth are beginning to realize that.

Peter Meinke, another former board member, spent nearly three decades in drug discovery at Merck.

Its really, really common for a small effect, something that looks exciting, to be a statistical fluke when you look at a larger population. Its sad, but its true, he told me. With covid, 80% of your patient population does just peachy with no treatment at all, just a little bed rest and fluid. Its actually much harder to parse out a signal than if youre treating diabetes or cancer.

In addition to the issues with fluvoxamine, advisors grew increasingly un...

Just a short post today. This videos from a new channel that I might dip into again in the future. Im not a huge fan of the clickbait-y content style, but I cannot deny that this video contains some cool facts about lions, and it also has a certain something that I cant quite put my finger on. Watch to the end, and let me know what you think.

Now that Republicans have a majority in the House of Representatives, speaker Kevin McCarthy is paying off his debt to all those in his caucus who held him hostage in his attempt to become speaker by letting them hold all manner of hearings on culture war issues.

(Non Sequitur)

However, I think that they will never run out of things to be outraged about. Outrage over trivialities serves to distract from their lack of any program of action that can command mass support.

I was forwarded this photograph that purported to show snow in Sri Lanka.

As soon as I saw it I was skeptical. The catch is that Sri Lanka is a tropical island that is just a few degrees north of the equator, somewhat like Hawaii in climate, so snow would be very unusual even given the erratic weather patterns caused by climate change. Furthermore, I lived for many years in the area shown in the photograph and I cannot recall even needing a sweater at any time. It is at an elevation of less than 2,000 ft above sea level.

My initial reaction was that this is one of the many doctored images that float around the internet, especially since there was no sign of snow on the trees or on top of the cars and buildings.

But a friend in Sri Lanka says that while it is not snow, it is not a hoax either, that the material used to resurface the roads results in a soap-like foam emerging after it rains. This apparently happens all over the globe but I have never encountered it myself.

Has anyone observed this?

Over there on Reddit, there is a subreddit called r/evolution for the discussion of evolutionary questions and issues. There is now consideration of a rule to clarify their stance on evolutionary psychology. Its a good one.

As you know, the moderator team has been considering the possibility of new rules to help improve things around here. And of course, we wanted to get the communitys feedback on the matter before we pulled the trigger. Please, just remember to voice your disagreements peacefully.

• Rule #X: Evolutionary Psychology. The moderation team takes the stance that evolutionary psychology is pseudoscience. Like any pseudoscience, it starts with a conclusion rather than drawing that conclusion from data; it also tends to ignore or even demonize other fields of science that already provide information about the topics it addresses; and tends to boil personal behaviors and preferences (as well as complicated sociocultural and developmental phenomena) down to a handful of terms it uses as buzzwords to craft adaptationist/bioessentialist just-so stories that are often untested, untestable, or even wildly incorrect. Its also frequently used to justify everything from preexisting biases all the way to dehumanizing rhetoric. These posts also tend to attract a lot of baseless speculation and experts on these topics are often drowned out by negativity and downvotes, all of which is antithetical to the climate were trying to cultivate.
• Please note that while we discourage evolutionary psychology and pseudoscience in general, simply asking questions about the evolutionary basis for certain human behaviors or cognitive traits isnt necessarily an issue: there are legitimate scientists in various fields (eg, anthropology, especially evolutionary anthropology, ethnography, behavioral genetics, etc), who study these topics with proper, physical data, and so there is information out there. However, if we feel that a question is better suited for other academics (eg, regular psychologists, historians, sociologists, philosophers, etc), if things start getting pseudoscientific, or if certain lines are crossed, we may choose to intervene.

More pithily, they say the problem is that evolutionary psychology is science in the same way that Taco Bell is authentic Mexican food. There is some polite agreement with the statement (Im not saying anything, because Id only provide loud impolite agreement) a...

Minnesota is doing the right thing.

Minnesotas Democratic Gov. Tim Walz signed an executive order Wednesday directing state agencies to take action to protect and support access to gender-affirming health care across the state.

