Generative Melodrama

2024-01-16

AI
Blog

I’ve found the overly-melodramatic, anti-AI crowd with their blanket dismissal of anything and everything related to the topic are easily as obnoxious as the douches sticking “AI” into every possible crevice, and hailing it as competition for Jesus.

I know I’m asking a lot, but can’t we have a middle ground acknowledging that there’s pros and cons and try to find a productive middle ground? There’s intolerable extremist propaganda coming from every direction.

Eeh… who am I kidding? There’s been “gonna take our jobs” pitchfork crowds for every major technological milestone. I’m certain there was some swift Sumerian who bitched about the wheel taking his job running around…

Review: Leave the World Behind (2023)

2023-12-09

Blog
Movies

As one of the billions of fans of Mr. Robot, after seeing the trailer and finding out the film had direct connections to the show… well, there was no way I wasn’t going to throw this on the moment I could.

I enjoyed it quite a bit, there were moments where it felt like it dragged on a bit too long. And I think part of what made me feel that way was that the film doesn’t hide it’s sinister intent: right from the opening credits everything is cast in suspenseful music and suspicious moments.

As viewers, we know a bad mystery is about to unfold, and we’re left watching as the characters catch up to where the audience is. So when the story takes the time to spend with the characters, I find I don’t care as much unless their interactions directly inform the greater situation.

Admittedly, it ALL matters, in an abstract sense. Looking back, I can see where it fits into the film’s story. But more than once I found myself looking to see where I was in the film’s runtime. Something I’ve found to often be a bad sign. Not always, but it was one here…

But these moments are spread apart. Typically it keeps the mystery unfolding enough to keep things interesting.

The cast is decent and nuanced. Except for the son character who exists to be a dumb, cruel big brother. Thankfully the bulk of the bad things happen to him. He’s kind of disposable from a story/audience standpoint, so good call? (Through no fault of the actor, of course. It’s just how he was written.)

But my biggest criticism and disappointment: it gets far too blunt with the ‘message’. The film literally has characters verbally exposit the core messages — telling us things that should be explicit in the story and not directly spoken. It came dangerously close to having “MESSAGE INCOMING, PAY ATTENTION VIEWER” flash along the bottom, like the EAS alert on the TV. Have some faith in the audience, for chrissakes.

Still, the film’s gorgeous cinematography makes it’s intriguing and terrifyingly realistic plot (as far as cinematic hacking exploits go) a real treat. Definitely worth a go; a decent, frightening epilogue to Mr. Robot, if it’s literally intended to be that on some level.

And even if it wasn’t intended, it works quite well as one.

(I also have to wonder if this was intended to be split into four 30-minute episodes: it’s split up into “PART 1: CHAPTER TITLE” cards. 🤔)

⭐⭐⭐⭐

The 36th Anniversary of that Bloody Thing

2023-11-22

Q: Why, Forty, as a fan of Max Headroom, do you inexplicably hate the so-called “Max Headroom Incident” involving an act of TV piracy in the 1980s. You appreciate signal piracy. You enjoy Max. What’s wrong with you? It’s the 36th anniversary of the hijacking!

A: I’m glad you asked, random stranger. It’s because I fucking love Max Headroom. As a TV show. As a talk show host. As a movie. And as a character.

And it absolutely twists my tits to realize that the first and probably only thing people will remember about Max, in the future, is this stupid, one-off incident of a dumb-ass interrupting an episode of Dr. Who while wearing a mask, rambling incoherently, and paddling their naked ass.

Don’t get me wrong: this, by itself is very funny. On it’s own merits it’s terrific, in the spirit of things, and it does overlap with some of the major themes of the TV series (e.g. “signal zippers“).

But Max Headroom — as a whole — deserves a much, much better legacy than this.

So I will continue to grump. Just don’t take my grumping about this too seriously.

And I promise not to keep writing posts as questions nobody asked; I am merely creatively bankrupt.

Why don’t I just sign up for YouTube Premium?

2023-10-17

As is common knowledge at this point, YouTube has decided to crack down on the practice of using ad blocking on the site.

