As for the other part, I love comic book movies, but still agree. I think he might get more agreement if he reframed it as a complaint about homginization. For instance, I think The Batman was surprisingly fresh. Whereas the Flash was like… high end tv, maybe? Like, not BAD, but you’ve gotta ask: how many people will watch it five years from now? What ideas or artistic images is it introducing?
I think some comic movies --Black Panther, for instance – move culture and inspire new stories. But a lot don’t. I’ve heard it said that the modern studio system could never make Back to the Future or Ghostbusters, and I think that’s true. A lot needs to change about how these are financed and distributed to make that not the case.
I apologize, but the case was made to be in a long and very compelling article that I don’t have a link for.
I think it was about consolidation, and how the lack of diversity in small independent theaters and small independent distributors robbed movies that weren’t copies of successful films the chance to become surprise hits.
Now, most theaters are chains, and they’re largely owned by the same entities that own distributors. So everywhere shows the same films, and there’s no one to take a chance on something different or risky.
Distribution is simply too easy to be entirely dominated by established studios like it was before.
When you say this I feel like you’re explaining how competition in healthcare is providing incredible choice for patients at incredibly low prices. Because what you’re saying sounds very reasonable in theory, but just doesn’t seem to match up with the reality we’re living in.
I think it’s a step forward. A small step but a step. Getting kids any entry level job is a good thing these days, setting them up for careers in climate positive sectors is even better, and I personally like anything that moves us closer to the New Deal 😆
I’m pretty quick to point out when he deliberately waters something down, but absent legislation, it’s hard for me to blame Biden for this being small.
It does seem like he’s trying to implement the wish.com green new deal, which is certainly better than nothing.
Maybe it’s just because I have a deep-seated terror of brain surgery, but this all sounded absolutely terrifying to me.
I also hate, hate, HATE that Musk said that the monkeys were all ill. Not only is this 100% bullshit – this would completely invalidate the data – but it also indicates that like most things, he has a 13 year old’s understanding of life. He thinks that something that is sick has no right to safety, because, like, they’re already on borrowed time or something, right? I’m certain that to him, the stakes of these tests are lower because it’s not like, healthy full people like him who will eventually use these to get cybernetic super powers. These are humans with disabilities. They’re expendable test subjects. They’re lucky to get even a chance at improvement. Plus, serving as guinea pigs gives them a chance to be useful to the great Elon Musk’s ambitious. Absent that they’re just a waste of food to him.
For context, I work in biotech. I’ve worked with animal subjects and human volunteers, and participated in the internal review process. I’m grateful for the guiderails that protect human subjects, and hope they hold up. Because as your comment points out, humans with disabilities are in a very vulnerable position. If experimentalists lack concern and patient consent is their only protection, human subjects will have no guarantees say all that the procedures are safe. These expert reviewers and regulators you mention are the only reason this article is about monkeys and not first round human subjects.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu angered Palestinians and their defenders Friday after presenting a map of “The New Middle East” without Palestine during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York....
I’m honestly kind of shocked, Because I’m convinced that the two-state solution is dead, and the only two remaining options are the one-state solution – Israel recognizes Palestinians as Israelis and affords them civil rights and political agency – or the ‘no-state’ solution – expulsion and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the territory.
I know that Netanyahu isn’t alluding to the one state solution, so when he stops talking about a two-state solution it really makes it clear that he’s going all in on the other one.
Setting aside the fact that the post is a joke, it actually makes a good point.
Playgrounds are one category of common resource, and we should have way, way more of these. I see a bunch of people suggesting that workout equipment or libraries count, but that’s not really sufficient. At playgrounds, it’s common to have a structure for kids under 8 and one above. We actually should have more for teens and above. We SHOULD have all-age group play structures.
We should have more skate parks. We should have urban bouldering walls. Swimming pools and fishing holes, and public gardens along with structures for adults to play tag on. That would be an improvement on most urban landscapes.
I saw the headline and was like, “so what’d he say? Was it really outrageous, like antisemitic stuff? Or something vague but problematic?”
And he’s just like, “Well, I just want to go on the record as saying that I have a strong unexamined bias against the cultural contributions of people who don’t look like me. And even though I know this is outdated, stupid, sand definitely outside the bounds of what I can say without consequences, I do not respect women or black people. Next question?”
