Notices by simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp), page 6
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Thursday, 19-Feb-2026 12:37:42 JST 
simsa03
♪ Franz Schubert, "Die Leiermann" (piano: Ammiel Bushakevitz; baritone: Samuel Hasselhorn) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmli-QsV_LQ
!listening -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Thursday, 19-Feb-2026 12:25:46 JST
simsa03
♪ Franz Schubert, "Die junge Nonne" (piano: Ammiel Bushakevitz; baritone: Samuel Hasselhorn) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrmyDVm8_Xs
!listening -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Wednesday, 18-Feb-2026 01:30:32 JST
simsa03
Was it already with the introduction of DirectX11 in 2009 or only with DirectX12 in 2015 that games became visually dissatisfying? Panes and colour gradients received a foggy and blurry character, the range of colours seemd diminishing. Accordingly, lightning and neon flashes were added to keep the visual experience interesting. Which kind of reminds me how in the early 1980s CDs were so restricted in their sound range that producers added high pitches and more drums and bass lines. The auditory experience was so unsatisfying (due to the cut-off of overtnes) that one usually had to enhance volume instead. Only with the arrival of 24-bit recording in the mid 1990s did auditory experience become pleasant again. But already then the new habits in listening had been establised: Little emphasis on melody (in the voice often no less than a third) and harmonies but on sound, rhythm, bass. Or vocal artistry like this terrible "hymn of violence" by Whitney Houston. Anyway, in games the larger range in colours that one could see on the screen back then decreased visually (not optically) in midst of foggy blurs and neon-like lightning. Speed in gameplay got increased, and the simple joy of tourist-like strolling through game landscapes was pushed to the margins. I remember strolling through Half Life 2 and gazing at architecture, environments, weather phenomena, only to get killed by some NPC (non-player-character). Perhaps this wish for simply absorbing atmospheres gave rise to the so-called "walking simulators" whose whole point was to stroll through landscapes. Dear Esther is my most admired example – and Everybody's Going to the Rapture my least favourite, with The Vanishing of Ethan Carter standing in the middle –, but again it concentrated on visuals, not auditory experiences. I'm not sure where to pinpoint it, but I feel that the apparent reduction in colour range has an impact on how games are developed today. And which is in part why there seems to be a nostalgia for the "old games". -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Wednesday, 18-Feb-2026 00:46:51 JST
simsa03
And then there was Gunman Chronicles (2000). Somehow called an expansion pack to Half Life it was rather a standalone game. Here I indeed appreciated graphics over sound, and the attention put into environmental details and the story. I remember the broad colour range, atypical in today's games. https://gnusocial.jp/attachment/705d1f29185675373067e1e40d10f129d713bc7386d3f6a982c9eb4e7f44dd1f/view -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Wednesday, 18-Feb-2026 00:29:02 JST
simsa03
The game I loved most (and yes, "love" is an appropriate term here) beside Half-Life was Unreal which came out the same year, 1998. Obviously one was mesmerized by the graphics, esp. the bloom lighting, the mirror effect of glass surfaces, the movement of water surfaces. But again it was the sound that drew one into the game world and let one forget exterior time. https://gnusocial.jp/attachment/7163b790be1e13f4179b4d61287e210af349764238131b6f5464f98558a283b6/view -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Wednesday, 18-Feb-2026 00:01:47 JST
simsa03
On Steam I updated my review of Black Mesa and why I think it is an awful game. https://gnusocial.jp/attachment/a99079ce68917c2edd61e2cf72b2e6ae2bade1a62441ce10cf4cf21b491de331/view -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Feb-2026 22:56:00 JST
simsa03
Rev. Jesse Jackson has passed away. Paving the way by eyewitnessing, endurance, belief.
I remember the image of Rev. Jackson at the rally in Grant Park, Chicago, 2008, when the election results were announced. His tears, and, in this moment, his loneliness, touched me very much.
Rest in Peace. https://gnusocial.jp/attachment/0c936ddaa81e26dfdbfe8a271706bb5225057fe6537cc7b567f18ebcb63d9625/view -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Feb-2026 03:41:07 JST
simsa03
NHK World staff, "India opens AI clinic to enhance rural health care" https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20260216_21/
Where medical staffs are few, #AI can help provide services for people. Particularly relevant in rural or remote areas. -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Sunday, 15-Feb-2026 10:12:28 JST
simsa03
Amirhadi Anvari, "36,500 deaths in context: How Iran’s toll compares with wars and crackdowns" https://www.iranintl.com/en/202601277218
Over 48 hours, about 40,000 were killed by the Iranian regime. That's roughly the number of civilians killed in Gaza during two years of fighting. Where is the Left now? -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Tuesday, 10-Feb-2026 21:35:53 JST
simsa03
What Russia does in Ukraine is #Kolodomor – the attempted extermination by cold.
