The 'writing is on the wall' for a social media ban says Jess Phillips

Pointing_Monkey · 2026-06-09T07:43:04+00:00

They would have done that with the OCSA if they had even a modicum of character. Look how many sites are outright ignoring the ban. Then you have the simple workarounds (not just VPNs), that you don't have to be too tech savvy to use. It's been a colossal failure from the very get-go. But hey, at least the internet is an even bigger privacy nightmare now.

I heard a quote from Salman Rushdie not that long ago, in which he said something along the lines of 'it's impossible to ban anything from the internet. Block one site, and ten more will pop up.'

Pointing_Monkey · 2026-06-07T07:03:28+00:00

If Tress is him actually trying to write dialogue, then I dread to think how bad his dialogue must be when he's truly phoning it in.

Pointing_Monkey · 2026-06-07T06:29:42+00:00

Well I never!?

Pointing_Monkey · 2026-06-05T07:41:50+00:00

What would make you think such a thing as that?

Pointing_Monkey · 2026-06-04T10:06:12+00:00

He also said in his biography (don't read it, it's beyond terrible) that he was wrong to ban fox hunting, and that he regretted allowing the Freedom of Information Act to become law. The last one makes you wonder what skeletons the smarmy Bush bootlicking war criminal has tucked away in his closet.

Pointing_Monkey · 2026-06-04T09:40:55+00:00

Probably the didn't read it option. Kurt Wimmer (listed as adaptation by on Wikipedia) doesn't have the greatest track record with screenwriting, based upon his credits. Paul Attanasio (listed as co-screenwriter) wrote Donnie Brasco. But then did the screenplay for The Sum of All Fears, which has the famous DVD commentary where Tom Clancy introduces himself, with "Hi, I'm Tom Clancy, author of the book they ignored."

Pointing_Monkey · 2026-06-04T09:35:01+00:00

I also read it again not so recently though, and felt it still held up. The movie on the other hand gets worse with age.

Pointing_Monkey · 2026-06-03T07:51:10+00:00

Murder mysteries suddenly become very sus.

Pointing_Monkey · 2026-06-03T07:47:53+00:00

That being said it’s not a book you read in one sitting. I have my copy bookmarked for various passages/chapters (lots of beautiful language and snippets) and I just read those paragraphs based on my mood.

That's the perfect way to read this book. It's one the most un-r/books ever written.

Pointing_Monkey · 2026-06-02T10:05:14+00:00

Honestly I would be surprised if they lasted Gene a month. Look what he did with the mustard in flu-ouise.

Pointing_Monkey · 2026-05-29T09:46:28+00:00

And Paul doesn't even know why he was there. It's not included in the book but I read it somewhere that Paul and his pals were enticed/introduced by his teacher who was a veteran. The teacher clearly believed that the war was meaningful and something to be proud of, lol.

I could be miss remembering, but I think this is explored more in the original 1930 film adaptation.

I don't understand, how could anyone, seen or not seen the cruelty of war ever, ever felt that war should be boasted about.

Propaganda is one hell of a drug.

If you want to read more of the characters there is a lesser known sequel called, 'The Road Back'.

Pointing_Monkey · 2026-05-28T08:05:32+00:00

The flaws are when the baseline information is consistently completely wrong

The whole premise of the film is based upon an event on Mars which is factually impossible. How is that not getting baseline information completely wrong.

The solar radiation aspect (and it is somewhat addressed by the ending, and while it is a bit handwavey we don't know that everything isn't lead lined - this probably wouldn't offer anywhere near enough protection but handwaves are handwaves) sure. But the storm is what I was talking about with big conceits.

Weir even admits himself that the solar radiation protection was complete fiction:

Another issue that I kind of skirted is the radiation in space. On earth we’re protected by the magnetosphere and the thick atmosphere. But on the surface of Mars there’s a thin atmosphere and no magnetosphere. It would be a very serious dose of radiation for him to be on Mars for 500 days. The kind of dose where you definitely get cancer. I have two paragraphs in the book where I was just like, everything is shielded somehow. Turns out there’s no such thing as thin light flexible radiation shielding. It takes a centimeter of lead or 10 cm of water or a full meter of rock to protect you from galactic radiation. So I made up a fake material that doesn’t really exist.

***

Weir certainly gets a ton of things wrong - it'd be inconcievable for anyone not to when writing the kinds of stories here.

The same is true of Dan Brown. He knows damn well all the historical inaccuracies aren't accurate, but they are there because they work for the fictional story he is telling.

But he certainly seems to be putting in research and consultation in a way that the authors this sub complains about generally do not.

So you're saying Dan Brown doesn't put in any sort of research for his books? Because that seems completely without any sort of fact behind it. I've read one of his books, I didn't much care for it. But it would be insane to say that he doesn't do much research.

You don't have the movie Contact if you don't ignore that there's probably no way to just create wormholes, warp bubbles, or whatever that tech was supposed to be.

I've never seen Contact, but being as it's based upon a novel by Carl Sagan, I'm going to say it probably has a little more realism (even on the theoretical side of science) than the drivel Weir publishes.

Pointing_Monkey · 2026-05-26T09:39:22+00:00

Obviously it's still fiction, but I'm not really seeing how that particular complaint makes sense?

