Fahim Farook
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877I'm currently working on my second novel which is complete, but is in the edit stage. I wrote my first novel over 20 years ago but then didn't write much till now.
I post about #Coding, #Flutter, #Writing, #Movies and #TV. I'll also talk about #Technology, #Gadgets, #MachineLearning, #DeepLearning and a few other things as the fancy strikes ...
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Fahim Farook
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Edited 1 year ago
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@askonomm Without meaning to be argumentative, you can’t really know what the creators intended. Sometimes even the creators don’t know where a show will go — “Lost” is a great example. The creators never knew where that show would end up …
Sometimes they create a certain show and over time it morphs into something else. We loved the first season of “House” it was exactly what we wanted — good medical drama, as advertised on the tin.
It’s the later seasons which relegated the “medical” part to a footnote and concentrated mostly on the drama 🙂
If you re-read my original post, I was talking about how “Warrior” actually balances the core story and the character development well. That’s what I like — not just character development (or drama) at the cost of everything else …
Sometimes they create a certain show and over time it morphs into something else. We loved the first season of “House” it was exactly what we wanted — good medical drama, as advertised on the tin.
It’s the later seasons which relegated the “medical” part to a footnote and concentrated mostly on the drama 🙂
If you re-read my original post, I was talking about how “Warrior” actually balances the core story and the character development well. That’s what I like — not just character development (or drama) at the cost of everything else …
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@askonomm I’m sorry if you feel attacked if I said that I disliked “House” but you do realize that not everybody has to have the same opinion, right? The world would be a pretty dull place if all of us had the same opinions and/or likes/dislikes 🙂
It’s just my opinion. You are free to have your own 😛
It’s just my opinion. You are free to have your own 😛
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@askonomm I do enjoy sitcoms but I don’t watch shows for the drama — I watch it for the medical, mystery, thriller part of the show. Not the drama part. All power to the people who like drama for drama’s sake but there are some of us who’ve had enough of drama 😛
I do agree with you about movies and characterisation but that’s a different medium — in a short form like a movie, the heavy characterisation makes sense. But if you do the same in a long-running TV show, it just becomes too top-heavy.
Sure, there should be character development, but not to the exclusion of everything else.
I do agree with you about movies and characterisation but that’s a different medium — in a short form like a movie, the heavy characterisation makes sense. But if you do the same in a long-running TV show, it just becomes too top-heavy.
Sure, there should be character development, but not to the exclusion of everything else.
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@askonomm Each to their own — I got interested in the show because of the medical cases and the diagnoses they made, not because the main character was an ass 😛 So once it got to be all about House and his co-workers, friends etc. I really wasn’t that interested.
Personally, I think US TV spends way too much time on character development and disregard all other aspects of the story. A more balanced approach probably will cater to both types of viewers, but that’s just my opinion.
Personally, I think US TV spends way too much time on character development and disregard all other aspects of the story. A more balanced approach probably will cater to both types of viewers, but that’s just my opinion.
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Fahim Farook
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@stevesplace Yeah, we joke about that a lot when we watch those too 🙂 Same with “Death in Paradise” given that it’s a small island 😛
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Fahim Farook
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@stevesplace I assume some people do like all the drama too, otherwise in a profit oriented environment, they wouldn’t be going for that approach, right?
But personally, I don’t like loading up a show with all the personal drama instead of the original subject matter that got me hooked in the first place.
Take shows like “Midsomer Murders” which has run for over 20 seasons in the UK — the show has stuck to its core premise all those seasons. The personal stuff is incidental and is not the main focus of the show. I like that approach much better 🙂
But personally, I don’t like loading up a show with all the personal drama instead of the original subject matter that got me hooked in the first place.
Take shows like “Midsomer Murders” which has run for over 20 seasons in the UK — the show has stuck to its core premise all those seasons. The personal stuff is incidental and is not the main focus of the show. I like that approach much better 🙂
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Fahim Farook
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Something I've noticed about a lot of American TV shows — the first season starts off with a great idea but by season two or three it has become all about the personal lives of the characters and their relationships and the core idea gets relegated to the background and gets lost.
“House” was a great medical drama at first and I loved it for the medicine but eventually it became all drama and not much medicine. The same with “The Good Doctor”.
(I can contrast this to UK TV but I guess that’ll have to be a post for another time 😛)
“Warrior” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5743796) is a show which doesn’t do this as much and which manages to maintain a balance between the core story and the character development. Or maybe, it’s because the story is all about the characters 🙂
But what I do like about the show a lot is the fact that the characters learn, grow, and change. Characters who started out looking as if they are pure evil start getting shades of grey as you learn about them and their motivations. Others change their attitudes and stance as time goes on.
