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Sawdust & Diamonds by Joanna Newsom

I wasn't born of a whistle or milked from a thistle at twilight,
No, I was all horns and thorns, sprung out fully formed, knock-kneed and upright!
So enough of this terror, we deserve to know light, and grow evermore lighter and lighter.
You would have seen me through, but I could not undo that desire.

Hoping for a new IP personally, a Tactics title like Patman said could be cool but I don't see it really as a console series. I doubt they'll be booking on Nomura much either after the FFXV fiasco, seems to me they want him to get KH3 out as a priority and not make it into a new Versus.

Well an important factor to consider is whether you'd like to go desktop or laptop. I'm going to assume laptop, but on the off chance you're buying a desktop, don't waste your money on a Mac.

Moving on, it does matter what you intend to use the computer for. If you're just going to be browsing the web and chatting on Skype, there's no need to spend $1k+ on an Apple laptop. Windows laptops are pretty stylish these days and getting a decent one for $500 and upgrading a few years down the line is a solid plan, laptops in general just don't have very much longevity to them. Some of it is because they're portable, so they're more prone to damage (though replacing screens is generally pretty easy), other times it's because people just don't take care of them (which is true of desktops too), and sometimes it's just because you want the prettiest or the newest model. And that's okay, it just means that there's no need to drop a ton on one now if you see yourself replacing it soon.

If you're looking to game on it, I'd still recommend a Windows laptop. OSX isn't great for game compatibility and while you could always install Windows on it (which would be an additional $100 to buy the OS), you find more laptops with a dedicated GPU (which is what you want) in Windows laptops. Asus, Alienware, and Razer are your friends there.

If you're big into art or web design then a Mac is a good choice because they use really really nice displays, Windows are good but it varies.

Video editing gets a bit muddy and I think both a Windows laptop or an Apple MacBook would serve you well there. You'd need a higher end Windows laptop for it (see the gaming ones) because the more budget conscious ones use slower CPUs and tend to have heat issues. Windows laptops that use AMD processors here are good to look into because multi-core processing is better for video editing (Apple uses only Intel, which is fine for video editing and has an edge in most everything else, but if you're a really dedicated editor then go AMD).

If you want this to be the last laptop you buy for a while (I'm talking 7 to 10 years) then yeah, maybe consider going Apple. The thing is, a lot of people's issues with Windows laptops tend to be user error, whether it's that they don't know how to clean up their system after it's been going for a few years or they don't know how to take care of it in general. Apple laptops are perhaps easier to maintain but you're being hit with a pretty big sticker price that's based mostly on brand name. I like to tinker and play around so I like the flexibility Windows offers (but of course, you can install any OS you want on an Apple laptop). Buying laptops at the end of the day really just comes down to budget, if you're not looking to spend $1000 then Apple is out of the question, and when there's so many great Windows offerings below $1000 I have so much trouble recommending them. One of the big selling points for years with Apple is the form factor (they're really pretty) but imo PC manufacturers have caught up in that respect.

Ooh I won't spoil anything but it was a great episode!!

I haven't, but frankly she's been so amazing in HTGAWM that I'd love to check out other things she's been in. And yeah, I'm a big HP fan so I recognized him immediately, and still call him Dean Thomas when my sister and I discuss the show, heh.

Not watching videos right now because 1am and I'm vaguely sure I've seen them before lol but I do think you're right to an extent, Anakin is meant to be kinda creepy and uncomfortable -- the dialogue wouldn't exist if he wasn't, but there's something about the way Hayden Christensen plays it that just crosses a line to me. Like I get and agree with what you're saying but when it's as weird and creepy as it was in the movies I don't get at all why Padme goes for him. Revenge of the Sith is a different story because at that point they're already married and together, and thus she's realizing all these bad signs about him but still trying to defend him and ignore them because she loves him, but in Attack of the Clones it's a bit of a "why do you keep this guy around" type deal. I guess you could argue that Padme has loved Anakin since they first met, as Anakin did, but I don't personally see that.

