FriendOfDeSoto

Do you know the TV series Game of Thrones? The nun lady walking by the naked queen in there in one of its most famous scenes is yelling “shame” and ringing her bell to underscore the shame of the naked queen on her walk from the palace. As if being walked down naked wasn’t indicative enough of that.

That’s a massive miscalculation though. This strategy is based in red team/blue team thinking and would only work on red who protect their own no matter what. The majority of blue team would happily send Bill on his naked shame walk from the palace to the citadel. That’s because they want all people in the files guilty of crimes brought in front of a jury.

I think Monica Lewinsky in a blue dress should get to walk alongside Bill with the bell and yell shame right into his ear until she got hoarse.

I don’t think the author likes mastodon dot social…

I couldn’t get through all of this blog post because it’s repeating the same point 500 times. I get the theoretical threat scenario they are painting; what’s missing are the receipts. Is moderation on that instance actually getting worse? Have we talked with admins on the record how they don’t dare defederate from that alleged wretched hive of scum and villainy? And two other angles are missing: (1) a name brand instance might be a good starting point on the fediverse. It’s still better than Xwitter. And (2) people are not donating enough to their instances, who are then run on dedication and held together by duct tape. The fear of having one’s instance shut down because the admin is out of money and duct tape makes people gravitate towards the bigger instances.

I’m not opposed to recommending people to find other, smaller instances - that is a good idea. It’s just this blog post reads more like a hit piece.

I would replace patriotism with nationalism. There are patriots who stand up to oppose their own leaders when their conduct is unbecoming. Nationalists would sooner bite their tongue. The lack of introspection makes them react poorly to other nationalists elsewhere.

Thanks for the clarification. It sounded like an “Orwell was so right” post to me. My mistake.

You are picking and choosing your predictions from 1984 though. The UK hasn’t become airstrip one and ingsoc hasn’t taken over. Newspeak is something we often bemoan when politicians speak but that’s more of a critical shorthand than accusing them of actually talking in double plus ungood words. There is still a royal as the head of state and the capitalists hold the power. There is no room 101 in London (except for the TV show). We are more connected to the rest of the world and aware of the shit that’s happening than in the 1940s.

Orwell may have been prescient in some areas but also wrong in others. It’s a bit like Nostradamus. Add salt to both.

I would start by suggesting we look at fewer youtubers and their views on the subject. I’m tired of dumb facial expressions on thumbnails and exaggerated video titles that do not aim for calm, measured critique but to please the algorithm. And the algorithm likes controversy. So this linked video may be the outlier - I wouldn’t know because I refuse to click through. These video links are more often than not efforts to increase views and thus nudge the video up in the ranking.

Is the death of the franchise nigh? Maybe. It wouldn’t be its first. We have had deaths after TOS S3 and ENT S4/Nemesis. There was stuff in print or in games but nothing on screen until Star Wars became a success and the arrival of the binge streaming age/Star Wars again respectively. We may be on the verge of another lull. We are very dedicated fans of a franchise that needs to be bigger to be financially viable long term. But we are a big enough chunk of the market that executives will be tempted to bring it back.

Can Star Trek tell more stories? Sure it can. It depends on the writers. I was personally disappointed with the stories Disco and PIC told. They thought Star Trek storytelling needs to be Breaking Bad’s mixed with Game of Thrones’s and that equalled universe destroying threats that need to be fought every season. For SNW they learned that you can have a season long plot but you want to be more episodic. Academy is like that as well. There is a lot of fan service in them by design and references only a subset of viewers will catch. But I don’t think that makes the shows less good or accessible to new audiences. And Marvel has established the easter-eggification of storytelling in modern franchises so a lot of viewers will want that.

Many scripts that became Star Trek stories were just sci-fi ideas that were then molded around the universe. There are still good sci-fi story ideas out there that can be told.

My fear is that we are at a ENT S3 point in time. It’s a good season but not enough people are watching. Same with SNW or Academy. That’s partially pissed off fans but also people not paying Paramount to watch it for reasons unrelated to the fandom. And the maneuvering around the Warner deal makes me fearful that all new projects will be shelved very soon for lack of funding and projected economic success. If the third lull is upon us, it’s for economic reasons, not the lack of stories to be told.

Enjoy the soothing waves and the Iranian missiles overhead! You’ll probably be safer in the water. Just saying.

From my experience, no moderator enjoys the job. And the job is tougher than you think.

I would say an issue as complex as this deserves more than a three-sentence shower thought.

Unnecessary. Leave the door open to air dry between washes.

I live in a place where humidity maxes out over summer and I assure you just airing it out doesn’t do the trick.

Also, there are washing machines on this planet that don’t run on hot water. I have one of those. I can run hot water from the tap but it technically isn’t built for that. These machines require treatment.

What do you think is more likely? That a laundry noob is gonna throw self measured amounts of vinegar and citric acid in their washing machine? Or that they get a readymade product from the drugstore?

If you don’t own delicate garments that require hand washing or a suit that requires dry cleaning, you’re probably alright. Other than that, in my experience it pays off long term to separate colors from whites.

Is your washing machine using hot/warm water? If no, it might start stinking after a while of only running cold cycles. You can probably buy washing machine cleaner liquid that you run on an empty cycle. You do that once a year or when it stinks to prevent your clothes picking up the same moldy scent.

Don’t throw wool into the dryer. Don’t hang up heavy sweaters on hangers when they’re still wet. The extra weight will over time create hanger bulges on your shoulders. Fabric softeners are a waste of money if you ask me.

This is by no means complete. If you have any more specific questions that relate to your situation, maybe just put those in here.

I appreciate your well actually here. I would just like to point out for future reference that any comment containing the question “are you high?” like that is most likely tongue in cheek.

The knees? Are you high? The ankles.

Jeez! Cut the gingerbread man in the gingerbread house some slack.

A nightmare is still a dream.

I heard the clip haha

Best boss I ever had.

I don’t necessarily understand why they chose that director but I kind of get why they wanted to try someone else. IX hadn’t been a great success. They wanted to find new momentum like a sports ball team swapping coaches when the season is going south. Team still got relegated. Life is like that sometimes. It’s easy for me to say Frakes would’ve been better because I have the benefit of hindsight.

I didn’t hate it when I saw it in theaters. Thought it was better than IX and VII but not VIII. It was a hit heavy on wanting to be star wars. The buggy ride, fighter ships, fights on gangways above huge chasms on the ship, the humorous banter while pew pew. Didn’t like the death of Data. Didn’t we learn anything from Spock? I liked the world building for the Roms and the Rems. I liked Hardy in it.

I don’t mind rewatching this movie. I feel it benefits from aging a bit like III doesn’t (but V does for me). And I’d argue it’s definitely better than PIC S2, if not the whole show.

The general vibe around this movie is bad because the box office take wasn’t great and then we learned all these little tidbits from BTS: Wesley (the boy?!) being cut out of the wedding scene or the director thinking Geordie was an alien. I think Frakes in the chair would have done a better job with it.

This is sign that Google is worried that a market of 500 million people could decide to move away from the US tech giants. Very worried, judging by this flimsy fear-driven argument. Good.

I think that is a slight misconception. The full name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. So UK≠GB. Great Britain is just the three contiguous home nations (and possibly all the weird little islands I think). And then the British Isles include all the islands including all of Ireland. It is no wonder people are confused.