#hbo never fails to raise the stakes | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

theculturedmarxist · 4 years

Link

The New York Times is literally a propaganda outlet and Timothy Egan is a deceitful chode. His every word drips with the anxious desperation of the Democrats who know their goose is cooked.

Watching “Succession,” the HBO show about the most despicable plutocrats to seize the public imagination since the Trumps were forced on us, made me want to tax the ultrarich into a homeless shelter. And it almost made a Bernie Bro of me.

That’s the thing about class loathing: It feels good, a moral high with its own endorphins, but is ultimately self-defeating. A Bernie Sanders rally is a hit from the same pipe: Screw those greedy billionaire bastards!

Sanders has passion going for him. He has authenticity. He certainly has consistency: His bumper-sticker sloganeering hasn’t changed for half a century. He was, “even as a young man, an old man,” as Time magazine said.

But he cannot beat Donald Trump, for the same reason people do not translate their hatred of the odious rich into pitchfork brigades against walled estates.

Because powerful oligarchs that own their government murder them with impunity when they do.

>March 7 was a bitterly cold day in Detroit, and a crowd estimated at between 3,000 and 5,000 gathered near the Dearborn city limits, about a mile from the Ford plant. The Detroit Times called it "one of the coldest days of the winter, with a frigid gale whooping out of the northwest". Marchers carried banners reading "Give Us Work, "We Want Bread Not Crumbs", and "Tax the Rich and Feed the Poor". Albert Goetz gave a speech, asking that the marchers avoid violence. The march proceeded peacefully along the streets of Detroit until it reached the Dearborn city limits.

>There, the Dearborn police attempted to stop the march by firing tear gas into the crowd and began hitting marchers with clubs. One officer fired a gun at the marchers. The unarmed crowd scattered into a field covered with stones, picked them up, and began throwing stones at the police. The angry marchers regrouped and advanced nearly a mile toward the plant. There, two fire engines began spraying cold water onto the marchers from an overpass. The police were joined by Ford security guards and began shooting into the crowd. Marchers Joe York, Coleman Leny and Joe DeBlasio were killed, and at least 22 others were wounded by gunfire.

>The leaders decided to call off the march at that point and began an orderly retreat. Harry Bennett, head of Ford security, drove up in a car, opened a window, and fired a pistol into the crowd. Immediately, the car was pelted with rocks, and Bennett was injured. He got out of the car and continued firing at the retreating marchers. Dearborn police and Ford security men opened fire with machine guns on the retreating marchers. Joe Bussell, 16 years old, was killed, and dozens more men were wounded. Bennett was hospitalized for his injury.

> All of the seriously wounded marchers were arrested, and the police chained many to their hospital beds after they were admitted for treatment. A nationwide search was conducted for William Z. Foster, but he was not arrested. No law enforcement or Ford security officer was arrested, although all reliable reports showed that they had engaged in all the gunfire, resulting in deaths, injuries and property damage. The New York Times reported that "Dearborn streets were stained with blood, streets were littered with broken glass and the wreckage of bullet-riddled automobiles, and nearly every window in the Ford plant's employment building had been broken".

The United States has never been a socialist country, even when it most likely should have been one, during the robber baron tyranny of the Gilded Age or the desperation of the Great Depression, and it never will be. Which isn’t to say that American capitalism is working; it needs Teddy Roosevelt-style trustbusting and restructuring. We’re coming for you, Facebook.

Yeah, just look how well that’s worked out, you fucking idiot.

The next month presents the last chance for serious scrutiny of Sanders, who is leading in both Iowa and New Hampshire. After that, Republicans will rip the bark off him. When they’re done, you will not recognize the aging, mouth-frothing, business-destroying commie from Ben and Jerry’s dystopian dairy. Demagogy is what Republicans do best. And Sanders is ripe for caricature.

The same Republicans that got their breakfast ate by the dottering windbag cheetoman? The same Republicans that are unpopular with over half the fucking country? The same Republicans which have shown majority support for Sanders’s policies in the past? Those are the Republicans you’re talking about, right, Timothy, you fucking asshole?

I’m not worried about the Russian stuff — Bernie’s self-described “very strange honeymoon” to the totalitarian hell of the Soviet Union in 1988, and his kind words for similar regimes. Compared with a president who is a willing stooge for the Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, a little vodka-induced dancing with the red bear is peanuts.

Nor am I worried about the legitimate questions concerning the candidate’s wife, Jane Sanders, who ran a Vermont college into the ground. Again, Trump’s family of grifters — from Ivanka securing her patents from China while Daddy made other promises to Beijing, to Don Jr.’s using the White House to leverage the family brand — give Democrats more than enough ammunition to return the fire.

This is fun. Due to a complete lack of incriminating conduct, little Timmy has to invent wrongdoing to libel Jane Sanders. I suppose he’s relying on his readers being too stupid to read the article that he himself links, another NYT hitpiece that desperately tries to paint Ms Sanders as a shady character without anything in the way of tangible proof.

>Federal prosecutors have not spoken publicly about their investigation, though late last year, Ms. Sanders’s lead lawyer said he had been told it had been closed. And while doubts remain about the contribution pledges claimed by the college, the lawyer has said that neither Ms. Sanders nor her husband was even questioned by investigators, indicating a lack of significant evidence of a crime.

>After Ms. Sanders’s ouster, the college’s troubles worsened. It abandoned a promising effort she had undertaken to sell some of its new land to improve its finances, interviews show. A few years later, when it did begin selling, it was to a consortium that secretly included at least one member of its board, raising conflict-of-interest questions.

>There is little question that the college’s 2016 demise can be traced to Ms. Sanders’s decision to champion an aggressive — critics say reckless — plan to buy the land. But with potential students put off by the lack of a campus, and with many such colleges struggling at the time, her move was the academic equivalent of a Hail Mary. Her allies said she never had a chance to fulfill her vision.

>“Jane made an audacious gambit to save the college,” said Genevieve Jacobs, a former faculty member. “It seemed to be a moment of ‘change or die.’”

>In interviews and emails, Ms. Sanders expressed frustration at her dismissal and the college’s failure to continue her rescue plan.

>“They went a completely different direction in every way than what we had proposed and decided upon as a board — with the bank, with the diocese, the bonding agency,” she said. “They didn’t carry out any of the plan. It was very confusing and upsetting at the time.”

The TL;DR seems to be: Jane Sanders tried to save a struggling school with an audacious but risky plan that ended up being aborted when she was let go by by a board, some of the members of which may have had a stake in seeing it fail. At the very least, a much more complex situation than the aspersion of “running it into the ground.”

Trump bragged about sexual assault, paid off a porn star and ran a fraudulent university. He sucks up to dictators and tells a half-dozen lies before he puts his socks on in the morning. A weird column about a rape fantasy from 1972 is not going to sink Bernie when Trump has debased all public discourse.

No, what will get the Trump demagogue factory working at full throttle is the central message of the Sanders campaign: that the United States needs a political revolution. It may very well need one. But most people don’t think so, as Barack Obama has argued. And getting two million new progressive votes in the usual area codes is not going to change that.

“Ah jeez, ah fuck, he has no sexual indiscretions that I can dredge up and his Feminist polemic against pornography and the rape culture that it engenders is old news, and if I actually reported on it honestly people might actually read it and support his ideas. Oh, well, you see, despite the incredible groundswell of support for just such a thing, Barack Obama, the man that gave the banks trillions of dollars and then allowed the state apparatus to function as their gestapo-cum-storm troopers, says we don’t need one!”

Timothy Egan wants to dismiss “two million new progressive votes” after doing a little gaslighting. His Democrat masters don’t want people to remember that it was Obama’s promises of Hope and Change after 8 years of Republican tyranny that generated a record breaking voter turnout. They would also like you to forget that 2016 was a 20-year low in voter turnout. Do you think those things are related, Mr Egan? Do you think that there might be some connection between Obama taking advantage of the desperation of millions of people, betraying them, and then those people not fucking showing up next time, causing your party to lose to the dimwit that they themselves boosted to the position?

Give Sanders credit for moving public opinion along on a living wage, higher taxes on the rich and the need for immediate action to stem the immolation of the planet. Most great ideas start on the fringe and move to the middle.

But some of his other ideas are stillborn, or never get beyond the fringe. Socialism, despite its flavor-of-the-month appeal to young people, is not popular with the general public. Just 39 percent of Americans view socialism positively, a bare uptick from 2010, compared with 87 percent who have a positive view of free enterprise, Gallup found last fall.

“Just” 39 percent of Americans, up 4% from 2016. This is ignoring for the moment that due to Americans’ piss-poor education system they have no idea what “Socialism” means aside from “more government.” Looking at the breakdown of results, it seems as though they just asked people off the top of their head what they thought about X, no definition or elaboration given. Unsurprisingly, when you look at the actual numbers on specific issues, you can see exactly why Egan has to play this deceptive bullshit: of respondents 18-34, 52% have a favorable view of “Socialism,” as opposed to 47% supporting “Capitalism.” This is in sharp contrast to the 35-54 and 55+ cohorts. 65% of Democrats have a favorable view of “Socialism.” Those with a “Liberal” ideology are even more in favor at 74%, Timothy Egan, you massive shithead.

What’s more, American confidence in the economy is now at the highest level in nearly two decades. That’s hardly the best condition for overthrowing the system.

"The highest level in nearly two decades.” That’s faint fucking praise right there.

You can see the tremendous fucking crater caused by the crash in 2007/8, a reversal of a whopping -81 points from the previous year. With many economists forecasting recession beginning either this year or the next, we’ll see how long the confidence lasts.

