#Virtual Nightmare (2000)

[kylieneko]

Virtual Nightmare

Every time I see that Ceci n'est pas une pipe image, I get nostalgic for a movie I saw on TV while, oh, prolly highschoolish time.

And then I spend some time trying to remember what it was called using the little bit I remember about it.

And then I forget about it again.

But no more! Now I shall tell the world about this UPN original movie from 2000!

And someone has done us all a solid and archived this onto the youtubes.

Anyone else remember this flick?

[arrozaurus]

One of the primary driving forces of the particular trade system designed in the 1980s and 1990s was always to allow multinationals the freedom to scour the globe in search of the cheapest and most exploitable labor force. It was a journey that passed through Mexico and Central America’s sweatshop maquiladoras and had a long stopover in South Korea. But by the end of the 1990s, virtually all roads led to China, a country where wages were extraordinarily low, trade unions were brutally suppressed, and the state was willing to spend seemingly limitless funds on massive infrastructure projects—modern ports, sprawling highway systems, endless numbers of coal-fired power plants, massive dams—all to ensure that the lights stayed on in the factories and the goods made it from the assembly lines onto the container ships on time. A free trader’s dream, in other words—and a climate nightmare.

A nightmare because there is a close correlation between low wages and high emissions, or as Malm puts it, “a causal link between the quest for cheap and disciplined labor power and rising CO2 emissions.” And why wouldn’t there be? The same logic that is willing to work laborers to the bone for pennies a day will burn mountains of dirty coal while spending next to nothing on pollution controls because it’s the cheapest way to produce. So when the factories moved to China, they also got markedly dirtier. As Malm points out, Chinese coal use was declining slightly between 1995 and 2000, only for the explosion in manufacturing to send it soaring once again. It’s not that the companies moving their production to China wanted to drive up emissions: they were after the cheap labor, but exploited workers and an exploited planet are, it turns out, a package deal.

A destabilized climate is the cost of deregulated, global capitalism, its unintended, yet unavoidable consequence.

This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein

[vanillabat99]

I had the weirdest dream (nightmare??) and I really don't know how to feel about it. CW for ableism, assault, unreality.

It started off with me being back in highschool. I wanted to be back in class so bad, so that I could finish highschool, but it went so so horribly. I was treated as subhuman and pushed around constantly. I decided to purposefully flunk out in defiance. There was a fire drill and I wasn't able to get out of the building due to my disabilities and I even went back into a room to grab a stuffed animal. I got in huge trouble and was in the principles office. I was blamed for being inadequate and disgusting, and a secretary was telling me I will never be loved and that I'm not deserving of human decency. The secretary also told me I will never have any boyfriends, and if I did they would all be ugly and horrible, which I actually had a response to! I yelled that "I have a girlfriend, she has pink hair, and she's in med school!". It was nice to have something to say. After that, I stormed out and ended up spending the night somewhere, where I "fell asleep" and had a bit of dreamception (I will talk more about this later). When I "woke up" I started crying and saying "I can't do this anymore" and I collapsed and went completely limp. This is where it starts to get weird.

I was carried to a hospital on a stretcher, and nurses rushed out to see what was wrong. One of the people carrying me was a strange man in a black and white sequinned costume. He pointed at me and told the nurses "it's a thriller" which didn't make any sense. The nurses were confused. The strange man just looked and pointed at me and said "It's a thriller. You have to remember." and then another man showed up and started running towards me. It was the same man from the dreamception, when I "fell asleep" and had a nightmare within a nightmare. I got up and started running away and screaming "I can't go back, please don't touch me". I ran outside the hospital and into a desolate wasteland.

I don't remember what exactly happened inbetween, but I ended up "falling asleep" and "waking up" over and over and over again, with the same horrible man chasing me and the sequinned man standing there. They had the same face. Each time I "fell asleep" the nightmare would progress bit by bit.

After that, I ended up "waking up" and "falling asleep" and having a cute little dream about some kind of early 2000s virtual life game, which very quickly turned into 2 girls taking my character and dragging me somewhere as it morphed into "reality". They were laughing and trying to chain me to an upright bedframe. Then the strange man appeared, and I "remembered" he was going to assault me, and the two girls cut me out of the chains and I ran. I tried so hard to run away but the sequinned man kept telling me "You have to remember" and I ended up in a loop, running away and the man showing up and running more. I "remembered" that I stabbed him twice. So I grabbed some scissors and kept running and waiting for a moment when I could stab him. Eventually I did just that, I stabbed him.

I kept running, and I found myself back in the wasteland from when I ran away from the hospital. The sequinned man was there with open arms, and I ran towards him. He was saying "I'm so proud of you, you finally remembered. You finally freed yourself" while he hugged me and I cried. We ended up walking through all the different layers of dreams I had, and more sequinned people showed up. They were all the different versions of him from all the different layers of dreams. I was feeling very uncomfortable because they all have the same face, the face of the man who chased me, but the sequinned man reassured me it was fine and that I have nothing to worry about. We all walked into a big auditorium with a piano in the middle, and someone was playing an eerie song that had been showing up throughout the whole dream. I sat down at the piano and started playing the same song, except I got to change it and make it happy. I was laughing and smiling with everyone around me. And then I woke up.

[faelynnupward]

All golf courses are water and land use nightmares. I wouldn’t lose a minute of sleep if the sport ceased to exist and its courses all went to seed.

This particular golf course, the Marriott Menahouse Golf Course (yes, it is real), is not a great example of hubris. The entire area “below” the Giza Necropolis is actually a flood plain. The site of the pyramids was likely chosen for its higher relative position because it wouldn’t flood. Despite looking like it is in the middle of a giant desert, virtually all pictures of the pyramids at Giza are taken from the Nile side. The golf course location might have had big river irrigated crops 2000 years ago. If people weren’t there at all, it would probably be green.

