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Articles by Halloween Jack
Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit enjoying his quiet life, is swept into an epic quest by Gandalf the Grey and thirteen dwarves who seek to reclaim their mountain home from Smaug, the dragon. This is, of course, the first of three movies, and greatly expanded from the original book. Although the book came well before the The Lord of the Rings book trilogy, this movie comes well after the LotR movies and therefore is heavily influenced by them.
Venom? Not even scared of 'em
Snakes bite millions of people every year, and cause between 81,000 and 138,000 deaths, making snakebite a Neglected Tropical Disease, but they're difficult to treat with antivenom without knowing the species of snake that bit the victim. However, researchers are working on a type of treatment that would target entire classes of toxins, with the assistance of a man with an astonishing qualification: he's let himself get bitten by snakes over 200 times.
Movie: Overnight
Alternately hilarious and horrifying, Overnight chronicles one man's misadventures of making a Hollywood movie. It starts out as a rags to riches story as Troy Duffy, a Boston-bred bartender, sells his first screenplay for The Boondock Saints.
In a gritty and alternate 1985, the glory days of costumed vigilantes have been brought to a close by a government crackdown. But after one of the masked veterans is brutally murdered, an investigation into the killer is initiated. The reunited heroes set out to prevent their own destruction, but in doing so they uncover a sinister plot that puts all of humanity in grave danger. Posting this mostly because it's another "no one's posted this on FF yet?" kind of thing.
The Honey Trap
Browser extension Honey promises to find you the best coupon deals for various goods and services online. But does it really? (Spoiler alert: no.) Apparently they've been doing two things surreptitiously: a) substituting affiliate links with their own, so that they get credit for the sale, and b) making sure that the "best" coupon deal for any given product isn't necessarily the actual best deal, via an agreement with the seller of that product. YouTuber MegaLag has the deets.
Movie: Nightbitch
A woman pauses her career to be a stay-at-home mom, but soon her domesticity takes a surreal turn. An adaptation of the book by Rachel Yoder (FF thread here). Stars Amy Adams, Scoot McNairy, and Jessica Harper. CW: various bodily functions (including childbirth) and some dead animals. I wasn't sure to make this show-only or books-included.
Memory Alpha doesn't skip radius day: - The title would seem to be a reference to something called "Of Gods and Angels", but I'm not finding anything with that exact title; most of the stuff that's close appears to be religious/inspirational books and websites. - The gods and goddesses that Olly is descended from are the ones mentioned (and in Apollo's case, shown) in the TOS episode "Who Mourns for Adonais?".
In order to save his dying father, young stunt cyclist Johnny Blaze sells his soul to Mephistopheles and sadly parts from the pure-hearted Roxanne Simpson, the love of his life. Years later, Johnny's path crosses again with Roxanne, now a go-getting reporter, and also with Mephistopheles, who offers to release Johnny's soul if Johnny becomes the fabled, fiery 'Ghost Rider'.
Star Trek: Lower Decks: Shades of Green
Memory Alpha does what it wants 'cause a pirate is free: - Solar sail-powered spacecraft were first seen in episodes of DS9 and SNW; it's based on a real (if still mostly speculative) proposed method of propulsion, although the sail would have to be orders of magnitude larger than the ones shown on Trek. - "Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism" is slang for the type of post-scarcity (although some things do remain scarce because they can't be replicated) shown in Trek.
Memory Alpha will be seeing you in all the old familiar places: - Naomi Wildman might actually be only 10 or so in continuity. Huh. Still made the "30 under 30" list. - The blue Orions appeared in TAS' "The Pirates of Orion", and yes, that's how they pronounced it. - I hope that Prime Shaxs (we know which crew is prime) goes with the braid, it's kinda cool. "Don't you give me that sarcastic Vulcan salute.
Forget Gladwell
"All nonfiction writers can end up writing incorrect or controversial things, but why does every Gladwell book push half-formed and inaccurate theories?" A modest proposal: Forget Gladwell. [W. David Marx in Culture: An Owner's Manual] Especially valuable for the rundown of critiques of all of Malcolm Gladwell's books.
Preview - AFL 2024 Second Elimination Final - Dogs v Hawks Fri Sept 6th 7:40pm EST (MCG)
#16 Dogs should get over the line in this one. They a more finals hardened team than us and bat deeper through the middle and their 3 talls may cause us some issues. This is were hawthorn should be in 2025 or 2026 not this year. Having basically 19 or 20 of our best 22 out there has helped on this hot run where on This is a final the dogs simply cannot afford to lose, with this supposed mega talented list we keep hearing about to miss top 4 again and go out in week 1 would be an abject failure.
