You Are Here

This past week Dreamwidth advised that LJ is blocking all third parties from the site, which means that crossposting no longer works and imports have been erratic. The Dreamwidth Staff have since advised they are closing the crossposting option to LJ and imports may be disabled in the future as well.

This account is now closed to further posts. My main blog is here on Dreamwidth, for anyone who wants recent updates.

All work posted at this blog is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

1) I'm thrilled to say we've been getting contributions steadily at threeforthememories and I just sent out my post today. The session closes on Monday the 24th, midnight UTC so post soon or come visit the ones made!

Something I noticed is that although the DW interest "2020" has been used by two other people (who never updated their accounts), there is no other person/community that has used "2021."

2) I finished S1 of Raised by Wolves and apparently S2 will begin in a few weeks. However I'm not that interested in seeing it. ( SpoilersCollapse )

I also watched Encanto yesterday and liked it well enough but don't have much to say about it either. I liked the animation and the music was fine. It is definitely nice to see a Latino story on a big stage, especially in a family movie.

I tried out Miracle Workers and saw all of S1. The concept was great but I didn't find the show that enjoyable or funny. I got through one episode of S2 and realized I didn't care to see any more.

3) We're losing HBO Max in 3 days but have lost more options quietly. Only in November I began to search out live TV options channel by channel and cost-wise to see if switching from DStream would be worthwhile after an announced price hike. I discovered on January 1 when trying to record the Rose Parade that we'd lost HGTV (which we normally never watch). And then as we prepared to switch, I discovered we'd lost more than that. ( Read more...Collapse )

4) Almost a year old but still relevant Like it or not, tech companies can use your phone location data to map social distancing:

"An analysis by mobile app intelligence company Apptopia found Unacast’s SDK in all kinds of iOS and Android apps, including smart TV remotes, period trackers, games, free wifi locators, weather forecasters, and step trackers. You can always turn location tracking off for those apps, but some of them obviously need the location services to be able to work at all."

"But this means that a company you’ve likely never heard of has a lot of data about your phone and, by extension, you. That data includes your device’s unique advertising identifier; location data specific enough to detect which fast food restaurant the device is in and how long it’s been there; and the network name and MAC address of the wifi router the device is connected to."

5) Old Version is a website which stores older software including OS, multimedia and graphics programs, and office and file sharing programs.




Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Saw the series Jett on HBO Max and was sorry there was only the one season. It didn't end on a cliffhanger but it also wasn't neatly tied up. I was interested to discover it was fairly recent, 2019, and got cancelled in 2020 because Cinemax was stopping original content production (no doubt part of the mess AT&T created with its mergers and buyouts). It was a shame because it was a well plotted series that included various heists and also had a domestic side that didn't drag down the show. This may have been due to the nature of the lead character. Carla Gugino was quite good in it.

2) I liked Luther less, though I watched the whole series. ( Read more...Collapse )

I've since started Raised by Wolves which had an interesting premise but I haven't watched enough to see where it's going.

4) An interesting read about the history of monsters and horror films in the U.S. and how this spread to attractions and the growth of Halloween as a holiday.

5) Although this article focused on how U.S. journalism is very US-centric in its assumptions about readership, I would say this was just as true about who it expects its readers to be within the U.S. Some examples of comments from international readers: What is a Snickerdoodle? What is a quarterback? Why do people care about college sports? Why do you only count American citizens among the dead you have killed in a war? The scarcity of rapid Covid tests? An assumption that’s not true for many countries. Student loans? Not a thing in most of Europe. Universal healthcare? Not perceived as “socialism” in the majority of the world.

I would argue that assumptions about how capitalism should work is a huge one in the way that topics are discussed and is a never-questioned perspective. Also, the idea that the U.S.'s nationalism is common in the rest of the world.



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Taking your enjoyment however small, forcing you to take care of yourself and being prepared if you don't, plus couple goals and the kind of welcome we all wish we got.

2) Finally got to see The Eternals. I liked it, but I can see why it might not have done the usual box office, even outside of a pandemic. ( Read more...Collapse )

Also, side note, given that LEGO Star Wars shorts keep popping up on Disney+ I am rather perplexed as to why this isn't true of the Avengers ones as well. I wouldn't have known about the new Loki one but for someone's gifset.

3) Watched the Matrix Resurrection and liked it. I definitely thought it was the best installment since the first one. ( Read more...Collapse )

4) Speaking of movies, forecasting the future isn't easy but at least one movie apparently got a lot of things right, even if the date was a bit too early for the worst effects.

5) This past month has been list making time and I have already watched a number of shows listed by Henry Jenkins as his favorites last year. I was most intrigued by Bosch, particularly as I plan to get an Amazon subscription sometime in the next few months. Anyone recommend it?



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) I want to alert anyone reading or scrolling by that threeforthememories is now open and anyone who wants to join in can do so before January 24th. I'm planning to share my own post about 2021 over this next week, but we've gotten a number of others already! If you can think of 3 photos you've taken that describe your life in 2021, please do join us with your own post. And if not, visit the ones already shared 🧐

2) I've watched the first two episodes of Boba Fett. If anyone else is also watching, I wanted to mention that there are conversations about it in two places that I know of, the disneyplusshows and dreamwars communities. ( Read more...Collapse )

3) I wanted to point out communities for Star Wars as it seems that conversations are popping up around DW regarding increasing fannish interaction through communities. I have long wanted to see a wider group of regularly active communities, ones that actually thrive instead of having sporadic activity.

There are two conversations in particular I want to single out. The first offers a number of suggestions for maintaining activity on DW and I was particularly happy to see the suggestion to revive 3 Weeks for Dreamwidth among them. It's something I mentioned last month when making my offer to sponsor someone's paid account for a year. (So far, no takers). If it doesn't stir this year I think I'll look into doing that, because it seems the owner hasn't been around for years.

The other was about communities where people involved in particular activities can ask for tips, encourage others, and find support. I shared a few communities I know about but I'm sure there are more.

I also wanted to remind everyone about the tracking feature on DW to stay aware of new additions to ongoing conversations, as I used it myself for both these posts.

4) I also watched the first episode of Around the World in 80 Days. Thought the approach to Around was fine (though Tennant is so distractingly thin in it).

I also watched Show Me a Hero on HBO Max as we will be cancelling the service later this month. Like The Wire, it had a slow beginning to me but was focused on an incredibly relevant bit of political and racial history which seems even more cutting now than when this was first released (and the events themselves weren't that long ago). ( Read more...Collapse )

5) A reminder that lots of new works have entered the public domain thanks to the New Year! Among them many sound recordings, works by early film stars, and Winnie the Pooh and Bambi!



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Otters chasing a butterfly is utterly hilarious, as is a puppy learning that cold is a thing.

2) I've been going through a lot of the British Baking Show for the last 2 weeks. It makes for good comfort viewing. I first saw the seasons with Prue so it was Mary Berry who was the substitute for me. I liked her just fine but I prefer Prue. But I do miss Sandy and I thought that Mel and Sue were really good and it was sad that they left.

One thing I think is under estimated about the show is the set dressers. I do like the little bits of nature used as cutaways, but I also found myself admiring the setup in the side tent where Paul and Prue were discussing the technical challenge. I think the overall look and colors of the show are a part of its appeal. ( Read more...Collapse )

3) IP law is so nuts and out control in the U.S. that you have situations such as news sites at risk for simply reporting on stories nearly a decade ago.

4) I got directed to this Top 2021 Songs list at Rolling Stone because of Mickey Dolenz's inclusion on it (I would have chosen a different song from the album, but nice to see it there). Two things struck me, the first being the choice of the Beatles "Oh Darling" starting the list at #25. A bit of a cheat as it's just a version of it as they work on it, and not one ever meant to be heard, but the commentary amused me.

"It’s the conversation they couldn’t stop having, from “Hey Jude, don’t let me down” to “Don’t Let Me Down” to “Oh darling, I’ll never let you down.” It sets up the funniest scene in Get Back, when the lads pretend they just suddenly noticed these songs add up to a story. John: “It’s like you and me are lovers.” Paul: “Yeah!” George’s double take is an all-time top 10 Bitchy George moment."

The other is of Taylor Swift's "All Too Well" (at #1): "What does it mean that Taylor can rework a fan-fave deep cut, a song that never got any kind of airplay, flesh it out for 10 minutes, and turn it into a Number One hit… Just this: There is nothing in the universe as powerful as a woman who can’t be scared out of talking her shit…The crazy journey of this song is one of my favorite music stories of my lifetime. Hers too, probably."

5) I was startled to get an automated call asking me to look out for a lost dog. Apparently there's a service that automates searching for pets. Pretty sure there's a limited number of places where "Horse" would be an option.




Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) I have a fondness for ships where one character is the grumpypants and the other is the optimist. Also, you might want to rethink that classic question about fighting one big duck or many small ones after seeing what a duckpocalypse might look like. And Hop on Pop animal style.

2) Finished off Hawkeye, though I'll have to wait on the new Matrix as Mike wants to watch them together and needs to catch up on the series. I went into it Hawkeye with no particular expectations and ended up quite enjoying it. ( Read more...Collapse )

3) Finished posting my series of 2010 mourning dove nest and baby photos on Pillowfort, which you can find under this tag -- just scroll back to the first post.

4) Interested to read about all the companies creating electric planes, most going after passenger markets but some like Amazon developing them for cargo delivery. These are expected to go into production and use faster because they will not have to clear the sort of safety hurdles that apply to a passenger fleet.

However the idea of these electric planes is not only hopeful for reduction of carbon emissions but the possibility that they will be useful for shorter hop flights because they must stop to recharge anyway.

5) This stat leaped out at me while reading about environmental journalism: " While 100 corporations are responsible for 71% of all greenhouse gas emissions, some of them are still funding pseudoscience and climate change deniers. Scientists and journalists in the U.S. and Europe are now attacked for exposing the harm that predatory capitalism does — a situation not unlike how social leaders at the helm of environmental justice movements have been attacked for centuries for exposing the same thing. Now journalists in the global North are the ones being labeled “too engaged” and “biased.” "



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Injury solidarity and 'tis the season to gift friends.

