Fanboys movie review & film summary (2009) - "A lot of fans are basically fans of fandom itself. It's all about them. They have mastered the "Star Wars" or "Star Trek" universes or whatever, but their objects of veneration are useful mainly as a backdrop to their own devotion. Anyone who would camp out in a tent on the sidewalk for weeks in order to be first in line for a movie is more into camping on the sidewalk than movies.Extreme fandom may serve as a security blanket for the socially inept, who use its extreme structure as a substitute for social skills. If you are Luke Skywalker and she is Princess Leia, you already know what to say to each other, which is so much safer than having to ad-lib it. Your fannish obsession is your beard. If you know absolutely all the trivia about your cubbyhole of pop culture, it saves you from having to know anything about anything else. That's why it's excruciatingly boring to talk to such people: They're always asking you questions they know the answer to."
Companies Start to Think Remote Work Isn’t So Great After All - WSJ - "Projects take longer. Training is tougher. Hiring and integrating new employees, more complicated. Some employers say their workers appear less connected and bosses fear that younger professionals aren’t developing at the same rate as they would in offices, sitting next to colleagues and absorbing how they do their jobs... No CEO should be surprised that the early productivity gains companies witnessed as remote work took hold have peaked and leveled off, he adds, because workers left offices in March armed with laptops and a sense of doom. “It was people being terrified of losing their jobs, and that fear-driven productivity is not sustainable”... “You can tell people are getting fatigued”... The nature of what some companies do makes it tough, if not impossible, to function remotely. In San Francisco, startup Chef Robotics recently missed a key product deadline by a month, hampered by the challenges of integrating and testing software and hardware with its engineers scattered across the Bay Area. Pre-pandemic, they all collaborated in one space.Problems that took an hour to solve in the office stretched out for a day when workers were remote... OpenExchange is renting a house in the English countryside, with about 15 bedrooms, so many of its employees can live and work together, while still distancing. In some cases, family members are coming along.It’s important to have people in a room and see body language and read signals that don’t come through a screen... One benefit of working together in person, many executives said, is the potential for spontaneous interactions... In a recent company survey, less than a third of Discover employees said they want to work from home permanently, though many said they would like the flexibility to do it sometimes, which the company plans to offer. Without the interactions that define office life, Mr. Eichfeld worries that Discover’s culture will gradually fray, which is why he’s eager to get workers back together once it is safe"
The Work-From-Home Shift Shocked Companies—Now They’re Learning Its Lessons - WSJ - "Lesson 4: To attract talent, you might need some new perks
Some companies are spending big to equip workers stuck at home, especially knowledge workers. Firstbase is a startup that charges companies a flat monthly fee—on average, about $120—per employee to equip newly homebound workers with an ergonomic chair and desk, microphone, laptop and second monitor. Before March, there were 600 companies on Firstbase’s waiting list, now there are more than 4,000, says company founder and chief executive Chris Herd. Firstbase’s clients range from early-stage startups to publicly traded companies, some with particular (and at times extreme) requests intended to retain employees and keep them as productive as possible. Some clients opt for sending each employee their own coffee machine and coffee-bean subscription, but one client asked about the possibility of providing employees with Peloton bicycles. Another, an exchange-listed tech company, “supplies a specific item to all their employees that was strange to us,” says Mr. Herd. He declined to elaborate.
The Honey Badger Radio official Facebook group - "Pretty interesting how every woman calling herself "autistic" ha a fine-tuned social understanding of how to act cute and dress well, as well as a standard female's desire to put pictures and videos of herself on social media"
Supposedly women with autism have very good coping strategies and can mimic normal people. This is like the zombie problem in philosophy - how do you know if the person you see is really a real person or just a mindless zombie acting human? Also I interpret this as a critique of supposedly autistic women on social media trying to get attention by claiming they're autistic. Not a denial that autistic women exist
S'pore responsible for 5 out of 9 shows Netflix took down in total - "In 23 years of operation, Netflix has taken down just nine TV shows and movies from its streaming service at the behest of governments, the company has disclosed in a report. Five of those takedown requests were made by Singapore alone... Netflix took down content in specific countries only on the request of their respective governments. For example, in Saudi Arabia, it removed an episode of Patriot Act With Hasan Minhaj titled “Saudi Arabia” after a written demand from the Saudi Communication and Information Technology Commission. The episode had implicated the Saudi Arabian government in the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Netflix was criticised for seemingly caving in to pressure from Saudi Arabia for removing the episode... The Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) asked Netflix to remove five pieces of content in Singapore relating to drug use and religion that it deemed sensitive. These five titles were The Last Hangover, The Last Temptation Of Christ, Cooking On High, The Legend Of 420 and Disjointed... Other takedown requests came from Germany (Night Of The Living Dead), New Zealand (The Bridge) and Vietnam (Full Metal Jacket)... Netflix has challenged some attempts to force it to remove content. In January this year, a Brazilian judge ordered the company to take down The First Temptation Of Christ, a Portuguese-language religious satire in which Jesus is depicted as a gay man. Netflix appealed the judgment and managed to keep the comedy on its platform in the country after Brazil’s Supreme Court overturned the ban."
