vaguerant

joined 11 months ago
sorted by: new top controversial old
Canadian visits to the U.S. drop 33% in June, impacting Montana tourism in c/boycottus
[–] [email protected] 38 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

There's no way to ask this without it coming off as a roast, so I'm just going to lean into it: What the fuck do Canadian tourists do in Montana? Look at mountains? Why, did Canada run out?

Mexit, not Brexit, is the new priority for the UK in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 38 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Or Windex.

Former Superman actor reveals he’s becoming an ICE agent to support Trump’s mass deportation agenda in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 36 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

That's kind of the point, that show ended 28 years ago. What have you seen him in since then? When he's been mentioned in the years since, it's generally either to make a joke about his career or just his general persona.

30 Rock in 2006: In this episode, Jenna Maroney goes on a sexual walkabout, engaging in a bunch of deviant sex acts. At ~3:45, we see the very end of her checklist:

  • In an airplane wheel well
  • Pull a general Tso's Revenge
  • Run a train with the cast of "Training Day" on a train
  • Soon-Yi a marriage
  • Supreme court Justice,Liberal
  • Yoko a band
  • Dean Cain

Once the band has been Yoko'd, she scrolls down to the final entry. "Ugh, Dean Cain," she sighs, rolling her eyes.

Family Guy in 2007: Dean Cain is so desperate for attention that he's taken to wearing old Superman merch and sidling up to random strangers then saying "Hey, is that Dean Cain?" in a fake voice.

Former Superman actor reveals he’s becoming an ICE agent to support Trump’s mass deportation agenda in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Yeah, it's literally true that he's a former Superman actor, but he's been a punchline for over 20 years, to the point where he's probably better known as a joke than an actor.

16
Season 4 hints from Seth Macfarlane on Ted Danson's podcast (www.youtube.com)
 

Seth Macfarlane was just interviewed for Ted Danson's podcast, Where Everybody Knows Your Name. It's a wide-reaching interview that covers much of Macfarlane's career, across animation, TV, film and music.

There's not much of an Orville focus, but a couple of mentions are peppered throughout. There was one particular section right at the end that really caught my ear, though. Throughout the chat, they talk about living in difficult political times, which Ted picks up again at about 1:03:00.

Ted:

You, in some quote or something talk about "optimistic and fun". Maybe it was looking back at the things that you drew, but you used those two words, "optimistic and fun". Putting that out into the world, which you do through your work and your music, is a contribution to this thing we're talking about: why our hearts ache at this point. Putting that out... if that's all you did in life, you can't discount that as moving the needle in the right direction.

Seth:

That's why I did The Orville. And that's why I... you know, we're... we're... we're gonna... we still are yet to do a season 4. That's why I did that show, because when I was a kid, Hollywood was providing that voice in various forms. There was a lot of hope.

And we're doing a really... you know, some of the blame lies right here in this town. The dishes that we are serving up are so dystopian and so pessimistic. And yeah, there's a lot to be pessimistic about, but it's so one-sided. There's nothing we're doing that's providing anyone an image of hope. I mean, look, I love The Handmaid's Tale, it's a great fucking show. Beautifully written, beautifully directed. But there's a lot more of that than there is of... you know, what we used to get from Captain Picard.

Where is Hollywood's... they're certainly giving us a lot of cautionary tales, but where are the blueprints that they once gave us for how to do things correctly. It can't all be just "Here's what's gonna happen to you if you fuck up." You do need, "Here's what you can achieve if you change your ways and do things right."

At the start of his answer, Seth smiles as he fumbles for the right words to describe the state of season 4. If I was cold reading him, I'd say what he was about to say was "that's why we're doing season 4" but he is consciously avoiding those words because the studio is in charge of when the official announcement is made. He doesn't have a great poker face.

The full interview is an hour and 7 minutes. If you're looking specifically for Orville insights, you probably won't find them, but Macfarlane is an interesting enough guy, I was happy to hear him tell his story and the Orville hints were a bonus.

