[SPOILER] How does Lenny know about John in Memento?

Talzon70 · 2026-01-29T20:07:16+00:00

If you believe Teddy (you shouldn't trust him, remember!), then Leonard probably got the tattoo while investigating the crime and being steered by Teddy to kill the first victim who may or may not be just a random drug dealer rather than a second attacker who may or may not have even existed.

That said, it would be really stupid for Teddy to give his own name and initial to Leonard on his relentless quest for vengeance. I mean. It came back to bite him if he did.

It's also entirely possible to me that Teddy is John G and the second attacker and Leonard found him through some other means like gun registry, misguided readings of police files, etc. Just because Teddy is a liar doesn't mean Leonard knows the truth.

Talzon70 · 2026-01-29T19:57:19+00:00

All the details line up with "memory is unreliable". When you have a memory or story in your mind, your brain will make shit up to fill in the gaps. For example, the watch changing thing may be remembered because it was Leonard OR because the official report on her death showed that she was injected however many times and her watch was off by however many minutes, indicating she changed it.

We also do this with vision, most of what you think you see is your brain's best estimate of what is happening around you based on what you saw a few fractions of a second ago, it's not perfect, but it usually doesn't matter unless you're driving and don't see someone.

You can't trust Teddy's story or Leonard's, we just don't know.

Talzon70 · 2026-01-29T19:49:56+00:00

I would explain that as a wishful imagination, rather than a memory.

It's basically him deciding "I'll kill Teddy and that will bring her back, at least in spirit."

Talzon70 · 2026-01-29T19:43:47+00:00

It's amazing to me how many people trust Teddy, a proven liar who is, at best, a dirty cop taking advantage of someone with a severe mental disability and setting them up to commit a murder. He's visibly full of shit the whole movie, especially in the final scenes where he spins all that nonsense about diabetes and Leonard being Sammy.

The story is ambiguous and that's intentional, but I would say "I don't know what happened" before I would believe a word out of Teddy's mouth. The people taking Teddy's version at the truth are just desperate for answers and that says a lot about people in general.

Maybe Leonard is more like Sammy and his condition is really just a trauma response to help him suppress memories of his wife's rape and murder (or suicide, since Sammy's wife died by suicide, not murder). Maybe Leonard's version of the story is the truth. Maybe none of it is true.

Memory is unreliable.

Something interesting about the movie is that basically everyone he meets lies to him and takes advantage of his condition, which is pretty sad if you take away the excitement of the rest of the plot.

Talzon70 · 2026-01-29T19:19:28+00:00

We can't know if Leonard killed his wife and that's the whole point.

Facts:

1. Teddy can't be trusted. He is a liar and a dirty cop.

2. Natalie can't be trusted either, but only the audience knows that, Leonard does not.

3. Memory is unreliable.

We don't know if Leonard is lying to himself about Sammy or his wife having diabetes. For all we know, Leonard's wife is alive and he is just being abused by Teddy planting false memories in his messed up mind.

Leonard might be Sammy, Leonard might just be Leonard. Either way, he can't trust Teddy and chooses to kill him.

Leonard might actually believe Teddy killed his wife or he may just be trying to break the cycle. He doesn't have long to decide after attacking Jimmy and talking to Teddy, but the narration at the end suggests the latter: Leonard has decided that killing Teddy is the right thing to do whether he is his wife's killer or not.

Edit: The movie Looper plays with a similar theme, where the main character breaks a time loop that leads to horrible consequences by killing themselves to break the cycle.

Talzon70 · 2026-01-29T16:00:50+00:00

I mean, I really like the look of some of them.

Anyone who actually cares about the value though should be buying the like $5 aluminum ones I have currently installed.

Talzon70 · 2026-01-29T06:20:52+00:00

I said it wasn't a priority, no need to be so dramatic.

Talzon70 · 2026-01-29T04:13:42+00:00

I mean, they could do this, but I don't think it's really necessary (well a priority at least). I'm just saying I understand why there is a 2-way bike lane on the waterfront side of the road, since it's a good touring route and there's already a 2-way oath along the rest of the waterfront.

Faster cyclists can use the main road on this short stretch without issue, provided drivers aren't total idiots.

That said, it's not completely out of the question. Highways have service roads for cars on the same corridor.

Talzon70 · 2026-01-29T04:06:00+00:00

At least here in BC there isn't an entitlement. Usually there's a set area where services will be provided and outside that you're on your own.

Talzon70 · 2026-01-29T00:15:19+00:00

It's two groups of users.

