I've held off rewatching Rogue One until Andor season two finishes, so the former isn't fresh in my mind, but there is plenty of character development in Andor. He's the "guy who gets shit done" but at the beginning of the show, he's reckless and only in it for himself. In that season he sees first hand how the evils of the Empire affect his life, recognizes how his selfishness negatively impacts those around him, sees what it means to be part of something bigger than yourself, and is able to (sort of) move on from a life that revolves around his missing sister. The Rebellion gives him something to focus on and be apart of.
The ending of episode 6, exactly halfway through the season, is also a perfect midpoint for this arc. He's approached by somebody that's in it for themselves, and the reckless, reactive part of Andor reflexively shoots him. He's refuting the selfish part of himself that would have done the very same thing, but the reckless "shoot first think later" part of him is still alive and well.
is all knowledge based on faith
It's based on assumption, not faith. If we can trust our senses, and if things will continue to be as they have been, then the things we are learning have value. As long as you can recognize that everything could in theory end or completely change at any moment, it's not blind belief.
Nobody wants a burger that’s one 1/8th pound patty and 3 inches worth of solid lettuce.
Had regulars when I worked fast food that would order the kid size burger with a fuckton of lettuce and tomato. Just way too much.
Supposedly, a meltdown at sea is pretty low risk because you have the perfect heatsink literally everywhere around you, and its a molten salt design, which I think(?) (source: my ass) means that the fuel would at worst leak into the sea and immediately solidify back into some inert state.
I don't plan on staying here if you defederate with Threads, but I respect your right to do it. The move seems unnecessarily reactionary and premature. I think the open web has more to gain from encouraging companies to invest in ActivityPub than it does siloing itself off from anyone who represents real growth in the space.
If you want the community to remain small, fair enough. I believe in a world in which every social media service is using ActivityPub; I don't care what or who they are. I don't even really understand what the anti-EEE crowd is afraid of? The protocol is run by a neutral party (W3C), I can't imagine any features that would compel major change, nobody that's already on the Fediverse is going to leave, you can always decide later to defederate... The system already seems pretty well protected against hostile action.
Assuming you mean "Can Mastodon instances defederate with Threads?": Yes. Mastodon (and similar services) run on the ActivityPub protocol, which allows them to decide who they do and do not federate with. Many instances have chosen to preemptively block Threads, many have chosen not to. Pick what works for you.
by adding features you can only get if you are on their platform. Their goal is to make most people prefer the Meta version of the fediverse
Why is this a bad thing? This is the system working as intended: a company forced to make a service people want, rather than just taking users for granted. You resist enshittification because you're not being held hostage through access to content, so the company is forced to make the service good. And this will attract other companies to produce competing services.
And besides, most people already prefer the Meta version... they already have the user advantage. There's already way more users locked in their services than there is on the rest of the Fediverse.
I am optimistic about Meta's investment in the Fediverse. If you don't believe the Fediverse can survive the embrace of big tech, I don't think you believe in it at all. You don't want an open web, you just want to be the one in control. The goal of a decentralized internet - in my opinion - is to separate content from service. And if you believe that is the future, then you have to accept that companies are going to build new services that will try to monetize that content. But the beauty of that paradigm is you get to choose the service that works best for you without sacrificing access to the people or media you're interested in. And really, it's not much different from say, Google, being able to monetize Chrome because it can access your website. I mean... yeah, but that's kind of the point?
Doesn't really seem spoilery to me at all. Alan Wake - and Remedy in general - is very into surreal weirdness and world fuckery. He's mostly talking about audiences being receptive to pushing creative boundaries.
Pre-0.19 I assume you would need to be on an instance that is blocking them.
Post-0.19 you can block them as an instance, meaning "any posts from communities which are hosted on that instance are hidden"
So, the answer still varies depending on your goals for blocking.
For clarity:
- The 41% number combines both instances that have actually blocked Threads and those who have pledged to do so at some point, so "have blocked" is a bit misleading
- As stated, this is a percentage of instances, not users. Roughly 24% of users are on instances that have limited, blocked, or pledged to block Threads.
This does not apply when you can move or make your own instance. It's like complaining about tyranny inside your own house. Like, what?
I think a perfectly acceptable line to draw is "Is it reasonable to expect a large majority of the people on this instance would want this other instance blocked?" If the answer is yes, block them. If somebody has a problem with that, move to a different instance.
I don't really understand what the problem is.
I don't know if there's a service that provides both functions. I'm sure there's a way to do it - Lemmy posts are already accessible through Mastodon. Currently, I assume you would need the instance itself to offer both services under one account.
I would just write the world in a way that is interesting to you, and add to it as players show interest. "Hey, I want to play a Tabaxi" -> "oh okay, let me think about what that means and I'll get back to you." This also gives you more latitude for using their ideas to inform the world. "I want to play a Tabaxi Wizard" -> "oh interesting, maybe there's a clan of them that..."
You'll be able to focus on what you care about, which will make the world more interesting, and allow players to incorporate things they care about if they wish, which will make it more fun for them too. Framing it in terms of "up for deletion" implies you need to answer everything about the world from the start, which is not only inefficient but an impossible standard. Just because you haven't considered something doesn't mean it can't exist.
I added that to sort of admit my own hypocrisy; I tried to exaggerate my opinion a bit for the sake of spurring discussion. I mostly believe what I said, but my real thoughts are much messier and less well thought out.
Many Marvel films, for example, are actually competently written plot wise. I also believe lots of them have basically no value.
Gonna try to phrase this an inflammatory way:
People who like bad movies have been conditioned by consumerism to not appreciate art. They believe spectacle, humour, and a tight plot are 'good enough', and they don't value thoughtfulness, novelty, beauty, or abrasiveness nearly enough. Film is more than a way to fill time and have fun. Film is more than an explosion, a laugh, and a happy ending.
On an unrelated note: Mad Max: Fury Road is one of my favourite movies.
I sympathize with the modern games critic. There are many of them out there doing great, thoughtful work. They've got things to say. And the broad response from gamers, at best, is "we don't care." Or at worst, "shut the fuck up." Of course there are people who like their work, but my feeling is that is a tiny niche.
https://twitter.com/yacobg42/status/1684236237316534278 >Games can be thematically meaningless, politically abhorrent, fundamentally not cohere as a story, and yet fans who have conflated their own sense of self-worth with the product they like will break their own spine to defend it.
Anyway, my question is, are they at fault? Not with the things they say, but their tack. Their approach to talking about games as a whole.
I view games largely as a functional art. I recognize I may be on an extreme end of this spectrum, but for me, the systems are the juice, the aesthetics are the rind. My assumption is that the same is true for developers. The conversations they are having with each other are not ones of theme, but of genre. Not of political systems, but mechanical ones.
Of course, there is value in pointing out developers' deficiencies in this regard. They make all kinds of assumptions about life and politics as they fill their world with bad guys and goals. Why does Mario collect the coins? But the answer to most of these observations, for the game, is "it doesn't matter".
But of course, it matters to the critic! But therein lies the dilemma: the game is a jumping off point for conversation, rather than the target. Because gamers don't care, and developers don't care. If the themes and politics of games are reflections of the culture they're created in, then the ultimate target of "thoughtful critique" is at culture itself. Which is why it doesn't land with the target audience. They are enthusiasts; they don't want to read about why they shouldn't enjoy something, gamers just want to have fun.
What do you think? Do you think there are flaws in the approaches of some games critics? Do you think the conversations we have about games are flawed? Do you approach the narrative of games with a critical eye? Do you think you should? I could keep asking more questions, but I think you get it. This isn't super well thought out, so I welcome "you're wrong, dummy!"
