Steven's Universe

I spent this weekend babysitting "The Terra". And since it was rainy and miserable the whole time, we ended up spending a lot of it in front of the telly. Watching Steven Universe. Because that's what Terra's into at the moment. Apparently.

While I don't watch a lot of cartoons these days, I have a real soft spot for hand-drawn animation. And even though I'd never really sat down and watched it before, I was still familiar with Steven's reputation for being the "gayest" kids' show ever made. More on that later. Episodes are 10-15 minutes long, which is perfect for today's ADD generation. Each episode contains its own complete story arc, but there's also a single continuous story that runs through the entire thing, so you have to watch them all in order if you want to know what's going on. Heh, it's funny you know; I've read numerous times about how, right up until the 1990s, all of the "market research" said that continuing story-lines were poison for television. Now look at the media landscape. I guess nobody was taking note of the long-running success of daytime soaps, eh?

Anyway, there's this huge backstory to the plot, which gets revealed a little bit at a time; but for the sake of clarity, I'm just going to describe the events of the story in chronological order. Oh, and by the way, I can't imagine anyone here is planning to watch it, but on the off chance that you are, be aware that the rest of this post is going to be pretty spoiler heavy.

So, there's this alien race called "Gems", which are basically sentient rocks with psychic powers. And when I say rocks, I don't mean they're anthropomorphic rock people, I mean they're literally just lumps of rock, about the size of a tennis ball. In order to get around and interact with the world, they project bodies that are basically hard-light holograms. Gems don't have sex, but they are able to "fuse" which means two or more of them coming together to form a single holographic body. This can be done for practical reasons, but it's also the ultimate expression of intimacy within Gem culture. However, since Gem society is rigid, utilitarian, and caste based, intimate relations are frowned upon and fusion between Gems of different castes is seen as an abomination.

Also, while Gems are "technically" sexless, they're all effectively women. Meaning that all Gem on Gem action is pretty much lesbian in nature, which is where the show gets its reputation from.

Anyway, 5000 years ago, Gems colonised Earth, with the intention of using it up, like a disposable resource. However, one high-ranking Gem fell in love with the planet, and led an uprising of all the Gems who were sick to death of the oppressive caste system. They won, and the Earth was left in peace. Fast-forward to today, and all that's left of the rebellion is the leader (Rose) and three of her most loyal followers (Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl); and even after millennia, they're still cleaning up the mess from the uprising, like those people who go around clearing away landmines and cluster-bombs left over from the Vietnam war.

Then Rose falls in love with a human man and decides she wants to have his baby; which she can't do, because she's a rock. So she somehow takes a piece of his essence and uses it to transform herself into a baby. So, now Rose's three loyal followers are left doing shitty work on a planet that they don't personally care that much about, while their leader, whom they would have followed into hell, has abandoned them to become a child, that they are now in charge of raising.

And so, that child, the titular Steven Universe, becomes the protagonist of our story. A boy who isn't quite human and isn't quite a Gem, but is struggling to learn what it means to be both, while also dealing with all the baggage his mother left behind. The magic of the show is in the way it marries light-hearted magical cartoon adventure with really fuckin' heavy emotional shit. Here's an example of an episode which made me laugh, as well as shed a tear:

Note: Watching one episode out of the blue, probably isn't going to have the same impact, but it might be worth knowing that in Gem society, Pearls are a lowly servant caste, who function as fancy ornamental handmaidens for the ruling elite.

In a world where I'm increasingly confused and frustrated by the stuff that kids are into, at least Steven Universe is something I get. And realistically, that's probably about as much as I can ask for.

DeepFakes

Since we're talking about the implications of living in a post-truth world, I thought I might as well see if anyone's got any thoughts on this whole "DeepFakes" hullabaloo.

If you haven't heard, it's over computer software that lets you generate faked videos of people. Basically, you take two people and feed in hundreds of images of those people's faces, the software processes all those images, and once it's done, you can automatically map the face of one of those people onto a video of the other.

The tech's been around for a while, but the stuff that was available to regular home users, was generally considered to be too unrealistic to be anything more than a joke. That has changed. Recently, PornHub announced that it was banning Deep fakes, after a number of very realistic videos were posted with celebrity faces mapped onto porn-stars. Apparently, there's also debate in The States about whether this stuff can be banned under the same legislation that was used to ban revenge porn.

Oh, and if the implications of all that's not concerning enough, there's also software in the works that does the same sort of thing for audio, meaning you will also be able to make your fakes speak with a realistic facsimile of your target's voice.

Weekly Wrap Up

As much as I was happy to get away from being tied to posting every single day, I think it's becoming apparent that if I don't set myself some sort of rules, this place is just going to go to pot. At this point, I'm thinking once per week. Or more accurately, once per weekend. Starting now.

…

Hmmm, well, I spent most of my week editing old Perl scripts and spreadsheet macros, which is a pretty shit job, and doesn't really leave you with much to talk about. Oh, hang on; I did see one thing that was kind of interesting. As somebody who frequents tech-help forums, I'm used to seeing ads that are targeted at lonely men, but there was this one ad for Russian mail-order brides, I noticed, which featured a bunch of models with freakishly tiny waists. So, is that a thing now, like how giant lips were a thing fifteen years ago, or was it just one ad? Are tiny feet going to make a comeback too?

Anyway, at least I didn't have to put up with rellies staying at my place this week, which was a nice change. Unfortunately, I got a call from my folks this afternoon, telling me they're coming to stay for a few days next week. Bloody hell. I seriously need to think about getting a bigger place. They also made sure I knew about the rock-melon related listeria outbreak, and informed me that the neighbour of my aunt/uncle/cousins who run cattle out near the QLD/NT border, just committed suicide. They've been out there for four generations, and apparently the water levels are the lowest they've ever seen them. As much as I miss living in the country, I'm really fuckin' happy that I never married a farmer. I doubt I have the strength to run a business that's completely and utterly at the mercy of the weather like that. It also makes me think that there's certain industries that you don't want to simply leave in the hands of the free market. Listeria aside, the last think I wanna be doing is relying on fuckin' food imports.

Aside from that, I haven't been paying attention to the news too much; but I did hear something about Michaelia Cash accusing Bill Shorten of conducting multiple affairs with staff members. How far do you reckon this is going to escalate?

Also, here's something depressing; I was thinking about the term "post-truth world" the other day, and it finally clicked as to what that actually means. At some point, there's going to be so much rubbish on the internet, that no matter what opinion you hold on whatever topic, there's going to be a mountain of "evidence", "expert testimony", and "peer-reviewed science" available at your finger-tips to back up your position. Think vaccines are safe? Here's a mountain of evidence that supports that position. Think vaccines cause autism? There's a mountain of evidence that supports that position too. Think vaccines are a plot by the government to weaken the population so that the socialists can take over? You're covered there as well. Facts will be in such plentiful supply that everybody will get to be right about everything all the time. You've got ten experts you can point to that say I'm wrong? Well, I've got twenty experts I can point to that say I'm right. What a brave new world we're all going to be living in, eh?