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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • There’s nothing wrong with disconnecting and enjoying simple things. I love watching some kids movies too. The observation is more nuanced and refers to the way we tend to fail to see our interpersonal growth over time. We tend to see nostalgia without the influence of how we matured. It is like our memory of the thing has matured in imperceptible ways.

    I struggle for the words to really describe it outright now that I try. I’m coming from the mindset of writing my own hard science fiction universe and the perspective it has given me, especially when it comes to underlying storytelling frameworks, social/political structures, and defining what is fantasy magic.

    Like is a solar ring structure used to make antimatter safely to one way interstellar generation ships magic? It is for the scale of human economy today. Is it fantasy to imagine self replicating drones? I think it is just a matter of time and scale, where I am willing to say at kilometers scale it is possible. It is basically packaging an industrial complex in space. So that seems reasonable. However I find moving faster than causality and space navies childish nonsense. I see exceptionalism as the doctrine of a neo feudal oligarchy, and a story of inevitable tyranny of an authoritarian monster repulsive.

    I had no clue about these themes as a child, but now I can’t unsee them. I dob not think most people have or care about this kind of defined awareness, but I think these undertones exist just outside of their awareness.

    Outside of the philosophical, just telling a congruent story is critical, and those failures are egregious in any story.


  • I think a lot of that is a product of the bottleneck of information and media back then. People went to the movies because there wasn’t as much to do or sources of information. There were not a dozen films competing for your patronage in the same way as in more recent times. The world moved more conservatively slowly where calculating risk was very different. Also ratings were kinda a new and less relevant thing I think, but that was long before I was ever born.

    The California culture of risk with enormous funds and technology at the time was also huge and had a big impact on SW that was forging that bleeding edge and melding the old with the new. We’re in an upheaval era of promise right now too, but it is orders of magnitude more expensive and complicated than it was in the 1970’s-1980’s. Even adjusting for inflation there is no comparison between the cost of a silicon chip fab and edge technology between then and now. The price of novel innovation has changed from someone adapting a new idea to someone contracting established firms.

    The old ways cost enormous labor. It is fine and manageable when that cost is normalized across society in the cost of living. It is impossible to return to that paradigm once that normalization is lost. Society would collapse if the necessary changes were made to make mass labor viable at the scales of the past. So, the risk changes and so must the media.


  • It was a paraphrased quote of Lukas himself that said he made the first films for 10 year olds and the second series for 5 year olds. You need to see it from the perspective of someone willing to risk losing tens to hundreds of millions of dollars in a gamble that is never a sure thing. The artistry is a very minor often overlooked aspect when this kind of money is in play. I’ve had a job spending a couple of million dollars a year where my mistakes could cost a chain of businesses closing and around three dozen jobs. Buying high end bicycles at that scale requires me to completely disconnect my opinion and style biases and become an account first and foremost. People do not take risks to tell stories, they tell stories that follow an interpretation of statistical metrics.

    The targeted movie rating is key to demographic and without a demographic there are no numbers to make a financial argument for the risk. Films are made TO fit, not made AND fit. The risk is never blind.


  • The target age demographic is always at most (PG-) 13. Because this target does not change, if the viewer matures, the nostalgia of youth will never align with the expectations of the matured mind. It is the entire tenured ratings system and standardized ultra simplistic morality culture that prevent capitalization on an evolving demographic. Instead, everyone consuming this media is incentivised to remain adolescent of mind or complain about how elements of their childhood fail to align with their evolved and matured expectations.





  • Probably the best and safest method is to look into the foam used for camera bags. That is the most common customisable option I know of that is practical. You’ll spend way less time and likely money if you cut foam to fit and pack everything.

    Obviously, I’m a fan of 3d printing. Heck I’m beside my printer that is chugging away at a design I made today. However. I think it is a matter of using the right tool at the right time. IMO, big drawer filling organizers are not ideal for printing. I can make wood cardboard or sheet metal boxes much faster and cheaper than printing.

    I could see myself designing a quick 2 rail holder with slots for each device to sit within, but that is going to be sloppy and likely wear poorly on the device. Best bet in my opinion is camera bag foam. If it is good enough for a half dozen $1k pro primes in a bag that gets banged around, it will work for some hand helds.


  • Do a week of digital detox. Seriously, drop it all. No Lemmy, YT, RSS, not even the weather; drop all digital media.

    I’m physically disabled and been through stretches like this. I’ve read all of Dune and most of Asimov’s fiction in these stretches. Books are good. Independent thought and perspective is rejuvenating and can break the spiral. Scrolling is addiction, as is most digital media. Sometimes you need to detox for self care.






  • The positives of a belt drive are maintenance, and that it stays clean so they are most popular with commuters that do not want a dirty pants leg or newbie chain tat. They are only common on heavier bikes like short haul commuters in general and require a “broken frame” that is designed for them in the first place. The lack of transmission gearing means you need to either know exactly what gear ratio you need and deal with only having one speed or you need an internally geared hub. All internally geared hubs have monstrous weight to add. So in practice, you do not find many of these on the market. Even with an e-bike, you still need a geared transmission unless you have throttle control without pedaling.

    On the other hand, for a hipster roadie, a fixie with a belt drive is some serious cred. Especially if they can dish it at the local group ride against people on flagship bikes.







  • Yeah, but it lacks the tree that tends to support more specialization. I still get on the EEVBlog forum from time to time but that kind of concentration of specialization is just not the default.

    To replicate that kind of ecosystem I think the platform would need a similar complex branching hierarchy and far more effective utility for searching. The element of time is too prioritized on a link aggregator like Lemmy. Community depth of specialization remains shallow because more intellectual engagement is slower and the mechanics of most recent comment engagement are not effective/implemented. Places like the EEVBlog often have the most engagement on very old threads that also concentrate a ton of history and useful information within the single thread. These threads are the primary anchor for the whole community. I think it would take some novel innovation to bridge a link aggregator’s ADHD with a forum’s depth and utility.