FriendOfDeSoto

In a word: no. That’s not how a representative democracy works.

Name a public service you cannot live without. I’m going to say the ambulance service. So when I crash my Ferrari into a concrete pillar, they take me to the hospital and I survive. It would be a shame if the service had been closed due to a lack of funding. All because a group of entitled, predominantly male libertarians had run a campaign to withhold tax money for this supposedly useless service based on the fact that they never needed an ambulance in their life.

Because he is always playing golf. He would be doing that if he wasn’t wrecking the economy as well.

Thank you for your rage bait post. It’s a very good one. So well done, you!

I have a feeling if he had always turned into a Tarkasian bear for battle, fans would have complained that he is too much like the Hulk.

I think they landed on this idea and the sufficiently large budget for the CGI too late but the tentacle throwing golden blob is an interesting battle form.

Isn’t it funny how the production technology informs the storytelling? I heard that TNG in the first two seasons had a price tag of something like 5000 dollars per hand phaser beam so they used almost none. In S7 they shoot 100 times willy nilly in Gambit and hit almost nothing, no problem. Odo in S1 morphs in the pilot and then almost never on screen for a long time. And by S6 or 7 they’re like, sure, morph him into fire, fog, or an emu, wgaf!

Corrected, thank you.

The easy way would be to find your local, state, and federal politicians and post on whatever social media they’re on. That’s a couple of old school Google searches away.

Local governments has meetings, some of which will allow petitioning for action. I think the rules will differ there by region, as they do for state level, would be my guess. Maybe somebody else could point you at the right place. Your reps in DC tend to have phone lines to voice your opinion. All of them receive mail by USPS. Chuck all your f-bombs at me before you write them;) you want to sound reasonably frustrated to them.

I am going to go all Goodwin Godwin (edited) here: I just yesterday heard a snippet of a voice recording of Hitler discussing the Finnish winter war with their PM. The recording wasn’t supposed to happen, somebody forgot to hit stop on the recorder and then stashed it away. The man sounded like just another guy at the bar.

To varying degrees this probably applies to all heads of state and government. If they don’t derive any advantage from being the bully in the interaction and they’re reasonably sure only trusted ears are listening they talk normally.

I remember Obama being caught on a hot mic at a summit talking with then Russian president at the grace of Putin, Medvedev, saying something like: “I have the midterms coming up. Tell Vladimir that after that I can cut him some more leeway.” That’s the kind of horse trading we’re not hearing about normally. But it happens, and in normal language.

Dictators may have a much smaller circle of trusted ears. So Putin and Kim probably don’t go full locker room: “So, Vlad, my homie, you’re really running a fucking meat grinder in the donbass, aren’t you!” - “Fuck you, your starving dwarf soldiers are also ending up in the sausage, motherfucker.” And then they laugh and pat each other on the back and order shots. But I’m sure they make fun of the orange.

I think it’s called “no strings attached.”

You call this parking. It’s a bottleneck. There are solutions. Underpasses. Overpasses. Better rail infrastructure. Unfortunately, higher taxes.

Write up your frustration and take it to your local, state, and federal politicians.

I think it’s that or we nuke ourselves into oblivion as a planet.

I think the solution will be a separate device. Even if you tampered with the one you’re given, you’re still running on their network. Even if you wanted to just chat over Bluetooth mesh with your fellow Winston Smiths, this doesn’t seem like a good idea.

In the border regions with China, some people who want to communicate with the real world, have phones that connect to the Chinese networks. A satellite able device would be better but probably too expensive.

The premise of the question is wrong. Trains need fuel like every other means of transportation. They can help consumers and logistics operations save on their individual fuel cost if they make use of rail rather than roads. A great passenger network saves fuel over all because people share a large passenger carrier rather than individually driving mostly empty cars, especially SUV tanks with only a driver behind the wheel.

Trains also don’t “park” on open lines. There is a reason why it stopped and it’s most likely safety. So it doesn’t hit another train or runs into rail damage, construction crews, people, a shrub fire, etc. Since you say this happens regularly, It’s likely the train infrastructure is old. Maybe it’s a combination of those problems with too tight running schedules creating a bottleneck. Bring this to your local political leaders, complain to the train companies.

I don’t know how hot it is there. What are the rules on not idling your engine while waiting in traffic jams and at railroad crossings? And if drivers are supposed to turn their engines off, this may be a clusterfuck caused by a train but blame must be disturbed. Even if it was hot (and unless I had infants or infirm folks in the car), I would switch off my engine these days because of your president’s adventures in Iran.

English? Yes.

