Author name: Rejus Almole

nj’s-answer-to-flooding:-it-has-bought-out-and-demolished-1,200-properties

NJ’s answer to flooding: it has bought out and demolished 1,200 properties

climate change, flooding, Housing, New Jersey, Policy / /

The state deals with flooding and sea level rise by buying homes in flood prone areas.

Heavy rains cause flooding in Manville, New Jersey on April 16, 2007. Credit: Bobby Bank

MANVILLE, N.J.—Richard Onderko said he will never forget the terrifying Saturday morning back in 1971 when the water rose so swiftly at his childhood home here that he and his brother had to be rescued by boat as the torrential rain from the remnants of Hurricane Doria swept through the neighborhood.

It wasn’t the first time—or the last—that the town endured horrific downpours. In fact, the working-class town of 11,000, about 25 miles southwest of Newark, has long been known for getting swamped by tropical storms, nor’easters or even just a wicked rain. It was so bad, Onderko recalled, that the constant threat of flooding had strained his parents’ marriage, with his mom wanting to sell and his dad intent on staying.

Eventually, his parents moved to Florida, selling the two-story house on North Second Avenue in 1995. But the new homeowner didn’t do so well either when storms hit, and in 2015, the property was sold one final time: to a state-run program that buys and demolishes houses in flood zones and permanently restores the property to open space.

“It’s pretty traumatic to watch your childhood home be bulldozed,” said Onderko, 64 and now the mayor of this 2.5-square-mile borough, which sits at the confluence of two rivers and a placid-looking brook that turns into a raging river when a storm moves through.

Blue Acres

His boyhood property—now just a grass lot—is one of some 1,200 properties that have been acquired across New Jersey by the state’s Blue Acres program, which has used more than $234 million in federal and state funds to pay fair market value to homeowners in flood-prone areas who, like the Onderko family, had grown weary of getting flooded over and over again.

Images of brown water flowing past partially submerged houses.

Flooding in Manville following a Nor’Easter in 2007 Credit: Bobby Bank

The program, started in 1995, is considered a national model as buyouts are an increasingly important tool for dealing with climate-related flooding. A report this month by Georgetown Climate Center said the program has achieved “significant results” by moving quicker than federal buyout programs, providing a stable source of state funding and shepherding homeowners through the process.

In addition, a report last month by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Defense Fund warns that communities may well have to come up with new ways to pay for such initiatives as the Trump Administration continues to downsize government and cut programs.

Already, the NRDC said, billions of dollars in previously approved Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) resilience grants have been cancelled.

“We need to do a lot of things very differently,” said Rob Moore, an NRDC director who worked on the report, which suggests that states and counties consider using revenue from municipal bonds, local fees and taxes, revolving loan funds, and leveraging insurance payouts to offset some of the reductions in federal funding.

But Moore said the problem goes beyond funding uncertainty, as the science is showing that the impacts of climate change are “outpacing our efforts to adapt.”

The report, released Nov. 18, cited the Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Storm Water Services, which has acquired some 500 homes in North Carolina in its buyout program, relying largely on stormwater utility fees to fund the sales. New Jersey’s program, Moore said, is a “wonderful example” of a plan that raised money with three bond issues while building a staff that developed a lot of expertise over the years.

Decades of experience may well come in handy as New Jersey, the nation’s most densely populated state, is likely to experience more significant flooding in the years to come.

Future risks

Sea level rose about 1.5 feet along the New Jersey coast in the last 100 years—more than twice the global rate—and a new study by the New Jersey Climate Change Resource Center at Rutgers University predicts a likely increase of between 2.2 and 3.8 feet by 2100, if the current level of global carbon emissions continues.

Torrential rain storms also have led to massive flooding in inland towns—like Manville—as rivers and streams overflow, sending waves of water into the homes of stunned owners. The stronger storms are attributed by scientists to the Earth’s changing climate, with warming oceans causing rising sea levels and fueling more intense atmospheric activity.

“Blue Acres has been a pioneering program,” said Robert Kopp, a climate scientist and professor at Rutgers University, calling buyouts a “very important tool” in how the state deals with the flooding repercussions of climate change.

The program, which so far has benefitted mostly inland rather than coastal communities, is funded with federal money as well as a share of the state’s corporate taxes, providing a consistent infusion of money at a time of uncertainty about the future of federal disaster funding.

Courtney Wald-Wittkop, who manages Blue Acres for the state Department of Environmental Protection, said the program is an important solution for homeowners who have grown weary of repeated flooding. But deciding to give up a home and move away from the flood plain, she said, often takes time. “You have to give them space,” she said, to weigh the financial and personal costs of leaving a home with memories.

She said the program is known for its novel approach of assigning a case manager to every applicant to help them sort through the issues. “It’s really important that we walk hand in hand with these homeowners,” said Wald-Wittkop.

The program’s goals, however, go beyond the needs of homeowners. The idea is to help reshape the community by returning properties to permanent open space, which can better absorb rain water than impervious surfaces such as concrete, asphalt and buildings. That open space, in turn, is managed—mostly with lawn cutting and brush clearing—by the municipality.

Wald-Wittkop said the program is evolving, and that she would like to make the process move more quickly, provide sellers with more housing assistance, especially outside of flood-prone areas and encourage more community involvement in what to do with the newly acquired open space.

“We’ve tried to be as innovative as possible,” she said.

Epic floods

With its history of flooding, Manville is one of the towns that has benefitted the most from the state buyout initiative, with some 120 homes in the town sold to the state for about $22 million between 2015 and 2024. Another 53 buyouts are currently underway, according to Wald-Wittkop.

About an hour south, the city of Lambertville was hit hard by Hurricane Ida when a series of creeks overflowed in 2021, stranding residents and business owners in the popular tourist town wherever they happened to be when the massive downpour began. Hours later, residents emerged to stunning destruction.

An image of a green suburban area with large portions of it covered by brown flood waters.

Satellite image of Manville during the 2021 flooding. Credit: Maxar

“The force of the water was just unbelievable,” recalled Mayor Andrew Nowick, who said 130 properties were damaged and about two dozen homeowners ended up submitting applications for Blue Acre buyouts. Three eventually accepted buyout offers, he said.

The program, he said, can be attractive for sellers who are ready to move on but he said there was a lot of real soul-searching about the advantage of selling versus repairing homes that were filled with family memories. “These are all hard choices,” said the mayor.

Incorporated in 1929, Manville was named with a nod to the Johns-Manville Corp., a now-defunct asbestos manufacturer with jobs that transformed the area from a farming community to a factory town. As Manville grew so did the rest of once-rural Somerset County, with more housing, industry and roads. The result was less farmland and open space to absorb the rain and more impervious surfaces that cause substantial water runoff and flash flooding.

“It’s troubling today to see all the development that has gone on unabated,” said Onderko.

And when Manville floods, it is often epic.

In 1955, Hurricane Diane caused what was called the town’s “worst flood in history,” according to a special edition of the Manville News, which now hangs in Onderko’s office. “RIVER GOING DOWN; BE CALM!” screamed the banner headline. Then-Mayor Frank Baron urged residents not to panic. “You’re not forgotten, no matter where you live,” Baron declared.

Onderko said getting rescued after Hurricane Doria in 1971 was surreal. Their oil tank came loose from all the water, and he recalled seeing the fuel mix in with the water that was flooding the basement as it approached the first floor. “It was something that you will never forget,” he said.

Later, the remains of Hurricane Floyd caused widespread damage in 1999, as did Hurricane Irene in 2011, but the town largely escaped the fury of Superstorm Sandy, which caused catastrophic damage to parts of New Jersey in 2012.

But then came Hurricane Ida in 2021.

Onderko still chokes with emotion when recalling that night in September 2021 when Ida came roaring through. “It was a war zone,” he recalled in an interview at the borough hall, which was inundated with two feet of water in that storm. “The water came so fast. It was a flash flood event. We were just lucky we didn’t have any loss of life.”

For hours, the mayor and rescue personnel went door to door, urging residents to leave. By the next morning, about 10 to 11 feet of water had flooded the central part of town and surrounding neighborhoods. Two homes and a banquet hall exploded from natural gas leaks, and emergency personnel could not even reach them.

“It took a toll on me,” said Onderko, recalling how he had trouble sleeping and felt “kind of powerless” because of the extent of devastation.

Demolishing properties, saving the town

Wendy Byra and her husband, Thomas Kline, had already moved to higher ground.

Their house had flooded twice and they decided to sell their home to the Blue Acres program. The sale was approved in 2015 for a $185,000 buyout. Byra said a number of their neighbors also applied for the buyout, but had mixed feelings about the amount of money they were offered.

“A lot of people weren’t happy,” said Byra, recalling that some neighbors thought they should receive more money for their homes. Byra said she and her husband figured they would have a hard time selling on their own, so they accepted the buyout and moved to a home on higher ground, but still in Manville, where she grew up.

Except when a major flood happens, Onderko said, Manville is a good place to live. So homeowners, even in the two parts of town known for flooding, can go years without having to deal with a water disaster.

Onderko said residents had long relied on a mix of government help in rebuilding after flooding, but two years after Ida hit in 2021, the state said it would use federal funds only for Blue Acres buyouts of flood-prone properties in Manville.

Onderko said he and residents were caught off guard by the change in policy. He also believes that elevation and repair remained viable alternatives for some of the houses. The buyouts take time, he said, and the town loses tax revenue from the properties sold via the Blue Acres program. “It doesn’t help the town to lose [tax] rateables,” said the mayor, who said the town also bears the cost of maintaining the open space.

Now in his third term as mayor, Onderko, who lives in a house on higher ground than his boyhood home, seems more like a property manager than municipal executive as he presides over a town that is a mix of neighborhoods. Some are on higher ground and do not flood, but others are in areas that get caught repeatedly in deluges. There, vacant grass lots left from demolished Blue Acres properties are interspersed with homes that have been elevated, repaired or are still in recovery mode. “It’s very frustrating,” said Onderko.

