Fashion

"Wait until something happens."

Reason for various restrictions on saying things was so that I wouldn't say anything that seemed helpful. If I ask a question, is it helpful?

Remembered a song, I think used in Polzie: The True Story. That, or Gegon: Ovski Strikes Back, or Gegon: Clash of the Ovski.

Lyrics: "long time ago, you failed to lie. Now the emptiness is <verb> you inside." (Might have misheard these lyrics.)

Is it correct to say that communication is about determining what someone wants, and then whether you can and are willing to give them that?

If so, then there might be a fundamental problem with my communications with other people. I don't expose what I want, so how can someone give it to me?

Or you could say, what I want is for other people to be happy. Maybe this is what they want, as well. But I don't have a good answer for how to accomplish that, only uncertain guesses, and someone who thinks of communication as being about what people want wouldn't learn much from talking to me.

I want Demi Rose to be happy. I linked the video for the song, 'vanished the life -notreborn', in which a cat makes someone happy, despite disappearing for some time.

What I meant, but did not clearly say, was that, "I am like that cat. I have vanished for a while. Now I am with you. I might vanish, and I might return to you, or I might not." It was about conflict: "There might be someone else who likes me, but she has not admitted it, or her actions have contradicted words said in the past, so I cannot say for certain whether she likes me. If you also like me, you might encounter conflict."

If people think of liking someone as potentially a bad thing, then one should not casually state that one person likes another person. Even if two people liking each other is seen as fine, most people think it's bad for a third person to like one of those two people.

Long explanation of the significance of the type of songs used in Polzie: The True Story, compared to the type of songs used in Gegon: Clash of the Ovski.

Assuming I didn't mishear the lyrics: "long time ago, you failed to lie". Why would telling the truth lead to someone having a worse outcome?

People like to reward telling the truth precisely because it's often more rewarding to lie.

If a relationship ended or had problems because someone told the truth, why would they want to resume that relationship?

Would it be because they told the truth, "I am a bad person", or because they told the truth, "I am a good person"?

During my last year of high school, I wore pajama (wins over pyjama due to etymology) pants (wins over trousers due to description of shopping result) to school, as well as a loose necktie. I had stopped participating in religious activities, which saved me around 8 hours per week, so this was my only chance to use the assortment of ties I owned. I was probably combining this with the type of garment known as an aloha shirt: something which normally does not benefit from a tie, as it already has colorful patterns.

Characteristics of fashion:

- Higher consumption of products, which means both higher employment of textile workers and higher waste

- Creates a different goal for people, as with other types of art

- Can be difficult to do correctly, with a general audience being the judge of success, not a specialized audience

Does being interested in fashion make a person more attractive? Does it lead to a higher chance of achieving the goals that a person tends to feel are important?

Polzie was able to suggest that different goals were important without relying on fashion. In fact, her ability to control the appearance of her character was limited: she was probably just using the most powerful items she had access to, regardless of what they looked like.

A few days ago, I remembered where "is dead now" came from. A search reveals that I said this about the leader of Boko Haram, on 02 Aug 2025, and I also said it about Abe Shinzo on 06 Sep 2026. (A search for "he is dead now" did not find this post, only "is dead" found it.)

This phrasing is what the female from Yemen, who is older than 饱饱兔 (who has added a dot in front of her name) and who escaped her forced marriage, said about other young brides who could not stand their situation and threw themselves into the sea or burned themselves to death. (I donated a small amount of my COVID-19 stimulus money to her foundation and got a thank-you email.)

Several polls, and solutions to various problems, that aren't related to the topic of this post. I don't want to imply that anyone should have waited three days since the previous post for me to post this one, so I am not including those things.

I really don't plan things: I said if Ariana doesn't share this idea, she thinks I wouldn't be attractive enough to be in a relationship with her. She did a certain thing a day ago that suggests she knows of this idea. If she doesn't share it, two possibilities: I'm not attractive. Or I am attractive, but Ariana thinks I'm not because she's stupid. Which of these interpretations would I prefer and base subsequent actions and statements on?

This is not the "next post" I promised to publish. That one is currently scheduled to be published on 30 Sep 2027 (in case I die). Other than that post, I won't post again unless I think that someone who is not involved in a government conspiracy will read it within a week of it being published.

