I poked around the search results being pointed to, saw a Ray Kurzweil book and realized that none of these people are worth taking seriously. My condolences to anyone who tries to explain the problems with the "improved" sources on offer.
Rather than trying to participate in the "article for deletion" dispute with the most pedantic nerds on Earth (complimentary) and the most pedantic nerds on Earth (derogatory), I will content myself with pointing and laughing at the citation to Scientific Reports, aka "we have Nature at home"
Wow, this is shit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_alignment
Edit: I have been informed that the correct statement in line with Wikipedia's policies is WP:WOWTHISISSHIT
I'd disagree with the media analysis in "What Was The Nerd?" at a few points. For example, Marty McFly isn't a bullied nerd. George McFly is. Marty plays in a band and has a hot girlfriend. He's the non-nerd side of his interactions with Doc Brown, where he's the less intellectual, and with George, where he's the more cool. Likewise, Chicago in Ferris Bueller's Day Off isn't an "urban hellscape". It's the fun place to go when you want to ditch the burbs and take in some urban pleasures (a parade, an art gallery...).
Because of course.
You know, just this once, I am willing to see the "Dead Dove: Do Not Eat" label and be content to leave the bag closed.
"And the name of that novelist? Albert Einstein!"
Yes; the feeling that I've been pondering over and trying to articulate is that in every iteration of the "curtains are blue" story I can recall, the statement by the teacher being shot down didn't even sound like any of the bad literature teachers I've had. It's some kind of strawman crossed with "and then everyone clapped".
I've known my share of obnoxious literature teachers, and their problem overall was not that they insisted that details had to be symbolic, but rather that their peculiar interpretation of very-obviously-symbolic details had to be the correct one.
Or was it a consequence of the fact that capital-R Rationalists just don't shut up?
It's like when Scott Aaronson got me to sympathize with a cop. A sneersmas miracle.