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I mean, Elon Musk is a scammer for sure, but this is hilarious...
YouTube, frequently in the ads that pop up, I get one with Elon Musk telling me that I've been selected ... one of 45 people... he doesn't know how, specially selected.
And I know it's a scam, I mean, know, but if I didn't the fact that I've received this ad a few times would tell me...I'm being selected...again and again.
And I've never listened to it to the end, he wants to make me rich, he's just that sort of guy, at which point I'm off listening to or watching the content I came for, but I know people - I mean; how stupid do you have to be to fall for this, yet, here we are, they wouldn't be running it if they weren't making a killing...
Now, at what point does Google/YouTube start becoming responsible for the ads they run?
It's like Facebook, which, while I report any number of their ads - for adult websites, or underaged girls in lingerie asking me to like their photos - who vets these things? I mean, it's the wild west out there, and they seem to put the onus on their customers to report these things - and - who knows if they actually stop running the ads, I think they just stop showing them to the complainer, they probably make too much off of them to be picky, so run adult content, illegal content even, make the money, and hide it when people complain.
I almost feel like I'm being a poor sport about it all...
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This was a small part of E.T.A. Hoffmann's story "The Sandman" - I recognized it instantly.
I actually thought it was an Austrian Folktale - Krampus, after all, but no, this is all Hoffmann...
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And saw this trailer - "Civil War" - link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDyQxtg0V2w.
And I can't help but think we're all being groomed - Another election, less than a year away, and Trump is leading the Polls and the Democrats can't see their way to find a more charismatic leader and Biden doesn't seem to recognize or acknowledge that he's imperiling democracy by not stepping down and providing a more suitable, younger and charismatic replacement.
Anyways, that's the tack we're on and - while I find nothing particularly offensive in Biden, I find his hopes for another term devastating - as will the Democrats.
As will the Entire US of A, but a good lot of them will have voted for it, so there's no tears to be shed for them.
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I'm checking Cendrars, a few words he mentions I'm not precisely sure of.
Start with Teraphim - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teraphim, the sense Cendrars uses is it as if it were an automaton or robot, and the Wiki or Biblical definition seems to vary in the sense used.
Follow with Mazzikim, which leads one to Shedim, Azazel, Naamah, and Asmodeus - the demon personification of lust, as well the King of Gambling in Hell (who knew you could gamble in Hell?), read the Wiki, an interesting figure if ever there was one, a devil in a bottle, and from here the links become unmanageable, I'll be up all night playing this game...
On to the Dybbuk, then Daimon, Daimonic, (because things are never as simple or straightforward as you think...) Tutelary, Keres, Numinous, Harpocrates,...
The gaps in my knowledge are proving painfully apparent.
Coming to the ideas of Spirits of Place, or Genius Loci, Which of course refresh the ideas of Haunting, with of course too many examples to list, and Fairies, Puck, Elves, Ghosts, Japanese Dieties, Cacodemon,...
It is truly never ending. And while some I know - of course, it's interesting to read the references and lore on the Wikipedia Pages, which lead on - and on - and on....
I come across Lévy-Bruhl, who was fascination (Primitive Mentality) - and of course, I'm struck, the Universality of these beliefs, every culture has some corollary or equivalent, curious and curioser...
Coming to, the ideas of Emergence, The Collective Unconscious, (I am familiar, have read Jung, but this is a gold mine...), The idea that the Old Testament Idols refers to foreign Gods - which explains the prohibition against them, but Judaism, as well as Muslim Faith, offer strict injunctions against physical representations of God, and we are starting to go places...
So, a years worth of word golfing in a single evening, checking things I took for granted I understood to find only that I didn't, or my understanding you use some elaboration, and this, just scraping the surface...
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A café acquaintance, artist, hosting a little Xmas card making party at the Art Gallery last week. I'm invited.
And while I really have no need of a "card making" party I might as well go, my rounds of the café's and library are making me a little narrow.
And so Thursday, still smarting from my failed attempts at painting a still life, I'm off to the Gallery.
She's a table set up in the lobby, with perhaps 10 or a dozen adults all gathered around. Most of them seem to know her, she's pretty social saying "Hi" to everyone at the café so I shouldn't be as surprised as I am.
This "Card Making Class", it becomes clear pretty quick, is basically just a Kindergarten for adults, there are scissors you can help yourself to, glue sticks, all manners of wrapping paper and scraps to cut up, card-stock, (No first aid kit, which I'm going to suggest for the next one), and everyone is really working way too hard on this, cutting their perfect little trees out of paint swatches, some of them, it becomes apparent, are pretty talented at cutting Christmas Trees and stamping Snowflakes and arranging their little personalized Xmas greetings.
Me, I only need a couple of cards, and I'm not going to overboard on this, I'm really there to support her Craft Course. And I'm annoyed. Annoyed that other people are taking this so seriously, annoyed that my Bob-Ross Styled painting failed so miserably, and still wondering "Why?", reflecting on the grim incompetence I'm faced with whenever I set up an easel or open a tube of paint, it shouldn't be this way, not a little bit, not at all...
And the thing is I quite enjoy the process, the making, it's merely when I'm confronted with the results that my heart sinks to the pit of my stomach, no, this won't do, this won't do at all...whereas Bob Ross only ever had "Happy Little Accidents" my paintings too often turn into full on abortions; and given the abundance of videos, guides, step-by-step frame-by-frame tutorials how am I still this bad?
Bitterly I'm wondering why this card making class is so simple, there could be rubber stamps, stencils, watercolors, we're at a gallery after all, there should be razor blades, glitter glue, glitter, maybe I'll host my own card-making class...
Why why why so many questions I don't dare to ask....
Meh, I'm done, take my two cards and leave, have to find a couple of unsuspecting victims for my cards, people who'll wonder what three year olds they know who are sending out Xmas cards, they'll figure it out pretty quick, and all my complaining comes down to my inability to see or follow through on the most inane "how-to" of YouTube videos...