Looking to the future, the mayor said he believes many more homes will be at risk whenever the next flood happens. And Onderko does not sound especially hopeful about how that will go.

“It’s going to take a miracle to try to save this town,” he said.

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

Photo of Inside Climate News

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Stranger Things series finale trailer is here

culture, Duffer brothers, Entertainment, netflix, Stranger Things S5, streaming television, Trailers / /

Stranger Things fans are hyped for the premiere of the hotly anticipated series finale on New Year’s Eve: they’ll either be glued to their TVs or heading out to watch it in a bona fide theater. Netflix has dropped one last trailer for the finale—not that it really needs to do anything more to boost anticipation.

(Some spoilers for Vols. 1 and 2 below but no major Vol. 2 reveals.)

As previously reported, in Vol. 1, we found Hawkins under military occupation and Vecna targeting a new group of young children in his human form under the pseudonym “Mr. Whatsit” (a nod to A Wrinkle in Time). He kidnapped Holly Wheeler and took her to the Upside Down, where she found an ally in Max, still in a coma, but with her consciousness hiding in one of Vecna’s old memories. Dustin was struggling to process his grief over losing Eddie Munson in S4, causing a rift with Steve. The rest of the gang was devoted to stockpiling supplies and helping Eleven and Hopper track down Vecna in the Upside Down. They found Kali/Eight, Eleven’s psychic “sister” instead, being held captive in a military laboratory.

Things came to a head at the military base when Vecna’s demagorgons attacked to take 11 more children, wiping out most of the soldiers in record time. The big reveal was that, as a result of being kidnapped by Vecna in S1, Will has his own supernatural powers because of his ties to Vecna. He can tap into Vecna’s hive mind and manipulate those powers for his own purposes. He used those newfound powers to save his friends from the demagorgons.

Stranger Things series finale trailer is here Read More »

us-can’t-deport-hate-speech-researcher-for-protected-speech,-lawsuit-says

US can’t deport hate speech researcher for protected speech, lawsuit says

center for countering digital hate, disinformation, elon musk, hate speech, Marco Rubio, misinformation, Policy, Twitter, X / /

On Monday, US officials must explain what steps they took to enforce shocking visa bans.

Imran Ahmed, the founder of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), giving evidence to joint committee seeking views on how to improve the draft Online Safety Bill designed to tackle social media abuse. Credit: House of Commons – PA Images / Contributor | PA Images

Imran Ahmed’s biggest thorn in his side used to be Elon Musk, who made the hate speech researcher one of his earliest legal foes during his Twitter takeover.

Now, it’s the Trump administration, which planned to deport Ahmed, a legal permanent resident, just before Christmas. It would then ban him from returning to the United States, where he lives with his wife and young child, both US citizens.

After suing US officials to block any attempted arrest or deportation, Ahmed was quickly granted a temporary restraining order on Christmas Day. Ahmed had successfully argued that he risked irreparable harm without the order, alleging that Trump officials continue “to abuse the immigration system to punish and punitively detain noncitizens for protected speech and silence viewpoints with which it disagrees” and confirming that his speech had been chilled.

US officials are attempting to sanction Ahmed seemingly due to his work as the founder of a British-American non-governmental organization, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).

“An egregious act of government censorship”

In a shocking announcement last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that five individuals—described as “radical activists” and leaders of “weaponized NGOs”—would face US visa bans since “their entry, presence, or activities in the United States have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences” for the US.

Nobody was named in that release, but Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy, Sarah Rogers, later identified the targets in an X post she currently has pinned to the top of her feed.

Alongside Ahmed, sanctioned individuals included former European commissioner for the internal market, Thierry Breton; the leader of UK-based Global Disinformation Index (GDI), Clare Melford; and co-leaders of Germany-based HateAid, Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon. A GDI spokesperson told The Guardian that the visa bans are “an authoritarian attack on free speech and an egregious act of government censorship.”

While all targets were scrutinized for supporting some of the European Union’s strictest tech regulations, including the Digital Services Act (DSA), Ahmed was further accused of serving as a “key collaborator with the Biden Administration’s effort to weaponize the government against US citizens.” As evidence of Ahmed’s supposed threat to US foreign policy, Rogers cited a CCDH report flagging Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. among the so-called “disinformation dozen” driving the most vaccine hoaxes on social media.

Neither official has really made it clear what exact threat these individuals pose if operating from within the US, as opposed to from anywhere else in the world. Echoing Rubio’s press release, Rogers wrote that the sanctions would reinforce a “red line,” supposedly ending “extraterritorial censorship of Americans” by targeting the “censorship-NGO ecosystem.”

For Ahmed’s group, specifically, she pointed to Musk’s failed lawsuit, which accused CCDH of illegally scraping Twitter—supposedly, it offered evidence of extraterritorial censorship. That lawsuit surfaced “leaked documents” allegedly showing that CCDH planned to “kill Twitter” by sharing research that could be used to justify big fines under the DSA or the UK’s Online Safety Act. Following that logic, seemingly any group monitoring misinformation or sharing research that lawmakers weigh when implementing new policies could be maligned as seeking mechanisms to censor platforms.

Notably, CCDH won its legal fight with Musk after a judge mocked X’s legal argument as “vapid” and dismissed the lawsuit as an obvious attempt to punish CCDH for exercising free speech that Musk didn’t like.

In his complaint last week, Ahmed alleged that US officials were similarly encroaching on his First Amendment rights by unconstitutionally wielding immigration law as “a tool to punish noncitizen speakers who express views disfavored by the current administration.”

Both Rubio and Rogers are named as defendants in the suit, as well as Attorney General Pam Bondi, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, and Acting Director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Todd Lyons. In a loss, officials would potentially not only be forced to vacate Rubio’s actions implementing visa bans, but also possibly stop furthering a larger alleged Trump administration pattern of “targeting noncitizens for removal based on First Amendment protected speech.”

Lawsuit may force Rubio to justify visa bans

For Ahmed, securing the temporary restraining order was urgent, as he was apparently the only target currently located in the US when Rubio’s announcement dropped. In a statement provided to Ars, Ahmed’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, suggested that the order was granted “so quickly because it is so obvious that Marco Rubio and the other defendants’ actions were blatantly unconstitutional.”

Ahmed founded CCDH in 2019, hoping to “call attention to the enormous problem of digitally driven disinformation and hate online.” According to the suit, he became particularly concerned about antisemitism online while living in the United Kingdom in 2016, having watched “the far-right party, Britain First,” launching “the dangerous conspiracy theory that the EU was attempting to import Muslims and Black people to ‘destroy’ white citizens.” That year, a Member of Parliament and Ahmed’s colleague, Jo Cox, was “shot and stabbed in a brutal politically motivated murder, committed by a man who screamed ‘Britain First’” during the attack. That tragedy motivated Ahmed to start CCDH.

He moved to the US in 2021 and was granted a green card in 2024, starting his family and continuing to lead CCDH efforts monitoring not just Twitter/X, but also Meta platforms, TikTok, and, more recently, AI chatbots. In addition to supporting the DSA and UK’s Online Safety Act, his group has supported US online safety laws and Section 230 reforms intended to protect kids online.

“Mr. Ahmed studies and engages in civic discourse about the content moderation policies of major social media companies in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union,” his lawsuit said. “There is no conceivable foreign policy impact from his speech acts whatsoever.”

In his complaint, Ahmed alleged that Rubio has so far provided no evidence that Ahmed poses such a great threat that he must be removed. He argued that “applicable statutes expressly prohibit removal based on a noncitizen’s ‘past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations.’”

According to DHS guidance from 2021 cited in the suit, “A noncitizen’ s exercise of their First Amendment rights … should never be a factor in deciding to take enforcement action.”

To prevent deportation based solely on viewpoints, Rubio was supposed to notify chairs of the House Foreign Affairs, Senate Foreign Relations, and House and Senate Judiciary Committees, to explain what “compelling US foreign policy interest” would be compromised if Ahmed or others targeted with visa bans were to enter the US. But there’s no evidence Rubio took those steps, Ahmed alleged.

“The government has no power to punish Mr. Ahmed for his research, protected speech, and advocacy, and Defendants cannot evade those constitutional limitations by simply claiming that Mr. Ahmed’s presence or activities have ‘potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States,’” a press release from his legal team said. “There is no credible argument for Mr. Ahmed’s immigration detention, away from his wife and young child.”

X lawsuit offers clues to Trump officials’ defense

To some critics, it looks like the Trump administration is going after CCDH in order to take up the fight that Musk already lost. In his lawsuit against CCDH, Musk’s X echoed US Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) by suggesting that CCDH was a “foreign dark money group” that allowed “foreign interests” to attempt to “influence American democracy.” It seems likely that US officials will put forward similar arguments in their CCDH fight.

Rogers’ X post offers some clues that the State Department will be mining Musk’s failed litigation to support claims of what it calls a “global censorship-industrial complex.” What she detailed suggested that the Trump administration plans to argue that NGOs like CCDH support strict tech laws, then conduct research bent on using said laws to censor platforms. That logic seems to ignore the reality that NGOs cannot control what laws get passed or enforced, Breton suggested in his first TV interview after his visa ban was announced.

Breton, whom Rogers villainized as the “mastermind” behind the DSA, urged EU officials to do more now defend their tough tech regulations—which Le Monde noted passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and very little far-right resistance—and fight the visa bans, Bloomberg reported.

“They cannot force us to change laws that we voted for democratically just to please [US tech companies],” Breton said. “No, we must stand up.”

While EU officials seemingly drag their feet, Ahmed is hoping that a judge will declare that all the visa bans that Rubio announced are unconstitutional. The temporary restraining order indicates there will be a court hearing Monday at which Ahmed will learn precisely “what steps Defendants have taken to impose visa restrictions and initiate removal proceedings against” him and any others. Until then, Ahmed remains in the dark on why Rubio deemed him as having “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences” if he stayed in the US.

