Looks like we could use a new thread! Tom has started working on a new post, but I have no idea whether it will go up right away or not, so I will put this up in the meantime. I can always move it to a bit later if Tom’s post goes up soon.
Open Thread.
zhena gogolia
Thanks! And now that there’s a new thread, I have nothing to say
ETA: Enjoying Flights by Olga Tokarczuk.
dmsilev
An interesting and maddening read:
Deep dive into stupid: Meet the growing group that rejects germ theory
Spanky
@dmsilev: No thanks. I have Stupid fatigue.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’d like to put together a list of YA fantasy novels whose MC is disabled. When I wrote THE WYSMAN, I realized there weren’t many and a list might be useful for librarians, teachers, etc. If you know of such a book, can you let me know? Email dawinsor (at) dawinsor (dot) com.
mrmoshpotato
@dmsilev: So that’s what happened to Sewer Grate Lickers Not-So-Anonymous*!
I always thought they’d all died from diseases they’d contracted.
*Not a support group in the traditional sense.
germy
@dmsilev:
I take that personally.
gwangung
@Dorothy A. Winsor: This sounds like a list that the blog at Tor.com would compile….
Hildebrand
The Watchmen soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is amazing.
I mean, the show was amazing, and I really hope they decide to do a second season (because I definitely want to see more of Regina King’s character), but the soundtrack is some of Reznor’s best work.
What are some favorite soundtracks?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@gwangung: You mean post this over there? I can do that
ETA: Or not. I logged in but can’t see how to create a blog post. I’ll keep looking
TheOtherHank
In a couple hours I’m going to go hang out in a park with my wife and listen to our friend’s band play a bunch of Beatles songs.
So I got that going for me…
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor: off topic, but I’ve been meaning to tell you this for some time —
Everytime I see your Twitter handle, I chuckle because it sounds like a statement of your sexuality. Pride!
Gotta go to ACE hardware now. (This comment is unrelated to the previous).
Revrick
@dmsilev: Ah, the Filth theory of disease.
Another Scott
Looks like something out of a bad horror movie. (Fires in Greece.)
:-(
(via IamHappyToast)
Cheers,
Scott.
JanieM
@Hildebrand:
Waking Ned Devine
dr. bloor
Every time I see something like this, I flash to that scene in “No Country for Old Men” when Josh Brolin talks smack about Anton Chigurh, and Woody Harrelson sadly shakes his head and says, “No. You don’t understand.”
Immanentize
@TheOtherHank:
Coinky Doink —
I just was listening to this great version by Dave Grohl of Band on the Run in front of Sir Paul and President Obama.
Have a nice evening -+ and don’t @me that this isn’t a Beatles song…
Hildebrand
@JanieM: Such a great little movie.
JanieM
@Hildebrand: Yes! I listen to the soundtrack pretty often, especially the last couple of long cuts, including the eulogy. “Michael O’sullivan was my…great…friend…”
Betsy
After a year of not working due to Covid, I need money. So I’m ramping up my hobby business, creating custom house portraits in watercolor, colored pencil, and other media.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Immanentize: You mean “the Trickster” part? LOL. That’s meant to be a reference to my most recent book. Now that you mention it, it does suggest I’m more interesting than I actually am
Another Scott
A good question.
Make
Kavanaughthem strike it down, if they dare. In the meantime, it buys time.(via LOLGOP)
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@Betsy: We are featuring Artists in our Midst – if you have photos of house portraits and want to talk about the art you create, we could do one of those.
PSA:
In fact, we are featuring Faithful Lurker and her art cloth and art quilts tonight at 6pm!
edit: oops, I keep thinking this is SUNDAY. Faithful Lurker is being featured TOMORROW at 6pm, not today.
Jerzy Russian
@dmsilev:
I am confused. Is the Earth flat or not?
Mike in NC
We called our friends in Tampa last night. They plan on retiring next year and want to get the hell out of DeathSantis’s state, where a quarter of all cases of the coronavirus are happening. They plan to look into moving to the mountains, possibly in western NC where they grew up and went to college. We’d be happy to visit them in Asheville, which we haven’t seen in several years.
