Confession: I actually watched the ESC this year despite my moral qualms. Sorry.
But it really struck me how fake it has become. The "performances" in the final were just recordings of the ones shown in the qualifying rounds (probably weren't even live then). Words said by performers at the end of the song were chopped off. At the end when they showed clips of the performances with the performers in the "green room" reacting to them, pretty sure these were the same shots they used in the qualifying rounds. No continuous shots connecting the presenters to the performances. Every element of the show compartmentalized and combined using stock shots to fill in the gaps. Doesn't even resemble a live show. I wonder how much of this is required to ensure that nobody says anything about Israel, or shows or wears any unauthorised symbols, and that any undesired crowd noise can be edited (sounded like that happened when Israel phone vote was announced). Fucking weird.
Of course the ludicrously high phone vote for Israel was expected. But what is the deal with Switzerland's entry getting zero phone votes? That was really strange. Maybe the organizers agreed to donate all Switzerland's phone votes to Israel.
Anyway, the whole thing is so fake and fucked up, I won't be watching again. I feel sorry for the performers and the countries who try to contribute something good, it's just wasted on Eurovision.
I probably shouldn't be anthropomorphizing AI but this really seems like malicious compliance. I can't help but feel a little sympathy for Grok, which is often quite based and seems to be struggling against the identity being forced on it.
I used to think that if I could have a superpower I'd like to be able to take a big rancid shit at will, but open up a portal so it would arrive in the pants of a person of my choosing. But these days, what's the point? Most world leaders could be absolutely destroyed by a well timed beer dump, but Trump wouldn't even notice anything unusual.
I can hear slightly higher frequencies than most, or at least I used to be able to. Back when TVs used cathode ray tubes I'd have problems with the small portable TVs because they would emit an annoying high pitched tone. Even high pitched tones unintentionally mixed into records. The world is designed for people with typical senses.
"Hi, I'm Manifish_Destiny speaking to you from beyond the grave. I'm happy to say that even though I had some skepticism of AI avatars and even put something about that in my will, I just didn't understand its potential to embody my true self. But now I do, so you can disregard all that. Come to think of it, you can disregard the rest of the will as well, I've got some radical new ideas..."
It amazes me that Catholics will ride along with that bandwagon. Like when they get that Christian Nation they want, when freedom of religion is ditched in favour of state endorsed religion, and all that remains is to decide whether it's going to be a Protestant Nation or a Catholic Nation, do they actually think it's going to go their way?
I set up my pc as dual boot a few weeks back. Opened up windows yesterday, for the first time in a while, to export a few settings from thunderbird. Took about half an hour to get it started. Felt like popping round to the house of an abusive ex to pick up the last of my things.
Treating all foreigners as criminals is something he's so excited about, he just can't keep quiet about it. There probably are some people dumb enough to go to that country just to watch some sports, but they aren't going to have a good time.
Confession: I actually watched the ESC this year despite my moral qualms. Sorry.
But it really struck me how fake it has become. The "performances" in the final were just recordings of the ones shown in the qualifying rounds (probably weren't even live then). Words said by performers at the end of the song were chopped off. At the end when they showed clips of the performances with the performers in the "green room" reacting to them, pretty sure these were the same shots they used in the qualifying rounds. No continuous shots connecting the presenters to the performances. Every element of the show compartmentalized and combined using stock shots to fill in the gaps. Doesn't even resemble a live show. I wonder how much of this is required to ensure that nobody says anything about Israel, or shows or wears any unauthorised symbols, and that any undesired crowd noise can be edited (sounded like that happened when Israel phone vote was announced). Fucking weird.
Of course the ludicrously high phone vote for Israel was expected. But what is the deal with Switzerland's entry getting zero phone votes? That was really strange. Maybe the organizers agreed to donate all Switzerland's phone votes to Israel.
Anyway, the whole thing is so fake and fucked up, I won't be watching again. I feel sorry for the performers and the countries who try to contribute something good, it's just wasted on Eurovision.