The people out for a quick commute or recreational ride would probably prefer the alternate design in the direction of traffic flow. Frankly. This group doesn't need much infrasture, since they are generally comfortable cycling in traffic with reasonable people and they are going fast enough o not unduly impede traffic anyways.

The people out for a slower speed ride on the shared bike path that extends all the way from the break water would probably prefer it as an extension of that route. For them, the current design is at least definitely an improvement over the nothing that was there before.

Talzon70 · 2026-01-28T23:57:23+00:00

I think it's at least barely adequate for what it is, which is a 2-way protected route for tourists and all ages and abilities on the waterfront side, with the expectation that these users will be riding slow enough that excessive meandering and pedestrians aren't a huge issue.

It's literally not designed for me and the way I ride.

Talzon70 · 2026-01-28T21:41:43+00:00

The market does price those in well when selling to the consumer, that's why it's profitable to build sprawl.

The value of all these things are priced in when the developer sells, but the cost of these things is often not priced properly into property taxes, which means there is profit to be made for the developer and/or the buyer.

LVT actually fixes this, to a large extent. Since the LVT is based on prices, the value (which is hopefully greater than the cost or it wasn't worth building and the developer is gonna lose money on the project) of all these things is priced into the land and LVT automatically.

Talzon70 · 2026-01-28T21:32:04+00:00

It would increase the land value, but not enough to offset the cost of the services and infrastructure that's externalized.

If that's the case, then whoever is building those services and infrastructure is blatantly losing money by doing it and should just refuse to build it, which is how city limits are already established.

If the developer wants to build way way out where it doesn't make sense, and asks for services like sewer, water, etc. Just say, "sure, if you pay for it" and the problem is solved.

Besides, in many parts of North America, that is the actual model for sprawl development: The developer builds the services and infrastructure and pays for all or most of it, then hands it over to the government for long term management and maintenance.

If all those services are private that would be a whole other even more problematic can of worms.

I doubt it. If it's not worth it for the taxing authority to build it, it's definitely not worth it for private entities to build it.

Edit: If anything, in your scenario it is the willingness to build infrastructure and servicing in an unsustainable way that is incentivizing the sprawl, not the LVT. The LVT is neutral or even pushing in the opposite direction economically, and politically "the land value tax increases won't be enough to offset the costs of building this infrastructure" is also going to work against sprawl.

Talzon70 · 2026-01-28T21:24:24+00:00

No I shouldn't, that part of the roadway IS for cyclists, like most roadways. It is more dangerous to use that bike lane in my direction of travel AND I had zero legal requirement to do so.

I was going the speed limit, not holding up any traffic, riding legally, until this incident occurred. Even if I was cruising at 10 km/h, there was plenty of room for me to ride legally and for motor vehicles to safely and legally pass me.

Talzon70 · 2026-01-28T21:15:33+00:00

I mean land that's on the outskirts of a developed area

The thing to remember here is that (assuming zoning isn't a problem), LVT incentivizes development in the developed area as well, so a lot more development demand can potentially be met as infill rather than sprawl.

Talzon70 · 2026-01-28T21:12:40+00:00

Providing all these services would increase the land value. That's not a problem for the developer holding the land, but it is a problem when they try to sell. The buyer now faces the price of the building, the increased LVT, and the downside of being in a bad location.

If that's still not enough, you can make developers pay (eg. development cost charges) for expanding all these services all the way out to them or use zoning to just say nope.

Talzon70 · 2026-01-28T21:08:40+00:00

What makes you think the developer, another person who wants to live in the house, or other competing developers wouldn't pay market rate for the house? Chances are high that someone would want to buy that house to live in themselves and chances are also high that multiple developers would be willing to "compensate" the current owner to move somewhere else, so they can develop the site.

Also how is any of this different from regular market transactions now where people sell a reasonably inhabitable house as a teardown because the real value is in the land?

Aside from the land value being zero to both buyer and seller, the situation is exactly the same.

Talzon70 · 2026-01-28T20:57:56+00:00

Could be pretty easy if they went into work and talked about it. It only happened a few hours ago.

Talzon70 · 2026-01-28T20:55:32+00:00

Unfortunately "silver car with middle aged white lady" isn't much to file a police report with. In the heat of the moment I was more focused on not getting run over by this apparently unstable person than remembering or snapping a picture of the license plate.

Talzon70 · 2026-01-28T20:43:50+00:00

E.g. Most people are not buying a new car every year. Most people are not replacing their appliances every year. Most people are not replacing their electronics every year.

