My sci-fi unpopular opinion is probably that I don't consider Star Wars to be sci-fi. It shares more with fantasy in that it's more character and story driven and less about philosophy and the way technology changes the human experience which imo is what defines sci-fi.
2001 book was great. Arthur C Clarke has always been my favorite author. I think Rendevous with Rama would’ve been a more approachable story to adapt into a movie. Full of mystery and curiosity. Creative direction could go wild on art without changing bay of the books story. Starts with a mystery, reveals bits and bobs in the middle, ends with mystery. Leaves you questioning. Chefs kiss.
Haven’t really kept up with modern sci-fi opinion. So maybe my opinions are popular maybe not.
I believe Ilium and Olympos are part of the greatest sci-fi story ever written. Far better than Dan Simmons Hyperion Cantos. It presents wild and imaginative futuristic ideas with insane scientific basis for them.
I think this might be a truly unpopular opinion, but I could not get into the expanse at all. Just never got invested in the characters enough to stick with it. I've retried watching it 4 times due to everyone recommending it, kind of given up now!
Also the latest star wars films killed any interest I had in star wars.
I went to film school, and had to watch 2001 like five times in classes, breaking down every little element of it. And you know what? I also think it's boring and pretentious AF. The fx and production design are incredible, and parts of it are good enough, but other than that it's just Kubrick demonstrating how much smarter he thought he was than everyone else (I am not a fan of his films, if that wasn't clear enough).
I did enjoy the book a lot, though! If you haven't read it I think you'll be surprised how it tells the same story, just better.
True sci-fi is rare most of it is sci-fantasy. Great recent sci-fi is Expanse - author was pissed about these warp nonsense so he grounded it in physics and only added few technologies which could be made in future.
Imagine you were a refugee and you joined the fediverse because you were curious about it and the first thing you saw was people calling themselves refugees for having to... make an account on a new website. Would you feel welcome or like this place was for you?
I have no idea, and neither do you (unless you're a refugee, but then you would've written this different). Do they see themselves as refugees? I have no idea, I don't know people in this situation so I can't tell.
I don't think "refugee" will loose meaning when using it in this way and I don't think using "refugee" would make the word less of value.
The Fediverse must be very careful to avoid getting branded as the "alternative to X". In my experience, platforms that have historically branded themselves as "alternative to" or "anti-" have generally not done well. Learned this from the last Reddit exodus: let's make this one different!...
They made voat. And this is not the same as that. voat was a response when reddit actually did a good thing and started to remove cp and stormfront subs from Reddit around 5-7 yrs ago. Vault was chock full of pathetic proud boys whining about free speech. It closed 2017 and is but a distant memory
The more you call it a Reddit alternative, the more people will stop migrating over as the Reddit outrage cools down (and as much as spez can go fuck himself, he's right, it will pass). I think Mastodon had the same issue at the time of the Twitter migration, but lately it's been focussing more on the fact that good instances provide a nicer small community feel that's more reflective of the state of Twitter in 2008-2012 or so.
Advertise the community, not the drop-in replacement for another platform that will always be larger and more mainstream.
For me, the first thing I'd do is clear my family of all debts(or whatever financial issues) there is and then the second thing i'd do is buy a hundred Siomai for me to eat...
Clear all my debts, pay for my kid to go to any college he wants.
Renovate my house, or buy a new one. My house needs a lot of work but I've never had the funds to do much about it. There's electrical work and plumbing that needs to be done, roof needs to be replaced, hot water heater needs to be replaced, etc.
Open a computer repair shop. It's something I've always wanted to do, but computer repair for end users isn't as profitable as it once was.
Open a Retro Gaming & Computing museum. With every console you can imagine. And retro computers. And giant CRT televisions and monitors. With a giant collection of games. Everything is plugged in, with multiple controllers, ready to be played! I'd probably have a gallery of pinball tables attached as well.