Ahmed, who argued that X’s lawsuit sought to chill CCDH’s research and alleged that the US attack seeks to do the same, seems confident that he can beat the visa bans.

“America is a great nation built on laws, with checks and balances to ensure power can never attain the unfettered primacy that leads to tyranny,” Ahmed said. “The law, clear-eyed in understanding right and wrong, will stand in the way of those who seek to silence the truth and empower the bold who stand up to power. I believe in this system, and I am proud to call this country my home. I will not be bullied away from my life’s work of fighting to keep children safe from social media’s harm and stopping antisemitism online. Onward.”

Photo of Ashley Belanger

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

US can’t deport hate speech researcher for protected speech, lawsuit says Read More »

i-switched-to-esim-in-2025,-and-i-am-full-of-regret

I switched to eSIM in 2025, and I am full of regret

eSIM, Google, pixel 10, smartphones, Tech / /

Maybe this isn’t a good idea

Many people have had the same phone number for years—even decades at this point. These numbers aren’t just a way for people to get in touch because, stupidly, we have also settled on phone numbers as a means of authentication. Banks, messaging apps, crypto exchanges, this very website’s publishing platform, and even the carriers managing your number rely on SMS multifactor codes. And those codes aren’t even very secure.

So losing access to your phone number doesn’t just lock you out of your phone. Key parts of your digital life can also become inaccessible, and that could happen more often now due to the fungible nature of eSIMs.

Most people won’t need to move their phone number very often, but the risk that your eSIM goes up in smoke when you do is very real. Compare that to a physical SIM card, which will virtually never fail unless you damage the card. Swapping that tiny bit of plastic takes a few seconds, and it never requires you to sit on hold with your carrier’s support agents or drive to a store. In short, a physical SIM is essentially foolproof, and eSIM is not.

Obviously, the solution is not to remove multifactor authentication—your phone number is, unfortunately, too important to be unguarded. However, carriers’ use of SMS to control account access is self-defeating and virtually guarantees people are going to have bad experiences in the era of eSIM. Enshittification has truly come for SIM cards.

If this future is inevitable, there ought to be a better way to confirm account ownership when your eSIM glitches. It doesn’t matter what that is as long as SMS isn’t the default. Google actually gets this right with Fi. You can download an eSIM at any time via the Fi app, and it’s secured with the same settings as your Google account. That’s really as good as it gets for consumer security. Between Google Authenticator, passkeys, and push notifications, it’s pretty hard to get locked out of Google, even if you take advantage of advanced security features.

We gave up the headphone jack. We gave up the microSD card. Is all this worthwhile to boost battery capacity by 8 percent? That’s a tough sell.

I switched to eSIM in 2025, and I am full of regret Read More »

dating-roundup-#8:-tactics

Dating Roundup #8: Tactics

Dating / /

Here’s to everyone having a great 2026 in all ways, so I figured what better way to end the year than with a little practical advice. Like everything else, dating is a skill. Practice makes perfect. It helps to combine it with outside analysis, to help you on your quest to Just Do Things.

A common theme in these roundups is that the best thing you can do as a young man, to get better at dating and set yourself up for success, is to get out there and engage in deliberate practice.

Cartoons Hate Her: Today I wrote about some of the worst dating advice that young men get. Namely, the advice to delay dating or relationships until they’ve “built themselves,” usually into their 30s.

Getting dating experience- even when it clearly doesn’t matter- builds social skills and confidence. It’s not something you want to deliberately defer. Dating *isworking on yourself.

Zac Hill: Hard true and also generally applicable. Niko Canner told me a variant of this when I was about to work at Bridgewater to ‘acquire skills’:

“what job are you acquiring skills for?”

“basically my current job”

“we’ll just keep doing that job, and you’ll acquire those skills!”

I didn’t date at all until well into my 20s because of reasons, so I have some experience with this, and it is absolutely was the opposite of correct ‘building myself’ strategy. Totally counterproductive. Even in terms of otherwise building yourself, the skills you get dating will help you elsewhere, and also motivate you and direct you. There are of course temporary exceptions if you go deep into a startup or something, but yeah, absolutely get out there.

As a woman, you typically (by all reports) have no trouble getting reps as such, but there is still the danger that you waste those reps if you keep repeating the same procedures without learning how to improve, which could be in any number of ways including selection.

Note that reps applies the whole way through, and don’t forget to postmortem.

Eliezer Yudkowsky: The way to get good at sex is the same as the way to get good at any other process: Once you’re done, roll out the whiteboard and together do a no-fault analysis of what went wrong, what went right, and what could’ve been done differently.

Reactions divided into “lol u autists” and “well yes that is how it works” and my friends it is the second class that has acquired dangerously high sexual capabilities

le petit postmortem

Sofia: Both reactions are correct

Aella: this is unironically the method behind the best sex of my life.

Brooke Bowman: in a romantic context, what does it mean to ‘shoot your shot’? i’m curious what the range of actions the phrase implies is

is it like confessing your feelings/asking on a date or do you also think dropping your handkerchief counts.

I believe it means, both in romantic and non-romantic contexts: Create common knowledge that you are shooting your shot, that you are interested, and that failing to respond positively is a rejection, such that you cannot easily ‘shoot your shot’ again.

Thus, anything can count, including dropping a handkerchief, if both parties know the other is sufficiently advanced.

However, many people especially guys are highly clueless or ambiguously might be clueless, leading to a lot of thinking you shot your shot when you definitely haven’t shot your shot. The threshold is common knowledge, not merely that they pick up on you giving them an opening. That doesn’t count and does not close the book, you have only shot your shot when they know that you know that they know, and so on.

If you are going to keep interacting in the future, beware ‘wasting your shot’ where you create common knowledge without giving yourself much chance to succeed. By definition you only get one shot (or at least, subsequent shots by default will at least be harder). However, that too can have advantages, as now you can move on having shot your shot, and you do create some amount of positive selection, and the act of creating common knowledge means they could reopen things in the future.

Any time someone says ‘I don’t see how this can backfire’ you definitely shouldn’t take their advice until you’ve figured out how it can backfire.

Liron Shapira: As a nerdy dating expert, I consider

Bryan Caplan

‘s handholding tactic to be the best practice for shy men looking to get into a romantic relationship (and not be stuck in the friend zone).

Could this somehow backfire? I claim it can’t. Let’s game it out.

The suggestion isn’t that you do more requested hand holding while dating, it is to use this request as an escalation move out of a potential friend zone.

The theory is that your romantic intent here is obvious, expressed in a non-creepy way, thus creating common knowledge, but it is not explicit so it is deniable common knowledge so you can still retreat to a friendship on a fail, she’ll at least be impressed you tried and maybe she eventually decides to return interest even if she doesn’t now, and probably she actually says yes and you can keep building from there.

This is in contrast to Bryan’s advice to do this on all first dates, or at least to establish you are indeed on one, and as a way of establishing common knowledge of the situation and failing fast.

The part I 100% agree with is, provided you are interested, you are better off doing something rather than doing nothing, whether on an existing date or not. Shoot your shot, whatever your shot may be. And yes, if you’re too shy or unskilled to take a better or more subtle shot, then this is a shot one can take take.

That doesn’t mean it should be this shot. So, let us count the ways this can backfire.

  1. She says no, where on a better executed move she would have said yes. Then it is much harder for you to try again, indeed the whole point here is that you wouldn’t try again. Skill absolutely matters, and this by design is a case of you only get one shot. Contra Liron, no, you’re not going to get a yes a majority of the time.

    1. In addition to it coming off weird or as representing a lack of skill or awareness, this can be seen as insufficiently ambiguous or too far up the escalation ladder if you go too early.

    2. One thing is if she’s looking for a more casual vibe, going for ‘romantic coded’ actions like holding hands too early can give the ick when you were live. There’s a Sex and the City where exactly this ask is an instant dealbreaker, even after they’ve slept together, because it was a failure to read the room.

  2. She says no, where on a better executed move that did not force clarity you would have gotten a maybe or a soft no that lets you stay in the game. Forcing clarity can work against you. This is fine if you’re shooting a bunch of shots, but not if this is an especially valuable shot to shoot.

  3. She says no, and rather than being impressed she is not impressed or weirded out, thus leaving the friendship in a worse position. Cost of shooting shots, but that’s one way in which it is not riskless, and the less ambiguous and more awkward the shot the greater the risk of this.

  4. She says yes, but it’s awkward in context, and so on.

Again, I don’t want to discourage anyone too much here. It is far from the worst move, and again something beats nothing. But we don’t believe in misleading anyone.

Bumbadum (2.1m views): This type of behavior killed romance and I hate you people for it.

I hate the knowledge that millions of young men cannot hope to ever express love in the purest most beautiful way because you disgusting whores will post it on social media and mock in private.

Young men lost the ability to express those feelings. To write, to feel, to be comfortable. They have to bury deep down and hide it from the world less they be cruelly mocked.

You disgusting hags lost the ability to ever see it. You disgusting cretins all wish to have a Notebook love story meanwhile any feeling of that unconditional love is met with mockery.

I hate you all.

I am getting DM’s that essentially describe romance movie plotlines that end with “but she hated romance”

Unfortunately Rona Wang (understandably) took her Twitter private by the time I got to this, so I couldn’t gather more context there, but there are some obvious notes here.

  1. The context is that she was the only girl at the hackathon. That’s a context where you don’t open at all, in any form, without strong indications of interest. If this was done in an ordinary mixed context, presumably that would be different.

  2. This is a clear NRN (no reply necessary) opening, which makes it less of a problem than opening moves that require a response, but even outside of the gender imbalance context I wouldn’t call it ‘romance.’

  3. You think this thread is bad for the guy who passed her the note?

As in, no one knows who passed this note. He’s fine. And indeed, you have a play available, which is to reply with some version of ‘I am the guy who sent the note, she didn’t reply so I’m still single, I live in city and my DMs are open.’ Yes, many of the DMs won’t be kind, but if you’re okay with that, 61 million views on OP and it only takes one hit. If the context was different such that you looked better, you’re all set.

