The early cyberpunk fiction work "Hardwired", by Walter Jon Williams, has a bit where a hovercraft-riding smuggler zips past the city and describes this as "the rusting metal arch commemorating the Marais des Cygnes Massacre".
"Force McDonald’s to show the typical burger served by one of its restaurants instead of the photogenic artifacts that appear in its commercials
Force BMW to advertise drivers speeding up and them immediately slowing down repeatedly in heavy traffic instead of professional drivers on a closed circuit track.
Ford must show four trucks shuttling office workers for every time they show someone using the bed or towing something.
State lotteries may not advertise “win up to $10,000,000”. Instead, they must say “typical payout of $0.”
Weight Watchers must show a typical customer’s results rather than celebrity ones."
They don't see these things as consequences, they see it as you being brain-poisoned by the rhetoric of self-hating mentally-ill people. Maybe someday you'll work the poison out and come back, but in the meantime they don't plan to let that define their morality.
The father in the story of the Prodigal Son was happy to see his kid again, but it's not like he was out pounding the pavement looking for him.
"How would a reasonable person read a claim that they could earn up to a $31/hour?"
ah-heh. "you dumbasses should have known we were a bunch of lying cheaters selling you bullshit" is an intellectually-valid position, I guess, but if you're going to write this many words begging for sympathy towards these poor gig-economy companies maybe you need something with a little more sympathy to it.
You gonna name names, or are you just gonna waggle your eyebrows and say "you know, THOSE guys, I don't think I need to go on record as saying who I mean"
(I could totally buy "they were yelling at an asshole whose actions weren't caught on the camera because it was pointed at Harris". However, I also recall stories about people at Republican campaign rallies booing a speaker, and replies of "they were booing a heckler" being dismissed as smokescreen lies by evil males who just loved seeing a Librul Ownt.)
I've seen someone pointing out that the photos only show a man shouldering a rifle, and it's possible that the actual shooting took place later with a more proper setup. But even if that's true the photo is still full of gun-safety violations, rather surprising for a candidate who styles themselves an arms-control expert.
From Kunce's Twitter: "We got to hang out with some union workers while exercising our freedom. Always have your first aid kit handy. Shrapnel can always fly when you hit a target like today, and you’ve got to be ready to go."
I have played way too much "Helldivers 2" to hear something like that and take it at all seriously.
The examples of "plagiarism" are similar to others, where it's listed as "plagiarism" that the description of a government official used some of the same words as a previously-published description but there was not a footnote credit given to the earlier publication.
"I’d swear just a few years ago people on this site were arguing against cancel culture."
yeah, and you and the people like you were arguing like all hell for it, and you won, and that's the game we're playing now, and it is really not a good look for you to be crying that the other team is scoring points.
It's intriguing watching the number of people who are quite loudly explaining that of COURSE this whole thing was a fake, of COURSE it was staged, of COURSE it was rehearsed and used actors and pre-screened volunteers, are we really so NAIVE that we don't understand how this WORKS?
And...okay so it's a staged pre-planned rehearsed event, sure, but then why do it? Why would you do something so obviously intended to play as "here's good ol' Don, showing that he knows how to down fries just like you and me, showing us that he gets it because he's been there" and have it be so completely not real?
I mean, Coppola might as well have ended the film with him appearing in front of the camera and saying "follow your dreams, you can achieve your goals, I am living proof".
I think maybe the discipline is less sticking to a budget and more sticking to a plan. I feel like that was the biggest complaint through the (excellent!) column here, that there wasn't a plan, that there were some good ideas tossed into the mix but they came to nothing because any plan that anyone came up for them was tossed out in the next day's filming.
Which reminds me of another recent high-profile mess, the contemporary Star Wars movies, where "we aren't going in with a plan" was actually advertised as a feature. "Forget it, we'll fix it in edits" was the theme of that project, and apparently the theme of "Megalopolis" as well; just shoot a bunch of scenes and figure out how they can be a story later, with reshoots to cover anything that didn't get done the first time around.
(Someone on Twitter did a lengthy analysis of how most of the plot of "Rise of Skywalker" was created post-shooting; their detective work included analysis of how any time a character said anything about the plot it was just a talking-head with no other actors in the shot, suggesting that was done as a reshoot.)