Updates to Happy birthday

This seems like it might be worth publishing for two reasons: Douyin is no longer withholding 720p for a new private browsing window. And the question at the end might be helpful as an explanation for some events. Note variations of the question: "are rich people who push the button bad?" "If rich people are 80% of the population, are rich people who push it bad?" "If the effects are flipped, and poor people who push it are safe while rich people who push it take a risk, are poor people who push it bad?"

___

Update 06 Oct 2026, 10:46

It's definitely cheating to update this post after 05 Oct.

Tested the Douyin restriction on 720p last night. It isn't an anti-bot measure. It activated if the first page viewed was a video page, and stayed active even if other pages were viewed. It didn't activate if the first page viewed was a profile, or the jingxuan page, or even a v.douyin.com link to a video page.

I have rarely encountered this restriction because I often have checked the profiles of 饱饱兔 and 9玥、 before I started downloading videos I had bookmarked. This restriction tells me that I should always do so. Occasional restrictions I have encountered in the past: the first video page I visit failing to load, giving a network error message, and dumping me to the main page as though the video has been deleted, when it has not; and one time when a lot of videos were failing to load this way, even when the same video worked when it was clicked on in recommended videos, but videos that did not involve dancing were loading just fine (after a delay).

This restriction on 720p is completely separate from the quality restriction that is applied for free users during the evening in China (which for me, is around 4 am). When I encountered that a few days ago, many videos were restricted to 540p, but one user's videos were still available in 1080p; maybe it was based on bitrate or filesize. Videos with green plants in sunlight can use 5x the bitrate of videos with a wall as the background.

Well, after spending half an hour deciding what to say about Douyin: dream that involved fires. I remember a lot of it, though I almost forgot it entirely when I woke up, but all I'll say is that at one point I did put out a few grass flames with my foot or something, and it sort of transitioned into trying to help an alien that turned into a cat or cats.

It wouldn't be notable, except that when I was in the US National Guard, which is a reserve component of the US military, I had firefighting training. And I don't remember if I learned anything at all about fighting fires in it. I got firefighting boots from it ($100+ value), which I had to abandon next to a hotel's trash can about a week before I created this site, due to having too much stuff. There was a test of physical ability, because they didn't want anyone fighting fires who was weak: walking three miles in 45 minutes, I think it was, a pace of 4 miles per hour (6.4 km/h). It probably did not even involve carrying anything (but there were hills, which meant feet sliding around in boots and causing blisters). Some people could not sustain that pace. I ran the last portion because I was in danger of failing, even though someone was next to me shouting, "don't run!"

Turtle, or rabbit?

___

Update 06 Oct 2026, 13:41

"Note: this is a technique called, 'Making yourself look smart by implying that the question is obvious, and that anyone who is confused as to what the question is actually asking, is stupid.'"

Germanwings Flight 9525: note that Lufthansa paid €75,000 to the family of each victim, while Libya paid an average of over $7 million to the family of each person who was on Pan Am Flight 103. The silence in the cockpit. Poor people don't fly much.

Poll: something about if rich people did an unethical thing, but also made it so a lot of poor people also did the thing or benefited from it, would people criticize people who do the unethical thing.

There were a lot of passenger plane accidents in the 2014~2020 period. The plane shot down by Iran; 'ukraine plane shot down by iran' returned an article from 23 hours ago, as well as one from three years ago and Wikipedia. And MH17. Second result for 'plane shot down over ukraine' is this.

But these were normal commercial airlines, other than the Russian military plane with the musicians and dancers, and the event that killed Yevgeny Prigozhin, which Wikipedia calls a "crash" but was probably an explosion. What I'm trying to suggest is that rich people were not affected by these events. Rich people are not immune to laws; there was the Russian billionaire who died in prison, and the Chinese billionaire or rich person who was executed.

But, with the 'button that allows you to be happy': if flying on a plane is a way to be happy that carries a small risk of death, then it's like the button that poor people have, not the button that rich people have. Are poor people who press the button bad?

Happy birthday, _____

"Don't be bad and you won't look bad."

I criticize the streaming culture of Douyin. Mainly, I criticize it because it might not be rewarding. 饱饱兔 @SuperSG15 only has 10~15 viewers in her livestream right now, and she sometimes wins in the PK battles, so the people she talks to might not have many more than that. In her current conversation with three other people, she has three times as many followers as the second-most-followed person.

My friend Laura is an accountant. She described her job as balancing numbers to reach zero, implying that she wasn't doing anything useful. But she gets paid for it.

