Hollow's recent activity

  1. Comment on The banal horror of Jimmy Fallon in ~tv

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    This is like when British writers and entertainers found out who was on the secret SS death list after WWII and started judging each other.

    This is like when British writers and entertainers found out who was on the secret SS death list after WWII and started judging each other.

    Noël Coward recalled that, on learning of the book, Rebecca West sent him a telegram saying "My dear—the people we should have been seen dead with."

    2 votes
  2. Comment on What’s something that didn’t work for you? in ~talk

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    I tried Lexapro and although it stopped me from feeling excessively sad, it didn't actually make me happy so it made my mood 'beige'. Which, okay, improvement of a sort but not a lot. Combined...

    I tried Lexapro and although it stopped me from feeling excessively sad, it didn't actually make me happy so it made my mood 'beige'. Which, okay, improvement of a sort but not a lot. Combined with the side effect that made the catharsis of orgasm impossible, I decided not to renew my prescription until I felt bad enough that beige would be a sustainable alternative (thankfully I never have).

    3 votes
  3. Comment on “Rediscovering” the operating system (AKA: the desktop is the killer app) in ~tech

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    I can't speak to the experience of logging in with Google at restaurants, tourist attractions, or public transit, because my country doesn't generally have that level of integration so I'm still...

    I can't speak to the experience of logging in with Google at restaurants, tourist attractions, or public transit, because my country doesn't generally have that level of integration so I'm still on debit cards and cash. What I can do is describe the workflow of using WeChat to explain what it's so ubiquitous.
    Here's a less than one minute demonstration of someone using it to order: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5e7B_NVfYI

    • Scan QR code;
    • Restaurant's mini-app opens with a menu
    • Select dishes and options (eg how much spice to add)
    • Check out with WeChat pay, which is an in-app pop up window asking for a PIN or biometric scan.
  4. Comment on “Rediscovering” the operating system (AKA: the desktop is the killer app) in ~tech

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    I can give you some insight there. WeChat automates logging into each service because your phone number and bank card are already registered on the app, and it also means the mini-apps have some...

    I can give you some insight there. WeChat automates logging into each service because your phone number and bank card are already registered on the app, and it also means the mini-apps have some of the conveniences of a full screen app (compared to browser navigation) without having to download, install, and set them up each time.

    5 votes
  5. Comment on ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’ stunning with $233m+ WW opening, $77m US in ~movies

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    I saw this one the day it opened. Unfortunately I was not impressed - the cast all return, but the stakes and the edge in the original movie fail to appear, so the tone is just kinda "feel-good...

    I saw this one the day it opened. Unfortunately I was not impressed - the cast all return, but the stakes and the edge in the original movie fail to appear, so the tone is just kinda "feel-good comedy".

    In the first movie, Runway is a very high pressure but professional outlet. Miranda is constantly working - picking model shots to include, setting editorial expectations, giving feedback on pitches, even making a costume herself as she's talking down to Andy in the Cerulean Blue speech. She's unnecessarily mean about it, but a lot of the stress from working for her is systemic - fashion moves fast, news moves fast, and Runway has a lot of plates to spin to keep up with it.

    Light spoilers

    By comparison, Andy gets direct hired in the sequel into being features editor (as seen in the trailer) and there's no apparent subsequent stress. She doesn't have to manage a team of writers, doesn't have to get looped in on the stories they're working on, doesn't have to accept or turn down their pitches, and the only sign it causes any strain at all is her mentioning working late.

    About the hardest she's actually seen working is making phone calls attempting to harass a private millionaire into an interview, which incidentally is a terrible method of getting an interview.

    4 votes
  6. Comment on Greta Gerwig’s Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew, an epic adventure, will release in IMAX and wide globally in theaters on February 12, 2027, and on Netflix on April 2, 2027 in ~movies

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    But...all the books have magic in them. The titular wardrobe in the first book is magic. The Calormenes in the second book are villainous for trying to expel all magic from Narnia. Voyage of the...

    my mom was extremely anti-magic. The mere mention of the word was enough to send her into a frenzy. The Magician's Nephew was especially touchy because it was Christian literature by a well renowned and respected Christian author so this understandably created quite the cognitive dissonance. For years it sat there in the box set with the other six books, each of which was dog-eared and worn from having been read so many times. And then there was The Magician's Nephew, nearly pristine, almost imagined out of existence

    But...all the books have magic in them. The titular wardrobe in the first book is magic. The Calormenes in the second book are villainous for trying to expel all magic from Narnia. Voyage of the Dawn Treder has the ship stop off at a wizard's island who made all the inhabitants invisible and has a magic book of spells Lucy reads from.
    So is The Magician's Nephew solely excluded because it has the word magic in the title regardless of the content?

