Runaway (1984): I remember seeing this a few times in the 80's, it seems like it'd be kinda bad but it's actually really good! Obviously the technology is not realistic, but it's an interesting take on "what if the robots revolt?" that still kinda holds up today. And Gene Simmons as a bad guy is pretty amusing.

Cukoo (2024): I really don't dig a lot of horror, but this was pretty decent. Very creepy, and Hunter Schafer is great as always.

Pitch Black (2000): I saw this in the theatre when it was first released, and loved it then - still do! I actually forgot just how much of a horror movie this really is. I especially love the opening sequence, right when I'm trying to write sci-fi stories about space ships. It's also the start of Vin Diesel playing the same character in basically every movie he's ever done.

The Predator (2018): The first Predator movie was great, the second.. okay, but mostly it was saved by Danny Glover. The rest... mostly avoid, but this one was actually surprisingly good! It's exactly what you expect, but so much moreso than just "predator hunts people, eventually the good guys kill it."

Cherry 2000 (1987): This is crap. It was crap in 1987 and it's crap now. But it's weirdly good crap, has a nice car, and a deranged Tim Thomerson... er... but when is he not.

Nemesis (1992): Speaking of Tim Thomerson, I watch this one every few years and each time I really enjoy it. It's not a good movie... at all, but there's a lot of really clever stuff here. And a lot of completely over-the-top scenes that you just have to see to believe.

Strange Days (1995): I hadn't seen this in years, and kept telling my partner we should watch it, but to be prepared in case I misremembered and it wasn't good.... but no it's excellent. The VR stuff is totally believeable and with modern VR what it is now, very plausable. And the actual plot - wow is that on point for our times, and it's done so well.

Borderlands (2024): As a big fan of the game... well, I wasn't expecting much. I was right - there's not a whole lot here that's worth watching. If you haven't played the game, definitely don't waste your time - most of this is just blatant fan service, done poorly. It was clearly intended to be campy and funny and utterly failed at both of those. If they'd got the casting right, maybe it could have been okay... but no, they didn't.

Deadpool & Wolverine (2024): I've watched most of the whole MCU stuff, and laughed my ass off at the first Deadpool, but I couldn't get more than 30 minutes into this. I was so not into Deadpool's 4th-wall breaking mid-life crisis in the beginning, and then all the characters are just jerks who beat each other up. Nothing of value here at all.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024): Really great! Lots of Nazi punching and Nazi shooting, and we really need that right now. But also a well-told story vaguely about stuff that probably happened kinda like this. I also love that Ian Flemming is portrayed.

Dune (2021, 2024): Why do people keep rehashing this? Look, I get that it's maybe a bit more like the book than the 1984 one, and it sure was pretty, but can we stop now? Overall... yeah, seen it, nothing really new here.

Wizards (1977): We hadn't seen this in years, and so got a little altered, and put it on. Still relevant, especially as early animation, but very obviously a product of its time. I'm glad we watched, but it's not great overall. I still say my favourite scene is the one about killing Fritz.

Aniara (2018): Interesting film about getting stranded on a generation space ship heading basically nowhere. But it's not really about space, it's about the people onboard and how they deal with it. Sure is something, though really slow and I'm not sure if I can say it was actually good.

Assassination Nation (2018): Kinda a slasher film but the plot was actually scarrier than the blood - what if all of your private messages went public? Would your town turn into anarchy like this one did? This was kinda excellent, and deeply disturbing.

The Map of Tiny Perfect Things (2021): It's Groundhog Day again, so you know exactly how this it works, but that's ok, because this version is really charming and romantic.

Supercollider (2013): I really wasn't expecting much, but as I am a fan of good bad movies, and have occasional insomnia, I put it on... but this wasn't at all a good bad movie. Clever premise for sure, but clearly low budget and poorly acted. Including Robin Dunne, who I enjoyed in the show Sanctuary, but I think he plays the same character in everything. Probably don't bother.

In the Shadow of the Moon: Clever time travel thing. Kinda predictable, but that's not something you can avoid when you have an alternate timeline moving backward. Overall pretty good.

Inventing Anna: I don't know if you've ever heard of Anna Sorokin - I sure hadn't, but her story is pretty interesting. This telling is great so far - embelished surely, but it's much more drama than documentary.

