@ENirenberg: I just love that there was a child who swallowed a penny in the Pfizer 5-11 year old trial. Like if ever you needed an example of an adverse event that had nothing to do with the intervention.
If any of you would like to hear Jennifer Doudna (Cal professor, Nobel laureate) speak, my work is hosting her at 3pm Pacific. You can find her bio, talk abstract, and Zoom link here: https://als.lbl.gov/news-events/seminars/
The one I get regularly is a message from "Amazon" saying a purchase of $XX was made and if I made the purchase they will go ahead and charge my card. Otherwise I should call them back.
Yesterday, I received a call from what appeared to be PG&E telling me they were going to shut off my power in the next 1/2 hour if I didn't pay $499.87 immediately. I was super dubious, but I gave the caller my name (mistake) then they must of googled my address - but I demanded to know the PG&E account number - which they didn't have, and then hung up.
A bunch of internet friends chipped in for a Target gift card for another internet friend's baby shower. The friend who was in charge of attending the baby shower went to Target, and the cashier was like, "Uh...are you getting scammed?"
I bought Target gift cards back in 2018 or so, but when the recipients tried to use them, the cards had no value. I did eventually get a refund, but I'm buying Target gift cards again, and I'm pretty leary of gift cards in general.
There are many youtube channels where they pretend to be elderly women and connect back into the scammers computers and delete stuff. They also are able to use the files to figure out who the scammers actually are. The first few I watched were very entertaining.
I heard about that scam today. Folks were talking about it on Nextdoor (according to my sister). I actually have never visited the site as I view it as a more nosy and irritating version of FB.
In Japan, they have "Ore, ore" ("it's me, it's me") scams of older folks. where the "son" calls and says "Ore, ore" and asks for money. Seems that a different voice would be a giveaway, but it's prevalent.
there are a zillion places of course, but this time of year i like New Mexico. Santa Fe is a great experience if you have never been. good combo of culture in town and gorgeous scenery outside.
other quick ideas
- Asheville NC
- Key West
- Boulder
- Sun Valley, Telluride or Crested Butte before the ski season kicks in
I have a credit with American from a pandemic canceled flight the expires next spring. Within the last half hour I got an email saying I can use it to buy a ticket for any other AAdvantage member if I wish instead of using it for myself..
i considered trying to sell it to book for somebody else but apparently the balance of the credit after booking a flight using it is then good for another year
I have a massive "credit" with British Airways & my wife was trying to get me to "sell" it by booking for someone else and taking their cash, at a discount. I'm starting to think she doesn't want to go to the UK now.
PHL to LAX via IAD. The flight from PHL to IAD is delayed so we have like 10 min to go over to another terminal. Luckily United has the whole hold a flight if a transfer is late but still possible, but I doubt they'll do it this late. There is another IAD to LAX flight at 10 PM so I think we'll just end up on that one.
We could go through IAH instead, but the problem with that is that the IAH to PHL incoming plane is also delated. so we'd most likely miss the next flight and that is the last flight of the night. At least sticking with our current DC flight we have another option. There is a later PHL to IAD flight but No 1 is in class and wouldn't be able to get here until like 430 which means we'd still have to hang out at the airport for most of the time. so I guess we'll go, try to make the flight, and use my two club passes for 4+ hours if we miss the original flight.
i assume some people have had to do this already. i am doing it for the first time to pay for some college class for my HS senior.
it looks like i just
- pay online w/ credit card
- login into 529 plan
- request the money be sent to me
nobody asked me to upload some pdf or documentation? do i just keep that on my own in case i get audited? or is there some detailed tax form i fill out later?
The 529 stuff we've done, was mostly sending $ directly from the plan account to the school for tuition. You should get a statement at the end of the year regarding the disbursements that you may have to put into your taxes (if you itemize).
My son's (12 y.o.) favorite toy, and has been since he was about 3 when we got him his first set of Duplos. He now gets books on how to build animals out of his bricks, and also uses his imagination to build his own "hybrids". BEST. TOY. EVER.
my main complaint is that there is a lot less imagination and a lot more following instructions. and the pieces are so specialized it is hard(er) to get creative compared to the generic blocks i remember growing up with
we have had
- harry potter and hogwarts
- the hogwarts express
- star wars hoth rebel base
- a bunch of smaller sets
on the other hand this thread brings back some memories of building the Hoth rebel base w/ my daughter many years ago. we didnt have parts for the Imperial Walkers or the power generators so we had to get creative ...
Agree, though after some period of time my kids disassemble the sets and mosh it all together. Also from Lego’s perspective this is a no brainer - these sets dramatically increase revenue. The interesting thing now is seeing them try to move away from purely licensed IP (Star Wars, Harry Potter) to owner IP (Lego Friends, Ninjago). I would think they may be looking to acquire IP for this reason. Why not buy older, little used IP like Scooby Doo and refresh it for their purposes?
agreed. more like model plans. I feel it stifles the imagination compared to the "when we were kids". Altho I don't have much creativity, so I guess I can't use myself as an example for "Lego was better before"
Well, they do sell big buckets of random blocks still. It’s not like they ceased producing/selling that. You see it in classrooms a lot as a free choice activity.
