That kind of thing was a popular spectacle at banquets in mediaeval Europe, along with pie-crusts containing live birds which flew out when it was cut, as in the nursery rhyme.
I do wonder how they stopped the birds a) flying out too soon in a panic or b) doing what birds do when they take off, which is to, ah lighten the load first. Pie filling with guano does *not* sound very appetizing.
Maybe there was a pastry compartment around the birds which was discarded… I can’t imagine anyone eating guano and liking it, particularly not at a high-end banquet. (This stuff, which often had things like the outermost bird’s feathers intricately reattached, was *not* remotely cheap to make and was very much for the .01%).
Turduckens are awesome and you can order them pre-assembled so you don’t have to go to the trouble of trying to build them yourself and failing miserably. I’ve done a full turducken at a big dinner party where everyone else brought sides, I’ve also done a smaller version which was just a chicken stuffed in a duck. You have stuffing sandwiched between the meat. It’s shipped frozen: defrost it for a couple of days and it’s a snap to cook, though I think you can’t deep-fry it because of the stuffing. If you have a local gourmet grocery store, you can probably pre-order them for Thanksgiving or Christmas, or just go online and Google pre-made turducken.
I found that recipe once. I decided it wasn’t very practical. I ended up simply making meatballs. They were alright but I really the camel could have been put to better use.
Second off, I’ve always worried someone might stuff a squab inside the chicken inside the duck inside the turkey. Or stuff the whole thing in an ostrich.
Then again, I remember first running into the word in a strip called “Pre-Teena” (whose repeats I still follow on GoComics). It seemed “ew!” then, it seems “ew!” now.
All I can think of now is what the results would be if a top chef (a nutritional scientist?) snapped and went mad inside her kitchen. I don’t think I wanna be there to see it, but it could result in something turducken-like “I’ll show you fools, BWA-HA-HA!!”
Anyone here ever read Brandon Sanderson’s book Warbreaker? Because there’s a sword there that was commanded to “destroy evil”. Unfortunately, a sword really has no way of knowing what’s evil, so it mostly tries to kill everything just to be on the safe side.
I’m more worried about what C.S. Lewis said:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
Someone trying to do us harm may have pity, but someone trying to help us never will.
As far as I know, Lewis limited his enthusiasms to religion, not politics. Which is to say; he never advocated theocracy. Or using violence to silence those he disagreed with, or the jailing of those whose views he found repugnant. Which puts him well ahead of many others, across the political spectrum.
I’ll freely admit he met the basics of human decency, which is true of many people who worship disagreeable deities with no sense of contradiction. Aslan is a jerk.
Oh no. . .
Whimsy is a Corporation so Lovelace just mind controlled thousands of people.
On top of that it was “to use mind control for good” which means actively using it.
I think this might be an AI thing. Unlike organics AI’s have under the hood access to their own minds by default, and the minds of their peers by consent or force. They are already used to minds being malleable in certain situations, so they don’t find this kind of mind control inherently terrifying since it’s not something new to them.
it’s like how an immortal would find an immortal killing knife terrifying but a mortal would just see it as a fancy knife.
I dunno. There are things I think I should believe that I don’t always believe, and I work hard at them, but I think mind-controlling myself to believe them would still be pretty dodgy.
Then again, I’m a strict teetotaller on the grounds that my brain is unreliable enough as it is, so this could just be a personal thing.
Given that she was made by an evil mad scientist, reprogrammed to obey Dave, blew up a moonbase, hacked and stalked Dave, was brutally murdered and hollowed out BY Dave, and spent her entire life around evil, I think we need a long hard look at the values table and priorities settings of what ‘only for good’ means to Lovelace.
It might mean “the opposite of whatever the people in my childhood would have done.” That would be a decent start.
Turducken is a funny word: more comics should use it.
Also, there are unintended consequences to *any* mind control.
This is SUCH a great line. Can’t wait to use it.
According to Google, that’s chicken inside duck inside turkey.
Why anyone would MAKE such a dish is a good question; do mad cooks exist or can mad scientists prepare mad meals?
Considering what happened when Helen B. Narbon’s sanity snapped, amongst other incidents, the answer would seem to be yes.
That kind of thing was a popular spectacle at banquets in mediaeval Europe, along with pie-crusts containing live birds which flew out when it was cut, as in the nursery rhyme.
I do wonder how they stopped the birds a) flying out too soon in a panic or b) doing what birds do when they take off, which is to, ah lighten the load first. Pie filling with guano does *not* sound very appetizing.
Maybe there was a pastry compartment around the birds which was discarded… I can’t imagine anyone eating guano and liking it, particularly not at a high-end banquet. (This stuff, which often had things like the outermost bird’s feathers intricately reattached, was *not* remotely cheap to make and was very much for the .01%).
Maybe they starved the birds for a few days beforehand?
They did it for the spectacle rather than any sort of culinary point, nobody was supposed to eat the pie afterwards.
There was, in fact, usually a smaller pie in the center, with the birds arranged around it.
Also, the Miasma Theory of Disease ensured that people didn’t worry about bird guano as much as they should have.
Turduckens are awesome and you can order them pre-assembled so you don’t have to go to the trouble of trying to build them yourself and failing miserably. I’ve done a full turducken at a big dinner party where everyone else brought sides, I’ve also done a smaller version which was just a chicken stuffed in a duck. You have stuffing sandwiched between the meat. It’s shipped frozen: defrost it for a couple of days and it’s a snap to cook, though I think you can’t deep-fry it because of the stuffing. If you have a local gourmet grocery store, you can probably pre-order them for Thanksgiving or Christmas, or just go online and Google pre-made turducken.
