BougieBirdie

I really enjoy the explosion at the end.

Through the rest of the movie the effects are timeless and suck you into the movie. Then you get that finale and remember this movie came out in the 70s

To hang out together intentionally, outside of work, more than once. If you no longer ever want to hang out, they’re probably not friends anymore.

I have a few coworkers I’m tempted to call friends. At the very least, we’re friendly. But I also know that once either of us leave the job, we probably won’t see each other anymore.

In a more general sense, I call a lot of people “friend” without necessarily considering us friends. Mostly strangers and customers, and it’s meant in a disarming way, like “Sorry friend, we’re sold out.”

I’m friendly with most people, but then to consider someone a friend feels like taking the relationship to a new level.

I don’t think I could be a police officer either. I’d have a hard time restraining myself from popping a smart-mouthed, troublesome, and reckless cop in the face.

Apparently it’s been “and it works” for most of the company’s history, but I remember it being “but it works” too

I’m surprised I couldn’t find a video, but I’m pretty sure there was a string of ads in probably the mid 2000s that all had the same spokesman, and his delivery sure sounded like “but.” They were on TV all the time in the period where I was still watching TV

This is fascinating though, I’m not sure I’ve ever personally witnessed the Mandela effect. I mean, I’m sure I have been before, but to actually catch it in action is new to me

In this case, you could upload it to YouTube where it will be taken down and seen by a whole no people

Tax breaks for tech bros

My pet theory: Radicalize the disenfranchised to incite domestic terrorism and further OpenAI’s political goals.

I have a hard time watching new movies and shows. I guess I usually look for a show to unwind with, and nostalgia is a pretty strong factor there.

If I’m watching a new show with somebody because they want to see it, I’ll generally enjoy myself. But lately I find that I’m pretty quick to reject anything made after 2020 or so

Another way I look at it is that there’s an awful lot of crap competing for my attention, and with the rise of gen-AI, writing for streaming, and other icky things, a lot of it really is crap. I’d rather watch the crap I already know I like

Any old westerns you’d like to recommend? I’ve been watching a lot of 70s era and earlier movies lately, seems like I’ll stumble into the golden age of westerns sooner or later

For a more modern show (geez, 15 years old already) I really enjoyed Hell on Wheels

It’s interesting that the phrasing here is that the younger people shouldn’t be allowed to date the older people. The issue with this kind of age gap is the imbalance of power, and whether you realize it or not you’ve just placed the stigma at the feet of the person who’s most likely to be victimized.

Anyway, banning this kind of thing doesn’t work. It happens at a scale that would likely be unenforceable, not to mention that rebellious people will do things because they’re banned

A better approach to harm reduction is education. Meet people where they’re at without shame and explain the risks realistically. And even then, some people just won’t learn until experience teaches them

At the end of the day, if your daughter wants to work out her daddy issues by getting railed by an older man, no amount of pearl clutching is going to prevent that

Top 5%, mom would be proud!

I’d argue that racism is a symptom of some of these other things.

An imbalance of societal power leads to - or is caused by - manipulative politics. Those politics are increasingly being pushed through addictive technologies, and indeed, are using racism to divide us at the cost of democracy.

Racism is a symptom, but understanding where it’s being pushed from has value. It’s like saying someone died of heart failure - just about everyone dies of heart failure, but it can be more useful to know what caused the heart to fail

So it bothers you when people vocalize their question marks, eh?

Git is what’s known as “Version Control Software” which basically means that it keeps track of the changes you make.

It’s primarily used for software development, and where it shines is when multiple people are collaborating on a project which will receive many changes. You can create a “branch” of the project with the changes you want to “commit” and then after they’re reviewed in a “pull request” you can “merge” them back inyo the main branch. If at any point in the process you discover that the changes cause issues, a history allows you to “revert” those changes back to what you had previously.

As you can probably see, there’s a fair bit of terminology in git. It’s a powerful tool that has a learning curve in order to use it.

While git is primarily used in software development, it doesn’t have to be. In fact, you could use it for any collection of files that receive changes. It’s not uncommon to see it used for technical writing , wikis, or large collaborative documents. I recall seeing a compelling argument that it could be used for drafting legislation, although I’m not aware of any government which uses it for that purpose.

Some people argue about whether or not you should use git with non-text files because the changes are much larger, but you don’t have to rigidly follow dogma.

I knew a guy who liked to use git for his RPG campaign notes. The main branch held his setting info, and when he’d run a game he’d create a new branch. If he was pleased with the game and wanted to enshrine it in canon, he’d merge it into main. Otherwise, he could leave the branch alone, but he’d still always be able to go back and look at the adventure with the details of the setting as it was at that time. I thought it was overkill, but he had fun.

Only on the fediverse can I expect to see someone explain how to manage their kitchen with a computer analogy and not the other way around

It’s good advice though, I have no notes

It’s a common turn of phrase that people use when explaining something to someone who seems unclear on a subject.

I hope this clears things up.

The market is saturated with crap that doesn’t sell under its own merits. In theory a review signals that not only did that product sell, but somebody actually cared enough to leave a review.

An online market is especially tricky for consumers because you can’t really look at the product to judge it for yourself. You have to make do with a product description, specifications, or photos. All of which might be incomplete, poorly translated, or photoshopped / AI-generated.

So reviews tell you what other people thought. It’s their first line of marketing after SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Of course, unethical companies are out there using paid and fake reviews, so it’s not like a savvy shopper can even use the reviews to judge quality.

Anyway, as someone else said, don’t engage with these emails. You’ll just end up with more emails if you do.

HtWFaIP - How to Win Friends and Influence People

I got back together with an old tabletop group recently.

Five or six years ago we wrapped up the campaign we were running to take a little break. Scheduling became tricky, a couple of people were expecting their first child and some others were starting new jobs. Without a common meeting, the group just kind of faded out.

Anyway, a couple months back I bump into one of the players and we start talking. Shortly after that, he starts up a new group chat trying to get the band back together.

My mental health has been an absolute shitshow the last several years, so I really agonized over whether I wanted to try to get back together or embrace the solitude that I desperately crave for my free time. Well, I went against my initial judgment and it’s been awesome playing with likeminded people again.

A couple of friends still can’t really make it, the schedule is too difficult with young kids. But we brought in a couple new players too and the funny thing is that even with new people it still feels like old times.

Credit where it’s due, around the time Dying Light 1 came out, Roger Craig Smith was lending his voice to Chris Redfield, one of the more iconic zombie guys from Resident Evil.

My favorite Redfield moment was when, without a shred of irony, he talks smack about the villain acting like a comic book villain. Then in the same breath, he punches a six-ton boulder into submission.

Dying Light also really kinda shook up the zombie slaying dynamic with parkour. It seems like a fairly minor thing now, but that freedom of movement was a pretty big deal at the time, even if it was pretty janky.

Narratively, I agree that Crane isn’t a very strong character. He’s a dime-a-dozen government goon turned idealist. I don’t even remember how the story ends, or even most of the major beats except for a couple of major characters.

But at the time, to kick zombie butt while scooting around the rooftops and listening to Chris Redfield quip one-liners: those were special times even if it was a decade ago. They’re probably trying to recapture that magic, but I don’t know. It was lightning in a bottle and you can’t always get that back