Anthony-G

> Plots are simplified and repeated. Viewers are often shown and then told important points multiple times, just to make sure they don't miss them.

This kind of TV writing really frustrates me. I’m currently rewatching The Wire (just finished Season 3) and the producers, writers and directors take the complete opposite approach. Each season has a large number of characters with many subtly inter-relating plots. To get the most out of the show, you need to be paying attention and to have a good memory for recalling details from previous episodes and previous seasons. The first two times I watched the show (more than 15 years ago), I watched in on DVD (lower resolution, 4:3 aspect ratio). This time I’m watching it in 16:9 HD on Bluray and I’ve picked up so many plot points and characterisations that I hadn’t picked up (or don’t remember) before, e.g., one very brief shot in Season 1 explains how Bubs gets his nickname. It’s such a breath of fresh air for the writers to pay so much attention to detail and for the viewer to be treated like a reasonably intelligent adult.

I agree with your take on Picard. However, I didn’t enjoy Discovery so haven’t bothered with any of the other recent Star Trek series. Thanks for the summaries of the other two shows. I’ll add Lower Decks to my to-watch list.

Brilliant! Literally LOL. George Carlin is definitely my favourite American comedian. And now I know what the obtuse term “occasional irregularity” means. :)

Why would they? I’ve been running Internet servers (web, DNS, SMTP, IMAP, database) for about 25 years and until recently have only had the roughest idea of what EC2 or an S3 buckets are. It’s only because my employer recently started working with a new company that uses AWS that I’d have heard of SES. Also, I’ve no idea what the Azure equivalents are. If I ever need to know, I’ll find out but until then, ignorance is bliss.

I’ve upvoted your comments in this thread because what you’re saying seems obvious to me. You’re also being empathetic and respectful to the man while crediting his legacy and all the work he has done in his past.

I wonder if the people objecting to your statement would object as strenuously had you had phrased it as “evidently mentally unwell”. The word “ill” seems to have triggered people into reading more into it than what was actually said. If a stranger sees me violently coughing and sneezing in public, they would be correct to say that I’m evidently physically ill. They’re not trying to diagnose whether the illness is a common cold, Influenza A, Covid-19 or any other respiratory disease.

I’d have probably have said that the Internet hasn’t really gone away: it’s still there in the same way that the outside street doesn’t go away when you close the curtains of your front room. That’d be my simple analogy.

So true! I still think of these things as being chores and don’t look forward to doing them. Worse still, I sometimes procrastinate and let them build up into being much bigger jobs than they need to be.

Every now and again, I try to re-frame the way I view these tasks and try to be more positive about them. I remind myself how fortunate I am to be a (reasonably) fit and healthy adult who can physically do them. And I always feel good when I complete them.

I’ve asked people sitting nearby to stop checking their phone as the glare can be very distracting. I might be immersed in the film but keep getting pulled out of the story by the distractingly bright light.

I also try to patronise cinemas that remind viewers at the start of the screening not to use their phone at all. I stopped going to the Cineworld near me because there was too much phone use (both calls and checking alerts) – and Cineworld had stopped the reminders at the start of the film for people to switch off their phone.

As a devout Catholic, I used my confirmation money to buy a bible and read from it every morning. Some parts of The Old Testament were disturbing but this story really shocked my younger self. I found it to be both horrific and bizarre.

Until I started reading the bible myself, I had unquestioningly accepted everything my elders (parents and teachers) had told me but reading stories like this made me start to question my beliefs and over the next 15 years I gradually believed less and less (progressing from Catholic to Christian to theist to deist to atheist).