>the alternative is to learn to enjoy bitter beverages.
people seek replacements when things they like become scarce, not alternatives.
asking the public-at-large to wholly change preference (especially when the preference is compounded by biological bias in the way we experience taste..) will never be effective without extenuating circumstance or market control of some sort.
I sympathize with your point -- people should try to enjoy things without a lot of excess sweetness -- but it doesn't align with reality.
> What if a diabetic wants a cookie? Or ice cream?
Diabetics can eat cookies and ice cream, they just need to shoot themselves with insulin afterwards. It's having too much of it the problem.
Besides, if something is bad for you, you avoid it. Period. There are infinite other flavors in life to make it all about that single one. "But I want it" is not a reasonable argument.
I love it! There are a few bugs though. If I select a set of equipment and proceed until I get the exercises, but then go back and change the equipment, it doesn't seem to update itself.
The Indiana Jones franchise exists because of the Indiana Jones character. People that go to one of those movies want to see him.
If you setup a Mary Sue that treats him like an useless geriatric waste of a man, and finish the movie by having this Mary Sue knock him out, you're basically pissing in your own franchise. And since Harrison Ford won't be able to do another one, this is how the franchise ended, with a sour note.
And yet the audience reaction to that has been largely positive - both in aggregate and in the theater I was in - it's the critics that have been more sour compared to how they reacted to Crystal Skull (while the audience disliked that one much more).
If you wanna say "don't make a movie about an old version of that character," fine. But give it a fucking break with the idea that the filmmakers are attacking you by showing that an 80 year old version of the character wouldn't be the same as a 40 year old version.
Let's remember that the last successful film in the franchise made EXCELLENT use of aging and the effect of that on the character's relationships with a great premise and execution by Ford and Connery, too. We were already getting to peek beyond just "here's Indy again doing Indy things"
“Audiences,” seem to have a very positive reception to every Disney movie no matter how bad it is or the average person thinks it is. This isn’t proof of anything other than Disney has very effective marketing
> And since Harrison Ford won't be able to do another one
I don't know, maybe ask Holo-Reagan or Holo-Tupac what he thinks about that? Or we've got holo-leia or holo-tarkin even within the star wars universe already.
You just have to face it, death isn't the obstacle it used to be. There's lots of dead actors out there living kickass lives.
I absolutely abhor using a dead person's image or material for new material. I don't want to hear an AI Beethoven or read an AI Hemingway.
Actors are the same. Those are not the real artists, just what some corporate shill thought those actors would do. If you enjoy that, understand that it's not different at all from watching an animated movie.
I think the visual effects made a huge difference. The practical effects were good enough to be impressive and believable. But also some placed limits on the craziness of the story. Modern VFX has just destroyed that balance.
How could this be unclear? They are both narratives. They both have characters. Why wouldn't a concept about characters from one map to the other? Do you think fanfic characters and official movie characters are incompatible types? I have never read or written a fan fic and encountered this term countless times in discussion of media.
I'm honestly baffled how you can't imagine a movie with a character embodying the qualities described in the tvtropes entry.
I'm going by the description in the source you provided me, which provides a detailed and specific meaning in the context of fanfic and then says the term is also used as a general pejorative. If I'm not meant to use the description in that source I'm not sure why you linked to it.
Well, Harrison Ford is literally 80 years old. I think Indiana Jones is about 80 in the latest movie as well. Complaining that a *gasp* woman could beat up an octogenarian is more of a commentary about you than the inevitable march of time.
No. It's specifically the "Mary Sue" part that he's annoyed by. That term is never used online to refer to male character.
Of course, a dude that can not only be athletic, can read every inscription in every ancient language, is an expert in every ancient civilization, and use a bull whip as a grappling hook at will gets a pass.
No, then they're called a Gary Stu, Marty Stu, Marty Sam or Tom Sue and they exist too. They too are annoying and numerous, but less common.
Harry Potter, Scott Pilgrim, James Bond, any character Vin Diesel plays, etc.
Mary Sues are called out rightly because they're a shitty trope used by lazy writers. Nobody (with any intelligence or credibility) ever said that George Lucas was a particularly great writer. It's popcorn entertainment for a mass market.
Indiana Jones movies came out in a time where movie studios thought audiences were fucking morons and we have much higher standards today after being fed decades of high-concept movies and television. Hence the flat reception and pushback. Even Crystal Skull had its asshole ripped open by audiences without needing misogyny to be a diversion/excuse to explain the turd released by the studio.
Movies can't cash in by gender/age/race-swapping classic franchises because if you released those movies as they were today they would ALSO bomb. But Hollywood is certainly trying and trying and scratching its head wondering why it isn't working.
I can't agree with the second half of your post. Indiana Jones started reasonably strong with Raiders and has been on a steep descent ever since. The secondary characters in Temple of Doom were truly annoying and the franchise only got worse from there. I could be coaxed into watching the first again, but none of the sequels.
