#s22 commentary

[lunaferal]

Ok, Dahmere fucking cute though.

[fourohfourlifenotfound]

Okay supernatural rewatch season 1 recap

It strikes me on rewatch that Dean isn't just the golden child. He's parentified into taking care of Sam, literally carrying him out of the burning building.

And even though it's Yellow Eyes speaking in s22, what he tells Dean when pretending to be John about Dean being the one that holds the family together rings true. Dean tries desperately for most of S1 to keep Sam and John from fighting each other.

I think I always falsely compared Dean to John, because he was the one taking orders like a good solider. But the meta commentary in E22 is right; Sam is more like John, because they both can get a little more obsessed. Dean cares about his family more, but the way he shows it looks twisted. He's not hunting in S1 because he's obsessed with the hunt or feels like he can make a difference; he's hunting because he thinks it will make John happy

Look at the way John and Dean have conflicting priorities in the end of E22. Dean's been obsessed with killing the demon that killed Mary same as everyone in this season. But the second it means losing a member of his family, he turns

[cheylouwho]

Actually, it was season 23 specifically that gave us the renewal scare. S22 ending on the bike parade had a lot of us scratching our heads because *that* felt like it could have been a show finale, but we knew we had one more season still coming. And it wasn’t until riiiiiiight before s23 that we got confirmation that they were renewing-- and I believe the renewal contract was only for a few more years, which made everyone worried that they really didn’t want to do this anymore. And, as a whole, s23 felt lackluster to a lot of fans, and it was the first year (somewhat because of COVID) that we didn’t get any creator commentary on the dvd release. It made everyone feel like maybe that was going to be the end of things. It wasn’t until after COVID regulations were lifted  that we suddenly saw a boom of new content. Ultimately, as much as it was the shittiest year of our (my) life, 2020 made M+T *miss* making the show since they were so limited on what they could produce that year, and come back full force when they were allowed to. In a way, we can thank shut down hell for reviving the show.

[methinmycoffee]

(TW: mentions of homiside/suicide)

Okay, let’s talk about Britney’s New Look (S12 E2) because I watched it with some friends over the weekend. We watched it because it was a play on “The Lottery” which we had recently read for English class. I told them that it was gross and a dark, it had some good points to make about tabloid culture, but “Britney Spears blows her head off”. We watched it, and they were understandably like ‘,:-\ the entire time. I get it, I really do, it’s a gross episode that I don’t like that much even though it makes some great points.

Same with Cash for Gold (S16 E2). Some darkly funny scenes where Stan and some old people coax a shady jewelry salesman who runs one of those Home Shopping Networks to kill himself make the episode a little harder to watch. We actually watched that one too, because I told them that it has made me cry before (it did, The monologue about Patches the Dog got me sobbing). I enjoy this episode, unlike Britney’s New Look, but it’s still hard to show people, especially when they’ve never seen South Park before. In case anyone was wondering, I don’t think they minded this episode because they were either already desensitized or thought it was funny. The “earrings would look good on your dead body” line is iconic.

Dead Kids (S22 E1), Cartman Sucks (S11 E2), the B-plot (the plot with Indiana Jones) of The China Problem (S12 E8) which I cannot stand because of how gross both plots are, and HUMANCENTiPAD (S15, E1) which is also gross but makes some good points about consumerism. These episodes also have this problem, especially the last two, which you probably don’t even remember the morals of if you have seen them because you were just like ‘ew’ the whole time.

This is just me pointing something out. South Park has so many other episodes that follow this pattern. Good point, poor taste execution. I don’t want this to change, for the most part, because the way this show tells stories is literally what makes South Park, South Park. Maybe this whole thing is just to prevent some poor soul who remembers the moral/point of an episode like Cash for Gold, or remembers crying, but who doesn’t remember the suicide. The guy who remembers the commentary on the Britney situation, but doesn’t remember that the townsfolk kill her at the end. Maybe this long post was for nothing. Anyway that’s all, thank you for coming. <3

(P.S. I cannot figure out how to make my posts say ‘read more’ so if it bothers you that I leave it, jus know that it bothers me too)

[orbitbrain]

Galaxy Z Fold 5: Everything I Want From Samsung's Next Foldable Commentary: Above all else, the Galaxy Z Fold 5 needs more features you can't get elsewhere that make use of its bendable screen.

Galaxy Z Fold 5: Everything I Want From Samsung's Next Foldable Commentary: Above all else, the Galaxy Z Fold 5 needs more features you can't get elsewhere that make use of its bendable screen.

Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 4 has a barely tweaked design, an up to date digital camera that brings it up to the mark with the Galaxy S22 and a brand new processor. These are steps in the suitable route, however there are many methods Samsung may additional enhance its bigger foldable cellphone. The most important change I am hoping to see within the Galaxy Z Fold 4’s successor (which can possible be…

[weedle-testaburger]

Even if I like the show, I don't think Trey and Matt are gonna make some rich character an asshole, they only made Besos but is like an easy target to shit on, because he doesn't follow the standard rich archetype that would detsoryvthwir libertarian's belief

I’m not 100% sure I agree, they have taken potshots at Trump, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg as well as Bezos after all, and idk how Bezos is different from any of them. Ik they’re libertarians, but if the s22 commentary is anything to go by Matt is interested in Marxist/socialist theory as well. Tbh I think if anything they’re more socially libertarian than economically (especially if stuff like the PC babies is anything to go by, compared to how sympathetic Josh the box was).

[cindylouwho-2]

Etsy Third Quarter Earnings Report, 2021 - Everything Improves Yet Again

Etsy’s gross marketplace sales (GMS) and its own revenue were both up for the third quarter of 2021 compared to 2020, beating their own and market estimates, but they are still hedging bets on how much better they can do during the all-important holiday season this year, posting lower-than-expected estimates.

This post covers the highlights that sellers might be interested in, with my commentary in square brackets.

First, for those who like to see the links they click, here are the important documents that tell the story:

Etsy press release https://s22.q4cdn.com/941741262/files/doc_financials/2021/q3/Exhibit-99.1-Q3-2021.pdf

Transcript of the earnings call https://seekingalpha.com/article/4465210-etsy-inc-etsy-ceo-josh-silverman-on-q3-2021-results-earnings-call-transcript (free log in) or https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2021/11/04/etsy-inc-etsy-q3-2021-earnings-call-transcript/

The slides from the presentation https://investors.etsy.com/files/doc_financials/2021/q3/Etsy-3Q-2021-Earnings-Presentation.pdf

Recording of the video call can be found here under Q3 Earnings, Webcast https://investors.etsy.com/financials/quarterly-results/default.aspx

The basic numbers (covering July to September, 2021, compared to the same period in 2020)

Sales on Etsy were $2.7 billion, up 12.4%; excluding facemasks from both years, sales were up 23.7%

Total sales including all subsidiaries (Reverb, Elo and Depop) were $3.1 billion, up 17.9% [this was the first quarter the last 2 companies were owned by Etsy]

Etsy’s revenue was up 17.9% to $532 million, with revenue from seller services only around a quarter of the total, at almost $137 million

Etsy’s net income was nearly $90 million, down 2% due to the purchases of Elo and Depop

There are now 5.2 million active sellers on Etsy, and almost 90 million buyers, up from around 3.6 million and 69 million respectively

64% of sales on all platforms are from mobile; non-US sales (involving at least one non-US party) are now 42% of the total. They didn’t provide Etsy-only totals for these figures.

Search

I will start by quoting the press release directly: “Leveraging XWalk, our large-scale, real-time graph retrieval engine, we’re continuing to narrow the semantic gap by relying less on listing taxonomy and more on buyer interests. Additionally, during the quarter we incorporated datasets with buyer hobbies and mapped them to Etsy listings to deliver more relevant inventory and improve conversion rate for recommendations.”

The first part means they are looking less at the keywords, categories and attributes sellers choose, and more at the connections they are drawing from shopper activities, including off-Etsy - or, at least they hope to do more of that. [in the past, I’ve pointed out numerous things “announced” during these calls that hadn’t actually happened yet] The second part isn’t necessarily about search, but could only be about recommendations on the home page, in emails etc.

Etsy also claims to have “launched real-time personalization, which leverages in session data about our buyers tastes and preferences” in this quarter. The slide below is supposed to demonstrate:

So if you search “leather accessories” and then search “wallets”, you are supposed to see more leather wallets in the second search than you would have if you had just started with the wallet search. Thing is, I tested this several times, and was never able to replicate it, both with their exact example and with other similar search sets. It might be yet another thing they are only testing at the moment but hope to roll out in the future.

Offsite Ads

The money sellers pay in Offsite Ads fees only covers 40% of what Etsy spends on those ads. They did reduce some performance advertising in the quarter to test how well it was actually driving sales; their ad spend will increase in the final few months of the year.

The same machine learning that is used in search and personalization also applies to Etsy’s Offsite Ads. “[Various practices and technologies] have enabled us to have a deeper understanding of our buyers, which we then used to segment and target them with relevant content on and off of Etsy.”

Paid clicks only accounted for 17% of Etsy sales this quarter.

The Star Seller Programme

After introducing the program, Etsy saw a significant uptick in the number of buyer messages that received a reply within 24 hours.

