Rory

Excellent outline of my own experience with grok imagine over the last month (Feb 2026) using a very simple short script rendered as claymation. It takes hours to get just the right take and still small compromises must be made along the way, but I’m getting closer and Imagine is getting better with advances almost every week.

Spent about $1000 in credits on Seedance 2.0 over the last few weeks,and here are a few thoughts: First, the main thing that strikes me using a state-of-the-art model from this new generation is how hard it still is to scale beyond short form. Getting great animation is fast. Getting multi-cut sequences that make sense is possible. Consistency with Omnireference is actually very good. But the moment you move into real narrative work, things change. Multi-character exchanges, long sequences, maintaining visual continuity across shots, keeping tone, pacing, and staging consistent… it’s not impossible, but it is still a lot of work. And with generation costing somewhere between $2 and $7 per ~15 seconds, it adds up very quickly. As models improve, producing good looking short content is becoming trivial. Building something that holds together as a story is still not. Continue Video in Seedance is clearly trying to address part of this, but in my case it has been broken for the last couple of weeks, so none of my longer attempts would go through. In theory, you could imagine a small team of 5–10 people generating all day from the same storyboard, using a shared visual reference as a single source of truth. That alone shows how close we are to something that starts looking like a real production pipeline. But we are not fully there yet. Right now it still feels like we can touch the future with the tip of our fingers, while at the same time struggling to precisely steer a model using mostly words, references, and iterations when the narrative becomes complex. Short clips are easy. Worldbuilding is not. And storytelling is still the hardest part.

“TUVIX” from Star Trek Voyager was a brilliant attempt at merging the ‘left’ and the ‘right’ into a figure of wholeness. The writers of the show seem to have been exploring many Jungian psychological concepts. Unfortunately, they had to terminate Tuvix in order to regain the less balanced Tuvock and Neelix.

Endorsed

@ArynneWexler Excellent volley.

A liberal woman interrupted my set to call me racist Here’s how I responded

Reduction, amplification. Incorporate this formula to dreams, art and photography, films, myths, Bible stories, etc. Try to see so-called literal history as figurative. Likewise, try to find the figurative in historical narratives. This practice opens up a world of wonder against the backdrop of mundane daily experience. I will demonstrate this process as best I can in future posts.

A film-on-glass experiment of yours truly for a music project I’m developing. Some curious stuff at play here: using translum backlit with cotton batting glued to it for cloud effects and an old piece of show card for the left hand side reflection. Shot on a Hasselblad loaded with Ilford HP5.

“Higher Education”. If you’ve never attended a fair in a rural county and you’re a city person, you may be missing out. I also recommend regional ‘pro’ wrestling for a dynamic cultural experience. This was taken with trusty Ilford 400 HP5 film with a 50mm on a Canon AE-1. Without the sun shining from behind, the dust would not have been so wonderfully brilliant. It defines the shape of the truck/bus that happens to have the moniker “Higher Education”. The little boy in ear protectors set I. The foreground and out of focus at f1.8 gave me an Anton Corbijn-style effect which I fell in love with long ago paging through the album art of Achtung Baby.

Appalachian Fair, Gray, Tn. 2026. Father and Son.

I picked up a few old canon 35mm cameras this fall and some 1-step developer and process everything in the sinks at home. Using film not for the purpose of high fidelity (which now belongs to digital) but for its innate characteristics grants results that I may otherwise never discover.

2/2 I found a copy of “Man and His Symbols”.  Then read “Memories, Dreams, and Reflections”.  It was thematically heavy and both contrasted and confirmed much of my spiritual upbringing as a tongue-talking charismatic Christian (though many would refute that claim).  I added “The Undiscovered Self” and “The Red Book” to my arsenal.  The journey inward had begun.  I began recording my dreams.  No filter was acceptable.  Every dream image must be recorded and considered.  They were, and continue to be, logged and given weight in conscious life.  I learned that “Jungians” are a motley crew and I disagree with many of them and find his work to be gravely and often misconstrued. Now, at the twilight of my 40s, I’ve determined to produce from what I’ve consumed in the form of photographs, animations, music, dreams, and essays.  Let us be producers as much as we consume and avoid the fate of the pathetic humans depicted in Wall-E!

