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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: January 23rd, 2022

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  • Nothing that I found particularly cinematic. It’s an entertaining story, and moving at times, but it doesn’t really stand out from any generic war/action movie. Would I watch it again? Probably not, but would I recommend watching it at least once? Also no. But do I regret watching it and wish I could have 2 hours of my life back because I resent listening to my friend who recommended it and now think much less of their taste in media for thinking so highly of such a mediocre formulaic slop that could have been shat out by chatGPT? Not me!


  • Just saw Red Dawn. The idea of WW3 just happening so quick you don’t realize is so real: no one expects war to break out in their back yard, it’s something that happens elsewhere that you’re conscripted into… until it isn’t, and suddenly you’re doing your best to just survive as everyone you know and love dies around you. You weren’t trained for this. Since the 1950s, America has been constantly on the brink of WW3, picking as many fights as they can; it’s incredibly prescient, as much so now as it was then.

    But the movie instead relies too much on “BOOO HISSS EVIL, LYING, JOYLESS COMMIES,” only occasionally coming close to getting it: actually, they’re just like us. Like every other American war movie, it’s basically defanged of an accurate portrayal of war so that instead it can be a “YAY Patriotism!” story. Even the ending wraps, after watching all but 2 of the main characters get killed while fighting for their freedom and survival, with the conclusion that they “died so that this nation shall not perish from the Earth.”

    And yes, I get the reference… It’s still nationalist propaganda no matter how famous the speech was.

    War movies piss me off so much in general. War is an incredibly interesting topic, and we have so much to learn from it… And yet the majority of stories told about it seem to center around superhuman feats of combat and how great We™ are and how evil They™ are, and so few actually seem to really portray it for what it is:

    a bunch of pretentious apes brainwashed into thinking the others are soulless monsters, while they have more in common with each other than with the pack leaders who pretend to be on their side (so that they can stay safe and comfortable while the grunts do all the dying for their greed).












  • To the people saying it’s a skin color/race issue: yes, but also no. The people who put the authoritarians in power did so for reasons of deeply ingrained racism, and the power hungry narcissists gleefully abused their supporters’ easily manipulated fear of PoC to amass more power, but…

    Just like every other clique, cult and fascist regime, it’s really just about creating an in-group and an out-group. The important thing is that to the brainwashed in-group, the group’s membership seems immutable, but to everyone else (including the cult’s leaders) it’s clear that membership is entirely contingent on favor. That’s why ICE has been given the power to deport anyone and everyone, but is not doing so: it’s about maintaining control.

    Which is all to say that the deportations don’t end with eugenics. Even if the nazis remove every last person who fails the skin color check—or is just too recently descended from “non-whites” (the moving goalpost)—the deportations will continue. Just make yourself an enemy of the regime and they’ll figure out a way to brand you “an illegal” regardless of skin color or race or ethnicity or heritage; their supporters will bend over backwards to believe the lies, and their opposition will stage peaceful protests and wring their hands about “law” and “constitution” to no avail.





  • (Why are there % signs)

    Good question, here’s the explanation man sudoers offers:

    The definitions of what constitutes a valid alias member follow.
    
           User_List ::= User |
                         User ',' User_List
    
           User ::= '!'* user name |
                    '!'* #user-ID |
                    '!'* %group |
                    '!'* %#group-ID |
                    '!'* +netgroup |
                    '!'* %:nonunix_group |
                    '!'* %:#nonunix_gid |
                    '!'* User_Alias
    
           A User_List is made up of one or more user names, user-IDs
           (prefixed with ‘#’), system group names and IDs (prefixed with%and%#’ respectively), netgroups (prefixed with+’), non-Unix
           group names and IDs (prefixed with%:’ and%:#’ respectively),
           and User_Aliases. Each list item may be prefixed with zero or more
           ‘!’ operators.  An odd number of!’ operators negate the value of
           the item; an even number just cancel each other out.  User
           netgroups are matched using the user and domain members only; the
           host member is not used when matching.
    

    TL;DR % lets the system know the following word is a group name, instead of a username


  • If you’re referring to the youtube thumbnail trend, it’s because it helps people choose videos without reading channel names. You know who it’s from just by looking, you see the title, you’re more likely to click.

    In other words, the office nerds at Mr. Beast Inc. crunched the numbers and discovered that they get ??% more viewers by putting Jimmy’s face in the thumbnail, and every other youtuber took that as gospel.



  • Y’all seriously overestimate thr average user:

    Debian. It’s simple, stable, minimal upkeep, rarely if ever has breaking changes, and all this out of the box.

    Someone new doesn’t need to be thrown in the deep end for their first foray into linux, they want an experience like windows or mac: simple interface, stable system, some potential for getting their hands dirty but not too much to worry about breaking