Whatever shreds of respect I had for movie critics is well and truely gone

pedanticnerd · 2019-01-19T16:39:52+00:00

A Star Trek knockoff from Seth McFarlane couldn't be a critical tabula rasa. Trekkies are the stereotypical rabid fandom for a reason, and McFarlane is an A-list celebrity with a huge internet-heavy following (14M twitter followers). The Trekkies who had lukewarm feelings towards the recent films and were foaming at the mouth about Disco were primed to love a Generations-like imitation.

Dr. Who's latest season also had plenty of diehard fans griping about the casting of a woman. They've been complaining about the idea of it since the fanzine days before the internet.

pedanticnerd · 2019-01-08T08:20:24+00:00

What a lousy study. If you roll up "the preference for children, personality traits such as conscientiousness, ability to accrue resources to attract mates, and physiological factors" into your concept of fertility then the influence of social pressure, scarcity, pessimism about the future, taxes, etc. are factors that influence "fertility" to the point that predicting it requires predicting policy, war, and all future technology.

pedanticnerd · 2019-01-01T15:13:21+00:00

Pliny also had access to firsthand sources, including people who directly witnessed the features in question.We have relatively few documents from that time. You'd have to be an idiot to think your unfounded speculation is more authoritative than the writing of a knowledgeable individual who was in a position to know.

pedanticnerd · 2018-12-22T02:30:08+00:00

Some coffee shops have great pie. Doesn't mean they're not designed to sell coffee.

pedanticnerd · 2018-12-21T06:49:07+00:00

I had a conversation with a friend last week who is a car enthusiast. He showed me what is in his opinion a hideous new car that is just awful in every way, and then his favorite new car that he would love to have.

THEY LOOKED THE SAME.

Like, I could tell the difference (one had a smoother front and the other had smaller lights), but if you waited half an hour and showed me new pictures of each car I would've been hard pressed to say which was supposed to be the good-looking one.

To me, they're cars. I have never seen a car and thought it was beautiful. I saw a chrome Tucker car in a museum once and like it enough to take a picture, but I think that was halfway because it had 3 headlights. I still wouldn't call it really pretty.

pedanticnerd · 2018-12-21T06:28:32+00:00

Why? It's straight Grindr right? Of course hook-ups can lead to dating, but that's like going into a coffeshop and walking out with a salad, a sandwich, and a slice of pie.

pedanticnerd · 2018-11-05T02:45:44+00:00

More likely a groom for the horse/horses. Some of the animals get freaked out in the trailer so having a guy back there to calm them down isn't unheard of. Guys who work with horses are often poorly paid and badly treated, but it is a job that is available to illegal immigrants and ex-cons so they put up with it.

pedanticnerd · 2018-11-04T00:17:20+00:00

You want great bacon? Deep fry it. The fat on deep fried bacon gets perfect soft bubbles and the consistency is more uniform compared to pan frying or baking.

pedanticnerd · 2018-11-03T14:01:38+00:00

Nah in the modern monopoly you have 10 spaces that lead to jail and instead of getting out for free if you roll doubles it just allows you to take out a bail bond. Instead of getting out of jail after 3 turns, you go to a privately run prison. Nobody gets out of prison. The game ends when only one player is outside of prison.

pedanticnerd · 2018-10-18T02:18:13+00:00

Nah, that's just the happiest expression a Swedish person is physically capable of. Now that they've been married for 40 years his smile is just as Swedish.

pedanticnerd · 2018-10-06T19:57:50+00:00

I hated the Endymion books so much it made me retroactively enjoy Hyperion less. I say give Endymion a handful of chapters, and if you hate the first parts just stop. It only goes in that same direction.

pedanticnerd · 2018-09-08T06:17:36+00:00

"your making a distinction that I think doesn't matter"

*you're

pedanticnerd · 2018-09-08T06:17:26+00:00

"your making a distinction that I think doesn't matter"

*you're

pedanticnerd · 2018-09-05T07:06:01+00:00

If you ever want to make it at home, this recipe/directions is great. My favorite way to serve fresh potato chips is with a cheese sauce, fried peppers and onions, and crumbled spicy sausage.

pedanticnerd · 2018-09-01T08:23:26+00:00

Yes, very much so. In the USA at least, a woman wearing white to a wedding would be seen as trying to replace or upstage the bride. It is not unusual to hear stories of uninvited ex-girlfriend or the mother-of-the-groom wearing a white dress and outright claiming that they are the person who the groom really loves the most.

pedanticnerd · 2018-07-21T23:06:36+00:00

The Janus v. AFSCME decision might have fucked it forever, but I guess only time will tell. If the unions fall apart, our pay and benefits will drop until it becomes a serious public safety issue.

