andrewrgross
@andrewrgross@slrpnk.net
- Comment on Behind the Scenes Bloopers from The Making Of 'Patrick Starship Enterprise' 39 minutes ago:
Okay, thank you.
- Comment on Behind the Scenes Bloopers from The Making Of 'Patrick Starship Enterprise' 49 minutes ago:
I’m confused. What’s this a blooper reel for?
- Comment on Firefox could be doomed without Google search deal, says executive 2 days ago:
'Your honor, we urge you to allow this company to continue breaking the law because our business is insolvent without the revenue we earn from crimes.’
I like Firefox, but if enforcing antitrust collapses Mozilla than so be it. How long has this car been going on? Have they not established any plans for what they’d do if this happened? They derive 75% of their whole company revenue from one source that was likely to be found illegal? They really thought that was a good idea? That’s a hell of a business model. It’s not a judge’s job to save them from that.
- Comment on What is the evolutionary benefit of loving a pet so much you melt into a puddle when they are around? 1 week ago:
I think animal affection – particularly for cute, non useful animals – is an extension of our infant protection drive.
- Comment on If I don't have my lunch my sugar crashes and I get sleepy 1 week ago:
I was going to say that I’m pretty sure these exist and they’re mostly run and attended by PhDs who love bluegrass music
- Comment on Tesla’s Remarkably Bad Quarter Is Even Worse Than It Looks 1 week ago:
This article doesn’t really live up to the headline.
I read to see why it’s worse than it seems, and the reason given is that Tesla isn’t competitive or popular.
That’s not really worse than it appears. That’s just as bad as it appears.
Which is really bad. But there’s no second shoe in the article. I want my two minutes back.
- Comment on bewCloud is a modern and simpler alternative to Nextcloud and ownCloud written in TypeScript 2 weeks ago:
I just set up a Nextcloud server this weekend, and this is the second time since I’ve heard people complaining about it.
I guess I should try some of the alternatives.
- Comment on Photographers Are on a Mission to Fix Wikipedia's Famously Bad Celebrity Portraits [404 Media] 1 month ago:
This is really cool. I love how things like Wikipedia just show how weirdly f’d up our whole society is by doing something without extracting maximum compensation and breaking systems.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 month ago:
Yoink
- Comment on Are conservatives mad about trans people or they just mad they get walk around out of the closet while they have to leave the white sheets at home? 2 months ago:
I sincerely mean this with no disrespect: while that sounds quite reasonable, it is thoroughly sophomoric and misinformed.
I think your impressions sound like very rational assessments that happen to be unfortunately based on bad underlying information.
Before I elaborate, would you mind telling me: what has been your personal first-hand experience meeting transgender people who are out to you? And what state do you live in?
Also, if you’re comfortable, what would you cite as a source of news and information that has guided your thinking on this issue?
- Comment on Bill proposed to outlaw downloading Chinese AI models. 2 months ago:
Can you prevent someone from setting up local instances of Deepseek? It’s open source. How would this define Chinese models?
- Comment on Poll: What's the cross-over between fans of Trek and solarpunk? 2 months ago:
Oh, you’re right. On my desktop it shows up, but I originally replied on mobile. That explains it.
- Comment on Poll: What's the cross-over between fans of Trek and solarpunk? 2 months ago:
I generally agree, although the use of replicators is a point of departure.
Solarpunk typically emphasizes degrowth and an end to scarcity that comes from a move away from endless consumption.
It’s not a criticism. Just an artistic difference responding to the 60s vs the new century.
- Comment on Poll: What's the cross-over between fans of Trek and solarpunk? 2 months ago:
I would also say that in general, Star Trek seems to steer slightly around discussing the actions needed to proactively achieve their society. It’s an end point, and you can find some info here and there about how they got there, but it’s really treated as the result of a magical tech breakthrough that resolved class conflict with the wave of a hand.
Anyway, solarpunk and Trek are definitely fellow travelers. But their tones aren’t identical.