Then on Nicole’s post (original had 5m views):

  1. Pretty sure it worked.

  2. Many of the comments assume that it didn’t and it was awful, but that it is odd given that the document says that it worked.

  3. This is indeed a high risk, high reward play, because you are putting her on the spot and if the answer isn’t an enthusiastic yes then oh boy is it no, you haven’t given her an out, the same way you really, really don’t want to propose and get anything but a yes.

  4. Third date is almost always going to be too early to do this, and also as executed it risks coming off as rather creepy and weird, even if you did read the room right.

  5. So it’s almost always a bad play as executed.

Allyson Taft’s screenshotted post: A guy did this to my best friend on a 3rd date, and we started calling him “Mr. Check Yes or No” in the group chat, and she never saw him again.

Pat Stedman: Only works if she is already eager to be your girlfriend. NEVER do this stuff if there is any uncertainty, it will work against you.

Brandon Burr: Stories like this are why a lot of guys in the dating world stopped trying to be romantic. It’s punished severely by a lot of women, unfortunately.

Allyson Taft: I believe it. I think being able to read the room is an important skill for everyone, always, but especially in dating.

Mimetic Value: You’re overanalyzing it and took it too seriously. This is exactly what I’d do if the date is NOT going well. It’s for giving her a final chance to confirm that he didn’t accidentally write her off too soon. He was already mentally checked out.

Allyson Taft: He sure called her a lot afterwards for being checked out lmao.

Also known as, it’s good to be romantic, but you have to do a decent job of it. And you don’t want to put them to a decision like this unless you’re fine with being dumped if the answer isn’t an enthusiastic yes. The rest of the dinner was presumably also romantic, and was presumably a good idea if it had ended without this.

I’m not pretending I am the best at being romantic, but don’t give up on the idea.

What are or should be the rules around confirming a date?

A better question is, how should you navigate such situations yourself?

Because rules, shumules. Play to win.

So first off, the background and various reactions.

Brooke Lin (19m views): From a friend and for context the previous convo was sunday night but who is in the wrong here?

We got an update folks.

Liron Shapira: Lol I used to give male dating advice, and one of the major focus areas was “flake defense”.

(Flake defense turned out critical for meeting my wife.)

The purple person here, who took the lead on the invite, should’ve demonstrated their attractive flake-defense skill afterwards.

Cate Hall: People have this all wrong. We should be encouraging this kind of behavior. Just think how much time this guy saved.

Allie: Ladies: if you say yes to a date, you’ve agreed to go on the date

Playing games like “he needs to confirm or it doesn’t count!!!” because TikTok told you to is a really dumb way to waste your time

Be picky about things that matter, but quit making up rules to be upset about.

Autistotle: “Making up rules to be upset about” is at least half of all dating discourse.

Lovable rogue: honestly as a guy who confirms *everytime, women still flake ~10-15% of the time. we should be trying to make the date happen not shit test each other!

Shailesh: I always confirmed the previous evening. Yoo many times when they cancelled when I checked up 1 hr-30 min before.

Mason: Maybe the real problem with the apps is that nobody is actually very excited about the person they’re about to go on a date with at all. You are supposed to be looking forward to the date more than, like, a dentist appointment.

Jordan Braunstein: I think everyone is underestimating the absolute scourge of flakiness among both young men and women. There’s no real social penalty for it anymore.

If there’s a good chance the other person will flake, it becomes game theoretically rational to mitigate that risk by having extra confirmations or readily available backup plans.

Gingercap: I kind of got the impression that being too excited about a date is kind of cringe and comes off as desperate.

Noodle: Ehh when I was dating I made the mistake to get ready for the date only to be stood up or ghosted. Nothing wrong with confirming a date because its embarrassing to be waiting around forever for no reason.

Tetraspace: If you’re going “yay I don’t have to go to the date :)” instead of “oh man I wanted to go to the date :(” something has went wrong earlier than the morning of the date

There are remarkably deep strategic and mechanism design considerations here. What the rules ‘should’ be is again not so relevant, nor is ‘who is at fault’ per se.

So here are some various thoughts.

  1. If you are happy or righteous or similar about being able to cancel the date when they don’t confirm, you shouldn’t have said yes in the first place.

  2. The flake rate, on all sides, is sufficiently high that the default should now be to confirm on the day of the date. The cost of confirmation is low. In general as the asker it is your job to ensure the date actually happens.

  3. I can believe that we have reached the point where the flake rate when not getting confirmation is high enough that it is reasonable for the person asked to require confirmation and to treat this as a default dynamic.

  4. If you require confirmation, ideally you should note that you require confirmation, or better yet proactively ask for it if you don’t get it. But there are selection effect and signaling reasons to not do this. Either way, once you know you’re not going to show, you should explicitly cancel, not silently flake.

  5. If you don’t say you require confirmation, and don’t show without it, you flaked.

  6. Flaking is in general extremely poor form and should be treated as a very expensive action in all contexts, romantic or otherwise, especially without notice and especially without apologies.

  7. If your lack of confirmation causes flaking, that is often favorable selection. If their lack of confirmation causes you to flake, that is also favorable selection.

  8. If lack of same day confirmation causes flaking on a first date, that is still an unforced error by all involved. In other circumstances, either subsequent dates or non-romantic contexts, this is often not true.

  9. Confirmation can give both parties an out, so it serves a useful purpose when someone is getting pressured, but it is bad to give people an easy flake out because people will constantly cancel plans of all kinds when they shouldn’t.

  10. If this is a ‘test of enthusiasm’ or otherwise phrased or presented in ways similar to the OP then I would consider it a red flag.

My revealed preference at the time was not to go at all, have no real options for going and make no effort to go. Neither of these options was remotely on the table, although I would like to think I would have happily accepted either of them.

So I’m not sure I’m the best person to judge the options?

Romy: imagine you’re a high school senior and it’s prom season. would you rather go with a 10 who will definitely not have sex with you, or a 7 who definitely will?

Kip: I chose the no sex option because I didn’t want to have sex yet in high school

Ronny: lol a 7 who will *definitelyhave sex with you is a disturbing option in that case.

I was thinking in terms of ‘you have no future with either of them, everyone is going to say goodbye and head off to college.’ If there is a real future involved then that should presumably dominate the question either way. As does the question of whether anyone believes in the pairing, including especially the two of you.

What does one make of what was intended to be a singles event in which the men ended up playing board games and getting to know each other, while the women talked and got to know each other?

Tracing Woodgrains: dudes rock

there’s actually a lot to be said about the framing of the paragraph — the women preferred to talk, the men preferred board games, the women lamented that the men didn’t talk with them bc they didn’t feel like playing board games with the men

both are good activities!

Ben Hoffman: This feels like a good example of the sort of information I’d have responded wrongly to, before I learned that if a woman keeps complaining about men doing X, that’s most likely an expression of preference for the sorts of men who do X, not an offer to transact with men who don’t.

The article of course framed this as the guys refusing to interact with the women, rather than both sides choosing distinct activities, and also it seeming still great?

It seems like a good use of an evening to play board games where I meet new friends, or I sit around and talk and meet new friends, whether or not I am single. We all need more friends. The woman here says she left with potential new friends too.

It does seem like it should not be a stable equilibrium. Why didn’t any of the women join the board games? Why didn’t any of the men go monopolize all the women? Both seem like highly overdetermined strategies, at least on repeated play, if things aren’t already going great.

Knowing how to dance, especially as a guy, remains a cheat code. It’s not as effective as it used to be because opportunities come up less often, and certainly it’s optional, but it is still very clearly a cheat code.

Cartoons Hate Her asserts it no longer works because if you dance like no one’s watching, your assumptions might be wrong, and then someone might film you and put it on the internet and suddenly everyone’s watching. Why take the risk?

The answer is because that risk is dumb. This is similar to worries about children being kidnapped by strangers. No one is filming you and even if they are no it is not going to go viral, and if it does you will probably be fine or even benefit.

Brittany Hugoboom advises you to approach the truly beautiful women who seem out of your league but aren’t the type that thrive on and seek out attention, because often no one else will shoot their shot and you end up with little competition while everyone else goes for the ‘beautiful mid.’

The comments are full of the usual ‘you don’t get it men are afraid to approach women due to potential retaliation’ but this completely misses the point here, which is that men are (statistically speaking) approaching the wrong women. There’s also a bunch of ‘oh we assume she already has someone or always has options’ whereas the whole point of the post is this often isn’t true, unless she’s willing and able to initiate, at least sufficiently to indicate the coast is clear.

Yes, of course she (and most other women) can get infinite attention on apps, but most strongly prefer to get approached organically if at all possible.

Ask for and set up what you want and you’re more likely to get it.

Salia: Pandemic of underfucked women.

Eoin Walsh: The Men are not in vegan restaurants in downtown Manhattan.

Sasha Chapin: So I have no desire to comment on the culture war issues at play. I will note that I have had the following conversation with a number of women asking for advice, like, a half dozen

Them: “I want men to take charge and act like men”

Me: “Do you prompt that with receptive energy?”

Them: “…what?”

Meanwhile, women I know who understand how to do this have zero trouble! Seduction is a two-way game. A couple of women have taken my advice on this and found it life-altering.

In general, you will have a much better time in life if you assume that it is your responsibility to prompt the interactions you would like to have.

Annals of people taking this advice seriously:

This person just gave me permission to mention that she’s been in a relationship for a month and it appears to be going well so far.

The higher the stakes the better the first date idea, so sure, go for it. Waiting in line for a while also gives you a forced time excuse to talk.

Signull: If you want an elite-tier first date idea, here’s the cheat code: Buy tickets to a comedy show in NYC and deliberately show up disgustingly early so you get planted in the front row like sacrificial offerings.