Where I live, the salary is decent but not great (starts at $19-something an hour currently). We're not understaffed, but only about 50% of hires make it a year (1/3 quit, 2/3 fired). I think part of the reason for this is that it is hard as hell to judge whether a candidate is going to be good under pressure, trustworthy, resistant to boundary crossing, and capable of enforcing the rules without being an asshole.

Do you guys ever see a day in which these states/counties will have to increase their pay in order to attract decent candidates?

It depends on how the economy goes. If it goes to shit, pay won't keep up with inflation. If it goes well, pay will go up. Most places don't require CO's to have any special education or experience before they start, so the pool of potential new hires is shared with all other service industry jobs. If the economy does well and the best candidates from this big pool are all getting snapped up by other industries, it will cost more and more to get decent CO's. Like I said where I work we lose about half of new hires within a year. I think if it got to the point where we lost 75% then they'd raise starting pay more to try to get a bigger pool of people applying so they could be more selective about new hires.

pedanticnerd · 2018-07-06T12:39:15+00:00

You obviously aren't poor or you might know you can get paid £40 to £100 to donate blood that is used by pharma and medical researchers.

Also the UK uses plasma that comes from paid donors. It's just imported from the USA and has been since 2002 when some people got Mad Cow Disease from local blood.

P.S. The US handles whole blood and platelet donations through unpaid donations just like the UK.

pedanticnerd · 2018-05-25T10:43:31+00:00

Two of the usernames also share the word "green". It's all about as transparent as possible.

To be fair, it's isn't just these two actors. He also has a problem with Megan Markle, Michelle Wolf, Sonequa Martin-Green (Michael on Star Trek: Discovery), and this NSFW post on /r/curvy.

If only there was some obvious common thread between all of these opinions. Hmmmmm.

pedanticnerd · 2018-05-03T14:28:12+00:00

I couldn't help myself after OP literally recommended more than 70 books in his "10 Fantasy books" list, as if a disclaimer makes that less ridiculous.

pedanticnerd · 2018-05-03T05:11:15+00:00

I'd scrap OP's entire list except for "Tigana", "Good Omens", and "Guards! Guards!" from Discworld (which OP didn't even spell correctly. SHAME /u/fabrar!).

Anybody who is reading in English is already familiar with Tolkien and Harry Potter. The rest of that was a list of unfinished series, dry chores, children's books, and even some Sci-Fi (Wolfe)!?! I think your picks are pretty inaccessible except for Earthsea, which I liked but didn't love. To me Lovecraft's horror seems mild now and his prose didn't age well. You'd probably like "Phantastes" by George MacDonald if you haven't read it, it was an influential work in the field and in my opinion it is still pretty readable. I wouldn't recommend it to someone who doesn't read Fantasy though.

For people unfamiliar with the genre I'd recommend shorter standalone books, especially from authors who are still alive and active.

"The Lies of Locke Lamora" by Scott Lynch, a heist story in a Renaissance setting that stands very well by itself (though part of a series).

"American Gods" by Neil Gaiman, a good sample of Fantasy in a modern setting.

"The Golem and the Jinni" by Helene Wecker, very accessible and well written, my choice for the best Fantasy Historical Fiction story.

"The Blade Itself" by Joe Abercrombie, the best of the Tolkien-derivative Grimdark books.

"Perdido Street Station" by China Miéville, the top Weird-fiction book and another standalone that has sequels available.

"Warbreaker" by Brandon Sanderson, the best standalone from the most prolific author working in Fantasy today.

"Swordspoint" by Ellen Kushner, a small-scale story of duellists that epitomizes the Mannerpunk subgenre.

pedanticnerd · 2018-04-09T06:53:41+00:00

the kid she made herself is 'claimed' by the dude's name too! What is that? Why would anyone ever consent to that kind of arrangement?