Unfortunately most of the big buckets of bricks are still relatively small—lots of plates, 1x2, etc. Hard to get enough 2x4,6,8 etc. to build a big sturdy house like in the old days.
For a couple of years the kids loved to get the Lego Architecture sets. They are pretty cool. No 1's ex GF had gotten him a couple of the multi-hundred dollar Ferrari F-40 and a Porsche GT3 RS sets. They're really cool.
When our girls were still young enough to require supervision for trick or treating, my wife generally took them. One year I was like "look I know that Halloween isn't my thing but for once I'd like to see them enjoying themselves." She begrudgingly agreed and, having teamed up with our neighbor and her daughters, off we set. No more than three houses later, one of the neighbor kids (who was like 4 or 5) revealed she had not in fact gone before she went by peeing herself. She was dressed in a fairy costume, so I was entertaining myself making jokes about "Tinklebell" and the like. I was having such a jolly time that I didn't notice the gigantic pile of dogshit that I stood in, ruining both the shoe in question and the pants I was wearing. Karma was _very_ instant.
I knew nothing about this world besides one viewing of the David Lynch movie many years ago (which I found almost totally incomprehensible), but this movie was easy to understand from the jump and very well-made. I'm all-in!
Agreed - never had any interest in watching the previous one, as it always looked silly. Plus, I’m not much of a sci-fi guy, so I threw this one on with some skepticism.
All I can say is “Wow!” I mean, ever since Dr Sleep, I could watch Rebecca Ferguson read the ingredient list for all the menu items at Top Dog and be thoroughly entranced, so that helps, but the performance from everyone else, especially Challamet, was pretty frigging great.
Just an epic, enjoyable ride that had me looking up Dune fan sites for background info...can’t wait for the 2nd part, which is out....when?
the navigator, navigator guild, and spice connection is only loosely touched in the new version. despite being a space epic, its mainly confined to Arakis. Heck, there's no mention of CHOAM at all.
Good point, Scootie, tho has he done anything of substance since his breakout role as Meekus, one of Derek Zoolander's male model-roommates that is killed in a tragic, gas station accident? I don't recall him making much of an impression in the past 20 years, at least not as big a one as Rebecca Ferguson...
Sure, the basic story may be fairly simple, but that's also like saying Inception is simply a film about dreams...it's the nuances, the details. In Dune, there are repeated references by various characters to things that have not only not been fully explained, but are also in a different, archaic language.
So learning more on the significance of those terms from these fan sites was what I found informative.
It was interesting. It's very Foundation-like in aesthetic – a "pristine" planet and a "rough" planet – and funnily with half the cast of See, which I'd just finished a few days prior to watching Dune ;-)
I prefer the "rough" story line (like Tatooine and Hoth >> Naboo and Coruscant).
Qs I had:
Why, if spice is what allows inter-stellar travel, isn't the planet even more exploited? Like why haven't they just "nuked" the Fremen and the sandworms. This seems more vital to the galaxy's economy than oil is to ours.
Why if they have massive ships and lasers do they fight with swords (again, a See flashback for Momoa and Bautista)?
And like See and Foundation (and Star Trek and later Star Wars), you can't rely on anybody being dead! They just pull swords out of their bodies and go on to kill 15 more people.
I'm sure that there's a lot in the book that didn't make the cut, which might explain things more, and "it's just a movie", but...
1. The worms are involved in the production of spice - it's a long explanation but it's part of their dying process. (it helps to think of Herbert's original intention that a lot of this is an allegory for the middle east/central asia colonization. Also, nukes are banned (along with "thinking" computers) so some tech is advanced and some is not. This is after an incident 10,000 years in the past of the movie (but about 9 thousand years from now in our current timeline) where their version of skynet almost eliminated humans.
2. Because they all have those personal shields - you saw Paul and Gurnney train with them. They block fast attacks but are vulnerable to slow attacks. If you shoot them with a laser - they explode in atomic bomb proportions and kill everyone.
also - if you extend the metaphor, they can't just get rid of the afghans or whoever indigenous people (see: Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc. etc.) because it's their land and they know it better than you and they can survive it better than you - they can hide out and attack you where you're vulnerable.
I suspect we will see how fierce the Fremen are as a fighting force in the next movie.
Whoa, whoa, whoa - slow your roll there Mori, it's not at all like Foundation (whether or not if you like it) Foundation is real sci-fi, for better or worse, but Dune is just fiction, set in an imaginary world. Great houses? Dukes, princes? Witches? Have we encountered them before, maybe?
Dune is fun trash, does not bear close examination, and no, the book is NOT better.
Got the Moderna booster this morning at Kaiser. Today was the first day for booster shots if your original vaccine was J&J or Pfizer (I'm J&J). My appointment was at 10:45 at Kaiser Oakland.
I arrived at about 10:50 because parking was scarce; I had to wait for a spot to open up. I get to the location of the COVID booster vaccine clinic and there's a line that turns out to be about 100 feet long and it was not socially distanced. I waited 45 minutes to be injected, then 15 minutes after to make sure I'm okay and not having an adverse reaction.
A lady in line nearly fainted. She needed oxygen and was attended by an RN and one other hospital worker.
