Godzilla Minus One does not deserve their Oscar

Unpopular opinion? The Best Visual Effects Oscar win for Godzilla Minus One (G-1) is undeserved. G-1 was great for a movie for a budget of $15M, but isn't in the same class as The Creator, which was also made on a smaller budget by Hollywood standards. The Creator is far richer and more impressive, with proper depth of field and gorgeous scenes. 

Also, Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (GOTG3) has a big  advantage. In GOTG3, a lot of completely CGI characters that are so well done, you forget they are CGI. In my opinion, both The Creator and GOTG3 are far superior films than G-1 in terms of VFX.  In particular, GOTG3 was robbed.  However, that wouldn't be so bad if The Creator won instead.  But to give the award to G-1 instead of either of those two? Yikes.

I have seen all three of these movies in the theater on the biggest screens available for each.

I'm super suspicious of Tom Westfall in Quantum Leap

 

I have no thesis or anything...I'm just super suspicious of Tom Westfall
byu/fcsuper inQuantumLeap

Possible resurrection of the landing page

f

In the early days of the internet, landing pages were often little more than menus that website visitors use to navigate to different pages and sites. Software at the time also heavily relied on menu-based interfaces. Even the most expensive applications had very simple menus as their landing page, often called "main menu".

However, for decades, forcing users into a main menu or other landing page has been considered bad user interface design. Menus were moved from the opening screen to the top bar, bottom bar, and even along the sides of the window/screen. For a long time, applications would open directly into the application's workspace, where users would then navigate menus to open files. Similarly, websites commonly started directly on the content page, with navigation moved to the sidebar.

About ten years ago, user interface design started to shift back to special pages for operational activities such as opening documents. Let's call these collectively as "operations pages." Microsoft Office returned to the idea of a special page for operations in recent versions, though these pages are optional. Other applications also now have operations pages that are not optional.  (These are sometimes called splash pages.) The interfaces of these operations pages vary quite a bit from application to application, with many applications (including Office applications) trying to use all the extra real estate to provide some additional functionality.

Linktree

In 2016, Linktree came along and rebranded the old-fashioned landing page. It was created because social media websites don't allow their users to place more than one website in their profile pages. Linktree hosts a page that acts as a personal landing page for all of your various social media profiles. Linktree is a bit fancier than what was used in the 1980s and 1990s, but functionally identical from the perspective of the website visitor. From the perspective of the Linktree's customer, it provides some useful services for a fee (such as tracking visitor data).

There are now other Link in Bio hosting services as well.

WordPress

In 2023, WordPress is finally getting into this game with w.link. WordPress supports the creation of a landing page that looks very similar to Linktree's concept. The advantage of WordPress' solution is that users can self-host their landing page. Even with self-hosting, WordPress still offers some useful services for a fee.

However, for users who are already self-hosting and don't need those additional services, there's no need to use Linktree, WordPress, or any other "Link in Bio" services. You can just make your own landing page with relatively few lines of code in an HTML file.

fcsuper's place

I've literally been using a landing page from day-one on my website fcsuper.com (since mid-aughties).  I'm sure many of my visitors over the years sneered when they arrived upon my original landing page.  My original landing page was ugly, but functional.

After seeing the concept of the landing page undergoing a resurrection, I decided it was time to refresh my own. My new landing page has been active for a few months. It was modernized to be flexible, allowing it to display correctly on both phones and computers. It's still very simple, but it has some previews of content. It has no ads (yet) and no tracking. It's literally just a menu of my personal web across the internet.

However, this has now led me to a new thought. Should I make two landing pages: one for my truly personal activities, and one for my career-related activities? I guess I'll figure that out soon enough.

Facebook seems to be broken as a record of past check-ins and other events

In the past, I fairly consistently made frequent check-ins as posts to Facebook for places I visited.  However, it seems Facebook is increasingly deprecating this functionality.  You can still check-in quite easily, but old check-in posts are breaking.  The issue seems to be getting worse over time.  