You'd think that someone who'd been making movies for more than half a century would recognize that Theaters Do Not Work That Way and that they weren't going to change everything just for him.
Yeah; it's extremely important to both the modern history of Vietnam, and to the original "Heart of Darkness" novel, that this colonialism be addressed in some way.
I didn't have as much trouble with the pacing because I wasn't really experiencing it as a movie, more like reading chapters from a book. (In fact, I wonder whether the film would work broken up into pieces and served as Netflix "episodes"?)
"Upon arriving at Lake Lure, however, Parsons said he realized the situation was different than he had imagined. “I went up and saw that there was absolutely nothing there, so I stayed, and I volunteered all day,” he said."
And, yeah, this is after-the-fact rationalization, and I'm pretty sure if we asked the FEMA people they'd tell the story as "this weird dude showed up with a gun and ran around all day poking into stuff, we were all too scared to tell him to go away, finally the cops showed up and dragged him off," but at least he was straight enough to recognize that the thing wasn't going down how he'd been told and willing to say so on the record.
On “What If Trump Wins?”
Don't you think it's important for people to suffer the consequences of their actions?
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024”
The early cyberpunk fiction work "Hardwired", by Walter Jon Williams, has a bit where a hovercraft-riding smuggler zips past the city and describes this as "the rusting metal arch commemorating the Marais des Cygnes Massacre".
On “Lina Khan FTC’s Lawsuits Against Tech Feel Like Targeting”
"Force McDonald’s to show the typical burger served by one of its restaurants instead of the photogenic artifacts that appear in its commercials
Force BMW to advertise drivers speeding up and them immediately slowing down repeatedly in heavy traffic instead of professional drivers on a closed circuit track.
Ford must show four trucks shuttling office workers for every time they show someone using the bed or towing something.
State lotteries may not advertise “win up to $10,000,000”. Instead, they must say “typical payout of $0.”
Weight Watchers must show a typical customer’s results rather than celebrity ones."
dontthreatenmewithagoodtime dot jpeg
On “What If Trump Wins?”
you honestly think Jaybird is going to vote for Trump?
the Jaybird who wrote multiple essays about how traveling to the UAE destroyed his belief in libertarian philosophy?
"
Phil, you work for the government. You're one of the Nazis.
"
They don't see these things as consequences, they see it as you being brain-poisoned by the rhetoric of self-hating mentally-ill people. Maybe someday you'll work the poison out and come back, but in the meantime they don't plan to let that define their morality.
The father in the story of the Prodigal Son was happy to see his kid again, but it's not like he was out pounding the pavement looking for him.
On “Lina Khan FTC’s Lawsuits Against Tech Feel Like Targeting”
"How would a reasonable person read a claim that they could earn up to a $31/hour?"
ah-heh. "you dumbasses should have known we were a bunch of lying cheaters selling you bullshit" is an intellectually-valid position, I guess, but if you're going to write this many words begging for sympathy towards these poor gig-economy companies maybe you need something with a little more sympathy to it.
On “What If Trump Wins?”
You gonna name names, or are you just gonna waggle your eyebrows and say "you know, THOSE guys, I don't think I need to go on record as saying who I mean"
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/21/2024”
They weren't boo-ing, they were boo-URNS-ing!
(I could totally buy "they were yelling at an asshole whose actions weren't caught on the camera because it was pointed at Harris". However, I also recall stories about people at Republican campaign rallies booing a speaker, and replies of "they were booing a heckler" being dismissed as smokescreen lies by evil males who just loved seeing a Librul Ownt.)
On “What If Trump Wins?”
"So yes, lets have people tell Grandpa his MAGA vote is why they won’t let the grandkids come to visit"
To which he'll shrug and say "I guess FOX was right, they really do get brainwashed to hate America and their family, such a shame."
On “From Semafor: Los Angeles Times won’t endorse for president”
Seems like it's a private company and the owner can run it however they like.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/21/2024”
I've seen someone pointing out that the photos only show a man shouldering a rifle, and it's possible that the actual shooting took place later with a more proper setup. But even if that's true the photo is still full of gun-safety violations, rather surprising for a candidate who styles themselves an arms-control expert.
