I did! It’s great, and they just started releasing episodes again after their holiday break:
I haven’t listened to any podcasts in a few weeks but someone should start up a podcast thread.
I worry that these guys are going to burn out releasing these so quickly.
I read the Freakonimics book back when it was blowing up, the racism stuff really is just as dumb as they make it sound. It’s like, “Well, the employers aren’t racist, they just think black names will correlate with poor work performance.” My man, it’s still racist even if you sincerely believe black people are dumb.
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Ah yes, I remember the fights back on 22 over that. And Kelhus’s endless quest to normalize that it’s SCIENCE (actually unfalsifiable bullshit I just made up) that women WANT to make less money than men.
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EEAAO came out ten months ago, why the hell is it not available for rent online yet? I will gladly shell out $5 or whatever to watch it, but the only options available are buying it for $20 or finding somewhere I can do a free trial for Showtime to cancel before it charges me.
lol, horny David Brooks is amazing
Interesting article about when the liberties taken by screenwriters go overboard in making villains out of real-life subjects while they claim you’re watching something that’s more or less true to history:
This example stuck out to me:
I remember watching that show and coming away from it like “wow this Fairstein woman was a real piece of shit”, pretty 
if that’s not actually the case! Though (from her Wikipedia)…
After Reyes’ confession in 2002, Fairstein still maintained that the wrongfully convicted teenage boys were guilty and she lauded the police investigation as “brilliant”.
Yeah seems pretty safe that she’s a piece of shit.
Final episode order for Kaleidoscope was
- Yellow
- Green
- Blue
- Orange
- Violet
- Red
- Pink
- White
I didn’t read anything on this series or the episode ordering until I was done with the series, but I was kinda skeptical of the claim that everyone gets the episodes in different orders. When I look at Wikipedia, the order of episodes is listed exactly as I had them ordered.
The Last Of Us: Pretty good first ep, but I’m curious to see how it develops. Video game stories are generally not all that deep, and while I thought the game had a really nice conclusion, a lot of the stuff on the way there was…filler.
The first episode was pretty true to the game*, which is fine at the start but that’ll need to change or else we spend a week in Pittsburgh that’s incredibly boring.
What’d you think @skydiver8?
*with one exception (game spoilers): in the game I don’t think he’d even talked to Tommy for years; seeking out Tommy in Wyoming was a result of further developments with Ellie, not an initial goal of theirs
I thought it was fantastic.
the filler stuff in games is…gameplay. So yeah, a lot of that is, by the nature of the medium, just not going to be in the show. Which is why I’m so excited…it being TV allows them to flesh out the actual story.
That being said, there were some gameplay things that they put in the show in certain ways that couldn’t be lifted directly from the games. For example, the talk show bit at the start was all stuff that you could find out over the course of the game through the environment, finding messages, newspapers, etc. Obviously they aren’t going to film Joel and Ellie rummaging through every drawer to find that stuff, so they just get it out of the way.
I like the change they made with Tess and how Robert stole the truck battery they were going to use to go get Tommy (in the game it was weapons, just another job)…it made Joel’s motivations more personal and humanizing.
I think the fact that they don’t show Joel killing anyone until he PTSD’s out on the guard at the end was a deliberate and brilliant choice. Because we can’t connect to the character through gameplay, they have to connect us through his actions and Pascal’s portrayal, so them not showing the shootout with the fireflies and Robert makes the rage-out moment hit that much harder.
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Its on HBO Max, which still has the best streaming options out there. Go get a month trial and watch this and The Rehersal, and How to with John Wilson.
Edit: Nevermind. The fuck? I could have swore I watched it on HBO when it first released
Agree with skydiver, i didn’t think the pilot could have been made better it was basically perfect for me. Didn’t have real high hopes for the show when i heard about it but i sure do now.
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Finally finished white lotus S1. Really dragged in the middle there but the last two episodes were great. The guy who plays Shane really fucking killed it imo, especially in the finally. The scene at dinner where Rachel tells him that she made a mistake is 
. Just perfect watching the gears grinding away in his head.
I was getting pretty angry about Quinn’s parents telling him he couldn’t stay TBH. my wife even told me to stfu, when I saw him way behind his parents in line I knew what was coming and stood up and literally cheered for him. Great ending all around imo.
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Pretty much felt the opposite way. Last two episodes were my least favorite.
The first 4 episodes were a great blend of comedy and drama. The last two (especially the last one) basically just threw all the comedy away and went full drama.
Outside of the present in the suitcase, was there a single comedic scene in the entire finale?
Fincher + Swinton? I’m officially hyped for whatever movie this is.
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I feel like this should be right up @McTrollson’s alley: my favorite Twitter history professor with a multi-post extravaganza on his nitpicks with the Rings of Power series.
Part 1, featuring geographical analysis, political & societal structures, and volcano science but also diving into questions of, like, who are the Southlanders? What makes them Southlanders, exactly? Should we care about them at all?
Part 2: more than you ever wanted to know about medieval armor & smithing and why the show sucked at it:
Part 3 is a future entry that will focus on ships and tactics. I find this guy’s ability to dive into basically anything and turn it into a detailed piece of thoughtful historical analysis (he’s also written lots of pieces about Paradox games and the views of history they inspire) delightful.
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I mean, the dumbest part about the smithing in that show is when some schlub from the Southlands comes into the workshop of Celebrimbor, the GOAT craftsman, and is all like “Gee what if you made an alloy?” And Celebrimbor doesn’t seem at all suspicious that this random guy is styling on him. Nothing strange about that fellow!
Last year I listened through Bill Corbett’s Ringheads podcast, which goes through everything from the Silmarillion to Rings of Power in extremely nerdy detail. It’s good but obviously a very long listen.
All that and more!
And that leads into the larger problem which is that no one is surprised that Halbrand is apparently capable of producing a masterwork sword. Yes, we the audience know (or eventually find out) that it is because he isn’t who he seems, but everyone paying attention should have figured that out instantly. The real world is not like Skyrim; knights and displaced nobles did not take up blacksmithing as a hobby and you couldn’t level it up to 100 in your spare time. Becoming an accomplished blacksmith who could produce a masterwork was a full time occupation that required many years of training and practice. I think the video game demands of ‘crafting systems’ have in some ways distorted public perception here: blacksmiths, armorers, swordsmiths, bowyers, and so on – these were specialist artisans with a life-long investment into a single craft. Halbrand has just exposed himself in an obvious, flagrant sort of way and yet no one seems to notice!
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WE’RE ALL TRYING TO STOP SAURON HERE!
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Looking at updated oscar odds
2023 BEST PICTURE ODDS
Everything Everywhere All At Once -140
The Banshees of Inisherin +175
The Fabelmans +500
Top Gun Maverick +1000
2023 BEST DIRECTOR ODDS
Steven Spielberg (The Fabelmans) -140
Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All At Once) +100
2023 BEST ACTOR ODDS
Brendan Fraser (The Whale) -165
Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin) +225
Austin Butler (Elvis) +225
2023 BEST ACTRESS ODDS
Cate Blanchett (Tar) -195
Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All At Once) +135
I’ll be damned. Looks like Everything Everywhere All At Once might actually win best picture. Rooting for it.
Would have expected Fablemans to be a strong favorite. Great year for movies.