Game Day - AFL 2024 Second Elimination Final - Dogs v Hawks Fri Sept 6th 7:40pm EST (MCG) - Teams in OP
#16 Dogs should get over the line in this one. They a more finals hardened team than us and bat deeper through the middle and their 3 talls may cause us some issues. This is were hawthorn should be in 2025 or 2026 not this year. Having basically 19 or 20 of our best 22 out there has helped on this hot run where on This is a final the dogs simply cannot afford to lose, with this supposed mega talented list we keep hearing about to miss top 4 again and go out in week 1 would be an abject failure.
The Last of Us + Breaking Bad + A Bug's Life: The Porn Parody
Hyper-sexual "zombie cicadas" that are infected with sexually transmitted fungus expected to emerge this year. Some of Brood XIX and Brood XIII, the cicada broods that are both emerging this year in some parts of the US, are infected with a fungus, Massospora cicadina, which can replace the lower abdomen of the bug with a mass of fungal spores. The infected cicadas then infect other cicadas by simulating mating activity.
Movie: The Specials
America's 7th Best Superhero Team, the Specials, are a group of geeks and oddballs. We get to see one day in their lives as fan and new member Nightbird joins the group, just in time for the group to get a new line of action figures. But the members' extreme personalities and personal issues threaten to rip the group apart.
And many of the ones that were, probably shouldn't have been
Cannon Films Promo Reel '86 - Half of These Were Never Made! [slyt] Shows planned upcoming films from Cannon Films when they were arguably at their Golan-Globus height in the mid-eighties. Mostly shlock, but some surprisingly serious films in there. (Also, it was more like about two-thirds of them were made, although many of those sank without a trace.) I was going to make a big post listing all of them and which ones were made, but YT commenter @robmclean4352 already did in the top-voted comment.
The Luke Jackson trade.
An athletic specimen with not an iota of forward craft, a decent but undersized ruck and a poor overhead mark with hands like cement. Has there ever been a worse list management decision in recent times? Freo lose Lobb, Acres and Logue who while no world beaters all solid citizens in a finals team with good future prospects. All for a bloke that played 5 minutes of good football in a grand final with two of the best midfielders of this generation probably making him look a bit better than he was.
Elvis Has Not Left The Building
The Tennessee Attorney General is investigating the mysterious investment company that attempted to have Graceland, the late Elvis Presley's mansion that is one of America's most successful tourist attractions, sold at a foreclosure sale.
Grace Cummings
So I was out yesterday and listening to the NPR show World Cafe, as I do if/when I'm out at that time, and the host starts going on and on about the voice of the featured artist that day, about how stunning it is, and I'm thinking, come on, don't oversell it. They weren't overselling it.
This is the story of the Theranos of marshmallows
Maybe you've heard of Smashmallow; maybe you even bought some. In the couple of years before the pandemic, they were everywhere. Now? Pfft. The problem wasn't the marshmallows — they were, by all accounts, delicious. The problem was scale. Smashmallows were designed to look like an artisanal, boutique product, but that wasn't enough for Sebastiani: He wanted to manufacture billions of them, to build a company that would bestride Candyland like a squishy colossus.
The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy: The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy
Animated series that does just what it says in the tin: takes a comedic look at the title institution. You could call it "Star Trek: Lower Decks only just the sick bay, but larger and with more doctors and people" or "Rick and Morty meets Scrubs," and you wouldn't exactly be wrong, but it seems maybe a little bit more than that. On Amazon Prime; here's the trailer.
White House Down (and Up)
The White House has its own pharmacy—and, boy, was it shady under Trump [Ars Technica] From the article: "[A]ccording to a recent investigation report from the Department of Defense’s Office of the Inspector General[PDF]...
300 to 400 physicians a year in the US take their own lives...
US surgeons are killing themselves at an alarming rate. One decided to speak out “I was the top junior tennis player in the United States,” she began. “I am an associate professor of surgery at Harvard. “But I am also human. I am a person with lifelong depression, anxiety, and now a substance use disorder.” The room fell silent.
Barbenheimer
Forget DC vs. Marvel, scruffies vs. stuffies, even Pepsi vs. Coke--the real match of the century is nearly upon us. In this corner, Christopher Nolan with the dawn of the atomic age in all its nuclear-powered fury! In this corner, Greta Gerwig with umpteen squigglewatts of shocking pink hot-pink-laser girlitude! Which one will you choose? Or, you know, just do both. Tom Cruise is involved. Memes have sprung up like toadstools after a summer rain. Other unlikely double features have been noted.