Facebook was very reliable at one point.  You could look back through your timeline to see what you did, where you did it, and when you did it.  There was even UI that made it easy to choose a time period to peruse.  This was useful for so many reasons, not the least of which is planning for further activities in places you already visited, or providing information to others who planned to visit those places.  Let's also no forget the value of being able to stroll down memory lane.  

Here's an example of one such broken check-in.  It's a post in 2012 that simply says "Surprisingly good and unusual".  The information about where this check-in took place, including the town and other general information has been completely removed.

The posting is useless, other than to verify I did something with Allie on that day.  Fortunately, I also maintain a blog (this blog).  For this particular event, I was able to go back to the day in question and see that Allie and I visited Salem, MA.  I'm not sure which place in Salem is represented by this check-in, however.

I am also finding posts on Facebook where uploaded photos no longer display.  No amount of troubleshooting has restored those photos.  This seems to be particularly problematic for Life Events, where posts which contain one more more photos no longer show those photos.  (These are my own photos that I uploaded to Facebook myself, so it's not an issue of someone else controlling privacy settings or removing their account from Facebook.)  When you edit the post to see what's going on, Facebook seems aware that photos were included in the post because Facebook shows a loading window, but yet that loading window never resolves. When you reupload the photos to the post, you will find that you cannot summit the changed post. Facebook just errors-out on you when you try.

Additionally, even more recently, when I've checked-in at movie theaters for specific movies I'm about to watch, those posts are losing information about the movie.  This is happening for posts that are only a few weeks old, if that.

As of this minute, Facebook is not currently adding post to the Life Events page for any posts dated in 2023.

Given all these issues, and Facebook's track record of similar buggy behavior for other deprecated tools in the past, it seems prudent to no longer rely on Facebook as a record of my past.  This means I have to fall back on my blog.  It's a bit more work to create blog posts than Facebook posts, but at this point, it seems worth the extra trouble.

I've already started replicating past Life Events posts from Facebook on this blog.  

I've been on many business trips, and many of these are interesting destinations. However, I add personal trips as Life Events, yet I don't typically create Life Events posts for common business travel. 

It's not often...

It's not often that Allie and I talk about a movie we've seen at the theater for days afterwards, but that's exactly what's happening for both movies Top Gun: Maverick and Elvis. Maverick is a fun thrill ride and Elvis is a fascinating biopic. (From facebook post in July.2022.)

Just a reminder - Han also shot first in Empire Strikes Back (against Vader himself)! Seems like a good habit for a swashbuckler.

Technically, "shoot first" just means you shot before something happened, not necessarily both parties taking a shot. "Shoot first, ask questions later."

Insurrection is a good movie with a bad rap

A movie in the Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) theatrical series that often gets derided as being bad is Star Trek IX: Insurrection (STIX).  In my opinion, STIX is actually a very good movie.  The movie doesn't have anything egregiously wrong with the story, acting, setting, special effects or any thing else artistic or technical.  Of course, one could still knit-pick many things within the movie.  STIX is not perfect, but its also not in the same class of movies such as Star Trek V: The Final Frontier or even Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.  It seems that STIX is disliked because its predecessor set a certain type of expectation for Star Trek movies.  That previous movie, Star Trek XII: First Contact, is an action movie.  Arguably, it is an excellent action movie.  

STIX is not First Contact II, which seems to miss the mark with fans of First Contact.  This has harmed STIX's reputation much more than any actual issues with quality.   Taken in isolation as a TNG adventure, STIX is actually very entertaining and more in line with the feel of the TNG TV series than any other TNG movies.  While First Contact is an excellent action movie, STIX is a good adventure movie.