Not that the water still couldn’t be better used.

this is the kind of hubris that would get you smited by god back in the day

[ryjelsum]

the biggest problem on the 'linux desktop' honestly isn't even linux's fault: nvidia drivers. until like, right fucking now, for nvidia's modern cards you have had to use nvidia's proprietary drivers, because nvidia essentially places access to a lot of features of the GPU behind a software lock that only they have the key for. they have made strides in this recently and actually released some code to interface with their firmware as open source but it's still not.. ideal. and it's also only really meant for rtx 2000 series cards and on, a lot of people are still running older graphics cards that work perfectly fine for their purposes. like i'm running a gtx 1060 6gb and i'm still perfectly fine with that because i haven't really wanted to upgrade any of my screens beyond 1080p and resolution is honestly the biggest killer of frame rates

though apparently the new nvidia vulkan driver (nvk) can theoretically run on GPUs all the way back to gtx 700. the problem is, a lot of the newer old cards don't have a solution for reclocking yet which is essential for anything above base levels of performance. so there's just this weird band in FOSS driver support where good open source drivers are essentially impossible still. luckily those cards are still supported by modern versions of the nvidia driver but i would not be surprised to see them drop pascal and maxwell support from it very soon because those are like nearly 10 year old gpus. that's why when i ended up replacing my CPU and motherboard i got one of the newer am4 ryzens that have integrated graphics and had 3 display outputs, so i could run linux on my integrated graphics and keep the GPU in a windows virtual machine in preparation for nvidia stranding pascal cards on old versions of the driver

building your computer for linux and virtualization pci-e passthrough purposes is honestly kind of a bother though there are lots of very hardware specific issues to work with/around and sometimes finding a stable and performant virtualization-with-gpu setup is a god damn nightmare so i would only really recommend it for the bold

[chorusfm]

Magnolia Park Announce New Album

Magnolia Park will release Halloween Mixtape II on October 27th. Today they’ve released a video for “Animal.” Track Listing * The End: Emo Nite Rhapsody  * Antidote  * Breathing feat. nothing,nowhere.  * Do or Die feat. Ethan Ross  * Dreams feat. Jake Hill & Vyper  * Halloween Tip 1  * Haunted House   * Candles  * Dead on Arrival  * Halloween Tip 2  * Animal feat. Ethan Ross & PLVTINUM  * Loved by you  * Hallween Tip 3  * Life In The USA feat. TX2  * Manic  * Halloween Tip 4  * Fell in Love on Halloween  Today, prolific five-piece Magnolia Park reveal plans to release their new album Halloween Mixtape II on October 27th via Epitaph Records. The follow up to 2022’s debut record Baku’s Revenge and spiritual counterpart to 2021’s Halloween Mixtape, their kaleidoscopic fusion of sound is on display more than ever as they experiment and expand upon the hardened edge underlying their trademark catchy hooks and memorable melodies.   Nowhere is their unique sonic mesh more apparent than on lead single and accompanying music video for “Animal” - The guttural, industrial-meets-nu-metal blast features rapper Ethan Ross and dark-pop singer PLVTINUM, showcasing Joshua Roberts’ Chester Bennington-esque vocal howl.   “The song came together organically because we did it in only a couple of hours,” guitarist/songwriter Tristan Torres says. “It's such a weird collaboration, but it works so well and sounds so cool. We got to do the video all together too - we all flew out to LA and we got to hang out and make this really cool, nu-metal-style video.” Watch it below!  Tapping longtime collaborators and Baku’s Revenge producers Andrew Wade (A Day To Remember, Wage War) and Andy Karpovck, the band updates their aesthetic with a contemporary fusion of magnetic pop, punk, nu-metal, hip-hop, phonk and 2000s theater-emo. Creating a versatile soundscape to support the many worlds that Magnolia Park’s music lies in, the band’s strengths stem from its individual members who all play a major role in the blend of genres they seamlessly combine.  “Vince comes from a pop-leaning world, Freddie comes from a math rock and experimental world, and I'm very hip-hop-oriented,” Torres explains. “You can hear that in our sound – all these worlds colliding. We're not selfish about our sounds, we like it when we all mix together. Josh's amazing voice is the nail in the coffin, and Joe is such an amazing drummer.”  Taking inspiration from a variety of pop culture juggernauts – the legendary virtual rockers Gorillaz, anime, and Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas’, Halloween Mixtape II further develops the narratives built around Magnolia Park’s fictional universe and its characters: Baku, Heart Eater, SoulEater, Dream Eater, MoonEater, Pumpkin Eater, and the Reaper. "We just want to create soundtracks for our characters," comments Torres.   As summer cools into fall, let Magnolia Park’s genre-rich, hook-packed Halloween Mixtape II be the perfect soundtrack to whatever you have in store this October. Whether it’s cuddling under a blanket to a horror movie classic or building out a killer costume, Magnolia Park’s characters will be right there with you in their ever-expanding universe.  --- Please consider becoming a member so we can keep bringing you stories like this one. ◎ https://chorus.fm/news/magnolia-park-announce-new-album/

[ambreiiigns]

hey ì know someone asked a rec list for non slasher horrors (which i can't find anymore help??) but i also wanted to ask for a rec list of slasher movies? mostly cuz i don't wanna scroll down your blog everytime i wanna watch a movie and want recs, i'd like a list that i can save somewhere and look at if you don't mind

hello you should be able to find the ask you're talking abt in my ask tag ?!?!? i just made sure i didn't forget to tag it or that it didn't disappear and it is there so. ye just check the ask tag it's in there :^)

i imagine that. if you're asking this. you're not bothered by like gore and shit but still u might wanna be careful w some of these ... just in case ..... always good to check up yk .... u can always shoot me another ask if you don't wanna google the movy lest you get spoilered but ye. just saying

also i'll be doing this 1. assuming that you have never seen a slasher movy ever so sorry if i rec some classics u might have seen and 2. the order is done Vaguely according to which slasher as a character i like more. so u might get something in the top 5 that has a cool character but is a shite movy. doubt it'll happen but i am warning you <3 also ideally i am putting EVERYTHING i have watched so far in this list so BUCKLE UP

texas chainsaw massacre my fucking beloved the mother of slasher movies everything to me bubba leatherface sawyer my fucking BABY coolest character ever if u think abt him for a second. i beg you to not take the movies Or the character at face value even tho it is fine and fun and valid to do that. you don't have to watch the whole franchise bc some of them. are absolute shit. but the first two are a MUST and the two-parts reboot from the 2000s is fine too