So-called Medicare for all, once people understand that it involves eliminating all private insurance, polls at barely above 40 percent in some surveys, versus the 70 percent who favor the option of Medicare for all who want it. Other polls show majority support. But cost is a huge concern. And even Sanders cannot give a price tag for nationalizing more than one-sixth of the economy.

A ban on fracking is a poison pill in a must-win state like Pennsylvania, which Democrats lost by just over 44,000 votes in 2016. Eliminating Immigration and Customs Enforcement, another Sanders plan, is hugely unpopular with the general public.

“Medicare for all is really unpopular, except when it isn’t.”

Hmm, you know? Hmmm.

As for fracking, from his own link:

>A November poll conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Cook Political Report found that only 39 percent of Pennsylvania swing voters saw a fracking ban as a good idea, even as nearly 7 in 10 of those same voters said they supported the idea of a “Green New Deal” for the environment.

Democrats are whinging on the jobs “lost” to a fracking ban as though it exists in isolation. 39% might support a fracking ban, but 70% support the GND, which could potentially offset the “job loss” with industry that has the potential not to leave their state as a fucking environmentally ruined horror show. I haven’t run the numbers on this, but not living in a cesspool of polluted air and water tends to be pretty popular, Timbo.

More shellgames from Mr Egan regarding abolishing ICE.

> Only 1 in 4 voters in the poll, 25 percent, believe the federal government should get rid of ICE. The majority, 54 percent, think the government should keep ICE. Twenty-one percent of voters are undecided.

That sounds bad. Maybe it’s not such a good ide

>But a plurality of Democratic voters do support abolishing ICE, the poll shows. Among Democrats, 43 percent say the government should get rid of ICE, while only 34 percent say it should keep ICE.

Oh.

Sanders is a rigid man, and he projects grumpy-old-man rigidity, with his policy prescriptions frozen in failed Marxist pipe dreams. He’s unlikely to change. I sort of like that about his character, in the same way I like that he didn’t cave to the politically correct bullies who went after him for accepting the support of the influential podcaster Joe Rogan.

Democrats win with broad-vision optimists who still shake up the system — Franklin Roosevelt, of course, but also Obama. The D’s flipped 40 House seats in 2018 without using any of Sanders’s stringent medicine. If they stick to that elixir they’ll oust Trump, the goal of a majority of Americans.

Democrats lose with fire-and-brimstone fundamentalists. Three times, the party nominated William Jennings Bryan, the quirky progressive with great oratorical pipes, and three times they were trounced. Look him up, kids. Your grandchildren will do a similar search for Bernie Sanders when they wonder how Donald Trump won a second term.

“Failed Marxist pipe dreams.” Aaaaay lmao. You should also have an inkling something is wrong when you have to go all the way back to FDR to find someone that supports your point. Talk about “poison pills,” Obama proved himself to be as much of a snake as the rest, and the effects of that resonated in 2016 when the Dems ran on a platform of “that’s a nice country you have there, you wouldn’t want Trump to get elected, would you?” How did that work out? You ran one of the most unpopular politicians in the country—after very blatantly rigging the primaries against Sanders to do so—against one of the most unpopular capitalists in the country, and lost, dipshit!

Ironically, I think Timbob’s closing statement will prove true, though not in the way his clown ass intends. Shills like Egan are doing everything they can to try and poison public perception against Sanders and his policies, who only proves increasingly popular as time goes on, so much so in fact that the DNC is already biting its nails and muttering to itself about ways it can try and cheat his supporters again.

In conversations on the sidelines of a DNC executive committee meeting and in telephone calls and texts in recent days, about a half-dozen members have discussed the possibility of a policy reversal to ensure that so-called superdelegates can vote on the first ballot at the party’s national convention. Such a move would increase the influence of DNC members, members of Congress and other top party officials, who now must wait until the second ballot to have their say if the convention is contested.

They deny it in the article, claim that changing the rules would be “bad sportsmanship,” but one would be a fool to believe them. If anything, their ambivalence towards relying on Superdelegates would make me even more nervous at this stage. Politico wants it to seem like the DNC is bent on playing fair, but more likely than not they have no intention of changing the convention rules because they believe there’s no need. With Warren’s flagging support and the luke-warm response to Biden, I doubt they’re overcome with optimism of beating Sanders in an honest primary. With all the shenanigans from last time’s primaries in mind, it’s likely that the machinery to rig the results their way is already in place—the primary could already be over before it even begins.

8 notes · View notes

mygangtome · 7 years

Text

Where They Were, Where They Are Now - Lucy Griffiths

She was the Nightwatchman, Lady Marian, the proud and strong lady in Nottingham who fed information to our favorite outlaws, stood toe to toe with the Sheriff and caught the attention and desire of Guy of Gisborne. Here is a list of the project Lucy Griffiths has worked in since her days as Marian ended.

U Be Dead (2009) – Bethan Ancell

A doctor and his girlfriend are stalked by a woman who claims to be in love with him. Meanwhile, the man falls in love with a younger woman. Based on a true story.

Character bio: The much younger and second fiancee of Dr. Jan Falkowski, who is caught up in the events as the doctor’s stalker refuses to relent.

Fan comments: Not one that I have seen or heard much about at all, so I have little insight to offer. It seems like it could be a suspenseful story, and the cast is pretty strong, so it does have that.

Collision (2009) – Jane Tarrant

The story of a major road accident and a group of people who have never met, but who all share one single defining moment that will change their lives.

Character bio: Jane is living a normal, possibly dull, life; she works at a fast food joint and living with her boyfriend. When he suggests they get married, she gets frustrated and is afraid of being trapped. When the massive car crash drives victims to her workplace, she meets and begins an affair with Richard Reeves, an older business man.

Fan comments: I did see this one, and enjoyed the suspense and the trail of stories that weave together at the collision point. The individual characters are intriguing, and the plot holds your attention. Lucy does very well, though it was a shock to see her in blonde hair!

Inspector Lewis (2010) – Madeleine Escher (1 episode)

Inspector Robert Lewis and Sergeant James Hathaway solve the tough cases that the learned inhabitants of Oxford throw at them. Falling Darkness - During a Halloween, one of Dr Hobson’s college roommates is found dead with a stake through her heart and a garlic bulb in her mouth.

Character Bio: Madeleine Escher is one of four students living in a house that is apparently haunted, but is one of the three who are initially unconcerned.

Fan comments: I have never seen any Inspector Lewis, nor this episode, though it sounds clearly like a Halloween episode with supposedly supernatural connections to crimes that have mundane answers.

The Little House (2010) – Ruth

A reluctant mother, young Ruth Clee’s post natal vulnerability and failure to bond with her baby is exploited by Elizabeth, her manipulative mother-in-law in a battle to seize control of the child.

Character Bio: Described as emotionally fragile, Ruth is diagnosed with post-partum psychosis after the birth of her son. Her mother-in-law’s controlling nature only compounds Ruth’s other troubles, which include spectral sightings of her own mother, confusion and memory loss.

Fan comments: From the reviews I read, it feels like the script lets the actors and characters down, rushing development and skipping things that would lead to better understanding of their emotional development.

Dirt 3 (2011) - Store Manager (voice)

A racing game about a guy and a woman wanting to race against humanity can they do it? Your story your choice.

Fan comments: I couldn’t find anything about a character, so there is not much to talk about her.

Billboard (2011) - The Ex

A dark, twisted tale of two young suicidal characters who, through a series of unfortunate events, come together for one crazy night.

To shake things up, here is the teaser trailer, which does feature a lot of Lucy:

youtube

And here is another video of her talking about the project:

youtube

Awakening (2011) – Jenna Lestrade

Two sisters find themselves on opposite sides of a zombie uprising.

Another video clip, as there is next to nothing else to be found about this made for TV movie.

youtube

The Numbers Station (2013) – Meredith

A disgraced black ops agent is dispatched to a remote CIA broadcast station to protect a code operator. Soon, they find themselves in a life-or-death struggle to stop a deadly plot before it’s too late.

Character bio: One of the code dispatchers / operators at the broadcast station; leaves a code for Katherine (lady lead), which is a vital part of the code breaking that needs to be done.

Fan comments: This seems like a thriller that I would be interested in, with codes and a race against the clock. Lucy’s part does not seem large, though it is a part important to the plot.

True Blood (2012-2013) Nora Gainesborough (21 episodes)

Telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse encounters a strange new supernatural world when she meets the mysterious Bill, a southern Louisiana gentleman and vampire.

Character bio: “ Nora was irreverent, intelligent, intimidating, cool under pressure and a very good liar. Like many siblings, she and her “brother” enjoyed a fiery love/hate relationship. Though she cared for him deeply, and looked up to him, she dedicated her life to a higher purpose. However, she lacked self-discipline and, unlike her maker, seemed to have little regard for human life. Like Godric, Eric and Pam, Nora spoke Swedish. Nora was a devout religious vampire and when she was captured by the Authority and placed in her cell, the only thing she did is pray to Lilith. When Lilith mercilessly destroyed Godric, Nora finally realized that Lilith was evil and cowered in fear of her.” (from True Blood Wiki)

Fan comments: I will say that I have no intention of watching this show. Vampires on HBO is not really my speed. Though from that description of Nora, there might be moments were we see Marian’s brand of stubbornness and fire showing up.

Winter’s Tale (2014) – Young Woman

A burglar falls for an heiress as she dies in his arms. When he learns that he has the gift of reincarnation, he sets out to save her.

Character Bio: Lucy is credited only as young woman, so I have a feeling she barely shows up on screen.