2) I'm looking at episode 2 season 6 of The Great British Baking Show and they're talking about how hot it's going to be in the tent while the bakers are trying to make a chocolate dessert. And what catches my eye are the men with two layers of clothing including flannel on top and the fact that the co-host is wearing a sweater on top of a shirt! Why is everyone not in a T-shirt in the summer anyway, much less in a tent filled with ovens baking and hot lights for filming?

3) Some people may have already seen Stephen Colbert's tribute to LotR's 20th anniversary (which was very fun). However I was curious about what people think really is the #1 film trilogy? And by what criteria? (Through length alone, LotR was more like 4 movies).

4) It's rather sad that these things need to be spelled out as a 2022 resolution but it certainly lays out what the news media should have been doing all along for far more reasons than nationalist threats.

5) Decided to do the year in review meme with some alterations:

1. Your main fandom this year?

I would have to say Star Wars. The new SW canon content was not particularly great – The Bad Batch, Visions, and a somewhat mixed follow-up season of The Mandalorian. But these were the stories I was eager to dig into. I had already shifted into reading SW fic last year and I have really enjoyed a number of them this year.

2. Your favorite film watched this year?

I watched quite a lot of movies this year, in part because HBO Max was releasing them simultaneously at home, plus skipping around streaming services means picking up more stuff than I might otherwise. The one I was most looking forward to was Spiderman but I'm not going to the theater to see it, so that and Eternals will have to wait.

I had to look through my movies tag for this year to recall what I saw. I was pretty meh on a lot of it, but it did remind me of The Bankers. I can definitely recommend that one. I also recommended Those Who Want Me Dead which was a good action movie and Greyhound which was very suspenseful, and Judas and the Black Messiah which was both informative and powerful. ( Read more...Collapse )



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Saw episode 5 of Hawkeye and found it intriguing. ( Read more...Collapse )

2) I always enjoy seeing the 100fandomicons challenge results. So many different fandoms to pick out and some fun choices for the prompts!

3) Following up again on the issue of feeds, the community dw_feed_promo exists both to promote any feeds you start as well as to find out what's been added. It hasn't been very active but the most recent posts there give a good insight into how much interesting stuff can be subscribed to.

4) I thought that this article meandered rather too much, especially in the sections detailing what we'd consider medical quackery, but there were some interesting bits about mitochondrial function and what sorts of energy we can measure. It seemed to me that a lot of the low energy issues the author has weren't a big mystery to explain, though how widespread they may be is eye opening:

"[A] University of North Carolina study that found that eighty-eight per cent of Americans suffer from some metabolic malfunction. “That means that roughly one in ten of us is able to process energy the way our bodies are designed to,” she said. “It’s an epidemic. Our fundamental pathways have been hijacked by the Western diet and life style. Disordered blood sugar is a big driver of most inflammation and chronic disease. It’s not just diabetes.”" ( Read more...Collapse )

5) One of the less well-understood inputs into these algorithms is keyword blocklists. "These are lists of words that the ad tech industry uses to exclude advertising from running on particular news stories…programmatic ads can be excluded from news stories that include words such as “Trump” or “Biden,” as well as “Black,” “Hispanic,” “Asian,” “gay,” or “lesbian.”

The result is that much of the advertising inventory on news sites is deemed brand-unsafe. A significant share of the ad inventory of The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times falls into this category. For sites serving Black or gay communities, 70% of the ad inventory can be excluded because so many of their stories include words that keyword blocklists have deemed too risky for ads."

Also, because "algorithms don’t differentiate between misinformation sites and quality publishers" Comscore estimates "that $2.6 billion worth of online ads from blue-chip companies annually run on sites that advertisers never intended." This money is supporting the misinformation industry and it's because it's so much cheaper to have automated ad placement as opposed to human selection.



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) When you're not the A team.

2) As some have probably heard, Michael Nesmith of the Monkees died this week. I liked this quote from a Rolling Stone article (a publication which would have reviled them at the time), because it's so true about canons generally:

“The Monkees were playing live by this time, and the lyric to this was inspired by that.” Nez, with his solo-folkie background, was stunned by the sight of 20,000 fans. “Every time we played, an extraordinary thing happened. The performance turned us into something we weren’t offstage, which was the Monkees. Peter calls it the ‘fifth thing.’ It was the audience. They were there to bring this thing into reality, to make actual what the television show had portrayed. It was really about them. The lyrics come from a post-concert realization of the reality that had just occurred, the Monkees coming to life as the audience. Maybe that’s a little metaphysical.”

3) Birds Aren’t Real, or Are They? Inside a Gen Z Conspiracy Theory "What Birds Aren’t Real truly is, they say, is a parody social movement with a purpose. In a post-truth world dominated by online conspiracy theories, young people have coalesced around the effort to thumb their nose at, fight and poke fun at misinformation. It’s Gen Z’s attempt to upend the rabbit hole with absurdism."

4) Kind of fascinated by the discussion of 2.5-D fandom "linking fictional worlds to real life. They focused on SKAM which "combined a transmedia, innovative format, intended to engage youth, with a more traditional “summary” episode every week, which engaged older audiences." The story tried to "appear ‘real.’ This meant that fans of the series visited the very real school the series’ characters attended, for example, and were able to follow the characters social media accounts and comment on their posts, which blurred the boundaries between what was fiction and what was not."

5) I got a lot of feedback about the meta newsletter feed I set up last week so I went to take a look at the subscriptions to it. It has grown quickly. What is striking to me is how little people subscribe to feeds on Dreamwidth. I mean, on the one hand, we have a lot of feeds set up here, so one might think that it's just that people have a wide range of interests. But in fact, only 24 feeds here have more than 100 subscribers! (And at the rate it's going, this new feed might even make that list by year's end). That's because most feeds have fewer than 5 people subscribed. ( Read more...Collapse )



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) When you're the sidekick and not the superhero, also a snow globe for cats and this bit from our Canadian friends just made me laugh.

2) I have not laughed so much in a while – the Disney+ shorts series Dug (the dog from Up) made Mike and me laugh so much we had to pause the stream several times. We've watched the first 3 (of 5) episodes and the first was the best but it's all quite cute.

3) Really interesting discussion of why dialogue in movies has become so hard to understand.

4) YouTube claims that only 1% of its automatic copyright bans are disputed (within 6 months). Except, besides the fact that a lot of people never take the time to dispute an incorrect takedown, that 1% means "Over 2.2 million YouTube videos were hit with copyright claims that were later overturned."

5) Given the increasing restrictions on abortion in the U.S. there are some organizations mobilizing to help get women to other states as needed and others to get pills into the hands of women both as needed and pre-emptively.



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Thanks to someone's comment on one of my meta posts I discovered that there is a fandom meta newsletter over on Tumblr, so I created a feed here on DW that anyone can subscribe to.

2) Hawkeye's third episode was great fun. I was literally surprised when it was over because the episode went by so quickly. There were lots of nice action set pieces and there was also a very good set up for the villain which makes us understand her obsession. The musical and the action scenes in this also show us that there's often little difference between TV and film now in terms of both scope and quality. I am also very interested to see where the show may go with Clint's hearing.

3) I don't recall if I've recced tei's classical music program notes before, but I've found them wonderfully written and so informative about music history.

4) A big +1 to this discussion of how the media needs to learn some lessons if past mistakes aren't to be repeated. "Even if one argues that whether 45 runs again is newsworthy, there’s still a sense of the media floundering over how to cover an anti-democratic candidate…After four years of amateurish mistakes, four years of premium gaslighting, there’s still no answer. "

5) Given this is a big shopping season, some concerns about how wasteful online shopping can be."Allon said about 25% of returned items end up in landfills, so reducing returns will help shrink the carbon footprint created by so much waste. In addition to the toxic side effects of manufacturing, greenhouse gases are emitted from shipping back and forth."



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) There's a reason reindeer are who Santa uses, given they're as fast as locomotives, plus many dogs don't care for snow and cats have a tendency to go their own way.

2) A reminder that threeforthememories will be running again starting January 3! Its purpose is to share photos that each member has taken during the prior year. This might be the 3 photos that they feel best encapsulate their year, or are simply the ones they most wish to share by whichever criteria they choose. Anyone can participate by just joining the community.

3 for the Memories is not a competition, and entries are not being judged. Rather, participants are encouraged to share photos they find meaningful in some way as a form of sharing different experiences with one another. If you have any questions, visit our masterpost or just ask here.

3) Given the need of many newsrooms to cut costs, it's unsurprising that they'd be among the first to start closing most of their offices. But apparently they're not alone.

The UK regional publisher Archant will close 8 of its 12 offices by March…Archant publishes four daily newspapers — The East Anglian Daily Times, Eastern Daily Press, Norwich Evening News, and Ipswich Star — and around 150 weekly newspapers and magazines across the UK. ( Read more...Collapse )

4) Just a reminder that DW is doing its annual holiday promo giving you bonuses for renewing a paid account or paying for someone else's account. And as social media gets worse and worse, it's good to support small businesses that don't exploit users for data or advertisers or use AIs to randomly censor content.

Although I have a permanent paid account, I would be happy to pay for someone else's account next year as a way of supporting the site. If you'd like me to do so for you or someone else, PM me.

5) Things are not looking good for U.S. abortion rights and 2022 may bring a catastrophe in that area. Some recent articles looked at how businesses may be affected, which is connected to where people do or don't want to live. If the latter becomes a trend, "winner take all" processes are going to make it even harder for voters in their state's minority to be heard.



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Saw the first two episodes of Hawkeye. ( Read more...Collapse )

2) We finished Only Murders in the Building yesterday. Overall it was ok. There were moments that were quite funny and I noticed that humor targeted at the experiences of older people landed best. As a murder mystery I can't say I was all that taken with it since suspects kind of appear out of nowhere and motives seem like an afterthought. Also, given how it ended, clearly they're planning on a S2. I imagine we'll watch it but I wouldn't call the series a must-see.

3) What I saw a few days ago was so stupid it had to be corporate -- in 20+ mph winds, a guy with a leaf blower. Yeah dude, pretty sure that little stick ain't going to do nothing nature isn't about to overcome.

In fact, it was so windy that when I was stopped at a traffic light I saw some geese doing the slowest flyover of an intersection I've ever seen. They looked like a bunch of mimes practicing the "against the wind" move.

