Fuck laugh tracks. Fuck them and the mentality behind them, whether it is "you're so dumb, we have to tell you when to laugh" or "you're much more likely to laugh when you hear other people laughing". In either case, laugh tracks should die, and along with them, all the people who need them, both the creators and executives who think they'll make their shows better, and the viewers who are too dumb to recognize a joke on their own. Seriously, go jump off a building or something. You won't be missed.
"But T-Jack, modern shows usually use live studio audience instead." Well fuck you, hypothetical reader with good intentions. It really pisses me off to no ends when somebody thinks that they're somehow "better" for using live audience's reactions instead of sound clips. First, those people largely do what they're told, anyway. You think those applauses and laughter are genuine? Why do you think studios have large prompt lights with these instructions on them? No, I can't believe these people think they're better for taking living humans and making them do a computer's job. I don't even know if it's a paid job or if those people have to pay for tickets, but you know what? It doesn't matter. Whether you make a living off of laughing on command or pay for it, you are scum. Please refer to the end of the first paragraph.
"But live audiences can provide a much wider range of responses than a laugh track!" Or, in other words, my TV can produce more reactions that the show completely fails to elicit in me. Newsflash, dipshits, there is no difference between canned and actual laughter from the viewer's standpoint, and you don't get to be smug for thinking otherwise. Just look at that picture. Look at the pompous photos and the self-righteous caption. Look at that piece of shit! Fuck you, Chuck Lorre Productions. If you really cared about what the viewers think, you would write a better show.
Some of the funniest shows I've seen had no laugh track at all, except for instances where it was being deliberately mocked, Scrubs and Community being some of them. Hell, the dubbed version of M*A*S*H I grew up with had the laugh track completely removed, and the DVD gives you the option to turn it off. So with such a good record of shows without a laugh track, why do production companies still use it today? The only explanation I can come up with is the Universal Explanation: the malevolence and stupidity of the human race.
Also, wow. For someone who doesn't watch TV, I sure do hold a lot of vitriol against it.
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Friday, December 21, 2012
Nothing is my middle name
I come from a culture where middle names don't really exist. All you have here is a first name (which also cannot be anything, like in the more idiotic parts of the world - but that's a topic for another time) and a last name and you better like it, buddy boy. And here's the kicker: it works. Sure, our laws permit having more than one first name, but almost nobody does that, and I think the only person I've ever met in real life that had more than one was from Saudi Arabia. Great guy, by the way. So as you can imagine, I don't understand this whole culture built around middle names, why, I'd even go as far as to say that they're stupid and useless. I am, however, a progressive little kangaroo, so I set out to do a little research (read: a five second Google search) on the matter before dismissing it completely.
Middle names, as this page tells me, have first seen major use in the 18th century by aristocratic families before spreading out among the plebian crowds, until the end of the 19th century, when nearly every baby was given one. Well, at least in the USA. So, in other words, middle names are the product of the upper class's attempts to be different from the middle and lower class and their attempts to be equal to the upper class. Lovely.
When I asked Jacob about the "why" of middle names, he said pretty much what this Wikianswers page says: Middle names are means to "honor" your ancestors or other important people. I suppose I see the point of that, but really, if you want to give your son your dead grandfather's name, just give it to him as a first name.
However, most of the reasons to give your baby a middle name that I found come from this article over at FamilyEducation.com. The article itself lists five reasons, though it's more like two reasons, one of which is really stupid, for the reasons I shall outline below.
1. It's commonly accepted. Right off the bat, we have the stupid argument of "you should do it because everybody else does it" that permeates the whole list. Isn't this something the stereotypical TV mother warns against? "If everybody else jumped off a bridge, would you do it, too?" And don't give me shit about how "everybody else is wearing clothes, does that mean that I should go outside naked?" If people do it because they have a good reason, you should do it because of the "good reason" part, not the "people do it" part.
2. It fits on most legal forms. Now bear with me, because I'm going to lay some pretty heavy logic on you. It fits on most legal forms because everybody has one because everybody does it. See? This is just like reason 1, except rephrased and more stupid. "omg theres a spac 4 it on dis form, i must hav 1"
3. It prevents your child from receiving the middle name Nmi. The article explains how computer programs in the past were coded to recognize exactly three names, and if you didn't have a middle name, it would file you with NMI (short for "no middle initial") instead. So, not only is this pandering to bad programming practices, which by the way are practically nonexistent nowadays, but it's also just a rephrased reason 2, which itself is a rephrased reason 1. Jeez, it's like Stupidception in here. "We have to go dumber."
