Erkki

Wow, I can't believe Puzzle Quest is 10 years old. I played the shit out of that. This thread is making me a bit sad that I hardly play games any more.

Haha, I was looking back to find a photo I had posted here and found out that yep, those Facebook photo URLs aren't forever.

I've added some photos to the idle thumbs group in flickr. Join us! I also have a topic to discuss, if anyone has any opinions. So by now I'm doing photography as a hobby pretty seriously, although lately there have been some weeks where I don't take that many photos - especially after I got my first drone, I carry my normal camera less and take less photos with it. Anyway, I feel like I've made pretty good progress in photography as I only really started in the summer of 2016 (having done some shooting on film as a teen). Now I'm wondering whether I've outgrown some groups I started with, or if I should stick with them... There is this Estonian "Hobbyist photographers" Facebook group which has over 7000 members and where you are allowed to post one photo per day. Usually it gets about 20-30 photos per day I would say, and maybe a couple of them are good. There was a week when each day my photo got around 100 likes - 6 days in a row I think, and I felt pretty proud of that. I would like to experiment some more with finding what kind of photos of mine would be more popular, although I'm not all about chasing popularity and also post what I like but not many others do. However, I find that lately I get into a lot of pointless arguments there, sometimes with people who are even asking for feedback in their original post and then get combative when the feedback is not positive. Also sometimes they don't ask for it, but their photo is tilted 2 degrees - I just can't stand that - why do you post to a group with 7000 people if you can't be bothered to learn to use the simplest tools that help you better present your photos. Sometimes they've even used Photoshop on the photo, but it's still tilted. Sometimes they (or someone else pitching in) say that maybe it was meant to be tilted 2 degrees... umm... NOPE. Sometimes there is no subject on the photo or something else crucial is missing... One recent example was a totally black photo where you could barely see something resembling a face in the middle if your monitor was well-calibrated. I don't know, in some ways I understand that you find a group "hobbyist photographers" and you have a camera, and you've managed to take some shots... and you don't really know anything but you want to share and maybe even improve. Maybe I've grown to be too demanding and should just leave that group if these basic photos annoy me? Or maybe my feedback is actually useful to someone, but they don't say it in the comments, I don't know. I try to give CC but I might come off as arrogant or something, at least it gets to combative pretty quickly with some people. I mean, I kind of feel like I still get something out of it - I see one or two good photos a day, sometimes I learn about a new idea or technique, or a new place I could go to, but maybe the arguments are taking too much out of me. So should I A) stay, keep giving feedback in hopes that it still helps someone and to improve my own ability to understand and critique photos stay, stop giving feedback to avoid pointless arguments C) leave, because my time might be better spent elsewhere I also started doing the dogwood52 challenge, but that's very different with one photo per week on a known topic. I kind of like the group for being able to post a photo of my choice in any given day and see how people react to it (even if it's just the FB likes and nobody has anything else to say).

Joined the group! I'll probably start using Flickr in a bigger way in 2017, once I've figured out how to do it best (haven't really used it much aside from having a quick way to upload and share my pics with someone specific). Not always happy with the way photo sharing works on Facebook, although it's nice to see the likes roll in when a picture turns out popular.

I've only seen 4 feature films starring Buster Keaton, but I have given 5 stars to all of them (Sherlock Jr., Steamboat Bill Jr., Seven Chances, The General). Some of them start off slow-ish, but it all seems to pay off when the action starts escalating. What brilliance! I think that's what I'll keep watching to finish this year. I wonder if my life would have been different if I had seen these movies as a kid.

I was thinking... maybe we should have a thumbs flickr group or something? I'm kind of reluctant posting photos in this thread because I mainly post on facebook and then linking that here, I'm not sure how long the facebook image URLs last... I should use Flickr more as it seems better than facebook for presenting a larger set of images, has tags and stuff.

Since we don't get world wide concurrent releases for all movies (and probably shouldn't as that would make for a boring one-faced world), some of my favorites from last year are on Patrick's list for this year and I'd like to second that Son of Saul, Mustang, The Lobster are all very good and maybe Embrace of the Serpent would also be of this year for many. I so badly want to see Moonlight but have no info of an Estonian release yet.

My favourites of the year probably don't include many US movies this year, other than some indies. And I just saw La-la Land and Rogue One, while I don't know when Scorcese's Silence arrives in cinemas. But there have been some great European movies. Some of them may not be released everywhere, yet. I'll just list all the movies I gave more than 4 stars to (so 4 1/2 or 5). Scarred Hearts by Radu Jude - nice follow up from the Romanian director who made Aferim! last year. This movie uses mostly static shots and portrays very realistic people in a tuberculosis hospital. It made me think of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest although I haven't seen that since my teens and they probably aren't that similar. A Quiet Dream - a Jim Jarmusch movie by the Korean director Zhang Lu. A great slow story about 3 guys and a girl hanging around in the city. Paterson - Jim Jarmusch doesn't disappoint with this really slow tale of a bus driver / poet played by Adam Driver. This is a very meditative kind of experience, maybe not for everyone. Sieranevada - another Romanian movie, by Cristi Puiu. Takes place mostly in real time and mostly in an apartment where a family has gathered for a funeral and is waiting for a priest to arrive. Zootopia - I don't have anything to add, but this has a really great story, especially for an animated film. Toni Erdmann by Maren Ade. Unquestionably the MOVIE OF THE YEAR, if not the decade. I wouldn't be very surprised if Toni Erdmann would become a classic on par with the great works of Shakespeare. Certain Women - another rather slow movie by Kelly Reichardt. It shows important episodes of the lives of three women living close to each other, but their stories never really connect that much. In some cases I would hold it against the movie to only superficially connect parallel stories, but it seems to work in this case. My second favourite after Toni Erdmann. Hunt for the Wilderpeople by Taika Waititi is just a really good funny story of a boy and his father figure hiding in the bush from the government. If I include movies I gave 4 stars to, those are still very good: Manchester by the Sea, 10 Cloverfield Lane, Gimme Danger, The Handmaiden, Endless Poetry, Hell or High Water, It's Only the End of the World, The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki (Hymyilevä mies), Neon Demon, The Have-Nots (Die Habenichtse), The Girl with All the Gifts, Tunnel (터널), Breath (Nafas). And there are still some good ones if I include 3 1/2 stars: A Decent Woman, Sofichka, Doctor Strange, Arrival, La La Land, Pete's Dragon, Ghostbusters, Graduation, The Nice Guys, Like Crazy (La pazza gioia), "Kiki, Love to Love", Mad, Eat that Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words

