🍿 The Hunger Games (2012) came out the same year as our first child was born, and now that the child is old enough to participate it was time to finally see it.
The West Virginia aesthetics of District 12 were fine, but the over-the-top style of the capitol city dwellers was jarring. So was the architecture, which looked like what DC would be if all of DC were one large L’Enfant Plaza. Yikes!
I don’t know how much money Jennifer Lawrence earned from being in this franchise, but it really should be all of it — she was the only reason it was watchable, dare I say even enjoyable.
Janan Ganesh published another banger of a column this week, Beware the professional ghetto. He quotes Taleb, and rightfully so, and puts out this fascinating bit of trivia:
Tim Walz is the first person on either the top or bottom half of a Democratic presidential ticket since 1980 who did not attend law school. That is 20 individuals across 10 elections over 40 years who pursued a JD or LLB. Not one of the four Republican presidents over the period had a legal background.
Fachidiocracy, anyone?
Attulus fasciger is a species of spider from the family Salticidae native to northern and western Asia. However, it has also been introduced to North America. The spider is brownish-black coloured, has 8 eyes, and is 3–4 millimetres (0.12–0.16 in) in size.
Shot with an iPhone 14 Pro Max. I should remember to take more close-ups!
🍿 Incredibles 2 (2018) made several questionable choices that resulted in something less than the original:
At least the soundtrack didn’t disappoint!
Hustling. That’s what some people do in all industries. Young people in tech. Slightly older people in medical careers. I always admire people who hustle, even though I often wonder what the point of their work is. One thing I know for sure is that no matter how stupid and low yield and pointless and futile ideas might be in silicon valley— and believe me I live here and know just how bad it can be— ideas in medical research are often even more stupid and low yield and pointless and futile and worse of all harmful to human beings.
He’s not wrong, sadly.
For the past few months I have been trying out both Tot and Bebop for quick note-taking, and Tot has a clear edge: the Mac app. The biggest loser is Drafts, which has become way too bloated for my needs. So it goes…
Here are four good articles on this fourth day of the week:
🍿 The Incredibles (2004) will be 20 — yes, twenty — years old this October. On one hand it shows, as there are YouTube-only cartoons that now look better than what used to be Pixar’s best; but I still can’t think of a better combination of characters, plot and action in a family movie. And of course there is the soundtrack, Michael Giacchino’s first and probably best (here he is talking about it at the Kennedy Center 6 years ago.
I saw my first Humane AI pin in the wild today, on a dapperly dressed man walking through a not so dapper part of town. It looked fine and unconspicous, too bad it doesn’t actually work.
🍿 Father of the bride (1991) started off strong, but Martin Short’s performance, if you can call it that, made it into an unwatchable mess. It did make me want to watch the original, 1950 version, starring Spencer Tracey as the father and an 18-year-old Elizabeth Taylor as his daughter (from the poster: The Bride gets the THRILLS! Father gets the BILLS!).