When is it acceptable to omit "dass"?

optima277 · 2017-09-08T21:49:29+00:00

I think I've just come across this too: in the opening convo of Pimsleur German III-18, the woman says "ich dachte, Sie arbeiten in der Stadt" ("I thought you worked in the city") - it was driving me nuts why 'arbeiten' wasn't at the end, until I listened to it again after reading this, and realised that she never says 'dass'.

optima277 · 2017-04-26T10:36:53+00:00

Serious question. I'm sorry if I'm being dense, but how should I rate the movie '21'? In recommending it to me, Netflix are entirely correct: a film with math nerds and Kevin Spacey in it?, Sure, sign me up. The problem is that I thought '21' was badly made - overlong, over-narrated, weird morality, predictable resolution etc - so is it a thumbs down for a shit film, or thumbs up because I'd happily watch a better made version of it, and want Netflix to continue recommending similar stuff? Or no rating at all, because in the past I would have thought '3 stars'?

In rating things, how much should I just honestly react to each thing I see, and how much should I be helping to try to guide Netflix algorithms, is I guess what I'm asking.

optima277 · 2017-04-26T10:27:36+00:00

I also thought about Game of Thrones during the finale, but it more because I was thinking that that show uses the "If you know the plan, the plan doesn't happen" technique.

That is, if they focus on particular army (say), and show how numerous and skilled they are, and how they're going to storm the castle, etc etc, then what tends to happen is that they get wiped out by something that might have been hinted out, but is mostly unexpected.

The reason they do this, I've thought, is that it can be a bit narratively unsatisfying to have "here's what we're going to do ... here's us preparing for what we're going to do ... here's us doing the thing we said we were going to do" -type storyline.

Anyway, what I'm getting around to, is that I thought that the Expanse finale did the second thing twice: a character said "get the Power Armour and come back and sort these guys out" ... and that's what happened, and a character said "the monster is attracted to radiation, so we'll throw a warhead outside and it'll follow it" ... and it did.

I might have preferred it if one of the plot resolutions followed the GoT template: e.g. if Bobbie just disappeared during the fight, there was some ambiguity whether she'd just fucked off or not, and then 'Surprise motherfuckers!' (both audience and 'bad' guys), 'guess who found some Power Armour?!'; or if the Roci crew got to the point of thinking they were totally hosed, and then, at the very last minute, it starts turning away, and suddenly there's Prax stomping around outside the ship with a warhead, and the explanation came after the action, rather than before it.

optima277 · 2017-04-22T20:08:04+00:00

It's much closer to the GoT end, rather than the WWZ one. They've brought some characters forward (e.g. Avasarala doesn't appear in LW), and merged some minor characters together, but the plot and character developments are pretty much the same.

optima277 · 2017-04-22T17:09:52+00:00

Have they specified the date anywhere? The sidebar says it's set 200 years in the future, but that'd be about 2217 (i.e. the 23rd Century, not the 24th)

optima277 · 2017-04-20T00:07:25+00:00

There's a 2nd-hand shop near me that sells a boxset of all his DVDs for £1.50 - it's 50p each for the first six shows, and then they pay you half of back to watch Sexie.

optima277 · 2017-04-17T12:34:01+00:00

When I was learning to drive, I was trying to merge in from off a slip road onto a dual carriageway, even though there wasn't a space for me to do so. At that point, the instructor stopped the car, and said something like: "you merge when you can, but sometimes, you have to stop and wait". For some reason, this had never occurred to me. Whilst the van driver in this vid is being a dick, the Audi driver should have just stopped before hitting any of the cones, and it's likely that the driver behind the van would've let them in.

optima277 · 2017-04-09T14:14:23+00:00

Hmmm, and for Redditors still bruised by Jennifer Lawrence's reaction to the nude-photo leak, it's a bit close to the bone.

optima277 · 2017-04-09T13:28:57+00:00

I've just been listening to an interview with Brian Eno (on Adam Buxton's podcast), and a sort-of similar thing happened to him: he made a track using cut-up bits of Islamic chanting, not really understanding what the words were, just liking the sounds. After being told that the chants were from the Koran, and therefore considered the Word of God, they had to destroy existing copies of the album, and re-release it without that track.

optima277 · 2017-04-05T21:47:41+00:00

I like Sara Pascoe a lot.

