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yestolerancepro · 1 year ago

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My dear girl, there are some things that just aren't done, such as drinking Dom Perignon '53 above the temperature of 38 degrees Fahrenheit. That's just as bad as listening to The Beatles without earmuffs!” A blog inspired by the music world of James Bond Part 5 The film is great but the title is well

Introduction

Hello there and welcome to the final chapter of this extended series of blogs looking at the musical tastes of James Bond over the last 60 years .This chapter covers those tricky titles from the Ian Fleming James Bond stories that the script writers producers and song writers had a real struggle with. Two of those tricky titles Thunderball and the Spy who loved me have been dealt with in prevous chapters of the blog.

This Chapter of the blog deals with On her Majesty’s Secret service and Octopussy.

Casting The New James Bond

In 1967, after five films, Sean Connery resigned from the role of James Bond and was not on speaking terms with Albert Broccoli during the filming of You Only Live Twice.[27] Over 400 actors, including many of the most famous performers in the Commonwealth, were considered for the role of James Bond.[17]

The confirmed front runners were Englishman John Richardson, Dutchman Hans De Vries, Australian Robert Campbell, Scotsman Anthony Rogers, Greek Giorgos Fountas[28] and Australian George Lazenby.[14] Broccoli also met with Terence Stamp about playing the part.[29] Broccoli was interested in rising star Oliver Reed but decided his public image was already too distinct.

Future Bond star Timothy Dalton was asked to audition after his appearance in The Lion in Winter but considered himself too young, as he was 25 years old and did not want to succeed Connery as Bond. In an interview in 1987 when he was playing Bond in The Living Daylights, Dalton said "I was 24-25 then, I had a good career then as a young man in films The Lion in Winter and Mr Broccoli kindly asked me if I was interested, I think I'm just too young for this role. I think Bond should be between 35 and 40, and as a 25-26 year old and I wouldn't have been right".[17]

Broccoli and Hunt eventually chose Lazenby after seeing him in a Fry's Chocolate Cream advertisement.[18] Lazenby dressed the part by sporting several sartorial Bond elements such as a Rolex Submariner wristwatch and a Savile Row suit (ordered for, but uncollected by, Connery), and going to Connery's barber at the Dorchester Hotel.[19] Broccoli noticed Lazenby as a Bond-type man based on his physique and character elements, and offered him an audition. The position was consolidated when Lazenby accidentally punched a professional wrestler, who was acting as stunt coordinator, in the face, impressing Broccoli with his ability to display aggression.[14

The film website Screenrant recently published an article called How all 6 James Bond actors compare to the Ian Fleming Iconic Book spy they said this about George Lazenby.

Lazenby only lasted one movie in the role of Bond, but he couldn’t have had a better shot at the part. The tragic On Her Majesty’s Secret Service wouldn’t have worked without anyone else in the role, and journalist Ben McIntyre argued that the actor came closest to embodying Fleming’s take on Bond in his 2008 book For Your Eyes Only. It’s easy to see where McIntyre’s argument comes from, as Lazenby’s Bond took himself more seriously than Connery's did, much like Fleming’s version of the spy. Outside an infamous fourth-wall-breaking opening gag, his storyline was also more grounded, which allowed Lazenby to embody Bond’s troubled side.

Casting the leading lady

For Tracy Draco, the producers wanted an established actress opposite neophyte Lazenby.[30] Brigitte Bardot was invited, but after she signed to appear in Shalako opposite Sean Connery, the deal fell through,[16] and Diana Rigg—who had already been the popular heroine Emma Peel in The Avengers—was cast instead.[8] Rigg said one of the reasons for accepting the role was that she always wanted to be in an epic film.[18]

The Iconic Villian in her Majesty’s secret Service

On her Majesty’s sees the return of Ernst Stavro Blofeild this time by Telly Savalas he was played Donald Pleasence in you only live twice and would be played by Charles Grey in the following film Diamonds are Forever.

Recently Screenrantly published an article on their website titled Every James Bonds Iconic Villian Ranked and for George Lazenby they chose Blofeild lets face it they couldn’t choose amybody else.

George Lazenby only ever starred in one Bond movie, so he only ever faced one Bond villain, and that movie was sandwiched into the middle of Sean Connery’s arc, so he had to share his villain with Connery. But that villain happened to be Bond’s ultimate big bad, Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Connery faced other unforgettable villains like Dr. No and Auric Goldfinger, but Blofeld was their boss. Blofeld’s portrayal in the Bond movies – particularly in You Only Live Twice – has influenced how supervillains are depicted on-screen for decades. Blofeld is the quintessential Bond villain: a diabolical criminal mastermind who’s always one step ahead of 007.

A bunch of different actors have put their own stamp on the role of Blofeld over the years. Telly Savalas played the character opposite Lazenby in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Charles Gray played the part opposite a returning Connery in Diamonds Are Forever. But the most iconic take on the character (by far) is Donald Pleasence’s chilling performance alongside Connery in You Only Live Twice. The glint in Pleasence’s scarred eye is both mesmerizing and unsettling; he’s a captivating presence whenever he appears on-screen. Every James Bond movie villain since Pleasence’s Blofeld has been competing for the silver medal.