If the two of you can survive 90 minutes of being roasted by several lonely, depressed comics in graphic tees who pretty much look homeless, congrats, that’s basically a huge relationship stress test.

Whatever comes after (assuming you didn’t get a reality check) will feel like easy mode.

I was the depressed comic.

Grace Jarvis: if a woman tells you you have “nice hands” she is doing everything in her power not to fuck you senseless please release her from her torment her friends are receiving the kinds of messages someone in prison would send

Grave Jarvis (14 months later): the person who kinda inspired this tweet and I have been together for over a year now

by “kinda inspired” I mean, I thought “oh he has nice hands” and then I didn’t say anything because of the implication and wrote down the funniest hyperbolic version

Ted Knutson: Can confirm with large sample size that this is true.

A very wise rule. If you don’t want to get feedback from someone, don’t date them, definitely don’t marry them, and probably don’t be friends with or work with them.

Chris Lakin: The reason that RLHF doesn’t work for your personality is there are very few people you want feedback from

Jakeup: only marry someone whose feedback you want as your reward function.

Chris Lakin: only date people whose feedback you want as your reward function.

Now imagine being an LLM and having to get feedback from *shuddereveryone.

Brittany Hugoboom says focus on the basics that matter. You need shared values and a baseline level of physical attraction, and a few key traits, the rest is more of a bonus. Sorting for other things, as dating apps lead you towards, is in her model largely a trap.

Brittany Hugoboom:

• Men, look for courage, justice, ambition, and discipline.

• Women, look for benevolence, loyalty, and a kind heart.

I always say: the best case scenario is finding love young. Not because it’s the only way. But because when you’re young, you’re more adaptable.

If you both come from good families, they’ll cheer you on.

You can build something from the ground up, together.

Love after 30? Absolutely possible.

But if you’re young and thinking about love, don’t let the world scare you out of it. We’re often told to wait forever and then older generations wonder why the young is no longer finding love.

When you’re young, school is a great place to meet someone.

So is church. A party. An event. Through mutual friends. I’d argue even Twitter or Substack would be a better way to find someone than a dating app.

If you like someone’s mind and values, and also happen to like their photo, it’s perfect.

Her blog seems full of other similarly basic pieces of largely good advice.

Kira: LMFAOOOO

Mason: Honestly, “girl who gets bull-headed and wears cargo pants when he tells her to wear the dress” and “guy who told her to wear the dress but is amused by the cargo pants” are both lovable types

Mazel tov, be married 50 years and bicker about the throw pillows on your deathbed

She’s a terrible match for someone who takes this kind of thing personally, but it doesn’t look like she’s marrying that kind of guy

He looks absolutely thrilled

Marilyn Maupin: I got yelled at by so many people for saying they’ll be fine since she clearly understands what she did to herself

Mason: Seriously, as long as she’s laughing at herself instead of doubling down and insisting he’s the jerk for proposing to her in the cargo pants they’re fine. Twitter consists of the most disagreeable people in the world insisting that everyone shy of perfect agreeableness is ngmi

I’d be thrilled too. You have a much better story this way, and it probably went fine given she posted it like this. If she’s actually mad about it, then yeah, red flag, but at the best possible time.

Alberto De Lucca: My wife and I spoke many times about marrying. During one of these convos, I plain asked her: “do you want to marry me?” She said yes. I said, “ok, let’s do this.” We went out the next day and bought our rings (plus her engagement ring). We then planned to marry on her birthday party (a couple weeks in) but told no one. In fact, they thought I was going to propose to her.

Anyway. Party starts. She gets on a mic. “Thank you for coming to my birthday everyone.” I get on my knees behind her. Everyone starts doing the awws and whatnot. I do the deed. She says yes. Everyone’s happy. On cue, my mother asks: “so when’s the wedding?” We look at each other: “how about today? Is there anyone who can officiate this marriage?”

In walks the registrar with the papers. “I can, sure.” Waiters and personnel change the decor from a birthday party to a wedding party. We got married minutes later.

The look on the faces of our families is something I’ll never forget.

You can just do things.

Discussion about this post

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In the ’90s, Wing Commander: Privateer made me realize what kind of games I love

C:ArsGames, Chris Roberts, gaming, gog, MS-DOS, shopping, star citizen, Wing Commander, Wing Commander Privateer / /

Ever since 1993, I think I’ve unconsciously judged almost every game by how well it can capture how Wing Commander: Privateer made me feel.

Steam and PlayStation (the two platforms I use the most) have been doing a year-in-review summary akin to the wildly popular Spotify Wrapped for the past few years. Based on these, I can report that my most-played games in 2025 were, from most hours down:

  1. No Man’s Sky
  2. Civilization VII
  3. Assassin’s Creed Shadows
  4. The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion Remastered
  5. The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria
  6. The Elder Scrolls III Morrowind
  7. World of Warcraft
  8. Meridian 59
  9. Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon
  10. Unreal Tournament

With the exceptions of Civilization VII and Unreal Tournament, every one of those games is some kind of open-world experience that’s all about immersing you in a far-flung land (or galaxy).

I like what I like, and my knowing that’s what I like began in the early 1990s with Wing Commander: Privateer.

Privateer taught me that I love games that are spaces for living out whatever fictional life I create for myself much more than I love games that are guiding me through an authored story and a series of carefully designed challenges.

Yes, it has a story and story missions, but they’re hardly the point, partly because they’re not really that good. What’s exciting about this game is exploring new systems, seeing the beautiful CG artwork for their settlements, learning about your ships’ capabilities and upgrading them slowly over time, and attaining mastery of the pseudo-simulated economy.

A ship landed in a spaceport

These CG-rendered planet backgrounds captured my imagination in the 1990s, and they still do, though nostalgia probably plays a part. Credit: GOG

The story that matters in Privateer is the story I am telling myself in my head. To this day, the games I most love offer at least a taste of that experience.

Privateer‘s far-reaching (and drama-laden) legacy

To say this game was influential on later titles would be an understatement, but we, of course, have to acknowledge that this formula was originally popularized by 1984’s Elite. Privateer just married that formula with Wing Commander‘s universe and flight mechanics, with a far more hand-crafted setting. That setting is key, though. I like the original Elite, and this certainly wasn’t the case back in the mid-’80s, but today, it plays like a tech demo for what’s to come.

In the ’90s, Wing Commander: Privateer made me realize what kind of games I love Read More »

zvi’s-2025-in-movies

Zvi’s 2025 In Movies

Zvi's / /

Now that I am tracking all the movies I watch via Letterboxd, it seems worthwhile to go over the results at the end of the year, and look for lessons, patterns and highlights.

Last year: Zvi’s 2024 In Movies.

You can find all my ratings and reviews on Letterboxd. I do revise from time to time, either on rewatch or changing my mind. I encourage you to follow me there.

Letterboxd ratings go from 0.5-5. The scale is trying to measure several things at once.

5: Masterpiece. All-time great film. Will rewatch multiple times. See this film.

4.5: Excellent. Life is meaningfully enriched. Want to rewatch. Probably see this film.

4: Great. Cut above. Very happy I saw. Happy to rewatch. If interested, see this film.

3.5: Very Good. Actively happy I saw. Added value to my life. A worthwhile time.

3: Good. Happy that I saw it, but wouldn’t be a serious mistake to miss it.

2.5: Okay. Watching this was a small mistake.

2: Bad. I immediately regret this decision. Kind of a waste.

1.5: Very bad. If you caused this to exist, you should feel bad. But something’s here.

1: Atrocious. Total failure. Morbid curiosity is the only reason to finish this.

0.5: Crime Against Cinema. Have you left no sense of decency, sir, at long last?

The ratings are intended as a bell curve. It’s close, but not quite there due to selection of rewatches and attempting to not see the films that are bad:

Trying to boil ratings down to one number destroys a lot of information.

Given how much my ratings this year conflict with critics opinions, I asked why this was, and I think I mostly have an explanation now.

There are several related but largely distinct components. I think the basic five are:

  1. Quality with a capital Q and whether the movie has ambition and originality.

  2. Whether the overall pacing, arc and plot of the movie holds your interest.

  3. What message the movie sends and whether its arc comes together satisfyingly.

  4. What does the movie make you feel? All the feels? None? Some of them?

  5. Whether the movie is a good fit for you personally.

Traditional critic movie ratings tend, from my perspective, to overweight #1, exhibit predictable strong biases in #3 and #5, and not care enough about #2. They also seem to cut older movies, especially those pre-1980 or so, quite a lot of unearned slack.

Scott Sumner picks films with excellent Quality, but cares little for so many other things that once he picks a movie to watch our ratings don’t even seem to correlate. We have remarkably opposite tastes. Him giving a 3.7 to The Phoenician Scheme is the perfect example of this. Do I see why he might do that? Yes. But a scale that does that doesn’t tell me much I can use.

Order within a ranking is meaningful.

Any reasonable algorithm is going to be very good at differentially finding the best movies to see, both for you and in general. As you see more movies, you deplete the pool of both existing and new movies. That’s in addition to issues of duplication.

In 2024, I watched 36 new movies. In 2025, I watched 51 new movies. That’s enough of an expansion that you’d expect substantially decreasing returns. If anything, things held up rather well. My average rating only declined from 3.1 to 3.01 (if you exclude one kids movie I was ‘forced’ to watch) despite my disliking many of the year’s most loved films.

My guess is I could have gotten up to at least 75 before I ran out of reasonable options.

See The Naked Gun unless you hate fun. If you hated the original Naked Gun, or Airplane, that counts as hating fun. But otherwise, yes, I understand that this is not the highest Quality movie of the year, but this is worthy, see it.

You should almost certainly see Bogunia and Companion.

See Thunderboltsunless you are automatically out on all Marvel movies ever.

See A Big, Bold Beautiful Journey unless you hate whimsical romantic comedies or are a stickler for traditional movie reviews.

See Sorry, Baby and Hamnet, and then Sentimental Value, if you are willing to spend that time being sad.

