The first ten on today’s playlist:
Day: October 16, 2023, 10:31 PM
How To Talk
This film was so much better than No One Will Save You. By no means perfect, but it told a cohesive, gripping story that only had a few missteps. Such a contrast to the mess that was No One. The main flaw of Talk To Me is that it either needed to be a good bit shorter or quite a bit longer. By that, I mean that there were tantalizing hints of explanation never realized that would’ve been better off cut how they were presented, or expanded upon fully.
I liked that the movie was pretty nasty. It was not a feel-good tale (spoiler alert) where the protagonist triumphed in the end. Oh, she definitely developed as a character, and was changed, but not enough; she still mostly failed and was nearly-useless when it counted the most.
Like most people, like life. Good film with a real sting.
Hosanna
I can’t help making fun of these clowns (reference my post below):
The name “Josh” comes from the name “Joshua” which is a transliteration of the Hebrew Yehoshua, literally “the Lord is salvation.” This author knew exactly why they named the character “Josh” and the person above is a motherfucking douchenugget.
When I am Galactic Overload, I am banning idiots.
Duncan
What’s a character name that you hate?
Some of these are funny, amusing and true, but a lot of people in this thread don’t really understand how culture and language work, and how that evolution progresses — or does not — over the long term. Some are criticizing the character names in Dune, when I find those the most plausible of sf universes. Dune isn’t like Star Wars. It’s explicitly stated to be an evolution of this planet’s culture, just 10,000 years into the future.
I’d expect names like Paul, Jessica, et al. to continue 10,000 years and far more as they have been around thousands of years already. And since a lot of culture in Dune is just a farrago of tales and names and such from a past they don’t really understand, I also find “Duncan Idaho” to be a completely plausible name.
In real life — not in fiction — some Dutch people have very funny names indeed.
If that were fictional, many people would find it utterly implausible. Yet here we are.
Only Neg
Why do men make an extra effort to not look at (or make eye contact) with me in public?
I see a variant of this question frequently on Reddit and other places, and the answer is: this is what women have told men they want! So that’s what good men do. Sometimes it’s even contractually stipulated:
Meanwhile, the bad men don’t give a crap so those are the only ones women will have any interactions with. Women have accidentally but in a very real way created a terrible equilibrium where they’ve guaranteed they will only have negative interactions with men. Good work!
Same, same:
Meanwhile women can and do get away with all manner of creepy-ass shit like recording guys in the gym hoping they will glance at her for a picosecond. Makes no sense.
Look For
No matter what you think of Bernie Sanders, I agree with Dave Winer that this might be the best political ad of all time. Dang that’s some high-level propaganda jiu jitsu there (all political ads are propaganda, definitionally).
The below isn’t a political ad, though near that demesne — but this is my favorite ad in that realm of all all time, because it shows what we could be if we wanted to.