I’m now bewildered but how stupid he is than his poor judgements.
I’m a developer for an open-world tabletop RPG called Fully Automated! The goal is to create a free, open-source game that can be to solarpunk what D&D is to fantasy and Shadowrun to cyberpunk. And the first version is mostly done. It’s got:...
I just recently learned that a separate group of writers made a solarpunk game for FATE if you prefer that system. Overall, I’m writing towards the play system that appeals to me, but I think a lot of the content could be used in one’s system of preference: solarpunk2050.de
The genre is new enough that there isn’t really a cultural collection of recognizable tropes. Which is really a big reason why I made this.
In the first campaign, there is one story about a high-stakes medical emergency and two stories that are similar to conflicts you might find in cyberpunk fiction, but reframed by the context in which they take place. You can read through the stories in the campaign module. Or join a play session. I think you’ll have fun.
I thought you were pointing out that I capitalized cyberpunk, which looks like a reference to the game of that name instead of the genre.
If I misunderstood, please explain what you are trying to tell me with a clear full sentence. Communicating exclusively through quotes is not an effective way to let me know what you’re trying to say.
Okay, I see what you mean. I think Shadowrun is a more popular system for running cyberpunk games than the Cyberpunk RPG, but thank you for explaining that.
Yeah, it’s a reasonable take. Personally, I have enough issues with all the systems I’ve tried that I homebrewed enough rules that it’s easier to just describe the rules than reference anything else.
The rules started with the Corporation RPG, which uses 2d10s for skill checks, and you try to roll below your attribute + points in a skill, and the skills are all selected to be genre-relevant.
The combat system is totally custom. I get that it’s kind of risky and hubristic, but I’ll just say it: I’ve never found a combat system that worked for my interests. The most fun systems I’ve played are Gloomhaven and Unmatched, which are both board games, not RPGs. So I made my own based on what I like.
The goal was to make something that had a feeling like fights in real life: it should feel somewhat tactical, but also be very fast and impulsive rather than slow and methodical. The solution is that it’s a played on a hex grid map, and the players have a very simple set of actions: they can move, they have one or two attacks, they can defend, and they can aim. It acts like rock-paper-scissors: everyone picks their action at the start of the round, then reveals at once. If you want to get tactical, there is plenty of room, but generally it should feel like a real fight: if someone has ranged attacks, you want to take cover. If someone is very aggressive, you should probably play defense. If they are very defensive, take advantage by using aim, which doesn’t work if you get attacked in the round you play it, but makes your next attack devastating if you play it successfully. There are some nuances like fudge dice to avoid it all being determination, but overall it feels fast, easy to pick up, and fair.
Personally, it’s my favorite combat system. Which is funny, because the game isn’t that combat heavy, but it’s an example of why I just went ahead and made custom rules system. If i thought I could tell the stories better with another one I would’ve, but I didn’t. So this is what i did.
As you said, it’s FOSG, so people can take the stories or lore and use them in FATE or GURPS or whatever they like. But it started as a game for friends, and I wrote the manual around the game as I ran it.
That’s a great summary of how I think about it. I don’t like broad-brush utopianism, I like realism, and I think a more just, sustainable world is something that CAN exist, but would be really interesting and complicated to actually navigate.
Oof. I just want to say as a Jew that is constantly trying to dispel the myth of Jewish media conspiracies, Zuck really isn’t doing us any favors here.
Yes, I’m one of them. But again, that’s not the audience I’m worried about. I’m not worried about what the mainstream thinks of Jews, or Jews think of Jews, I am worried about the feedback loop between far right influencers who promote conspiracy theories and the disaffected media consumers that they radicalize into violence. This kind of behavior is fuel for a very dangerous cycle.
If you’re talking about Lemmy users, I think that day is already here. If you’re talking about far right Zionists and ultraorthodox Jewish supremacists, then never. Between these two ends is where you find the mainstream gatekeepers of information like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerburg, the Sulzburger family (who own the NYTimes), Jeffrey Bezos (who owns the Washington Post), etc.
I think the democratization of information is probably the most important step towards creating space to speak openly about human rights abuses anywhere, regardless of how powerful the people responsible are.