See Novocaine and then maybe The Running Man if you want to spend that time watching action, having fun and being happy instead.

See Relay if you want a quiet thriller.

See Oh, Hi!, Splitsville and Materialists if you want to look into some modern dating dynamics in various ways, in that order or priority.

See Wick is Pain if and only if you loved the John Wick movies.

The world would be better if everyone saw A House of Dynamite.

I anticipate that Marty Supreme belongs on this list, it counts as ‘I’m in,’ but due to holidays and the flu I haven’t been able to go out and see it yet. The over/under is at Challengers.

This helps you understand my biases, and helps me remember them as well.

  1. If the movie stinks, just don’t go. You know if the movie stinks.

  2. Trust your instincts and your gut feelings more than you think you should.

  3. Maybe gut feelings are self-fulfilling prophecies? Doesn’t matter. They still count.

  4. You love fun, meta, self-aware movies of all kinds. Trust this instinct.

  5. You do not actually like action movies that play it straight. Stop watching them. However, action movies that do something cool or unique can be very cool.

  6. If the movie sounds like work or pain, it probably is, act accordingly.

  7. If the movie sounds very indy or liberal, the critics will overrate it.

  8. A movie being considered for awards is not a positive signal once you control for the Metacritic and Letterboxd ratings. If anything it is a negative.

  9. Letterboxd ratings adjusted for context beat Metacritic. Rotten Tomatoes is the best test for ‘will the movie stink’. No review source has much predictive value beyond knowing if the movie stinks, if you fail to control for context.

  10. Opinions of individuals very much have Alpha if you have enough context.

That leaves six remarkably well reviewed movies, all of which are indeed very high on Quality, where I disagreed with the consensus, and had my rating at 3 or less. In order of Quality as I would rank them, they are: One Battle After Another, Sinners, Black Bag, Train Dreams, Weapons and Frankenstein.

A strategy I think would work well for all six of those, at the risk of some spoilage, is to watch the trailer. If you respond to that trailer with ‘I’m in’ then be in. If not, not.

The predictive power of critical reviews, at least for me, took a nosedive in 2025. One reason is that the ratings clearly got more generous in general. Average Metacritic, despite my watching more movies, went from 61 → 66, Letterboxd went 3.04 → 3.33. Those are huge jumps given the scales.

In 2024, Letterboxd or Metacritic ratings were 48% and 46% correlated with my final ratings, respectively. This year that declined to 33% and 38%, and I discovered the best was actually Rotten Tomatoes at 44%, with IMDB at 42%.

If you consider only movies where I gave a rating of 2.5 or more, filtering out what I felt were actively bad movies, the correlation dropped to 1% and 6%, or 3% for IMDB, or -4% (!) for Rotten Tomatoes. Essentially all of the value of critics was in identifying which things sucked, and from my perspective the rest was noise.

Rotten Tomatoes is a one trick pony. It warns you about things that might suck.

Even more than before, you have to adjust critic ratings for whether critics will overrate or underrate a movie of this type and with this subject matter. You can often have a strong sense of why the critics would put up a given number, without having to read reviews and thus risk spoilers.

Using multiple sources, and looking at their relative scores, helps with this as well. A relatively high IMDB score, even more than Letterboxd, tells you that the audience and the movie are well-matched. That can be good news, or that can be bad news.

Last year there were movies where I disagreed with the review consensus, but I always understood why in both directions. I might think Megalopolis is Coppola’s masterpiece despite its problems, but don’t get me wrong, I see the problems.

This year I mostly get why they liked the ‘overrated six’ above, but there are several cases where I do not know what they were thinking, and I think the critical consensus is objectively wrong even by its own standards.

I haven’t found a solution to the problem of ‘how do you check reviews without spoiling the movie?’ given that the average score itself can be a spoiler, but also I notice I haven’t tried that hard. With advances in LLMs and also vibe coding, I clearly should try again.

The power of ‘I’m in’ peaked in 2024.

The rule for ‘I’m in’ is:

  1. You must be excited and think to yourself, ‘You son of a bitch, I’m in.’

  2. Sources of this can include trailers, posters, talent and other info.

  3. However this cannot be on the basis of reviews.

That year, there were 6 movies where in advance I said ‘I’m in,’ and they were 6 of my top 9 movies for the year.

This year the power of ‘I’m in’ was still strong, but less reliable. I’d count 10 such movies this year, including 4 of my ultimate top 5, but the other 6 did not break into the 4+ range, and there was a 3 and a 2.5. That’s still a great deal, especially given how many movies where it seemed like one ‘should’ be excited, I noticed I wasn’t, and that proved correct, including One Battle After Another, Black Bag, Weapons and Sinners.

I wonder: How much of the power of ‘I’m in’ is the attitude and thus is causal, versus it being a prediction? I have low confidence in this.

I control for this effect when giving ratings, but the experience is much better in a theater, maybe good for an experiential boost of ~0.3 points on the 0.5-5 point scale. That’s big. I have to consciously correct for it when rating movies I watch at home.

I highly recommend getting a membership that makes marginal cost $0, such as the AMC A-List or the similar deal at Regal Cinemas. This helps you enjoy the movie and decide to see them more.

Unlike last year, there were remarkably many movies that are in green on Metacritic, but that I rated 2.5 or lower, and also a few of the 3s require explanation as per above.

I don’t know how this happened, but an active majority of the movies I rated below 3 had a Metacritic score above 60. That’s bizarre.

Minor spoilers throughout, I do my best to limit it to minor ones, I’ll do the 3s sorted by Metacritic, then the others sorted by Metacritic.

  1. One Battle After Another (Metacritic: 95, Zvi: 3) is probably going to win Best Picture. It’s not hard to see why. This was the highest Quality movie I’ve seen this year, and yet I did not enjoy watching it. The jokes mostly fell flat and aside from the daughter and the Dojo sensei I couldn’t emphasize with or root for the characters. Why? Fundamentally, because the movie depends on the idea that Bob is a Good Dude, and that the revolutionaries are sympathetic. Sorry, no dice, and no amount of stacking the deck with other awfulness is going to change that. There’s also a superposition between ‘this deck is stacked and the world presented is very different from ours’ and ‘actually this is our world and this is a call to action and that is what life is about, do you know what time it is?’ I grudgingly have to give this 3 stars anyway, because Quality is so high.

  2. Train Dreams (Metacritic 88, Zvi: 3): This is the easiest one to explain. It’s an arthouse movie where very little happens, that thinks it is being profound, and it really is not being profound.

  3. Black Bag (Metacritic 85, Zvi: 3): Here I’m actually confused where the 85 is coming from as opposed to a 65-75. I mean yes this is well done all around but there’s a reason it isn’t in the Oscar race, none of it is new or special and I didn’t feel it said anything, and it mostly left me cold.

  4. Sinners (Metacritic: 84, Zvi: 3): This oozes cool and I want to love it, I get why so many others love it, but for me the vampires simply don’t work. I know what it’s trying to do there, but it’s hitting us over the head with it and everything involving the vampires felt like it was going through the motions and it would have been so much better, as Matthew Yglesias suggests, to do this as about racism straight up without also using the metaphor.

Now the ones I actively disliked:

  1. Weapons (Metacritic: 81, Zvi: 2.5): The first half of this would be great if you had stuck the landing, Amy Madigan is terrific, but it didn’t come together in the end, the plot holes are absurd and the central conceit feels unjustified in light of that. I felt like I had whiplash going from a well-observed, highly detailed and realistic meditation on grief and confusion and blame and how we deal with that, into something else entirely. I could be more forgiving, but it turns out I am not.

  2. Frankenstein (Metacritic: 78, Zvi: 2.5). I hated the message this version is trying to send, this is techno pessimistic and against knowledge and striving on a deep level, and frankly it was overly long and boring. Less about AI than you think.

  3. Jane Austen Wrecked My Life (Metacritic: 73, Zvi: 2.5). The critics are wrong. This is just bad. I went in expecting lousy, I was mildly disappointed by the level of lousy, and then I saw 73 and was confused. You Had One Job. You were supposed to Do The Thing. Then you didn’t do the thing, either in terms of justifying the romantic connection or actually engaging properly with Jane Austen. ‘Cmon now.

  4. Superman (Metacritic: 68, Zvi: 2.5): I had a lot of thoughts on this one. I found it both full of plot holes, and I hated that they back away from asking any of the movie’s potentially interesting questions. But I can see finding this cool if you care about very different things than this, and the new DC universe could ultimately be a huge upgrade.

  5. F1 (Metacritic: 68, Zvi: 2): I’d say the critics are wrong but the people had a good time. Then again, the people don’t know racing. I used to be an actual F1 fan, so let me say both that this is not how any of this works, this has nothing to do with Formula 1, and otherwise this was completely paint by numbers.

  6. Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning (Metacritic: 67, Zvi: 2.5): This was my biggest disappointment of the year. I was in! Dead Reckoning was historic due to its influence on Joe Biden and also a rip roaring good time that was remarkably smart about AI. Then this was none of those things. It squandered all the interesting setup, was far dumber about AI to the point of idiot plot and frankly the action scenes were not cool. What a disaster.

  7. Wicked: For Good (Metacritic: 67, Zvi: 1.5): My review was ‘Hard write, harder watch.’ Seriously, everyone involved tried so damn hard, yet there’s so little joy to be found here as they try to dutifully line things up. Everything feels forced. There’s barely any cool dancing and the songs are bad. Okay, yes, fine, the Costume Design is Oscar-level, but that does not a movie make.

  8. The Smashing Machine (Metacritic: 65, Zvi: 2.5): Emily Blunt deserves better, in all senses. Ultimately the movie is boring.

  9. Fantastic Four: First Steps (Metacritic: 65, Zvi: 2): All the fun happens off screen. Michael Flores defended this as a great ‘Fantastic Four movie’ on the theory that it captured their world and the Fantastic Four are boring. Weird flex.

