Hacker Cinema
Californication
2007 · TV series · 28 min episodes · 7 seasons
Created by Tom Kapinos
A self-loathing, alcoholic writer attempts to repair his damaged relationships with his daughter and her mother while combating sex addiction, a budding drug problem, and the seeming inability to avoid making bad decisions.
2 positive6 neutralfrom 8 commenters
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9 comments on Hacker News
I started learning english around 1984, when I began to learn programming. Back then most books were, by very far, in english. I also spent some time in the US (about one year altogether).
Copying lyrics from my favorite songs of the 80s was helpful. And then later on TV series and movies in english.
I've watched Friends, HIMYM and Californication* more than once (it's probably the reason I swear so much) and those really helped.
Now I raised my kid in english: from the beginning she was only ever allowed to watch TV shows in english. And she's always been to international schools, in english too.
The other day she taught me a simply word which, surprisingly enough, I didn't know: a "coaster" (a drink coaster).
My absolute favorite is when she uses english grammar and applies it to french: the rules about where adjectives do go vary between french and english and she regularly messes it up in french (supposedly her "native" language but at this point I wonder whether english ain't a first language, and french second).
And one thing she has that I'll never have is a beautiful, proper, english accent. Mine shall forever be a strong french one.
> "Old stuff is better" tendency which sees vintage tech as somehow more credible, ethical, characterful, expressive, and individual than modern tech
Well stuff produced at 1/10000th the number of units sold of, say, a modern iPhone or Android phone is obviously more "individual". I mean: I see a dude driving an AC Cobra vs one driving a mass produced chinese EV... They're both cars but that's about it. That'd be Hank Moody driving an old beaten up Porsche 911 Carrera in Californication. I mean: for one reason or another, Hank Moody is driving an old beaten up Porsche and not a Hyundai. And the series shows him as liking his car and liking to drive his car.
Where's the lack of use in someone daily driving an AC Cobra or an old Porsche? Where's the lack of use in someone using an old camera to take pictures?
> It's still consumerism - primarily about ownership display, not use
Someone takes his old camera, goes out at night, snaps a picture of the sunset, and goes back home. Where's the ownership of display?
I don't post picture or my cars online. I take one out at night and go for a drive on desert roads. Where's the ownership of display? On HN?
Sure, everything is still an object. But then everything is consumerism, unless you make your clothes yourself (funnily enough my mother-in-law knits clothes).
Regarding ethics: I think something can be said about older tech. For example an old "dumb" 1080p projector both gives that "movie theather" feeling (mine had a gigantic diagonal no TV could match) and it's neither listening to everything you say nor sending your data to the motherload nor constantly updating apps for seemingly no reason nor can it be bricked remotely. Nor can it be hacked.
I mean: there's at least something in vintage tech I think.
P.S: I'm currently in the process of buying a "vintage" HP Z series workstation that I'll use a small server but that's because I want shitload of cheap ECC and huge, big, cheap SAS drives... And it's going to get lots of love and use. I may blog about it if I want to display ownership though.
> A pessimistic corollary to this is that intervention is often followed by social punishment if it impinges on anyone else's interests or even just makes the bystanders look bad.
You're not pessimistic, you have depressive realism[1]
Real life is not a movie or television show. Much like women complain they don't like the "manic pixie dream girl"[1] trope of films like Garden State[2]... men don't like, or need the "sullen cherub dream boy" trope you see in movies like Perks of Being a Wallflower.
To be a dissident is a forever decision and if you stray from the narrow, socially acceptable path of back and forth that brought forth our present... global situation... you will wake up one day trying to remind yourself that while your name is not in Wikipedia or IMDB, at least you had an effect on society, that there are people you cannot name or describe, situations you've been in that... moved the needle in the sense you saved a life, or many of them, in ways hard to articulate or prove.
There's an essay I'm struggling to track down that years later, an... let's call her "ex-girlfriend" showed me during my summer in San Francisco post Snowden about the hit Showtime series "Californication"... it talks about how despite being Bukowksi-esque it was actually incredibly feminist, in as much as a sex heavy Showtime series can be...
And rather than actually discuss my life, I'll do the autistic thing and give an example from tv/film... on the show, Hank repeatedly connects with "Trixie" -- she doesn't just "do porn -- she's a full on prostitute, and they have... a banter.
Much like my ex and I... they keep meeting at parties. Hank, the main character... is in love, and even if he wasn't, he doesn't pay for it... and Trixie is forever being "saved" by Hank -- sometimes from rudeness, sometimes from much worse things.
