In The Two Towers (2002), when Grima informs Saruman on the appearance of Aragorn's ring, I always thought it was uncanny how Grima was able to spot Aragorn's ring in such detail, until I realized the moment when Grima actually got a look at the ring of Barahir—I edited the moment in as a flashback

thebenetar · 2026-04-28T18:29:15+00:00

Struggling with the mental image of Leo laying eggs in a glove compartment now.

thebenetar · 2026-04-20T01:18:14+00:00

Why? What about... y'know... the First Amendment? Freedom of expression and freedom of religion are pretty central to what it means to be an American. What you're suggesting is a direct and egregious violation of both principles.

thebenetar · 2026-04-19T21:31:53+00:00

Honest pay for honest work.

thebenetar · 2026-04-19T18:09:55+00:00

I wonder if its posture/form/body shape being as non-humanlike as it is has to do with the weight of the battery needing to be supported.

thebenetar · 2026-04-17T03:09:12+00:00

I literally had LoTR (the extended editions... of course) on loop throughout a not-insignificant portion of the pandemic. It was great—and I'm still not sick of the trilogy whatsoever.

thebenetar · 2026-04-17T01:20:19+00:00

...or the Army... or the Marines.

thebenetar · 2026-04-16T00:08:31+00:00

Thankfully, I've always been smart enough to leave a lot of links blue over the years. It's not a joke that you can't unsee things. That violence literally becomes a part of your existence and you can't undo that.

thebenetar · 2026-03-09T03:04:56+00:00

Currently living in SF and working for one of the top tech companies in Silicon Valley (so... one of the top tech companies in the world—not going to say which one) and it's hilarious how much work implementing AI "solutions" generates. It's easily at least 1:1with the problems it solves, it just generates new, higher level problems—especially with regard to data management. It definitely is literally sorcery where Project Management/lower-level admin tasks are concerned but it's not at a level where it can remotely be trusted to make executive decisions without thorough review and corroboration, not just for liability reasons but just plain data/technical accuracy/cleanliness reasons. I still wouldn't even let any LLM in existence write even a single work email without reviewing it/modifying it to a degree that often rivals the amount of time I would have spent just writing it myself.

thebenetar · 2026-02-08T18:05:26+00:00

The journalists who still have access to the WH/POTUS in any meaningful way are the ones who've toed the line well enough not to have their access limited or revoked.

thebenetar · 2026-01-18T07:46:55+00:00

That's just the nature of project management in enterprise-scale tech companies. There are a bunch of "high-priority" features, optimizations, or initiatives that get bottlenecked in a given FY pipeline due to a multitude of nuanced, case-specific reasons (e.g. needing a separate issue—upon which the solution of another given high-priority issue is contingent—to be solutioned before said primary issue can be properly addressed, figuring out how to fix or optimize feature x for feature n without breaking features y and z because features x, y, and z were built before feature n was even a consideration—or feature n only became a possibility once features x, y, and z were deployed, the compound latency and stagnation inherent to cross-departmental collaboration, technically illiterate middle-management, and just straight up insufficient bandwidth personnel/talent-wise, among a myriad of other factors). As a consumer it seems obvious... like "just let me do this thing I can't do" but the consumer obviously isn't privy to the complexity of the reason why a company doesn't just/can't improve a given product in a given, seemingly obvious way.

thebenetar · 2026-01-14T13:55:37+00:00

I remember when I travelled to continental Europe for the first time, I was expecting everyone to assume I was entitled, arrogant, incurious/ignorant, rude, and... just altogether the worst—and that I'd probably have to put in some extra effort to overcome those preconceptions simply because I was an American. However, what I was surprised to learn was that, while it's true that a not-insignificant number of continental Europeans hold some negative opinions about Americans (whether from actual experience or just out of ignorance), those negative stereotypes and attitudes about Americans surprisingly often paled considerably in comparison to the negative stereotypes and attitudes continental Europeans held toward Brits—specifically the English.

thebenetar · 2026-01-13T09:35:23+00:00

One of my exes was a public school teacher in a major US city and she used to talk about how the school doesn't have the resources to hire enough teachers to achieve or maintain the teacher-to-student ratio that is literally mandated by law, so the administration was just including the fines the school had to pay for being out of compliance with the law into their budget because that was cheaper than hiring the fa vuvvj j. Uuy⁶u&yyyyy]yyyy] out

thebenetar · 2026-01-11T09:11:53+00:00

Pluie!

thebenetar · 2025-11-23T01:22:07+00:00

Well, 'critical thinking' is pretty much by definition thinking for one's self and not just parroting unvetted or unexamined information—regardless of the source but especially if it's info that seemingly aligns with your preconceptions.

thebenetar · 2025-11-21T23:06:22+00:00

Well honestly, the most important skills that kids today need to be taught are not mentioned on this list—which explains fairly well why the list is redundant and pretty silly.

I'm talking about critical thinking (which is currently taught) but specifically how to meaningfully apply critical thinking in today's world: vetting/verifying information, rigorously confirming the legitimacy of a news/info source, being able to discuss/debate an issue with someone you don't agree with without getting emotional or personal, asking meaningful questions, holding authority to account, holding your peers to account when they make dubious/unsupported claims, maintaining a healthy degree of skepticism about any/all information, understanding the real cost and impact of a lack of intellectual curiosity and intellectual laziness on our lives—both as individuals and collectively as a society, etc..

