Mandaris

I’ll have to mark this off for next year.

Tau Day is a celebration of the circle constant 𝜏=𝐶/𝑟= 6.283185… Founded in 2010 with the publication of [_The Tau Manifesto_](https://tauday.com/tau-manifesto) by [Michael Hartl](https://www.michaelhartl.com/), Tau Day takes place annually on June 28 (6/28 in the American calendar system).

Found via Spaf on Mastodon.

I had to go back to my rating system to make sure that I was evaluating this properly.

It’s got a reputation for being bad, but the masochist in me kept chanting How bad can it be? and I had a 5 hour flight that I felt that I wouldn’t mind it if this thing put me to sleep.

I’m not going to make a video or post about this is what’s wrong with superhero movies. The failings of this movie are not related to the genre. I feel this movie falls down because I honestly do not care about the main character(s).

It feels like the movie is in such a rush to show you the next thing that the viewer might find cool, that it flashes over the parts on why we should really care about the characters.

Listen, I care that there are people who are incarcerated unjustly. I care about people who are just living their lives when bad things happen to them. I care about the world not being terraformed into a climate I can’t live in¹.

But it’s hard to care about Barry(s).

I thought about why I didn’t care. In other movies where you know that the hero is going to win, you still get a sense of danger and excitement as they eventually get to the conclusion. I’m happy when I see James Bond tart his enemies. I’m shouting with excitement when I see the Toretto Family show how fast and furious they can be.

But this, I just don’t know what it was.

Description

When his attempt to save his family inadvertently alters the future, Barry Allen becomes trapped in a reality in which General Zod has returned and there are no Super Heroes to turn to. In order to save the world that he is in and return to the future that he knows, Barry's only hope is to race for his life. But will making the ultimate sacrifice be enough to reset the universe?

Here is the trailer on YouTube.

Template uses lantern by Robb Knight.

I’ve been enjoying this new series of Star Wars TV recently.

It’s got a mix of different Star Wars troupes and other concepts you normally don’t talk about in regards to space wizards with laser swords.

It’s not a perfect show, but I don’t need that.

Talking about WWDC 2024, Rick and Morty Season 7, The Boys, and the latest with Labarum.

00:00:00: Chapter 1 - Beginning
00:00:35: WWDC 2024 Reflection
00:06:23: Media Review: Rick And Morty Season 7
00:08:01: Upcoming Media: The Boys Season 4
00:08:45: Labarum Update

The last time didn’t post.

I started working on my theme for Micro.blog in the hopes that it was accessible and could be parsed using schema and microformats. It was spurred by the feeling that I wanted my posts to be shared to as many people as possible. I’m not saying that I’m a literary genius or have something deep or profound to say, but I do have some really cool pictures of my dog as well.

Now years have gone by and I’ve refined and enhanced what I made initially. Post can show previews in bluesky, mastodon, and discord without me constantly worrying about formats. This technical project has been completed (for the most part).

And now, I’m faced with another technical itch.

Corporations are now crawling the World Wide Web in order to get data that they could use to train LLMs. That’s not to say they value the writings of a 40+ year old man from California whose average post size is around 45 words per post more than the thousands of artists and writers available, but having perfectly structured data¹ would be nice. In the grand scheme of things, I’m not significant and not singular as far as data points go. I regularly see people who walk, talk, and dress like. I listen to at least two podcasts that not only have the same views that I have but talk in similar vocal range and cadence².

But what should I do?

I’ve seen articles about editing the robots.txt file that your website serves up to tell the various bots not to use the site for data. This feels like a whack-a-mole solution, and I came across a message that it only stops the companies that have standards. At this point in development, there feels to be a “better to ask for forgiveness, than permission” strategy in place for these corporations to pursue the collection of data. Unless you are rich and/or famous, the information is taken with a middle finger pointed at the EULA.

The summaries of my articles are already distributed/federated to services that I have no control over. This was understood when I set the different systems up and I’m still ok with that to a degree.

But, seriously, what am I going to do?

At the moment, I’m not including any changes to robots.txt, I feel that some of my writing might be important enough to include in the data set for our new robot overlords protectors.

