Hell yeah, I rewatched Rogue One after finishing Andor and even that was nowhere as good as I remembered it being. Andor just blows the rest of the canon out of the water.

I loved season 1 of Andor, and dragged my sister into watching seasons 1 and 2 with me. Then I cued up Rogue One (which I'd seen but she hadn't) and it was a bit of a letdown. She looked at the end credits and said "well, I guess that's why there won't be a Season 3. Bummer."

I watched "A New Hope" when it came out, and have always considered myself a Star Wars fan (though not fanatical). However, one of the things I loved best about Andor (and I 💯agree with you) is that it stands alone so well. In Season 2 when they finally dragged in the Force, it felt uncomfortable.

Ranking the Disney+ series?

I agree, but with the caveat that I don't think that Andor would work nearly as well without The Original Trilogy. They enhance and complement each other.

"Andor is the best political drama since the wire." (Jim Acosta, and he's right)

I can't say I agree 100% with your ranking, but I absolutely agree on this. I also agree with @mirasair.bsky.social's caveat that one of the things that makes Andor work so well is the tenuous (present, but only because they're in the same universe and tangentially related) connection to the movies

The sacrifices of normal people like Luthen, Andor, and Nemik laying the hard groundwork that the heroes of the Rebellion like Luke make their stand on is such an awesome and inspiring way to fuse together gritty realism and epic fantasy.

And not to get too spoiler heavy but the way they tie things in to events you've seen in the movies towards the end, rather than all throughout the show, makes it feel like these are just.. people that were in the right place at the right time to make the impossible happen. It's frankly amazing

most programming languages are Fine yes even the ones you hate

Say it louder for the Perl programmers in the back.

Counterexample: INTERCAL, which is short for Compiler Language With No Pronounceable Acronym. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/INTERCAL

JavaScript: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Closure

I hold special exception for php

A language that should have gone the way of Perl.

JavaScript.

7 years past I'd agree, theres enough of an ecosystem making it truly acceptable now

Yeah, it took 20 years of work, but JavaScript is now… fine.

It’s the language so nice people invented endless languages that transpile into it so they don’t have to write it! Typescript is pretty nice tho

It’s never the programming language that’s the problem, it’s always the community and available packages you don’t have to write. Like, Python is not a better language for data science but NumPy and Pandas are better than what other languages have.

Java is a travesty. Entirely designed for embedded systems not web programming. Sun Microsystems not existing any more is a fitting tribute

Lolwut

>designed for embedded >garbage collected Sure,Jan.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck

He did say *most* :P

Agreed. Some are super special for me. But most are okay. ((L(I)S(P))) will always have a special place in my heart, though. It was the language that finally taught me how to visualise recursion. Java taught me to understand the P portion of OOP (OOA, and OOD, I understood). But most get jobs done.

as long as there are { }

romance novels are good and more people should read them, especially men

I was poorly introduced to it, especially the last one where the male love interest was basically r*ping the heroine so that she proves she loves him. I'm still open to real good ones that don't have this kind of scene. 1/..

And to be clear, it is not the acts in the scene that were problematic, it is the narrative rational behind it. The heroine accepted and forgot the action of her lover because it was necessary to prove her love. I really hate that kind of justification (which is not unique to romance, by far). 2/2

a court of thorns and roses is our next read (our book club is currently all fellas) does this count

I'm reminded of Carrot and Angua's romance, a fantastic read. Ngl it also definitely had me sitting upright at the ordinarily mundane, trivial sentence "After a while the bedsprings went glink." "Woah woah hold on terry let me catch my breath, cor blimey" hahaha

This opinion feels a little out of date given that currently romance IS the publishing industry. It's kind of the only thing people are reading

As a genre, absolutely yes. Individually, there are many very bad ones. And even that is okay because sometimes you just need to shut off your brain and read something stupid.

That's just Sturgeon's Law in action.

Yeah pretty much.

100% agree, and I say this as someone who will publicly admit to being previously wrong about this

I do know a couple of men who secretly enjoy a good bodice ripper

My grandmother loved them and she ruled.

