Perryapsis's recent activity
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Comment on Which Linux distro do you use, and why? in ~tech
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Comment on Midweek Movie Free Talk in ~movies
Perryapsis Link ParentI think that helps me with noirs. I usually can't jive with jerk protagonists, but when the movie is straight up about "they get their comeuppance, so just go along for the ride," it actually does...It is impressive how a movie can basically start with the ending, and still be gripping all the way through.
I think that helps me with noirs. I usually can't jive with jerk protagonists, but when the movie is straight up about "they get their comeuppance, so just go along for the ride," it actually does help me go along with it.
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Comment on Midweek Movie Free Talk in ~movies
Perryapsis LinkDoes anybody want to talk about: Double Indemnity (1944): ★★☆ Notorious (1946): ★★☆ The Kid (1921): ★★★ Avengers Age of Ultron (2015): ★☆☆ -
Comment on Half-baked idea for metered inline image allowances in ~tildes
Perryapsis Link ParentI started using Lensdump when people complained that imgur was compressing too much.I started using Lensdump when people complained that imgur was compressing too much.
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Comment on Midweek Movie Free Talk in ~movies
Perryapsis LinkDoes anybody want to talk about: M (1931): ★★★ I don't usually like movies with unsympathetic protagonists, but this one worked since Mr. M isn't really quite a protagonist. This movie does the...Does anybody want to talk about:
M (1931): ★★★
I don't usually like movies with unsympathetic protagonists, but this one worked since Mr. M isn't really quite a protagonist. This movie does the suspenseful chase really well without any smoke and mirrors or modern special effects. The ending was slightly abrupt, and we don't explicitly get the fate of one of the minor characters, but this was good overall.
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014): ★★☆
I am Groot.
The Passion of the Christ (2004): ★★★
I have lots of Christmas movies, but I realized that I don't really have any proper Easter movies. This was the closest thing, and I hadn't seen it before.
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Comment on Midweek Movie Free Talk in ~movies
Perryapsis Link ParentWitness for the Prosecution is on my list. Without spoiling anything, would you say it's another one that sticks reasonably close to actual court procedure?Witness for the Prosecution is on my list. Without spoiling anything, would you say it's another one that sticks reasonably close to actual court procedure?
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Comment on Megathread: April Fools' Day 2026 on the internet in ~talk
Perryapsis Link ParentWhat is the intended behavior? It didn't work for me either.What is the intended behavior? It didn't work for me either.
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Comment on Midweek Movie Free Talk in ~movies
Perryapsis LinkI know what day it is, but does anybody want to (seriously) talk about: Friendship (2025): ★☆☆ The cringe overpowered the comedy for me. It wasn't terrible, but it didn't click for me. Anatomy of...I know what day it is, but does anybody want to (seriously) talk about:
Friendship (2025): ★☆☆
The cringe overpowered the comedy for me. It wasn't terrible, but it didn't click for me.
Anatomy of a Murder (1959): ★★☆
This is some awfully heavy subject matter for an old movie...
Project Hail Mary (2026): ★★☆
This was good. Not better than Interstellar, but very solid. When I logged the movie on Letterboxd, it was ranked 89th of all time between Good Will Hunting and A Separation. I know that ratings tend to start high and regress to the mean over time, but it was funny to see since I didn't think it's in that tier of great movies.
There were a few things that annoyed me, but didn't ruin the experience. My theater had a problem with the projector, so they started playing the trailers with just the sound. It's a strange experience to listen to movie trailers without the picture. There's also typical scifi technobabble about e.g. "xenonite, a metallic form of xenon," when that's not what the -ite suffix means, etc. And then finally, I noticed some of the "explain what you're doing out loud so that people on their phones can follow along" moments that briefly broke my suspension of disbelief.
Spoilers! Example:
The captain is dead. The movie shows you the dead body. Then it shows the screen of a medical device saying "deceased." But then they _still_ have a character say "the captain is dead" out loud a bit later for the people who weren't paying attention.When is the "amaze amaze amaze" line actually dropped during the movie? I've seen people memeing it reddit, but I don't actually remember hearing it during the movie.
Rebecca (1940): ★★☆
This was almost three stars. Maybe I need to rewatch it again after learning all the twists. It was interesting that the title character calls herself a "paid companion" without much additional explanation. I had thought that was a strictly Japanese phenomenon after watching Rental Family. Was that a known thing in the west even in the 40s?
Field of Dreams (1989): ★★☆
This movie has three fades to black! There were a couple times I got confused because the movie doesn't explain how the magic works, but I was able to catch up enough to just go with it.
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Comment on Midweek Movie Free Talk in ~movies
Perryapsis Link ParentThanks for the suggestion, and just in time for the Criterion sale!Thanks for the suggestion, and just in time for the Criterion sale!
