Sunday!
Those of you who are going to be watching Season Five of Game of Thrones tonight (and those of you who didn’t pick up your copies of Game of Thrones: Season 4
The New York Times has a handy-dandy guide for you here. (Warning, they mess up the dynamic between Jaime and Cercei’s reunion last season. They assume the book rather than retell the series.)
The main thing that I’m wondering about is WHAT’S GOING ON WITH VARYS???
Seriously, he’s the only character that I’m still looking forward to hearing updates about. Everyone else has me depressed.
So what are your plans for tonight’s season premiere? Take the phone off the hook (well, turn the phone off, is I think what the kidz do today), get yourself a kind of food that doesn’t require utensils, and sit back and stare at the television in horror? Something else?
So… what are you reading and/or watching?
(Photo is “Movie Night“, taken by Ginny, used under a creative commons license.)
I’ve been reading a cookbook, Genius Recipes, collected and edited by Kristen Miglore of Food52 (a great recipe site, btw).
Many of these recipes I already have from other books; but the ‘genius’ part wasn’t necessarily obvious. Richard Olney’s figs with a cream sauce — where the cream is thickened by stirring an acid into it. Marcella Hazen’s tomato sauce with onion and butter. The recipes collected in this book are why I have shelves overflowing with cookbooks; it may mean I can weed the collection down a bit. Most are simple; but prepared with techniques that bring out the best in the ingredients; and the book focuses on those techniques so that you can bring them to other recipes and improvised dishes.
So a big recommend for Genius recipes for all you cooks or wannabe cooks. There’s also a regular column at Food52: https://food52.com/blog/category/128-genius-recipes
And in watching, I’m finally watching new season of House of Cards. It’s a little anxiety-inducing, like watching too much cable news, and I still don’t find any redeemable qualities in the characters except (perhaps) for Doug’s struggle to get well and work again. Will be slow going getting through the series because of the anxiety.Report
Purgatory, aka moderation, rescue required. two links is not better than one.Report
Tonight is the season premiere of Game of Thrones, but honestly I’m more excited about the return of VEEP. That show might be the best TV comedy in a the past decade, and it gets very little pub to show for it.
I watched past of Netflix’s new Daredevil, which *has* been getting a lot of good pub, but I didn’t like it as much as everyone else seems to like it. It’s done at a slow, plodding pace, to the point where I feel like it’s a five episode series they tried to tech out to ten. It also suffers from the same flaw The Live did: yeah, fights between two people usually go one longer than they make them in the TV and movies, but after a minute or so they get a little receptive and boring.
My son is on me to try a FF movie — any of them — this week, but frankly I don’t really see that happening.Report
My son is on me to try a FF movie
Is this for Fast/Furious or Fantastic Four?Report
It’s just a regular movie at double-speed. For busy people.Report
Or Benny Hill fansReport
Fast & FuriousReport
Tod Kelly,
From what I understand, the exact opposite is true – real fights end much faster than they do in movies and TV.Report
Having seen many fights, I can say that their length usually depends on the non-participants. Unless they’re just horribly lopsided.Report
Most of the Daredevil feedback I have seen has been very positive, some saying it is the best the MCU has yet produced (I’m on record as having loved Agent Carter) and likening it to Nolan’s Batman. But the one negative take I read was similar to yours, saying that having the Netflix freedom of all-eps-at-once-with-no-commercial-breaks caused them to screw up the pacing, making it feel shapeless. I will still check it out when I get a chance.Report
My question (no religion) was “Is Daredevil even Catholic?” and I got the answer “The first scene is in a confessional.”
My interest: piqued.Report
Tangent, but we were watching the Lego Movie this AM and The Boy wanted to know how Morgan Freeman’s character (who is blind) could play the piano. So I told him about Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder and Blind Lemon Jefferson. Dunno how the actual music will go over with him (he pretty much only likes stuff that’s “fast”). We’ll see.Report
Recommendations:
Stevie Wonder’s: Superstition and Uptight (Everything’s Alright)
Ray Charles’s: Hit The Road Jack and I Got A WomanReport
Tell him that Beethoven could write music even though he was deaf. I bet he won’t believe you.Report
Veep is fishing hysterical.Report
SILICON VALLEY was pretty darn terrific, too – maybe funnier than VEEP, which sometimes strikes me as really good but not really laughter-inducing.