Some jobs, like coal mining, can be harmful to one's health. Talking to people isn't harmful. But one of the few words I recognize is 哥哥, "elder brother". It's sometimes neutral The videos I was thinking of use the nickname, '杯頭哥':

2016 0529跳跳糖(小卉 棠棠 vivi )&杯頭哥 水里三鎮宮龍德堂 太平受山宮謁祖熱舞

2016 0818跳跳糖Pop Candy 棠棠 果果 杯頭哥 彰化果菜市場熱舞 8

20160522 花壇 慈鳳宮 Lady's ft. Battle哥 (痴情玫瑰花)

20160522 花壇 慈鳳宮 Lady's ft. Battle哥 (New Thang remix)

Example of genuine use to mean older brother: 【ENGSUB】Back to the Great Ming EP01-09 collection

It's very similar to the use of 오빠 oppa in Korean, like at the start of the Little Apple music video, or in the lyrics for Oh! by SNSD (Girls' Generation) and 오빠오빠 by Bambino.

饱饱兔 was just showing her three dogs and cat, and a brief view of outside.

So anyway, the 'gangster' female character in Squid Game season 1. She uses "oppa" to act cute, even though other people consider her too old to be cute.

Was actually thinking about whether this would make a good question, a few days ago: if there was a certain amount of money that could only be given away to someone you don't personally know, would it be better if one person had that money, or if it was split between many people?

There are many stories from China where a male gave too much money to a streamer. It's only a story if the male ends up poor: if someone gives away 1 million USD, but still has 50 million USD, it's not a story. If he gives away 50k USD and as a result is too poor to get married, it's a story worth reporting on.

 

Tl;dr: streaming gameplay, and talking about the gameplay or about other topics, makes sense to me. Just streaming talking doesn't make sense to me, even though many extremely popular streamers do this, as well as smaller viewers.

I have been listening to 饱饱兔's stream for 2.5 hours now. She has 12 viewers, just finished the call with three other people, now 8 viewers, and I am closing her stream.

My oldest sister said in 2012, in response to the email about the first petition, that she didn't believe in the dichotomy between good and evil. I think there are definitely things that are bad to do. When the recent war between the US and Iran started, I assumed that it was the US that killed Iran's religious leader. I noted how, a few days later, US President Trump talked about that leader's death by saying that he was a bad person, or something.

Some time later, I learned that it was Israel that conducted the strike that killed that religious leader along with several of his relatives, including a grandchild. Since the US has an executive order banning assassinations, it would have been worse if the United States had carried out this action than if Israel did it.

The 2016 Russian plane crash was suspicious due to its timing, on Christmas — a day when people expect to be happy — and I felt that it could have been a deliberate action, despite that no public statements have been made by anyone about this. Wikipedia says, "All materials of the investigation are classified."

On 25 Dec 2016, the Islamic State still had considerable influence, MH370 was still missing, the Chibok girls were still in captivity, sporadic fighting with Ukrainian military was still occurring on the border of the Donetsk People's Republic ("The Russo-Ukrainian war began in February 2014 and is ongoing."), billions of people wanted good jobs (1, 2, 3, 4, I have not read any of these), carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was at 400 ppm, and the world had about 55 cubic kilometers of oil in the ground more than it does now.

And if the Egyptian and Russian governments lied, and Metrojet Flight 9268 had survivors, then they were in captivity as well.

Did it make sense for people to be happy on the day that non-Russian countries celebrate as Christmas?

When I saw a new post on Ariana's account, I had already decided to delay before I saw that it was from @r.e.m.beauty. If 饱饱兔 was not streaming, I think I would have succeeded in not saying anything.

___

Update 05 Oct 2026, 13:50

Impressive AI drama: 《隐秘的力量》 第一天来韩国贵族学院，川妹儿表示：什么财阀不财阀的，我只想好好学习！#ai短剧 #ai韩剧 #韩剧 #AI创作浪潮计划 #剧情

The way the males move at 2:45 gives them a lot of character. Facial expressions at 2:51 are also good, with subtle widening of the eyes (and ear moving?), as well as the professional "close eyes while turning the head" look.

When I checked a video on Douyin in a new private window, it only gave the 540p option (576x1024). Had to start with other activity, visiting a profile and then the jingxuan (精选) main page, to seem less like a bot to get 720p.

Question: filmed live, and AI copied movements? Difference between characters on ground at 4:01 and 4:10 suggests not. The series has only two videos, and second video has just 1/10 the likes of the first video (but maybe it's very recent).

