Surely.
The great example is phones - I'd love to see a data driven study on network quality/cost to users for cell phones in Africa. They largely skipped the whole "stringing wires all over the fucking place" step and jumped straight to cell phones. How has that worked for them compared to mature hardwire telephone systems in developed countries? Pros? Cons? Long term benefits/costs?
I can't dissect her shitty character non-arc any better than Matthew Kadish from Medium did in his 8000-word annihilation of a poorly written, poorly conceived, poorly executed Mary Sue.
And...Grogu is literally nothing BUT a toy commercial.
https://medium.com/@matthewkad...
"Since a Mary Sue is partially defined by her ability to upstage all other characters she shares a scene with, regardless of those characters previously established skills and abilities, let us look at how Rey does this to other characters in Star Wars:
Rey beats up Finn upon first meeting him, despite Finn supposedly being a trained Stormtrooper.
Rey is able to fly the Millennium Falcon better than Han Solo, who is considered one of the best pilots in the galaxy.
Rey is able to fix the Millennium Falcon easier and quicker than either Han Solo or Chewbacca, whoâ(TM)ve flown the ship for decades.
Rey is able to shoot a blaster more accurately than a trained Stormtrooper, despite never having fired a blaster before.
Rey is able to resist Kylo Renâ(TM)s Force interrogation technique, and even turn it around on him to read his mind, despite Kylo being a trained Force user and Rey never having used the Force before.
Rey is able to defeat Kylo Ren in a lightsaber duel despite never fighting with a lightsaber before and Kylo Ren being a trained saber user.
Rey receives condolences for Hanâ(TM)s death from Leia instead of Chewbacca receiving Leiaâ(TM)s condolences, considering Chewbacca had a far closer relationship with both Han and Leia and Leia never having met Rey before.
Rey is chosen to go retrieve Luke Skywalker, despite the more sensible choice being that of Leia.
Luke becomes frightened of Rey after seeing her âoeraw powerâ with the Force being equal to that of Kylo Ren.
Rey defeats Luke Skywalker in one-on-one combat, despite Luke being a trained Jedi capable of defeating Darth Vader, arguably one of the most skilled Force combatants in history.
Rey defeats numerous Praetorian Guards and helps to save Kylo Ren during the battle, despite having very little experience in fighting multiple opponents at once.
Rey shows she has mastery over the Force on a level with Kylo Ren when struggling over possession of Lukeâ(TM)s lightsaber despite Kylo having years of training and Rey having weeks worth of training.
Rey is able to get a âoetriple killâ by destroying three First Order TIE Fighters at the same time in the Battle of Crait, despite never firing the Millennium Falconâ(TM)s guns before.
Rey is able to move a mountain of rocks from the Resistance base on Crait, despite never having trained for such a feat, and which no Jedi in the Star Wars films has ever before demonstrated. Thus, she upstages Luke in respect to being the one to actually save the survivors of the Resistance."
I don't think building weapons is inherently bad, like some sort of child.
The fact is that nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles have given us the longest period of peace between the great powers in modern history, at least since the 14th century.
You probably believe if we hadn't built them the Soviets would have just showed us with hugs and kisses?
...and which have given us the longest period of great power peace in since what, Charlemagne?
Or did you think that was coincidence?
The goal is NOT to use them.
The key to 'surfing the 2nd generation techs' is that you - defacto - can't be at the cutting edge. In fact you have to be a backward society *vastly* behind the curve to avoid having to have that legacy sunk-cost infrastructure.
Nobody "skipped over" early tech, that implies agency. These are LEFT BEHIND economies. I don't think anyone chooses that as a strategy.
So it's externally-developed tech that someone is selling them.
"...the movie isn't finding audiences "beyond an aging group of core fans.""
Aren't these the core fans they basically told to go fuck themselves?
They rebranded the entire Expanded Universe as 'non canonical' so they could re-write and sell their new shit. Churn out committee-designed scripts set up to "maximize marketing opportunities" and expect nobody to notice.
Trivializing genuine criticism as racists, homophobes, alt-right, or some easily-dismissed 'engineered' ingenuous complaints. Even something as simple as fight-choreography has gotten dumber.