OHMSS A unique James Bond film

Taking over from Somebody in the lead role is difficult enough but when you take over the lead role from somebody as well known as Sean Connery in the most successful film franchise that is James Bond that task is even harder still

Considering it was it was also George Lazenby’s first lead role in a major film I thought George Lazenby’s take on James Bond in his only film was excellent On Her Majesty’s secret service is a unique film in my view in that its more of a charector piece than your usual James Bond spy story indeed more than in any other Bond film the gadgets take a backseat to the story for once and its more about the love story between James Bond and Tracey Draco than anything else

This is highlighted by the fact as well that the What Culture website picked the relationship between the too as their moment of the whole film.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service, despite George Lazenby's terrible performance as Bond, is one of the most elite installments of the series. It does many things incredibly well, but it's Bond's relationship with Tracy di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg) that really makes the film linger in one's mind.

It seems clear the film put a huge amount of effort into this part of the story - in fact, at one point, the film basically stops in order to show a very nice romantic montage of the pair set to Louis Armstrong's "We Have All the Time in the World" - and while it made for a very different film compared to its predecessors, it sure as hell paid off.

OHMSS offers up a genuinely moving, chemistry-filled romance that pulls viewers right in and is so good that not even Lazenby can ruin it. Besides, any deficiencies in his performance are counter-balanced by Diana Rigg's wonderful turn as Tracy.

In the end, the film concludes with Tracy's murder and this scene is still absolutely devastating all these years later. With this tragic ending, OHMSS basically does something similar to what No Time to Die did decades later, but it did it far better.

Screenrant published an article called Each Bond actors defining scene 6 moments that defined James Bond for George Lazenby they Chose Tracy’s death scene

George Lazenby only played Bond in one movie, but it just so happened to be one of the greatest Bond movies of all time. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service sees 007 falling in love for the first time and ends with him marrying Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo, better known as Tracy. Just as Bond seems to get a happy ending, and he heads off on his honeymoon with Tracy, his bride is gunned down by his enemies in a drive-by shooting. This is one of the saddest moments in Bond history, and Lazenby nails the raw emotions of a widowed newlywed in tears, cradling his dead wife.

Tracy was never mentioned enough in later movies, but nonetheless, in OHMSS itself this love story is easily its greatest asset, although the cinematography, action sequences and the franchise's best incarnation of Blofeld (played here by Telly Savalas) deserve mention too.

Tracy’s Death was also included in another Screenrant article titled 10 greatest James Bonds scenes ranked from worst to best landing at number 5 in their list they had this to say:

George Lazenby only appeared in one James Bond movie, and the actor had the hard job of replacing Sean Connery, the original 007 who, according to many viewers, is still the greatest to ever play the role. However, Connery’s Bond wouldn’t have worked in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, as evidenced by the movie’s strongest scene. When 007 married his love interest, Tracy (Diana Rigg), only for her to be murdered by Blofeld (Telly Savalas), the unstoppable spy experienced his most crushing defeat in the franchise’s history. Poignant and brutal, this scene marked a turning point for Bond’s unflappable screen persona.

Besides the James Bond and Tracey love story the film sees bond trying to stop Blofield spreading Germ warfair by using innocent girls which he calls his angels of death indeed the Colider film highlighted these ladies as one of the highlights of the film in their article The 16 deadliest Women in the James Bond franchise arriving on the list at number 10.

The Angels of Death are 12 extremely attractive, wealthy, and sophisticated women who were selected by Irma Bunt (see below) from various countries to assist the Head of the crime organization SPECTRE, Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Telly Savalas), in contaminating, sterilizing, and eventually ransoming the world's food supply.

“TOTAL Infertility! In plants and animals. Not just disease in a few herds, Mr. Bond. Or the loss of a single crop. But the destruction of a whole strain. Forever! If my demands are not met, I shall proceed with the systematic extinction of whole species of cereals and livestock all over the world!” - Blofeld

Though a global threat, the ladies are actually regularly brainwashed and hypnotized, unbeknownst to them, thinking they are simply being treated for their specific food allergies in a luxurious Alpine facility.

Irma Bunt played by the German actress Ilse Steppat made an appearance in the same list making number 7 in the chart so a film that a film considered by some as a flop does have some highlights this is what they had to say :

Portrayed by the German actress Ilse Steppat, Irma Bunt is the stern middle-aged subordinate of Blofeld’s who runs the “allergy institute” in the Swiss Alps, “helping” the ladies with their allergies by day, and brainwashing them in their sleep. When Bond (the underrated George Lazenby) checks into the facility as a patient, she thoroughly has his luggage inspected, and informs him she enforces strict rules on all guests, such as not disclosing last names or room numbers. But then, his cover is blown, and after a relentless car chase, there is a big explosion, causing Bond to believe Bunt is dead. However, she later turns up at his own wedding, and attempts to shoot him with an M16, but she kills his new bride instead

My thoughts on her Majestys secret service

Cinemagoers who came to see the film in 1969 most have had a big shock when they saw a more charector led story with a much more sensitive and emotional James Bond than they were used to but for me agaIn that's ok because sometimes a franchise even one like James Bond needs to take risk sometimes to stop it going stale and boring.