There are four movies requiring explanation on the upside, where they were below 60 on Metacritic yet I actively liked them.

All four seem like clear cases of ‘yes I know that technically this is lacking in some important way but the movie is fun, damn it, how can you not see this?’

  1. A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (Metacritic: 41, Zvi: 4.5): I understand the complaint that the movie has ‘unearned emotion’ and the script doesn’t lay the proper foundations for what it is doing. I don’t care. This otherwise has Quality behind only One Battle After Another and Bogunia. All you have to do is say ‘I’m in!’ and decide not to be the ‘stop having fun guys’ person who points out that technically all this emotion you could be feeling hasn’t been earned. Accept that some of the ‘work’ isn’t being fully done and do it your damn self. Why not do that?

  2. Novocaine (Metacritic: 58, Zvi: 4): A borderline case where again I think people need to remember how to have fun. This was a joy throughout, you can enjoy a good popcorn movie with a great premise and just go with it.

  3. The Running Man (Metacritic: 55, Zvi: 3.5): I thought this actually executed on its premise really well, and did a bunch of smart things both on the surface level and also under the hood. It won’t change your life but it gets it, you know?

  4. Honey, Don’t! (Metacritic: 45, Zvi: 3.5): Yeah, okay, it’s deeply silly and in some important senses there’s nothing there, but it’s sexy and fun, why not live a little.

You can say the same thing about The Naked Gun. It has a 75, perfectly respectable, but its joke hit rate per minute is absurd, it is worth so much more than that.

I once again used consideration for awards as one selection criteria for picking movies. This helped me ‘stay in the conversation’ with others at various points, and understand the state of the game. But once again it doesn’t seem to have provided more value than relying on Metacritic and Letterboxd ratings, especially if you also used IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes.

Last year I was very happy with Anora ending up on top. This year I’m not going to be happy unless something very surprising happens. But I do understand. In my word, given the rules of the game, I’d have Bogunia sweep the major awards.

I’m very happy with this side hobby, and I expect to see over one new movie a week again in 2026. It was a disappointing year in some ways, but looking back I still got a ton of value, and my marginal theater experience was still strongly positive. I think it’s also excellent training data, and a great way to enforce a break from everything.

It would be cool to find more good people to follow on Letterboxd, so if you think we’d mesh there, tag yourself for that in the comments.

Discussion about this post

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Leaked Avengers: Doomsday teaser is now public

Avengers: Doomsday, culture, Entertainment, film trailers, marvel studios, MCU Phase Six, Trailers / /

Downey Jr. might be playing a new role, but Marvel is really getting the band(s) back together on this one. The film takes place 14 months after the events of this year’s Thunderbolts*.  So we’ve got Avengers favorites Thor (Chris Hemsworth), the new Captain America (Anthony Mackie), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), Falcon (Danny Ramirez), and Loki (Tom Hiddleston). Then there’s the Wakandan contingent: Shuri as the new Black Panther (Letitia Wright), M’Baku (Winston Duke), and Namor (Tenoch Huerta Mejia).

Naturally, the Thunderbolts(aka New Avengers) will appear: John Walker/US Agent (Wyatt Russell), Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Bob/Sentry (Lewis Pullman), Red Guardian (David Harbour), and Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen). So will the Fantastic Four: Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), and Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn). But we also have the original X-Men: Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), Beast (Kelsey Grammer), Magneto (Ian McKellen), Mystique (Rebecca Romijn), Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming), and Cyclops (James Marsden).

For good measure, Marvel threw in Gambit (Channing Tatum) and Xu Shang-Chi (Simu Liu). There will also be plenty of cameos, like the Steve Rogers appearance that was recently revealed. We can expect to see  (at least briefly) Peggy Carter, Spider-Man (Tom Holland), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), and Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), among others.

Avengers: Doomsday hits theaters on December 18, 2026. Avengers: Secret Wars is currently slated for release on December 17, 2027, and will mark the conclusion of the MCU’s Phase Six.

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“Yo what?” LimeWire re-emerges in online rush to share pulled “60 Minutes” segment

CBS News, censorship, Donald Trump, government censorship, LimeWire, peer-to-peer networks, Policy, torrents / /

Early 2000s tool LimeWire used to pirate episode

As Americans scrambled to share the “Inside CECOT” story, assuming that CBS would be working in the background to pull down uploads, a once-blacklisted tool from the early 2000s became a reliable way to keep the broadcast online.

On Reddit, users shared links to a LimeWire torrent, prompting chuckles from people surprised to see the peer-to-peer service best known for infecting parents’ computers with viruses in the 2000s suddenly revived in 2025 to skirt feared US government censorship.

“Yo what,” one user joked, highlighting only the word “LimeWire.” Another user, ironically using the LimeWire logo as a profile picture, responded, “man, who knew my nostalgia prof pic would become relevant again, WTF.”

LimeWire was created in 2000 and quickly became one of the Internet’s favorite services for pirating music until record labels won a 2010 injunction that blocked all file-sharing functionality. As the Reddit thread noted, some LimeWire users were personally targeted in lawsuits.

For a while after the injunction, a fraction of users kept the service alive by running older versions of the software that weren’t immediately disabled. New owners took over LimeWire in 2022, officially relaunching the service. The service’s about page currently notes that “millions of individuals and businesses” use the global file-sharing service today, but for some early Internet users, the name remains a blast from the past.

“Bringing back LimeWire to illegally rip copies of reporting suppressed by the government is definitely some cyberpunk shit,” a Bluesky user wrote.

“We need a champion against the darkness,” a Reddit commenter echoed. “I side with LimeWire.”

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discworld,-daleks,-and-deep-13:-a-geeky-holiday-tv-and-movie-watchlist

Discworld, Daleks, and Deep 13: A geeky holiday TV and movie watchlist

babylon 5, Christmas, culture, Daria, discworld, Doctor Who, Features, film, Gremlins, Mystery Science Theater 3000, star wars, terry pratchett, The Chronicles of Narnia, Tokyo Godfathers, TV / /

There’s obviously more to Christmas flicks than Netflix romcoms.

I promise that most of this list is better than the Star Wars Holiday Special. Credit: Disney

‘Tis the season for all kinds of festive titles to start appearing in our to-watch queues. For folks who celebrate Christmas in any form, there are a million different movies and TV specials vying for your attention. There are the beloved favorites that we’ll make the time to revisit year after year, plus the seemingly endless number of new titles arriving on the various streaming services this season.

But in all honesty, most of these movies are made for and by the mainstream. So if you don’t want a broad family slapstick or yet another big city girl going back to her small town to learn the meaning of Christmas, here are a few options to bring some geekiness to your screen. Make the season nerdy and bright!

Let’s get it out of the way immediately: Star Wars Holiday Special

It’s almost too bizarre to be believed, but yes, this was a thing that existed, and it lives on in legend. The cast of Star Wars returned for this TV special, where the gang goes to the Wookie planet Kashyyyk to celebrate Life Day. They’re joined by some surprising guests. Golden Girls icon Bea Arthur is in it alongside The Honeymooners’ Art Carney, acclaimed multi-disciplinary performer Diahann Carroll, and the band Jefferson Starship.

Let’s not mince words. The holiday special is bad. But it’s bad in a strangely riveting way that’s kind of hard not to enjoy. And at least it falls chronologically before The Empire Strikes Back, so you can immediately cleanse your viewing palate with one of the series’ best after one of its lowest moments. And the ice planet of Hoth practically makes Empire a Christmas movie of its own, so commit to the double feature for a full night of sci-fi.

Babylon 5‘s surprising “Fall of Night”

For most TV shows, a holiday episode is an outlier that exists separately from the main story arcs. Not so for Babylon 5. “Fall of Night” closes the show’s second season, and it manages to tie together many of the loose ends in a satisfying conclusion while also blending in many of the themes you’d expect from a Christmas episode.

It’s a bit unusual, but it’s definitely a Christmas episode. Credit: Warner Bros Discovery

There’s angelic intervention and gift-giving between Sheridan and Ivanova alongside the heavier topics of interstellar politics. The references to World War II aren’t terribly subtle, but the desperate yearning for peace in the galaxy also makes this a solid choice for science fiction fans to queue up this season.

Doctor Who, many times over

The Time Lords have gifted viewers with more than a dozen festive episodes over the many iterations of Doctor Who. Fans of the old-school series only have one true Christmas episode from the original 1960s run to check out: “The Feast of Steven.” In the modern era, though, the holidays are often when a Doctor passes the mantle to the next in line, so there are plenty of chances to cap off the starring actor’s work in fine style.

Current viewers may most closely connect the Christmas specials to the David Tennant era thanks to episodes like “The Christmas Invasion,” “The Runaway Bride,” and the epic two-parter “The End of Time.” Matt Smith also takes a turn in several strong holiday outings, particularly “The Time of the Doctor.”

The Doctor walks through a Christmas scene

Just one of several Doctor Who Christmas episodes. Credit: BBC

This is one of the few television series to treat New Year’s Eve as a winter holiday worthy of its own showpieces, particularly in the past few years. Jodie Whittaker got the NYE treatment with a trio of Dalek-centric stories, most notably with the very funny “Eve of the Daleks” episode.

Hogfather, for a Terry Pratchett Christmas

The wildly funny fantasy author Terry Pratchett is beloved by many readers for his sprawling Discworld novels. A few directors have made the leap from page to screen with Pratchett’s stories, and Hogfather is one of the best adaptations. That could be partly because Death and Susan are two of the best characters in the whole Discworld universe, and they figure prominently in this Christmas tale. They’re also perfectly cast: Susan is played by Michelle Dockery before her rise to Downton Abbey fame, and Death is voiced by stage and screen actor Ian Richardson.

