Users could choose their own color scheme, default was a light blue.

Which red, blue, yellow, and green icon on a white background are you looking for?

There are a few standout episodes that I think had notably excellent performances, though. Episodes 8 and 9 in particular from season 2 were haunting.

Is it maybe just the genocide angle mirroring Israel/Palestine too closely making critics not want to touch the series?

Has he decided to eliminate all trans fats?

No good swamp but my swamp.

Anduril…Palantir…are the fascists just co-opting The Lord of the Rings now?

Sucks for everyone still on Reddit.

Dang, the cast of Andor got snubbed hard.

Butter emails!

🏴‍☠️

Plugging one more forest track for Final Fantasy 5 (Pixel Remaster):

Legend of the Deep Forest: https://youtu.be/9Od3BQQ-7Mo

The worst part is that I am getting paid a salary I could have only dreamed about years ago, and yet I still can’t afford anything with how drastically everything went up in price.

Wages in general have gone up a little bit, but it’s crazy to me that I’m earning more than 5x as much as I used to 15 years ago and feel like my buying power has not noticeably improved at all. I’m still stuck living in crappy apartments because that is all I can afford.

Politically? Way worse.

I’d say yes and no. 30 years ago was not long after the likes of Reagan and Thatcher. Things are very much not okay today, but more people were okay with worse stuff back then. I’d argue some parts of politics have certainly gotten worse, but others have nevertheless gotten better.

I think the core issue is that the political systems of some countries are beginning to show their age, and people today are becoming more cognizant of their failings over time. I think it wouldn’t hurt to look at all of the data available to us now and go back to the drawing board on a lot of key components. But in saying that, it’s impressive to even have so many consistent political systems that have remained relatively stable for centuries when countries used to just have revolutions and regime changes to shake things up all the time.

I do agree we are quickly approaching a major economic downturn, though. I feel like the writing is on the wall that we are already there, but for some reason economists have their heads buried in the sand. I’m reminded of videos I’ve seen (ignore the edgy V for Vendetta splash screen before it) shortly after the 2008 recession where a small handful of economists anticipated a significant downturn only to be derided by the majority of “experts” who said everything was going great. Because I keep hearing things today like the economy has never been stronger, but no one around me seems to be feeling that. Scaled for inflation, I’m making more money than my parents did when they bought a house, but that feels like an impossibility for me today.

Depends on how far a species advances, I’d guess. It wouldn’t surprise me if advancements set us (and other potential life out there) on a trajectory where it’s possible to just get most nutrition needed via passive intravenous implants, maybe only with a requirement to drink water to maintain fluid balance. Or we just get to the full cyberpunk cyborg option and all you need is an occasional battery recharge or something.

With the resources available today, mankind has the ability to solve world hunger, but that still keeps the dependency we have on various global supply lines for food. Few nations are truly agriculturally independent. Lenin once said that society is no more than three missed meals away from chaos, and I believe the only permanent solution to that issue would be if a society no longer needs to eat.

Agreed, especially on the psyops front. It’s no secret that Russia has been manipulating global politics for a long time now, and France is another European country which has seen a rising Russia-friendly neofascist movement in Rassemblement National. They’ve just barely been kept out of power the past few election, but as their numbers keep growing, one must only wonder how much longer that can be the case.

Similar with Germany and AfD. Europe is being worn down from within and no one seems to be inclined to do anything about it.

🫘

if you get to this interview it means you’re essentially hired baring you being a complete asshole or similar.

Also worth mentioning that there might also still be others in consideration at this stage, and if they have 3 candidates and 1 opening, it’s still a game of who seems best. And that’s where things can get frustrating, because it could easily come down to an acknowledgement that you are very qualified for the job and they liked you, but someone else just seemed like a better fit.

That one element is what makes the show worth watching for me. It’s just such an interesting setting detail and they do really interesting things with it.

I didn’t think I could dislike Rogue One until I watched Andor. After finishing Andor and then rewatching Rogue One, I felt disappointed that it wasn’t quite as good.

Not that it means Rogue One is a bad Star Wars film, but that Andor is just that good. I don’t think they’ll ever make another piece of Star Wars media that can surpass it.

The forced trilogy structure also really hurt it. When the Hobbit film adaptation was initially announced (at the time just two movies, even), I thought that it didn’t make any sense to adapt a book shorter than any of the individual LotR installments into multiple movies. When they revealed it would be a trilogy, I knew it was some studio decision to milk it for money and didn’t have high hopes.

There is actually a fan edit floating around online somewhere called “The Hobbit: Extended Edition” which, contrary to what the name might imply, cuts down the trilogy into a single movie of comparable length to the LotR Extended films. Still not perfect, but a huge improvement in quality just from cutting out all of the extra garbage that didn’t need to be there.