As seen on slide 8, “the September month-over-month repeat purchase rate or RPR for Star Sellers was 25% higher than the RPR for non-Star Sellers” - but they don’t tell us what the actual numbers are, or how that compares to the previous year. Since the non-Star Seller group will contain all the shops with poor customer service metrics including reviews, this could simply mean, for example, that people with a 4-star average get more repeat buyers than those with 5-star averages, which wouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. They’d be better off showing how 5-star shops without the badge did against 5-star shops with the badge, or how much Star Sellers increased their overall sales after getting the badge compared to other quality shops (say, the ones that have no access to tracking so they can’t become Star Sellers).

Buyer Frequency

Etsy has made a big deal about retaining existing shoppers and getting them to buy more, and that continues to pay off. The amount spent by active buyers (those who have made at least one purchase in the past 12 months) went up by 20% this quarter.

Etsy gained 7 million new buyers in Q3, and these new buyers are 25% more likely to return than those from 2019. See slides 24-27 on the various buyer cohorts.

Miscellaneous

Almost all items from US sellers now have expected delivery dates. [Everyone else, expect to be pressured more on this in the future, the very near future, IMO.]

Buyer app downloads are up 36% this year, and the app now gets more sales than mobile browser (which still gets the most traffic) or desktop. [If you aren’t checking how your shop looks on the app or on mobile browsers, it’s not too late to start. Some photo compositions do not perform well on phones and can lead to decreasing sales as desktop use by buyers continues to drop.]

Growth in the top 6 categories on Etsy is shown on slide 18.

The stock hit all-time highs the day after the earnings call.

Posted November 4th, 2021

[orbitbrain]

The Samsung Galaxy S23 Needs These 3 Giant Upgrades to Succeed Commentary: I'm hoping to see Samsung improve basics like the camera, battery life and charging experience.

The Samsung Galaxy S23 Needs These 3 Giant Upgrades to Succeed Commentary: I'm hoping to see Samsung improve basics like the camera, battery life and charging experience.

The Galaxy S22 has an upgraded digital camera that is higher at seeing at the hours of darkness, with a recent design that improves on its predecessor. These are welcome modifications, however there’s loads of room for Samsung to additional improve its principal smartphone collection. Specifically, I might prefer to see longer-lasting batteries, extra images options that make the most of the…

[orbitbrain]

Samsung Galaxy S23: 3 Big Changes I Want to See Commentary: I'm hoping to see Samsung improve basics like the camera, battery life and charging experience.

Samsung Galaxy S23: 3 Big Changes I Want to See Commentary: I'm hoping to see Samsung improve basics like the camera, battery life and charging experience.

The Galaxy S22 has an upgraded digicam that is higher at seeing at midnight and a recent design in contrast with its predecessor. These are welcome enhancements, however there’s loads of room for Samsung to additional improve its principal smartphone sequence. Particularly, I would prefer to see longer-lasting batteries, extra pictures options that benefit from the Galaxy S household’s…

[cheylouwho]

SOUTH PARK S22 COMMENTARY IS HERE!

Part 1 (E1-5)

Part 2 (E6-10)

Some highlights under the cut!

Matt and Trey still don't like doing commentary months after finishing a season, feeling like it's too long of a delay and they don't like explaining themselves and their jokes.

Trey had the idea for Dead Kids at the end of S21.

Matt and Trey purposefully did not "solve" the problems presented in most episodes, instead depicting how people cope or get themselves out of problems that are too complicated to easily fix.

Everything from Red Hot Catholic Love came true, so M+T felt the need to touch on it again. They struggled coming up with ideas because all their jokes kept coming up to be truth.

They purposefully made the choice to show Maxi as a single person who can make a small difference in a "largely fucked up world" rather than take the big picture approach like Red Hot Catholic Love.

The Problem With A Poo was about Rosanne.

Trey's done lots of drugs!

M+T were not attacking the Simpsons whatsoever, again noting they're friends with them and that they also found it a funny episode.

The Problem With A Poo shows that sometimes it's hard but the right thing to do to say goodbye to shitty people you care about.

The Marsh family might stay on the farm until the end of the show.

Trey added the song "Colorado Town" Tuesday night before the show aired.

"Dog's Butthole" opening joke was also Tuesday Night.

Tegridy with a "d" was a conscious choice, with the "integrity" below spelled with a T.

M+T based The Scoots on the classic halloween movie, "The Birds".

M+T thought the fortnite halloween costumes were amusing.

M+T like bringing back characters we haven't seen for a while and felt this was a perfect season for callbacks.

Al Gore is a favorite character of theirs.

They admit that the original Manbearpig episode did not age well. Yes, its a metaphor for global warming in this episode.

Matt got 8% through RDR2. Trey finished the whole fucking thing.

Trey played RDR2 to "research".

They would have made it a 1 parter but the episode got dragged out too much and needed two parts.

Trey really fucking loves RDR2. God dammit. He won't stop talking about it.

Satan is dead forever. He's not coming back.

Ned is alive and well! They weren’t sure if he would die but they brought him back.