I’ve heard it said that the key to a benign prank is to creates a mixture of momentary alarm and confusion, followed by relief.
A few years ago, I put a sign on my boss’ office door that said that his office was off limits for the week, as the building facilities team was going to be proactively placing humane termite traps in his office for two weeks as a preventative measures to lure any termites in and then release them at a nearby forest. He found it amusing.
IGN can exclusively reveal the details from IATSE's 2023 Gameworkers.org Rates and Conditions Survey, where the organization asked hundreds of video game developers about their pay, benefits, and working conditions.
It’s also, imo, because it’s a relatively newer career. Nurses, teachers, mechanics all existed as industries before he decline of labor. I work in biotech, and people have these oblivious conversations on reddit that are like, “I have a masters but can’t find a job with any stability or a living wage in my city. What am I doing wrong?”
And each time I explain that what they’re doing wrong is trying to get paid under late stage capitalism in a high risk-high reward casino industry filled with foreign visa-holding indentured servants and no one who has ever heard of collective bargaining.
I came across this in the kids section of the library with my kid. He’s a little too young for this, but I flipped through and it looks like some top-tier kids solarpunk. Anyone seen it?
Some friends and I have been developing a tabletop RPG. It’s a sandbox style game meant to provide the same kind of flexible general foundation for solarpunk that D&D provides for fantasy and Shadowrun provides for cyberpunk.
Part of what I wanted to achieve with this was giving players the feeling of living in the real world. People disagree. There are factions. Some of it is serious, some of it is silly.
Here are the prefab characters, which give you a sense for what kind of characters you can play.
It’s currently in beta release with the intention of releasing it fully for free by the end of the year, so you can share it with anyone you want. If any of this appeals to you and you’d like to join one of the play testing sessions, let me know.
Many mushroom identification and foraging books being sold on Amazon are likely generated by AI with no human authorship. These books could provide dangerous misinformation and potentially lead to deaths if people eat poisonous mushrooms based on the AI’s inaccurate descriptions. Two New York mushroom societies have warned...
Sadly, it’s another hustle. If you spend enough time on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TIkTok, you may see ads for “business opportunities,” which include a bunch of ways to spend lots of wasted time on things that will supposedly give you “passive income”. A lot of them consist of stringing together crude tools to supposedly run a business without actually running anything. For instance, you can learn how to set up a business on Amazon where someone else manufactures your products and Amazon stores and ships them, and supposedly you’re now a business owner. Obviously, it doesn’t work.
One version of this is becoming a “published author” by having stuff written either by ChatGPT or what are essentially slaves in the global south, and then self-publishing it as ebooks on Amazon.
Again, there’s no real money or sense of accomplishment, but people are desperate, and so people try it.
As others have pointed out, the likely cause is that politics doesn’t change with age, it changes with one’s investment in the status quo. The most likely reason that this effect is breaking down is because most people born after Reagan’s presidency were never given any means to become invested in this system. If you’ve got no assets and lots of debt, fearmongering that immigrants are coming to take your job or wealth doesn’t work.
I may be way totally out of my depth, so if this sounds wrong, someone correct me. But my thinking is that if you want to create soil, one key consideration would be to try to make sure that the input has the same elemental composition as soil, since the microbial digestion will proceed until the microbes run out of something. So if you have a ton of cardboard, which is mostly carbon, then the digestion will proceed until all nitrogen present is depleted, and then whatever wood chips and cardboard is left will mostly sit there undigested, but won’t be broken down until the microbes get more nitrogen.
The target ratio, I believe, is probably pretty close to the Redfield ratio: 106 parts Carbon: 16 parts Nitrogen: 1 part Phosphorous.
From what I see online the composition of wood and cardboard is mostly carbon (plus oxygen and hydrogen, but these aren’t nutrients), with very little nitrogen or phosphorous. So for every 6.6 lbs of cardboard or wood chips you use, I think you’ll want one pound of nitrogen and one ounce of phosphorous, just mixed in, either as pellets, or powder, or dissolved in the water they’re soaked with.
Again, this is all wild speculation. If someone thinks this advice is bad, speak up, I don’t want to misinform anyone.