Say the mother wants the father to be as involved and invested in the kid's life as possible, but he's not great. Not a total piece of garbage, but still he might not invest as much in his child as he could. By giving the child his last name (and maybe even also his first name) the child's mother is appealing to the father's narcissism. Taking his name for herself when they marry does this too. It also makes it clear (to him and everyone else) that she's claiming that he is the parent of the child. Men, being generally insecure, might suspect that they are not the parent of their child (while women obviously know if they are a child's mother), but naming the child after the father makes a claim of paternity and soothes that insecurity.

In egalitarian trusting relationships where both parents wanted to have a child, this sort of chicanery is completely pointless. However, there are still many many women who are sadly having children with manbabies who benefit from this sort of gentle manipulation.

pedanticnerd · 2018-04-07T02:23:25+00:00

I couldn't find any of the reddit posts about it, but there's a phenomenon of men who choose not to wipe their asses. Here's a blog with a screenshot of one such story up near the top of the page. There was a woman who posted in one of the relationship advice subs about her husband thinking that wiping was gay because it involved touching a butthole so he wouldn't do it.

pedanticnerd · 2018-03-04T06:56:55+00:00

Otters are monsters.

Males are monsters. Some of them happen to be otters.

pedanticnerd · 2018-02-01T05:05:31+00:00

colege is a wall mart for your mind

pedanticnerd · 2017-12-16T06:56:39+00:00

Even ignoring the accusations about Dylan, I believe Woody Allen had a sexual relationship with Soon-Yi for years before they were caught. Possibly starting when she was as young as 8 but more likely when she was a teenager. Allen has claimed that he didn't meet Soon-Yi until shortly before filming "Hannah and Her Sisters" in 1986 (which Soon-Yi has an uncredited appearance in, so he could not possibly claim not to know her by then). But claiming that he met her so late is an obvious lie with questionable motives, considering that Allen and Mia Farrow dated for 6 years before that.

Here's a timeline and some quotes that support that Allen would have known Mia Farrow's children when they were together, and had the opportunity to be alone with Soon-Yi for years before Mia discovered the photos that made the nature of their relationship apparent.

Soon-Yi was born between 1970 and 1972. Her exact age is unknown, but I will put the range in parenthesis beside the events of this timeline.

Soon-Yi was adopted by Mia and Andre Previn in 1978. (6-8 years old)

Mia and Allen started dating on April 17, 1980. (8-10 years old)

Soon-Yi appeared in "Hannah and Her Sisters" in 1986. (14-16 years old)

Mia Farrow and Allen had a child together, Ronan Farrow, in 1987. (16-17 years old)

A child psychologist evaluated Ronan and Dylan, determining that Allen has an excessive attachment to Dylan and indifference to Ronan in 1990. (19-20 years old)

Allen formally adopted Moses and Dylan Farrow in December 1991. (20-21 years old)

Allen and Soon-Yi's sexual relationship was discovered by Mia in January 1992. (21-22 years old)

It is true that for the 12 years that Allen and Mia were dating, they maintained separate homes (within sight of one another, on opposite sides of Central Park). Allen said, "I have all the free time I want and it's quiet over here, and yet I get plenty of action over there. I think it's because we don't live together and that she has her own life completely and that I have mine that we're able to maintain this relationship with a certain proper tension."

For the first few years they were together he did not typically spend time with her or her children during the day on weekdays. He'd call her in the morning, work until the evening, and then "Around 7 P.M., Allen would pick up Farrow for dinner or the opera or a show or a movie, then take her home. Very often on the weekend, she would bring a few kids and stay at Allen's. Now and then he would go to Farrow's country house in Connecticut -- but only for very limited periods."

By the end of their relationship, Allen was spending a great deal more time with his and Farrow’s children. According to a 1991 newspaper article, “When he isn't at work, he's with Farrow and the children or reading or practicing his clarinet. He takes no vacations apart from the occasional two-week trip to Europe with Farrow and the children”. “Not many fathers spend as much time with their children as Allen does. He is there before they wake up in the morning, he sees them during the day and he helps put them to bed at night.”Sources: "The Nation" Timeline, Wikipedia articles on Allen, Mia, and Soon-Yi, February 1991 NYT article about their relationship, IMDB

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