Bjorn

I'm actually starting to think that it's almost better to discuss some licensed content as fan fiction rather than addressing it as a core part of the property.

It's better than the Streisand Effect, it introduced me to a cool Tumblr, and taught me that this artist is a total douche who shouldn't be supported if I ever run into his work.

I had assumed that picture was a total 'shop, including Goldblum. But apparently not, he was actually there.

Weird, I hear myself at a higher pitch than most people tell me I sound.

Hi James. Dealing with a shipping manifesto every morning would probably endlessly amuse me. I'm easy to amuse. I think with a voice, I honestly can't even imagine what it would be like to think textually. I just tried for a bit, and the voice automatically overrode the thought. I just had to look up proper use of the past tense of override to make sure I was using it right, because it looked weird when I wrote it. Edited to add: Do you read other people's posts in your internal voice, or do you have some other voice or accent that you read them in? Does that affect your forgiveness of their grammar usage if it more accurately matches speech? I think I do it with people's whose voices I'm familiar with hours of exposure to (friends, family, podcasters), but all other things are usually just in the voice I always hear in my head.

I just heard a great new phrase: "the library science of everyday life".

Thread title is no longer accurate. I like the new logo, but I think I liked the longer name more.

This is actually exactly how I read that when you originally posted it. It took me a second, as it's a bit convoluted, but it is an inventive repurposing of that phrase.

Oh god, governors. Read up on Kansas' current governor to see similar things in action. Also, on all the ways that school boards can go wrong, just look at Kansas trying to force intelligent design into the state curriculum a few years ago. I'm fully away how terrible elected officials can be. I'm really uncomfortable with elected sheriffs and judges, but on the same hand, if they aren't elected then an elected official will have the power of hiring for those jobs. I think part of the reason that they are elected is to keep local judges and sheriffs from being the appointees of the local mayor or council. Which still results in a position that is politicized, just one step removed. So again, I don't know if that is an improvement.

Cross promotional Idle Thumbs sex toys. THIS IS A GOOD IDEA! And probably very creepy.

I'm not convinced that voting for policy is any better. There's no guarantee that the public will vote for good policy anymore than they will vote for a good candidate. If you vote for candidates, you get a group of people discussing (arguing?) about the best policy to implement, which is better to me than a mandated policy that voters picked (for bad examples, see the gay marriage bans voted in by people). If a board decides bad policy, it can be reversed easier than reversing policy voted in by the public. Without elected representatives, how does a group of people take any kind of action for decisions a school might make that they believe are wrong? When my daughter was in high school, a budget crisis was forcing some significant cuts. The board had made the decision to make some deep cuts to the music program while leaving sports completely untouched. The threat to their elected positions gave us power that we wouldn't have had otherwise, and we helped convince the board that more balanced cuts were needed to be fair and to minimize the impact to any one program. That was more work for them, but better for the district. If it was an unelected official, I don't know what would have happened. You can't protest an elected policy. I completely agree with legislating scientific issues based on bad facts and little knowledge. It's ridiculous. The solution is not to let unelected scientists make decisions, it's to try and convince experts in fields beyond law and politics to run for office. I think that's what was always envisioned for our Congress, that it would be made up of diverse expertise, not the narrow focus that now exists. I really think the entire system is broken and fucked, but I don't see other solutions that are improvements.

I'm not sure if you meant this exactly as you wrote it, but I find that sentiment kind of horrifying. I'm not sure that the American democratic system of electing them is right, but people having a voice in how the criminal justice systems and the school systems in their local area are run is really important.

Yeah, I'm down with a conversation like that. Language is a fascinating topic. As far as correcting people goes, here are the posts I made in the song thread recently about how I feel about making fun of people or having shitty attitudes about this topic (due to the Weird Al Word Crimes song). I don't think any of you on here would want to be really shitty to each other, but seems worth linking to. I don't see any reason to rehash that here, unless people want to, but the combination of issues around class, race, privilege and learning disability have really turned me against the tendency to want to correct people. Unless it is in the kindest way possible, to clarify what someone meant or it happens in a professional context. FWIW, I feel this way as well. I try to hold myself to a certain standard in how I communicate, but I know when I'm bashing out a response quick in a few minute break from work, I make mistakes. Or if I use a word or phrase in a wonky way that doesn't make my point clear, I want to know that.

