Ran

@karaddin My understanding is that the vast majority of transwomen do not have the surgery, and I'd guess this goes for transwomen athletes as well. But as I said, a one-size-fits-all policy doesn't seem right -- there's all kinds of transwomen, including those who do not take hormones, much less don't have gender-affirming surgeries. But the point of the research I linked is that even with well-controlled testosterone, there are physical advantages puberty gives that don't disappear at all. Skeletal structure isn't going to change, density of muscle nuclei is not changing or changing only very slowly, etc.

On Blackthorne:

Transwomen athletes retain sizable physical advantages over ciswomen (the Air Force data is particularly interesting), and their "advantage" comes from having been born in the 50% who are the opposite sex. This isn't like Michael Phelps, a freak of nature with half a dozen weird genetic traits that all combine to make him the best competitive swimmer ever -- the vast majority of his advantage versus female swimmers comes simply from having been born male and having undergone puberty, the rest is just the gravy that put him over the top of other elite male competitors. Hormonalization does not reduce transwomens' elite athletic performance sufficiently to put them on an even playing field with their ciswomen sisters in many sports according to the way sports work now. I agree, a one-size-fits-all ban is inappropriate. Different sports will see different variations in advantage, or even none at all -- I follow competitive horse jumping (Henrik von Eckermann won the world cup final again, second year in a row!) and no one would care about a transwoman competitor. Hell, they probably already exist. But then, there's no gender divisions because it doesn't actually matter to performance. But in the sports where it does matter, and there are many, well, it does matter to competitors in those sports, and they have a right to be treated fairly. In the US and UK, yes, but I have to say that the Nordics, Germany, etc. are much less affected by the politics of the Anglosphere. But who says we can't look at these aspects separately? Attributing opposition to unfair inclusion of some transgender athletes in some female sports to being a proxy for discomfort with the existence of trans individuals looks a lot like an ad hominem to me. I happily accept their existence, for reasons both obvious and probably unobvious. I expect you, too, do so. But with increased visibility and acceptance, it is incumbent on society to actually figure out where fairness lies for everybody. Fairness in sport, in medical care, under the law, etc.

Well, yes. Women have far more limited financial opportunities in sports, as you so smartly point out. Which makes fairness all that much more important, for those who want to make careers or go to schools in athletic scholarships.

Does Mechwarrior have the AI companion/co-pilot of the mech/exoskeletion chatting with you? I don't recall that from when I last played the games, but it's a big part of Titanfall.

I feel like I would put money on the odds that at least one of the writers/creators/producers has played Titanfall.

I'm not sure one needs to do it just to win a medal. It's enough that the result is you might win a medal and you act on it. Laurel Hubbard comes to mind. She's someone who, pre-transition, was a junior national competitor (never competed internationally) and stopped competing in 2001, and then nearly two decades later started again, entered international competition for the first time, and won a place to compete in the Olympics, bumping Samoa's Iuniarra Sipaia (she's qualified for the 2024 Olympics, it turns out, so good on her). She didn't go through it all just to win a medal, but it's a pretty extraordinary journey for someone who had stopped competing entirely two decades earlier. (ETA: I should hasten to add that Hubbard did nothing wrong. She competed under the rules that existed at that time. The rules simply were wrong from a competitive fairness sense.) Hubbard bombed out at the Olympics, but then again she was in her mid-40s at the time, a decade or two older than her competitors. If there are monetary prizes, sponsorship money, endorsement money, and/or scholarships involved, sports that have traditionally divided the sexes should probably still do so, at least until such time as we come up with some alternative categorization of competition (.e.g handicap systems) to level the field. For things like youth sports (at lower levels, anyways) and intramural co-ed sports, safety should really be the only consideration. As to those who say, well, does it really matter, it's just sports... By 2028, global sports are expected to be a $680 billion industry. People make careers out of it. In the US, young athletes can get scholarships that may change the courses of their lives. Unfair competition for these opportunities is, well, unfair, and does actually matter to those people.

Still funny now, IMO. But these Deadpool movies really do nothing for me, and this seems no different, even with Jackman as Wolverine wearing the original costume.

Star Wars TV programs since Disney bought Lucasfilm that are kid-friendly: The Clone Wars (return), Rebels, Resistance, The Bad Batch, Visions, Tales, Young Jedi Adventures, The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wab Kenobi, Ahsoka, the forthcoming The Acolyte and Skeleton Crew, Jedi Temple Challenge Star Wars TV programs since Disney bought Lucasfilm that are not kid-friendly: Andor. Let the adults have one serious dramatic TV show. Some of us even like (some of) the other stuff.

Nope. Move along, move along.

Andor is a lot deeper, thematically-speaking, which may be where you're running into a road block, much as with the ending of Cyberpunk 2077.

Even expanded access requires that a regulatory body signs off on there being sufficient understanding to know the probable risks and benefits in relation to the risks of harms for not giving it. It's a lot easier to give someone compassionate access to a possible life-saving drug or procedure when the evidence is very clear that the alternative is likely death. In this case, neither harms nor benefits are really understood very well. As to puberty blockers, it's interesting that the German countries have come up with their own guidelines. One decision they've made is that long-running gender dysphoria in childhood is not a reason to prescribe puberty blockers prior to the onset of puberty, as they see evidence that the hormonal jolt of puberty can resolve dysphoria. Only if dysphoria persists for some period after the onset of puberty would they conside the use of blockers to halt the process.