Am finally nearing the end of The Incoherence of the Incoherence, which, in addition to having to my mind one of the greatest titles ever to be offered for a bookshelf (or virtual library), is one of the slowest reads I’ve ever done. Started it probably half a year ago, usually read a page or two before I go to bed, always go right to sleep thinking about the Philosophers and the Theologians.Report
Been thinking about giving Silicon Valley a shot.Report
It’s pretty funny. And it solves the most vexing, yet obscene math problem you’ve ever seen.Report
It’s funny, sometime very funny. Unfortunately, the main character is such a nothing that he pretty much ruins every scene he’s in. And one of its best actors died partway through the first season.Report
Yeah, the casting of the main character is pretty much a failure. I realize he’s supposed to be nebbishy and a straight man for the nuts around him, but he’s just a wet noodle.
It’s a fine line. On one side, Topher Grace. On the other, Michael Cera. And far over it all the way to “punchable”, Jesse Eisenberg.Report
Mad Men and GoT tonight. I still have a Fortitude finale to watch.
There are just way too many shows out now.Report
I think I’m doing Tater Tachos tonight (like nachos, but with tater tots). It does require a fork but it’s perfect TV food.Report
That’s a good way to end up with a fork in the nose.Report
True – Maybe I’ll try eating them with a spoon.Report
For the pinkos (No Politics).
Ivan’s Childhood alone is worth the link.
I watched Turn and, with the 6-year old, Big Hero 6. I enjoyed them both, and since there appears to be a planned Big Hero sequel, I was forced at squirt-gun point to promise that I would take him to see it in the theater.
Someone who was once a professor or serious student of philosophy must have brought his or her phenomenology collection into the used bookstore near my son’s school, because the usually fairly uninteresting philosophy section was filled with all of Husserl’s major works and many of the less read works of he who must not be named on this site, including a bunch of his lectures (on Parmenides, Heraclitus, the Sophist, the Phenomenology of Spirit, the Principle of Reason), stuff I haven’t read in more than a decade. There’s a fun reading group, amiright? [Crickets.]
Anyway, I’m enjoying the ones I grabbed.Report
Actually you can go ahead and name him now, and the other guy, too.Report
Heidegger, Heidegger, Heidegger, Heidegger, Wittgenstein.
Man, I’ve been holding that in for so long.Report
The other guy?Report
The guy who wrote about Moore’s hand, but who wasn’t Moore.Report
Van Dyke?Report
Ah, no, Wittgenstein. For some reason that name also took you straight to the spam filter. Has for years. Dunno why.Report
Twas explained to me, something to do with some mentally possibly very unbalanced troll behavior.Report
There was a commenter who went by the name Heidegger who migrated over from Positive Liberty with a bunch of us when that blog was absorbed into this one. He was definitely off, and one of the first banned I remember. He must have tried coming back as Wittgenstein at some point.Report
“(Warning, they mess up the dynamic between Jaime and Cercei’s reunion last season. They assume the book rather than retell the series.)”
The recent layoffs in the NYT arts&culture section has left that beat shorthanded.Report
I’m sure that there’s no reason to assume that this sort of thing can be expected to show up in other sections of the NYT.
(No politics.)Report
I have read that there will be no Bran this season. The got him all the way to the end of book 5 last season and will let everyone else catch up before his story proceeds. This comes from the guy that plays Hodor, who said “Hodor! Hodor! Hodor!” (Which, translated from the Hodor, means “I’m not going to be in any of this year’s shows.”)Report
Dude who plays Hodor is a DJ, and was touring around promoting it as “Rave of Thrones”. Gotta do something in between seasons I guess.
