I smell another cheap cartoon crossover.

Some men buy big trucks for the same reason some men buy sports cars or super cars, expensive luxury cars or classic cars. They’re signifiers. They signify a man’s masculinity and status, depending on how masculinity is defined in their culture. In some cultures, a big, powerful truck represents masculinity, in other cultures, where masculinity is more about wealth and class, it can be represented by a very expensive car. Cars have been used as signifiers by men pretty much from the beginning.

Fedora, so missionary position, but the lights are on and we’re on top of the covers.

“Simpson, how would you like to escort 500 Big Macs to Marlon Brando’s island?”

Nintendo doesn’t want you to play their games if you’re not willing to follow their rules. Ok, that’s their prerogative, but that means I will not be playing their games…at least not their new ones.

I prefer playing on my Steam Deck these days, and I really don’t want to buy another handheld just to play Nintendo first party titles. I’m going to play some of my favorite classic Nintendo titles on my Deck using emulators and just not play the new stuff. I’m sure they’re great games, but so what? There are lots of great games. I’ve got a huge backlog of great games already in my Steam library, and 20 more on my wishlist. If Nintendo some day decides to make their titles available for Steam Deck or PC, I’d consider buying them, but since that’s extremely unlikely to happen, I think I’m just done with Nintendo.

Nintendo has burned through all the good will they developed with me when I was a kid in the 80s and 90s. I doubt I’ll ever buy another Nintendo product again. Not that it matters to Nintendo, though. I’m many years removed from their target demographic. They make products for young people and that ain’t me. I’m sure those younger Nintendo fans will keep supporting the company, but, as for me, I’ve got the classic Nintendo games I want and I’ll keep playing them on whatever device I want. If Nintendo doesn’t like that, they can kiss my whole ass.

Makes sense. Steam OS is Arch based, so Valve has a vested interest in it. Especially now that the Steam Deck is an unmitigated success.

Of course parents not taking appropriate precautions doesn’t absolve the companies of responsibility. Unethical behavior is unethical behavior, even if there are things consumers can do to protect themselves from it. After all, the precautions wouldn’t be necessary if the companies didn’t engage in this behavior in the first place, so these precautions aren’t really solutions only mitigations.

I used to advocate for Linux, because I wanted more people to use it, so that more software devs would support it. I care a lot less about that since proton came to prominence. Linux still doesn’t get all the support from devs that I want, but there’s so much great software available now, both open source and proprietary, that I don’t really worry about non Linux users anymore.

So use whatever OS you want, folks. I don’t really care.

Well, Mr. Cat Burglar. You’d like to get in here, wouldn’t you? There’s just one little problem-- thirty-six years ago, some lady gave birth to a man named HomerJ. Simp-- Oh, my God! Underage kids drinking beer without a permit!

The irony is, something like this probably would have been a lot less expensive to make, while also appealing more to fans. It’s funny how so many people in the movie business are not very good at, you know, the movie business.

When people are told that depression is an aberration, we are telling them that they are not part of the tribe. They are not right, they don’t belong. That’s when their shame deepens and they avoid social connection.

And that’s not the only reason people are made to feel they’re not part of the tribe, that they don’t belong. There are many things in this modern (post modern?) world that cause us to become alienated from other people, even and especially those in our own community. The nature of community itself has changed. Many relationships and social institutions feel more tenuous or impermanent.

It’s a vicious cycle: people feel alienated from others, it causes them stress, the stress causes anxiety, that leads to the immobilization response and depression, the effects of the anxiety and depression cause people to become further alienated from others, and the process accelerates and perpetuates.

Sorry, you’re all getting techno-feudalism.

One reason the suburbs even exist is that there isn’t space in the city for everyone. Many suburban families would rather live downtown but cannot as they do not have the mega millions to own a 3br condo.

But I think the reason there isn’t space for everyone in many cities is because a large percentage, or even a majority of the land in many cities is zoned for single family only, even very near downtown areas. I think parking requirements have a lot to do with it as well, since they result in parking lots being built where condos, or other multifamily housing could be built. Theoretically if you get rid of single family only zoning and the parking requirements, more housing units could be built, even larger units, increasing their supply relative to the demand, thus bringing down the per unit price.

But maybe that theory is flawed. Maybe the problem goes deeper than zoning and parking requirements. A lot of these real estate developments are investments, and investors have an incentive to not build so much housing that the per unit price goes down significantly. Some people might argue that developers and investors could make up for lower per unit prices in volume, but that’s only true if they are large enough and have capital resources to produce at that higher volume, which might be fine for very large developers and investment companies, but not for smaller ones. Plus, large or small, why try to make money selling or renting more units at a lower per unit price when you can make the same amount of money selling or renting fewer units at a higher per unit price?

I think the thing that would help the most would be to get rid of single family only zoning. That should result in a lot more, higher density housing being built. However, that’s not going to bring down the price of single family homes. In fact, it would probably make them more expensive. Maybe not everyone would think that’s such a good thing, but it’s absolutely necessary if we want to reduce car dependency.

Nobody’s laying tracks all over the place to actually make cars obsolete - that would be an insane waste of space, resources and time.

Cars may not require tracks, but they require infrastructure. You’re not driving anywhere without roads, bridges, and other car infrastructure, unless you are driving a fully off-road vehicle.

The level of paranoia is kind of crazy.

One of the many games just sitting in my steam library, waiting to be played.

We just got a leaked image from inside Team Cherry:

According to Climate Action Tracker, the world is projected to warm between 2.5C and 2.9C, by 2100, based on current pledges and policies.

According to this New York Times article, mass death of coral reefs is projected to occur at between 1C and 2C of warming, abrupt warming of permafrost is projected to occur at between around 1C and 2.25C of warming, collapse of Greenland ice is projected to occur between 1C and 3C, breakup of West Antarctic ice at between 1C and 3C, sudden shift in the West African monsoon at between about 2C and 3.5C, loss of Amazon rainforest between about 2C and 6C, and shutdown of Atlantic currents at between about 1.5C and 8C.

The global average temperature has increased 1.17C above the long-term average from 1951 to 1980. That means we are already within the range at which mass death of coral reefs, abrupt warming of permafrost, collapse of Greenland ice, and the breakup of West Antarctic ice could occur.