- Comment on Poll: What's the cross-over between fans of Trek and solarpunk? 2 months ago:
Oh. They’re different servers! That’s actually a very clever joke. I’m sorry I didn’t pay close enough attention to appreciate it.
That got a chuckle out of me. Heh.
- Comment on Poll: What's the cross-over between fans of Trek and solarpunk? 2 months ago:
I think you replied to yourself…
It’s not quite: a key feature of solarpunk is nature, and our relationship to it. Trek is definitely aligned in concept, but aside from specific episodes, our relationship with nature is not a central theme.
- Submitted 2 months ago to startrek@startrek.website | 17 comments
- Comment on 'Star Trek: Lower Decks' Finale May Not Be the End, Says Tawny Newsome 4 months ago:
I think it seems hard to believe that the show really will end here. It just has the energy of a show with too much power behind it, both among fans and the people who made the show. And I think Newsome appears to agree with that take:
As far as the people creating it, we all would love to do that. I don’t know who writes the check for that, so I don’t know if they think it’s possible. But Mike has stories upon stories in him for these characters. He could do 10 more seasons. He is not done. None of us are done. Me, Jack, Eugene and Noël and not to mention the rest of our bridge crew and our recurring characters. Everybody’s like, “Yep, sign me up. We’ll be the next ‘Futurama.’ We’ll come back in 10 years, whatever you want.” So we’re all game. I would love a movie. I’d love a live-action movie, because we need to see Noël and Jerry and Eugene in human form — human-ish form.
- Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 5x10 "The New Next Generation" 4 months ago:
Yeah, Also, this really lets people make their own future for the characters.
Those two don’t need to necessarily fall in love and having a conventional monogamous romantic pairing. Just seeing a best friendship evolve is fun, and who knows? Maybe they have a fling and decide to remain platonic. Maybe they have a down-low FWB thing. This one little moment where they both see each other in a new way lets people imagine anything.
- Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 5x10 "The New Next Generation" 4 months ago:
It’s Zeus and company antagonizing Hercules, not Michael Burnham being central to solving five (?) entirely unrelated but galactically significant disasters, apparently by pure chance.
Yeah, there’s a lesson in good writing right there.
I think another way to approach this is demonstrated in The Expanse series and in a lot of Captain America stories: after you save the world, more big world-ending events get brought to you by people looking for help and enemies looking for revenge.
- Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 5x10 "The New Next Generation" 4 months ago:
I think most of this show’s jokes are great moments rather than lines, but there were definitely plenty of lines, too.
I loved “Science besties!”; “What is the viscosity of the goo?”/“Does it have anything nice to say?”; and of course “Engage the core!”
I can’t help wondering if this gets renewed.
- Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 5x10 "The New Next Generation" 4 months ago:
Yeah. Also: there has been throughout the show a nice little undercurrent of labor consciousness that was often lacking when we only follow “leadership” in stories.
This has been my favorite Trek in a long while. I like these characters a lot, and their personal and professional growth was well written.
- Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 5x10 "The New Next Generation" 4 months ago:
Overall, I think it was foreshadowed enough. In the first episode of the season, we see him having transitioned entirely to inorganic parts to fully bury his emotions, and in the end of this we see him deciding to go the other way. And I liked it.
I’m often a little critical of what seem like anti-transhumanist takes that assume organic parts are inherently superior, and mechanization is a defilement of god’s creation. But in this case, I didn’t feel like his choice was that. It felt like – and this is a complicated comparison, so follow me – an examination of what is often called “detransitioning”.
I say “often called” because I don’t think a transgender person adopting a prior gender presentation IS “detransitioning”. I think it’s just transitioning further. There’s a sort of irony, to me, in the taboo within trans-allyship toward transitioning back towards a prior gender expression, because bigots will always say that anyone who does so is proof that their transition was a mistake, and then claim that every transition is a mistake. I think this is ironic, because I celebrate anyone living their truth, and truths are complicated, and they change as we change.
Which is to say that I like cyborg Rutherford. And I also like non-cyborg Rutherford. And if Rutherford got cybernetics again or got biopunk mods, I think I’d like that Rutherford too.
