domain:felipec.substack.com
SerialStateLineXer
5m ago
yuni
Do you mean yumi (bow)?
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
10m ago
One of the more interesting “conspiracy theories” I’ve read was a comment about how athletic / athleisure brands no longer use scenes of competitive dominance in their marketing. Instead of scenes of glorious victory, you find scenes of drills and weightroom practice, occasionally alone or on an empty court. This was a decision to market to those who only occasionally exercise or who purchase the consumer goods as a signal (to themselves or others) that they are athlete-coded. The aspirational messaging can't depict competitive victory because the person who just goes to the gym after work doesn’t compete at all, so the marketing valorizes the act of “progress”, “improvement” alone. They want to feel like they are a “great athlete to be”, in training, rather than a competitor pursuing competitive dominance.
And this relates to that marathon jersey. By producing a cutoff jersey you are delegitimizing the whole attraction to running gear. If a norm of showing off your competitive times through trademarked clothing developed, then putting on Nike running shoes now signals to everyone that you are not athlete coded, but a poser (the skateboarding culture equivalent of wearing vans but unable to kickflip). The consumer is no longer dressing like the high status royal but a Don Quixote. It’s stolen valor.
So I wonder, did the journalistic criticism of this company originate with a brand like Nike? Maybe. But it could have also been a marketing ploy by the company; “people are mad about this” is a way to say “look at this”. I’m more tempted to think the cause is the former, because running magazines likely have major deals with the big giants.
orthoxerox
I realized I can change my flair color to Barbie pink
11m ago
Have you not played Ghost of Tsushima?
orthoxerox
I realized I can change my flair color to Barbie pink
12m ago
At least Ubisoft managed to divert the attention away from the fact that they charge $40 for letting you play the game a few days early. /trueleft
The last few AC games have been consistently bad with their historicity. Origins was rather fine actually, but Odyssey first told you how sexist the Olympics were and then let you participate in them as a woman anyway, Valhalla was bad enough that it was criticized by the Acoup guy.
hydroacetylene
17m ago
Maintenance is also much cheaper.
hydroacetylene
19m ago
Are we sure these guys aren’t old school moonbats? The cranks in my neighborhood don’t seem into RFK.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
19m ago
Maybe it’s down to maintenance?
How long does the conventional rental serve before getting sold off as a used car? I know when I was car shopping, you could pretty low-mileage examples which had that history.
The insurance for rentals has already got to be crazy, so I could see fuel/maint costs making the difference.
Tanista
20m ago
Christ, they can't even commit to doing something when a black man doing cool shit really happened. What the fuck happened to adaptations of Alexandre Dumas dad, or the awesome life of Haile Selassi
The answer is always, always, always the same. And it's not even just minorities. It's why there's a girlboss in your old thing.
It's expensive to do something novel, and most people don't care about African history. A studio is likely not taking a $100 million gamble just to find out how much they don't. They want to pander but not that much.
However, this other thing has a built-in audience already. They tend to just buy shit (nerds being such reliable consoomer has its downsides) and they've already accepted some female/race-swaps (e.g. growing up BSG was already doing it) with minimal or ultimately meaningless grumbling. Why not more?
(I think the writing is worse now and everything is far more offputtingly oppositional but that's me)
hydroacetylene
21m ago
Trump announces Ken Paxton as possible AG pick: https://www.texastribune.org/2024/05/20/donald-trump-ken-paxton-attorney-general/
“I would, actually,” Trump said Saturday when asked by a KDFW-TV reporter if he would consider Paxton for the national post. “He’s very, very talented. I mean, we have a lot of people that want that one and will be very good at it. But he’s a very talented guy.”
This is interesting because 1) Paxton is an aggressive partisan willing to engage in skullduggery, exactly the sort of person project 2025 would want and 2) he’s one of the few people trump has shown loyalty to. Also unlike Greg Abbott, who turned down the VP job, he seems to want the job. Also, last time he was out of office Abbott appointed his own chief of staff as attorney general, so it’s not like that would strip mine the Texas state government of conservative talent.
It’s worth noting that a lot of trump’s policy success from the last admin came through bill Barr, and an aggressive consiglieri in the AG seat is probably what trump needs to be effective.
quiet_NaN
28m ago
I am by no means an expert on medieval Japan, but I wonder how a samurai would make a good playable character in an AC game. Climbing along some facade to kill an enemy leader (which is a good part of what tends to fill AC games) does not sound very samurai-like. In fact, it sounds positively ninja-like.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
31m ago
On the other hand, pretty much every commercial or ad these days still does the Interracial couple thing, almost always black male, white female.
The study you linked quite specifically said that considerably more of the interracial couples in the ads they surveyed were a white male with a nonwhite female than the other way around.