black christmas 1974 i do suggest you skip the other two but if you Really want more of it there's a real cool novelization on the internet that i ate up in one sitting. billy's the coolest character bc he's by nature unknowable but if you listen to him & pick up on the implications you actually know virtually anything there is to know abt him and he's interesting as hell. also maybe one of the two or three movies that kinda disturbed me bc some phonecalls just make my stomach turn <3

nightmare on elm street BOOOO FREDDY KRUEGER STINKIEST GUY IN THE WORLD I ADORE HIM SOOOOOO MUCH FUUUUCK REVOLUTIONARY ICONIC FRANCHISE. I LOVE A SUPERNATURAL ELEMENT IN A SLASHER. GOT MY SECOND FAVORITE FINAL GIRL. I CANNOT SAY ENOUGH WORDS ABT HOW GOOD THE MOVIES ARE BUT FREDDY'S ALSO SUCH AN ICONIC SHOW STEALING CHARACTER OBVIOUSLY like he is the worst he's the fuckin. my god. he's. what can you even SAY ABT HIM HE'S THE BEST!!!! you know what i mean he just is unparalleled. fuckin great concept fuckin funniest bitch on the block WHILE SCARY AS HELL like he has got everything and i love him

we're getting close to february so my heart is telling me to put my bloody valentine high on the list. the canadians always put something special in their slashers idk. it might feel slow and unassuming but i actually love it and i love how much it focuses on the characters. i beg you try to find the longer version that didn't cut out the kills bc it's got some of the most fun kills i've seen. there's a bit of a mystery.. a bit of a twist... that i love so much.... and harry warden is like the ONE bitch who has never done anything wrong i support him forever working class ICON HARRY WARDEN I LOVE YOU!!!!!

the firefly trilogy and by this i mean house of 1000 corpses and the devil's rejects you Can ignore three from hell. i know technically rejects is the superior movy but there is nothing to me that compares to the bullshit and fuckery of corpses. it feels like what i imagine an acid trip is like and it's the perfect effect. it was supposed to be a haunted house attraction on some amusement park and it RETAINS that energy of just walking in fucked up room after fucked up room. yea it's just. the best to me. and it's got the BALLS to treat the slashers as the main characters and i LOVE them so MUCH the firefly family is EVERYTHING TO ME you might be fooled into thinking otis is the main guy but i'm only kept alive by the infinite love i hold in my heart for baby firefly my beloved

carrie NOT QUITE A SLASHER I KNOW BUT SHE DID KILL LIKE. 70 PEOPLE OR SOMETHING SO I WOULD ARGUE SHE DESERVES A SPOT?? obviously ICONIC MOVIE ICONIC CHARACTER THERE IS NOTHING I NEED TO SAY ABT IT. we support her rights and her wrongs IF there were any wrongs. she's my beloved she's a great character and we've all been there innit. no one needs me to elaborate on why carrie's cool she just is. she's got magic powers. she's got mommy issues and religious trauma. period will unlock something otherworldly and evil inside of you. everyone loves a good sympathetic ""villain"" which i hesitate to call her. carrie's just the best thing

friday the 13th had to be up high innit. if the chainsaw is the mother the friday is the poster child i truly think nothing else embodies slasher as a genre more than ft13th. it sucks so bad. it was so cheap for so long even tho it was instantly iconic. it LOOKS cheap and iconic. i love pam i love jason i love violence motivated by love and revenge i have no notes it's just thee perfect slasher franchise not the best not my favorite but the quintessence of the genre

the boy 2016 it's BARELY a slasher i just include it as a treat and uhh. actually i can't say anything else bc i risk spoiling it but. brahms' cool. pls watch the movie without looking up anything. and if you've seen me post abt it already and i already spoiled it for you i am so sorry

behind the mask: the rise of leslie vernon everyone should watch behind the mask it deserves the world it deserves a sequel i love it so much leslie is one of the most fun slashers ever if only bc w the nature of the movie you get to know him so well and he's so fun and likeable and charming but when he gets into it he's pretty convincing. it's insane. he's great and the movie's so fun and original i cannot recommend it enough

creep is insaaaane insane insane insane once again barely a slasher but it's one of the most. movies of all time. an Experience. especially the first one. in some ways the slasher here is kinda like billy in that he's unknowable but you love him anyway. it's creative and original and reminds me of behind the mask and it's just honestly Honestly one of my favorites and i love this fuckin guy too

candyman god god god god. in the same vein of nightmare i love a slasher w some supernatural fuckery goin on. also congrats on being one of the very few franchises that got a sequel late in the 2010s that was GREAT. the other sequels aren't bad either tbh they just get weird but they're all a good watch. and the character mr candyman himself he's the beeeest he's in the never did anything wrong category he hashtag saves the bees he's charming and romantic he's got magic powers he's the most stunning man in the history of horror movies easily everything abt candyman's great and he's a great character w a slapping origin story

uhhh scream. sure. you know how uhhh i don't know if it's a spoiler but. the nature of ghostface. makes it hard to care abt him as a character. ifyky. so. i can't put it any higher if i'm ranking based on character. but obviously syd's the focus and she's great and the movies are worth watching forever and always they're wonderful and i think they're holding up well even w the recent sequels

martin 1977 this movy. not Quite a slasher but close enough. the movie's been described as a long character study so you can imagine the main character's enjoyable and you spend a lot of time w him and you get to know him but at the same time you're not really sure you understand what's going on??? he's just a little guy. he's just a scared lonely little vampire guy. i love him and the movie's so underrated it makes me boil w rage

slumber party massacre. don't judge the franchise based on the first movy bc while that's just Fine on its own shit really picks up from the second one. you will never see something like spm2 in your life and you will never find a slasher guy more fun or more iconic or more cunty than the driller killer the love of my fuckin life he's got EASILY the coolest weapon out of ANY of these guys YES. BEATS FREDDY'S GLOVE TOO. and he SINGS AND PUTS HIS WHOLE PUSSY INTO THE PERFORMANCE I JUST CAN'T EVEN PUT INTO WORDS HOW INSANE THIS MOVIE IS

prom night. oh my god. Similarly to slumber party massacre. the first movie's fine if not a bit forgettable. but the second one is what really Matters. prom night 2 has been perfectly described as a mix of nightmare and carrie and it just slaps so so hard. mary lou is incredibly fun and i think she deserved to do everything she did i support her rights and most importantly her wrongs

