Violation review – a brutal and brilliant debut.

I agree that Madeleine Sims-Fewer gave a remarkable performance, but I don’t agree with the “brilliant” description. This movie sabotaged itself by its own worst tendencies. Too much of it is a disconnected pastiche of genre tropes interspersed with absolutely brilliant moments. I think with a re-edit this film could be improved greatly, though I doubt the lack lies with the editor: I am sure Gabriella Wallace did exactly what the directors asked her to, but it was just not right for this film.

That said, this film does some unique and very disarming things, and it’s worth watching because there aren’t many movies like this one. It’s a dirty little dark star of dread and dismay. Despite the fact that I don’t think the work was completely successful, its brilliant moments combined with Sims-Fewer’s performance make this one to watch for its virtues while ignoring its sins.

literally, my thought designing this party was “i love rationalists, but i dont wanna go to another party where they just talk about stuff like global trade. i’m gonna try to design a situation where there’s no possible way they will talk about global trade” https://t.co/YUUlNUa77P

— Aella (@Aella_Girl) March 27, 2021

Naked prudes are still prudes; can’t change a culture by just altering an external facet. It’s much harder and takes far longer than that.

People are in general much more boring than they were in the 1980s and early 1990s (and I understand even more the case in the 1970s, but I wasn’t old enough). Part of that is the difference in the cohort I was around. Upper middle class people are just more humdrum and uninteresting in general, but part of it is real deep cultural change, and quite a lot of it.

No need for such conspiracies

First, it looks like you’re not going to be naturally immune from an infection forever

Second, governments and citizens will line up for voluntary vaccinations https://t.co/0mRWBCk1eh

— Trishank Karthik Kuppusamy (@trishankkarthik) March 28, 2021

Lord, people understand almost nothing about anything.

The vaccines actually provoke a better immune response than the virus itself and probably provide longer-lasting immunity too!

The Coronavirus Variants Don’t Seem to Be Highly Variable So Far. SARS-CoV-2 may be settling into a limited set of mutations.

That’s good news. My guess is that the variants won’t amount to much in the grand scheme of things.

US only: cases will rise some through mid-April though hospitalization and deaths will decline, with no Mega-Surge of Doom, and then all will start decreasing greatly due to vaccination and seasonality. Booster shots will need to be taken every year with risk of re-infection increasing in those with weaker immune systems significantly after that time.

Around December, there will be a small surge due to seasonality and the anti-vaxxers. Eventually, after 3-4 years or so, there will only be small flare-ups.

Mozilla plans to remove the Compact Density option from Firefox’s Customize menu.

Yet another fail. A small one, but removing customization options is in the main reason why the browser has been abandoned by users. I don’t know why every modern crapplication insists on making the UI so large. Just terrible.

The most customizable Firefox EVARRRR!!!!

Relatedly, I’ve noted basically no one in tech is aware of the term “trilemma” (aka “impossible trinity”) from economics — a choice with 3 worthy options, but you can only pick 2.

This continues to surprise me given its applicability in comp sci (e.g. with the CAP theorem).

— Kelly Shortridge (@swagitda_) March 24, 2021

I don’t think that’s true.

Nearly everyone in tech knows the old saw that goes, “Do you want it fast, cheap or good? Pick two.” Maybe that’s only in infrastructure, though I’ve heard programmers use that trilemma very frequently.

Those who characterise a 'maximum suppression' strategy as a 'lockdown strategy' and who paint those of us who support it as 'lockdown fanatics' miss the point entirely. The whole point is that it is the only effective 'anti-lockdown' strategy available. https://t.co/cfcdLffwOi pic.twitter.com/sWZeN4zRYN

— Stephen Reicher (@ReicherStephen) March 25, 2021

Most of that is fantasy in most places, and some of it is just wrong. But it’s interesting to see what the techo-weenie fantasy of the pandemic is, rather than what actually works or is likely to work in most countries on the ground.

But the below is absolute horseshit:

And, of course, the vaccines make infection suppression much easier. But even using optimistic assumptions about take up and effectiveness, relying on vaccines alone would leave the R at approximately 1.6 and using more middling assumptions it would be 2.5…

— Stephen Reicher (@ReicherStephen) March 25, 2021

That’s just not even remotely true, even with variants tossed in. This is a scare tactic, like “masks don’t work and you shouldn’t wear them” at the start of the pandemic.

The reality is that once we hit around 50% vaccination in the US, the R will be about 0.7 or so and cases will start rapidly declining. Believe this mook, you will spend your time hurting more people and destroying their mental health even more.

I think a lot of people are in fact lockdown fanatics. They love the idea of it. It gives them a frisson and fantasy of control, of virtuous sacrifice to make a difference. It gets them all hot and bothered in away that pleases them. We must resist this and those people or it’ll be a world of eternal lockdowns (already probably inevitable in some places).

Wow, she’s really good. Neutral mic and no backing. That’s talent.