"
From Kunce's Twitter: "We got to hang out with some union workers while exercising our freedom. Always have your first aid kit handy. Shrapnel can always fly when you hit a target like today, and you’ve got to be ready to go."
I have played way too much "Helldivers 2" to hear something like that and take it at all seriously.
"
The examples of "plagiarism" are similar to others, where it's listed as "plagiarism" that the description of a government official used some of the same words as a previously-published description but there was not a footnote credit given to the earlier publication.
"
"I’d swear just a few years ago people on this site were arguing against cancel culture."
yeah, and you and the people like you were arguing like all hell for it, and you won, and that's the game we're playing now, and it is really not a good look for you to be crying that the other team is scoring points.
"
No, maybe he meant it when he wrote "loose", as in turn loose, and he thinks a Rogan appearance will cause there to be more female voters for Trump.
On “Campaign Scratchpad: Known Unknowns”
"Anything that confirms all your priors should be immediately suspect" - Scott Alexander
On “Lone Star Rising”
It's intriguing watching the number of people who are quite loudly explaining that of COURSE this whole thing was a fake, of COURSE it was staged, of COURSE it was rehearsed and used actors and pre-screened volunteers, are we really so NAIVE that we don't understand how this WORKS?
And...okay so it's a staged pre-planned rehearsed event, sure, but then why do it? Why would you do something so obviously intended to play as "here's good ol' Don, showing that he knows how to down fries just like you and me, showing us that he gets it because he's been there" and have it be so completely not real?
On “Megalopolis Is Terrible And Everyone Should See It”
I mean, Coppola might as well have ended the film with him appearing in front of the camera and saying "follow your dreams, you can achieve your goals, I am living proof".
"
Yes, someone is out there saying "everyone says 'Megalopolis' was terrible, but look at how much good stuff it's inspired!"
"
I think maybe the discipline is less sticking to a budget and more sticking to a plan. I feel like that was the biggest complaint through the (excellent!) column here, that there wasn't a plan, that there were some good ideas tossed into the mix but they came to nothing because any plan that anyone came up for them was tossed out in the next day's filming.
Which reminds me of another recent high-profile mess, the contemporary Star Wars movies, where "we aren't going in with a plan" was actually advertised as a feature. "Forget it, we'll fix it in edits" was the theme of that project, and apparently the theme of "Megalopolis" as well; just shoot a bunch of scenes and figure out how they can be a story later, with reshoots to cover anything that didn't get done the first time around.
(Someone on Twitter did a lengthy analysis of how most of the plot of "Rise of Skywalker" was created post-shooting; their detective work included analysis of how any time a character said anything about the plot it was just a talking-head with no other actors in the shot, suggesting that was done as a reshoot.)
"
You'd think that someone who'd been making movies for more than half a century would recognize that Theaters Do Not Work That Way and that they weren't going to change everything just for him.
"
Yeah; it's extremely important to both the modern history of Vietnam, and to the original "Heart of Darkness" novel, that this colonialism be addressed in some way.
I didn't have as much trouble with the pacing because I wasn't really experiencing it as a movie, more like reading chapters from a book. (In fact, I wonder whether the film would work broken up into pieces and served as Netflix "episodes"?)
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/14/2024”
interesting bit in a story linked from that one:
"Upon arriving at Lake Lure, however, Parsons said he realized the situation was different than he had imagined. “I went up and saw that there was absolutely nothing there, so I stayed, and I volunteered all day,” he said."
And, yeah, this is after-the-fact rationalization, and I'm pretty sure if we asked the FEMA people they'd tell the story as "this weird dude showed up with a gun and ran around all day poking into stuff, we were all too scared to tell him to go away, finally the cops showed up and dragged him off," but at least he was straight enough to recognize that the thing wasn't going down how he'd been told and willing to say so on the record.
On “Group Activity: VP Kamala Harris Fox News Interview”
Looking forward to the conspiracy-theory dudes telling us how Fox News was paid off by the Democrats to let this interview go the way it did.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.