What bothered me about Star Wars: The Force Awakens

It's been 2 weeks now since the release of Episode VII of Star Wars, named The Force Awakens. I won't believe you if you tell me you've never heard of it. As a big fan, even I was overwhelmed with the enormous amount of publicity about it, with an overdose of Star Wars labeled products available everywhere (from water to batteries and toilet paper).

The movie is on its way to battle with Avatar for biggest gross income worldwide at the rate it's going (already 8th overall, without the Chinese market, opening in about a week). Obviously, these results wouldn't be so high if the film wasn't an enjoyable experience.

I enjoyed it very much, and after a ten year wait since the previous movie, I left the theater with a sense of wonder such as only this saga can bring me. Moreover, my wife who's never been a big fan of the franchise was very enthusiastic when the ending credits appeared.

However, a few details bugged me during the viewing, and the days that passed since increased both the number of details and the importance of them. Disappointment, probably due to excessively high expectations, appeared.

Spoilers ahead!! For those who haven't seen the movie yet, you might want to stop here.

Tribute to the origins, or lack of creativity?

Since the announcement that new Star Wars movies would be made, and especially since J.J. Abrams has accepted the job to direct the first of these new movies, it was clear that the goal was to emulate the spirit of the Original Trilogy. Upon watching The Force Awakens, it is impossible to deny that the objective has been reached. Maybe a little bit too much.

First, let's take a lot at the story, and especially, the similarities with the very first movie, namely Episode IV.

Some critical data is hidden in a droid, lost on a sandy planet. After being captured by scavengers, the droid meets the future hero. They leave the planet aboard the Millenium Falcon. A dark, masked antagonist, too late to retrieve the critical data, tortures the protagonist who hid the data inside the droid. Once the droid safely reaches the Resistance/Rebellion headquarter, an attack is decided against a ferocious station that can destroy planets. The station is destroyed after a vulnerable point has been hit, leaving the masked antagonist probable to return later to avenge the attack.

I have of course left out of the summary multiple points aside, but I think anyone can agree that from this short synopsis, it is impossible to tell which of Episode IV or VII I was referring to. Some might not mind the excessive mirroring of the two stories, it did bother me. Sadly for me, the lack of creativity for me doesn't stop there.

After the story, the setup mirrors way too much in my opinion. Everything is done so that old fans are put in a situation of comfort. Too much for me. The movie, happening about three decades after the event of Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, leaves us with a sensation that nothing much has evolved. There still is a civil war between an Empire-like side and a rebellion, the addition of a mostly unseen New Republic being mainly useless to the story. But worse than that, the lack of evolution of the characters bothers me. Leia is still a high personality in the Resistance, apparently not trained in the ways of the Force. Han and Chewbacca are still smugglers. The case made for this situation actually makes sense, but it still leaves us with a sour taste, as if the galaxy had been frozen in carbonite for 30 years. 

Too much tribute, but too much novelty

The second point on which the new episode seems to miss the mark can seem to be negating the first one. The spirit behind it is quite different though. 

We are back in an universe we all know. However, if we put aside the characters who had a line (including Ackbar and Nien Nunb for instance) in the previous movies, the universe seems to be all new. All the planets are new, never mentioned before. Even the desert planet (Tatooine/Jakku) and the urban planet (Coruscant/Hosnian Prime) are all new.

And while I might be wrong, I can't remember of one species that appeared on the screen during Episode VII that also appeared before. No Hutt, no Twi'lek, no Rodian, no Gungan (I know most are happy about that one), no Nautolan, no Weequay, no Gamorrean, ... and the list goes on.

While so much effort has been put to place the fans into a known story, none of the background actually reminds us of the old Star Wars movies. Are we even in the same galaxy or were the main characters transported in another one?

A few details that weigh in on the result

These last few inputs are actually of different kinds. 

The last planet seen on screen, now known as Ahch-To, had a striking effect on me. We were not in a galaxy far, far away anymore. We were on Earth. I know the emphasis has been put during production on actual filming on location. But the way of filming that scene, and the decor in itself left me disappointed.