I had no idea either! Given how Adams approached adapting his own work, I don't think his fans should really take adaptations very seriously. We can hope for them to be entertaining, but beyond that, violating canon seems to be inherent to the process of his work. At any rate, I'll have to watch the BBC version just to check it out.

I could only hope that they would send them a box of samples to try out!

Sorry if I gave that impression! I don't think anyone is suggesting that either. I was mostly just trying to give a frame of reference for how I feel about advertising and media in general, to put any of my other thoughts in context.

18th century French drinking songs.

I see what you're saying, and yes, endorsing things you genuinely use and like is in many ways a great way to do it. I think that's especially true in something like when the Thumbs enthusiastically endorse a delicious snack. But even with the example you use, that's actually still problematic to me. I don't know anything about that show, but what if the quality of sticks goes down? What if a bad batch is produced (something that has happened in electronics with an otherwise stellar reputation), will the show say anything about that? What if a new competitor in the stick making world comes out and wants to advertise, but that show won't do it because they have an existing financial relationship with another maker? Are they really serving their audience if they have a hesitancy to try other products? Those "what ifs" really aren't that far fetched, as there are very similar examples all over the history of media and advertising. I'm a pretty firm believer that there is an inherently corrupting influence from advertising, not even from intentional pressure, just because the psychology of getting paid for something changes your relationship to it. That said, it's often a necessary evil that produces real good (content creators get to produce stuff we love without having to charge, or charge as much for it).

If it were just a download, sure, but they are running these things on hardware and streaming the result. I, personally, have no idea about the relative cost of that operation compared to mailing discs or stocking a kiosk.

Somehow I missed that a Voice for Men held an MRA conference in Detroit a month ago. Shit got weird right before it happened, with AVM claiming that they needed to raise $25K for additional security at the last minute, because the hotel had reported death threats to both them and the police. But when multiple people attempted to verify the claims of threats, neither the hotel nor the police knew anything about them. Then at the very last second, the hotel refused to host the event, for undisclosed reasons. You can read an account of the conference from the perspective of a female reporter for Time here. It sounds like they were as polite as they could be, but still managed to show their reprehensible side. I went down this rabbit hole because CNN decided to run an MRA apologist condemning sexism for the suspension of Stephen Smith from his ESPN tv show after his mouth went and said what his brain thinks. He actually brought up the AVM conference as proof the media ignores the plight of men (the Detroit Free Times article he linked to as proof has been deleted from the site).

What happens in the lab, stays in the lab. Also, really freaking cool gif!

I think I found my new favorite thing ever in an ARPG. There are a bunch of gems, weapons and gear which give a small (5% or less typically) chance to autocast a spell per attack. You stack as many of those as you can on one character that has a fast, multi-target ability, resulting in autocasts on a regular basis. I made a new Outlander to play with in SP, since I tend to want to game more than my wife and didn't want my Berserker to out level her. I had a couple of five percent Thunder gems from my first character that I threw into a shotgun to try. HOLY SHIT! Rapid Fire plus a passive skill that makes enemies explode in a poison burst results in these insane chain reactions that wipe out whole groups. If something mean sneezes in my direction, I die, because I have almost no defensive capabilities.

So bought and started playing Necrodancer this weekend. I'm terrible! But I think it's really good, from what I can tell with my limited skills. It's surprisingly joyful for a rougelike, which is not an emotion that I would typically associate with the genre. It's like the Binding of Isaac's good twin. Co-op is fun, though it doesn't seem like anything is different other than adding another player. Keeping a coin multiplier going seems essentially impossible. I played one game of Bard mode, and want to play more because of the puzzle aspect of it. But I'm afraid it will make me develop bad habits for the regular game.