Interesting Links for 05-08-2014

[andrewducker]

• This pretty much sums up how I felt about "Guardians of the Galaxy"
  (tags: review marvel movies )
• The stigma of being an atheist in the US
  (tags: atheism society USA )
• How much more do programmers get paid (as a map - Bulgaria surprised me!)
  (tags: programming maps money )
• Hotel fines brides $500 for every bad review their guests post online
  (tags

Comments

[artkouros]

I think Madalyn Murray O'Hair sort of ruined it for atheists in America. She was the symbol of atheism and not a very likable person.

[andrewducker]

One hopes that it's only a mini-ruining.

And that eventually America will catch up with the rest of the civilised world.

Interestingly, I was digging out the graph for religion vs wealth across countries:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/04/opinion/04blow.html

and came across this commentary on it:
http://tobingrant.religionnews.com/2014/07/10/inequality-usa-outlier-religiosity-economics/

Showing that it's inequality that's the issue.

[artkouros]

America was founded on religiosity and has always been very religious. Income inequality is a fairly recent thing, growing greatly in the past 30 years, during the same time that Americans have become less religious, so I'm not sure I buy the correlation.

[gwendally]

At issue is that nearly every atheist who expounds on it is not a very likeable person. The basic tenant of their religion is that "My brain understands everything in the Universe and can tell you that there is no God." Um. Sure, your brain is that big. How nice for you.

Anyone with that little humility, that sense of superiority, that lack of imagination is a poor choice for someone to hang out with.

It's easier to be around people who don't share your perception of Higher Power than it is to be around someone who thinks they are so smart that they understand all the contents of the 10 to 26 dimensions in our Universe.

[theweaselking]

The fact that That Dude keeps comparing Guardians negatively on racial and sexual grounds to *FIREFLY* - and praising Firefly in the process - pretty clearly shows the quality of his thinking.

[andrewducker]

It certainly shows what the writing was like, sexually, in GotG.

[theweaselking]

Guardians has issues - pretty typical ones, and certainly fails hard in spots.

But *Firefly*? Saying "Firefly did race and gender better" is a terrible insult to a film, and I think that's being unfairly cruel to Guardians.
Saying "Firefly did race and gender well" just shows that you weren't paying attention to race and gender when you watched Firefly.

[kerrypolka]

I didn't understand why he kept referring to Firefly/Serenity, since I thought Guardians of the Galaxy was clearly and consciously keeping its references/homages to the 1970s and 80s (Star Wars being the main one). Is it just that all films about quirky characters banding together to have adventures in space are now attached to Firefly because it's the most recent popular version?

[swisstone]

I clicked that Guardians link, and found it was me. Thanks.

[andrewducker]

:->

It was a good review.

(See further down for dissenters, if you fancy.)

[i_kender]

Hey random question: I know you're a programmer but do you do ad hoc web development on the side? Like if I had a friend who needed help setting up a website?

[andrewducker]

Not really, I'm afraid.

My design skills are rubbish, and with life at the moment I can't manage more than a couple of hours per week doing hobby coding stuff - I'm just not reliable enough to help others.

Happy to answer questions if I can - or point others towards stuff if they can help.

[i_kender]

Totally fine, thanks for replying :)

[apostle_of_eris]

1) I can't tell if it works if I don't know what it's supposed to do. Does this proposed web site have a explicit purpose, or just someone thought it would be a good idea?
2) A good web site combines good design with good programming, left brain and right brain in tandem . . .

[apostle_of_eris]

Interesting that most of the discussion of the Marvel movie is about marketing Marvel.

Would I be sorry if I asked wtf a "linguistically-themed novel" is?

[andrewducker]

A novel about language, obviously :->

And there's not an awful lot that's that interesting about the movie to talk about. cavalorn has a theory about fatherhood, but mostly it's just a fun ride. You can critique it for various points, but unless you're writing fanfic there's not a huge amount to say other than "Well that was fun."