Squirrels ate all the teeth out of my jack o lantern. Squirrels ate all the teeth out of my jack o lantern. https://alexanderwales.tumblr.com/post/832012364459163648 #squirrelsate #jack #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

Finished with season 2 of Dark Matter. It was pretty frustrating overall, notably because of the two… Finished with season 2 of Dark Matter. It was pretty frustrating overall, notably because of the two bottle episodes, the changes they made to how the central speculative technology functions, some obvious plotholes, and having way too many plots going at the same time. But I think my biggest take away from this season is that whoever wrote this show was a huge Luddite. If you have multiverse travel, obviously there are issues with that, and then also obviously we should expect this to be a huge boon to the universes involved, unless you think that interversal warfare and/or authoritarian takeover is likely. (Not that this is an argument that the show makes.) And the whole plan to seal the technology away is stupid! There’s a whole multiverse! There are, per the rules they have established, not just a multiverse full of people who could discover this technology, but many additional multiples of all the individuals involved in getting the technology to work! You can build a second The Box, and you should assume that someone would, but better this time, with some actual defenses and biometrics and in a location not expected to be in a populated area. I don’t know, there was occasionally some cool or interesting stuff in there, but the writing let me down, and if they were going to do a second season, they should have focused it a bit more, either on the intensive character stuff or (my preference) the social and societal consequences of being able to walk freely through the multiverse. https://alexanderwales.tumblr.com/post/831887371782995968 #darkmatter #frustratingoverall #notablybecause #prettyfrustrating #season #two #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

S2E5 might be one of the worst episodes of television I’ve seen in the last few years. We abandon… alexanderwales: Just finished S2E4 of Dark Matter. I was convinced that the show wouldn’t get a second season, because where would it even go from the end of the first season? The central mystery and its wrinkles had all been resolved, and they had opened up a huge can of worms that didn’t seem to have a payoff. So we’re four episodes into the second season, and I’m still asking that question, because there are a bunch of different characters all doing their own thing across the multiverse, with disconnected storylines, and I’m thinking to myself … is this going anywhere? Will this cohere into something meaningful? We’re following five storylines now by my count, and … are they going to intersect with each other? Do they relate to each other? I’m eager to see how the second season develops partly because I have so little idea what the writers are trying to get at and where they’re going with it all. The high-concept scifi nonsense is what I’m there for, and they’re really drip-feeding it, but the potential is definitely there, even if the execution is, if I’m being generous, meandering and unfocused. S2E5 might be one of the worst episodes of television I’ve seen in the last few years. We abandon out extant plotlines to spend time with a variant Jason as he’s depressed for a while, and I guess I can see where a writer might think that spending time charting out what finding happiness looks like for Jason is important … but it’s a full hour spent on someone who incredibly disconnected from what are really far too many plotlines, far too long, offers little insight into the characters, and contributes nothing to the overall plot. How do you spend a tenth of a season on this? https://alexanderwales.tumblr.com/post/831856622104117248 #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

AO3 being down for a month is wild. Really makes me think that self-hosted backups were a better… AO3 being down for a month is wild. Really makes me think that self-hosted backups were a better idea than I gave them credit for … The Library of The Library of Babel is going to have another few installments ready by the time this is over, if I don’t get distracted from it entirely. https://alexanderwales.tumblr.com/post/831842959857254400 #wild #month #makes #better #babel #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

Just finished S2E4 of Dark Matter. I was convinced that the show wouldn’t get a second season,… Just finished S2E4 of Dark Matter. I was convinced that the show wouldn’t get a second season, because where would it even go from the end of the first season? The central mystery and its wrinkles had all been resolved, and they had opened up a huge can of worms that didn’t seem to have a payoff. So we’re four episodes into the second season, and I’m still asking that question, because there are a bunch of different characters all doing their own thing across the multiverse, with disconnected storylines, and I’m thinking to myself … is this going anywhere? Will this cohere into something meaningful? We’re following five storylines now by my count, and … are they going to intersect with each other? Do they relate to each other? I’m eager to see how the second season develops partly because I have so little idea what the writers are trying to get at and where they’re going with it all. The high-concept scifi nonsense is what I’m there for, and they’re really drip-feeding it, but the potential is definitely there, even if the execution is, if I’m being generous, meandering and unfocused. https://alexanderwales.tumblr.com/post/831791066072121344 #darkmatter #secondseason #get #finished #show #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

