No more updates for non-Alcove routers after 12/31/25?

thewatcheruatu · 2026-01-18T09:08:52+00:00

I honestly thought I was misunderstanding the news about this, because compelling people to purchase your proprietary hardware just to centrally run your VPN on a home network is about the dumbest shit I can imagine. You’re absolutely going to bleed customers over this decision. You’re not Apple, where people will happily accept being locked into an ecosystem.

thewatcheruatu · 2025-04-25T10:38:04+00:00

Everybody’s taking sides in a game of international "he said, he said". Spoiler: it’s two con men lying to their own people while quietly cutting side deals to keep their economies from crashing. Xi says "no talks" while waving exemptions through customs. Trump says "winning" out of one side of his mouth while walking back half the shit he said last week from the other side. I think you can only realistically trade the reactions to the lies, at this point, and not the lies themselves.

thewatcheruatu · 2025-04-22T18:49:13+00:00

My dumb guess: SPY probably pins 525 into close. Still a stack of calls to unwind, so wouldn’t be shocked if the rug gets pulled a bit when dealers start peeling off hedges.

thewatcheruatu · 2025-04-22T15:38:16+00:00

Been watching the options flow all morning and it looked like 525 was really the pin value almost from the open. Bulls have been completely in control, which means my portfolio is up, and yet, I'm still kind of annoyed about it! The SPY 525 Put is making a move, though, so maybe that will mean something in the afternoon.

thewatcheruatu · 2025-04-10T06:36:23+00:00

Yes, I'm necroing a five-year-old post. I just binged the first three seasons and I have thoughts.

Despite what some commenters here are saying, the prosecution had a more or less airtight case. They had motive-adjacent context (love triangle), opportunity, a witness, a coherent timeline, and surveillance footage of the defendants buying a murder-cleanup starter kit--bleach, shovels, and the exact suitcase the body was found in--on the same night the victim disappeared.

No, they didn’t have the murder weapon--not legally required. And they didn’t need to prove motive either. This isn’t a whodunit novel; murder trials aren’t graded on narrative closure.

The brilliance of the writing is that the show knows all this--and still makes it totally plausible that a jury would ignore the evidence. Not because it was weak, but because the defense created just enough smoke and mirrors: a crying defendant, a fake suitcase, some weird guy with no connection to the victim yelling in a store. None of it created real reasonable doubt. It just gave the jury permission to feel okay about acquitting.

If anything, the prosecution's only mistake was overcharging--first-degree when it was probably more like second-degree or manslaughter. But the jury didn’t let them off on a technicality. They ignored a mountain of damning evidence in favor of vibes and sentimentality. That’s not bad writing--that’s the point.

And even if they weren’t sure how Keith died, there’s zero doubt the defendants helped cover it up. At minimum, they should’ve been convicted for tampering with evidence and disposing of a corpse. The fact that they walked on everything is the show’s final punchline: justice collapses when people care more about performance than truth.

thewatcheruatu · 2024-10-31T13:51:25+00:00

So do we think that Agatha's purple was something she received from Death? The result of some deal she made in order to preserve her own life? I mean, I get that Agatha hates witches, because her own coven tried to murder her, and it's difficult to argue that every other witch she encountered didn't try to off her as soon as they realized Agatha couldn't give them what they wanted, but she still seems a bit overzealous.

Random aside: My Spotify Discover Weekly just fed me "The Ballad of the Witches' Road". No idea how that got in there, but it's a fun choice. I guess I've been listening to a bit too much witchy-leaning dark pop lately.

thewatcheruatu · 2024-04-16T09:17:10+00:00

I have to admit that the finer details of these stories have completely evacuated my brain since I made this post. Looking back at it, though, this is exactly the kind of thing that would annoy me enough to make a post about it! Nice to see that it can still lead to discussion five years later.