The Thin Black Duke
@Hildebrand: Thomas Newman’s soundtrack for American Beauty is wonderful.
Ruckus
@dmsilev:
That’s some strange drugs they are doing. Because really, can there be any other reason they can be that insane.
Timothy Leary had noting on them.
I wonder if these are the kids that ate dirt and now they’ve gotten older. (Notice I didn’t say they grew up.)
Betsy
@WaterGirl: I’d love to! What a nice idea, thanks!!
For tonight’s feature on Faithful and her quilts, how do I tune in?
Hildebrand
@The Thin Black Duke: Yes! So many of his soundtracks are wonderful. I love his soundtrack for Road to Perdition.
Ruckus
@Jerzy Russian:
Well I can see raised portions out the window so the flat earth theory seems to be less than a stellar attempt to explain, anything.
Tom Levenson
Up now. Totally frivolous, but something for a Saturday afternoon.
mrmoshpotato
@Jerzy Russian: Germ theory isn’t proven, and we’re geniuses!
Flat Earth theory isn’t proven, and those people are idiots!
Ruckus
@Mike in NC:
I wonder if a good suggestion would be to retire early?
mrmoshpotato
@Hildebrand: Cinema Paradiso
The Thin Black Duke
@Hildebrand: How about Tangerine Dream’s soundtrack for Sorcerer? It’s one of the most underrated movies of all time, by the way.
WaterGirl
@Betsy: Look for the post at around 6pm. :-)
edit: Betsy, I had the say wrong. I keep thinking this is Sunday. it’s tomorrow night at 6pm.
JanieM
Sound tracks: also Local Hero. Mark Knopfler and Dire Staits.
Hildebrand
@The Thin Black Duke: I’ve not seen that movie. Gotta love Roy Scheider, and a Tangerine Dream soundtrack? I will definitely have to check that out.
Brachiator
OT Rant about smartphones
The tech industry sometimes seems to rin on vanity and insanity. Exhibit A: the upcoming Pixel 6 Android phones. Tech evangelists and “influencers” seem to have convinced google that they need to produce a $1,000 plus “Flagship” phone in order to stay relevant in the smartphone market.
This makes me nuts.
I watched a video from a reviewer who got an early look at the new phone make vapid comments about how the phone had a premium look and feel and did not feel cheap “in the hand.” But this is arbitrary. A phone is mainly an assemblage of tiny electronic parts. You could make the phone body out of extremely expensive material and it would feel weightless.
There was speculation about how powerful the new chip in the phone might be. Some previous Pixel phones did not use the most expensive Samsung chip which caused some reviewers to reject the phone out of hand. But apart from maybe not being able to play some video games smoothly, no review that I saw came up with any reason for using a higher cost chip set.
Apart from some new AI feature that allows for fast “translate and live caption” features and a telephoto lens on one version of the camera, I have heard of any features that make the camera better than earlier models.
And yet there is this chorus of gushing, “Thank God that Google has finally released an expensive, powerful flagship phone!”
Hildebrand
Another of my favorite soundtracks is Peter Gabriel’s for ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’.
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor: No, actually I was thinking the “now out!” Part.
All together provocative!
mrmoshpotato
@Brachiator:
Carbon fiber phones! (Don’t even think about dropping them!)
Cmorenc
A summer Olympics question that begs an answer, given that Norway’s beach volleyball team win a medal (gold?) – where exactly are their home sandy beach courts among the rocky fijords?
WaterGirl
Another PSA:
We have 3 more (amazing!) people who have offered to do $1,000 matches to get us the rest of the way to the $25,000 that Four Directions needs.
So by all means donate now if the spirit moves you :-) but I wanted to give you a heads up in case anyone wants to have their donation matched in a couple of days.
Tom Levenson
@dmsilev: As someone writing (this afternoon, even!) a book about germ theory, its intellectual roots and consequences…
…
Well?…
…
Smacked, thoroughly, in my gob.
