tiramichu

@tiramichu@lemm.ee

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨To save the superhero movie, we need to bring back themes⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  If we are quoting King then he also said in “On Writing” just a paragraph or so after your quote:

  “But once your basic story is on paper you need to think about what it means. […] To do less is to rob your work (and eventually your readers) of the vision that makes each tale you write uniquely your own.”

  I may not have been right in saying the story /comes/ from the theme, but I very much stand by the notion that solid themes are required, even if the theme does not come first.

  King also said:

  Not every book has to be loaded with symbolism […] but it seems to me that every book - at least every one worth reading - is about something. Your job during or just after the first draft is to decide what something or somethings yours is about."

  As the story is written and progresses, conscious work is needed to refine the theme and draw it out, and good works always are about something that is bigger and richer than the basic story beats themselves.

  So to the original argument on superhero movies, the writer’s opinion that we need good themes is still something I very much agree with.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨To save the superhero movie, we need to bring back themes⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  All movies have a story. This happens, then that happens, then that happens. A story is just a sequence of events.

  But what often separates a good story from a dull one are the thematic elements.

  The theme is the big narrative idea into which everything else slots. It drives the plot. It defines the character’s motivations and creates stakes. It creates tension and makes character’s actions feel like they have purpose.

  We need a great story, but good story comes from solid themes.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨meirl⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Due to streaming, the way people watch movies and shows has changed.

  Because there is so much content and it’s so readily accessible, watching a movie isn’t an “event” anymore in the way it was when DVD or VHS was the only option. And when you pair this with second-screen devices (phones) then it all adds up to people treating movies as background entertainment while they scroll their phone or do something else.

  And because of that, the way shows and movies are produced has changed, too. The reason everything seems like homogenous cookie-cutter crap is because it is. In fact Netflix have specifically been asking producers to dumb content down so viewers can still understand it even when they are only paying half attention.

  Of course, there are still talented people out there making great movies and shows, but they are increasingly drowned in a sea of copy-paste crap.

  And I also feel sorry for all those perhaps equally talented but less senior writers, directors, editors and artists who might never get to produce a movie they ate truly proud of because they’ve been captured by the streaming content factory that demands of them only a constant treadmill of dumbed-down crap, cheap and quick and instantly forgettable, that people will only ever half-watch.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Technically correct, the best kind of correct⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  ‘matematician’

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A pirate's life⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  A pirate without adblock installed? Truly the worst pirate.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Steam now warns about Early Access that have not been updated in months.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The cause of enshittification is essentially the shareholder pressure for endless and exponential growth that comes from public ownership.

  Valve is a privately held company, and as long as it remains that way it doesn’t have those perverse incentives.

  Gabe will never allow Valve to go public as long as he is in control, but after he is gone who knows.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Emojiis are hieroglyphics⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  19:00 somewhat ruined the illusion, bringing those modern Arabic numerals into the mix.

  There’s a perfectly good sunset/sunrise emoji 🌄

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨You wouldn't download and run a local Large Language Model⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Club penguin ban speerun Any %

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The official way to chat with the European Union is with.... Facebook⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This increasing trend is extremely annoying.

  Several times here in the UK I’ve been trying to reach out to companies I have relationships with (e.g. my phone provider) only to find they want me to DM them on Twitter or Instagram.

  There’s no fucking way I’m using some proprietary service to have a convo with my phone company, especially when A) I don’t even have an account on the service and don’t want one and B) the convo will contain info about my phone account and personal info, and no way should I be sharing that over such a channel.

  As far as I’m concerned it should be straight up ILLEGAL for companies to offer official contact on big tech platforms, when they have no control over how data in the chat is later used.

  If they want to offer online chat, it should be through a third party who does that as their primary business model as a paid service, and can give explicit contractual guarantees on data storage and ownership.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lord Sugar tells workers to get bums back into the office - BBC News⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Fuck off, dickhead

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Amazon Artificially Discounting Items $0.01 Below the Free Shipping Limit⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Let’s say the third party lists it for $35.50

  Amazon applies a discount of $0.51 cents to bring it under the $35 amount for free shipping.

  Someone buys it for/that $34.99 but Amazon still pays the original seller based on the seller’s original listed price.

  And so Amazon subsidised it, but still came out net benefit because the amount of the subsidy was less than shipping cost, or less than the price of some other item the customer now had to put in their basket to get over the free shipping threshold again.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do so many UK electrical sockets have an on/off switch next to them?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  There are still times where it’s convenient. I have some display cases with integrated lighting and the inline switches are incoveniently between the case and the wall so its super handy to turn it on and off at the plug.

  Being able to turn things off at the plug also reduces standby/phantom power when things are in sleep, which for some devices adds up more than you’d think.

  Sometimes when people go on holiday for two weeks they like to disconnect the electrical items in their house for safety. With switched sockets you can just turn them off instead.

