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their feeble attempts to criticize without deep study of the subject matter vs our trenchant insights from someone not fossilized by the establishment

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One of these days I'm going to write a far-future space opera where, in a fun twist on the established formula, people living in the future do correctly remember the major historical events of the 20th and 21st century but at the same time they don't frequently communicate using memes and internet jokes that were popular when the author was a teenager.

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Additionally, you will be watching TOS at a much better quality than anyone did back then, and it still looks pretty damn good! Those colours pop!

I agree that I modern Star Trek is overproduced and that I would prefer more episodes with a lower per-episode budget. But I need to stress that the idea that previous Star Treks were "low-budget" or intentionally "camp" is mostly a modern misconception.

Both TOS and TNG were among the most expensive shows on TV when they aired. TOS in particular was actually funded by NBC in hopes that audiences would go and buy their colour TVs in order to see its incredible special effects in their full glory. They just have reputations for looking cheap because they were produced between 20 and 60 years ago and technology has marched on.

(Besides of which, TNG-era shows mostly don't even look that bad these days. Most of the "cheapness" is only apparent in things like camera angles, reusing the same sets, and "creature" CGI for Species 8472 and the like. Even the space battles on Deep Space Nine, made with 90s CGI, still look pretty plausible; and actually better than the ones that they've had on recent series)

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Isn't this a Marx line? Or am I getting it mixed up with Narnia

AU where Francis Fukuyama wrote about "the beginning of history," because everything up till this moment has been mere prologue.

little known fact that The End of History predicts the Zorblaxian Space Invasion of 2026.

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Oh hey, that's only 7 years older than Trump, that's a live possibility for either side

feel like I’ve made this post before but current events are currently in some quantum superposition between “nothing ever happens” and “it’s happening”. Israel could cap Khamenei tomorrow and the reaction from international leadership will be to look at the camera and go “Well THAT just happened!” and everyone will quickly resume debating whether wokeism is good or bad

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Lefcadio Hearn's rendition of Japanese ghost stories into English (the classic "Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things", 1904) feels like something at the roots of speculative fiction: the Orientalism that inspired much of Fantasy, the unnerving feeling of irreality from the ghost stories of course, becoming modern Horror, but this strange speculation at the end almost ties it into Science Fiction:

"Supposing that such a discovery were made, and that the human race should decide to arrest the development of sex in the majority of its young,��so as to effect a transference of those forces, now demanded by sex-life, to the development of higher activities,—might not the result be an eventual state of polymorphism, like that of ants? And, in such event, might not the Coming Race be indeed represented in its higher types,—through feminine rather than masculine evolution,—by a majority of beings of neither sex?"

A Weird collection at the very least

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Goku's not a deadbeat dad he's the dad that beat death.

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I also think this makes sense from their perspective, to the degree that I wonder if there isn't some language in the Lucas deal that prohibits it.

Disney seems committed to recycling IP into the ground so this is probably an easy sell for them - but the idea of just “remake the Prequels + OT” is growing on me. Unfuck the timeline, allow the legitimately cool parts of the prequels shine thanks to Not Shit dialogue, allow the OT to build upon themes explored in the prequels (like Vader being a slave), etc etc.

There’s a lot of legitimate merit to “okay, you want Star Wars but good? Clean slate, this time we’re gonna create Star Wars But Good.”

I do think they could do this! And honestly will at some point? I bet they won't straight-up do it, like announcing "The Rise of Skywalker is cancelled y'all". But they will make things, and remake things, and change things, and tell stories such that the details of the films don't matter anymore.

Also this opens up the idea of remaking the original trilogy, maybe as a TV show or something, and surely they are talking about that. If Harry Potter can do it, right?

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Me hearing about Davey who's still in the Navy and probably will be for life:

we do have to remember that this meme

is about that guy listening to piano man by billy joel for the first time

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after writing these tags on a post re: whether it's reasonable to expect people to know the population of Iran of course i had to do it so. have a poorly-made randomly-generated 10 country quiz where you guess the population of each country in millions :) scroll down once you have guessed to get your average error. are you better than me at this? are you better than a US senator? is this a fair way of measuring knowledge? not at all because with only 10 countries you could easily just get unlucky and get a bunch of "hard ones." too bad.

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Two oil on canvas paintings by Ben Schwab Top: In The Balance Bottom: At the Edge

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For some (presumably personal) reason the line

When I was just a kid, I spent every weekend On the farm that he grew up on, so I guess so did I

Gets me every time.

Sands of Iwo Jima is hardly DBT's most lyrically fine song, it's coarse and awkward in places, but it conveys like both the complete shared emotional, childhood connection to this man and the complete disconnect from his experiences at war that can't ever be bridged, certainly not through John Wayne films, except maybe through that social connection, between a little kid and his relative, the family-man George A

(SIDENOTE: for years until I looked the lyrics up I thought George A was some variation of Jorge and he was one of those White Americans with non-White names, like Omar Bradley and Tecumseh Sherman)

Sands of Iwo Jima by Drive-By Truckers might be one of the best songs of all time because it makes me come very close to crying despite the subject matter (the plight of veterans) being something I've experienced through media a million times before and have never been particularly sensitive to.

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This was the most realistic scene in all of Mad Men

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[neolithic hottie who's been easing back into the modern dating scene]: so when he said he was a pot caster i thought he was a good artisan with a reliable income. But turns out he just talks to himself all day mostly. People don't even come to listen and he doesn't know shit about ceramics. Sometimes one of his friends is there though.

[One eyed priest-king who's been frozen in the ice for 10 000 years next to a mammoth but is starting to thaw]: girl no wayyyyy. What is slip casting a pot btw. The use of that technique (not to be confused with slipware) purportedly only dates back to the Tang Era (618–917).

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Walter Molino

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Chomsky's favourite Martian

(although in later years I gather he talks about Angel-view more and more)