4. It gives your child more flexibility when it comes to deciding the name he or she wants to be called by. This is the only reason on the list that isn't just "you should do it because you should do it", and while it does have some logic to it, it still feels pretty lackluster. For one, it can be applied circularly, as in "why should your child choose from two names when it can choose from three" and so on, and for another, it feels like something that arose from the common-having-of-middle-names thin in the first place. As I said before, I come from a culture where people don't usually have that choice and I have never encountered anybody having a problem with it. You just get used to it, I guess. Plus there is such a thing as a "nickname".
5. Not giving your child a middle name can set him or her apart from the rest of the kids, just like an unusual or an uncommon name can. Little kids are shits and will make fun of each other for absolutely anything, so if you don't have a middle name, you will be ridiculed for it. Does that mean that if you do have one, you will be spared? Hell no! They will tear into you no matter what it is, and if they can't find anything wrong with it, they'll latch onto something else. You can't escape it. Also, the smarter of you have probably already noticed that this is another one of those "everybody else does it" reasons. If you can't see why, I'm not going to explain it to you. Use your head.
So yeah. My first hypothesis of "middle names are dumb" has not been disproved so far, and I doubt it ever will be. But don't let that stop you from permeating their use, I guess. After all, we have to be tolerant of the stupid people, too.
Don't know why, though...
Middle names, as this page tells me, have first seen major use in the 18th century by aristocratic families before spreading out among the plebian crowds, until the end of the 19th century, when nearly every baby was given one. Well, at least in the USA. So, in other words, middle names are the product of the upper class's attempts to be different from the middle and lower class and their attempts to be equal to the upper class. Lovely.
When I asked Jacob about the "why" of middle names, he said pretty much what this Wikianswers page says: Middle names are means to "honor" your ancestors or other important people. I suppose I see the point of that, but really, if you want to give your son your dead grandfather's name, just give it to him as a first name.
However, most of the reasons to give your baby a middle name that I found come from this article over at FamilyEducation.com. The article itself lists five reasons, though it's more like two reasons, one of which is really stupid, for the reasons I shall outline below.
1. It's commonly accepted. Right off the bat, we have the stupid argument of "you should do it because everybody else does it" that permeates the whole list. Isn't this something the stereotypical TV mother warns against? "If everybody else jumped off a bridge, would you do it, too?" And don't give me shit about how "everybody else is wearing clothes, does that mean that I should go outside naked?" If people do it because they have a good reason, you should do it because of the "good reason" part, not the "people do it" part.
2. It fits on most legal forms. Now bear with me, because I'm going to lay some pretty heavy logic on you. It fits on most legal forms because everybody has one because everybody does it. See? This is just like reason 1, except rephrased and more stupid. "omg theres a spac 4 it on dis form, i must hav 1"
3. It prevents your child from receiving the middle name Nmi. The article explains how computer programs in the past were coded to recognize exactly three names, and if you didn't have a middle name, it would file you with NMI (short for "no middle initial") instead. So, not only is this pandering to bad programming practices, which by the way are practically nonexistent nowadays, but it's also just a rephrased reason 2, which itself is a rephrased reason 1. Jeez, it's like Stupidception in here. "We have to go dumber."
4. It gives your child more flexibility when it comes to deciding the name he or she wants to be called by. This is the only reason on the list that isn't just "you should do it because you should do it", and while it does have some logic to it, it still feels pretty lackluster. For one, it can be applied circularly, as in "why should your child choose from two names when it can choose from three" and so on, and for another, it feels like something that arose from the common-having-of-middle-names thin in the first place. As I said before, I come from a culture where people don't usually have that choice and I have never encountered anybody having a problem with it. You just get used to it, I guess. Plus there is such a thing as a "nickname".
5. Not giving your child a middle name can set him or her apart from the rest of the kids, just like an unusual or an uncommon name can. Little kids are shits and will make fun of each other for absolutely anything, so if you don't have a middle name, you will be ridiculed for it. Does that mean that if you do have one, you will be spared? Hell no! They will tear into you no matter what it is, and if they can't find anything wrong with it, they'll latch onto something else. You can't escape it. Also, the smarter of you have probably already noticed that this is another one of those "everybody else does it" reasons. If you can't see why, I'm not going to explain it to you. Use your head.