Rey as the lead of the series is a stupidly written Mary Sue girlboss. Challenges? None. Character development? None. Dramatic Stakes? None.
Invented powers every other film to conveniently solve incompetent writers ending up in corners.
Finn could have been a REALLY interesting character
Tell me Rose Tico didn't practically have a "Asian placeholder" card around her neck, with her irrelevant go-nowhere subplot of nothingness?
Genre, beloved characters mainly got shit on before being spun out - dead, depressed, or bitter hermits.
Slashdot now the home of Luddites? "Why do we need a SPACE BASE?"
A lot of people write off space 'competition' as just militaristic dick-flexing.
You do understand where ICBMs came from? There isn't a serious question that space is absolutely now a context for global-state competition; it's not dick-flexing to recognize that this will shortly expand from orbital space to really the entire cislunar sphere.
It is, in fact, one of the generally-undisputed roles of government to try to recognize a strategic vulnerability and address it proactively.
Further - and this may end up getting modded to oblivion as recounting these facts is distasteful on
SpaceX is multiples cheaper than competitives in launch cost per kg - $1500-$4000 vs $18k alternatives vs $54k NASA
To suggest "SpaceX is a slush fund from Trump to Elon" makes no sense. I want our govt to be using the CHEAPEST AVAILABLE LAUNCH capability. Are you asserting they shouldn't?
BlueOrigin is well behind but commercial launch development is *significantly* driving down costs, that's unquestionable.
As far as "publicly funded"
"It's accepted that Lithium is not rare."
You and I and some may recognize that, but the media organs have been screeching for some time about China's "monopoly" on rare earths and the west's "vulnerability" for a decade or more.
I can't count the number of times I've had to explain that yes, in fact the US has world-leading deposits of lithium. (as much as 40 million tons of reserves. vs Chinas 10)
"this process is welcome. As it has a dramatic reduction in toxic residuals from processing"
Fully agree, this would be a wonderful opportunity. Not only does this absolutely mean less toxins anywhere, this would open the chance of actually doing lithium recovery domestically (it doesn't really matter how clean the process is, I expect crowds of Earth Firsters gathering to oppose any such industry, regardless; this would just mean it has a reasonable chance of moving out of the morass of environmental protests...).
While Blackstone's ratio has endured for nearly 1000y (Maimonides said it ca 1100 I believe) and Franklin tried to codge it for himself, every persuasive case for it involves CAPITAL punishment.
(Obviously, there's no un-do button on that....)
And if you poll most people today, they regard mis-conviction about the same as mis-exoneration meaning letting someone accidentally go free is considered just as bad as accidental conviction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
And while Franklin's bullshit about safety and liberty is even more-quoted in the US, it's constantly misunderstood. Constantly the word 'essential' is skipped past. On an absolute basis, we routinely trade liberty for safety - anytime we stop at a stop light with nobody around, or stay on the right side of the empty road.
I'm actually pretty militantly libertarian myself, but thoughtless, reactive libertarianism has the odor of chaos and anarchy.
In your rush-to-snark, you misread the previous poster as part of your anti-elon congregation yourself.
The post wasn't ironic, it was genuine, pointing out there isn't anything close as an alternative.
Except that SpaceX is massively profitable and offering the lowest launch prices compared to anyone by a large margin - so
I checked a few different analyses and they said that comparisons are challenging because Chinese tests are generally much milder and less "real world" than US test regimes. (Not to mention that the Chinese micro ev is sort of a China only vehicle type).
Generally Tesla are ranked extremely well in Chinese "real world" tests too.
These Cassandras have been insisting on the worst cases in every possible alternative for 50y.
Their careers, reputation, and funding is all predicated on worst case scenarios.
Polar bears gone, glaciers gone, North Pole ice free, the Manhattan parkway underwater.
Mountebanks require spectacular claims, or nobody listens.
Most of those big companies were indeed split up by political will, but likewise reigned over industries that barely exist any longer anyway.
Microsoft, Amazon, space x/Tesla, etc are not only the largest firms, they exist in industries that themselves weren't really even imagined 50y ago.
Based on what?
None of these companies really existed AT ALL much more than a decade ago.
"A child is a person who can't understand why someone would give away a perfectly good kitten." -- Doug Larson