The film is will written and is well directored by Peter R Hunt It is the only Bond film to have been directed by him (with this serving as his directorial debut), he had served as a film editor and second unit director on previous films in the series.

OHMSS Brought to book

Peter R Hunt also had one of Ian Flemings best books to work with in Screenrants article which rated the 14 bond novels that Fleming wrote OHMSS came at number 4 in their chart they had this to say about the book

On Her Majesty's Secret Service followed the disaster that was The Spy Who Loved Me and, therefore, marked a return to form for both Fleming and the James Bond series. Though it contains much of the action and thrills of Fleming's other works, On Her Majesty's Secret Service offers a gentler and more tender approach than the previous entries. It all culminates in a gut-wrenching climax that once again proves that Fleming is far from a one-trick pony. An intriguing conspiracy and a worthy opponent in the form of Blofeld help make OHMSS a classic.

OHMSS features some of the best action scenes you will ever see in a Bond film the Stock car race and ski-ing sequences being particularly good that Yard Barker published an article called the 25 Greatest set peices in the Bond highlighting the films finale at Piz Gloria.

Again, listen to Soderbergh. This is an exquisitely shot and edited set-piece that kicks off with three helicopters assaulting Blofeld’s Piz Gloria stronghold, proceeds to crosscut between a tightly staged firefight and Tracy di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg) holding her own (and eventually killing) one of Blofeld’s thugs, then concludes with a (literally) breakneck bobsled chase. Director Peter Hunt’s aerial, exterior and interior photography matches perfectly; you’re always aware of where the characters are (including Bond as he belly-slides down an icy slope, machine gun blazing), and what they’re trying to achieve. This is how it’s done.

on this evidance then its such a shame that he never any more bond films after this.

If it was up to me Lazenby should have ignored his agents wishes and stayed in the role for one more film at least then perharps audiences would have got used to his more sensitive portrayal as James Bond

Mind you I think I am right in saying if George Lazenby had continued as James Bond we would not have had the Roger Moore era of James Bond that I loved as a child so perharps you can’t have everything you want

To watch a video review of OHMSS from the Oliver Harper YouTube channel click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfS0KRkQOo4

Music

John Barry who provided the soundtrack for the film which I conisder to be his best work for Bond provided an instrumential theme tune as he had done for the first two films Dr No and From Russia with love.

Barry felt it would be difficult to compose a theme song containing the title "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" unless it were written operatically, in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan. Leslie Bricusse had considered lyrics for the title song but director Peter R. Hunt allowed an instrumental title theme in the tradition of the first two Bond films. The theme is built around a lament bass, which establishes the story as a tragedy. Barry's composition was described as "one of the best title cuts, a wordless Moog-driven monster, suitable for skiing at breakneck speed or dancing with equal abandon.

The instrumental theme for ONHMSS is a John Barry classic . It would not grace the pop charts under its own steam. the dance band The Propellerheads would release a remix of theme working with David Arnold for his album James Bond remixed. the single reached number 7 in the UK charts you can listen to it by clicking here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN8GcRGNWe4

Barry also composed the love song "We Have All the Time in the World", with lyrics by Burt Bacharach's regular lyricist Hal David, sung by Louis Armstrong. It is heard during the Bond–Tracy courtship montage, bridging Draco's birthday party in Portugal and Bond's burglary of the Gebrüder Gumbold law office in Bern, Switzerland.

The song doesn’t appear till 30 mins into the film gentle and reflective the song was the last studio recording by Louis Armstrong and features a beautiful and thrilling string arrangement that was modifed by Barry to play on Low strings as a jaunty theme for Bond in some of the films earlier sequences one of the most interesting and symbolic uses of music in the Bond film as 007 discusses Tracey with her father and Draco suggests that her daughter needs a man to dominate her !

Barry recalled Armstrong was very ill, but recorded the song in one take. Armstrong did, however, make some further recordings in 1970 and 1971. The song was re-released in 1994, achieving the number three position during a 13-week spell in the UK charts. When it was used for a Guinness infinity beer campaign.

The song was reused for a second Bond movie, when it was used as the soundtrack for the closing credits for the 2021 release No Time to Die.

To watch a trailer for on Her Majesty’s Secret sevice click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOLq5Rg9N-c&list=PL17vqAEJv6CUxmeZBk3JGDLBbcPEd4CDp&index=1

To watch a tribuite video for OHMSS click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y35cTSFFeYU

Octopussy

Octopussy is a 1983 spy film and the thirteenth in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions. It is the sixth to star Roger Moore as the MI6 agent James Bond. It was directed by John Glen and the screenplay was written by George MacDonald Fraser, Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson.

The film's title is taken from a short story in Ian Fleming's 1966 short story collection Octopussy and The Living Daylights,

I like this film a lot again as with all the Bond films I enjoy it has a good mix of action and comedy and is well written and well directored by John Glenn ( his 2nd James Bond film after (for your eyes only)

His direction of the film was picked out of the What Culture website Best Bond moments article

Octopussy, with its stubborn insistence on prioritizing cringy comedy over thrills and a generally ill-conceived plot, is definitely one of the low points of the series (and one that totally ignored what made the previous film work) but it's not a total wash-out.