    2 votes
  7. Comment on How ‘Michael’ rocked the world away with $97m US and $217m+ WW opening in ~movies

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    I watched this movie as someone who wasn't a fan while he was alive (no animosity towards him, I'm just not a music person) and found it enjoyable and entertaining but you do have to keep in the...

    I watched this movie as someone who wasn't a fan while he was alive (no animosity towards him, I'm just not a music person) and found it enjoyable and entertaining but you do have to keep in the back of your mind that this is his estate's version of the story. Like although I'm sure that there is truth in it, I can guess that Michael inviting Crips and Bloods to perform as backup dancers in an attempt to address gang violence wasn't as neat and clean as the story suggests.

    9 votes
  8. Comment on Florida opens criminal inquiry into ChatGPT tied to fatal school shooting (gifted link) in ~news

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    If you type a question into Google, the websites supplying those answers are who would be liable and it's likely a prospective shooter would consult more than one so the responsibility is...

    If you type a question into Google, the websites supplying those answers are who would be liable and it's likely a prospective shooter would consult more than one so the responsibility is diffused. Google doesn't claim that its search engine directly tells you anything, it refers you to information sources (unless you mean the AI summary, I'm not sure about that). By comparison, answers ChatGPT give you are presented as coming from the chatbot itself.

    2 votes
  9. Comment on Esoteric Ebb | Fully Ramblomatic in ~games

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    Part of the reason Frost left Second Wind on bad terms was that he was upset at how much Yahtzee gets paid. Which on it's face is legitimate, but for years Yahtzee was the only reason anyone...

    Part of the reason Frost left Second Wind on bad terms was that he was upset at how much Yahtzee gets paid. Which on it's face is legitimate, but for years Yahtzee was the only reason anyone watched Escapist videos, and to be honest even today I only watch him and Design Delve.

    3 votes
  10. Comment on Esoteric Ebb | Fully Ramblomatic in ~games

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    He did move to California and has mentioned living in the Bay Area in videos. TotalBiscuit (RIP) gave him a character reference for immigration.

    He did move to California and has mentioned living in the Bay Area in videos. TotalBiscuit (RIP) gave him a character reference for immigration.

    7 votes
  11. Comment on Why Microsoft’s war on Windows’ Control Panel is taking so long in ~tech

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    For Windows users, the first thing that comes to our mind on setup is how to stop OneDrive from being automatically set up.

    For Windows users, the first thing that comes to our mind on setup is how to stop OneDrive from being automatically set up.

    24 votes
  12. Comment on Inside the ‘Michael’ overhaul: $15 million reshoots, removing child abuse allegations and what’s in store for sequels in ~movies

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    And honestly, the excuse sounds pretty weak: So what, because one of the accusers is banned from appearing or being mentioned, that means the entire ending has to be cut? They can'r dub over his...

    However, the fact that they'd get to post-production without realizing there was a clause prohibiting portrayal of one of Jackson's accusers is insane to me.

    And honestly, the excuse sounds pretty weak:

    that finale was scrapped, along with any mention of the child molestation accusations, according to sources with knowledge of the production. That’s after attorneys for the Jackson estate, which served as a producer, realized there was a clause in a settlement with one of the singer’s accusers, Jordan Chandler, that barred the depiction or mention of him in any movie.

    So what, because one of the accusers is banned from appearing or being mentioned, that means the entire ending has to be cut? They can'r dub over his name, or use CG to change his face, or swap out his actor? It sounds more like someone changed their mind about touching the subject.

    5 votes
  13. Comment on Caravan Palace - Good Mouse (2026) | MOUSE: P.I. For Hire original game soundtrack in ~music

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    They've done lower budget videos before. Supersonics has very limited animation, relying on live action versions of the animated characters for the most part.

    It's decent, but it's clearly a lower budget video than the ones they do for their own songs.

    They've done lower budget videos before. Supersonics has very limited animation, relying on live action versions of the animated characters for the most part.

    1 vote
  14. Comment on Star Trek: Voyager Season One | re:View in ~tv

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    Dan Olson on YouTube made an interesting video on the people behind said documentary, and the techniques they used to give their message a veneer of credibility to the viewers and guests:...

    Dan Olson on YouTube made an interesting video on the people behind said documentary, and the techniques they used to give their message a veneer of credibility to the viewers and guests:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icwDF8wRgF4

    2 votes
  15. Comment on Air Canada CEO will retire this year after his English-only crash message was criticized in ~transport

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    To support with an example: When Richard Feynman was visiting a university in Brasil to give a talk (and granted, he'd been visiting regularly for a few years by that point, so he had some basic...