Regarding the rest of the TNG movies, I feel that Star Trek XI: Generations is a jumbled mess that is a cross between Search for Spoke and The Motion Picture.  Additionally, Generations delves deep into space magic to unsuccessfully tie up massive plot holes.  Star Trek X: Nemesis is a movie that seems to shoehorn the TNG characters into a Star Trek: Deep Space 9 (DS9) story.  What I mean is that the story of Nemesis is darker, with more pew-pew.  It also has multiple unrelated or barely-related subplots that are better suited for a season of TV rather than a 2 hr movie.  Additionally, Nemesis seems to be written by writers who forget they could build upon already well-established Romulan lore from both TNG and DS9 for a much more cohesive and succinct story. Nemesis is a bad movie that has a good movie buried somewhere deep within it.  For more on this, see the video called The Amazing Star Trek: Nemesis Theory You've Never Heard Of.

tl;dr: Although STIX is often listed lower on many ranked Star Trek movie lists, or it's outright called "bad", I feel this is not deserved.  STIX is a good movie that got a bad rap because expectations set by First Contact.

Pay it to Payphones or don't

So, I went down a short rabbit hole when I saw a payphone in a movie review for Secret Obsession. Of course, payphones aren't common any more, so seeing one featured in a new movie was a bit of a surprize. 

So, first, Secret Obsession is a really bad, in my opinion.  I tried to watch, but had to stop.  This movie review does a good job at explaining why:

The movie shows the protagonist stopping to use a payphone to call 911.  Unfortunately, she didn't have change (coins) or phone card.   There's a problem with this scene.  I tweeted this, thinking that was all I was going to do:

If, by some weird series of events, you end up needing to call 911 but your #cellphone isn't available AND you happen to be near an archaic #payphone (in the US), you can still use that payphone to call 911 without the need for money nor a phone card. #psa #themoreyouknow

— fcsuper (@fcsuper) February 23, 2021

That wasn't the end of it, though.  I remembered that there's still some payphones in service, so I looked it up.  That's when I ran into the fact that there's still over 100K payphones in the US, and that each payphone can still earn a profit with as few as three 50¢ calls per day.

Was that the end?  No.  I remembered that I somehow ended up at the movie theater to see Phone Booth back in 2003.  It's about this guy of questionable morals who is trapped in a phone booth by a sniper out to prove a point.  The guy is played by Colin Farrell.  The movie was made near the end of the payphone era.  Had this movie come out just a few years later, it would've already been too dated for people to relate to it.

So, that brings me back to start.  Secret Obsession was released in 2019.  The entire plot is built upon the conflict that starts with the main character who gets out of her car while being chased to run to a payphone in a phone booth to call 911 (emergency services in the US).  She doesn't have change, so the phone doesn't work.  It's 2019.  Why doesn't she have a cellphone?  Even if that option was somehow not available, all payphones in the US allow 911 calls without payment, as noted in my tweet (and the movie review shown above).  For who was this movie made?  ...in 2019?

Modern trailers for classic movies, with all the glorious fades to black, bwaahhss, base drops and epic music

#SamuraiBatman pausing for a formal photoshoot. #batman #starfest2019 #starfest #denvermetroarea #comicfest #denver #frontrange

via Instagram http://bit.ly/2vyzLal

#NichelleNichols took some time out of her busy schedule for a #selfie. #selfiewithcelebrity #starfest #starfest2019 #denvermetroarea #denver #frontrange #scifi #scifigold #startrek #startrektos #uhura

via Instagram http://bit.ly/2WaadvN

2018 Oscar Nominations for best motion picture aren't the best of the best

2018 Oscar Noms seem to be heavily focused on movies that make obvious political statements rather than actual film greatness.

"Call Me by Your Name”
“Darkest Hour”
“Dunkirk”
“Get Out”
“Lady Bird”
“Phantom Thread”
“The Post”
“The Shape of Water”
“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”

Of these, in my opinion based on seeing some of these films and also RT users' ratings, "Get Out", "The Post", "Phantom Thread" and "Darkest Hour" don't belong. Meanwhile, better movies get snubbed, like "Logan", "Blade Runner 2049" or "Baby Driver" (not withstanding Kevin Spacey's fall from grace).