Terry Pratchett. That’s all you likely need to know. Credit: Sky One

In this Discworld take on Christmas, a shadowy group called The Auditors orders the kidnapping of the Hogfather (who bears no small resemblance to Santa Claus). To avert a holiday catastrophe, Death himself takes over the role of delivering presents on Hogswatchnight. This two-part TV movie captures all the irreverent humor that has won Pratchett so many fans over the years, and it’s a must-watch for anyone who adores that peculiar world atop the Great A’Tuin and its quartet of elephants.

Gremlins, the dark horse cult classic option

Gremlins is a cult classic for a reason and one of the more enduring movies for those who aren’t looking for everything to be bright, cheery fun during the holidays.

A gremlin with a Christmas hat

Fun fact: This film managed to scandalize so much that it partially led to the creation of the PG-13 rating. Credit: Disney

You can read it as a send-up of Christmas consumerism, a wacky horror-comedy flick, an impressive showcase of movie puppetry, or all three at once. Plus, it’s just so very, very ’80s. I doubt I have to say much more to sell you on it, because I’d guess most Ars readers already watch it on the regular.

Mystery Science Theater 3000, naturally

Whether it’s in the Satellite of Love or the Gizmoplex, the hilarious brains behind Mystery Science Theater 3000 can spoof any and all terrible movies, including the festive ones. I often enjoy some MST3K as a kickoff to the holiday season with the group’s Thanksgiving shows, but there’s also plenty of bad movie fun to be had in December.

There are a few standouts for true Christmas movie episodes. Experiment 321 sees Joel and bots watching Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, a truly terrible flick from the 1960s in which a Martian leader captures old Saint Nick to try and make the children on the red planet happier. For Mike fans, check out experiment 521, where the film is Santa Claus and even the host skits have a festive theme. Finally, from the Netflix era, Jonah and the bots suffer through The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t in experiment 1113. All three are excellent episodes despite the movies being the cinematic equivalent of a lump of coal in your stocking.

Joel and the bots by a Christmas tree

Joel doesn’t exactly exude holiday cheer, but that’s kind of the joke. Credit: Satellite of Love

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Some of the other experiments have movies set at Christmastime or sneak in occasional festive jokes from the cast. And if that’s still not enough to satisfy, there’s also nearly endless fodder you can find digging through the RiffTrax library—they even spoofed the Star Wars Holiday Special.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (with some Turkish delight)

Many directors have created their own spin on this C.S. Lewis story over the decades, and any of them make for a quality addition to your holiday lineup. It works for any attitude toward holiday time. If you prefer to be agnostic about it, just soak up the winter vibes created by the White Witch and maybe treat yourself to some Turkish delight while you watch. If you’re all about the presents, be sure to watch one of the versions that adheres to the books by having Father Christmas make an appearance. And if you want to honor the religious history, then enjoy the lion Aslan as a non-too-subtle analog for Jesus.

A character from Narnia

The classic BBC series probably won’t work for younger audiences today, but you had to be there, and some of us were indeed there. Credit: BBC

I’m partial to the 1988 BBC adaptation because it was the first one I saw, but the 2005 Disney film is pretty decent as well. Or, if you’ve already seen all of the Doctor Who specials enough times to quote them verbatim, make your viewing choice based on the acting crossovers, because something about Aslan seems to draw performers with ties to that show. In the animated 1979 version, Whovian actor Stephen Thorne voiced the lion, while Ronald Pickup played him in the 1988 adaptation and its sequels.

8-Bit Christmas, A Christmas Story for the ’80s

Remaking a classic is a bold endeavor. We’ve seen many an effort fall flat, especially when the source material is a near-perfect comedy like A Christmas Story. But against the odds, 8-Bit Christmas pulls off the high-wire act with charm and warmth. This version reframes the dream of the unattainable Christmas present by leaping forward a few decades. Rather than Ralphie’s quest for the Red Ryder rifle, Jake wants the latest and greatest in gaming: a Nintendo Entertainment System.

Now, if you were a gamer in your youth, there are some scenes here that will speak to your soul. There’s an early moment where Jake and the other kids on his suburban block are hanging out in the basement of one lucky boy who has an NES of his own. They’re gathered shoulder to shoulder around the tube TV, arguing over who should get the controller next. Every detail in this scene, from the sweaters and the set dressing to the look of rapture as the kids experience the power of a new console for the first time is just perfection.

A kid celebrates playing Nintendo

The film is at least a great concept, and it delivers pretty well on it. Credit: HBO Max

There are also other cute ’80s nods; for instance, while Jake is lusting after an NES, his sister wants a Cabbage Patch doll with the same single-minded desire. Those of us who grew up in the ’80s know that feeling well. Heck, those of us who were huddled over our browsers refreshing in a panic hoping to snag the Switch 2 just earlier this year know that feeling. This geeky tale was a pleasant surprise to find among the modern-day Christmas movie productions.

The otaku choice: Tokyo Godfathers

The otaku nerds surely already know this one well, but I would be remiss not to include this anime masterwork. It’s a poignant addition to anyone’s Christmas viewing list, geek or otherwise. The film is by legendary manga artist and anime director Satoshi Kon, and it received a new English dub a few years ago that’s particularly recommended.

The film is dripping with atmosphere and creative ideas. Credit: Sony

As with so many of the best movies, it’s probably best to go in without knowing too much. The first key point is: It’s a story of three people living on the streets of Tokyo on Christmas Eve. And the second is: while the phrase is trite, Tokyo Godfathers genuinely can and will make you laugh and make you cry.

In Daria, “Depth Takes a Holiday”

In the ’90s, Daria Morgendorffer was the queen of the teenage outcasts, even though she would have hated having that title. The irreverent animated series from MTV holds up impressively well under modern scrutiny. (Although yes, in most available ways to rewatch it, the licensed music is gone. Just cue up the most important tracks you remember when you watch.)

For such an offbeat program, it’s surprising that Daria did, in fact, include a festive episode called “Depth Takes a Holiday.” In this break from the show’s usual reality, several holidays in human form appear in the Lawndale suburb, causing chaos and playing some rock music. Daria eventually agrees to help restore the natural order of things and get these holidays back to their home on Holiday Island, which is just as cliquey and pointless as Lawndale High.

Daria meets surreal mythical characters

It’s a controversial episode, but it has its merits. Credit: Paramount

“Depth Takes a Holiday” is pretty dang weird, and it’s a love-it or hate-it point in the third season. But I say it’s all the more reason to spend December revisiting some of my favorite Daria episodes alongside this. For those in the hate-it camp, you’ll enjoy the other episodes even more in contrast. And if you’re in the love-it audience, mark your calendar to also watch it on Guy Fawkes Day.

Honorable mention: A Christmas Carol audiobook

I realize that an audiobook is not viewing, but any Star Trek fan worth their replicator-made salt should have this title in their Christmas rotation. Patrick Stewart did take a turn in a Hollywood production of this classic tale in 1999, and that’s a plenty good adaptation.

But why settle for one of the great thespians and geek icons playing just a single role? Stewart also narrated an audiobook version of A Christmas Carol, and it is simply stellar. He gets to provide incredible voices for each character, plus he gets really into all the eerier parts of Charles Dickens’ holiday ghost story. Queue this up in your headphones on a snowy winter’s night, close your eyes, and you can really imagine that Captain Picard is personally reading you a bedtime story.

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US blocks all offshore wind construction, says reason is classified

Department of Defense, department of Interior, green, offshore wind, Policy, renewable energy, Science, Trump, Wind / /

On Monday, the US Department of the Interior announced that it was pausing the leases on all five offshore wind sites currently under construction in the US. The move comes despite the fact that these projects already have installed significant hardware in the water and on land; one of them is nearly complete. In what appears to be an attempt to avoid legal scrutiny, the Interior is blaming the decisions on a classified report from the Department of Defense.

The second Trump administration announced its animosity toward offshore wind power literally on day one, issuing an executive order on inauguration day that called for a temporary halt to issuing permits for new projects pending a re-evaluation. Earlier this month, however, a judge vacated that executive order, noting that the government has shown no indication that it was even attempting to start the re-evaluation it said was needed.

But a number of projects have gone through the entire permitting process, and construction has started. Before today, the administration had attempted to stop these in an erratic, halting manner. Empire Wind, an 800 MW farm being built off New York, was stopped by the Department of the Interior, which alleged that it had been rushed through permitting. That hold was lifted following lobbying and negotiations by New York and the project developer Orsted, and the Department of the Interior never revealed why it changed its mind. When the Interior Department blocked a second Orsted project, Revolution Wind offshore of southern New England, the company took the government to court and won a ruling that let it continue construction.

US blocks all offshore wind construction, says reason is classified Read More »

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Apple hit with $115M fine for “extremely burdensome” App Store privacy policy

App Store, App Tracking, Apple, competition law, italy, personalized advertising, Policy, privacy policy / /

Apple was hit with a $115 million fine Monday after Italy’s competition authority alleged the tech giant was abusing its dominant position to harm third-party developers in its App Store.

In a press release, the Italian Competition Authority said that an “App Tracking Transparency” (ATT) privacy policy that Apple introduced in 2021 forced third-party developers to seek consent twice for the same data collection.

Requiring such “double consent” was “extremely burdensome” and “harmful” to some developers—especially the smallest developers, the regulator said. Many developers struggled to earn ad revenue after the policy was introduced, as users increasingly declined to opt into personalized ads.

Meanwhile, Apple may have benefited from the ATT restricting developers’ ad revenues, either “in the form of higher commissions collected from developers through the App Store and, indirectly, in terms of the growth of its own advertising service.” Since ATT was adopted, “revenues from App Store services increased,” the regulator said, as developers paid higher commissions and “likewise, Apple’s advertising division, which is not subject to the same stringent rules, ultimately benefited from increased revenues and higher volumes of intermediated ads.”

Without intervention, Apple would continue requiring third-party developers to provide an additional consent screen, which was “found to be disproportionate to the achievement of the company’s stated data protection objectives,” the press release said.

“Apple should have ensured the same level of privacy protection for users by allowing developers to obtain consent to profiling in a single step,” the regulator concluded.

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