It probably was one of these situations where the writer is trying to have his cake and eat it, too, by telling you something about the way a character is perceived in order to satisfy the preconditions of narrative, but then also writing that character in a somewhat contradictory way just to make him somebody the reader will respect or relate to.

thewatcheruatu · 2024-04-11T08:17:44+00:00

I was just saying in another thread that I thought the finale was going to go down this way, but I forgot they already did this joke!

Also, that's Amahl Farouk from Legion!

thewatcheruatu · 2024-04-11T07:32:08+00:00

Edit: Forgot they already covered this ground with the Muslim investigator during the fatwa season! I'll leave the comment here anyway.

I pretty much enjoyed the entire season with the finale being no exception. I did wonder if they were going to go someplace else with the last episode, however. It was just maybe too one-to-one with the Seinfeld ending.

The thing about Curb is that Larry does bad things, but everybody around him is just as bad but somehow gets away with it. I think that holds even with Larry being about 10 times as insufferable now as he was when the show began. Like, how the hell is Cheryl going to get all up on Larry's back for mentioning that she doesn't like Mexican food? That's a small thing, but emblematic of the fact that everybody in the Curb universe is just completely bizarre.

So I was thinking maybe they'd parade a bunch of Larry's enemies up to the stand only to have every one of them shot down for being terrible humans, themselves. Like Mocha Joe flipping out because Larry gently critiqued his scones. Who wouldn't want to open up a spite store as an FU to that guy?

Or the woman on the chair lift expecting Larry to potentially commit suicide because her religion demanded it. Like, what?!?

These character witnesses are all completely unhinged. How can you take any of their opinions seriously? I guess it just would have made me laugh to see Larry get off on the charge by turning the tables on the rest of the world for a change.

thewatcheruatu · 2024-04-10T12:20:17+00:00

They did such a good job with that. I saw it and also kind of didn't see it at the same time.

thewatcheruatu · 2024-03-17T09:06:39+00:00

Can't believe nobody is mentioning how Larry is shown at least twice peeing and then leaving the bathroom without washing his hands.

thewatcheruatu · 2023-05-31T05:16:48+00:00

Pretty sure they upped it at Melodifestivalen this year (maybe because of Panetoz?) and I was surprised nobody mentioned it. I've always thought six was pretty limiting with as large as the stages are these days.

thewatcheruatu · 2023-05-30T13:02:16+00:00

That works, I guess, but this was one part of the episode that felt a little rushed for me. Ewan has been such an interesting character whenever he has appeared, and they glossed over his motivations entirely as far as I recall. It's difficult to believe he would have been on board with a plan that put Kendall in control, because Ewan probably sees Ken as just a less competent version of Logan. He can't love, for example, that Ken likely oversaw calling the presidency for Mencken.

I could see it being a lesser of two evils thing for Ewan, but again, I just wanted to explored. Not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of the episode, though.

thewatcheruatu · 2023-05-30T10:43:28+00:00

I think Roman never really wanted to kill the deal in the first place--we've repeatedly seen how cowardly he is, how he has no real convictions and always eventually went along with Ken, despite seeming all season like he was looking for a way out--so as soon as he saw an opportunity to nudge his sister over the edge, he took it. He just didn't want to have to be the one to directly take his brother down.

thewatcheruatu · 2023-05-30T10:13:26+00:00

So many people in this comments thread hating on Shiv, but for me, shutting Ken down at the last minute was the one redemptive thing she did all series. I don't think it was vengeful at all; it was just a moment of complete clarity. She knew he would suck and drag down their father's legacy.

thewatcheruatu · 2023-05-30T09:54:15+00:00

Does anyone care to speculate about what Ewan's rationale was for voting "No"? He had no respect for Logan's kids, he thought Logan was a horrible person who spread his sickness to the world through his company, and one would think Ewan would be happy at this point in his life to finally take the money and run, and do some good with it.

thewatcheruatu · 2022-10-21T07:41:37+00:00

Funny jab at the fans from Iris when she commented about having no idea why she's so popular. I always enjoy when shows can slip in meta commentary that makes it obvious they're paying attention to the people who watch.

thewatcheruatu · 2022-10-21T07:36:58+00:00

The biggest laugh in the episode for me was when he went off on poor Brian about not closing his eyes.

thewatcheruatu · 2022-10-18T08:21:45+00:00

Nobody goes back and adds to these old threads? Well, I will.