(h/t to Brigadier-General Klaus Wittmann from whom I heard the word for the first time.) -
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tinydoctor (tinydoctor@mstdn.social)'s status on Monday, 09-Feb-2026 12:35:26 JST 
tinydoctor
In honor of the Vigil of Superb Owl.
#scissordance #collage #superimpositioncollage #superbowlsunday
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Monday, 09-Feb-2026 05:18:58 JST
simsa03
Family as Omertà.
When speaking put against Omertà, you know you could be wrong. But the others cannot fathom that they might be wrong.
talkingtomyselflettingyoulisten
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Monday, 09-Feb-2026 03:32:43 JST
simsa03
Without much evidence in support, I'd claim that everyone is part of an Omertà. Not merely the one of a group but the one that actually is this group, that makes this group. Omertà is not one "of" a family, society, culture, but actually is this family, society, culture. And then the question becomes: When one experiences this Omertà as burdening, as uncomfortable, as distressing – it is, one shouldn't forget, also a source of joy, belonging, and a sense of peculiarity – how do we speak up? Do we speak up at all? Can we speak up?
The agony that can be felt when "drifting" out of or away from Omertà, the pain that results when one becomes an outsider by breaking the silence, corresponds to the insiders' feelings first of sympathy with and worry about us, then second by aggression against and scorn about us. It is this instantaneous switch in emotions, from sympathy and worry to aggression and scorn, that shows that it wasn't about us and our feelings but about the stability of Omertà. We broke it, we leave!
But if families, social gatherings, groups, societies, even cultures are, in fact, Omertà (and not just governed by it) then speaking out becomes very difficult. Not life-threatening, as some may exaggeratingly claim, but pretty unpleasant and disorienting.
But speaking out one must. Questions of courage and integrity enter. Why do we not speak up? I guess it's not because we'd "fear" we'd lose community and binding. Both we already lost (in a sense) when our unease signalled our falling apart from Omertà. So why don't we speak up? Why are we complicit? (Which is how it turns out now as we have lost the congruity with Omertà.)
The answer lies not in banalities like: "What do you fear will happen when you disagree?" It is more profound:
• What aid and sustenance does Omertà provide to your well-being (as it does) that you fear you'll lose when turning against the Omertà? • What makes you so afraid to lose this specific support? • Why do you think it almost feels like dying when you turn against Omertà in that way although you already "turned against" it by the mere feeling of unease in how things are going?
Omertà lets us play with our fears (and joys). It doesn't need to create them in order for us to have them. Omertà doesn't need to be causally responsible for our fears (it may but doesn't need to). It just lets us entertain these fears, and by that provides us with a sense of personal identity and integrity inside it. We are who we are in Omertà via the fears (and joys) we play around with in our inner chorus of voices. (Susan Griffin comes to mind.)
Accepting that these fears (and joys) are not – not necessarily! not automatically! – caused and maintained by Omertà means that we need to have the courage to take them on by ourselves, and that Omertà is not responible for their being there. The courage and willingness to accept the pain – this autonomous pain – on our own makes us capable of addressing Omertà.
Again: I suspect that most often our personal fears have little to do with Omertà's ways of "floating", even with its ways of utilizing them. And that can open a path to understand that addressing Omertà does not (or more carefully: need not) involve the danger of perishing at the same time.
talkingtomyselflettingyoulisten
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Monday, 09-Feb-2026 03:31:26 JST
simsa03
Family Omertà. Family as Omertà.
It is not just that people do much to stay inside the Omertà and thus: the family. It is not just that overtly displaying the Omertà is avoided because of the risk of falling outside the family.
People will also sacrifice possible partners, spouses, and relationships for the sake of upholding the Omertà.
There is nothing a possible partner can do about it. Because it is not personal. You fit or you don't.
Sacrificing a partner for the sake of upholding the Omertà is one option. Leaving the Omertà to go with the partner most often means chosing their Omertà. Refusing both options and aiming for a path for oneself, the other, and the couple one is, amounts to creating a new Omertà.
I'm not sure one should avoid Omertà altogether, nor whether it is appropriate to "face" it by means like reflection, introspection, open debate.
To me the important thing is to understand that Omertà is not eo ipso an evil or debilitating thing. Remember: It is also a source of joy, and a source of identity, and of feeling peculiar and special. It is where, in part, soul comes from.
It is just that both, Omertà and "We cloud", go together, are a package. And thus Omertà has a nourishing quality that gets easily overlooked when one thinks about these matters in the typical banal psychological way, i.e., with a focus on its traumatizing abilities.
The less people talk, the less things are torn into the open but can stay ambiguous and floating, the more premature verbalisation can be avoided.