I talk about mental health.

I talk about media.

I talk about inconsequential items and sometimes important things.

And, yes, I do post about my dog as well.

All in the hope that -maybe- someone out there gets it.

Talking about WWDC 2024, Rick and Morty Season 7, The Boys, and the latest with Labarum.

00:00:00: Chapter 1 - Beginning
00:00:35: WWDC 2024 Reflection
00:06:23: Media Review: Rick And Morty Season 7
00:08:01: Upcoming Media: The Boys Season 4
00:08:45: Labarum Update.

Next Monday, Apple will be holding it World Wide Developer Conference for the year. It usually marks the time that I destroy my cell phone’s battery and complain about all my dropped calls and message malfunctions.

But every year, I find myself enjoying the prospects of something new.

This year, I’m looking forward to it but my expectations are rather low.

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses

Maybe it’s because I am getting older or that I am fulfilled in other ways, but I don’t see much need in a lot of the promise that some of the newer technologies are offering.

I like having transcripts for my podcasts.

I like having more cohesive alt messages for my images.

These are good things that really help everyone.

No butts about it. And yes, I gave it two t’s.

I just don’t have any passion for the rest of it. Whether it’s AI, vision, or even an update to how to add contacts to my address book, I’ve been finding myself more and more apathetic to changes in my own technological stack.

I took fLaMEd’s idea of adding my XMPP handle to my about page. It’s part of the omg.log service that I signed up for a while ago.

I’ve got two people that I chat with using it. It reminds me of when I was in high school and instant messaging was the thing to do in my social group. It makes me feel a little nostalgic.

It’s a reboot of a show I would watch on Saturday mornings as a kid. Back then, the violence was hidden with lasers and characters that would die offscreen. The original did have some darker moments, but you had hope that things were going to work out. This version gives you that hope and then proceeds to crush it.

When I was younger, I would jokingly yell “Moooooooorph!” when a character I barely knew died. Call it immaturity. I was ignorant of what losing someone meant. Not to say I don’t still laugh at dark humor or that every dead character brings me to tears, but now I have more of an understanding that a characters death can and should¹ have impact on the plot and other characters.

My only complaint about the show is that it runs through a lot of the different plots and themes that happened with the X-Men in the 90s. Plot lines that would take years would be addressed in a couple episodes and we don’t get a chance to sit with some of the changes for very long. If you are watching during the weekly release, I feel that it would be better so that you can really sit with what happens. If you are binging, you might feel you are missing something; like a stage in the grieving process.

Overall, this is a wonderful show that highlights that animation can convey themes with deeper meaning… even when there are big lasers.

The X-Men, a band of mutants who use their uncanny gifts to protect a world that hates and fears them, are challenged like never before, forced to face a dangerous and unexpected new future.

Well, we’re at the end of the month and I did not meet my goal of having a post every day about mental health as I had set out to do. If anything, I probably posted less this month than at other times this year.

Apparently, I need to take the break from posting.

Still, there were a lot of great posts that came from this and would like to thank everyone who wrote or read a blog to think about joining communities like indieweb.org or adding themselves to Blog of the Day.

Blog of the Day is a small project created and maintained by James and Joe. I’ve been seeing them in various IndieWeb meet ups and they seem like pretty cool folks.

What did I get out of this?

My favorite part of this whole experience was seeing posts from other people. The small ones, the long posts. Things that were sitting in a drafts folder and even the posts with a simple “I’m only writing this to continue the streak”. I didn’t read everything but it was cool to see what options were available.

For my own writing, I come away with a feeling a little more confidence about posting links from other sites. People like HeyScottyJ and Leon, pushed me to get over the barrier of feeling like an imposter and that the value of me taking the time to find the links and adding my two cents is important as well. I’m not taking credit, I’m pointing the way.

Will I do it next year?

Yes.

Part of my posts were highlighting the importance of mental health and I do enjoy publishing things on my blog.

I feel that next year, I’ll include the entire blog instead of just a category and I might draft a couple posts in advance so that I can stagger the publication.