It's also that Anakin's creepy over-devotion to Padme is never really... acknowledged or called out? She objects to their relationship on the basis of their jobs and **** but there's never really a realization that he's basically been carrying a torch for this girl for like ten years while he's like... nbd to him, just a childhood friend. It's something I think Lucas hoped to communicate but never really got across -- there's suggestions all around, like in the field scene, how she says that she's messed around with other guys while Padme has been Anakin's one and only forever.

I agree though, the prequels have good bits and I think the overall plot and themes are solid, especially the relationship Anakin has to power. And I think the overall idea that Anakin becomes Darth Vader not because he's evil to the core or because he wants to control this enormous Empire with Palpatine, but because he's trying to save his wife is... actually really sweet and a pretty cool inversion of what we expect. Like we see him being pouty and complaining that the Jedi are holding him back all through the prequels that I'm glad it's not something simple like "Palpatine was like yo dude you want to be the biggest baddie in the galaxy and Anakin said yes because Anakin is super unstable and power hungry." Anakin falls and becomes a monster out of love, which is something that's incredibly human and so central to Star Wars, and that comes full-circle with the end of Return of the Jedi.

The Anakin/Padme scenes on Coruscant and Naboo are probably some of the most stiff and awkward "romance" scenes ever committed to film history, to the point where I'm horrified to remember that Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen dated irl given that the two have absolutely no chemistry. They have like... opposite chemistry somehow, like they're two forces that repel each other. Natalie Portman is obviously the better actress of the two (though both I think were suffering from poor direction and just everything that's wrong about Lucas as a filmmaker) and I found her side of the romance much more sympathetic, while Anakin just seemed... really, really creepy. There's literally a scene where Padme asks Anakin to stop looking at her because it makes her uncomfortable, and that pretty much epitomizes my feelings about the couple. Up to a point.

The arena scene on Geonosis is awesome, and not just the action parts where the Anakin and Padme are reunited with Obi-Wan. I love the Anakin/Padme scene as they're rolled out to their deaths. To me it captures the nuances of the couple I'd have liked to see throughout the movie -- two young people who are trying to be brave and do their duty to the galaxy (Anakin as a Jedi and Padme as a politician) but who can't so easily reject their selfish, human desires.

The thing about Lucas is that he is really, really caught up in himself and his own visions, and that can be a really great quality to have. If you watch Empire of Dreams they make a very big point of emphasizing the gap that existed between Lucas and everyone else -- the actors, the crew, the studio, everyone. And while it caused a great deal of strife and occasionally impeded progress, it tempered Lucas's really... unique style. These people weren't afraid to have fun with Lucas's work and contribute to it and tell him when he was off-base. I mean, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamil were constantly joking around on set and didn't really take things seriously, especially in A New Hope, before they knew how big Star Wars would be, and while it might have been unprofessional and rubbed some people the wrong way, it contributed to their performances in a way. We weren't forced to take things super seriously all the time, just sit back and have fun and enjoy the ride. But if you read about people who have worked with Lucas from the prequels onwards, they're forced into this weird like... sycophantic, do-whatever-he-says role. He might as well just be making the movies alone. And to an extent he's earned that, but that's how the prequels went so wrong.

Probably the most enjoyable and believable performance in the prequels was Ewan McGregor and you can tell he really didn't take things super seriously either. He had a life to it that the others lacked. I'm not totally familiar with him as an actor but he was definitely more experienced than Natalie Portman or Hayden Christensen at the time so I think he was more willing to break away from Lucas's direction, whereas the others probably stuck quite closely to it, to their detriment. Lucas doesn't direct actors well at all, in Empire of Dreams Carrie Fisher complains about how they'd do a whole take and he'd just say "do it again but better." That's obviously not at all helpful to an actor -- you need to hear things like "add more feeling" or "you're over-acting" or "you're coming off kinda like a serial killer choosing his next victim." And so they'd sometimes redo it but other times the crew would just tell him to move along because they had deadlines or the take was fine. He's just not a people person and thus I don't think really knows how to direct them. The movies feel so hollow because there's really very little human touch to them.

admitting with extreme shame and guilt that I love attack of the clones and watch it a lot

Installed an update Nick sent me a while back (my b), this should be sorted!

Congrats on reaching halfway! I'm pretty sure anon donations can be viewed by the person controlling the GoFundMe but I've never done one myself.