sleepaway camp it's insane how much i love sleepaway camp but it's one of those movies that you might uh. wanna be careful with? the twist ending to the first movie is kinda infamous and idk some might be a bit. upset by it. feel free to ask for details but. ye i think all four movies are great even tho 2&3 kinda go off the trail and 4 has Nothing to do w them. i love. both versions of The Slasher who i won't name to avoid spoiling it but i love love love love this slasher so so much once again i support the rights And wrongs (which do not exist) of this slasher and it's got some of the most Fun kills you'll ever see w STELLAR bad special effects which are the love of my life

silent night deadly night SLAAAAY this movie's fucked up. it's so brave. look up some cws the inciting incident might be upsetting. it's the second christmas slasher w a killer named billy. this billy has (sing along if you know it) Done Nothing Wrong! he's my little baby have you seen him little face!! he's doing his best! he's my poor little meow meow! he does some super fun kills! i only watched the first two so far and the second's kinda shitty and the others seem to be Weird (derogatory) and i'm not sure abt the 2000s remake i'll update you when i get there but the first one's a fun time

house of wax 2005 boyfriend type of movie i love when the bad guy is a Family i wish we got another movy abt those guys or smth it's a. a fun movie. it's very 2000s. helena's in the end credits. sam supernatural is there. it's one of those movies you can't say too much abt without spoiling who the slashers are even tho it's not good enough to make it worth keeping the secretsbfjakfk JK but i Love them and how they operate <3 real creative artistic activity going on in there! slay!

freaky 2020. instant fave instant classic a very successful recent slasher that keeps the charm of vintage ones imo. i'm down bad for the butcher but i can't rank him higher om account of we don't actually see much Of him due to. the whole Thing abt the movie. the main plot point. he seems like he's a pretty standard slasher big quiet scary dude type so whatever. points for being middle aged and kinda hot

the collector. ummm. really interesting movies. more of a home invasion (first one at least) but it's gorey enough. i like it a lot. the slasher guy is the only one who Kinda scares me simply on account of his mask is absolutely fucked up i hate it i hate it gets under my skin but he's such a creecher i love him. his eyes shine for NO reason. he likes bugs. he's very creative and committed. my bestie

laid to rest Insane Fucking Movies What On Earth. What The Fuck. so bad. shitty ass movies. love them to death. would never watch them again. maybe i'm repetitive but i really mean it this time the kills in this movies???? easily my favorite thing abt them but also easily some of the best kills in this list tbh they're worth watching just for the kills. the slasher guy here is.. confusing... i don't understand him i don't know what's going on... but his mask is cool his name is cool he works on his brand and his Image and i can respect that. reblog to slap his bald head

halloween. yeah. fuck the halloween franchise all my homies don't care for it the movies AND most importantly the killer do next to nothing for me michael myers is thee embodiment of go girl give us nothing not even rob zombie could do anything for her i always love laurie and jamie more than any other thing that happens but like i guess you could watch it if u got nothing else to do lol. lmao. but whatever you do. skip the 6th one

i know what you did last summer OK LISTEN. I LOVE IT ACTUALLY. not the third one i don't know what that its but I LOVE THE FIRST TWO THEY ABSOLUTELY SLAY AND SERVE BUT NAME ONE. I SAY ONE (1) MORE IRRELEVANT AND FORGETTABLE SLASHER THAN THE FISHER GUY. they're a super fun watch that no one should miss out on but they really didn't do SHIT for the slasher guy

honorable mention for chucky the short king i'd place him like right next to freddy but unfort i haven't watched child's play yet on account of having seen so many of them growing up and remembering them well enough that i don't feel like i'm missing out by procrastinating. who does it like chucky. but even more importantly. who does it like tiffany the show stealer tiffany valentine

other honorable mention just bc she's so new to the gang but PEARL????? i THINK she should be added to everyone's slasher list. she's a queen an icon a legend i always need more slashers who are girls i love a good origin story she's got a fuckin pet gator she's so talented i love love love her so much SO MUCH

third honorable mention bc saw is not a slasher but it requires to be mentioned. cool franchise but i'd place it like right after halloween in a ranking based on main slasher bc IF we consider john jigsaw kramer A Slasher then he'd be low bc i fucking hate him so much. light yagami kinda bitch. who do you think you are. i don't hate him for The Crimes obviously i love the crimes! i respect the crimes! i HATE the. arrogance and entitlement of thinking You Know Better and you deserve to choose who deserves to live or die bc what? you had a bad time once? boohoo. suck my dick forever. amanda on the other hand? in this house we love amanda young more than anything else in the world

alright i'm done this is the end i think i have gathered together All the slashers i've ever watched or close. you're welcome i hope this is useful i hope it's like. at least fun to read since i went off the rails. it was fun to write ! so thank you for giving me the chance Lmao. lowkey blushing and kicking my feet thinking someone goes thru my blog just to pick a movie to watch twirls hair in fingers

[zugmode]

hi. i’m going to rant more about this under the cut because every time i think about this i get more irritated. this is not particularly organized in any way. just me rambling.

i tried to go back and find the exact post that inspired me to go on this mini-rant, but i can’t find it. anyway i’m pretty sure it was bc i saw a headcanon saying “lmq listens to mitski” or something like that. and it drove me insane.

really what i was trying to highlight with this post is that people sort of reject the americana that cars06 depicts. personally, i think it’s because it’s not glamorized in the modern day. nobody loves this country in 2024 quite like they did in 2006. nobody has a love for the culture of small, middle-american towns. the culture of nascar, in conjunction with the american giant characteristic of the post-9/11 era, is erased in favor of replacing it with the nightmare world of 2024.

i like to compare cars to talledega nights. they have very similar overarching stories, about a race car driver who is cast out from the industry, learns new tricks from a father figure, and learns the meaning of friendship and family. if cars was about people instead of machines, it would be virtually the same movie as talledega nights (obviously without the adult stuff… they can be compared conceptually, but not in practice). in which case, i guarantee that the meaning of mid-2000s americana (in the SOUTH, may i remind you— both are movies about nascar) would not be lost. yes, characters would still be babygirl-ified, but not to the extent that they become completely removed from their canon characters.

