High Plains Drifter is a 1973 American Western film directed by and starring Clint Eastwood. The movie follows a mysterious gunfighter, known only as “The Stranger” (Clint Eastwood), who rides into the small town of Lago, a mining community in the American West. The townspeople are initially wary of the Stranger, but after he guns down three outlaws who try to kill him, they begin to see him as a hero and hire him to defend them against a group of ruthless outlaws who are planning to attack the town.
As the Stranger becomes embroiled in the town’s affairs, he begins to uncover a web of corruption and deceit that threatens the very existence of the community. With his unique skills and mysterious past, the Stranger must use his wits and his guns to protect the town and its people from the outlaws and the corrupt officials who are working against them.
Throughout the film, the Stranger’s true identity and motivations remain unclear, adding to the sense of mystery and intrigue. The movie’s climax features a dramatic showdown between the Stranger and the outlaws, and the film’s ending is open to interpretation, leaving audiences to ponder the Stranger’s true nature and the fate of the town.
High Plains Drifter is a critically acclaimed film that explores themes of justice, morality, and the American West, and features Eastwood’s characteristic blend of action, suspense, and dry humor.
A comment on X from TES I saw this morning:
Since I often post links to TES’s work, I feel mildly compelled to post an answer to the above. From it and some of his other writings, I diagnosis a commonplace Western (mis)understanding of religion which entails seeing all of them as similar in important ways to the Abrahamics. There are literally thousands of competent Buddhist teachers who could disabuse TES of his wrong views if he would but ask. Since Buddhism is both complex and fundamentally a mind-to-mind and experiential body of knowledge, deeper understanding will take some time but it is there for the taking if he wants it. TES has been first-rate in his analyses of covid and frequently claims to have expert skills based on both his understanding of how to interpret real-world data and his experience in the real-world doing that. A good Buddhist teacher could be described in just that way. I have a great deal of respect for TES and will continue to post links to his work on covid and global warming and maybe some other stuff. ABN
UPDATE: I should add that TES has a way out since the Buddha himself asked that his teachings never be written down to prevent them from becoming ‘religious scriptures’ people worshipped without understanding. That said, in other places TES has displayed deep ignorance of Buddhism and lumped it together with other traditions in ways that are seriously misleading. Incidentally, for many years Buddhism was considered a philosophy in the West rather than a religion. American tax laws settled that argument. In truth, Buddhism is both a religion and a philosophy. It is the philosophical side of Buddhism that is most often misunderstood, not unlike how skepticism is often misunderstood. Moreover, ironically, it is highly likely skepticism has been influenced by Buddhism and vice versa. ABN
This video was made from a single AI-generated image and will work with any suitable photograph.
We introduce VASA, a framework for generating lifelike talking faces of virtual characters with appealing visual affective skills (VAS), given a single static image and a speech audio clip. Our premiere model, VASA-1, is capable of not only producing lip movements that are exquisitely synchronized with the audio, but also capturing a large spectrum of facial nuances and natural head motions that contribute to the perception of authenticity and liveliness. The core innovations include a holistic facial dynamics and head movement generation model that works in a face latent space, and the development of such an expressive and disentangled face latent space using videos. Through extensive experiments including evaluation on a set of new metrics, we show that our method significantly outperforms previous methods along various dimensions comprehensively. Our method not only delivers high video quality with realistic facial and head dynamics but also supports the online generation of 512×512 videos at up to 40 FPS with negligible starting latency. It paves the way for real-time engagements with lifelike avatars that emulate human conversational behaviors.
This technology will work well in psychological games that use the faces of relatives and friends as well as fictional ones. The day will come when AI-generated characters will be able to play simple roles on their own. These roles will become more complex and creative as the tech evolves. Psychological games, especially when the user has a lot of control, will be fun and provide significant insights into how our minds are actually working. Gnarly psychologies, like narcissism or BPD, will benefit greatly from working through a variety of plots and scenarios.
