SSRIs show a modest improvement over placebos in clinical trials. But the mechanism behind that improvement remains elusive. “Just because aspirin relieves a headache, [it] doesn’t mean that aspirin deficits in the body are causing headaches,” said John Krystal, a neuropharmacologist and chair of the psychiatry department at Yale University. “Fully understanding how SSRIs produce clinical change is still a work in progress.”
Our knowledge of the genetics, however, is incomplete. Krystal noted that studies of twins suggest that genetics may account for 40% of the risk of depression. Yet the currently identified genes seem to explain only about 5%.
The sudden influx of inflammatory cytokines leads to appetite loss, fatigue and a slowdown in mental and physical activity — all symptoms of major depression. Patients taking interferon often report feeling suddenly, sometimes severely, depressed.
Increasingly, some scientists are pushing to reframe “depression” as an umbrella term for a suite of related conditions, much as oncologists now think of “cancer” as referring to a legion of distinct but similar malignancies.
Google search barely works, links older than 10 years probably broken, even websites that survived unusable popping up subscription/cookie approval notifications, YouTube/Facebook/Twitter/IG all on the decline, entire internet got that dying mall vibe
"Federation" now apparently means "DDoS yourself."
Every time I do a new blog post, within a second I have over a thousand simultaneous hits of that URL on my web server from unique IPs. Load goes over 100, and mariadb stops responding.
The server is basically unusable for 30 to 60 seconds until the stampede of Mastodons slows down.
Presumably each of those IPs is an instance, none of which share any caching infrastructure with each other, and this problem is going to scale with my number of followers (followers' instances).
Fungi sprout from between pages, ivy creeps across a text, and the life cycle of a butterfly unfolds on the cover of a volume in Stéphanie Kilgast’s vibrant sculptures. Known for her intricately detailed works using discarded materials and trash like crushed cans or plastic bottles (previously), her recent pieces explore incredible biodiversity utilizing books as her canvas.
Millions of titles are published each year in the U.S. alone, meaning billions of individual copies—a vast number of which eventually end up in landfills. Kilgast draws attention to these discarded objects by giving vintage editions new life. She constructs delicate mushrooms, blooming flowers, and colorful coral in painstakingly detailed miniature environments as a vivid reminder of the impact humans have on the environment and the tenacity of nature.
The artist has an exhibition opening on November 5 at Beinart Gallery in Melbourne, and you can find more of her work on her website and Instagram.
“Ancestral History” (2021)
Left: “Contre Vents et Marees” (2021). Right: Work in progress
Eye on Design is the official blog of the US-based professional graphic design organization AIGA. They've just published a fascinating interview with Tom Persky, who calls himself "the last man standing in the floppy disk business."
He is the time-honored founder of floppydisk.com, a US-based company dedicated to the selling and recycling of floppy disks. Other services include disk transfers, a recycling program, and selling used and/or broken floppy disks to artists around the world. All of this makes floppydisk.com a key player in the small yet profitable contemporary floppy scene....
Perkins: I was actually in the floppy disk duplication business. Not in a million years did I think I would ever sell blank floppy disks. Duplicating disks in the 1980s and early 1990s was as good as printing money. It was unbelievably profitable. I only started selling blank copies organically over time. You could still go down to any office supply store, or any computer store to buy them. Why would you try to find me, when you could just buy disks off the shelf? But then these larger companies stopped carrying them or went out of business and people came to us. So here I am, a small company with a floppy disk inventory, and I find myself to be a worldwide supplier of this product. My business, which used to be 90% CD and DVD duplication, is now 90% selling blank floppy disks. It's shocking to me....
Q: Where does this focus on floppy disks come from? Why not work with another medium...?
Perkins: When people ask me: "Why are you into floppy disks today?" the answer is: "Because I forgot to get out of the business." Everybody else in the world looked at the future and came to the conclusion that this was a dying industry. Because I'd already bought all my equipment and inventory, I thought I'd just keep this revenue stream. I stuck with it and didn't try to expand. Over time, the total number of floppy users has gone down. However, the number of people who provided the product went down even faster. If you look at those two curves, you see that there is a growing market share for the last man standing in the business, and that man is me....
I made the decision to buy a large quantity, a couple of million disks, and we've basically been living off of that inventory ever since. From time to time, we get very lucky. About two years ago a guy called me up and said: "My grandfather has all this floppy junk in the garage and I want it out. Will you take it?" Of course I wanted to take it off his hands. So, we went back and forth and negotiated a fair price. Without going into specifics, he ended up with two things that he wanted: an empty garage and a sum of money. I ended up with around 50,000 floppy disks and that's a good deal.