an argument can be made to say that the fandom has Always Been Like This. i was fourteen once, and im sure i made some posts about how fillmore would love patd pretty odd. everyone does that when they’re fourteen. but something that was present in the Old Fandom (i.e. circa cars 3 in 2017, as i remember it), was a consciousness of this old americana aesthetic that cars clearly loves so dearly. i think it was because everyone was either my age or older, and hence REMEMBERED the world as of 2006. we knew what it was like because we lived it.

i suppose this says more about the nature of fandom and how it shifts over time. obviously the people who populate fandoms will be different between a seven year time span. as such, popular culture and internal fandom culture will change as well. Kids These Days are absolutely allowed to project on characters however they please. we all did it.

my main gripe, still, is that the cars fandom has lost its sight of what canon really is. country music, old diners, stars and stripes, car racing, and rock&roll, are all things that are present in the first movie. that’s why i listed them in the original post. everything else— even down to the history and characterizations of sarge and fillmore that i love so dearly— is just implications. all i’m saying is that, alongside projecting, they should adopt those things as well. learn to love small towns and country music. learn to appreciate rural america As It Was in 2006. you’ll understand your characters way better.

i think something that's downplayed in the cars fandom its sheer love for americana (as in, the genuine meaning of the word... not my fic). where's the country music. where's the stars and stripes. neon signs and "old time" rock. american sports. all of the down-and-dirty things about being american that get omitted completely in favor of something more glamorous. and yeah we can complexify the relationships between talking cars all we want, but it doesn't change the fact that, at its core, it's a movie about nascar.

[cerebralsim]

blog update

hi y’all this is just a notif tht i changed my url  🥺👉👈

i used to be @starlingsimmer but now i’m @simsamslam

idk if i love it yet so i might change it back but if ur a kiwi/aussie u understand the reference

[myhauntedsalem]

Centralia, PA The Mouth Of Hell

Practically from the time we are born, we develop a picture in our minds of the American dream. In general, to achieve that dream, we find the ideal job, get married, buy a home, and start a family. We live our lives from day to day with the hope of building a bright future.

Now imagine that everything that you have worked so hard to accomplish went literally up in smoke. as tragic as this may sound, in 1962 the town of Centralia, located in Columbia County Pennsylvania, had that nightmare become a reality, but on a much larger scale. An abandoned strip mine was accidentally set on fire, igniting a nearby vein of anthracite coal. From water and fly ash, to backfilling and drilling, every idea tempted to put out the fire would have the same results. It would flair up again in a different location making it impossible to control.

Our government showed little concern in extinguishing the flames until 1981, when a 12 year old boy had a sink hole swallow him right out from under his feet, while playing in his own back yard. Fortunately for him, he was not alone at the time and was rescued by a visiting cousin.

In 1983, a research study done by engineers, showed that the only way to put out the fire for good is to excavate and dig up the entire vein. At a cost of 600 million dollars, the federal government chose to relocate the villagers at a much lower cost. Many people felt that this was merely a ploy to acquire mineral rights for the coal. They decided to take their chances in court and fight the decision, but to no avail. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania claimed eminent domain, condemning house after house, stating that it was due to toxic gases, sink holes and the eminent danger that exists. Not only did the residents have the government to deal with, but the post office revoked their zip code as well.

47 years and 40 million dollars later, there are only 9 buildings left with 8 people remaining, in a town that was once the home of over 2000 people. It is hard to say whether or not the many attempts to put out the fire would have been more successful, had the government gotten involved sooner, but if you ask any of the former residents. they would surely have appreciated it if somebody would have at least tried.

Anthracite is one of the most pure types of coal in existence. Because of this, it burns very hot making it the perfect source for the steel industry. The study also revealed that because of that reason, the fire could spread to 3700 acres and could stay ignited for 250 years or more.

Appropriately nicknamed the mouth of hell, Centralia virtually is no more. Route 61 is now detoured through the neighboring town of Ashland. What is to become of the towns and villages that surround Centralia? Will they too suffer the same fate? Will Route 61 once again be rerouted through another town because Ashland is in the path of destruction? Is it not worth millions to dig up a vein of coal that has a value of billions to save these communities? Maybe the fears of the residents were right, maybe it is about obtaining mineral rights after all. Only time will tell.

[aeonborealis]

Movies/Shows Spectra

Cowboy Bebop FLCL Neon Genesis Evangelion Princess Mononoke Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Adaptation Being John Malkovich Minority Report Waking Life 2001: A space Odyssey Parika The Matrix Blade Runner Alita Battle Angel John Wick 1, 2, & 3 Inception Clock Work Orange Good Will Hunting Apocalypse Now The Godfather The Dark Knight The Green Knight Pulp Fiction Fight Club The Empire Strikes Back Se7en Interstellar Spirited Away Leon: The Professional Alien Momento Django Unchained Joker Synecdoche Jurassic Park Akira The Grand Budapest Hotel World War Z The Big Lewbowski Logan Terminator Back to the Future Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse Dune PK Her Donnie Darko 12 Monkeys Ghost in the Shell Soplaris Elysium Cowboy Bebop: The Movie Children of Men Brazil Rogue One Big Hero Six Moon Serenity Predator E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial Fantastic Planet Gravity The Girl Who Leapt Trhough Time Ex Machina The Fifth Element Guardians of the Galaxy Watchmen 28 Days Later Robo Cop Close Encounters of the Third Kind Godzilla: Shin Source Code Doctor Strange Contact Total Recall Tenet I Origins Cloud Atlas Looper Limitless K Pax 2046 Pi The Shape of Water Black Panther I Am Legend A.I. Artificial Intelligence Treasure Planet Starship Troopers The Andromeda Strain Robot and Frank Dredd 9 A Scanner Darkly Blade Oblivion The Adjustment Bureau Passangers Independence Day Starman Finch Another Earth Primer Flight of the Navigator Repo Man Altered States Chappie Cypher eXistenZ Spring HarcoreHenry Venom The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Resident Evil Short Circuit The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Idiocracy Titan AE Ad Astra Space Jam Lucy Alien: Covenant The Cell Dune Solaris World on a wire Le Jetee Kamikaze 89 Liquid Sky Aeon Flux Reign the Conqueror Megazone 23 Neo Tokyo Class of 1999 Crime zone AD Police Files Circuitry Man Cyber City Oedo 808 Hardware Megaville 964 Pinocchio Until the End of the world Wax, the discovery of television among the bees Fortress Freejack Nemesis Machine Girl Mimbo: The Subtle Art of Japanese Persuassion Prototype Shadowchaser Split second 8 man After American Cyborg: Steel Warrior Ghost in the Machine TC 2000 Crystal Fortune Run Cyber Tracker Cyborg 3: The Recycler Armitage III Automatic Cyber Bandits Cyber-Tracker 2 Cyberjack Hackers Johnny Mnemonic Nemesis 2: Nebula Screamers The City of Lost Children Virtual Combat Nemesis 3: Death Angel Omega Doom Rubber's Lover Gumo My Own Private Idaho Full Metal Gokudo Gattaca Andromedia The X Files Webmaster The Thirteenth Floor I.K.U. No Maps for These Territories Thomas in Love Vritual Nightmare Avalon Electric Dragon 80.000 V Reboot: Daemon Rising Reboot: My Two Bobs Xchange Dead or Alive: final Resurrection of the Little Match Girl Returner Teknolust Natural city Paycheck The Animatrix Appleseed Casshern Cyber Wars The Bottled Fools Immortal Malice Doll Automatons Puzzlehead Chrysalis Vexille Sleep Dealer Technotise: Edit & 1 Tetsuo: The Bullet Man Tokyo Gore Poilice

[cyborg-franky]

I’m sorry your day didn’t start out good and I hope it got better. Comfort shows are a definite yes. Which one were you watching if you don’t mind me asking? I also like turning the temperature down to freezing (more so than usual because I prefer the cold) so that I have an excuse to grab my weighted blanket, a squishmellow, and heat up chocolate milk. And watch a comfort show ofc. It makes me feel sleepy and if I’m asleep I don’t have to think abt my problems. Easy solution. It also makes me feel safe. I don’t know if thats the experience for everyone but I hope you got to experience that today. Because you’re a wonderful person who deserves it simply cause you exist. Also. I’ve been meaning to watch a horror movie but I’ve just been so swamped with work these last two weeks. I was thinking abt watching Smile. Have you heard of it? It just came out and I’ve heard it’s great but like at the same time not to go watch it if you’re in a bad head space so like I’m 50/50 on it. Do you have an spooky movie recs oh amazing Franky? Sorry this got so long I didn’t even realize I was rambling. Anyways I hope you feeling better soon and just a reminder that you’re an amazing and wonderful person who deserves to rest and that everyone had their off days! *sends many comforting virtual hugs*

- virtual hug anon

Thank you for the sweet message, you are always a total bean. You make me feel like maybe I do deserve it <3 I was watching Final Destination 4 [The Nazcar one] and later I watched JIGSAW. Yeah I just keep having a few bad days recently, like bad weeks but I am trying to get my ass into a better headspace and finish everything I need to. I am thankfully not behind on deadlines.

Horror is one of those things I can scream about for ages. I was a journalist for years and I covered a lot of horror related things. I used to get press passes to Gaming cons and comic cons to go and play the new horror games, check out new and up coming things, talk to guests who'd been in horror roles.

So I could talk about it for ages.

I am very behind on anything new that has come out, I think I said somewhere that the newest horror thing I have seen is Netflix's new Resident Evil show [The live action one not the CGI things] and it was pretty good.

My top horror movies, regardless of how good they are.. SO many movies undercut

The Skeleton Key Dog Soldiers [Fave movie of all time tbh] Dawn Of The Dead [2000s remake] The Hills Have Eyes [2000s remake] The Descent Thirteen Ghosts Final Destination [first 3 are good the rest are ridiculous fodder but still fun] Battle Royale [Also the best book I have ever read] Circle HUSH PULSE [American remake actually, yeah I know] The Autopsy of Jane Doe Insidious - The Last Key The Ring [Japanese] The Grudge [Japanese] STAY ALIVE [dumb, so dumb but I love] SAW [Torture porn or not the first saw was ground breaking and well written, it broke boundaries] Veronika [Veronica?] REC [Spanish] The Ritual The Woman In Black The Conjuring The Mist Event Horizon The Ruins Nightmare On Elmstreet [Orginals] CUBE As Above So Below CAM SHUTTER [Japanese of American, both are good] DARK WATER [Japanese] The Eye [Japanese] Afflicted We Are What We Are The Last House On The Left [2000s remake] The Thing [Both the 80s and 2000s one is good] Dog House [Horror/Comedy] Severance [Horror/Comedy] Land Of The Dead [2000s Remake] THEM Old [It's a M.Night but it's pretty clever/intense] Alien [The first one] Spiral - From The Book Of Saw [It's pretty good, alot of people will shit on it but if you don't want a typical SAW it's good] HOWL Escape Room [first only] The Purge [ANYTHING other then the first one is pretty good, just skip the first one and enjoy the rest.] EXTE [Japanese horror comedy, a fucking wild ride] The Happiness Of The Katakuris [Japanese, musical, horror, comedy] Hill House [TV Show] Frozen [The horror movie, please] What Lies Beneath Before I Awake SINISTER Just a tip if anyone says Cabin In The Woods if their fave horror they didn't get the point of the satire. take a shot for every horror movie thats one word or starts with THE.

[zeriq-5]

I honestly think that Gregory can be the crying child of the fourth game, but in a little bit different way, I think he is the reincarnation of Evan.

We know that happiest day is clearly a reference to the bite because of its minigame parallel. We don't know when it happens, but it most likely happens on the same day as the sixth game fire. Because the puppet ascends to heaven at the same time as the MCI.

We also know that FNAF 3 and FNAF 6 Literally happens in the same year Cause of Henry's audios in one of the endings :

leaked emails from FNAF AR state vanny's age as being 23 years old. This would mean that she was likely born in the early 2000's as FNAF Help Wanted takes place in either 2023 or some time after it. But that would be too soon, Remember that fazbear ent. Had ended Along with everything. then help wanted could very well be a little more in the future. Remember that they remade their entire reputation in help wanted, It's literally a fresh start.