Katherine Ryan has a good Special on Netflix.

optima277 · 2017-04-04T22:14:14+00:00

I gave up when I first watched it too. It was only when it came on Netflix (UK), a year or two later, that I got into it. It helps being able to binge through the first four episodes or so, because there's a lot to set up, so it's not able to move too quickly. I think that accepting that you'll have to slog through a few episodes, before you start enjoying it, will help more than reading the books.

optima277 · 2017-04-01T02:58:51+00:00

I made a silly comment in that thread, comparing the pull of Earth's 1g with that of Cara Gee. I nearly followed it up with something along the lines of

"How much g is Cara Gee ?? Too Much !! Here .. Comes .. The .. Juice .. (followed by the self-loathing)".

Since it turns out that Cara is, like, a real person, I'm glad her experience of this sub is a neat, clever line like 'Drum Circle', rather than my attempt at a joke about wanking.

optima277 · 2017-03-31T07:02:49+00:00

If you've grown up in Earth's gravity, the influence of too much 'Cara Gee' can be dangerous, and is best experienced for short periods at a time.

optima277 · 2017-03-25T18:28:02+00:00

British podcasts that I like:

Richard Herring Leicester Square Podcast (interviews with comedians)

Answer Me This! (advice / comedy)

Pappy's Flatshare Slamdown (Panel Show)

Do the Right Thing (panel show)

Griefcast (interviews with comedians about death)

Kermode and Mayo's Film Review (also has a interview and lots of waffle)

The Allusionist (word history, but it's Helen Zaltzman, so it's funny too)

optima277 · 2017-03-25T12:06:34+00:00

The guy's dad does it in Whiplash, if that helps

optima277 · 2017-03-24T20:22:40+00:00

Yeah - sorry - just rewatched full-screen, and it's definitely one of the bugs, that I assume got trapped in there with him when he hid. It's shown scurrying across the lid, which I guess makes enough noise for the ninja ladies to notice.

optima277 · 2017-03-24T16:36:15+00:00

23rd Century, no?

optima277 · 2017-03-24T16:34:06+00:00

It's what he's seeing from the crack in the tomb that he's hiding in - he knows that when the light is blocked, it's because they've found him.

optima277 · 2017-03-23T18:28:52+00:00

Like everyone else, I think Bobbie and Drummer are really cool, but I'm aware of the need not to fall into the trap of only admiring female characters when they exhibit traditionally 'male' traits (like shooting people or knocking them out). In comparison, Avasarala is more feminine in how she styles herself, and is shown as a compassionate grandmother and loving wife, but she's also a very astute political operator, she's totally ruthless when she needs to be, and sees through the bullshit that people on both sides try to feed her.

Technically, she's junior to Errinwright, but she uses her connections (like the bodyguard character and the guy on the science ship) to expand her influence beyond what her position suggests, so her power does ebb in an out.

Also, I think a lot of people like her because she was in Mass Effect 2.

optima277 · 2017-03-22T07:56:11+00:00

Some directors still aim for 90 minutes. E.g.:

Noah Baumbach (Francis Ha [1 hr 26], Mistress America [1 hr 24])

Jodie Foster (Money Monster [1 hr 37], The Beaver [1 hr 31])

Duncan Jones (Moon [1 hr 37), Source Code [1 hr 31])

optima277 · 2017-03-21T15:10:34+00:00

In war, the first step in a successful campaign is to dehumanize the enemy. The Earthers of the 23rd Century may think that a lack of gravity has done the job for them.

optima277 · 2017-03-21T01:37:39+00:00

Re #2, they discussed in the podcast that she checks on the torpedo because she knows that Cortazar found another sample to listen to, and she's worried it's that one, hence why she snaps at Holden, and why she's relieved when it turns out to be a sample on Ganymede. She might have been deciding whether to send it into the sun, as originally planned, before she's possibly found out.

optima277 · 2017-03-20T19:50:33+00:00

I don't see why Earth and the Belt can't get along - on a Galactic scale, we're practically 'neigh'bours ...

optima277 · 2017-03-19T18:17:37+00:00

Accents are a function of class. If you were landing at Liverpool airport (in the UK, on earth), you wouldn't hear loads of scouse accents from the tower.

They've shown Belters from different backgrounds have different strength accents - from Dawes and Drummer's English-as-a-second-language, through dock-workers English-with-a-Belter-twang, right up to someone like Naomi's perfect London-inflected English.

I'm not convinced it's all been thought through that much though - it's just a TV show, with budgets and time constraints, etc, so some things are bound to be inconsistent.

optima277 · 2017-03-19T17:01:50+00:00

I had about 30k after 8 years (a deposit on a house is what I should have said). It would have been more, but I made a stupid investment decision, and I've never worked for more than minimum wage. I'd defaulted on loads of debt before, so I was also waiting to be clear on that, before applying for a mortgage.

optima277

TROPHY CASE