It’s been years since I’ve seen it, but I do remember all of those themes now that you mention it. That trilogy really suffered from having multiple directors, though, because it feels like Rian Johnson took some hard left turns that JJ Abrams felt the need to correct, which made the sequels feel extremely unplanned.

I think your comment on the casino planet sums up my thoughts on the movie: forced and inelegantly tacked on. Not that I had a miserable time with the film, but it felt like Luke’s character establishment was done a bit oddly, the Holdo secret plan was done a bit oddly, I guess the film was a bit odd for me. Luke especially. I’ve never taken Hamill as someone hard to work with from any of the BTS footage I’ve seen, so the fact that he also was struggling with Luke’s arc between 6-8 when the director was in front of him and could explain it leads me to believe that Johnson really cared about having certain things in his film and didn’t care much about how or why they’re in the film. But obviously I’m one of those fans that didn’t care much for it.

I just read a book called The He-Man Effect by Box Brown that centers on corporations preying on nostalgia for brand growth, and it touches on this. Most Star Wars fans have been pushed toward that when they were young. The Prequels and Sequels got so much backlash not because they didn’t live up to the Original Trilogy, but because they didn’t live up to the imaginary Star Wars in every fan’s head. The strategy of capturing fans as children really began with Star Wars, and no film camera is going to capture the full Star Wars that someone experienced as a child, because the brand supplemented itself with toys so the child’s mind would expand the universe itself and further engross itself until it’s inseperable. If the adult fan is racist, they’ve expanded on the property so much in their imagination that they likely view it as racist or sexist at this point. Which is why Daisy Ridley, Kelly Marie Tran, and John Boyega got death threats after 8. This is not just with Star Wars, but with all brands marketed toward children. I don’t feel that strongly in hatred toward the movie, but I must admit that my perception of the brand may be affecting my enjoyment of the plot points presented in the movie.

Except the Leia force ghost. I guess in-universe it’s kinda sweet but irl when I watched that movie, seeing Leia’s body fly through space with the Force right after Carrie Fisher actually died was just so offputting to me.

Genuinely, what was that?

Generational Heat

The First of Octember was my favorite Seuss book as a kid!

I really loved the ones he made that leaned into the absurdity. All of his worlds were absurd in some way, but that and To Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street were very focused on the absurd.

I’m so sorry if it seems like I’m gaslighting you, but you legit just unlocked a core memory for me! Thank you!

Menagerie I: Exoptable Money and Menagerie II: Presentable Liberty are both quite short and fantastic commentaries on money, corporations, and prison. They’re both free, too.

Visions of Assass Peed

That’s Weird Al Yankovic!

Ubuntu lol.

Try a gaming-focused distro with more focus on preconfigured drivers. I think you need it.

Pop!_OS if you wanna use Ubuntu, CachyOS if you want your shit to be fast.

Ahhh, that is useful.

I used a bit of Heroic and liked it, I hope it fills your needs!

We need more people that care about games.

Ffs the latest prominent woman in gaming is the new Xbox CEO, who came from the AI industry.

Workers in gaming need to tick the “love video games” box before any others.

Never used that shit.

“Add non-Steam game”

Sonic Racing CrossWorlds is awesome

I think you are underestimating how many of these “professionals” are just reading the material out loud without much comprehension on their part.

Homeschooling is an act of hubris if you’re trying to stack up against a real educator. But I’ve had like 5 real educators in my public school career.

Out of all my teachers, I’d call maybe 5 of them professionals. The rest are all power tripping bastards that want to put kids in line instead of teach them.

Were the system better, I would say public school is the obvious option. But one of my public school teachers told my friend he’d be pumping gas for the rest of his life in the middle of Algebra class lmao. Some of these people are petty as fuck and childish, and they’re punished the same way bad cops are punished.

I was homeschooled until 8th grade, when I was put into public school. Good take.

I learned so much more when I was homeschooled. I was a reader, so I could get all of my work done myself in about 4 hours per day. It was great, honestly.

I stand by the statement that public school doesn’t teach you how to learn, it teaches you how to follow instructions. I would even go so far as to say that public school killed my love for learning.

Out of all my teachers, I had maybe a handful that were passionate about learning. I’m super grateful for my 8th grade English teacher, who did an in-depth unit on the Holocaust and had us meet a survivor. I first heard the “First they came for the socialists…” quote in her class. I don’t think I could have ever been prepared for today if it weren’t for that.

My 10th grade English teacher as well, who was a friend and guide in the right direction, despite the fact that I was an antagonistic right-wing little shit.

Which leads into your point about peer pressure. My school was 93% white, and the attitude matched. I had racist friends. Hell, I was saying racist shit all the time with absolutely no bearing on what the fuck I was really doing, other than following the lead of my shitheel friends.

It’s also hard to avoid getting crushed by the system. I remember one time, somebody said a swear word in the back of my computer class and nobody snitched so the teacher collectively punished us by making us write 100 (completely unrelated to the class) word definitions 3 times each. I complained to the principal, and he chuckled and said, “I’m going to back the teacher.”

I won the election for Student Council President in 10th grade against the son of the woman in charge of Student Council, and they literally just ran the whole thing without me. Then, I tried out for the Radio program and didn’t get selected over the leagues of thickly-accented rednecks who read out loud at the speed of one word every 2 seconds.

So, I started smoking pot and went back to being homeschooled, also taking classes at the community college.

So yeah, you’re pretty spot-on.

But you’re also right about the socialization aspect. I would not be at the level of socialization that I am now without just going through the shit in public school. If the system were fixed, public school would be the better option. Right now, the way we educate is primarily the problem. These kids sit around so unstimulated that they’re already trying to numb themselves with drugs. It’s fucking ridiculous.

I think that the solution is homeschool co-ops, but even those aren’t perfect. I went to a co-op that was extremely religious and incorporated that into the science lessons, for instance.

Well, yeah.

Game companies also sold strategy guides at the time. They’re designed to be obtuse. I’m pretty sure the full walkthrough for Leisure Suit Larry 1 is only 2 paragraphs or something.

The actual steps to the end are short, there’s just always a puzzle where you have to use a rubber chicken with a bar of soap to make a helicopter or some shit. I love adventure games though, I’m just a walkthrough baby.

What’s good dude?

PS2 or PS3.

Those systems are where most of today’s stagnant franchises started. The modern universal control scheme started with the PS2 (that is, actually utilising both sticks in the modern tradition), so there’s no issues with playability.

I’ve been replaying GTA V, which is a PS3 game in case we all forgot.

A good PS2 and PS3 off eBay will reawaken your love for gaming. The PS2 has so many smaller classics that don’t get much love now (Sly Cooper!), and we’re still being sold and resold PS3 games to this day.

Arch + KDE win

All day Christmas, if Brad hosts family at his house.