It seems unlikely a Korean person would make a series where the main female character is a Chinese person who thinks to herself in Chinese. Rather, it's made by, and for, Chinese fans of Korean dramas. Note that the Chinese thoughts are given Korean subtitles.

First comment when I viewed it:

冷知识，四川比韩国大 (6 upvotes)

Highly-rated comment:

剧名 来自四川的你 (652 upvotes)

I think this is a joke, based on some popular drama with a similar premise.

There are several comments like this one:

像《漂亮的恶意》，建模说实话不好看

About the characters: at 0:35, I thought "another typical drama where everyone is attractive." But the two female enforcers at 1:44 are made to be less attractive, like with their shoes, and the rude males at the store are definitely not intended to be attractive. I don't care how the main characters look, which is what these comments seem to be about.

Even though I said I wouldn't watch any dramas, I still watched all of this 5-minute AI drama episode. I didn't translate everything that was said.

___

Update 05 Oct 2026, 23:50

Poll: "Aliens ban all fighting, even when someone steals your favorite crayon. Does the world get better or worse?"

Explain like I'm five: "I want more stuff. Why is it hard for me to get a job making stuff, so I can make stuff for myself and other people who want stuff?"

If you understand economics, you should be able to answer this. Actually curious what an 'AI' would say to it.

The song Faded by Alan Walker: has a high number of views, is relevant to the 'evil supercomputer' question. Songs with similar messages: Late in Autumn by fripSide, 嘘とダイヤモンド by GUMI.

Actually, that question could be a poll.

- Because elites hate you

- Another reason

- I also want to know

Why is this question about making stuff important? Why is the 'evil supercomputer' question important?

Solved a mystery

饱饱兔 @SuperSG15 had 30 videos for over a week. Her video count went down to 29 yesterday and 28 today.

This was because 02 Oct, I spent a few minutes watching a live stream of calligraphy. (Most of it was spent with my screen frozen, since I had too many tabs open and it made my system use swap space.)

Calligraphy, Douyin live 南星 @27127971091 Screenshot from 2026-10-02 00-48-30.png

Calligraphy, Douyin live 南星 @27127971091 Screenshot from 2026-10-02 00-48-51.png

Calligraphy, Douyin live 南星 @27127971091 Screenshot from 2026-10-02 00-49-32.png

Calligraphy, Douyin live 南星 @27127971091 Screenshot from 2026-10-02 00-49-56.png

Calligraphy, Douyin live 南星 @27127971091 Screenshot from 2026-10-02 00-50-00.png

Calligraphy, Douyin live 南星 @27127971091 Screenshot from 2026-10-02 00-50-06.png

New YouTube side ad, no recommended videos, Screenshot from 2026-10-03 14-11-25.png

I think it's harmful if this continues: after a month, she would have no videos left. So, I am acknowledging that I watched part of a Douyin live stream, even though I said that I would not.

If she wants to avoid a situation where I see that she's streaming, but I don't watch the stream, then she can't stream at all, because I check her account at unpredictable times of the day.

Original post, saved 03 Oct 2026 at 02:26:

'conflicts in ethical orientation, 03 Oct 2026.txt':

"Blondes have more fun."

Would not be an expression if not for dying hair. This possibility turns the statement from an observation, into a recommendation.

Autumn had dyed blonde hair 13 years ago.

A few days ago, watched an early practice video from Black Pink. A highly-rated comment said that a certain member with dyed blonde hair seemed to outshine the other members with her dancing. Was it actually better dancing, or was it the aura from her hair color?

<deleted examples>

Link: sometimes, an observer may not realize that a person's hair color is not its natural color. So it's sort of like lying.

A question I was thinking about recently; it didn't seem useful, but it illustrates the situation. "Suppose that there are two patterns of ethical behavior, A and B. You exhibit B, but all the people you might be interested in exhibit pattern A. Would you be willing to change how you act to be in a relationship with someone?"

In 'Danger of monocultures', there are two obvious patterns of behavior: "do try to fix problems", and "don't try to fix problems".

There are also less obvious patterns: "do good things when there's no reward", and "don't do good things when there's no reward".

Two people could both be trying to fix problems, but one does it for the rewards, while the other disregards the rewards.

And then there are the patterns: "act in the way that appears to be moral", and "don't act in the way that appears to be moral".

