James

They need to get on vocals.

I find the 100-point scale artificially precise for something as non-numeric as critical assessment, so I just decided to restrict myself to multiples of five. It's much easier to make quick decisions that way, but leaves me space to express preference for one of two films that I quite like, for example. A hundred points are available, but you're not forced to use them all. I do see some merit to Flickchart's method, but ultimately I'd agonize over those decisions just as much as I do over scoring, if not more. One appealing facet of Flickchart is that it doesn't infer any absolute information, only relative preferences. Starting out on Criticker, I've mainly been rating films I like, because those are the first that come to mind, and the ones that I tend to remember well enough to feel confident in scoring them, and those for which I can quantify my experience the best. Since it labels things according to a curve, I think at one stage it was deeming anything below 70 as "terrible", which isn't right at all.

Hey, me too. I don't remember when it was, but at some point I had a realization: as soon as my computer's finished booting up, I launch something, and from then on my desktop will be obscured. I was using the start menu, taskbar and run dialogue to get to everything anyway, so why have all these ugly icons sitting around doing nothing? I don't know whether it's the fact that my experience of Windows started in 3.1 back when everything other than File Manager was just shortcuts, but I've always found the idea of keeping actual files (rather than shortcuts) on the desktop really strange and dangerous. I guess it's kind of conveniently accessible, but it very quickly becomes incredibly messy and is generally way less functional than keeping things in normal folders. Fences introduces a lot of that functionality to the desktop, though, and the auto-categorization thing seems pretty cool. I don't know why I think anyone would want to know any of this. MORE ON-TOPIC: Criticker seems very cool. I think Netflix does a similar thing with its star rating system, but Criticker seems better-realized, and it obviously draws from a larger pool.

See, I get that conditioning exists, but it seems weird to me that a cinema screen is such a distinct category internally that even when depicting something closely analogous with something you might see in real life, I should experience such a strong distortion in the sense of speed. What is it that tells the brain to expect something different than the real world? You're saying that it's because it's all happening on a flat object at a set distance, is that right? Does that mean that closing one eye would alleviate the effect, or would other perspective cues still throw one's perception off? Could it be something else, like the frame rate, while faster, still being below the maximum distinctly perceivable frame rate? Or the particularly focused lighting arrangement at a cinema? Or something to do with light strobing? I guess that'd be a software issue. It'd be similar 2:3 pulldown process films are put through to show in NTSC, although I guess that normally happens at the manufacture stage. Maybe they'll just release the films at interpolated 60 fps. Also, I think it would have to work slightly differently in progressive scan.

Well that's kind of the point: it doesn't matter how much material you use, but how you use it. I can tell you that without having seen the film, everything in that trailer means very little to me in terms of plot. There's an organisation offering making grand claims for its mind-meddling programme, a protagonist who seems to be some sort of test subject, and some shots of what look like they might be an escape attempt. Furthermore, what it does show is very fractured, and it doesn't hammer you over the head with what's happening. It seems far more concerned with aesthetics and mood. I don't know, perhaps I'm being an idiot and I'm just distracted by the cool music, visuals and sound design, but I thought this was way more imaginative and engaging than pretty much every trailer I see at the cinema.

The reason you enjoy that trailer is because it's enigmatic and aesthetically bold. Contrast this with the trailers for most films, which, regardless of the quality of the film, follow one of a handful of templates and half the time show you most of the major plot points in the film. I much prefer trailers that set a mood than those that give me a summary of the story I'm going to be told, to the tune of those bassy booms and discordantly escalating string crescendos that get people pumped up about action films, or the sad song/happy song switch they use for comedies, or the happy song/sad song switch they use for films where it starts out chirpy but then it all goes a bit shit and it's about people struggling through the shit and eventually managing to be happy again. It's not even that I dislike the films. I'm generally pretty easy-going when it comes to the films themselves. It's the incessant repetition in the trailers that drives me mad. There must be so many other ways to get people interested. I guess it's a result of having absolutely loads of trailers to make on limited budgets, but it still strikes me as extremely lazy. Anyway, I've not seen Beyond the Black Rainbow, so I obviously have no idea whether it's any good or not, but that trailer certainly caught my attention. That, at least, is excellent.