I didn’t go. But if I had, I definitely would have put my Hodor in the air like Hodor hodor hodor.Report
In the absence of Bran, I hope that they will be able to keep the story going. The lack of Bran can really impact the ability to keep stuff moving along.Report
My understanding is that Bran will feature (albeit briefly), but Hodor and Mira will not. I assume this has something to do with Oena’f jrvejbbq ivfvba naq gur jnl vg vagrenpgf jvgu bgure fgbel guernqf.Report
Yuri’s Night at the Space Foundation. Five astronauts will be speaking, including Buzz Aldrin.Report
The first four episodes of GoT Season Five have already leaked.
Your choices:
1. Don’t worry about spoilers.
2. Avoid all social media, comment threads and message boards for the next four weeks.
3. Emulate Davos and become a swarthy pirate.Report
And then wait three weeks until your next hit…Report
3 is always a good choice, no matter the question (though you might mean ‘Salladhor’).
ETA: I mean a real pirate. I generally don’t pirate digitally.Report
Let’s see, still working through Thieves Opera, Urth of the New Sun, picked up a very nice two volume Maugham slip cased short stories and every book I can find on boat building. Will be going down to visit my son this week, so I expect to do more rambling through used bookstores that I used to work in.Report
WHO WANTS TO READ MY WRITINGS ON FURIOUS7?
AND WHO WANTS ME DRUNK WHILE DOING SO?Report
You should write that mess up. I know that dhex actually loves those films.Report
What is the worst that could happen?Report
No HBO, so no GoT tonight.
I finally watched Birdman. It was an interesting experience, but I was not blown away.
I also realized that Agents of SHIELD is back from hiatus, so I have started catching up on that.Report
Hoping I just successfully made a change that will make my life as a thread subscriber and would-be troublemaker much easier…Report
oh well didn’t go as easily as I hoped… if anyone notices any thread subscription hiccups let me know… will solve some other dayReport
trying again (sorry had to do it on diff thread) (tho really I didn’t come to think of it) (this is my Sunday)Report
too much sharing, alt-CKReport
whatevs, it worked.Report
Soo… I was planning on watching GoT with my boyfriend when he got home from his night-shift job tomorrow morning. But I just got hired for a day-shift job that starts tomorrow and may mean we don’t have much time together for TV.
There are shows that we always watch together, and shows that we just happen to both watch. I wasn’t watching GoT last year, so it’s never been on the “us, together” list. But it’s the sort of show that very well could be.
So, do I watch tonight? Or would that be cheating? If I don’t watch tonight, will he watch it tomorrow morning while I’m at work? Should I ask him to not, or would that be selfish? Relationships are hard.Report
Grimm is going for the Lifetime Demographic. This is both really stupid, and their story editor ought to be keelhauled until he learns better than to end the damn episode with someone looking at an ickle baby (this is not even a triumphant reunion. Just looking at the baby in his arms.)
Also, going for the Lifetime Demographic is screwing with characterization.
Crazy blond chicka was supposed to be Crazy, not Crazy Baby Momma. LAST season she was selling her baby… this one she’s going crazy looking for the damn tyke. (and you really really could Actually Do That with decent characterization, but they’re not trying).
Grimm trying to be subtle and clever is hilarious. The writers are so, very very bad at it. (yes, subtle is hard in TV. too little time!).Report
My problem with Grimm was the never-ending roll-out of new bad guys. The plot holes weren’t too glaring when I abandoned it in Season 2. Sometimes I feel like Sleepy Hollow does the same thing but they keep it all together with a fairly cohesive plot.Report
The neverending bad guys weren’t nearly the problem the “neverending bad girls” were.
Must Find Love Interest!
Must troll forums to see who is popular!
I’m on season 3, and they do have overarching plots, even if slightly wince inducing.Report
Consider this a request for input, ideas and suggestions:
I’ve been spending a good deal of time exploring light via my camera and lightroom’s editing tools. I’m particularly interested, right now, in capturing the way light refracts into spectrum as it bends around things; this is a common interest amongst us humans, we love sunsets and rainbows, and both create organized spectrum. I’ve been looking for ways to examine unorganized spectrum; so light refracting around the fuzz on the stem of a sun flower or direct sun beaming through the fly screening on my back porch.