If there's one person who really comes out of the film with their dignity intact, it's John Glen, who directed five Bond movies, starting with For Your Eyes Only and finishing with Licence to Kill.

Glen is definitely one of the best directors the series ever had; he was already doing great work as an editor in the franchise, and once he stepped into the director's chair, he always directed with flair and precision, delivering many stunning visuals in the process.

Once again, just like with For Your Eyes Only, Glen does a smashing job and ensured that, despite how dated the film is on a writing level, it still looks absolutely terrific - especially during the picture's aerial action scenes.

The film also has Maud Adams this time returning as Octopussy She featured at number 9 in the 10 most deadliest women in the James Bond Franchise on the Movie web website who had this to say about Octopussy

Octopussy: [Bond sneaks into her room] Good evening. I wondered when you might arrive.

Bond: So, you are the mysterious Octopussy.

Octopussy: And you are James Bond, 007, licensed to kill. Am l to be your target for tonight?

Bond: Oh no, not necessarily. Depends how much you tell me about jewelry smuggling. And why one of our agents was killed in East Berlin.

Maud Adams plays Octopussy, a powerful smuggler of rare jewels, and the leader of an ancient cult of lone, fierce, and heavily trained acrobats, all of them women, and living on a secluded island in India. Her associate is an exiled Afghan prince, Kamal Khan, who also has members of the Cult of Octopus among his servants. Octopussy will eventually join forces with Bond (Roger Moore) against her ally

Music

Rather than use the word Octopussy in the title of the song the producers of the James Bond film did the most refreashing thing and decided not to mention it all instead we got a song called All Time High.

Once again John Barry provided the Soundtrack for the film theme "All Time High" with lyricist Tim Rice. "All Time High", sung by Rita Coolidge, is one of seven musical themes in the James Bond series whose song titles do not refer to the film's title. "All Time High" spent four weeks at number one on the United States' Adult Contemporary singles chart and reached number 36 on the Billboard Hot 100.[25]

To watch a video short about the making of Octopussy called 10 things you never new about Octopussy Click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhwpkASnFlM&t=32s

To watch a trailer for Octopussy click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1hLWZzgZvU

a lot of work has gone into this blog if you have read it and liked it please consider sending a donation to the Tolerance project by clicking on the above link https://gofund.me/5cf25de4

Notes

If your wondering where the title of this blog comes from it features in the 3rd James Bond film Goldfinger which is rightly seen by many as a classic Bond film and probably the best Bond film ever made. it was the first Bond film to make over a 100 million at the box office with a great mix of action comedy girls and gadgets and featured a great Goldfinger title song sung by Shirley Bassey the song itself made the top 30 in the UK charts

To watch a trailer for Goldfinger click here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MA65V-oLKa8&list=PL17vqAEJv6CUxmeZBk3JGDLBbcPEd4CDp&index=12

Thanks once again to Wikipedia for the background notes this time on the songs All time high and We have all the time in the world the Oliver Harper Youtube page for the OHMSS Retrospective review video Storm Chaser Z you tube channel for the viarous James bond videos and the Cinema Blend website for the series of articles called James Bond ranked

And Google Images for the viarous pictures of the viarous eras of James Bond

Pictures

1) Poster for OHMSS

2) Diana Rigg as Tracy

3) Diana Rigg as Tracey

4) Tracey and James Bond

5) The Angels of Death

6) Erima Bunt

7) Octpussy Poster

8) Octopussy herself

9) One of the many Posters for Goldfinger

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things-about-cars-in-posts · 1 year ago

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@pianolexcat asks:

And well, this’ll surprise you: I had no idea what this car was! But weeding through the Ford range at the outer edges of my area of expertise ('50s North America), I found out it’s a 1958 Ford Custom. Here's the Wikipedia page about it, and here's the Scottish Wikipedia page I accidentally ended up on when trying to find it again!

Apparently, it wis a caur model name usied baith Ford in the Unitit States an Canadae frae the 1930s tae 1981 - but one fun fact I knew I had for y'all before even knowing that and which I am qualified to talk about as I think it was mentioned in my years professionally studying product design (though I can't promise I didn't bring it up myself) is why I know the year for certain!

See, the Custom name was used in many different ways, but the one that concerns us is what they stamped it on between 1957 and 1959.

I think we can all agree that's her, right? See the chrome curve at the edge of the roof and the gap between it and the rear windshield, the size and angle of the fins... that's her! But why could it not be a '57 or a '59 then? Easy:

Because in '57 the taillights, trunk lid, bumper and side trim were all completely different (and same for the front). And if that seems drastic...

...check it out for '59, where it didn't even retain the same glass.