I was able to get most of this garbage to go away sufficiently enough with some CSS-fu (and there’s more drastic measures you can take). It’s made the site a bit clunkier to use (I can’t scroll down to the comments, for instance, but that’s often a blessing). But for the most part, life goes on. (And FreeTube has been pretty great, for what it’s worth.)

Over on Hacker News, whenever this topic comes up, there’s always one asshole who asks “why don’t you just pay for Premium”.

I instantly scoffed, but it I was willing to consider just why this wasn’t an option, in my mind. And here’s what I came up with:

I don’t have ethical issues against pirating. I do, however, go out of my way to buy physical media of the shows and music I love. I can afford to do so, and I want to support and encourage the artists I love.
- Naturally, corpo trash loves money and they’ve realized they’re in a position where they can get rid of physical media entirely and just temporarily license you a stream of bytes. Which is an odd choice considering the whole streaming model is struggling now.
- I suppose I’m partially at fault for helping user in this whole digital-only world, given how successful it’s been in the video game world with Steam, and now home consoles ditching physical discs. I love Steam. It’s surprising it’s taken so long for it’s curse to catch up with us.
I don’t trust Google anymore. Well, I never fully did. But the veil has been slipping lately. It’s a company circling the drain, raiding the cushions for money (see also: this whole adblock thing).
YouTube has been free for nearly 20 years. The site opened in 2005. They built their entire empire on the backs of people uploading their content for them to sell ads on. I’m not saying a content distribution system of its scale isn’t nothing, but good luck holding out your hat for alms at this point. It’s a bit late in the game.
- Interesting to see so many of the surviving “Old Internet” sites from the 2000s collapsing now, for various reasons: Reddit, Twitter… strangely, Facebook is just kind of idle at the moment. I can’t imagine that will last.
YouTube’s shitty automated policies have been constant thorn in the side of creators. The victims of it have few options for recourse. Well, that’s true at least if you aren’t one of their more profitable accounts. Or maybe you get lucky and catch a sympathetic Googler’s eye on HN.
Their corporate-friendly “copyright strike” bullshit has made documenting and educating people about retro content (music, movies, etc) a real minefield to the point where creators fear even playing a snippet from something without risking retribution. “Fair use” essentially becoming a game Russian Roulette.
You can’t even swear in a video without risking demonetization now? Fuck off. Kowtowing to advertisers just like the old media.
The Algorithm(tm) watching every little mouse twitch to shovel new content in your direction — not YT specific, but, personally, I’m done with that Orwellian shit.
Professional video creators are basically being held hostage: they can’t even seek greener pastures because this is _where the audience_ is. And YouTube knows it.

So yeah, Google doesn’t get any of my fucking money. I don’t give cash to those who’s policies I disagree with.

I’ll support creators directly where I can, give to Archive.org, and promote decentralized ways of hosting content.

Wherein I Disqualify Myself for the Office of the Presidency

2023-08-23

Blog

A recent Kurzgesagt video discussed the trope where a President is being pressured into deciding whether to respond to a ‘probable’ nuclear attack. The confidence level is not 100%, however, but there’s a ticking clock with only a ridiculously tiny window of time to decide to launch a counter attack.

It made me really think and realize what my answer would have to be in that high pressure situation:

Don’t press “the button”.

If I launch, the odds of nuclear war and annihilation of both sides becomes 100%. We’re done.
If it’s a real attack, at least someone will still survive this. It may not be “us” and “our values”, but humanity would go on. Probably. I mean, don’t get me wrong: it’ll absolutely change the world, but at least millions of innocent people would be saved. They just won’t be “ours”.
If it’s not a real attack, well… I guess we’re all getting real drunk tonight. 🥃

The only way the choice to not counter-attack is the “wrong” is if you’re a military hardliner with a thick “us vs them” mentality, with their patriotism so far up their ass that they’ve lost sight of the big picture of humanity.

Of course, this breaks down if you know that I won’t retaliate. Then you’ll just steamroll me. The other side still has to believe there’s a chance you’ll counterattack in a real scenario, to maintain the ‘mutually assured destruction’ balance.

Since I’ve laid my cards out here, I guess I won’t have my finger (not) over the button in my lifetime. 😉

Unchanging

2023-04-19

AI Art
Blog

I spent my whole life making sure I’d never change.
And now, later in life, I fear I may have succeeded.

