Interesting Links for 21-11-2025

[andrewducker]

1. 2% of people are just bastards

(tags:oxytocin psychology morality sharing business )

2. Preserving code that shaped generations: Zork I, II, and III go Open Source

(tags:games history Microsoft opensource )

3. Women Keep Ruining the Workplace!!

(tags:women work society satire funny USA )

4. "We Didn't Start The Fire" The Silmarillion Edition

(tags:lotr viaNancyLebov video music )

Comments

[calimac]

1) "When every offense has an associated penalty, transgressions cease to be moral violations, but are simply a way for wrongdoers to effectively “use the system” while facing some risk of getting caught and paying a fine." True across the spectrum. I read of a trivial case where a fine was imposed to limit problem behavior: I think it was parents picking up kids late from daycare. The fine only increased the behavior: people took it as a fee they were willing to pay.

3) I didn't expect this would be entirely satire. Petri is always good.

4) I don't know the original song, which probably limited my appreciation. The lyricist has clearly read the Silmarillion, but the presentation is off in several ways, particularly in frequently giving up on telling the story, it just tosses a lot of names in, and then getting really hasty towards the end. Tolkien did that too, but it's not a trait to be emulated.

[jducoeur]

4) I don't know the original song, which probably limited my appreciation. The lyricist has clearly read the Silmarillion, but the presentation is off in several ways, particularly in frequently giving up on telling the story, it just tosses a lot of names in, and then getting really hasty towards the end. Tolkien did that too, but it's not a trait to be emulated.

Suffice it to say, it's pretty faithfully emulating the original Billy Joel song that it's filking here, which summarizes several decades of world culture and history in a few minutes. So it also has sections that are basically just listing names, as a sort of historical shorthand.