When I left after the 15 minute waiting period, the line was down to about 30 feet and spots in the parking structure had opened up. Two hours from the time I left my desk until I returned.
But, hey, I have a Moderna booster in my arm. Can't beat that.
No 1 pointed out that the Thunder O is sorta like the Warrirors O. They pass the ball around and try to get open 3s. They have some decent players that are young. The announcers also pointed out that the Thunder have 35 draft picks over the next 7 years. That's insane.
I feel like the Kerr system has a side effect of more turnovers because of how much passing is involved. But the offensive efficiency you get with it is more than worth the trade.
Wondering if I should roll the dice & pick up some scrub off waiver wire, but I kinda know better than to bet against Rodgers...he always seems to make magic, and the available pickings are slim.
If you’re looking for a bye week Flex, maybe take a flyer on the Rodgers to Rodgers hookup, rookie out of Clemson, Amari Rodgers
NEW YORK -- NFL commissioner Roger Goodell doubled down Tuesday on the league's decision not to make public the results of its investigation into the workplace culture at the Washington Football Team, saying the anonymity of the people who cooperated with the investigation was too high a priority to allow the league to do so.
"We're very conscious of making sure we're protecting those who came forward," Goodell said after six hours of NFL owners meetings in midtown Manhattan. "That was a very high priority."
The investigation has come under fire again in recent weeks after some of the emails unearthed in the process became public, resulting in the resignation of Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden. In those emails, Gruden used racist, anti-gay and misogynistic language that the league has denounced. Calls to release more of the emails have been rejected.
"We're very conscious of making sure we're protecting those who came forward," Goodell said after six hours of NFL owners meetings in midtown Manhattan. "That was a very high priority."
Could Goodell say anything more cynical than this? He's using other people's privacy as a shield.
What if Davis doesn't have any love lost for the NFL or Roger Goodell or other owners?
Remember, it was only a few short years ago that the Raiders wanted to move to Los Angeles and share SoFi stadium with the Rams. And yet, the NFL decided to put the Chargers in LA and send the Raiders to Las Vegas ...or back to Oakland.
Davis also probably doesn't owe shit to Gruden on the remainder of his 10-year contract because Gruden resigned.
@Davis doesn't have any motivation whatsoever for wanting the report made public.@
I guess I don't understand why folks think that the NFL would essentially be subject to freedom of information rules. It's a private company. The public's window into their affairs is through public disclosure documents, leaks, and whistleblowers. The press could want them to be fully transparent about everything and to just give up their emails, but it's not like they have any recourse if the private entity says no.
Salient point - the NFL is not a governmental entity and it isn't subject to public disclosure laws.
At the same time, they do have a potential PR nightmare brewing. Firmly refusing to disclose the report only says that there's way more to the story than just Jon Gruden's jerky emails.
If this stuff gets out that would be so bad for franchise values. Pro sports teams are not really valued by operating revenue like a normal business. They are valued based on what they can be resold for, which is another way of saying they are the playthings of billionaires, the way these guys use their money to become important members of society (like Mark Cuban is a good example). However if owning a sports team subjects you to heightened or even congressional scrutiny and cancellation, then maybe the value does drop down to just a matter of revenue… of course, that would be good for fans, as games would probably become cheaper, but I imagine the NFL will die on this hill
franchises are also a great tax management mechanism, apparently there's all sorts of shit you can amortize or book as a loss to legally avoid paying tax.
"It's important to understand we have 30 markets around the country," Manfred said before Game 1 between the Braves and Astros on Tuesday evening. "They're not all the same. The Braves have done a phenomenal job with the Native American community."
Manfred said the Native American community in the Atlanta region "is wholly supportive of the Braves program, including the chop. For me, that's the end of the story."
However, opinions on the gesture have varied over the years within Native American communities, including some with ties to the region. The National Council of American Indians has called for the franchise to drop the chop as well as the team nickname.
This 30-different-markets point he's making is especially dumb given the forum, which is the a press availability at the World Series - a national event with a national broadcast.
I feel like the name Braves is ok as it is (basically the same as the Warriors), but the problem is that you usually want to use the nickname to create a whole universe of imagery/cheers/etc. Almost any use of Native imagery in that way is offensive. So it seems like a better move to just change the name to some other thing so you can have a non-racist universe of imagery for marketing purposes
This is an interesting point, but I think the Braves name itself might be offensive. The old name of the Washington Football Team was clearly offensive. Indians, too. Braves is less so, perhaps, but is there any use of Braves that isn't related to native folks? I don't know that I've ever heard anybody refer to a collection of brave people by calling them braves.
It's not quite like the Warriors. Anybody can be a warrior - it's not necessarily a reference. Maybe my fandom puts my thumb on the scale, but I don't think that's it's a fair comparison. I think Atlanta needs to change their name, but the Warriors don't.
Well, I suppose you could say that while the term “brave” is not itself derogatory, its use as a team mascot is offensive because it is demeaning to make a human into mascot type caricature. It would be like calling your team the Jews. I get that, now that I think about it a bit more.
Warriors does have that problem too, because in reality basically every team with that name was specifically referring to Native American Warriors when they selected the name. However the remedy is different. With Braves, the name would need to be changed as the word has no other meaning. With Warriors, it is also a generic term, so you can keep the name but scrub the Native imagery, I think.
My personal opinion on this is that "Redskins" and "Indians" needed to go, because the former is an actual ethnic slur and the latter came with an obvious racist caricature as the mascot (really it's more that Chief Wahoo needed to go, but you probably had to also change the name to be fully rid of him).
"Braves" and "Chiefs" are in a greyer area for me. In and of themselves those names are not terms of disrespect, but they do come with a lot of associated stuff (Tomahawk Chop) that probably is disrespectful. It would be pretty hard to completely disassociate the names from those things. The Warriors, IMO, have successfully disassociated the name from the original Native American mascot. No one who is too young to remember the 1960s really thinks about that team as having a Native American name. You can't say the same for the Braves or Chiefs.
I wouldn't necessarily go to the mat for changing the names in the latter category, but if there was a clear enough push from Native American tribes to do so I would defer to their wishes.
I mean, theoretically you could scrub all the Native imagery from the Braves uniforms and whatnot, but not sure how realistic that is at this point. Very hard to disentangle.
The Chiefs would be another interesting question here.
Arizona's points off turnovers margin (-8 per game) struck me as completely ridiculous, so I fact checked it. I couldn't find the stat, but I did find turnover margin, which is -1.43/game, which is worst (130 out of 130) in FBS by a mile. To put this into perspective, this is 25% worse than the next. And double that of 116th. Putting the two stats together, when they do give away the ball - opponents usually score a TD.
But I remember the jarring nature of my first ever college volleyball practice at UCSC. Every single player on the court was better than anyone I played against in high school. The leap was massive. And it's not like Slug Volleyball was UCLA.
The Neiman Marcus Xmas catalog is out. Lots of ridiculous stuff in here.
https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/neiman-marcus-releases-2021-christmas-book/2787275/
https://twitter.com/ENirenberg/status/1453218125520982019?s=20
@ENirenberg: I just love that there was a child who swallowed a penny in the Pfizer 5-11 year old trial. Like if ever you needed an example of an adverse event that had nothing to do with the intervention.
Cal
go bears!!
If any of you would like to hear Jennifer Doudna (Cal professor, Nobel laureate) speak, my work is hosting her at 3pm Pacific. You can find her bio, talk abstract, and Zoom link here: https://als.lbl.gov/news-events/seminars/
Every time I encounter CRISPR, I have to re-read it to re-learn how it works. Too complex to stay in my head apparently.
Scams
Recently I've been getting ones for Apple Play store purchases. And it says to open the included attachment to verify. And it's a .dot word template.
The one I get regularly is a message from "Amazon" saying a purchase of $XX was made and if I made the purchase they will go ahead and charge my card. Otherwise I should call them back.
Yesterday, I received a call from what appeared to be PG&E telling me they were going to shut off my power in the next 1/2 hour if I didn't pay $499.87 immediately. I was super dubious, but I gave the caller my name (mistake) then they must of googled my address - but I demanded to know the PG&E account number - which they didn't have, and then hung up.
But I can imagine they are often successful.
How do you send payment? Credit card?
there were IRS scams a decade back where payment was via iTunes cards
A bunch of internet friends chipped in for a Target gift card for another internet friend's baby shower. The friend who was in charge of attending the baby shower went to Target, and the cashier was like, "Uh...are you getting scammed?"
I bought Target gift cards back in 2018 or so, but when the recipients tried to use them, the cards had no value. I did eventually get a refund, but I'm buying Target gift cards again, and I'm pretty leary of gift cards in general.
...I'm _never_ buying Target gift cards again...
That scam is still around in various forms and people still fall victim to it regularly.
There are many youtube channels where they pretend to be elderly women and connect back into the scammers computers and delete stuff. They also are able to use the files to figure out who the scammers actually are. The first few I watched were very entertaining.
I saw one where it pinned some place in India
Didn't get that far - told them I pay with checks.
Do you send the checks by carrier pigeon? ;-)
that is a common on in San Antonio. Our studios get that call once every couple months
It was spoofing the PG&E phone number (which I recognize) that got me to answer.
I heard about that scam today. Folks were talking about it on Nextdoor (according to my sister). I actually have never visited the site as I view it as a more nosy and irritating version of FB.
yeah I've been warning my mom to be careful with these things.
In Japan, they have "Ore, ore" ("it's me, it's me") scams of older folks. where the "son" calls and says "Ore, ore" and asks for money. Seems that a different voice would be a giveaway, but it's prevalent.
DBD Travel
DBD crowdsource: where should Jimmy Chitwood go with his expiring SWA $600?
there are a zillion places of course, but this time of year i like New Mexico. Santa Fe is a great experience if you have never been. good combo of culture in town and gorgeous scenery outside.
other quick ideas
- Asheville NC
- Key West
- Boulder
- Sun Valley, Telluride or Crested Butte before the ski season kicks in
Key West sounds intriguing!
I have a credit with American from a pandemic canceled flight the expires next spring. Within the last half hour I got an email saying I can use it to buy a ticket for any other AAdvantage member if I wish instead of using it for myself..
same! it's the parting gift from my last job
i considered trying to sell it to book for somebody else but apparently the balance of the credit after booking a flight using it is then good for another year
I have a massive "credit" with British Airways & my wife was trying to get me to "sell" it by booking for someone else and taking their cash, at a discount. I'm starting to think she doesn't want to go to the UK now.