Greasemonkey: Drudge Report Highlighter

2023-03-13

Blog
Coding

One of my secret shames is that I regularly check Drudge Report for breaking news (especially now that Twitter is compromised).

Drudge is a scumbag. But he’s a useful scumbag. He seemingly posts 24/7 (with some help, no doubt) every little bit of breaking news.

His preferences lean right, but at the end of the day he leans wherever the clicks are — so he’s not exactly what I would describe as a die hard conservative, if the story is big enough.

That means he links to tabloid sites, like The Sun, and others.

Very low-quality garbage, along side regular mainstream news sources. It sucks.

So, last night I got the idea to write a Greasemonkey script to iterate all the links on the page and style them appropriately if they’re from a blocklist. That’ll help me judge, at a glance, the likelihood that King Charles was actually seen shapeshifting into a lizard or not, and I can skip it.

And here it is, in it’s imperfect glory:

// ==UserScript==
// @name     drudgereport-highlighter
// @version  1
// @grant    none
// @run-at 	 document-idle
// @include  https://drudgereport.com/
// ==/UserScript==

el_links = document.getElementsByTagName("a");

const tabloidDomains = [  
  "mirror.co.uk",
  "thesun.co.uk",
  "the-sun.com",
  "dailymail.co.uk",
  "dailycaller.com",
  "radaronline.com",
  "bild.com"
];

const conservativeShitholeDomains = [
  "washingtontimes.com",
  "foxnews.com",
  "infowars.com",
  "breitbart.com",
  "newsmax.com",
  "freebeacon.com",
  "realclearpolitics.com"
]

const secondClassDomains = [
  "dnyuz.com",
  "nypost.com",
  "newzit.com",
]

function basename(url) {
  try {
    let back_offset = 0;

    if (url.includes("co.uk")) back_offset = 1;

    let foo = url.split("/")[2].split(".");
    return `${foo[foo.length - 2 - back_offset]}.${
      foo[foo.length - 1 - back_offset]
    }`;
  } catch {
    // lazy hack
    return "";
  }
}

for (el of el_links) {
  domain = basename(el.href);
  let updated = false;
  if (tabloidDomains.filter((d) => d.includes(domain)).length) {
    el.style.backgroundColor = "darkred";
    el.style.color = "white";
    el.title = "Tabloid";
    updated = true;
  } 
  else if (conservativeShitholeDomains.filter((d) => d.includes(domain)).length) {
    el.style.backgroundColor = "#FF0000AA";
    el.style.color = "white";
    el.title = "Conservative Shithole";
    updated = true;
  }
  else if (secondClassDomains.filter((d) => d.includes(domain)).length) {
    el.style.backgroundColor = "darkcyan";
    el.style.color = "white";
    el.title = "Second-class Domain";
    updated = true;
  }
  
  if (updated) {
    el.style.borderRadius = "4px"
    el.style.padding = "0 0.25em"
    el.title = `${el.title} [${domain}]`
    
    let tag = document.createElement('span')
    tag.innerHTML = domain
    tag.style.fontFamily = "sans-serif";
    tag.style.fontSize = "8pt";
    tag.style.color = "black"
    tag.style.backgroundColor= "white"
    tag.style.padding = "0 0.25em"
    el.style.paddingBottom = "0.20em"  
    tag.style.marginLeft = "0.25em"
    tag.style.borderRadius="10px"
    el.style.textDecoration = "none";
    
    el.append(tag)
  }
  
}

console.log("drudgereport-highlighter installed");

Review: Picard 3×01 – The Next Generation

2023-02-16

Not a bad opener at all.

At first it felt like the direct TNG callbacks were a bit much, but it’s the opening episode — there’s an allowance for that kind of thing. Sets the tone. Builds a framework.

