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AClassyGentleman

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AClassyGentleman , (edited )

One extra thing a lot of articles haven’t pointed out is that the mod was locked behind a patreon paywall. Sticking mods behind paywalls has been a hot subject (to put it gently) in the community for a while now. Not to rush to the defense of the most profitable franchise in the world, but yeah that’s absolutely gonna get you shut down.

AClassyGentleman ,

Yakuza/Like a Dragon sidequest.

AClassyGentleman ,

Mello’s the absolute GOAT. So stoked that he got on the soundtrack for Bomb Rush Cyberfunk.

AClassyGentleman ,

Honestly this is one of the things I appreciate about Trek. Things don’t just automatically get better and better throughout human history. But in both Trek and real life, people want things to get better and will fight to make them better if given a chance. Past Tense might be my favorite episode of TV in general because while things might still get worse before they get better, the Bell Riots are one of the things that spurs people into action.

I think there’s a lot to be hopeful for in that respect. We’re seeing a resurgence of unions and labor action after they collapsed in the 90s, the development of an incredibly large anti war movement, and people are realizing things only change if we force them to.

Anyways, there will always be bad things happening in a capitalist society, but there will always be people fighting to make things better, and right now a lot of people are realizing they want to be a part of that group.

So yeah, shit sucks but there will always be people who want to fix things.

AClassyGentleman , (edited )

Lots of cast members ended up directing over the years. 90’s Trek had a reputation for being a factory for directorial debuts. It’s really neat, it brought a lot of variety and personality to the episodes.

AClassyGentleman , (edited )

OP linked the Politico article (it should be under the title/image on most clients) but having read it, this is one of those rare headlines that’s actually worse in context. As OP mentioned it’s about a recent controversy that was stirred up when Canada’s parliament honored Yaroslav Hunka for fighting against Russia in Ukraine, despite his history as a volunteer for the Waffen-SS (an armed paramilitary group that played a major role in the Nazis seizing power and combat throughout WWII).

The article defends Hunka with the absurd claim that joining the muscle of the Nazi party doesn’t make you a Nazi, maybe you just really didn’t like the USSR! Even if you buy that excuse, the article provides no evidence whatsoever that it actually applies to Hunka, they don’t even attempt to make that case. It then tries to draw an incredibly bad-faith equivalency between the USSR and Nazi Germany (and while I’m not going to say that Stalin was anything resembling a platonic ideal of leadership, there’s a pretty big gulf between the USSR and Nazi fucking Germany). After that we get some nitpicking of the claims against Hunka (bringing up the fact that his unit was never convicted of war crimes, which completely glosses over the fact that his unit was, again, part of the Nazi’s armed paramilitary). It then dismisses any criticism of Hunka or the Canadian Parliament’s ovation for him as people being fooled by Russian propaganda through a series of absurd logical leaps. I think things are best summed up by this little nugget towards the end of the article:

However, any further discussion of the error has to be carefully phrased, as any suggestion that Canada is showing contrition for “honoring a Nazi” would acquiesce to the rewriting of history by Russia and its backers, and concede to allegations of Hunka’s guilt that have no basis in evidence.

Again, they are talking about a volunteer for the Waffen-fucking-SS. The muscle for the Nazi party.

AClassyGentleman ,

Bad move by the WGA boards. While I hope the TA is good and meets all demands, the workers literally haven’t seen it yet, let alone voted on it. You always want to have the strongest strike possible, and part of that is that no work gets done until a new contract is delivered, approved, and put in place. This puts the union in a weak position if the TA gets voted down.

AClassyGentleman ,

FYI I never said that the strike had failed or anything to that effect, I just said it was a bad move by union leadership to call off the pickets before the TA had been agreed on or even been given to members (which it hadn’t at the time I posted this). It’s also fair to critique union leadership if they’re putting forward tactics that are weak. Weak tactics and bad leadership play into the boss’ hands far more than critique.

However, all of that said, now that the details of the TA are out, it does seem to be a really solid deal and WGA members should absolutely be celebrating. This was a hell of a fight and they’ve earned it.

AClassyGentleman ,

Copy/pasting from another place this was posted (the joys of browsing all instances)

To be brutally honest, this is fucking peanuts. A jobs training program for a measly 20k people, with nothing to indicate any steps against corporations that are actually responsible for climate change. This should be a slap in the face after (as the article even points out) Biden opened more federal land for drilling.

We need the energy industry to be taken in to public ownership, with direct accountability to the people (not corporate parties), significant investment into climate stabilization and climate change resistant infrastructure, and have workers (who by and large do not want to burn the planet to the ground) take more control over their workplaces. Biden wouldn’t dare threaten corporate profits, so we’re never going to see anything significant from him.

AClassyGentleman ,

Seems like the largest criticisms are that the Bloodborne inspiration is a little too obvious/heavy-handed and the usual discourse around soulsbonre difficulty, both of which can very much be positives depending on personal preference. Personally I’m very down for some spiritual successors since Sony hasn’t been doing anything with Bloodborne, and the difficulty was perfect for me in the demo (and I have to give them credit for putting out a comprehensive 2+ hour demo, that was a real breath of fresh air). Glad it seems like they pretty much hit the mark on what they were going for.

