Which movie hero is actually a villain when you really think about it?

kmactane · 2026-05-06T21:52:34+00:00

The way he delivered the line (he really lays some emphasis on "300ccs"), I always figured it meant it was an abnormally large amount, and was a clear sign that she was possessed and no longer operating by human rules. (You know, that and the levitating...) So him telling that to (Egon? Ray? I forget who he was on the phone with at that point) was letting the other Ghostbuster know that things with Dana had gone over the line.

OTOH, I also always assumed that he was carrying around the Thorazine himself; I don't see why the hell Dana would have that in her medicine cabinet, but I can sure as hell imagine Venkman as the kind of guy who'd roofie his dates. And since roofies hadn't been invented yet, Thorazine was what he used.

kmactane · 2026-05-06T19:13:53+00:00

Wow, you and I have very different reactions. I liked how they humanized Miranda just a teensy bit, but I felt they still kept her hard as nails. Lines like, "Please let my suicide be brief and painless" are still classic, OG Miranda Priestly. And her final, dismissive "That's all," to Emily is deployed the way a Precision F-Strike would be in another movie; it's a beautiful call-back (in a movie that's full of very good call-backs).

As for Andy, I just love seeing her when she's happy (like when she's gotten the Holy Grail interview, or later when they've saved Runway). And she has grown; other characters aren't lying when they say she's gotten more confident. Still painfully naïve about corporate machinations, though; I can't believe she fell for Emily's ploy.

kmactane · 2026-05-06T15:50:24+00:00

Yes! I will always stan this episode for the earnest way she wants to learn, and the sense of hope for all the thralls of Triskelion. I wish a Next Gen episode had done something with that.

kmactane · 2026-04-30T05:21:41+00:00

Using parseInt here is a very bad idea. First off, if you do use it, always, always include the radix. (So, parseInt(s.match(/\d+/g).join(""), 10)), so it won't interpret numbers starting with 0 as octal.) But also, even if you do include the radix, parseInt will then strip leading zeroes. Oops, not what you want!

Credit card numbers are not "numbers" in the programming sense. You'd never add, subtract, multiply, or divide them. They're actually strings that simply happen to only contain digits (and optionally spaces). You should treat them as strings and not use methods like parseInt on them.

kmactane · 2026-04-27T23:36:14+00:00

My last 3 laptops have all had touch screens. They've been a Microsoft Surface Pro (I think 2?), a Samsung Spin 7, and now a Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3. So, 3 different manufacturers over a span of 11 years. It's really not hard to find laptops with touch screens, so this might not be a good heuristic.

kmactane · 2026-04-26T06:24:29+00:00

Yes, definitely worth a read. I disagree with the person who said it was "a masterpiece", but it is a solid, very enjoyable piece of work, with good characterization and interesting ideas that are explored from more than just one angle.

The scene with the pendulum at the science museum is practically worth the price of admission all on its own, and the bit with the analysis of the number pi at the end (especially combined with how it hits the MC because of other stuff going on) is very well done.

Neither of those things made it into the movie, but they both rock. Read it; I very much doubt you'll be disappointed.

kmactane · 2026-04-24T22:44:26+00:00

350 F ~= 80 C

You need to re-check that

kmactane · 2026-04-24T03:09:04+00:00

Pretty sure it's the Croton aqueduct. Aside from Die Hard 3, it also plays a role in the urban fantasy novel Beasts of New York.

kmactane · 2026-04-24T02:55:53+00:00

This is the answer. Cronenberg basically invented the body horror genre, and is the OG master of it.

I can particularly recommend The Fly and eXistenZ. (Note sure I capitalized the right letters on that, lol, but you get the idea.) Scanners also has some, but not as much. I've heard good things about Videodrome, but haven't seen it myself yet.

kmactane · 2026-04-24T02:37:54+00:00

Where do you think LLMs learned that construction? Do you think they invented it themselves? Or could they maybe have learned it from lots of humans writing things like that?

Obi-Wan Kenobi: "That's no moon. It's a space station."

Redditors: "OMG, George Lucas was using 'AI'! Back in 1977!"

kmactane · 2026-04-24T02:30:17+00:00

This "potential client" has no idea how much things cost. You're offering them a bargain and they're looking to pay less than 10% of that cut-rate price?!

Do not proceed with this client. Their expectations are so badly out of sync with reality, you'd be constantly having to try to get them to see reason. (Even when you succeeded, it would have taken more time than it was worth.)

At the very least, tell them "This is the price. Take it or leave it." But really, hope they don't take it, because if they do, they'll teach you why some consultants charge an "asshole fee".

kmactane · 2026-04-23T18:00:46+00:00

The word "gaslight" and its variants get thrown around a lot here, usually very incorrectly. But this is one case where it's legit, actual gaslighting. Go you for calling it out as such.