In the interview Perkins reveals he has around half a million floppy disks in stock — 3.5-inch, 5.25-inch, 8-inch, "and some rather rare diskettes. Another thing that happened organically was the start of our floppy disk recycling service. We give people the opportunity to send us floppy disks and we recycle them, rather than put them into a landfill. The sheer volume of floppy disks we get in has really surprised me, it's sometimes a 1,000 disks a day."
But he also estimates its use is more widespread than we realize. "Probably half of the air fleet in the world today is more than 20 years old and still uses floppy disks in some of the avionics. That's a huge consumer. There's also medical equipment, which requires floppy disks to get the information in and out of medical devices.... "
And in the end he seems to have a genuine affection for floppy disk technology. "There's this joke in which a three-year-old little girl comes to her father holding a floppy disk in her hand. She says: 'Daddy, Daddy, somebody 3D-printed the save icon.' The floppy disks will be an icon forever."
The interview is excerpted from a new book called Floppy Disk Fever: The Curious Afterlives of a Flexible Medium.
Hat tip for finding the story to the newly-redesigned front page of The Verge.
People ask me why I keep writing posts about math. Mainly, it’s because I care about critical thinking, and I want students to learn how to think logically. That’s a skill most of us didn’t learn how to do at a young age. And that’s why, when it comes to math, so many people flip out when they see a problem done “the wrong way.” They just assume they know better. Any deviation from traditional methods is heresy.
It’s frustrating for me because I know what the teachers are trying to do, but it’s not always obvious to the parents whose first reaction is to complain on Facebook.
Take this problem that has been shared more than 20,000 times on Facebook since last week:
The setup basically says: A girl read 28 pages one day and 103 the next. Is it reasonable to think she read 75 more pages the second day?
The student said yes because 103 – 28 = 75… which is true… yet the teacher deducts a point.
That made no sense to the parent who posted about it:
I’m back. Because I just CAN’T. I can’t not say anything. I can’t not call out the complete insanity of this Common Core Math. Please explain to me in what CRAZY, BACKWARDS, MAKE BELIEVE WORLD this makes sense??
Math is FACT! Fact is 103 – 28 is ACTUALLY 75. As in actually. Factually. And yes, reasonably.
In this scary world of FAKE MATH, 75 is not the correct answer?! In order for the answer to be REASONABLE, my daughter needs to estimate and come up with the WRONG answer?!?!
Yes! That’s exactly what she needs to do. It’s more important that the girl estimates and gets close than it is for her to do the problem and get it right.
Why is that?
Because estimation is an important skill to learn. (Maybe not in this exact situation, but in general.)
Suppose you’re buying groceries. You have four items in your cart that cost $1.99, $4.93, $6.03, and $5.14.
If all you have is $20 in your wallet, is that enough to pay for the items?
I think that’s a very realistic question.
It would take you at least a little bit of time to add up those numbers individually and get an exact number. Would it answer your question? Absolutely. But you don’t need an exact answer.
The smarter thing to do would be to simply round the numbers. We should be saying to ourselves, “2 + 5 + 6 + 5 equals 18… throw in some tax… and I should still be under $20.”
Why is that better? Because the exact amount doesn’t really make a difference. You just need to be close enough.
Going back to the problem on Facebook, look at what the question says: “Is 75 pages a reasonable answer for how many more pages Carole read on Tuesday than on Monday?”
“Reasonable” is the key word there. The question implies: Don’t actually do this problem. Just get in the ballpark.
So when the student solved it, she essentially told the teacher that she doesn’t understand the skill she’s being tested on. The teacher was right to take a point off.
To be fair, I don’t really like this question. These are small enough numbers that most people would do what the student did and get an exact answer. If I were writing it, I wouldn’t have made the pages exactly 75 apart.
But here’s the point: We teach estimation with small numbers so that students can eventually use the skill with bigger numbers.
The parent doesn’t understand that. She blames the teacher and “Common Core” and “Fake Math”… and never once thinks, “Maybe my child did something wrong here.” That’s what’s really bothers me. Her child may know how to subtract, which is great, but she might not be able to estimate. And shouldn’t kids be able to do both, depending on the situation?
You can complain about the problem all you want, but the teacher was asking a different question than the one the student answered.
Going back to the parent’s complaint:
This math belongs in the world of unicorns and leprechauns. Not in the real world…where numbers matter!
These are our future doctors that will be prescribing “reasonable” doses of medication, future architects that will design on “reasonable” measurements, and future engineers that will build on “reasonable” plans!
Home school is NOT the answer for me. But a change in our education system is absolutely necessary. We cannot build a future on this kind of thinking. Please share this post if you agree!