You could tell that the holiday was not only around the corner but starting early this year. Living by the big box shopping district, traffic always gets busy on Friday afternoons. On Wednesday morning it was already busy. An early morning grocery trip on Monday had more people than usual. I saw 3 sheriff's vehicles while on the road. I was glad that I was done and Mike was home from work by 2 PM because it was sure to get worse later with Black Friday sales already under way.

4) Among other things I watched recently on HBO Max was a documentary on Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill album and tour. I had checked out of the music scene by that period and I knew about her and her work but really knew nothing about either. Yet I feel I still didn't know much by the end of the documentary. ( Read more...Collapse )

5) It's been a busy few days since we use the Thanksgiving holiday for Christmas decorating and there's always stuff to catch up on that we use the extra time for. Tried three different catered meals this year –- the first for just two people which was disappointing other than for the single serving of pumpkin bread pudding. ( Read more...Collapse )



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Even animals like to watch other animals, but sometimes they can also be hard to ignore. Also, regretting your life choices, showing empathy, asking for what you want, doing your job, showing your colors and making your own fun.

2) It's nice to have Disney+ again and have a bunch of content I've been waiting to see…except that Mike wants to see it too and has limited time. We also have been enjoying the Staged TV series with Tennant and Sheen. I found it interesting to see how much of himself Sheen apparently brought to Martin Whitly, given I've recently finished Prodigal Son.

Hopefully we'll be able to get through some Marvel stuff and we'll see if he wants to watch the Beatles documentary. I'm in S3 of Titans now and watched King Richard this week on HBO Max, so I'll soon have extra time to dig into more content on Hulu.

3) Following up on discussion in my previous post about medical failures, I was struck by a comment in this article about the massive amount of hair loss happening since the pandemic started: ( Read more...Collapse )

4) Thanks to tozka for the update that mayyyybe something might be done about how publishers are extorting libraries in terms of ebook sales.

"In September, Wyden and Eshoo first questioned publishers over the terms they set for ebook licensing. The COVID-19 pandemic forced many public libraries to shut down in-person service, and people began using online services like Overdrive’s Libby app to borrow digital books in lieu of physical copies…the lawmakers highlighted how digital versions of books can be more accessible to people with disabilities. “In recent years, e-books have been a growing part of library catalogs. Not only do many library users prefer to borrow e-books, but digital options can provide greater accessibility for Americans who have disabilities, face mobility challenges, or live in remote areas."

Time to write to your reps in Congress that we want them to keep the pressure on and fix this problem – libraries are paid for with tax and tuition dollars and that's your pocket the publishers are targeting, forcing libraries to cut other things they could do or people they could hire if they weren't paying these sorts of prices.

5) By the way, for anyone who didn't know, the U.S. Dancing with the Stars has finally had two same sex dance partners in this season. There have been some remarkable dances, but this is the best one I've seen so far:





Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) I was very sorry to hear about the death of Petra Mayer, still so young. Although some of her obituaries mention she was a genre readerand romance proponent, she was also a fanfic reader. Maybe even writer – who knows who has an account at AO3.

2) Spotted this article about lingering medical treatment effects thanks to petzipellepingo but decided to comment on my own post. The focus is on post-ICU symptoms from Covid patients, but this is a vastly underdiscussed story that makes me very angry for a number of personal reasons. ( Read more...Collapse )

3) What is with this new practice of just leaving video links in posts at AO3? I recently subscribed to an AO3 feed for videos, but even when someone is linking to YouTube, which makes embeds super easy, people leave links and sometimes they're not even active ones. Why?

4) Following up on previous studies showing that some people are simply assholes online and spread misinformation deliberately, comes another study showing how people interact with news depending on political outlook. ( Read more...Collapse )

5) Just wanted to point out that there have been a series of posts about national fandoms at Henry Jenkins' blog which makes for interesting reading. Unfortunately they don't share a common tag but you can see others in the Recent Posts sidebar. The posts also talk about the state of media fandom studies in each country and which fandoms tend to get attention.




Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Animal work partners, including the self-taught kind, though humans can still be needed for interventions. Plus a dog being very startled that humans aren't staying in their own lane and a cat who is going to love a toddler into submission. Plus, baby Appa and a beautiful sentiment.

2) I recently rewatched S3 of Killing Eve as I'd been unable to see all its episodes when it first aired. Even though I am not in the fandom or following any content on it, I gathered that a lot of people hadn't cared for this season. I'm not sure why – I've enjoyed all of them, and the last episode alone! How have I not seen swaths of fanart from the dance hall?

3) I've been watching Titans on HBO Max. Finished S1 and it was ok. It was better in concept than execution. For example, I just couldn't get over the fact that a house that has been unlived in for 5 years not only hasn't been foreclosed on due to lack of tax payments, but it still has electricity and water and phone service and looks very tidy and clean. At one point a character says that they're going to prepare food yet nobody has been grocery shopping and I don't know what they are doing for money anyway. But no problem, because there is a backyard garden that of course is still growing things despite being untended!

Of course, a lot of what happens in these shows wouldn't occur at all if people didn't stomp around insisting they didn't need anybody's help when they obviously do. In the S2 premiere the resolution to S1 seemed rather underwhelming given the threat level. It didn't even take the whole episode so that we could set up the S2 premise.

Still, it's an undemanding view while I'm folding laundry or making the bed, so I'll probably keep watching it now that I've finished Prodigal Son.

4) Public, Educational, and Governmental (PEG) access cable channels have been vital services during the pandemic.

"A recent Center for Media and Social Impact study found that many communities, especially in rural and exurban areas, relied on PEG services to communicate when people were forced into isolation. Community leaders relayed timely public health updates via virtual town halls, press conferences, and safety bulletins. PEG stations also circulated vital information across multiple platforms such as cable channels, over-the-air radio, social media, and online streaming sites. These integrated communication services proved crucial, especially in communities that suffer from spotty broadband connectivity and severely limited local journalism."

However these stations are funded by cable subscriber fees which have been declining as people cut the cord. Yet they could be a partial solution to the decline in news coverage for a number of areas.

5) I'm pretty sure no Sexiest Man Alive has ever worked harder for the title. We really laughed at Paul Rudd's segment on Colbert, and clearly given the frequent cuts, Colbert himself couldn't keep from laughing. Bravo!




Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) The heron that visits our lake has been back this past week. I was rather amused that, while on a walk on the lake's sidewalk, it kept flying away from me – but only by about 50 feet or so each time. So within minutes I'd be catching up again and it would fly forward again, still by the sidewalk.

I actually wondered if the heron was playing a game because it seemed a rather dumb thing to keep doing – and it did it 6 times! Finally it flew off to another part of the lake. Maybe had it been a crow it really would have been a game but I guess herons have something in common with mourning doves.

2) Another interesting study regarding online behavior, this one in regards to lying. The study wanted to see if the form of communication affected deception and the answer was yes but not much. It also noted "Deception rates might also differ across technology because people use some forms of technology for certain social relationships. For example, people might only email their professional colleagues, while video chat might be a better fit for more personal relationships."

The real difference was among people. "There’s a low rate of lying across the board. Most people are honest — a premise consistent with truth-default theory, which suggests most people report being honest most of the time and there are only a few prolific liars in a population." They also linked to this UK study which pointed out that studies have consistently shown that compulsive liars are few in number.

3) We have more congenital syphilis cases today in America than we ever had pediatric AIDS at the height of the AIDS epidemic. "It costs public health departments less than 25 cents a dose to buy penicillin, but for a private practice, it’s more than $1,000." However for any of that to help, you have to get people to agree to treatment and guess how well that works.

4) "Newspaper audiences in general are not a representative sample of Americans, according to Stroud’s study results. Of readers who took a survey on their commenting habits, roughly 62% were men, 91% were white, 78% had a bachelor’s degree or more and the average age was 65."

I was somewhat more surprised that a report on how labor issues are becoming a hot reporting topic admitted it was all about journalists themselves. "The shift was spurred, many journalists believe, by the growing labor movement inside American newsrooms, which has made reporters “more knowledgeable and sympathetic to labor issues."" You don't say.

5) I was interested in this post about group identity research given its relevance to fandom, but what stood out to me was the finding that diversifying your groups doesn't serve any advantage if the group itself doesn't see itself as working towards a common goal or buying into group philosophy: ( Read more...Collapse )



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) NPR's 1A had an episode about Renaissance Fairs that enthusiasts might find enjoyable. Also, It's Been a Minute had a discussion about the media's role in climate change discussions which had a lot of blunt talk that I have failed to see in many other places.

Specifically, the guest said that having fewer children and "managed retreat" -- which is apparently another term for "permanently resettling climate refugees" and "not trying to hold back the ocean" -- were important aspects of the discussion. The former is critical, and the latter is inevitable. There are already people whose homes are disappearing, whether through collapse or natural disaster or creeping changes. The best way to preserve cultures and communities is to strategically plan to move them in their entirety rather than doing nothing until people have scattered bit by bit. ( Read more...Collapse )

2) Nabbed from lilysea, How Memphis Created the Nation’s Most Innovative Public Library

“If librarians can’t save the world, no one can,” says Christine Weinreich, executive director of the Memphis Library Foundation, which helps fund many of these initiatives. “They have no ego, they’re not looking for glory, they just want to change lives and transform communities, and we have an army of them working in Memphis every day.”

3) Related to a discussion from this past week about digital literacy skills and social media habits, news organizations are desperate to reach Gen Z and younger millennials with content. One change (which is not likely to stop at news) is to pre-install a lock screen app that provides news content.

"The next innovation in news distribution and consumption is not likely to come from Facebook, Google or even Apple. Pay close attention instead to the mobile network operators, handset manufacturers, and the companies they partner with in an attempt to “hack” the app ecosystem"

4) Speaking of revenue models, many may have heard of the 80/20 rule, which holds true in some very varied examples. But when it comes to online donations and interaction, it seems to be more like the 2/50 rule. I noticed it again in an article about donations to The Guardian: "it was delivering more than 50% of the revenue from less than 2% of the total monthly audience"

I would be willing to bet there are a lot of places online (including DW) where the active people may be 20% of those with accounts but the ones financially supporting it are just 2%. And in some places it's not even that. Even though OTW does very well with fundraising these days, I don't think there have ever been more than 10,000 donors for a single drive period (generally much less) –- even though at least 10 million people are using it every month.