I hope we do get to see more of all these characters.
- Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 5x10 "The New Next Generation" 4 months ago:
I feel like this finale did a very impressive job of tying things up, not in the way that they are concluded and done but that we see a transition in which that which we know has ended, and now the characters are going off toward grand new things. Which is a great approach to providing resolution without essentially killing and mounting your characters like butterflies in a collection.
But also, I sort of wonder if part of the intent was to loudly tell the fans and the network that if anyone was curious, the writers had a ton of juice in the battery. This is pure speculation, but I feel like the thematic message of this finale was something to the effect of 'Just in case anyone wondered if we’re finishing because we didn’t have more to say, wrong, WRONG, WRONG. We could’ve made another five jam-packed high quality seasons of this easily.
That’s what I felt watching it. Tendi and Rutherford’s bond was always strong, but I long wondered if a romantic pairing was a possibility or not. It didn’t feel obvious or obviously out of place. Seeing Rutherford remove the implant provided in just a single scene a lot of fodder to consider what we could learn about him as a person and technology in seeing how he is the same and how he is different without the implant. And seeing him essentially look up from his cell phone and realize he has a crush on his best friend he was long avoiding thinking about is a great direction for him to go, imo. I think that would be a great story, regardless of whether it culminates in a lasting romance or leads to a decision to remain platonic.
I’d never quite liked Ransom. I don’t hate him, but his gimmick always annoyed more than endeared. But in the last minute, I had to admit that it has worked. He’s supposed to annoy, but also to remain hard to dislike. You want to dislike him, but he won’t quite let you. “Engage the core!” landed very well with me. That’s a catch phrase that kind of gets both more tired with use, and funnier as it gets more tired. I’d love to see him deliver this incredibly groan-inducing line in a moment of genuine high stakes drama, at which point you’d have no choice but to admit… it’s become iconic (and you’d hate him for doing that).
Anyway, 3 out of 5 stars (Jk, I loved the finale. Paramount should just announce that they’ve reassessed and green-lit another season. Seems like an obvious thing to do, but we’ll see).
- Comment on ‘Lower Decks’ Series Finale “The New Next Generation” Review, Plus Mike McMahan Interview 4 months ago:
I largely reject the notion of “canon”.
Others can enjoy canon if they like, but stories don’t need it, and plenty of great ones have well known, obvious paradoxes.
I’ll just add the famous Dwayne McDuffie piece on this, “Six degrees of St. Elsewhere”. RIP McDuffie.
- Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 5x09 "Fissure Quest" 4 months ago:
It just shows how great character work transcends dialogue.
- Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 5x09 "Fissure Quest" 4 months ago:
Oh cool, thanks for the context!
- Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 5x09 "Fissure Quest" 4 months ago:
I agree.
The recipe for this show is just so good. I’m really not into most of the newer stuff where they’re trying to one-up every previous series in scope and stakes. I’m thinking particularly of Discovery here. It’s fine for those who like these things, but I think having a show that’s blasse about the routineness of life-threatening adventures and also presenting characters that seem like Trekies themselves as audience proxies is such a refreshing way to both enjoy the adventures and take the pressure off of the expectation that each show somehow has to out-do all the previous adventures of all the previous crews of all the previous Enterprises.
- Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 5x09 "Fissure Quest" 4 months ago:
Can you give the context? I can infer a bit, but I don’t know the specific wish you’re referring to.
- Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 5x09 "Fissure Quest" 4 months ago:
Still, there was such a catharsis to his eye rolling dismissal. I don’t have the exact quotes, but when he remarks that the bad guy is certain to be this or that or this or “human Worf” or some other shocking known character I really had to smile. Also his description of it as an endless parade of lazy rehashings was just on point.
Obviously, I still enjoy it, because here we are enjoying it. But at points his weariness and sarcasm were reminding me (favorably) of Rick and Morty. With way less cynicism, but with a lot of the same remarkably well-executed self-aware snark.