She’s wrong. Numbers don’t always matter.
Doctors giving medication will need accurate information, no doubt, but doctors estimate things all the time. Hell, my wife’s doctor estimated our baby’s due date and told us “it should be born around then.” They also estimate how long procedures will take or how much equipment they’ll need. Then they adjust those answers based on new information.
You can get plenty of traction out of imperfect data.
Once again, this parent and all the people who are sharing the image online have no clue what they’re whining about. But instead of getting all the information, they revel in their ignorance. They just assume the problem lies beyond them.
If that parent is listening, here’s a piece of advice: Talk to the teacher before posting images like this on the Internet. When you don’t, you end up looking foolish.
Tumblr has discovered Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman. Here are some of the examples of proof of that discovery. The good and the not-so-good.
1. The Corinthian (A nightmare entity) has been referred to as a “Blorbo.” Based on my understanding of the meaning of the word I am pretty certain The Corinthian probably should not be your Blorbo. But then again you might be into that sort of thing. I’ve seen some strange things in the Horror movie slasher fandoms. Just know that if he was real it would probably not be safe to think of him as your Blorbo.
2. The Corinthian has been called Cori and Cory respectively. And so it begins…
3. Morpheus has been referred to as a poor little “Meow Meow” and not while in his cat form. And yes, I know he fits the criteria for the term. It’s just this was the first time I’ve seen him called it without it being literally related to his cat form. You have truly made it in the world of Tumblr when they start calling your character a Blorbo or Poor LIttle Meow Meow. Whatever happened to Woobie? I would think Morpheus would fit under “Woobie.”
4. I have seen Tom Sturridge (Morpheus’s Netflix actor) referred to as a DILF. (Dad I’d like to …have fun with). As the term is usually reserved for older men, and I, myself, am forty, and Tom Sturridge is a few years younger than I am, this term usage came as a surprise to me. It turns out some fans are using the term quite literally as Tom Sturridge literally is a father. I was used to the term being used specifically in regard to age.
5. Morpheus has been compared to a Disney Princess.
6. A scene from the source material has been taken out of context to make the character look more like an asshole than he actually is even though there are plenty of real asshole moments as the character is on a long redemption arc.
The scene in question is when Matthew the Raven says “Penny for your thoughts.” And Morpheus responds with “You have no pennies, Matthew.” Later Morpheus offers Matthew a literal penny in exchange for him voicing his thoughts. Morpheus being too literal is what is happening here. Context matters.
7. There are people trying to bluff having read The Sandman without having actually read The Sandman to try to gain clout in the fandom. It’s okay to have not read it yet, guys. It’s a great read. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Go have fun. I promise it’s not as difficult as some people make it out to be.
Someone genuinely tried to argue with me that the “White haired version of Morpheus” was not created by Neil Gaiman and was created long after he was done writing The Sandman. If you have read The Sandman you would understand how wrong this is.
Don’t try to bluff having read The Sandman if you have not. We can tell. We can always tell.
8. There are gatekeepers trying to intimidate new readers into thinking there’s nothing whimsical in The Sandman and that it’s “So deep” and “you won’t get it the first time you read it. You have to read it a few times to understand it.”
Yes, there is darkness in The Sandman. It’s part dark fantasy / part Gothic Horror with moments of gore but there are light things too. Don’t discourage new readers. I promise the story isn’t as hard to get into as some people make it out to be. I know terms like “Classic” can make some people chafe. Just give it a try. If you don’t like the first issue, try the second. If you don’t like the second, keep going until at least issue four. If you still don’t like it after issue 4, it’s okay to stop. No one will judge you. If you don’t like comic books, try the audio drama, it’s divided into chapters like a novel. Each issue being a chapter. If you don’t like it after chapter four, that’s okay. You’ll know if you like it or not by then.
9. There is already fan art of Tom Sturridge as Morpheus in funny / ridiculous scenarios. No picture is given here as I did not get permission from the artists to share them yet.
10. There are already people complaining about the casting without having watched the show yet. One faction claiming the casting is “too woke” while another faction seemed concerned that it’s not inclusive enough even though Desire is nonbinary and pansexual, Death is a black woman, Rose and Unity are black women, Ruthven Sykes is a black man, Lucienne is a black woman who wears spectacles, Lucifer (who has no set gender or even sexual reproductive organs) is being played by a woman, Alexander Burgess is gay, The Corinthian is gay, Johanna Constantine is bisexual, Cain and Abel are West Asian…
There even seem to be politically charged rants complaining because the English language show, with an English cast, written by an English writer, has a lead actor with an English accent…
So what do I have to say about Tumblr discovering The Sandman?
Well..
Welcome to the Sandom!
