@MattMerk@mastodon.social
@MattMerk@mastodon.social avatar

MattMerk

@MattMerk@mastodon.social

I work in the #movies. I've done #VFX in the #StarTrek universe, made it possible for Tom Cruise to find precrime clues in #MinorityReport, and now I have a little boutique company that does #3Dtracking and #matchmoving for even more movies and streaming (née "#TV") shows.

I mostly lurk on social media, but enough about me. How are YOU doing? Drop by and say hello!

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

therobburgessshow, to random
@therobburgessshow@newsie.social avatar

Spotted a gender reveal party on the beach…

video/mp4

MattMerk,
@MattMerk@mastodon.social avatar

@ai6yr @therobburgessshow You beat me to it, though I was going to say at least they didn’t burn down an entire building.

nixCraft, to random
@nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar

are you a rockstar developer? 🤔

MattMerk,
@MattMerk@mastodon.social avatar

@nixCraft I was. I had groupies and lots of cocaine, but then the world of photography went digital and I closed my darkroom.

MattMerk, to ai
@MattMerk@mastodon.social avatar

To anyone posting "art" into my timeline:

I deeply thank you for letting me know you have no actual talent.

You're basically the bro-dude at the college party who doesn't bring a guitar to sing songs to impress the girls, but instead brings a laptop to type prompts into an AI music website. You're not just a creeper, but a creeper with no creative ability of your own. Well done. Good job.

MattMerk, to random
@MattMerk@mastodon.social avatar

This latest from @pluralistic is yet another great peek behind the curtain.

"... this is exactly what the self-driving car bros did over the past decade to convince us all that the human driver was already obsolete. The playbook was nearly identical, right down to the shameless huckster insisting that 'full self-driving is one to two years away' every year for a decade ..."

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/112457035116703740

QasimRashid, to random
@QasimRashid@mastodon.social avatar

BREAKING: Gov Abbot pardons Daniel Perry despite Perry's plan to kill Muslims & Black people—then succeeding in killing a BLM protestor (who was a Veteran). "All lives matter" crowd proudly celebrates killing Muslims & Black people.

A reminder once more that a system cannot fail those it was never meant to protect.

MattMerk,
@MattMerk@mastodon.social avatar

@QasimRashid What gets me is the concept of self-defense. When you know that a group of people is actively planning violence upon you, or even your death, how is it not self-defense to execute that level of force upon them? Is the argument that your self-defense must be in-the-moment? What even does that mean when they get to take their time planning your demise NOT in-the-moment, and then execute their plan in an instant? And finally saying: "We were better than them, but now we're all dead."

MattMerk, to random
@MattMerk@mastodon.social avatar

Shout out to everyone else who doesn’t celebrate Mother’s Day, for whatever reason you don’t .

MattMerk, to writing
@MattMerk@mastodon.social avatar

An excerpt from an email I just sent: “By the way, Aristotle’s POETICS is absolutely NOT an easy read, so when you hear Crag Mazin [a pretty successful Hollywood writer] say that, just know he’s lying to you! … unless you are already an expert on Ancient Greek society, dithyrambic poetry, and music of the lyre. Then it’s a breeze.”

MattMerk,
@MattMerk@mastodon.social avatar

@WTL It really is, and Craig's "How to Write a Movie" episode is absolutely pure gold. But he's just plain wrong about Poetics being an "easy read." Or I am dum. (Could be the latter.) 😂

MattMerk,
@MattMerk@mastodon.social avatar

@WTL I was actually talking about just that podcast, and exactly that episode. Craig recommends reading Poetics, and that’s when he says, “It’s an easy read. You’ll finish it in about half an hour,” then calls it, “a good bathroom book.” 😂 Not one bit of that is true!!!

… except for maybe the good bathroom book part. 🤣

MattMerk, to filmmaking
@MattMerk@mastodon.social avatar

A friend who works for one of the big studios just sent me a screen capture of his bank balance after getting his paycheck direct deposit. The accidentally paid him 19 million dollars. This just happened. I am still laughing.

[Edit to add very important hashtag.]