"Get Out" is a good movie, but it's way overrated in the current environment. It's a by-the-numbers horror story that happens to include obvious social commentary. The movie isn't going to age well with time.

The fact that the horror genre is getting a pass this year at Oscars, while comic hero genre again gets a snub is particularly telling. "Logan" is a superior film to "Get Out" in most aspects. "Logan" also addresses racism, but it does so more cleverly (perhaps too subtly) than "Get Out" by a mile. Where "Get Out" is basically about cultural appropriation and first world problems, "Logan" addresses actual issues with the effects of institutionalized racism. "Logan" also has better acting, script, and overall direction. Additionally, "Logan" actually earns its ending, where "Get Out" just kinda ends. Even the alternate-ending for "Get Out" isn't great (but moderately better than the theatrical ending). About the only area where "Get Out" might be a bit better is with scene composition for *some* of the scenes. That's not enough to include it on the final list of ten instead of several other better films.

That said, "Wonder Woman", "ThorRagnarok", "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2" and other comic hero movies in 2017 aren't cinematic greats; not worthy of Oscar Noms for best motion picture. They are enjoyable and entertaining, but don't really stand above anything other than being slightly better than other films within their own theatrical universes.

Now that female characters are getting more attention in comic hero movies, I think some might be surprized to see me say "Wonder Woman" isn't a great overall movie. It's not. As far as comic hero origin movies go, it's average. It's great to see from where Wonder Woman comes, and her character does have a well-developed story arc. However, the villain is very weakly conceived; on par with the underdeveloped Marvel Cinematic Universe villains. Man of Steel and Batman V Superman primary villains are far more developed and central to the plot and story of their respective movies. Man of Steel is a better movie than Woman Women. (Batman V Superman, was also a good but not great movie which really would've been better served if broken up into a trilogy of three separate movies).

Another issue with the movies nominated for best motion picture is that most of them just aren't that popular. "Call Me by Your Name", "Darkest Hour", "Lady Bird", "Phantom Thread", "The Post", "The Shape of Water" and "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" are not going to earn even $50 million at the box office, with several of them unlikely to ever see $25 million. The whole idea of expanding the list of best motion picture nominations to possible ten was to include more popular movies in the most important category in order to help the Oscars attract more interest from potential viewers. It looks like they've given up on that idea in favor of other agendas. Oscars are irrelevant.

No Doubt way before Tragic Kingdom on The Gig

 No Doubt way before Tragic Kingdom on The Gig

Daenerys Targaryen decision matrix (only spoilers if you know nothing, John Snow)

Enjoy this Game of Thrones humor

Stereotypes from the early aughties (2000-2004) in America

• No one had beards, unless they were from cultures that requirement them.
• Cell phones only had digital readouts, and only had actual numeric 10-key pads. Although Treos come out in 2003 with full Internet, full QWERTY keypad, color touch screens, (pretty much iPhone 5's without the fancy hi-res screen; yes, Treo 300 in 2003 out featured iPhones being released in 2010). 
• Terrorism was the boogie man for everything.  (Still is, actually.)
• Texting was done with a special kind of pager with a QWERTY keypad or very clumsily on 10-key pad phones that happened to have texting function built-in. Traditional pagers still existed, but mostly used by drug dealers and doctors by this point.
• No plaid, unless you lived in the mountains. No flashy patterns, either.
• Low-rise jeans.
• eBay was a thing back then.
• Blockbuster stores were very popular...this is a few years before Netflix's first golden age.
• There were still different types of gaming stores before Game Stop bought them all out.
• Gearing up for war with Iraq. Blind patriotism was still rampant.
• Simpsons reruns played in 1.5hr blocks on network TV.
• Trend of kids bring dropped off and picked up at school every day by their parents had just started.
• You had an option between Borders, Walden Books and Barnes & Noble for well stocked chain book stores.
• Laptops were still kinda luxury items.
• Kids enjoying Green Day had no idea that Green Day was a 90's band.