And here's the kicker: before the fateful year of 1973 when the realization that petrol wasn't actually infinite destroyed the entire concept of America, this was normal. American cars of the '50s and '60s all had some aesthetic change pretty much every year, from a couple distinctive bits for a different look to a completely new body (which admittedly was easier back then with body on frame cars). Why? Because then the showroom cars were always fresh and new and thus prestigious, and used cars never were - you couldn't buy a car with as little as one year without it being an old model, forget something like five. Same reason you still see car models get little cosmetic updates partway into their lifespans, and why so many smartphones needlessly switch up their looks every generation! Of course, you don't see this everywhere because it needs to be a purchase expensive enough that people care and in a market wealthy enough that people can afford a needless upgrade over some flashy new feature or even just to get picky about what feels newer - so for instance old Eastern European cars are... not exactly known for a breakneck update frequency (see the cars below for what a one-year difference looks like in Poland. I'm just kidding, the yellow one is a quarter century newer).

In fact, I am pretty sure yearly refreshes are the origin of the predominance of referring to a car by year: to people who know enough about cars to know a model's generation, "1996 Miata" is usually just conveying "first generation Miata" with extra steps, so you'd only use it when referring to something that specifcally involves a subsection of that generation's years (e.g. "In my first gen Miata the battery is in the trunk" vs "In my 1996 Miata the oil pressure gauge is basically just a warning light in gauge form"). But in old American cars, every single year was at least somewhat different, so you'd always say " '58 Custom" to tell it apart from a '59 Custom and so on, which I think is where this tradition took hold. In fact, you see it most among Americans and discussion of American cars, with few examples more iconic than the '64 Impala being so famous and oft-mentioned in hip-hop tracks (most famously Eazy E's "cruising down the street in my '64" line) that as soon as '92 you could just say "rolling in my four" and people would know.

Of course, cars changing every year is a nightmare if you, say, bump your car and need a fender they only made for one year, which is why Volkswagen was very proud of rejecting that trend.

This will seem familiar to fans of the blog, and indeed is, apparently, the ad that inspired the VW Harlekin!

P.S. While normally this post would have gleefully derailed into explanations of model generations nomenclature and lowrider history, I am trying to shorten my posts. (Yes, dear blog newcomers, this is meant to be a shorter post.) Not because I don't want to write about those things - I in fact would LOVE to share the hilarious Subaru eye joke I found and if y'all don't know lowriders you NEED to let me make you one of today's lucky 10.000. It's just that putting all that inside a single post makes it a bitch to follow, a chore to read, and it means I take ages to answer your asks. So going forward, when I touch on potentially interesting topics to expand upon, I will note them and you can (as you always could) ask me to tell you about them through a post submission (or, if you can't, an ask)! Better organization, shorter posts and faster response times make a better future for everyone. Does it show I studied marketing?

Links in blue are posts of mine explaining the words in question - if you liked this post, you might like those!

John Salt (British, 1937-2021), Black Ford in Field, 1972. Oil on canvas, 48 x 72 in.

#btw fun fact: Scottish Wikipedia was updated with the new layout which Italian Wikipedia still has not #in case you needed yet another proof of just how behind the times Italy consistently finds a way to be #years #ford custom #vw beetle

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cowhandlikeme · 7 months ago

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the wikipedia article for ttpd hasn't even updated yet omg (no i'm not doing it)

#taylor swift #the tortured poets department #ttpd #wikipedia #will probably update by the time you see this #original posts

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naniyou · 1 year ago

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I watched the live with the CEO, here is the tl;dr

The good news:

Chronological dash is here to stay! Whether you have to toggle it weekly or new users default to “For you” was not elaborated on but at least that’s confirmed.

Custom themes are here to stay! Once again, may be buried for all I know but, for sure will remain an option.

Search updates are in the works!!!!

The neutral news:

Tumblr is seriously in the red financially and needs more support, Ad-free for example is not widely used

They would not comment on the suggestion to bring back NSFW behind a paywall (which we all know would get them a boatload of money)

They’re possibly going to add a donation system like Ao3 and Wikipedia.

They would “rather not” sell data to make up the costs

Most of staff are pre-2010 tumblr users including the CEO who joined in 2007, so they do actually use the site and have for a long time

The bad news:

Condensed reblogs/removing duplicate reblogs is going forward. The reason cited was to meet “certain expectations” of users coming from other social media, which isn’t good.

Disability features (specifically turning off flashing ads for epileptics) was met with a request to purchase Ad-free @zingring clarified that they are looking into it but suggested Ad-free as more of a stopgap until something is put in place

Overall it was more chill than I expected, @photomatt and @zingring seem to be far more in tune with the userbase than u/spez.

#tumblr changes #tumblr #tumblr ceo live

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ihavethecoffeeground · 1 year ago

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So, a funny thing happened on trigun twitter

(amazon link where its 50% off as of May 8th: https://www.amazon.com/This-How-You-Lose-Time/dp/1534430997/)

(more up to date version here because holy fuck did this escalate)

#this is how you lose the time war #SOMEONE ALREADY UPDATED THE WIKIPEDIA PAGE #IM CRYING

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methamphetatitties · 4 months ago

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Im seeing a lot of people compare the crowdstrike outage to Y2K, but that's only half the story. The amount of disruption is what we expected out of y2k, but the technical issues are vastly different. What was going to happen with Y2K wasn't a bad update or coding error or anything, but a fundamental problem with the code language itself, basically. The timekeeping system was written in lile the early 70s and the time keeping system was not able to compute anything past midnight on January 1st 2000, and would instead revert back to 1901. To this day, many people believe that Y2K was a hoax because when the clock struck, nothing happened.