Nimona (2023): quoting JWZ: "Snarky teen shapeshifter tries to get a disgraced paladin into supervillainy." I had no idea what to expect and really enjoyed this, it was very cute.

The Marvels (2023): The next episode in the Captain Marvel series, but like typical MCU stuff these days, you really need to watch several other movies and shows to really understand any of the backstory. Decent plot, a bit of a continuance from Ms. Marvel, but..... they strayed WAY too far into campy and silly, and the result starts well but just gets bad, and then gets worse and worse.

Ms. Marvel (2022): Teen girl discovers she's got super powers and since Captain Marvel is her hero, she ends up as Ms. Marvel. This was absolutely fantastic - every part of it. Even the Bollywood scene. Yes, really.

The Last Sentinel (2023): In a future where the world has flooded, a group of soldiers maintain an outpost on one of the Maunsell Forts. Slow and cerebral, with some decent plot twists.. though it was a bit hard to believe the characters' motives. Kinda okay.

Sentinel (2024): A "bug hunt" kind of movie, very low budget and with low-quality actors, but with time travel! You know, where they go back in time to stop the thing that screwed up their present. This one has a slight twist though - the people who go back end up in different timelines. It's an unfortunately bad movie all around, or that could have been quite interesting.

Barb Wire (1996): So... my partner and I are big fans of Casablanca. This movie has basically the same plot... and it's not really that bad for a typical "sci-fi comic book movie". It probably would have been kinda good if they didn't cast Pamela Anderson. But they did, and she's just awful. Also, I'll admit to seeing this in the theatre in 1996.

Subterranea (2015): Apparently this was based on the album of the same name by British prog-rock band IQ, which I'm quite a big fan of - both the band and the album. Unfortunately, the movie has little to do with the album, and has got to be the worst movie I've seen in a while. It makes very little sense in general, and then the ending just... doesn't really resolve anything?

Fast Color (2018): An interesting superhero movie! It's a slow ride, and the plot will seem very familiar, but it's really well done. Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Lorraine Toussaint are great as always.

The Magicians: I'd started this some years ago but got bogged down after about 4 episodes, but now I've watched it all, and it turns out it's actually pretty great! It's intentionally campy and silly often, but the characters are really well developed and interesting. It even had a reasonable ending!

I Am Not Okay With This: Hilarious and awkward and sometimes really uncomfortable, I'm laughing then cringing then on the edge of my seat. This was really great. Of course that means it got cancelled after just the first season. Grr.

Wynonna Earp: Often overly campy and silly, this started out with a pretty questionable premise but made it work really well... at first. The first few seasons were decent. The last one though... it's jumped so many sharks, I'm not sure how I'm going to finish this.

In From the Cold: Neat "former Russian spy is back" show with a bit of an interesting twist. Pretty good overall, though the magic technology and computer hacking was tedious, and the ending... that was just stupid, why'd they have to go and do that?

Legacies: I really do not know what made me watch the first few episodes of this. Typical CW crap with thin, overly dramatic plots and cardboard cut-out characters. Probably decent if you're into angsty teenage werewolves, vampires, and witches. I'm going to say avoid unless you're a teenage girl.

Bonding: This is a pretty interesting concept. I kinda like the female co-star, she's interesting and has a complicated back-story. The male co-star though just aggrivates me so much that it ruins the entire show. Though I don't think that was very hard - it's one of those concepts that could only go through a couple of episodes before running out of interesting plots, and in this case, it feels like they're just ticking off items on a checklist of fetishes. I haven't finished it.

Brand New Cherry Flavor: This is amazing. Also exceptionally disturbing and freaky and I don't even know what else. I kept finding myself wide-eyed and sitting up straight.

The Order: College werewolves and witches battle, well, mostly each other. A bunch of the charaters are quite likable, while some of them are just so clueless you end up shouting at them to not be so stupid. Ultimately it was just okay. Cancelled after 2 seasons, of course, and it's pretty clear why.

The Blacklist: I've been watching this since the begining, and I just got to the end of season 8 and honestly I'm not sure I'll bother anymore. I'm a little surprised they've kept up the whole "the princess is in another castle" thing with the secrets for so long, at this point it's just tedious, and it feels like they've done everything two or three times.