It definitely feels different. Better. Probably my favorite premiere out of all three seasons. But each of those were actually quite good before each of them fell off the rails pretty rapidly. It remains to be seen if Season 3 falls into that trap. But I get a good feeling from this. With how badly prior seasons have left me soured, I still feel something I didn’t expect: hopeful. 🤞

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Realtime Observations:

In the 25th Century… (oh lord, laying it on thick out of the gate)
No title sequence…?
Rainy ambient background is great with headphones in the scene with Picard talking to Laris.
Aaaand just like that Laris is off the series? Maybe she’s back at the end, too? 🤔
An EAGLEMOSS on screen with stand and everything. Okay…
Oh, wow, a whole Amazon store listing of Eaglemoss ships on display. Not sure how I feel about that. Breaks immersion a bit too much.
“The fat ones”. Geesh.
Both Picard and Riker giving speeches at Frontier Day.
So Bev gives this dire message where she’s clearly heavily injured, but let’s fuck around real casually about it at the bar. Factoring in how long it took for them to get together, hatch a plan, take the Titan in one direction, then double back, etc. It had to be at least week if not more before they even got to her. (Trek’s been known to bend time and space, so this is not nearly as damning as it might ordinarily be, but it’s still irritating.)
Fifteen minutes in and the number of obscure, statistically unlikely TNG callbacks in a row is already closing in on intolerable. (EDIT: it mellows out.)
M’talas Prime… a bit on the nose, no? I mean, naming shit after the crew is common but what’s next? Kurtzman IV? (That actually has a good ring to it…)
“Inspection face”
Sexy Titan-A flyby. I’ve long said Trek has lost that grandiose majesty, and this brings some of that back.
The score really is great, though it sometimes feels like a bit too direct of a copy/paste affair. From great source material, at least.
“Crash” LaForge. She’s got chops. She didn’t feel like stunt casting.
Picard/Riker banter is almost a bit much, but JUST on this side of fun.
Shaw’s dinner ASMR with headphones is a bit disturbing.
Yep, Shaw is a real dick. Hahah. Maybe a bit too much of one? I bet we come around on him, though, before he dies.
On snap, he’s got Locutus beef with a general anti-Borg racist streak. (“Commander Hansen” for instance.)
Picard and Janeway inspired her to “join Starfleet”? I thought she tried to get in post-Voyager but was denied. That was on THIS SHOW it was mentioned. They said even Janeway’s considerable sway at the time couldn’t do it… which is why she joined the Rangers. Bah.
A red statue. Who the fuck has a red statue, except to use for someone’s cryptic clue? 😛
Holy shit! Now we’re playing with portals. That was exceptionally different and genuinely horrifying. But I can’t imagine how someone can get to Earth, do THAT, and not immediately get stomped in orbit. We don’t know enough about it, though, so… we’ll see?
Butt to butt shuttlecraft-on-ship action.
Androids get an adrenaline rush? Oh right, we’re sweeping that whole “golem body” thing aside.
Picard made Bev a classical mix tape!
“Her son!” — no shit, Marcus.
Opening credits are at the end. An interesting choice. Some fun clues in the end-credits LCARS.
53 minute episode but felt twice that long. In a good way.

2022 Personal Movie Retrospective

2022-12-31

Over the last couple years I’ve started using Letterboxd quite a bit to keep track of what I watch, and maintain a list of “to see” films. I’ve been trying to really make an effort to catch all those classics I’ve missed.

Historically I’d be lucky to watch at least one film a month, if that, and it was usually whatever the Marvel flavor of the month is, or something of similar mainstream nerd appeal.

But as of late, I’ve really started to come to appreciate “cheesy movies”, which should come as no surprise being a long time MST3k fan.

But could I do it without the riffing?

No. Fuck straight off.

But I didn’t strictly need Mike and the bots to have a good time, either. Thanks to OSI74 and Cinema Insomnia, and the gang over on the Twitch channel, I’ve been virtually drowning in weird, horrible horror and exploitation this year.

And, of course, a lot the mainstream stuff.

So, looking back on this year, here’s a quick rundown of the four/five star ones, along with a quick blurb.

