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Orson Welles' 'Touch of Evil' lacks a soul
daviramos.com 'Touch of Evil' lacks a soul

tells the story of Mexican prosecutor Miguel Vargas who must fight against the corrupt Police Captain Hank Quinlan. Vargas is played by Charlton Heston i...

'Touch of Evil' lacks a soul

I haven't written a movie review in ages! I am currently watching a bunch of film noir, finally filling that gap. These are my impressions of Touch of Evil, a highly regarded film noir by the director of Citizen Kane. I am ambivalent about it, as will become clear in the article.

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My impressions of Bear Blog
  • That is way over my head as I am genuinely a non technical user. I tried many times to have a statistic page and every time I failed. It may be hard to believe but some things that are trivial for hackers are not trivial for most people. For years, my domain name was going to waste. So my choice was between having a webpage on someone's server or none at all. If a professional programmer wish to dedicate their very valuable time to make a static page for me for free, I'm all ears :) Until then, Bear Blog seems rather reasonable.

  • daviramos.com My impressions of Bear Blog

    This post will be very plain. That is because is excellent in a way that is obvious and requires little explaining. is a minimalistic blogging service tha...

    My impressions of Bear Blog
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    Will & Harper | Official Trailer | Netflix

    "Will Ferrell and his close friend, former head writer at SNL, Harper Steele embark on a cross-country road trip together after Harper comes out as a trans woman. Watch Will & Harper on September 27 on Netflix." (from the YouTube description)

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    Amazon cloud boss echoes NVIDIA CEO on coding being dead in the water: "If you go forward 24 months from now, it's possible that most developers are not coding"
  • That was a a fairly short article reporting on another article. The title gives the impression that the assertion was made with certainty when the actual quote makes it clear that this was meant as speculation, a calculated guess made on a conversation that was not meant to be public. I truly have no inclination to defend corporate leadership, but perhaps it would be more productive to direct our sentiments towards the article that is being quoted instead.

  • "You give out too many stars" (2008)
    www.rogerebert.com "You give out too many stars" | Roger Ebert | Roger Ebert

    That's what some people tell me. Maybe I do. I look myself up in Metacritic, which compiles statistics comparing critics, and I find: "On average, this critic grades 8.9 points higher than other critics (0-100 point scale)." Wow. What a pushover. Part of my problem may be caused by conversion of the...

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    People who wear glasses, what are some things someone new to glasses should know?
  • For years I was the only one in my family that didn't wear glasses. When the doctor told me I needed glasses, I was so happy. I found glasses distinct, elegant, and, in girls, very very cute (my wife just started wearing glasses... wowza!).

    My "real" me, the one I like and recognize in the mirror, has glasses on. And it's not one of those glasses that pretend they're not even there -- it's a thick black frame that dominates and complements my face.

    I could totally get away with not wearing glasses in some situations, but (1) I like the visual comfort, and (2) I love wearing glasses.

    Get the glasses that make you feel like yourself.

  • Mental illness account for a very small proportion of mass shootings in the US
    www.columbiapsychiatry.org Is There a Link Between Mental Health and Mass Shootings?

    Findings from the Columbia database help dispel the myth that having a severe psychiatric illness is predictive of who will perpetrate mass murder.

    Is There a Link Between Mental Health and Mass Shootings?
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    Windows-as-a-nuisance: How I clean up a “clean install” of Windows 11 and Edge
  • I use Linux currently and have for many years. It is a wonderful operating system. However, if you wish to switch to Linux, it is in your best interest to understand that enthusiasts will oversell whatever they love, and they will do so without even noticing it.

    Gaming on Linux is impressive and it's getting better every day, but it is still not the same as Windows.

    Depending on the games you wish to play, you may feel frustrated at times. Also, barely any peripherals have official Linux support on a software level. I'm talking about fancy keyboards, mice, gamepads, cameras, microphones, headphones, and all kinds of RGB contraptions.

    If something doesn't work, the next recommended steps can range from installing a complicated third-party interface to essentially programming your own. If I read the word "kernel" as part of a solution, chances are that I'm just buying something else instead.

    People also forget that even supported games sometimes malfunction, and all tips and fixes will assume you're running Windows. Besides, not every game is on Steam, and even when they are, some may require the use of external software to install and manage mods. So using Linux for games is awesome, but significantly less so if you are not an advanced user and want more than the defaults for your games.

    When it comes to work, you might find yourself restricted to LibreOffice or Microsoft Office Online. It is possible to run Office via Wine, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea (more on that here). A bit off-topic, but I've been trying to purchase a legit license for local Microsoft Office and I don't think they even sell it anymore. They're completely focused on the cloud version.

  • Let's talk about Goodreads: Publishing obsesses over Goodreads, but does Goodreads actually sell books?
  • I have a habit of checking out reviews on Goodreads. I don't take it too seriously, but the UI is less busy than Amazon and reviews are often a little more chaotic, random, and personal. I like that. I use it to track the books I read, which aren't many but it's simple enough. From my own sample, Goodreads rarely form my decision on which books to buy, but it's up there in my mental algorithm mixed with a bunch of other stuff.

  • How to Comment on Social Media
  • That is pointed criticism and correct on most counts. I wonder if irony is a productive attitude for that kind of criticism. Personally, I feel that irony is remarkable at reassuring those who already agree with the points being made. I don't think it is effective at producing change. Not that I think changing people is the goal of the article. I recently published an article of my own that touches on those issues. It was discussed here: https://beehaw.org/post/11732833.