BUT

The only reason nothing happened is because many people pulled an ungodly amount of overtime to fix this before that date. In fact, they had to bring some people out of retirement to help because the system ran on the COBOL language and almost every IT person in the 90s did not know this language anymore. And in 2038, it may happen again if no one does anything about it.

I know many of the people on this website either don't remember or weren't alive for Y2K so I just thought it would be a fun little history lesson about computers.

Further reading:

#crowdstrike #y2k #computer

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mostlysignssomeportents · 10 months ago

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How lock-in hurts design

Berliners: Otherland has added a second date (Jan 28) for my book-talk after the first one sold out - book now!

If you've ever read about design, you've probably encountered the idea of "paving the desire path." A "desire path" is an erosion path created by people departing from the official walkway and taking their own route. The story goes that smart campus planners don't fight the desire paths laid down by students; they pave them, formalizing the route that their constituents have voted for with their feet.

Desire paths aren't always great (Wikipedia notes that "desire paths sometimes cut through sensitive habitats and exclusion zones, threatening wildlife and park security"), but in the context of design, a desire path is a way that users communicate with designers, creating a feedback loop between those two groups. The designers make a product, the users use it in ways that surprise the designer, and the designer integrates all that into a new revision of the product.

This method is widely heralded as a means of "co-innovating" between users and companies. Designers who practice the method are lauded for their humility, their willingness to learn from their users. Tech history is strewn with examples of successful paved desire-paths.

Take John Deere. While today the company is notorious for its war on its customers (via its opposition to right to repair), Deere was once a leader in co-innovation, dispatching roving field engineers to visit farms and learn how farmers had modified their tractors. The best of these modifications would then be worked into the next round of tractor designs, in a virtuous cycle:

https://securityledger.com/2019/03/opinion-my-grandfathers-john-deere-would-support-our-right-to-repair/

But this pattern is even more pronounced in the digital world, because it's much easier to update a digital service than it is to update all the tractors in the field, especially if that service is cloud-based, meaning you can modify the back-end everyone is instantly updated. The most celebrated example of this co-creation is Twitter, whose users created a host of its core features.

Retweets, for example, were a user creation. Users who saw something they liked on the service would type "RT" and paste the text and the link into a new tweet composition window. Same for quote-tweets: users copied the URL for a tweet and pasted it in below their own commentary. Twitter designers observed this user innovation and formalized it, turning it into part of Twitter's core feature-set.

Companies are obsessed with discovering digital desire paths. They pay fortunes for analytics software to produce maps of how their users interact with their services, run focus groups, even embed sneaky screen-recording software into their web-pages:

https://www.wired.com/story/the-dark-side-of-replay-sessions-that-record-your-every-move-online/

This relentless surveillance of users is pursued in the name of making things better for them: let us spy on you and we'll figure out where your pain-points and friction are coming from, and remove those. We all win!

But this impulse is a world apart from the humility and respect implied by co-innovation. The constant, nonconsensual observation of users has more to do with controlling users than learning from them.

That is, after all, the ethos of modern technology: the more control a company can exert over its users ,the more value it can transfer from those users to its shareholders. That's the key to enshittification, the ubiquitous platform decay that has degraded virtually all the technology we use, making it worse every day:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

When you are seeking to control users, the desire paths they create are all too frequently a means to wrestling control back from you. Take advertising: every time a service makes its ads more obnoxious and invasive, it creates an incentive for its users to search for "how do I install an ad-blocker":

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

More than half of all web-users have installed ad-blockers. It's the largest consumer boycott in human history:

https://doc.searls.com/2023/11/11/how-is-the-worlds-biggest-boycott-doing/

But zero app users have installed ad-blockers, because reverse-engineering an app requires that you bypass its encryption, triggering liability under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This law provides for a $500,000 fine and a 5-year prison sentence for "circumvention" of access controls:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones

Beyond that, modifying an app creates liability under copyright, trademark, patent, trade secrets, noncompete, nondisclosure and so on. It's what Jay Freeman calls "felony contempt of business model":

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

This is why services are so horny to drive you to install their app rather using their websites: they are trying to get you to do something that, given your druthers, you would prefer not to do. They want to force you to exit through the gift shop, you want to carve a desire path straight to the parking lot. Apps let them mobilize the law to literally criminalize those desire paths.

An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a felony to block ads in it (or do anything else that wrestles value back from a company). Apps are web-pages where everything not forbidden is mandatory.

Seen in this light, an app is a way to wage war on desire paths, to abandon the cooperative model for co-innovation in favor of the adversarial model of user control and extraction.

