Crossing off the list
1) "Wheeee" seems to be a universal concept. Not much else in animal vids this time, but a general comment about the recent temperatures. Our apartments' monthly pest control visits were put off for two weeks because their insecticide was freezing in the cans.
2) Next week we'll start a new TV subscription. I expected to this month but we had so much backlogged stuff to see on Netflix and our bundled HBO Max that it made no sense. Shows we have or are about to finish include Miss Scarlet and The Duke, All Creatures Great and Small, S4 of Outlander, Wyatt Cenac's Problem Areas, and Flight Attendant. I've also finished Whitechapel, Dark and a few movies this month.
One of them was The Dig on Netflix. The movie itself was an easy watch if a little slow. I became curious about various characters and looked them up on Wikipedia. Although the story is generally true (and was written by one of the excavator's nephews) it was significantly altered in several respects, most notably regarding the nephew's aunt Peggy, who was a better known archaeologist at the time than she was portrayed. For some reason the filmmakers seemed to think a romantic storyline was needed, so a male character was created for her to romance even though she was married, though in the film it's portrayed as being to a much older and gay man although her husband was actually only 2 years older. Though they did divorce well after the war, they were friends and colleagues to the end of their lives. To me the "romance" added nothing to the movie and I fail to see why they didn't focus on the actual marriage of the couple if they wanted that element. I guess it's that tired excuse of how writers can't find anything interesting to say about marriage, only about flings.
"The character of Lomax, Pretty's cousin, is depicted as the photographer.[23] In reality, Mercie Lack and Barbara Wagstaff (two teachers), and O. G. S. Crawford (the archaeological officer of the Ordnance Survey) separately took series of photographs.[24] The two women who extensively photographed the site were excluded from the book and film in order to create a romantic storyline"
Also interesting was that while Edith did die not long after and she did have a young son Robert, she was 47 when he was born which is pretty remarkable for a first birth. Originally the film was to cast an age appropriate actress but when Nicole Kidman didn't do it, they went young.
If anything, I could have dispensed with anyone but Edith and Basil and finding out more about their backstories.
I also started Allen vs Farrow, which can't be called enjoyable viewing but does seem well put together. From the looks of it, it's going to be released an episode a week.
Stuff I'm still in the process of watching includes Resident Alien, Cobra Kai, Call My Agent's new season, Ozark, Korra, and Lupin. I expect all of that to be completed next month, so I'll be doing Paramount+ where I've got Discovery's new season, the new animated Trek series, and the new season of Good Fight to watch. Depending on how much of the Paramount back catalog is of interest we might keep the subscription into April but otherwise we should go through all that in a month and then it'll be onto Disney+ where I can catch up on the Marvel shows.
3) I keep being amazed at the poor design of survey questions, such as those which do not include "none of the above" options thus forcing you to declare things that are untrue, and the constant assumption that because I am Hispanic I live with someone who also speaks Spanish. Sure it's likely, but it is hardly universal.
But most hated are the surveys designed to cheat the takers out of being paid for completing them. Not a week goes by that I don't reach the end of a survey (usually obvious because most wrap up with demographic questions, but sometimes even have a progress bar showing you that you're at the end) only for it to non-qualify me. One could even say those were errors except for the surveys that give you 10 minutes worth of questions only to then say you don't qualify to take the survey.
And then you have surveys that spend money pointlessly by either not asking you at the start if you know about or use a particular thing, or if they do ask, ignoring the response and pushing you through the survey anyway which you can't answer anything about.
4) Interesting overview of "news" on WeChat and how this model might very well be adopted by countries or regions who want to separate themselves from FB, Google and other aggregators.
"Also, only Google and Facebook have been the focus of the media bargaining code so far. Can we expect regulation of Reddit, Discord, TikTok, WeChat, Twitter, or even MySpace and Ello? What about news platforms that link to other news platforms? These developments have not yet played out."