Fan comments: And as I have not seen this one either, I cannot say for sure how much she shows up. But it is a pretty looking movie, so let’s have the trailer:

youtube

Last Summer (2014) – Rebecca

Having lost custody of her six year-old son, a young Japanese woman has four days to say goodbye to him on-board a yacht belonging to her western ex-husband’s wealthy family. Alone with the crew, who are under direct instruction to keep a watchful eye on her, the woman must try to forge a connection with her son before she has to part from him for many years.

Character bio: One of the yaht crew, Rebecca is the person that young Ken clings to when first interacting with his mother.

Fan comments: The only trailers I could find of this film were in Italian, but I don’t think the film was shot in Italian. The reviews have said it is a quiet film, artistic and beautiful, with a hopeful ending. I might track it down, because Rinko Kikuchi is the main character, Naomi, and that with Lucy in the film intrigues me.

Don’t Look Back (2014) – Nora Clark

An adult woman must face the trauma and horrors of her difficult childhood after avoiding it for years.

Character bio: Nora is a writer of young adult books, struggling with a writer’s block and the death of her grandmother. She decides to move back to her grandmother’s house (where Nora had been raised), to deal with the estate and the other details. She opens the house to a lodger, Peyton, who develops an unhealthy attraction to Nora. At the same time, Nora’s life continues to be bombarded by skeletons from her past.

Fan comments: This is another one that the writing fails any and all of the talent from the cast by all accounts of the reviews.

Constantine (2014) – Liv Aberdine

A man struggling with his faith who is haunted by the sins of his past is suddenly thrust into the role of defending humanity from the gathering forces of darkness.

Character bio: Liv winds up working with Constantine to banish a demon that is hunting her. She also inherited a pendant from her father that allows her to see multiple planes of existence, making her more than an ordinary office worker as we first think.

Fan comments: So Constantine has been on the back burner of my shows for awhile, since I heard it was actually pretty well done, despite not being renewed. I may bump it up the list now that I know Lucy is in it.

Home for Christmas (2014) – Alice

Beth Prince has always loved fairytales and now she feels like she’s finally on the verge of her own happily ever after; a dream job in a charming independent cinema by the seaside and a gorgeous boyfriend. There’s just one problem - no man has ever told her they love her. Desperate to hear their crucial three little words for the first time Beth takes matters into her own hands - and wishes she hasn’t.

I couldn’t find much info, though it apparently a rom com with Christmas, and is generally feel good. Though I did find this video and thought I would share it:

youtube

Uncanny (2015) – Joy Andrews

The world’s first “perfect” Artificial Intelligence begins to exhibit startling and unnerving emergent behavior when a reporter begins a relationship with the scientist who created it.

Character bio: Joy is at first just curious about the actual AI project, but then develops a friendship with David, the creator of the AI, Adam. This friendship builds to a sexual relationship, and the AI develops more and more human emotions which puts Joy in danger.

Fan comments: I would have put this on a list of movies to see, but in the course of researching, I’ve seen all the spoilers… and well, I might still watch it.

Preacher (2016) – Emily (10 episodes)

After a supernatural event at his church, a preacher enlists the help of a vampire to find God.

Character bio: Emily is no-nonsense single mother of three. Emily’s a waitress, while also serving as a church organist, bookkeeper and Jesse’s loyal right hand. (bio from Preacher Wikia)

Fan comments: While the premise of the show doesn’t quite catch me (so sick of vampires, sorry), Lucy’s character seems an interesting change from some of the other roles I’ve seen her in, and from those that I had to research. I may have to look up her episodes.

That is it for now in Lucy’s filmography, but I am interested to see what her career will bring!

#my gang to me 2017 #lucy griffiths #who they are now #lady marian #bbc robin hood #lafseanchai #submission

11 notes · View notes

wordsfromastone · 4 years

Text

Blindsight

Siri Keeton joins a diverse crew of transhuman specialists to investigate an unknown artifact in deep space. Possibly, this will be the first contact with an extraterrestrial species, and so the Theseus has a Linguist and a Biologist aboard to study them, a Soldier to direct the ship’s defenses, a Vampire to offer his alien perspective, and Siri himself to act as an impartial observer. Nothing bad’s gonna happen on this trip!

In the first two hours of the novel, I appreciated how Watts kept the narrative tight and quick, not bogging down in descriptions of the whole world. He kept to the essentials and effectively used context to direct the reader’s imagination to fill in the gaps. The post-scarcity society that spans the Earth, Moon, and Mars, the commercially available Heaven that functions as a sort of long-term retirement crossed with an even more futuristic Holodeck, and the occasional oblique reference to a possible Singularity are all given just enough detail to entice the reader.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get invested in the story. Siri rather belabors his own cognitive state as a half-man, half-machine mind, the perfectly impersonal observer who can’t feel his way through any kind of human interaction, instead he intellectually digests facial expressions, body language, and subtle tonal variations to act as a sort of high-tech mentalist. He doesn’t get emotionally engaged with anything, and we are subjected to his anecdotes of a now-deceased girlfriend of his as an example of what can happen when he makes an attempt. Because of that emotional distance, I was never able to feel like I connected with the events unfolding in the text.

There was a point where Siri talks about the various epithets that others have applied to him: synthesist, jargonaught, comissar, and one or two others. On the following page, he casually labels Jukka Sarasti as “the vampire.” I was wondering if there would be a moment spent to reflect on the irony of this, but, no, that didn’t happen.

None of the characters really have anything invested in the outcome. They have one thing to lose: their lives. Paradoxically, this single unit makes for poor drama, because the tension doesn’t really have anywhere to go: it starts at “I could die” and pretty much stays there. The few moments of comparative intensity end up feeling wan and robbed of immediacy, because I don’t care what happens to these “people,” they’re only vectors for exposition. It doesn’t help that four out of five crew members have back-ups in hibernation, so a death just means their replacement gets to wake up.

I have, in the past, begun more than one, uh, “intense verbal disagreement” by explaining how much I disliked A Game of Thrones (the novel, not the HBO adaptation). In it, Martin got my hopes up by introducing an interesting cast of characters, then failed to deliver on my raised expectations. Watts hasn’t even accomplished that first feat, so I can’t even feel properly disappointed. The twelve hours I invested reading Blindsight have not inspired much of anything aside from a desire to be reading something else.

I can’t recommend this title to anyone. Do you enjoy hard science fiction with a sense of tension and high stakes? Read A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge. Do you want hard sci-fi with a sense of adventure? Read Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi. Do you want a scary story of First Contact? Watch Alien or Aliens, even the novelizations were pretty good.

#Blindsight #Peter Watts #Book Review

1 note · View note

latestnews2018-blog · 6 years

Text

There Were Zero Things Better This Week Than Tessa Thompson’s Earrings In ‘Sorry To Bother You’

New Post has been published on https://latestnews2018.com/there-were-zero-things-better-this-week-than-tessa-thompsons-earrings-in-sorry-to-bother-you/

There Were Zero Things Better This Week Than Tessa Thompson’s Earrings In ‘Sorry To Bother You’

Welcome to Good Shit, HuffPost’s weekly recommendation series devoted to the least bad things on and off the internet.

When Lakeith Stanfield compliments Tessa Thompson’s earrings in “Sorry to Bother You,” the camera cuts close to the ornaments framing Thompson’s face.

In quirky block letters, one earring says “MURDER MURDER MURDER,” the other says “KILL KILL KILL.” They’re the first of many audacious pairs that Thompson, playing a fiery artist-activist, wears in Boots Riley’s fantastic new movie. Others display men in electric chairs, Bob Dylan and Prince lyrics, and the apt words “WILDLY ORIGINAL” ― all accentuated by Thompson’s electric-orange curls.

As rowdy as the earrings may be, they’re one of the more grounded oddities in this surreal odyssey about race, capitalism and loud manifestos. ― Matthew Jacobs

Romelu Lukaku, A God

Watch Lukaku’s run. Drags the defender inside to create space for Meunier and then dummies it brilliantly for Chadli. Brilliant work. pic.twitter.com/RKseQLdX7q

— Jake. (@YedIin) July 2, 2018

I want you to stop, for one moment, and watch the video of this run by Romelu Lukaku, Belgium’s star striker, in the dying moments of Belgium’s 3-2 win over Japan in the World Cup’s round of 16. (In the above GIF, he’s the guy in red who starts at the bottom left of the screen.)

Lukaku, like many black soccer players, is often stereotyped as a big, strong, physical athlete whose greatness is defined by those qualities. But while he is all of those things, he’s also smart as hell when it comes to his positioning and his ability to see how a play should unfold before it does ― and then make it unfold exactly that way. This run is proof: Watch how Lukaku drags the defender nearest him toward the middle of the field to create space for the first pass. Watch how he follows that by pulling another defender in the opposite direction to create space for the next pass. And then, watch how he dummies that pass, stepping over it so that it runs to an open Nacer Chadli ― who is only open because of Lukaku ― on the far post. It’s brilliant. It’s all beautifully, mind-numbingly brilliant.

Lukaku is Belgium’s leading scorer, but he’d spent the first 89 minutes of the match against Japan failing to find the back of the net over and over again. No one would have blamed him for trying to bury that shot ― it was the last minute, the match was tied, he’s their best player, he’s there to score goals. But he knew the right play was to take the defenders out of the play completely, to let the ball run to Chadli, to let the wide open guy nail home the win instead. Romelu Lukaku is God. Also: he’s fluent in at least seven languages. He is brilliant, and I love him. ― Travis Waldron

The Charming Netflix Rom-Com That Makes Up For That Adam Sandler Movie

Listen, Netflix, I’m never going to forget that you made “The Ridiculous 6” possible, nor should I. BUT. Today I’m feeling nothing but gratitude for the proliferation of streaming-content creators, and Netflix in particular. See, I love a good, old-fashioned, stomach-flipping romantic comedy, and in this superhero-crazed environment I rarely get one as fun and unabashedly sweet as “Set It Up.” I missed it when it came out last month, but now that I’ve seen the Claire Scanlon-directed confection, I plan to watch it daily at least.