The second research question asked about gender differences among interracial couples with a white partner in relation to their actual population. Approximately 59% of the interracial couples portrayed in the television commercials consisted of a white male and a Nonwhite female (WM+NWF). A chi-square goodness of fit test identified that this was not a significant difference from the 55% proportional representation of WM+NWF couples in the US population of interracial couples, according to the Pew Research Center (Livingston & Brown, 2017) (χ² = 2.92, df = 1, N = 99, p = .09). Approximately 30% of the interracial couples portrayed in the television commercials consisted of a Nonwhite male and a White female (NWM+WF). A chisquare goodness of fit test identified that this was a significant underrepresentation from the 37% proportional representation of NWM+WF interracial couples in the US population, according to the Pew Research Center (Livingston & Brown, 2017) (χ² = 15.36, df = 1, N = 99, p < .01). To answer RQ2, there were differences in representation, as the combination of a Nonwhite male and a White female were underrepresented, whereas a White male and Nonwhite female were not.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
31m ago
There are lots of reasons to oppose Russia/push back on (perceived) Russia partisans even if one thinks Ukraine is doomed. But you may be right if I’m typical-minding.
Interesting that you blame corruption. My intuition at the start was Russia rolling in and destroying major C&C. Maybe not on Desert Storm level, but something relatively fast. In that case, the industry of either side wouldn’t matter too much. Frankly, I assume that’s what Russia expected, too. If they’d known how much money and experience they’d lose to get this far, I would like to think it wouldn’t have happened.
But given that Ukraine didn’t shatter, and instead got this awful slog—now the production is key. And they sure can’t do it on their own dime. As critics have observed, we dumped most of our old and cheap munitions, and are struggling to spin up new production. So is this failure because of corrupt or incompetent procurement? Or were we just not expecting it to come to this?
I realize this sounds like I’m saying “nah, we’d totally win if we weren’t holding back.” Hubristic, right? But there really is a lack of political will. Our politicians even fought over sending the old stuff to this small, faraway, non-NATO country. If that level of intervention was unpopular, is it so surprising that we haven’t kept up in shell production?
Tanista
32m ago
Compare to, for example, feminism in Western media.
Yasuke was probably not a samurai. Many times the women described in these stories - where they function like men in the plot and mechanics - are anatomically impossible.
Yet, almost every single bit of Western media I watch allows this fantasy. I watch something about war or violence and ScarJo or whoever is doing acrobat-jiu-jitsu and throwing around 200lb men. I play a game and the female characters play just like the men even in places where it just doesn't make sense. I watch The Rookie and the 5'4 Latina captain and the 6'0 Nathan Fillion have the same record in fights.
I could complain about this being inaccurate , but I'd be the one swimming against the tide. And looking a bit weird the more insistent I got about it. Even other woke-critical people would be unsympathetic or walk away.
orthoxerox
I realized I can change my flair color to Barbie pink
32m ago
I don't, but I also don't pronounce periods and slashes in URLs.
sarker
Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?
34m ago
And this bar, is it on the page with us right now?
cjet79
38m ago
Inclusion has a weird status in culture, because its opposite is not always seen as a bad thing.
Diversity : Homogeneity :: Equity : Unequal :: Inclusion : Exclusive
Exclusivity is still a widely accepted marketing and branding decision. Media networks love to brag about exclusive events, where only they get to show something. Hollywood in general loves exclusive events where only the biggest stars can attend. Clubs brag about their exclusive requirements. High end brands love to use cost as a way to exclude the riff raff and readily imply that only the rich and discerning can afford to choose their brand.
I do wonder if exclusion has enough staying power to survive scrutiny by the culture. I am 90% sure it will stay around. Marketers will just have to very carefully tiptoe around who is being excluded, and the rules on who it is ok to exclude will likely shift randomly depending on the whims of internet mobs.
Walterodim
Only equals speak the truth, that’s my thought on’t
51m ago
I don't know who the hell the supporters are, to be honest. On the flip side, at my local farmer's market, there are about a dozen or so RFK supporters holding up big RFK 2024 signs every Saturday morning. They seem to be adding materials too - they had a Nicole Shanahan sign this week too! I actually ought to stop and talk to them to try to figure out what exactly they're excited for.
On the flip-flip side, our farmer's market also includes Veterans for Peace, a Libertarian booth, some young Earth creationists, guys handing out Qu'rans, PFLAG, and god knows what other oddball interest groups, so drawing big lessons from the handful of people showing up to celebrate health freedom or something might be a mistake.
cjet79
56m ago
Not meant to be a ringing endorsement, just an honest assessment.
If you want a ringing endorsement from me check out Ar'kendrithyst or Mother of Learning.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
56m ago
Who is his audience? Covid warriors?
