And he was scared of Ungoliant, and we don’t know what she is, besides nasty, and hungry, and shaped like a huge spider (well, spiders are shaped like her, probably).
(He also got his foot almost cut off by an elf in single combat and walked with a limp ever after — well, at least until he got his hands and feet cut off by the rest of the Valar, I suppose —, but elves were mighty back then.)
Streaming is bringing unskippable ads and surveillance.
Torrents bring neither and are higher quality and more user friendly.
The internet is making things worse, not better.
No, it’s not. Before the Internet you could only watch what was on, when it was on.
Now you can torrent anything you want to watch, whenever you want to watch it, and in much higher quality than TV used to be. And, again, without ads, which TV has always been riddled with.
That’s infinitely better, on multiple metrics.
Or use NewPipe if you don’t need to sync with your Google account.
Not as much as going from coax to RJ45, or from PATA to SATA, or from PC/AT to PS/2 to USB or Bluetooth, or from D-SUB to DVI to HDMI or Display port, or from the old serial and parallel ports to USB or Bluetooth (I mainly skipped SCSI), and I sort of miss having to turn the connector 360° around for it to fit…
Who the fuck would be in the favour of fascists…?
Franco did not sire the entire Spanish population.
No, but he did kill, or drive into exile or poverty and political irrelevance anyone who didn’t share his views.
Most of the surviving population, especially the ones with economic and political power, were fascists. Their children were fascists. Their grandchildren were fascists wearing progressive masks. And their great grandchildren are fascists who’ve taken off their masks.
When the bastard said he left everything “tied up and well tied up” he wasn’t kidding.
Germany was forced to clean up house, though.
Franco died in bed (in extreme agony, apparently; the only good thing the bastard ever did; but still), naming his successor, whose son is the current unelected parasite on the throne. The dictator’s children and grandchildren are public figures, celebrated and followed by embarrassingly large portions of the population.
The murderers and torturers who worked for him kept their jobs, were forgiven all their crimes, and their children and grandchildren succeed them (old money and contacts in high places go a long way towards winning elections).
The supposed “transition” merely put some new wallpaper on top of the existing structures, with a watered down constitution voted under military threats: vote for it, or else, even going as far as staging a coup attempt so that Franco’s successor could “save the day”, become a hero, and water the new supposed democracy down even further.
Do not compare Spain to Germany. It’s extremely insulting to Germany.
Most other states tend not to celebrate their raping, murdering, and pillaging as a national holiday, though.
And there’s also the fact that most Spanish politicians are descendants of those that served under the coupist dictator Franco (who nominated the current parasite in chief’s father as his successor), and share the same political views, as does a nauseatingly high portion of the population.
Move on
No.
Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper:
I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.
(…)
[through his cigar] Mandrake,
Group Captain Lionel Mandrake:
Yes, Jack?
Ripper:
Have you ever seen a commie drink a glass of water?
Mandrake:
Well, no I… I can’t say I have, Jack.
Ripper:
Vodka. That’s what they drink, isn’t it? Never water?
Mandrake:
Well I… I believe that’s what they drink, Jack. Yes.
Ripper:
On no account will a commie ever drink water, and not without good reason.
Mandrake:
Oh, ah, yes. I don’t quite… see what you’re getting at, Jack.
Ripper:
Water. That’s what I’m getting at. Water. Mandrake, water is the source of all life. Seven tenths of this earth’s surface is water. Why, you realize that… seventy percent of you is water.
Mandrake:
Uhhh God…
Ripper:
And as human beings, you and I need fresh, pure water to replenish our precious bodily fluids.
Mandrake:
Yes. [chuckles nervously]
Ripper:
You beginning to understand?
Mandrake:
Yes. [chuckles, begins laughing/crying quietly]
Ripper:
Mandrake. Mandrake, have you never wondered why I drink only distilled water, or rain water, and only pure grain alcohol?
Mandrake:
Well it did occur to me, Jack, yes.
Ripper:
Have you ever heard of a thing called fluoridation? Fluoridation of water?
Mandrake:
Ah, yes, I have heard of that, Jack. Yes.
Ripper:
Well do you now what it is?
Mandrake:
No. No, I don’t know what it is. No.