These patterns are a bit different because morality includes many hidden things, i.e. lies. Again, Sun Tzu's Art of War points out that "all warfare is based on deception" so commanders don't think, "it would be immoral for me to use deception in war". There are limits to deception in war; the German merchant raider that deceived an Australian warship into getting close with a false identity, before exposing her true identity just before she initiated combat. And the rules about soldiers wearing their official uniforms during any operations, or else they are not protected by the laws of war that forbid executing enemies who surrender.

But many deceptive practices cannot be forbidden for practical reasons. A tactical or strategic feint. A merchant ship transmitting a radio signal that it is being attacked, that complicates rules about a submarine allowing a ship's crew to get to safety in lifeboats before sinking the ship.

If many people in society have pattern A, and many have pattern B, how to know which pattern a particular person believes is the ethical one? How to know whether they are using the pattern they believe to be the most ethical one?

The question about whether it's ever acceptable for a boyfriend to lie to his girlfriend can also be applied to females. The Japanese story about a female who married a male, but he wasn't allowed to ask her about her past or something, and when he did, she had to leave him. In the story, she's a fox or something, but one could imagine that it follows a pattern of a female who believes in the patterns "do try to fix problems" and "do good things when there's no reward", but who also follows the pattern "don't act in the way that appears to be moral".

And so she assumes that it's ok for her to lie and imply that she really follows the pattern "don't try to fix problems", up until the male reveals that he follows the pattern, "act in the way that appears to be moral", which means she can no longer lie about having the pattern, "don't try to fix problems".

The story, East of the Sun and West of the Moon could be seen as similar, just with the genders reversed. During the day the male is a bear: unattractive, just like patterns of behavior that don't involve helping other people are unattractive. But at night, secretly, he is attractive: he does want to help people, he just pretends not to. The female was instructed not to look at the male at night: a rule, and rules are meant to be followed. So her act of looking suggested she was following the pattern, "don't act in the way that appears to be moral". Presumably in conflict with what he was doing.

I think I've mentioned both of these stories before. Maybe in an email.

Why I act like this idea isn't important: there is another reason. You could say that I exhibit the pattern, "don't act in the way that appears to be moral".

I've suggested before that I follow the pattern, "do try to fix problems", and that Mei might not. I mentioned how I only posted on general forums in World of Warcraft, in 2005 to 2006, and she probably only posted on realm forums. General forums included the suggestions forum; I posted frequently there (copies of the same posts I made elsewhere), while I would guess that Mei never did.

But she might just not have had any good suggestions about how to improve World of Warcraft. Even if she was in college and I was not, she was still only 15 years old. She had compared herself to Ayanami Rei, a character from Neon Genesis Evangelion who appears to have an important role in saving the world. Rei can be compared to a male character of about the same age, who doesn't want to help with saving the world. It would probably be fair to say he exhibits the attitude, "don't try to fix problems". While Rei exhibits "do try to fix problems", as well as "do good things when there's no reward" (as seen, for example, in the state of her apartment).

It was my estimation, ~22 years ago, that Elyse could be said to exhibit the pattern, "don't try to fix problems". For example, after she sent me a letter that contained a few crossed-out mistakes and a $5 See's candy gift certificate (that I never used, but was lost at some point), I mailed her one or two books from Terry Pratchett. (I also mailed one or two to Hanna; I'm not sure whom I sent two books.) Pratchett's books are basically about the mistakes that people make, and it's important to understand people's mistakes to be able to fix problems. The book Jingoism was about war; is war something that people want to happen, or something they would prefer didn't happen? Elyse never said anything about the books I sent her.

There's also the question I asked her about the meaning of the word "emergency".

The point is, if Elyse exhibited the attitude, "don't try to fix problems", and Mei exhibited the attitude, "do try to fix problems", then I could make myself compatible with Mei and incompatible with Elyse if I had the attitude, "do try to fix problems".

But Mei never replied to any of the mass emails I sent about this idea. Is that really the behavior of someone who is trying to fix problems?

I would say that Elyse exhibits the pattern, "act in the way that appears to be moral".

So, at the end of this long explanation, if I exhibit "don't act in the way that appears to be moral", then it implies I am incompatible with Elyse. In other words, she didn't harm me by marrying someone else, because she never could have married me.

I had said to Elyse in 2005 that we could only ever be friends in the future. But sometimes smart people make mistakes.

What if the pattern of behavior that I exhibit, "don't act in the way that appears to be moral", is only an act? What if I really believe in "act in the way that appears to be moral"? Then it cannot justify an incompatibility between me and Elyse.