I predict less success than Johnson. The libertarian bloc surely benefited from running against a populist and a Clinton. A protest vote against the current choices isn’t going to look like RFK.
Seriously, I don’t know anyone IRL who supports him. That’s not true for the libertarians, who apparently adopt streets (?!) near me.
fartVader
57m ago
Tesla model 3 supply is piling up, so discounts should start coming through anytime now. If you're in a state/county with credits, then a Tesla model 3/Y ends up being pretty cheap for the car you're getting.
Is maintenance a nightmare
There is no maintenence unless you get into a lot of accidents. (I don't mean this passive aggressively, just a numbers thing. You know your stats). If you get into accdeints, then fixes are admittedly expensive.
How do they hold up to wear and tear?
Well enough. Teslas are known to have wierd manufacturing defects, but they're more often cosmetic than something that degrades over time.
If you are set on buying an EV, then I would recommend a Tesla purely for the charging network and the ease of availing credits. Every other EV is a pain in the ass to charge.
The model Y seems to strike the best balane of space, price, credits and convienence - https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/hybrids-evs/electric-cars-plug-in-hybrids-that-qualify-for-tax-credits-a7820795671/ . I am personally a small car guy and would buy a Mazda 3 turbo hatchback, but that's just me.
sun_the_second
1hr ago
From the point of view of an average progressive normie playing as a black samurai is awesome and fun, and you're the one who is injecting politics.
The course of history is changed by many people with correct attitude and very rarely by one. So I am not suggesting that people alone act but courage can be infectious. It is certainly isn't only my idea to try to shut down progressive intersectionality.
On many issues it is possible to take part and not have your life ruined. And if things change, it is precisely because inaction has made things worse. This isn't to say that some types of actions aren't riskier than others. But we see people trying to discourage action in general beyond just dissuading Damore moves. Moreover, we see people who also dissuade actions using under much different arguements. It can't be the case where on such issues there are enough people who argue inaction because they see it as uncool, or unnecessary, that what is happening isn't a big deal, but also inaction is the best because it is hopeless. You would have noticed people who argue that this isn't a big deal.
You use the terms waging the culture war which are highly negatively charged here and associated with censorship, insults, bans etc. It could be said that is carries connotations of unfairness and impropriety. So you are being somewhat contradictory with your language. You are saying it is hopeless but also your language is carrying some connotation that it is bad independently of that. That it is ethically superior to not take part.
I don't think inaction is chosen as the best, because it is the best, but because it is the preference of those promoting it. The woke have been winning because they have been willing to more aggressively push their agenda through. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy if one's reaction is that there is nothing to be done, while in other issues this fatalism is absent. There is in fact plenty of energy of those who could act and don't. Just like the more extreme progressives started influencing a society that was more hostile to their ideology, it is possible to win over and change the minds of others. Discouragement and demoralization of those who could have opposed it and still can be an opposition is a key aspect to the changes in the progressive intersectionality direction and its victories.
Communism and Catholicism didn't dominate in the way it could have, because there was opposition. And it isn't the Stalin situation yet. It isn't as if you supporting here regulations against the woke would get your life ruined. Of course it is completely impossible to take a genuine stand against woke/progressive intersectionalists and not be hated and vilified by their broader political faction. Or to be disliked by those who sympathize with them and oppose the opposition. There is pressure related to being seen by some as cringe to take stronger positions. But this is a different issue than having no choice. There are also those willing to like and support such opposition.
There are dynamics involved that relate to this idea of the holy left and how it is cringe and symbolically bad and symbolically far right to have a strong position against its excess. These dynamics of underestimating the dangers of far left extremism or the dangers of aligning with it, are part of the reasons that it grew in influence. So I would paint the situation as different than people being afraid of dying as in the case of the Soviet Union. Afraid of being labeled negatively and other things of that nature? Perhaps. But I would say that it isn't just that, there is a general attitute that continues today that is the reason this phenomenon intensified previously. But history isn't fixed but changes, and moreover it also is the case that even if not all can be won, some of it can be won. Just like communists who had remarkable successes found obstacles that stopped their continued victory, the same can apply here.
I will say that even with people who are very busy as is understandable with other things don't prioritize this which is again very understandable, they still have a choice to have more or less decisive positions on the issue, when they do engage with it. I actually am not some kind of activist, so I certainly could be doing quite more. Which I hope isn't used as an excuse to promote some kind of nirvana fallacy. I just want to argue that an attitude of superiority of disengagement is the wrong attitude to have and not the morally superior attitude. But the one that helps the more aggressive party that is successfully changing things to continue escalating.
You could have the protagonist kill Dahomeys and their trade partners from France, England and the Netherlands. Except this would entail a black character running around incessantly killing strong black women.
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