Gavin Williams

Doomed space marine.
Tech, culture, and why people do what they do.
Human motivation baffles me.

[Gavin Williams @Gavin_148]

Starving and adrift, sailors used to draw lots, kill the loser, and eat him. That was known as "the custom of the sea". Courts looked away.

In 1838 Edgar Allan Poe wrote a shipwreck novel in which sailors draw lots and eat a man named Richard Parker in this tradition.

In 1884 a crew skipped the lots and cut the throat of a 17-year-old cabin boy by that name, Richard Parker. The court subsequently ended the custom: no one may take an innocent life to escape starvation.

The living were not proud to report how they had survived.
The selected sailor cannot testify.

[Gavin Williams @Gavin_148]

My reading of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. https://t.co/x113y474IS

[Gavin Williams @Gavin_148]

@ML_Philosophy Nominal

[Sal the Agorist @SallyMayweather]

If you’re allowed to kill bc of “temporary insanity” why do we put temporarily impaired drunk drivers in jail who kill?

[Gavin Williams @Gavin_148]

Yes, so honestly these enclaves are great when they work out and are self sustaining, and terrible when they fail and are a drain on the greater system.
Maybe we should let the Maori give it a shot, except we know that the government would just prop up their failure and make excuses for them while asking everyone else to pay for an environment that destroys their children's futures.

[Gavin Williams @Gavin_148]

Gramercy! they for joy did grin,
And all at once their breath drew in.
As they were drinking all.
— Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

[Gavin Williams @Gavin_148]

@DanielW_Kiwi Dude do it its right there!

[Gavin Williams @Gavin_148]

@aaronwise Bluff above the water and sharp below. Gives the hull a finer entry and a long run as she goes aft. That's why she's so fast. Heavier, but fast despite it. That's the future. What a fascinating modern age we live in.

[Gavin Williams @Gavin_148]

@drhingram The cake is a lie

[Gavin Williams @Gavin_148]

@CullenKehoe @MythoAotearoa I have to remind everyone of Orania.

[Cautionary Theorist @fr33k1w1]

If we allow Digital ID and mass surveillance to become a reality, you will never be punished for anything. You will be continually profiled and slowly phased out of society.

[Gavin Williams @Gavin_148]

In The Waste Land, there is a line repeated which refers to the mysterious Phlebas:
"Those are pearls that were his eyes."
It is correct to interpret this as a reference to Shakespeare's 'Ariel's Song' which falsely informs Ferdinand that his father Alonso has died.
Alonso's true fate is in limbo, but Phlebas' reality is not the same.
The clairvoyante does not find The Hanged Man.

[Gavin Williams @Gavin_148]

@MythoAotearoa A standard pack of 20 cigarettes in New Zealand costs between NZ$37 and NZ$50, averaging roughly US$25.00.

[Gavin Williams @Gavin_148]

@curono9640 @BAAZ1034 @HSGARAGE1 You live in a country where you don't drive the way we do.
Shipping a car to America is like shipping it to le mans.
Toyota and Nissan learned this fast early on.

[Gavin Williams @Gavin_148]

@saraaa7447 Lenovo recently discontinued the newer version,
So its OK for us to like them now.
https://t.co/nHZxnckfwE

[Gavin Williams @Gavin_148]

@saraaa7447 Good take.

[Gavin Williams @Gavin_148]

@RDKLInc @saraaa7447 "code execution fails leading to random kernel panics and crashing apps :/"

[Gavin Williams @Gavin_148]

@RDKLInc @saraaa7447 Like this? Am I mistaken?

[Gavin Williams @Gavin_148]

@Rainmaker1973 These images are not of New Zealand. NZ has even better landscaped, but the architecture is not as old.
I'm calling you out.

[Gavin Williams @Gavin_148]

@Melahi65919940 Many Kiwis are not well adjusted.
I mean him, not you.