AClassyGentleman ,

Capitalism defines success as profits increasing at an ever-increasing rate. During the height of the pandemic, tech companies tended to fare better than other industries because they were better able to handle the switch to remote work (among other things). This wasn’t lost on investors, who smelled money in the water, and went all in on tech. Like, seriously, colossal amounts of money, and they expect returns on those investments. Problem is, we’ve hit the point where the easy profit sources for these companies have more or less dried up, and now they’re having to squeeze whatever they can out. This is why we’ve seen massive layoffs, quick money making schemes, and things like this that will be disastrous in the long run, but stand to make some short-term profits.

It’s a boneheaded move, but when all you care about is pleasing the investors right now, it’s the logical way to operate.

AClassyGentleman ,

Saw this in a local theater a few months back. Definitely well worth the watch. According to Watkins, the actors were picked based off of their political beliefs and ad-libbed much of the dialogue. It’s much more slow and dialogue heavy than you might think with this sort of premise, but it has some incredible tension because of that. As one of those evil lefties myself, it was really interesting trying to figure out what political camps people were in and who I would’ve agreed with most.

Very good recommendation.

AClassyGentleman ,

The McCarran International Security Act of 1950 is real, although the part referenced in the movie (that allows for the detention of people suspected of being security risks) was gutted the year this movie was released.

Much of it is still on the books though, and is used to harass left wing organizations. If memory serves, it’s the reason citizenship tests still ask if you’ve ever been part of a communist organization.

AClassyGentleman ,

10000%. At the end of the day the law is “whatever you can get away with,” and the people who make the laws can get away with a lot.

AClassyGentleman ,

I feel like rsync may genuinely be one of the best, most slept on tools out there. It even works over ssh.

AClassyGentleman ,

Never assume the courts are going to side with the workers. Not to be overly cynical but legal processes take lots of time and money even in the best cases, which corporations are going to have more of ten times out of ten. And that’s assuming the rulings will be fair.

Having this option isn’t bad, but the best, most consistent way to actually win victories is with strong, worker-led union campaigns with strong demands and escalating tactics that engage the workers and don’t back down in the face of union busting.

AClassyGentleman ,

It’s the broad brush that gets me. Going dark has to be a principled choice. DS9 nailed it with the “it’s easy to be a saint in paradise” mentality. The hope in most Trek writing comes from a worldview that most people are inherently good unless their environment forces them to act otherwise (which I would very much say is how the world actually works). When shows go dark using something closer to a “people are inherently evil unless they really fight back against their nature” mentality, it feels bad and rings hollow.

AClassyGentleman ,

“Staring Jeffrey Combs as Brunt”: HELL YEAH!

“Staring Jeffrey Combs as Weyun”: HELL YEAH!

“Staring Jeffrey Combs as Brunt and Weyun”: LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOO!

AClassyGentleman , (edited )

Full disclaimer: I fell off Overwatch years ago, so this is just stuff I’ve picked up reading general game news, so I’m sure others will be more in-tune with what’s up but here’s an overview, at least:

So first off OW2 as a thing was always kind of bizarre. When it was a battle(dot)net exclusive, it was free if you owned 1, and straight-up automatically replaced OW1 in your library. It behaved like an update would for any other game, and that’s because it kinda just was a big update to the game. Naturally there’s some back and forth about if the gameplay changes are good or not, but the big issue is monetization.

So, when OW1 came out, they explicitly said that all content updates (basically things other than skins) would be free, including new characters, maps, etc. However, since OW2 was a “new” game, there was no risk of legal issues around false advertising if they were to start charging for new characters, which is exactly what they did. New characters now had to be unlocked via the battle pass (or purchased individually, I assume) in order to be playable, which obviously rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. (I vaguely remember this maybe being walked back to some degree after backlash, but I’m not sure one way or the other).

And all of this comes as Activision/Blizzard is going through a genuinely horrific series of scandals around workplace conditions. Like, there’s genuinely too much to list here but famously, one of the OW characters was renamed since he was originally named after an employee who turned out to be a huge sexual abuser. There’s report after report coming out on an almost daily basis, and it’s abundantly clear that management (including infamous shitbag CEO Bobby Kotik) are intentionally trying to cover things up. Genuinely mind-boggling. At this point, it also becomes abundantly clear that ActiBlizz management is using OW as a distraction from the negative press they’re getting, regularly announcing new updates or “progressive” (big air quotes due to the extreme cynical corporate nature) character details within hours of major scandals breaking.

So you’ve got all that on top of the usual toxicity that tends to form around competitive games if left unchecked. It’s kind of a mess.

AClassyGentleman ,

Alright as someone who has seen this happen… Don’t. Fist off, if the employee doesn’t already know what the benefits of a union are and how to go about organizing one, this does nothing to change that. Second, it puts them in a dangerous position with management. Obviously, any good Union drive should be fully prepared for union busting tactics, but ideally you want to keep that shit secret from management for as long as possible. And imagine how frustrated you’d be if a customer pulling a stunt like this got you fired.

Instead what you want to do is talk to your family, friends, and coworkers about what a union can do for them and talk about how to effectively organize a union drive. Make sure that shit is led by the workers, and puts forward strong demands and escalating tactics. They should also absolutely get community support, but in organized, meaningful ways - think things like mailing lists to get the word out about rallies, boycotts, etc.

Unions are hell of a tool and they should be organized in the most effective possible ways.

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