I recently finished a romantasy book, Just Stab Me Now by Jill Bearup, I bought out of solidarity. Its based on youtube shorts she did poking fun at the genres tropes e.g. only one bed, sword fighting flirtily;

breaks the fourth wall with the inexperienced author trying desperately to wrangle her protagonists who want nothing to do with her machinations. I was not ready for how good this book actually was, highly recommend it 👍👍 @rincewind.run

Must agree. Came across Rebecca Thorne's "Tomes & Teas" series. I will tell you, I was surprised how much I relaxed reading those books. Caught me completely off guard!

Yeah, read some books targeted at women at least. It's easier than it should be to be reading a lot of male targeted fiction where most characters, especially female, are props. Reading only that cannot be healthy. Get some book recs from a women in your life and balance yourself out.

cheating in single player video games is fine and good let people play the way they want

All the adults on our multifamily Minecraft server are ops and the op channel is absolutely full of "anybody mind if I spawn in replacement armor for my kid who fell in lava and is crying" followed by everyone else going "'rule of fun', man, you don't need to ask!"

I like how in the newer ones they just put them in the options menu, like yeah,this game is hard but the story is good, let me have this one

I think it's fine and no one should look down on you for playing the way you want, but you're going to have to live with certain conversations about the game just being not for you.

Bring back cheat codes goddamnit

Draws the line at solitaire

especially when it's to do things the devs should let you do anyway borderlands 2 is one of my most played games of all time and expecting you to play through the campaign at least three times per character to unlock full endgame access is asinine, i feel fine using a saveedit to copy my characters

Playing Crusader Kings III as an immortal creates wonderful head cannon. 'Welcome to Ireland and the Immortal Court of The Murchad, The Old Man of Ageless Ireland, Emperor of all of Albion and France, Father of Kings, and Conqueror of Nations. Just with my wife would stop diddling my grandkids.

Play video games on easy mode, they’re supposed to be a power fantasy

what if i do not agree that videogames (as a whole) (ofc some *are*) are supposed to be a power fantasy

Hey "I worked in the garden and chopped wood and broke up stones all day and then I slept well and woke up the next day with energy and not feeling all achey" is ABSOLUTELY a power fantasy.

lol i get ya to expand on what I mean a bit, I guess what I'm getting at is more. when we talk about other mediums we kinda get that there's a mass market conception and then the "pretentious stuff", but that pretentious stuff is still acknowledged as a part/goal of the medium by the masses, where

with videogames, be it for political reasons, just baseline opinions on what people want them to be, etc. there's often a "videogames are supposed to be X" that you dont really see with other mediums, because i think videogames are still vastly seen more as mass market than others in a weird way

my pretentious, boring cringe nerd opinion is "videogames are meant to accomplish the goals of what the people that made them set out to do" and that's boring but i think it is the most accepting of the broadness of the medium. one of the most impactful indie games i played was an itchio title

that goes through someone's traumatic experiences as a trans sex worker, and going into how it felt that's def not what videogames are to most people but i think it's a very important part of the field and is something i always think of when "games should be XYZ" of any nature they're Anything

Not only that; they're supposed to be fun. Boss fights that take 3 hours and 197 deaths are only going to be fun for a small percentage of people.

Being a person who liked Clair Obscure but put it aside because of the combination of zero waypathing and a fight I think is necessary that I can’t get past (yes, skill issue), I agree entirely. I have a copy of Elden Ring for which I will never see another minute of gameplay for a similar reason.

I do not own a copy of Elden Ring for exactly that reason!

The only games I like are Skyrim like massive open world RPGs where I run around and do side quests and ignore the main plot. I would love if games would offer a “skip the tutorial and first 5 levels of grinding” option so I can just be strong enough to run around and not get killed by rats.

train's drops of jupiter is an amazing song despite the nonsense lyrics it's got swoopy violins, swoopy violins are great

Henry Thomas (Elliott from E.T.) had a band called The Blue Heelers. He played at a coffee shop my mother frequented in the 90s (mom says it was owned by his sister, can't confirm). She bought their cd, which I still own. The song "She" on that cd has some of the most glorious swoopy violins ever!