5) What I'd like to know is why on earth the IRS wanted to track Americans via their cell phone data?
View poll: Kudos Footer-262
Comments at Dreamwidth
.
2) Next week we'll start a new TV subscription. I expected to this month but we had so much backlogged stuff to see on Netflix and our bundled HBO Max that it made no sense. Shows we have or are about to finish include Miss Scarlet and The Duke, All Creatures Great and Small, S4 of Outlander, Wyatt Cenac's Problem Areas, and Flight Attendant. I've also finished Whitechapel, Dark and a few movies this month.
One of them was The Dig on Netflix. The movie itself was an easy watch if a little slow. I became curious about various characters and looked them up on Wikipedia. Although the story is generally true (and was written by one of the excavator's nephews) it was significantly altered in several respects, most notably regarding the nephew's aunt Peggy, who was a better known archaeologist at the time than she was portrayed. For some reason the filmmakers seemed to think a romantic storyline was needed, so a male character was created for her to romance even though she was married, though in the film it's portrayed as being to a much older and gay man although her husband was actually only 2 years older. Though they did divorce well after the war, they were friends and colleagues to the end of their lives. To me the "romance" added nothing to the movie and I fail to see why they didn't focus on the actual marriage of the couple if they wanted that element. I guess it's that tired excuse of how writers can't find anything interesting to say about marriage, only about flings.
"The character of Lomax, Pretty's cousin, is depicted as the photographer.[23] In reality, Mercie Lack and Barbara Wagstaff (two teachers), and O. G. S. Crawford (the archaeological officer of the Ordnance Survey) separately took series of photographs.[24] The two women who extensively photographed the site were excluded from the book and film in order to create a romantic storyline"
Also interesting was that while Edith did die not long after and she did have a young son Robert, she was 47 when he was born which is pretty remarkable for a first birth. Originally the film was to cast an age appropriate actress but when Nicole Kidman didn't do it, they went young.
If anything, I could have dispensed with anyone but Edith and Basil and finding out more about their backstories.
I also started Allen vs Farrow, which can't be called enjoyable viewing but does seem well put together. From the looks of it, it's going to be released an episode a week.
Stuff I'm still in the process of watching includes Resident Alien, Cobra Kai, Call My Agent's new season, Ozark, Korra, and Lupin. I expect all of that to be completed next month, so I'll be doing Paramount+ where I've got Discovery's new season, the new animated Trek series, and the new season of Good Fight to watch. Depending on how much of the Paramount back catalog is of interest we might keep the subscription into April but otherwise we should go through all that in a month and then it'll be onto Disney+ where I can catch up on the Marvel shows.
3) I keep being amazed at the poor design of survey questions, such as those which do not include "none of the above" options thus forcing you to declare things that are untrue, and the constant assumption that because I am Hispanic I live with someone who also speaks Spanish. Sure it's likely, but it is hardly universal.
But most hated are the surveys designed to cheat the takers out of being paid for completing them. Not a week goes by that I don't reach the end of a survey (usually obvious because most wrap up with demographic questions, but sometimes even have a progress bar showing you that you're at the end) only for it to non-qualify me. One could even say those were errors except for the surveys that give you 10 minutes worth of questions only to then say you don't qualify to take the survey.
And then you have surveys that spend money pointlessly by either not asking you at the start if you know about or use a particular thing, or if they do ask, ignoring the response and pushing you through the survey anyway which you can't answer anything about.
4) Interesting overview of "news" on WeChat and how this model might very well be adopted by countries or regions who want to separate themselves from FB, Google and other aggregators.
"Also, only Google and Facebook have been the focus of the media bargaining code so far. Can we expect regulation of Reddit, Discord, TikTok, WeChat, Twitter, or even MySpace and Ello? What about news platforms that link to other news platforms? These developments have not yet played out."
5) What I'd like to know is why on earth the IRS wanted to track Americans via their cell phone data?
View poll: Kudos Footer-262
Comments at Dreamwidth
.