The hardest part for me in attempting to actually speak more French (rather than just read or write it) is that French stresses most often the last syllable on words, and English is the exact opposite. Pronunciation itself for me is easy. The syllable stress difference is not for some reason.

I have definitely become a Mac snob as now when I am using Windows at work or on a secondary computer at home, I’m constantly thinking, “OMG what the hell is wrong with this computer?”

I have this reaction less often with XFCE, but even that has terrible support for many things I require.

Funny how often this works.

Todd Yellin is pretty sure his wife would have never watched Jessica Jones if he hadn’t tricked her. She’s not a fan of shows based on comic books, and even though he’s a Netflix exec, nepotism wouldn’t have been enough to make her tune in. Yet he knew she’d love it. So Yellin did what Netflix often does to woo users: He played to her interests by mentioning the strong female lead and rave reviews.

It worked. They were three episodes in before she noticed the Marvel logo that opens the show, but by that point she was hooked.

ABC did this with Lost, except to the entire nation. They somehow tricked millions of Americans who’d say they hate watching sf/fantasy into watching a very wacky (but great) sf/fantasy phantasmagoria for five whole years.

I try to trick myself this way. One of the reasons I will often watch or read something I “know” I won’t like is that I know that I don’t know my own preferences that well.

And I realize liberals (mostly) will hate this idea, but most people in general don’t know their own preferences all that well.

It’s why I listen to (some) Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus now. It’s something I “knew” I wouldn’t like.

I was wrong.

Most people have very delusional ideas about nearly everything, including themselves.

This is better than the Bieber version, which I like ok. This is the non-radio-friendly version which improves it.

She’s got that smoky tough voice that also makes it work so much better. I think though that this is one song that really didn’t need to change keys at the end. It should just be shorter.

Unfortunately, Lorde’s new album is terrible. It sounds like it was written by two mid-30s white men because it was written by two mid-30s white men. The music industry just consumes people. All originality, all boldness, all brilliance, sacrificed for the fickleness of the market and the illusion of what will sell or appeal.

I want Lorde’s voice, her thoughts, her essence, not what some dude thinks she should sound like.

But this cover is really good. Audio is ok, video is kind of potato.

I combined the images of Hurricane Andrew (1992) & Hurricane Irma (today) at scale in a gif. Irma is a damn leviathan. pic.twitter.com/4HEw1NNxxd

— Joel 🌮 (@JoelNihlean) September 7, 2017

Yeah, Irma is big, but there have been much larger hurricanes in the Caribbean and the Gulf in my lifetime. Still, it will be devastating.

Incidentally, the current forecast track of Irma shows it’ll pass through as a Category 2 where I grew up — literally through the city limits of Lake City, FL.