I now, right? How many years directly interacting with unions and union workers do you have? I've got going on 40 now. Doesn't automatically make me right, but I would love to hear your personal experience.

I've had Union employees tell me they have two bosses. I've dealt with grievances, Strikes, lockouts, even received a pass when some were in over their heads. I've watch the chaos of "bumping", where people bump newer employees, not even in their field - think an electrician bumping a custodian, your job isn't very secure until you get a lot of time in.

And the point I'm making is not the one you are trying to have me make I think you having an argument in your head with me about this.

Point is that Yes, if you are paying union dues, and following Union rules as well as the employer rules, even if the Union doesn't issue you a W2 form, you work for them as well as your employer.

Point is, an employer can and will terminate more expensive employees first, unless that employee brings value worth their renumeration. The number of unionized employees where I retired from dropped by half over the last 30 years. That is not a coincidence.

What union do you belong to? And you seem to get excited if someone points out that Unions are not perfect. Like telling them they you claim I don't understanding Unions, and excusing utterly rude behavior, Go ahead, call me a moron - you know you want to, 8^)

Once again, your listing of the benefits union has brought simply shows that you are having that argument in your head with me.

A fresh graduate, no work history, and no experience is going to a an extremely risky hire.

I've been working around new hires for decades. Some hit the ground running, some fail miserably, abut almost all need a lot of peer group interaction before they become proficient employees.

Apple isn't the best option though.

Technically the soc is excellent, can't deny that. Trouble is it's hobbled by the operating system. And ports.

All caps yelling and name calling tells me all I need to know about you.

It might be a wonderful film. But relating to what I said, I'm not going to see it.

The critic/fans I follow. were liking Mandalorian 1 Didn't like the book of Boba Fett, and were mixed on Ahsoka, a number said it was walking, walking, walking, and thought Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka was okay except that the fight scenes seemed too choreographed and slow. I know a lot of Fans were looking forward to Ahsoka were looking forward to that adaptation, since there wouldn't be sex or race swapping, Which when a person knows the story, it would be admittedly annoying to have, say Stephen Colbert cast as Ahsoka.

If fans ruin any thing that is actually good, perhaps the SW and Trek universes should go away. And don't forget Tolkien's army of fans, some who have dedicated their academic lives to the study of his writings. Some people say the Tolkien scholar who quit on the Amazon LOTR prequel, saying that they were not respecting the material was toxic.

Andor seems to be an exception, but Acolyte was actually a decent idea, and Last Jedi was probably the only hope the franchise had of moving forward.

I've noted in here that I could have written a good SW version of "The Acolyte" using the premise of lesbian space witches. What was provided was pretty dull stuff.

I will note that you apparently believe that fans of SW and ST want to have something they loved torn down and destroyed. I think that is odd.

Wrath of Kahn has some things that a lot of modern movies don't have. A good story line, the main characters are aging, but that process is incorporated into the story line, not put there to "subvert expectations". By the time WoK came out, a lot of the 60's fans were going through a bit go aging on their own. It had a conflict, a historical one to boot, as the aging enemies fought one another, Kahn with his incredible intelligence, Kirk with his experience.

And here is something most people overlook. Lighting and sound. Even back in the original ST, they understood lighting. In some of the new stuff, they appear to be stuck in dramatic mode.

Audio - this is a problem with movies in general today. Sound effects way too intense. Foley artists appear to rule the studio. And the dynamic range thing, they are intent at having a conversation almost at the threshold of hearing, followed by an incredibly loud sound. I cannot watch movies with sound in the evening after my wife has gone to bed. I have to put on closed captioning.

Why exactly would someone "report" Drinkypoo?

He annoys some people. So do I. So does Armored Dragon, and ahem, you post ain't sunshine and puppy dogs. No one is doing anything that would get them kicked or even a stern talking to.

Relax a little, maybe enjoy an adult beverage or herb of your liking. Thoughts and prayers!

Sonavabeotch, you owe me a new keyboard, man! My soda went all over it when I read that.

+5 for making me snort! 8^)

I think that the core problem is that Disney is a terrible fit for Star Wars in any form.

Star Wars was Space Cowboy Epic,

Disney excels at making Disney Princesses.

Both are legitimate, but it is really difficult to make a space cowboy movie when your talent is princesses.

You are correct, Youtube doesn't have teh present day constraints Disney does.

As for allowing a Youtuber get involved, maybe. After all they put Harvey Weinstein's secretary with no experience direct "The Acolyte" flop, so if a Youtuber with the proper political beliefs who is willing to take on the fans surfaces, they might just hire them.