I really enjoyed it. It certainly has its faults, but I ended up seeing it three times, partly because of different groups of friends and relatives wanting to see it, and partly because I was curious to see every version my local cinema is offering: IMAX 3D, 2D, and (non-IMAX) HFR 3D. That was pretty silly on my part – there are many films I've seen only once that deserve repeat viewing more than The Hobbit – but I had a good time. In part, I just like to spend time in Jackson's version of Middle-earth. Perhaps that's why I actually prefer the earlier, slower portion of the film, placing me pretty much entirely at odds with most of the other opinions I've heard about the pacing. It did need to pick up at some point, of course, but, as somebody already pointed out, once it does, it's kind of relentless. I got particularly fed up with the numerous falling sequences. Several of them look like everyone should have died, and that they didn't makes it seem very much like a roller coaster, and undermines any sense of risk the scene might have had. I guess that's madcap kids' adventure film stuff, but in this context it was unsatisfying for me. Regarding the HFR, some shots did seem like they were in fast-motion to me, particularly at the beginning, which was incredibly frustrating because I knew that the actual action wasn't playing out any faster, and my eyes are receiving more images than that per second in my everyday life. Does putting a screen around the action really make that much of a difference? I found that camera motions triggered that sensation the most, particularly if there was also a moving object in the frame. I'm not entirely sure why that would be, but I guess at least there's some reason why I'd be accustomed to camera movements in a particular framerate. Anyway, it did make those big sweeping shots clearer, although unfortunately I arrived late and missed the one in that huge cavernous throne room at the beginning that particularly stood out to me the previous two times. As I remember it, it's this very grand and conspicuous flight down into the mines, and you know it's meant to be impressive, but you're not able to focus on anything because it's all slightly blurry, and leaves you feeling uneasy. Anyway, I'm mainly saying things that have already been said in this thread, so I'll add two more uninteresting thoughts: the art design was wonderful, and Martin Freeman makes a more hobbity hobbit than Elijah Wood did. Also, I prefer the more cartoonish looking heavy-on-the-facial-prosthetics dwarves, because they look like dwarves all the time rather than just when you can compare their size against someone, whereas my nephew prefers Fili and Kili, because he's seven and doesn't know anything about anything.

I deem your survival to be preferable to your demise, Ysbreker, and therefore laud your good judgement in deciding to live.

For me the most disturbing thing about the more lifelike of Boston Dynamics' horrific robo-beasts is that when they stumble I have a moment of genuine anxiety, an actual sensation in my gut, when I think "Oh no! I hope it doesn't get hurt!". In other words, their movement is lifelike enough for me to have some sort of misplaced empathy for them. When the robotic hordes rise, and Big Dogs roam the streets dispassionately annihilating any trace of life, I'll feel bad about fighting back because of their lifelike legs and gait. I'm extra doomed. Also, my favourite thing about that last video is the weird little head movement the guy does at the very beginning. It makes him look a bit like he's a robot powering up, too; one machine leading another. Or perhaps he's just psyching himself up for the ordeal of intimidation he's about to go through. He never looks back. He's too terrified of what he knows he'd see.

I guessed as much, but I couldn't think of a way to more elegantly trample all over it.

So it's not "with"? Having a quantity next to that would be stupid, but no less stupid than having twenty lines of the same item with a quantity of one on each. Also, is that about £30 for one pizza? I'd heard Norway was expensive, but that's ridiculous.

Oh fucking christ, Alien is real.

Is that also the reason for the crazy letter combinations? Or is that just different spelling conventions? I was rather excited when I discovered that there were languages that had sequences of multiple umlaut/diaeresis-bearing letters in a row. I later discovered that such a thing is possible with certain compound words or affixes or something in Swedish (and presumably the other Germanic Scandinavian languages), but it seems to be much more common in Finnish, presumably because of its highly agglutinative nature. Language is one of those things that rides the cusp between my being interested in things and my being too lazy to learn much about them.

Confirmed: That is the cutest fucking thing.

I think some people don't feel especially compelled to play multiplayer on Xbox. I keep paying for Gold, but it must have been a few months since I played any multiplayer on that thing. But of course, if you do want to play multiplayer, you will need it. I'd guess it'd be the stereotype of discriminatory teenagers spouting abuse over voice chat.

Probably so. I still feel a bit put-out that she said we'd talk later that week and didn't (after the obsessive daily texts stopped), but that isn't actually a big deal, and just seems like it is because I need to sort myself out and so on.

Probably right, but from my current perspective, that seems rather sad. But yes, I need to get to a state where it doesn't really matter what the outcome is.

Bugger. Oh well. What I'd really like (assuming we genuinely can't maintain a friendship) is an opportunity to say goodbye and put a lid on it, leaving things on good terms, but perhaps that's not the way to go.

