#star framework

[cmospike]

4🚀 Elevate your brand game with the STAR Framework! 

🌟 Uncover the secrets to stellar brand positioning in our latest blog. Transform your marketing strategy and shine bright in the competitive landscape. 

✨ Dive into the details here: https://bit.ly/41HOgH4

[ranticore]

hi it's unicorn (???)

he was not the first digital pop star imimaton but he was the first digital Nonthreatening Boy For Tweens To Crush On. for his initial launch he had a few catchy songs which gained wide acclaim which he sung alongside his duet partner Kitty. They were vaguely themed for their namesake animals but thematically a bit muddled. The music label was criticised for the dated design, his lack of broad demographic appeal, and confusing branding. For his part he was very happy to perform and never showed any signs of instability.

In 2001 the studio was ordered to redesign him to appeal to the new digital era of Web Browsing and Texting Your Friends. the redesign, which cost a cool million euros, involved a ground-up reimagining of Unicorn as a kind of sci-fi alien nomad who has come to Earth in search of love! Crucially, his duet partner, Kitty, was retired and did not make an appearance after this point. The relaunch was wildly successful, finally earning him the mass appeal he had previously lacked. his songs ('R3-entry', '@ll al0ne' and 'searching 4 u' in particular) claimed all three top billboard spots for months, and were certifiable club bangers. After a sold out world tour, during which he performed as a hologram, it was announced that Unicorn was going to meet one lucky fan in person... could YOU be the one?

Unicorn's classic design was originally drawn by my bestie @kekeandherrpgs who immediately knocked it out of the park (& did a Kitty design as well which I loove). go follow keke right NOW

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Zincchump Linkdump

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in DOYLESTOWN TODAY (Mar 1), and in BALTIMORE TOMORROW (Mar 2). More tour dates here. Mail-order signed copies from LA's Diesel Books.

I've got a really good excuse for finishing this week with a folder full of links that didn't make it into the newsletter – I'm on a crazy book tour and I've been in four cities this week alone. Time for another linkdump! Here's the previous 28 'dumps:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

I like to start these 'dumps off on an upbeat note, and this week, I've got something gratifyingly cool and wondrous. Stars Reach is a "living galaxy sandbox MMORPG" led by Raph Koster, the legendary designer of games like Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxy. It's kickstarting right now:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/starsreach/stars-reach

Here's the pitch:

Whether it’s water turning dirt to mud or forests growing back after a devastating fire, every action leaves a mark. This isn’t a static world built by developers – it’s a living, breathing galaxy shaped by you. Resculpt landscapes, build entire cities, and yeah, ruin more planets just like humanity ruined their original eight homeworlds. That’s okay – there are always more worlds in our endless galaxy.

I've seen demos of this coming together for years and it is mind-boggling. You can play it like a galactic trade-empire builder, a shoot 'em up, a first person shooter, a resource management game, a MUD, and more. There are thousands of procedurally generated planets with realistic geology, geography and ecosystems. It's like something out of a Neal Stephenson novel. They're mostly done and just raising money to finish and launch. I gave 'em $100. They're projecting delivery in January. I can't wait!

It's pretty wonderful to see accomplished creators like Koster, who have gone from strength to strength, making a series of ever-cooler things as technological advancements let him realize the vision he'd been chasing since the 8-bit days. It's quite a contrast with HP, a company that was once world-renowned for making the highest quality, most reliable instruments and machines, and is now synonymous with the scuzzy inkjet rip-off.

I love a good dig at HP. This week, The Register's Paul Kunert scored a direct hit with a short news squib about the executive compensation package announced for HP CEO Enrique Lores: "261,658 toner cartridges" (that is, $19.36m):

https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/26/hp_ceo_pay_for_2024/

I would like to live in a world in which all unreasonable expenses were denominated in HP printer cartridges (much as the BBC compares ever extremely large or massy thing to a London double-decker bus). Anything to make it easier to grasp the vast forces that shape our world and bring them into focus so we can understand them – and destroy or change them.

One economic school that does this extraordinarily well is "Capital as Power," which concerns itself with the "social power of capital" – that is, how capital shapes our behavior and outcomes. It's a complicated but extraordinarily clear and useful framework for making sense of the world. This week, Naked Capitalism published a long colloquoy on Capital as Power, featuring Michael Hudson (a great economist and historian of debt), political economist Tim Di Muzio, and two of CasP's top proponents, Jonathan Nitzan and Blair Fix (whose work I have featured in this newsletter many times). It's a long, fascinating discussion – just the thing to relax with over a weekend:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/02/capital-as-power-in-the-21st-century-a-conversation.html

Capital as Power grapples with power, the force that neoclassical economists could never figure out how to fit into a neat mathematical model and thus decided to discard. Refusing to think about power gets you into all kinds of trouble, from deciding that markets for human kidneys are "voluntary" to the denaturing of political parties into institutionalist weaklings like the Democrats, who are completely overwhelmed by the power-focused MAGA GOP as it dismantles the nation.

