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@aldebrn.me
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“Humans are weird. I try, really I do, to get you guys. But I’ve got golden-age tech from a half dozen civilizations on this station, and y’all burned them down rather than just relax and enjoy it.” —Argus, *Kitty Cat Kill Sat*
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aldebrn.me
Paula Gunn Allen, “Kochinnenako in Academe: Three Approaches to Interpreting a Keres Indian Tale,” North Dakota Quarterly (Spring 1985, pybarra.weebly.com/uploads/6/8/...)

(Cited by Barbara Alice Mann in *Iroquois Women*. 🥺)
…such an analysis can provide strategies for ameliorating the effects of patriarchal colonialism, enabling many of the tribes to reclaim their ancient gynarchical, egalitarian, and sacred traditions. (In a system where all persons in power are called mother chief and where the supreme deity is female, and where social organization is matrilocal, matrifocal, and matrilineal, gynarchy is happening. However, it does not imply domination of men by women as patriarchy implies domination by males of all aspects of a society.)
December 26, 2025 at 11:47 PM
aldebrn.me
My mind liquifying as I learn that a pro-women, anti-rape culture as big and well-documented as the polity & peoples of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy existed, and was aghast at European cultures' complete saturation with misogyny and abuse

(Barbara Alice Mann in *Iroquoian Women: The Gantowisas*)
The furor surrounding the use of "squaw" points to the most profound cultural divide between the Haudenosaunee and the Europeans, the meaning of "woman." To Christian Europeans past and present, the connotations of "woman" smack of sexuality, weakness, evil, inferiority. For a man to be called a woman is an insult. To the Iroquois, past and present, "woman" connotes high status. ability, goodness, intelligence Gantowisas is a coveted designation not restricted to women; traditional men proudly accepted ceremonial appointments as gantowisas. Entire Nations such as the Lenâpé have been "made woman," meaning-as the Lenâpé explained the position to John Heckewelder in the mid-eighteenth century—that they had been asked to "assume the station of mediators and umpires among their warlike neighbors." Paul Wallace was correct that the word gantowisas "directs attention, not to any supposed frailty in the gentler sex, but to woman's official status in the Iroquois world." Chief Deskaheh held that it meant woman "in the highest sense;" to be called gantowisas, he said, was "a compliment." These two mindsets could not have been farther apart, and the European-Iroquoian clash of cultures over the definition of womanhood was to have crippling results. European males, not knowing what to make of commanding women—let alone, of men proudly wearing their ceremonial skirts and carrying their honorary compounders! introduced a major skew into the written record of Iroquoia. Nonplussed by powerful Haudenosaunee women, the earliest European record-keepers, men all, studiously ignored the gantowisas. Those women who could not be ignored were denigrated as outrages against "nature," ridiculed as "old hags" or "witches" and. whenever possible, disempowered by European men."' Officers of the various invading crowns felt deeply threatened by the ethical challenge that powerful female officials of an egalitarian government offered the male-dominated hierarchies of Europe, while… (clipped) This sketch was wildly-and pejoratively-inaccurate in just about every detail. Haudenosaunee men did not have multiple wives, although, to be sure, Seneca women might take more than one husband at their pleasure. In addition, the lodge in question would have belonged to the longhouse Clan Mother, not any man. Then again, Parkman's presentation of all Native men as "warriors" was militaristic jingoism, part of the nineteenth-century projection of the warlike disposition of the Europeans onto the Native Americans. In fact, Haudenosaunee men's important socia] roles existed outside of warfare, with their careers in war occurring as the earliest and lowest step of their social and political advancement Furthermore, Haudenosaunee men would never have dreamed of beating their wives. They were appalled by this European custom and intervened on behalf of abused settler women whenever they dared. Mary Jemison (1742-1833), the famed Seneca adoptee, recalled that her second husband, the Seneca Hiokatoo, "exasperated at the sight of so much inhumanity" when he saw a settler violently beating his wife, stepped in and threatened the man with his tomahawk, forcing him to desist.4 The large number of female adoptees who, like Jemison, flatly refused to return to "civilization" made their choice in no small measure due to the safe, secure, and gentle lives they led with their Native husbands. Most importantly of all, Haudenosaunee men never, ever raped, contrary to Parkman's snide insinuation of a quid pro quo deal: "I won't beat you as long as you spread your legs for me." The no-rape policy of the Haudenosaunee is well documented, and was even in Parkman's time James Fenimore Cooper learned as much from John Heckewelder, and emphasized it in his popular Leather-Stocking Tales; the suffragettes knew as much, and publicized it in their critique of Christian European sexism, and modern historians are also perfectly aware of the fact. 4l The moral slap that Europe felt … (clipped)
December 24, 2025 at 8:23 PM
aldebrn.me
He claimed it was "impossible" for a customer to ask for higher prices+slower delivery, when, now *and* back in 2012, I was asking for just that: slower greener delivery, higher prices for more sustainable products.