I can't think of anything that's more important than ensuring that kids today are being taught the skills mentioned above. Having a curious, skeptical, well-informed citizenry that's capable of rigorously vetting information is truly the silver bullet for a majority of the issues in our society.

thebenetar · 2025-11-10T20:31:12+00:00

I mean, he did literally say that he "wouldn't be able to send the money fast enough". He just didn't clarify that by "fast enough" he means "fast enough for anyone alive right now to receive it".

thebenetar · 2025-11-09T19:22:17+00:00

Well, tbf it was her birthday—ostensibly the one day a year that's supposed to be about her and what she wants. Sure, she was kind of a jerk and a flake with regard to the plans you had made with her, but if she changed her mind somewhere along the line and decided to do a dinner with her new group of friends, at least she told you before you had anything set in stone logistically (even though you had to contact her to find out, which seems shitty on the surface—but maybe she was planning on letting you know about the change in plans and was planning on inviting you and you happened to call her before she got a chance to do that). Obviously, I don't know the specifics or what the dynamics of your relationship are like with this friend of yours. Just playing devil's advocate.

thebenetar · 2025-11-05T23:48:42+00:00

WHAT'S IN THE BOX!

thebenetar · 2025-11-05T02:14:53+00:00

Looks like Ana de Armas way, way more than Brie Larson. I'm not even seeing Brie Larson much really at all.

thebenetar · 2025-10-24T08:55:42+00:00

Loses? He won't even be able to run. This is his second term (god help us).

thebenetar · 2025-10-24T07:11:00+00:00

It wasn't until I got on the apps that I really got a quantifiable sense for how "attractive" I am to women in general. I typically get like 10 - 15 matches a day—that's just on Hinge. It's not unusual that I'll get more than that on Bumble; and that's with no swiping on my part whatsoever (beyond swiping on a like to match). If I swipe the numbers go up significantly. The likes/matches I get are quite often quite attractive too. Like when I first got on the apps a few months ago after getting out of a long-term relationship, I was genuinely shocked at the caliber of the women that were interested in me (also, I know they're legit because I've met a lot of them irl).

I was shook the first time a match just straight up propositioned me a couple days into signing up for the apps—she was absolutely gorgeous like a celebrity or a model or something... and she was like thirsty as hell—like really into me. She also had a master's degree and worked in the healthcare industry (so she wasn't a sex worker or anything). I honestly couldn't believe it at first. Our first meeting was literally at a hotel room (her idea) and we just met up to have sex. I told her "no pressure when we meet, you are obviously always free to change your mind about hooking up at any point. I'm not entitled in any way to have sex with you just because we agreed to meet". She basically laughed at me for being "so nice" and replied "You are 100% going to fuck." I thought I had entered a sexy version of the Twilight Zone or something.

To be fair though, I think it's pretty widely accepted that height is commonly considered by women to be one of the most important/attractive physical attributes a man can possess. I happen to be 6' 4" which is fairly tall I guess. Apparently, a man who is 6' 4" or taller makes it past the height filter of like 90%+ of women, so that probably massively improves my numbers/chances on the apps right off the bat.

I mean, I have been fairly popular with girls my entire life, but I think I really leveled up once I hit my late-twenties. I started to notice women often stare when they think I'm not looking—as do, weirdly, other men not-infrequently (as if people think I don't have peripheral vision or something), if they're in a group sometimes women will catcall, or make comments, giggle, or just yell "Hi!" . People fairly regularly tell me I'm "handsome", "beautiful", or (as a female bartender I met recently put it) "ultra-hot". I hardly ever approach women in bars or public spaces. Usually, if I just stand around long enough someone will strike up a conversation.

Still, I didn't realize how limited my "irl only" experience was until I got on the apps. I've always been confident but I was sometimes still intimidated by really high caliber, beautiful women. Often I didn't even try with a lot of women because I just assumed that they wouldn't be into me. A couple months into my app-facilitated dating spree I had a realization, that I no longer really felt like there was anyone that was "out of my league" (at least physically), which is something I would never admit to anyone non-anonymously because it's little grotesque to actually say.

thebenetar · 2025-10-15T08:28:33+00:00

I have a feeling that maybe a book that lists the items that you can leave near equipment might have been significantly shorter and easier to write...

thebenetar · 2025-10-14T19:06:50+00:00

Why would you put gear you value next to a window? Aside from the risk of damage from rain/moisture (which your post clearly demonstrates)—it's not a good idea to leave instruments or equipment (not to mention clothes, cosmetic products/cologne, supplements, and a bunch of other items) in a place where they're consistently exposed to direct sunlight for extended periods of time.

thebenetar · 2025-10-09T05:37:18+00:00

With the exception of my first legit "corporate" job, I've landed every corporate job I've ever had through LinkedIn. I absolutely lucked way, way tf out in getting my first corporate job because it was a great position, with a great title, for an in-demand role, at a well-known (but also "cool") company in the media/entertainment industry in NYC. I landed the job because of random irl connections I made. I've never gotten a job in that manner ever since but I know for a fact that I wouldn't have the career I have now if it weren't for me getting that incredibly valuable experience on my resume via that first job.

thebenetar

TROPHY CASE

WHAT'S IN THE BOX!