Most often when a film is both booed and applauded, the boos come from members of the audience who don’t want their film to to conform too much to the real world. Thus when any sense of reality intrudes – as the real-life dialogue coaching being integrated into the film itself – they automatically hate it.

And of course when a film doesn’t hew to the conventions of Hollywood happily-ever-after, a large portion of the audience despises it straight away, too.

I suspect though I have not seen it yet that this film is too real for many in the audience, in the sense that Johansson actually approached real, unknowing men and asked them to get in her van. That and the other bits of reality incorporated into the film unsettles the weak-minded, I think. Of course it is designed to unsettle, and those elements are what might make this film great.

Can’t wait to see it.

When authors and musicians condemn piracy, they like to believe – for some reason – that 100% of that is lost sales.

In reality, probably less than 1% of pirated material represents a lost sale. I’d guess somewhere around 0.25% or so, but I can’t find any good formal studies.

If I were an author, I’d only hope my work would be widely pirated. For budding authors especially, exposure is far more important than anything else.

When motherfuckers start paying me to look at ads, I might consider it.

Until then, I won’t see any ads on the computer I paid for, viewed on the monitor I paid for, on the internet connection I paid for, in the dwelling I am paying for.

That websites have not or cannot find a way to monetize themselves that works better than ads is not my problem. Just because you want me to look at your ads is not my problem. Your busted-ass business model is also not my problem.

If every website in the world disappears because ads are being blocked, so be it. Ads are a plague and should not be viewed by anyone.

I am always surprised that people are surprised that the Retina display makes so much difference.

I think it’s because they get used to their old, crappy displays and don’t realize that things could be much, much better. Sort of like when you get used to a dirty windshield and don’t notice it anymore until you wipe it clean.

My new 15″ MacBook has a “Retina” screen, which I la­beled a good “solution to a #firstworldproblem”. Now that I’ve had the Retina-vs-not dif­fer­ence shoved in my face, I re­al­ize it’s more dra­mat­ic than you might think.

Other than the SSD I started using, the Retina iPad and MacBook Pro I’ve been using has been the single best upgrade I’ve done in my computing life. And I’ve been on the receiving end up upgrades or doing them myself for 33 years now, so I have just a bit of experience (yep, started using a computer when I was four.)

I can read nearly twice as fast on my iPad as I can on my still very-good Cinema Display. And really, my Cinema Display doesn’t look very good all next to the MacBook RD or the iPad.

When 4K monitors get just slightly more mature, I will be buying one no question. It will improve my computing life immensely.

The first season of The Walking Dead was mediocre at best. Unfortunately, it was also beset with quite a large dose of sexism and misogyny and didn’t have nearly enough stories about women (who would, duh, be half of the survivors so they should get half the stories). I almost gave up on the show after that point.

But then season two improved greatly, and after that it has continued to get better and better, both in terms of storytelling and allowing women to have full lives on screen.

And then season four.

Damn.

The whole season was great, with several moments where I was thinking I cannot believe that just happened on an American TV show. Not even anything gory, necessarily, but just something utterly unconventional and shocking yet utterly appropriate to the story. (Very had to do, by the way, so kudos to the writers.)

“The Grove” is the third best episode of any TV show I have ever seen, behind two episodes of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

I’m difficult to surprise and even harder to shock, but a few times it was like I didn’t even want to look at the screen.

And then the last scene.

“Just look at the flowers, Lizzie.”

Melissa McBride as Carol just could not be any better. She amazes me with the lines she walks and how deftly she does so. She seems like someone you might meet on the street, at a café, might overhear talking in the grocery store.

Just don’t look at the flowers if she asks you to.