So yeah. My first hypothesis of "middle names are dumb" has not been disproved so far, and I doubt it ever will be. But don't let that stop you from permeating their use, I guess. After all, we have to be tolerant of the stupid people, too.
Don't know why, though...
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Disgrace to Sherlock
I liked the CSI series when it first came out. It was innovative in its incorporation of the latest technologies in crime-fighting and in the way it told the story of the Crime of the Week (TM). I distinctly remember a scene from an early episode where two characters... well, investigate the crime scene, and as they piece together what happened, ghosts of those events happen around them. For instance, they mention a car going out of control and a ghost car drives through the scene.
In other words, it was a gimmicky mess of a show.
Long before I stopped watching TV, I started getting bored with all these "police procedural" shows, not jusst CSI, but Law & Order, NCIS and I don't know what else. They just all looked the same to me, not just shows, but different episodes of the same show started blending together. They were all going by the same plot: they find a body, uncover some forensic clues, talk to some people, there's a twist, more clues, more people, until they arrest the guilty guy. I kow that I'm not being exactly fair here, after all that's how all detective stories work. I'm just trying to illustrate here how boring these shows were to me. Somewhat paradoxically, too, since I'm a casual fan of detective stories.
I only discovered what exactly my problem was much later, when I was doing a little research on Agatha Christie's stories (for totally unrelated reasons, I swear) and noticed the main difference between old-school whodunnit novels and modern crime shows. The novels place much greater importance onto the story, the relationships and fates of all the people influenced by the crime. For the most of the story, the detective's investigation only serves as a framing device to tie these stories together, uncover past plot details and occasionally push the story forward himself. It is only in the final summation that his work becomes important, when he uses everything he has learned to reveal the final twist and resolve the conflict that has started the story in the first place - the culprit's identity.
My problem with the "police procedural" shows lies within this term - that is, they focus less on the story and more on the procedures the protagonists use in order to find the truth. They do usually have some small semblance of a story with at least one twist per episode - maybe the victim was sleeping with his friend's wife or borrowed somebody a large sum of money - but those are all minor tired clichés pushed into background to make space for all those shots of pretty people in labcoats looking into microscopes. The main question becomes "How exactly are they going to catch the criminal?", but unfortunately the answer is "The same way they always do." If you have seen, and let's be generous here, one season of any such series, you've seen them all.
But you know what they say, Tropes Are Not Bad, and I would be remiss if I didn't point out that even this sort of show can be good. Take Columbo, for example. The whole series is about the detective's journey to the crime's solution, to the point that the first scene actually shows you whodunnit. After that, the story is less about what exactly drove the killer to his awful deed and more about Columbo's bumbling around, driving the culprit into a false sense of security and letting them construct a pile of lies so large he can take it apart with his one final move. My point here is, if you write a story about how a detective catches his man, make it entertaining, not repetitive.
In other words, it was a gimmicky mess of a show.
Long before I stopped watching TV, I started getting bored with all these "police procedural" shows, not jusst CSI, but Law & Order, NCIS and I don't know what else. They just all looked the same to me, not just shows, but different episodes of the same show started blending together. They were all going by the same plot: they find a body, uncover some forensic clues, talk to some people, there's a twist, more clues, more people, until they arrest the guilty guy. I kow that I'm not being exactly fair here, after all that's how all detective stories work. I'm just trying to illustrate here how boring these shows were to me. Somewhat paradoxically, too, since I'm a casual fan of detective stories.
I only discovered what exactly my problem was much later, when I was doing a little research on Agatha Christie's stories (for totally unrelated reasons, I swear) and noticed the main difference between old-school whodunnit novels and modern crime shows. The novels place much greater importance onto the story, the relationships and fates of all the people influenced by the crime. For the most of the story, the detective's investigation only serves as a framing device to tie these stories together, uncover past plot details and occasionally push the story forward himself. It is only in the final summation that his work becomes important, when he uses everything he has learned to reveal the final twist and resolve the conflict that has started the story in the first place - the culprit's identity.
My problem with the "police procedural" shows lies within this term - that is, they focus less on the story and more on the procedures the protagonists use in order to find the truth. They do usually have some small semblance of a story with at least one twist per episode - maybe the victim was sleeping with his friend's wife or borrowed somebody a large sum of money - but those are all minor tired clichés pushed into background to make space for all those shots of pretty people in labcoats looking into microscopes. The main question becomes "How exactly are they going to catch the criminal?", but unfortunately the answer is "The same way they always do." If you have seen, and let's be generous here, one season of any such series, you've seen them all.