MattMerk,
@MattMerk@mastodon.social avatar

Update:

slothrop, to random
@slothrop@chaos.social avatar

Apparent Jack Dorsey did or said something. I‘d just like to remark:

Fuck that guy.

MattMerk,
@MattMerk@mastodon.social avatar

@slothrop Corollary: https://bitbang.social/@NanoRaptor/112413658242913985

MattMerk, to random
@MattMerk@mastodon.social avatar

I just had a conversation with a guy who said, “Yeah, well I’m a capitalist.”

So I asked, “Okay, how much capital do you have?”

Boy, oh boy, does that question put things in perspective. He became a caricature of an old Warner Brothers cartoon character, trying to compose himself as he fumbled for words, all while he avoided actually answering the question.

So I simply repeated the question. I highly recommend.

MattMerk,
@MattMerk@mastodon.social avatar

@martin_piper Why, am I claiming to be a capitalist?

MattMerk,
@MattMerk@mastodon.social avatar

@bodhipaksa Spot on. And Stockholm syndrome is a great guess.

MattMerk,
@MattMerk@mastodon.social avatar

@Deus Replied to me? No, not risky.

MattMerk,
@MattMerk@mastodon.social avatar

@Dutchinvestor Is your home a property you rent out to others? How many cars (or “other” items) do you own, and are any of those cars (or “other” items) things you rent out to others? Do you think personal and private property are the same thing? Do you think “capital,” “wealth,” and “money,” are synonyms in the context of a discussion of economics?

See? This is why we can’t have nice things. 😆

Adam_Cadmon1, to random
@Adam_Cadmon1@mastodon.online avatar

If you had never seen a camera before and had no idea of the concept what would you call a camera lens?

MattMerk,
@MattMerk@mastodon.social avatar

@Adam_Cadmon1 Still a lens, I suppose. In “camera lens” the word “camera” functions as an adjective, and lenses predate cameras, so, yeah, a lens?

StillIRise1963, to random
@StillIRise1963@mastodon.world avatar

It’s so shocking to me how we’re letting extremely wealthy people kill the future.

MattMerk,
@MattMerk@mastodon.social avatar

@StillIRise1963 Ironically, a measure of just how much pain people can tolerate. The wealthy have always tested our societal pain threshold. How long before they finally hit it … this time?

MattMerk,
@MattMerk@mastodon.social avatar

@StillIRise1963 For sure. Wishing we all had a lower pain threshold seems counterintuitive, but I really think it would help.

MattMerk,
@MattMerk@mastodon.social avatar

@StillIRise1963 I think you really hit on something there. We have all been force-fed this myth of the toughest position is to bear any pain without crying (at least for boys), good people just grin and bear it, we must always be positive, or we're a "bummer." The saner thing would be simply saying the truth when things hurt. The even more sane thing would be to listen to people in pain. This rugged individualism thing needs to fade away.

MattMerk, to random
@MattMerk@mastodon.social avatar

[And, POOF! Deleted. Because I can't allow that kind of shame to haunt me here on Mastodon! 😂 ]

virtualbri, to ukteachers
@virtualbri@mastodon.online avatar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEJ4hkpQW8E

Normally I'm not a fan of TED Talks, but this is a barn burner.

#Inequality #Education

MattMerk,
@MattMerk@mastodon.social avatar

@virtualbri For me, it's refreshing to see some of these topics/solutions move into the Overton Window. These are definitely things that should be talked about (especially because of how easy it is to debunk Social Security is "bankrupting" the U.S. economy), but because some of his bullet points need to be addressed.

As you said, "I don't agree with all the solutions," but many are pressing issues we need to address.

MattMerk,
@MattMerk@mastodon.social avatar

@virtualbri And thank you for posting it. This was a good watch!

MattMerk,
@MattMerk@mastodon.social avatar

@virtualbri I saw a lot of TED content for a while because my cinematographer friend oversaw the shooting in the earlier days (and even wrangled me into a little of it). But yeah, it's now basically pseudo-intellectual DAVOS for the wealthy who love the smell of their own think-farts. 😂 "Thank you for coming to my TED talk," indeed!

But YES, YES, YES, to the discussion of policy and not personalities!!! More of that, please!

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