Pretty sure you also had to pay royalties fees for radio/Internet radio regardless of where or not you played their music.

“how to get unauthorized or free access to audio or audiovisual content.”

In the future, public domain media will be banned for harming corporate profits.

A marketer’s pride would never let them tell the truth.

I would be very happy if advertisement all looked like this.

It can also be propaganda against something that obviously true. It can be used to gaslight people into not believing their own eyes. Like being told that Trump isn’t leading to a more hateful country and it’s only twitter memes that make him look bad.

The “you are not immune to propaganda” meme may also be propaganda depending on who and when it’s being used.

I also run a lot of ad blockers and tracking blockers as well as educate myself on how advertisers use people’s insecurities against them. The “How TV Ruined Your Life” series is a pretty comprehensive. Coercion by Douglas Rushkoff is also great for immunizing yourself.

edit: Updated with links. The core of Coercion is still relevant, but it’s tech/internet perspective was from the early 2000s.

No, Hagrid is a very angry person. He just angry on behalf of the MC most of the time, so we’re routing for him. I found it weird how quickly a grown adult was to attack a child despite not really knowing them or being a threat. If it were an illusion or temporary spell Hagrid used on Dudley, it would be a little different, but he needed an operation to get fixed.

Also the Irish kid blowing up things is from the movies, not from the books.

Still has her name on it. Also, that floor in the bank in the movie wasn’t a good look when you’re already under criticism for the goblins for being a Jewish metaphor.

“they wouldn’t know what to do with freedom”

That’s a line straight out of the anti-abolitionist in America and many, many other places that have slavery or caste systems. Harry Potter kept almost being interesting and I had assumed that the story line would go somewhere before dropping for other reasons. I was pretty surprised when Hermione’s SPEW just fizzled out. I really should have know with a name like that.

If the house elves worked like where she supposedly got inspiration form, they’d be far, far more interesting. Like I said, Harry Potter is one of those stories that kept almost being interesting.

The thing about the House Elves is, she introduced the concept in one book without thinking too much about. Fans then asked her for details and instead of taking the easy route and saying that Slavery is Bad, she doubled down and said that it was perfectly fine. She tends to have petty responses to criticisms and questions. In one book, she introduces Time Travel and fans asked why the following book didn’t have time travel, so in the next book, the fat kid knocked over the table that had all the time travel on it, so no one could use it again. She also wrote a whole book about an author who was being bullied on social media.

Tolkien used his fantasy races as metaphors for real life races/ethnic groups, but was fairly kind to them, considering his time. IIRC, Dwarves were repressive of Jews and while it doesn’t look good that the Dwarves greed for gold was their downfall, a deeper read, it was specifically a certain king that lead them to their downfall and not a trait of the race itself. I’m not a Tolkien head, so I might be getting some wires crossed.

I started looking further into this because a friend of mine, which is a total HP nerd, was trying to give me some context on where her anti-trans activism comes from.

You deliberately found someone with strong bias to get info from? Maybe you should think about that.

I also understand that sex and gender are separate, and Rowling seems to be on the train that conflates it, which might be the basis for her position.

I think you need to back up a little more on Rowling. If you start dissecting her works, you’ll see she has born/birth/blood nature being a reoccurring theme. Hagrid is naturally angry. Voldemort is evil because he was a rape baby. House Elves are natural slavesservants. The Weasley family will always be poor(even when Harry should be paying rent or at least buying them a new car). Hell, the Irish character keeps blowing things up. Things are the way they are at birth and anyone who pushes against the natural order is wrong. Hermione Granger, the other outside to magical society took issue with the House Elves being treated as slaves and everyone, including the House Elves and Harry Potter, the first outsider and someone who should have no bias for slavery, treated her as being annoying and wrong for caring.(Also remember when JK implied that Hermione could be Black? Yeah, this isn’t a good look.)

If you want a deep dive into Rowling’s writings that isn’t centered on the trans issue, check out Shaun’s review of her total body of work at the time.

Tow trucks have never cared about wrecking their cargo before. Why should they care for Cybertrucks?

Shaun pointed out how mean spirited the books were as well. I remember back when there was a mini satanic panic targeting the HP books and Philip Pullman came out and said that his books were way more anti-religion and that he should have been getting that attention.

The first book was… fine I guess. Nothing ground breaking and the weirdness was still shallow and hadn’t created a pattern yet. I was really surprised that Voldemort became the reoccurring villain. He’s just a boring villain.

The batteries could be salvaged and used for something useful.

Tow them and fine them. Simple as that.

Read them with a little media literacy. Birth/Blood nature keeps coming up and was one the reasons I was getting uncomfortable with the story and dropped half way though. Hagrid is naturally angry. Voldemort is evil because he was a rape baby. House Elves are natural slavesservants. The Weasley family will always be poor(even when Harry should be paying rent or at least buying them a new car). Hell, the Irish character keeps blowing things up. This mind set in her writing reflects to JK’s views on trans. You are the way you are at birth.

I know a trans person who still consumes HP media. I didn’t respect them before they came out and transitioned and I sure as hell not going to start now. They’ve always been a selfish Adult Child and they’ll never stop being one.

I would like to know how Marc Laidlaw was going to end the story. Well, we have Epistle Three, but it’s not the same as if he had stayed on board. Entropy: Zero Two is staying closer to what Marc Laidlaw’s laid out in Epistle Three then anything Alyx decided to do.

Hell, I’ve become disinterested in the Halo franchise because of the revolving door of writers constantly throwing out the previous team’s ideas. The moment new writers come in, the line between canon and fanon starts blurring.

All their games are tests for different technologies or business models. In hindsight, Gabe has never cared about the story of Half-Life. He just happened to have hired a good writer for HL1 and HL2 by accident. It’s why I’m more interested in the fanon then the canon at this point. Half-Life: Echoes and Entropy: Zero are criminally underplayed.

Pass.

Especially if it’s anything like the story of Alyx.

edit: Apparently, not liking a fanfiction.net tier story that undoes the emotionally charged ending of the last game and brings back a character who’s voice acgtor died is a contentious opinion. Well, it’s not like new-Valve gives a shit about VAs reprising their roles. They couldn’t be bother to ask Merle Dandridge to come back in any capacity.

If Alyx required a VR headset, Half-Life 3 is gonna require that brainchip.