James Spader is excellent throughout though, it's often worth watching just for him.

Jupiter's Legacy: Classic 1950s superheroes in modern times, but also their origin story set in the 1950s. Extremely over-the-top - way too much, really. And there's a twist at the end that's just, okay whatever, sure, why not. If they actually make a second season I'm sure I won't bother.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: I finally made it through all of this, and in retrospect I probably shouldn't have, they jumped the shark in like, season 2. The most recent ones were really just uninteresting and tedious.. and then involved time travel. And then they ramped up the drama. Ugh.

Cowboy Bebop: We're re-watching the original in anticipation of the live-action series being released. It's fantstic of course, but I always forget just how much (excellent) drama there is amongst the action and antics.

Space Sweepers: Campy and silly, in the vein of The Fifth Element - wow this was awesome!

Cosmic Sin: Seriously, is Bruce Willis washed up enough to star in something this bad? Typical alien first contact then they kill us movie, with a bit of zombies mixed in.

Beyond Skyline and Skylines: I started with Skylines because I didn't realize it was part of a series. There are a lot of concepts I really liked so I went back and watched the prequel once I realized it existed. Overall, these aren't very good movies, but they fit in that category of movies I'll watch even when I know they're not going to be great.

The Vault: Genious engineer plans a heist. Formulaic and predictable, there's nothing new here. Go watch The Italian Job instead. Either one.

Gunpowder Milkshake: Pretty basic premise, a campy "assassin screwed up and now everyone's out to get her" kind of thing. To pull it off they needed great acting and believeable action. This had neither.

How I Became a Superhero: It seems superhero movies are popular these days, but I really enjoyed this one! I really liked how it's got a bit of the feel of the original Watchmen comic.

Code 8: Yet another "average guy with superpowers" movie. Nothing really new here, and not executed well.

Project Power: And another superpowers movie. It's based on a clever idea. Just okay.

The Midnight Sky: Half this movie is a typical "manufactured crisis after crisis in a space ship" movie, but not done well at all. The George Clooney half... it's just boring.

ARQ: A time loop movie, ala Groundhog Day, but a post-apocalyptic. Neat concept, but ultimately not a great movie.

TAU: Girl gets kidnapped and imprisioned by a jerk who invented an AI, then makes friends with the AI. A bit slow, and none of the characters are all that likable. They kinda phoned in the end.

I saw this great article the other day: Operations is not Developer IT. It's so true, I suggest anyone who works in the industry read it.

📉 Monitoring is for running and understanding other people's code (aka "your infrastructure")

📈 Observability is for running and understanding your code -- the code you write, change and ship every day; the code that solves your core business problems.

That's 2021 for me right there. How about you?

(Quote from Charity Majors)

Right so regarding my previous post - I looked at a few options and I've decided that I'm just not going to play this game, and so I pulled down a bunch of the Instagram posts manually and hacked this up a bunch. At least it won't go away this way, but doing this manually isn't ideal.

I guess I should consider what to do with that. Maybe there's some other reasonable thing I could cross-post to or even just do an instagram-style post via my phone. Maybe I should build an app for that.

Isn't the web such a better place now that we all need Facebook accounts? Grr.

related, related, related.

Well I guess Instagram finally shut down the API I was using to pull my posts for the sidebar on right of this website.

So my choices are now:

1. Jump through ridiculous hoops getting a Facebook developer account setup and using the Basic Display API - which means getting an actual Facebook account, something I've been actively avoiding for years.
2. Just remove the sidebar.

As I discussed in my previous post, everyone should be running SSL now... but the hacks I talked about were a bit annoying. So I'm trying out something new: Caddy.

Over the years I've changed my web sites from entirely dynamically-generated template-based stuff in Perl and Python, into this one, which is completely static, generated by Hugo. So I don't really run anything overly-complicated in my Nginx config anymore.

I spent some time over this weekend converting this and my other sites to use Caddy, which handles 100% of the SSL certificate generation, and otherwise works just like a web server.

I also converted both of the web servers fronting my Home Assistant servers, one of which runs on a Raspberry Pi.

Now I'm going to have a beer, instead of manually renewing three certificates. Cheers.