Only taking replies if your bill is eight inches or bigger.

I love caring less and less about random online people's opinions. I wish I could care less still, that whatever nonsense booktok has glommed onto wouldn't even show up when I'm trying to find a new book to read. Searching through Amazon for something (just now, I showed up here to continue the search) and I suspect Booktok have boosted this one authors books to the top of the heap. Some author you've never heard of having over 4.5 stars and almost 10k reviews for every single book they've written, all of which were published in the last year? Oh goody "fans".

It always helps me to remember that "fan" is just a shortening of "fanatic".

Errr, that was his character though? His character was never a "badass", he was always a whiny, narcissistic, brown nosing psychopath that wanted to appear to be "badass" while always just being kind of pathetic.

Fantastic job on that though, giving his villain a ton of depth while still making him a fun villain to hate, while all the two main leads just look a bit lost.

Ben Mendelsohn starting to get Alan Rickman vibes.

Actually if they're totally going to reboot HP anyway Mendelson wouldn't be a bad casting for Snape.

See if you were in charge you could get rid of all the bureaucracy. Just, you know, quietly off Putin and stage coup, after which absolutely nothing at all will go wrong and you will no doubt win this war who's only impedance is now gone!

False I am blind but know all

Yes to Miss Marple! Poirot as a series gets kind of out there from her personal, intimate murder mystery style because of the character's (apparently somewhat unwanted by Christie) own fame, which was put back into the books themselves.

Marple on the other hand continues on as a character in relative obscurity, and feels like what Christie wanted to write rather than what she felt obliged to (an opinion she apparently shared).

If the robots break Amazon has to pay to replace them

TIL What Polar Wander means, and holy shite I didn't think that was possible.

Mostly I need characters to attach too who are in an interesting world/situation/etc. though if the idea alone is interesting/original/deep enough (invisible cities) that can be great in and of itself. If it's cliche/mainline/tropey I'll probably skip.

Humans already spit out more than enough nonsense for it to be a major problem, making it worse somehow is going to be fun.

The "999" effect, as I'll call it here, is well established. Sell something for one dollar, or even one cent, less and you're very likely to sell more. It sounds stupid, but never bet against people being stupid.

Here it's reversed. Seems for some items people want to emphasize the idea of the item being valuable, rather than the idea that they're saving money. So the effect is inverted. I wonder if that's true for other classes of items? Is it true for say, luxury items? For other things perceived as "investments"?

Paid for by the diamond mining corporation for mining diamonds.

Seriously just "time" as labor is ridiculous, you don't even need to have people in the lab for growing diamonds. BTW this was funded by "We love diamonds" Russia. Honestly shouldn't even appear on this sub.

David Leitch hasn't made a boring movie yet, so I'll happily give Kinberg a shot at making one of his rare good movies.

He was a writer on Mr and Mrs Smith, Sherlock Holmes (the RDJ one) and Days of Future past so that's like a 1 in 3 chance of making a good movie.

AFAIK: Do nothing about crime, do nothing about corruption, give the military a bunch of in country "duties" it shouldn't have and involve it in politics, use public money for pet infrastructure projects that are more ego boosting than useful, lead vague pro government rallies even though you're in government, and take de facto bribes from the US to keep migrants in Mexico.

Basically do next to nothing while pretending you're a great "man of the people", at least as far as I understand it

Yeah I'd bet this is going to go anywhere. There's chemical receptors in your tongue, nose, and even gut that communicate the chemical makeup of something to your brain. And the reason that whipped cream tastes good is because the chemical makeup includes fats and sugars, which you're not going to replace with thickening agents and milk protein.

A better idea would be to understand why, or rather what, sugar and fat are bad for you and simply substitute them. Low glycemic index sweeteners would cut heart disease without any loss in taste, and dairy fats don't appear to have much affect on heart disease or the possible neurological effects fats can have. If they'd just make whipped cream with coconut sugar you'd have a relatively healthy substitute already.

Ooooh, publication credit pile papers with little evidence, I love these!

Also if you need a sample for proof that "peer review" as it stands today is nigh worthless, here's one.

Nah, it'd be better to skip the entire, totally pointless discussion of what the fine structure constant is in the friggen abstract.

The entire, actual paper is "we measured the fine structure constant (variable actually, but anyway) on some distant stars and it's still the same" that's it. Stupid clickbait otherwise.

Taking all bets ladies, gents, and otherwise, taking all bets! I present to you the odds on how big the Covid lockdowns get! Yessiree here we go, factories, city blocks, entire amusement parks, those are the things we've already got!

But how big can it go, that's our betting question at hand! So here's the plan, I'll make a list and we'll see who's what and what's the limit, no limits here for what Winnie Xer Pooh will demand!

First we've got entire cities, so you've heard already but only partially. Well no more I say, quarantine and no on leaves they're all there to stay!

But we can go bigger yes we can, how about an entire prefecture which divides the land? All locked off and no one out, who could complain, and what would they complain about?

How about regions, of this I say, larger than prefectures, there's no doubt but hey, who's to care if no one gets out of there region today?

Finally the country I say! The entire thing, all locked down and no one to sing, of movement, trade, nor anything. Could ol Winnie Xer Pooh take this all the way?

Same here, and yet few seem to know of her.

I'd love to see an Oxford Time Travel series if it had enough budget. Part of the fun of it all is the historical research. Certainly series like Andor show you can get something wild out of today's big budget TV shows, but I doubt Connie Willis is recognizable enough as a name to get a $10+ million dollar an episode budget.

It really works as a stimulant for some people? I've tried 2 of the CBD sodas they have in California for kicks, couldn't say I noticed much of any effect and I'm pretty used to looking for the effects of drugs.

One wonders how the party stays together

Becky Chambers puts out an average of a book a year, not a lot of time to get things done in. Frankly I'm glad they're short, the implication otherwise is bad editing.

I was gonna spray in bathroom until I got high

I was gonna get constipation, but then I got high

Going to the ER all the time aint a thing no more, and I know why

Cause I got high, because I got high, because I got high

Almost anything by Becky Chambers.