Offside Chat Archives (2014-2021)

It is quite amusing to observe how everyone seems to be enjoying themselves amidst the collapse of the tourism industry; I suppose they truly believe their own livelihoods are untouchable while they wait for the neighbor's business to go under first.

restlesssurfer97 said:Can I actually go back to the whole corona thing?

Only if ivtau lets you.

brightpilot6 said:The Odyssey feels like this pseudo-intellectual, overly polished attempt at grandeur. It reminds me of one of those urinals in a modern art museum that everyone stands around admiring, even though it was probably just left bolted to the gallery wall by mistake ☕

Dadaism? ☕

Anthony Wright30 said:It is quite amusing to observe how everyone seems to be enjoying themselves amidst the collapse of the tourism industry; I suppose they truly believe their own livelihoods are untouchable while they wait for the neighbor's business to go under first.

I thought about asking the folks over in the tourism thread how much vacation rentals have dropped in certain areas, mostly just out of curiosity... but people seem so high-strung lately that I was worried they'd take it the wrong way. So, I decided against it.

That Dadaism thing was basically my go-to move at pub quizzes a hundred times over. Someone would pose a question, and I’d just drop some Dadaism nonsense that somehow ended up being the right answer. It makes you look like an absolute legend at the table, I suppose. ☕

Anthony Wright30 said:That Dadaism thing was basically my go-to move at pub quizzes a hundred times over. Someone would pose a question, and I’d just drop some Dadaism nonsense that somehow ended up being the right answer. It makes you look like an absolute legend at the table, I suppose. ☕

Think of Dadaism as the modern version of that riddle about which language the word "robot" comes from. ☕

Regarding Paul Sanders5 and Jessica Gonzalez discussing the whole COVID-19 situation ☕

Where is bluebison47 to confirm the rotation?

urbanhawk17 said:I thought about asking the folks over in the tourism thread how much vacation rentals have dropped in certain areas, mostly just out of curiosity... but people seem so high-strung lately that I was worried they'd take it the wrong way. So, I decided against it.

And I wonder, just how much longer will it take for things to finally settle? 😁
I suppose people are still booking trips to some extent, though I wonder who would actually bother traveling when you can't easily cross borders or when everyone has already burned through their annual leave during this whole lockdown period. In my estimation, the travel agencies will likely be the first ones to feel the squeeze, but after that, I guess it really depends on how much economic resilience each individual business possesses. It is all quite difficult to predict at this stage.

I suppose there is a certain charm to the idea that we might end up having more local tourism boards than actual tourists this year. 😁

I suppose I should probably clarify that what I’m saying here is just based on bits and pieces of conversation I've had with friends who work in the travel industry or own their own businesses there; personally, I don't have any direct involvement in the tourism sector myself.

steelharbor9 said:If you're looking for bad space movies like Gravity, honestly, if you missed Ad Astra, just let it go.

It might be the worst movie of 2019, maybe even on its own, but man, especially considering all that hype 🙏

Even Zvonimir Maycug wouldn't be caught dead with a script this bad—it was just a total disaster 🙏

I was watching Gravity last night. And why is it considered a bad movie? It walked away with seven Oscars! The effects were top-tier... it isn't some typical, preachy nonsense like Rambo where he takes out half the Russian army and just gets a single scratch on his hand because he's such a powerful American.

I'm not saying Sandra Bullock could have actually died up there, but the film really forces you to contemplate how messed up we are as a species... thinking about how there's absolutely nothing up there but eternal silence...

Interstellar is next on my list to watch...

My favorite part of a pub quiz happens when nobody at the table actually knows the answer, yet you suddenly blurt something out that sounds just convincing enough to work, while everyone else gets carried away by the sheer madness of trying to push for one more correct response ☕

Anthony Wright30 said:And I wonder, just how much longer will it take for things to finally settle? 😁
I suppose people are still booking trips to some extent, though I wonder who would actually bother traveling when you can't easily cross borders or when everyone has already burned through their annual leave during this whole lockdown period. In my estimation, the travel agencies will likely be the first ones to feel the squeeze, but after that, I guess it really depends on how much economic resilience each individual business possesses. It is all quite difficult to predict at this stage.

I suppose there is a certain charm to the idea that we might end up having more local tourism boards than actual tourists this year. 😁

I suppose I should probably clarify that what I’m saying here is just based on bits and pieces of conversation I've had with friends who work in the travel industry or own their own businesses there; personally, I don't have any direct involvement in the tourism sector myself.

What about domestic travelers?

urbanhawk17 said:What about domestic travelers?

I just went ahead and did an EDIT above; I suppose I don't know things with absolute certainty, but rather based on what I've gathered from friends who might be involved or have some insight.

So, my assumption is probably that the home team will perform roughly the same as they always have.

Jessica Gonzalez said:I guess 2001: A Space Odyssey feels so much better when you actually understand the context, which seems to be a struggle for people these days. It was filmed before the moon landing, and there was a book being written alongside it as a parallel. If you watch the movie and read the book while keeping that era in mind, it’s incomparable to something like Interstellar. They aren't even in the same category; I wonder if they're even playing the same sport.

🙄

nimbleranger52 said:I was watching Gravity last night. And why is it considered a bad movie? It walked away with seven Oscars! The effects were top-tier... it isn't some typical, preachy nonsense like Rambo where he takes out half the Russian army and just gets a single scratch on his hand because he's such a powerful American.

I'm not saying Sandra Bullock could have actually died up there, but the film really forces you to contemplate how messed up we are as a species... thinking about how there's absolutely nothing up there but eternal silence...

Interstellar is next on my list to watch...

Rambo is a bit more realistic, I guess.

Jacob Kern2 said:So, according to your logic, absolutely everyone would have been infected? That seems to ignore the reality of cases like Sweden, which, even with their relatively minimal interventions, saw roughly 3,000 deaths per 10 million citizens—though even those numbers remain a subject of debate.

Sent from my iPhone SE using Reddit

Sweden is Sweden. Different people, different climate, different social norms.
Without any interventions at all, it is entirely plausible that everyone would have been infected.
Look, I’m not claiming this is a certainty; I’m saying we simply don't know what would have happened, much like how we still don't have a definitive grasp on the mortality rate.
And let's not pretend mortality is the only metric that matters.

Furthermore, if Sweden had 3,000 deaths, that scales down to about 1,000 here when you look at the population ratio. Do you honestly believe we would see significantly more than that without any measures in place?

I guess Gravity is a pretty thin movie, but it really wins you over with the visuals and the editing. Out of the recent space flicks, it's probably the best one about life on the Moon. The book is also great. Honestly, those two works aren't even in the same league.

urbanhawk17 said:Rambo is a bit more realistic, I guess.

The first Rambo is an absolute masterpiece

It’s got nothing to do with the rest of them

This isn't even directed at you, it's for nimbleranger52 😁

Now Branko doc is going to absolutely wreck his whole family because you guys won't stop obsessing over Odyssey.

I guess I feel like the threat of the virus is being overstated, while the danger of the socioeconomic fallout from all this apocalyptic hysteria is being overlooked. Entire industries that employ tens of millions of people globally are facing a tsunami of panic that has completely shaken consumer confidence. Take the airline industry, for example—when will they actually get back to pre-crisis passenger numbers, especially with all these announcements about long, invasive security screenings before every flight? Or think about hospitality and entertainment: trying to lure thousands of people back into nightclubs, concerts, movie theaters, restaurants, cafes, stadiums, gyms, playgrounds, hotels, spas, or amusement parks... (we could go on like this forever). Do you really believe we can just flip a switch and return to the old way of doing things? First, you overwhelm people with a new illness, run dramatic press conferences counting the dead, and stigmatize those who get sick, making everyone feel like human interaction is inherently bad (even after a disaster!). And then, you expect everyone to immediately restore human behavior and trust in economic systems that took centuries to build. Come on guys, surely we're smarter than that.