That last is what I’d like help with. I took this shot of my porch yesterday, it’s highly edited to push the bounds of saturation and vibrance to bring out the wave shapes. I can often see those shapes on the screen, though just as light/dark, not color as seen here. I’m trying to form a hypothesis that explains them.
For those with sensitive eyes; these types of images sometimes strobe a bit when you look at them.
And thanks to Vikram’s science fair post for inspiring me to ask the hive mind for input.Report
what actually are you asking, @zic ?Report
I’m trying to understand the waves in the photo; and what causes them, @ck-macleod
I think it has something to do with the three-dimensional qualities of the porch screen; it’s not perfectly flat and it ripples; so the waves shown in the image might be the rippling of the screen; but it’s obviously organized spectrally.
There’s also a lot of variables to consider, including the lens, sensor, software and how they’re recording them; and that might be where the spectral organization is introduced.Report
Bit busy now, but…
http://www.colorado.edu/physics/phys2020/phys2020_f98/lab_manual/Lab5/lab5.html
You’re looking at something like multiple slit interference…Report
Thanks @kim I knew there was a place to begin investigating.
Edited to add that this is exactly what I was looking for; it’s obvious even from looking at the diagrams.Report
Yeah, my bet is what Kim said. Diffraction is what happens when light encounters an obstacle. If you can find a very dark room and open the door partway to let some light in, you’ll notice that the shadow isn’t in a perfect line. That’s diffraction, and it happens because light behaves like a wave (at least in this particular respect). The way to prove this to yourself is through the double-slit interference experiment Kim references. Here are some links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment
Take a look at the first image on this page: http://www.bottomlayer.com/bottom/reality/chap2.html It’s a good illustration of an experiment that distinguishes between multiple possibilities. People really didn’t know what would happen until someone tried it.Report
@vikram-bath you already saw one image from this exploration (the tree branches).
Here’s a handful gathered on a tumbler I named Frolics in Light.
My sweetie hates this stuff, dirty hippie that I am, I can’t quit it.
Thank you for the reading.Report
v cool, @zic
If you ever feel like presenting the images on OT, I’d be happy to help you with doing it rightish, possibly with gallery/lightbox effects (may require some installation etc.). Would spruce up this here joint.Report
When your ready to try that, let me know. I’d be delighted.
I’ve been really struggling with how to present images and text in thoughtful ways; I’ve not yet found something that seems intuitive and pretty and prone to thoughtfulness; it’s all to magazine layout, if you know what I mean.
I’ve got a lot of older images that I’m working through the brown-eyed susan (from last summer) is an example of how I’m revisiting old work.
Editing to say thank you; in many, many ways. The v. cool makes me blush; and the v. cool improvements here are thrilling. Thank you thank you thank you.Report
Here’s a really simple way of presenting a gallery, though I think for a photo presentation, you’d use much larger “thumbnails”: Same width as column, but would click to BIG in lightbox. OR (slightly harder) user could cycle through one by one. OR (slightly harderer) could initiate a slideshow OR (slightly hardererer) initiate same on demand.Report
I couldn’t give the physical or possibly bio-physical explanation, or give a good guess how much of the final effect is attributable to whichever part of the entire process.
However, this does remind me of the “color of the dress” social media firestorm of a few weeks ago, and some interesting pieces that were done on how the brain processes visual information – and how, once you or your brain make a decision or gather a certain impression, it becomes impossible to see things the way you had seen them before the impression. Maybe @Chris can explain it…. I don’t know if it explains exactly why, in political and philosophical arguments, it can sometimes seem impossible to get someone to “see” things your way, and how difficult it is to unsee the things you see in favor of the things the other person does, but certainly there are evocative similarities.
If you missed the dress, you might want to look into it, since at some point it will overlap with the question of how different people might receive the images you produce – which share aspects in common with a popular type of optical illusion.Report