That's interpretation though -- the teacher deciphering the meanings and significance behind details and symbols in the text.

We had a thread on here about objectification not too long ago (which you posted in, but it's several pages back by now -- might be fun to revive) and how objectification can be naturally linked to sexuality -- how the line can be blurred a bit and how it's not necessarily a bad thing, as sex between loving and caring partners can still, to some degree, be objectifying. It's turning a person into a physical object in a way, and that's fine. But that's sort of... meant for the bedroom, not really this setting?

I have mixed thoughts. I mean obviously there are gross and horrible things in porn, like child porn, and the representation of body types races and sexualities can use a lot of work, and the conditions for porn actors and actresses aren't great, and a whole host of other things, but obviously not all porn is like that. To be honest I don't know enough about it to judge too well. As for personal preference, well, maybe a different story for a different thread, haha.

But see, what sort of message does that send? I saw an interesting post on tumblr that criticized it by saying that women -- who are already discriminated against and excluded from STEM fields -- who might be interested in that science and want to be apart of the scientific community have to see that and watch that and think "this is the kind of person I am going to have to work alongside." By appearing in public like this he is representing the scientific community and I can't imagine this is how they would want to be portrayed.

Rory's boyfriends especially

Oh I've always hated this. First of all, for writing in particular, it's bullshit. I don't fancy myself the queen of literature or anything, but I do read quite a bit, I study literature, and I write from time to time (not on any kind of professional level but enough to call bullshit here). Details in (good) writing are intentional. If the author feels the need to mention the curtains, there's probably a reason for it -- they may want to point out how they're covering the windows, making the room dark, whatever, to set the atmosphere for the scene. If the author feels the need to specify that the curtains are blue, you can damn well bet they have a reason. Sometimes it is as simple as being descriptive and painting an image for the reader, and other times -- depending on the context -- it can mean something more. Specific details are rarely selected by chance or on a whim. Color symbolism in particular has a long history in literature across many different cultures; many times the associations with a color, symbol, or image are based on the culture's values (e.g. in Western culture, the association of the color white and doves with purity and innocence stems from Christianity) or symbols in our everyday life, and they have basis in science. Nearly every medium takes advantage of this -- there's a reason many fast food chains use red and yellow as their principal colors. Even if the author did not consciously select the color blue knowing the emotion and associations that come along with it, if they chose it, it may have been a subconscious selection to once again reflect the scene or meaning they are trying to create.

Furthermore, to quote from How to Analyze Poetry:

It is a disservice and disrespect to the author to assume them so unfamiliar and unskilled in the craft of writing that they simply throw details out for the sake of details without any purpose behind them. Some writers do (Hemingway resented the roundabout in writing, preferring to write plainly and say what he meant -- which is why he can be a very divisive writer), and we must learn to distinguish between the symbolic, meaningful details and the ones that simply paint a picture. Ripping from their context as this graphic does removes the ability to distinguish.

The beauty of literature -- and any art form, for that matter -- lies in its flexibility. It can mean most any thing to any one. Five people can read a book or a poem, or look at a painting, and walk away with five different interpretations of it. Our life experiences, our personality, our values, everything -- they inform how we experience something and how we understand it. And everyone's interpretation is valid. However, when analyzing literature, one must reinforce their interpretations with evidence for the text; if you do so in an effective way, your interpretation is valid and acceptable, academically, even if I don't personally agree with it. To once again return to the curtains example (and re-emphasize my previous point about it being ripped from its (imaginary) context), if the line came from a paragraph about how dejected a character was and the author made a point to mention the blue curtains, it becomes all the more likely that the detail was placed by the author to contribute to that meaning.

Finally, I take issue with this idea that the "author" is all upset about the teacher's interpretation. When published, produced, and then read by the masses, a piece of art ceases to belong exclusively to the writer. It's opened to that world of analysis, and the author's purpose does not trump every one elses'. So what if the author didn't mean a particular thing? Does it matter? If that is something felt by a person, does the author's intent truly affect that? If that person is able to reinforce their interpretation with examples from the text and made a sound argument for it, again, does it matter at all?

