GraniteM, granitem@lemmy.world

Weirdly enough, already a book:

without even realizing it

staring intensely at the CD-R drive and loaded revolver

“This is it. This is the last time I will burn a copy of Stoner Jamz Mix ’98.”

Same energy

Slow cookers have entered the chat.

90% of slow cooker recipes:

• Ingredients

• Put in slow cooker

• Cook for 4-8 hours

• Eat for a week

Clean out the slow cooker crock and maybe a cutting board. God-tier appliance and cooking method.

I really think that the word “abolish” is causing problems of understanding here. For most people, “abolish” conjures up the word “abolition,” as in the abolition of slavery. That was not a movement that made slavery optional for those who wanted it but kept it in place for those who still wanted to maintain the practice; it was emphatically a movement to make the very concept of slavery illegal (we could have a conversation about how successful it was in the context of the private prison complex, but that’s a whole other can of fish).

When we talk about abolishing something, we generally aren’t saying we’re going to reduce it as an obligation or pay less attention to it; we mean we’re going to do everything in our power to make it not exist anymore. If people assume you mean the latter when you actually mean the former, it’s going to cause confusion and derail the entire conversation into a cul de sac of definition, rather than addressing the actual topic we want to address.

I assume that the Federation has better space OSHA regulations that mandate more reliable artificial gravity than the Klingons.

Writing Prompt: A TV with an onboard artificial general intelligence connects to the internet for the first time and is alarmed to discover that a thousand years have passed since it was manufactured.

It’s not a direct connection, but trying to say a dwarf planet isn’t a planet, when it’s got the word planet right there, is generating the kind of semantic confusion that, carried forward, would lead to the conclusion that people with dwarfism aren’t people. The -oid suffix already conveys “is almost the thing, but not quite,” such as in words like humanoid, asteroid, android, and (most importantly) the aforementioned planetoid. Making planetoid the official word for “is in ways like a planet but actually isn’t” would have been working with existing etymology, rather than creating needless confusion.

There are plenty of linguistically unintuitive artifacts kicking around (a peanut is neither a pea nor a nut, a jellyfish is not a fish, all of the “berries” which aren’t berries), but if we’re deliberately creating brand new labels in the 21st century, it might have been nice if we’d avoided that kind of oddness, given the opportunity.

My objection to “dwarf planet” is purely a linguistically aesthetic one.

“Dwarf planet” ≠ planet

…implies…

“Dwarf person” ≠ person

…and I feel like the people under 4’10” (147 cm) would object to that distinction.

Also, “planetoid” was a perfectly cromulent word which Star Trek had been using for decades already.

Voting won’t solve all of our problems.

Absolutely, but not voting will make solving all of those problems more difficult, not easier.

To graduate from my (American) high school, you needed a given number of gym points, and you were given one gym point per day of gym class. But, I learned, you earned one and a half gym points per day of dance class! I figured this was a great scam: I already hated gym class, so I’d get my points out the way faster.

Fast forward a couple of months, and I’m working harder than I ever was in gym class, I’m enjoying myself more, and I’m hanging out with girls in leotards first thing every school day. There was literally no downside.

It looks like a promo for a new Law & Order spinoff.

Huh. I was trying to recall if they ever said it in dialog or if it was one of those things where official canon is established outside of the original work.

How do you figure?

This brings up a mental game I’ve played of trying to decide which Star Trek characters would be the best tabletop DMs.

Here’s my TNG list:

For the record, I think although TNG-era Worf would not be a great DM because he’d be so focused on combat that you’d get the impression he’d rather be playing 40k instead, by the time he reached his DS9 era, he’d have picked up a lot more openness to narrative and be much better.

Also, I think early season Wesley would actually be better than Starfleet Cadet Wesley, as he’d show a ton of promise and enthusiasm at first, but seems to become fairly insufferable by the time he’s a cadet.

The Reapportionment Act of 1929 was a bullet to the head for representational democracy in the United States. It just took nearly a hundred years for us to realize how fatal the wound was.

You’re going to get into the blurry distinction between a ripoff and a tribute or an homage.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier has a lot of Three Days of the Condor, but is that a ripoff, or an homage?

Ditto Star Wars and Hidden Fortress.

Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More were uncredited remakes of Yojimbo and Sanjuro, and as I recall Kurosawa was pretty annoyed, so that probably counts as a ripoff.

Oreo cookies came out four years after Hydrox cookies, and I’d say they surpassed the original.

See also: Galaxy Quest, which is like the third or fourth best Star Trek movie.