Zompist Bboard Again

Are the people who work in the marketing department of whatever company sells this seriously trying to tell me that an otherwise unhappy office will become happy by ordering the right brand of printer paper?

Raphael wrote: ↑Sat Jan 30, 2021 4:09 am Are the people who work in the marketing department of whatever company sells this seriously trying to tell me that an otherwise unhappy office will become happy by ordering the right brand of printer paper?

They are trying to imply that in a non-committal way that would not legally qualify as false advertising for the very purpose of encouraging its purchase, yes.

Anyone here have any thoughts on this whole GameStop stock business? I'm finding the whole thing quite entertaining

My words to the hedge funds would be, "Congratulations, you've played a stupid game, here's your stupid prize."

dɮ the phoneme wrote: ↑Sat Jan 30, 2021 9:00 pm Anyone here have any thoughts on this whole GameStop stock business? I'm finding the whole thing quite entertaining

I encountered some perspectives from finance professionals that I haven't seen elsewhere here: https://twitter.com/aaronhuertas/status ... 1063905281

I'm rather annoyed at the prospect that wsb finance bros leading the charge are going to profit off this, and most of the rest stand to lose out.

I've been trying to follow that news story on YouTube, but it's like no one tells the whole story from beginning to end, they don't tell how the stock market functions wrt this, they don't tell what the motivations are for the people involved, and they don't tell what the significance of all this is. And Swedish media hasn't mentioned this story at all. *sigh*

Am I the only person for whom the whole medium of television is to a large extent mentally associated with the 1990s? It's because I'm a bit to young to really remember the 1980s, and in the 2000s, I switched to getting my news and entertainment from the internet.

Raphael wrote: ↑Wed Feb 03, 2021 6:49 am Am I the only person for whom the whole medium of television is to a large extent mentally associated with the 1990s? It's because I'm a bit to young to really remember the 1980s, and in the 2000s, I switched to getting my news and entertainment from the internet.

Same. In the same vein, something that's been forgotten is how much TV sucked. (I gather it still does, except for the whole TV series revival that started around 2000)

Ares Land wrote: ↑Wed Feb 03, 2021 7:41 am Same. In the same vein, something that's been forgotten is how much TV sucked. (I gather it still does, except for the whole TV series revival that started around 2000)

Oh, I actually have very mixed feelings about the whole TV series revival that started around 2000. I know I'm supposed to be smitten with how great modern TV series are, and sometimes, they are, but to some extend, I've got the impression that the whole modern Golden Age of TV Series has mostly given us shows where every character is a complete scumbag, and they spend all their time treating each other like dirt, and the critics go all "oooooh" and "aaaaah" about the great "moral ambiguity" of the show. I can handle that if it's really well written, but it can get tiresome quickly.

Raphael wrote: ↑Wed Feb 03, 2021 7:57 am

Ares Land wrote: ↑Wed Feb 03, 2021 7:41 am Same. In the same vein, something that's been forgotten is how much TV sucked. (I gather it still does, except for the whole TV series revival that started around 2000)

Oh, I actually have very mixed feelings about the whole TV series revival that started around 2000. I know I'm supposed to be smitten with how great modern TV series are, and sometimes, they are, but to some extend, I've got the impression that the whole modern Golden Age of TV Series has mostly given us shows where every character is a complete scumbag, and they spend all their time treating each other like dirt, and the critics go all "oooooh" and "aaaaah" about the great "moral ambiguity" of the show. I can handle that if it's really well written, but it can get tiresome quickly.

I've had similar reactions to the few modern series I've watched. I was able to stomach an episode or two of Game of Thrones before being quickly bored and thinking that it was nearly all wallowing in muck and cynicism. I found it almost unrealistic in how truly nasty and conniving everybody seems to be, and how decent people seemed constantly punished for being nice.

Raphael wrote: ↑Wed Feb 03, 2021 7:57 am Oh, I actually have very mixed feelings about the whole TV series revival that started around 2000. I know I'm supposed to be smitten with how great modern TV series are, and sometimes, they are, but to some extend, I've got the impression that the whole modern Golden Age of TV Series has mostly given us shows where every character is a complete scumbag, and they spend all their time treating each other like dirt, and the critics go all "oooooh" and "aaaaah" about the great "moral ambiguity" of the show. I can handle that if it's really well written, but it can get tiresome quickly.

I liked the whole grimdark esthetic back in 2005. But yeah, after 16 years of it, it does get a little old.
The one series that handled it well was Dark , where they just went really over the top with it. (The series begins with a man hanging himself. It goes downhill from there.)

I still think that 'Golden Age thing' brought better actors and better plot. Also less camp. Or better camp, in the case of Doctor Who. The longer story arcs were an improvement. Nothing against standalone episodes, really, but they're tough to pull off well. (X-Files was very well done, but by the end of Season 1 Mulder & Scully had seen so much worldview-shattering horrors they should've been gibbering with shock). Longer arcs allow for better characterization and more complex stories.