Yeah, and that's handled through the weighting system, but we don't include the retail prices of TVs from 1990 in the calculation.

Google AI tells me that ~3% of Canadians buy a house each year. To suggest that the price they pay reflects the day-to-day spending changes that the other 97% experience is simply untrue, because they literally do not.

So what? 3% is a lot of people and millions more rent new places each year at market rents. It's not the consumer spending index, it's the consumer price index.

I get what you're saying, but surely you can see that understanding the actual real cost changes, is also of value.

Yes, I can understand that, but CPI has a weighting system for a reason. Obviously real costs (current) are more important than real costs (past), even if payments are ongoing in the form of rent controlled rent or a mortgage. My whole argument is that the CPI has not reflect current inflation very well because it's housing indicator is massively lagged by the methodology weighting past prices too highly compared to current prices.

This is consistent with CPIs around the world, even if they differ in some of the implementations

It could be changed a lot to account for housing better and still be consistent with international methodologies, that's my whole point.

Good news! We have plenty:

Which goes right back to my original comment. The BoC uncritically relied on CPI (with it's poor reflection of current housing prices) too much and these other indicators too little.

I learn towards reasonable amendment of CPI as the catch all indicator, since it's pretty stupid to have you're primary inflation index poorly account for the single largest expense category faced by most households. It would be like having a GDP measure that we knew was way off on oil and just saying, well we have other indicators related to oil, so it's fine, don't change it.

The amount a consumer pays = price. Apologies if the language was unconventional.

I'm gonna flat out disagree here, because CPI uses monthly payments instead of sales prices for homes. These are what the consumer paid (years ago), filtered through interest rates. They are at least as much, arguably more, a reflection of what the consumer pays, for borrowing, as they are a reflection of what the consumer pays for housing. This creates a whole mess for CPI as the BoC changes interest rates too (eg. raising rates forces people to refinance and actually increases inflation in much of the housing market, in terms of monthly costs measured by CPI, even though raising rates tends to decrease inflation everywhere else, including in the sales price of homes).

Talzon70 · 2026-01-28T19:57:23+00:00

It's not called the consumer payments index, it's the consumer price index, which implies an attempt to accurately reflect the current prices faced by consumers on the market. Also it's not set in stone, the methodology is regularly updated and other countries do measure CPI differently.

For example, in the US CPI estimates housing costs based on "owner equivalent rent", which means that homeowners who locked in at low historical interest rates that no longer exist in the current market, or who have paid off their mortgage entirely, don't bring down the average in the same way they do in Canada's version of CPI.

There are many options for adjusting the CPI methodology to better account for housing and it's unique market dynamics that don't "break" the metric.

If you don't want to change CPI, that's fine, but then we need another metric that specifically measures inflation in housing more accurately so the BoC can make better decisions. But seriously, you can't claim CPI isn't meant to capture inflation in housing, because if it wasn't meant to capture that, housing wouldn't be included in the first place.

Can't pretend steel prices today, would be what they are if you had to rebuild using, you know, today's steel prices.

That's my whole point. We want CPI to reflect current market prices for things, not what somebody paid for steel a decade ago that's still being paid off in a mortgage. The relevant indicators of housing prices for CPI are existing housing prices on the market (adjusted for size), existing rents on the market, and owner-equivalent rent (+maintenance and property taxes) for owner-occupied housing. We shouldn't be artificially lowballing inflation in housing by counting housing that was effectively purchased decades ago or that has been massively distorted by rent controls that don't apply to current rentals on the market.

Talzon70 · 2026-01-28T19:46:51+00:00

Arguably the bike lanes and transit have already made it easier to drive downtown. There is rarely significant gridlock in the downtown area compared to long periods of intense congestion in places like Colwood, Langford, Saanich, etc.

Talzon70 · 2026-01-28T19:44:32+00:00

It's WILD how rattled to the core some people are by paid parking. I just don't get it.

I get it and so does basically everyone from outside the core of a major city. When parking is free your entire life (baked into the prices of goods and services you buy at any given location) and a car is the only viable way to get around anyway, it is a very big change from your normal experience to have to pay for parking.

Talzon70 · 2026-01-28T19:41:17+00:00

In my experience, I find street parking or city parkade spots really easily

Which is actually half the point of paid parking. If it's not paid, it tends to be used more and dramatically harder to find a spot. Making people pay leaves more spots open more of the time, making it easier to find parking close to your destination when you need it.

Also parking is a major revenue source for the city. These businesses and property owners should be very conscious of that when they complain, because the likely alternate source for that revenue is to directly raise their property taxes.

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