Don't Fear the Reaper
You are locked in? This is what you want? Because it sounds like you have a lot going on, the agent said, according to the affidavit. You're in the military. You've got college. You've got a lot...
Cocaine Cat
You've heard about Cocaine Bear, now get ready for Cocaine Cat. Found after it escaped from a car during a traffic stop in Cincinnati, the serval (which is illegal to own in Ohio), named Amiry, was tested and found to have cocaine in its system. And why, you might ask, would someone test an escaped wild animal for drugs? Because the organization providing care, Cincinnati Animal CARE, had previously taken in a capuchin monkey named Neo that had methamphetamine in its system.
What is grief, if not love persevering?
What you learn about beauty and grief as a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Bringley writes about going to the Philadelphia Museum of Art with his mother shortly after his brother’s death. They each gravitated toward a single painting. Bringley found himself before a medieval Adoration of the Christ, depicting Mary tender and peaceful with her newborn son. His mother, meanwhile, went to an early Renaissance Lamentation, in which Mary cradles her son’s tormented corpse.
Parents are skeptical about sleepovers
'What a once-simple rite of childhood reveals about the divisions among us' "Among parents who are skeptical of this particular rite of childhood, one question — 'Can I spend the night?' — unleashes a slew of others: How well do we know the other parents? Are there guns in the house? What about alcohol or drugs? What is the risk of covid exposure? Are there older siblings around? Will the kids be watching YouTube or TikTok all night? Is it a girls-only or boys-only gathering?
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65 December 15, 2022 1:05 AM Subscribe « Older The Passion According to Andrei
Be water, my friend, but don't drink it all
Who killed Bruce Lee? The hyponatraemia hypothesis [link to Clinical Kidney Journal article, should be non-paywalled]
Now I want to hear her do some Hendrix covers
Harpist Emily Hopkins (previously on the blue) experiments with wah-wah pedals. Bonus: how about an e-bow? How about a Pickasa bow? How about a regular bow? How about a tiny bow? posted by Halloween Jack (6 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite This is a lot of fun, but why are her feet blurred out in the section starting at around 10:15?
Miss Dinkley Is Queer
Velma Is Officially a Lesbian in New ‘Scooby-Doo’ Film, Years After James Gunn and More Tried to Make Her Explicitly Gay [Variety] Velma Dinkley [Wikipedia] OMG LESBIAN VELMA FINALLY CANON CANON IN THE MOVIES LETS GOOOOOO [Trin] Velma’s Taking It [Vulture] Fans cheer as Velma is shown crushing on a woman in the new Scooby-Doo movie [NPR] posted by chavenet (5 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite Are they bringing back the preppies-vs.-weirdos dynamic the original series was...
On the Trail of the Woozle
The Woozle Effect, named after a Winnie-the-Pooh story, "occurs when frequent citation of publications lacking evidence misleads individuals, groups, and the public, and nonfacts become urban myths and factoids." [Wikipedia] It appeared in a recent reddit post on /r/badhistory , "Woozling History: A Case Study", picking apart a recent tweet to the effect that "You have less free time than a medieval peasant", following the citations to the original source, which is less than convincing.
I understood that reference. (I Avengers 55:49)
Search Movie Quotes. Does what it says on the tin, for MCU and Star Wars; cites in the manner of Bible verses. posted by Halloween Jack (9 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite Does not find "You rebel scum", fail. posted by Sand at 8:23 AM on May 2 Huh. The MCU side seems to work fine, the Star Wars one... not so much. posted by Halloween Jack at 8:29 AM on May 2 Is the Star Wars one a troll? I think it only has Episodes I-III?
What the Fitness Industry Doesn't Understand
A new generation of fitness instructors teaches simple skills that make a difference. Why is beginner-level exercise treated like a niche?
Noom is a diet app in an anti-diet moment
The Noom paradox: A diet app, claiming to be not a diet app-- and the current anti-diet cultural war around food, weight, bodies, and health. "There is no other product that could have a 5 percent efficacy rate and be peddled as hard as diets are peddled." posted by dancing leaves (0 comments total)
Meet the Liverbirds
With the recent release of Peter Jackson's documentary The Beatles: Get Back, it's a good time to look at one of the other Liverpool bands of the British Invasion era, one of the few all-female Merseybeat groups (and probably the only one that's been the subject of a musical): The Liverbirds, subject of a (fairly) recent short documentary of their own.
First official MCU/ex-X-verse crossover released for free!
