English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

12:00 AM

I knew you would dislike that, so I added "insubstantial"...but it was not enough!

I'm not sure what a simulated belief would be.

That would be a pretended belief.

I don't think that's the biggest problem in the case of financial bubbles.

Joseph Weissman

Well, it's quantitative analysis and the simulations structured around false continuities that were one of the real problems.

(The most simulacra-ey of them too.)

It's not just that we believe the model, and the model's wrong, so don't believe models.

It's a little weirder, right? The idea is that reality itself (finally, after a long process) disappears beneath the models, "into" the signs and symbols we use to decode the world.

(Until we can't tell reality from simulacra...)

Or even more strangely: that the map and the territory have switched places, reality is conditioned by the simulation.

Cerberus

Don't you just mean a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Joseph Weissman

Well, a self-organizing simulation.

Cerberus

Otherwise I'm not sure what you mean.

Joseph Weissman

By which?

Cerberus

12:05 AM

> reality itself ... disappears beneath the models, "into" the signs and symbols we use to decode the world.

Joseph Weissman

Okay, that may not be the best choice of words here.

Cerberus

How does reality disappear? Does it? How can it disappear into signs? Which signs are these?

Joseph Weissman

Baudrillard says that the map engenders the territory today.

Cerberus

As in that one speculates upon the speculations of others?

Joseph Weissman

That's definitely a piece of it!

Cerberus

12:07 AM

But that is as old as...I don't know, Antiquity? It is becoming a bigger part of the economy, that's the problem.

Joseph Weissman

We simulate others. But our "self" is a simulation too.

Cerberus

It is a vicious circle, yes.

Joseph Weissman

Becoming ever more vicious by the day.

Cerberus

Yes.

Well, some efforts have been made to mitigate the effects.

Joseph Weissman

Of there being no truth? :D

Cerberus

12:09 AM

I am favourably inclined towards the Tobin Tax.

@JosephWeissman Of the vicious circle where the speculations of one influence those of the other and vice versa.

With a bubble and a bang as the result.

Joseph Weissman

One interesting twist here, since you are emphasizing capitalism's simulations, is the way in which use-value gets recoded in terms of cash-value (or exchange-value.)

Cerberus

Yes...

The weaker the connection between use value and exchange value, the worse, ceteris paribus.

It is a negative side-effect of something good.

Joseph Weissman

But there's this interesting way in which use, function, originality "falls back" onto exchange and circulation.

Cerberus

How do you mean?

"Is expressed in / defined by"?

As in, universities are good if they generate money for society?

That is indeed one of the great evils of our time, that mode of thought.

Let it be a factor; but it should not determine everything.

Joseph Weissman

Well, today the real issue is that universities are increasingly relegated to being an expert system for the use of the state and market.

Cerberus

12:14 AM

An expert system?

Do you mean things like the H index?

Another great evil.

As in, money being allocated based on it alone.

user19161

Most universities are useless in the sense that most things we study are useless.

Cerberus

Useless when expressed in money, yes.

user19161

Essentially, man only needs food, sleep and sex.

Cerberus

And his health.

And peace.

Joseph Weissman

Sure. I just mean there's a grave danger if academies aren't permitted to formulate their own problems; when they are instead treated as expert-knowledge committees for the use of the state and the market.

Cerberus

12:16 AM

And man wants aesthetic pleasure.

Joseph Weissman

Enter the simulacra :)

user19161

Yes, yes. I am just using my favourite hyperbole.

user19161

In case some idiot comes and tells me I don't know what shit I am talking about.

Cerberus

@JosephWeissman I absolutely agree. But how is this related to simulacra? The use of the state and the market is the simulacrum, and the counterpart is...?

Joseph Weissman

Well, to spell out the danger of not permitting scholars to "choose their own questions": the risk would be simulating thinking...

user19161

12:19 AM

I am going to bed. See you in my dreams @cerb!

Cerberus

Bye! Say hi to my simulacrum!

