Yeah people don’t really understand that HOAs are a two way street in most states. Bad HOAs exist because of bad neighbors, neglectful neighbors, or both. All it takes to right a ship is to show up and vote (or fill out the paper absentee ballot…) when the yearly elections happen. And then show up to some meetings so quorum can be met.

My HOA has to reschedule important meetings several times a year because nobody can be bothered to show up for a 30 minute meeting every quarter so quorum is met. Bad HOAs are like bad local unions. They only have power because you let them have power. Lobby your neighbors to do something about it. Unfortunately my experience is such that the typical homeowner who chooses to live in an HOA does so because they want to be rorLly hands off as much as possible. Kind of the opposite of the default pictures people have of obsessive neighbors in HOAs.

Has to be Krampus, and Anna and the Apocalypse.

Krampus really scratches that nostalgic itch every year and I don’t know why. The broken family dynamics, the environment, the sound and set designs are amazing. And it has a lesson like every good Christmas movie should.

And Anna and the Apocalypse is similar. It is funny, musical, and ultimately an allegory about growing up and leaving everyone behind to forge your own path. A good reminder that you never know when it will be your last Christmas with someone. Or maybe I’m looking into it too much and I just like zombie musicals.

Mastodon often feels to me more like Facebook for software developers

I wish. I’ve tried to curate mine as such.

My mastodon feed is awash in spam from authors hucking their LLM generated stories. Constantly. And random low viewer count streamers spamming hashtags every hour 24/7.

It’s crazy how much LinkedIn-like sociopathy is out there right now. Makes sense given the huge spike in new accounts we’ve had in the last month.

Citations Needed had a mini series where they discussed why this happened. The US government will give material support to movie and game studios in exchange for some creative control over the content. That’s why so many movies with military equipment in it are rabidly pro-war; the studios don’t get access to the real equipment without the government’s support, and they don’t sign off on extremely critical scripts.

COD and similar games don’t just pop out of a void and still strive for some semblance of realism. That is a huge selling point after all. So the government gets involved, even if in little ways. Same way China gets to censor movies, either by omission or fundamentally changing things, around the world.