Anyways, when you're autistic, you often meet people who want... a relationship minus the sex. They want to BE the manic pixie dream girl, to embrace life with a dark, brooding intellectual sidekick who can protect them if things go astray. They tend to treat folks like us like a prop, to be discarded when they've gotten their fill (or simply when the summer ends and their "primary" returns), and when they notice this pattern is tipping you towards extremism, they often choose to medicalize the response and blame the victim rather than... call a metaphorical time out and get you out of the cycle of proving oneself smart enough for the good leads.
If you're autistic, and not a jerk... you'll wonder if it's worth the predicaments it got you into, worth the gaslights and gunshots and all the things folks have said, running through my head on nights like these, if you don't have some nest egg to fall back on if the shitstorm your not standing by generates lasts too long.
Anyways, I apologize for the wall of text but... it's true. We're less likely to stand by, and we're more likely to be ostracized for it. I know I felt unwelcome in many infosec spaces because I did not hide the fact that I wasn't a fair weather feminist, and I didn't like how they would treat folks.
People oft conflate autistic and pendantic for a reason -- because they want certain dynamics to persist.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism
[1] Film critic Nathan Rabin coined the term in 2007... talking about [redacted]'s character, he said "[redacted] embodies a character type I like to call The Manic Pixie Dream Girl. [This character] exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures."
> and legitimate consensual sex work
What is legitimate consensual sex work? For those of us who don't transact with prostitutes, all we know about this is a stream of narratives we've seen on tv and in film. Julia Roberts falling for Richard Gere, or Maggie Gyllenhall refusing to have a pimp "manage" her.
Yet, I remember reading one account of a porn actress, who despite signing all the paperwork, waivers and contracts and such, later claimed that every single act felt like rape to her.
Even when there are no pimps or sex traffickers, many claim that they feel coerced by circumstances. Exploited by their clientele.
On top of that we have to deal with ever-evolving ideas about what consent even means. That one cannot properly give consent if one party is more powerful than the other (and how could that ever not be the case, when one is a man and the other a woman... does not plain strength count as power in that scenario?).
In one episode of Californication, Fox Mulder's sitting there mocking a man that showed up with the hooker, calling him a pimp, asking where's his feathered velvet hat, and the guy drolly explains "I'm just here to make sure creeps don't try to beat up the girls".
It's very unclear whether there is such a thing as legitimate consensual sex work, or that humans are even capable of formulating a reasonable definition of consent that would satisfy idiot frat boys and feminist activists both. To call this "tough" is world-class championship understatement. It looks absolutely intractable.
Doesn’t that make Season 1 of Californication illegal since David Duchovny’s character has sex with a portrayed 16 year old girl (with full frontal nudity)?
The TV show Californication is also loosely based on Bukowski.
Other examples of Amazon self-censoring despite the govt saying they are not considering censoring online content.
* Pixelated nudity in shows like Californication and The Man In The High Castle and films like Watchmen and The Godfather
* The Grand Tour had an episode which involved animal carcasses. All of it was removed.
My $0.02 on this difference between Amazon and Netflix. This is Netflix's primary business, while Video is an afterthought for Amazon compared to the retail business. A boycott of their retail business would be catastrophic, whereas a few people canceling their subscription over self-censorship is a non-issue.
Amazon can also potentially be shaken down for protection money. It would work like this. "Hi, we're from this political party and we're considering making these videos a major issue. Meanwhile, would you consider making a donation to our election campaign?"
Oh woaw. When I saw that Californication episode I thought that such an app was pure fiction : )
I haven't had Cable/Satellite since 2002. I started watching all my TV on DVDs that I bought from Amazon, but then switched to iTunes around 2006.
Now it's mostly a combination of iTunes/DVD - I'm pretty certain it's less expensive than subscribing to TV.
The good part of this (and it should be emphasized) - is that you now watch for a _purpose_ - Latest episode of Lost, BSG, Dexter, Weeds, South Park, Doll House, BtVS, Angel, The Wire, DeadWood, Heroes, The Office, Dr. Horrible, Mad Men, Parks and Recreation, Castle, Californication, Dr. Who, Kings, Sarah Connor Chronicles, True Blood, Torchwood.
Any time that might have been lost to just passively watching television, news, is now, of course, lost to passively reading ycombinator, nyt, wsj, groklaw... :-)