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Lots of people familiar with the material here, but as somone with zero context, I watched the film and I don't get it.

Is it something where you need to know the backstory to get the importance? The premise just seems quite thin: (Spoiler alert) the guy behind the desk had his mind erased and the guy with the gun is an impostor.

Is there more to it than that?


I think the story is written in a much better way than this video presents it: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/we-need-to-talk-about-fifty-fiv...

I know it's not polite to armchair-critique a thing I could never have created myself, but I don't think this is a particularly good adaptation of this story. One change, I think, completely robs it of some of its impact, and I would have handled something else differently as well - but oh well.


> One change, I think, completely robs it of some of its impact

Which one?

One thing I didn't like from this adaptation is that the thought-devouring idea doesn't live inside Wheeler's mind, like in the story. They made it into a CGI blob. But I suppose the story is confusing enough, so making it invisible would have been too much.


I didn't want to post any extra spoilers, so I'll ROT13 my reply:

Gur PTV oybo jnf gur ovttrfg bssraqre, V guvax. Znevba'f crg fubhyq arire unir orra ivfvoyr ba pnzren, vg ybfrf arneyl nyy bs vgf zlfgvdhr, NAQ vg fubhyqa'g or "phgr". Fur unf vg ba n yrnfu, ohg vg'f fgvyy n irel qnatrebhf FPC! Vg fubhyqa'g or ebyyvat nebhaq yvxr n phgr yvggyr OO8 rdhvinyrag.

V guvax gur glcr bs ivrjre jub vf jngpuvat na nqncgngvba bs guvf fgbel jbhyq unir qrnyg jvgu vg svar.

Frpbaqnevyl, V xabj gung Pynl "zvffrq" uvf qbfr, ohg ur jnf fgvyy tncvat ng ure crg yvxr ur'q arire frra na FPC orsber va uvf yvsr, yvxr ur jnf gur arjovr orvat vagebqhprq gb guvatf. Juvpu qbrf znxr fbzr frafr va guvf pbagrkg, ohg ur'f fgvyy njner gung ur'f n irel fravbe bssvpvny ng gur FPC sbhaqngvba. Vg whfg qbrfa'g zngpu uvf punenpgrevmngvba ng nyy.

Guveqyl - naq guvf vf zl zbfg crggl pbzcynvag - vs V jrer gur jevgre/qverpgbe bs guvf, V jbhyqa'g unir unq uvf "nffvfgnag" chg njnl uvf tha orsber fur fgbyr vg. V jbhyq unir phg sebz n fprar bs uvz nvzvat gur tha ng ure, onpx gb gur erfg bs gur fprar sbe n ovg, naq gura onpx gb uvz jvgubhg gur tha. Vg'f zber vzcerffvir gb fgrny n tha bhg bs fbzrbar'f unaqf guna vg vf bhg bs n ubyfgre.


You're missing a bit, like there is an entire top secert division of people that fight against mind erasing aliens, and there are a large variety of mind erasing aliens.

It's set in the "SCP" universe. It's a collection of short stories ( https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/ ), collaboratively written.

Most of them are (as expected) crap. Some of them are really scary, and some are hilarious: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-4703


> Is there more to it than that?

Yes, there is. I can see how someone not already familiar with the material would feel lost.

First, it's based on SCP, as other people have mentioned. Second, it's very dialogue/monologue driven, there's lots of exposition about a shared universe, vaguely hinted at, secret government agencies, conspiracies, etc.

The author chose a very topic which by definition is hard to understand: ideas (or memes) that do NOT want to be remembered. So a lot of what happens is discussing "dangerous" ideas that do not want to be remembered or discussed. There's a larger overarching plot, split across several related stories.

The guy with the gun was one such idea embodied in the physical shape of a man. It was confusing the boss on purpose. Wheeler was on to him from the beginning (because her boss doesn't have an assistant), but needed to get her boss on board with the idea first, before shooting the "assistant". Everything she does in the dialogue has this goal.


Same feeling as pair programming in my experience.

If your consciousness is driving, your brain is internally aligned. You type as you think. You can get flow state, or at least find a way to think around a problem.

If you're working with someone else and having to discuss everything as you go, then it's just a different activity. I've collaboratively written better code this way in the past. But it's slower and more exhausting.

Like pair programming, I hope people realise that there's a place for both, and doing exclusively one or the other full time isn't in everyone's best interests.


I've had a similar experience, where I pair-programmed with a coworker for a few days in a row (he understood the language better and I understood the problem better) and we couldn't be in the call for more than an hour at a time. Still, although it was more tiring, I found it quite engaging and enjoyable. I'd much rather bounce ideas back and forth with another person than with an LLM.

Any workload that relies on re-using a bucket name is broken by design. If someone else can get it, then it's Undefined Behaviour. So it's in keeping with the contract for AWS to prevent re-use. Surely?

Think terraform tests, temporary environments, etc. Or anything else: it’s Hyrum's Law.

I get a "No video with supported format and MIME type found" error.

The original solution involved a very thick disc which could then leveled and re-pitted. The problem was that the change in mass over time made it hard to calibrate the acceleration.

It also put a high radial load on the spindle whilst mounted sideways which led to run-out.

And flooding the area with radon (a heavy gas) helped the disc to float a bit, but had unexpected consequences...


More anecdata.

Lego from my youth, which was a hand-me down at the time, doesn't fit well with new lego. So it might be 40 years old, (which seems like a long time until you actually reach that age!)

I think it's more likely do to plastic aging than the original tolerances though.


To add even more - I was handed down Lego that belonged to my mom in the 60s, played with them through the 80s and 90s, and now my kids have them today. I wouldn’t be able to tell you which were hers and which were mine.

A plausible defence if anyone asks for it back!

Puzzle and Calculator were Desk Accessories (DAs), a special kind of app.

Some cool details here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desk_accessory

Like Tahoe, it was deliberate and there's an explanation for the difference.

But I do wonder if people at the time felt the same way.


That led me to https://www.folklore.org/Desk_Ornaments.html which is a very fun read. Interesting to note that the UI style of the DAs is actually not consistent at all, some have round corners and some don't.

I particularly like this Bill Atkinson tidbit at the end:

Bill Atkinson complained to me that it was a mistake to allow users to specify their own desktop patterns, because it was harder to make a nice one than it looked, and led directly to ugly desktops. [...] So he made MacPaint allocate a window that was the size of the screen when it started up, and filled it with the standard 50% gray pattern, making his own desktop covering up the real one, thus protecting the poor users from their rash esthetic blunders, at least within the friendly confines of MacPaint.

(He was totally right, making your own desktop patterns was fun but the standard checkerbard was far and away the best choice.)


Something needed changing! And the radius was something!

What if they randomized the radius on every launch? A fresh, modern experience every time!

Make it “on every corner” and we have a deal.

(EDIT - and Gemini could create a plausible explanation post-hoc each time)


different radius on every corner and we're back in the winamp skin era, not bad!

Don't give them ideas

Maybe I just don't get it, but the first example the controls are out of the way, leaving most the space for the content.

In subsequent examples the controls have made less space for content and obscured it. And takes up space with less-often used things like line spacing and and drop caps. Feels like I'm being told that up is down.

And the smudgy liquid glass effect just makes everything look grubby. Not classy.


To me it definitely looks like the area for the document grew. The sidebar is a solution to not tacking a million things into the toolbar, it's not like it's open 100% of the time.

I recently enjoyed this episode of Mac Folklore Radio.

A surprising prescient discussion on HyperCard and hypertext.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/mac-folklore-radio/id1...


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