In general, yes, it would be inappropriate for a person to wear a top featuring scantily clad men in such a workplace, unless maybe you're a lifeguard or otherwise in a profession where partial nudity is acceptable. Again it's a contextual thing, but in this particular context, this man's shirt was completely inappropriate.

Those are completely different scenarios. A topless woman is simply an unclothed human; a man wearing this shirt is supporting a system that objectifies and commercializes a woman's body for the male gaze and pleasure. Once again, his apology offers no indication that he wore the shirt as a protest or to empower women -- which, misguided as those intents would be, I find them more sympathetic than objectification.

To relate to my objection to your image, it's once again removing context. You're saying you don't object to the shirt on principal, which is fine -- I'm saying that, in this context, it is inappropriate and offensive.

I'm not particularly prudish about nudity, though I do agree that some of the reactions to his shirt are from more conservative folk. But firstly, the shirt is clearly catering towards the male gaze rather than being an artistic or natural portrayal of the female body. Secondly, a topless man wouldn't be acceptable in the workplace either -- and especially not a man in his underwear.

If your position is that America is too Puritannical about the human body and nudity then I totally agree. But I highly doubt this man wore the top to protest that, and we cannot turn him into some sort of body positivity martyr. Furthermore, if we are analyzing the American society at large, as you suggest by hinting at its conservative values, we by the same token cannot ignore the gender analysis of the situation, which is more so what I'm concerned with.

I also find it somewhat important to note that I support many women who choose to go out in public topless; I live in one of the few states where it is legal. Also, I'm typing this post naked.

I'm hoping @Ars Nova doesn't mind my hijacking this thread a bit -- I think my question falls under his umbrella but I'll gladly split it off into a new topic if you'd like.

I want to ask a similar question about where you start writing, more particularly what you start writing. I've always shied away from dialogue and generally been uncomfortable writing it, a fault I've been pushing myself to work on. Instead I have a tendency to describe emotions and events ad infinitum, without conversation playing much of a role -- which, assuming a narrative should at least somewhat reflect real life, is a bit preposterous, depending on the situation or the work in question.

In part of my effort to correct this shortcoming, in the most recent chapter of my fanfiction I did something I've never really done before (well, sort of -- I began an original piece of fiction on a whim recently that I started in a similar fashion). I wrote the dialogue first. Essentially I just created the character's lines, like you would see in a play; I didn't even bother to add the he said/she said bookends (or any variation thereof). After I had finished that (or, actually, hit a roadblock in the conversation), I began to fill in the conversation, fleshing out the emotion behind the words, how they said the words, why they said them -- in short, details I previously focused a bit too much on. I made some tweaks to the dialogue, specifically the word choice, to reflect the development of the scene, but it remained fundamentally the same.

I found this to be a surprisingly natural way to write, and it forced me to move the plot along rather than dwell too much in excessive descriptions like I usually do. As a result I was more pleased with the first draft than usual.

One of my favorite writing practices has been taking a scene in a video game and novelizing it, as I felt it allowed me to practice writing without being concerned about fashioning the dialogue myself; I thought it allowed me to focus more on the character, the mood, and the style -- but I'm beginning to think it may have also established a natural flow to my writing process. As a result, I've also been far more productive, writing-wise, than ever.

Has anyone experienced anything similar? Do you have a different way of approaching a scene in your head? Very curious to know as I'd love to try out others' techniques as well.

I'm very troubled that this is considered a work-safe garment. Had someone walked in in the state of undress of the women on his shirt, I refuse to believe a manager or a supervisor would not be called over, and the person either sent home or forced to cover up. Yet because it's printed on a shirt, it's okay?

I'm with Hayabusa on this, there's no reason to wear a shirt like this to your job -- especially if you're working in a publicized environment -- and there's not any meritable defense I can see for it. It doesn't make the landing less impressive or meaningful or anything, and news about the shirt probably shouldn't eclipse news about the scientific achievement, but I'm also glad that it's bringing attention to the exclusion and/or mistreatment of women in the STEM fields. There's a larger context that can't be ignored here.

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THANKS EVERYONE, I ate a lot of food today

@Krowley how dare u use a dean gif. how dare you

Oh man this video