Wall Street Journal Staff Members Push for Big Changes in News Coverage - The New York Times - "Staff members of The Wall Street Journal have been pressing newsroom leaders to make fundamental changes in how the newspaper covers race, policing, and its primary focus, the business world, along with other matters.
Nowhere is safe
Escape The Echo Chamber - Posts - "Apparently even Asians can be white supremacists.
Step 1: Memes use Pepe the Frog.
Step 2: White supremacists use Pepe the Frog in memes.
Step 3: Declare Pepe the Frog to be a white supremacist symbol.
Step 4: Asians use Pepe the Frog symbols.
Step 5: Asians must be white supremacists.
Han may want to go back and check his work."
Meme - "Women Are Fickle Minded
At 18 They Want Handsome Men
At 25 They Want Successful Men
At 30 They Want Sensible Men
At 40 They Want Mature Men
Men Are Very Simple
At 18 They Want Pretty Young Girls
At 25 They Want Pretty Young Girls
At 30 They Want Pretty Young Girls
At 40 They Want Pretty Young Girls
At 50 They Still Want Pretty Young Girls
See Men Are So Simple Minded "
Alexandra DeSanctis on Twitter - "progressives: you’re a fake pro-lifer because you never do anything to help the poor also progressives: stop donating to charities that help the poor because they are run by icky Christians"
Why are so many American cities banning fast-food drive-thrus? - "Proponents claim decreasing drive-thru windows will help combat obesity, improve walkability and push back on pollution... many consumers are worried about one of their favorite conveniences being taken away. Some have pointed out how important drive-thrus are for customers who are disabled, the elderly and parents who may not easily be able to get their kids out of the car for a quick bite... ne of the first municipalities to prohibit new and expanded drive-thrus was South Los Angeles in 2008. They also banned the construction of new stand-alone fast-food restaurants. In 2015, a non-profit research organization called RAND published a study examining the ban's impact on diet and obesity in L.A. County from 2007 to 2012. Its researchers found obesity actually increased among residents in the area."The South Los Angeles fast-food ban may have symbolic value, but it has had no measurable impact in improving diets or reducing obesity," said Roland Sturm, the lead author of the study... However, America's neighbors to the north saw different results when a similar ban was enacted in several provinces."
The Canada study doesn't actually say there were good effects
mirax on Twitter - "This whiteass woke warrior is calling out muslims who are against antisemitism. They are not the right kind of muslims of course. There's a word for you @TomGara : racist."
Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire - "Donald Trump wasn’t the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by officials of a former Soviet bloc country.Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers"
ANALYSIS: What if Trump was right about Ukraine? - "Republicans insist Ukraine did, in fact, try to interfere in the American political process in 2016, and they point to five examples"
Escape The Echo Chamber - Posts - "an officer pulled over a bicycle rider for riding on the wrong side of the road. The rider refused to identify herself. Twenty minutes into the stop, and after repeated warnings, the officer announces that she is under arrest. At this point she resists the arrest by locking her arms and pulling against the officers. She is eventually cuffed and held until two female officers arrive to frisk the still unidentified woman.A couple of days later the college where the woman attended announced they were going to reconsider their contract with police department due to the arrest. In response the police department chose to end their agreement with the college.The police body cam, linked in the article, clearly shows the officer patient and professional. Everything was by the book.The college president offered counseling for his students and made this statement:“We will continue to emphasize the need for law enforcement authorities to de-escalate situations involving OSU students,” Ray said. “Let me be clear, this matter is sufficiently troublesome that unless its resolution is satisfactory to OSU, we will reassess the value of continuing a campus law enforcement service agreement with Oregon State Police.”"