We canceled Prime & haven't missed it. I am more than happy to paying for shipping.
[I]n our retail business, we know that customers want low prices, and I know that’s going to be true 10 years from now. They want fast delivery; they want vast selection. It’s impossible to imagine a future 10 years from now where a customer comes up and says, “Jeff, I love Amazon; I just wish the prices were a little higher.” “I love Amazon; I just wish you’d deliver a little more slowly.” Impossible.
December 24, 2025 at 7:58 PM
aldebrn.me
The Boeing 787 has a much better-designed ventilation system that can’t vent jet engine exhaust into the cabin per www.wsj.com/business/air... but alas, it too had terrible CO2 concentration. Unless the plane disinfects cabin air (or you wore skin-tight N95), everyone was breathing everyone’s germs.
Screenshot of Aranet Home app showing carbon dioxide concentration from 3am to 3pm as very high, between 1400 parts per million and 1700 parts per million. Before and after that plateau, it’s low (~700 before and ~500 after, which is fine)
December 24, 2025 at 3:07 AM
aldebrn.me
I couldn't find a software-only version of the CharaCorder X USB dongle so I threw this together, just to see what it felt like. It's sort of like T9 predictive text plus steno-like macro-chording?

It could be a lot better than this, and, I sort of like it?
December 21, 2025 at 5:51 AM
aldebrn.me
I am also a huge fan of the Welchmans' followup animated film *The Peasants* in a similar style, where the animation's keyframes are hand-painted and incredible

I'm not as familiar with the Young Poland school of painting as I wish but I did notice the film's homages to some of its greatest works 🤩
A painting of the dark inside of a small wooden house. A woman sits working at a table, lit by a window, and her reflection is caught by a mirror. The light streams into a neighboring room, which you can see through an open door. A painting of two distraught women outside on a farm A painting of a small river cutting through golden fields, with a warm blue sky above containing flying geese and puffy clouds A painting of a woman sitting outdoors looking at an egret at sunset, the sky afire with dramatic clouds
December 17, 2025 at 1:51 AM
aldebrn.me
*Loving Vincent* from 2017 left me speechless. Every frame is an impressionist oil painting. Literally a moving painting. An absolute delight.
December 10, 2025 at 3:10 AM
aldebrn.me
*Nobody* was amazing, a moving painting in many scenes!
December 10, 2025 at 3:03 AM
aldebrn.me
Another model of positive masculinity
December 5, 2025 at 2:39 PM
aldebrn.me
Reposting one of my models of positive masculinity
2018 post from @DrSoxion: Someone: "is EVERYTHING toxic masculinity? What's an example of masculinity that ISN'T toxic?" Me: Photo of Sig Curtis and Major Alex Louis Armstrong, two muscle-bound men from Fullmetal Alchemist anime, shaking hands
December 5, 2025 at 2:37 PM
aldebrn.me
Moss Roberts saying “there’s no daily life or domesticity in Romance of the Three Kingdoms” sent me to a list of other genres like chuanqi (short stories) and this collection, “Tang Dynasty Tales: a guided reader, vol. 2” is so my jam—footnotes like a string of jade!

books.apple.com/us/book/tang...
(The Tale of the Supernatural Marriage at Dongting) by Li Chaowei translated by Meghan Cai During the Yifeng reign (676–679), there was a scholar, Liu Yi , who failed the imperial examination and was going to return to the shores of the Xiang [River]. He remembered that there was a native of his township who was sojourning in Jingyang [County], and so he went there to bid him farewell. When he had gone six or seven li [two or three miles] a bird flew up and frightened his horse, which galloped off to the left of the road. Only after another six or seven li did it stop.” There are nine footnotes in this segment! There are also original Chinese characters for several proper names (embedded as images 😒)
November 21, 2025 at 2:46 AM
aldebrn.me
Ah, a note. Thunderbolt Fantasy mostly plays straight the trope where women are either ❶ demons or ❷ "good wife, wise mother"