Executive: Alright, so I saw the first cut of the film, and I gotta say, fantastic stuff. But I do… Executive: Alright, so I saw the first cut of the film, and I gotta say, fantastic stuff. But I do have some notes. Director: Okay … Executive: Some of the death scenes, you show a lot. Director: We had agreed on hard R? Executive: Yes, absolutely, it’s a horror film, we show everything. Director: Oh, right, good. Executive: The problem is how the film treats men and women differently. Director: It … doesn’t, I don’t think? Do you have an example? Executive: Right, it doesn’t, that’s the problem. Do you read many academic papers? Director: Uh, no? Executive: Shame. Molitor & Sapoisky, 1993. They did a study of gender is horror films, and found that men were victims more often, but that women take around twice as long to brutally die. So that’s industry standard now. Director: I … cannot imagine that’s what they meant by that study. Or that it says that. Executive: Right, and per Cowan & O'Brien, 1990, sexually active women should also have longer, more gruesome death scenes. This is the scientific approach to moviemaking. Well-studied stuff. Director: Sorry, you want more violence against sexually active women? Executive: It’s what the literature says, and at this studio, we believe in science-based filmmaking. And you don’t have final cut on this. Director (turns to the editor): You’re okay with this? Editor: Statistically speaking, 90% of editors are. So yes, I follow that guidance. https://alexanderwales.tumblr.com/post/831743840439369728 #executive #director #alright #fantasticstuff #firstcut #film #yes #okay #editor #shame #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

I’ve wanted to write a space opera for a long time, but I just do not trust myself to have what I… I’ve wanted to write a space opera for a long time, but I just do not trust myself to have what I feel is the necessary level of uninhibited whimsy and disregard for hard facts that the genre feels like it demands. https://alexanderwales.tumblr.com/post/831747582210523136 #longtime #spaceopera #trustmyself #wanted #write #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

I guess this brings with it the question of what I think space opera even is, and to me, it’s the… alexanderwales: I’ve wanted to write a space opera for a long time, but I just do not trust myself to have what I feel is the necessary level of uninhibited whimsy and disregard for hard facts that the genre feels like it demands. I guess this brings with it the question of what I think space opera even is, and to me, it’s the set pieces, the gimmicks, and the melodrama, all of which are at least somewhat antithetical to the more rationalized approach that I’m used to. I suppose I think of space opera as being fantastical by nature of its resistance to fundamental facts about space, like the high energy costs of getting there, how uniform it is, how vast travel times are, the difficulties of defense and offense, etc. And then also ignoring some broader emergent strategies like economies of scale, globalization, hegemony, standardization, etc. I’ve seen people suggest that space opera just needs more rationalization, that you just need the correct series of hacks to physics or technology or certain interstellar events, and that this will somehow get you to a perfect setting that emulates space opera while operating on logic, technology, and science. I think this is … sort of fundamentally at odds with space opera, and like trying to get to a car by building it out of pieces of horse. The proper way to write a space opera is to keep things loose, count on the audience to understand the vibe you’re going for, and then get out before anyone asks too many questions about how the sublight system works or what the Galactic Imperium’s tax policy is like. And if you could build a solid system that explains all your grandiose set pieces and gimmicks, space opera would be hiding all that anyway, so you’d have done all that work for … just love of the game, I guess. https://alexanderwales.tumblr.com/post/831755183347351552 #spaceopera #thinkspace #even #galacticimperium #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

I feel like as soon as I started writing I would at least want a sketch for how hyperspace works,… alexanderwales: I’ve wanted to write a space opera for a long time, but I just do not trust myself to have what I feel is the necessary level of uninhibited whimsy and disregard for hard facts that the genre feels like it demands. I feel like as soon as I started writing I would at least want a sketch for how hyperspace works, whether droids are sentient or not, what the actual tech level is, why they don’t have advanced computers, why it makes any economic sense to have different cities on different planets, all these things that feel, to me, like they would get in the way of having a Romp. https://alexanderwales.tumblr.com/post/831747722332766208 #hyperspaceworks #leastwant #startedwriting #feellike #soon #romp #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit

Oh god it just keeps going … alexanderwales: I’m starting to come around to the idea that Order of the Sinking Star actually does have too many puzzles. Oh god it just keeps going … https://alexanderwales.tumblr.com/post/831726451016531968 #keepsgoing #god #sinkingstar #order #rss #feeds #linksharing #qwibbit