But what would Disney do with Marvel Studios if it wasn't pumping out live action (or occasionally animated) Marvel comic adaptions? It's like a shark, it's got to keep swimming or drown. Even while losing money hand-over-fist the whole time.

LucasFilm has exactly the same problem. They've devolved into production lines for design-by-committee nostalgia bait. When was the last time LucasFilm succeeded at introducing a new story universe with new characters? When has Marvel Studios ever?

(2/2)

By the end of the Infinity Saga, the Marvel comics publisher must have been kicking themselves for selling the movie part of their business to Disney. But maybe Disney are feeling the strain too, after a string of bombs?

If Marvel Comics were still in charge of the movie adaptions, and outsourcing production to a range of studios, they could deal with superhero fatigue by just mothballing the whole thing for a while. Stop losing money and wait for demand to return.

(1/2)

#MCU #MarvelStudios

But wouldn't it be powerful to seek consent from whoever is in a workplace before we protested it? That would tell workers they're respected, and would create opportunities to connect with people in their workplaces, build solidarity, and support labour organising.

Of course that would make it really hard to protest, because we'd spend so much time meeting and negotiating with workers. But I don't know if that's a bad thing.

(3/3)

But now that I think about that, there's some things about calling protest groups 'consensual'. Even if they are entirely consensual with each other, the people whose organisation or workplace is being protested may not consent. People using public streets where protests happen may not consent.

There's a typical way to frame this. We don't care about whether someone who's trying to punch people gets tackled to the ground, whether or not they consent, and neither should we.

(2/?)

For a long time, it was common for groups without hierarchies to describe ourselves by using a negation; 'non-hierarchical'. For lack of a satisfying word to express what we were doing instead.

Around the time of Occupy I noticed the word horizontal being used to fill the gap, which is less clunky. But it occurrs to me there's another word that might get closer to what we're trying to say; consensual. Everything we do, ideally, is by consent of everyone involved.

(1/?)

#ActivistJargon #unions

Especially now that the streaming platforms are starting to auto-generate playlist filler using a Trained MOLE like Suno.

Side note: I almost posted this as "steaming platforms" : P The more I think about it though, the more I think 'steaming heaps' is a good collective noun for them. I'm biased, of course, but I like it better than Bruce Sterlings equivalent; "the Stacks".

(2/2)

"Within the playlist mindset there’s no need for that, the machine investigates and recommends: you can just go about your day with some pleasant noise in the background so that you can isolate and just vibe, just chill. It also cheapens music as an artform, making it so that it becomes indistinguishable from muzak —a product designed for productivity and decoration."

Nico, @fairplayer, 2026

https://mirlo.space/team/posts/716

Muzak is an apt comparison.

(1/2)

Another step closer to release!

The official website is now live at https://littlefedi.org/ with documentation and project details.

Take a look and let me know what you think!

#littleFedi #Fediverse

In Aotearoa we often talk about sticking to the "kaupapa". This is a word from Te Reo Māori, the indigenous language of our country. It's tricky to translate into English, which is part of why we find it so useful, even in English-speaking contexts.

But you could say the kaupapa is why 'why?' of a situation. The thing we've gathered to address, or to achieve. It's broader than 'task', broader even than 'project'. It's more like 'purpose' or 'cause' (as in 'committed to the cause').

(2/2)

"In both cases the most important aspect is to remember why you’re doing things the way you are, and be real about both capacity and the reasoning behind your project. It’s why I’ve mentioned 'listening' and 'conversation' so much. Building a cohesive product isn’t just about UI/UX design, it’s also trying to figure out why we’re doing it in a first place and what it’s trying to fix."

#LouisLouise, 2026

https://mirlo.space/team/posts/716

Preach!

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* If someone finds a record on this web store, via the larger network, how do they know they can search on this store only for related music, and how to do that?

* Can they do that from the store they started on, or do they have to go to the website of the store they want to search?

* How do they find out?

* If they go and browse a different store, how do they find their way back? This matters, because people don't like feeling lost and disoriented.

There's a lot to think about.

(3/3)

But there's a UX challenge in making a decentralised social music network easily navigable for listeners. Say I rock up to a web store that specialises in music from my country.

* How do I know that they're part of a larger network, and that I can search a much larger global catalog there as well as the local stuff?

* How do I learn how to do that?

* How do I clarify which scale I'm searching at there, at any given time?

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So I'm not here to hate on Star Wars. But, if a fandom doesn't collectively punish the commercial stewards of our beloved story universe when they do a terrible job, they have no particular incentive to lift their game. Which means, at this point, that the chances of getting better SW movies are not great.

I'm vaguely curious about Starfighter, but nowhere near as excited as I was for TFA, or even TLJ. I'm painfully aware that Ryan Gosling is hot right now, and I'm not taking the bait.

(3/3)

Don't get me wrong, I fuckin' *love* Star Wars, and have since I was just old enough to watch ROTJ at the cinema. I was underwhelmed by the prequels, but I've seen a fanedit that compresses all 3 of them into 4 hours, and I quite enjoyed that.

I liked the first season or 2 of the Mandalorian series (with a few exceptions), and enjoyed what Pedro Pascal brought to the character. I *loved* Andor, right up there with Empire as one of the best stories in the SW universe.

(2/?)

The Mandalorian and Grogu showed Disney that Star Wars is still a money printing machine. They can fart out whatever ill-conceived, laughably stupid, live action cartoon they like, and ... profit!

MCU audiences put Disney on notice that we wouldn't keep paying good money to watch half-arse crap, with a string of box office bombs. But clearly there's still a fandom who will eat actual human shit if it has Star Wars branding on the side. Moral hazard, much?

(1/?)

#StarWars #SpaceOpera #movies

"Another thing we’ve talked about is context-based discovery and how to provide rich information about scenes grouped around a cause, location or genre that often get undervalued (or even just ignored altogether) on corporate platforms."

@RobertaFidora, 2026

https://mirlo.space/team/posts/716

One thing that excites me about the potential of a social music network is that a music host that's part of it can be focused on a single location, genre or cause, *without* siloing the artists hosted there.

(1/?)

"Part of the challenge of decentralisation is the language around it ...

In the book, this concept is a network of regional indie record shops that managed themselves in their area and acted as specialists for their local scene but they could also plug into a wider distribution network nationally to stock their shops and cross-pollinate with other areas. It is this idea that we want to transfer into digital terms."

@RobertaFidora, 2026

https://mirlo.space/team/posts/716

#decentralisation #distros

While I'm on my soapbox, Winston and his acolytes love to accuse people whose polices they don't like of "social engineering". WTF is paying people to have more babies?! The rank hypocrisy of these feebles still finds new ways to surprise me

(Feebles are kind of like evil muppets, if you've seen Meet the Feebles, you know exactly what I mean)

(3/3)

Based on decades of international experience (see Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom), there's a much simpler way to encourage people to have more kids, without paying them to do it. Just get rid of superannuation, so they have to rely on their kids to look after them after they're too old to work.

Even better, ramp up poverty, so there's a greater chance not all people's kids will make it to adulthood. That encourages and even higher birthrate.

(2/?)

Winston First really haven't through their cash for babies policy. Putting aside all the other, more obvious reasons why it's a bad idea, let's say it works as advertised. So there's a huge baby boom over the next 5-10 years, just like there was after WW2. Can't see any possible way that could go wrong ...

Of course I'm assuming WF and their supporters care what about happens after they die. Probably unwise when more evidence points to the opposite.

(1/?)

#NZPolitics #NZFirst #BabyFarming