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Post by Youngster Joey on Dec 11, 2019 11:32:08 GMT -5
Yeah, I dunno. It might be easier if you're explicitly coupled with someone else? If people know you're not available, that makes the prospect less enticing (and even if not, the topic wouldn't come up).
I'm ok with code not making sense because I'm not fully grokking it. I am not ok with code that I think is messy. One of the developers on my old team apparently used to have a thing about spacing of dictionary colons--I don't give two sh*ts about that and he could correct other people's colon spacing in his own spare time if he wanted to (which he did). That doesn't impact readability, really. When the way code is written hurts interpretation, I care (e.g., what is the point of abbreviating "count" to "ct"? It's not like "count" is that many letters...). That's a minor example, but when there is lots of stuff like that, it adds up IMO. Of course, you could argue it doesn't really matter... it works...
Anyway, I haven't played Pokemon at all. About two hours, clocked several weeks ago. I think it's safe to say I kind of don't care about the series anymore? Nothing the series did or anything, but I think I've fallen out of that genre. To be clear, I don't not care about the series (as opposed to, say, Tales, where I really don't give a sh*t), but I don't care. I may end up completing it, and I do like the series, but the drive to devour it isn't really there. Sorry, Pokemon. Good run.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Dec 15, 2019 14:10:02 GMT -5
Christmas paralysis.
Never know what to get people.
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Dec 15, 2019 14:25:00 GMT -5
My dad wanted a copy of the novel Les Miserables. I did some research, and sure enough there are like, 6 different translations. I told him to research the translations and pick one out, stressing that it's actually pretty important to pick the right one. I haven't heard back since.
He gets nothing. EZ Christmas.
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Derman
Oracle Knight
I still don't have a knife tag on my golden birth knife
Posts: 194
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Post by Derman on Dec 16, 2019 13:36:48 GMT -5
Yep, I have no clue either. I'll probably go shopping at some point and get something funny but useless (or boring but useful, it's sometimes very easy to figure out what someone ACTUALLY needs when you think about what they've been complaining about the past year) for a few people. I just hope not too many people get presents for me, because then I'd just feel bad for not even trying to get anything for them.
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Post by PanbanRichard on Dec 17, 2019 12:13:27 GMT -5
In recent years, I've been doing my Christmas shopping on Black Friday in the early morning, as the crowds aren't as vast as they are in the evening. I can't stand scenarios like that when I'm shopping, especially for gifts.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Dec 18, 2019 16:53:06 GMT -5
I just hope not too many people get presents for me, because then I'd just feel bad for not even trying to get anything for them. This is generally my take. We're all better off if no one gets anyone else presents. I've ordered a singular set of gifts, for one person. I complained about Amazon's one-day shipping earlier, but you know what, I probably need to have the gift by Friday in this case. So I decided, okay, fine, I can procrastinate until today to buy the gift, and it can arrive Thursday. If you're gonna give me wiggle room to procrastinate here, Jeff Bezos, I'll take it. They lied! I had no option to get 1-day shipping on either item! I'll just have to resign my sorry fate. Or I can go to Barnes & Noble and just buy the books there or something... Meh. I'll worry about everyone else later on Christmas Eve.
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Dec 18, 2019 17:28:13 GMT -5
OH BOY, WHO IS EXCITED ABOUT THE NEW STAR WARS MOVIE? ANYBODY? ANYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYBODYYYYYYYYYYYYYY? だれもないですねー。-(>.<)- (I dunno why I'm being such an ass about it) HI PAPA PANBAN
-edit- I think I'm being such an ass about it because I'm mad at Hollywood right now. Marriage Story was so good, but It: Chapter Two was so awful. I'm happy that there's still good stuff being made, and while Marriage Story seems to be killing it in the award cycle, all the conversation lately is dominated by a movie that a ton of people seem predisposed to hate. Blehg.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Dec 19, 2019 18:47:18 GMT -5
I was never really a big Star Wars fan to begin with, honestly... I saw 1 - 3 when they came out in theatres and thought they were decent enough. Saw the original trilogy, and always thought it was kind of was boring (so sue me!). I've not rewatched 1 - 3 to see if I would still like them, although I can confirm I tried to watch the first movie a few years ago and threw in the towel once Jar Jar Binks hit the scene. He was even worse than I remembered, and my desire to rewatch the movie was grossly incongruent with my ability to tolerate Jar Jar.
My take on Star Wars is very similar to my take on Harry Potter. I don't care about the characters, and I don't care about the plot particularly. I do like the world, though. That's interesting.
