Thursday, May 14, 2026
Some fun details about making Nolan's Odyssey, including why Agamemnon's armor is so dark
From Time's long article about the production:
They did that by working with IMAX to solve three problems. The camera is deafening—Damon has likened it to trying to act with a blender next to your face—so they invented a casing around the camera called the blimp to muffle the noise during intimate, dialogue-heavy scenes. The camera’s short magazines require frequent reloading, so they developed a protocol in which the entire set remained silent so the actors could, in van Hoytema’s words, “stay in the zone.” And the camera had grown so large that actors couldn’t see around it. “Which is, of course, terrible for an actor that you cannot play against the person you’re supposed to see,” says van Hoytema. Their solution: a set of mirrors that allowed the actors to make eye contact.
Wednesday, May 13, 2026
AK-47-type rifles aren't popular in the USA right now
NYT found an American product apparently benefitting from tariffs:
The causes of the firearm’s disappearance include tariffs, sanctions, rising ammunition prices related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the soaring popularity of the AR-15.
The AK’s shape may still be iconic, but its new cost is unappealing to many gun buyers. An AK, or Avtomat Kalashnikova, which cost a couple of hundred dollars in the 1980s, can now go for five times more, and is considered by many to be a boutique item.
...
Overseas firearms manufacturers that supplied AK parts and rifles are now more focused on arming Europeans, fearful of an approaching invasion from Moscow, than on supplying the Americans
Members of the ultra-elite Delta Airlines membership class get ferried around in Porsches to their connecting flights?
Ben Ryder Howe for New York magazine:
Is it true, I ask, that Delta sends a Porsche Cayenne to pick up 360° members and whisk them across the runway to meet a tight connection while the rest of the plane waits to deboard?
“Yes”
...
Is it true, I continue, that before every Delta flight the airline sends him a handwritten welcome card?
“Yes”
...
SkyMiles members are so devoted they barely flinched when Delta did something two years ago other airlines had long wished to but couldn’t: It tweaked the formula of its loyalty program to reward travelers for how much they spent instead of how many miles they traveled.
...
Last year, Delta reaped 55 percent of the airline industry’s profits despite having only 20 percent of market share.
(Similarly, I heard speculation this week that the Disney theme park business is somewhat insulated from economic trouble because they've trained their visitors to pay for so many upcharges.)
Two new video game Humble Bundles
The Indie Icons Showcase starts at three games for $5, Steam scores displayed.
And the "Build, shuffle, and battle" bundle promises an "all-star collection of inventive deckbuilders" starting at five games for $10.
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