It’s a code that Chinese internet users use to refer to Xi Jinping. Or at least they used to. The CCP caught on and now that phrase gets auto deleted off of Chinese websites. “Tiananmen, Winnie the Pooh” proves I’m not a Chinese AI, and “8647, Luigi Mangione” proves I’m not an American one. I’m not really sure what would prove I’m not a Russian one. “Fuck Vladimir Putin”?

Any time someone accuses me of being a bot I respond with “Tiananmen Winnie the Pooh 8647 Luigi Mangione” and that generally proves my humanity

Probably not a coincidence that most Golden Age superheroes were created around the beginning of WWII:

• Superman 1938

• Batman 1939

• Captain Marvel/Shazam 1939

• The Human Torch 1939

• Namor the Sub-Mariner 1939

• The Flash 1939

• Captain America 1940

• Green Lantern 1940

• Wonder Woman 1941

When I was a kid in the 90s, the 70s were in vogue and if you wanted to be retro it meant the 70s. That 70s Show for example, plus N-Trance doing all those old disco remixes, plus Dazed and Confused, plus Almost Famous, plus the disco songs in The Full Monty, etc.

And in the 70s, retro chic meant the 50s, what with Grease and American Graffiti (which was actually set in 1962 but was still about the 50s aesthetic) and Happy Days etc. So it seemed like “retro” meant “20 years ago”.

How, in 25 years, have we only advanced to the 80s for retro chic? Shouldn’t we be on the 90s by now at least, if not the 00s?

PS: perhaps this is indicative of a reduction in cultural influence, today, for the 20-to-30-something demographic, compared to the cultural influence that demographic had in earlier decades. Quentin Tarantino was 29 when he made Reservoir Dogs so he made a movie steeped in 70s vibes. Because in the 90s that age range was where revolutionary thinkers were expected to come from, so naturally the decade of their childhoods, the 70s, was in vogue. Do today’s 29-year-olds have the same platform and opportunities?

Does anyone have a link to the actual Russian text?

The word “al” means “the” in Arabic - for example, “al jazeera” means “the island”. And a lower case L looks like a capital i, so “AI” is visually indistinguishable from “Al”. So the joke is that people who try to shoehorn Artificial Intelligence into everything look like they’re speaking in Arabic.

I might have tried it once when I was a kid but it’s not as effective as a fingernail so once was enough.

And oxygen kills everyone who dies of old age.

Alternatively, and I’m playing devil’s advocate here, but maybe there was more concern that someone might try to assassinate Luigi. After what happened with Jeffrey Epstein, authorities might have figured “the people will lose their minds if Luigi dies in custody, so let’s not take any chances”.

Interesting! Added to my wishlist.

I honestly think it would be interesting to play a game by sound alone, where you play as a blind person (maybe Daredevil or Zatoichi or something) and you navigate the world by listening. Ironically, it’d probably need to be on a VR headset so that the game can detect you turning/tilting your head and adjust the stereo balance accordingly.

Maybe Zatoichi would be best, as you could hear an enemy swinging a sword like “SHING” and “SWOOSH” etc, and maybe that would give you enough information to block or dodge. You’d probably also need haptic feedback to tell you when your blade connects.

Maybe there could be graphics, but only to recreate the sense of smell, like the screen is pure black except when you smell something and then a word appears on the screen like “rose” or “blood” etc.