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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   Edited 1yr ago   2510 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 6, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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So the bugfix I researched for the Sergei Kislev's 8088 Bios project finally got merged in. I'm pretty happy about that, and feel rather vindicated over the know-it-all elsewhere who kept insisting I was dead wrong and ignorant about how things "really" worked.

I've been watching Cabinet of Curiosities, and I'm really enjoying it. Minus the two episodes very loosely based on HP Lovecraft stories. The first few episodes felt almost like Tales from the Crypt style morality tales, where asshole main characters get what they deserve. Things get switched up pretty hard with The Outside where Kate Micucci falls victim to conspicuous consumption. After that come the HP Lovecraft episodes which by and large I felt didn't understand Lovecraft one iota. I watched The Viewing last night and was utterly blown away. Perhaps it was a case of style over substance, but holy shit was it's style ever amazing. Probably watch the last episode tonight.

I keep going back to the Lovecraft episodes though. They were just... they didn't understand what made Lovecraft scary at all. The first one, ostensibly based on "Pickman's Model" was more a pastiche of many disparate Lovecraft themes, that entirely failed to gel together and was mostly used for shock value. The other, "Dreams in the Witch House" I thought was better adapted by a Masters of Horror episode. The Netflix version added all these extra subplots for love and camaraderie. Everyone knows in Lovecraft's world, there are no allies. The dilemma characters find themselves in utterly alienates them from the rest of humanity. There are only people who don't believe you, and entities which make things worse. The only people who believe you were driven mad and are utterly ineffectual and of no help what so ever. The isolation and hopelessness is what gives his stories their bite. You can't give the characters a posse who rally around them.

It's Kisilev btw, you keep misspelling his surname.

You say that, but when I check his github it's Kiselev. But so noted.

Muphry's Law strikes again LOL.

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