Joseph Weissman

Good night, Mr. Bourne!

user19161

Nice beard @jos!

Cerberus

@JosephWeissman But here the simulacrum is worthless thinking (as in short-term utilitarian for the state and the market), and a "real" thing is suggested, as in the true pursuit of knowledge. In what stage are you!?

Joseph Weissman

I would think the stages exist contemporaneously to some degree...

That said, though, the point would NOT necessarily be that a simulated thought is a terrible one.

Cerberus

12:22 AM

Okay. Do you object to my calling them "usable models"?

Joseph Weissman

(I'm even tempted to say that all thinking is simulation to some degree.)

Cerberus

How do you define "simulated" here?

Joseph Weissman

To imitate is probably the core and most basic meaning.

A simulation is generally a "deep" imitation -- not just aping the general characteristics of a thing.

Cerberus

I'm having a bit of a problem using the word simulate or imitate within a model where there is no original or Ding as sich.

I'm not sure what it means in such a model.

Joseph Weissman

That's the point precisely! It becomes impossible to distinguish model from copy.

Cerberus

12:25 AM

@JosephWeissman Yes, this "thing". What is the thing in this?

@JosephWeissman But then why use the word imitate/simulate?

Perhaps this is naïve, but when I am reasoning based on a model where there is no original, I would drop both sides of the distinction, both simulation and original. Unless it signifies something else that I am overlooking.

Joseph Weissman

The most interesting "thing" is undeniably truth in this context.

The simulacra dissimulates the thing; it hides the fact that there isn't a thing.

That there isn't truth.

(It's a metaphysical liar's paradox, if you like.)

Cerberus

But now the fact is a "truth", and hence self-contradictory...

A paradox, yes.

Joseph Weissman

But the simulacra are undeniable; they are the thing(s), the truth(s).

Cerberus

How can that be so?

Either truth exists, or it doesn't; and, if it does not exist, how a simulacrum be the truth?

Joseph Weissman

The truth that hides the fact that there's no truth?

Cerberus

12:30 AM

That is internally inconsistent.

The Ancients would say, it leads to infinite regression!

Joseph Weissman

That's one of the salient features.

"The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth—it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true"

Robusto

The simulacra are undeniable; this is The Incomprehensible Room, so get your number agreement right.

Joseph Weissman

Thank you, @Robusto :D

Again, to try to outline the key insight: human experience is a simulation; contemporary society has replaced meaning with symbols.

Cerberus

@JosephWeissman Now if that were my model, I would phrase it differently, but perhaps I am not understanding your model correctly: we used to think certain things were true, and others simulacra; but now we know that these things we presumed to be true were not in fact true, and hence what we used to call simulacra we must now treat as true. That seems a valid and consistent model.

Alternatively, we can deny any and all truth.

This too is a valid model.

Joseph Weissman

I think we have to extract a dynamic logic from the simulacra, rather than try to identify a logical framework.

Cerberus

12:33 AM

Dynamic as in modal?

Joseph Weissman

My sense is the point isn't necessarily to deny "all truth"; it's to point out how intractable differentiating reality from the simulacra is in practice.

Cerberus

(I thought that was what dynamic logic meant...)

@JosephWeissman Okay, this I can follow and agree with.

But then I wouldn't call anything a simulacrum any more: I would just call all things "somethings".

Neither truth nor simulacrum.

Joseph Weissman

Well, there is a "serious point" here about meaning and truth in society today.

We are saturated with simulation. Meaning is becoming meaningless because it's infinitely mutable.

Cerberus

Otherwise it is like saying, "we abhor the evils of feudalism; from now on all noble titles are null and void. Instead, we will confer Republican titles, like Most Republican Person, Very Republican Person...with the appropriate land and privileges."

Joseph Weissman

[Reality and meaning disappear beneath signs and symbols as a result of this "invasion" by the simulacra of cultural technology (language, the media, information systems)]

Cerberus

12:38 AM

This is like an eel: every time I almost understand it, it escapes me.

