@geekysteven There are no Rokus in Ba Sing Se (or in foxholes).

So, there are two iffy elements which I ignored at first but which I'm now wondering about:

• why is the sky blue/Earthlike
• why the much larger venue (coliseum instead of smaller arena as in the TOS)

I guess what I eventually come around to is that both of those differences can be justified -- the smaller venue in TOS can be explained away as being necessary for budget reasons (because, like, T'Pau was "all of Vulcan in one package", so surely could have rented a larger space for such an important ceremony...?), and the blue sky is appropriate if Hulkan is a "fitness planet", which is part of the canon to be introduced in this episode.

...and then I found myself wondering if maybe the blue sky could be a peeling facade, like the lining of certain famous pools, and this could be more obvious when we show the planet from orbit...

I also had intended for the venue to be labeled as "Gh'amer-Ghaet" but that somehow slipped through the cracks... and will be clarified by the actual story, and maybe it's best not to give away too many jokes on the cover?

Anyway: thoughts? Praise, tomatoes, ideas?

#StoreTrekTest

I should have mentioned: the artwork is by @AvaJoseph, who has been great fun to work with and an enthusiastic collaborator ^.^

We're now working on the show-opening sequence while I work on the script(?) (do comics have a script?) which looks likely to turn into... at least a dozen or so comic pages, though I don't yet have a good sense of how script-lines map to comic pages.

#StoreTrekTest

So! How does this come across? I have thoughts, but will put them in a reply so as not to bias anyone who does not wish to be biased.

We are all about consensual bias, here at Storefleet. ☑️💸🌌

#StoreTrekTest

@rnd Yeah, I can agree to all that if we're assuming a capitalist framework.

I can also see the benefit of governments choosing to supplement their budgets by accepting commercial advertising -- but I also agree that they shouldn't, and that if they're in a situation where they feel like they have to, then that suggests a problem with the underlying economic system (i.e. government not getting enough funding to allow it to stay free of commercial influences -- which might have been happening long before the advertising surfaced it).

@mcc ...seems kinda like Preservation and Ruin in the Mistborn series...

@grimalkina Now there's a conference I'd like to see!

@rnd It's a valid discussion to have, if only to make sure we have the issue thoroughly nailed down, but the following ways in which they are not the same come to mind:

• People go looking for books; the books don't usually pop up in front of you while you're trying to do something else. (Even a "librarian picks" display just sits there and you can ignore it.)
• A library's purpose is to make books accessible -- or more generally, to inform. Removing books is making them less accessible and withholding information.
• ...and by contrast to both of the above: advertisements by their nature are encountered in contexts where you are trying to do something else, and disinform you by selectively providing biased information in order to convince you to make one particular choice that may be in the best interests of neither you nor society at large.

@scanlime

You're absolutely correct — great observation! The emotional impact of multiple bulleted lists within a single, short document has shifted significantly over the last few years.

The ground truth on this: it's mostly due to LLMs — but let me give you a list of the primary theories behind this phenomenon:

• It's the LLMs! They use too many bulleted lists, and it's very annoying.
• Actual bullets are scary, and people have been using too many of them. This may be causing associational microtrauma for many readers.
• Lists have become a reminder of the increasing tedium and meaninglessness of our lives under capitalism.

Would you like more information about any of these potential links? [yes] [no] [please burn down the datacenter in which you execute]
^{rate this answer: 👍️ 👎️}

(sry notsry?)

I'm going to use #StoreTrekTest whenever I post test-audience stuff -- that seems to be the closest Masto equivalent to a G+ "Community" (set for public read/write), since you can choose whether or not to receive notifications.

I have a draft of cover art for the first episode; will post that soon, if all goes well.

cc: @Serena @brooke @fluffgar @joshsusser @violet @joewynne @rnd @jalanhenning @emptytank since y'all were interested earlier -- I won't keep doing the mentions, in order to give everyone the option to opt out later on.

#StoreTrek

"No state has a ‘right’ to exist – least of all an apartheid, genocidal state like Israel"

A *state as it exists* is not the same as *the people that the state is supposed to represent*.

The Israeli people have a right to exist, but they lose the right to maintain their state when it is used to oppress.

Then it becomes an illegitimate state like apartheid South Africa. It must be reconstituted in ways that regain its legitimacy.

https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2026-10-12/state-right-exist-apartheid-israel/

#ApartheidIsrael #USPol #EUPol .

@Remittancegirl @karmic_resonance ...on our furries fixing problems in (and caused by) their terrible code...

(This is probably an overoptimistic view, but I like to imagine it.)

@rey felin(x)

@Asuyuia What I need is more like "explain as if to a retired college professor who thinks that his expertise in one field means he is qualified to reject the scientific consensus in any other field without really understanding the details"... >.<

As a white man I approve this message for our culture! 😂

@philosophy @stoicism @psychology
@humor@fedigroups.social @humor@lemmy.world @aiop

#Thinking #Meme
#Philosophy #Psyhology #Humor #Humour #Funny

"Procrastination is bad for your health."
"Why?"
"Let me get back to you on that."

For this, I conducted a peer-reviewed scientific investigation taking into account the following criteria:
- Percieved penis size of owner
- Increase to general sex appeal
- Number of couples who can have sex in the back privately.⬇

Again, the numbers speak for themselves

...but ideas are "just patterns", aren't they?

#philosophy

@yusef I'll let you know if I find anything! I suspect I'll ultimately want to write something (probably in PHP, just because it's what I know best) -- which will also let me add features like keeping a timestamp for each new sequence, and of course the ring-buffer so nothing gets lost.

Thinking about it, I wonder if sox can be configured to do this...

DG posted this on Facebook (Can someone please drag him over to fedi?):

I recommend rewatching the amazing TV series of I, Claudius starring so many great British actors that it's a landmark.

It's also a warning.

Before the series starts, Julius Caesar marches army across the river Tiber. Oops, a conquering hero is not supposed to do that -- but Caesar declares himself emperor, and in that action, he destroys the power of the senate.

Later on, Caesar is assassinated by the Roman senate, and while much has been made of Caesar's death as a tragedy, I always root for the senate. Caesar was a dictator.

After some unpleasantness with Mark Antony and Cleopatra, Octavian becomes the emperor. He does not restore the senate's authority, he becomes Augustus, the emperor.

That's where I, Claudius begins and we see Augustus (Brian Blessed) trying to be a good emperor, but he is succeeded by Tiberius who is a terrible emperor who is succeeded by Caligula who is an even worse emperor. The Praetorian Guard assassinated Caligula and by all accounts they did a good thing.

Caligula was succeeded by Claudius, who ruled for over two decades. Rome settled down for a whle. Despite the portrayal of Claudius as a very good emperor, that's a fiction created by the author Robert Graves. More likely, Claudius was somewhat deficient, and the empire ran itself.

Unfortunately, Claudius was succeeded by Nero, about whom nothing flattering has been written.

We have enough fragments of the Satyricon by Petronius to get some sense of the time, but Petronius apparently pissed off Nero and committed suicide before the Roman guards could arrive to kill him. (The Satyricon, both the original story and the Fellini movie developed from it, suggest that homosexual relationships were commonplace and easily accepted in ancient Rome.)

The real tragedy here is that we really do not have enough information about the history of Rome, literacy was not common.

Future generations will find much more exhaustive records of the collapse of the American empire. Trump's name will probably rank with Nero or maybe Caligula -- and future generations will have mountains of evidence to demonstrate just how our particular empire collapsed -- and will argue at length whether or not we deserved it.

Or ... we can turn this thing around before it goes over the cliff, and future generations will read a much more admirable history of this time.

#USpol #IClaudius #empire