The show is constantly changing and alliances constantly shift. And it’s marvellous to see these happening and to see a story being told so deftly 🙂
As the end of season 3 approaches, I can see a lot of changes and a bunch of new alliances happening. I hope there’s a season 4 since I want to keep on watching!
#TV #US #English #Warrior #BruceLee
“House” was a great medical drama at first and I loved it for the medicine but eventually it became all drama and not much medicine. The same with “The Good Doctor”.
(I can contrast this to UK TV but I guess that’ll have to be a post for another time 😛)
“Warrior” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5743796) is a show which doesn’t do this as much and which manages to maintain a balance between the core story and the character development. Or maybe, it’s because the story is all about the characters 🙂
But what I do like about the show a lot is the fact that the characters learn, grow, and change. Characters who started out looking as if they are pure evil start getting shades of grey as you learn about them and their motivations. Others change their attitudes and stance as time goes on.
The show is constantly changing and alliances constantly shift. And it’s marvellous to see these happening and to see a story being told so deftly 🙂
As the end of season 3 approaches, I can see a lot of changes and a bunch of new alliances happening. I hope there’s a season 4 since I want to keep on watching!
#TV #US #English #Warrior #BruceLee
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Fahim Farook
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@davemark I believe the display name on device is “X” while the app name on the App Store is still “Twitter” 🙂 @mcelhearn
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Fahim Farook
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Back in the day, Tamil movie songs used to have meaning — some of them espoused deep philosophies in song. Then things changed. It seemed to become all about the rhythm and the beat and less about meaning.
"Maamannan" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt20242416) made me acutely aware of this because one character in the movie sings some of the old songs and I realized how much I'd missed these meaningful songs.
But that wasn't all of it. The movie has a very melancholic vibe and I keep expecting bad things to happen. And they do.
One of the characters sings "the only thing that humanity hasn't learned is how to be human" (or words to that effect) and the movie is all about that — how humans endlessly oppress and kill other humans in the name of constructs that they've created such as caste, status, authority etc. to keep humans separated from other humans.
A couple of characters buck this trend and stand for equality and not bowing down to "authority"/bullies, but it's a telling sign that even one of these characters has to tell others what to do in several situations. This is a characteristic of almost every Indian movie — the "hero"/protagonist has to tell others what to do, even when the actions are fairly self-evident (as in taking an injured person to the hospital). It's almost as if people are being told, you shouldn't act/think for yourself — let somebody who's "the one" tell you what to do ...
And that probably is the most harmful thing that a movie which preaches the opposite message can do? If more people would think for themselves, perhaps they might not fall prey to those who try to control them by sowing division amongst them?
#Movies #Tamil #MiniReview #Reflections
"Maamannan" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt20242416) made me acutely aware of this because one character in the movie sings some of the old songs and I realized how much I'd missed these meaningful songs.
But that wasn't all of it. The movie has a very melancholic vibe and I keep expecting bad things to happen. And they do.
One of the characters sings "the only thing that humanity hasn't learned is how to be human" (or words to that effect) and the movie is all about that — how humans endlessly oppress and kill other humans in the name of constructs that they've created such as caste, status, authority etc. to keep humans separated from other humans.
A couple of characters buck this trend and stand for equality and not bowing down to "authority"/bullies, but it's a telling sign that even one of these characters has to tell others what to do in several situations. This is a characteristic of almost every Indian movie — the "hero"/protagonist has to tell others what to do, even when the actions are fairly self-evident (as in taking an injured person to the hospital). It's almost as if people are being told, you shouldn't act/think for yourself — let somebody who's "the one" tell you what to do ...
And that probably is the most harmful thing that a movie which preaches the opposite message can do? If more people would think for themselves, perhaps they might not fall prey to those who try to control them by sowing division amongst them?
#Movies #Tamil #MiniReview #Reflections
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Fahim Farook
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Edited 1 year ago
I’ve generally not been keen on Varun Dhawan movies — maybe it’s my general dislike of the kind of movies his Dad used to make seeping through, or maybe it’s because most Varun Dhawan movies I’ve seen have had him playing comedic roles without much weight.
But “Bawaal” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19755170/) is a movie which changed my opinion of him. It’s an interesting and impactful movie in many levels.
Based on the description, I expected a war movie and half didn’t watch it since I dislike war movies intensely. But this was good, it talks about war, the impact I has on people, but it’s also about society, how we want to portray ourselves, relationships, and a lot more.
