What is “the normal UTF-8 space”?

You space the endash, not the emdash.

The repetition between chapters happens because the storyteller of a given story doesn’t know if you know the origin story or not. (It’s like how every damned Superman or Spider-Man or whatever movie always has to show how Superman/Spider-Man came to be.) Within chapters it could be part of an oral recitation thing with the repetitions being vestigial choruses. There is a lot of scholarship around this novel, and I’m not really deeply involved in any of it. I’m a situation- and opportunity-driven dabbler.

It’s a little bit out of date naturally (1300 years will do that to you), but it’s actually kind of amazing how relevant it still is today. It doesn’t have information on all the different varieties of tea available today (the 2011-published tome The Classic of Chinese Tea which is increasingly the standard textbook for tea production in China corrects this), but what it does mention is still here today processed very much in similar fashions (albeit with upgrades in the equipment for picking it).

It would be a bit of a slog to read (because of some unfamiliar terminology you’d have to check up in the appendices) were it not so short. My trilingual edition is a small hardback book of 150 pages (including some opening pages with pretty pictures, two introductions, a preface, two appendices and a references list). About half that is the English text, so you’re looking at reading about 75 pages. I think you could browse it quite successfully over a weekend without strain.

Yeah, talk to the hand, you putrid asshole.

Buh-bye.

The repetition is there because these are primarily oral tales that have been barely edited into something that almost, but not quite, has a coherent narrative.

The tales within Journey to the West come from a very wide period of historical storytelling and are in a wide variety of storytelling traditions. There’s very little consistency from tale to tale, and any overarching theme was added much later in forming the “novel”. (It’s a “novel” in the same way that Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles is a novel, right down to inconsistencies from member story to story.)

I’m splitting my attention between The Classic of Tea and The Legend of Darkness. The former is a nice little hardback with trilingual contents (Classical Chinese, Vernacular Chinese, and English) while the latter is a bilingual edition (Classical Chinese, and English).

Do you think that Musk gives any shits at all if Ghislaine gets pardoned or not? Why would he? She didn’t do anything to him, and compassion for her victims is “weakness”.

And yet not a single channel that I’ve clicked that button on has ever showed up in my recommendations ever again.

I literally screen-captured it doing something.

Keep undermining your cause. Apparently the western left doesn’t learn from over a decade of continued abject failure.

But do it in your own feed, please. (Not that you’ll be polluting mine any further.)

Because I live in reality, not in some bizarre cloud-cuckoo land.

This is also known as “late stage capitalism”.

That curve is bullshit both in its original “hype cycle” formulation and in this one.

Because most things crash and burn in the Valley of Despair. Hyped technologies almost always hit the Valley of Despair and then collapse and fail, never reaching enlightenment or sustainability. And the Dunnning-Kruger version you’ve put here has the very risibly optimistic view that people break out of the know-nothing stage.

You don’t even have to be an expert to spot the insane gibbering. Just ask it about, say, lyrics from a band and watch it generate completely non-existent lyrics. For example:

What are the opening lyrics to The Advert’s song “One Chord Wonders”?

The opening lyrics to The Adverts’ song “One Chord Wonders” are:

“We must be one chord wonders, one chord wonders…”

The song, released in 1977 as part of their debut album “Crossing the Red Sea with The Adverts”, is a self-aware punk anthem about being dismissed as musically simplistic. The track humorously embraces the band’s raw, minimalist style while critiquing critics who underestimated them.

Would you like the full lyrics or more context about the song?

Sure. Let’s see the full lyrics.

Here are the full lyrics to “One Chord Wonders” by The Adverts (1977):

“One Chord Wonders”

We must be one chord wonders, one chord wonders,

One chord wonders, that’s all we are.

We must be one chord wonders, one chord wonders,

One chord wonders, we don’t know much,

But we know what we like, and we like it a lot.

We must be one chord wonders, one chord wonders,

One chord wonders, that’s all we are.