Writing for The American Prospect, Nick Tagliaferro rounds up "Ten Democrats Who Need to Be Primaried":

https://prospect.org/politics/2025-02-27-these-ten-democrats-need-to-be-primaried/

For years, Tagliaferro was the loudest voice on the Primary School newsletter, which covered primary races. In this guillotine-inspiring listicle, he presents such swamp creatures as Levi Strauss failson Dan Goldman (NY-10), who spent $5m of his inherited wealth to win his seat, from which perch he has done everything he can to undermine his more militant anti-Trump colleagues in the House. More familiar names like Josh Gottheimer (NJ-05) – whom Tagliaferro calls "single most needlessly antagonistic centrist in Congress" – and the ardent homophobe Stephen Lynch (MA-08).

OK, I've got to get into my rental car now and make the 3h drive from State College, PA, where I just did a talk at Penn State, to Doylestown, PA, where I'm speaking this afternoon:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-picks-and-shovels-a-martin-hench-novel-tickets-1146230880419

From there, I'm going to Baltimore (tomorrow):

https://redemmas.org/events/

and then I'll be in DC on Tuesday:

https://www.loyaltybookstores.com/picksnshovels

You can catch the whole tour schedule here:

http://martinhench.com

New dates that I'll be adding soon include Pittsburgh:

https://us.pycon.org/2025/about/keynote-speakers/#cory-doctorow

As well as Wellington and Auckland, NZ; and Manchester and London, UK.

Before I go, one last wonderful link to be getting on with. Framework – who make the repairable, modifiable laptop that I love more than any hardware I've ever owned – just announced a bunch of fantastic new machines, including a rugged new, 12" touchscreen laptop with a 180' hinge:

https://frame.work/laptop12

and a desktop PC (!) that has insanely high specs and a fully customizable chassis:

https://frame.work/fi/en/blog/introducing-the-framework-desktop

I spend so much time on the road, I have no conceivable use for a desktop PC, but man, this is tempting. What a sweet rig!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/01/menagerie/#stars-reach

[trulymadlykiki]

y’all don’t understand but THIS moment was the catalyst for harry’s current break…yes it’s true

harry is a student! he’s soaking everything up right now like a sponge, immersing himself into different art forms and mediums and expressions and world building for his next creative project.

[chantillyxlacey]

after writing that analysis post i kinda want to make a cheeky meta variation of The Princess based on the ideas of "the game Slay the Princess is a narrative about the nature of narratives" and "the Construct is what happens if you turn a narrative into a literal physical cage"

a Princess who somehow is made aware of the loops in Chapter One and in Chapter Two becomes fixated on documenting everything she can about the different routes of the game, the different ways things can play out-- how to get different "bonus" voices to spawn in Chapter Three, how different Chapter Two's can lead into the same Chapter Three, etc.

she's determined that if she can just amass enough information, then surely she'll be able to figure out what it all MEANS, and if she figures out what it MEANS and what it's FOR then she'll figure out how to escape it!! she'd be paired with a new voice-- the Voice of the Curious? Voice of the Obsessed (wildly different from the voice w this name from the first demo tho)?

In one of her potential Chapter Three's, she takes this a step further and is determined to assimilate as many "routes" into herself as possible in an attempt to transcend the narrative all together. She attempts to out-Shifting-Mound the Shifting Mound; to become her OWN story rather than part of someone else's

you can slay her like usual, lead her to the peaceful resolution of realizing that being folded into the Shifting Mound was never being erased-- that not being the Only Part of the story never meant that she wasn't part of the story to start with, or that she didn't matter

OR you can help her achieve her goal, which nets you a new ending to the game (no matter how many or how few loops/vessels you've done at that point)

How are these for Princess/Chapter titles:

The Archivist and The Archive :3

[coldgoldlazarus]

The discourse over the Jedi is a symptom of an underlying discourse over the Force, which is itself a symptom of an underlying tension between the oriental inspirations and christianized interpretations thereof that it pulls from.

[thestarswillguide]

NAW I was on personality database cause I wanted to see others' explanations of Aara's possible mbti type and stuff (it's a big interest of mine), but I swear the FIRST comment I saw said that he's a coward or something that blames the humans because he can't kill the other Startouch elves, or just finds it easier to kill humans and he's just hating everything and everyone since his daughter died, denying the fact that he should've either died with her or moved on?