That said, yeah, about 80% of these were overhyped. (I couldn't get past the first few episodes of True Detective or Mad Men. I like beautiful set design and cool clothes as much as anyone, but I like it when my fiction actually tells a story.) The maddening thing is how many of these set up a mystery only to make up the answers as they went along. I'm looking at you, Again, kudos to the screenwriters for Dark, for having figured it out (almost 20 years after the 'long story arc' fashion started...) that actually, figuring out the ending first works better.

dɮ the phoneme wrote: ↑Sat Jan 30, 2021 9:00 pm Anyone here have any thoughts on this whole GameStop stock business? I'm finding the whole thing quite entertaining

Original long case for GameStop makes sense. Short risk is unbounded and it's funny when short sellers get burned. Hype, as always, is lame.

Raphael wrote: ↑Wed Feb 03, 2021 7:57 ambut to some extend, I've got the impression that the whole modern Golden Age of TV Series has mostly given us shows where every character is a complete scumbag, and they spend all their time treating each other like dirt, and the critics go all "oooooh" and "aaaaah" about the great "moral ambiguity" of the show. I can handle that if it's really well written, but it can get tiresome quickly.

The only such show that I can think of is House. Some great* series from that era (unless I'm misremembering the years) that I think of are: Charmed, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Gilmore Girls, Six Feet Under, Veronica Mars, Heroes, Kingdom Hospital, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, True Blood. Back then there was always some good TV-series being shown on Friday evening, and I would eat candy or chips while watching. Nowadays there's absolutely nothing watch worthy on TV.

*Or they were great then. I don't know how well they've aged.

On the more cynical side of things, how about Dexter, Breaking Bad, Lost, Desperate Housewives, Mad Men, and so on?

Not counting The Sopranos as either cynical or non-cynical. (I mean, they're all in the mob. Of course they're assholes.)


I think the great shows moved over to VOD. In the past few years, I really liked Maniac, The Witcher, Dark, The Crown, Stranger Things...

I'm told Thirteen Reasons Why, Chernobyl, The Americans were very good and all the good things I'm hearing about WandaVision makes me reconsider my longstanding embargo on all things Marvel.

Lots of people like the Expanse, but I'm too much of a nerd to really enjoy it.
(The Ceres colony doesn't make sense at all. Have the authors checked how big Ceres is? Nevermind the fact that you can't spin it up without it breaking all apart: I can buy that they got nice unobtainium. It's just too fucking big to make sense. If the poor people live, as is claimed, in the microgravity area, and judging from the set design that each floor is perhaps 10 meters high... That means the poor live about 230 kilometers deep, which means there are, at least, 23000 levels, with a floor area around 600,000 sq.km. That's 23,000 times France, which at the inner city densities shown means, er, a population well into the hundred trillions. I could get water being a problem with that population -- otherwise, you know, guess what's found in large quantities in Ceres? Also the Belters can do a Saturn-Ceres run at a continuous 1G without breaking a sweat with their watchmacallit magic space drive. That means even a dirty, gritty, half-falling apart, 50-years old cargo ship has five times the power output of all nuclear plants currently on Earth. Say, again, why isn't Earth cowering in fear from the 130 trillion very angry Belters that can end all civilization with their equivalent of a semi-trailer truck?)
((Do I spend way too much time thinking about this stuff? Yes. Did I just out-nerd every nerd on this planet? Yes.))

I've seen exactly one thing from the gamestop thing that gives me hope, and it's the strengthening of the 'fuck wall street' thing. who knows, maybe in a couple more millenia people will come to see "the economy" is bullshit.

Torco wrote: ↑Thu Feb 04, 2021 9:01 am I've seen exactly one thing from the gamestop thing that gives me hope, and it's the strengthening of the 'fuck wall street' thing. who knows, maybe in a couple more millenia people will come to see "the economy" is bullshit.

Many people (mostly leftists) already see "the economy" as bullshit. They're wrong, and they're wrong in a ways that (I say this as a leftist myself) leftists are systematically wrong about the world, but it's not like nobody believes this already.

dɮ the phoneme wrote: ↑Thu Feb 04, 2021 1:13 pm

Torco wrote: ↑Thu Feb 04, 2021 9:01 am I've seen exactly one thing from the gamestop thing that gives me hope, and it's the strengthening of the 'fuck wall street' thing. who knows, maybe in a couple more millenia people will come to see "the economy" is bullshit.

Many people (mostly leftists) already see "the economy" as bullshit. They're wrong, and they're wrong in a ways that (I say this as a leftist myself) leftists are systematically wrong about the world, but it's not like nobody believes this already.

Well, from a perspective that society ought to be structured along the lines from "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need", it is easy to handwave the economy. The problem, though, is that for any given thing, there will be so much demand, and so much ability to produce, and any change in ability to produce something to match will also filter down in the economy to things needed to produce any given thing and to how much labor is needed, and so on. In effect, an economy is unavoidable, even if one is not passing around money to make it function.

Qwynegold wrote: ↑Wed May 22, 2019 1:05 pm

flicky wrote: ↑Tue May 21, 2019 12:58 pm Hi! I was on the old forum and only just found out it had moved. How is everyone?

Lol, for how long where you there? I'm fine, thanks. Did you have another username on the old forum?

I was flicky1991. I joined in 2008 and posted on and off for years.

And uhhh sorry for taking so long to respond.

Should there be some mention of pickles and tea?

flicky wrote: ↑Thu Feb 04, 2021 3:46 pm I was flicky1991. I joined in 2008 and posted on and off for years.

And uhhh sorry for taking so long to respond.

Oh wait, yeah. Now I remember that name!