I dunno, very impressive though. Especially when you look at the videos of how much shaking there was.
Anyway it sounds like outside of the damage in Hualien, and it’s nearby famous attraction the Taroko Gorge, most of the daily life is pretty much back to usual in Taiwan.
Here’s the longer story. Of course YouTube is involved. Their algorithm is as evil and anything any other social media platform has ever done. But they mostly skate somehow.
The long hours on camera were taking a toll on her, so when she clicked off the webcam at night she often opened YouTube, seeking solace in cute animal videos. Her favourites were a chimpanzee family in a zoo in Japan. She could watch them for hours as she drifted towards sleep.
Kapetanich didn’t know it then, but as she watched, YouTube’s algorithm was at work on her, following her every click, saving her every preference, presenting her with new content it hoped she would watch next. Soon, when Kapetanich looked at YouTube at night, monkeys were everywhere. “All it takes is like, one click and bam, it’s all over your feed,” she said.
Kapetanich saw monkeys dressed up in baby clothes, monkeys being bathed, forced to walk upright or do other unnatural tasks. Then the algorithm served her videos of monkeys being slapped and sprayed with water. These videos violated YouTube’s terms of service, so she reported them, but the platform didn’t seem to take any action. The videos kept appearing. Kapetanich kept clicking.
Soon enough, a torture video turned up in her feed.
Warning, more graphic stuff below. JFC I thought this stuff was on some dark web discord. It was all out in the open on fucking YouTube.
Summary
Kapetanich found half a dozen other monkeys on the YouTube like Mini. There was Monkey Ji, Baby Ciko, Chiro, Sweetpea, Mona — all baby long-tailed macaques being tortured on film. Some of the monkeys had developed physical tics from the stress. Monkey Ji was known for holding her head in her hands and rocking back and forth. Mini would grip her sides. The monkey haters in the comments loved it. “Abused multiple times a week since a baby. She has lived a TERRIBLE life,” someone wrote, approvingly, under a video of Mini. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a monkey more broken.”
By that point, hundreds of different YouTube channels were posting videos of baby macaques being abused. In some, the monkeys appeared to die on screen. “Watch them try to breathe while their idiotic brains shut down,” wrote one commenter. Lucy Kapetanich was horrified by what she saw. It hurt to watch as Mini’s owner cooed an Indonesian endearment — “sayang” — to her and then smacked her in the face. It all brought Kapetanich to tears more than once. But the monkey haters loved it.
“He sayang-ed Mini and then immediately smacked her!” wrote one, screen name “Grace”.
A facebook friend of mine (he’d probably fit in well here) is running for Congress in Indiana. I think we became friends posting about the same issue somewhere on fb. It’s been a while. https://www.changecongress.com/
Anyone going to try to see the eclipse Monday? I had targeted Vincennes Indiana as a good place. Was thinking of driving down, watching, and driving back.
However the forecast says 40% cloudy, not sure how to interpret that. 40% chance that it will be 100% cloudy? Or the sky will be 40% covered by clouds and 60% clear?
I don’t want to drive a bunch of hours just to get shut out. Hopefully the forecast will clarify a bit one way or the other over the next couple days. Probably won’t know until the day before
Now reading some traffic horror stories, and reconsidering. I can take Monday off but not Tuesday. I didn’t realize how bad it would be to get out of the area. Fartrockets
Newton nearly went blind looking directly at the sun. He had to spend a couple of days in complete darkness before his eyesight came back. He made his own eclipse! Don’t try it unless you’re his intellectual equal.
So hosts to a sports radio show I listen to regularly both went to bumfuck Kentucky to watch totality last time. Host #1 wasted no time getting the fuck out and apparently had little issue with traffic. Host #2 stalled 5-10 minutes and was stuck in traffic for hours.