5) I include this article here less because of the story, although I have to agree with the statement that it's "one of the most American stories I have ever read." No, rather it's because I wish I could see posts like this everywhere, pointing out how the news media is complicit with absolutely everything that is wrong in our society. (I'd say societies because I doubt it's much better anywhere else, but I'll leave it to others to say that). And it's because of how they do their jobs. But what's also remarkable is that the most bizarre issue to anyone living elsewhere -- the fact that a homeowner should be so heavily armed -- goes completely unremarked. Because it is, after all, Texas.



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Ever seen a dog planking? This one compared to the one last week that could barely contain itself from jumping into a pool is just another example of personal differences. Also, not all are such good nannies.

2) I had a gift card for Target so I walked over there this week to see if I could find some items our usual store isn't carrying. They have remodeled the store and clearly know where their money is made. ( Read more...Collapse )

Speaking of Dollar Tree, it is striking to me how most of the prices are kept low…by reducing the sizes of the items. For example, I buy chocolate-caramel sugar-free Werthers every year. They had them there, but in a smaller size than at the grocery. Ironically the one thing that is a great buy is also the one thing where a small size would be handy – spices. Although there are maybe 10 items besides salt and pepper, they are all large sizes! But they were $1 as was the jar of pesto.

3) The eBook extortion by publishers, particularly when it comes to libraries, just keeps getting more outrageous:

"The #ebookSOS campaign has put together a spreadsheet listing dozens of named examples. One title cost £29.99 as a physical book, and £1,306.32 for a single-user ebook license. As if those prices weren't high enough, it's common for publishers to raise the cost with no warning, and to withdraw ebook licenses already purchased. One of the worst aspects is the following: ( Read more...Collapse )

4) Adobe and news orgs are working on a new tool that could identify a photo’s origin — and combat misinformation. Seems to me that tool would also be useful in fandom for identifying art plagiarism and who originally created stuff.

5) I've seen people on Pillowfort and once or twice here on DW ask about how to start posting regularly and what they should post about. And as I've left comments on some of those posts I thought I'd just write up some thoughts here and then link to them the next time I come across one. ( Read more...Collapse )



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) When you get just what you want, or maybe something you didn't know you needed plus pets with disabilities in their Halloween costumes!

2) Mike told me the NHL is dumping its own app and merging with ESPN+ for games. I need to look into whether or not that's the usual ESPN+ subscription or something else. But if so we'd probably be better off doing the bundle with Hulu Live, which is the same cost as what we're paying right now for DStream+HBO Max.

3) I thought I'd already crossposted this here, but if so I didn't find a record of it. However discussion on PF has circled around to it again so I thought I'd post this here as well

I've long understood why a site like LJ and its clones is difficult to learn to use (and why it can also seem silent). I had a definite learning curve when first following people on that site and then getting my own account (which was delayed because at the time one needed an invite). Given its structure, Pillowfort has many of the same "problems."

I found Tumblr baffling when I first tried to use it because so much of what I expected to be able to do with it is simply not possible. Plus a lot of it doesn't work like it should even with the features it has (tag searching and tag feeds, for example).

But I was struck by a post I saw earlier today that talked about how many of the latest generation find Tumblr confusing and empty because they are accustomed to have content shoved at them from the moment they create an account on more recent popular social media sites. Someone responding suggested that Reddit (an ancient site by today's standards) is much easier because it, too, quickly offers you content. ( Read more...Collapse )

4) Not that anyone here probably cares about this, but a chronological series of Duran Duran album reviews I wrote got added to AO3 last year. It was incomplete and I have finally finished it, spurred on by last week's new album release.

5) People might be more interested in seeing the story of Bert and Bertha, the mourning doves who nested on our door wreath back in 2010. I've now finished those posts on Pillowfort so just scroll down to the first post to see the pics in order.



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Cats like fetch too, though you might be able to calm them in unexpected ways. Also, best not to overprepare and maybe this is how Riverdance got started.

2) We watched the new Dune last night. ( SpoilersCollapse )

3) A couple of good fandom discussions over at Henry Jenkins' blog. There are a whole series of posts, but will be quoting from this one:

"I alluded to the 'cultural baggage' of conflict and reluctance, and at times, shame, when I looked at the way fandom is discussed in Malaysia. Commercially successful franchises and media such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars, Game of Thrones, and most recently, BTS and Squid Game are considered acceptable, often serving as fodder for national conversation. It is one thing to be able to understand the latest superhero references in popular press coverage, or to purchase a Funko Pop figure but fans are still cautioned against being too emotionally attached to a media text.

My conversations with students certainly reveal this contradiction, where pop culture knowledge is considered "cool", but fandom is often "waste of time" and something one does as a child (and thus, grow out of). The hierarchy of taste is delineated along commercially successful texts, and acceptable fan practice is sanctioned by the industry through consumption of official merchandise. Any other fan practice that falls into a more transformative pursuit is othered, and often simplified, not only into “fluff”, but “fluff” that is a cause for concern." ( Read more...Collapse )

4) Apparently my walks have made me better able to handle the cold. I had to take the car in again today for a two and a half hour service. It was barely 50 degrees, overcast, and we had a wind advisory in effect. ( Read more...Collapse )

5) No doubt everyone's heard of the whistleblower revelations about Facebook in the past few weeks. But this article pulls together a number of revelations from the leaked documents, and I'd be willing to bet you'll still come across some surprises. Some I'm pulling out:

Among them is what happened when FB researchers set up test accounts to see what the algorithm would provide to a new user. Here's just one quote: "“Following this test user’s News Feed, I’ve seen more images of dead people in the past three weeks than I’ve seen in my entire life total.""

Apple was close to banning Facebook and Instagram from the App Store because of how it was being used for human trafficking.

Teens aren't just fleeing FB, they're using Instagram less too. (We could have deduced this given that FB is trying to get them hooked even younger with their new proposed site). "Posting by teens had dropped 13 percent from 2020 and “remains the most concerning trend,” the researchers noted, adding that the increased use of TikTok by teens meant that “we are likely losing our total share of time.”"



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) The pluses and minuses of dogs. Also, it's not always birds on your roof.

2) I finished Mindhunter S2 and am disappointed that it was cancelled with so many plot threads dangling. ( Read more...Collapse )

3) We've started a Hulu subscription and have tried out several shows, including The Great, Only Murders in the Building, and the Hardy Boys. ( Read more...Collapse )

4) Every picture tells a story alright. This week I went to get our car serviced and decided to take a walk around the lot to substitute for my morning walk. I didn't walk as much as expected because I misjudged how warm it would be, but I made a full lap and was surprised by what I saw.

This dealership sells 5 different manufacturers, including Toyota. Normally it's full other than for the occasional empty slot. Instead what I saw was not a single row better than half full and entire corners of the lot empty. The only near full section in this mile wide lot was next to the service area – which despite having a number of cars waiting had only 4 of its 12 bays in use.

When I told this to Mike he said we got our car at the right time. This brought me up short because I've been kicking myself every time I think of it that we bought our car in August 2019. ( Read more...Collapse )

5) Al though the headline says New Research Shows Social Media Doesn't Turn People Into Assholes (They Already Were) the article debunks other assumptions about online behavior. For example, people spreading misinformation are often doing it maliciously with full knowledge it's untrue, and that echo chambers are more true offline than on:

"So we've been talking a lot about echo chambers and how social media creates echo chambers. But, in reality, the biggest echo chamber that we all live in is the one that we live in in our everyday lives…social media essentially breaks down the echo chambers. I can see the views of other people -- what they are saying behind my back. That's where a lot of the felt hostility of social media comes from. Not because they make us behave differently, but because they are exposing us to a lot of things that we're not exposed in our everyday lives."




Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Meerkat appreciating a good scratch (such cute noises!) and a cat being a sneaky trickster. Also a jogging owl a fun cat joke and the sweetness of a mama and baby otter.

2) There is now an Alzheimer's blood test that can be ordered, called the PrecivityAD test. The article I read on it is paywalled but while it is not FDA approved yet a 2019 study showed it 94% as accurate as brain scans using a radioactive dye.

3) Workers give up pay to stay remote — but don't always take a financial hit mentions the savings that many people make by not commuting, paying for parking or food while in an office. But also interesting is that "Employers reap benefits, too, in addition to reduced paychecks. Companies save $11,000 annually per worker who is remote 2.5 days a week, the Global Workplace Analytics study found, due to increased productivity, lower real estate costs, reduced absenteeism, among other factors."

I can't access the report itself as it's behind a paywall, but it doesn't surprise me that the people whose jobs can be done remotely are often willing to take a pay cut to avoid the high costs of living near work or the long commutes if they live away from it. But what was interesting is how many of the 3000 people surveyed qualified for it.

• 97% of North American office workers worked from home >1 day/week during the pandemic (88% globally); 67% had not worked remotely on a regular basis before COVID-19 (69% globally).
• 76% of global employees want to continue working from home. On average their preference is for 2.5 days a week in the U.S. (2 days/week globally).

4) I read a pair of good books recently, Ruth Rendell's House of Stairs and The Devil's Candy by Julie Salamon. ( Read more...Collapse )

5) Surprising no one: Study Says Official Count Of Police Killings Is More Than 50% Lower Than The Actual Number. As in at least 17,000 people lower.



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Since I only use accounts here and at Pillowfort I didn't notice the suspiciously timed FB empire outage. But I heartily agree with this assessment of where our behavior has led us:

"a key part of the value of the internet, originally, was in its resiliency of being highly distributed, rather than centralized, and how it could continue to work well if one part fell off the network. The increasing centralization/silo-ization of the internet has taken away much of that benefit. So, if anything, yesterday's mess should be seen as another reason to look more closely at a protocols-based approach to building new internet services."

2) Watched the miniseries "The Trial of Christine Keeler" over the past two weeks. I was quite interested since I had heard of the Profumo scandal and its central players but never knew the details. Given that not that much emphasis was put on the whole Russian spy angle (probably because, as the end credits noted, the files on Stephen Ward are secret until 2046!) the whole thing came off as ridiculous and a matter of political gamesmanship. ( Read more...Collapse )

3) I did a big review of the board game site we use in the last two weeks and minimally checked on the descriptions of all their games while test playing some 100 games of their 340+. (Most of them are fairly short, under 10 minutes and all under 30). ( Read more...Collapse )

4) I have never seen Miami Vice the Movie although I was quite familiar with the TV series at one time. I want to digress a moment to mention how mine was probably the last generation that understands you often watched shows on Friday nights not because you really liked them but because they were the best of the few choices that were on. I am convinced quite a few shows became hits mostly due to their time slots.