Corporate apologists like to claim that the proliferation of apps proves that users like them. Neoliberal economists love the idea that business as usual represents a "revealed preference." This is an intellectually unserious tautology: "you do this, so you must like it":

https://boingboing.net/2024/01/22/hp-ceo-says-customers-are-a-bad-investment-unless-they-can-be-made-to-buy-companys-drm-ink-cartridges.html

Calling an action where no alternatives are permissible a "preference" or a "choice" is a cheap trick – especially when considered against the "preferences" that reveal themselves when a real choice is possible. Take commercial surveillance: when Apple gave Ios users a choice about being spied on – a one-click opt of of app-based surveillance – 96% of users choice no spying:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/96-of-us-users-opt-out-of-app-tracking-in-ios-14-5-analytics-find/

But then Apple started spying on those very same users that had opted out of spying by Facebook and other Apple competitors:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Neoclassical economists aren't just obsessed with revealed preferences – they also love to bandy about the idea of "moral hazard": economic arrangements that tempt people to be dishonest. This is typically applied to the public ("consumers" in the contemptuous parlance of econospeak). But apps are pure moral hazard – for corporations. The ability to prohibit desire paths – and literally imprison rivals who help your users thwart those prohibitions – is too tempting for companies to resist.

The fact that the majority of web users block ads reveals a strong preference for not being spied on ("users just want relevant ads" is such an obvious lie that doesn't merit any serious discussion):

https://www.iccl.ie/news/82-of-the-irish-public-wants-big-techs-toxic-algorithms-switched-off/

Giant companies attained their scale by learning from their users, not by thwarting them. The person using technology always knows something about what they need to do and how they want to do it that the designers can never anticipate. This is especially true of people who are unlike those designers – people who live on the other side of the world, or the other side of the economic divide, or whose bodies don't work the way that the designers' bodies do:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/20/benevolent-dictators/#felony-contempt-of-business-model

Apps – and other technologies that are locked down so their users can be locked in – are the height of technological arrogance. They embody a belief that users are to be told, not heard. If a user wants to do something that the designer didn't anticipate, that's the user's fault:

https://www.wired.com/2010/06/iphone-4-holding-it-wrong/

Corporate enthusiasm for prohibiting you from reconfiguring the tools you use to suit your needs is a declaration of the end of history. "Sure," John Deere execs say, "we once learned from farmers by observing how they modified their tractors. But today's farmers are so much stupider and we are so much smarter that we have nothing to learn from them anymore."

Spying on your users to control them is a poor substitute asking your users their permission to learn from them. Without technological self-determination, preferences can't be revealed. Without the right to seize the means of computation, the desire paths never emerge, leaving designers in the dark about what users really want.

Our policymakers swear loyalty to "innovation" but when corporations ask for the right to decide who can innovate and how, they fall all over themselves to create laws that let companies punish users for the crime of contempt of business-model.

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/24/everything-not-mandatory/#is-prohibited

Image: Belem (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Desire_path_%2819811581366%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #desire paths #design #drm #everything not mandatory is prohibited #apps #ip #innovation #user innovation #technological self-determination #john deere #twitter #felony contempt of business model

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nyancrimew · 5 months ago

Note

currently your wikipedia article uses excusively she/her pronouns despite your bio saying that you use it/its (and the article itself saying you use it/she will a strong preference for it) would you like that updated?

no, there is a big massive note on the article saying to specifically not do this and it has been discussed with me numerous times, in fact the reason the article on me is edit protected is because people kept trying to edit the pronouns despite being explicitly told (sometimes by me) not to do so

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kanjichris · 2 years ago

Text

#star trek 4 #time to update the 'development of star trek 4' wikipedia page boys #star trek

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alithographica · 1 year ago

Text

As promised, welcome to

Fun biology in TOTK’s designs

I'll keep this post updated as I go through the game. I'm going to skip the more general identifiable things like apples (they're based on apples!) because there are tons of more unusual species to talk about.

Overall, the really interesting thing I've noticed is that many of the more unique Earth-based lifeforms in TOTK are super ancient, like predating dinosaurs ancient, which is a really cool tie-in to the overall time-hopping plotline of TOTK. Specifically, they're found in the new areas (caves, depths) while the surface remains a bit more normal.

(There will be no plot spoilers in this post, and also I've barely gotten into the plot because I'm spending all my time wandering, so shhh no spoilers in the tags for like a month please.)

Most recent additions: More lilies, irises, wild ginger, spiny bones, pigeon extravaganza, plus added some more real photo comparisons to old stuff.

PLANTS

Bryophytes my beloved. Bryophytes are among the earliest land plants, waaaay predating flowers and even seeds. In our world, they’re small by necessity—they lack vascular systems to help move water around like other plants, so they have to stay small and moist (hence their frequency in caves in TOTK—though they do need some light in real life.)

In TOTK they’re quite large and I think that’s very sexy and art directors should give us big bryophytes more often

Anyway, there are three types of bryophytes: mosses, liverworts, and hornworts. First image pair is a moss, second is a liverwort. Those red-brown and palm-tree-like structures, respectively, are their reproductive structures.

Not yet spotted: Hornworts! Did they forget the third bryophyte sister :(

I think these next guys are probably lycopods (specifically club moss, which is not a true bryophyte moss, thanks science.) Very old, but vascular, so they're a bit more evolutionarily recent than bryophytes.