If we apply strict rules that both parts have to be directly linked, i.e. no space, I suspect English will have fewer examples of this. Because it doesn’t always write combos without a space. Lighthouse vs. house light, but horserace vs. racehorse. I think the “proper” Germanic languages, i.e. unencumbered by Norman invasion, will probably have more.

German has shit like:

Fußballverein (football club) and Vereinsfußball (football organized in clubs, differs by one letter). Hausboot (houseboat) and Bootshaus (again an extra s). Turnhalle (school gymnasium) and Hallenturnen (indoor gym class, annoyingly an extra n this time), etc.

Maybe it will be for the best that in the future we’ll all create our own holodeck stories. It will rid us of having to separate artists (or co creator/producer) from the work. Reading Berman’s name in the credits is a bit like Weinstein’s in movies. Immediately lessens the enjoyment. Thanks for taking the time to answer.

I watched the news segment linked in here and I’m neither a doctor, nor a healthcare administrator, nor an Aussie: this does sound rather daft. You could contract the disease while being abroad even if all Aussie ticks were proven to be clean. Which is at least in doubt based on two local cases they interviewed. I’m guessing this is a very small number of people getting royally screwed by the system.

On a semi-serious note, would the Australian healthcare system also refuse to treat a person with Ebola based on the fact that the virus is known to be of African origin?

Thanks for writing that. It’s quite long but I can see your point. I’m relieved that you didn’t just read two headlines and sent him to the digital gallows. Personally, I don’t reach the same conclusion as you. If you’d say in reply my standards were perhaps lower I would not disagree with you. As I wrote before, this is not enough for me. Weir is not a saint. I heard hin trash talk his own follow-up to the Martian in an interview when Hail Mary came out. He knows he’s not Asimov or Dick. Or Shakespeare.

In terms of what science fiction is best at doing, we don’t appear to be that far apart. Allegorical storytelling is great. That’s why I mentioned Picard S2 where there is none of that. They have characters sit in ICE detention or looking at the burning mountains in 2020 and say this is shit (which, of course, it is). Zero allegory, all in our face virtue signaling. Virtues that I find valid but in a sci-fi story told in a very literal (read: shit) way. Politics overrode good story telling. (Then again, it was the pandy, there are extenuating circumstances.)

You don’t have to answer this; I’m just curious. How is your enjoyment of 90s Trek knowing that Rick Berman was involved? I’d argue he’s a far bigger sob than Weir.

He is a huge hypocrite in your opinion. Which I don’t find convincing.

They shouldn’t let it end on purpose. The lifespan of Lizzy2 shouldn’t set the boundaries. If Amazon were smart here, they’d continue the path of limited releases on the silver screen as event cinema. I say “were” because I’m non convicted they won’t completely eff it up.

Every new iteration of the franchise has been criticized, the casting choices, the stories, the gadgets, etc. And yet it prevails in the culture through the generations. Even my least favorite Bond movie is still an enjoyable re-watch (Die Another Day, if you’re wondering). I don’t want it to end.

There is still potential in that franchise. They could do a height of the cold war period piece. Or one about WW2 origin of modern espionage. Also, Hollywood has run out of ideas. There is no way they won’t go back to the double-0 well. They are looking at Schwarzenegger to return as Conan and in a Predator sequel …

I just read up on the woke comments. What do you find so terrible there? That he writes avoiding an agenda? Or that he criticizes works that plainly have one?

It’s his opinion. I don’t wholly disagree with him. Science fiction often works best when they don’t hang a giant lantern on what the lesson to be learned is. When the politics override good storytelling. Like in Picard S2. ICE is shit and so are climate change denial and the burning mountains around contemporary LA. But to me that came across as preachy, not a great story.

If anything you have to respect the man for not mincing his words at all. That doesn’t mean I agree with him but in this outrage driven world that’s almost a baller move.

I don’t think he has alienated as many people as you suggest. And I haven’t heard enough to be worried. He might be a prick but these two stories are not enough to build a case just yet IMO.

The man has a vested interest to be in the headlines. Media take an interest in him because of the movie. It’s the perfect climate to turn a statement of not much importance into a news headline.

I haven’t listened to the podcast. If anybody has, maybe they can comment on the tone of the conversation. Seeing it just in writing makes him seem a bit petty and adversarial. But the way it happened it could just as well be isolated, throwaway jovial comments where the “fuck them” could be much less pointed and we are left feeling this was a nothing burger.

This is of the same quality journalism as any actor of the fantasy lightsaber universe being asked if they world return to the franchise. Sure, if the script looked promising, said Daisy Ripley. “Ripley to return to Star Wars!” reports niche media site struggling to get eyeballs in front of their ads.