However I found the discussion of the movie rather interesting as it's considered one of those films that became appreciated after it bombed at the box office. The talk in these last few years, and particularly during the pandemic, has been all about how movies were meant to be seen in theaters. But this overlooks how many movies became beloved hits because they were seen at home. Princess Bride is probably among the best known, but others were even before VCRs such as It's a Wonderful Life. And this review praising the film notes: ( Read more...Collapse )

5) This article caught my attention because it startled me that Jools Holland is still playing this role. But I wonder if there is any TV in the U.S. doing this either? I long stopped watching MTV and is subsidiaries, and I know there are radio shows and podcasts as well as long running shows like Austin City Limits that feature musical acts. But are there musical curators on TV that have regular shows?



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Daschunds are definitely not desiged for a tight turning radius and cats aren't always good with kids.

2) Thanks to Petzi for these thoughts about the Sopranos. I never watched the show and know nothing about a resurgence, but this was an interesting view of what it was saying about the state of America to come. It made me curious enough that I put the new movie on my queue even though I know I'll be missing many of the implications for the series.

3) Thanks also to Petzi for posting this essay about everyone being famous:

According to Postman, TV destroyed all that, replacing our written culture with a culture of images that was, in a very literal sense, meaningless. “Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other,” he writes. “They do not exchange ideas; they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities and commercials.” ( Read more...Collapse )

4) I have perhaps unusual opinions on two things I've watched recently, the first being Promising Young Woman. ( SpoilersCollapse )

5) The Ken Burns documentary on Muhammad Ali is both a long piece of work and yet maddeningly quiet on too many things surrounding him. ( Read more...Collapse )



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Chances are there are not many people currently following this account who were around back when I posted about Edwina (which was 2009-2012). We had a number of bird nests among our plant pots on the balcony but one day we got a pretty big one –- a mallard.

At first we wondered if the duck would abandon her nest because we had to go on the balcony regularly, even if only to take care of the plants. But those reading my post advised that as long as you left the duck alone they'd stay put. So we did, and I was sometimes entertained by seeing her looking at Mike as he'd be out there gardening and watering for hours.

She would stay on the nest almost all the time except for twice a day when she presumably left to eat, once near dusk. We got in the habit of asking one another if she was in the pot or not, and this led to her name. To me, the funniest moment of the movie All of Me was when Steve Martin's character is trying to clarify that he wanted Lily Tomlin's spirit to be taken out of him and put back in a box. The guru kept repeating "Edwina, back in box." So we called her Edwina.

Pillowfort is having financial trouble. Their schedule for premium features was thrown off by their time offline earlier this year, and then also by several deliberate troll attacks. Staff reacted very well to this but it has no doubt cost them a great deal of time to develop new features and hit the banhammer daily.

So I don't know how much longer the site will stay open. Personally I'm hoping it will be a long time indeed but successful online platforms are the exception to the rule.

Even though I'm only 2/3 of the way through her story, if anyone here wants to follow it (or revisit it) you can find it through her tag. Just go back to the first page so you can do so in order.

2) silverusagi posted some thoughts about characterization in romance that I can relate to. I thought I'd bring my comment here.( Read more...Collapse )

3) A signal boost to recthething's weekly recs. It's always fun to see what turns up (saw a stunning Loki fanart piece there last week). And speaking of Loki fanworks, I think this is the sort of bisexual pride statement that many people wish the Loki series had done more of.

4) An article about how teens don't know the basics about computers has gotten a lot of attention. I find myself unsurprised. There is also a huge assumption that young people are good at searching for things because they grew up with what earlier generations would consider advanced technology. As any librarian would point out, this has been proven untrue. ( Read more...Collapse )

5) Speaking of being vulnerable to things, FBI Sat On Ransomware Decryption Key For Weeks As Victims Lost Millions Of Dollars. Despite their excuses "Emsisoft, however, was able to act quickly. It extracted the key from what the FBI provided Kaseya, created a new decryptor and tested it — all within 10 minutes, according to Fabian Wosar, Emsisoft chief technology officer. The process was speedy because the firm was familiar with REvil’s ransomware. “If we had to go from scratch,” Wosar said, “it would have taken about four hours.” The FBI took three weeks to turn over the key to the first of many victims. During that time, it apparently failed to accomplish what Emisisoft developed in 10 minutes, as well as failing to catch any of the perpetrators."



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) I know that a number of new people have followed me over the past year so I want to take the opportunity to promote buffyversetop5, which will be opening for its annual session on October 22. If you have been enjoying fanworks in any of the Whedon fandoms over this past year, please join the community and share some recs. (And if you have any questions about how to do so, let me know!)

2) Speaking of readers sharing things, I was amused to hear about the Marked for Later Bingo challenge for everyone who has pages of them at AO3. Not often I see challenges for readers rather than writers.

3) I'm surprised I haven't come across more discussion of the Twitter plan to create communities. On the one hand, I am strongly in favor of community options on all platforms because it's generally needed and it helps resolve a number of problems. On the other, I can't help rolling my eyes. The first time I ever heard of Twitter I wondered why people used it instead of just group texting, which was already a thing. I mean, I got why as an "official announcement" sort of platform it could be very useful to either make brief statements or to link people to longer content elsewhere. It was the social use of it I didn't get because it's very bad at that. ( Read more...Collapse )

4) I've noticed on walks that some trees are starting to respond to the shorter days. We're getting a significant cool-off tomorrow, just in time for the first day of the new season. In the meantime, pumpkins are now being sold at the grocery and I suspect we're finishing off the last watermelon of the season.

5) The Emmys this year were not exactly excruciating but were tiresome. It's pretty irritating to see recipients battling with the "end speech" music and reminders while we spend a bunch of time on needless and largely meh skits and dialogue for presenters, as well as unnecessary time for the president of the association to give a by-the-numbers statement. I definitely approved of the hostless events that kept things moving and focused on the nominees.

The one exception was the No Emmy Support Group skit which was actually amusing, particularly given how it ended. And I found Seth Rogen's dialogue telling. But my recording ended before the show did and I don't think it's because a few award recipients ran long. ( Read more...Collapse )



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) A living gargoyle, and a dog getting to fly, plus Hero Dogs and mourning ones. Lastly, apparently Land of the Giants wasn't entirely fictional, nor are muppets, and this is how you greet a princess.

2) I'm planning to subscribe to a month of Amazon Prime and was trying to find out when the final season of The Expanse is coming out. (Apparently the best guess is December or January?) While looking I came across this list of renewed shows and the first thing I thought was what a change it was from seeing a list of maybe 5 or 6 networks listing their "fall seasons."

I think the last quarter of the year is still significant for the launch of a lot of new shows. You can see at a glance how much the big 3 networks are producing compared to other outlets although HBO and Netflix now outdo them. I was momentarily excited to think that Brooklyn 99 would still have another season but despite being published this week the list included its "renewal" for S8 which is currently airing. So a number of these seasons are already in airing, rather than starting production. ( Read more...Collapse )

3) Speaking of returning TV shows, I happened across this newspaper column which struck me as remarkably unhelpful in the way it answered all its questions. However the first one was exactly what I was thinking when I saw SyFy only had Resident Alien listed as returning. OTOH, I enjoyed Alien enough to watch more of it. On the other, where is SyFy's programming? It certainly has a checkered history of offerings but it once produced BSG. Surely it can do more than one original scripted series?

4) Speaking of finding where things are airing, has anyone used reel good? I don't want to have to link my services in, particularly because we rotate them regularly so that's a nuisance. Is there another way to find out where particular shows/films are available?

5) There have been some interesting studies on misinformation, with some solutions proving to be multicultural. What I found interesting about this study though was less the decline in belief in a stranger's opinion but "As a whole, the optimistic people were likely to influence the pessimists to become more optimistic." However given that the study revolved around beliefs about IQ test results, the use of the term "optimistic" seems to me less accurate than "self-confident."



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) When your kids aren't quite ready to play ball and when they have sneaky moves. Also just as we should build cars from baby duck flubber we should apparently power our batteries from running dogs. Lastly, as spooky season is coming up this cat would fit right in plus a bee's life .

2) I finally finished the LEGO Lord of the Rings game. Overall I had the same take on it that I had for The Hobbit game -- too many choppy cut scenes with often unimportant activities in between them. But The Hobbit was worse about this than LotR was, perhaps because far less was happening than in the LotR trilogy. But I realized that the two games were deliberately similar and that some good additions had been made between the time each was created, but some things would have been a timesaver. ( Read more...Collapse )

3) Thanks to various days of cooler weather, I've been able to walk in the mornings most days these last two weeks. I was thinking about how the neighborhood has changed in that time. Although we'd probably see the Amazon delivery vans pretty often anyway during this boom in online ordering, the fact that we are close to their distribution warehouse as of 2019 probably also makes a difference. I saw no fewer than 4 of them during my 40 minute walk.

4) Decided to do thefridayfive this week:

What are your top 5 favourite foods?

Especially when it comes to food I always have to wonder if a favorite is what you most often eat or what you wish you could. So I'll split the difference and also mention food types because no way can I pick only 5 dishes.

Cuban. Yes, very broad but there are several typical dishes I'd include here such as piccadillo, ropa vieja, marinated pork with mojo, black bean soup, yellow rice and ripe plantains. ( Read more...Collapse )

5) I would be happy to donate to SciHub but I have never dealt with cryptocurrency. Has anyone else?



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Still loving Brooklyn 99 – the very opposite of "Bury Your Gays." Also, they know their fandom. There's no way they could end the series run without a final Doug Judy episode.

2) So now we have a Star Trek Day? Is this something that just came along because Paramount created it recently? Rather odd that they have 12 panels planned but aren't starting it until 5:30 U.S. PST. Unless these panels are very short they'll be running all night. Why not start it at 9 AM PST?