The Orville Rewatch Party 2x3 "Home" in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

This show was not even a year and a half old when it made the departure of a series regular genuinely hurt. Taking to school a certain well-known space opera that tries and fails to do the same thing literally months later, a franchise that The Orville was suppose to be a parody of.

It also put me in mind of the way a certain character fairly unceremoniously left early TNG. That was still season 1, but episode 23, so technically further into the show than we are here if you're counting in minutes. And it was much worse. The Orville absolutely gave a masterclass here.

The Orville Rewatch Party 2x3 "Home" in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

Oh funny. I just mentioned this in my comment as well. The lack of prosthetics in that scene were apparently scripted. It is supposed to represent Alara picturing herself as a human.

The Orville Rewatch Party 2x3 "Home" in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago

Without wanting to get into too much behind-the scenes drama, there may or may not have been some interpersonal stuff behind this episode. Halston Sage (Lt. Alara Kitan) and Seth MacFarlane (Capt. Mercer) were at one point in a romantic relationship, and then they weren't any more, and then Alara left the series. Nobody has outwardly connected those things in a causative sense; in public, the explanation was simply that this was the right story for the show. I find that a little hard to justify, though, and promptly ...

Future episode spoilers... replacing her with a new Xelayan ...

... smacks of allowing rewrites of future scripts which expected her to be available.

That said, this episode itself is very strong (even if Alara isn't!); it doesn't feel like a rush job in any way. Alara's family (and old friend Robert Picardo again) initially seem a bit one-note with their "Military bad" attitudes, but are revealed to have more depth as we spend more time with them, in part through their almost complete helplessness when confronted with a stressful situation. It's a shame it took this to get them to find respect for Alara, but that's families for you.

Something I frankly never noticed before was that Halston Sage has no Xelayan prosthetics in the fantasy sequence where she rides an Eevek (Xelayan horse thing) on the beach, as seen in the thumbnail of this post. This was included in the script, confirming that it's not a production mistake. Alara picturing herself as happily human gives her some additional depth. She's an outsider in both Xelayan and human society, so this represents one of the paths she could take to finding a place.

It's a fantastic farewell to a character who I wish we got more time with, an arc cut short by ... something. The only problem I have with the episode--besides it including Alara's exit-- is a minor one: the grieving-cum-vengeful parents appear comically villainous (e.g. when threatening to start lopping off Solana's fingers: "Which one, sweetie?"). I think they could have been given a slightly less scene-chewing evil that didn't take so much relish in violence. There's no room left to sympathize with them, because they're just awful. Maybe that's to soften our feelings about the Kitans. They could be worse!

It sounds like all the pieces are in place for one of the most underrated RPG greats—from the creators of Fallout⁠, no less—to get the remaster it deserves, but good luck getting someone to make it... in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I remember buying this game off the back of how much I loved the Baldur's Gate games (I and II, at the time), playing it for like 30 minutes and getting so frustrated I just went and replayed Baldur's Gate II again. I'm sure I still have my physical disc somewhere. I probably should give it more of a chance.

Retrospective Discussion | Doctor Who (2005) | 1x09 "The Empty Child" in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Oh boo. New Who just got dropped by all major streaming services here without warning; I no longer have a place to watch legitimately. Simultaneously, a separate, free "service" for streaming shows that I may or may not have used has shut down. What a bad week for this to happen, I was very much looking forward to this one. I will try to figure something out so I can continue to join the rewatch.

EDIT: Just got done watching in about no-hundred-and-40p.

While I personally don't enjoy Moffat as a showrunner, he's excellent as a writer of episodic TV and that certainly shows here. My preference for the kind of low-budget jank Who is completely overridden by this episode, which has very high production values and is excellent. When I think of the Ninth Doctor, this two-parter is the first thing that comes to mind. It's the best kind of eerie and does a good job introducing all of the elements you'll need to understand even if you dropped headfirst into this episode.