While this part gets a little lost in the rest of the story, it’s also about teaching and teachers. That’s something I’ve loved since “To Sir, With Love” and while this is not on the same level, it does have some of the same impact, in a way.
#Movies #MiniReview #Bollywood #Hindi
But “Bawaal” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19755170/) is a movie which changed my opinion of him. It’s an interesting and impactful movie in many levels.
Based on the description, I expected a war movie and half didn’t watch it since I dislike war movies intensely. But this was good, it talks about war, the impact I has on people, but it’s also about society, how we want to portray ourselves, relationships, and a lot more.
While this part gets a little lost in the rest of the story, it’s also about teaching and teachers. That’s something I’ve loved since “To Sir, With Love” and while this is not on the same level, it does have some of the same impact, in a way.
#Movies #MiniReview #Bollywood #Hindi
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Fahim Farook
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@christianselig Thank you 🙂 Hope you had a great birthday as well?
The thing about my birthday is that I was born on the other side of the world when they landed on the moon, so my birthday is on the 21st — so you and I have a sort of a Schroedinger’s birthday where we share the birthday and don’t 😛
The thing about my birthday is that I was born on the other side of the world when they landed on the moon, so my birthday is on the 21st — so you and I have a sort of a Schroedinger’s birthday where we share the birthday and don’t 😛
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Fahim Farook
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@karim Didn’t think anybody would actually want another fork, to be honest. I just wanted the features for myself because I couldn’t find them anywhere else.
Would have contributed to the original repo but my changes are rather drastic and (possibly) go against the original project’s philosophy 🙂
But if there’s enough interest, I suppose I can put it up on GitHub or something …
Would have contributed to the original repo but my changes are rather drastic and (possibly) go against the original project’s philosophy 🙂
But if there’s enough interest, I suppose I can put it up on GitHub or something …
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Fahim Farook
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Edited 1 year ago
I’ve been following the discussion by @alexito4 about adding extra tags to a followed hashtag on Fedi clients generally (and @IceCubesApp specifically) with interest …
Since this is a feature that I’d wanted myself, I decided to go ahead and add it to my custom IceCubes fork with an additional change — the ability to specify how the extra tags are used for selecting posts …
This should reduce my main timeline clutter quite a bit — with an additional change, of course. Currently, followed tags appear in the main timeline and I’ve added filtering to remove them.
But I realized with this change that I don’t have to follow hashtags at all — I was simply doing that as a backup mechanism so that I can have all followed hashtags saved on the server so that when I switch clients, I don’t have to set up hashtags all over again.
However, if I add saving my local client config to iCloud, I might have a much better system here … Hmm ….
#FediClients #Swift #SwiftUI #Coding #Hashtags
Since this is a feature that I’d wanted myself, I decided to go ahead and add it to my custom IceCubes fork with an additional change — the ability to specify how the extra tags are used for selecting posts …
This should reduce my main timeline clutter quite a bit — with an additional change, of course. Currently, followed tags appear in the main timeline and I’ve added filtering to remove them.
But I realized with this change that I don’t have to follow hashtags at all — I was simply doing that as a backup mechanism so that I can have all followed hashtags saved on the server so that when I switch clients, I don’t have to set up hashtags all over again.
However, if I add saving my local client config to iCloud, I might have a much better system here … Hmm ….
#FediClients #Swift #SwiftUI #Coding #Hashtags
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Fahim Farook
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@joshdholtz If it’s something I’d be interested in, then I’m likely to provide a lot more feedback 🙂 Would certainly be interested in the beta access, but knowing a bit more about the “thing” might help me let you know if I’m likely to be a good test subject? 😛
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Fahim Farook
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Reminds me a bit of Will Wright’s “Spore” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spore_(2008_video_game) …
Guess I’ll have to give it a go and see how well it works on macOS? 🙂
From: @alexito4
https://mastodon.social/@alexito4/110741928929528729
Guess I’ll have to give it a go and see how well it works on macOS? 🙂
From: @alexito4
https://mastodon.social/@alexito4/110741928929528729
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@icanzilb I have the opposite problem — I have 6 names and most systems can’t handle that number of characters. So I end up having to abbreviate etc. 🙂
Didn’t have any problems in Spain but then again, we only lived there a few months and I don’t think we had to go to doctors or sign up anywhere except online …
Didn’t have any problems in Spain but then again, we only lived there a few months and I don’t think we had to go to doctors or sign up anywhere except online …
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