M+T got permission to use RDR2 footage in the episode and were thrilled.

TREY WON'T STOP TALKING ABOUT RDR2.

They make fun of people who act like they can't change their stance on things.

M+T love the PC babies character. They joke about making next season only PC babies.

They acknowledge that their message was a flip of what they truly believe, that phones cause more anxiety and depression than relieve from.

Matt knows a lot about/is interested in Marxist Economics.

Trey is addicted to Amazon shopping.

Yes, Bezo's appearance is a Star Trek reference.

the BOM codirector came and did the voice for the rival bike parade kid.

The #CancelSouthPark campaign was very funny to them and they felt ended up playing off the season well.

The boys joking about how they can't get themselves canceled is self-referencing.

Randy yelling at Bezos high is M+T.

M+T don't get why people are basing their politics on economics on Underpants Gnomes and are surprised by their critiques on capitalism in this episode.

They loved the ending of the season with the bike parade and find it ties together perfectly as a "little community coming together" regardless of the big problems going on around them. Describes south park as a "little town that loves each other".

This was a season they really loved making and is a favorite!

[cheylouwho]

I could be wrong, but my understanding is that 'Social Commentary' on the old blus was basically a mirror of the LiveTweets, with the info coming up onscreen during an episode. (DVD can't do this without storing an additional video track, only Blu can do popups) I don't believe s23 had livetweets though, just to make this whole situation a little stranger.

Yes, social commentary started in s19 and happened for a few seasons, I dont rememebr s22 having it either (? Idk i have the dvd of that season so i cant tell you but i dont rememebr any livetweets)

But yeah this past year was a little weird too bc their social media was dead quiet in comparison to previous. The official tumblr hasn't updated in years, the moderators of the forum and wiki shifted (I miss you nall!!!!!!!) So press and details felt so slow.....

Its interesting to say the least tbh it makes me wonder with nalls departure if he did anything with the social commentary bc a lot of stuff was suddenly lacking when he left the team last year

[cheylouwho]

Wait hold on the article that fandom published about the season dvd.....there hasn't been #social commentary since s21 I thought? My s22 doesn't have them and I don't remember them this season so that will be interesting they got added after the fact (?)

[cheylouwho]

Wonder what song will be a banger this season? Seems like tradition.

i know theres always like One in particular that just drives the season

put it down/eric we don’t want you to die for s21 and in my opinion i think colorado town was the banger for s22 i thought that was a really goddamn funny song which cracks me up more when listening to the commentary and finding out they wrote that tuesday night before

s20 I Dont Know because does it look like i care at all

and s19 had actually a Lot of good songs its hard for me to pick just One

[orbitbrain]

Samsung Galaxy S23: The Biggest Features I Want to See Commentary: The Galaxy S23 needs longer battery life, more useful camera features and faster charging.

Samsung Galaxy S23: The Biggest Features I Want to See Commentary: The Galaxy S23 needs longer battery life, more useful camera features and faster charging.

The Galaxy S22 is a modest however appreciated improve over the Galaxy S21, bringing refinements like a brighter display, higher digital camera with improved evening mode and a extra engaging design. Such developments are to be anticipated from the world’s largest smartphone-maker. In line with Counterpoint Analysis, Samsung captured 21% of the worldwide market within the second quarter of 2022.…

[orbitbrain]

Samsung's Galaxy S23 Needs These 3 Changes to Be Worth the Upgrade Commentary: The Galaxy S22 gets a lot right. But I want longer battery life, more practical camera features and faster charging on the Galaxy S23.

Samsung's Galaxy S23 Needs These 3 Changes to Be Worth the Upgrade Commentary: The Galaxy S22 gets a lot right. But I want longer battery life, more practical camera features and faster charging on the Galaxy S23.

In comparison with the Galaxy S21, the Galaxy S22 noticed some notable upgrades like a brighter display, a greater digicam with improved evening mode and a extra polished design. Such developments are to be anticipated from the world’s greatest smartphone-maker. Based on Counterpoint Analysis, Samsung captured 21% of the worldwide market within the second quarter of 2022. Nevertheless, as…

[orbitbrain]

3 Changes to Make a Samsung Galaxy S23 Worth the Upgrade Commentary: Longer battery life, more useful photography features and faster charging are at the top of my wish list.

3 Changes to Make a Samsung Galaxy S23 Worth the Upgrade Commentary: Longer battery life, more useful photography features and faster charging are at the top of my wish list.

Samsung launched notable upgrades with its Galaxy S22 lineup earlier this yr, reminiscent of a brighter display screen, a greater digital camera with improved night time mode and a extra polished design. Such developments are to be anticipated from the world’s largest smartphone-maker. Based on Counterpoint Analysis, Samsung captured 21% of the worldwide market within the second quarter of 2022.…