I think it’s weird the way she was publicly pushing for ‘Only English Actors’ in the movies, and seemingly had heaps of influence there. And now she’s a billionaire she either has no influence on casting or doesn’t seem to give a shit.

Had some friends who love to try out new places to eat. They pulled into a standard country pub on a roadtrip, nothing unusual about it to make it seem any different to any country Aussie pub. They ordered a standard pub lunch. The big hairy dude behind the bar grumbled at them and then went out to the kitchen. 20 minutes later they are served the worst meal of their lives and 5 minutes after that a large amount of motorcycles pulls into the parking lot.

They left soon after. The place was a biker gang front and all the locals knew to avoid it.

On a related note, there’s a $2 junk shop in my town where you can sit at the bus stop out front in the morning and watch every tweaker in town walk in, spend 2 mins inside, and then walk out looking much happier, 10 seconds later, carrying nothing.

It is so obviously an over-the-counter methamphetamine dealership that the entire bus stop is known as ‘Meth Corner’ to everyone in town.

That’s how I read them, too. But my colleague watched the trailer with me and was surprised they were n’t more buff and masculine, because that’s his read on the character. He thought Murderbot thought like a guy.

I think its great people can have such connection to a character but wildly different interpretations of whatb they look like!

Oh no! Kerry Greenwood read my self published novel a few years back and said some very nice things and even let me quote her. Rereading her emails had been a great boost in confidence as I struggled with writing more things. And she was very kind (and funny) in the small exchange we had. I had planned on sending her the sequel at the end of this year. This is very sad news. Condolences to you and hers.

I don’t know that there’s any irony there. In my reading, the passage is actually advocating against such laws. And is aimed at the kind of thinking that leads to such laws.

I don’t think he is condoning or advocating for such thinking in that passage - more saying that, if you do want these kind of laws (while he lists some contemporary examples) you have to realise that it won’t actually work and will have other, negative consequences. That’s not him necessarily condoning the thinking or actual moral standing of those examples. Just pointing out what he sees are the realities of such laws.

That can indeed be how memories work (to a certain extent). There are many different types of memory loss. Retrograde amnesia, for example, will often involve retaining a lot of physical skills and lots of knowledge, but no real memories of the past.

The show is, of course, making up fake brain science, but the memory/skill aspect isn’t the magic part.

That depends. Has Russia started a land war across the entire Eastern front at the same time?

Then it might be a bit tough for Europe to do anything about Greenland. It’s almost like the whole ‘we need to take Canada’ rhetoric is pre-emptive, knowing Canada would be the most dangerous remaining opponent to such a plan, should Europe be busy… for some reason. Take Canada and Greenland at roughly the same time. Tie them down while Europe is busy. The US ends up owning Greenland. And, if things fall out wrong, Canada, too - though it might not be a primary goal.

From that point, Russia and the US divide Europe between them.

Is this an insane plan? Yep. Would it work? Doubtful. Is it the potential thinking of the fascist dickheads in charge, despite that? I suspect so.

There was one study I vaguely remember reading of, where tagged birds of a certain species were seen as more desirable mates. So the scientists had to change their tagging style. They’d accidentally invented a new bird fashion.

Look up Curtis Yarvin - he and JD Vance are both sponsored by Peter Theil. And Yarvin’s “philosophy” is basically pretending that CEO kings running their own fiefdoms is the best form of politics.