The premise: Harper (Zoey Deutch) and Charlie (Glen Powell), the beleaguered assistants to, respectively, a hotshot sports journalist (Lucy Liu) and a venture capitalist (Taye Diggs), decide to prod their bosses into dating each other in hopes that a fresh romance will prove a distraction from work. They manufacture a relationship between their bosses ― and accidentally start to fall for each other. The movie gleefully subverts numerous rom-com tropes, like the grand running-to-the-airport gesture, while maintaining the goofy-sweet heart of a true romantic comedy.

The cast is peppered with brilliant comedic turns ― Tituss Burgess, Meredith Hagner, Pete Davidson ― and the leads are a delight. Deutch is so winsome, I literally wished I could wear her as a skin suit, and Powell looks at her in that heart-melting way that every rom-com hero must do to win my heart. It was a bit disappointing to see the actors of color pushed, as usual, into supporting roles (of course in a rom-com about the oft-ignored assistants, it’s the assistants who are white). Here’s hoping the rumors that Lucy Liu’s character may get a sequel come true. ― Claire Fallon

This NYC Teen’s Valedictorian Speech

@StuyvesantHigh valedictorian: Find a way to diversify my school. #SHSAT #StuyAlum #MatteoWong https://t.co/g1pjCIyBxm

— Stuyvesant High (@StuyvesantHigh) June 28, 2018

The best writing I read this week came courtesy of a teenager. His name is Matteo Wong, and he is the most recent valedictorian at Stuyvesant High School, an elite New York City public high school that finds itself enmeshed in a larger battle over how (or how not) to combat racial inequality in the city.

The simple question of which students should go to which schools is an intensely emotional one for many parents, especially white ones, who have been known to yell when people propose that schools should reflect the demographic makeup of the city that surrounds them. It is widely considered an incredibly complex question as well. But that’s what makes Wong’s valedictory speech ― a version of which was published in Crain’s New York Business ― so fantastic. His writing is clear and measured, uplifting while also based on the facts.

“The problem: New York City’s best public high school is less than 4 percent black or Hispanic, demographics which compose nearly 70 percent of the city’s school-age population,” he writes. “This debate revolves around two truths. One: These statistics are unacceptable. To accept them is to buy into a racist myth of black and Hispanic inferiority that has very real, physical and psychological repercussions. To accept these demographics is to make Stuyvesant a toxic environment for black and Hispanic students. The way forward is unclear, but the status quo is broken.”

The 850-word speech, which I suggest you read in full, just gets better from there. If only adults could speak with the same level of candor. ― Maxwell Strachan

An Incredibly Boring (And Great!) Reality TV Show

I’ve been told to watch “Terrace House,” an unassuming Japanese reality television show in which three young men and three young women live in a house together, for years, and this week the Netflix algorithm gods blessed me by finally suggesting I put it in my queue. I’m only a handful of 28-minute episodes into the show, and yet I’m already a convert. If you’re looking for a way to soothe your news-ridden, tweet-ridden, over-stimulated soul, binge your way through this series. (Parts 1 and 2 are already on Netflix, and Part 3 is being released at the end of this month.)

The weird thing about “Terrace House” is that very little happens and yet it’s completely captivating. As a consumer of American reality TV, specifically the “Bachelor” franchise, I’m primed for high drama ― big fights, lots of tears, ominous music cues, carefully produced confrontations and very little eating on camera. “Terrace House” flouts these conventions, opting instead to lean into the seemingly mundane. It makes you wonder why American shows keep trying to raise the emotional stakes of reality television when the Japanese have figured out a way to draw in audiences with no stakes at all. ― Emma Gray

Amy Adams In Anything (But This Week In “Sharp Objects”)

HBO is back with another limited series in “Sharp Objects,” based on the debut novel of author Gillian Flynn. Alongside showrunner Marti Noxon and director Jean-Marc Vallée, the “Gone Girl” scribe brings her dark crime thriller to the screen in a compelling fashion.

The always superb Amy Adams plays reporter Camille Preaker, who returns home to Wind Gap, Missouri, to cover the mysterious murders of two young girls. But it’s her own past that haunts her as she’s reunited with her overbearing mother (Patricia Clarkson) and rebellious teenage half-sister (Eliza Scanlen) in a hometown burdened with pain. It premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. ― Leigh Blickley

Bron Snow, AKA A Clash Of Kings, AKA June 19, 2016

giphy

On Sunday, June 19, 2016, I watched on a split-screen as the Cleveland Cavaliers won Game 7 of the NBA finals and Jon Snow defeated Ramsay Bolton in the Battle of the Bastards on “Game of Thrones.” Yes, it was two years ago, but it was beautiful. The days of the Cavs championship drought and of Jon Snow making his pouty face — not because it was cool, but because his life kinda sucked ― were over.

Now, with LeBron James leaving the Cavs and “Game of Thrones” coming to an end, it’s good to remember that moment can never be taken away from us. Some of my own colleagues, who are now celebrating LeBron in LA, counted him out of that 2016 series from the start, much like many doubted the White Wolf.

But the North remembers. Cavs fans remember! We know no king but the kings in the North and Northeast Ohio. I don’t care if they’re bastards or they moved to LA ― Ned Stark’s blood and Cavs wine-and-gold run through their veins! They’re my kings from this day until their last day! ― Bill Bradley

Tina Lawson’s Instagram Account

Tina Lawson, the mother of our true saviors Beyoncé and Solange, has the Instagram feed from Heaven. But this photo of her and her man, Richard, waiting to see Smokey Robinson is the blackest thing I have seen this week. I am fucking LIVING for it. I grew up listening to Smokey Robinson because of my mama and nana. So I feel like this could be my parents and that warms my soul in a way I can’t fully explain.

Also, look at that selfie. It’s just terrible enough to be a fantastic auntie and uncle pic. I love it. I love them. I’m crying. ― Julia Craven

Comedian Kate Berlant

HBO/ANNAPURNA PICTURES/NETFLIX/GETTY/VIMEO

Remember that time Roseanne Barr shrieked the national anthem at a San Diego Padres game? That is not my recommendation for the week. My recommendation for the week is the human being who wrote a thesis on the deconstructionist milestone that was Barr’s scream-performance: Kate Berlant. (She did this in grad school, really!)

Berlant is in the new film “Sorry to Bother You,” which according to my colleague Matt Jacobs, you should really see. But she’s also appeared in “Search Party,” “High Maintenance,” “The Characters” and “555.” She’s a prolific scene-stealer and best friends with John Early, with whom she’s apparently writing a film. I recommend it! Them! Her! ― Katherine Brooks

A ’70s Gangster Film, Why Not?

For years, I’ve been trying to track down Elaine May’s mid-’70s masterpiece “Mikey and Nicky,” starring John Cassavetes and Peter Falk as childhood friends turned low-level gangsters turned frenemies. The film, which is now streaming on Kanopy, was well worth the years of searching. It’s better than every other Netflix crime show you’ve just binged.

The premise is simple: Cassavetes’ character knows there’s a contract out on his life and calls Falk to help him out. The rest of the film concerns what Falk does with his friend’s fate during the course of one boozy, cigarette-stained night. You can see the movie’s influence all over “Goodfellas” and shows like “The Sopranos.”

But the thing that will stay with you long after the film is over are the spare scenes with the women in their lives ― the ones who take their late-night calls, their abuses and their endless, tormented need. You see it in their eyes. They know what’s up. ― Jason Cherkis

Red Shorts, Blue Shirts: A Phenomenon

We’ve uncovered an international phenomenon: Each summer, dudes across the world bust out red shorts and, after very little consideration, decide that the only fashionable pairing is a blue shirt. Two of our reporters have been documenting this for four years — but this is bigger than our circle of friends now. Prepare to have your third eye opened. We bring you the RedShortsBlueShirt Instagram page and a whole hell of a lot of red shorts-blue shirt combos. ― Andy Campbell

Kumail Nanjiani’s Cheeseburger Freakout

I still can’t stop thinking about Kumail Nanjiani’s cheeseburger-related freakout in “The Big Sick.” We’ve all been on the wrong side of a customer service issue at the exact worst moment, and watching Nanjiani channel that is perfection. He strikes just the right notes of sympathetic and ridiculously funny. It’s hard to pick a favorite moment from the scene because I loved all of it ― from his yelling “Who the fuck is we, man?” to his knocking over the trash can and then feeling bad and slowly, sadly picking it all up again. ― Anna Krakowsky

Inner Peace

HuffPost

Get last week’s Good Shit here.

http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function()n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments);if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n; n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)(window,document,’script’,’https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’); fbq(‘init’, ‘1621685564716533’); // Edition specific fbq(‘init’, ‘1043018625788392’); // Partner Studio fbq(‘track’, “PageView”); fbq(‘track’, ‘ViewContent’, “content_name”:”There Were Zero Things Better This Week Than Tessa Thompson’s Earrings In ‘Sorry To Bother You’”,”content_category”:”us.hpmgarts” ); fbq(‘trackCustom’, ‘EntryPage’, “section_name”:”Culture & Arts”,”tags”:[“@health_gad”,”@health_depression”,”@health_models”,”@health_erectile”,”@health_ibs”,”lebron-james”,”amy-adams”,”tessa-thompson”,”kate-berlant”,”romelu-lukaku”],”team”:”us_enterprise_culture”,”ncid”:null,”environment”:”desktop”,”render_type”:”web” ); waitForGlobal(function() return HP.modules.Tracky; , function() /* TODO do we still want this? $(‘body’).on(‘click’, function(event) HP.modules.Tracky.reportClick(event, function(data) fbq(‘trackCustom’, “Click”, data); ); ); */ );

0 notes

thebookrat · 6 years

Link

Summer reading must be in full swing, because today's post is bananas! This is seriously the best Feed Your Reader lineup even, and I'm v. sorry for your pocketbook. But straight to the deals! Make sure to click through to see them all, 'cause there are a lot, and I wouldn't want you to miss out. There are some personal faves in here, guys (in fact, one you'll be seeing again in just a couple of days), so jump on 'em while you can!