It's funny how little genre-savvy Rose has here. A small child yelling "Muuuuuuuuummyyyyyyy" into the night is very rarely a good sign, but Rose is off like a rocket, trying to get as close to the scary nightmare child as possible, ASAP. But maybe kids calling for their mummies were less scary before this episode aired. Ultimately, though, it leads her into a story that's a different kind of creepy. Everyone else already said it, but her B-plot with Jack/Barrowman is the weakest part of the episode.

Barrowman's ... let's say "confidence", shines through in the character and doesn't acquit either very well. I'm probably a bad fan in that I never watched Torchwood, so all of my familiarity with Jack Harkness comes from his handful of Who episodes. Maybe I'd find him more likeable if I had more time with the character, but I don't feel like I ever warmed to him as much as the show hoped. It's not fair to compare anybody, anywhere to Harrison Ford, but as much as he might like to be, Jack Harkness is no Han Solo.

Getting back to the better part of the episode, Florence Hoath's Nancy is fantastic throughout. She's believably hardened by life in the blitz while her deeply sensitive nature beats along just below the surface. The episode is properly engrossing in all of her scenes and she's even able to carry some without any of our leads around. Surprisingly, she retired from acting around 2008; these days, she's a pre-school-targeted YouTuber, i.e. singing nursery rhymes and stuff.

The gas mask transformation is still incredibly effective. It's only a little bit wibbly-wobbly-2005y-wimey. Contrast it against Adam's head-hole a couple of weeks ago and this looks years ahead. It's aided by the capable performance of Richard Wilson as Dr. Constantine immediately prior. Great episode. If not for "Rose" already doing the job well, this would be a solid recommendation for new fans to see if they like what the show has to offer, because this remains some of the best.

Typing time shaved thanks to our glorious ruler in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago

Suffer like DC did?

Typing time shaved thanks to our glorious ruler in c/[email protected]
Proton’s Lumo AI chatbot: not end-to-end encrypted, not open source in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 33 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I kind of wish this headline just kept going.

Proton’s Lumo AI chatbot: not end-to-end encrypted, not open source, bad taste in music, murdered family of five

16
Orphan Black: Do the characters get any easier to like after season 1? (spoilers) (fedia.io)
 

I know I'm very far behind, but I just finished season 1 of Orphan Black. It's clearly good and I like large parts of it, but several of the main characters are written to be kind of awful people, in-universe. I don't know how much I'd enjoy watching a show where I don't like about 30% of the characters.

Obviously, Helena is super broken from a terrible upbringing and to some extent can't be blamed for her unconscionable actions, most egregiously the murder of her surrogate mother, Amelia. But I've seen TV shows before and it's pretty clear that she's going to be redeemed in "future" seasons. I guess some of this will involve reckoning with her actions in season 1, but you know ... as of right now, she sucks.

Then, Alison basically murdered her best friend by watching her get strangled by the garbage disposal. There's mitigating factors in that Alison sincerely believed Aynsley was monitoring her, etc., but ultimately she just let her die because she was kind of nosy and mean. That also sucks.

Throw in Art the corrupt cop, who seems like he's going to become an important ally of the team, and these unlikeable people are really starting to add up. It might just be 2025-ray-vision making corrupt cops who cover for other corrupt cops less appealing as protagonists, but oof, that's not such a fun time.

Also, just about everybody's sexual dynamics in the show are sketchy as hell. I'll spoiler this part because it's about sexual assault.

tw: saIs everybody in this fucking show raping somebody? Most of the sexual relationships depicted are between people who are lying about their real identities. Paul and Beth, "Beth" (Sarah) and Paul, Delphine "Beraud" (Cormier) and Cosima, Donnie and Alison. Some of this is 2025-ray-vision again, but there's a hell of a lot of rape by deception going on here and I really don't like it.

