I think, since future Bill and Ted appear to the earlier Bill and Ted, and Rufus directly assists in creating his future, I think we have to assume that all of those historical figures always experienced those things, and then returned to their timelines with knowledge of the future. Napoleon rode the waterloops before Waterloo. Socrates played catch with Billy the Kid. Those are historical events, as much as Rufus and Future Bill and Ted helping present Bill and Ted pass their classes.

With one linear timeline, you basically have Back to the Future rules. You can go back and change things, even if it rewrites you out of existence. Of course, there are some logical paradoxes that arise from that theory of time, so most versions rely on some delayed repair mechanism, like how the photo of Marty slowly disappears, or how The Ancient One explains the Time Stone to Professor Hulk. Time Cop, Butterfly Effect, and Looper do the same, with changes going into immediate effect like old injuries becoming later scars in real time, but erasing yourself really ought to be devastating to spacetime itself. I liked the concept in Butterfly Effect where the time traveler experiences all the memories of their new life in the altered timeline with every new change, but then they abandon the hard sci-fi aspect to get cute with stigmata. Donnie Darko probably handles it the best, where time travel itself creates a universe-ending paradox that requires the destruction of the time traveler.

Essentially, you jump from now back to another location in spacetime where you didn’t exist the first time around. If you overlap with yourself, you’re either going to gain a new retroactive memory, or there’s some magical maguffin that erased the memory (like the Tardis does for the Doctor), or some universal force reconciles the timestream and eliminates the paradox.

It depends on how you imagine time travel and causality. Is it a stable time loop? Or do you visit another version of reality with different outcomes? When you travel, are you unraveling the course of history to be redone? Or are you visiting an unyielding etching of the timespace continuum? If time is a set of dimensions, as all modern physics supports, then theoretically it wouls be possible to move through those dimensions in all directions. Special relativity confirms that movement affects how you move through time, but if you go backwards in time, you are still moving forward from your own reference point. That’s the only way to retain your memories.

If something is free, then you’re the product. Your data will be used for whatever the storage provider would like. For example, Google Photos was initially very generous with storage, because they were using your photos to train their recognition software. Gmail is reading your emails to build out your advertising profile. Your data is a commodity, and your privacy, if you protect it, is valuable.

The best way to do what you’re asking for, to ensure privacy and security, is to self-host. There’s an initial cost, and some maintenance fees over time, but you’ll also be investing in learning valuable skills in your free time.

Not for nothing, but those reality shows are often staged. If they “find” something interesting and potentially valueable every episode, you can bet it was probably planted. Most people store old furniture and clothing in storage units, and people probably wouldn’t even recognize their own stuff. A box of old coats? A generic cherry armoire from the 1980s? Old documents? Even bulky sporting goods like skis and golf clubs don’t have any actual value.

That’s not to say they never find something valuable, but they might obfuscate where exactly it came from to try to reduce lawsuits. If they find anything that could be easily identified by the original owner, especially if it is extremely valuable, they aren’t going to put that into the show at all.

Oh I see. And that’s a fair observation. Especially online, it’s become edgy and cool to take the side of a CEO assassin, while it’s still touchy to vocally defend the Castro regime. But you will find people, notably Cubans who fled to America, who were directly affected by Castro and the Cuban government. I don’t know any health insurance CEOs, so that might be a factor in the discourse you hear.

But again, it’s not like these are the same people. Support for the Cuban government isn’t a cause celebre because Fidel Castro has been dead for almost a decade, and few Americans could even tell you who the current President is. Luigi is a source of engagement, the currency of social media. Some Americans only recently learned about Venezuela because we’re about to invade their country.

Support them? Like how, with money? Votes? Attending rallies? Because no, I don’t actively support any of those countries. I do think each country has the sovereign right of self-determination, and I oppose my country’s efforts to overthrow or undermine those governments.

I also oppose authoritarian dictatorships like the DPRK and the Trump administration.

As far as Luigi is concerned, I do not condone murder, but I also don’t think he’s guilty of murder. I think the oligarchy needed to find the killer, even if they didn’t find the actual killer, and planted all the evidence against Luigi.

