danielquinn
@danielquinn@lemmy.ca
Canadian software engineer living in Europe.
- Comment on The best answer to "when did Star Trek get woke?" 23 hours ago:
I agree that this is valid criticism. The Star Trek writers have clearly gotten lazier over the years, opting for hamfisted, blatant, “see? we’re being woke in this scene” rather than allowing you to think for yourself.
However, the complaint here is laziness and not the nature of the message. I’d even go so far to say that due to the complex storytelling of earlier series, there’s a large continent of the fanbase that didn’t realise their progressive nature, and are objecting to how it’s woke now.
So basically I think there’s two complaints here: a valid one that you’re making: “lazy writing is terrible and arguably less effective”, and another one coming from, shall we say, those unburdened by an overabundance of schooling that are objecting to progressive ideas that were always there, but they only notice it now with the lazy writing.
- Comment on The best answer to "when did Star Trek get woke?" 2 days ago:
I whole-heartedly agree.
- Submitted 3 days ago to startrek@startrek.website | 37 comments
- Comment on Elon Musk: Zack Polanski is ‘a scumbag and traitor’ 3 days ago:
Well if Elon says he’s a bad guy, it must be true.
- Comment on Kemi Badenoch: James Bond must not be woke 1 week ago:
I see the Toties are continuing to focus on the critical problems of our time.
- Comment on Record number of people waiting for NHS diagnostic tests in England 1 week ago:
I got my MRI in a matter of days, not because my case was dire (it was just a routine screening) but because I paid for private health care through my employer.
We need to have a grown up conversation in this country about how fucked up it is that private companies have injected themselves into our “single payer” system to create two-tiered care.
You cannot share this space with private companies. The only mode capitalism has is stratification and enshittification.
- Comment on Decathlon offering cash refund to stop festival-goers abandoning tents 1 week ago:
Seems to me a better system would be a licensing/deposit system for such events. You can’t pitch a tent unless you’ve paid a deposit that’s refundable a week after the event should your tent not show up in the debris.
A partnership with Decathlon could be made to attach scannable serials to various parts to aid in identification of the debris.
- Comment on Labour contender Andy Burnham declines to say Israel has committed genocide in Gaza 2 weeks ago:
Ah, so he’s just like his other friends in what’s left of Labour. Lacking principles, conviction, or courage in the face of obvious injustice.
Just what we need in a Prime Minister.
- Comment on One in four births in England is now emergency caesarean, BBC analysis shows 2 weeks ago:
Who could possibly have seen this coming? It’s not like we re-cast childbirth as something that can be managed by barely-trained hippies pitching crystals and hypnobirthing… oh wait.
- Comment on Put a £5 deposit on vapes to stop fires, say waste companies 2 weeks ago:
100%. Deposit systems create a “scavenger class” of people. Imagine a deposit on:
- Aluminium cans
- Glass bottles
- Vapes
…and then introduce legislation requiring reusable (and deposit-managed) fast food containers and overnight you’ve solved a massive part of municipal waste costs.
- Comment on 'Disgraceful' parking leaves village gridlocked 3 weeks ago:
Usually there’s a sign posted that days “no parking” and I fine print at the bottom it says “tow away zone [phone number]”. You call that, and if you’re lucky, you get a human with directions. If unlucky, you get a machine with the same info.
- Comment on 'Disgraceful' parking leaves village gridlocked 3 weeks ago:
You bill them for the towing. And the admin.
- Comment on 'Disgraceful' parking leaves village gridlocked 3 weeks ago:
There’s this fabulous invention that we really don’t see enough of in this country. It’s called a tow truck.
Fines are useful and all, but only if they’re high enough to be a deterrent and enforceable enough that the offender actually pays them. If we tow offending vehicles, this problem goes away immediately, and even those who consider the fine “the price of a day out” now have to deal with the inconvenience of having to retrieve their vehicle from the impound.
Seriously, why don’t we see more of that here?
- Comment on Nearly 500 seriously injured in e-scooter collisions in Great Britain last year 3 weeks ago:
You missed a lot. There are so many things wrong with a statement like this.
- A global comparison necessarily includes roads all over the country, the bulk of which being intercity motorways. Given that motorways and local roads are maintained quite differently, for a discussion about the viability of our roads for use with scooters then, which don’t use these roads, such a bias renders this metric useless.
- It won’t include surfaces which are likely to be used by scooters, such as pavements and cycle lanes, let alone the availability of either.