And yes, I analyzed our size on the playground. According to the websites I researched to make this stupid theory And the analysis of Gregory’s own character, I determine that he is... 7 years old. Theoretically making this game happen in 2030 And show that Vanessa was born in 2007.

But you may be asking yourself "why 7 years?", Because I believe that the games made by the indie developer had the same duration as Scott in real life since he is clearly parallel of him. Another thing This would give enough time to fazbear ent. To manage to return with enough money to create the virtual reality game, the mall and all that is happening in AR.

Surprisingly, this game has some parallels with FNAF 4.

A child who discovers something terrible from his supposedly favorite place.

He is being guided by a bear who is aware of his situation

Vanessa says that "your friends are with me" that sounds familiar with that one fredbear line.

Gregory might have something to do with Freddy's already. (Someone on Reddit pointed this out)

5. lastly, The thing that appeared at the end looks like an animatronic nightmare.

Reincarnation is perhaps a concept that has been shown since the 6th game.

[blubberquark]

Excel, Word, Access, Outlook

Previously on computer literacy: A Test For Computer Literacy

If you’re a computer programmer, you sometimes hear other programmers complain about Excel, because it mixes data and code, or about Word, because it mixes text and formatting, and nobody ever uses Word and Excel properly.

If you’re a computer programmer, you frequently hear UX experts praise the way Excel allows non-programmers to write whole applications without help from the IT department. Excel is a great tool for normal people and power users, I often hear.

I have never seen anybody who wasn’t already versed in a real programming language write a complex application in an Excel spreadsheet. I have never seen anybody who was not a programmer or trained in Excel fill in a spreadsheet and send it back correctly.

Computer programmers complain about the inaccessibility of Excel, the lack of discoverability, the mixing of code and data in documents that makes versioning applications a proper nightmare, the influence of the cell structure on code structure, and the destructive automatic casting of cell data into datatypes.

UX experts praise Excel for giving power to non-programmers, but I never met a non-programmer who used Excel “properly”, never mind developed an application in it. I met non-programmers who used SPSS, Mathematica, or Matlab properly a handful of times, but even these people are getting rarer and rarer in the age of Julia, NumPy, SymPy, Octave, and R. Myself, I have actually had to learn how to use Excel in school, in seventh grade. I suspect that half of the “basic computer usage” curriculum was the result of a lobbying campaign by Microsoft’s German branch, because we had to learn about certain features in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on Windows 95, and non-Microsoft applications were conspicuously absent.

Visual Basic and VBS seemed like a natural choice to give power to end users in the 90s. People who had already used a home computer during the 8-bit/16-bit era (or even an IBM-compatible PC) were familiar with BASIC because that was how end-users were originally supposed to interact with their computers. BASIC was for end users, and machine code/compiled languages were for “real programmers” - BASIC was documented in the manual that came with your home computer, machine code was documented in MOS data sheets. From today’s point of view, programming in BASIC is real programming. Calling Visual Basic or .Net scripting in Excel “not programming“ misrepresents what modern programmers do, and what GUI users have come to expect after the year 2000.

Excel is not very intuitive or beginner-friendly. The “basic computer usage” curriculum was scrapped shortly after I took it, so I had many opportunities to observe people who were two years younger than me try to use Excel by experimenting with the GUI alone.

The same goes fro Microsoft Word. A friend of mine insists that nobody ever uses Word properly, because Word can do ligatures and good typesetting now, as well as footnotes, chapters, outline note taking, and so on. You just need to configure it right. If people used Word properly, they wouldn’t need LaTeX or Markdown. That friend is already a programmer. All the people I know who use Word use WYSIWYG text styling, fonts, alignment, tables, that sort of thing. In order to use Word “properly“, you’d have to use footnotes, chapter marks, and style sheets. The most “power user” thing I have ever seen an end user do was when my father bought a CD in 1995 with 300 Word templates for all sorts of occasions - birthday party invitation, employee of the month certificate, marathon completion certificate, time table, cooking recipe, invoice, cover letter - to fill in and print out.

Unlike Excel, nobody even claims that non-programmer end users do great things in Word. Word is almost never the right program when you have email, calendars, wikis, to-do lists/Kanban/note taking, DTP, vector graphics, mind mapping/outline editors, programmer’s plain text editors, dedicated novelist/screenwriting software, and typesetting/document preparation systems like LaTeX. Nobody disputes that plain text, a wiki, or a virtual Kanban board is often preferable to a .doc or .docx file in a shared folder. Word is still ubiquitous, but so are browsers.

Word is not seen as a liberating tool that enables end-user computing, but as a program you need to have but rarely use, except when you write a letter you have to print out, or when you need to collaborate with people who insist on e-mailing documents back and forth.

I never met an end user who actually liked Outlook enough to use it for personal correspondence. It was always mandated by an institution or an employer, maintained by an IT department, and they either provided training or assumed you already had had training. Outlook has all these features, but neither IT departments nor end users seemed to like them. Outlook is top-down mandated legibility and uniformity.

Lastly, there is Microsoft Access. Sometimes people confused Excel and Access because both have tables, so at some point Microsoft caved in and made Excel understand SQL queries, but Excel is still not a database. Access is a database product, designed to compete with products like dBase, Cornerstone, and FileMaker. It has an integrated editor for the database schema and a GUI builder to create forms and reports. It is not a networked database, but it can be used to run SQL queries on a local database, and multiple users can open the same database file if it is on a shared SMB folder. It is not something you can pick up on one afternoon to code your company’s billing and invoicing system. You could probably use it to catalogue your Funko-Pop collection, or to keep track of the inventory, lending and book returns of a municipal library, as long as the database is only kept on one computer. As soon as you want to manage a mobile library or multiple branches, you would have to ditch Access for a real SQL RDBMS.

Microsoft Access was marketed as a tool for end-user computing, but nobody really believed it. To me, Access was SQL with training wheels in computer science class, before we graduated to MySQL and then later to Postgres and DB2. UX experts never tout Access as a big success story in end-user computing - yet they do so for Excel.