Ripper:
Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face?
(…)
Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridated water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk, ice cream? Ice cream, Mandrake. Children’s ice cream?
Mandrake:
Good Lord.
Ripper:
You know when fluoridation first began?
Mandrake:
No. No, I don’t, Jack. No.
Ripper:
Nineteen hundred and forty six. Nineteen fortysix, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your postwar commie conspiracy, huh? It’s incredibly obvious, isn’t it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual, and certainly without any choice. That’s the way your hard core commie works.
Mandrake:
Jack… Jack, listen, tell me, ah… when did you first become, well, develop this theory.
Ripper:
Well, I ah, I I first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love.
Mandrake:
[sighs fearfully]
Ripper:
Yes a profound sense of fatigue, a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I was able to interpret these feelings correctly: loss of essence.
Mandrake:
Yes…
Ripper:
I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women… women sense my power, and they seek the life essence. I do not avoid women, Mandrake, but I do deny them my essence.
We’re talking about Donald Trump here… you could replace him with an animatronic muppet and the only thing people would notice is that he looked healthier and didn’t smell as bad.
2001: A Space Odyssey.
Kubrick gave them fucking iPads. In 1968.
Blade Runner was very much a product of its time (though Syd Mead’s visuals were outstanding).
There was something floating in the late seventies / early eighties zeitgeist that would become the cyberpunk genre, and it sort of condensed in several spots simultaneously.
William Gibson had just published Burning Chrome, and was finishing writing Neuromancer (which would be published in '84 and be considered a foundation of the genre).
Ridley Scott and Syd Mead independently adapted a (very different from the film) book by Philip K. Dick into a film that looked and felt like it was set in Gibson’s Sprawl.
In Japan, Kasuhiro Otomo had just begun publishing Akira.
Frank Miller was probably in the process of writing and conceptualising Rōnin, which DC would start publishing in '83.
Bruce Bethke had come up with the term cyberpunk in 1980, but that short story wouldn’t be published until '83.
Over the next few years many other authors would create other works clearly set in the same genre, though at this point they probably had some influence from Gibson and Blade Runner and each other.
Mike Pondsmith was drinking it all up and coming up with a role playing game with that title, to be published in '88.
And, all over the eighties and nineties, the genre exploded, and was everywhere.
there must be another simply-expressed term to reflect their thinking
Monstrous. Sociopathic. Inhumane. Evil. Deranged.
There’s plenty of simply-expressed terms to reflect their thinking.
This Terry Pratchett (GNU) quote pretty much explains it (he uses the term “(Discworld) elves”, but given that Lords and Ladies is clearly based on A Midsummer’s Night Dream the quote equally applies to any kind of fae, and not necessarily, for instance, to Tolkien or DnD elves):
Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
No one ever said elves are nice. Elves are bad.
Looks like some kind of fae. Run.
It’s the USA; you need to own a truck, a house, 30 acres of land, at least 70 pounds of firearms, stocks in no less than five companies, and at least one testicle to be eligible for citizenship.
Trump overspends because he doesn’t know the value of money.
Trump “overspends” because he doesn’t understand the concept of actually paying a bill.
He’s spent all his life refusing to pay a single bill, and somehow getting away with it.
It doesn’t matter if the money is his or the government’s (until he steals it). He won’t pay. If he has anything remotely resembling principles, not paying is his main one.
He’s as capable of intentionally paying a bill as he is of growing a second head. Or bigger hands.
Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.
Also, Hanlon’s razor just means that in normal circumstances stupidity is the simplest and most likely explanation, but malice is still a possibility, and these are far from normal circumstances… you’ve got a significant portion of the population which is both extremely stupid and extremely malicious…
I’m lucky enough to live in a relatively civilised country (comparatively at least; everything can be improved), not some fascist hellhole like the USA.
Unlike the monsters who tortured and murdered this woman, however, I do use the opportunities and means I have to help people around me, but said people are lucky enough to not be anywhere near the USA.
COVID showed us that when we close the borders it’s already too late.
American avian flu will be global long before enough other governments take it seriously enough to react, because the people who should have raised the alarm (in the USA) will be too busy looking for a job, in jail, dead, or ignoring it and drinking raw milk.