In Sweden and Finland, the results of their findings and their recommendations were that because of the low evidence base, blockers and hormones should only be given to minors in research contexts, i.e. with the intention of collecting data to improve medical knowledge. This is something that, as I understand it, is a difference between the care that had been given in the UK previously, where detailed outcome results have not been collected for study despite no one really knowing anything about the outcomes of these relatively novel approaches to treating children. I imagine your father's experimental care are part of research and clinical trials where he's signing on board with having his results shared for the advancement of knowledge, and I think even he might question the ethics of receiving experimental care without an appropriate protocol to help understand the efficacy of that care. I think the situation is said to be even worse in the US regarding this care for minors, per the NYT's reporting. Very, very little oversight or data collection in relation to what one would want for any care with a low evidence base.

As Sweden and Finland were mentioned up thread, I think it's relevant to remark that the review has been in the news here as our countries were cited as outliers. Why? Well, per the Cass review, the Endocrine Society and WPATH collaborated with one another on their guidelines, which when released were unsurprisingly complimentary to one another. Then various countries adopted protocols based on their readings of those guidelines. And then when WPATH released WPATH 8, it cited these various countries' protocols and the Endocrine Society's guidelines (which were based on WPATH 7 and the Endocrine Society recommendations written in association with WPATH) as support for their latest guidelines. The Cass review cited thie circularity of this as an obvious issue. Sweden and Finland stood out for doing fully independent systematic reviews with a high level of rigor, and were also the only examined national health institutes that included ethical reviews as part of their process in determining their recommendations. So, yes, a bunch of nations could indeed very easily have found themselves in a position of recommending care with a very low evidence base. That's I think the main point of the review's findings.

Tim Cain on the show, with some thought on seeming lore changes. He's fairly cool with it all, but

A moment of digging in his Substack and you will see that, no, he was not for Trump. He thought Trump was as bad as every other politician, that he's as involved in the "global Ponzi scheme" alongside Peter Thiel, the Clintons, the Bushes, Elon Musk, etc. He was a fairly typical Illuminati-style conspiracy theorist, who with great conviction burned himself alive to try and open our eyes.

Apparently the person identified actually posted on Substack with a manifesto that his action was a protest against the impending fascist takeover of the American government. If I'm reading this right, some of his evidence suggests that Conan O'Brien (writer of the cited Simpsons episode, "Marge vs. the Monorail") was deeply involved in the criminal enterprise that is Harvard which is emblematic of the larger conspiracy to defraud Americans and take over the continent I think we should all be glad he didn't take the more typical US approach of finding a gun and taking some people with him.

I welcome people putting together a list of legitimate links to GRRM's stories at still-active online magazines, and archive.org links may be okay too. But it's obvious when a text is pirated, and we do not want links to anything like that.

Half way through Apple+'s Sugar, the "genre-bending" neo-noir detective show created by Mark Protosevich (writer of Tarsem Singh's The Cell, wrote the Will Smith I Am Legend, and the Spike Lee-directed adaptation of Oldboy) and starring Colin Farrell as the titular John Sugar, a private detective who is very good at finding lost people, a polyglot with a fanatical level of interest in Hollywood films who detests carrying guns, and a genuinely nice dude who keeps going out of his way to help people he runs into in passing. The first two episode are directed by Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles, best known for the magnificent City of God, and his aesthetic is rife through the show -- lots of interesting editing choices and camera angles, and (uniquely) a heavy use of vintage films as B-roll or commentary on events no doubt inspired by Sugar's deep love of Hollywood cinema. It reminds me of nothing less than the old HBO sitcom, Dream On, but it's not played for laughs, it's just a sign of how Sugar's mind free associates. But... there's a twist, as "genre-bending" might suggest, and so far it's not clear. It seems to tie into Sugar, into the fact that he occasionally gets weird cramps or numbness, weird flashes of visions, and there's something about a society of polyglots that he's part of... Theories abound. Simon Kinberg is an executive producer on this, which may suggest the direction of the twist. It's fun. Not too deep, a little stiff at times (but this may be on purpose), but Farrell is such a charismatic, interesting actor. Also appearing on the show are James Cromwell, Amy Ryan, and -- after a couple of episodes -- Anna Gunn, among others.

Plemons brought them to the costume fitting himself and asked what they thought if his character wore them, per the costume designer. He came in last minute because another actor backed out of the role, and since he was hanging around set anyways Kirsten suggested that they ask him to fill in. By all accounts, a very successful piece of nepotism.

Folks, piracy is piracy. I see someone else offer links to pirated texts, they will be banned. I know the intent is good, but just about every story of George's is in print and available to read legitimately.

Netflix revealed that S4 will be filmed back to back with the final season, S5.

Did not know anything about Transformer One. So basically applying the LEGO Movie formula to Transformers... could work.

All of the novels are worth reading, IMO, but my favorite remains Fevre Dream despite what flaws it has compared to Armageddon Rag which really is a very, very strong book. But the short fiction is the best stuff of all. In the 70s, George had a run there where I've seen critics opine that he was among the top short fiction writers in the genre in that era. "The Way of Cross and Dragon", "Seven Times Never Kill Man", "Bitterblooms", "The Stone City", "Meathouse Man", and on and on. Dreamsongs is a great book to pick up if you're interested in the short fiction.

Watched The Sympathizer, Park Chan-Wook's adaptation for HBO of the Pulitzer winning novel of the same name by Viet Thanh Nguyen. Robert Downey Jr. features as a CIA agent who interacts with the lead character, known only as the Captain, played by Hoa Xuande, who is a North Vietnamese mole inside the South Vietnamese secrete police. It's shot with Park's typical verve and style, cutting back and forth in time, and features a pretty nail-biting sequence as the Fall of Saigon begins and people are rushing the American air base to try and get one of the last flights out. It's quite good.