Guess if something is wrong they'll need to call the Ghostbusters
Emory University, concerned with the N-word, brings N-word-spewing rapper to campus - "Emory University, which has gotten its collective panties in a bunch over several professors’ use of the N-word — in academic context, mind you — will be bringing a rapper to campus for homecoming who uses the term quite liberally.The school actually is trying to terminate one of those professors, Paul Zwier, for appealing a suspension after he used the term. Emory refuses to discuss any specifics about his case.Another victim is a Native-American professor who noted in his class that whites once used the epithets “sand ni**er” and “red ni**er” against his people. Even though Prof. Robert Saunooke had apologized to the one student who said she was offended by his remarks, and despite his taking proactive steps to report what he said to the proper university officials himself, the president of the Black Law Student Association told him his use of the terms “was unnecessary and disruptive to the learning experience.”Indeed, Emory is soooo sensitive to the racial epithet that it has invited rapper Rico Nasty to perform October 25 for the school’s homecoming. As noted by The Wheel, Nasty’s mixtapes include The Rico Story and Sugar Trap, the lyrics of which just might offend a sizable number of people, one would think... Emory has been so … politically correctly pure of late that in addition to the sanctions against the N-word uttering professors it terminated an Italian teacher for her “anti-Islam and anti-immigration views”; its students demanded a “Latinx” (“lah-TEE-nex,” the gender-neutral term for “Latino/a”) studies department; students and school officials held a confab over the school tennis coach’s “inappropriate” Halloween costume; and, perhaps “best” of all, protesters upset at pro-Trump chalkings screamed at Emory administrators to “speak to them” because they were “in pain.”"
Emory U. coach tries to raise awareness about Puerto Rico on Halloween; backfires badly - "The women’s tennis coach at Emory University thought she had a great idea for Halloween: raise awareness about the greed of companies helping Puerto Rico to recover from Hurricane Maria.Amy Bryant and her husband dressed as employees of the company Whitefish Energy Holdings, while their two sons were made up as a pair of Puerto Rican boys. The former were “in suits carrying sacks of money” while the latter “carried matches, fishing rods, a net and empty jugs of water labeled ‘agua,’” according to The Emory Wheel.Bryant said the whole notion was to highlight the “greed in government and politics.” She had posted a picture of her family on her Facebook page.There was just one little thing Bryant forgot to take into account, however: the prevailing politically correct atmosphere at the institution for which she works."
When liberal activism backfires
Escape The Echo Chamber - Posts - "Last week, it seemed that every pundit that criticized Trump for coarsening public discourse was dancing on the grave of David Koch.Koch, and his brother, was a civil libertarian who believed that people should live their lives with minimal government interference. He was consistent in this belief. This ‘evil conservative’ supported abortion rights, drug legalization, and criminal justice reform. He also supported lower taxes, less regulation, and school choice. Koch wrote large checks to support the arts, museums, and medical research. His donations exceeded well over $1 billion.The man did a lot of good with the time he had on this earth. Cheering his death does no good."
David Koch’s Philanthropic Legacy - "Jones explains, for example, that the Kochs have opposed unions because “unions cut into a corporation’s bottom line; they make it slightly more difficult for lowly businessmen to purchase Park Avenue penthouses worth millions.” It does not occur to her to ask an obvious question: “When you’re worth $50 billion, is it really worth your time to push right-to-work laws just because you want a bigger apartment?”In fact, one easy way for the uber-wealthy to improve their bottom line is simply to keep the money they already have. David Koch, however, was extremely generous to cultural institutions in New York City that few libertarians or Tea Party advocates would care to patronize... His critics, such as The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, struggle to square Koch’s generosity with the claim that he was mainly interested in protecting his wealth. Mayer even suggests, absurdly, that his donations to the National Museum of Natural History have something to do with debunking climate change. She does not try to explain how his gifts in support of opera and ballet are likely to increase his wealth or the influence of Koch Industries.What Mayer never entertains is the possibility that maybe—just maybe—David Koch was motivated by something besides greed... the enemies of the Kochs can never acknowledge the possibility that these men wanted not only to enrich themselves but also to spread, as widely as possible, the free-market system to improve the standard of living of millions of people who deserve better chances."