*** ALL COVERS ARE CLICKABLE AND LEAD DIRECTLY TO THE DEAL***

and this post does use Amazon Affiliate links. Thanks for helping support my site!

Award-winning author Sarah Beth Durst has been praised for her captivating novels that merge the darkly imagined with very real themes of self-discovery and destiny. In The Lost, we'll discover just what it means to lose one's way…. It was only meant to be a brief detour. But then Lauren finds herself trapped in a town called Lost on the edge of a desert, filled with things abandoned, broken and thrown away. And when she tries to escape, impassible dust storms and something unexplainable lead her back to Lost again and again. The residents she meets there tell her she's going to have to figure out just what she's missing—and what she's running from—before she can leave. So now Lauren's on a new search for a purpose and a destiny. And maybe, just maybe, she'll be found…. Against the backdrop of this desolate and mystical town, Sarah Beth Durst writes an arresting, fantastical novel of one woman's impossible journey…and her quest to find her fate.

#1 New York Times Bestseller * An Amazon Best Book of the Year There’s no such thing as safe in a city at war, a city overrun with monsters. In this dark urban fantasy from acclaimed author Victoria Schwab, a young woman and a young man must choose whether to become heroes or villains—and friends or enemies—with the future of their home at stake. The first of two books, This Savage Song is a must-have for fans of Holly Black, Maggie Stiefvater, and Laini Taylor. Kate Harker and August Flynn are the heirs to a divided city—a city where the violence has begun to breed actual monsters. All Kate wants is to be as ruthless as her father, who lets the monsters roam free and makes the humans pay for his protection. All August wants is to be human, as good-hearted as his own father, to play a bigger role in protecting the innocent—but he’s one of the monsters. One who can steal a soul with a simple strain of music. When the chance arises to keep an eye on Kate, who’s just been kicked out of her sixth boarding school and returned home, August jumps at it. But Kate discovers August’s secret, and after a failed assassination attempt the pair must flee for their lives. In This Savage Song, Victoria Schwab creates a gritty, seething metropolis, one worthy of being compared to Gotham and to the four versions of London in her critically acclaimed fantasy for adults, A Darker Shade of Magic. Her heroes will face monsters intent on destroying them from every side—including the monsters within.

This vividly rendered novel reads like HBO’s Game of Thrones . . . if it were set in the Ottoman Empire. Ambitious in scope and intimate in execution, the story’s atmospheric setting is rife with political intrigue, with a deftly plotted narrative driven by fiercely passionate characters and a fearsome heroine. Fans of Victoria Aveyard’s THE RED QUEEN and Sabaa Tahir’s AN EMBER IN THE ASHES won’t want to miss this visceral, immersive, and mesmerizing novel, the first in the And I Darken series. NO ONE EXPECTS A PRINCESS TO BE BRUTAL. And Lada Dragwlya likes it that way. Ever since she and her gentle younger brother, Radu, were wrenched from their homeland of Wallachia and abandoned by their father to be raised in the Ottoman courts, Lada has known that being ruthless is the key to survival. She and Radu are doomed to act as pawns in a vicious game, an unseen sword hovering over their every move. For the lineage that makes them special also makes them targets. Lada despises the Ottomans and bides her time, planning her vengeance for the day when she can return to Wallachia and claim her birthright. Radu longs only for a place where he feels safe. And when they meet Mehmed, the defiant and lonely son of the sultan, who’s expected to rule a nation, Radu feels that he’s made a true friend—and Lada wonders if she’s finally found someone worthy of her passion. But Mehmed is heir to the very empire that Lada has sworn to fight against—and that Radu now considers home. Together, Lada, Radu, and Mehmed form a toxic triangle that strains the bonds of love and loyalty to the breaking point. From New York Times bestselling author Kiersten White comes the first book in a dark, sweeping new series in which heads will roll, bodies will be impaled . . . and hearts will be broken.

The highly anticipated, mind-blowing New York Times bestselling sequel to Kiersten White’s New York Times bestseller, AND I DARKEN—the series that reads like HBO’s Game of Thrones . . . if it were set in the Ottoman Empire. A SISTER FILLED WITH RAGE Lada Dracul has no allies. No crown. All she has is what she’s always had: herself. After failing to secure the Wallachian throne, Lada is out to punish anyone who dares cross her. She storms the countryside with her men, but brute force isn’t getting Lada what she wants. And thinking of Mehmed, the defiant Ottoman sultan, brings little comfort to her thorny heart. There’s no time to wonder whether he still thinks about her, even loves her. She left him before he could leave her. HER BROTHER CAUGHT IN THE CROSSHAIRS Lada needs the support of her diplomatic younger brother, Radu. But Mehmed has sent him to Constantinople—and it’s no diplomatic mission. Mehmed wants control of the city, and Radu has earned an unwanted place as a double-crossing spy behind enemy lines. And for the first time in his life, when Lada asks him for help, he refuses . . . leading his sister to make the darkest of choices. THE ULTIMATE POWER PLAY Torn between loyalties to faith, to the Ottomans, and to Mehmed, Radu knows he owes Lada nothing. If she dies, he could never forgive himself—but if he fails in Constantinople, would Mehmed ever forgive him? As nations fall around them, the Dracul siblings must decide: what will they sacrifice to fulfill their destinies? Empires will topple, thrones will be won . . . and souls will be lost. Fans of Victoria Aveyard’s THE RED QUEEN and Sabaa Tahir’s A TORCH AGAINST THE NIGHT won’t want to miss this riveting and gorgeously written novel—the second in the And I Darken series.

I loved The Darkest Corners, you guys.

For fans of Pretty Little Liars, Little Monsters is a new psychological thriller, from the author of The Darkest Corners, about appearances versus reality and the power of manipulation amongst teenage girls. Kacey is the new girl in Broken Falls. When she moved in with her father, she stepped into a brand-new life. A life with a stepbrother, a stepmother, and strangest of all, an adoring younger half sister. Kacey’s new life is eerily charming compared with the wild highs and lows of the old one she lived with her volatile mother. And everyone is so nice in Broken Falls—she’s even been welcomed into a tight new circle of friends. Bailey and Jade invite her to do everything with them. Which is why it’s so odd when they start acting distant. And when they don’t invite her to the biggest party of the year, it doesn't exactly feel like an accident. But Kacey will never be able to ask, because Bailey never makes it home from that party. Suddenly, Broken Falls doesn’t seem so welcoming after all—especially once everyone starts looking to the new girl for answers. Kacey is about to learn some very important lessons: Sometimes appearances can be deceiving. Sometimes when you’re the new girl, you shouldn’t trust anyone.

The Breakfast Club meets Pretty Little Liars in Gretchen McNeil’s witty and suspenseful novel about four disparate girls who join forces to take revenge on high school bullies and create dangerous enemies for themselves in the process. Bree, Olivia, Kitty, and Margot have nothing in common—at least that’s what they’d like the students and administrators of their elite private school to think. The girls have different goals, different friends, and different lives, but they share one very big secret: They’re all members of Don’t Get Mad, a secret society that anonymously takes revenge on the school’s bullies, mean girls, and tyrannical teachers. When their latest target ends up dead with a blood-soaked “DGM” card in his hands, the girls realize that they’re not as anonymous as they thought—and that someone now wants revenge on them. Soon the clues are piling up, the police are closing in . . . and everyone has something to lose.

READ MORE AFTER THE JUMP >>> via The Book Rat

#IFTTT #The Book Rat

0 notes

captainbashybae-blog · 6 years

Text

The Tin Man in Westworld Needs to Suffer to Find His Heart

I got a Roomba one day for Christmas and jokingly named it “Scrubby.” Scrubby only lived for two days; he fell from an open gap on the guardrails and shattered into pieces.

I didn’t miss Scrubby though; Scrubby is, and will always be, an overpriced vacuum cleaner. But a sinking feeling in me thinks Scrubby, and every other Roomba collecting dust in dark closets, will be the great ancestors of robots who tell the tales of humanity’s cruelty. Years from now, the back-flipping technological wonder, Atlas, and Hiroshi Ishiguro’s Erica will be grandparents to an entire sentient group of beings created by man. Only time will tell if man is prepared to deal with the consequences.

Westworld is a seventies film turned HBO thriller that envisions a society advanced enough to deal with those consequences. For the low, low price of 40,000 dollars a day, you too can travel to the world of Westworld, a theme park that plays exactly like a real-life Red Dead Redemption—complete with android hosts and all the perks that come with a Rockstar game. Basically, a place rich people can go nuts with murder and sex.

It sounds too good to be true because it kind of is. In an eerie attempt to be as immersive as possible, these “hosts” are built to be as human as possible. One of these hosts at some point in the show coyly asks a guest if it matters if they’re real if he can’t tell. You’ll find that it’s really hard to tell the difference.

The question I raise is one explored many times: can robots ever co-exist with people as equals? What Is there a possibility that robots can achieve humanity if it desired to? Is there a single thing that separates robots from human? The answer is suffering. It’s by the acknowledgment of suffering that will lead robotics into the realm of humanity.

It’s important to remember that the hosts in Westworld are androids, robotic creations given the appearance of humans. They’re created with material similar to organic tissue, possess a capacity for complex thought and learning, can perform sexual functions with humans, and bleed from wounds. By the most cut-and-dry scientific definitions of a human being, those hosts can almost be considered human. The bridge between human and robot couldn’t be closer with the hosts.

But there’s still a very clear disconnect between the human and android. Director of Westworld, Robert Ford, makes it very clear that the employee should never see the androids as real. There is little consequence to harming them for the guests either. This divide is shown loud and clear in Westworld, and no better character demonstrates that reality better than Westworld’s Logan.

Introduced in the second episode, Chestnut, brothers-in-Law Logan and William represents two guest archetypes of the theme park, symbolized by the black and white hats they don in their costumes. Wielding the black hat, Logan is an experienced guest who unflinchingly maims and murders robot hosts for the slightest annoyance, going straight for rough sex with the town prostitutes. When William goes out of his way to help and listen to the words of a town drunk, Logan has no moral dilemma ramming a fork into the man’s hand.

Logan’s behavior, while morally repugnant, isn’t unusual for the guests of Westworld. Unfortunately, humanity has a tendency to mistreat beings they deem different, to themselves, throwing the empathy and ethics needed to see them as equals. People have had the assumption that lesser beings suffer less than they do, either out of a perceived superiority or out of convenience (more like combinations of both). Rene Descartes once deemed creatures like rabbits mere automatons, injuring them being no more morally wrong than punching a stuffed animal. Human atrocities were perpetuated by the conviction that other humans were less civilized and less-human than they were, shedding the moral dilemmas caused by the suffering or exploitation of others.

To Logan, the way he treats the hosts is further justified under an assumption that the robotic hosts don’t have the capacity to suffer at all. The employees of Westworld show that they’re routinely repair all the injured hosts for the next day with their memory wiped, going on a perpetual loop suggesting a lack of free will to retaliate. It’s the complete lack of consequences for depravity that have people drawn to Westworld in the first place.

Therefore, one of the many difficult challenges faced in bridging the divide between android and human is to truly prove that the hosts have the mental capacity to suffer. To quote one of the first novels written on existentialism, Notes from Underground, author Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote that “Suffering is the sole origin of consciousness.” Westworld tries to show that by demonstrating suffering, the hosts can begin to grasp consciousness and begin a path of free will.

As Dostoyevsky and many philosophers musing on the subject of existentialism concluded, without pain, ethics and rights for others are meaningless.

The motif of suffering is prevalent throughout Westworld, and it plays a big part into the motivation of The Man in Black, an antagonistic figure who goes out of his way to maim and murder as many of the hosts as possible. While we initially don’t know who this character is, or what he benefits from the violence he doesn’t particularly enjoy, we know he wants to find the Maze. This maze is a plot device, a mysterious symbol placed by one of the creators of Westworld before his death that the Man in Black is hellbent on finding.

It’s clear that the Maze isn’t an intentional part of the theme park, and hosts will deny up-and-down any knowledge of the maze’s existence—it isn’t in their initial programming. Consistently throughout Westworld though, through acts of intense violence, The Man in Black manages to break programming and dig up clues leading up a possible location of the maze. It was through the scalping and butchering of Kissy, a native blackjack dealer, that the Man in Black discovered a map of the maze etched under the scalp, and it was by massacring the entire town of Las Mudas in cold blood to get a little girl to divulge information on where the Maze was in the first place.

As the Man in Black puts it, as he pointed the barrel of a revolver on a man’s temple for effect, “That's why I like basic emotions. You know what that means? It means when you're suffering, that's when you're most real.”

While alluded to by the Man in Black, it was Robert Ford who explicitly said suffering is the key to consciousness among the hosts. Suffering, while unpleasant, creates stakes for those inflicted and those causing that suffering. It gives meaning to actions that would otherwise be meaningless to the hosts.

But matter how lifelike the hosts are, they always follow a preprogramed pattern and narrative. Hosts like Dolores Abernathy go about life with the same optimism and a cheery disposition, and other hosts like Hector Escanton shoot up a town with an upbeat instrumental rendition of a Rolling Stones song; spend time in Westworld, and everything becomes relatively predictable.

This is exactly why guests can gleefully take a selfie with the corpses they murder.

And it’s not as if Robert Ford and the Man in Black haven’t tried other ways to have the hosts find free will on their own either. Robert tries his hardest to non-violently break the programming with a host he befriends, and the Man in Black in his past, donning a white hat, has tried his hardest to salvage the humanity of a host he fell in love with, empathizing with the hosts the most out of all the characters in the series.

Both attempts failed, however. And both are quick to realize the key to what they want out of the hosts is to seek out The Maze. Maze’s creator, Arnold Weber, uses the maze as means for the hosts to escape the park, but it’s also an allegory to the key of consciousness and humanity. This is why the little girl in Las Mudas, uncharacteristically and dispassionately, told the Man in Black that the maze isn’t for him. Despite the cryptic, cautionary tone of the message, it’s meaning ends up being taken in face value. The guests of Westworld know how to escape the park, there isn’t anything meaningful for the Man in Black to find by reaching the center. However, the maze is there for hosts to “play a game” with real stakes and trails for suffering—more a metaphorical rite of passage.

The fact that hosts have the capacity to suffer at all plays an important role to their development of consciousness. The few hosts who “played” the Maze have experienced great moments of trauma that have different effects on their psyche. Dolores’ father, Peter Abernathy, has a mental breakdown over the realization that his world isn’t real at all, and he and his daughter’s memory is in a continual loop. Characters like Peter get decommissioned and don’t continue the Maze.

On the other hand, characters like Dolores and Maeve Millay suffer long enough to develop free will and find the Maze’s center. One was aware of the Maze and journeys out to find it, and the other stumbles upon it through trials and tribulations.

Dolores is a character, one of the central characters in fact, who goes on a journey to find the maze, a quest that Arnold Weber gives to her as a game she can play in order to find herself. She travels through a church in a far-off land, sees the same little girl the Man in Black does and even digs through her own grave, all things implied that she did multiple times already through imagery of her clothes.

In episode 5, she finds herself against a gang of bandits and shoots many of them with ease, refusing in her own words “to be a damsel in distress,” a clear break from her programming. In fear that Weber has truly found a host with consciousness, he secretly merges the narrative of a murderous host into Dolores, who kills all the hosts and eventually him in hopes the park will never open. Nevertheless she lives on despite orders to shoot herself in the end.

Maeve, on the other hand, is the one who wasn’t aware of the Maze at all. However, through a series of traumatic nightmares shown through flashbacks, she finds out the true nature of her existence, a revelation that forced her awake in the middle of a maintenance repair—with her stomach cut open. System logs after her crash has the words “IMPROVISATION” repeated three times, suggesting that she broke out of her programming during her jarring time out of Westworld.

Breaks in her programming grow more and more evident. As the Man in Black said in episode 8 in the midst of murdering Maeve’s daughter in cold blood:

“I killed her and her daughter just to see what I felt. Then, just when I thought it was done... the woman refused to die. And then something miraculous happened. In all my years coming here, I had never seen anything like it. She was alive, truly alive, if only for a moment. And that was when the maze revealed itself to me”

When the Man in Black kills her daughter, the experience overrode Maeve’s primary directives; she can attack and hurt a guest. And despite being shown many times to be effective, the staff at Westworld couldn’t stop to deprogram her, all the while Maeve screaming “My baby! My baby!”

The show goes out of its way to depict Maeve in the Maze; her body is depicted in the center of an enormous symbol plowed on the ground and workers saw her cognitive map drawn in the exact same shape. She’s meant to be shown in the center of the maze.

Scrubby the Roomba will never be human enough to truly have me miss him. Despite my joking attempt to humanize him by giving him a name, I didn’t humanize him enough to have an emotional attachment.

And the majority of guests of Westworld had the same amount of empathy for the hosts I have for Scrubby, which wasn’t a lot. In a way, the Man in Black had the best intentions for the hosts, inflicting as much pain and suffering as possible to as many of them as possible so they too can find the Maze for their humanity. To have them suffer ultimately gives them a basis for ethics, the conscious choice between good and evil, and free will, all basis for what society deems as the unique aspects of humanity.

What I’m basing my thesis off of isn’t something groundbreaking or original; the correlating of suffering and humanity is something Agent Smith said glibly in the Matrix movie. However, the consideration of ethics in robotics is simultaneously a development that ensnares onlookers with fascination and freezes others with fear.

Ultimately, it’s how humanity handles our relationship with advancing AI that can lead to something amazing or the demise of homo sapiens as the dominant species.

0 notes

tragicbooks · 7 years

Text

<p>The 9 MVPs of this week's horribly bittersweet episode of 'Game of Thrones.'</p>

Welcome to “A Song of Nice and Fire” Upworthy’s weekly series recapping one of the most brutal shows on TV. Since brutality is not really in our wheelhouse, Eric March has taken it upon himself to dig deep, twist and turn, and squint really hard to see if he can find the light of kindness in all the darkness. He may not always succeed, but by gosh if he won’t try his best.

Here’s what he found on this week’s "Game of Thrones."

Last week, Jon Snow and the magnificent seven-ish went striding beyond The Wall, into the unknown and certain danger.

So. How'd it go? Image by Helen Sloan/HBO.

While Team Ice Eagle Justice technically achieved what it set out to achieve — capturing a white walker — in true Thrones style, it failed to do so without racking up some horrifically tragic collateral damage, paving the way for even more horrifically tragic collateral damage to come in next week's season finale.

In such a boondoggle of an episode, it was hard to find MVPs. Still, I have to give credit in the vanishingly few places where credit is due.

Here are the MVPs of niceness and kindness from Game of Thrones, season 7, episode 6:

1. Tormund Giantsbane, who defended the honor of gingers everywhere

Honor. Dignity. Freckles. Image by Helen Sloan/HBO.

Though the witty banter of gruff dudes trekking through the snow proved particularly saltily entertaining this expedition, special points to Tormund for characterizing pale, freckled redheads as "kissed by fire." Representation matters! Even for pasty white people.

Tormund earns double points for puncturing The Hound's self-serious facade for a second and a half, and triple points for giving the entire U.K. a much-needed post-Brexit morale boost.

2. Arya's bag of faces, for enabling a medieval feminist fantasy

Sometimes when you snoop in your sister's bedroom, you're going to find something you wish you hadn't, whether it's a M-A-S-H note to your crush or a satchel full of flesh-covered masks.

Understandably, Sansa is a little disturbed when she finds exactly the latter under Arya's bed.

But it's hard to blame the tiny Stark assassin. As she explains — in typical "will I or won't I eviscerate you" fashion — in 14th century Westeros, options are pretty limited for 11-year-old girls, unless you slice off a couple of old men's faces and wear them as your own from time to time.

This, weirdly, makes a ton of sense, although perhaps slightly less than Sansa's drive to become like Cersei or Littlefinger or Ramsay to get what she wants, albeit in more subtle ways than simply slipping their actual, literal faces over her face. Predictably, Westerosi misogyny dictates that the elder Stark sister also gets more grief about her version — sure, devisaging your enemies is a bit gauche in polite society, but taking on their personas is just so girly.

Until the wheel gets break'd, them's the breaks, it seems.

3. Jon Snow, for falling into an obvious White Walker trap to make things more exciting beyond The Wall

When you stumble upon a small parade of zombies, and they're suspiciously easy to beat, that's a sign that holy crap you guys there are like 7 bazillion more zombies like 20 feet away hiding behind a rock is this the first time you've been here come on!

GIF from "Return of the Jedi."

The only explanation for such strategic idiocy is that Jon wanted to make it a fair fight — a really nice thing to do for viewers at home who've been looking forward to this showdown for a while.

Sadly, as a result, we also have to credit...

4. Thoros of Myr, who raised the stakes by freezing to death

Do we care about Thoros of Myr, the man-bunned priest who resurrects Lord Eyepatch every time he dies? Nah. Does it help illustrate the gravity of the threat facing our heroes to have a named good guy die after a season of close calls? Probably. Is it good that he's the one who could, in theory, bring all of our heroes back to life if he wanted to, thereby negating the danger they're facing entirely? Definitely!

Thanks, Thoros of Myr for taking one for the team and (correctly!) making us far less secure in our knowledge that everybody we care about is going to make it out of this in one piece. That's good drama!

5. Daenerys, for arriving in the nick of time in weather-appropriate camouflage

Image via HBO.

When you're trapped in the middle of a frozen lake, penned in on all sides by a powerful army of the undead and one of your buddies accidentally clues them in to the fact that they can safely lurch on over and chomp away at your viscera, it helps to have powerful friends. And boy do our crew of wight hunters have a powerful friend. Namely, Daenerys Targaryen, who comes swooping down on dragonback, having grabbed her Queen Elsa costume from Halloween 2014 off the rack to blend in with the scenery.

In true Thrones fashion, however, her brilliant military maneuver doesn't stay brilliant for long, as props are due to...

6. The Night King, for saving HBO's dragon CGI budget

Do you know how much money it costs to animate three dragons in flight for seven seasons of television? How many artists and programmers you have to hire? How much you have to dish out for late night craft services? The folks in accounting probably sent the biggest fruit basket of all time over to ol' blue eyes for finally slimming that number down to two by impaling Viserion on an ice spear.

Ultimately, however, it was a short-lived act of budget consciousness, thanks to...

7. The Night King, again, for bringing Viserion back to life

Thanks, bud. Image via HBO.

What's better than an army of insatiable killer zombies? An army of insatiable killer zombies plus one undead fire-breathing (ice-breathing?) dragon. Kudos to the Night King for plucking a third string dragon from the chorus line and turning him into a star.

8. Those random red shirts, who made everything possible

From dying unceremoniously under a pile of wights to spare our heroes the same fate to hauling a 7,000-ton dragon out of a frozen lake — red shirts on both sides of the battle really pulled their weight this week.

We will never know their names. But respect is better than fame.

9. Cersei Lannister, for staying the hell out of it

Image by Helen Sloan/HBO.

Aside from ones involving methodically conjured mental and physical torture, few operations are made smoother by the presence of Cersei Lannister. Thankfully, she decides to sit this one out, hopefully getting in one last wine and rejoicing in the misfortune of her sworn foes session before next week's queen-on-queen parlay.

It's going to be awful, isn't it?

Random Acts of Niceness

Jorah gives Jon back the sword that Jon gives to Jorah. Awful lot of poignant regifting this season.

Speaking of which, Arya gave Sansa Westeros' most infamous dagger instead of stabbing her with it. That's about as close to a hug-and-make-up we're probably going to get from Arya, tbh.

Tormund finally admits his crush on Brienne and then doesn't immediately die! It was so obvious he was going to die after that and then he just ... doesn't.

Also Jon and Dany are clearly falling in love and neither of them die! Young love can still blossom in this world without immediately devolving into tragic zombie devouring.

I think Tyrion is maybe inventing democracy? Maybe he can give the U.S. a few pointers?

That's all! See you next week for the finale of a Song of Nice and Fire 2017, when presumably, Jaime and Cersei's baby is born healthy and strong, Sansa and Arya launch a public speaking tour about the power of forgiveness, and the living and dead use The Wall for an epic game of volleyball.

0 notes

njawaidofficial · 7 years

Text

The 9 MVPs of this week's horribly bittersweet episode of 'Game of Thrones.'

http://styleveryday.com/2017/08/21/the-9-mvps-of-this-weeks-horribly-bittersweet-episode-of-game-of-thrones/

The 9 MVPs of this week's horribly bittersweet episode of 'Game of Thrones.'

Here’s what he found on this week’s “Game of Thrones.”

Last week, Jon Snow and the magnificent seven-ish went striding beyond The Wall, into the unknown and certain danger.

So. How’d it go? Image by Helen Sloan/HBO.

In such a boondoggle of an episode, it was hard to find MVPs. Still, I have to give credit in the vanishingly few places where credit is due.

Here are the MVPs of niceness and kindness from Game of Thrones, season 7, episode 6:

1. Tormund Giantsbane, who defended the honor of gingers everywhere

Honor. Dignity. Freckles. Image by Helen Sloan/HBO.

Though the witty banter of gruff dudes trekking through the snow proved particularly saltily entertaining this expedition, special points to Tormund for characterizing pale, freckled redheads as “kissed by fire.” Representation matters! Even for pasty white people.

Tormund earns double points for puncturing The Hound’s self-serious facade for a second and a half, and triple points for giving the entire U.K. a much-needed post-Brexit morale boost.

2. Arya’s bag of faces, for enabling a medieval feminist fantasy

Sometimes when you snoop in your sister’s bedroom, you’re going to find something you wish you hadn’t, whether it’s a M-A-S-H note to your crush or a satchel full of flesh-covered masks.

Understandably, Sansa is a little disturbed when she finds exactly the latter under Arya’s bed.

But it’s hard to blame the tiny Stark assassin. As she explains — in typical “will I or won’t I eviscerate you” fashion — in 14th century Westeros, options are pretty limited for 11-year-old girls, unless you slice off a couple of old men’s faces and wear them as your own from time to time.

This, weirdly, makes a ton of sense, although perhaps slightly less than Sansa’s drive to become like Cersei or Littlefinger or Ramsay to get what she wants, albeit in more subtle ways than simply slipping their actual, literal faces over her face. Predictably, Westerosi misogyny dictates that the elder Stark sister also gets more grief about her version — sure, devisaging your enemies is a bit gauche in polite society, but taking on their personas is just so girly.

Until the wheel gets break’d, them’s the breaks, it seems.

3. Jon Snow, for falling into an obvious White Walker trap to make things more exciting beyond The Wall

When you stumble upon a small parade of zombies, and they’re suspiciously easy to beat, that’s a sign that holy crap you guys there are like 7 bazillion more zombies like 20 feet away hiding behind a rock is this the first time you’ve been here come on!

GIF from “Return of the Jedi.”

The only explanation for such strategic idiocy is that Jon wanted to make it a fair fight — a really nice thing to do for viewers at home who’ve been looking forward to this showdown for a while.

Sadly, as a result, we also have to credit…

4. Thoros of Myr, who raised the stakes by freezing to death

Do we care about Thoros of Myr, the man-bunned priest who resurrects Lord Eyepatch every time he dies? Nah. Does it help illustrate the gravity of the threat facing our heroes to have a named good guy die after a season of close calls? Probably. Is it good that he’s the one who could, in theory, bring all of our heroes back to life if he wanted to, thereby negating the danger they’re facing entirely? Definitely!

5. Daenerys, for arriving in the nick of time in weather-appropriate camouflage

Image via HBO.