I understand that these characters are clearly supposed to be morally grey at best, but right now I just actively dislike a lot of them. Maybe they really turn it around, or maybe you're just supposed to dislike them, I don't know. But I'm not eager to start on season 2 and spend more time with these people who all suck.

133
Watch Peter Dutton lose his seat, live (www.abc.net.au)
 

A few days ago, we saw Canada's Conservative opposition leader Pierre Poilievre lose an election and his own seat. Can we make that twice in a week?

Current numbers (6.1% counted) have a 5.1% swing to the ALP, resulting in a 6.8% lead for Labor's Ali France over Liberal leader Peter Dutton.

124
Liberal Bruce Fanjoy topples Pierre Poilievre in Carleton | CBC News (www.cbc.ca)
submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/canada
25 comments fedilink
 

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is projected to lose his longtime rural Ottawa seat to Liberal Bruce Fanjoy.

19
Suffering from minor party confusion? Some links I found helpful (fedia.io)
 

Hey auspol. It's about that time again: you know, the one where you have to sit around researching about 15 minor parties that sound distantly familiar to figure out what to put as your bottom preferences.

This year I found my way to a couple of blogs which offer brief and unabashedly biased reviews of the minor parties in the federal landscape. These are not new, I'm just late.

Both blogs are written from a relatively progressive-left perspective, at least by Australian standards. Inside the spoiler below is what they say about themselves:

Summaries of bloggersBlatantly Partisan Party Reviews

I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of a political party. I review from the perspective of a small-g green democratic socialist. I am trained and work as a political historian of Australia and New Zealand. This background guides my reviews, which originated as—and remain—notes to inform my own vote. I do not aim for any false neutrality or objectivity, and I share these remarks in the hope they are useful to others trying to navigate Australia’s plethora of micro-parties. It should be obvious but these are my personal opinions, which should not be construed as representing the views of my employer nor of any other organisation with which I am affiliated.

Something for Cate

I’m Maz. In no particular order I’m left of centre, a grandparent, a writer, trans, pansexual, a mental health lived experience worker, agnostic, supportive of unions, and supporter of the Arts. I’m committed to holding governments and media accountable and, while I can’t promise complete objectivity, I can promise to deliver the same treatment to every party and independent in this election.

I’m Loki. I’ve been in several political parties and never found one left enough for my liking. I’m a bisexual cis male, and likewise agnostic, pro-Union and pro-arts. I try not to approach anything uncritically, whether I agree with it or not. I firmly believe that objectivity is a goal that can be striven for but never actually reached. That said, in that quest I will seek, strive and not yield.

While I obviously recommend you come to your own conclusions about the parties, it can be nice to hear what other voters think of them, especially when it's some shit you never heard of before.

Something for Cate especially includes coverage of unregistered groupings, which are a deep black box of nothing to me most of the time.

28
What's your read on Milchick and Kier's comedy routine in the S2 finale? (fedia.io)
 

Spoilers, obviously.

In the finale, we get the back and forth comedy argument between Seth Milchick (Tramell Tillman) and an animatronic Kier Eagan (voice of Marc Geller, animatronics by Ben Stiller).

I'll quote the exchange below:

Kier: Hail your earthbound steward, your very own flooooooooooor manager!

[audience cheering]

Milchick: Thank you, Kier! And may I say, you're looking very handsome, sir.

Kier: Thank you. I'd say the same of you, if not for my favorite core principle.

Milchick: Probity?

Kier: No ... Vision!

[audience laughter]

Milchick: Well, it's truly special to host a man so illustrious, so sapient, so magnanimous--

Kier: My, you're verbose. Good thing you didn't write the first appendix. It would have burst!

[audience laughter, Milchick visibly discomfited]

Milchick: It's an honor to receive your barbs, Mr. Eagan. The legacy you've left behind is truly and irrefutably larger than life.

Kier: You mean my company?

Milchick: (coldly) No. I mean this wax statue that's five inches taller than you actually were.

[audience chuckles, awkward silence]

Kier: (darkly) Thank you for that feedback, Seth.