Losing the Education Lottery - "Much like a lottery, education is by definition a competitive system that sorts winners from losers. As long as we accept its role as a key determinant of social outcomes, the result will necessarily be inequality, and it will merely be a question of how this inequality is distributed by group. Those who insist that education is “the great equalizer,” deBoer argues, are either being dishonest or are suffering from the Lake Wobegon delusion that all children can be above average. As he writes: “not everyone can be a good student if the term ‘good’ has any meaning.” One proof of this is that as soon as some educational sorting mechanism ceases to effectively separate “good” from “bad” students, its much-vaunted benefits evaporate. For instance, high school diplomas lost much of their labor market advantage as graduation rates increased, a fact ignored by policymakers who cite the higher average earnings of college graduates to support the idea that increasing access to higher education is a way to flatten the economic playing field. As deBoer notes, “sending everyone to college is a recipe for eroding the very advantage that college now confers.” This is because “educated labor is like other goods: its value is subject to supply and demand. The more people that possess educational credentials, the easier it is for employers to hire educated labor, and the more competition there is within the educated class.” The “great equalizer” view of education, when applied to labor market competition, leads to a perverse outcome: a workforce with weaker bargaining power overall. This is a desirable outcome for employers but not for employees, which is surely part of why expanding educational access is such a popular cause among the CEO class... The reality of the “genetic lottery,” he argues, exposes “equality of opportunity” as a fraudulent goal... By refusing to acknowledge innate ability, progressives who may be nominally critical of meritocracy leave its ideological underpinnings unchallenged. To question universal capacity to succeed in school, they believe, is to deny the equal worth of all people. But this is only true if we accept the false premise of the Cult of Smart: “the notion that academic value is the only value, and intelligence the only true measure of human worth.” If we reject this premise, conversely, we must also reject a system that adjudicates economic outcomes based on it. After all, deBoer asks, “[w]ho would endorse meritocracy if ‘merit’ depends so heavily on chance?”"
This confuses moral dessert with rewarding performance (necessary to set up the right incentives so the system works well
After blast, Tel Aviv city hall lights up as Lebanese flag in solidarity - "The municipality’s tribute to Egypt’s flag after an attack on Christian Copts in May 2017 was the first time the gesture was made toward an Arab country, although unlike Lebanon, Egypt has a peace accord and ties with Israel. Israel announced Tuesday night that it had reached out to offer humanitarian help to Lebanon after a massive blast rocked Beirut, killing at least 100 and leaving large parts of the capital in ruins"
Just what you'd expect from a settler, colonialist, Zionist state!
JukeMaster on Twitter Lindsay Love (Arizona): "Hey Guys! Politness is white supremacy. Every time you prioritize politeness and civility over everything in a conversation, you are complicit in upholding white supremacy. All that to say, DISRUPT."
"Politness is white supremacy yet if you aren't polite it's racism? Black fragility knows no limits."
Besides their anti-white racism, anti-racists sure have many racist beliefs about "minorities"
Why Success Won't Make You Happy - The Atlantic - "Though it isn’t a conventional medical addiction, for many people success has addictive properties. To a certain extent, I mean that literally—praise stimulates the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is implicated in all addictive behaviors. (This is basically how social media keeps people hooked: Users get a dopamine hit from the “likes” generated by a post, keeping them coming back again and again, hour after miserable hour.) But success also resembles addiction in its effect on human relationships. People sacrifice their links with others for their true love, success. They travel for business on anniversaries; they miss Little League games and recitals while working long hours. Some forgo marriage for their careers—earning the appellation of being “married to their work”—even though a good relationship is more satisfying than any job. Many scholars, such as the psychologist Barbara Killinger, have shown that people willingly sacrifice their own well-being through overwork to keep getting hits of success. I know a thing or two about this: As I once found myself confessing to a close friend, “I would prefer to be special than happy.” He asked why. “Anyone can do the things it takes to be happy—going on vacation with family, relaxing with friends … but not everyone can accomplish great things.”... Apart from some reality-TV stars and other accidental celebrities, success is brutal work, and it requires sacrifices. In the 1980s, the physician Robert Goldman famously found that more than half of aspiring athletes would be willing to take a drug that would kill them in five years in exchange for winning every competition they entered today, “from the Olympic decathlon to the Mr. Universe.” Later research found that up to 14 percent of elite performers would accept a fatal cardiovascular condition in exchange for an Olympic gold medal—still a shockingly high number, in my estimation... Unfortunately, success is Sisyphean (to mix my Greek myths). The goal can’t be satisfied; most people never feel “successful enough.” The high only lasts a day or two, and then it’s on to the next goal. Psychologists call this the hedonic treadmill, in which satisfaction wears off almost immediately and we must run on to the next reward to avoid the feeling of falling behind. This is why so many studies show that successful people are almost invariably jealous of people who are more successful... Success addicts giving up their habit experience a kind of withdrawal as well. Research finds that depression and anxiety are common among elite athletes after their careers end; Olympic athletes, in particular, suffer from the “post-Olympic blues.”... Social comparison is a big part of how people measure worldly success, but the research is clear that it strips us of life satisfaction."
Chinese soccer commentators fired for thanking Covid-19 for infecting rival Super League player - "Guo Yifei, a sports commentator working for Dalian TV, the main network in the northeastern city, uploaded a now-deleted video on the video platform Douyin in which he previewed the game with former Chinese international Wang Peng.Guo noted that Henan’s star striker, Cameroonian forward Christian Bassogog, was not playing because he was receiving treatment in a hospital in the southern city of Guangzhou after testing positive for Covid-19."
