Surely 60% is a rather low estimate?

Oct. 9th, 2025 05:22 pm
oursin: The Delphic Sibyl from the Sistine Chapel (Delphic sibyl)
[personal profile] oursin

I see estimates differ: I was working from the Sturgeon's Law that '90% of anything is crap' -

- whereas Ridley Scott is prepared to claim that '60% of films made today are “shit”, and of the remaining 40%, “25% … is not bad, and 10% is pretty good, and the top 5% is great”. and that this is pretty much so for the history of the movies over time (a fairly nuanced judgement I suppose) (though we should probably factor in the extent to which film, especially from the nitrate era, was a very frangible medium and there is a survival issue....)

From the Wikipedia article on Sturgeon's Law, some confirming opinions by other thinkerz:

'Nine-tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense' (Disraeli, 1870)

'Four-fifths of everybody's work must be bad. But the remnant is worth the trouble for its own sake. (Kipling, 1890)

'In much more than nine cases out of ten the only objectively truthful criticism would be "This book is worthless...'(Wot a grump George Orwell was, eh, 1946)

A 2009 paper in The Lancet estimated that over 85% of health and medical research is wasted.

(The trouble is you cannot tell in advance what is going to be, can you.)

On reflection I rather like Scott's 'not bad - pretty good - great' because one can, in fact, get enjoyment out of those levels.

marycatelli: (Golden Hair)
[personal profile] marycatelli posting in [community profile] books
The Perks of Being an S-Class Heroine, Vol. 4 by Grrr

Spoilers ahead for the earlier volumes.

Read more... )
[personal profile] tcampbell1000 posting in [community profile] scans_daily
As of Fantastic Four #407, after a two-year presumed-dead absence, Reed Richards was finally back. But the question running through the next half-year of comics was, “How ‘back’ IS he, really?”

After all, he’s a stretchy hero! What you think is his back could just be more of his FRONT! )

(no subject)

Oct. 9th, 2025 09:20 am
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin
Happy birthday, [personal profile] serriadh!

Binary #1 (and bonus Imperial War)

Oct. 9th, 2025 01:36 am
mastermahan: (Default)
[personal profile] mastermahan posting in [community profile] scans_daily


Let's see how Carol Danvers is doing in the world of Revelation! Is she making wise, well-considered choices, or she is being an ineffectual authoritarian again?

Read more... )

Villains Are Destined to Die

Oct. 9th, 2025 12:11 am
marycatelli: (Golden Hair)
[personal profile] marycatelli posting in [community profile] books
Villains Are Destined to Die, Vol. 1 by Gwon Gyeoeul

The original novel.

Read more... )

Daily Check-in

Oct. 8th, 2025 05:58 pm
starwatcher: Western windmill, clouds in background, trees around base. (Default)
[personal profile] starwatcher posting in [community profile] fandom_checkin
 
This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Wednesday, October 8, to midnight on Thursday, October 9. (8pm Eastern Time).

Poll #33704 Daily Check-in
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 24

How are you doing?

I am OK.
14 (60.9%)

I am not OK, but don't need help right now.
9 (39.1%)

I could use some help.
0 (0.0%)

How many other humans live with you?

I am living single.
10 (41.7%)

One other person.
11 (45.8%)

More than one other person.
3 (12.5%)




Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.
 

[ SECRET POST #6851 ]

Oct. 8th, 2025 07:18 pm
case: (Default)
[personal profile] case posting in [community profile] fandomsecrets

⌈ Secret Post #6851 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


01.


More! )


Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 15 secrets from Secret Submission Post #978.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Hermit Thrush

Oct. 8th, 2025 05:14 pm
pauraque: bird flying (Default)
[personal profile] pauraque posting in [community profile] common_nature
While walking in the woods I ran into our state bird here in Vermont, the Hermit Thrush.

brown thrush with reddish tail sits on a tree root with fallen leaves in the background

It looks similar to several other thrush species, but can be distinguished by a reddish tail contrasting with the brown upper back, clearly seen here.

As the name suggests, they tend to hide in the brush and are more often heard than seen. Their flutelike song sounds captivatingly mystical when echoing through the trees. You can listen to them here.
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

In My Ridiculous Pen Collection, I have a Lamy 2000 (largely inspired by Ant Newman of UKFountainPens waxing lyrical). I got it second hand, as with all but one of my pens; the one that showed up cheap came with an F nib.