Because this indeed is a feature, or trait, of Omertà, in a good as well as in a bad manner: Times when things get literal, and thus: one-diemsnional, are times when things get violent. Keeping things ambiguous means keeping various futures open. And with that: hope.
Literal times are times without hope, without a sense that things might turn out completely different, and turn out so even, or especially, without our contributions. It is this very openness to (or of) the future that gets lost when things get pinned down verbally.
Omertà thus conserves time, creates a container or vessel for a specific body of time, apart from others. It creates such a time, and by that, ironically, a "world outside time". This should be obvious, as all layers of psychological phenomena exist in a timeless sphere.
The beneficial contributions that trauma makes to our humaneness, by creating an individual sphere of timelessness, also, by connecting traumatizer and traumatised with a unique language, and thus: communication only they can understand, these traits of Omertà are rarely seen.
But they are necessary and important.
Omertà preserves trauma as it is trauma. We couldn't live without.
talkingtomyselflettingyoulisten
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Friday, 06-Feb-2026 23:01:05 JST
simsa03
The only thing that astonishes me about Epstein is that even Noam Chomsky met with him. What is Amy Goodman from Democracy Now! going to do about it? Keep or disavow her favourite elder lefttist interview partner? https://gnusocial.jp/attachment/7a4e816ae52f7fcffe6f89698c6038c9794c16f1f9c6529849a6576b999b28aa/view -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Friday, 06-Feb-2026 03:46:20 JST
simsa03
Reinterpreting Rakugo from a Woman's Perspective: Hayashiya Tsuruko / Rakugo Storyteller https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/shows/2105237/
I admire her expressive and at the same time nuanced story telling. -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Thursday, 05-Feb-2026 08:07:18 JST
simsa03
Mafia organisations are not "families" because they instill and live by Omertà, they have Omertà because they are family-like.
You break the Omertà, and you're banned from the family. It's a basic principle in the dynamics of every natural family.
Which is why familiy members keep consenting to the silence about family problems or are gaslighted. Not in order to protect the family but prevent them from falling off the family.
A major factor in keeping the Omertà of families intact and to make the gaslighting reasonable to all but the apostate is what may be called "compassion as subjugating tool": "You do force us to gaslight you because we are worried about you."
The concern, the anxiety, is indeed about the apostate, but not that he's revealing some uncomforting truths but that the very possibility of apostasy endangers everyone.
Familiy members want truth, cannot accept what is not to their liking, and so the messenger must be insane AND, because of being a family member, still being cared for.
This can only work as long as the apostate returns to the flock and bows to the family scripture. Otherwise, if the apostate can no longer bear the cognitive dissonance he's experiencing, he is step by step nudged out of the family.
The panic and sadness of leaving (or having to leave) the family cloud (the "We cloud") is not due to some specific biographical reasons in the life of the apostate but because his truth and the truth uphold and secured by the Omertà make cohabitation and co-existence impossible. The Omertà secures the very "We-ness" of the "We cloud" called family. That's its function, and that includes ritualized and thus recurring sacrifice.
The religious language is no coincidence.
In fact, in a sense family IS Omertà, inasmuch as what is shared is what is not talked about, and that differences in opinions presuppose a vast majority of beliefs already shared. Otherwise, there would be not differences in opinion but incomprehension.
Omertà is precise. On the one hand, it prevents the shared attitudes and beliefs from ever being verbalised, mentioned, or spoken of. On the other hand, it is a fine-tuned system that very accurately signals when lines are crossed or taboos come into focus.
Omertà is like squinting. You see very accurately what you are not supposed to see. Because to see leads to name which leads to speak and thus to break the silence. You see the absence. You see a negative. You see a difference as its own quality.
Family is a flock of birds circling around, and by circling creating a centre of nothingness. It is a "We cloud" in which all particles move but in a way that none becomes a substance. Because that could be named.
Silence is the main feature of families, irrespective of their noisy pell-mell. Omertà is ubiquitous, because it is what families are made up from. Families are systems of parts that are all, in fact, strangely, missing pieces. Don't dig for gold where there's no ore deposit.
I should mention that Omertà is also the source of fun and joy in families. That aspect shouldn't be ignored as it is one area where Omertà draws its compelling force from. We LOVE to join that.
talkingtomyselflettingyoulisten
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Feb-2026 01:47:36 JST
simsa03
There is a baffling connection between moral integrity and sexual orgasm: Both produce a very similiar, if not identical, sense of being truly oneself.
talkingtomyselflettingyoulisten
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Feb-2026 06:09:27 JST
simsa03
Now that was an awful family gathering... -
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simsa03 (simsa03@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Sunday, 01-Feb-2026 05:29:39 JST
simsa03
Re-Watching "Taking Chance" (2004) and remembering why this is one of the best films about dying. (The other is "Barking Water" (2009).)
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