I'm even less interested in Star Wars now that they are pumping movies out left and right. I am admittedly being a snob about this because I have not watched any beyond whatever the first one was with Rey, so I can't actually say they aren't good or not. But I do believe pretty strongly that movies/books/etc. should exist because you have a good story to tell, not because you've committed to making X movies a year. It's totally possible Disney is going to hit it out of the ballpark with every movie they create, but chances are good they're also going to have a few awful ones in there that literally were only made because they're producing on a schedule. Hard pass.
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Dec 19, 2019 22:25:48 GMT -5
I only care in-so-far as I want to see how much of a sh*t show it is, but I have no personal interest in Star Wars. But I do agree with Martin Scorsese's comments that these kinds of movies aren't cinema, they're theme park rides (said in reference to Marvel films, and interestingly Mike Stolklasa of RLM said the exact same thing months sooner). There's no intent to leave any kind of lasting impression or give you something to think about. You just pay for a ticket, buy your popcorn, sit in front of a screen that blasts noise at you for 2.5 hours, then leave having forgotten everything that just happened. If any conversation exists after the film, it'll probably be some fan-theory bullsh*t about who is stronger.
And yet, these theme park rides are the entire conversation right now. Increasingly, they're the only thing being offered by movie theatres. You might as well re-name theatres "Disney Showhouses", because just about everything else is doomed to fail. Which doesn't bother me, because I don't even like theatres anyway. And good content is still being made, it's just all on Netflix or Amazon Prime (or coming out of Asia).
What gets me is that so many people already have an idea that they will hate Rise of the Skywalker, but for some reason feel the need to keep talking about it. It's just idiotic to me. Either watch the movie, sh*t on it and move on, or else just pretend it doesn't exist and don't give it the exposure.
An Elephant Sitting Still should be arriving tomorrow. I'm very much looking forward to watching it whenever I get the time.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Dec 22, 2019 5:55:22 GMT -5
Hmm, I read an article just now about tests for Alzheimer's that can determine whether you have beta amyloid or tau build-ups via brain scans and spinal taps. It's not definitive for Alzheimer's, but combined with memory problems, chances are pretty high. The article explored people's reactions to getting the tests; some were OK with receiving the results since it provided some closure, but others weren't so sure it helped them.
I wonder. Would I want to know if I had or would get Alzheimer's? I don't think I would. I think it depends on the person; some people would resolve to make the best of their life remaining, and others would wither. I think if I knew, and it was less than ten years away, I would live the rest of my life waiting to die.
It does beg the broader question--does knowing our future help us? In a sense, perhaps yes--there is relief in knowing at life's darkest times that things will get better. But what if things don't? Suppose you knew your future in terms of what job you would have, the family you'd have, everything. Would there be worth in trying hard or caring about your life if agency, in a sense, was stripped from you, and you were simply acting out on a preordained course?
I don't think I would. It'd just be going through the motions at that point.
Maybe this is part of the reason the Puritans were such nasty people. Their strain of Calvinism believed that they were already destined to go to Heaven. A birthright, if you will. That seems to me to defeat the entire point of Christianity--redemption and all that. Morality can of course exist outside of religion, but if you believe Heaven and Hell are eternal compared to the ephemerality of life, the downsides of being an a**hole while alive because it suits you aren't really so bad, relatively speaking.
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Derman
Oracle Knight
I still don't have a knife tag on my golden birth knife
Posts: 194
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Post by Derman on Dec 23, 2019 17:35:43 GMT -5
The new Witcher TV series is apparently getting praise for not being absolute garbage, so maybe this Star Wars anti-hype and GoT bashing is just a clever tactic to get positive PR for new shows. I dunno, the internet conversations around everything TV and movie related is horrible, so I try to actively avoid them wherever I can. Also, speaking of theaters, I remembered I got some culture-voucher-things when I started at the company, which I could use to buy movie tickets apparently. Too bad the theaters aren't showing anything interesting whenever I check them out.
If I knew something general about my future (like Alzheimer's somewhere late in my life) I'd probably either a) try to do everything I want before that or b) do everything I can to prove it wrong, or to find some explanation for why it wouldn't be certain. If there's even a small chance that the diagnosis would be wrong, it might be enough for me to forget it. If I knew more details, job etc., I'd again probably do my best to go against all that. But all that would only be possible if I could question the knowledge. If I knew, with 100% certainty, then I'd stop trying. I couldn't live without any sense of agency, probably...
I wonder how many people really think about the long-term idea of Heaven and Hell being eternal compared to life, and that being their reason to not be a d**k. I feel like most christians I know believe in the values of the religion, and going to Heaven is just a nice bonus. Kinda like Santa Claus not giving you christmas presents if you are not a good kid. It's not something kids actively think about, it's something they will be told when they are not behaving. If you need to be threatened with a punishment (or lack of reward) to be a decent person, chances are you are going to be a douche most of the time. Most people can't make long-term decisions like that. But then again, I don't know all the people everywhere, so maybe there are a lot of people like that, and I'm not seeing/recognizing them in my own bubble.