The narrative around Excel is quite different from the narrative around Yahoo Pipes, IFTTT, AppleScript, HyperCard, Processing, or LabView. The narrative goes like this: “Excel empowers users in big, bureaucratic organisations, and allows them to write limited applications to solve business problems, and share them with co-workers.”

Excel is not a good tool for finance, simulations, genetics, or psychology research, but it is most likely installed on every PC in your organisation already. You’re not allowed to share .exe files, but you are allowed to share spreadsheets. Excel is an exchange format for applications. Excel files are not centrally controlled, like Outlook servers or ERP systems, and they are not legible to management. Excel is ubiquitous. Excel is a ubiquitous runtime and development environment that allows end-users to create small applications to perform simple calculations for their jobs.

Excel is a tool for office workers to write applications to calculate things, but not without programming, but without involving the IT department. The IT department would like all forms to be running on some central platform, all data to be in the data warehouse/OLAP platform/ERP system - not because they want to make the data legible and accessible, but because they want to minimise the number of business-critical machines and points of failure, because important applications should either run on servers in a server rack, or be distributed to workstations by IT.

Management wants all knowledge to be formalised so the next guy can pick up where you left off when you quit. For this reason, wikis, slack, tickets and kanban boards are preferable to Word documents in shared folders. The IT department calls end-user computing “rogue servers“ or “shadow IT“. They want all IT to have version control, unit tests, backups, monitoring, and a handbook. Accounting/controlling thinks end-user computing is a compliance nightmare. They want all software to be documented, secured, and budgeted for. Upper management wants all IT to be run by the IT department, and all information integrated into their reporting solution that generates these colourful graphs. Middle management wants their people to get some work done.

Somebody somewhere in the C-suite is always viewing IT as a cost centre, trying to fire IT people and to scale down the server room. This looks great on paper, because the savings in servers, admins, and tech support are externalised to other departments in the form of increased paperwork, time wasted on help hotlines, and

Excel is dominating end-user computing because of social reasons and workplace politics. Excel is not dominating end-user computing because it is actually easy to pick up for end-users.

Excel is dominating end-user computing neither because it is actually easy to pick up for non-programmers nor easy to use for end-users.

This is rather obvious to all the people who teach human-computer interaction at universities, to the people who write books about usability, and the people who work in IT departments. Maybe it is not quite as obvious to people who use Excel. Excel is not easy to use. It’s not obvious when you read a book on human-computer interaction (HCI), industrial design, or user experience (UX). Excel is always used as the go-to example of end-user computing, an example of a tool that “empowers users”. If you read between the lines, you know that the experts know that Excel is not actually a good role model you should try to emulate.

Excel is often called a “no code“ tool to make “small applications“, but that is also not true. “No Code” tools usually require users to write code, but they use point-and-click, drag-and-drop, natural language programming, or connecting boxes by drawing lines to avoid the syntax of programming languages. Excel avoids complex syntax by breaking everything up into small cells. Excel avoids iteration or recursion by letting users copy-paste formulas into cells and filling formulas in adjacent cells automatically. Excel does not have a debugger, but shows you intermediate results by showing the numbers/values in the cells by default, and the code in the cells only if you click.

All this makes Excel more like GameMaker or ClickTeam Fusion than like Twine. Excel is a tool that doesn’t scare users away with text editors, but that’s not why people use it. It that were the reason, we would be writing business tools and productivity software in GameMaker.

The next time you read or hear about the amazing usability of Excel, take it with a grain of salt! It’s just barely usable enough.

[spellboundmayfield]

So which movies on the Duffers' list are most interesting to you? I've been working my way slowly through the list, and I'm quite intrigued by some of them...

Right off the bat I just had to watch Never Ending Story, it’s the most in-your-face reference in the entire show, I mean a whole musical number was dedicated to it. The Cell (2000) where a psychotherapist whose mind can literally enter the mind of her patients and she must race against time to explore the twisted mind of the killer to get the information she needs was perplexing. The Matrix (1999) was an interesting choice, the scene depicting humans in the pods making it so they virtually integrate with the Matrix reminded me of Dr.Brenner’s sensory deprivation experiments.

Full Metal Jacket had Mathew Modine’s character in Vietnam which certainly makes you think. Terminator: Dark Fate and Terminator: Judgement Day introduces the concept of traveling back to key aspects of the past in attempt to rewrite today and secure the safety of a young person whose fate is critical to the human race. In a cell at Pescadero State Hospital, a detention center for the criminally insane, Sarah Connor is held after blowing up a computer factory and entertaining delusions of a nuclear nightmare which makes me think that Victor Creel might be a key addition to understanding what is happening in Hawkins. Red Dragon (2002) has serial murderer Francis Dolarhyde whose homicidal urges manifest themselves as the “Great Red Dragon’s” demands, alluding a possible connection between the murders speculated to be occurring throughout Hawkins and the Mindflayer. What Dreams May Come (1998) felt a bit out of place but I feel strongly that in some abstract way it relates to Hopper and Sara. Hellraiser: Hell bound has Doctor Channard who is working at an Asylum as he searches for the doorway to a sadistic dimension in the basement of the hospital, definitely sounds a lot like Pennhurst and the potential whereabouts of Dr. Brenner. Oh and of course the Wizard of Oz is notable, not only considering the numerous references in past seasons but the evident references throughout the scarce content we’ve received for season 4. The Prestige (2006), Inception (2010), and The Truman Show (1998) are especially mind bending even on their own but the most baffling films on the list have to be Black Swan (2010) and Enemy (2013) and well… I’ll just leave these screen caps here.

Spoilers for both movies under the cut

[01sentencereviews]

“new-to-me” - jan 2022

starship troopers (1997, paul verhoeven) 

afternoon (2015, tsai ming-liang)

opera (1987, dario argento)

alison’s birthday (1981, ian coughlan)

the swimmer (1968, frank perry)

+++

desperately seeking susan (1985, susan seidelman)

fourteen (2019, san sallitt) 

lemon (2017, janicza bravo)

nightmare alley (2021, guillermo del toro)

scary movie (2000, keenen ivory wayans)

wife of a spy (2020, kiyoshi kurosawa)

new releases:

the house (paloma baeza & niki lindroth von bahr & emma de swaef & marc james roels)

sharp stick (lena dunham)

we met in virtual reality (joe hunting)*