You’re in for quite a ride. And don’t put your fingers too close to The Corinthian’s face. Just… Don’t.
You ever think about how unified humanity is by just everyday experiences? Tudor peasants had hangnails, nobles in the Qin dynasty had favorite foods, workers in the 1700s liked seeing flowers growing in pavement cracks, a cook in medieval Iran teared up cutting onions, a mom in 1300 told her son not to get grass stains on his clothes, some girl in the past loved staying up late to see the sun rise.
there are scriptures all over the world painstakingly crafted hundreds of years ago with paw prints and spelling mistakes or drawings covering up mistakes. a bunch of teenage girls 2000 years ago gathered to walk around their hometown, getting fast food and laughing with their friends. two friends shared blankets before people lived in houses. a mother ran a fine comb through her child’s hair and told it to stop squirming sometime in the 1000s. there are covered up sewing mistakes in couture dresses from the 1800s, some poor roman burnt their food so well past recognition that they just buried the entire pot. there are broken dishes hidden in gardens of people no one even remembers anymore
Wikipedia, "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit," went from being a weird online experiment 21 years ago to one of the mainstays of the modern internet with astonishing speed. Even more astonishing, it has maintained its reputation and functionality since its founding, even as the rest of the social internet seems hellbent on tearing itself apart.
As Twitter, Facebook, and others are consumed with controversy over moderation, governance, and the definition of free speech, Wikipedia continues to quietly grow in utility, trustworthiness, and comprehensiveness; there are now nearly 6.5 million articles on the English version alone and it has held its place in the top 15 most visited sites on the internet for well over a decade.
Reason spoke with Wikipedia co-founder, Jimmy Wales, who was predictably modest about what he got right. A key ingredient to Wikipedia's success is its high degree of decentralization. After this interview was conducted, Elon Musk made a bid to buy Twitter, bringing new salience to the battle over who controls the flow of information (and disinformation) online.
Reason last spoke with Wales 15 years ago, and the resulting profile ended up becoming a source for Wales' own Wikipedia entry. At that time, we talked about the future of online speech, improving the algorithms that shape our lives, and the role that Friedrich Hayek played in Wales' thinking. This conversation picked up where we left off.
Interview by Katherine Mangu-Ward; edited by Adam Czarnecki;intro by John Osterhoudt
The clock in the Windows taskbar does not display seconds. Originally, this was due to the performance impact on a 4MB system of having to keep in memory the code responsible for calculating the time and drawing it. But computers nowadays have lots more than 4MB of memory, so why not bring back the seconds?
Although it’s true that computers nowadays have a lot more than 4MB of memory, bringing back seconds is still not a great idea for performance.
On multi-users systems, like Terminal Server servers, it’s not one taskbar clock that would update once a second. Rather, each user that signs in has their own taskbar clock, that would need to update every second. So once a second, a hundred stacks would get paged in so that a hundred taskbar clocks can repaint. This is generally not a great thing, since it basically means that the system is spending all of its CPU updating clocks.
This is the same reason why, on Terminal Server systems, caret blinking is typically disabled. Blinking a caret at 500ms across a hundred users turns into a lot of wasted CPU. Even updating a hundred clocks once a minute is too much for many systems, and most Terminal Server administrators just disable the taskbar clock entirely.
Okay, but what about systems that aren’t Terminal Server servers? Why can’t my little single-user system show seconds on the clock?
The answer is still performance.
Any periodic activity with a rate faster than one minute incurs the scrutiny of the Windows performance team, because periodic activity prevents the CPU from entering a low-power state. Updating the seconds in the taskbar clock is not essential to the user interface, unlike telling the user where their typing is going to go, or making sure a video plays smoothly. And the recommendation is that inessential periodic timers have a minimum period of one minute, and they should enable timer coalescing to minimize system wake-ups.
Hay un problema que me fascina por lo sorprendente y a la vez sencillo que es. Lo conocí en el magnífico libro “El hombre que calculaba” y hoy vengo a explicaros algo sobre este precio-so problema y cómo aparece en muchos lugares de las matemáticas. @Derivando.
One of my first short stories, written when I was 22 or just 23, I proudly showed to two people whose opinions I respected in the Fantasy world, both editors. One said it wasn’t very good. The other told me it was “pretentious twaddle”. I put the story away, and when I thought of it, I felt guilty for having written a story that bad and for ever showing it to people.
Twenty years later I was asked for a story for an anthology, remembered that long-ago buried story and went into the attic and found it in a box of things I was never going to show anyone. I read it, to see if there was anything in the mass of pretentious twaddle that I could use. It wasn’t actually bad at all, which surprised me. It was a typewritten manuscript, so I retyped it, fixing things I needed to fix on the way, but there wasn’t a lot to do.