Joseph Weissman

(I'm not sure I follow the point about feudalism.)

By the way, just to be clear: I'm probably doing a terrible job presenting this. (I'd really recommend recourse to the text at some point, though I'm surely not being a good salesman for it...)

Cerberus

Heh.

I'm not sure any more what my feudalism was about either. It seemed appropriate at the time, OK?

@JosephWeissman What does it mean when meaning is becoming meaningless?

Joseph Weissman

@Cerberus that's a surprisingly great question :)

Cerberus

Haha.

It's just my basic reaction to a paradox.

Joseph Weissman

(Not surprising that it's from you. More surprising in the sense that I'm surprised such an awesome question could exist!)

Cerberus

12:42 AM

It was a question bordering on a pun...

Joseph Weissman

Well, I think it's nice.

Mahnax

Good evening.

Joseph Weissman

Good evening, @Mahnax

Cerberus

Hi!

Mahnax

@JosephWeissman Hey. Nice to see you here again.

Joseph Weissman

12:43 AM

@Cerberus Our lives are so saturated with social and cultural constructions that they've become infinitely mutable.

There's no meaning in it, just permutation.

(No originality. No truth. No sense.)

Cerberus

Our lives have become mutable, our constructions, or both?

Joseph Weissman

It's a rather bleak position, to be frank.

Both. Or rather, our constructions start off mutable and then 'infect' the substrate (us, our meaning).

Cerberus

As an historian, I usually look for continuity, and find it.

Joseph Weissman

Isn't there always something discontinuous about a historical event?

Cerberus

@JosephWeissman Can you give an example?

Joseph Weissman

12:45 AM

(Though this feels like a digression -- can you clarify the point about history and continuity?)

It's that long process whereby the copy (which originally came after the model) eventually comes to precede it.

cornbread ninja

> This proposal has reached 100% commitment. We are preparing for its launch and expect to create it soon.

Cerberus

@JosephWeissman Yes, and always something continuous. But one can often reasonably establish that event x was more continuous or more discontinuous with respect to aspect p.

Joseph Weissman

Baudrillard's most famous example is the Gulf War, which he famously claims "didn't take place" -- because our experience of it was entirely mediated by cultural technology

cornbread ninja

Hi again.

Cerberus

@cornbreadninja Yay!

Joseph Weissman

12:47 AM

Hi, @cornbreadninja!

Mahnax

@cornbreadninja Hello!

cornbread ninja

Hello! :D

Cerberus

@JosephWeissman I don't know...this raises only questions for me. What does "take place" mean?

Joseph Weissman

The image of war preceded the real war.

(More straightforwardly... Maybe.)

Cerberus

I also suspect that I don't understand this "precede" exactly.

TemporaryNickName

12:48 AM

Hey guys =)

Cerberus

So many questions! I'm driving myself mad.

Joseph Weissman

The precession of simulacra is definitely a key point. (And it's subtle.)

Cerberus

Hi!

TemporaryNickName

Could you do me a favor?

lol

Joseph Weissman

What is it?

Cerberus

12:49 AM

Possibly...

puts in monocle Mmmm yesss?

Joseph Weissman

I can neither confirm nor deny without further details as to the nature of the task.

TemporaryNickName

I've answered a question posted on Stackoverflow like 20 mins ago

and here is the answer

Cerberus

@TemporaryNickName You hereby have my blessing. Did that help at all?

TemporaryNickName

You can organize your code by using same idea of Data access object. What data access object is that it is a individual class that has methods to query database and retrieve data from it.

For example if you have a class called Person and person class needs to access database to attain data such as phone number, firstname, lastname and etc. It can use this DAO (Short for Data access object) to get these values. The advantage of it is, let's say your boss asked you to change your database from MySQL to MongoDB. Then you do not have to change any single code from Person class and just modify DAO class to work with MongoDB instead of MySQL.