And the state of modern blockbusters shows that mass audiences haven't developed more sophisticated taste, they still gobble up slop like Marvel for a dozen+ sequels/spinoffs with thunderous enthusiasm until they eventually, finally, get bored of the premise and start looking for some new slop. MCU isn't failing because audiences got more sophisticated between five years ago and now; it's failing because they've been putting out the same movie with reskined costumes for 15 years now and that was never going to keep people interested forever. It still had one hell of a run though, proving that audiences today don't have more taste than audiences in the 80s.
Come back when any of those characters you listed are called Mary Sue.
Let’s use Star Wars for an example. A teenager with little education, grows up on a backwater desert planet immediately uses the Force and flies an advanced space craft into battle, becoming the focus of attention of a galaxy spanning fascist military, and a hero in an under resourced underground partisan movement.
You’re hard pressed to find anyone complaining about Luke Skywalker, but Rey? OMG, the knives were out after the trailer dropped.
To deny this dynamic after almost 10 years of it playing out very visibly online and off, at this point is willful ignorance at best.
> You’re hard pressed to find anyone complaining about Luke Skywalker, but Rey? OMG
That's because Luke took a long time to get good, including impulsively running off to fight and losing his arm, and was a whiny so and so, and was only good at certain things.
Rey is a classic MS because she's good at everything from the start; she wins every fight, including against the scariest Sith baddie around; flies spaceships perfectly despite having not done it before; fixes the Millennium Falcon in a way that Han Solo, its owner, didn't understand; was an expert boat navigator across a stormy sea that the locals wouldn't sail across, despite having grown up on a desert planet; everyone likes her (e.g. after Han dies Leia, who's met Rey once before, emotionally hugs Rey and not Chewie); she has random helpful encounters out of nowhere; etc etc.
I get some characters are unfairly characterised as [MG]ary S(ue|tu), or unfairly not as, but this doesn't seem one of those cases. You might say it's because Disney exec leadership and directing of episodes 7-9 were terrible and fragmented, and you'd be right, but the above still stands.
> You’re hard pressed to find anyone complaining about Luke Skywalker
That's just not true. The whole "chosen one" premise is extremely common in fantasy and scifi and widely criticized by people with sufficient taste and media literacy to become aware of the pattern and grow weary of it. Media that fits this pattern is considered adolescent; adults who are obsessed with Star Wars or Harry Potter are called manchildren. "Mary Sue" is gendered language that isn't used to describe male characters, but that doesn't mean this same exact sort of bad writing for male characters doesn't exist, or isn't recognized as such.
Off the top of my head: Harry Potter, Star Wars, the Matrix, virtually all shonen anime, The Wheel of Time, anything Branden Sanderson has written... all of these are considered adolescent (have I pissed off everybody yet?) It's extremely hard to think of any example of "chosen one" media that isn't considered adolescent... Dune maybe? This trope is so common, it taints the reputation of all fantasy and sci-fi by association.
So one of the main features of a Mary/Marty Sue is that everyone seems to really like them and be invested in them immediately. Rey has that (Finn latches on to her quickly, Han starts treating her as a surrogate child very quickly, Leia hugs her instead of Chewie, even the antagonist Kylo seems to have an interest in her, etc.) but Luke doesn't have that.
Leia seems to think he's a bit useless at times during the escape, Han thinks he's a backwater rube, but these characters grow close over the course of the story.
I admit that a lot of people do leave off the "is treated as super important and great by everyone immediately" bit when they define a Sue a lot, but I think it is a significant part of the definition and I also think it is a big part of what people don't like even if they often fail to articulate it. There's a "look at how cool and perfect our character is!" feeling you get when sequels introduce new characters into an existing setting and all the old characters fawn over them immediately that just isn't fun to watch.
Lastly characterizing Luke as "immediately using the Force" is bullshit I am sick of seeing. Firstly, we do see him practicing and failing at it on the trip to the Death Star, secondly he only uses it in incredibly vague terms to blow up the Death Star in a way that is way closer to "having faith" than "using a super power" in the context of the story. Luke sees Obi-Wan do a mind trick in the first half of New Hope and we don't see Luke even attempt it until Return of the Jedi. The first time we see Luke use a force ability outside of the Death Star run, which again in terms of how it is presented isn't really the same as other times the force is used, is to move his light sabre on Hoth. This is months after New Hope and he still really struggles to do it. But even if I cede the blowing up of the Death Star as Luke using the force instead of trusting in the force, we still see him actually practice trying to still his mind and use it before it happens, which isn't something we get for Rey.
Don't forget Wesley Crusher. I don't know why people pretend that the male version isn't also disliked, but I don't think it's a rational stance. People don't like either.
Other characters on the show find Wesley obnoxious, and he nearly washes out of Starfleet Academy after covering up a stunt that killed one of his friends. I don't see him as a wish-fulfillment character at all.
He is for a long time. Everyone likes him; he's an extremely high achiever; he easily impresses a beautiful girl, and in the same episode outwits all of the Enterprise's security staff to save the Enterprise; he even has special powers that somehow make him a more advanced iteration of the human species.