Two major types of incompatibility: moral incompatibility, and large differences in attractiveness.

It would be much easier for me if there was someone who was interested in me who exhibited "do try to fix problems". Then there could be an explanation for why I preferred to be in a relationship with them, instead of Elyse. But if there is anyone who might be interested in me, they are exhibiting "don't try to fix problems".

I wrote this for two reasons: over 100k people die every day.

And Ariana made a post on Instagram. This is one those things I say to myself: "if a certain person does X, I will do Y." The reason not to do Y is basically that Ariana is from the United States. The MI: Fallout movie, for those who missed it, was basically about how Ethan could be making the world worse with his actions. Scenes like the map navigation scene, that I linked a month or two ago, supported the plausibility of this: if someone can't use a navigation tool, how likely are they to be able to know which choices will lead to the best results for the world? Is this post the same, making the world worse than if I did nothing?

@9玥、 and @饱饱兔 are maybe giving their opinions. But I'm afraid of misinterpreting what they do. Language communicates a lot of information. Most of the sentences in this post are unique, never before having been written by anyone.

But, consider: @9玥、 did not post any videos for a day, on 30 Sep. Then on 01 Oct, she posted one video on both of her accounts. (Dates are approximate; using my local timezone.) I had been hesitant to check her account multiple times per day or at an unpredictable time, but on 01 Oct I checked her accounts, as well as @饱饱兔, Yara's, and Ariana's, multiple times. If @9玥、 was not posting any videos, then I would not be obtaining extra information about the exact time she posted videos by checking her account multiple times. But towards the end of 01 Oct, around 22:00, @9玥、 had posted a video on each account and @饱饱兔's video count went down by one.

Did this happen I checked their accounts multiple times? Or did it happen because Ariana had created a pattern of fashion-related posts on 30 Sep and then had no activity on 01 Oct?

If @9玥、 wanted me to do the aforementioned Action Y, would she communicate this by posting a video, or by not posting a video?

The best way for me to know would be to wait for more information. But over 100k people died today, and 100k will die tomorrow, and one of them could be someone I know, or know of and care about. (If I'm not sure if someone knows I exist because they have never tried to unambiguously communicate with me, it's hard to say that I know them.)

I checked Ariana's account at midight and saw that she had posted. (She preserved the pattern of fashion-related posts, by rearranging her photos.) I had thought that I would check other people's accounts at 02:00, then I saw that my phone's alarm was already set for 12:00 and decided I could delay until then. It is now past 02:00. What should I do?

Should I post this?

Thinking vs waiting

failed search: "in Inception, why did Cobb wake up in bed before mal after they were killed by the train?"

related: https://geekcaster.com/inception-michael-caine-spoils-what-christopher-nolan-revealed-about-the-ending/

"Mal was't actually in the same shared dream as Cobb, and that's why she doesn't remember growing old with him. He incepted himself with the idea that he incepted Mal" and "from the perspective of the viewers, the entire film is a shared dream, and so it's all equally unreal. People wake up from the dream when the movie ends, but they still remember it."


03 Oct 2026
what did I answer after I asked, "why post anything at all?" I can't remember

I could say "If anyone I care about dies between now and people using the idea, I die too", but I'm not saying it

Poll: "If a person that you know did a good thing that they are not currently doing, would you be harmed?"

"I will publish the next weblog post if Ariana breaks the formation of fashion-related posts."

Poll: "Who do you trust most in an advertisement for a product? All of them are smiling."
slightly ugly male
attractive male
slightly ugly female
attractive female

Poll: "Is it controversial to say that there are major problems that won't be fixed if people become more religious?"

Poll: "Should people who receive financial help from the government and aren't royalty have a lower quality of life?"

Poll: "Do people who are in prison in China suffer more than people in prison in the US, or less?"

Poll: "If two people don't have compatible personalities, does it mean that they don't agree on how much they should help each other, or how much they should help other people?"


04 Oct 2026
"The reason I said I was happy when (or "that") Demi Rose's dad died was that she seemed to be waiting for something to happen. It was something happening. If he had died one day later, it would have been one more day of waiting. It also let me show that I didn't want her to wait for something to happen"

"立ち止まると　少しだけ　感じる切なさに"

Advancements in AI video generation

https://www.douyin.com/video/7682119529962789754

https://www.douyin.com/video/7680974787456253626

https://www.douyin.com/video/7687097582166091435

First video: note left hand at start, image vs generated video. Suggests the video is not 'traced' over the motion of an existing video, but features original movements decided by the AI. The second and third videos do copy the movements of another video (note cage in front of door, probably real background).