I’m a Western leftist, and neither of these positions represent me. I do know people who are represented by one or the other, but I don’t know anyone who is both. Are you sure you’re not just conflating the loudest voices as being from the same people?

Based on what? Twitter? Polling? And what do you mean “support Luigi”? Because while I don’t condone murder, I am not convinced he murdered anyone. I think the oligarchy is trying to make an example of him and unintentionally made him a martyr.

I’m not sure why you’d assume that these are the same person.

Yes, obviously.

So is Matthew Lillard. The whole thing feels oddly personal. Like if he had said “I didn’t like Dano in There Will Be Blood” you could understand that’s just a professional opinion. Maybe he thought someone else could have done better. But making it insulting undercuts his credibility as an impartial critic.

Criticism is fine, when you’re talking about someone’s work and how to improve it. Calling someone “weak” and “the worst actor in the SAG” is deeply personal and insulting.

Revealing a personal bias in a professional setting belies unprofessional attitudes and prejudices. Tarantino isn’t a critic, he’s a filmmaker and an influential voice in the industry. Taking pot shots at a couple of B-list character actors is hurtful on a personal level, and wantonly destructive on a professional level. The power dynamic between producers and actors is massively unbalanced. It would be like the CEO where you work talking shit on LinkedIn about project managers at a rival company. If he’s saying this publicly, what is he saying behind the scenes? Is he trashing actors to casting directors to influence their careers?

He has every right to say “I don’t want these people in my movies.” It would also be professional to say “I did not like this specific performance for these specific reasons.” It’s extremely unprofessional to say “I hate these people because of who they are and anyone working with them is on my shit-list.”

He also took some totally unnecessary shots at Paul Dano, saying he was the worst actor in the SAG. That’s a bizarrely personal attack out of nowhere on a guy you never worked with.

I read the book, and there were so many not-so-subtle hints early in the book that it seemed like it wasn’t supposed to be a surprise. I think the show made it more of a reveal, but if you know literally anything about Odin or norse mythology (even the Marvel version) the clues were substantial.

I can’t let go of dangling plot threads, so either I’m meta-gaming the twist like “Well, there’s only three recognizable actors, and one is the obvious decoy, so it’s either A or B so let’s review every choice they made so far and see if it benefits the villain.”

And then I’m either right and the end is spoiled, or I’m wrong and they are just going to leave that plot thread unresolved like a broken toenail in your sock that doesn’t come out in the wash.

I swear to god, I wasn’t lying when I said I would do it. I wanted to do it. I still want to do it. It will not take that much time to get it done. I had every intention of doing it. I know it’s not done, and I know how that looks, and I’m sorry. It is not at all a reflection of my respect for you. No, I haven’t started yet.

His new moniker is Lapp Dogg

For years, I had my own headcanon for the Labyrinth movie. In the scene, the young Sarah correctly solves the riddle, passes through the correct door, says “This is a piece of cake!” and then she immediately falls down a pit of doom. This confused me, because she got the answer right. So I reasoned that the guards were both liars, and because they both participated in explaining the rules, they were lying about the rules.

It was only a few years ago that I read in an interview that the Labyrinth (or Jareth) dropped her down the hole because she said it was a piece of cake. It was her arrogance that set her back, not that she got the riddle wrong.

But now it still bothers me that the liar, whichever one he is, helps explain the rules of the scenario. If he always lies, then she can’t trust that either of them ever tells the truth. The rules have to be described separately, like on a sign or by a disinterested third party. Or you could phrase it differently, like “One of us will answer your question truthfully, and one of us will answer your question dishonestly.” That way you avoid saying that they always lie, and specify that the lie will only be in response to the one question.

Fuck, I’ve had too much coffee. How the fuck did I get up on this soapbox? Why are you still reading? Go do something productive.

There have been several high-profile systemic failures in the past few years that give us a glimpse into the hypothetical you’re describing. Most interruptions have lasted mere hours, if not minutes, before causing mass panic and devastating economic catastrophes. Planes are grounded, banks stop operations, global trade shuts down, and hospitals can’t access patient records.

The question isn’t how long before it would be a huge problem. That starts immediately. The better question is, how long before people adapt to a world without the internet? How long would it take to build an alternative?