3) A rather funny/odd event the other night. We typically decorate for Halloween on Labor Day weekend due to Mike's schedule in the autumn. We also have some pumpkin lights over the dining table whose pumpkins are very loose and they fall off easily. So it wasn't that surprising that one did. What was surprising is that we were a considerable distance from it, watching TV, and one managed to go off the table onto the floor, and around a chair to end up underneath our seats.

The funny part was that we were watching an episode of Hogan's Heroes which focused on a séance to speak with Otto Von Bismarck. So as we listened to the bounce and roll of the pumpkin, we both looked at one another and went, "Otto, is that you?"

4) Speaking of Halloween, we have a wreath on our front door which we change with the seasons. There is now a Halloween one up. What caught my attention is that our invisible next door neighbors have also put up a Halloween plaque and the downstairs neighbors now have a wreath on their door as well. (The other downstairs neighbors moved out last weekend).

5) Apparently when Mike Nesmith wrote this in Tapioca Tundra I totally missed the message:“it can not be a part of me for now it’s part of you” refers to songs that eventually belong to the fans.



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Simultaneously entertaining and alarming your kitten, dogs making their own song, and a dog proving that confusion is clear across species. Pigs decide floods are fun, fish decide a duck is their leader, and humans and animals can heal one another. Also, a lot of us probably feel like this by day's end (Mike said it was just missing a dropped remote).

2) Omar walking.

3) If you've heard about the situation in Texas, signal boosting a post by melannen about one way fanfic writers can change the narrative.

4) Thanks to Petzi for sharing this article about the state of family films.

“The really big event family film like ‘Frozen’ I don’t think will ultimately go anywhere,” said Doug Creutz, an analyst at investment firm Cowen, echoing the thoughts of several Hollywood observers. “But for a lot of other titles, even after the pandemic ends, the idea of going to see a family film may not be what it was.”

If anything this sounds like good news to me. That means that most parents are not taking their unvaccinated kids to be in a theater with many other unvaccinated (and unmasked) kids. On the downside some parents might but they can't afford the tickets because their income has been upended. ( Read more...Collapse )

5) An example of a vaccine information group which manages to stay civil and be useful to its participants. It does it through strict moderation, which is probably the only way to run any large group.



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) This birdy knows it's pretty and wants to show off for you, and this dog welcomes entertainment.

2) Curious what others think of this debate about present vs past tense writing? It seemed odd to me that fanfiction was cited as an influence since I see very little of it. There was a Reddit thread debating it in fanfic but what jumped out at me was this thought:

"My english teacher once said that present tense is becoming a usual, recurring thing because it's getting more and more common for books to get turned into scripts for movies."

3) Universal Music Group Has Copyrighted The Moon

4) Thanks to some recs, I am giving Carl Hiassen another try and I do agree that Skin Deep is a much better book than his latest. The pacing is pretty snappy and there's a complex plot. However, I find that it's depressing reading. Supposedly he's writing satire but the fact is that it's full of truth. I don't know if the Miami Commissioners all have accounts in the Caymans (though it wouldn't surprise me) and no one should be surprised by police corruption. But given the way it centers on a doctor, it's not at all entertaining reading how the medical profession might as well be the police union in the way they cover up problems, allow people to go to different states to practice despite horrific behavior, and can literally kill people.

5) How corrupt government and cheapskate telecom companies put people at risk:

"Fast forward to this week, and the same story played out once again. About 40% of AT&T's wireless network simply didn't work in the wake of Hurricane Ida (unsurprisingly due to lack of backup power at many cell sites)…AT&T also provides much of Louisiana's 911 infrastructure, and that failed too, leaving many locals unable to call 911 services. "



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Since discussion of tagging practices is likely to continue for a while given the strength of feeling in response to AO3's new limits, I thought I'd share this post from Tumblr (with numbers and a chart):

"TL;DR: half the works that are overtagged are either crossovers or pile-ups, and frankly, the pile-ups are an example of works this policy is trying to target as a problem."

One note is that the numbers being worked with are from early in the year as AO3 is now well past 8 million.

2) I read The Searcher by Tana French and feel rather divided about it. On the one hand the characterization is excellent and the characters will stick with you. However, given I read the book because I wanted a mystery I was rather unsatisfied with it. For one thing, the story got going at least 6 chapters later than I expected. And secondly the ending was, I thought, profoundly unsatisfying. The author gave good reasons for it, including the protagonist's own moral confusion, but I don't think I'll be reading any more if the others are similar.

On the other hand, I tried out a Temperance Brennan novel that a friend recommended. Still not finished it, but it was like a reverse of the French book –- quick, snappy, and centered on the mystery with some additional bits of personal life for the protagonist. However ( Read more...Collapse )

3) I really liked this look at why Politico became such a valuable news organization. It looks back to the aughts and how different the media landscape was 10 years ago, as well as why they can do without paywalls.

I suspect this overview tells us a lot about where news media will go in the next decade and how, frankly, a lot of it won't be around anymore. Instead, niche publications are going to dominate along with a handful of broad-audience publications (such as the NY Times and Washington Post). It remains to be seen if many of the digital-first news companies around today which are also going for the broad market (Vice, Buzzfeed, etc.) will become counterparts or merge together into something else.

4) Four years old already, but I was amused to come across this C&D letter sent by Netflix about a Stranger Things violation.

5) FINALLY, mask mandates are back in our state and vaccines are also being mandated for students, staff and health care workers. I sure hope businesses will be enforcing this.



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) I usually write and post meta here on DW first before moving it over to AO3, but while reviewing an old meta I realized it could use an update, and went ahead and drafted a new post there. It's titled What's in a Word? about variations in what is called fanfic.

2) Speaking of meta, adding to the signal boost of this very relevant post: "that currency thread" about how fandom is not an equal place and that inequality could get significantly worse.

One thing that it didn't cover but which I think is also relevant is that kids generally don't have money. ( Read more...Collapse )

3) Speaking of youths writing The pandemic is killing print products at student news organizations, as well as many digital operations. Hardly surprising given the past year of remote learning and the fact that pro publications are also dropping print in stages, with some weeklies who formerly did very well compared to dailies, shutting down entirely given a combination of fewer in-person pickups and advertisers closing up shop.

"[I]t’s not just American student journalists dealing with the fallout from the pandemic. Research from the U.K.-based Student Publication Association found that fully half of its student newspapers fear they’ll never be able to print again."

This made me curious –- how many of you subscribe to print publications (whether for work or pleasure?)

4) I have been watching Prodigal Son in a sort of background way, particularly given the show is now cancelled. One thing that struck me is that the predominance of wealthy characters in TV shows isn't just a combination of aspirational programming and advertisers who want to target the upper middle class (things I've talked about before). It also makes story telling much easier. ( Read more...Collapse )

5) AO3's announcement about the new 75 tag limit on posts has revealed a lot of user opinion about both tag overuse and how much people hate the practice of collecting drabbles or other short works all together in a single post as chapters instead of as separate items in a series (or as its own collection). I'm on their side myself –- it not only creates a wall of tags but it's useless in finding what you're looking for if only one post applies to the tag I'm subscribed to.

The post has over 11,000 notes on Tumblr within 48 hours and I only saw one comment that isn't celebrating the news. I suspect this announcement may become the first 1000+ comment post on the AO3 blog too. What surprised me was the following:

"god i know this is mean but if you use anywhere close to 75+ tags then it is not a good work. i know that in my heart of hearts as someone who has been on ao3 for over a decade and reading fanfics for 2 decades. please learn how to tag, and summarize, your fics. huge indicator of your writing and editing abilities sorry."

Without a doubt a wall of tags is offputting, but I don't know as I ever connected this to someone's writing ability. Am I alone in that? ( Read more...Collapse )

But I have my doubts that many writers think of tags as functional things as opposed to being ads, something on a label, rather than a path leading to the work. Of course, I'm probably particularly sensitive to this because of my past profession but I do wonder -- how would you describe a well loved fanwork and are the tags you would use for it much the same as the one the creator chose?



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Brooklyn 99 has returned! I know it's the final season but it doesn't seem to be a mark of confidence that they're burning off the episodes 2 a week during late summer. Certainly the quality of the show is just as good from the four episodes I've seen. That said, it's also somewhat awkward. ( Read more...Collapse )

2) I recently read Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman and liked it well enough. The central mystery was ok though it was all rather too pat. The real plus of the book was spending time with the octogenarians solving it and getting bits of the retirement community they lived in. I'd read another novel in the same setting.

3) It's so odd how LJ, which I use only to reply to a few comments there, and Tumblr, which I use only to offer likes on fan art, keep me logged in for a month while DW, which I use several times a day, logs me out almost every day.

4) I discovered that AARP has some old Atari video games on its site. Pong and Breakout are members-only but Centipede, Asteroids, and Missile Command can be played for free.

5) Having played board games every weekend this past year, I was struck by this article on Wingspan and how it speculates on gender differences when it comes to playing games, and also how the industry works.



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Family portrait and guinea pigs being zen, plus a bird and cat deciding to keep to themselves and a happy cow playing fetch (listen to the moos!)

2) Was asked by a friend what we've been watching lately and aside from Professor T and Unforgotten on PBS, it's been rather haphazard. We're seeing Penguin Town on Netflix which is a rather fun approach to a nature documentary. But mostly we've been chugging through seasons of Hogan's Heroes. Despite it being a half hour show this isn't all that quick since their seasons were as many as 32 episodes long!

But it was doing this watch that made me uncomfortably aware of something that's becoming more and more true – the fact that one is watching an entire cast of dead people. ( Read more...Collapse )

3) I recently zoomed through various movies while working on jigsaw puzzles. This includes Ready Player One (fun shoutouts to fandom things but otherwise not memorable), Birds of Prey, and the new Suicide Squad. The latter started boring me after half an hour though I semi-watched it all the way through. I found Birds of Prey much more fun. I wouldn't call it a great movie but the pacing was good and I think it did a good job with Harley's character, plus there were some good action scenes.

I also saw Chinatown for the first time. I think it's still a standout as a good mystery. I wasn't entirely spoiled for it, but being a big mystery reader I figured out Faye Dunaway's plotline well before the reveal. Not what one would call a happy story but unfortunately much closer to reality as a result.