Why Start Posting? 1/2 Wall-E was instructive.  It allowed us to see ourselves as what we might become, if we fail to participate in creation itself and allow ourselves to be purely consumers.  The result is that we become slothful immobilized receptacles who’ve lost touch with how the things we depend on ever came to be. I decided to sunscribe to the X platform and have determined to become a producer in as much as I consume.  This is one of the dictates I teach my son (“for as much time as you spend consuming I expect you to also be creative”) so that we don’t become like the incapacitated humans depicted in Wall-E. I’ve just turned 48 years of age.   In my 20s I played clubs and coffee shops strapped with a guitar and cobbled together lyrical eruptions depicting my bewilderments in life.   In my 30s I tried to set myself apart as a photographer and developed a style of “turducken” photography:  putting an idea into another idea into yet another idea for a potentially cryptic but rewarding result. In my 40s, Carl Jung’s proclaimed phase of ‘individuation’, I’ve wondered if all the youthful energy sown towards becoming creatively set apart in my 20s and 30s was mis-appropriated.  I do not think it was.  It was necessary to work through each phase to arrive here.   In 2018, at age 40, I entertained the idea of escaping from what I considered a failed life by imagining myself jumping from a high bridge.  I imagined floating around as a disembodied spirit observing my wife and son grieve and move on with their lives.  I imagined new men visiting my wife and son, and my son in his teens surviving the loss of a selfish father whose shadow would follow him always.  That path was unacceptable.  An old friend shared a Joe Rogan episode with guest Jordan Peterson.  I had plenty of transit time and devoured his interviews and lectures that were available at the time.  It felt like a masters class on the process of what I’ve termed “reduction/amplification”.  Using myths and biblical stories, Peterson caused me to see myself, and the world around me, in a more grandiose and meaningful frame.  I’d felt this way in my late teens, as a faith-inspired youth, before entering an era of disillusionment and fornication. In my 20s, I worked so hard at getting people to attend the performances of my band.  In my 30s, I worked hard at getting my photographs in front of people’s eyes.  For my 40s, however, I determined to retreat to my inner-world and to analyze and develop what I'd spent so much energy trying to broadcast in the decades beforehand.  Perhaps the cart was before the horse.  Before understanding, I’d exercised declaration.  This is the way of things, however, for many of us as we develop through life. Later in 2018, a freelance journalist friend of mine took me out for lunch.  I shared that I’d been consuming copious amounts of lectures from a “now suddenly popularized psychologist”-avoiding the stated name of “Jordan Peterson” as I knew that it may not facilitate my credibility with my company, whose work sometimes appeared in The Atlantic (indicating a likely contrary political persuasion to Peterson's perceived political stance at the time).  I shared how the effect of the lectures is they helped extinguish my suicidal ideations.  He also avoided stating Jordan Peterson’s name, but referred to him as a “Jungian-influenced popular psychologist”.  That was my introduction to Carl Jung.  I dug around and found some books by Jung-and determined that his latter stage of life would be most indicative of the fruit of his life’s work. …continued…

@RyanSprague51 @paulkimballfilm A brutal education.

Just started watching The Sandbaggers. A recommendation from @paulkimballfilm is never wrong. So grab your bellbottoms and let's spy!👁️

@mmpadellan Inauthentic. Insincere. Illogical. Ultimately violent and rooted in a lie. Sir, I’m afraid you are being manipulated and used for destructive purposes.

BREAKING: Bruce Springsteen sings his new anti-ICE song, "The Streets of Minneapolis": And there were bloody footprints where mercy should have stood, Two dead left to die, on snow-filled streets: Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Chills. 🥺🇺🇲

@daviss Inauthentic. Insincere. Illogical. Ultimately violent and rooted in a lie.

Now: Bruce Springsteen sings “Streets of Minneapolis” in Minneapolis

@TMZ Insincere fool. Mob invasion of a church service and aggressive intimidation of minors is what’s being defended here. Some might even call it assault.

🚨 Don Lemon has been arrested. Could this change democracy forever?

@paz1pbf @Andreafreedom76 This is a great overview. Thank you Pascual and Grok.