Read more... )

Japanese note

Oct. 8th, 2025 09:56 pm
extrapenguin: Man wagging his finger at offscreen while looking at camera (zhao yunlan)
[personal profile] extrapenguin
Not in any textbook, but I've so far noticed:

話す hanasu "to talk"
話し hanashi "conversation"

写す utsusu "to copy"
写し utsushi "copy"

写る utsuru "to be photographed, to be projected"
写り utsuri "image, projection"

So it seems that swapping the final -u to a -i turns the verb into a result-type noun. (The result of talking is a conversation, the result of copying is a copy, etc.) Japanese derivational morphology is incredibly well hidden by the fact they pasted Chinese characters all over their language – there's a few words I've spotted where multiple roots get the same kanji, and where one of the roots has its meanings split between two different kanji due to Chinese splitting the concept space differently – but it is there. And I will find it.

(quick phone ETA - wrt "root split between kanji" I mean frex
帰る kaeru "to return"
返す kaesu "to return (sth)"
oursin: Photograph of small impressionistic metal figurine seated reading a book (Reader)
[personal profile] oursin

What I read

Finished This Real Night and went straight on to Cousin Rosamund (1985).

Then a change of pace: Simon R Green, Stone Certainty (Holy Terrors Mystery, #2) (2025): less about the Horrors from another dimension than the horror of being stuck in a remote stone circle with a bickering TV crew.... not bad.

Angela Thirkell and CA Lejeune, Three Score and Ten (The Barsetshire Novels #29) (1961), in order to be completeist. This was at least less all over the place than Love At All Ages, which one suspects was down to CA Lejeune, undervalued film critic of the day who was apparently a neighbour and pal of Ange from the War years but the 2 bios I have just mention that they were friends and not much else (not that they did movie nights together or whatever, only that Lejeune was massive Barsetshire fangirl), barely that she got this into publishable condition.

KJ Charles, All of Us Murderers (2025). I have been a bit less whelmed by Charles' more recent work - maybe just me, or maybe because the bar is set so very high?

On the go

Simon Goldhill, Queer Cambridge: An Alternative History (2025) - having been there and done that, lo, these many years, about what do we mean, to talk about queer or homosexuality historically, found the intro a bit woffly, but now we are on to Oscar Browning and JK Stephen things are moving a bit more.

Up next

A bit spoilt for choice with my birthday books.

Reading Wednesday

Oct. 8th, 2025 06:57 am
sabotabby: (books!)
[personal profile] sabotabby
Just finished: Genocide Bad: Notes on Palestine, Jewish History, and Collective Liberation by Sim Kern. I don't really have much to add—I'd highly recommend this one, whether you just learned about Palestine two years ago or you've been in the movement for decades. It's well-written, empathetic, and clear-eyed. My only critique is the bit at the end, which is an anarchist vision of a future liberated Palestine and Israel. It's not that I disagree politically, but I'm not sure it needs to be as long as it is, and they have the same issue as Starhawk when it comes to gardening on highways (why would you do this). I think it might turn off people who are not already anarchists, and beyond that, it feels like the kind of vision that everyday Palestinians and Israelis wouldn't necessarily share or relate to. But the core of the book is so good that I'm not terribly bothered by it.

Ten Incarnations of Rebellion by Vaishnavi Patel. You know how most alternate histories are about things like "what if the Nazis won WWII?" or "what if the Confederates won the American Civil War?" (how would you be able to tell in the Year Of Our Lord 2025???). What if someone wrote an alternate history that was actually...creative? This is about an alternate India where British colonialism continued into the 60s and 70s. All of the leaders of the independence movement are dead, most of the young men are off at war with China, and Kalki, the daughter of a disappeared revolutionary, dreams of standing up to the British. Together with her college friends, Fauzia, who's Muslim, and Yashu, who's Dalit, she reforms a cell of the Indian Liberation Movement in Mumbai (known as Kingston).

One of my issues with alternate histories is I often wonder what the point of them is. They'll tend to posit our dystopian reality, one in which fascism is ascendant, the climate crisis is raging, and surveillance capitalism owns the most intimate parts of our lives, as the best possible outcome, because isn't that better than the Nazis winning? This book has a point. It uses the failure of the original independence movement to show how resistance movements can grow after a crushing defeat.

Anyway, I loved it. spoilers )

Currently reading: Girls Against God, Jenny Hval. At least one of you read this awhile back and I was like, ooh, I must read that, and I finally started. I haven't gotten far in yet—so far it's a teenage girl ranting about how Norway sucks and black metal rules. Which I can get behind, but given the blurb, I hope it's going somewhere. It does very much have an authentic teenage voice but I deal with authentic teenage voices for a living.

Profile

cloudsinvenice: "everyone's mental health is a bit shit right now, so be gentle" (Default)
cloudsinvenice

February 2022

S M T W T F S
  12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20 212223242526
2728     

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Oct. 9th, 2025 04:41 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios