Chris Csont

I Just Think Flickchart is Neat

I never got on the Letterboxd train. No particular reason. Probably just overall social media adjacent site burnout.

But I like Flickchart for two reasons.

First, it helps you create your own list of your favorite films by having you do a series of “This or That” votes.

You see a movie? It’ll have you compare it to six or seven other movies on your list and figure out where it slots in.

I’ve used this site since 2022, so I trust I’ve given it enough data to help me make a good list. Here’s my top 10:

Jurassic Park
In the Mood for Love
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Citizen Kane
The Brothers Bloom
Blade Runner
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Good Will Hunting
The Empire Strikes Back
Chungking Express

And I have to say I feel pretty okay with that top 10.

But then there’s the second thing I like about this site. You get a list of your Signature Movies. These are pulled from your list of favorite films, but they’re singled out because you rank them substantially higher than the majority of other users on the site.

So that’s where you see movies like:

The Brothers Bloom
Wonder Boys
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
Velvet Goldmine
Targets
Only Lovers Left Alive
That Thing You Do!
The Trip
Ghost in the Shell (1995)
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence

It suggests to me that “What’s your favorite movie?” is a far inferior question to “What’s the movie you’re pretty sure you love more than most people?”

What I’m doing now

I’ve been too precious with things I write. All of the things.

Via Simon Willison:

My number one tip for blogging is to lower your standards! Aim to hit publish while you are still actively unhappy with what you have written, because the only alternative is a huge folder full of drafts and never publishing anything at all.

Nobody will ever know how perfect the thing you intended to write would have been. The flaws you see in your writing are invisible to everyone else.

I figure it’s better to do my warm ups here than where I write for work. I always wind up not blogging here when I get too caught up in asking questions like, “Is this on brand?” or “Is this as good as this other post?”

I just want to use this space and get comfortable with the discomfort of not overthinking the damn thing.

Locally Sourced AI Slop

I’ve seen local businesses in some of my feeds get called out for posting ads made with Predictive Plagiarism Algorithms, but wondered if the flack they were getting was limited or part of a bigger trend. Then I saw this piece from Luke Plunkett:

Firstly, it shows that you’d rather prompt something into a machine than hire a local graphic designer, artist and/or photographer, which tells your potential customers that you don’t give a shit about the community you’re a part of. Or that you’d rather offload the cognitive effort of coming up with a new poster to a glorified autocorrect, instead of just coming up with something cute, simple and personal yourself. Even the corniest blackboard trivia, or small A4 sign taped to a window made using MS Word on a yellowing printer in the back office, is preferable to an AI-generated ad, because at least you made it.

It’s a concise argument that cutting corners by using this tech to create your advertising suggests you’re willing to cut corners elsewhere. Not a good look if you want to convince people that they should come and pay you for your work.

Gasbag Blows Billions Blocking Off-Shore Wind Power

Via the Associated Press:

President Donald Trump, who often talks about his hatred of wind power, has said his goal is to not let any “windmills” be built. The Republican administration has been buying back offshore wind leases from energy companies as it seeks to discourage the expansion of wind energy in favor of fossil fuels.

I just have this image of President Quixote in a golf cart, holding out a nine iron like a lance as he careens into the water toward an off-shore windmill.

According to the AP’s numbers, almost $4 billion in taxpayer funds has been spent buying back leases to prevent new wind power development.

More from the AP article (emphasis mine):

But Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said the lease buybacks are effectively bribing companies to step away from clean energy that can displace more expensive fossil fuel plants, which in turn will raise costs for consumers.

Clean energy could save Americans from further increases in their utility bills, which seems like it would be a good thing right now.

Make a focus vacuum

I’m posting this for my future self, to remember how peaceful and productive it is to block the inputs, and make a vacuum to expand my output.

–Derek Sivers, “Offline 23 Hours a Day“

Limiting distractions is a solved problem, and I need to remember that.

There’s 1Blocker, there’s Screen Time, there’s Bloom. There’s Do Not Disturb.

There’s putting distractions in the other room. There’s turning things off.

There’s throwing your phone into the river and burrowing into the soft mud of the shore.

But then there’s the sense of urgency that things are happening.

JOSH
I need information. I need to know what's happening in the world -- I have no idea what's happening in the world!

DONNA
I bought you the paper.

JOSH
I read it! Preparations are on the way for the fair -- I'm briefed. Organizers say it's going to be the best one yet.

–The West Wing, "20 Hours in America, Part II"

And blocking out information to make space to make things doesn’t have to be tuning out the world completely.

Because there’s a circle of influence where I can do something about what’s inside, but not what’s outside.

If there’s less outside to see, there’s more focus on what I can do something about.