blivet

joined 1 year ago
[–] blivet@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah, I think it was Scorsese who said that he did “one for them, and one for me”.

[–] blivet@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Like that ultra-cringe DeSantis ad from a couple of weeks ago.

[–] blivet@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah, I figured that she was saying the things she does because it riles up her base, but this last bit has made me decide that she’s genuinely stupid. If she had any sense at all she would have noticed that the phrasing of her remarks could sound like praise, and would have changed it to something unambiguously critical.

[–] blivet@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah, for an app that’s only a month old it’s really nice.

[–] blivet@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think it’s strange that it’s categorized as a comedy, though. It has some really funny moments, but on the whole I would call it a very intense drama.

[–] blivet@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

I’m grateful to this strip because reading it caused me to learn the correct spelling of “abstruse”. I’ve never heard anyone say the word, and for some reason I had always read it as “abtruse”, without the first S.

[–] blivet@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

They are basically banking on the “Kennedy” name overriding the fact he’s a batshit crazy idiot, but they forget most people today don’t give a fuck about the Kennedy family, that hook only really works for people over 60 or so.

Yeah, I'm 64 years old, and I suspect that I am among the youngest in that group. I don't remember JFK, having been only four years old when he was assassinated, and at nine I was just barely old enough to have started following the news at the time Bobby was killed. Anyone much younger than me would have no direct emotional connection to them at all.

I suppose I'm missing some part of the strategy, but I really don't understand what segment of Biden's supporters they think RFK Jr. is going to lure away. I just can't picture anyone who actually voted for Biden deciding that they would prefer a spoiler with no chance of winning who can't seem to go more than a couple of days without saying something stupid, demonstrably false, or deeply offensive.

Honestly, the only people I can imagine going for him are the Qanon nuts who thought JFK Jr. was going to rise from the dead and overthrow the government, and who are upset that Trump has deviated from the one true antivax path. RFK Jr. ticks quite a few of their boxes.

[–] blivet@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I agree with your points about ease of use, but even back when ISPs provided Usenet access, it was still pretty niche. Most people weren't even aware that it existed. It was covered in the old "Internet for Dummies" sorts of books back in the 90s, but I've never met anyone IRL who used it, not even back when I worked at a university.

[–] blivet@kbin.social 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I agree. The information should be easily available if they are interested, but end users shouldn't be required to know about the underlying mechanics of the fediverse simply in order to create an account and browse.

[–] blivet@kbin.social 38 points 1 year ago (5 children)

to the people who read all the things it’s tedious but doable, for the rest it’s “Which one is the RIGHT choice?” and just stay at the door

Exactly. I'm a programmer and I do server administration on a small scale, but when I went to sign up for Mastodon my first reaction was, "How the hell am I supposed to know what instance I want my account to be on?" and I left. After a couple of weeks of absorbing random bits of information about how federation works I went back and completed the account creation process, but I really doubt that the average user who just wants to sign up for a service and use it is going to get past that step.

[–] blivet@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

Also, purely from a mechanical standpoint, her character’s goal is effectively to prevent the premise of the story from playing out, which is the exact opposite of what the viewers want.

[–] blivet@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I remember Damien Chazelle saying that they had considered an intermission for Babylon but that there was no natural break point in the story. Having seen it, I can state with perfect confidence that it does contain an appropriate point for an intermission at just the right time. I suspect that Chazelle just couldn’t bear the thought of the audience not watching his opus straight through.

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