Didn't download anything from Douyin from 20 Sep to 26 Sep. On 26 Sep, Douyin was restricting videos based on headers. The site still worked fine; trying to open a video in a new tab gave an error. Trying to download with wget also gave an error. To download videos, I had to copy the 'curl' command in Firefox, from a right-click on the URL for a resource in the Network tab of developer tools. I had to develop new commands to process this URL:

 ffplay $fd x; read -p "id? " id; [ -n "$id" ] && echo description? && read -e desc && x=${desc//*( )#*( )/ #} x=${x## } title="$u $x [douyin $id].mp4"; ffprobe x && mv -iv x "$title" && ffplay $fd "$title" #Douyin, reuse title, don't overwrite if bad url, consistent #spacing. Use curl, add '> x;' to start, remove Range header

 time while sleep 0.4; do clip="$(xclip -o -selection c 2>/dev/null||sleep 30)"; echo "${clip:0:10}"|grep -q curl && clip=" ${clip/"-H 'Range: bytes="*\'}"; echo "$clip"|grep -q "v.douyin" && clip="${clip% http*}" clip="${clip:28}"; [ -n "$clip" ] && echo -n "$clip" |xclip -i -selection c -q 2>/dev/null && echo cleared "$clip"; done #isolate description from Douyin link from V, clears clipboard on interrupt. Remove Range header, make safe for wildcards

Now, Douyin no longer gives an error message. When it was giving the error message, how many people were affected? Everyone, or just me? It might have been an attempt to stop me, specifically, from downloading videos. I mention this because it could be viewed as reflecting positively on China, similarly to how I complimented Substack.

Maybe I'm wasting time on Douyin. Or maybe I shouldn't be saying anything here right now, so it's fine to waste time now, but on 26 Sep it was still acceptable for me to say things so I should not have been wasting time then (as with the posts that were originally scheduled to be published on 30 Sep).

To Ariana Grande-Butera

Plan was simple. Procrastinate. I should have waited three days without doing anything, from 25 Sep. I had three options:

1) Do what I said, when I said I would
2) Wait another three days
3) Wait an indeterminate amount of time

So I was going to wait until someone acted differently (option 3). @9玥、's video count has been increasing by 1 per day on both of her accounts since 26 Sep. If this pattern varies, then it could mean that she is trying to communicate something.

But of course I'm messing it up, just 30 minutes after midnight.

First, I'm throwing shade: Ariana is the 7th-most-followed Instagram account, with 362 million followers. This is more than any account on TikTok, Douyin, or Facebook, and only MrBeast has more subscribers than this on YouTube.

But her posts only get 500k to 2m likes. A Chinese actress (actor) has 22m followers, a video with 13m likes, and 3~6m likes on typical videos (F for Videos tab).

I think that on some platforms, accounts get boosted by bots. Not by intention, but just because following popular accounts helps the bots evade detection. Wikipedia has old follower counts, though this just shows all accounts going up. I don't know any well-known people who have been withdrawn from public life for a fair comparison.

I'm basically commenting on three posts: stuck in an elevator, a post with lyrics, some of which are from the song freak, and closing night memories posted by @teamariana.

What I see in these photos: people, both male and female, who are not trying to fix problems.

Most likely, most people in the world would say that they aren't trying to fix problems.

I checked the lyrics to petal to see if they were the words in the post, and this line,

'Cause this music and I will never die

made me think of the novel, Soul Music, and the real-life plane crash that the novel's plot refers to, I guess. I probably read the novel in like 1998, but I can still confidently say that the character Buddy valued being famous more than being alive.

Based off of just the lyrics in the post, I had been going to say something like, "No matter who you are, most people in the world don't care about you. You should always be trying your hardest to get what you want, without apology." But from the lyrics to petal,

'Cause all of my favorite stories
End in some kind of catastrophe

The poll about the evil supercomputer. I'll copy here it:

"An evil supercomputer with a power level that's over 9000 enforces a rule: if two people fall in love, they will be separated for 20 years. It's like a military family moving away, but all communication including texting is disallowed. This can only happen to a person once; after that, they are safe. No one has yet found a way to destroy the evil supercomputer. What would society say is moral: to wait 20 years, or to find someone else to love?"

How would you respond?