My suggestion is that create a class that is built for that external API that you are using and make all your classes in your application to use this class to interact with the external API. Whenever API updates, you only need to modify (fix) this class and never have to touch any other classes. I hope you have understood what I mean =)

Could you give me some suggestions on improving this paragraph?

Joseph Weissman

Reads pretty well to me. Some minor composition/usage things but it's really not problematic.

Cerberus

12:52 AM

> You can organize your code by using the same idea of a Data access object. A data access object is an individual class that has methods to query (the/a) database and retrieve data from it.

TemporaryNickName

Are there any vocabularies that I can change from the paragraph to make it sound more pro?

MετάEd

A mind is a terrible thing to simulate.

Cerberus

> For example, if you have a class called Person, and the Person class needs to access the database to attain data such as phone number, firstname, lastname and etc., it can use this DAO (Short for Data access object) to get these values. The advantage of this is as follows. Let's say your boss asked you to change your database from MySQL to MongoDB. Then you do not have to change any single code (value?) from the Person clas: just modify the DAO class to work with MongoDB instead of MySQL.

TemporaryNickName

@Cerberus I see I forgot to add 'a'

Cerberus

> My suggestion is to create a class that is built for the external API that you are using and to make all your classes in your application use this class to interact with the external API. Whenever the API updates (changes?), you only need to modify (fix) this class, and you never have to touch any other classes. I hope you understand what I mean.

Those are my suggestions. But I must admit that I don't know much about databases.

TemporaryNickName

12:56 AM

thx @Cerberus

Cerberus

Good luck!

Joseph Weissman

@TemporaryNickName you might add that if the API is RESTful, you can likely map entities pretty directly -- so that you could basically use the DAO pattern exactly (the data you're accessing is just in a remote data store, which really isn't that different anyway....)

Cerberus

I see a few more mistakes: "and etc.", "clas" are both wrong.

Joseph Weissman

Just a thought. I'd have to see the question for more thoughts on appropriate jargon usage.

Cerberus

BRB

@JosephWeissman So what does "precede" mean exactly in the case of the Gulf War?

TemporaryNickName

1:00 AM

@JosephWeissman yes, the question was about organizing code when using external API to add some features in an application. The person was saying that the API updates itself occasionally and might have to modify his code when it updates.

btw BRB

Joseph Weissman

Well, this idea of precession of simulacra -- keep in mind it's not necessarily about historical development. It's not like the timeline gets broken, right?

Cerberus

Bye!

I didn't think it was historical...I rather thought you meant something about an order of importance, but that itself raises questions.

Joseph Weissman

Right. It does!

Cerberus

Such as, what does it mean if something is "important"?

If there is an order, how are its highs and lows measured?

I also have an entirely unrelated little Socratic dialogue for you later.

Leading to a question I sometimes wonder about.

Joseph Weissman

Interesting, I anticipate it with great relish.

The big takeaway isn't really that much different than your initial sense -- that constructing fictions and images ends up reprogramming us.

Cerberus

1:06 AM

Okay.

Joseph Weissman

But there are also some interesting questions raised here by the fact that differentiating the model and copy becomes impossible today.

Cerberus

Was it ever possible?

How were were reprogrammed during the Gulf War?

Joseph Weissman

Well, I guess I'm just trying to emphasize that his thesis has (perhaps also) specifically to do with late modernity, with global capitalism and the economic and social order it generates.

KitFox

@MετάEd Please stop referring every crap phrasing choice to Writers.

They do have standards over there.

And the mods are getting a little agitated.

Cerberus

@JosephWeissman Is it rather that we (or some people) are now more aware of this process, or that it is actually new?

Joseph Weissman

1:08 AM

My sense of B's argument here is that the First Gulf War is that it was the first major military conflict to be fought effectively through the media -- our experience of it was entirely simulated, mediated by globally-encompassing cultural technologies

Cerberus

But...how was any other war not simulated, except to those who actually fought on the battlefield?