- It’s also likely not to include negative cultural norms like:
- Parking in cycle lanes
- Parking on pavements
- Double parking
- The average size of vehicles and the visibility the drivers have
The biggest problem though is that it’s just a bad argument. Having roads better than another place does not make our roads “good”. At best it establishes ourselves on a spectrum of mediocrity. I saw this constantly living in Canada where people would talk about our mass transit as “better than what they have in the US” like that’s something to be proud of.
Our roads are objectively shit. Potholes are everywhere and the pavements are literally crumbling. For a scooter, these are all serious hazards because of the wheel diameter. Those are objective facts, so lets stop with this “well at least we’re better off than ${someplace slightly shittier}” because it ignores the objective shitty state right in front of us.
- Comment on Nearly 500 seriously injured in e-scooter collisions in Great Britain last year 3 weeks ago:
I’m willing to bet that the miserable state of the roads and pavements has a lot to do with this.
- Comment on Polanski calls for workplace temperature cap as Labour dithers 3 weeks ago:
Honestly, I was surprised that this wasnt already a thing. Who would oppose this?
- Comment on Reform's Brilliant Councillors Keep Getting Expelled - Novara Media 3 weeks ago:
Amazing how all this comes out after the election. It’s almost as if the media wasnt interested in vetting the right wing party dominating the polls or something.
- Comment on 'I've given up eating hot meals to pay for equipment to keep my son alive' 3 weeks ago:
She says at one stage her energy company called to suggest she doubled her direct debit to £845 per month.
Even in the dead of winter, my all-electric house with three people in it had a bill of £171.73. How the hell does anyone get up to £845??
Are these ventilators really so inefficient, or are electricity prices in Yorkshire something like £3/kWh?
- Comment on UK needs to urgently install air conditioning in schools and care homes, climate campaigners say 3 weeks ago:
…along with solar panels… right? So many schools with flat roofs, and bundling solar with AC only makes sense.
- Comment on Thames Water investors say temporary nationalisation would slow its recovery 5 weeks ago:
There’s no need for it to be temporary.
- Comment on UK firefighters called to one lithium-ion battery fire every five hours 5 weeks ago:
I’m not surprised. Have you seen what they’re charging for the batteries? We had to buy a new one for our e-bike and it came to about £600. Just for the battery.
- Comment on What are your favorite trek scenes? 1 month ago:
- Comment on Tribute to this legend, Sir David Attenborough, after hearing the news that he's celebrating his birthday today, aged 100. 1 month ago:
“Sir Davit Attenborough, 100 years old today” would have be a lot better.
- Comment on Franco Manca confirms restaurant closures in major restructuring plan 1 month ago:
I don’t see Cambridge on the list. Whew!
- Comment on School food standards pilot in England cuts meal uptake by 15% 2 months ago:
This has got to be the dumbest take on this sorry one could possibly have. Shame on the Guardian for publishing it so uncritically.
There are zero downsides to the public for a healthy school lunch mandate. Pointing out that some kids would rather eat garbage for lunch does not mean that the government should pay for that.
If the government is paying to feed kids, then it should be paying for healthy food. If some parents would rather feed their kids deep fried crap well… you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink.
I’d wager that the “concern” these companies (why do we have private companies in charge of feeding school kids again?) is really based on the fact that these meals are more expensive and so it cuts into their margin.
- Comment on Why are homes left empty in the UK and how can we fill them up? 2 months ago:
Those are reasons why it’s not being addressed effectively, not why the problem exists in the first place.
- Are these homes bought for investment that can’t sell for the amounts the owners want?
- Were they inherited and being held unsold due to being tied up legally?
- Are they unsuitable for human habitation, either because of neglect or changing regulation?
- Are they simply temporarily empty due to “housing purchase chain” problems?
- Is the market undervalued?
- Has some rich supervillain bought up a few million homes just because he hates poor people that much?
The article proposes a question and then fails to answer it.
- Comment on Why are homes left empty in the UK and how can we fill them up? 2 months ago:
An article titled “why are homes left empty…” doesn’t answer the question.
- Comment on Tucker Carlson slams UK's Palestine Action ban, calls Keir Starmer 'enslaved' 2 months ago:
While he’s right in this case, calling him a “prominent American journalist” is as inaccurate as his usual “reporting”.
- Comment on Give all UK households a set amount of subsidised energy, says thinktank 2 months ago:
Agreed. Despite appearances, subsidies like this don’t help the public, they’re just giving cash to energy companies with extra steps. Long-term planning on the other hand makes a lot more sense for the public, while sending less money to the energy companies.
I wonder how many of those companies are involved with that think tank.
- Comment on [Video] British journalist Steve Sweeney bombed by Israel while reporting in Lebanon 2 months ago:
Is there a more reputable source other than RT? In the age of deepfakes, it’s reasonable to require evidence from trusted sources. RT is not.