> Many interviewers fail to provide enough context and that leaves the interpretation of the prompt too wide open
So do clients/customers. What's your point? That an interview to assess whether a developer can elicit requirements should be less hard than dealing with an actual customer?
An interview with a customer for requirements had a very clear context.
An interview for a technical position could focus on either high level design, specific technical aspects, or process and so approach to problem solving. Maybe a bit of each. An interviewer that more clearly defines the context can get better responses.
So, the new thing is that we're going to call everyone an engineer?
Carpenter -> Wood engineer
Tailor -> Fabric engineer
Ceramist -> Clay engineer
See how dumb it looks? And maybe the field is too new to have a specific word for it, but calling it "engineer" diminishes the level of actual engineers.
A Profession Engineer’s authority comes from their education and experience. When they stamp a design or plans, they are putting their reputation and livelihood on the line. If they are negligent, they can be sued for malpractice and may be barred from working as an Engineer in their field. If their employer asks them to do something unethical, they have a duty to refuse.
I personally think it’s worth reserving certain titles for qualified practitioners. If you want to call yourself a Doctor, Lawyer, or Engineer, I think that should mean something.
In many countries it's more a title associated to education and specific degrees from specific schools than a license to practice some professional organisation could revoke.
While, from my limited knowledge, doctors and lawyers both seem to have some sort of license and controlling body in most, if not all, countries.
I haven't counted many this page where there is a regulating body that could take away a license to practice as an engineer.
The UK seems to discriminate on a per discipline basis. Canada apparently is ambiguous, with self-regulating bodies but courts dismissing cases regarding job titles. Germany has one, but only for civil engineers (still according to the wikipedia page).
Still only relying on this wikipedia page, there are on the other hand many countries where although the title is protected, it simply requires one to have studied a certain number of years (Poland), to have completed a specific degree (Brazil, Chile, Germany), or a specific degree in one of a few select higher-education schools (France, Turkey).
Calling carpenters wood engineers is pretty much warranted. There should be no engineering police that determines which jobs are allowed to carry the prestigious engineer title. Software engineering was also ridiculed for the longest time by “real” mechanical engineers.
I don't see why we have to take and muddle someone else's word, "engineer" doesn't have inherently prestigious syllables, the word sounds good when someone says it at a party because the job itself is actually hard or whatever.
If software development (or even "programming"!) is the same, the same thing will happen. If not, any other words we steal will lose their shine too and engineers will start calling themselves something else to get it back.
As a former mechanical engineer I’m not sure how common that was. Computer Scientist was/is a common alternative but that’s somewhat of an artifact of CS often being associated with math departments.
Sorry, this was already on its way out from the very beginning with the term "software engineer".
Outside of tech, being an actual engineer involves universal standards, certifications and the onus and responsibility of failures that the deregulated libertarian paradise of the tech world is impossible to implement.
Actual engineers go through rigorous testing, certification and have universal standards that uphold them to meet these standards regardless of business pressure.
Until the tech and software world have anywhere near that level of scrutiny by public institutions (good luck, all you will hear is the screams of "communism!") then frankly its already looked dumb ever since developers were even called "engineers" to begin with.
The joke about self-aggrandizing "X engineer" titles is very old. On "Mama's Family," the main character is essentially a homemaker, but in one episode she calls herself a "domestic engineer" to make it sound more impressive. That episode is from 1987.
This is just how language evolves, stop gatekeeping it. Most engineers these days have never been near an actual engine, and nor do they have any need to.
I don't know if that's fair. Consultants were flying "on site" for meetings at expense to clients for decades (for hotels, meals, etc) and the money was worth it, because being in person is, for some people, is more efficient for some forms of collaboration. I feel like we're having battles about the "best" way when they are just different - and the market will show the results.
I've been consulting for well over a decade. I used to fly to visit my clients. During the pandemic they all learned to work remotely and I haven't made a trip since. We actually communicate more than we did before, and it feels like overall everyone is better at communication.
Fair. I was one of those consultants (experts in software being implemented by the local team), though, and - specifically with teams that needed more help and interventions - going onsite was hugely valuable. I'm not saying remote is impossible, but I got much more done when I could sit with people 1-on-1 and build relationships/see what they didn't know to show me.
Doesn't matter if it can. You'll have to know how to do it too. Otherwise, you'll never be able to recognize a good fix from a bad one provided by the AI.
No different from "the team that built that is all gone, they left no doco, we assumed X, added the feature you wanted, but Y happened under load" , which happens a lot in companies pushing to market older than a minute.
My default assumption now, after watching dozens of post mortems, is that beyond a certain scale, nobody understands the code in prod. (edited added 2nd para)
This is off topic. Clearly we all know the LLM is flawed. We are just talking about it's capabilities in debugging.
Why does it always get side tracked into a comparison on how useful it is compared to human capability? Everyone already knows it has issues.
It always descends into a "it won't replace me it's not smart enough" or a "AI will only help me do my job better" direction. Guys, keep your emotions out of discussions. The only way of dealing with AI is to discuss the ramifications and future projections impartially.
No, the alternative is to learn to enjoy bitter beverages. We don't need sweeteners.