  I’m sure I could live just fine without switched sockets, but it’s convenient they are there.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Massive dumps⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You should open the venti, it reeks in there.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wetherspoon boss Tim Martin blames 'dinner party classes' for pubs crisis⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah I think you’re right, it’s both aspects. Less affordability, but a shift in generational priorities too.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wetherspoon boss Tim Martin blames 'dinner party classes' for pubs crisis⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I mean, the root cause here, if you look at the bigger picture, is that EVERYTHING is getting more expensive and EVERYONE is getting poorer.

  Nobody would expect supermarket prices in a pub, it’s obviously going to be more, and that’s expected. It’s not that people don’t want to go out, it’s that they can’t afford to go out half the amount they’d like, because the working class is broke.

  I do agree that swapping the VAT around would be fair, because booze is only a component of a supermarket’s business while it’s a mainstay of a pub’s business, but that’s not the main reason people aren’t going out anymore. They are drinking less and less even at home, too.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lil Gator Game: In The Dark | Announcement Trailer⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The nice thing about Gator Game was that movement felt so good and fluid. It really is just a game about jumping and climing and bouncing around like a hyper kid.

  Given the game doesn’t have ‘combat’ they really really needed to get traversal right because that’s the main draw, and they succeeded in that.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lil Gator Game: In The Dark | Announcement Trailer⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I got lost a few times too, but I think they did a good job of providing mitigation for that with specific large landmarks you can see at least one of from anywhere, like the big tree, the mountain, the windmill.

  I understand what the devs were trying to do by not having one. When a map is there, especially an always-on minimap, I basically spend my whole time with my eyes glued to that tiny corner of the screen rather than actually looking at tbr world. So I can respect the decision to try and do without it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Here goes another week of making money for the worst of us.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  The ideal strategy is to not look at your work emails outside work time.

  You can neither attend nor be stressed about a meeting that occurs earlier than you start work, if you don’t know it exists.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mildly McInfuriating⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Would be nice to see a graph of inflation-adjusted wages at McDonalds between 2014 and now.

  I don’t have the data, but I doubt much of this price increase is going into worker’s pockets.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'Ripped off' caravan owners start compensation fight⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Honestly, it’s absolutely disgusting.

  For a time my retired father was looking into buying one, but I’m super glad in retrospect now this has all come out that it didn’t go through and he walked away.

  These parks and the individuals who run them are intentionally scamming vulnerable people out of their entire retirement by painting a false picture that these holiday caravans are a sound investment just like owning a house, while all the while knowing fully that people will lose almost all the money they put in.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What makes a video game triple A (AAA)?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  No idea if that specifically is related.

  But a lot of fields have convention of ranking A,B,C,D etc with A being better just because it’s the top/first.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Initially he thought it would be a great video⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  He wasn’t wrong, it was a great video

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What makes a video game triple A (AAA)?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Exactly this, it’s a within-industry term that has leaked out to members of the public. It simply means “we put a lot of money into this, and we expect to make a lot back (for our investors)”

  As for where the ‘A’ terminology came from then that itself is likely a reuse of other entertainment industry terms.

  In the old days when you released a record album, you’d put the best tracks on the ‘A’ side and the less popular ones on the ‘B’ side.

  Similarly, we talk about ‘A-list’ celebrities abs ‘B-list’ celebrities, and use the term ‘B-movies.’ to denote low budget.

  And so what happens wben something gets “bigger and better than A?” Well, you just add more A’s!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Too soon?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  As a kid, like 9 years old, I wasn’t able to get a real Tamagotchi, but I had a cheap knock-off version that had a little dog in it.

  A bunch of my classmates were upset because their Tamagotchis ended up dying during the school day, but my fake-ass tamagotch has this weird bug where if you held down all the buttons at once it would freeze up and stay that way until you pushed something else.

  So.I basically had a Tamagotchi with a pause button.

  My dog never died until the batteries ran out. Nice work, fake-ass Tamagotchi.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨This seat reservation doesn't reserve any seats⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  In the UK where this ticket is from, if you buy a ticket from the machine in the station it will spit it out in potentially multiple parts.

  You can see this ticket says “Valid only with Travel Ticket”, which means this is the second of two parts. The " Travel Ticket" (not pictured) is the one that actually allows you to travel on the train, and the reservation part (pictured) is the one that gives you a seat.

  So the mystery isn’t that there is no reservation, but that this ticket doesn’t even need to exist without a reservation. The machine could have just not printed this ticket at all.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨itch.io was taken down by Funko because of some automated brand protection service⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s AIs ans automated systems all the way down at this point. No humans in the loop, just machines talking to machines.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon goes to the doctor⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  In this image: Anon doesn’t know how to read subtext

  What the doctor said: “It seems you’ve done some research. It’s true that medication often has side effects, but this is not always the case and is often outweighed by the benefits. Let’s set that aside for now, and revisit later.”

  What anon heard: “Wow, you avoided my dastardly trap! I’m going to have to be careful around you.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The best Linux distribution for gaming in 2025⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I use Pop for gaming and it just works.

  As a plus, I also love the somewhat mac-ish UX design, although that won’t be to everyone’s taste.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Binary search⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s not that the cops don’t know how to search a video, they simply don’t want to, because theft of property from you, a working-class nobody, is nothing to them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨the council⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Heart of the Sea