Unlike DUNE, which I've read a dozen times or more, I've never been able to make it past the first fifty pages or so of Isaac Asimov's Foundation. It's not from lack of trying. At the risk of being branded a heretic, the story just didn't engage me the way other science fiction has.
Nonetheless, I was excited to hear of Apple TV+'s series based on Asimov's books, and basically coming into this cold, after seeing the first two episodes, I came away pretty damn impressed. Reviews are saying it deviates from the source material, but having never read the source material, I am nonetheless entertained and have been drawn into the story. The cast is outstanding and the visuals are among the best I've seen on the small screen. (I especially like the design of the FTL starships, generating their own black holes!)
I'm eagerly awaiting more. Unfortunately Apple doesn't let you binge until the season has run its course, so like with regular broadcast TV, I have to wait another week for the next installment.
The trouble, of course, was that Reich was basing his observations and predictions on, to use Mannheim’s term, a generation unit—a tiny number of people who were hyperconscious of their choices and values and saw themselves as being in revolt against the bad thinking and failed practices of previous generations. The folks who showed up for the Summer of Love were not a representative sample of sixties youth.
The authors of “Gen Z, Explained” are making the same erroneous extrapolation. They are generalizing on the basis of a very small group of privileged people, born within five or six years of one another, who inhabit insular communities of the like-minded. It’s fine to try to find out what these people think. Just don’t call them a generation.
From Day One, college students are instructed about the importance of diversity, inclusion, honesty, collaboration—all the virtuous things that the authors of “Gen Z, Explained” attribute to the new generation. Students can say (and some do say) to their teachers and their institutions, “You’re not living up to those values.” But the values are shared values.
And who creates “youth culture,” anyway? Older people. Youth has agency in the sense that it can choose to listen to the music or wear the clothing or march in the demonstrations or not. And there are certainly ground-up products (bell-bottoms, actually). Generally, though, youth has the same degree of agency that I have when buying a car. I can choose the model I want, but I do not make the cars.
Apart from a few musicians, it is hard to name a single major figure in that decade who was a baby boomer.
Yet the baby-boom prototype is a white male college student wearing striped bell-bottoms and a peace button, just as the Gen Z prototype is a female high-school student with spending money and an Instagram account.
Studies have consistently indicated that people do not become more conservative as they age.
In other words, if you are basing your characterization of a generation on what people say when they are young, you are doing astrology. You are ascribing to birth dates what is really the result of changing conditions.
No sabría decir a ciencia cierta cuándo me enamoré perdidamente de la factoría cinematográfica y televisiva de Corea del Sur, aunque puede que el primer gran punto de inflexión que recuerdo con especial cariño se remonte al Festival de Sitges 2010, cuando caí rendido ante la descomunal 'Encontré al diablo' de Kim Jee-woon. Desde entonces, thrillers, dramas o ñoñeces catódicas como la genial 'Crash Landing on You' me han acompañado errando raramente el tiro.
A pesar de que obras de cineastas de la talla de Park Chan-wook, Hong Sang-soo o Kim Ki-duk ya la dotasen de prestigio internacional, fue la 'Parásitos' de Bong Joon-ho quien puso a la industria del país asiático en el punto de mira del mal llamado "gran público". No obstante, la ganadora del Óscar quedó lejos de convertirse en el fenómeno de masas en el que se ha transformado la brutal serie 'El juego del calamar'.
Si os soy sincero, no sé a qué viene tanto revuelo con lo último de Hwang Dong-hyuk; después de todo, a estas alturas ya sabíamos que los surcoreanos suelen moverse en los terrenos de la genialidad. Lo que sí sorprende es que el show brilla hasta alcanzar niveles inusitados por factores que, a priori, no saltan a la vista; desplegando su verdadera artillería pesada en dos primeros episodios sin los que el resto de temporada no funcionaría con tanta precisión y efectividad.
El concepto es el concepto
Decía Pazos, el personaje de Manuel Manquiña en 'Airbag', que "el concepto es el concepto", y en el caso de 'El juego del calamar', es innegable que la premisa de su historia podría verse como el principal reclamo reclamo para atrapar al espectador y no soltarle en las más de ocho horas que dura su impagable y desasosegante viaje. Un concepto en el que juegos sádicos y un discurso sociopolítico mucho menos velado de lo que podría parecer, coexisten bajo unos valores de producción realmente impresionantes.