    To support with an example: When Richard Feynman was visiting a university in Brasil to give a talk (and granted, he'd been visiting regularly for a few years by that point, so he had some basic Portuguese but none for scientific terminology) he practised his speech for days with assistants making sure he got the pronunciation right. Then he attended and heard the lecturers before him all delivering theirs in English, so, embarrassed, he got up, went to the lectern, and apologised for speaking Portuguese as it was what he'd prepared the speech in.
    (https://southerncrossreview.org/81/feynman-brazil.html)

    Now granted a CEO does have more matters to attend to than spend days on a single statement, and it's not like he could have planned for this to happen, but he could have got someone to write, like, a couple of sentences at the end of the subtitled statement for him to memorise. He could have even done a few takes and dubbed in the one that had the fewest mistakes. Something.

    1 vote
  16. Comment on Haliey Welch interview (Hawk Tuah) by Channel 5 in ~life

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    So, it's entirely possible Welch is hamming up the simple, everyday persona both to appear more approachable and relatable, and to make it less likely she'll be seen as smart enough to...

    So, it's entirely possible Welch is hamming up the simple, everyday persona both to appear more approachable and relatable, and to make it less likely she'll be seen as smart enough to deliberately scam her audience. Logan Paul, for example, appears a lot less smart than he actually is on podcasts to appeal to his audience, and so I'm not going to draw a conclusion from what could easily be seen as a damage control interview that relies heavily on "The FBI did not find enough evidence to arrest me" (appreciate Callaghan for including her cursing out Coffeezilla in a cutaway). TBC I have zero knowledge of her apart from occasional headlines and I truly don't have any interest in her really.

    But...

    Are we not going to acknowledge how fucking insane the documentary promo at the end was?!

    4 votes
  17. Comment on Interesting material types for fantasy resources/macguffins other than crystals or metals? in ~creative

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    I've never seen it, but to my knowledge Love Woven in the Stars is a KoS movie that climaxes and wraps up the whole series by adapting how the manga ended.

    I've never seen it, but to my knowledge Love Woven in the Stars is a KoS movie that climaxes and wraps up the whole series by adapting how the manga ended.

    1 vote
  18. Comment on Interesting material types for fantasy resources/macguffins other than crystals or metals? in ~creative

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    The finale is a two-part action setpiece, where Izana is stranded on a moon teeming with Gauna and Nagate has to go in to rescue her alone. I'd say it's classic season 1, but yeah there's...

    The finale is a two-part action setpiece, where Izana is stranded on a moon teeming with Gauna and Nagate has to go in to rescue her alone. I'd say it's classic season 1, but yeah there's definitely romance drama to get through first. It also works really well as a close to the series since they weren't getting renewed and didn't know if they would be able to continue (it eventually was with a direct to streaming movie) so even if you have to skip to just the last two episodes, you should.

    1 vote
  19. Comment on Interesting material types for fantasy resources/macguffins other than crystals or metals? in ~creative

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    Partly right. KoS is a similar premise to Battlestar Galactica, or Voyager - a lone colony ship in the vastness of space, after Earth was destroyed by the alien Gauna. The first season was action...

    Partly right. KoS is a similar premise to Battlestar Galactica, or Voyager - a lone colony ship in the vastness of space, after Earth was destroyed by the alien Gauna. The first season was action oriented while the second had more slice of life and romance, with an undercurrent of political conspiracy running through both as the captain's relationship with the secret Immortal Council becomes strained and she begins consulting the imprisoned scientist Ochiai, whose experiments nearly destroyed Sidonia.

    It doesn't have great dialogue or characters, but I really like the premise and animation. Here's the seaon one opening sequence, like many anime openings it's a banger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_zn1a-dOvg

    And here's the only clip that somehow has never been copyright claimed, it's quite short but should give you an idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1GdoUDBsaE

  20. Comment on Interesting material types for fantasy resources/macguffins other than crystals or metals? in ~creative

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    There's an anime, Sidonia No Kishi, that quite literally uses the Higgs Boson as its phlebotnium. Thrusters, energy storage, energy blasters, all of them come back to Higgs. When it was adapted...

    There's an anime, Sidonia No Kishi, that quite literally uses the Higgs Boson as its phlebotnium. Thrusters, energy storage, energy blasters, all of them come back to Higgs. When it was adapted for Netflix, it got translated into Haigus or Hyggs to make it more fictionalised since the audience had gotten over the Higgs hype by then.

    (It's a good anime and you should watch it btw)

    3 votes