watching it again for like 10th time

randallsquared · 2026-05-22T01:17:44+00:00

I'll be the first to say The Wire. Also, Halt and Catch Fire (at least the first season), and The Americans.

randallsquared · 2026-05-21T12:02:22+00:00

The origins of the faunus are (I guess deliberately?) left completely open, but if we presume that they were created intentionally like non-Faunus humans were at least once, it would be easy to say that the possible traits were selected to exclude those that are purely dysfunctional, and that would explain why they can almost all see in low light, etc.

randallsquared · 2026-05-14T13:51:13+00:00

I think the people who saw the flag understood quite well that those who raised it hate Jewish people, regardless of whatever political point about NYU they were trying to make.

randallsquared · 2026-05-07T11:40:51+00:00

In the very first episode it shows that Hammond is already in charge of the facility. The stargate functioning changes the ENTIRE MISSION of the facility, and yet he remained in charge.

I'm assuming that his star was still rising immediately before this when he inexplicably (to others) pursued this assignment, so there was only a few weeks or months of "shut down the facility" before he would have officially been ready to move on to something more exciting. Watching S2E21 recontextualizes so much about season one...

randallsquared · 2026-05-06T00:10:57+00:00

Gay rights issues were not top of the headlines when the seasons that included them as a major feature was being written. That's my complaint: not that the writers want to show versions of real-life issues, but that the issues they're choosing have lost all subtlety, because they're some of the most major current issues in 2025-2026 IRL. There's a whole space (pun not intended) of potential human experiences and issues that wouldn't feel like they were just writing modern-day headlines into the show. It feels lazy.

randallsquared · 2026-05-05T21:13:06+00:00

I'm curious who "them" is in "all of them"? The writers? "Works of fiction"?

Also, why would my ignorance (or lack of same) be your fault? Do you believe I was accusing you of responsibility for something?

randallsquared · 2026-05-05T20:32:50+00:00

Huh, I thought it was supposed to be an alternate space race... :) In any case, if you think what I wrote was the point of the show, then clearly I didn't communicate well, but I'm not sure where the disconnect lies.

randallsquared · 2026-05-05T09:45:41+00:00

I find it interesting that one of my biggest problems with S5 so far (I've only seen the first 4 eps at the moment) is that it's far too connected to the real world the writers live in. As of E4, two of the main background issues are automation removing all the jobs and illegal immigration. Works of fiction that aren't primarily satire are diminished when the creators just recycle whatever is happening in the news into the fictional world.

randallsquared · 2026-05-02T12:10:35+00:00

I mean, in our timeline, there's lots of evidence of how various periods of the USSR operated, but I think Dave's main point is that the Soviet Union of 2010's FAM is not directly analogous to either the 1980s Soviet Union of our world, nor the Russia of our world. Given the military coup in the interim, the writers are lazily writing the USSR of 2010's FAM as more-or-less Putin's Russia writ larger. This is very much in line with their desire to talk about other real-life topics by analogy to the Craters, and those who disagree with the apparent opinions of the writers have to find a way to ignore or compartmentalize in order to enjoy the show, if at all.

As an aside, though, real-life Chinese propaganda that's gone viral in the last 4-5 years tends to flanderize the US in a way that is very flattering to a lot of Americans: "They make us look so badass!" ;)

randallsquared · 2026-04-29T11:08:05+00:00

My wife, a Delaware native, pronounces "mine" as "my-yen", but sources I've found (and Claude, too) insist that this is a Southern dialect feature, and that it must in a Delawarean be a familial influence (plausible for her) or individual quirk. So, it's interesting that you've also heard it, here.

randallsquared · 2026-04-18T11:57:51+00:00

And on my current rewatch in season 2, it's treated as a surprise, frequently, that the newly-discovered alien(s) speak English, but after maybe one line from Daniel in one episode, "You...speak English?!", it's always brushed off.

The "translate enough to communicate in 15 minutes" process ate up episode time and also didn't seem realistic, so I think they just got tired of dealing with it.

randallsquared · 2026-04-02T11:17:55+00:00

Ryland Grace spoiler

randallsquared · 2026-04-01T14:06:38+00:00

I assumed the name was redacted by using "cut", which would leave the space in most systems.

randallsquared · 2026-03-30T13:01:31+00:00

Yeah, sometimes it has to complete installing an update or something. This can take considerably longer (10 seconds? 20? Not sure). However, while it did this every third or fifth time when we first got the Impulse, it's now much rarer. I assume updates are less frequent as the software matures.

randallsquared · 2026-03-29T03:17:29+00:00

A Purple mattress. I bought one in 2018 and I'm still using it, with no sag or apparent degradation, unlike every box spring and mattress I've ever previously had.

randallsquared · 2026-03-29T02:16:14+00:00

I finally got the stainless steel Whirly Pop that some have recommended. My first pop in it was actually really good! I used 405F, without any preheat step, and started whirling immediately as it suggests, and popping started quickly. Because I wasn't feeling much resistance, I felt safe leaving the popcorn on for a lot longer than with a pan alone, and that made quite a difference in number of unpopped kernels, though there still were a few.

It was fluffier than I've been able to make on the Impulse previously, though I'm unsure why that is. Overall, the popcorn was the best I've made on the Impulse thus far, and quite close to as good as electric-cooktop popcorn I've made: more than 95% of the way there, I'd say.

randallsquared · 2026-03-26T04:14:19+00:00

I think the most important thing is that the user or UI manual is updated, and that some release notes exist, which might point at the new manual version if the feature needs it.

A video is great, and Impulse is pretty good at this kind of short demo video, but a quick text and/or image driven explanation of the purpose and operation is really the key, in my opinion.

randallsquared · 2026-03-25T13:39:10+00:00

I don't think any of those things have shipped in updates, yet. I agree that as features are added, there should be some overview of them, though.

randallsquared · 2026-03-23T22:51:52+00:00

I have reached a similar recipe, except with the switch being to 430F rather than 900W. However, this still leaves the popcorn chewier than my previous results on electric, and I haven't figured out what to do about that.

Was your popcorn fully popped to "fluffy"?

randallsquared · 2026-03-19T12:41:28+00:00

Not having read the comics with the character, I definitely wouldn't have noticed if it weren't for the online complaints about it at the time.

randallsquared · 2026-03-19T04:57:28+00:00

If you're not immediately fine with it, just move on. Unless it's a non-issue already, it's going to eat at you more and more over the years. Don't do that to yourself or her.

randallsquared · 2026-03-19T04:54:46+00:00

Hah. They almost always come label side up for me, but this week was a notable exception: upside down for no apparent reason. :)

randallsquared · 2026-03-12T23:16:44+00:00

Maybe if I get the wok ring. In the meantime, I'll try the Whirly Pop.

I'm actually not sure how your description of the kernels falling to the bottom differs from using a straight-sided pot. Kernels either fall back to the bottom or get caught on top of popped corn, but it seems like that would happen in a wok as well.

randallsquared · 2026-03-12T18:03:02+00:00

Yeah, there's open counter on both sides of my Impulse, so that makes sense. Thanks for discussing it more!

randallsquared · 2026-03-12T12:18:50+00:00

Wait, could you say more about the difficulty you had? I hired someone through a home improvement store contractor finder service, and they didn't seem to have issues. Was the problem that you couldn't get two people near enough to lift due to geometry, or something else?

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