But you know what they say, Tropes Are Not Bad, and I would be remiss if I didn't point out that even this sort of show can be good. Take Columbo, for example. The whole series is about the detective's journey to the crime's solution, to the point that the first scene actually shows you whodunnit. After that, the story is less about what exactly drove the killer to his awful deed and more about Columbo's bumbling around, driving the culprit into a false sense of security and letting them construct a pile of lies so large he can take it apart with his one final move. My point here is, if you write a story about how a detective catches his man, make it entertaining, not repetitive.
Friday, November 30, 2012
Do not buy HP laptops
My first laptop was an HP Compaq 6730s. I distinctly remember the day I got it - I had to travel to the nearby city to pick it up and after bringing it home I immediately set it up and started obtaining necessary software. Y'know, browser, file manager, that sort of stuff. I was so happy.
What a stupid kid I was.
The main problem with HP machines is that they're overpriced compared to pretty much all the other manufacturers'. Some people say that they're of much higher quality than the rest, which justifies the price. I have to admit, I don't see how that would be true. A few months after I got that laptop, I had to have it serviced because the touchpad started acting up. I know, I know, that was just a part defect and those are bound to happen; after all, the replacement touchpad works well to this very day. That doesn't excuse the obscene lack of the very useful "Turn Off Touchpad" button, though.
Where HP really fucked the dog with this laptop, however, is an issue that has surfaced recently. Just so you understand, I have since moved to a new laptop, Lenovo G560, a frankly superior piece of work, and given my old one to my father. Problem is, with a laptop this old, the cooling fan has become really dirty and ineffective. "So what? Just clean it," I hear some of you say. But the more knowledgeable among you know what the real problem is.
Just clean it, you say?
...
What I just linked to are instructions on how to access the fan in that computer. Did you read through all of that? If not, congratulations, you have a brain. But let me sum it up for you. In order to access the fan in HP Compaq 6730s, you have to remove the DVD drive, monitor and motherboard. That sentence alone should elicit a reaction of "WHAT THE FUCK HP" among the tech-savvy crowd.
Why would you bury the fan under all that shit? There is literally no good reason to make cleaning the inside of your computer into an excercise in advanced computer assembly. Why couldn't you just include a separate fan cover on the laptop? Is removing dust build-up really something you want people to bother your licensed technicians with? Or, in a word, THINK!
As I have stated before, I am now on a Lenovo machine and I absolutely love it. It has no noticeable drawbacks like the Compaq, and all you have to do to clean the fan is remove the motherboard cover on the bottom. Unscrew the cover, pop it off, unscrew the fan and go to town with it. There's no monitor removal involved.
What a stupid kid I was.
The main problem with HP machines is that they're overpriced compared to pretty much all the other manufacturers'. Some people say that they're of much higher quality than the rest, which justifies the price. I have to admit, I don't see how that would be true. A few months after I got that laptop, I had to have it serviced because the touchpad started acting up. I know, I know, that was just a part defect and those are bound to happen; after all, the replacement touchpad works well to this very day. That doesn't excuse the obscene lack of the very useful "Turn Off Touchpad" button, though.
Where HP really fucked the dog with this laptop, however, is an issue that has surfaced recently. Just so you understand, I have since moved to a new laptop, Lenovo G560, a frankly superior piece of work, and given my old one to my father. Problem is, with a laptop this old, the cooling fan has become really dirty and ineffective. "So what? Just clean it," I hear some of you say. But the more knowledgeable among you know what the real problem is.
Just clean it, you say?
...
What I just linked to are instructions on how to access the fan in that computer. Did you read through all of that? If not, congratulations, you have a brain. But let me sum it up for you. In order to access the fan in HP Compaq 6730s, you have to remove the DVD drive, monitor and motherboard. That sentence alone should elicit a reaction of "WHAT THE FUCK HP" among the tech-savvy crowd.
Why would you bury the fan under all that shit? There is literally no good reason to make cleaning the inside of your computer into an excercise in advanced computer assembly. Why couldn't you just include a separate fan cover on the laptop? Is removing dust build-up really something you want people to bother your licensed technicians with? Or, in a word, THINK!
As I have stated before, I am now on a Lenovo machine and I absolutely love it. It has no noticeable drawbacks like the Compaq, and all you have to do to clean the fan is remove the motherboard cover on the bottom. Unscrew the cover, pop it off, unscrew the fan and go to town with it. There's no monitor removal involved.
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