Piracy in Spain is apparently so bad that there may be no DVD market anymore. If this sort of thing spreads, it bodes poorly for the movie industry. Unlike the record industry and the publishing industry, we need a well-financed (and thus profitable) movie industry because we can’t expect some dude with a camera to do what some singer in a recording studio can. One constant thing I have said and believe is that it’s going to be hard to combat piracy when it is easier and provides a more flexible product than what you have to pay for. But there is simply no way the studios are ever going to make something more convenient than this.
I may have to get this book just so that I can learn more about Imposter Syndrome. I’m not a woman, but that struck a nerve with me.
A Catholic actor refuses to do any love scenes and is fired. I’ve seen him in Boomtown and he was one of the two best actors on that show. I wondered why I haven’t seen him in anything sense. I suspect this may have something to do with it.
Mistakes people make on the Internet Dating front.
An update on the cast of Battlestar Galactica. Two of the actors that I would have expected the most from, Michael Hogan (Captain Tigh) and Aaron Douglas (Chief Tyrol), have sadly not been up to much. Hogan really lost out when McCain didn’t become president. Douglas has a great everyman quality that should be put to better use than a Canadian TV show.
Speaking of geekery, the iPad has an application for Marvel. And it kinda pisses me off. And for once, I’m not blaming Apple. For years, the comic book companies told us justified price hike after price hike (from $1.25 in 2001 to $2.99 now) on the basis of the ever-escalating costs of paper and distribution. So when those to are cut out of the equation, comics cost… $1.99. At some point, they’re going to have to make an appeal to people other than their small, fanatical fanship. $1.99 for a digital copy isn’t going to do that.
Thinks you didn’t know about sports.
Before I linked to the IIHS’s attempt to justify lower speed limits because they save lives. Today I link to the National Motorists Association’s claim that they can’t save lives if they “don’t affect motorist behavior.”
Susan Pinker’s book reminds me of one called something like “gifted women, troubled men”. Might be same book with the Brittish title. The premise of that book was that there are all these academically gifted, sociable women who stop working. There are also dudes with Aspergers, dyslexia, ADHD, dunno what others, who struggled in school, and then find a niche and do pretty well in the working world. Why is that?
She never adressed an obvious possible reason: women do better at school than in the working world because schools are (perhaps by no one’s intention) biased towards girls, particularly Pinker’s “gifted” ones.
She also pretty much ignored the real reason why priveleged women can drop out of work. Some men are willing, or more than willing, to have stay at home wives. Some women don’t knock around looking for a working niche because they don’t have to. Men don’t take that route is that it is not open to them because very few women want that in a husband. Seriously, as a “troubled” dude, I think dropping out of the career track would rule. There aren’t any moderately decent status alternatives for men. The only real alternative for dudes is prison or that half sigma purgatory of proledom. This is obviously caused by a repressive matriarchy, unless it’s just caused by aggregate preferences.
Like everyone who ever writes about gender, money, and employment, she forgets that by 25 or 30 or so, the slag of the male gender is dead, in prison, or institutionalized. The equivalent bottom 5-6%? percent of women are not.
The sport “fact” that the quarterbacks that women rated as more attractive were better players was interesting. Yet more evidence that IQ, athletic ability, attractiveness, and mutational load are inter-related. I’d bet a dollar or two that pro athletes are homozygous at more alleles on average than the general population.
Interesting that the dating mistakes men made related to how to get a date, whereas the women’s mistakes were related to turning off men who passed their filters. Almost like women can get dates easily. I was surprised that women who made the have sex early mistake left the man feeling used. I’m guessing that the reason was more along the lines of a woman who sleeps with someone early is a poor bet for monogamy.
Comment by rob — April 19, 2010 @ 6:14 pm
Hogan was on the L-Word, as the father of one of the lesbian characters (the L-Word was shot in Canadia too). He was also on something else, I think that horrible Doll House show, which featured a couple of other BSG actors.
Comment by DaveinHackensack — April 19, 2010 @ 9:31 pm
Actually, I think there may have been a total of four former BSG actors on Doll House. Ugh, that show sucked so bad. And yet I kept watching it, though I dozed off during the series finale.
Speaking of sleeping through shows, that new HBO one set in New Orleans: HBO bought a two page spread in the NY Times plugging it, with all kinds of 4-star ratings. It’s produced by the same pretentious fellow who created The Wire, which didn’t watch. I forget his name. David something. Anywho, I was out cold on the couch within ten minutes of the premiere. They should bottle those first ten minutes, and sell it as a sleep aid.
Comment by DaveinHackensack — April 19, 2010 @ 9:35 pm
“Pinker interviews several women who have succeeded in their fields; in many cases, traditionally male fields. Two themes emerge. First, these women have been encouraged strongly and consistently to rise through the ranks and obtain positions of power. Second, each of these women believes that at any point someone will realize that she is a fraud, an imposter, a sham: that she doesn’t really know what she is doing.”
Whew, good thing I’m not very successful! Look at all the psychological trauma I’ve managed to escape with my mediocrity.
“Seriously, as a “troubled” dude, I think dropping out of the career track would rule.”
You, too, could be anchored to a couch watching “Lifetime” and inducing burpies.
Comment by Sheila Tone — April 20, 2010 @ 7:36 pm
You, too, could be anchored to a couch watching “Lifetime” and inducing burpies.
Ah, Lifetime. “Television to scare the sh*t out of women.” You do know watching lifetime isn’t a requirement, right? Y’all watch that cuz you want to.
Comment by rob — April 21, 2010 @ 12:31 pm