There was more ofc to their comment that was genuine curiosity about more of his personality and stuff but the range of emotions I felt- 😃😃

Like, I could go on and on in his defense, but I'm going to keep it short. I just need to vent about this lmao

1 - He is NOT a coward. He is STRONG (magically, mentally, emotionally, aHeM??), and it's common sense that if he wanted his plan to work of course he'd remain cautious and not let his kind know anything, while at the same time use humans likely cause that's what the council feared most (plus they're too useful *not* to use AND he's an anarchist? Come on!). And another thing: I can imagine that choosing to suffer for centuries while getting vengeance takes a lot of emotional strength?

Also, didn't he say "we will do what must be done, no matter how dangerous or vile"? Bruh, that's literally the *definition* of courageous, which is the opposite of coward. A coward would not fight a dragon, nor would a coward urge anyone to kill them esp. knowing that it would make them EXPLODE.

2 - *When* exactly did he blame humans?? Seriously, WHEN? Yes, I agree that he's a bit arrogant with his foes, but he literally never said he blamed humans for anything, nor do we see him just taking it out on humans needlessly. Everything that he does is for a reason, a good reason (I'm not saying it's just or moral, I'm saying that his actions serve another purpose). And he gave them dark magic, which they could use to actually fight/protect themselves from the elves and dragons (which they wouldn't really be able to do with primal magic)

3 - This is the most important point for me: I feel like haters forget that Aaravos is five thousand years old. He is incredibly wise. He is incredibly smart. I know that anything I don't understand yet, I can trust that 👏🏽 he 👏🏽 knows 👏🏽 what 👏🏽 he 👏🏽 is 👏🏽 doing.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

LIVING for your ponytail Yugi he’s so cute 😭💖

thank u! i hold dear in my heart the way yuugi is like a little plushie that wants nothing more than to die a noble death

[nothinggold13]

*watches the prequel trilogy with the og trilogy once* GUYS I THINK I UNDERSTAND STAR WARS NOW

[bantersnatch]

if you ever notice that i seem to have a preference for the 'dreamsickness' setup (vianca as college exes) over the 'star maker' setup (vianca as childhood friends) in art, just know that's not because i think college exes is more likely to be canon but instead because if i think about a 'star maker' setup too long i get nauseous

[isaacathom]

my friends and i have been watching the star trek movies and i have soooo many thoughts about first contact but its been like 3 years since i watched the borg episodes in tng and im like. fuck do i need to rewatch those rq to figure out if my faint gripe with first contact is valid or not? shit, man

[ossidae-passeridae]

22 >:3

Question from here

22. Why the actual fuck did Obi-Wan let Vader live on that unnamed moon and does that make him just as culpable for his atrocities?

The short answer to this (other than 'Vader has plot armour' which, duh), is that Obi-Wan lets him live because he finally let go of his attachment to Anakin.

It's the culmination of his story throughout the series, the final Release from the weight he'd yoked around himself for a whole fucking decade. As a Jedi, why would he kill an unarmed (disarmed) man who can barely breathe?

Even during the war, Obi-Wan captured Separatist leaders whenever possible, he didn't kill unless given no other option. That's the Jedi way. As an individual, you don't decide that people deserve to die.

We obviously know, outside the GFFA universe as we are, that Anakin does go on to commit further atrocities, but Obi-Wan doesn't have that certainty. And killing on the basis of "I think he might—" is how you wind up killing innocent people, actually. There's a reason the death penalty has been abolished in so much of the world.

Does letting Vader live make Obi-Wan culpable for his atrocities? No. No more than the bacta technician is culpable because he didn't poison Vader's bacta, no more than any of us are culpable for the violence or damage done by people we used to know, once, a decade and a lifetime ago.

(All opinions expressed above are solely those of pass e. ridae and do not express the views or opinions of any affiliates or associates, passerine or otherwise)

[tenth-sentence]

Although these two frameworks are typically applied in vastly different realms – general relatively to big things like stars and galaxies, quantum mechanics to small things like molecules and atoms – each theory claims to be universal, to work in all realms.

"The Fabric of the Cosmos" - Brian Greene

[knittinglizards]

i think in addition to the obvious limiting factor of the writers' politics and biases, the stories in star trek (tos at least, the only other series i know is tng and i don't remember it well at all) that deal with oppression and Space Racism tend to be flimsy at best at least partly bc of the Choice to claim that oppression just doesn't exist on earth in the 23rd century (wild!) and that they generally portray the alien cultures relevant to the story in particular as entirely monocultural (just kinda lazy writing imo and denies any significant sense of historical conflict/makes the violence they try to present seem petty)

[bardic-inspo]

Dune was awesome and it made me kind of. Hate star wars tbh 😶

[gossyreblogs]

I mean. Every single time (of the examples provided) Star Trek ITSELF has then dug into why “species evil” doesn’t work.

star trek will be like THIS time we have created the ontologically evil species of aliens that exist only to be hated. and its so stupid every single time. klingons borg jem'hadar and now the freaking gorn am i missing any. it is never going to work or be narratively satisfying in a show like star trek to have The Evil Species CAN we stop trying