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This relates to a theory I have, which is that the archetypal Western Male Hero is James Bond, to the degree that people (Mainly straight white men) start to see every Western Male Hero as James Bond.

Which is to say an aggressively masculine, quip-spitting, hyper violent womanizer. The ultimate Male Power Fantasy. A new supermodel love interest (or two) every film, a gun in his hand, and no consequences for his actions.

Consider:

Captain Kirk: Painted as a headstrong idiot who spends all his time banging green skinned alien queens. In reality, a pretty firmly Feminist character.

Han Solo: Pictured as a suave too-cool-for-school scoundrel. Actually kind of a mess with a ship that's falling apart. He constantly has people after him, not because he's some sort of superscoundrel that makes powerful enemies, but because he makes deals with dangerous people, and then fails to live up to his end of the bargain. From what I recall, it's not even that he double-crosses them or anything, he just screws up.

Mad Max: To quote that one hilariously stupid review that helped make the movie so popular, "In the post-apocalyptic future, it's going to be MEN LIKE MAX THAT ARE IN CHARGE!" Max just wants to drive his car around the desert and be sad. He doesn't want any of this.

It's like, the Male Power Fantasy (as exemplified by James Bond) is so strong that we feel a need to cast everybody we can in that same mold.

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And here it comes again, that brittle frontier spirit, that lone lean guy in our heads, with a gun and a fear of encroachment. But he's picked up a few tricks along the way, has learned to come at us in a form we know and have forgotten to be suspicious of, from TV: famous, likably cranky, a fan of winning by any means necessary, exploiting our recent dullness and our aversion to calling stupidity stupidity, lest we seem too precious.

The tie-in with anti-"Political Correctness" is telling.

Here's the un-PC truth, Trump fans: he's kind of a con artist, and you've been conned. There's no shame in being conned unless you refuse to admit you are - this country has its problems, but none so bad that Trump is a good answer.

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Minor first-world-problem ‪#‎nerdrage‬ news: looks like last month, Samsung Smart TVs and Skype parted ways. Not that we used it much, but it was amusing to give the living room something feeling like the main screen on the Enterprise on Christmas Day.

Trying to figure out if there's ANY use for this camera now - and it was expensive-ish custom hardware, of course, heaven forfend they have let use a cheap usb webcam.

All-in-One Smart TVs always felt like kind of a poor idea to me - violating the old unix "do one job, do it well" principle, and tying in the simple utility of a nice big screen with wonky UIs and vendor lock-in.