Percysowner
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I found a couple of lists
Eight Fantasy Books with Sick and Disabled Characters
Disability and Neurodivergence in Fantasy and Science Fiction
The second article has links to websites listing books with disabled characters.
I can’t tell if all the books have the MC being disabled, but a fair amount do. The books may not be totally limited to YA, but again some definitely are
Another Scott
@Brachiator: You probably meant “Qualcomm” rather than “Samsung”.
Android Police’s early comments have been less than 100% fanboi and seem fair (given what we still don’t know).
Dunno.
Nexus phones were value phones, Pixel phones have almost always been expensive. The Tensor chip sounds very interesting to me, and any effective competition with Qualcomm is a good thing. (Q seems to go through cycles where they make a good chip, then one that overheats when pushed, then an incremental upgrade, rinse repeat, while always charging a lot for new features.)
I’ve got an S20+ that I like (the cameras are good, but could certainly be better), but I’m going to be looking carefully at the 6. I won’t buy it instantly, but will keep an eye on it. Liked my Nexus 4 a lot, and Samsung’s software gets in the way more than a few times for me…
YMMV.
Cheers,
Scott.
dmsilev
@Tom Levenson: One of the chunks of the article I didn’t quote talks about the early days of germ theory and some of the …less successful alternatives. Nowhere near as in depth as what you’re working on no doubt, but the historical context was included.
Also worth reading for the sheer level of vitriol the author brings. I’ve read many articles she’s written on COVID, including descriptions of endless levels of dumbshittery, and I think this is the first time her complete and utter disgust with a particular subject has broken through.
The Thin Black Duke
@Hildebrand: Highly recommended. It’s directed by William Friedkin, and it’s a remake of The Wages of Fear.
Brachiator
@The Thin Black Duke:
Yeah. Love the soundtrack. Did Tangerine Dream also do the music for the early Tom Cruise film “Risky Business?”
“Sorcerer” was a very good film, but ultimately a remake of the vastly superior 1953 French film “The Wages of Fear,” starring Yves Montand. Both films are incredibly suspenseful, but the earlier film also is deftly political and anti-colonialist.
One of the reasons that “Sorcerer” failed at the box office was because dumb audiences got confused. The 1977 film was directed by William Friedkin. The minimalist trailer did not give away the plot and because of the title audiences were expecting the movie to be a follow up to “The Exorcist.” What they got instead was a crime thriller set in South America. Neither critics nor audiences were pleased.
Still British film critic Mark Kermode loves “Sorcerer” and thinks it is a great film. He is wrong. People should hunt down the French original. It may be available as a Criterion Collection release. Then watch the remake.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@dmsilev: They may not believe in germ theory, but germ theory believes in them.
Ksmiami
@Revrick: don’t forget the miasma in fresh air while we’re at it
Brachiator
@Tom Levenson:
This has got to be fun. As I recall (oversimplified view) germ theory challenged scientific orthodoxy and was proposed by people who did not always have the appropriate academic credentials.
This is a reminder that scientific progress is not always a steady trek on the road to Truth, but also that disruptive new theories also gives aid and comfort to charlatans.
smith
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Darwin certainly belives in them. Isn’t it interesting that humans have been able to somewhat shield ourselves from the harsher aspects of natural selection by our ability to reason, our inclination to pass knowledge on to others and to subsequent generations, and our tendency to cooperate for the common good, and the pro-covid dipshits are determined to throw all those advantages away?
Another Scott
@Brachiator: Obligatory:
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
I really respect @Mangy Jay, and I learn a lot from her perceptive analysis of contemporary issues. Ms. Jay normally is very dispassionate, but sometimes even she gets exasperated:
trollhattan
@Brachiator:
Yes, Tangerine Dream did the “Risky Business” soundtrack, which also had a Police song. IIRC they added scenes late in the process, including the train sequence, which added a spacey component to the film. Two cinematographers are listed, and it shows.
Saw Tangerine Dream in Berkeley back in the day. Different from any concert I’ve attended.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
Yep. Thanks for the correction.
