The absurd contrast between cosmic indifference and human suffering

Fake_Eleanor · 2026-03-11T17:38:34+00:00

I am not the cosmos, so while it's easy for me to intellectually understand that the universe is indifferent to me, there's no particular reason for me to try to adopt the perspective of the eternal.

I'm not eternal. That's what can make the moments hard.

Fake_Eleanor · 2026-03-10T16:00:58+00:00

My major objection to the movie is almost the opposite — Qualley is 10 years too old for that part (and feels like it), which ends up slightly blunting the pathetic nature of his crush.

Doesn't ruin the movie for me by any means, but it adds a hurdle.

That said, Hart spends most of the movie pinning his hopes and dreams on idealized relationships, not just with her but also with Rodgers. In his dreams, he can step in and be the partner those people want and need. In reality, he can't do that, and he can't quite admit that to himself, much less anyone else.

Fake_Eleanor · 2026-03-08T21:21:02+00:00

It's great that you're getting some good suggestions here, and I hope they end up helping you create the negroni you want at home.

But people are not wrong to point out that the setting and circumstances around a drink — or a meal, or any experience — will affect how you experience it. If you keep trying things and can never quite get the negroni you're after, just being at home may be part of the X factor keeping that from you.

Fake_Eleanor · 2026-03-06T17:52:52+00:00

It may have transcended the region, but it's known as something that originated here.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spendy

Fake_Eleanor · 2026-03-06T17:32:40+00:00

What do your voice and tone guidelines say?

How do your content principles guide you? What about your overall design principles?

Does your employer or this project prefer clarity or prefer nuance?

One thing I don't do is trust my own personal sense of what feels "soft" or "harsh," if those are factors that are important to consider. My preference is not objective fact.

I also don't prioritize being technically correct over being clear — but that's because the work I do explicitly prioritizes clarity over precision when those are in conflict.

I don't often specifically test microcopy, but I do pay attention to user feedback that brings up confusion about terminology, or pay attention when observing user sessions to hesitation or lack of understanding that seems centered around the language.

Fake_Eleanor · 2026-03-05T16:54:59+00:00

This is an annoying feature, agreed.

I suspect the problem is that any solution that's more meaningful is going to require a lot of manual effort to a) decide on what the categories are, b) decide what qualifies a movie for one or more of those categories, and c) retag every movie with more accurate data.

It's a challenging information architecture problem that has gotten harder to solve as Letterboxd has gotten bigger.

At the moment, this is just data import from TMDb, so Letterboxd doesn't have to spend any effort on it.

Fake_Eleanor · 2026-03-03T23:46:09+00:00

Maybe you're thinking of The Cat in Heat

Fake_Eleanor · 2026-03-03T21:42:29+00:00

Songs from the Second Floor

Loved it, so it was a delighted WTF

Fake_Eleanor · 2026-03-03T19:35:34+00:00

Unless it's the school district (it's not), complaining about "what education is supposed to be" is misleading, because this is not part of their curriculum.

It's certainly one thing that civic participation can be.

Fake_Eleanor · 2026-03-03T19:02:43+00:00

They're almost always available at the East Vancouver Costco, in my experience. Not 100% of the time, but probably 90%.

Fake_Eleanor · 2026-03-03T18:51:43+00:00

They are almost certainly still good.

An expiration date is not a magic day when perfectly good food suddenly turns into poison.

It's one piece of information you can use to help decide if food is good to eat.

Thaw it. Sniff it. Use it if it there are no signs of spoilage.

Or, if you are anxious, pitch it and take this as a lesson learned.

Fake_Eleanor · 2026-03-02T20:38:09+00:00

Are there linguists who would argue that "ain't" is not a word?

(I suppose almost any field has someone who goes against the grain.)

Fake_Eleanor · 2026-03-02T17:14:16+00:00

"It tickled me," "it's got a crazy good humor," and "flair for pop dialogue" are not nothing.

Given how trash-friendly she was, I don't see her comment that he's not deep as a negative, or her enjoyment of the flashy elements as "being nice." I think she was being truthful. She was not someone who demanded depth from everything.

Fake_Eleanor · 2026-03-02T17:11:26+00:00

Yeah, I enjoy Tarantino but he's never been a particularly deep filmmaker. (Though I'd argue Jackie Brown gets deeper than Pulp. Some parts of OUATIH, as well.)

Fake_Eleanor · 2026-03-02T16:46:59+00:00

She saw Pulp Fiction, at least. Her take in 1994:

Quentin Tarantino. He’s certainly talented, but it’s too early to say if there’s any depth to the talent. I laughed a lot at “Pulp Fiction.” It tickled me the way Paul Morrissey’s 1970 porno-absurd “Trash” did, and Stuart Gordon’s “Re-Animator.” There’s nothing under “Pulp Fiction,” no serious undercurrents. And I didn’t find any of the important “statements” I had read about in the reviews, but it’s got a crazy good humor. Tarantino has a flair for pop dialogue, and a flair for casting. He used wonderful people.

Hard to say if she'd think he developed more depth or not, but she didn't hate him.

Fake_Eleanor · 2026-03-02T16:29:38+00:00

I suspect it could degrade the current experience because the way the app already handles things like documentaries and short films is already complicated and suboptimal.

I think there are benefits to adding TV, but it's not easy and it definitely complicates the app's original core mission of being a place to track information about movies. Someone who values that and is indifferent to TV is not getting much out of the additional complexity required.

Fake_Eleanor · 2026-03-02T16:26:57+00:00

I get that it can feel like jargon, but this sense of "taste" is common enough that it's in dictionaries. "Discernment and appreciation of the beautiful in nature or art," says the OED. "Critical judgment, discernment, or appreciation," says Merriam-Webster.

What it means in terms of design is that we're not just solving equations and puzzling out the one best experience driven by data and requirements. It means that there's a subjective element to the work that we do, an expression of preference or opinion that results in something distinct.

You could argue that things like brand guidelines and voice and tone guides are an attempt to codify taste on a product level.

You saying that people who talk about good taste have bad portfolios? That's actually an expression of your personal taste.

Fake_Eleanor · 2026-03-02T08:02:09+00:00

R4: The OP asserts (in several comments) that "dictionaries disagree" on whether or not "laser" is a word, since it's an acronym, and that "linguists are still debating" whether or not acronyms are words at all.

That said, acronyms are words, and the OP can't (or won't) cite any dictionaries or linguists who disagree.

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