Even though we have amazing literal demonesses, badass warriors, and questing maidens, they mostly fall into the “in the end, evil” or “in the end, a caregiver” category
Elaborately-dressed swordswoman with long black hair under a tall dashing hat adorned with roses and butterfly wings, and enormous brocade collars around her face. It's Tan Hi aka Dān Fěi ("Vermillion Kingfisher") A woman in ethereal white-and-pastel-purple robes, long white hair in Chun-Li-style double-buns, a cape billowing around her, holding a small blade. It's Katsu Eiraku aka Xiē Yīng Luò ("Scorpion Necklace") A women in a brilliant blue collared dress and long black hair with gold clasps in it, with a blue-and-gold zither on her back, standing in front of raging water It's Mutsu Tenmei aka Mù Tin Mìng ("Harmonious Destiny") A woman with white hair braided and coiled into pointy buns at the side of her head, and bangs interrupted by two thick black horns, wearing richly-embroidered robes that come up into a mask (like a Covid mask) covering her nose and mouth, big green eyes staring icily. It's Uraina aka Wū Lěi Nà.
November 9, 2025 at 4:57 PM
aldebrn.me
25 days later, after four seasons and three films, I finished the main Thunderbolt Fantasy series (there are a few manga and novels). Wow. The art and storytelling grammar of glove puppetry is so fresh, the fantastic Urobuchi plot leaving no trope unsubverted. 5 of 5 stars. To 40 more years of Pili!
Half of an alabaster face, serene half-closed eyes under white swirl eyebrows, long white hair and white robes flying around, saying, "Until we meet again, my friend". It's Byakuren aka Bái Lián.
November 9, 2025 at 4:31 PM
aldebrn.me
I love spring in the Bay 🌸

(Seek says this is India hawthorn aka Hong Kong hawthorn, which are perfect names)
Cluster of beautiful pink semi-double blossoms against lush green leaves.
November 9, 2025 at 3:31 PM
aldebrn.me
I often ask myself the same thing, Mutsu Tenmei.
An elaborately-dressed woman warrior, wearing a blindfold and with an ornate guzheng (zither) strapped to her back, stands in an eerie green fog, saying "Are we really in the Demon Realm?" It's Mutsu Tenmei (aka Mù Tiān Mìng) from Thunderbolt Fantasy.
November 9, 2025 at 6:21 AM
aldebrn.me
Just kidding, my favorite part is definitely Mashiro 🐑 what a boss, friend, partner!

I’d love to read more by Shimizu!!!
A human woman with sheep horns and ears wearing a diagonal-patterned dress and black purse stands in a busy train station looking a bit flustered
October 25, 2025 at 7:03 AM
aldebrn.me
Wesley Robertson (the Japanese slang monthly newsletter person) is coauthor on a new paper analyzing advertisements for men pubic hair removal in 🇯🇵

Fascinatingly, the main machowashing angle is: social responsibility to reduce inconvenience to caregivers when you’re old?
brill.com/view/journal...
Across the 30 websites, we identified four key persuasive discourse patterns as part of their “imaginary dialogue” (Talbot, 2014: 759) with the reader: (1) reducing inconvenience to caregivers as social responsibility; (2) promoting personal hygiene; (3) freedom from self-shaving; and (4) a preference by women for hairless men.
October 24, 2025 at 3:07 PM
aldebrn.me
This is a Night's Lament appreciation account
October 21, 2025 at 4:18 AM
aldebrn.me
I often think about this scathing critique in Anna Wiener's brilliant ethnography of Hacker News in www.newyorker.com/news/letter-... the faux-erudition isn't limited to HN and I try to remind myself to root it out in my own thinking and writing
The site’s now characteristic tone of performative erudition—hyperrational, dispassionate, contrarian, authoritative—often masks a deeper recklessness. Ill-advised citations proliferate; thought experiments abound; humane arguments are dismissed as emotional or irrational. Logic, applied narrowly, is used to justify broad moral positions. The most admired arguments are made with data, but the origins, veracity, and malleability of those data tend to be ancillary concerns. The message-board intellectualism that might once have impressed V.C. observers like Graham has developed into an intellectual style all its own. Hacker News readers who visit the site to learn how engineers and entrepreneurs talk, and what they talk about, can find themselves immersed in conversations that resemble the output of duelling Markov bots trained on libertarian economics blogs, “The Tim Ferriss Show,” and the work of Yuval Noah Harari.
October 19, 2025 at 7:25 PM
aldebrn.me
Who's your favorite Jedi? (Wrong answers only)
October 18, 2025 at 12:02 AM
aldebrn.me
Never liked apocalypse stories but tried "Last of Us" after watching this lecture, "Why apocalypse stories feel different now" www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rvY... and didn't like it either so I was so surprised at how much I liked My Daemon anime! A fantastically well-told story.