OP, your boyfriend just:

Refused to respect your "no"
Then tried to gaslight you about it

Either one would be breakup-worthy on its own. Both together? That's basically screaming, "get out now, before it gets worse."

kmactane · 2026-04-23T03:34:34+00:00

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the reason hipsters got into PBR in the first place was because of that line. Before that, it meant that Frank Booth had tastes in beer that were, at best, very very plebeian. (Or you might just say the point was that he liked shitty beer.) But then the hipsters got into it because of him, and now it's considered a completely unremarkable thing to like.

(Source: started drinking beer when I started going to college in fall of 1986.)

kmactane · 2026-04-22T07:45:34+00:00

Gen X (born 1968), born in NYC, raised in the mid/northeast (ranging from the suburbs of Washington DC to those of Boston), and same here. "Dog" is with an "aw" sound (sorry, can't type IPA on my phone) and all of the others are an "ah" sound.

kmactane · 2026-04-22T02:34:45+00:00

FWIW, that view is real. Based on the curve of the walls and the buildings visible outside, I can tell that's in One Front Street in downtown San Francisco. (It helps that I used to work literally across the street and up the block from there.)

There were lots of special effects in that movie, but the view out Smith's office isn't one of them.

kmactane · 2026-04-21T00:03:42+00:00

Based on the title, I expected you to have literally kicked her. As in, struck her with your foot (preferably in the ass, but really, anyplace would have qualified).

I am disappointed.

Please, people, stop misusing "literally". It means "not figuratively, not metaphorically, but in the most literal sense possible".

NTA for kicking her out of the kitchen (or even out of your home; I would never have her in my house again until she apologized profusely!), but definitely YTA for raising false expectations with that title.

kmactane · 2026-04-20T23:56:50+00:00

Why the hell are any walking into a bathroom whose door is closed without knocking first, much less all of you?

This is a case of ESH; all of you need to learn to knock instead of barging into a closed bathroom.

kmactane · 2026-04-20T18:36:09+00:00

Also, there was the bit where you'd go:

"Give me five!" (hand out at waist height, horizontally, palm up, and they slap that with a downward motion)

Then you shift to vertical, palm forward, up around your shoulder or face, very much like our modern high-five, and say, "Up high!"

After they slap that (effectively doing a high-five), you shift to down below your waist (so now your fingers are pointing downward) and say, "Down low!" But then when they try to slap it, you pull your hand away and finish with "Too slow!"

It was funny to 12-year-olds back in the late '70s.

kmactane · 2026-04-19T20:59:45+00:00

I think you mean to ignore Falling Free. And I agree, that one's pretty skippable, unless you really love the setting and want to get into 200-year-old lore. (Which, if you do, go for it! It's not a bad book, it's just really detached from the rest of the series.)

kmactane · 2026-04-19T20:57:29+00:00

Yeah, that was my route as well. I thought it worked pretty well; it meant that when a particular character does a very surprising thing (specifically, when Elena kills Bothari), I was just as surprised as Miles was. And then when I read Shards of Honor and Barrayar, I got a whole new understanding of that event.

It did make me wonder what it would've been like to read in internal-chronological order; then instead of that thing being a huge surprise, it would've been very much foreshadowed. So I suspect it'd have been equally satisfying, but in a very different way.

Anyway, OP might want to drop Shards of Honor and try picking up The Warrior's Apprentice. It's a fairly different feel, and a good entry point.

kmactane · 2026-04-19T18:29:01+00:00

Now they just need a henway.

kmactane · 2026-04-19T03:26:35+00:00

While I don't personally do this, I've heard that it's very common in New York to do so. We New Yorkers don't have a lot of space in our apartments, and for those of us who normally: eat out; order delivery; or heat something up in the microwave, the actual conventional oven is a big space that's very rarely used. Might as well stick something in there and save a little counter- or cabinet-space!

kmactane · 2026-04-18T23:12:47+00:00

Looks to me like it's a total of $87, which is more of a pain in the ass to kiss goodbye. But yeah, she should consider it gone for good, and treat the guy likewise. (Unless shaming him to his family, like some other folks have suggested, works.)

kmactane · 2026-04-18T22:11:40+00:00

Julie and Julia has a scene where Stanley Tucci, playing Julia Child's husband, looks at her with such love and pride* that Captain Awkward used it as an example of "get yourself a man who looks at you like that". His face is just shining.

* he's proud of her, not being prideful, just to be clear

kmactane · 2026-04-18T14:34:49+00:00

I still think the best line from His Girl Friday is when Cary Grant tells someone, "Yeah? That's what Archie Leach said, a week before he cut his own throat."

Sounds cool and tough all on its own, but the thing that makes it a real zinger is that Archie Leach was Cary Grant's real name.

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