Archive for the ‘oddities’ Category

The Seven Faces You will Encounter in Debate, online and off and how to deal with them.

Posted: November 18, 2023 by datechguy in oddities

It’s my experience over a long life that you will find seven different types of people when you debate a subject of some importance that you have a strong opinion on. Here are my suggestions on how to deal with such people:

  1. The ignorant

One must remember when dealing with the ignorant that ignorance about a subject is not the same as stupidity. In fact it worth remembering that just about everybody is ignorant about more things then they are knowledgeable or even informed about.

The way to deal with ignorance is to provide information. How they react to that attempt will give a clue if you’re dealing with the willfully ignorant (who want to avoid a moral or difficult subject to avoid having to make a choice) or the uninformed. One must remember that being informed doesn’t automatically mean they will come to your point of view

  1. The stupid

There are some people who are simply not able to grasp certain things. When dealing with the stupid no amount of information or argument will have an effect so unless you wish to provide evidence on an argument within a social media timeline one is better off not wasting the short valuable time you have on earth getting worked up over an argument with them.

  1. The indifferent

There are people who simply don’t care about the things you do. Maybe their priorities are different than yours, maybe they have personal issue that override anything you might care about or maybe they just want to be left alone.

In this case one should remember that freedom of speech also means the freedom to not listen to your speech. It doesn’t matter what the issue is, if people don’t want to listen to you respect that choice. If the issue is their own imminent life & death (and I mean life or death NOW not in a month or a year or 30 years) you might press a little harder but odds are that won’t be the case online so if people want their space give them the freedom to have it.

  1. The different perspective

These tend to be the most interesting while at the same time being the most frustrating people to deal with in a debate. They are people who will look at the same facts as you and come to a completely different conclusion from them. Except in the case of mathematics one must remember that this is totally legitimate. Perhaps they have more or different information than you. Perhaps they have a different background or family history or give more weight to one part of the fact trail than another. Or perhaps they just look at things differently because by definition they are different than you as everyone else in the whole world is.

These are the people that I find most enjoyable to deal with because you can learn from their perspective and they keep you honest because as I like to say, if your argument is worth anything it should be able to stand up to critique. I find these folks are rare and while fun online are even more fun in person over a good lunch.

Stockpile such people as they are a great treasure.

  1. The mercenary

These are the anthesis of those who I just mentioned. They tend to have an agenda that is usually paid, in fact said agenda might be their primary source of income. No amount of information or argument makes a difference here and the best move is to simply disengage.

Occasionally if it’s an issue of sufficient importance you might take the trouble to expose the financial motive if possible but be wary as you don’t know if this is the only way this person feed their family and who are you to take the food out of the plate of this person’s kids?

Oh, one more thing about a mercenary. Depending on the issues you might find one who is on your side. That doesn’t make them any less of a mercenary so be wary in terms of trust because by definition they are only a higher paycheck away from betraying you.

  1. The Fanatic

The fanatic carries a religious or religious like belief in what their worldview. Usually based in Marxism or some kind of sexual or gender ideology or occasionally in actual religion. No amount of facts is likely to change them and you will beat your head against the wall doing so.

Furthermore such people are the most dangerous, particularly online as they are the type who will give you actual bodily harm in the service of said fanaticism and belief it as righteous. Beware of them and when possible disengage and block them.

But do pray for them, because there is one irony about them. If they are in such a bubble and manage to escape it by either the pressure of reality or the grace of God they often become the bravest warriors to stand with in a time of danger.

  1. The Malicious, dishonest and/or dishonorable

There are some folks who are just evil. Who life for the sake of lying, who hate for the sake of hating or take joy in the discomfort of others. Such people just want to wind you up for their own amusement.

Avoid them like they were the plague because they are.

One quick closing thought, remember that you do not always know who online is real and who is not. Act accordingly.

Some Praise for Rebekah Jones (Yes you read that right) UPDATE CORRECTION or not

Posted: April 13, 2023 by datechguy in oddities
Tags: , ,

Always look at the Bright Side of Life

Eric Idle

For some reason last night at work Rebekah Jones popped into my head.