All the enormous curly-topped trees in the depths: Ferns! They curl like that until they unfurl. Another very old plant, though younger than bryophytes and lycopods.

Real photo via The Cosmonaut, Wikipedia

Brightblooms and some of the other giant plants in the depths: Possibly based on a cycad? Again, a very ancient plant lineage. At this point, evolutionarily, they've developed seeds—that giant cone in the center is called a strobilus, and that's the seed structure.

These next few plants are angiosperms, meaning they produce flowers. Angiosperms are a more recent evolutionary lineage—still many millions of years old, but it took a while to develop flowers as a reproductive tactic.

Sundelions (left) are a fun recolor of a lily. There are also some scenery lilies (right) in various places—there are yellow ones that spring up when you turn on a lightroot (which gives them literal and thematic connection to the surface) and several other varieties, including tiger lilies, throughout Hyrule. Fun note, the sundelions appear to only have 5 stamen, while other lilies in the game (correctly) have 6. Seems to be an intentional decision to make it a more distinct fantasy species.

These next ones are Peruvian lilies/Alstroemeria, just used as a scenery plant but a very fun inclusion. Fun fact, not true lilies, so they're not deadly to cats like true lilies are.

Plum trees: These are also called out as plum trees in game! There's a journal in Kakariko that refers to the plum orchards.

Okay I'm a little proud of figuring this one out. Bomb flowers blend a few botanical references. Superficially, the fruit resembles a type of seed pod called a capsule—specifically it's very similar to a poppy capsule. The little red thing in the center is a nice addition to resemble both a flower stigma (reproductive part that leads to the ovary) and a bomb fuse. Now, poppy capsules disperse their seeds via wind, but there are other plants who do explode their seeds outwards as a dispersal tactic! This is called explosive dehiscence.

There is one tree in particular called the sandbox tree, AKA monkey-no-climb or dynamite tree (yes, really.) Their capsules look more like little pumpkins, but are known for violently exploding when ripe—they can launch seeds at 150 miles per hour (250 km/h) and spread them roughly 200 feet (60 m) away. The photo comparison is a poppy capsule but you should def go look up dynamite tree videos.

Fire fruits (and the other elemental fruits) grow on the same generic plant that looks kind of like it has grape leaves. Fire fruits resemble a specific botanical thing too though—the black netting is a papery calyx (part of the flower) seen in a nightshade genus, Physalis (golden berries, tomatillos, etc.)

I think this stuff is an Asarum, AKA wild ginger. I was actually puzzling over it until I walked past some today and went HEY

Not sure of the exact species but they're very green and heart-shaped and love being dense and low to the ground.

Real photo via David Stang, Wikipedia

Irises: Love irises, one of my favorite flowers and words, very happy to see them in game.

MISCELLANEA

Cup lichen! Lichen is not a plant, but a symbiotic structure of an algae + a fungi. Cup lichen is just a type of lichen formation that has a kind of vertical cup-like structure.

Real photo via Bernard Spragg

Geology crossover! Go look carefully at some of the whiter walls in the depths—they look like they have fossils of coral and other undersea hard-structured animals in them.

ANIMALS

Sticky lizards: Based on Diplocaulus, a very early (now extinct) amphibian! Their skulls are wacky. We're not sure whether the long sides stood out separately or were smoothly connected to the body by skin flaps, but the separate arrow-like shape is the most popular rendition.

Deep firefly: Might be a stretch because it could just be a multi-winged fantasy critter, but I think the "wings" and antennae are very reminiscent of Anomalocaris, an ancient aquatic arthropod.

Update: Other folks in the notes/tags have pointed out that they're probably based on a cryptid that's especially popular in Japan: skyfish AKA rods! They show up in photos and people think they're an alien lifeform. In reality, they're an optical blur created when a lower quality video captures intermittent flaps of an insect's wings, leaving sort of a many-winged smear in the photo. Thanks to all who left info!

Little frox: Another stretch because it totally could just be a Hinox-like frog, but every time I see the little ones I can't help but think of like...Ichthyostega, Mastodonsaurus, Eryops, and other early amphibians. They were pretty hefty—little frox size or bigger—and had with little waddling legs. This is less "I think it's definitely this" and more "it makes me happy when I picture frox as primitive amphibians."

I haven't detailed many of the scenery animals around Hyrule because most are identifiable with the camera function—it'll tell you that a certain animal is a heron or porgy, for example, and those groups are real, even though the exact species is made up. But I think the pigeons are fun because they're all crested pigeons. Pink-necked green pigeons may have also been the inspiration for the color palettes on the wood and rainbow pigeons.

Both pigeon photos via JJ Harrison, Wikipedia

Spiny bones: Not a specific critter, but those spiny bones that you can find lying around Eldin Canyon are vertebrae—possibly from the same thing that left those big rib cages around? The top spike is the spinous process where muscles attach, the littler spikes on the side are the transverse and articular processes. The dark O in the center is the spinal cord.

Also I made a friend who finally recognizes my purpose in Hyrule.

That's all I've got for now! Will add more as I keep playing.

#tears of the kingdom #totk #legend of zelda #loz #science fun #biology #lizard #plant #botany #image heavy #long post

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