Yeah, Pixel phones have been more expensive than the earlier Nexus line, but still less expensive than some Apple and Samsung phones. An earlier Android Police review noted,
And yet now the expectation seems to be that Google must deliver a pricey flagship phone.
Effective competition with Qualcomm may be a good thing, but some of the reviewer emphasis is more on the ego boost of Apple and Google designing their own chips more than on practical benefits delivered to consumers.
And here again, there is this anger that a company is not always using top of the line chips.
I have a Pixel 4XL, mainly because I prefer a pure Android phone. But I would love to see an emphasis on practical improvement rather than the idiotic insistence that price and higher processor horsepower equals quality.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator: Samsung used to use plastic for their phones and were roasted in the tech press and enthusiasts on not having a “premium feel”. They went with metal and glass and now have a “premium price”. Samsung does use their own chip outside the US, but Qualcomm here in the US.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@JanieM: I love that movie. Often in a movie, you can predict the next thing that will happen, but not in that one.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Percysowner: Excellent! Thank you.
pinacacci
He reads like my auto-corrected voice texts.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Wow, that was really nice of you to search for that!
NotMax
@The Thin Black Duke
The Wages of Fear is one of those films in which discrete moments stay with you long, long after seeing it. Solid A+.
Brachiator
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
There might be some weight that might make a phone feel less likely to slip out of your hand. Maybe. But “premium feel” is nonsense.
I think there was a time when some stereo amplifiers were made out of materials to make them feel more solid.
I don’t know if there is anything similar for products like high end cameras.
Another Scott
@Brachiator: Samsung’s plastic phones were hideous and it’s great they moved on from that.
The way something feels when you’re holding it for hours a day matters a great deal. Especially when it costs hundreds of dollars and has a lot of your important information on it.
You may have seen this, from SamMobile:
Recognizing rumors are no guarantee:
Google’s probably smart at this time not to be promising “flagship” performance from “its” first phone chip. But it’s not going to be a slouch, from the sound of it.
Google and Samsung have been working together on upgrades of their watch OS (Samsung’s dropping theirs to work on Google’s). Maybe they feel they have to work together much more to compete with Tim Apple. And Intel is going to try to fight its way into the business, also too. We’ll see.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Betsy
@WaterGirl: Thanks. Will it be a post that goes up at 6 pm (tomorrow, i.e. Sunday), or some manner of live thingy?
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
I don’t know about you, but I don’t hold my phone for hours a day. I pull it out from my pocket to get some info and put it back. Even when I am talking to someone, I use a headset; and if a video call I prop it up or use a stand. The main thing, which should apply to every phone is that the phone should not flex or bend, or be slippery or feel so light that you feel that it might blow away or easily drop out of your hand. But this is not by itself a “premium” vs a “bargain basement” feature.
The reviewers are just blandly asserting that lighter means cheaper. But I think that comfort, feel, and I don’t know, “handiness” is a serious issue, but one that does not resolve itself easily in terms of price.
And yeah, I may be beating the crap out of a dead horse, but there are days when my phone is my most used device.
The chip thing drives me crazy.
League of its own. Comparison to flagship chip sets. What does this mean to the consumer? What practical benefit is being provided? This is little more than tech porn. This used to be a standard feature of automotive magazines and some camera reviews. But aside from exciting the gearheads, what does it all mean?
Other than raw performance, if a chip provides a feature not available on other phones but that is generally useful, every other phone manufacturer must be allowed to catch up or you will destroy the market and leave a heap of obsolete phones.
But if a new chip, say, permits super duper camera performance, people who don’t care or who don’t need it can continue to buy cheaper phones and be happy. But you cannot expect all consumers to pay a premium price for a phone that does not provide a premium benefit.
Even though the old Steve Jobs presentations were sometimes masterpieces of misdirection, the best told a simple story. Here is a feature. Here is what it does. Here is why you want it. And I recall that some tech reviewers would grumble that Apple did not provide detailed information on technical specs.
But they were not selling technical specs.