Another last point that I will bring up here, is in relation to the Starkiller Base and its actions. I know we're in a space opera and not in a hard SF setting, so I'll pass on the laser beam going faster than light, let's say it's possible in that universe. No problem with that. But how can such a beam separate in multiple beams just before impact? And worst of all, and Abrams is becoming notorious for not knowing how light and space function, especially that space is huge and light is slow: How were the people on Takodana able to see the destruction of the Hosnian System? The sunlight takes 8 minutes to reach us, and compared to the distance between stars, this is ridiculously fast. That made no sense.

Still excited about Episode VIII

You might think now that I am done with Star Wars after that. You would be obviously very wrong. I only listed the problems of this new episode. I didn't list all the good points because this was not the subject of this blog post. I am still very excited about Episode VIII and the direction in which this movie has set up the future of the franchise with its ending. I'm hoping for a little more risks and innovation in the story though, and a little more familiarity with the planets and extras to make me feel like I'm a that beloved galaxy far, far away...

How much is worth a couch advertised $500 in a store and $800 in another one?

A couch is advertised for $500 in a store and for $800 in another one. How much is it worth?

In case you can't find the answer to that question, let me reassure you: it is perfectly normal. That question is actually incomplete, and some context is lacking. You might find that surprising but nothing has a value per se. A value only has meaning if it is referring to someone. And everyone is different, meaning that an object's value is different for each person.

This is easy to demonstrate. Let's take a few examples.

I bought a couch a week ago. How much is that advertised couch mentioned earlier to me? I would say close to 0€. Why would I spend any money on a couch when I already have a new one in my leaving room? No matter how low of a price a store would sell, I wouldn't buy it because I don't need a second couch.

Other example: I don't have a couch, or an old one that needs replaced. But I don't like that specific new couch that is sold in these stores. Once again, this new couch is worth close to nothing to me. Maybe I would settle to buying it for $50 but no more, as a temporary one until I find one that I actually like.

On the opposite, let's say I need a new couch. The one we have been talking about is my dream couch. Of course, I am going to go buy it (in the store that sells it for $500 if I am aware of it). But I would have bought it even for $1,500.

The same exact couch is worth nothing for one, $50 at most for the other and up to $1,500 for the last one. It doesn't matter what a store price tag means. If I buy a book for $20, what it means is I'd rather have the book than the $20. At the same time, when the bookstore sells that book for $20, it means that the seller would rather have the $20 than the book.

In fact, money is not necessary to determine the value of something. Money is just a tool to facilitate exchanges. Without money, how would a baker buy meat at the butcher? Bread, his product, might not be what the butcher wants in exchange for the meat he provides. Money answers that problem. That's all it does, that's all it is.

Browns: Meet the new AFC North leader

After this Sunday and the Steelers loss at the Jets (13-20), the Browns are now sole leaders of the AFC North division in the NFL. Obviously, I had never seen that before. What's more surprising is that even long-time followers of the NFL can't remember that ever happening. If what I read is correct, it's been since 1994 that the Browns haven't been first of their division --AFC Central then-- that late in the season.

With a 6-3-0 overall record after Week 10, the Browns are becoming contenders for the play-offs in the mind of analysts and Football enthusiasts. Their win at Cincinnati on Thursday (24-3) broke a good number of streaks :

• As mentioned already, 20 years without a division sole lead for the Browns that late in the season
• A 14 home winning streak for the Bengals in regular season
• A 17 road losing streak for the Browns in division matchups

AFC North Standings after week 10 - Screenshot from NFL.com

Moreover, the fact that they are first in the only division in which all teams have a positive record is even more amazing.

That being said, the path is still long with 7 games left in the regular season before even dreaming continuing in January. Four road games for three home games, two division games receiving the Bengals on week 15 before going to the Ravens for the last game of the regular season, each week, the Browns will now have to prove worthy of their new status.

The reasons for the division lead

The Browns have shown in their first 9 games a variety of good qualities that can explain the unexpected lead. 