I don’t see many Sci-Fi battlemaps being posted so I thought I would help out a little bit. I have been running 2 sci-fi rpgs concurrently for 3 years and have amassed quite a few decent maps that I have made in DungeonDraft. They are nothing special, but considering how rare sci-fi maps can be, I hope someone finds them...
Martin Scorsese urges filmmakers to fight comic book movie culture: ‘We’ve got to save cinema’ (www.latimes.com)
Martin Scorsese is urging filmmakers to save cinema, by doubling down on his call to fight comic book movie culture....
What do you think of Biden's Climate Corps proposal? (www.npr.org)
I think it’s a step forward. A small step but a step. Getting kids any entry level job is a good thing these days, setting them up for careers in climate positive sectors is even better, and I personally like anything that moves us closer to the New Deal 😆
Terrible Things Happened to Monkeys After Getting Neuralink Implants, According to Veterinary Records (futurism.com)
An investigation by Wired reveals the grisly complications of Neuralink brain implants in monkeys, including brain swelling and paralysis.
Netanyahu Shows Map of 'New Middle East'—Without Palestine—to UN General Assembly (www.commondreams.org)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu angered Palestinians and their defenders Friday after presenting a map of “The New Middle East” without Palestine during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York....
We should have adult playgrounds too. How much could it cost? (startrek.website)
Rolling Stone co-founder ousted from Rock Hall leadership over controversial comments (abcnews.go.com)
Looking for players for a Solarpunk tabletop RPG (slrpnk.net)
cross-posted from: slrpnk.net/post/2145288...
Looking for players for a Solarpunk tabletop RPG (slrpnk.net)
I’m a developer for an open-world tabletop RPG called Fully Automated! The goal is to create a free, open-source game that can be to solarpunk what D&D is to fantasy and Shadowrun to cyberpunk. And the first version is mostly done. It’s got:...
Meta deletes Al Jazeera presenter’s profile after show criticising Israel (www.aljazeera.com)
What are some harmless ways to prank someone?
Redd's really going to put his foot up Hyde's ass for this one (i.ibb.co)
US Air Force is toying with idea of building this Batman villain’s weapon (www.independent.co.uk)
New Survey Reveals That Many Game Developers Consider Their Career Unsustainable (www.ign.com)
IGN can exclusively reveal the details from IATSE's 2023 Gameworkers.org Rates and Conditions Survey, where the organization asked hundreds of video game developers about their pay, benefits, and working conditions.
Has anyone seen this kids graphic novel, Juniper Mae: Knight of Tykotech City" ? (flyingeyebooks.com)
I came across this in the kids section of the library with my kid. He’s a little too young for this, but I flipped through and it looks like some top-tier kids solarpunk. Anyone seen it?
[RANT] I'm sick of the ocean boiling in Solarpunk fiction
This is a Rant. I know I should write my own fiction with blackjack and hookers but just let me get it out of my system....
‘Life or Death:’ AI-Generated Mushroom Foraging Books Are All Over Amazon (www.404media.co)
Many mushroom identification and foraging books being sold on Amazon are likely generated by AI with no human authorship. These books could provide dangerous misinformation and potentially lead to deaths if people eat poisonous mushrooms based on the AI’s inaccurate descriptions. Two New York mushroom societies have warned...
Hasn't happened yet (lemmy.sdf.org)
If you forgive a few pro-corporate attitudes, this piece of fiction in LA Times is another instance of solarpunk clearly entrenching itself across our cultural landscape (www.latimes.com)
“Los Angeles, 2043: An optimistic scenario for transportation” by John Rossant
Arleen Sorkin, Batman: Arkham's Original Harley Quinn, Has Died At 67 (www.svg.com)
This goes beyond gaming, but still a legend
Lasagna Gardening with Junk
crossposted from Reddit:...
Following Elon Musk’s lead, Big Tech is surrendering to disinformation (www.washingtonpost.com)
Social media companies are receding from their role as watchdogs against conspiracy theories ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Trying to fix a lack of Sci-Fi battlemaps on the web
I don’t see many Sci-Fi battlemaps being posted so I thought I would help out a little bit. I have been running 2 sci-fi rpgs concurrently for 3 years and have amassed quite a few decent maps that I have made in DungeonDraft. They are nothing special, but considering how rare sci-fi maps can be, I hope someone finds them...