I don't know the details, but I'd try to start some sort of e-waste program that tries to preserve retro tech rather than see it go to a landfill, or even rather than seeing it get scrapped for copper, etc.
So let me start off by saying that I recognize that there was initially a genuine problem with people who didn't want NSFW content being exposed to it....
This is going to be kbin focused because that's the infra I'm most familiar with, but if any part of this is relevant to Lemmy and other upcoming aggregators it's worth a think too:...
@NotTheOnlyGamer ah okay, i see where you're coming from. I'm still quite strident about it only because AP being open source, the current Fedi discourse is as much political as well as technical - and you're right, the era of corporate internet is not winding down just yet. But it's also not a given i can't advocate for better controls especially because fediverse means i have more control than a user of corporate socmed over which server to go and what software to use. It's slightly easier to feel that there is something that i can do because i think there is. We wouldn't be here otherwise (instead we'll tolerate what Twitter has become, what reddit continues to become). I come from the livejournal era, and that code was forked many which ways and the various journal clones became where the migration headed to when sixapart bought it (then later Russia via corporate proxy). But it was slightly too early in tech and user quality - but I feel like I'm reliving the days I'm on dreamwidth, still in touch with ppl who moved to insanejournal etc.
Because it's possible, I'm still motivated enough to talk about it. And you know, thank you. Despite posting it in the meta community for this instance, barely anyone engaged in these concerns, not even those otherwise active. Ernest I'm sure is busy, but now I'm concerned not even those who'd sum up what's going on here would talk about this. So I really appreciate the exchange.
What's your Sci-Fi unpopular opinion? (kbin.social)
It's a slightly click-baity title, but as we're still generating more content for our magazines, this one included, why not?...
Let's Not Throw The Word "Refugee" Around To Describe Having To Switch Social Networks (sea-watch.org)
We live in a world where 500+ refugees just drowned off the coast of...
Transcribers of Reddit, who make transcriptions for blind users, will close on the 1st July (reddit.adminforge.de)
View on Libreddit, an alternative private front-end to Reddit.
Reddit is a Dying Mall (www.staygrounded.online)
Why it'll only get worse from here.
Dobbs Turned Abortion Into A Huge Liability For Republicans (fivethirtyeight.com)
Interesting take on how polls have shown changes in how abortions have changes since dobbs
Diabetes will be ‘a defining disease of this century’ as global cases are set to surpass one billion by 2050 (www.statnews.com)
The world has failed to understand the social nature of diabetes and underestimated the true scale and threat the disease poses.
CTA: Create a thriving Fediverse without relying on Reddit (kbin.social)
The Fediverse must be very careful to avoid getting branded as the "alternative to X". In my experience, platforms that have historically branded themselves as "alternative to" or "anti-" have generally not done well. Learned this from the last Reddit exodus: let's make this one different!...
Poll: 61% of voters disapprove of Supreme Court decision overturning Roe (www.nbcnews.com)
On the anniversary of the Dobbs decision, 53% say abortion access nationwide has become too difficult, a new NBC News poll finds.
Reddit is in danger of a death spiral (www.zdnet.com)
Can Reddit survive as its volunteer workforce close down subreddits and walk away from the site in protest at the management's new policies?
You just won One Billion Dollars, what are you buying? (kbin.social)
For me, the first thing I'd do is clear my family of all debts(or whatever financial issues) there is and then the second thing i'd do is buy a hundred Siomai for me to eat...
The Anti-NSFW measures have gone a bit far... (kbin.social)
So let me start off by saying that I recognize that there was initially a genuine problem with people who didn't want NSFW content being exposed to it....
How do kbin instances (and all aggregator protocols) work to maintain privacy and safety? What can we put up on the roadmap (when there is one)? (Instance members at least; ppl posting on fedi in general) (kbin.social)
This is going to be kbin focused because that's the infra I'm most familiar with, but if any part of this is relevant to Lemmy and other upcoming aggregators it's worth a think too:...