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Martin The Mess aka Big Brother

@martinthemess.bsky.social

560 followers 360 following 4.7K posts

Science Fiction, Science Fact, History and Alternate History, Humor and Political Philosophy. Always Watching. Formerly @Back2Babylon5 on that other place with the Musky odor.

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Martin The Mess aka Big Brother @martinthemess.bsky.social · Dec 4

The Franchise No One Wanted Continues!

2016: The Prequel to the Year of Hell
2020: The Year of Hell
2020 Won: The Year of Hell Victorious
2020 2: A Sequel So Bad It's Numbered Out Of Sequence
2020 3: Please God End it Already
2020 4-Ever: God Whispers back, "No"
2020 5: What Fresh Hell Is This?

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Martin The Mess aka Big Brother @martinthemess.bsky.social · 1h

Isn't Opus Dei a Lay organization with no Clergy involved? Hence why having an "Opus Dei Monk" was one of the stupidest things in The Da Vinci Code, and that's a fairly high bar to clear.

So how would this not be like the Pope ordering the Girl Scouts or Elks Lodge to disband?

Martin The Mess aka Big Brother @martinthemess.bsky.social · 1h

The only ones I've got any personal experience with are pretty strictly external-use-only. And we sold them at Radio Shack as "Back and Neck Massagers".

a girl wearing glasses and the word hitachi on the bottom right

Alt: A cute Asian girl with glasses says "Hitachi." If you don't know what a Hitatchi Wand is, do not Google it.

media.tenor.com

Martin The Mess aka Big Brother @martinthemess.bsky.social · 11h

....Yes? That's exactly what I said? And the bigger physical media is exactly the equivalent of the "bigger crowd means bigger people or bigger net volume, not more people" argument you've been pushing this whole time.

Martin The Mess aka Big Brother @martinthemess.bsky.social · 13h

"The Yankess slaughtered the Red Sox last week" does not mean they killed the players and dressed the meat for sale in butcher shops. It means they beat them badly in a game of baseball. You're insisting that MUST mean the same thing as "Millions of cows were slaughtered in the Chicago Stockyards."

Martin The Mess aka Big Brother @martinthemess.bsky.social · 13h

No, I'm fighting for the idea that context matters and is clear in this case. I literally said "I am a bigger man" does not mean "I am 2 men" because that is a different context. You are lying if you say I said that, because I didn't. Words mean different things in different contexts.

Martin The Mess aka Big Brother @martinthemess.bsky.social · 13h

Depending on phrasing. "Taylor Swift's new album is a bigger record than Katy Perry's last one" would be understood to mean it sold more and/or was more popular by other measures than strict sales (radio play, streams, etc.) rather than size of the (standardized size so they can be played) LPs/CDs.

Martin The Mess aka Big Brother @martinthemess.bsky.social · 13h

A bigger number of them, yes.

Martin The Mess aka Big Brother @martinthemess.bsky.social · 13h

English is a complex language and it doesn't always make sense, sometimes you gotta go by actual usage by English-speakers. "I'm a bigger man" could mean I'm physically larger or I'm a better more generous person. "This is a bigger crowd" is unlikely to mean anything but "it has more people".

Martin The Mess aka Big Brother @martinthemess.bsky.social · 13h

Yes, a bigger crowd does mean more people. This is not hard, I've never heard it used in any other way with respect to crowds, not even for "amount of ground covered" which is the only other possible measure.

Martin The Mess aka Big Brother @martinthemess.bsky.social · 13h

Good luck enforcing that, I guess. How would it be counted? What differentiates active from non-active users? Do only users living in Chicago count? How about people working or visiting? How do you collect if they have no physical presence in the city? Can you ban them for non-payment?

Martin The Mess aka Big Brother @martinthemess.bsky.social · 13h

The Beatles were bigger than Jesus at that moment because they sold more records (than the entire Christian/Liturgical music genre, I doubt it, but maybe) and/or had more fans (also unlikely, but possible I guess). The context here is not difficult to understand.

Martin The Mess aka Big Brother @martinthemess.bsky.social · 13h

If I was comparing the Cunard line to the White Star line, then of course quantity of ships or passengers would be the likely measure. If I'm comparing two ships that are clearly one of each, then only an idiot would think I mean quantity. Do you understand the concept of context?