Technical innovation, whether invented, borrowed or stolen was all about delivering a product to be used.
Jerzy Russian
@Tom Levenson:
I see that you might be qualified to answer my question: is the Earth flat or not? Germ theory seems to hold the key to this question.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@Another Scott: I read that as Max Patkin. and I thought, “Max said that???”
Steeplejack
@Brachiator:
Agree about The Wages of Fear. It is available in the Criterion Collection, also (surprise!) currently on HBO Max, as well as Kanopy.
StringOnAStick
I’m adding this late, but the story we’re missing about Rudy saying he lied about having FBI contacts is even worse now. Why? Because the FBI internal investigation failed to obtain all the department phones from the people, and there were a lot of them, who were accused of having unauthorised media contact. The agents “lost” those phones, nothing to see here. I suspect that once Rudy realized there was no evidence that he then went with this “I lied” lie.
The NY FBI basically is just as bad as we suspected, and the agents who were suspected of being that bad personally got rid of the evidence, no muss, no fuss. Bastards.
Steeplejack
@Betsy:
It’s just a regular post.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
Here is another fun tech related story.
5G is coming, but why??
And yet companies expect customers to pay more for 5G devices.
The Thin Black Duke
@Steeplejack:
Thing is, I think Sorcerer is a rare example of a remake that has its own identity. It’s not a xerox of The Wages of Fear. The tone and execution is unique. Friedkin isn’t afraid to put his own signature to the film, and I think it succeeds. Another example? Jonathan Demme’s remake of The Manchurian Candidate.
Another Scott
@Brachiator: It’s always this way.
Few people are going to buy 8k TVs until there is 8k content for it. But there isn’t going to be 8k content until there is a big enough market for people willing to buy it.
(In reality, 8k is put on TVs that are better in other respects, making them more appealing. Similarly with phones.)
Similarly, there isn’t going to be all the things that 5G promises (autonomous cars talking to each other, etc.) until the system is built out, and they need to have some way to pay for it.
Tech people have learned a lot since “640k is more than enough for anyone”… ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
@Steeplejack:
Thanks for the info on Wages of Fear!
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
I think the 5G issue is somewhat different, but unfortunately I have to go and cannot continue the chat for now.
Steeplejack
@Brachiator:
As I’ve said before, the search function at JustWatch.com is the gold standard for finding where stuff is available (free, for rent or for sale). I also just went to HBO Max and confirmed that The Wages of Fear is actually available now.
Sorcerer is currently available for rent ($3.99) or sale ($7.99) from Apple TV or Amazon Prime. It would be a worthy movie night purchase.
WaterGirl
@Betsy: The Artists in Our Midst features are BJ posts.
dnfree
@JanieM: this thread is probably dead, but Local Hero is my all-time favorite movie. So many subversions of what you expect to happen!
Steeplejack
@The Thin Black Duke:
Sorcerer is a good movie, and it certainly has its own identity, but I don’t think it escapes the shadow of the original. I haven’t seen it in a long time, maybe since it was in theaters (1977), but I had previously seen the original. Hard not to compare them, and I was left with the feeling that Friedkin’s version was different but not better. Maybe not sufficiently different, although I’m willing to concede the point. Might be worth watching again.
“The tone and execution is unique. Friedkin isn’t afraid to put his own signature to the film [. . .].” LOL, maybe part of the problem for me. I think Friedkin has—or had in the ’70s—a splashy, unsubtle style that could occasionally get a little tiresome. Like: “You want suspense?! I’m gonna rub your face in the suspense!” Clouzot’s original had a less manipulative feel to me.
I haven’t seen Demme’s Manchurian Candidate, but I can imagine it possibly being better than the original, which got a big boost from the gimmick of its OMG red scare plot hook. There was certainly room to take a post-Cold War angle on it.
Speaking of Denzel Washington movies, I watched The Equalizer 2 a few days ago and was knocked out. Much better than I expected. Quiet and almost meditative in some of the lulls.
Anyway
@zhena gogolia:
I loved her -Drive your plow over the bones-. Loved.