You might remember he as the false whistleblower who tried to target the DeSantis administration during COVID and lately for trying to blame DeSantis for the arrest of her son who had been showing indications that he might like to shoot up a school.

But let’s ignore the false blame game and consider something for a sec. For all her mendacity  Rebekah Jones did a very hard thing that like most hard things turned out to be the right thing.

She saw what her child was doing and recognized it for what it was.

How many parents might have remained in denial? How many parents might have convinced themselves it was no big deal. Howe many parents, particularly ones who have a, shall we say, less than flattering public persona both in social media and beyond and might have decided they didn’t want to go there.

She didn’t do those things, she took the initiative and had her child placed in custody. It was likely a very painful action but by doing so she showed responsibility both as a mother to protect her child and as a citizen by acting to protect the community as a whole.

Now granted as I’ve already noted she tried to spin this all falsely for political gain which in fairness in completely in character for her so she deserves all the grief she gets over that.

But as we do so lets not ignore the fact that before she reverted to form she made a hard choice for the sake of all. Let’s give her a small tip of the fedora for that and pray not only that her child gets the help needed to return to normalcy .but that other parents given a similar situation make the right call for both their community and their child.

Update: Well I guess I had the wrong info there:

Police documents and warrant service reports, however, suggest that multiple students at her son’s former middle school reported him to teachers because they were worried he would shoot up the school. (Jones’ son is now homeschooled.) Snapchat messages obtained by the police as part of a search warrant do indeed return memes that joke about school shootings sent by her son. But they also show legitimately concerning messages he allegedly sent that appear to be specific threats against a specific middle school. The police report also shows in detail how the investigation was carried out, and the timeline of the investigation. The Snapchat messages in question were sent roughly six weeks ago, but police only became aware of them after students reported them to teachers on March 20. The documents show that police began questioning students immediately and attempted to question Jones’s son within a day of being alerted.

This is from Vice which is not known as a conservative powerhouse

Review: Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities

Posted: November 6, 2022 by John Ruberry in culture, media, oddities
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

By John Ruberry

Late October arrived with what I thought would be a pleasant surprise, a new Netflix horror and suspense series, Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities. Del Toro, known for the superb art direction in his films, is an Academy Award winner for directing The Shape of Water, that film contains a controversial scene which we’ll discuss shortly.

There are eight episodes, set either in the early 20th century or the latter part of the century. Oh, for balance, there’s one set around 1950. All but one of them are based on short stories, two of them by del Torro, and two by H.P. Lovecraft, a horror and fantasy writer, the bulk of his work was published in the 1920s and 1930s.

First the good. The acting is superb and not surprisingly, so is the art direction and cinematography. The bad–well, the stories aren’t very good, and in what is becoming common with Netflix, the episodes are too long, each one of Cabinet of Curiosities‘ segments could be trimmed by anywhere from ten to twenty minutes. The episodes run from 38 minutes to slightly more than an hour. And like many Netflix original series, funding doesn’t seem to be an issue. That was not the situation with the low-budget horror movies that I grew up with and enjoyed, such as Vincent Price’s American International Picture films. Netflix needs to focus on the basics of entertainment, not the frills.

Del Toro, just as Rod Serling did with The Twilight Zone, introduces each episode. The titular character of Alfred Hitchcock Presents performed the same duty, and there is a Game of Thrones-style cabinet animation device as the opening credits run. Del Toro doesn’t direct any of the episodes.

But Cabinet of Curiosities, rather than emulating The Twilight Zone, harkens back to Steven Spielberg’s mid-1980s NBC anthology series, Amazing Stories. It should have been called “Stories,” because that heavily hyped series was anything but “amazing.” The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents were rebooted around this time, both fell flat. As the saying goes, if Hollywood ever had an original idea, it would die of loneliness.