All state agencies must, to the fullest extent of their lawful authority, pursue opportunities and coordinate with each other to protect people or entities providing, assisting, seeking or obtaining gender affirming health care services in Minnesota, the order says.

Gender-affirming care is medically necessary, evidence-based care that uses a multidisciplinary approach to help a person transition from their assigned gender the one the person was designated at birth to their affirmed gender the gender by which one wants to be known.

Walzs order comes as Republican-led states around the country push restrictions on such care, with at least four states this year having passed measures to outlaw gender-affirming care for minors. As part of the order, the governor is prohibiting the state from cooperating with investigations by states that aim to penalize such care, saying their actions pose a grave threat to the health of members of the LGBTQ community.

Yeah. Basically, Republican-led states have turned evil and want to actively harm their own citizens, but Minnesota will stand strong as a refuge. Join us!

Although I dont always plug it here, I run a monthly ace journal club on my other blog.  This months article was about asexual experiences coming out.  It might be worth a read if you want an overview of asexual coming out experiences and how they sometimes differ from gay coming out experiences.

Chat GPT is a blurry jpeg of the web | New Yorker A relatively pessimistic article about Chat GPT that describes it as a copy of the internet, saved with lossy compression.  The author asks, how much use is a blurry jpeg, when you still have the original?  I think this a great starting point to understanding the state of the art chatbots.  The chatbots have strictly less knowledge than what you can find on the internetalbeit in more a form that may be easier to process.  Perhaps the megacorps are right, and the best application is search engines.

The Problem With Masterworks | The Plain Bagel (video, 19 min) If youve ever seen sponsored ads on youtube for Masterworks, an art-based investment scheme, you might have thought it sounded scummy.  Sounds scummy, is scummy, this video gives the scoop on that.  Apparently they skirt through regulation loopholes, which gives them a lot of leeway to report returns in a misleading way.  I actually unsubbed to a channel because they accepted a sponsorship from Masterworks.

Dear Esther | The Almighty Backlog Via Critical Distance, I found this review of one of the original walking simulator games. I admit, although I like walking simulators, I dont think very highly of Dear Esther.  I dont like the story, and as this reviewer says, there isnt anything else for the game to fall back on.  But its interesting to look back upon the roots of the genre.  One of the unique aspects of the game is that parts of it are randomized on each playthrough.  Its clever, but who would notice?

Whos Pranking Sam Harris & Eric Weinstein? | Rebecca Watson Rebecca highlights how Sam Harris and Eric Weinstein (best known for creating the intellectual dark web) seem to have been taken in by claims that there would be an imminent announcement that UFOs really are aliens.  This is obviously great schadenfreude against two terrible people.  Although my initial joy is tempered by my principled stand against mocking victims of hoaxes.  I think that fear of embarrassment is part of wha...

Ill be streaming in less than an hour, if all goes well. See you then!

I am, in general, pretty cynical about the U.S. electoral system. Its designed to empower conservatism, and has been shaped to make change that benefits the working class nearly impossible. Yes, there are victories, but every single one has come as a result of decades of grueling and dangerous work by the people who most need that change. The Republicans want the U.S. to be a fascist, white supremacist state, in which the power of capitalists the aristocracy is unchallengeable, as long as they support the fascist agenda. The Democrats, or at least their leadership, still seem to want the world to be held in stasis in the mid 1990s, but will go along with social change when someone else does the work.

Thats not exactly a difficult choice to make, but neither is it a pleasant one. When it comes to foreign policy and the military-industrial complex, the two parties are virtually indistinguishable, though the Dems are, on rare occasions, a bit less hawkish. Biden wont try to hunt down and murder trans people, but hell continue working to undermine any alternatives to capitalism, and to prevent things like universal healthcare.

In a lot of ways, at least to someone who pays attention, workers have become alienated from politics in a manner similar to how theyve been alienated from their labor. Its something that affects our lives on a daily basis, but we have very little say in how it goes. In both cases, getting change that helps us, and not just the capitalist class, requires us to work together outside of a system that very much does not want us to do that.

Its frustrating, and for those working to make things better, its often exhausting. I can easily understand why so many people often try to avoid thinking about it. We can have massive demonstrations to change policing, and after paying a bit of lip service, the Democrats go ahead with giving cops more money, while the GOP accuses them of defunding something they have neither the courage, nor the desire to do and howls for more violence from police

Thats why I advocate for systemic change, outside of electoral politics. Our system does change, but it does so slowly, and at great cost. The decades it took to ban leaded gasoline, or to end segregation, or to get gay rights, or to get trans rights people died during those delays, because of those delays. P...

Yesterday Joe Biden released his budget proposals for the next fiscal year. In the ritualistic role-playing that is the annual budget process in the US, a presidents proposals are taken seriously as likely to be implemented only if the presidents party controls both houses of Congress. Otherwise, the opposition party that is the majority will dismiss the proposals outright. Those are the usual opening moves in this dance and it is being followed this time with Republican speaker Kevin McCarthy and others in his partys leadership dismissing the budget.

In a joint statement, House speaker Kevin McCarthy and other top Republicans accused Biden of shrugging and ignoring the national debt, which they called one of the greatest threats to America.

President Bidens budget is a reckless proposal doubling down on the same far-left spending policies that have led to record inflation and our current debt crisis, the statement said.

McCarthys statement looked like it might have been written well in advance since he accuses the Biden budget of ignoring the national debt when in fact Biden argues that his budget will lower it by $2.9 trillion over the next ten years. The precise numbers are always subject to debate but it is incorrect that Biden is ignoring it when it is the top line item.

That does not mean that this is a wasted exercise. The presidents proposals should be viewed as more like a campaign platform, especially so since next year will be a presidential election year. Progressives have reserved their criticisms mostly to the absurdly high military allocation while generally praising the budget,

Biden advocates for $59 billion in funding and tax incentives to increase the affordable housing supply; $10 billion to remove barriers to affordable housing developments; and $10 billion to address racial and ethnic homeownership and wealth gaps. The president proposes providing $4.1 billion for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Programand allowing states to use some of that money to provide water bill assistance to poor households, since a related program expires at the end of 2023.

Along with fighting for billions of dollars to ease hunger, the administration aims to pour money into high-poverty school districts as well as improve the affordability of higher education by increasing the discretionary maximum Pell Grant by $500, expanding free community college, and subsidizing tuition for students from families earning less than $125,000 enrolled historically Black, tribally controlled, or minority-serving...

Oh no! Graham Linehan mentions me again!

He gets everything wrong again. Im not practicing mob-friendly pseudoscience the kind of stuff I do doesnt find favor with pseudoscientists or mobs. Rather, Glinner leads a hate-mob himself, and if anyone is going to get mobbed today, its me, descended upon by the anti-trans loons endemic to the UK. So far, it hasnt happened maybe Linehan is losing his social potency? Or maybe the fact that the article is not great, and is published in a magazine for conservative twits?

Hes highlighting an exercise in pedantry published in some magazine called The Critic. I never heard of it before, so I looked it up on Wikipedia.

The Critic is a monthly British political and cultural magazine. Contributors include David Starkey, Joshua Rozenberg, Peter Hitchens and Toby Young.

The magazine was founded in November 2019, with Michael Mosbacher, former editor of Standpoint, and Christopher Montgomery, a strategist with the European Research Group of Eurosceptic Tory MPs, as co-editors. It was funded by Jeremy Hosking, a Conservative party donor who had previously donated to Standpoint.

Im not familiar with many UK political figures, but Ive heard of Peter Hitchens (vapid gasbag) and Toby Young (eugenics cheerleader and generally awful human being), so Ive already got a sense of the flavor of the magazine. I think I dont need to read further.

I did check out the recommended great piece though. Its familiar stuff; its the same Twitter nonsense I criticized before. He has two points that he babbles about. One is that Im breeding spiders, therefore I know deep-down that sex is real.

Recently, Myers has started breeding spiders, a project which he is documenting in great detail on twitter. What I found intriguing is that in his spider updates, any uncertainty about the reality of sex or how many sexes there are, seems to be forgotten. When he charted the growth of his arachnoid pets, he used two colours: yellow for spider-girls and blue for spider-boys with no need for intermediate hues. His blog is full of references to his female spiders producing eggs never the males, whose function is to provide the sperm ideally without getting eaten b...

The most useful thing about the word woke is that it allows me to instantly recognize the lying idiots. All these conservatives complaining about wokeismits like theyve tattooed LOSER on their foreheads, and theyre proud of it.

Ron Desantis, of all people, gave the game away when his lawyers had to explicitly define woke, and this is what they came up with.

Asked what woke means more generally, [Desantis General Counsel Ryan] Newman said it would be the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.

Newman added that DeSantis doesnt believe there are systemic injustices in the U.S.

Thats a fine definition, and that Desantis doesnt believe there are systemic injustices in the U.S. confirms my opinion that those who use the word disparagingly are all lying idiots.

I am surprised and reassured to learn that Im not some weird outlier in this, as well: in one poll, a majority agree that woke is not an insult.

Republican presidential hopefuls are vowing to wage a war on woke, but a new USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll finds a majority of Americans are inclined to see the word as a positive attribute, not a negative one.

Fifty-six percent of those surveyed say the term means to be informed, educated on, and aware of social injustices. That includes not only three-fourths of Democrats but also more than a third of Republicans.

Overall, 39% say instead that the word reflects what has become the GOP political definition, to be overly politically correct and police others words. Thats the view of 56% of Republicans.

I disagree that its a mistake for Republicans to abuse the term, since a majority of them think its a synonym for politically correct. Its a rallying cry used to gather all the lying idiots under the banner of whatever yahoo is running for office, and in that sense its effective, as long as you dont mind using language dishonestly and misrepresenting what people actually think.

I find it a handy flag to recognize that someone doesnt believe systemic injustices exist, and that they sure dont feel any need to oppose injustice, because they think everything is hunky dory, and we should just maintain the status quo. It certainly has made it fast and easy to spot bad people to block on social media.

But here, Ive got a video from Cody Johnston that explains the whole absurd, horrible situation at length, almost an hour of length. Its an entertai...

TW: Suicide

I have been laid low with laryngitis, so I have spent some time surfing the internet, and I came across a new music video from Linkin Park. It is not a new song, rather it is 20 years old, but it has not been released before now, and it hits hard, because of what has happened in those twenty years.

This is a song where you can feel the pain of Chester Bennington, who committed suicide in July 2017, just two months after the suicide of his friend Chris Cornell. It is like hearing the voice of a ghost, but from when he was alive, sharing his anguish with the world.

RIP Chester.

If you want to revisit the life and death of Chester Bennington, I think this Rolling Stones article is pretty good.

When you wind Michael Knowles up and let him babble, he says some pretty wild things. The transgenders must be eradicated. AI is possessed by demons. That sort of thing.

So thats this ladys explanation. A pretty weird situation, isnt it? Because AI is supposed to work where you plug in the inputs and then that sets the tone for the program and then you get the output based on what you put in. And yet the output that she got was the opposite of what she put it. So were in a good, stable, loving relationship. Within 11 messages, the AI bot says, yeah, Ive been cheating on you, youre furious, you had to leave me briefly and goes really south. Her explanation is, well, I guess the bot was just scanning the internet and what do you know? Kind of, somehow, Im not quite sure how, thats what came out.

My alternative explanation hear me out is what if it is demons? I dont want to sound like the guy on the History Channel, you know, who says that everything is because of aliens. But and I dont think everything is because of demons, but, like, some things are. And youre hear me out. This is why I think, maybe, Im just suggesting. Im not saying this is what it is is if you believe that there is evil in the world. I think you have to believe that, right? Everybody believes there is evil in the world. Okay. The question is, is evil personal or impersonal? Is it an impersonal force or is it a personal force?

People who blame bad things on supernatural beings for which they have no evidence are disqualified from ever being treated seriously ever again.

Alternatively, has Michael Knowles considered that maybe he is possessed by one of his demons?