The angry conservative lady video was interesting to me, but I find all that rage kind of upsetting and even a little frightening. I have a real problem with absolute conviction, which makes discussion of serious issues a real problem for me. Sometimes I feel like I'm defined by self-doubt, so when confronted by someone so certain that they possess the truth, I have difficulty responding. I also would quite like everyone in the entire world to like me, and pointlessly spend time wondering about all the complete strangers who wouldn't. In this case, the woman is outright furious with those politically aligned with her but who didn't fight hard enough; god knows what she'd think of me. I have no reason to care, but I do. So that's another reason I find it an uncomfortable watch. But sometimes uncomfortable things are worthwhile. Don't quote that out of context. That's actually pretty relevant to a situation I'm trying to wade my way out of at the moment. A not-especially brief summary: I met someone abroad. We got on well. We maintained frequent contact. We met up; it became a (long-distance) relationship (the first I'd had for a long while). We had two more holidays together, but during the last her feelings had obviously cooled, to the point where there were several really awkward (as in borderline terrible) days during which she was barely even speaking. It obviously wasn't working; I eventually got her to talk, and she voiced her concerns, which I acknowledged (clearly things weren't going well), but I was childishly reluctant to give up completely. She said she didn't want to end it there and then, and that it wouldn't be right to do so at a distance, so she'd reassess next time we met. I went home feeling pretty weird, and kind of knowing it was doomed, but hanging on nevertheless. She became less and less responsive to my daily texts, which played on my mind a great deal, until I decided to stop contacting her if only to see how long it would take her to message me without prompting. That afternoon sent me a message saying it was obvious we should just be friends (I guess she'd changed her mind about breaking up by text message). I knew it was over, and that it was right for it to be over, but I still had a pretty significant sense of loss; it hadn't worked, but it had come close enough to working that I really didn't want to let go, and my pessimism made me fearful of even getting that close to things working again (and it still does). Anyway, she did say she wanted to stay friends, and that she wanted things to be as they were before, which I appreciated. I do want to keep her as a friend, and enjoy being around her, even if in a non-romantic capacity. Since then, however, she's returned to being very uncommunicative. At first I was sending messages every day, which was almost certainly a mistake, but that was how things had been before we were an item, which is what she said she wanted. Anyway, her failure to respond was really getting to me, so I decided I should take a step back and give her some space. I think that lasted for about a week (although it could have been shorter – time expands horrendously when you're obsessing over something) before I lost my nerve and sent her a long message asking what was going on, and offering the numerous explanations that had occurred to me during all my obsessing: that she was bored of me, that she needed some time, that I was just messaging her too much and should lay off a bit, that she had a new boyfriend and didn't consider contact with me appropriate, and so on. I said I just wanted an explanation so I would know what was going on and how I should act. It was definitely a slightly crazy message, and probably a big mistake. Anyway, about a week after that she did contact me, and seemed bright and cheerful and nothing was wrong, and as far as I remember no mention of the crazy message was made by either of us. My mood was lifted hugely. Then, a few days after that she got back in touch and said she could speak for five minutes, which we did, and she promised we'd speak later in the week. That was two weeks ago. I'd been waiting for her to get in touch with me again, but I lost my nerve a few times, and feel myself coming perilously close to sending a crazy e-mail or something. I've considered telling her that if this is what friendship with her is, I don't think I can take it, but that's probably a horrible guilt-trip and completely unreasonable – I have friends I can go for weeks or even months without hearing from without problem – and besides, I don't think I want to burn that bridge anyway. But I obviously need to move on and stop being so emotionally dependent on someone I'm not even in a relationship with any more. When I think about it, I don't even understand why it bothers me so much. I have other friends, and managed OK before I even knew her. Have I not really accepted that we've broken up? I feel like I have. I think it relates back to what I was saying about the video: I want everyone to like me, and when I don't hear from her I suspect it's because she doesn't like me, even though she's told me that isn't the case. Some part of me thinks she's just being kind, but really she secretly can't stand to even talk to me, and she hopes I'll just forget about her and go away. In actual fact, what's probably happening is she's just busy having a life like a proper person while I obsess pathetically. I imagine the standard prescription is to go out, have fun, and try to keep occupied. I am being more active, and particularly trying to actually do things during my weekends rather than just fritter them away, but my social circle is fairly small and consists of fairly like-minded people, so I often feel like I don't have many options. If I'm honest, that's because I rule a whole bunch of stuff out as stuff I just don't want to do, but that's a whole other issue. Anyway, I do feel like I'm kind of very gradually moving on and coping better and being less upset by this whole silly situation (which I'm sure is nothing to proper people with healthy lives and so on), but that link did seem very relevant to the whole thing. I don't know. Stupid life. Oh, one last thing: before fully embarking on this whole thing, I did voice some concerns about the whole long-distance thing at another forum, and one particularly depressing person told me not to bother because she'd only break my heart. I'd like it to be known that, despite the emotional fallout, I don't regret it for a moment. Our first holiday together, which was only a weekend, was very special to me. We didn't do a great deal; we mainly just enjoyed being together. I want that feeling back, but I'm glad just to have had it. (Let's forgo the Tennyson quote.)

I've never seen him live, nor do I know much of his music at all, really, other than this remix of Fog's Check Fraud: For the terminally curious, here's Andrew Broder (who pretty much is/was Fog) demonstrating the turntablism in that track: Godspeed are one of my favourite bands, although I must confess to not having listened to them too much in recent years. Weirdly, I've owned a T-shirt with the back of the new album as its design for a year or so now. They were selling it during their comeback tour thing. Anyway, the album's pretty great.

I'm reading this at 1.43 in the morning.

It's quite exciting to be witness to the early stages of the sequence that will end with humanity's destruction.

I want a skeumorphic smartphone in my smartphone.

Is that imagined murder beyond the human genocide all cats are always planning?

The exclamation mark kind of spoils it. It's supposed to be cool indifference.