According to GROK It started in the 1960s as far-left (Marxist-ish student stuff), then shifted hard right in the 1970s–80s — adding anti-gay, anti-environmentalist, and sometimes antisemitic tones (critics say it's basically fascist wrapped in patriotism and economics). Followers treat LaRouche like a genius prophet, and the movement often acts cult-like with top-down control and attacks on critics.In short: "The British Empire and global financiers are trying to destroy civilization — only massive U.S.-led industrial/nuclear revival, classical culture, and smashing the conspiracy can save humanity." It's a unique, extreme blend that's hard to place on left/right — more like a paranoid techno-nationalist worldview.LaRouche ideology, in very simple layman's terms, is a strange, intense mix of ideas created by Lyndon LaRouche (a political activist who died in 2019). His followers still push it today through groups like LaRouche PAC or the Schiller Institute.Here's the core of it broken down plainly:The world is run by a secret evil elite — especially the British royal family, big bankers, and certain "oligarchs." They supposedly control everything and want to keep humanity poor, stupid, and backward (sometimes called causing a new "Dark Ages"). LaRouche saw this as an ancient fight going back centuries. America should become a super-industrial powerhouse — Build massive infrastructure (big projects like high-speed rail, nuclear power plants, space exploration), use lots of energy (especially nuclear), and grow the population/economy fast. He called this increasing "energy flux density" — basically, humans using more and more powerful energy per person to advance civilization. Reject environmentalism, population control, and efficiency obsession — Things like fighting climate change, saving energy, or limiting growth are seen as tricks by the elite to stop progress and depopulate the planet. Bring back fixed exchange rates and Glass-Steagall-style banking — Break up big speculative finance, return to something like the old Bretton Woods system (stable currencies tied to something solid), and focus on real production instead of Wall Street gambling. Classical culture and science are good; British philosophy is bad — He loved Plato, Beethoven, and big scientific leaps. He hated empiricism (relying only on senses/data) from thinkers like Locke or Hume, which he said leads to moral relativism and dumbing people down. Heavy conspiracy focus — Almost everything bad (wars, economic crashes, diseases, etc.) ties back to that same elite plot. His group has pushed wild claims (e.g., Queen Elizabeth running the drug trade, AIDS conspiracies, etc.).

x.com/PrometheanActn… Almost 800,000 people have shared this video. Did you just buy into a Russian multipolar Chinese Hybrid Warfare PSYOP? You have been informed. Promethean PAC is the rebranded LaRouchePAC (changed in 2024), part of the Lyndon LaRouche movement; a political network founded by LaRouche (1922-2019), who began as a Marxist-Leninist/Trotskyist in the 1940s-50s before evolving into a unique ideology emphasizing economic infrastructure, classical humanism, and anti-British conspiracies. The movement uses a hierarchical, cult-like "Leninist" structure for organizing followers. On Russia, it has pro-Kremlin leanings, with affiliates like the Schiller Institute collaborating with Russian media to promote multipolar geopolitics, support Putin's policies, and spread anti-Ukraine narratives. The PAC now has infiltrated Trump-aligned candidates and focuses on "American System" economics, raising ~$418K in 2023- LaRouche associates have appeared on Shaun Newman Podcast (Canadian conservative) and collaborate with pro-Russia figures like Jackson Hinkle, who hosts his own shows. The group primarily runs its own podcasts/webcasts (e.g., Promethean Action, LaRouche Organization).

@Andreafreedom76 @73_silverback No, it does not. Your post is fairly expository without being overtly forthright. What is your stance on the ideals of the British Empire versus MAGA? Does MAGA have more values shared with Russia than those of the EU and Ukraine?

@73_silverback I think my post states clearly what my opinion is about this group.

@Alec_Zeck This is a very handy post. Thank you!

Incredibly important to understand these concepts, psychological dynamics, and experiments in order to know what’s going on in the world.

@_jazbeck_ I love this

A short comic to remember David Lynch, about at dream I had some years ago. (1/2)

@Variety It works as long as the backend accounting is legit.

#BenAffleck says film crews deserve to be paid “the decent middle wage that’s been provided for decades in this country” — which is why he and #MattDamon struck a first-of-its-kind deal with #Netflix on their new movie “The Rip” where all 1,200 cast and crew members could receive a back-end bonus if the film succeeds. “There’s no guarantee that everyone’s going to get rich and be successful, but if you work on a project and it is successful, you ought to benefit from that,” Affleck told Variety on Tuesday night at “The Rip” worldwide premiere in New York. Most streaming projects pay workers a flat fee upfront, ditching the old model where cast and crew could earn more when a project became a hit.