BBC series Merlin was a little like this. King Uther hated magic, Prince Arthur was kinda against it because he was told it was dangerous, but didn't exactly hate it himself. Meanwhile Merlin took a job as a servant, doing magic-y things to protect him. Wasn't a great series (writing), but it had enjoyable aspects.

Netflix literally will not take my money anymore. I had cancelled my subscription during covid because money was tight, but I was willing to temporarily re-subscribe when the next season of select shows came out. I tried to re-enable my original account, but I couldn't because they wouldn't accept my credit card. I tried different cards, then tried to make new accounts with different emails and different credit cards, but still couldn't. Netflix kept rejecting all my cards. I ran out of credit cards.

Look, I was willing to give Netflix my money, it's not my fault they were unwilling to take it.

I was sad because my friend was dying in the hospital. My manager noticed my demeanour and asked what's wrong. She asked me if I needed to be there, but I said there's nothing to be done.

Later that day I got a phone call from another friend saying it was the end. I put on my jacket and went to my manager's office. I didn't want to, but I started crying. She hugged me, got her jacket, and drove me to the hospital herself. (I didn't have a car then, I'd planned to take the bus.)

My friend died, and that was the saddest time ever in my life. But I'll always remember and appreciate the kindness my manager showed me.

To summarize a long story, I (a millennial) put in a task request to a Gen Xer, including step by step instructions. I knew what to do, I just don't have access to do it.

Xer told me that was the wrong service, it's this other one, he can't find the settings in the Other Service. We went back and forth a few times, he repeated I was wrong, until finally he showed me a screen capture from Other Service that showed "managed by service 1" that proved I was right in the first place.

If he were willingly to accept I might know what I'm talking about and looked at the instructions, it would have been done in minutes instead of dragging it out over 11 days.

Obviously this is a hand picked anecdote, but yeah, bosses and non- boss elders definitely get in the way of productivity.

Yeah, I was 22 years old when my mother sat me down for "the talk", and even then, it only consisted of "don't go to bed with someone". LITERALLY nothing more than that. I just looked at her cockeyed and told her she was pretty late for this talk. And of course the talk itself was just so sub par.

This is utterly ridiculous and such a thinly veiled racism. It's disgusting that a school principal and members of the school board collectively want to punish this kid so badly for being black they'd go to court to do it.

If there's a go fund me or other fundraiser for court costs for this kid and his family, I'd gladly throw money at it.

The messages got from it are:

"the patriarchy" is not a good thing, but even the idealized "the matriarchy" has problems too, and whatever we have going on right now isn't really working

a man's value is inherent to himself, it doesn't come from a job or a relationship. (I suppose this applies to women too, but it was Ken who had to learn this lesson).

Men need to support each other more rather than compete with each other

Societal expectations for women are impossible to attain

Duolingo does have that function. It's much more obvious on desktop web, but in the phone app, you tap the notebook icons to the right of the headings. I mean, they're not necessarily excellent explanations, but they're there.

Refusing to use nail polish remover to clean off permanent marker because that's "for women". It's acetone, my dude, acetone.

Get this: my friend is "not allowed" to be left alone with his daughter. His own daughter. If wife needs to go out without baby, baby gets dropped off at grandparents (wife's parents) instead of just staying home with dad. What's even more ridiculous is his profession is early childhood educator. He's more qualified than most other parents out there, male or female. I don't know how he puts up with being insulted like that.

You might enjoy "A Christmas Movie Christmas", where the protagonists wake up and find themselves as the protagonists in a Christmas movie reality. It's a comedy where you basically laugh at the troops while they call themselves out on it.

I don't hate Google, I am deeply suspicious of Google.