Joseph Weissman

B says the third-order simulacra -- which precede the real -- are unique to late modernity.

The other wars weren't brought realtime into our homes...

KitFox

We had actual video footage from the battles.

Cerberus

No?

KitFox

No.

Cerberus

1:10 AM

We had the letters of eye-witnesses...

KitFox

Letters aren't the same.

Cerberus

Who imprinted their own ideas on the facts, if such exist.

KitFox

But anyway, I was just popping in to chastise Ed. I'm off.

Cerberus

Heh.

Joseph Weissman

Another point he makes is that it wasn't really a war, but an atrocity simulating a war.

The Gulf War Did Not Take Place

The Gulf War Did Not Take Place, a book by Jean Baudrillard, is a collection of three short essays published in the French newspaper Libération and British paper The Guardian between January and March 1991. * Part 1, "The Gulf War will not take place" was published in Liberation on January 4, 1991. * Part 2, "The Gulf War is not really taking place" was published in Liberation on February 6, 1991 and * Part 3, "The Gulf War did not take place" was published in Liberation on March 29, 1991. Contrary to the title, the author believes that the events and violence of the Gulf War actually took...

Cerberus

1:11 AM

Well chastised.

> The closely watched media presentations made it impossible to distinguish between the experience of what truly happened in the conflict, and its stylized, selective misrepresentation through "simulacra".

Does this not apply to most wars, to some extent?

Joseph Weissman

Sure, but there's an insidious new dimension to it today.

The way in which the casualties are hidden from us too; war is presented as bloodless (for our side.)

Cerberus

What is it? I see mostly quantitative differences, not qualitative ones...

@JosephWeissman And this was not done in the past?

Joseph Weissman

Simulated war?

Cerberus

Casualties being hidden.

Hence the outlook of German soldiers on the eve of the First World War.

This is how they viewed war.

A game.

At least, that is how historians reconstruct the German attitude with respect to the war, including the Emperor and soldiers such as these men.

cornbread ninja

So start the parade.

Cerberus

1:17 AM

Their attitude being based on the way they experienced previous wars, of course.

Like the "easy" Franco-Prussian War.

They had no true idea about how awful war usually is.

The death, the destruction.

Joseph Weissman

Sure -- but isn't there a qualititative difference here, in the total mediation of the event by global realtime cultural technology?

Cerberus

Due to propaganda and other cultural factors.

@JosephWeissman I don't know: it seems easier to hide the atrocities if people have less access to information.

cornbread ninja

►

Joseph Weissman

At any rate, there's at least a few things here, right? It's the deliberate simulation of a war -- a war to hide the fact that there isn't one. (This seems new.)

MετάEd

@KitFox I had better get more familiar with their FAQ.

This just highlights how important the name of a site is.

Cerberus

1:20 AM

Oh, you mean the Gulf War was presented as more important/heroic than it actually was, for internal (American? European?) propaganda purposes?

Joseph Weissman

@cornbreadninja the world's in flames, so let's start the parade... :)

Cerberus

I don't know, I don't think this is new either...

Joseph Weissman

That it was presented as a war would certainly seem to be the chief or critical simulation involved; the war itself as simulacra, the war which wasn't and didn't happen.

It was mediatized for corporate-nationalist propaganda, undoubtedly; but the key insight is how the cultural technology accomplished this feat, this creation ex nihilo of an event.

Cerberus

I don't know: war is just a word.

Joseph Weissman

(It strike me as not only new but even deeply worrying...)

Cerberus

1:23 AM

"The Phoney War" is what the first months of WW2 were called.

Joseph Weissman

Curious!

Cerberus

Because no fighting took place.

Joseph Weissman

Well, it was localized you mean.

Cerberus

I believe no fighting at all took place. Or hardly any.

But that is probably irrelevant.

Joseph Weissman

Perhaps. (Definitely interesting!)

