I personally just got around to accepting my antilibrary as a good/ok thing to have. In the past I would refrain from buying new books if I still had some unread ones on my shelf. But it now seems to me that it was a greater waste to squander what curiosity I had in the moment than the money spent on unread books. So my pile of unread books in my apartment has grown, but they aren't really wasted. Maybe some time ill get around to reading them. But until then they sit there as a constant reminder of all the things I found interesting enough to look into over the course of my life.
I haven't seen Inherent Vice, but I totally agree about No Country for Old Men. One of the differences there might be that both of those movies were made by very accomplished directors, Paul Thomas Anderson and the Coen brothers respectively. They might have the confidence to put their own interpretation of the story into their movie that lesser known directors dont feel comfortable doing.
Yeah. Barbecue sauce in particular gets used in the same situations as ketchup, and is usually also tomato based. I feel like ketchup is almost just synonymous with Heinz. When I want ketchup I basically am looking for the taste of Heinz, and if I want variety then I get something thats not called ketchup.
If you are referring to gydfi's post as the "daydream", I don't think you interpreted the tone correctly. I didn't read it as a description of a utopia. The last sentence gives away that the preceding ones don't describe something good.
I absolutely agree. Your point about Samantha Bee reminds me of a podcast that Malcolm Gladwell did recently about satire. In it he criticized SNL's portrayal of Sarah Palin back in 2008. Tina Fay's impression of her was funny as hell, but it mostly made fun of the way Palin talks and her attitude. If you already dislike Palin (as I do/did) it seems like cutting criticism.
But the problem is that her mannerisms aren't really whats bad about her. And Trump's alleged kinks aren't whats bad about him. Its easy for his supporters to defend him and say that either it is not true, because there isn't any public evidence that it is, or that there is nothing wrong with a piss fetish. And they are right. There is nothing wrong with it.
I like a George Carlin quote as much as the next guy, but this doesn't make sense. If gourmet means it costs more, then there absolutely is gourmet coffee, rolls and pizza.
Yeah, I didn't get it either. It feels to me like he had this Italian election analogy in his pocket and couldn't wait to use it. It feels very forced.
Tone and facial expression aren't conveyed at all in non-emojied text. Comparing emojis usage to spoken conversation doesn't make sense because they aren't used to augment or replace speech.
I wasn't a huge fan of The Circle. It did a decent job of presenting the creep of surveillance powers that come along with ever more useful social media features. But it didn't have a coherent argument against them. It was sort of left to the reader to see (or maybe just feel) how dangerous The Circle was getting, because most of the characters themselves didn't. Even the ones who did couldn't explain why.
Maybe I just went into the book expecting an examination of the types of tradeoffs we make when interacting with social media, and instead got a thriller. The Circle works pretty well as a thriller to be honest, its just that there is still room for a more serious novel on its subject matter.
I agree. That assignment was one of my favorites. It was a lot of fun because it was fairly easy to get something that functioned, and as you came up with ideas for making it better (or just got ideas from reference implementations), you could watch your metrics get better or worse.
I think hes talking about "But What If We're Wrong?" by Chuck Klosterman. Sorry to spoil the secret!
edit: Its highly recommended. Also, its not an argument about quality. The author speculates about what kind of art produced in the present day that people in the future will value.
I totally agree that the transferred images don't have the power of the originals. I know nothing about art (well, painted art), but its striking how the transfered images seem like cheap imitations in the style of the originals. And yet, im still impressed by the technology.
I can see how that happens. The thing that impressed me most about Infinite Jest is the incredibly deep introspection that the characters had. But the passages were very long, and because they weren't about actual stuff happening, its tough to just stop reading all of a sudden. You cant just jump back in where you left off. It wouldn't make any sense unless you were following the entire train of thought, which means you need to backtrack quite a bit.
I honestly have no idea how people read that book in public. I read it during the winter in my bedroom, which was perfect because there was nothing to pull my attention away and interrupt the experience.
I love Infinite Jest, but its not for everybody. If you do want to read it, I wouldn't recommend reading it on a commute. Its very dense and requires a lot of attention, and I don't feel like it would work well if you are in a place with a lot of distractions and hard cutoff times to stop reading.