I’ll briefly sum up each Cabinet of Curiosities entry, in the order of their release. If you are running out of time with my post, or if you are running out of patience, I have this message. Just two of the eight episodes are worth viewing, “Pickman’s Model” and “The Murmuring.”

Lot 36: Nick Appleton (Tim Blake Nelson) is a bitter Vietnam veteran who is physically and emotionally damaged from that war. This entry is set just as the First Gulf War is breaking out. Appleton, who makes his living by buying abandoned storage units, is a racist who listens to conservative talk radio. The implied message of course is that everyone who listens to what liberals call “right-wing radio” is a bigot. But everyone I know who listens to conservative talkers do so because they are tired of government overreach and they don’t like high taxes, among other things. Appleton purchases a storage unit owned by a Nazi who recently died. Get it? American bigot, Nazi, white supremacy. I’m stupefied that the director of this bit didn’t dye Nelson’s hair bright orange here. “Lot 36” is based on a del Toro short story. I hated this segment.

Graveyard Rats: And this episode is based on what? Okay, the answer to that question is easy. Masson (David Hewlett) is a formerly well-to-do man who is now struggling along as a graverobber in a town known for the macabre, Salem, Massachusetts. There’s plenty of plot build-up here, as is the case with much of Cabinet of Curiosities, but little payoff.

The Autopsy: Minor spoiler alert: Just as with surgeries, autopsies are never solo projects. F. Murray Abraham, who never gives a bad performance, portrays a dying coroner, Dr. Carl Withers, who is investigating a mysterious accident at a Pennsylvania coal mine. Again, the set-up doesn’t match the ending of this episode. Watching the autopsies got me wondering. Why weren’t twenty minutes of this segment sliced off?

There is also an age-restricted YouTube video available here.

The Outside: Set in the late 1970s, as was “The Autopsy,” Stacey (Kate Micucci) is an unattractive and socially awkward bank teller surrounded by pretty but shallow female co-workers. Her hobby is taxidermy. Stacey’s life is altered as she becomes enamored with commercials touting a facial cream; the ads are subtle parodies of the faith healers who were often found on late night television at the time. Some of the facial cream comes to life. There is an erotic scene, an homage to Amphibian Man getting it on with a woman in The Shape of Water, in “The Outside.” I hated this episode too.

Pickman’s Model: Although this offering is extremely disturbing, “Pickman’s Model” worked for me. Will Thurber (Ben Barnes) is a wealthy art student at a Boston area college. All is well for him–until he sees the nightmarish paintings and sketches of Richard Pickman (Crispin Glover). A well-known lesson from the life of Vincent Van Gogh is that the boundaries between creativity and insanity are narrow. Oh, one little correction. Pickman tells Thurber that one of his ancestors was burned at the stake during the Salem Witch Trials. In fact, all of the executed accused witches in Salem were hanged, save one who refused to enter a plea. He was pressed to death.

Dreams in the Witch House: After his twin sister dies, a now-middle-aged Walter Gilman (Rupert Grint) is attempting to reconnect with her by way of spiritualists. There is a kissing scene with Gilman and a witch–she has been burnt to a crisp. Eww. There’s a lot of other weirdness here too. And while for the most part it is visually striking, “Dreams in the Witch House,” plot-wise, is vacant. As with “Pickman’s Model,” this segment is based on an H.P. Lovecraft story.

The Viewing: An eccentric wealthy man, Lionel Lassiter (Peter Weller), invites five seemingly unconnected celebrities to his mansion to view a mysterious object. To place them all on the same mental plane, they snort high-grade cocaine. And while there is a lot of action, it’s impossible to ascertain what it all adds up to. Nothing, is what I think. At nearly an hour in length, there is plenty of time for the scriptwriters to present their message. But they don’t. Perhaps the writers were on drugs when the produced the script. This piece was too boring for me to despise.