We must be one chord wonders, one chord wonders,

One chord wonders, we don’t know much,

But we know what we like, and we like it a lot.

They said we were one chord wonders,

One chord wonders, that’s all we are.

They said we were one chord wonders,

One chord wonders, but we don’t care.

We must be one chord wonders, one chord wonders,

One chord wonders, that’s all we are.

We must be one chord wonders, one chord wonders,

One chord wonders, we don’t know much,

But we know what we like, and we like it a lot.

They said we were one chord wonders,

One chord wonders, that’s all we are.

They said we were one chord wonders,

One chord wonders, but we don’t care.

We must be one chord wonders, one chord wonders,

One chord wonders, that’s all we are.

About the Song:

The Adverts, a key UK punk band, wrote this song as a tongue-in-cheek response to critics who dismissed punk as simplistic. Despite the title, the song actually uses more than one chord, making the joke even sharper. It’s both a satire of punk’s detractors and a celebration of raw, energetic music.

Would you like any background on the band or the album?

Note that the only editing I did to this was some very minor formatting changes. (LLMbeciles seem to love dividing lines and don’t seem to understand Markdown rules for line separation.) Note also that the “full lyrics” that it cites don’t even resemble the real thing:

I wonder what we’ll play for you tonight

Something heavy or something light

Something to set your soul alight

I wonder how we’ll answer when you say

"We don’t like you, go away

Come back when you’ve learned to play"

I wonder what we’ll do when things go wrong

When we’re half-way through our favorite song

We look up and the audience has gone

Will we feel a little bit obscure

Think we’re not needed here

We must be new wave, they’ll like us next year

(The wonders don’t care) We don’t give a damn

(The wonders don’t care) We don’t give a damn

(The wonders don’t care) We don’t give a damn

So I give it the actual lyrics and ask it to identify them. The confabulation continues with breath-taking gall:

Yes! Those lyrics are from “One Chord Wonders” by The Adverts—but they’re from the longer, alternate version of the song, which includes additional verses not found in the standard album or single release.

Key Details:

• The version you quoted appears on some bootlegs, live recordings, or later compilations (like the “Crossing the Red Sea with The Adverts” deluxe reissue).
• The extra lyrics expand on the song’s themes of insecurity, defiance, and punk’s DIY ethos. The band sarcastically mocks critics while admitting their own struggles (“Will we feel a little bit obscure?”).
• The “We must be new wave, they’ll like us next year” line is a cheeky nod to punk’s evolution and the music industry’s fickleness.

Why Two Versions?

The original 1977 single/album cut is shorter and more repetitive, while this extended version feels almost like a meta-commentary on the band’s place in punk. It’s possible the extra verses were dropped for brevity or punchiness.

Fun fact: Despite the title, the song uses at least three chords (E, A, and B), making the joke even better.

Would you like help tracking down a specific recording of this extended version?

I’m not an expert on early punk. I’m not an expert on lyrics. I’m not really an expert on anything involved in this session beyond being an expert spotter of bullshit. And yet, it was really fucking obvious that it was bullshitting here. (Note that it called the shorter (correct) lyrics the “longer, alternate version”. It even bullshits about its bullshit.)

Wait, you mean techie nerds created new technology without thinking consequences through and it was used to degrade, harrass, and otherwise treat women like shit?

This has never, not even once, happened before!

If it’s on the recommended list at the right you can click on the triple-dot next to the and say “don’t recommend this channel” or some such, yes.

You’re being very disingenuous in applying human rights terminology to something that has sweet fuck all to do with human rights.

Or do you think it’s a human rights violation that an actor, say, be required to know how to act? Or a musician be required to know music? Or a chef be required to know cookery?

Your variety of faux-leftist bullshit is why the left has suffered setback after setback in the past few decades.

As soon as I hear the signs of TTS, I block the channel and stop the video.

LLMbecile hallucinations would actually be an improvement over CEOs. It is at least something that kinda-sorta looks and feels like creativity after all.