    I identify the most with that bit:

    1. That is, anything not declared in the post is something O.P. does not care about/is complicit with. Every expression of concern is in fact an expression of unconcern about something else; each of them merits a rebuke and you have been appointed (by yourself, but nevermind) to deliver it. Everyone but you is indifferent to the plight of the greater sage grouse and needs to be reminded of it.
  • Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of February 11th
  • I gave some attention to World of Warcraft Classic - Season of Discovery. It is certainly enjoyable to have a lively world with plenty of people interacting everywhere, but the nuts and bolts of Vanilla are largely the same. The slow leveling, the 1-hour cooldown for my Hearthstone (the item that takes me back to the Innkeeper I set), the fact that I must be physically at the dungeon location to enter an instance, and the demands for being highly social for a bunch of basic stuff feel exhausting. A lot of time I need people for group quests and runes, and the mere thought of talking to strangers is discouraging. I realized that, while I enjoy social interaction, that is not necessarily true for the majority of my playtime. Classic Wrath always feels like a good compromise for me -- it is still Classic and the open world is still relevant, but it has a lot of QOL that makes it manageable for me. The Hearthstone cooldown is 30 minutes, I get my first mount at level 20 instead of 40, and the Random Dungeon Finder puts me in an instance automatically. Granted, there's not a lot of people on Wrath right now, but I still enjoy leveling my character, leveling mining, getting ready for Cataclysm, and making money on the auction house. I found a nice wholesome guild, but it seems that most people are just playing SoD.

  • Notes on conciseness
  • I don't know if many Americans are aware of how sophisticated is their approach to language. Listening to an educated American talk is like watching a cat rob the Louvre. To say anything publicly, Americans have to jump so many hoops, and avoid so many traps, and they must do it while sounding completely effortless and genuine. I can sense a constant unconscious effort to choose precisely the right words that won't offend anyone. Like walking on a minefield. An educated American talking about anything even remotely sensitive is on another level, and comparing such performance to everyone else is like comparing Michael Jordan to, well... everyone else.

    I'm not sure if that is good for mental health, but I am genuinely amazed by the way Americans talk, and I say that without a hint of irony.

  • Notes on conciseness
  • I do believe that the USA is a special case. It would be difficult for me to provide sufficient justification for that statement at the moment, but life in the USA seems particularly complex in terms of the amount of brain power dedicated to scrutinizing language and other features of human behavior to determine familiarity, allegiance, and opposition. Communicating in English-speaking environments is, at once, stimulating and terrifying. My personal impression is that, because Americans are trained from an early age to observe a highly complex set of delicate constraints that become automatic for them, they expect everyone to have the same degree of sophistication, and will often react with outrage to anyone who fails to do so.

    Essentially, because in some places Americans often talk amongst Americans, they sometimes attribute intent to what is simply a cultural difference. In those places, of which some subreddits are good examples, the rest of the English-speaking worlds will try to conform to American sensibilities.

    The "hidden meaning" of expressions such "state's rights" is a problem for me, because, being a non-native speaker, I will often use expressions and phrasing that leads the reader to think I am defending some kind of hidden agenda that I myself know nothing about.

    Those are just my guesses, though. I wouldn't write a post specifically about this because that requires real research. It's best for a real linguist or sociologist to comment on.


    And oh, I forget about phatic expressions all the time! I often have to edit my comments to add words that will make me sound respectful and "a human". It's a little tiresome to me, not gonna lie. I wouldn't feel bad about someone not using those expressions when talking to me, but I must remember to use them myself all the time! :P

  • Phil Spencer has reportedly reassured employees Microsoft ‘won’t stop making Xbox consoles’
  • I've played Xcloud on a good wired connection. It's impressive but IMHO opinion far from ideal. Input lag is getting better but it's still noticeable. Resolution varies but it's never as good as the real thing. Noticeably worse, actually. Loading a game takes longer than locally. For me? It's not enough. That said, before I was around, my mother-in-law spent years watching everything on the wrong aspect ratio. On a good TV. So I can totally see a lot of people streaming games for years without realizing how much better gaming can be.

  • A terminal window periodically flashes on my screen every few minutes. It goes away in one second. I have no idea what it is, nor how to stop it.
  • Guys, thank you so much for all the great ideas. Given that everyone made a big effort to help me, I'm a bit embarrassed to report that it looks like it went away? I tried rebooting before and that didn't help. I rebooted a second time for an unrelated reason and that "fixed" it. I have no idea why. I feel like an idiot now. I will report if it comes back, but, for now, I think that was solved.

    Thanks!

  • A terminal window periodically flashes on my screen every few minutes. It goes away in one second. I have no idea what it is, nor how to stop it.

    I'm running Windows 10.

    I have absolutely no idea what is going on. Task Manager doesn't show anything useful, I killed processes that might be it with no effect. Is there any way whatsoever for me to learn what is causing this and remove it? I ran a Windows Defender scan and nothing showed up.

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    sentientrelay.wordpress.com Notes on conciseness

    If I reason about trivial things, it is because those things are not trivial to me Introduction I have the terrible habit of being unnervingly concise. As the son of old-school print journalists, t…

    Notes on conciseness
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    InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)SP
    SpectralPineapple @beehaw.org
    Posts 9
    Comments 31