Mediocre Meritocrat

World's okayest FGO. I do history, China, and Army stuff. 🏒VAN, ⚽ BHAFC/VWFC

[Mediocre Meritocrat @jmarkgraham]

@SebastianBae I forgot the step 2.5: contradict the given guidance at least twice and allow outside organizations to dictate to the designers

[HIGH PLANES Drifter @the_engi_nerd]

impaling myself on Chesterton's Fence

[Patrick J. Wolf @PatrickJWolf]

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s Friday.

[Sebastian Bae @SebastianBae]

I have one day before I am back on a plane for another two weeks -- so excuse me as I melt into my sofa.

[HIGH PLANES Drifter @the_engi_nerd]

Some of these Generals and Colonels are very dumb!!!

[Sonny Bunch @SonnyBunch]

the people doing this should be caught, exposed, and imprisoned for the rest of their lives

[Mike Nelson @mikenelson586]

@HaikuJonah You're saying it's the worst Presidential library in the tri-state area?

[M.C.A Hogarth @mcahogarth]

Rewatched Brave (first time since theaters) and was surprised; I remembered the story as another tiresome "child is always right, parent is always wrong" variation, but both Merida and her mother learn something, make compromises, and change. The scene where Merida finds her mother's words coming out of her mouth when she's explaining why it's important for the clans to hang together feels genuine, and you can see the realization in her eyes when it clicks that Mom's annoying stories really do matter.

Brave is also the only modern YA movie that solves an arranged marriage plot point not by saying 'no more arranged marriages, follow your heart!' but rather 'let's have the kids grow up and get to know one another first.' No convenient potboy true love for Merida--she still has to marry a prince. It's just a matter of making her peace with which.

As a movie about the relationship between mothers and daughters it's much more even-handed (and warm) than it hit when I saw it first. I'm glad I rewatched it. (And rewatching it with a grown daughter was even more fun.)

[M.C.A Hogarth @mcahogarth]

Watched Cars again for the first time since the youngest was young and I continue to believe this is peak Pixar, and one of their best movies. While Disney's turning out princess movies for girls, Pixar shone brightest when it was writing for boys, and with great depth... not just about the experience of growing into a man, but also about being a man mentoring young men, and what it means to age well as a man. Other random thoughts:

- there were car jokes for every level of car knowledge, from the fun and obvious (traffic cone-themed motel rooms with garage door openings) to the modest ("hey, is that a VW beetle that's actually a beetle?") to the deeply entrenched (like why The King is the car model he is)
- this was during the period where Pixar was leaning into the fact that CGI was still in the uncanny valley for animating humans, which made anthropomorphic objects a better candidate for protagonists... but they also had a lot more practice, and that polish shows in the art. It's just a really good-looking movie, with none of the flinches you get from earlier, more "plasticky" animation.
- soundtrack is perfect
- deeply satisfying *dual* arcs of Lightning growing up and Doc accepting his new role as the coach and crew chief (reminding me a little of Captain Kirk's perennial struggle with the transition from riding the chair to riding a desk, and how he never managed).
- example of one of the ways the storytelling is so tight: the climax of the movie (and the driving motivation throughout the middle of the story) is a threeway race and the two people Lightning's competing against represent his polar choices of how to evolve: Chick is him remaining immature and isolated, The King is him growing up and becoming a better man

Honestly, just an incredibly satisfying movie, and the end was pitch-perfect in every regard, and the denouement in the credits was the icing on that perfect cake. If you haven't seen it in a while (or at all), do yourself a favor and revisit Pixar's glory days with Lightning McQueen. Ka-ka-kachow!

[The Little Platoon @PlatoonPod]

There's a bit in the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (written in 1979) where the heroes come upon an intergalactic flight has been grounded for thousands of years.

Its automated systems told it not to launch until it was fully stocked up with lemon-soaked paper napkins, for the comfort of its passengers. But the surrounding civilization collapsed, and the napkins never arrived.

Consequently it put all the passengers into hibernation (waking them once every few hundred years for coffee and biscuits) until such time as another civilization might arise, and restock its lemon-soaked paper napkins.

The Guide is a more accurate and prophetic account of modernity than most Very Serious Science Fiction writers could dream of creating.

[Missileman @MinuteofZombie]

What the armed forces never denied in practice but politicians deny for cultural reasons is that combat fitness standards were not derived by scientifically calculating how fast or strong or enduring you have to be to survive the battlefield.

They have ALWAYS been calculated by looking at population distributions and selecting a value that gives you the force size you want.

So if a 6:00 mile yields only 5% of recruits and the average Ranger indoc class size is 200 and you want about 10 guys per class to graduate because of the force size you want, you choose the standard to be a 6:00 mile.

That’s literally how they do it. Has nothing to do with “what it takes to survive”.

[Mediocre Meritocrat @jmarkgraham]

@NavyStrang @aniemyer

[Mediocre Meritocrat @jmarkgraham]

@JonahDispatch @foster_type @lukeburgis I said to myself "Self, this seems like a great idea"

[Mediocre Meritocrat @jmarkgraham]

@SebastianBae I'm in this tweet and I don't like it.

[Mike Nelson @mikenelson586]

Wait... Pakistan is duplicitous?!?!

[John Reasnor @johnandrewwords]

The tendency among some Christian Nationalists and those on the “new Christian right” to focus on victim narratives for young men may be effective in recruiting this demographic, but is altogether ineffective at assisting young men in becoming mature men.

One of the worst things you can do for young men is tell them they’re just victims and that they have no personal responsibility for their beliefs, actions, and habits.

Boys and young men DO have particular challenges in this society, but keeping them in a state of helpless victimization that negates any real personal responsibility and accountability isn’t any less exploitative and harmful to these young people than how the world is treating them.

[Mike Nelson @mikenelson586]

It works for so many situations

[Indefinite Lieutenant 🏴‍☠️ @IndefiniteLT]

Army personnel will be visited each year by 3 ghosts.

[Mediocre Meritocrat @jmarkgraham]

@WASPmexicano