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Comment on Midweek Movie Free Talk in ~movies
Perryapsis LinkDoes anybody want to talk about: Captain America Winter Soldier (2014): ★★☆ So continues my Marvel catch-up. I thought this was good, but not great. Despite my general lack of knowledge about the...Does anybody want to talk about:
Captain America Winter Soldier (2014): ★★☆
So continues my Marvel catch-up. I thought this was good, but not great. Despite my general lack of knowledge about the MCU, I did at least know that one character had to live for a later movie, so one of the important plot threads of this one was moot to me. It was also interesting to see Anthony Mackie in this movie while knowing that he gets his own movie later.
Hoppers (2026): ★★☆
Eh. This is a kids' movie, but I expected that and enjoyed it well enough. They do a good job of not explaining the magic/sci-fi too much and just letting you go with it. I am a little worried about emoji-spamming becoming a meme, but that thankfully doesn't seem to have taken off as much as the movie tried to turn it into a meme.
Joke that contains a **spoiler for Hoppers**
They have a sequence chasing a guy named Jerry, and they couldn't name the predator Tom? :P
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939): ★★☆
Not bad. The edu-tainment bits for things I already know slow the movie down, but it's still enjoyable on the whole. There are some things that are interesting just for being from 1939, like sending 9 cents in coins through the mail and World Series tickets being worth $15.
Does anyone happen to know who all the portraits are on Paine's wall? There are Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Hoover, and one that's probably Teddy Roosevelt. But I assume that viewers at the time would have recognized more of them, since the walls of his office are completely lined with portraits.
Question that requires implied spoilers to even ask
Is there a term for an anti-Chekhov's gun? Smith's office has a rifle prominently displayed in the background of several shots, but it never ends up mattering.
The Revenant (2015): ★★☆
This movie was showing in a theater an hour away from me. It said it was for its 10th anniversary, but that should have been last year, so ¯\(ツ)/¯
They made a movie of The Last of Red Dead Part II‽ Seriously though, this was close to three stars. If only there weren't quite so many flashback/daydream bits and Fitzgerald didn't mumble half of his lines...
Joke with spoilers for BOTH Hoppers and The Revenant
Early tranquil nature scene. Bear attack. Is Hoppers just a PG remake of The Revenant‽
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Comment on What would you do with a video game style inventory? in ~talk
Perryapsis LinkIt depends on whether others have the same ability. If not, I could start the world's best moving company. But if so, there would be no more need for moving companies in general. On second...It depends on whether others have the same ability. If not, I could start the world's best moving company. But if so, there would be no more need for moving companies in general.
On second thought, maybe the better move is to use the inventory to preserve organs for transplant.
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Comment on Midweek Movie Free Talk in ~movies
Perryapsis Link ParentI think it's more on me than the movie, tbh. It's one where I needed to heed the content warnings more, like The Substance. Besides all the chronic sexual material, I don't do well with the gore...I think it's more on me than the movie, tbh. It's one where I needed to heed the content warnings more, like The Substance. Besides all the chronic sexual material, I don't do well with the gore in the surgical scenes.
As for the plot, the whole thing hinges on [event], which felt like pure coincidence. So I had a bit of a "that's it?" feeling as the credits started rolling.
Spoiler for [event]
The woman in Portugal who recognizes Bella/VictoriaI didn't think Bugonia was that bad, but I did roll my eyes at the ending. Based on those two movies, I might try Lanthimos again, but only if I can find the movies on a decent sale.
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Comment on Midweek Movie Free Talk in ~movies
Perryapsis LinkDoes anybody want to talk about: Iron Man 3 (2013): ★★☆ Gilda (1946): ★★☆ Poor Things (2023): ★☆☆ -
Comment on What are important historical books lost to time? in ~books
Perryapsis Link ParentOn a related note, the Bible itself includes many references to other texts, many of which have since been lost.On a related note, the Bible itself includes many references to other texts, many of which have since been lost.
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Comment on Midweek Movie Free Talk in ~movies
Perryapsis LinkDoes anybody want to talk about: Office Space (1999): ★☆☆ Clerks, but with cubicles. I've worked in an office and been laid off, so I enjoyed the jokes about that. But the actual plot of the movie...Does anybody want to talk about:
Office Space (1999): ★☆☆
Clerks, but with cubicles. I've worked in an office and been laid off, so I enjoyed the jokes about that. But the actual plot of the movie didn't keep my interest. It's interesting to compare what the office was like in the mid 90s compared to today.
The Land Before Time (1988): ★★☆ (rewatch)
This is a movie I haven't seen since I was a kid, and my theater was showing it for $3. This is definitely a different movie to watch as an adult, but still enjoyable. I didn't remember it being so short, but the story is simple and doesn't need two hours to make its point.
