For the people who got paid, yes of course it was worth it.

I mean, they also just dropped all of it in the end. So you probably weren’t the only one who felt that way.

I’d love a continuation on an unrelated show with an ensemble cast and some wild mysteries, and then the end of the season one of them meets Hurley and he’s just like “Dude… Good to see you.” and you realize it’s Aaron.

It could go in any direction, and you can bring back Linus as Hurley’s Richard, and keep tabs on Walt, Charlie Hume, Ji-Yeon Kwon, Clementine, Megan Pace, Zach and Emma, and a bunch of other kids from the show. Introduce some new mysteries, explore other places of power around the world, fight some Eldritch evil, anything is possible.

I got really into Lost. Like really into it. I was on message boards, sharing theories, doing alternate reality puzzles, hacking websites, going to live events, eating apollo bars, reading bad novels, full tilt. It felt like an actual mystery we were actually solving.

Then the quality of the show started to dip. Plot threads were dropped due to external factors, like Eko dying because the actor hated living in Hawaii. Walt aging too fast. The writers strike shortening Libby’s backstory. Nikki and Paulo. The Dharma Initiative being poorly received. And it became clear that there wasn’t actually a satisfying conclusion written. The “mystery” was that the writers weren’t sure what happens next. They weren’t making the show for me. They weren’t counting on somebody studying Egytian mythology to decipher the significance of a four toed foot, or learning finite math to establish a relationship between the Numbers. I was imagining answers that were never there, and posting them on the internet created backlash. The writers admitted to changing some plot threads because they didn’t want to spawn more internet scavenger hunts.

And looking back, the show was fine. It was clever and twisty and well acted. Characters developed and grew. Some of the show still sucked, but it wasn’t the massive disappointment like OG Dexter or Game of Thrones. The end is satisfying, if you’re not really thinking too hard about the unanswered questions.

But yeah, I got too into Lost.

Best to think of the canals like an open sewer.

Not exactly what you’re asking, but Cabin in the Woods is like a love letter to all horror movies. It drops references and homages left and right, making horror movie tropes actual plot points, including bizzare foreign horror movies that aren’t explained at all. The more you know about horror movies, folklore, and monster cinema, the more you will understand the movie.

If you haven’t seen it, go see it now. I won’t say anything else.

Can’t come in unless invited, don’t have a reflection, sensitive (or deathly allergic) to light, garlic, and holy water, these things are rarely explained.

Senior devs love vibe coding because they have the knowledge and skills to recognize and fix errors. They hate it because it makes morons think they don’t need the knowledge and skills to recognize and fix errors.

So, by definition, the people who do like you are…

Says the guy who lied about being progressive to win.

Covid masks can be effective, and it’s not as suspicious as asymmetrical makeup or a reflective hoodie. But no, there’s no good way to avoid being photographed in public.

I read what you wrote.

For what it’s worth, Vantablack isn’t a pigment, it’s a process for applying carbon nanotubes that absorb light. They don’t sell the “paint” part by itself because it requires special equipment and it finicky. They don’t sell it because then a bunch of social media influencers would try to spray their bathrooms with the stuff and make a bunch of videos about how it doesn’t live up to the hype.

The owner of the exclusive license to use it for art might be a douche who uses the licensing to make himself feel powerful, but there is a justifiable explanation for why the licensing exists in the first place.

Bull, and I cannot stress this enough, crap. Conservative ideology eschews objective truth in favor of beneficial positions every fucking time.

Nobody is “protected” from consequences of their speech. Free speech means we don’t have laws prohibiting speaking. It doesn’t mean you cannot be fired from your job, or people won’t call you a douchebag.

Isn’t that how you’re supposed to do it?

The problem is that the left gets people cancelled for hate speech. The right gets people cancelled for objective truth. Read the comments that people are getting fired for. It’s a blatant doouble standard that shifts the overton window on public discourse. Fascist bigots are running the country, and there’s no room for compromise with hate.

If he talked to you about it, you probably would have talked him out of it. Tells me deep down he knew it was stupid, but he wanted to do it.

I would talk to him about that part of it, help him recognize the choice he made to ignore your voice of reason in his own head.

I wouldn’t punish him for it, especially because he came to you to talk about it, but he’s getting closer to the age when he has to really pay attention to that voice in his head because you won’t be with him for every decision. Although, my kids often act like having to talk to me about things is punishment enough.

Well that’s the trick, isn’t it? The people who rule presume consent, but what they are really expecting is compliance. Your compliance is presumed consent. You can revoke your compliance any time you like, but the rulers will respond to noncompliance with force.

There’s a process within the law, and there’s a process where we replace the current law with something else. Within the law, we can vote for representatives who will impeach the current corrupt justices and approve new ones who are hopefully not corrupt. Let’s call that option A.

Option B is the total overthrow of the government, which is ridiculous to even consider, but it’s the alternative you’re hinting at. Denouncing the SCOTUS doesn’t change the ruling government in any way. Society is built on the idea that we all more or less agree to be ruled in exchange for fair rules and national defense. In a democracy, you have the appearance of agency, but you cannot simply withdraw consent to be ruled. The difference between democracy and fascism is that fascism explicitly defines violence as the means of control, while democracy merely implies that violence will be used to keep order. Once a democratically elected ruler decides to become fascist, there is no remedy but violence.

To wit, those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.

That said, I do not think we’re quite there yet. I have no doubt Trump will try to go all in to remain in power, but I don’t think he actually has enough followers to pull it off.

But that still leaves the corrupt justices on the bench. We need to focus on elections for representatives willing to impeach corrupt justices. If you think that process is too slow, consider that a violent revolution would probably take decades of bloodshed, and there’s no guarantee we don’t get some other despot as a result. Violence is not the answer to this question.