And there’s also the Red vs blue version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj1d2mtgQFQ. It’s low-res, but still funny.
I’ve invented a vegetarian version, where you stuff TVP inside vegetarian duck inside of tofurkey. It’s called a “turfucken.”
Didn’t Koshei the Deathless hide his soul inside of one of those?
You want some REAL mad-science food, google “Rôti Sans Pareil”, which consists of 17 birds stuffed inside one another.
I believe there’s an Arabian feast dish that starts with: “First, you take a camel…”
It’s eggs inside a fish inside a duck inside a sheep inside a cammel, spitroasted i think.
It’s a traditional wedding dish
I found that recipe once. I decided it wasn’t very practical. I ended up simply making meatballs. They were alright but I really the camel could have been put to better use.
This is why I rarely eat chicken anymore.
really, *all* actions have unintended consequences eventually.
And they really don’t have the intended consequences nearly as often as they ought to. Or maybe that’s just me.
Well, first off, “Ew!”
Second off, I’ve always worried someone might stuff a squab inside the chicken inside the duck inside the turkey. Or stuff the whole thing in an ostrich.
Then again, I remember first running into the word in a strip called “Pre-Teena” (whose repeats I still follow on GoComics). It seemed “ew!” then, it seems “ew!” now.
You’ve obviously never seen a turduckenailailenailailduckenailailenailail.
All I can think of now is what the results would be if a top chef (a nutritional scientist?) snapped and went mad inside her kitchen. I don’t think I wanna be there to see it, but it could result in something turducken-like “I’ll show you fools, BWA-HA-HA!!”
Julia Child reverted to CIA mode.
I think the cartoon Kids Next Door showcased that very scientist in their Gramma Stuffins episode. With rock ‘n’ roll accompaniment even.
Yes, that’s the one where the songs were written by GWAR for a kids show.
How are you interpreting “do only Good,” Lovelace? More importantly, how is Whimsy going to interpret it?
“Don’t be evil.”
Bwahaha!
I know, right? As a corporation, I would assume it’s core utility function is Profit. Therefore “good” means whatever is good for the bottom line.
It is a good thing for people to own more Whimsy tat anyway, right?
Anyone here ever read Brandon Sanderson’s book Warbreaker? Because there’s a sword there that was commanded to “destroy evil”. Unfortunately, a sword really has no way of knowing what’s evil, so it mostly tries to kill everything just to be on the safe side.
It doesn’t try to kill everything to be on the safe side, it tries really hard to only get the bad people.
It’s just also REALLY BAD at it.
I’m more worried about what C.S. Lewis said:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
Someone trying to do us harm may have pity, but someone trying to help us never will.
Knowing Lewis’s religious enthusiasms, as an agnostic I can’t help but find that quote sort of hilarious.
As far as I know, Lewis limited his enthusiasms to religion, not politics. Which is to say; he never advocated theocracy. Or using violence to silence those he disagreed with, or the jailing of those whose views he found repugnant. Which puts him well ahead of many others, across the political spectrum.
I’ll freely admit he met the basics of human decency, which is true of many people who worship disagreeable deities with no sense of contradiction. Aslan is a jerk.
OK, I’ll bite. What do you feel that Aslan did wrong? o_O
He acted without regard of the feelings of others.
He decided by himself what would be good for others, which is the definition of evil.
Is there anything Aslan did right at all?
Oh no. . .
Whimsy is a Corporation so Lovelace just mind controlled thousands of people.
On top of that it was “to use mind control for good” which means actively using it.
I think this might be an AI thing. Unlike organics AI’s have under the hood access to their own minds by default, and the minds of their peers by consent or force. They are already used to minds being malleable in certain situations, so they don’t find this kind of mind control inherently terrifying since it’s not something new to them.
it’s like how an immortal would find an immortal killing knife terrifying but a mortal would just see it as a fancy knife.
By saying “turducken,” Nick got at least three fourths of one bad word past his censor.
One and three quarters, actually.
Darn. Missed the beginning of it.
Isn’t “a turducken of bad ideas” an honest description of most of the plots here??
“You’re not getting it, I’m saying mind control is always a skipping bad idea. Even on yourself. Especially on yourself!”
“Really? I’m not sure I believe that… BUT I COULD!”
I would think its only o.k. if you do it on yourself. What makes it scary is the removal of will, but I think people are aloud to change there minds.
I dunno. There are things I think I should believe that I don’t always believe, and I work hard at them, but I think mind-controlling myself to believe them would still be pretty dodgy.
Then again, I’m a strict teetotaller on the grounds that my brain is unreliable enough as it is, so this could just be a personal thing.
Given that she was made by an evil mad scientist, reprogrammed to obey Dave, blew up a moonbase, hacked and stalked Dave, was brutally murdered and hollowed out BY Dave, and spent her entire life around evil, I think we need a long hard look at the values table and priorities settings of what ‘only for good’ means to Lovelace.
It might mean “the opposite of whatever the people in my childhood would have done.” That would be a decent start.
Turducken: The TRUE story. https://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/Dr-Fun/df200312/df20031210.jpg
…OK, she does look cute in panels three and four, I guess.
That sure is relying on a lot of people having the same perspective of what good is.