Thelma and Louise (1991): ★☆☆
Somehow I had gotten the idea that this was a lighthearted road trip romp, so I was not expecting a thriller/drama. That made me more surprised at the inciting act and beginning of the movie, but that also means it wasn't really what I was in the mood to watch. So, entering from stage left...
Happy Gilmore (1996): ★★☆
Expected a dumb Adam Sandler comedy; got a dumb Adam Sandler comedy. For once I was able to set aside the fact that a sports movie took ridiculous artistic license with the rules and was able to let go and enjoy it. It starts kinda slow and the early gags don't land, but it does better in the second act and manages to save par.
Her (2013): ★☆☆
I think this is a movie I needed to see before generative AI entered the zeitgeist. In the same way that you can't remember not knowing how to do something after you learn to do it, I can never watch this movie without preconceived expectations about AI, so I can never really put myself into the character's shoes.
The operating system, holographic video games, wireless earbuds, and other tech would have seemed futuristic and impressive at the time this movie released, but now they're mostly not-quite-right versions of things that actually exist. The depictions of the tech fall into uncanny valleys that wouldn't have existed in 2013. So the main character makes some dumb decisions early on that make him hard to sympathize with, which usually kills my enjoyment of movies. Now people are more wary of chatbots hallucinating and flattering you, so Theodore seems dumb at times. But I only got that impression because I'm watching the movie over a decade late after a serious shift in the culture around AI. This is a movie that I literally can't give a reasonable opinion on because of how much the world has changed since its release.
The credits of Her contain a special thanks for the late Catherine O'Hara. Does anyone know why she got that credit?
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Comment on Lifetime Windows user seeking feedback for improvements on my Linux setup in ~tech
Perryapsis Link ParentNoob here; is it possible to duplicate my current Linux partition to a different drive without screwing something up? I had limited space on my system's built-in drive when I decided to switch, so...Noob here; is it possible to duplicate my current Linux partition to a different drive without screwing something up? I had limited space on my system's built-in drive when I decided to switch, so I put Linux on a new partition of a external spinning-disk hard drive. With hindsight, I'd like to move to an SSD for the improved performance, but I'm afraid that I'd brick my computer or lose data trying to switch now.
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Comment on Midweek Movie Free Talk in ~movies
Perryapsis LinkDoes anybody want to talk about: Sinners (2025): ★⯪☆ Quick reminder that my scores are based on how much I enjoyed watching it rather than an objective measure of quality. So even though I gave...Does anybody want to talk about:
Sinners (2025): ★⯪☆
Quick reminder that my scores are based on how much I enjoyed watching it rather than an objective measure of quality. So even though I gave this the same score as another movie, I'm not saying that it's necessarily just as bad of a movie. But that said...
I don't get the hype. The movie was fine, but not as amazing as advertised. It apparently didn't leave much of an impression on me, since I can't remember any details besides the basics of the plot after just a few days. It's another movie where the protagonists are unsympathetic (at least at the beginning), and I think I mixed up Smoke and Stack for a while, so it's another movie that made me feel dumb. And as the horror picks up, it has a couple points where the characters do the horror-movie staple of making the worst choices imaginable. So this movie has all common threads of things I tend not to like in movies, and probably just isn't for me.
So along with One Battle After Another, I'm 0 for 2 on enjoying the Best Picture frontrunners this year, and I'm feeling a little discouraged. I feel like I can't really say anything without people assuming I'm a bad-faith internet contrarian and inviting the wrong kinds of rebuttals from the wrong sorts of people, but that means that I can't really join the biggest conversations about the most popular recent movies.
Wings (1927): ★★☆
(Please excuse the rambling; this movie left me with more questions than coherent thoughts...)
Is this really considered a silent film? It seems like something in-between a "silent" film and a talky. There isn't audio dialogue, but there is synchronized sound (in addition to the score) for gunshots, whirring of plane engines, explosions during the war sequences, etc. I knew that silent films had musical scores, but this is more than that.
This movie gave me more appreciation of older film techniques. The title cards often have artistic or stylized backgrounds instead of plain text, and the frames are tinted either yellow or blue to indicate time of day or a change of location. It also has clearly-added-later orange coloring to fire and gunshots. Neither technique is needed in modern color films, so it's interesting to see how they're used here. I'm also surprised by how much objectionable material they got away with by the standards of the day. This movie has brief nudity, a scene set in a burlesque (?) club, and someone being shot in the chest and coughing up blood, among other things. I get that it was pre-code, but it's still something that I subconsciously just don't expect from a movie this old.