Milchick: Thank you, Kier.

This is clearly a prepared routine. It has setups and punchlines and Milchick is visibly reading most of his lines from note cards. However, the performance obviously goes some way off the rails in the back half.

Who wrote this routine? Who performed Kier's lines in-universe? Has Milchick rehearsed this routine or does he only know his own note cards? Is Milchick's height roast part of the script or improvised?

I'll post my thoughts in a separate comment.

16
Severance Aftershow: Season 2 finale explained by Dichen Lachman, Tramell Tillman & more (www.youtube.com)
 

The title undersells it a bit, they also got Jen Tullock (Devon) and Gwendoline Christie (Lorne from Mammalians Nurturable). Weird to hear Dichen Lachman's natural Australian accent.

TV Insider has been running a Severance Aftershow on YouTube for all of season 2. Full playlist

23
A look at Firefox forks - LWN (lwn.net)
 

By Joe Brockmeier
March 4, 2025

Mozilla's actions have been rubbing many Firefox fans the wrong way as of late, and inspiring them to look for alternatives. There are many choices for users who are looking for a browser that isn't part of the Chrome monoculture but is full-featured and suitable for day-to-day use. For those who are willing to stay in the Firefox "family" there are a number of good options that have taken vastly different approaches. This includes GNU IceCat, Floorp, LibreWolf, and Zen.

If you're interested, you should read the whole article, but below are the summaries of the four tested browsers.

IceCat is probably a good choice for folks who are more concerned with the free software ethos and privacy than with functionality.

Overall, Floorp is an interesting project with some nice enhancements to the Firefox UI. However, the development roadmap seems a bit more haphazard than I would like—switching back and forth between Firefox rapid release and ESRs, for example. That may not dissuade other folks, though.

For the most part, users would be hard-pressed to spot many differences between LibreWolf and Firefox at first (or second) glance, so a screen shot of LibreWolf seemed a bit unnecessary. That approach is likely to appeal to many users who are uneasy with things like telemetry and Pocket, but don't want an entirely new browsing experience.

Currently, Zen isn't fully baked enough for me to consider switching to it. Others may be more adventurous in their browsing habits than I am, though. I can say that it has stabilized significantly since I first tried it shortly after its first public release. The project does bear keeping an eye on, and the Mozilla folks could do worse than to copy some of the ideas (and code) that the project is experimenting with.

16
A look at Firefox forks - LWN (lwn.net)
 

By Joe Brockmeier
March 4, 2025

Mozilla's actions have been rubbing many Firefox fans the wrong way as of late, and inspiring them to look for alternatives. There are many choices for users who are looking for a browser that isn't part of the Chrome monoculture but is full-featured and suitable for day-to-day use. For those who are willing to stay in the Firefox "family" there are a number of good options that have taken vastly different approaches. This includes GNU IceCat, Floorp, LibreWolf, and Zen.

If you're interested, you should read the whole article, but below are the summaries of the four tested browsers.

IceCat is probably a good choice for folks who are more concerned with the free software ethos and privacy than with functionality.

Overall, Floorp is an interesting project with some nice enhancements to the Firefox UI. However, the development roadmap seems a bit more haphazard than I would like—switching back and forth between Firefox rapid release and ESRs, for example. That may not dissuade other folks, though.

For the most part, users would be hard-pressed to spot many differences between LibreWolf and Firefox at first (or second) glance, so a screen shot of LibreWolf seemed a bit unnecessary. That approach is likely to appeal to many users who are uneasy with things like telemetry and Pocket, but don't want an entirely new browsing experience.

Currently, Zen isn't fully baked enough for me to consider switching to it. Others may be more adventurous in their browsing habits than I am, though. I can say that it has stabilized significantly since I first tried it shortly after its first public release. The project does bear keeping an eye on, and the Mozilla folks could do worse than to copy some of the ideas (and code) that the project is experimenting with.

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