I think Bottle Rocket is very restrained compared to his later films, I think, but I like it a lot! My favourite is Rushmore because of the characters, although I do like the more stylish Moonlight Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Life Aquatic quite a lot as well.

Wow! Toni Erdmann is my favorite movie of the year, and one which instantly felt both like a timeless classic and very timely. But I didn't expect it to snag so many awards (almost all it was nominated for): best screenwriter, actor, actress, director & film. I think it deserves these awards, but I feel kind of sad for the other films (of which I've seen only some). (Wim Wenders was not punched, didn't even get close enough)

The group photo has been cancelled, I'll have to do the punching avoidance at the main event then.

Wait, I've forgotten about this. Did you meet Wenders and tried to punch him?

I'll be attending the European Film Awards this weekend - I won a ticket to the Wroclaw, Poland event due to legally watching a lot of European movies this fall. I'll also be in a group photo with Wim Wenders (if I wake up in time on Saturday). OMG!

Kelly Reichardt has made another great movie Certain Women. My favourite from PÖFF so far.

Edge of 17 was screening today here, but I couldn't go. Was busy watching this year's black & white Jim Jarmusch movie not made by Jim Jarmusch. This time it's the Korean A Quiet Dream. Quite good, the third movie at PÖFF (besides Paterson & Hunt for the Wilderpeople) that I gave 4,5 stars to.

I also liked it. Currently PÖFF is going on, I've seen and liked most: Paterson, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Manchester by the Sea, Tunnel (Korea), It's Only the End of the World. There's one movie I saw yesterday, which is leaving me a bit confused as to why it is as highly rated as it is and even praised for the cinematography: You can't really see it in the trailer that much, but the movie was full of scenes where everything is out of focus, until a characters walks into focus. Almost every second scene was full of lens flare (also seen towards the end of the trailer) to the point of distraction. Camera (non-)movements were unexplicable - making a continuous dialogue with still shots take place in e.g. 2-3 different rooms, as if the characters talking were just seeking a place where they looked better on camera. For most of the movie, there was nothing really interesting going on, it only got philosophical and interesting 20-30 minutes before the end. I liked the director's (Pablo Larraín) previous movie, El Club, much better, but that one was also ugly. This movie, I consider one of the ugliest looking films I've seen recently, even as it filmed beautiful people in beautiful environments, but of course, ugly/beautiful may not be a relevant aspect for critics.

Funny thing, I found out today that my dad did the electrical project for that lighting. And it's rather new, so maybe part of it is that people haven't seen that lighting there yet.

Any idea why a lot of people would like this pic? It's currently gathering an unprecedented number of Facebook likes compared to my previous photos. The only thing I can think of is that it's a very recognizable and iconic part of our old town, while previously I haven't photographed well-known landmarks. And I guess it happened to be a pretty enough moment with the light and sky.

Just woke up. WTF is happening?

Guardian promised some kind of fancy real time phone alert, but it doesn't work for me. Or it hasn't started yet?

My second projector exploded... pretty much the same way that the first one, after 1 and a half years. I'm no longer recommending W1070 to anyone.

I don't know how big the media's effect on this is, but to me the fact that Trump still has so much support even when he loses, shows that this election is much less about the persons than everyone thinks and more about the parties. But on the other hand, maybe to the part of the electorate who is not set in stone and who decides which way the scales fall, it is more about the persons.

Ok, there are maybe no serious image quality issues after all - after the initial SD content, the stream consistently stayed ad HD quality, and I must say this Stalker is definitely the best version of Stalker that is out there - it almost gave me a hard-on! It's better than the YouTube Mosfilm version (well, pretty much the same, but less compression artifacts it seems). However, it didn't play the whole movie for me, stopped after the first hour or so and wouldn't resume. Again, I'm assuming this could be an issue with me being in a different country or a general problem they have setting things up that will be solved soon.

Playing Stalker in the background while working (this is supposed to be the best Stalker currently available anywhere)... It seems the stream actually did switch to higher quality at one point, definitely the colors and levels are great compared to previous ones I've seen if resolution is not the best. However a bigger glaring problem is that the controls bar is always visible, totally killing the movie watching mood. I wonder if this is only with Opera or with all browsers...

Actually I remembered that Opera has a free VPN built in and I gave that a try to fake my location. I don't know if it's the speed of the free VPN which is affecting the bitrate and resolution of the stream FilmStruck is sending me, but I must say I am EXTREMELY disappointed by the quality they seem to be offering... I played a few seconds of Andrei Rublev and Jeanne Dielman and both seemed to be SD quality. Can someone actually in the USA verify (for those particular movies or others) that HD quality is also offered?