I was surprised by how many jump cuts this movie has. One jump cut is jarring and breaks continuity, but this movie does it so much (like seriously, at least a dozen times, sometimes one after the other) that it feels like it might have been an intentional artistic decision somehow.
This movie is less than 2½ hours long, but it has an intermission? I know it used to be more common for long movies to have intermissions, but was it common way back in the day to have an intermission for a more normal-length movie? I see that there are two cuts of the movie, and I saw the longer one. Does anyone know which 33 minutes of material was removed from the shorter cut? And which cut was voted Best Picture in 1929?
Mercy (2026): ★★☆
Like Minority Report, but not as good. My expectations were low and I went on discount Tuesday, but I probably would have dropped a star if I had paid full price. The movie is similar to The Circle (2017) in that it brings up a lot of issues with modern technology, but it fails to follow through on any of them, even the AI it focuses on.
There's a good idea in the premise, but this movie never emphasizes it. In America, you have the right to decline to answer questions in a criminal investigation against you. But what if a computer unilaterally decides that you're guilty based on the evidence available to it. What if the only way to clear your name is to waive your constitutional rights and testify in your own defense? The movie put the thought in my head, even though it never explores this particular concept.
Mild spoilers
The movie defines "reasonable doubt" as 8% (i.e. 1/12, or one juror's worth) probability of innocence. That stood out to me as odd. Courts usually specifically reject the idea of defining reasonable doubt to a percentage, or really any statistical measure.I wish I could remember the exact probability of guilt shown after each sequence. I'd like to use Bayes theorem and work backward to find the implied probability of the evidence and see if those make sense.
The movie is set on August 14, 2029. At first I wondered if they wanted to guarantee some sort of extra promotion on that date if the movie really took off, but the third act put the kibosh on them wanting people to try to emulate the movie IRL in the future.
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Comment on Midweek Movie Free Talk in ~movies
Perryapsis Link ParentThe jokes are pretty memorable too, not just throwaways to get a laugh. I'm never going to forget how long it takes to cook grits.The jokes are pretty memorable too, not just throwaways to get a laugh. I'm never going to forget how long it takes to cook grits.
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Comment on Midweek Movie Free Talk in ~movies
Perryapsis LinkDoes anybody want to talk about: A Minecraft Movie (2025): ★★☆ I had heard bad things about this movie, but also that it had funny bits. It was on sale at a local store for "please someone just...Does anybody want to talk about:
A Minecraft Movie (2025): ★★☆
I had heard bad things about this movie, but also that it had funny bits. It was on sale at a local store for "please someone just buy this already so we can use the shelf space for something else," so I gave it a shot. I didn't think it was that bad. It's a silly comedy, not some deep and meaningful drama, but it isn't terrible. For all the hubbub about "chicken jockey," I'm surprised that the other jokes like "Steve's lava chicken" and "yearning for the mines" didn't become bigger memes as well.
My Cousin Vinny (1992): ★★☆
Are "legal comedies" a thing? I'd describe this movie's genre as a legal drama, but it's clearly presented as a comedy. Besides the titular character's sudden turn from bumbling buffoon to expert cross examiner, the plot is well-constructed and entertaining to follow. It was also interesting to read afterwards that a lot of the legal procedure in the movie is pretty close to reality, at least as far as movies go.
Iron Man (2008): ★★☆
And so begins my Marvel catch up plan. Thanks to everyone last week who helped recommend which movies to watch and which to skip! This movie was okay. It has the same issue as Marty Supreme where I struggle to sympathize with the main character because they're a jerk, but the premise and twists were entertaining but predictable.
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Comment on Youtube channel recommendations 2026 in ~tech
Perryapsis Link ParentHow is veritasium these days? Several years ago, he made a video explaining that he was going to make clickbaity lower-quality videos to sustain the channel. While I appreciate the challenges of...Veritasium
How is veritasium these days? Several years ago, he made a video explaining that he was going to make clickbaity lower-quality videos to sustain the channel. While I appreciate the challenges of YouTubing as a business, I did notice a significant drop in quality and unsubscribed. Has he turned it around in the time since?
I've been using Linux Mint for a couple years now. My computer overheated one day, and the hard drive was the last thing I had to get working again. That got me looking into ways to use the computer even if the hard drive completely died, and that led me to Linux on USB. I read a lot of opinions saying that Mint is the closest thing to a drop-in replacement for Windows, so I tried that and was satisfied. Eventually I decided to install it permanently and dual boot, but now I haven't booted into Windows in ages.
On that note, could someone please recommend a guide for distro-hopping-for-noobs? I was a moron and installed Mint onto a partition of a spinning-disk external hard drive, and I've noticed it getting slower as time goes on. I'd like to port my existing installation to an SSD and try out some other distros in the meantime, but I'm terrified that I'll brick my computer trying.