Martin The Mess aka Big Brother @martinthemess.bsky.social · 17h

Just because the things on the scale are historically notable protests doesn't mean we're measuring them by historical notability. RMS Titanic was bigger than RMS Lusitania, on a scale of historically notable passenger liners. Which is more historically notable is arguable. Which was bigger is not.

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Martin The Mess aka Big Brother @martinthemess.bsky.social · 21h

If someone says "these protests are bigger", I assume he means number of people involved. "These protests are more widespread" is what you use if you mean more cities. For importance, you'd say "these protests are a bigger deal" or "more important" or "more significant".

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Martin The Mess aka Big Brother @martinthemess.bsky.social · 22h

When talking about crowd size...bigger literally means quantity. It means number of people. It has always meant number of people. It will always mean number of people. Unless English isn't your first language, no, you shouldn't be misunderstanding him here.

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Reposted by Martin The Mess aka Big Brother

The Spaceshipper 🚀 @thespaceshipper.com · 23h

Hardware Wars was released 47 years ago today.

"Fluke Starbucker and his mentor, Augie "Ben" Doggie, retrieve a crucial message from the loyal robots, Artie-Deco and 4-Q-2, and join forces with Ham Salad and his shaggy partner, Chuke-Chilla."

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Martin The Mess aka Big Brother @martinthemess.bsky.social · 22h

The tape I first saw it on paired it with an Apocalypse Now/Deer Hunter mashup parody called Porklips Now. I hadn't yet seen either movie so I didn't get much out of that one, but Hardware Wars is awesome. Now I've got the 25th Anniversary Special Edition on VHS with a couple added CGI effects.

Martin The Mess aka Big Brother @martinthemess.bsky.social · 22h

I'd like to see some actual figures on No Kings vs. the bigger Civil Rights marches in terms of both raw numbers and proportion of the local or national population of the time, but it's almost 3am and I'm too tired to go digging.

Whether No Kings or Civil Rights are "a bigger deal" is unclear yet.

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Martin The Mess aka Big Brother @martinthemess.bsky.social · 22h

When discussing crowd size, yes, bigger means quantity. No one measures crowd size by net volume, although I suppose if you want to brag an American crowd is bigger than a foreign one of similar raw numbers it might be a snarky way to do so, due to America's infamous obesity problem.

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Martin The Mess aka Big Brother @martinthemess.bsky.social · 22h

In what universe is having Americans do the operating and the targeting and the shooting of missiles deep into Russian territory a way to minimize escalation risk? It would be much less escalatory to just give them the dang missiles and a couple of truck launchers and let Ukrainians do the shooting.

Martin The Mess aka Big Brother @martinthemess.bsky.social · 1d

...it woulda been perfectly kosher, and he probably can get the votes to pass it. He could get a partial CR through tomorrow morning to pay the troops and other key Federal personnel if the House went into session.

But he wants to set the precedent that POTUS can do whatever he wants, always.

Martin The Mess aka Big Brother @martinthemess.bsky.social · 1d

So much of what Trump's illegally doing by Executive Fiat would be perfectly legal if he just went through the proper channels, which he mostly could if he tried. If DOGE had just written down a list of programs to cut and people to fire, then had Congress write those changes into a budget bill...

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Martin The Mess aka Big Brother @martinthemess.bsky.social · 1d

Over on this side of the Pond, tonight we had homemade individual pizzas with personalized toppings, peas-n-carrots, a house salad, a fruit-and-olive plate, and ice cream for dessert.

Martin The Mess aka Big Brother @martinthemess.bsky.social · 1d

It's basically Fight or Flirt Syndrome, yes? Either you get physically romantic with a partner, or you fight someone to the death. The Fight is traditionally done with equipment, a Lirpa. The Flirt is done with equipment that most Vulcans come equipped with as a standard feature from birth.

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Martin The Mess aka Big Brother @martinthemess.bsky.social · 1d

This will be at least the third major nationwide same-day protest event under the No Kings banner: June 14, July 4 Weekend, and now October 18.

I hope they don't have to keep this up for decades like the Civil Rights movement had to. But for a movement 6 months old, it's doing pretty well.

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