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Cake day: September 2nd, 2026

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  • The core problem is the source material is also boring. Aside from the motivation issues and the fact Wells never even bothers to name the Time Traveller, the whole plot is a bit slow. Sure, the morlocks eating people is creepy but it never manages to get to the horror level like how Jurassic Park or Jaws was able to achieve. You never really felt like they were going to sneak up behind you and slash you or tear you limb from limb.

    The changes they made to the story helped: named the character, moved him to New York instead of London, gave him a deep motivation, even the morlocks had a more organized system that was more believable (hunted the Eloi and were controlled telepathically by Jeremy Irons.)

    Maybe having more Irons in it would’ve helped but with the plot elements they had to work with it would’ve been tricky. The good thing is they didn’t drag it out, 90 minutes is the proper length. Nowadays they’d try to make it 2 1/2 and it’d be bogged down.


  • (2002) Time Machine with Guy Pierce and Jeremy Irons

    Wasn’t a big hit when it came out and it’ll never be as iconic as the George Pal Time Machine from the 60’s. But the 2003 adaptation has the coolest looking time machine to come around in a while (at the time it was the most expensive prop ever built, might still be but I’m not sure.)

    Critics shit on it for not having the cataclysmic event that destroys humanity be global warming. While I’m all for talking about global warming I can kind of understand why they didn’t use that and why they didn’t reuse the 60’s disaster of nuclear war.

    spoiler

    In the 2002 film humans destroy the moon while nuking underground living spaces to build a low gravity retirement community for the elderly.

    But to be fair to the writers their choice to destroying humanity was original, kind of a tongue-in-cheek joke about the elderly crisis we’re currently entering into and the plan is in fact an idea that has been discussed before.

    Aside from that the film is pretty solid. In the book by HG Wells and the 60’s film the Time Traveller (doesn’t even have a name) has zero motivation aside from achieving a new scientific advancement. Thats cool and all but modern audiences, having had several successful time travel stories since Wells time, do need a better eureka moment than that. The 2002 film provides a good and believable motivation.

    spoiler

    His girlfriend is killed while he proposes to her. His first time traveling event is going back in time to save her, only to have fate killed her in some other cruel way. So instead of repeating the event he goes forward in hopes someone in the future will figure out how he can change the past.

    The film also features a believable super-distant future where the human species splits, just like in the original stories. Samantha Mumba is a member of the tribe of humans that live above ground and are technologically ignorant, thought not exactly like the child-like race we see in the 60’s version. They do maintain that there are no old people and why that is.

    spoiler

    Morlocks are eating them up before they get old and the meat gets all tough and stringy.

    Samantha Mumba did a great job in her role and while I don’t normally discuss a persons race the fact her father was Zambian and her mother Irish did kind of lean into what a future race of people could look like. She has a distinct look which played to the role.

    Orlando Jones makes a couple appearances as a sort of AI librarian. It’s nice to see him in the odd movie role.

    Jeremy Irons is the head morlock, the race of humans that stayed underground, and doesn’t disappoint, although his character is more of a cameo.

    spoiler

    He is the one who eventually explains that the issue with changing the past is a temporal paradox since Guy Pierce wouldn’t have built the machine if his lover hadn’t die, thus she must die because without the machine he couldn’t have went back to save her. Then to save his new future girlfriend the 2 fight to the death and he uses the time machine to sort of blow up all the other morlocks.

    The film also had a good soundtrack and special effects that features the classic “years passing in seconds” stuff that was iconic from the 60’s film.

    But ultimately the film is mostly forgotten to audiences.




  • Maybe the solution is to enforce the immigration regs and penalize employers who hire undocumented people.

    That would be the most effective way, which is why they don’t do it. They need that exploitation to make record profits for themselves and the shareholders.

    Supreme court needs to overturn Ford v Dodge Brothers, the case that established that companies are only accountable to their shareholders, since a century later its clear that companies have an obligation to multiple parties and not just the shareholders. A company needs to comply with safety regulations to protect its employees to reduce the risk of having to pay for medical treatment as a result of an injury, paying employees better ensures a higher level of productivity in most cases which itself could be a benefit to the shareholders, companies need to make sure their costumers are happy so they need to offer a quality product that won’t poison them, etc. Plenty of examples of a company having responsibilities to others, in some cases we can argue this practice itself benefits the shareholders and yet we still see corporations believing this antiquated idea that was decided by an ancient court case from an entirely different era.

    Then providing some protections for all workers, even the illegal ones, while also passing legislation that prohibits and punishes out-sourcing. Prior to Reagan most undocumented workers were just Mexicans who crossed the border to do seasonal work or a daily routine (maids) for localities near the border, then they’d go home at the end of the day or season. These jobs aren’t really competitive so let them do these things so long as they aren’t hurting people. H1B’s definitely steal good paying jobs, thats why we hear about Indian’s scamming their way into them with fake degrees and certifications. Highly competitive jobs shouldn’t be up for grabs like that.

    All these call centers shipped to India that access are personal info is going to bite us in the ass sooner or later. Make it illegal for companies to do that and we’ll see jobs pour back into the USA. No reason not to, a large and stable middle class fuels economic growth.



  • Ah yes don’t fix the problem just let it continue to get worse and worse.

    This is about as realistic as Americans doing their own farming after kicking out all the Mexicans.

    Few differences here between tech jobs and farming. Tech jobs are the pinnacle of earners. Harvesting/Farming is one of the lowest form of income generation. Much easier to return those high skill jobs to Americans. Higher wages only hurt the CEO and upper management, wonder why they hired cheap slave labor to begin with.

    Honestly the visa holders might be in better shape.

    Most of these H1B jobs were coming from India, national notorious for fraud. In fact, lying and buying credentials is so ingrained in Indian culture when tech workers were tested on their skills something like 95% were found unsuitable for IT work. So I’m not super worried about losing that “talent” to India, we’ve got plenty of actual talent in the USA still. For years the younger generations were told to learning programming and get a CS degree. I bet we would find more than 5% of them are capable.

    Also, talk to any American tech worker who has experienced out-sourcing to India or bringing in “talent” from India via H1B and you’ll hear some fun horror stories. Usually goes like this; manager wanted a bonus so he fires the team and sources Indians, usually because some consultant company contacted him with “they will work for $2 a day” promises. The replacements will either be totally incompetent from day one, sometimes they start off well until the workload is moved to new people (the people who start are actually skilled and over the course of weeks they move on to the next project and their replacements are totally incompetent.) After destroying the companies mainframe, database, software, website, etc the manager ends up firing them and begging the original team members to return to fix things.

    I’ve heard and read dozens of such accounts. I experienced it myself. H1B’s tend to suck. At best they’re skilled but often suffer a noticeable language barrier and culture barrier.

    There was no scheme to replace the American worker, that’s just how capitalism works.

    There was, in fact, a scheme to replace the American worker with H1B. In fact, tech companies lobbied for H1B in the 1990’s then expanded it. In order to say they couldn’t find American workers they’d use all kinds of schemes; demanding levels of experience for insultingly low wages, running the ad in obscure news papers in the middle of bumfuck USA so no one would see them, etc. Oh, and then recruiting companies from India got involved.

    If it’s literally cheaper to import labor, it’s not objectively the companies fault

    I could literally replace every single American right now regardless of their age with someone for India. That replacement will cost less money. Why aren’t we replacing all Americans with Indians? Indian retiree’s get like $3 a month for social security, verse $1500 for Americans. Why don’t we replace all the American’s drawing SS with Indian elderly people and pocket the difference?

    We have to find a practical balance between our society thriving and corporate greed.