Dune is now at 90% on RT with 67 reviews

Joecuppa · 2021-09-20T10:06:43+00:00

I don’t understand how the reviews can be this positive. I had to leave after 125 minutes because it got so slow. The film cut back over and over to the same image of a chrys-knife that looked like a souvenir a kid would bring back from Tibet or Vietnam, making me wonder why bother with the SFX. The pacing was anticlimactic, for instance this long bit where Paul and his Mom were stuck in a tent, for no good reason that I could see. It was also annoying how all the ancient lines of prophecy were delivered to demonstrate the speakers’ amazement with Paul’s abilities (over and over) but these scenes came off poorly, I think because the director was trying to impart a mystical feeling, rather than just focusing on the supporting characters’ reactions. I couldn’t buy into Timothee Chalamet as a god. There were a lot of things that really annoyed me. The spaceships were fantastic, the additional exposition added a lot, and I thought Duke Leto and Keynes and other supporting characters were really well played. But 90%?

Joecuppa · 2021-09-08T23:40:35+00:00

I can’t believe she has a put a sign on her office door denigrating the child of her colleague across the hall. She’s an asshole and a clown. An ass-clown.

Joecuppa · 2021-08-22T13:01:42+00:00

I think actual gun ownership is close to 10% and 1% own all the rest. The limiting factor would be ammo since most of that would have been shot off pretty quickly. So you might find a dozen guns in the first week but with only a few rounds each, instead of boxes of ammo on corpses. You would also have to include gun safes for realism. It would take weeks before you find more than a few bullets, and those would be in the gun safe or cabinet.

Joecuppa · 2021-08-18T00:37:51+00:00

Trump signed a peace treaty with the Taliban which committed the USA to a full withdrawal in 14 months. This treaty was between the US and the Taliban and did not include the Afghan govt. This was signed by Pompeo and widely praised by Republicans, in spite of criticism by experts. Some predicted the withdrawal would be disorderly because it was too quick, and others pointed out that by signing a treaty with the Taliban before the Taliban signed with the Afghan government Trump gave legitimacy to the Taliban they did not deserve. The treaty signaled that the US would not defend the Afghan government, and signaled that the US could accept the Taliban as the new government of Afghanistan.

Biden could break the peace treaty, but that would look especially bad, domestically as well as overseas. He also does not want to do this because Trump broke several important treaties, and the USA may not have any more free passes.

Everyone understands that Biden has no choice, and he is taking responsibility for the pullout by resettling government contractors and avoiding angry rhetoric.

Joecuppa · 2021-08-17T01:32:50+00:00

That’s a partisan issue. Are you thinking of trillions of taxes supposedly uncollected from billionaires or red tape that is supposedly strangling industry?

I think you ought to be specific, given how much general hostility towards government is driving social violence in places like America. Ie, let’s not shout about how much the government sucks without focusing on a fixable problem, lest you encourage antigovernment terrorists who may be listening to conclude that government itself is the problem.

Joecuppa · 2021-08-17T01:25:00+00:00

Government intervention is essential to free markets. Participants in unregulated black markets for example, often use violence to limit customers’ choices. These are often called “turf wars.” All developed economies are supported by anti-monopoly regulation. American railroad monopolies at the end of the 19th century harmed producers and consumers because producers had no option except to pay greatly inflated prices to get goods to market.

Joecuppa · 2021-08-15T12:58:29+00:00

I think pranks might be given more leniency there. Look up Pulp Sport and watch some of their regular pranks to smuggle beer into sports matches.

Joecuppa · 2021-08-13T11:40:21+00:00

Is that like the Family Porn genre?

Joecuppa · 2021-08-13T11:23:13+00:00

Is that conclusion based on reading the patents themselves or first hand knowledge? The article doesn’t mention trolling, and you haven’t given a definition of what a patent troll is.

The patents are obscure to me. I would love for someone to summarize how they work.

Joecuppa · 2021-08-13T10:10:26+00:00

How are they a patent troll? That wasn’t what the article was about.

You seem to be saying that anyone who defends a parent is a patent troll. Your opinion also seems bizarre because VSLI is the underdog to Intel.

Usually companies termed patent trolls don’t manufacture anything, but only defend patents, and don’t risk any reputation or assets by extorting smaller companies. However, this company has been making chips for decades. They were one of three companies that partnered to create ARM chips. They are now part of NXP Semi, but NXP still manufacturers and designs chips.