It's about his mom dying and being free of the long suffering of (I think, could have been a different disease) cancer. That context really turned me around from "this is dumb" to "this is beautiful."

I like it, but I’d still believe you if told that it’s an unreleased song off of T Rex’s ‘Electric Warrior’

It also makes sense when you have the context. I’ve got a deep love for this song.

As with many good songs, the words are vibes that allude to a greater story. Lyrics too on the nose are for great songs and self indulgent crap.

K2 is the best mountain remote, beautiful, stands out magnificently from the surrounding peaks, and hates everyone who tries to climb it

That's one mountain that won't sell out.

they call it the mountaineer's mountain because there are a lot of mountaineers on it

it's kinda funny to me that it still doesn't really have a name; basically all of the other peaks have local names or names like Everest but this one still uses the old numeric numbering (nobody calls it Godwin-Austen)

Counterpoint: Nanga Parbat Not as remote, but beautiful with huge vertical relief and prominence

It’s been fun watching this content- he’s on his K2 expedition now. Should be updated video soon. Summited Chomolungma last season. Minecraft Twitch streamer rolled all of his earnings into pivot to Mountaineering. youtu.be/rKfIGbNq_-M?...

"kys" is not a clever rejoinder and the obsession with being able to send hyperbolic death threats to people online without consequence greatly contributes to making it a worse place to be

Stopping the freak ass (derogatory) Death Cult is such a huge priority. Folks tossing around shit like kys should have something straight out of tabletop, a mark of Jhor that follows them everywhere. whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Jhor

I am both so sorry and so infuriated that things like this happen.

Back to politics, this got me thinking about the one politican who was trying to censor something idk talking about how posting online gets you flooded with death threats and The guillotine.gif kinda *is* that even if they ain't gonna And the talk about "is this essential to political discourse"

crunchy RPGs are actually more accessible for some people - not everyone is good at the collaborative storytelling side of tabletop and some folks find escape in character builds

One of the things I say about myself is that among my hobbies is RPG character creation. Actually playing the character is an optional extra.

I feel this, its probably a good chunk of why I like Lancer so much

I concur. A truly skilled DM can adjust the crunchiness to suit the needs of the players at the table. Sadly, the best DM I ever had the privilege of playing with who could actually pull this off no longer runs.

Totally agree and great point! This is why I am thrilled to be in 2 groups - one that loves crunchy systems that let the players immerse themselves in complex rules, another where we sample tons and tons of quirky lightweight, rpg-driven, usually fail-forward mechanics.

I hate hashtags and avoid using them as much as possible this is probably my most Old Man Yells At Cloud opinion

The only place where hashtags are Good, Actually is tumblr, where they've evolved into a way of giving commentary to a reblogged (or original) post without adding to the text of the post itself.

#OKBoomer

name one serious poaster who hashtags (you can't)

Are there still people using hashtags?

I don't mind them, but I don't really use them. Especially on Instagram; I just don't know what I'm supposed to tag. This is why I let my students mostly run my dance studio and company IGs.

I have an instagram account that I open once every six months to check out a friend’s story when they ask me to watch it I do not understand that platform

I use them for very important running gags.

hashtags are mostly useless absent special circumstances like an event that's going on (a conference you're attending) or a community you are a part of

You mean the pound sign? #cake #puppies #town

it’s fine to have a type, everyone does, but if you volunteer that someone isn’t yours to their face you are a huge asshole

I think it's fine in the specific context of turning down a second (or so) date. Like "you're cute, you're cool, you're just not my type, sorry" (without going into detail!)

the ideal life is hanging out by the pool all day with a book and an infinite supply of frozen margaritas

it just seems incredibly awkward to discuss at all because I feel like there is no possible way to talk about it without sounding like an absolutely massive pervert. what are you going to say after "I like redheads because" that sounds normal.

Kiss your salamander?

Yeah I've heard that mountain actively tries to kill you

So you're telling me I don't need to worry about not understanding the whole fried chicken thing?

My favorite is the out of position series by kyell gold. It is furry and queer.

The first one of these I’ve seen that’s Gone Too Far