Viniendo de un cineasta de la talla de Hwang, responsable de largometrajes como el asfixiante y demoledor 'Silenced' o el espectáculo histórico 'The Fortress', poco menos podría esperarse que una exhibición de dirección, ritmo y puesta en escena digna de estudio y alabanzas. Una muestra de oficio impecable reforzada por un diseño de producción tan disparatado como impactante en el que los colores primarios, los escenarios imposibles y los vestuarios calculados al milímetro convierten cada secuencia en carne de meme.
Si a todo esto sumamos un tono que hace auténticos malabares al combinar drama, una violencia tremendamente explícita y cafre que no titubea al hacer manar litros de sangre y mostrar agujeros de bala abriéndose en primer término, y un peculiar sentido de la comedia, negro como el carbón, es totalmente comprensible que 'El juego del calamar' haya trascendido hasta alcanzar la ansiada viralidad. Pero la raíz del éxito de esta pequeña joya va mucho más allá de su vibrante fachada.
La clave del calamar
A partir de este momento puede haber spoilers sobre los tres primeros episodios de 'El juego del calamar'.
Aunque la tónica general con la que se ha recibido 'El juego del calamar' por parte de público y crítica esté marcada por el entusiasmo, los argumentos en su contra más usados han estado relacionados con sus dos primeros episodios; apuntando a una falta de progresión, a una excesiva dilatación hasta llegar a entrar en materia, y a una presunta falta de contenido. Nada más lejos de la realidad.
Durante sus primeras dos horas, la serie vuelca todos y cada uno de sus esfuerzos en ir dando pistas sobre su tono y los derroteros que tomará su —poco previsible— trama y, lo que es más importante, en presentar a sus principales elementos motores: unos personajes con los que, contra todo pronóstico, se desarrolla una empatía férrea instantáneamente.
Seong Gi-hun, Ali, Jang Deok-soo, Kang Sae-byeok... la inmensa mayoría del surtido de personajes está compuesto por individuos, a priori, antipáticos; criminales, jetas, patanes o estafadores que encierran un corazón enorme, independientemente de la oscuridad y secretos que alberguen en su interior, y con los que se conecta gracias a dos capítulos cocinados a fuego lento dedicados casi íntegramente a ellos.
Esto hace que, cuando empiezan los juegos y los cadáveres comienzan a amontonarse de forma impredecible, la conexión sea tal —y esto se extiende incluso a los roles más antagónicos— que nuestros párpados se nieguen a cerrarse; no por el despliegue de horrores y virguerías visuales, sino por el drama que encierra cada uno de nuestros sufridores y, en cierto modo, entrañables participantes.
La magia del primer acto surcoreano
Pero, ¿cómo consigue 'El juego del calamar' mantener el interés durante un primer acto que se aproxima a los 120 minutos de metraje y que se ve en la obligación de abusar de lo expositivo para plantear las bases de su universo? La respuesta se encuentra en la magia de la narrativa surcoreana y en su juego de giros dramáticos en la transición entre los dos primeros actos.
Detengámonos un momento para dejar claros un par de términos sin entrar demasiado en detalle. Durante un primer acto, se presenta a los personajes de una historia, sus conflictos y los objetivos que intentarán alcanzar en un segundo acto al que se llega después de un detonante —el giro de transición entre el primer y el segundo acto—. Del mismo modo, en la mitad del segundo acto existe un giro dramático conocido como mid point que, según la teoría, debería cambiar por completo los esquemas de la historia y del protagonista, convirtiendo la serie o película en algo radicalmente diferente.
Pues bien, sabiendo esto, imaginad un mid point colocado donde debería ir el detonante que marca la transición entre los dos primeros actos. Imaginad una película sobre un policía intentando atrapar a un asesino en serie en la que se arresta al criminal a los veinte minutos; imaginad una película de atracos en la que se logra desplumar la caja fuerte más segura del mundo a los veinte minutos o una de zombis en la que se contiene la infección antes de que termine el primer acto.
Esta artimaña explota con maña el efecto de lo imprevisible, del shock que te mantiene en vilo y acaba por completo con las ideas preestablecidas por la premisa de la producción. En 'El juego del calamar', esta triquiñuela aparece cuando se rompe la dinámica del juego en el segundo episodio, tras someter a votación la cancelación del evento. Por supuesto, en ese momento das por sentado que terminará ganando la opción de continuar —"claro, si no se quedan, no hay serie, tienen que seguir los juegos"—... ¡Pues no!.
La magia del primer acto surcoreano hace acto de presencia para congelar la narrativa, desubicar y atrapar al respetable a golpe de incertidumbre mientras gana tiempo para continuar presentando a sus personajes y abriendo subtramas sin entrar en los pantanosos terrenos de la pereza en unos tiempos en los que los índices de retención de audiencia son cada vez más bajos. Si, además, añadimos una gestión impecable del cliffhanger, el éxito está más que asegurado.