Um, let's talk.
PHL to LAX via IAD. The flight from PHL to IAD is delayed so we have like 10 min to go over to another terminal. Luckily United has the whole hold a flight if a transfer is late but still possible, but I doubt they'll do it this late. There is another IAD to LAX flight at 10 PM so I think we'll just end up on that one.
We could go through IAH instead, but the problem with that is that the IAH to PHL incoming plane is also delated. so we'd most likely miss the next flight and that is the last flight of the night. At least sticking with our current DC flight we have another option. There is a later PHL to IAD flight but No 1 is in class and wouldn't be able to get here until like 430 which means we'd still have to hang out at the airport for most of the time. so I guess we'll go, try to make the flight, and use my two club passes for 4+ hours if we miss the original flight.
First, those are fabulous shoes.
529 plan withdrawals
i assume some people have had to do this already. i am doing it for the first time to pay for some college class for my HS senior.
it looks like i just
- pay online w/ credit card
- login into 529 plan
- request the money be sent to me
nobody asked me to upload some pdf or documentation? do i just keep that on my own in case i get audited? or is there some detailed tax form i fill out later?
The 529 stuff we've done, was mostly sending $ directly from the plan account to the school for tuition. You should get a statement at the end of the year regarding the disbursements that you may have to put into your taxes (if you itemize).
Lego Brand Building Blocks
My son's (12 y.o.) favorite toy, and has been since he was about 3 when we got him his first set of Duplos. He now gets books on how to build animals out of his bricks, and also uses his imagination to build his own "hybrids". BEST. TOY. EVER.
BEST. TOY. EVER.
Agreed
my main complaint is that there is a lot less imagination and a lot more following instructions. and the pieces are so specialized it is hard(er) to get creative compared to the generic blocks i remember growing up with
we have had
- harry potter and hogwarts
- the hogwarts express
- star wars hoth rebel base
- a bunch of smaller sets
on the other hand this thread brings back some memories of building the Hoth rebel base w/ my daughter many years ago. we didnt have parts for the Imperial Walkers or the power generators so we had to get creative ...
https://goo.gl/photos/WsQytgTgMQJQyNH17
Agree, though after some period of time my kids disassemble the sets and mosh it all together. Also from Lego’s perspective this is a no brainer - these sets dramatically increase revenue. The interesting thing now is seeing them try to move away from purely licensed IP (Star Wars, Harry Potter) to owner IP (Lego Friends, Ninjago). I would think they may be looking to acquire IP for this reason. Why not buy older, little used IP like Scooby Doo and refresh it for their purposes?
I have applied for a job in Lego licensing.
Looks like we'll have Cal architecture coming up.
or IP in the public domain
how is there no LEGO nativity set?
I meant to say owned IP, not owner IP
You can go and buy the basic blocks though!
agreed. more like model plans. I feel it stifles the imagination compared to the "when we were kids". Altho I don't have much creativity, so I guess I can't use myself as an example for "Lego was better before"
Well, they do sell big buckets of random blocks still. It’s not like they ceased producing/selling that. You see it in classrooms a lot as a free choice activity.
Unfortunately most of the big buckets of bricks are still relatively small—lots of plates, 1x2, etc. Hard to get enough 2x4,6,8 etc. to build a big sturdy house like in the old days.
For a couple of years the kids loved to get the Lego Architecture sets. They are pretty cool. No 1's ex GF had gotten him a couple of the multi-hundred dollar Ferrari F-40 and a Porsche GT3 RS sets. They're really cool.
Stepping in something
When our girls were still young enough to require supervision for trick or treating, my wife generally took them. One year I was like "look I know that Halloween isn't my thing but for once I'd like to see them enjoying themselves." She begrudgingly agreed and, having teamed up with our neighbor and her daughters, off we set. No more than three houses later, one of the neighbor kids (who was like 4 or 5) revealed she had not in fact gone before she went by peeing herself. She was dressed in a fairy costume, so I was entertaining myself making jokes about "Tinklebell" and the like. I was having such a jolly time that I didn't notice the gigantic pile of dogshit that I stood in, ruining both the shoe in question and the pants I was wearing. Karma was _very_ instant.
We now understand why tasks such as this were generally handled by your wife.
truly a halloween miracle
DBD AV Club
DUNE DUNE DUNE DUNE DUNE DUNE DUNE DUNE
I knew nothing about this world besides one viewing of the David Lynch movie many years ago (which I found almost totally incomprehensible), but this movie was easy to understand from the jump and very well-made. I'm all-in!
Agreed - never had any interest in watching the previous one, as it always looked silly. Plus, I’m not much of a sci-fi guy, so I threw this one on with some skepticism.
All I can say is “Wow!” I mean, ever since Dr Sleep, I could watch Rebecca Ferguson read the ingredient list for all the menu items at Top Dog and be thoroughly entranced, so that helps, but the performance from everyone else, especially Challamet, was pretty frigging great.
Just an epic, enjoyable ride that had me looking up Dune fan sites for background info...can’t wait for the 2nd part, which is out....when?
they say they just approved the go ahead to make part 2. they were waiting to see how it went w/ the first one. i guess it did well enough
Oct 2023. I will prepare myself by getting myself addicted to melange.
That navigator '84 look is not for everyone. But is it the same in the new version?
the navigator, navigator guild, and spice connection is only loosely touched in the new version. despite being a space epic, its mainly confined to Arakis. Heck, there's no mention of CHOAM at all.
rebecca ferguson rips in the mission impossible movies
She's a Swedish national treasure. Best thing to come out of Sweden since Volvo...
the best part of our Volvo is the little Swedish flag on the passenger seat.
Please don't just skip over Alexander Skarsgaard like that.
Good point, Scootie, tho has he done anything of substance since his breakout role as Meekus, one of Derek Zoolander's male model-roommates that is killed in a tragic, gas station accident? I don't recall him making much of an impression in the past 20 years, at least not as big a one as Rebecca Ferguson...
;-)
If you like YouTube explainer videos, one of my favorite channels for this stuff is New Rockstars - here's their Dune breakdown + explainer
https://youtu.be/1kE9LOhEjMQ
Really? It's a fairly simple story.
not everyone is as smart as you.
Sure, the basic story may be fairly simple, but that's also like saying Inception is simply a film about dreams...it's the nuances, the details. In Dune, there are repeated references by various characters to things that have not only not been fully explained, but are also in a different, archaic language.
So learning more on the significance of those terms from these fan sites was what I found informative.
https://twitter.com/c0mmunicants/status/1452033649843453953
It was interesting. It's very Foundation-like in aesthetic – a "pristine" planet and a "rough" planet – and funnily with half the cast of See, which I'd just finished a few days prior to watching Dune ;-)
I prefer the "rough" story line (like Tatooine and Hoth >> Naboo and Coruscant).
Qs I had:
Why, if spice is what allows inter-stellar travel, isn't the planet even more exploited? Like why haven't they just "nuked" the Fremen and the sandworms. This seems more vital to the galaxy's economy than oil is to ours.
Why if they have massive ships and lasers do they fight with swords (again, a See flashback for Momoa and Bautista)?
And like See and Foundation (and Star Trek and later Star Wars), you can't rely on anybody being dead! They just pull swords out of their bodies and go on to kill 15 more people.
I'm sure that there's a lot in the book that didn't make the cut, which might explain things more, and "it's just a movie", but...
1. The worms are involved in the production of spice - it's a long explanation but it's part of their dying process. (it helps to think of Herbert's original intention that a lot of this is an allegory for the middle east/central asia colonization. Also, nukes are banned (along with "thinking" computers) so some tech is advanced and some is not. This is after an incident 10,000 years in the past of the movie (but about 9 thousand years from now in our current timeline) where their version of skynet almost eliminated humans.
2. Because they all have those personal shields - you saw Paul and Gurnney train with them. They block fast attacks but are vulnerable to slow attacks. If you shoot them with a laser - they explode in atomic bomb proportions and kill everyone.
that's good input! I did notice that the "slow" attacks overcame the personal shield. and good to know why they can't just get rid of the worms!
also - if you extend the metaphor, they can't just get rid of the afghans or whoever indigenous people (see: Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc. etc.) because it's their land and they know it better than you and they can survive it better than you - they can hide out and attack you where you're vulnerable.
I suspect we will see how fierce the Fremen are as a fighting force in the next movie.
yeah, I was having Afghan-related thoughts. figured the only way to rid the planet of them would be nukes or chem weapons.
Whoa, whoa, whoa - slow your roll there Mori, it's not at all like Foundation (whether or not if you like it) Foundation is real sci-fi, for better or worse, but Dune is just fiction, set in an imaginary world. Great houses? Dukes, princes? Witches? Have we encountered them before, maybe?
Dune is fun trash, does not bear close examination, and no, the book is NOT better.
ya foundation is made up with rules, dune is just made up
Good way of putting it.
You're fun trash.
I'm not dissing either Foundation or Dune. ;-)
I've not read either of them. Just thru watching them concurrently, I'm noticing similarities. And I don't like the "pristine" palace aesthetic!
Under your definition, would Star Trek be SciFi and Star Wars not? Maybe the latter (and Dune) are Science Fantasy?
Yup, exactly, at least many of the Star Trek episodes dealt with sci-fi concepts, Star Wars is just straight up adventure.
DVD Test Kitchen
Our Crumbling Democracy
pqtm
https://twitter.com/aaronneville/status/1453447717343186945
Today in Covid 19
Got the Moderna booster this morning at Kaiser. Today was the first day for booster shots if your original vaccine was J&J or Pfizer (I'm J&J). My appointment was at 10:45 at Kaiser Oakland.
I arrived at about 10:50 because parking was scarce; I had to wait for a spot to open up. I get to the location of the COVID booster vaccine clinic and there's a line that turns out to be about 100 feet long and it was not socially distanced. I waited 45 minutes to be injected, then 15 minutes after to make sure I'm okay and not having an adverse reaction.
A lady in line nearly fainted. She needed oxygen and was attended by an RN and one other hospital worker.
When I left after the 15 minute waiting period, the line was down to about 30 feet and spots in the parking structure had opened up. Two hours from the time I left my desk until I returned.
But, hey, I have a Moderna booster in my arm. Can't beat that.
Oh, yeah. I got my flu shot last Friday.
Pro
Sad comment I saw yesterday. "Goff finally helped win Rams on Sunday"
People forget they went to Super Bowl with Goff just a few years ago.
but this is a very "what have you done for me lately" kinda job
Yeah, especially in a job that requires visible results. Btw I'm excited to see Rams offense, but would love more DeSean Jackson involvement.
Warriors overcome awful start to beat Thunder, stay undefeated
https://www.goldenstateofmind.com/2021/10/26/22747847/warriors-thunder-steph-curry-andrew-wiggins
the Thunder couldn't miss a 3 in the first half. The Warriors tightened up their D and the Thunder regressed to the mean.
No 1 pointed out that the Thunder O is sorta like the Warrirors O. They pass the ball around and try to get open 3s. They have some decent players that are young. The announcers also pointed out that the Thunder have 35 draft picks over the next 7 years. That's insane.
Warriors can be VERY good if they clean up the silly TOs
It's like they get bored and try to see who can make the most amazing passes. Then as the game winds down they concentrate again.
I feel like the Kerr system has a side effect of more turnovers because of how much passing is involved. But the offensive efficiency you get with it is more than worth the trade.
Packers and ARod are going to have a tough time tomorrow night. Lazard joins Adams on the Covid list.
They should pick up Trevor Davis and Richard Rodgers
And maybe Chad Hansen.
USE HIS REAL NAME.
Handsome
and James Looney
Former Cal and Green Bay Quarterback Rich Campbell is ready
https://twitter.com/RCampbellmc58/status/1453102348159504384?s=20
Rich Campbell
@RCampbellmc58
·
I'm a good catcher.
Wondering if I should roll the dice & pick up some scrub off waiver wire, but I kinda know better than to bet against Rodgers...he always seems to make magic, and the available pickings are slim.
If you’re looking for a bye week Flex, maybe take a flyer on the Rodgers to Rodgers hookup, rookie out of Clemson, Amari Rodgers
Surprised that they would get it. That leads ageless Randall Cobb and E. St Brown as the primary receivers I guess.
Maybe MVS’ hammy holds up - Tonyan will get more looks too.
Quick, someone check if the Cardinals DC is an ex-Cal defensive coach.
NFL's investigation into Washington Football Team won't be released, commissioner Roger Goodell says amid pressure
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/32481925/nfl-investigation-washington-football-team-released-pressure-commissioner-roger-goodell-says
NEW YORK -- NFL commissioner Roger Goodell doubled down Tuesday on the league's decision not to make public the results of its investigation into the workplace culture at the Washington Football Team, saying the anonymity of the people who cooperated with the investigation was too high a priority to allow the league to do so.
"We're very conscious of making sure we're protecting those who came forward," Goodell said after six hours of NFL owners meetings in midtown Manhattan. "That was a very high priority."
The investigation has come under fire again in recent weeks after some of the emails unearthed in the process became public, resulting in the resignation of Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden. In those emails, Gruden used racist, anti-gay and misogynistic language that the league has denounced. Calls to release more of the emails have been rejected.
"We're very conscious of making sure we're protecting those who came forward," Goodell said after six hours of NFL owners meetings in midtown Manhattan. "That was a very high priority."
Could Goodell say anything more cynical than this? He's using other people's privacy as a shield.
Mark Davis has just made a statement that he wants the report released.
hahahahaha, because he lost his coach? Funny.
What if Davis doesn't have any love lost for the NFL or Roger Goodell or other owners?
Remember, it was only a few short years ago that the Raiders wanted to move to Los Angeles and share SoFi stadium with the Rams. And yet, the NFL decided to put the Chargers in LA and send the Raiders to Las Vegas ...or back to Oakland.
Davis also probably doesn't owe shit to Gruden on the remainder of his 10-year contract because Gruden resigned.
@Davis doesn't have any motivation whatsoever for wanting the report made public.@
I guess I don't understand why folks think that the NFL would essentially be subject to freedom of information rules. It's a private company. The public's window into their affairs is through public disclosure documents, leaks, and whistleblowers. The press could want them to be fully transparent about everything and to just give up their emails, but it's not like they have any recourse if the private entity says no.
Salient point - the NFL is not a governmental entity and it isn't subject to public disclosure laws.
At the same time, they do have a potential PR nightmare brewing. Firmly refusing to disclose the report only says that there's way more to the story than just Jon Gruden's jerky emails.
And then we have the Blackhawks 2010 sex scandal. Bowman takes the fall so far.
Exactly...the Gruden info was leaked, probably by someone who had a beef with Gruden.
^^this^^
If this stuff gets out that would be so bad for franchise values. Pro sports teams are not really valued by operating revenue like a normal business. They are valued based on what they can be resold for, which is another way of saying they are the playthings of billionaires, the way these guys use their money to become important members of society (like Mark Cuban is a good example). However if owning a sports team subjects you to heightened or even congressional scrutiny and cancellation, then maybe the value does drop down to just a matter of revenue… of course, that would be good for fans, as games would probably become cheaper, but I imagine the NFL will die on this hill
franchises are also a great tax management mechanism, apparently there's all sorts of shit you can amortize or book as a loss to legally avoid paying tax.
A move designed to protect NFL owners, who probably in some cases have racist, homophobic, and misogynistic views.
Also I can't wait for it to leak anyway
Exactly, can't be having rich people get sunlight on them
Manfred defends racist hand gesture
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/32482435/braves-tomahawk-chop-gesture-matter-atlanta-native-american-community-commissioner-rob-manfred-says
"It's important to understand we have 30 markets around the country," Manfred said before Game 1 between the Braves and Astros on Tuesday evening. "They're not all the same. The Braves have done a phenomenal job with the Native American community."
Manfred said the Native American community in the Atlanta region "is wholly supportive of the Braves program, including the chop. For me, that's the end of the story."
However, opinions on the gesture have varied over the years within Native American communities, including some with ties to the region. The National Council of American Indians has called for the franchise to drop the chop as well as the team nickname.
This 30-different-markets point he's making is especially dumb given the forum, which is the a press availability at the World Series - a national event with a national broadcast.
In some parts of the country, being racist is not just permitted but encouraged! LOL Manfred, what a tool
I feel like the name Braves is ok as it is (basically the same as the Warriors), but the problem is that you usually want to use the nickname to create a whole universe of imagery/cheers/etc. Almost any use of Native imagery in that way is offensive. So it seems like a better move to just change the name to some other thing so you can have a non-racist universe of imagery for marketing purposes
This is an interesting point, but I think the Braves name itself might be offensive. The old name of the Washington Football Team was clearly offensive. Indians, too. Braves is less so, perhaps, but is there any use of Braves that isn't related to native folks? I don't know that I've ever heard anybody refer to a collection of brave people by calling them braves.
It's not quite like the Warriors. Anybody can be a warrior - it's not necessarily a reference. Maybe my fandom puts my thumb on the scale, but I don't think that's it's a fair comparison. I think Atlanta needs to change their name, but the Warriors don't.
True, Warriors is generic, but Braves isn't any sort of insult. IDK but it doesn't bother me in particular.
That's the most Whitey McWhiterson position imaginable.
🙄
Well, I suppose you could say that while the term “brave” is not itself derogatory, its use as a team mascot is offensive because it is demeaning to make a human into mascot type caricature. It would be like calling your team the Jews. I get that, now that I think about it a bit more.
Warriors does have that problem too, because in reality basically every team with that name was specifically referring to Native American Warriors when they selected the name. However the remedy is different. With Braves, the name would need to be changed as the word has no other meaning. With Warriors, it is also a generic term, so you can keep the name but scrub the Native imagery, I think.
Look at me, growing on this thread!
My personal opinion on this is that "Redskins" and "Indians" needed to go, because the former is an actual ethnic slur and the latter came with an obvious racist caricature as the mascot (really it's more that Chief Wahoo needed to go, but you probably had to also change the name to be fully rid of him).
"Braves" and "Chiefs" are in a greyer area for me. In and of themselves those names are not terms of disrespect, but they do come with a lot of associated stuff (Tomahawk Chop) that probably is disrespectful. It would be pretty hard to completely disassociate the names from those things. The Warriors, IMO, have successfully disassociated the name from the original Native American mascot. No one who is too young to remember the 1960s really thinks about that team as having a Native American name. You can't say the same for the Braves or Chiefs.
I wouldn't necessarily go to the mat for changing the names in the latter category, but if there was a clear enough push from Native American tribes to do so I would defer to their wishes.
I mean, theoretically you could scrub all the Native imagery from the Braves uniforms and whatnot, but not sure how realistic that is at this point. Very hard to disentangle.
The Chiefs would be another interesting question here.
Manfred, good lord. I know I shouldn't be surprised but c'mon man.
Other College
Bottom 25 for the Week.
https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/college-football-rankings-indiana-joins-the-bottom-25-umass-leapfrogs-into-no-1-spot/
The good news is that the Bears are no longer on this List of Shame.
Arizona's points off turnovers margin (-8 per game) struck me as completely ridiculous, so I fact checked it. I couldn't find the stat, but I did find turnover margin, which is -1.43/game, which is worst (130 out of 130) in FBS by a mile. To put this into perspective, this is 25% worse than the next. And double that of 116th. Putting the two stats together, when they do give away the ball - opponents usually score a TD.
https://www.ncaa.com/stats/football/fbs/current/team/29/p3
genuinely curious how much Arizona would win by if they played Mater Dei
The real question is how much will they win by when Cal visits Tucson.
100-0 obvio
Arizona wins 100-0. The jump from HS to college is enormous.
If we're talking about Mater Dei the OC Prep, I wouldn't be so sure about that.
yes BUT Arizona really really sucks
The game will still be close, FS...Cal is not efficient enough to blow them out on the road, no matter how bad they are.
They sure do. Just abysmal.
But I remember the jarring nature of my first ever college volleyball practice at UCSC. Every single player on the court was better than anyone I played against in high school. The leap was massive. And it's not like Slug Volleyball was UCLA.
friggin mater dei