Deadpool and Korg (Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Endgame) do a reaction video for the trailer for a movie called Free Guy, starring a couple of guys named Ryan Reynolds and Taika Waititi. Where's Miek? posted by Halloween Jack (8 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite "Maybe this is the live-action Thumper we all haven't been waiting for..." posted by chavenet at 11:00 AM on July 14 [1 favorite] Sigh... MetaFilter: the live-action Thumper we all haven't been waiting for...
The second-most-disappointing New Mutants of the past year
posted by Halloween Jack (4 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite I said, “Chuck, maybe you can do something with them?” but Professor X said he had seen what was in their minds and would pass. Heh I see what you did there posted by bleep at 7:36 AM on June 16 [2 favorites] Petri is a national treasure. posted by stevis23 at 8:15 AM on June 16
Doppelhaushälften
What can happen when only half a house is sold? Doppelhaushälften (Semi-detached houses), in this case houses in the Ruhr region of Germany, where former coal miners retain a lifelong right of residence to their quarters, and the sold half is renovated. Photography by Wolfgang Fröhling. posted by Halloween Jack (8 comments total) You sometimes see similar things with semi-detached houses in England, with each side being painted differently.
Paying the Danegeld
The Slander Industry [slNYT] Two NYT reporters investigate "the secret, symbiotic relationship between those facilitating slander and those getting paid to remove it" by having one of them submit himself to a reputation-wrecking website and seeing where else his face and name popped up, then going to the reputation-repair sites. A follow-up of sorts to this article (earlier on the blue). (Via boingboing). posted by Halloween Jack (0 comments total)
How Bears Cross a Road
It gets complicated. [SLTwitter] posted by Halloween Jack (2 comments total) Bear with me little ones. posted by y2karl at 10:33 AM on March 30 There are SO MANY of them!! I love the cubs' little high-stepping march across the road. posted by Gray Duck at 10:35 AM on March 30
CueCat-Scam.com
In the run-up to the Georgia run-off election for the Senate, one man has stepped forward as a self-proclaimed "pattern recognition expert", claiming to be on "approximately about 12 billion devices globally", and erstwhile "full-blown treasure hunter" (dig it--the Ark of the Covenant is on Oak Island!), and most notoriously, the inventor of the :CueCat. Brace yourselves, America, here comes Jovan Hutton Pulitzer--again.
The Beirut Port Explosion: Forensic Architecture
"Mr Collett contended that from an engineering perspective, the arrangement of goods within the building was the spatial layout of a makeshift bomb on the scale of a warehouse, awaiting detonation." Forensic Architecture, a research group based at the University of London, investigates the Beirut Port explosion and publishes its findings.
"I was never in your--"
The Supernatural Finale Aired, And Tumblr Exploded - a longform video dissection of the long-running CW show Supernatural, its exceptional fandom, their favorite ship (Destiel), and the controversial finale, by vlogger Sarah Z.
A Twenty-Year (And Counting) Mission
Amid all the terrestrial chaos, an anniversary slipped past almost unnoticed: humans have occupied space for a solid twenty years, courtesy of the International Space Station, a joint project of NASA, Roscosmos, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (ASC or CSA, depending). Since 2000, over two hundred astronauts, cosmonauts, and space tourists from various nations have taken turns flying above our heads.
FATALITY & Fiends 2016-18
Chapter 5: The End of This Train-wreck - Two different Grey vessels doing who-the-gently caress-knows-what end up crashing in or near the Groom Lake Air Force Base/Area 51/Dreamland in Roswell, NM. It's not clear whether the ships were shot down by the U.S. military or whether they just experienced some unfortunately timed equipment failure, but what is clear is that this is the first time that the U.S. government found incontrovertible evidence that homo sapiens are not alone in the universe.
FATALITY & Fiends 2016-18
Legend of the Five Rings: Now I Have The Advantage Our next set of questions! 9. What is your character's greatest accomplishment so far? You get to decide what your big achievement to date is - winning a tournament, creating a great work of art, killing some powerful animal on a hunt, leading a negotiation for a successful diplomatic marriage, whatever.
Can't finish Windows 10 update
Hi folks, I can't seem to finish the KB4022714 update. Everytime I turn the computer off it goes through the whole configuring, installing, restarting stuff, and then right at the end it simply says it 'we were unable to complete the updates' So frustrating as it takes ages each time. I'm not getting any specific error message to help understand what's wrong. I tried downloading the msu file and doing it manually with the same result right at the end.
Question - Looking for a 49-50" TV for around £500
Hi folks, As above but budget is flexible. We sit 2.8m away. Will be used for game consoles, streaming files from a NAS, Catchup tv, Amazon Prime and...
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