Cerberus

1:25 AM

Rulers have simulated wars for political reasons in history.

Consider the crusades.

Joseph Weissman

That's pretty interesting.

Talk about simulacra and sublime objects of ideology :)

Cerberus

From time to time, bishops and popes declared that this Holy War must now be won. Let's finally do something about it!

Even though there was no problem to solve.

Muslims did not in any way threaten Western Europe.

Joseph Weissman

Hmmm. (Seems to be kind of a recurring paranoid theme.)

Cerberus

nods

Propaganda are as old as the world.

Joseph Weissman

And so simulation.

Cerberus

1:28 AM

Yes.

Joseph Weissman

I think all B's pointing out are massive advances in the sophistication and breadth of simulacra

Of the extent, power and domain of cultural technology

Cerberus

That is a valid concern.

Joseph Weissman

Which are now nearly infinite, and we are putty in their hands

More or less :)

We become meaningless because of this.

Because we can be reprogrammed so easily.

Cerberus

However, our powers of accessing information have also increased a great deal.

The sword cuts both ways.

How do you say that in English?

cornbread ninja

Same way.

Joseph Weissman

1:30 AM

We say that :)

Cerberus

Okay.

cornbread ninja

Usually with the dummy it.

Joseph Weissman

Yes, that's way more common.

Cerberus

cuts dummy up

cornbread ninja

spits water

Joseph Weissman

1:30 AM

falls into heaps of slices

MετάEd

@Cerberus Yes. Propaganda (the word) was a Catholic Church term. And propaganda (the science) arrived around the turn of the 20th century and found a home in US business and then in the Nazi state.

Cerberus

Oops.

MετάEd

But propaganda of course is much older than either the term or the science.

Cerberus

You guys aren't that dummy. Just a little bit dumb. As are we all.

@MετάEd It means "evangelise" in Church Latin, as in the Collegium de Propaganda Fide, or whatever it is called exactly.

And what do you mean by a "science", and how is it different from the way it was before?

Joseph Weissman

Just in passing: my sense is that ideology and propaganda aren't really the key bit here. It's not that we believe in a false image; it's the much stranger turn on this classical idea: that we (today!) can no longer distinguish between the image and the real.

Cerberus

1:33 AM

Isn't that always the essence of effective lies?

MετάEd

@Cerberus I am not redefining science.

Joseph Weissman

Why not, @MετάEd? It surely needs it :)

Cerberus

If you mean that there is no truth and no lies, then I will say that it has always been so, you know me!

MετάEd

@Cerberus Wikipedia has a definition which is not so bad: "Science (from Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe."

I would be happy to discuss this some more, but I must travel homeward.

Cerberus

@JosephWeissman I have good hope that our improved means of communicating information and engaging in a discours about these things will be enough to keep things under control. Consider how B. can write this and you can read this. Then how effective were these American propaganda techniques?

Joseph Weissman

1:37 AM

I mean there's definitely reason to be optimistic today -- maybe more optimistic than when B was writing.

Cerberus

Ah OK.

The Internet was still young.

Joseph Weissman

Well, but -- he's fairly prescient. I'm not saying reject all of this. And I do worry that recourse to communication and discussion is sort of empty without ideas...

Cerberus

I don't know.

Why don't we have ideas?

Joseph Weissman

That's the problem with democratic materialism.

We're condemned to live without any Idea.

Cerberus

Are we?

Then what are we doing at this very moment?

Joseph Weissman

1:40 AM

We are simulating the idea, hiding it's absence :)

Thought has simulacra, too.

(There is a whole image of thought that has to be dissolved; "what everybody knows" and so on.)

Cerberus

Haha.

Then what does an idea look like?

Joseph Weissman

The first thing to recognize would be that thinking is not the natural activity of a thinker, right?

Cerberus

(It's funny to see how many sleighs we are pushing down the ravine btw.)

Robusto

Here I gooooooooooooooooooo!

Cerberus

@JosephWeissman Umm what does it mean for something to be a natural activity?

Joseph Weissman

1:43 AM

Are we driving them all away with our communication styles?

Cerberus

@Robusto Nooooooooooo........

tchrist

I can't go home. Stuck at work. The road is closed. I spent an hour travelling 5 miles. Turn around and came back, since I live 52 miles away. Checked traffic. Big big accident. Road closed. No ETA. Damn it.

Joseph Weissman

@tchrist no way around it?

Cerberus

@JosephWeissman Naaah I was just joking that we were.

@tchrist Is there only one road you can take?

Mahnax

@tchrist That's awful.

tchrist

1:44 AM

Kinda.

Cerberus

Is your work on a very thin peninsula?

cornbread ninja

a thininsula?

Cerberus

If you made an 18-mile detour, could to drive around it?

Or can you make yourself comfortable at work?

cornbread ninja

@tchrist that blows.

also, I assumed you worked from home.

tchrist

I usually do. Came in today.

I am down at the bottom right where you see the two camera glyphs. To the west is a black line meaning stopped traffic and a road-closed glyph.

The other way also leads to a black line.

Boulder is up north, toward the center.

I usually only come in once a week or so.

cornbread ninja

1:48 AM

can you take that road off to the right and loop around?

Cerberus

Would this route work?

cornbread ninja

yeah, that.

Cerberus

I read and printed your thoughts.

tchrist

Yes. Probably. It is about a two hour drive doing that.

I see that.

Cerberus

Have you filled it in in Google Maps?

cornbread ninja

1:49 AM

scratches under cerb's chins

tchrist

What do you mean, filled it in?

cornbread ninja

you can click other roads to change the route.

Cerberus

Your destination and via points in Google Maps?

Yeah, or click.

tchrist

I do not need Google Maps to get home. I know all the roads.

I should see how long they thing Cerb's route would take me.

cornbread ninja

clears throat

Cerberus

1:51 AM

@tchrist route.tomtom.com/#/route/…

This takes traffic into account.

And it says 1h10 total.

tchrist

They claim one hour and seventeen minutes that way. I do not believe them.

Cerberus

Tomtom is usually very accurate...

tchrist

Route here.

I thought you were talking about me. :)

Cerberus

You too, dear.

Although only half as much.

cornbread ninja

Cerberus

1:54 AM

That says 1h5.

cornbread ninja

sorry.

Cerberus

@cornbreadninja Awww yours?

cornbread ninja

@Cerberus yessir. :)

Cerberus

Cute!

Your whole household, apparently.

cornbread ninja

Thanks! :D

Cerberus

1:54 AM

@tchrist So why don't you believe them?

cornbread ninja

Just us girls.

Cerberus

Good.

Mahnax

@cornbreadninja Aww! melts

tchrist

Room just blew up.

Cerberus

From kitty?

tchrist

1:55 AM

It says 1:05 in normal traffic, 1:17 now in current traffic.

I do not believe them because going through the heart of Denver and Aurora both is never without peril.

Browser crashed.

cornbread ninja

@Mahnax :D

tchrist

Maybe the Indians I need to talk to will wake up.

Cerberus

@tchrist The Twyshoe route goes around both hearts?

tchrist

Too early for the Brits.

cornbread ninja

I meant only for a brief cat break.

tchrist

1:58 AM

@Cerberus No you're right, more off to the side of Denver's, because it avoids I-25 and circumvents around to Aurora. That's where I used to work.

Cerberus

Well, it's your call.

tchrist

The other guy who started when I did quit because I-25 freaked him out too much.

Cerberus

You have to believe in yourself, and in Twyshoe twice.

Joseph Weissman

By the way guys I think everything is simulated!

I've basically convinced @Cerberus, too.

Cerberus

@JosephWeissman No! Tomtom is real. The roads it represents are false.

Joseph Weissman

1:59 AM

(It was awesome.)

Cerberus

Have you?

Hmm...

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