Al final del día, no importa cuántas muertes sádicas hayamos presenciado, cuántos escenarios color pastel nos hayan impresionado ni cuantos giros dramáticos nos hayan dejado clavados en la butaca. Lo verdaderamente importante en toda historia —narrada en imágenes o no— se encuentra en la emoción; y sin unos personajes a la altura y una administración eficiente del suspense y el drama, lo efectivo terminaría siendo, simplemente, efectista. Y que me aspen si 'El juego del calamar' no es lo más efectivo que esconden los interminables menús del catálogo de Netflix.
Hay más de 6.000 idiomas en la tierra. En la mayoría de los lugares, históricamente ha habido contacto entre sus portadores. Pero tales contactos eran imposibles en las islas, que a menudo afectaban al idioma de una manera inusual. Por lo tanto, en islas remotas aisladas, se conservaron propiedades únicas en dialectos o características arcaicas que están ausentes en otras lenguas modernas.
Love that the internet will tell. You mazda had to do a model recall because spiders were uncontrollably attracted to their cars in 2014 then you read more and find it happened before woth the same car company in 2011
Mazda spokesmen say “lol idk”
For those wondering apparently this breed of spiders fucking loves gasoline, mazda built anti spider springs to push them out and a software patch to. Do something with fuel pressure in case they did get in and weaved loads of webs that fucked up thr fuel capacity and no one knows why it was mazdas in particular that got infested
this is one of those problems you have to solve in a dream
How do you adapt Isaac Asimov's "Foundation"? You can't.
As written, the novel (and its sequels and prequels) aren't just impenetrable — they're downright un-cinematic. Asimov may have liked writing scenes about men sitting in rooms, having long conversations about societal downfalls and monumental events that have, will, or could happen, but it's hard to imagine a story more ready to die on a screen. It's is a series of novels where people tend to talk about action instead of engaging in it.
So, once again, how do you adapt Isaac Asimov's "Foundation"? You don't. You remix it. You open it up and search the underside of the legendary science fiction writer's heady ideas, finding the character (and the drama and the action and the sex) hidden between the notions of history, science, and philosophy. And you make a TV show about that.
So here we are, with the new "Foundation" TV series premiering this week on Apple TV+, which owes as much to "Game of Thrones" as it does to the most influential sci-fi writer of the 20th century. It's not Asimov's "Foundation" because it cannot be that. But it is the world of those novels reinvented for an audience who already proved willing to learn the great houses of Westeros, to showcase tremendous patience across an often-methodically paced season that doles out enough sex and violence to keep your attention as the many rules of a complex universe come into focus.
And it works.
The End Is Nigh
To describe the plot of "Foundation" is to realize why adapting it was such a headache.
Mathematician Hari Seldon (Jared Harris) — a citizen of a galactic republic that sprawls across the known universe in a distant future where humanity has spread across hundreds of planets and created countless subcultures — looks at the numbers and sees the end of the world. Or rather, the end of the empire, and the civilization(s) it protects and dominates. His creation, mathematical equations that predict the future with eerie accuracy (dubbed "psycho-history"), gains traction. Those in power take notice, and they're not happy. After all, Hari says the empire will collapse, many lifetimes from now. But if they build the right infrastructure, they can shorten the impending dark age, allowing their distant, distant descendants the chance to build anew.
The resulting narrative first spans decades. And then centuries. And then many centuries. When you watch "Foundation," you learn to thrill at titles telling you "400 years earlier," "19 years later," and so on. The timeline here is a hoot.
It's heavy. It's a lot. And yes, this is a series about preparing for the distant apocalypse because it's too late to save the current infrastructure. Asimov wrote his first "Foundation" story in the 1940s, long before anyone could've seen the world seemingly crumbling in the midst of climate change and a global pandemic. Watching Hari, a man defined by hard facts and numbers, fail to earn the ear and support of those in charge hits hard. And Harris gives the character the same dignity he gave his Soviet scientist in HBO's "Chernobyl." He's become the go-to actor to play intelligent men who stand their ground in the face of powerful foes who bury their heads in the sand.
The subtext floats just above the surface, frequently emerging from below the waves to make its point clear. "Foundation" wants you to know what it's all about. It's science fiction as a call to action, about it not being too late.
A Massive Universe
While the show orbits around Hari and his ideas (and Harris is a strong enough actor to anchor the show's premise), showrunner David S. Goyer and his writers offer many other windows into this universe. There's Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell, shouldering the weight of a POV character with an appealing, low-simmering rage), a math wiz who flees persecution on her religious planet to work alongside Hari and gets more than she bargained for. There's Salvor Hardin (Leah Harvey, enough angst and earnestness to win our instant affection), a "warden" (think space cop) on an isolated planet who lives decades in the future and whose plot ultimately intersects with the other storylines as the action shifts back and forth across the years.