4) Netflix's Ramped Up War On VPNs Comes With Collateral Damage: "Torrent Freak points to a growing number of complaints on Reddit from folks saying that they suddenly can't access content they pay for, and none of them appear to be using a VPN or proxy to disguise their real IP address. Netflix's response so far has been in a few instances to try and blame the user's ISP."

5) I came across this meme and realized there was no reason it couldn't be used for meta. So here are my responses:

a) How many works do you have on AO3?

240 ( Read more...Collapse )




Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) The bunny Olympics is definitely more my speed – especially if we had different species competing against one another. Also, an idea to help our pollinating friends, particularly in areas with record temperatures.

2) People have been playing around with AO3 stats after they offered a public data dump for fans to work with. I was intrigued by this one in which I could track Buffy's popularity on the site. The data begins with the first batch of content used for testing before AO3 was even open publicly, and then when it opens Buffy was 2nd after Stargate Atlantis. For several years it stayed high in the rankings, being 3rd or 4th into 2012. But as Avengers came out and FFN works flooded in, it dropped down to 5th and then 6th. By early 2014 it was in 10th place.

But what's interesting is to watch its numbers duel with Merlin which it keeps running neck and neck with until Merlin passes it decisively in 2016. It's at the end of 2017 when it keeps dropping down the rankings until it leaves the Top 25 in early 2018. ( Read more...Collapse )

3) Apparently Amazon is now using its shipping boxes for paid advertising. Yay. A bigger problem though is how we're all just audiences and users now, not owners.

"Maybe you’ve noticed how things keep disappearing—or stop working—when you “buy” them online from big platforms like Netflix and Amazon, Microsoft and Apple. You can watch their movies and use their software and read their books—but only until they decide to pull the plug. You don’t actually own these things—you can only rent them. But the titanic amount of cultural information available at any given moment makes it very easy to let that detail slide. We just move on to the next thing, and the next, without realizing that we don’t—and, increasingly, can’t—own our media for keeps."

4) I recently read a novel by Carl Hiassen who I'd long known of but whose work seemed perhaps too close to home. ( Read more...Collapse )

5) OTW's legal team shed light on the likely impact of Tumblr's new Post+ feature while in contrast, Pillowfort's team developed a new privacy option on the site, Concealed Mode, which allows one to instantly hide one's profile and all past posts from anyone not already following them – a useful feature when suddenly targeted by a troll.



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Dogs and cats and ducks learn to play games, but these guys are taking on Dance Dance Revolution. And sometimes they're just good boys who have learned local habits.

2) This post links out to a number of Olympics coverage related articles. Props to the writer who came up with "televisual vomit."

3) Not good news that there's now a Delta Plus variant found in Korea which, as you might guess, is even more transmissible. In the meantime I'm seeing notices of Broadway touring productions and musical acts announcing dates.

4) I was recently reminded of this 2007 NPR story Why Women Read More Than Men. It ended with this quote: ""What all of us are wondering is what will happen with this new generation that doesn't read much," says bookstore owner Carla Cohen. "What happens when they grow up?""

What I was left thinking was what a perfect example it was of all sorts of problems with journalism. ( Read more...Collapse )

5) Relatedly, this warning about how trusting science leaves people vulnerable to believing pseudoscience leaves out the role of the media in creating misinformation -- both because of their own scientific illiteracy as well as the bad practice of not showing where information comes from (and checking those sources). "Albarracín wrote in her e-mail that good source checkers would have discovered that the study on GMOs mentioned in one of the stories had been withdrawn by the journal that published it."

The other thing catching my eye was "O’Brien urges journalists to learn terms they do not understand but frequently encounter in academic literature. That will help them better understand research and explain it to their audiences."

A good example was two articles posted in this last month involving fanfic which used someone else's research but did so incorrectly or in inconsistent ways. ( Read more...Collapse )



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Proof that dogs do carry the jerk gene, although some just have a hard time staying focused. Also, any excuse for a game will do, but sometimes you just need me time. and shifting pet loyalties can be a good thing.

2) Mike and I went to St Louis last weekend. His vintage baseball team resumed play this year. Especially right after early vaccines were rolling out it seemed like a very low risk sort of event. The guys are masked, outdoors, and not in a sport where they really make much contact.

So when they were headed to St Louis again for a tournament, I was eager to go along and get takeout from someplace new. As Mike was going to be playing almost the whole day Saturday, I figured I would take in the art museum near the fields.

However 2 months later, the state of infections changed my mind. In fact as we drove off I was feeling really leery about being on the road at all. ( Read more...Collapse )

3) We lose Disney+ to rotation this time next week so I will apparently not see the final episode of this season's Bad Batch. We have, however, finished off Big Shot. I can understand that it hasn't gotten more attention despite being a David Kelley show with some notable guest stars such as Cameron Manheim and Trisha Helfer and Michael Trucco playing a couple. Helfer was particularly startling in a single scene role where it took us a moment to even realize it was her. The last thing I saw her in was Lucifer but it looks like her career has really sputtered. Then again Marla Gibbs had a walk on role, though at her age I imagine she's not up to a regular shooting schedule.

The show has an ok set of storylines and it's particularly nice that the adults act like adults when dealing with problems and conflicts. But what most impressed me were the musical numbers for the school play Beth Macbeth. (I was also amused by some of the other production posters, for 12 Angry Women, Pamilton, etc.) That would have been some impressive song writing and also singing since that solo was not easy.

4) My meta for the Unconventional Fanwork Exchange is finally live (BtVS and AtS topic). I've got to say my experience with exchanges has not been great this year. ( Read more...Collapse )

5) "Homeownership is supposed to mean security, opportunity, and a sense of investment in your community. But often, the pressure of tying your family’s financial security to one asset incentivizes homeowners to behave selfishly and antisocially, opposing important public works that could provide significant public benefits."



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Our Disney+ subscription ends in less than 2 weeks and everything I really wanted to see has been seen. We're currently watching a Secrets of Whales series done by James Cameron which is excellent stuff, and have been watching scattered other shows in its National Geographic section.

We also started watching Professor T on PBS, but missed the first episode which is now no longer available. A while back we watched two episodes of what I'm assuming is the Belgian series though I could have sworn it was German, and there is also a German series so perhaps I'm not mistaken. But PBS didn't show it (or the French version) so probably not. But I didn't find it that enjoyable so we didn't keep up with it (and perhaps it got paywalled anyway). And now apparently there is also an English series from this year so I guess he's making his way around the EU. But I am finding it more enjoyable -- maybe they're leaning into the humor of it. ( Read more...Collapse )

2) Speaking of LeVar Burton, how much does it suck that his Jeopardy week is being pre-empted or not shown in many locations due to Olympic coverage?

3) American reporters consider reducing the damage they do. Particularly infuriating was the self-congratulatory reply of why journalists reveal so much personal information about people accused of crimes:

"When the Dutch editor learned how many deeply personal details American reporters routinely publish about those arrested, she gasped at what she saw as cruel and unethical. “Why would you do that to someone?” she asked." ( Read more...Collapse )

4) This is why misinformation spreads so much -- because of a lack of footnotes or links or because no one reads them. I was struck by a stat used early in this article about a boom in individual investing and the desperation it reveals. The article claims "2020 in which more than 10 million Americans opened new brokerage accounts." That seemed like a lot alright, so I checked the link. In that report the number is displayed on the first page. The source? "JMP Securities, email correspondence, March 15, 2021." ( Read more...Collapse )

That report did use one phrase I think does actually describe the overall 2020 experience: "These trends have been gathering speed for some time, but only recently has their impact become so apparent."

5) Recently took a walk at a nearby sunflower maze, and shared those pics at common_nature




Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) I never get tired of videos of animals captivated by music. Apparently best be sure your cats aren't around the CD player though.

2) Thanks to Petzi for sharing this interview with the two female creators of The Daily Show. It seems so telling about the industry that this incredibly successful show has not paid off for either of them and both are currently making a living with YouTube channels.

"It’s really hard for me to watch because I see things that I wrote, but I wasn’t in the Writers Guild at the time. I wrote, “When a news story falls through the cracks, Lewis Black catches it for a segment we call ‘Back in Black.’” And the Moment of Zen. If I had one-one-hundred-thousandth of the royalties I should have, my life would be very different. But my life is very good right now, so I’m less bitter than I have been at other points in my life." ( Read more...Collapse )

3) My effort to get a Real ID may be third time lucky. As I left, Mike wished that the Force would be with me and I told him the mask in my purse was one of my Star Wars ones. So maybe that did the trick! ( Read more...Collapse )

4) Someone on Pillowfort tipped me off to this puzzle's existence last year but it was out of stock at the time. However it came back in stock a few months ago and I ordered it along with a few other fannish favorites.

( Read more...Collapse )

5) Telecom Industry Spends $320,000 Every Day Lobbying Against Policies It Doesn't Like. Imagine if the government worked for consumers instead.



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) This cat's face just sums up this past year.. Clearly we need more superhero cats -- it's fascinating to see their leaping ability from this angle. Also, dogs being less than clever and not getting the hang of the new toy.

2) Watched Coriolanus and A Comedy of Errors on National Theater's service. Very different productions. ( Read more...Collapse )

3) Not that this year isn't Exhibit A for "our greatest problem is ourselves" but I found this assessment of how effective outside managers are to be both unsurprising and yet revealing. ( Read more...Collapse )

4) Netflix's announcement about moving into gaming isn't that surprising, given how many other companies have and the fact that it identified video games as its most serious competition. Whether it succeeds or not remains to be seen, but what I immediately thought was that it may become a key company in developing new forms of live action gaming. It already creates a lot of multimedia content, and games are going farther and farther into filmmaking quality.

5) Internet is more important than ever to all of us during the pandemic. Consumer Reports is trying to gather data on U.S. broadband and what average speeds are actually being offered compared to what customers are paying for. You need to be able to offer information from a recent bill but it doesn't need any identifying information. To take part visit the project website.




Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) This owl change made me think of vampires morphing into demon face on BtVS. Also, these ducklings leaping are less worrisome than other videos since at least they're heading into water.

2) When Mike said yesterday that this is "The summer that wasn't" I can't say I agree, but there's no doubt it's been a very unusual one. ( Read more...Collapse )

3) Normally I never see ads or commercials. Aside from having streaming TV, I only listen to NPR radio and have a javascript blocker when online. So it was only because Mike was watching a recorded sports program that I happened to see a Hyundai commercial with Loki, Falcon, and Scarlet Witch which all tied into their TV series. I was particularly startled because I knew Hiddleston had done ads for Jaguar which would seem to be a conflict of interest. Mike joked that maybe Disney has also purchased Jaguar.