Yup, you summed up the problem. The movies Disney put out in recent years were not good movies, and the fan base became alienated. They wrote off the movies and didn't watch or pay attention

So Disney can put out a decent Star Wars movie or show, and many just won't watch it.

In this case, my analysis is that trying to have a mute puppet who seems to mostly reach for things carry the movie couldn't get enough traction. So people willing to take a look on the first weekend saw it, went "Okay", and that was it.

Once upon a time, the fans would go see individual movies many times, and purchase all the swag. One critic I don't watch often has his walls filled with earlier action figures, models and other paraphernalia. All of that added to the bottom line, and Disney intentionally threw it away with it's new arc.

Yeah, but there is good art and bad art. Unions - well, we must remember that once you have a union, you have two bosses, the Work boss and the union boss. So your concerns about the art of making games is well founded. And Unions are as much about lining their own pockets as enforcing fairness. That's the funny thing about those who claim that Unions are some sort of commie or socialist outfits - they are every bit as money hungry as the rest of us. They are not saviors of the downtrodden workers.

My point in all this is this is not a good time for programmers to organize. AI can and will take some jobs, even if the final sprucing up is handled by a few really good programmers. And if programmers refuse to return to the workplace, they better be the best in the world, people who hold the company by the short hairs, who can leave quickly and go to another place willing to pay money that is appropriate for their best in the world abilities.

Inertia, fear of the unknown, the need to feel a threat and taking it to existential levels, and the need to pile hate on something.

AI such as it is, is definitely not very perfect at the moment, but then again, no new technology is. Tubes and radio that put a lot of landline telegraphers out of work, Then replaced by transistors, then by integrated circuits, didn't spring like Venus from the ocean, fully formed. So many other examples of technology being disruptive, but in the end useful.

Over 35 years of employment, I shifted knowledge and ability several times as technology changed. Some didn't, like that lady photographer who worked with me that really resisted digital. Last time I heard, she's a waitress at an Olive Garden. No issue with waitressing, but quite the leap from being an industrial photographer.

Would it not be a perfect world if we simply refused to adapt? Reject technology outright. Technological Amish, except in order to be consistent, we have to go back to hunter gatherer ways, and no gadammend tools, just use rocks that are available, no cooking with fire. Just a totally free world without the scourge of technology, where are all free and happy.

Yes, that's reductio ad absurdum. but let's face it, we've seen the doom and gloom and hatred some have of technology shifts. People have lost the jobs they had, and adapted to new ones Perhaps you would like to return to subsistence farming?

Standing for malware designed to sabotage is still sabotage, and you'll find yourself on the losing end of that war.

There will be job shifting, just like in every other technology advance. And emplacing malware inside software is just a 21st Century version of throwing your sabots into the machinery to disrupt it. It will likely work just as well, as in not.

With the likely outcome that people will try out the software, have it nuke their initial tests, and decide it just doesn't work.

I think part of it is based on inertia.I've always went with changing technology, not tried to impede it. When I started in electronics, early 70's, Vacuum tube technology was being intuded on by Transistors, and Integrated circuits were starting their inclusion into electronics. A lot of people were unhappy.

In my department we made videos using tape editing technology. And a lot of technology geared toward computer animation using frame buffers and Frame by frame VTR's. The final product being a VHS or Beta tape. Then came Non-linear editing, and the smart money jumped ship on the old system, especially when computers became faster. The final product was so much better when we could show animations as QT or mpeg. A lot of people on the production end were unhappy.

But on a human level, I was tasked with implementing a digital photography system, and implementing it's workflow. The photographer at the time was a woman who loved old school chemical photography, and hated digital. She even went to our boss, complaining I was being secretive and keeping her out of the process, that my planning wouldn't work. He showed her the stack of memos and workflows I had produced, noting her name was on the distribution list. She even tried doing intentionally shitty digital work as a form of sabotage, claiming I didn't design a good system and digital wouldn't work anyhow.

Prints and slides were going by the wayside. Computer presentation and publications were using digital output. The world had changed.

The upshot, she lost her job, and another photographer who would do digital work without intentionally doing crappy work came on board.

Technology happens - we can fight it, or go along with it. A person in technology needs to adopt lifelong learning. They need to look at where the technology is going. They need to fight the inertia so many people have.

Forming a union around the time that AI takes their jerbs is the likely dynamic. On the bright side, they'll be able to Work from home - maybe that is RFH. "Relax"

Ant this isn't anti-union, it is just that the union employees won't have a lot of leverage. Striking will just speed the AI replacement part along.