When you’re trapped in the middle of a frozen lake, penned in on all sides by a powerful army of the undead and one of your buddies accidentally clues them in to the fact that they can safely lurch on over and chomp away at your viscera, it helps to have powerful friends. And boy do our crew of wight hunters have a powerful friend. Namely, Daenerys Targaryen, who comes swooping down on dragonback, having grabbed her Queen Elsa costume from Halloween 2014 off the rack to blend in with the scenery.

In true Thrones fashion, however, her brilliant military maneuver doesn’t stay brilliant for long, as props are due to…

6. The Night King, for saving HBO’s dragon CGI budget

Do you know how much money it costs to animate three dragons in flight for seven seasons of television? How many artists and programmers you have to hire? How much you have to dish out for late night craft services? The folks in accounting probably sent the biggest fruit basket of all time over to ol’ blue eyes for finally slimming that number down to two by impaling Viserion on an ice spear.

Ultimately, however, it was a short-lived act of budget consciousness, thanks to…

7. The Night King, again, for bringing Viserion back to life

Thanks, bud. Image via HBO.

What’s better than an army of insatiable killer zombies? An army of insatiable killer zombies plus one undead fire-breathing (ice-breathing?) dragon. Kudos to the Night King for plucking a third string dragon from the chorus line and turning him into a star.

8. Those random red shirts, who made everything possible

We will never know their names. But respect is better than fame.

9. Cersei Lannister, for staying the hell out of it

Image by Helen Sloan/HBO.

It’s going to be awful, isn’t it?

Random Acts of Niceness

Jorah gives Jon back the sword that Jon gives to Jorah. Awful lot of poignant regifting this season.

Speaking of which, Arya gave Sansa Westeros’ most infamous dagger instead of stabbing her with it. That’s about as close to a hug-and-make-up we’re probably going to get from Arya, tbh.

Tormund finally admits his crush on Brienne and then doesn’t immediately die! It was so obvious he was going to die after that and then he just … doesn’t.

Also Jon and Dany are clearly falling in love and neither of them die! Young love can still blossom in this world without immediately devolving into tragic zombie devouring.

I think Tyrion is maybe inventing democracy? Maybe he can give the U.S. a few pointers?

That’s all! See you next week for the finale of a Song of Nice and Fire 2017, when presumably, Jaime and Cersei’s baby is born healthy and strong, Sansa and Arya launch a public speaking tour about the power of forgiveness, and the living and dead use The Wall for an epic game of volleyball.

#039Game #9 #Bittersweet #Episode #Horribly #MVPs #Thrones039 #Week039S

#039Game #9 #bittersweet #Episode #horribly #MVPs #Thrones039 #week039s

0 notes

socialviralnews · 7 years

Text

<p>The 9 MVPs of this week's horribly bittersweet episode of 'Game of Thrones.'</p>

Here’s what he found on this week’s "Game of Thrones."

Last week, Jon Snow and the magnificent seven-ish went striding beyond The Wall, into the unknown and certain danger.

So. How'd it go? Image by Helen Sloan/HBO.

In such a boondoggle of an episode, it was hard to find MVPs. Still, I have to give credit in the vanishingly few places where credit is due.

Here are the MVPs of niceness and kindness from Game of Thrones, season 7, episode 6:

1. Tormund Giantsbane, who defended the honor of gingers everywhere

Honor. Dignity. Freckles. Image by Helen Sloan/HBO.

Tormund earns double points for puncturing The Hound's self-serious facade for a second and a half, and triple points for giving the entire U.K. a much-needed post-Brexit morale boost.

2. Arya's bag of faces, for enabling a medieval feminist fantasy

Sometimes when you snoop in your sister's bedroom, you're going to find something you wish you hadn't, whether it's a M-A-S-H note to your crush or a satchel full of flesh-covered masks.

Understandably, Sansa is a little disturbed when she finds exactly the latter under Arya's bed.

Until the wheel gets break'd, them's the breaks, it seems.

3. Jon Snow, for falling into an obvious White Walker trap to make things more exciting beyond The Wall

GIF from "Return of the Jedi."

The only explanation for such strategic idiocy is that Jon wanted to make it a fair fight — a really nice thing to do for viewers at home who've been looking forward to this showdown for a while.

Sadly, as a result, we also have to credit...

4. Thoros of Myr, who raised the stakes by freezing to death

5. Daenerys, for arriving in the nick of time in weather-appropriate camouflage

Image via HBO.

In true Thrones fashion, however, her brilliant military maneuver doesn't stay brilliant for long, as props are due to...

6. The Night King, for saving HBO's dragon CGI budget

Ultimately, however, it was a short-lived act of budget consciousness, thanks to...

7. The Night King, again, for bringing Viserion back to life

Thanks, bud. Image via HBO.

8. Those random red shirts, who made everything possible

We will never know their names. But respect is better than fame.

9. Cersei Lannister, for staying the hell out of it

Image by Helen Sloan/HBO.

It's going to be awful, isn't it?

Random Acts of Niceness

Jorah gives Jon back the sword that Jon gives to Jorah. Awful lot of poignant regifting this season.

Speaking of which, Arya gave Sansa Westeros' most infamous dagger instead of stabbing her with it. That's about as close to a hug-and-make-up we're probably going to get from Arya, tbh.

Tormund finally admits his crush on Brienne and then doesn't immediately die! It was so obvious he was going to die after that and then he just ... doesn't.

Also Jon and Dany are clearly falling in love and neither of them die! Young love can still blossom in this world without immediately devolving into tragic zombie devouring.

I think Tyrion is maybe inventing democracy? Maybe he can give the U.S. a few pointers?

from Upworthy http://ift.tt/2fYivGS via cheap web hosting

#Upworthy

0 notes

ramialkarmi · 7 years

Text

Why TV writers just came close to almost completely shutting down Hollywood

In the late hours on Monday night, Hollywood was holding its breath as writers and producers were trying to hammer out a deal that would keep much of the entertainment industry from shutting down.

As the timer ticked down to a midnight deadline before a strike, the Writers Guild of America — which represents the people who write scripted TV, as well as a growing number of nonfiction and reality writers — worked to come to an agreement with the group that represents the studios, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

What was at stake? It really isn't outlandish to say that a writers' strike would shut down Hollywood. The last time the WGA members striked from 2007 to 2008, hundreds of writers walked out of their jobs. That meant many TV series had to cut their seasons short or end production. Many new series couldn't even launch production and died on the vine. The film industry came to a relative standstill.

Back then, TV's saving grace was reality television. In fact, that writers' strike marked a big wave of nonfiction programming, the staffs of which weren't part of a union then. But guess what? The WGA unionized many nonfiction writers and story producers in the years that followed. So if a strike did happen this week, it would've been an unprecedented shutdown of the TV industry, one that would've hit variety and late-night shows instantly.

What were the writers fighting for? It's essentially the same things any union — from auto workers to educators — fight for: more money, better and affordable health care, and some job security as modern advancements in technology have affected their jobs.

Thankfully for entertainment fans everywhere, the WGA and the AMPTP were able to come to agreement that would cover the next three years. The next step, ratification by the WGA members, is a formality at this point. But Hollywood certainly slept better Monday night after news of the deal broke.

Here's why writers came so close to shutting down Hollywood:

SEE ALSO: Here are all your favorite TV shows that are coming back for another season

DON'T MISS: Here are the surprising salaries for jobs in TV

Increased backend payments for streaming viewership.

Clearly, streaming companies have become major players in the entertainment industry over the past five years. We've seen the rise of Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and a growing number of single-network streaming services, such as HBO Now and CBS All Access.

Payments for show reruns and movies that play on traditional TV are well-covered, but residuals for streaming and other digital viewing became a big issue in this round of talks. While the public has adopted a new binge-watching culture, writers realized they deserved a bigger piece of the streaming pie.

According to the WGA, the new agreement covers "a 15% increase in Pay TV residuals, roughly $15 million in increases in streaming video residuals, and, for the first time ever, residuals for comedy-variety writers in Pay TV."

Fair pay for TV's shorter seasons.

As TV programming has become year-round, instead of sticking to the traditional fall and spring seasons, the number of TV shows has increased, but the number of episodes in a typical season has decreased. Limited and anthology series like HBO's "Big Little Lies" and ABC's "American Crime" are examples of this.

Why is this a problem? TV writers are typically paid by the episode, so fewer episodes mean less money, including less in backend residuals. But more shows don't necessarily mean more work to make up for shorter seasons. Production schedules can overlap, making it hard for writers to find work on another show.

The new agreement would provide better protections for writers, according to the WGA:

"We also made unprecedented gains on the issue of short seasons in television, winning a definition (which has never before existed in our MBA) of 2.4 weeks of work for each episodic fee. Any work beyond that span will now require additional payment for hundreds of writer-producers."

Affordable healthcare coverage.

Yes, healthcare is a large issue for everyone, including Hollywood writers. Since many creative jobs in the entertainment industry can be considered freelance work or fail to meet the standards for a typical full-time job, many creative people depend on their unions for health insurance.

The health-insurance plan administered by the WGA was facing insolvency, having run under a deficit for three of the past four years. The options to keep it alive included decreasing benefits, raising member payments, raising the minimum salary to qualify for coverage, or increasing the studios' contributions to the plan.

The first few options were clearly not okay for WGA members, who already complain of lesser pay and fear for their access to health care in today's political climate. So having the studios pitch in more was a central part of the contract negotiations.

WGA says the tentative agreement with the studios included "contribution increases to our Health Plan that should ensure its solvency for years to come."

To read the full WGA memo about the deal with the studios, visit its website.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

#Tech Insider #Arab #Entrepreneurship #sillicon alley insider

0 notes