Beyond self-help, the possibilities for deep works of art seem boundless. Whole novels with many variable plot-turns will raise the art of fiction to new levels of immersion and aesthetic reward. Coupled with brain-wave reading technology, AI characters will be capable of reacting to out mental and emotional states in ways no one has ever experienced before. I love where this is going. Of course there will be porn but the deepest transformative fun will be the realm of art and self-knowledge. ABN
A “bling” Roman helmet found in a Leicestershire field offers a tantalising glimpse into a world in flux, experts have said.
The artefact, lavishly decorated with silver and gold, was uncovered in 2000, along with 5,000 coins, near the village of Hallaton.
It has gone on display in Market Harborough with previously unseen artefacts after further study revealed new insights into its decoration, construction, and historical period it was made in.
The helmet has been dated to the mid 1st Century AD, a crucial time for Britain as this saw the full-scale invasion of the island by four Roman legions in 43AD.
Helen Sharp, curator of archaeology at Leicestershire County Council museums, said: “The Hallaton helmet is extremely important, it is one of a handful of silver-plated helmets ever found in Europe.
“It is extremely high status; it would have been worn by an extremely high-status officer, and it just shows how well connected the Leicester area was at the time.
Cancel culture is the seed of envy. Nothing to do with people really being upset at you for what you say. They’re deeply envious and this is a fast track to dismantling you. And the idiocy of it is they believe that if they take you down, they’ll be able to take your place.
~Leonarda Jonie
This quote nails cancel culture. Envy fuels history and underlies much of what happens in life. If you don’t really feel it yourself, you need to be hypervigilant because it is very common. ABN
Effortless, enjoyable productivity is a state of consciousness prized and sought after by people in business, the arts, research, education and anyone else who wants to produce a stream of creative ideas and products. That’s flow, or the sense of being “in the zone.” A new neuroimaging study from Drexel University’s Creativity Research Lab is the first to reveal how the brain gets to the creative flow state.
The study isolated flow-related brain activity during a creative task: jazz improvisation. The findings reveal the creative flow state involves two key factors: extensive experience, which leads to a network of brain areas specialized for generating the desired type of ideas, plus the release of control – “letting go” – to allow this network to work with little or no conscious supervision.
Africa Twin and Africa Twin Adventure Sports ES receive key updates
Platform-wide and version-specific improvements both incorporated
American Honda today confirmed the return of its flagship Africa Twin adventure model, which receives a list of advancements for the 2024 model year. Each of the two basic configurations—the Africa Twin and Africa Twin Adventure Sports ES—is offered with either a manual transmission or high-tech dual clutch transmission, and both are made even more capable with updates to the suspension, chassis, engine, electronics and styling. Previously announced in other markets, this evolution of the platform allows the two versions to be further differentiated, with the standard version prioritizing off-road prowess, while the Adventure Sports version receives an increased on-road focus.
“The Africa Twin is a mainstay of Honda’s adventure lineup, and we’re happy to bring this platform update to our customers for 2024,” said Brandon Wilson, Manager of Racing and Experiential Marketing at American Honda. “With the recent addition of the midsize Transalp, and now this updated Africa Twin, it’s clear that Honda is committed to the adventure category, and to delivering capable machines to fuel enthusiasts’ desire to explore.”
Africa Twin Adventure Sports ES Designed for touring performance, the 2024 Africa Twin Adventure Sports ES receives a renewed on-road focus. In addition to the platform-wide updates like a redesigned intake/exhaust, adjusted valve timing, increased compression, revised styling and updated electronics, the Adventure Sports versions now benefit from a lower seat height that improves on-road handling, thanks to shorter suspension travel and a new 19-inch front wheel. To maximize rider comfort and convenience for long days in the saddle, the Africa Twin Adventure Sports ES continues to boast features like electronically controlled suspension, heated grips and a larger fuel tank, and it’s available with a manual transmission or DCT.
American Buddhist Net 