Mr Martin skilfully manages to destroy all sense of intrigue in what the climax of the series might be about and who it might be between by calling his series ' A Song of Ice and Fire '. Perfect for those book fans who don't really want to be surprised or witness a multi-book arc unfold on its own terms.

In fact, these are books written for people who seemingly can only feel emotion when it is screamed through a megaphone painted in pink fluorescent stripes. Martin carefully assembles ideas of subtlety, empathy, letting the reader do the work and throws them all away with the satisfaction of a man who only has a hammer in his toolbox and therefore everything is a nail.

Martin develops plot points mostly by taking a disturbingly large amount of pages to highlight the sexual torture of several female characters who sometimes then end up falling in love with their torturer - nobody knows how to write women quite like a middle aged man after all.

His other main method of developing plot is to throw in thousands of characters who do 'good' things (like, not rape their partners/sisters/mothers I guess) and then kill them off. Forty years ago Martin would've been in his element as the lead script editor for shows like Dynasty or Dallas as he displays much the same level of talent and care for developing well rounded characters and plot points that make as much sense as Bobby Ewing emerging from a shower a year after he died.

It comes as no surprise that these books were optioned by Netflix, a company that encourages its showrunners to produce content that can be "on in the background" and that doesn't really require much more than a passing commitment from its audience. Just as this is a show you don't really have to pay much attention to, these are books that require no reader investment, just a lack of desire to enjoy reading.

UK media now literally banning the words and findings (link goes to the Independent) of UN investigators.

Algorithms push emotive ragebait at people. Then, when they're angry and not thinking rationally, they push bullshit-merchants at the same people. As its now something they're motivated to believe, they don't check. Then they share the story to their contacts/friends/followers and now you have a big group of angry misinformed people who are now all also following the original account - and then lo and behold - MAGA. Or Reform. Or AfD and all their associated podcasters, youtuber 'citizen journalists' and tiktok flagshaggers.

Just finished reading Bloom by Delilah S Dawson for the podcast which is a sapphic horror. My teen offspring tells me its called 'cottagecore' whatever the fuck that means. I'll reserve verdict until we record the episode!

Currently dipping in and out of The Real and the Unreal , which is Ursula K LeGuin's short story collection. Brilliant as you would expect. Just about to start King Sorrow by Joe Hill. Got mixed opinions on his previous stuff so we'll see how this one pans out.

No. I think he's just the most visible psychopath in the room.

The true horror of Trump is not just the things he's done. Its that everyone now knows what he's done - and seemingly quite a lot of people don't really care.

You're measuring 'success' by quantity not quality, oblivious to the fact that 95% of that quantity of content is bot-driven ragebait.

The people here have who successfully managed the transition from Reddit never denied there was some good content on Reddit, they just got sick of having to wade through a river of shit to get to it.

If your Lemmy/PieFed experience so far is not what you hoped - make your own place with your own rules. Literally no one can stop you.

Down for maintenance maybe?

Adam: Hey Lilith, I'm in charge, god says so!
Lilith: Lol, no.
God: Actually, yes.
Lilith: Fuck that I'm gone.
Adam: Well, shit. Can you make me a more subservient breeder please Lord?
God: Yep.
Eve: Uhhh....
Adam: Hey Eve, I'm in charge, god says so!
Eve.....right....
God: He is.
Eve....
Satan: Hey, Eve, you know the fruit on that tree that god told you would kill you if you ate it?
Eve: Yep.
Satan: It won't. But what it will do is give you knowledge like science and the arts. But its totally your call if you choose to eat it.
Eve: Oh wow, nice!
Adam: WTF Eve!
Eve: Fine, don't eat, stay dumb
Adam: OK, I'll have some.
God: Even though I'm omniscient and omnipotent it somehow escaped me where you both were and what you were up to. Anyway, fruit = bad because knowledge like science and art is bad. Get out.

Christians - Satan is clearly the bad guy here.

We're about a week away from him adopting the title Emperor.

Luke's List (Google spreadsheet)

Antifascist Black Metal Network (not just Black metal)

Satan Not Hatin'

All the DC billionaires think Superman is dodgy. Lex is a xenophobe who wants to destroy anything more powerful than him, Bruce sees a potential threat to humanity but respects the man. Oliver just thinks he's a pompous dick.

Everyone knows what they did. That's not the issue that people have. The issue is proscribing them as a terrorist group when they quite clearly aren't a terrorist group in a monumental trivialisation of what terrorism actually is and an obvious attempt to silence people.

The OSA is nothing to do with kids or parenting and everything to do with further developing surveillance of the UK and controlling what we can access.

I guarantee you, at some point after this will come prohibiting content deemed terrorism such as mentions of the word 'palestine' and 'action' in the same paragraph for example.

Sooner or later we'll have our own pseudo or real great firewall. I expect them to come after VPN use at some point too.

Constantly having the right-wing views of weapons grade cunts shoved into your eyeballs will do that.

Hate is too strong a word I think - I nothing them - but they produce the sort of soulless indie/pop ballad that you know will end up in the soundtrack of Hollywood paint-by-numbers romcom that would've gone straight to DVD a decade or so ago. The unending radio play rotation would force the song (and we could be talking about any and all Coldplay songs here) into your brain and then five years later you'd find yourself humming it as you suddenly realised a longe bar version of it is playing in the lift (elevator USians) you're in.

https://filen.io/

Not pricey, e2ee clients, open source, servers in Germany, 10gb free tier to try them out. Been using them for a few years now. The clients used to be a bit crap but they're very good now.

Dunno if 'they' do, but I do. You baby.

Are any US news outlets talking about the fact a 15 year old was working at Trump's adult spa in the first place?

From the article:

"Britain’s seventh-richest man, who vocally backed Brexit then moved to Monaco, also hits out at people on benefits"

because of course he does.

At the risk of sounding like a boomer - as long as you let algorithms decide what your expectations of both yourself and any potential partner are, you are hamstringing yourself. All people are more than a set of preconceived roles that a bunch of influencers decided were relevant.

You need to date. By which I mean go outside where people are, socialise, find people you like for multiple reasons (so not just perceived attractiveness, not just wage, not just the role you think they might have) and ask them out. The worst that can happen is they say 'no thanks'. And if it takes 20 times before someone says 'yeah OK' then so be it. Its not a competition and no one is keeping score. Dating someone is literally the only way to get to know them beyond your own assumptions.