9/10.
"My daemon" in pink–purple pastels with the initial "M" shaped by Kento holding Anna A post-apocalyptic Japanese railroad crossing—the brilliant sunset and beautiful autumn colors contrast sharply with the derelict train and building. Kento ducks under the bar to prepare to cross the tracks A surreal scene showing a daemon-encrusted building looming over three small scared kids looking up at it. The soft purple pastels make my heart seize up every time A brilliantly psychedelically-colorful kaiju with an orchid and theater mask face stares at the dazzling gold fish sculpture of Shachihoko (that are found at the top of some Japanese castles like Nagoya Castle and Osaka Castle)
October 16, 2025 at 4:57 PM
aldebrn.me
Because I look at individual stocks so irregularly, a thing I do is instead look at a chart of the name in question divided by the sector, in this case, NFLX÷XLK (XLK is the 70~odd tech companies in the S&P 500)—because often with these headlines, the name moves in line with its sector.

And—
TradingView chart of NFLX/XLK from March to now, with a box highlighting the month of July where the line crashed 17%. Same chart, with a box since Friday showing the collapse is -6.7%.
October 4, 2025 at 9:13 PM
aldebrn.me
Saw on FinViz and my heart dropped

'New: Introducing “Why Is It Moving?” - lightning-fast, AI-driven explanations of stock moves'

⚰️ not them shitting on the entire thesis of "Black Swan" 💀 paying an AI to tell you "Treasuries rise on Hussein capture" in the morning and the opposite by lunchtime 🫣
“TO BE WRONG WITH INFINITE PRECISION We harbor a crippling dislike for the abstract. One day in December 2003, when Saddam Hussein was captured, Bloomberg News flashed the following headline at 13:01: U.S. TREASURIES RISE; HUSSEIN CAPTURE MAY NOT CURB TERRORISM. Whenever there is a market move, the news media feel obligated to give the “reason.” Half an hour later, they had to issue a new headline. As these U.S. Treasury bonds fell in price (they fluctuate all day long, so there was nothing special about that), Bloomberg News had a new reason for the fall: Saddam’s capture (the same Saddam). At 13:31 they issued the next bulletin: U.S. TREASURIES FALL; HUSSEIN CAPTURE BOOSTS ALLURE OF RISKY ASSETS. So it was the same capture (the cause) explaining one event and its exact opposite. Clearly, this can’t be; these two facts cannot be linked. Do media journalists repair to the nurse’s office every morning to get their daily dopamine injection so that they can narrate better?” Excerpt From The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (Incerto) Nassim Nicholas Taleb
October 3, 2025 at 7:13 AM
aldebrn.me
[CW: WW2 war crime.]

Les Grandes Grandes Vacances (2015) has no right to go this hard. It's very much a kids show, but its frank depictions of war, of being a refugee, then running and scattering as Messerschmitts gun down you and your fellow civilians…

Worth the watch—streaming on Prime.
A mom is holding her two young children as the dad puts on a brave smile, "Come on, maybe the war will be over before the end of summer" Big bro is holding little sister, who looks up at him, asking "Tell me, Papa is going to die at war? Like grandpa?" An aerial view of a country road and bridge full of people and carts and wagons. A German fighter is flying down the road and strafing. War crimes. A man, a woman, three children, and a small pig walk down a road in the countryside in the aftermath of the bombing, wrecks of busses and carts. The bright ligne claire style contrasts heavily with the theme.
September 16, 2025 at 3:24 PM
aldebrn.me
Manga page. A black-haired uniformed boy sitting in a chair, looking up befuddled at a girl? (judging by the uniform) wearing a big rectangular cardboard box on their head with cat ears and a hugely-smiling cat face drawn on it, pointing a big gun at his face, her leg up on a desk behind him. The cardboard cat head says "See you in hell, baby!" and she shoots him, "bam!", party poppers going off everywhere as he tries to duck and roll in pain
September 11, 2025 at 2:42 AM