The jokes about Darth Jar Jar were everywhere of course, but it could have worked. Star Wars lifted a few ideas from classic SF sources including Asimov's Foundation series - in which, we might recall, the terrifying, unstoppable galactic warlord known as The Mule was hiding in plain sight as a clown, who seemed to be merely a harmless entertainer at court. His military success was chiefly thanks to his psychic ability to manipulate others' minds to his liking - Darth Jar Jar could have done very well that way!

I saw three Star Wars movies when I was young. They were great. Mainly because I was a child and this stuff was new and fresh and exciting to me. Even the Ewoks.

I saw three more when I was not quite so young. They were... poor.

I saw a couple more when I was older. One was great, the other was okay but a retread of one of the old ones, and I never got round to seeing the rest. Didn't care enough.

Now they've got more, and apparently they're based on a TV series they did, which I didn't watch because I wasn't subscribed to that streaming platform at the time. So I'm not going to see those either. Same reason I've not seen a Marvel superhero film since the first Avengers one - just too much homework required with all the backstory. Every scene is a shout out or reference that I won't get. Every character seems to be getting ever louder and angrier and more and more of them have access to time machines. I just don't have it in me to care anymore.

I like the sound of these horror films, though. They're going to tell a complete story? In one film? With a beginning, middle and end, that don't ask me to be up to date on an entire Cinematic Universe? Sounds great, time to check where they're showing!

A modern version of GTA London would be the absolute dream. Been long enough now, you could set it in the nineties and have the same retro value to it!

... why unions aren't much more common among technology workers. Especially given what you hear about the videogame industry in particular, with that mad 'crunch time' culture in which workers are ruthlessly, well, crunched. I'd always ask, well, what does your union say about it? And what do you know, there isn't one, how about that.

Nice to hear of some progress being made, then. I suppose the risk with this for the rest of us is that GTA 6 might be late to release, but, uh, at this point I think we're over that

The big lie is that everything that needs to be built is being built by big tech.

Meanwhile, we need nuclear power plants to keep up with massive growth in electricity demands.

We need desalination plants and people to dump salt in the middle of the ocean to replenish water in local ecosystems.

Those are just two obvious things.

We also need the arts, and more people reading books.

Capitalists only care about the profit in their own silo. The oligarchs are preventing more silos from being built.

That is why you tax their profits at 99% to force them to actually invest their money or pay it out to other people who can find better things to do with it than hoard it.

I had VERY SPECIFIC requirements and I wanted the extended warranty. I would have paid 2x at a dealer. I know what I was doing.

I bought a used 2020 XC90 from CarMax last week. I did everything online from shipping it from Texas to Minnesota to financing the extended warranty. I walked in the door, gave them a cashier's check, and drove away within 10 minutes.

That's how it should be.

... until it affects rich people.

People giving up their thinking abilities is nothing new.

What part of that fiction has any connection with the reality of the 1%?

The social media platforms would rather have it treated like an R rated movie that kids can't get into than simply not run ads or show content for people they aren't explicitly connected to on the platform.

Because most people would opt for that.

Imagine only seeing content from people you follow and who follow you back.

The British traded spice. They didn't use it.

Even if we want oil to be the currency we use to manipulate the world, us using it is a very silly way to go about it because it just makes us susceptible to manipulation.

We're supposed to want OTHER people to be dependent on oil and for US to control it.

Instead it's just us shooting ourselves in the foot constantly. We're supposed to be hoarding oil to drive up prices. Not consuming it.

De Immenso et Innumerabilibus On the Infinite and the Countless By Giordano Bruno Of Nola

is essential reading. It sounds like 1950's sci fi.

The fact this was ever a question is a farce.

We all pay for the gas in our cars to get to work. We pay for the electricity that runs our homes and computers.

Somehow, big tech thinks they can just mooch instead of paying for the batteries for their toys.

Crypto and AI should have launched a great leap forward in clean energy.

All the oligarchs care about is profit, not legacy.

I hate that I can't run MS Office on my cluster of headless Linux servers.