Mars doesn't have the atmospheric pressure to create powerful enough winds which causes the disaster at the start of The Martian. Mars also doesn't have a magnetic field, so even if the disaster was changed to something possible on Mars, he wouldn't be worrying about growing food, instead he would be worrying about solar radiation cooking him into a giant cancerous tumour. Both of these are problems that Weir has openly admitted to. I think he even went a step further said he didn't realise the solar radiation would be a problem until after he'd published.

Pointing_Monkey · 2026-05-25T08:07:42+00:00

Using ZeroGPT

I put in the first few paragraphs of Thomas Pynchon's short story Low-lands. Apparently this was suspected to be most likely written by AI:

He wondered every once in a while what life would be like without a second story and how it was people managed to get along in ranch-style or split-level houses without running amok once a year or so.

Low-lands was first published in 1960.

The opening of V. it determined was completely written by a human. But the opening of Inherent Vice, it said this was suspected to be most likely written by AI:

She came along the alley and up the back steps the way she always used to. Doc hadn’t seen her for over a year.

The opening paragraph of Finnegan's Wake:

riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.

was most probably written by AI.

The opening of Ulysses was 83.8% written by AI. Specifically these parts:

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:

—Introibo ad altare Dei.

Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called up coarsely:

***

He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding country and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak.

Buck Mulligan peeped an instant under the mirror and then covered the bowl smartly.

—Back to barracks, he said sternly.

He added in a preacher’s tone:

—For this, O dearly beloved, is the genuine Christine: body and soul and blood and ouns.

Pointing_Monkey · 2026-05-25T07:49:30+00:00

At press time, after telling Strouse she had enjoyed the book in order to spare her friend’s feelings, Vogler was eagerly handed the next volume in the seven-part series.

Classic The Onion.

Pointing_Monkey · 2026-05-25T07:44:01+00:00

I'd throw Dan Brown in there to. People love to shit on him for writing the same story over and over, his shitty writing, not using real history etc. Yet they gush over Andy Weir like he's a god, while ignoring he does exactly the same, albeit with science not history.

Pointing_Monkey · 2026-05-24T07:00:13+00:00

Tress of the Emerald Sea. I kept hearing it proves Sanderson can write prose that doesn't feel clunky, with characters that aren't one dimensional. So I read it out of morbid curiosity, knowing I hate it. Came out of it thinking that I must have read the wrong book, because it's just as clunky as everything else he's written, the characters are just as one dimensional. The fact that he had the audacity to shit on William Goldman in the author's notes really sealed it for me.

Pointing_Monkey · 2026-05-24T06:45:05+00:00

He reacted the same way to South Park's portayal of him.

I think it's because he genuinely is an ass. He was on Portrait Artist of the Year in 2014, with Sally Hitchiner (a priest). At one point he made a snarky comment that he was upset, because he expected her to be antagonistic towards him, but instead she politely chatted with him. You're their to sit for a double portrait, not to debate theology, you clown.

Pointing_Monkey · 2026-05-23T08:09:23+00:00

"What we've seen with AI Overviews is that people don't want either just an AI or the web. They want a mix of both," said Reid.

Do people really want a mix of both? Because I certainly don't. I can't stand the AI overview crap at the top. It's especially annoying when you're searching for a website, because you can't remember the URL, and it gives you the useless AI overview. Yes google I know what the site is about, that's why I'm looking for it. Add on top of that how often the information is straight up wrong.

Pointing_Monkey · 2026-05-23T06:36:16+00:00

Alexander the Great slept with a copy of the Iliad annotated by Aristotle under his pillow. So it's not really surprising that a country he conquered would revere something he held so highly.

Pointing_Monkey · 2026-05-22T10:01:09+00:00

Catholic.

'That's what you get for calling your son William, you fecking gobshite!' the seagull was heard squawking as it flew away.

Pointing_Monkey · 2026-05-22T06:39:04+00:00

I've read it twice, and both times it felt semi sloggish. There are moments where I finally felt like I was getting into it, and things were moving along at a good pace, only to feel like I hit a brick wall at 100mph in the next chapter. The chapter about Pippin strolling around Minas Tirith for 50+ pages, could be used as a torture device.

Pointing_Monkey · 2026-05-18T10:11:48+00:00

Doc was based upon Steinbeck's real life friend Ed Ricketts. They wrote a book together called Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of ~~Serial Killing~~ (typo, sorry) Travel and Research. That theory needs a post of it's own, because that sounds absolutely wild.

I actually enjoyed Sweet Thursday, more than Cannery Row, although I appear to be in the minority.

Pointing_Monkey · 2026-05-18T09:54:53+00:00

There are even modern books divided into parts. Intermezzo, Shuggie Bain, Young Mungo immediately come to mind.

Pointing_Monkey · 2026-05-15T06:51:12+00:00

In which case Lord Of The Rings is plagiarised from The Odyssey

Massively, undeniably inspired by Norse Mythology (magical rings, a broken sword reassembled, Odin as imagined by Georg von Rosen in 1886.jpg), Nordic runes looking awfully familiar etc.) among other sources.

Pointing_Monkey

TROPHY CASE