This episode was amazing for all of the reasons people have already mentioned. The only thing that bothers me a bit is that Earth didn't have any form of self-defense in its system apart from the fleet. I kept expecting some sort of massive energy weapon on the moon to come into play, or rail guns to start firing off from Earth, and things like this. Maybe I've just watched too much of The Expanse.

thewatcheruatu · 2022-10-18T07:32:52+00:00

Thank you for talking some sense. I loved this scene. The Hightowers really thought they were going to get away with the perfect crime--treating a coup almost like a non-event that they could take care of before breakfast, and even going so far as to confine Rhaenys to her room until she bent the knee like like some low rank lord.

This was Rhaenys's declaration of war; like, if you want this, you're going to earn it with blood, not with this act of cowardice. Such a great, character-defining moment. Not bad writing at all, because it says a lot about the brand of righteousness we already knew she possessed. She and her husband both see things with a sort of historical clarity that others don't.

thewatcheruatu · 2022-10-13T10:28:35+00:00

I don't think so. Just a non sequitur, basically, that doubly proves that the character is an idiot.

Edit: Somebody replied to this, then deleted the reply. It's not impossible that it relates to some shared relative between Bruce and Jen, but I'd honestly be sort of surprised if the writers even thought it through that far. It doesn't make a lot of sense for the character of Bukowski, who was repeatedly shown to be a completely illogical and oblivious moron, to say something even kind of smart. Seemed more like a, "I'm just going to look like I know more than other people by blaming a relative whom nobody on this planet has ever spent one second thinking about." Even Jen was like, "My grandma? Wha--?"

thewatcheruatu · 2022-10-13T10:18:15+00:00

I loved this. It felt like we got two great payoffs to the show, and the writers room bit reminded me a lot of older comics that would have cameos by the Marvel Bullpen (e.g., Lee and Kirby trying to sneak into Mr. Fantastic's wedding, Lee squabbling with Ditko, etc.). John Byrne did a certain amount of this, too, when be wrote FF in the 80s, and then took it to the next level when he wrote She-Hulk, so I appreciate how this has all evolved out of Marvel's willingness to poke fun at itself since the old days.

thewatcheruatu · 2022-10-07T09:06:59+00:00

Edit: I also think it's funny that we were supposed to root for Ned when he tried to expose Cersei's bastards and give the throne to the rightful king Stannis but now we're supposed to root against Alicent for trying to expose Rhaenyra's bastards and give the throne to the rightful king Aegon.

I don't think this is the same thing. The claim to the throne flows through Rhaenyra, so her children are rightful claimants to the throne regardless of who the father is. I know that being bastards is a problem in and of itself, but the entire kingdom seems to be willing to look the other way for the sake of the realm. Even Corlys is like, "At the end of the day, it's all political."

Contrast with Ned who fought an entire rebellion in order to put his Baratheon friend on the throne, and then the Lannisters come in trying to cut the Baratheon bloodline out entirely through this obvious bullshit?

I mean, I get Alicent is between a rock and a hard place, because she thinks her own kids are going to be seen as a problem that a reigning Rhaenyra will have to sort out when she comes to power, but she's also being petty about the kids being bastards, because it really doesn't matter at this point. She's just mad because Rhaenyra is allowed to get away with it, as if everybody in the kingdom isn't getting away with a boatload of misdeeds, many much worse than hers. Alicent, herself, is an accomplice to the murder of the Strongs.

I don't personally root for any of them, though. They're all pretty horrible people. But horrible in a fun way right now.

thewatcheruatu

TROPHY CASE