I wonder if the people who voted for this atrocity read the original German.
A few years back I started referring to anyone who calls women “females” as a Ferengi.
YES. The techies refuse to acknowledge anything like basic humanity, and every. single. one. of these monsters deserves none of our compassion or humanity since they are so eager to throw it in the garbage. I wish I could re-institute shunning as a consequence to all of Silicon Valley.
I finally lost my shit about so-called AIs, LLMs, enshittification & everything fucking evil that @officialgrammarly.bsky.social is doing. I'm fucking furious, and not just about what 1 company has done. An open letter to Grammarly & the rest of the LLM hype machine www.moryan.com/an-open-lett...
And as importantly, visit horror on a country that many Americans have been conditioned to see as the enemy for decades, and that had the temerity to tell us "no."
(All of Trump's cultural references, such as they are, date to ca. 1985, so IMO this tracks).
Lower Decks was the only Trek show to
a) have unironic *fun* and
b) talk about class in the ST universe in a for-real way
I think it opened up a lot of storytelling possibilities, honestly, that the other shows didn't seize on nearly as much.
Yeah, when my dad rented out the two apartments in our building (a New England three decker) he wanted long term tenants because people moving in and out was a hassle as much as anything, so he kept rent stable. (Have to say I learned a ton about home repair in the process).
That's a funny thing about when I read old X-Men now -- as a kid they are power fantasies, and as an adult you see the problems there but also think, "wow these folks are much younger than I am now," and wish they'd listen to advice lol.
Like, maybe it's also 45 years of perspective -- I first read this as an 11-year old -- I think it hits me in some really interesting ways now, when I think of moral choices. I can see the flaws in Claremont's setup, but at the same time I see very young people grappling with something *huge*
I read this when it came out. It was a big goddamned deal -- issues got sold out crazy fast, and at that time X-Men was Marvel's best selling title (and *the* best selling comics title).
While the theme of women and power has its issues, I think even reading it now the story hits some great beats.
I wonder if Powell read an old piece (I wish I could dig it up now; haven't the time/energy) that the crazy socialists at the WSJ did back in oh, 2004? 2005? - a study on why few make gains on their home; post 1990s it was harder to build wealth with it. I recall it was a real eye-opener for me.
I can't get past the paywall (and don't want to, really) but there's a very real difference between simple home ownership and being a landlord (I mean, my leftist parents did both!).
So I think at some level some things can be forgiven a tad tho I think you are writing pop sci books it behooves you to keep up with where the fields you write about are more recently than 30 years back.
(I have an Astro text by Payne-Gaposchkin, from 1948- think how wrong it is on many things!)
That makes sense, though Sagan’s book came out before then- it was published in 1985.
Probably they did not (I worked in a library and we didn’t- too much to do!) but that sounds about right for out of date-ness. I mean I am old enough to recall when all of them got a bit of press. The DM disc was one idea from about the 90s? Correct me if I am wrong about the timing.
Is this because of Sagan’s book Comet? I recall he posited that small disturbances could create comet showers, and that the K-pg might have been such, but that was what, almost 40 years ago.
(To be fair most people’s astronomy /planetary science knowledge is about that vintage, IME)
David Landes wrote a great book on the invention of watches and clocks - Revolution in Time. Gets into a bit of why clocks were on towers in the center of town, initially, and how bad some of those early ones were.
I mean, I grew up in northern MA & spent rather too much time in Raymond :-). Back then some folks were still complaining about the *French Canadians* in Manchester. I'm unsurprised (sighs sadly).
This in the state that has a planned economy for booze. Irony is dead, clearly.
It’s mot hard to see why certain people want to make it lonely. Because if anyone “different” is miserable it validates a certain worldview- that some things are good and right and if you are “bad” you will be unhappy.
Hm.
"Chelsea Morning" (Joni Mitchell)
"Space Oddity" (David Bowie)
"Helplessly Hoping" (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
The very first thing I ever drank and got drunk with was freaking Olde English. It was cheap enough for a couple of 1980s era teens on minimum wage jobs.
I think it flatters us to think that evil people are stupid. They aren't.
I do agree tho that they have no scruples, no humanity. And we should always always always treat them as the monsters they are.
Yeah the Nazi tattoos are totally ok! After all they do no harm.
I don't care what the guy's job is. I care that he at best has pretty terrible judgement about Nazi tattoos. You don't just "accidentally" stumble on that kind of thing.
No, I think this underestimates the people who do evil and that's dangerous.
They WANT to cause harm. They like it, it makes them feel good.
They are monsters who have voluntarily turned in their human card.
A good thread. Allow me, an amateur, and a crass former journalist to add... (nothing new here) there is a whole thing I could go into about a massive case of arrested development amongst the technorati. I am always gobsmacked (as the Brits say) by how... adolescent? their view of the world is.
I teach teenagers and I tell the boys all the time that if you want to impress girls, learn to cook.
(My father cooked, and was damned good at it. But growing up I was struck by how "traditional" gender roles only worked for upper middle class people; the working parents I knew were less rigid)
look ima need white people to stop explaining to me that every white dude is prone to get obvious Nazi tattoos in their 20s. the shit is not true. I know plenty of white military dudes who didnt get Nazi tattoos. This is not a widespread phenomenon.
I mean, I see a lot of people - some my contemporaries even - who get caught up in antiestablishment branding and see fascist imagery as cool iconography. My grandpa Jack knew it for what it was; the consequences for him and those he loved were all too real; he'd be having none of it.
Related: the older generations were far from perfect, but the people who fought fascists have largely passed on, and I think that's one reason why they were able to emerge as they have.
And already JP Morgan is predicting $120 /barrel.
I mean, I just can't get my head around what Rubio or Trump thinks they are going to do, assuming they take any measures at all.
Though, if you wanted to lower oil prices, ending sanctions on Iran would do it. /end