Anyway, if I'm not online tomorrow, here's early "Merry Christmas" (or whatever you feel is the most appropriate for your personal preferences for the holidays) to everyone.
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Dec 24, 2019 19:19:20 GMT -5
Friend got a gift card for Christmas to the theatre and asked if I wanted to go along and watch the new Star Wars for giggles. At first I was on board because I expected a train-wreck, but after the RLM review came out, it seems it's a train wreck of a different sort. Rather than the so-dumb-it's-funny mess that I was anticipating, it takes the Avengers: Endgame approach of being so loud and fast that you don't have time to think about how broken and nonsensical the plot is. I put up with it for Avengers: Endgame just because I wanted to see how "the greatest cinematic event of this decade" would turn out. But I'm not putting up with that headache again for Star Wars.
I finally got around to watching An Elephant Sitting Still (which is to say, it was finally delivered and I finally has 4 free hours, holy sh*t why did that take so long?). When you watch it, it definitely feels its length. It's also difficult to feel the kind of heightened emotion one expects from cinema given that everything is so bleak, so claustrophobic, and so drawn-out. Remember when I said it takes place over the course of one day? Well, the camera also spends most of the time just a few feet away from the characters. This makes for a very intimate experience. Coupled with plenty of long takes, and your left with an experience that conveys visually the kind of exhausting, cramped, miserable life these people lead.
When people talk about 'depressing' movies or stories, typically they're referring to tragedies. Lots of melodrama, lots of terminal illnesses or the looming tragedy of a premature death. An Elephant Sitting Still is not that. It's a much more mundane story, presented in a much more mundane way. It's about the disenfranchised: the people for whom life will not get better, because they had the misfortune of being born into a dead-end. But just because you were born into a dead end doesn't mean you don't have emotions, hope, or a desire to be anywhere else. That, I think, is what the film captures so well. If it were anything less than what it is, it would be disingenuous to the people and material it's trying to cover.
This carries over into the ending too. The movie doesn't end on any kind of flourish. It doesn't really 'end' at all, so-much as it just stops. For how blunt the film is, it's interesting how it finds these ways of also being so open to interpretation. If you want to be nihilistic about it, you could say that the characters haven't really accomplished anything. Certainly their situations are not resolved: arguably they are in the worst place they've been in the whole movie. But to take this approach is also to ignore that, for the first time in the movie, they also aren't alone. For the first time they are moving -toward- something than running away from it. Even the titular elephant is ambiguous: does it ignore the pain because it has ascended to some kind of Buddhistic Nirvana, or has it simply become numb to the cruelty of the world around it? For our characters, I suspect they don't care, which adds only another layer to the film.
So yeah, despite being 4 hours (and absolutely feeling its length), I find that I definitely want to revisit the movie. It's not an easy movie to watch, but I think for anyone who has ever felt trapped by life, it's disturbingly relatable. It's the kind of movie that, while I was watching it, I didn't feel the kind of hyper-emotion that I've become used to from movies. However, after the fact I find myself constantly thinking back on it, re-watching scenes to try and nail down context, reflecting on characters and conversations and motivations. In my book, that means more than anything Star Wars could ever offer.
(Also, FWIW, I prefer to keep the director's death separate from my interpretation of the film. Although there is another can of worms there, should you decide to go into it)
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Dec 26, 2019 4:30:26 GMT -5
And what did you do for Christmas? Me, I played Counter Strike with a full group. For five hours. Straight. Imdeadinsidepleasesendhelp
-edit- Friend and I got Don't Starve Together.
Game 1: I starved (3 days) Game 2: Friend attacks a two-legged monster bird and gets one-shot (4 days)
Game 3 hasn't ended yet, but I made a potter's wheel. While marveling at my newly crafted mystery, my friend came to examine it... with a torch. Queue a frantic day of patting out fires on the most important items in the camp while the rest of it goes down in flames. RIP.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Dec 27, 2019 19:31:48 GMT -5
I destroyed my immediate family members at Bananagrams and Scrabble, that's what.
And today, as we speak, I am throwing my hard-earned money away on The Sims expansion packs.
As is often the case, I realized I hadn't played the Sims in months, loaded up Origin, realized I was behind on an expansion pack that interested me, got prompted to save with a bundle on sale, and all of a sudden I've spent a gazillion dollars on 23592835238590325890368 expansion and stuff packs.
The field of economics assumes people are inherently rational. I am proof that this is a faulty premise.
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Dec 27, 2019 20:25:43 GMT -5
I thought the field of economics assumed the exact opposite. After all, isn't entropy the law of the universe?
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