The Murmuring: Two married ornithologists, Nancy (Essie Davis) and Edgar Bradley (Andrew Lincoln), are devastated by a tragedy. They travel to a remote Canadian island to study the murmurations, that is, the cloud-like flocks of a wading bird species, the dunlin. But the crumbling old house they are staying in offers them plenty of distractions from their work. As a nature lover, I particularly enjoyed this entry–and I could easily see it fitting in as an episode of the original Twilight Zone. Not so with the other seven segments. “The Murmuring” is the other episode based on a del Toro short story.

Each entry is a stand-alone, you can watch one of them, two of them, or all of them. If you choose the last option–you’ve been warned.

Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities is rated TV-MA for violence, disturbing themes, nudity, drug use, vivisection, and gore.

John Ruberry regularly blogs Marathon Pundit.

A Few Photos and Videos from the Tender Bar Shoot in my neighborhood earlier this month with Ben Affleck and George Clooney

Posted: April 24, 2021 by datechguy in culture, entertainment, local, oddities, special events, trade
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There are the people in my neighborhood

One of the interesting things about having part of a movie shot in your neighborhood is the number of people who turn up, both your neighbors who you end up talking to and people from around the area. While I went outside a couple of times my wife spent most of the day outside getting up very early and taking photos and videos with the camera I usually use for interviews (which have been few and far between due to work and COVID although I had a pair of Catholic ones this week, more on that tomorrow). She pretty much shot a bunch of one minute clips and a fair amount of photos till she came home tired around 2 and crashed. The biggest take away I got from them was that despite the better pay a lot of acting, at least in movies which aren’t on the same deadline as a weekly TV show, is that like any other job there is a fair amount of tedious repetition.

Because she took so many shots I’m only uploading a few plus three videos. Be aware that the date on the Camera was set wrong. While the shoot had been scheduled for the 7th it was actually done on the 8th.

There are plenty more but I think this gives the gist of what is going on with the police controlling the crowd and traffic and the guys in charge letting people know when to be quiet etc.

I figured the Diner would have done pretty well with these folks but alas for Ed because there were three different days when the shooting might have taken place his regulars stayed away those days and he only got a quick burst of business when they called lunch the day of the shooting which didn’t make up for it.

Anyways here are the three videos here is one with a shot of their car pulling out

https://youtu.be/ORYMPY1kq-g

My wife shot a lot of those, didn’t upload the others since they were pretty much the same. DaWife says they did it about five times. Each time they pull out, when Clooney calls cut Affleck backs up and they get ready to do it again.

Here is another shot of Clooney joking with the kid and Affleck before another shot. This would be just visible from my front yard.

https://youtu.be/0IAtrVp5QoI

And finally here is a 3rd shot of him directing the kid before another shot and then the shot itself. The antique cars were parked in the neighborhood for about a week before the shoot but then again I’m old enough that to me they don’t seem like antiques they’re just the cars I remember from the 70’s. In fact my 1st two cars were a 67 Barracuda and a 75 Buick LeSabre both convertables.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2hvSGsO0CE

My chief interest in all of these is how the work is actually done as I’m not experienced in it. Granted it’s not work in the sense that my dad worked or that I or my sons or my wife do but it’s work and it takes them away from their homes for long periods of time. Granted it would have been cool to get Clooney to sign the season 1 of ER that I bought my wife 20+ years ago and my son had hoped to get a Batman comic signed by both as they each (Clooney meh, Affleck actually very good) played the role but there was none of that.

And frankly in an age of cancel culture where people are looking to bring down folks for saying or doing the wrong thing the last thing you really want to do is mix with a bunch of strangers with cameras any one of whom might hold a grudge and be looking to get their 15 min of fame by giving you grief. That realization precludes Jimmy Stewart’s old advice to Raquel Welch about fans and autographs these days and must be a pain in the neck, particularly if someone happens to be affable by nature who previously enjoyed meeting the fans.

At least the pay is good.

As I said there are a lot more pictures and a lot more video but they seem too repetitive to upload to youtube and given how close to the vest things have been around here I can’t justify the extra bandwidth charges to put them all up. Feel free to hit DaTipJar to offset those costs.

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