What do you remember?

If you hear a catchy new song on the radio and you find yourself asking "Who is this?", the answer is always @TaylorSwift (#TaylorSwift)

via Instagram http://ift.tt/1TYkBmM

Radioactive, radioactive radio edit controversy

There's a bit of a controversy about a popular song right now called Radioactive by Imagine Dragons.  There's a lot of complaints by fans who bought the album about how the song quality on the album is inferior to what's been playing on the radio and in trailers for movies and on commercials for new TV series.  (Seriously, this song is everywhere right now.)  The complaints are pretty consistent by fans, not even haters.

Distortion was noticeable on digital format as well as CD. Very poor quality on car stereo really drives home the point.

Somehow, producer Alex da Kid thought that intentionally introducing that awful, cheap sounding distortion (several tracks, most notably beginning on 'Radioactive'), was somehow "artistic". What a stupid idea.

What's this about distortion?  The bass in the song Radioactive has been distorted to sound like subwoofers maxed out.  It's a rough and gravelly sound that doesn't sound good on good stereo systems (such as the stereo systems in the average car these days).  I got the CD, and I agree with the criticism.  It's OK, but not good.

Theres something called the radio edit version of the song, which I like, but it also seems like it's distorted too much too.

Video of St. Louis Gateway Arch (road trip)

Video from my recent road trip across the USA, day 4, at the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.

Failed predictions by Sylvia Browne

Sylvia Browne makes a lot of predictions. Every once in awhile, she claims this or that successful prediction. In her book The Other Side and Back, Browne even boosts,

I could fill a separate book with my predictions that have come true...

She doesn't talk about her unsuccessful predictions very often, from what I've seen. I imagine she has many, indeed. I'm not going to get all high and mighty about failed predictions. I'm just going to list a few.

In the book mentioned above, Sylvia has a list of predictions for the year 2000 that did not end up happening or that where so basic that they really don't count (whether right or wrong).

Predictions:

• Three major hurricanes, with hits in Florida and Carolinas (among other regions). Fail. According to USA Today, "no hurricanes hit the USA" in 2000.
• Notable earthquake hits Niagara Falls in 2000. Fail. The last notable quake in that area occurred in 1897.
• Bill Bradley won the presidential election and there was "close competition from the Reform Party". Fail and Fail. Though that election may have been stolen with the wrong outcome, Bradley and the Reform Party were no where in sight.
• David Letterman quits his nightly show at the end of 2000. Fail. Even after the scandals of 2009, he's still running strong.
• Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston marry. Success! But is this really a prediction or something that was rather obvious? She also predicted they wouldn't last long. They didn't last, but they did last longer than many Hollywood marriages.
• In 2000, there would be a new flu strain that would start in the Eastern U.S. Asian immigrants coming into the U.S. would "help quell this flu virus". Fail. Although a new flu strain popped up in 2005 called Avian Flu, and that was actually blamed on an Asian source. So, I count this as a double and triple fail.
• In the year 2010, aliens will be seen on Earth and act as observers. She also predictions they will teach humans about the anti-gravity technology. I'll make a counter prediction. No aliens. No anti-gravity devices.

There are many other unsuccessful predictions, though the point seems to be made fully.

Astronaut declares government is hiding evidence of aliens

Astronaut Edgar Mitchell, a member of the 1971 Apollo 14 moon mission, has recently declared last year that the U.S. and other governments are concealing evidence of aliens and UFOs. Mankind has long wondered if we're "alone in the universe. ...only in our period do we really have evidence. No, we're not alone," Mitchell said.

He bases this conclusion because he grew up in Roswell, NM and have had individuals come forward to him that admitted to see some of what was going on with the infamous Roswell crash. When even insiders are coming forward, it is hard to ignore the questions regarding aliens.