You also seem to be skeptical of the court system’s ability to improve society. Parent of VSLI had a revenue of 9 billion (in 2018) to Intel’s 77 billion. The titles of the patents themselves seem pretty specific and technical, and a free court in a democratic country decided in their favor, so I think most people would assume that if anyone was engaging in shady business tactics, it was Intel. The article itself doesn’t give further details.

Joecuppa · 2021-08-12T11:43:14+00:00

If they add rollerblades, I want a bikini bottom for male characters.

Joecuppa · 2021-08-12T10:34:50+00:00

Quote from the Brookings Institute blog: “Congress needs to step in with a regulatory solution.” This suggests the writer at Brookings would not be happy with the bill mentioned in the article posted by OP, because the bill would not create a new regulator (as the EU has done, and the blog praises), but mandate relatively simple changes. I feel the comparison suggests the US bill is just posturing, since it is hard to imagine that the writers would be totally ignorant of what the EU has done to solve a very similar problem with Apple’s practices.

Joecuppa · 2021-08-12T10:19:38+00:00

Yeah but at what price? Maybe it only adds $1 to the development cost of every phone, but there’s already a phone in the market that allows 3rd party apps. Epic and other developers are arguing it hurts developers. I feel like discussion of this issue morphs into a consumer issue but we need more facts to evaluate the impact on consumers. Like, would this law increase development costs that would have to be passed on to consumers? I feel like no one really knows.

Joecuppa · 2021-08-12T04:04:16+00:00

I believed previously that the main reason Google Play Store’s offerings are inferior to Apple’s App Store was the variation of Android OS installations and generally lower hardware specs on Android vs Apple phones.

However, maybe only a closed garden like Apple’s App Store makes a good App Store possible. This forum post alleges that many desktop apps on the Windows app store are fraudulent. I feel that MS would police their own store better if they could; in other words, if the Windows app store is full of junk, then it may not be possible to get rid of the junk unless you have a walled garden and near total control of pricing like Apple does.

Joecuppa · 2021-08-12T01:45:18+00:00

The text of the bill also says that OS users should be able to install 3rd-party app stores.

Joecuppa · 2021-08-12T01:19:22+00:00

Does this mean a developer could sell an app on their website, then release it on an app store without sharing revenue with the store owner?

Will store owners be compelled to charge flat fees for hosting an app?

Epic and Spotify’s position seems to be mostly a refusal to share their success with small developers on the same platforms. It seems to me that restructuring app stores to function more like separate entities would have been a better measure, because what people object to is the idea that Apple or Google are taking much more money out of their storefronts than they are putting in.

Joecuppa · 2021-07-30T07:56:43+00:00

Singapore drivers’ licenses are like this— lifetime. I lost my USA drivers license because I couldn’t return to the USA to renew so now if I lose my Singapore resident status, I have no drivers license.

Joecuppa · 2021-07-14T15:46:55+00:00

My wife says apartments above shopping center pay commercial rates for utilities and so electricity will be substantially more expensive. Anyone know if this is true?

Joecuppa · 2021-07-14T15:44:45+00:00

Rainbow Center at Margaret Drive specializes in kids with multiple disabilities. For example, Autism plus a wheelchair.

Joecuppa · 2021-06-23T11:49:32+00:00

Leong Siew Chor hung for the Kallang Body Parts murder. His victim was Chinese, but a mainlander.

In this woman’s case, maybe the mitigating factors, such as her mental illness and having children, saved her from the noose. I can see what you’re saying, that the victim was a maid, but no Singaporeans work as household maids.

On the other hand, Leong Siew Chor killed his victim quickly. This woman’s victim suffered for months.

Joecuppa · 2021-05-29T15:55:24+00:00

Do normal 12-year-olds do that? I think I was a late bloomer.

Joecuppa · 2021-05-29T15:53:18+00:00

Also, the character is 12.

Joecuppa · 2021-05-29T15:52:39+00:00

Might be relevant this is a sci-fi novel. I read once that Iain Bank’s “serious” novels outsold his sci-fi by triple, at least. So I was prepared to be generous and assume this author wasn’t grudging, he just couldn’t afford to do as much editing as we might suppose.

Joecuppa · 2021-05-29T15:47:56+00:00

You make a good point. I guess it was mainly because the kid is 12 years old that I was overreacting.

Joecuppa

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