Title/Review	⭐	Thoughts
Monty Python and the Holy Grail	5	I’ve seen pieces of this throughout the decades, but never properly saw it front to back. Discovered some new bits, too! The whole European/African question, in context, is a brilliant punchline. And I had no idea about the thing with the cops!
Prey	5	I don’t think anyone saw this one coming — a risky, unexpected twist on a franchise that should probably have given up by now. Glad it didn’t. More like this, please.
Everything Everywhere All at Once	5	The MCU’s attempt at the multiverse peaked with Loki, and by this point I’m burned out on it as a concept. But EEAaO owns the hell out of it. And it didn’t need two dozen films behind it to give it meaning. Not to be missed. A lot of heart.
The Batman	5	Another franchise that seemed to be burning out, but took a risk and went all-in on “the Twilight guy” as Bruce, leaning into a grittier noir-focused take on Batman. Yes, even more so than usual. The cinematography really makes it stand out, even if the film itself is a bit long.
Spider-Man: No Way Home	5	The epitome of a guilty pleasure. Even with the multiversal gimmick laid bare long before seeing it, it was still a delight having all three Spider-men on screen together. They had genuine chemistry that made it really enjoyable seeing them working together. Or even just hanging out bullshitting. But the best part? Having Andrew Garfield’s version of the character be redeemed IN FULL. That made it worth it, all by itself.
The Wizard of Oz	5	Much like Holy Grail, this is one that slipped past me, but I knew enough of it from cultural osmosis that it felt like I’d seen it already. There were plenty of bits I was unfamiliar with, but unlike Grail, those were largely forgettable. A real spectacle of a film, though. It’s reputation is well-earned.
Black Dynamite	5	A new favorite, taking a place along side Kentucky Fried Movie and Amazon Women on the Moon. And that’s a sacred spot on my shelf that I don’t just hand out to anyone. This WILL spawn many repeat viewings.
Glass Onion	4.5	Craig’s Benoit Blanc is a Sherlock for the modern age. This hilarious take-down of modern internet culture and bizarre billionaire worship ruffled a lot of feathers. Good.
Spirited	4.5	I’m not averse to musicals, but it REALLY has to be good. And I was not aware this WAS one, going in. I was hoodwinked! Thankfully it’s probably one of the best musicals I’ve seen in a long time, and it’s actually a pretty great twist on the usual, tired Christmas Carol concept.
The Thing From Another World	4.5	This took me by surprise. The 1980s remake of this is legendary, but I haven’t seen it. Itself another “knew it by reputation” film. I figured I’d see that before I ever laid eyes on this 1951 version of the story, but I’m glad I did. This has some of the most terrifying visuals I’ve ever seen in a film from the era. But that’s probably owed more to my relative lack of exposure. Still, this made an impact on me.
The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special	4.5	The Guardians of the Galaxy will always be on another level from the rest of the MCU, and this just cements that belief for me. It’s barely 45 minutes long, but it packs a lot of love and heart into that tiny space.
Joker	4.5	I can’t believe I actually saw Joker. I swore I wouldn’t. But I finally caved. And I’m glad I did: it’s pretty amazing. A moody, violent exploration of mental illness. It’s fans tend to be garbage, though — I get into that, and why that might be, in the review.
The World’s End	4.5	A film wearing many hats. Is it an alien invasion movie? Or maybe it’s a metaphor for Pegg’s character stuck in the past? Or maybe it’s an action film involving shattering a child’s skull the wall? Maybe it’s all of these.
Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers	4.5	This had no reason being as fun as it was. A blend of animation and real life film in the tradition of Roger Rabbit, and easily as enjoyable. This could have gone wrong in a million ways, but it’s clever writing and love of the material keeps it together.

Other notables, without comment: Confess, Fletch, Fletch, The Munsters, Red Dwarf: The Promised Land, Jaws, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, and a whole lot more.

So, damned good year for films for me. Hoping to keep up the pace for 2023. 🥵

Offensive Technology

2022-12-28

It’s the same story every time.

Oh woe! Life is so awful! The magic silicon smoke machines will take my life away!

Trog crap like this meme, and the rigid, binary anti-AI dipshittery, is essentially accepting the history of abuse by corporations as the default outcome of technological advancement.

As long as there are free, open expressions of this technology, it’s not.

Unless you let it.

So here’s my plea: instead of resigning to filtering every big technological advancement through the melodramatic lens of dystopian oppression, grab the wheel. Start thinking of ways to use those tools both defensively and offensively FOR the people. How can these tools improve life? Think about 3D printing, and how it enables people to create their own prosthetics. Things like that.

We should be pushing the narrative towards people-friendly, empowering positions instead of wallowing in shallow meme-quality victimhood.