4) Ok, I can believe that frozen food purchases have changed over the last 18 months, but given that this guy throws out the stat that "30% of American households bought an additional freezer for their home" I can't take any stat he mentions seriously. I mean in 2016 there were over 118 million households in the U.S., 43.3 million of whom were renters and over 16 million of those were apartment renters, the majority single people, which means they are not putting any extra freezers in there. So that would mean that 33.6 million households added an extra freezer. I'm pretty sure that's not the case or else I'd have seen quite a few more people in my flist talking about their new freezers.

However what caught my attention was the discussion of food inflation. ( Read more...Collapse )

5) I had my long delayed dental appointment today and was rather surprised I wasn't asked about my vaccination status as I had brought my card just in case. Aside from adding a face mask I didn't see that much was different in the appointment, but I did notice no one seemed to be using the water drill. I prefer this since it's less likely to damage the tooth enamel and also can do a better job getting in between teeth but I'm guessing that it's considered a bigger risk right now?




Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Bad Batch's "Devil's Deal" was the best episode of the season so far to me, so it was noticeable that the main characters had a cameo in this episode. That said, the previous episodes weren't so bad. ( Read more...Collapse )

2) So, as mentioned, a long look at the Black Widow movie. One excellent thing about being able to watch it from home is being able to rewatch it while taking notes! First though, some overall thoughts. ( Read more...Collapse )

3) I've passed 1000 posts on my account at Pillowfort. This stat is actually well behind the reality, because I make a number of posts directly to communities so my own account doesn't reflect all my activity on the site. So I'm guessing I passed 1000 several months ago, but still.

By comparison I have 2066 here at DW, though this too is a little skewed since there are some duplicate posts in the account thanks to imports. So I have roughly twice as many here but then this also reflects 17 years' worth of posts compared to only 3. A lot of that has to do with ease of posting there -- most of what I post are photos, so I post something every day. And while I do post directly to communities here, these posts take longer to put together whereas I post to a community there at least once a week.

Since I opened my LiveJournal account at roughly this time in 2004, I figure I've averaged 121 posts a year, so about one every 3 days. But there were times when I posted much less and I am currently probably posting more often. ( Read more...Collapse )



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Animals can be masseuses too, with varied results. But humans are good for games of fetch.

2) Last episode of Loki already. I found the series a weird mix of wonderful-to-have content and an inexplicable mix of things-in-need-of-fixing. ( Read more...Collapse )

3) I've discovered that I can watch a lot more stuff I'm just semi-interested in if I have something else to do while watching. For some time I've kept some TV as "dish washing distraction" (usually things like the British Baking or a documentary). But I barreled through all of Kominsky Method last week while working on some puzzles –- despite getting through fewer than 2 episodes soon after it premiered. ( Read more...Collapse )

4) It's about time that someone takes the step to stop promoting crazy behavior as a way to generate revenue. Too bad the entire U.S. news media didn't decide to do this back in 2016.

5) I decided to watch Black Widow with some trepidation. This was a movie that had several strikes against it – it was clearly not part of the original MCU plan, it's another female superhero movie which always endures more scrutiny in terms of its quality and box office performance, and as it's a prequel, it's likely to run into various impediments. So I was pleased that I both enjoyed it and found it added something to Natasha's journey. I'll have a full discussion of it tomorrow as there was a lot to say.



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Connecting to others…unsuccessfully, sometimes successfully, and sometimes definitely not. Also, connecting on a national scale -- I'm rather amused by how Bradley James created his own Merlin fan video.

2) This article on mental health changes during the pandemic revealed more to me about people's behavior than their mental health.

"When we reviewed the best available data, we saw that some groups—including people facing financial stress—have experienced substantial, life-changing suffering. However, looking at the global population on the whole, we were surprised not to find the prolonged misery we had expected."

My suspicion on seeing this was two-fold. The first is that the reason this was true...

"But as spring turned to summer, something remarkable happened: Average levels of depression, anxiety, and distress began to fall. Some data sets even suggested that overall psychological distress returned to near-pre-pandemic levels by early summer 2020."

...had a lot to do with both getting past the initial shock (and inability to use denial as a transition) to the fact that lockdowns had largely lifted by then. Because if one talks to people, it became clear that by last summer many people had stopped acting as if a pandemic was on whereas during the month of March to April, the majority of people actually were sheltering. ( Read more...Collapse )

3) It seems odd to me that Kevin Costner, who once was the face of the optimistic Field of Dreams and the culturally open Dances With Wolves is now a capitalist right wing patriarch on Yellowstone and taking on revenge roles that tend to play to conservative audiences.

4) Saturdays are apparently laundry day. When I went for a walk around the neighborhood about a third of the buildings I passed were wafting out laundry detergent smells.

5) My hopes that fireworks would end after July 4th has been somewhat defeated. While there haven't been many, someone was doing so at 1:30 in the afternoon. Talk about literally seeing your money going up in smoke.

On the 4th I have never seen so many fireworks go on for so long. There were about 7 sites in a 180 degree arc from our apartment, and when I went outside to video tape it for a bit I was immediately hit by the smell of gunpowder. The tape is just a series of bang-bang-bangs which went on for about 4 hours, starting just before 8 PM. I was reading until late, given that the noise was not inducing sleep, and even when I was slipping away I was startled awake just after 1 AM by a big bang.

One thought was of the tens of thousands of dollars that had to be spent on this. Professional productions don't use so many fireworks given that they usually run for 20-30 minutes rather than hours and hours. I was also wondering to myself what they hauled these fireworks to the sites in -– moving vans?



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Saw Loki Episode 5. ( Read more...Collapse )

2) I tried out a few episodes of See on Apple+ but despite the interesting premise I couldn't get into it. However I saw the movie The Bankers with Anthony Mackie and Samuel L. Jackson before our subscription ended and thought it was very good – and an undertold true story at that. I really liked that they didn't try to dumb down the topic for the audience.

Also watched the documentary Elephant Queen. Unlike some documentaries it didn't try to be upbeat about the devastation of drought and at one point a baby elephant dies. However sad, it was also really remarkable to see the family mourning the baby and later remembering a long-lost elephant. Not that the whole thing was a downer, just that it was a different because they didn't shrink from the grim. It made for an impressive story.

3) I watched The Simpsons short The Good The Bart and The Loki which must have just appeared, since it includes WandaVision and Loki series references.

There was a nice bit about Loki at the end trying to get us to save our own planet. But the best part was the courtroom scene with Ravonna in which the various crimes she accused him of included "crossing over into forbidden areas of Disney Plus, being more popular than all the heroes, having a British accent when you're actually supposed to be from Norway, making us sit through numerous mid-credit scenes in hopes that they advance the story."

4) I saw the National Theater's production of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons" yesterday. I had assumed it was largely about a family's problems -- which it was, but it turns out it was based on a scandal/legal investigation during WWII. It was quite well done and Sally Field was wonderful in it.

5) Kitty smooches



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) I have a few Buffy books I would like to give away and am willing to pay postage as well within the U.S. (or ship internationally if postage is paid). Is anyone interested or know of anyone who would be?

2) Speaking of books, I finished reading S.A. Leichuk's "One Got Away" and found it better than the first mystery. For one thing, there is less backstory for Niki being constantly strung out through the book, and less focus on her personal life. ( Read more...Collapse )

I also read the first Ruth Galloway mystery by Elly Griffiths. It had some surprises and by and large I liked the way it was paced. I got an eBook of the first three novels in one file so will be trying out more.

3) Also speaking of books, I finished watching all of Mythic Quest and remain surprised that I have not heard more people talking about it. It got excellent reviews, particularly for its second season.

I wouldn't say I necessarily found either season better but I will say that the way S2 wrapped up makes it seem unlikely there will be a S3. I particularly enjoyed the two episode arc given to F. Murray Abraham's character. I was surprised and amused to hear that his character's novel has been created as an actual audiobook, which he reads.

4) I also finished watching Night on Earth, all of which I enjoyed (particularly the elephants episode) and have barreled through two seasons of Dickinson in days. I can see why it was talked about, particularly season one. The semi-modernization of a period piece worked pretty well, particularly in revealing some eternal truths about creative temperament, the self-obsession of teens, white people's problems, and escapism.

S2 however I found a disappointment in the way the show leaned into its format in all the wrong ways. ( Read more...Collapse )

5) I was listening to It's Been a Minute and a crossover discussion with Pop Culture Happy Hour about the F&F franchise. I found it amazing that one person complained about too much plot in Marvel movies and how they liked F&F exactly because they had 5 minutes of an excuse of a plot and then got to car chases and explosions. Which is fine, people enjoy stuff for different reasons. But then they went on to talk about how they wanted a movie to be exactly 90 minutes and to have even less plot and I thought "What you want is not a movie, what you want is a dozen action movie trailers strung together."

It makes me wonder how many of the Hollywood old guard who talk up the magic of theater going realize how little the average member of the public cares about the art of filmmaking. ( Read more...Collapse )



Comments at Dreamwidth .

1) Loki Episode 4, definitely not more of the same. ( Read more...Collapse )

2) Speaking of how history works, I was watching a show called the Ultimate Viking Sword and it's remarkable how our history is often told as if it was linear when in fact it has a lot of stops and starts and forgotten knowledge along the way.

3) "It’s 109 degrees in Portland right now. It’s been over 130 degrees in Baghdad several times. What kind of awareness quotient are we looking for? What more about climate change does anyone need to know? What else is there to say?"

Although this does focus on our future and the climate, and is timely given the building collapse in Miami, it also implies a lot of things about how people work today (or don't) and the picture it paints of our future is not optimistic. Recently Petzi linked a news story about workers in the southwest trying to build new homes in 100+ heat and my question was why ANYONE was buying property in these soon-to-be unlivable areas in the first place. But then that's what the writer's most famous story was all about.

4) Petzi shared an article about Walmart adding new low cost insulin to its pharmacies, which in itself is good news. But there were other concerning developments that caught my attention ( Read more...Collapse )



Comments at Dreamwidth .