These characters represent the canniest departure from the original text. The almost entirely male cast of the books has been largely gender-swapped, with people of color filling out key roles and numerous supporting characters. It's easy to imagine a certain subset of science fiction fan rolling their eyes at the "wokeness" of this choice, but it's a creative choice that pays dividends.
The result of this casting is a universe that feels modern, sprawling, and, you know, vast. A single frame of "Foundation" suggests a galaxy so sweeping, so filled with different cultures, that you can't help but get lost in it. (It helps that the show is downright lavish, and Goyer and his directors making fine use of Apple's Scrooge McDuck money to make it all look appropriately cinematic.)
The Pace Of It All
Llobell and Harvey are the audience's way into the story, our eyes and ears as the scripts introduce us to the rules of this world. So leave it to Lee Pace to find all of the remaining scenery and place it firmly between his teeth. The "Guardians of the Galaxy" actor is perfectly cast as Cleon, the literal emperor of the galaxy, his deep voice and intimidating build (and his opulent costumes, a standout in a series filled with inspired looks for every character) making him look and feel like a marble sculpture of a Roman god come to life. And Pace doesn't just play one character, but several — his emperor is the latest in a generation of clones, all descended from the same ruler who decided to literally keep the empire in his hands.
He rules alongside the older clone who came before him and the young clone who will take the throne when he ages, leading to a sinister and fascinating triumvirate. Pace shares the role with Cassian Bilton, Terrance Mann, and Cooper Carter, and their combined performances form a magic trick — you watch as the years pass and Carter's Cleon takes the place of Pace's Cleon, and Pace's Cleon is then played by Mann, before cycling through again. Tracking the Cleons could've been a nightmare, but it ends up being the show's most satisfying and strange narrative. An extended prologue in episode three explores what happens to an aged Cleon clone, and it's the kind of mesmerizing short story that defines the best episodes of "Foundation" so far.
The series is at its best when it finds these diversions and indulges itself. This universe is massive, and the show wants us to live in it.
Breaking The Gateway
If it sounds like I'm dodging a lot of plot here, well, I am. Part of that is knowing how the season unfolds (I have seen the first eight episodes of the 10 episode season) and not wanting to spoil it. But most of it, honestly, is because "Foundation" is at its best when it plants its feet in a single location for a bit and lets these characters exist in this rich, detailed universe.
Looking nothing like "Star Wars" or "Star Trek" or "Battlestar Galactica," "Foundation" feels designed from a fresh place, pulled out from a corner of the imagination not yet mined. There are some familiar shades here and there (the Roman Empire in Cleon's court, the video game "Destiny" on Terminus), but it mostly feels fresh, like when we first started watching "Game of Thrones" and realized, so quickly, this wasn't Tolkien's fantasy world. It was something new.
Asimov purists will scoff, and that's their right. "Foundation" is full of gunfights and burning romance, dramatic plot reveals and sexy actors allowed to be sexy. It pauses to philosophize, but it also pauses for big, violent action and swimming pool make-out sessions. This isn't Asimov. This is the unsaid stuff between the chapters of Asimov that he probably thought too lurid, too pulpy, too simple.
But I'm reminded of how Peter Jackson approached his "Lord of the Rings" films. That trilogy isn't J.R.R. Tolkien. It's Tolkien and "Dungeons & Dragons" and thousands of pieces of art inspired by the original work and countless hours of dreaming about what Middle-earth looks like. Those movies, masterpieces all of them, built a personal, accessible vision of a complicated world. It took something tricky and made it for everyone. "Foundation" has similar gateway-demolishing goals.
It's Not Asimov – And That's Okay
I won't say "Foundation" is a masterpiece. It shares that "Game of Thrones" scope, but also its weaknesses, spinning wheels in the middle of the season to maneuver characters into place for a series of climaxes. Episodes blend into one another, and it's tough to recall which episode is which, a weakness common in the age of streaming and binge-watching. It's easy to imagine a tighter season, a more disciplined structure, that tightens the water-treading. It's ironic that the core storyline is the one that sometimes drags, while the subplots and asides are the ones that resonate.
"Foundation" has been reinvented as something more accessible, more vibrant, more action-driven, sexier, and yes, more fun in the traditional sense of the word.
Asimov purists will cry foul. The rest of us will enjoy the ride.
"Federation" now apparently means "DDoS yourself."
jwz.
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