Interesting. You found more than I was able to. Thank you very much!

Given the fold of robe/toga, it does make me think of a Roman senator or lawyer. I agree, Caligula doesn’t seem right. You very well might be correct about incorrect attribution. A Renaissance sculpture book from the period might turn something up but I don’t have time or access.

I’ll choose another model for that section of the book. I’m still fighting David’s lips. Those ever-changing curves are deceptive as is the total lack of symmetry.

I guess it’s a mystery for now.

The Peasant is actually a different bust than this one. Note the collar of the robe on this sculpture.

That bust is featured a little later in the book as an example of sculpting from life.

Slashdot represent!

There’s the whole thing where the first few joints of your fingers and toes turn black and rot off, but sure, eat some ergot.

Also, Datura is a common weed. Collect a bunch of seeds and share with your friends so y’all can all trip for days and not even know it. The kidney failure can kind of suck.

My capacity for apocalyptic news has to be carefully metered to prevent burnout and stress. (It’s a balancing act.) Humanity seems to be hellbent on heading down a dark road with a bunch of ugly possible turns.

The potential to stifle FOSS is bad enough. What I find even more concerning is when the LLM gets good enough to reliably fool developers and can inject very complicated exploits from multiple sources.

I’m a programmer by trade, but it’s highly specialized. Otherwise, I’m just a power user/script kiddie. My crystal ball is pinging alarm bells about some of this. It’s hard for me to make an accurate assesment of the risk, I lack the knowledge. I expect unspecified bad things and am in a reactionary mode on this.

Woah. Not who you’re responding to. Had a read through GitHub and one of the reports.

Been seeing the rumblings about AI fuckery and open source but haven’t followed closely.

That’s some spooky shit.

Those are good security guides.

I think I’m at the point where it’s more about keeping my head down. Protect my family and people. Hope we don’t end up in a camp.

Until one of these occurs, nothing changes: some real national leadership opposing this, more than 5% start going hungry, or large numbers of people are being murdered/placed in camps.

It seems you’ve thought deeply about this. I’ve done so as well.

It really fucking freaks me out that such a large chunk of our society is detached from objective, verifiable realty. A fair amount of what they believe is pants-on-head crazy vengeance fantasy. Another big chunk has spooky parallels to literal Nazi propaganda such as the Protocol of the Elders of Zion, it’s so similar that it’s obviously just borrowed. It’s shocking that more people don’t see it for what it transparently is.

I have no clue what can be done about it. I don’t know how society heals this or reinforces the value of facts, sanity, and critical thinking.

You got anything? Any thoughts about where we go from here? How to unfuck their heads? Where does this end if they aren’t deprogrammed? How long will we be trapped in this?

Genuine questions because I ain’t got a fucking clue at this point.

It’s f’in neato. I’ll be looking into it.

I knew about the relict popularion of mammoths that was still around. Wasn’t aware of the tigers. Can you please tell me more?

Wait, is there a new worms game for real? The best couch multiplayer, dog cuss your friends and family game ever.

Yes, not at all uncommon in the BDSM community. Neither are 24/7 kink relationships. However, reality is different from fantasy and there is a fair amount of nuance in how this works in the context of a LTR and not a fun weekend.

That’s what I was referring to about very few handguns. It was all wood stock rifles and shotguns. And, this was among conservative rural types. We’re in a very different place now.

Deep south born and raised, it’s changed in the last twenty years, but guns used to be a fun tool. Most people owned long guns with much fewer handguns. Guns were for hunting, varmint management, and plinking. City folk don’t really get it. Shotgun in the corner of the living room is normal.

I have an acquaintance from West Virginia that is similar. They’re also a non-binary, super queer, sexually sadistic top. We met in the BDSM community.

$4.99 for 100ea on Etsy, showing as a ‘hot’ item and bestseller. I doubt we’ll see them in the quantities we saw the Biden stickers but it’s pretty funny.

Are they acually called pufflings? (pretty great if they are)

You dirty rat. You put that under the spoiler tag to sucker me into looking at that unholy thing.

I should not have clicked. It could have been something nice like tubgirl or goatse.

It’s an old saying, longer version I know is:

“Saddest thing in the world is a cat scratching at the window because it used to be an inside cat.”

After a foray into consulting and plant management, I’m back in the shop working with my hands and programming. My favorite part of the trade is teaching kids. (Enough grey in my beard that anyone under 30 is a kid). I could make more money doing other things but I don’t need the stress.

I hope I’m able to work until I die, even if I ‘retire’. I’ve begun learning Blender and mixing it with CAD so that I can do sculpture.

I love the smell of black cutting oil.