The passing defense with our coverage by the safeties and the cornerbacks along with the efficient pass-rush makes us a terrible team to beat. Quarterbacks have had a 57.9% completion rate (2nd lowest in the NFL) for 12 Touchdowns (3rd lowest) and 13 interceptions (2nd highest), with an additional 20 sacks against the Browns. Tashaun Gipson (6 INT), Buster Skrine (4 INT) and Joe Haden in the backfield are uncompromising. Paul Kruger (6 Sacks) and Jabaal Sheard are also doing the job to defend against the pass.

Brian Hoyer

That good passing defense is what's mostly responsible for the +9 differential on turnovers. The safe Hoyer is the other responsible with 4 interceptions for 10 touchdowns.

Not as constant, but very efficient in the majority of games --excluding the three awful weeks that were 7, 8 and 9-- the running offensive game can be a terrific weapon. The three-headed running monster (Ben Tate, Terrance West, Isaiah Crowell) wins yards, scores touchdowns and allows for a great play-action passing game, at which Hoyer and his offensive line excel.

The comeback of Jordan Cameron and Josh Gordon will permit to vary the plays even more and with more efficiency, even if the receivers did a great job, Andrew Hawkins leading the way.

Nothing is done yet

A 6-3 record is good, but the Browns are known for losing streaks recently, and a 2 or 3 losses in a row could dismantle a good effort in the first half of the season. 

The Houston Texans, our next opponents, are coming to Cleveland on week 11 with a negative record. But it would be a big mistake to underestimate them, especially since their strongest asset is also our biggest flaw. The running defense has been far from perfect, allowing much more than 4 yards per carry in most games. The Texans are 4th in the NFL in terms of yards per game. We'll have to step up on these plays and carry on with the good work to continue this season at the same rhythm.

I would be extremely disappointed if we'd finish the season with a 8-8 record I was hoping for in my pre-season blog post in August.

Go Browns!!

NFL season starting : Go Browns

I started getting interested in football --yes, I'll say football, even if I'm french-- a few years ago when they started broadcasting the Superbowl on french television. It was of course in the middle of the night, so it was hard to get up for school , or later for work, the next day. I didn't know much about the rules, but I was impressed with the tactical perfection of some plays.

Evidently, I did not become a Browns fan after watching a Superbowl. Back then, I didn't have any favorite team. I first heard of them on the Drew Carey Show, but had no idea who they were. Then a few years later, my Ohioan wife, or more specifically her parents introduced me to them. They are huge fans. Geographically closer to the Bengals, living near Dayton, their heart belong to the brown and orange team from Cleveland. 

Since then, I've been following their results, heartbreaking most of the time (4-12 last season after 7 losses in a row to finish 2013). But the fans and their enthusiasm about their team makes it a one of a kind. They remind me of my favorite soccer team, here in France (with mostly the same kind of results since 2007). Lens has a fan base that spread all over the country and more. Both sets of fans are often considered the most loyal ones and I'm proud to be a part of both.

I truly hope for an improvement in the results starting this year, even if the offensive team is far from the same level as the defensive one. But a 8-8 this season would be very welcome, and to build on that for the future. After all, even if they never appeared in the Superbowl since its creation, never say never. Lens, created in 1906 won its first (and only so far) french championship title in 1998. 

Go Browns! Go Lens!

Tribute to Friends, 10 years after The Last One

"There's nothing to tell!"

There's really nothing to tell that could explain how much I love that show. From that very first line, I was hooked. Of course, I didn't start watching it on September 22nd of 1994. I didn't even start watching it on April 4th of 1996, when it first aired in France. I actually started my obsession my first year after finishing high school. I went to college, away from home for the first time, I had a combo TV-VHS player and nothing to watch that could fill multiple hours. So I went to the store and tried to find something that could be worth spending the little money I had. I guess there was a good deal on Friends because even if I didn't know about it, I left with the first two seasons.

I devoured these two seasons more often than I probably should have. I didn't have the money to buy any additional ones, so much that after a few weeks, I knew by heart almost every line of these first forty-eight episodes. I was spending most of my time alone, as a young seventeen year old geek who didn't have his own computer, even less so access to Internet without going to a cybercafe, or the ability to make friends easily. Chandler, Joey, Monica, Phoebe, Rachel and Ross were my friends during that year.

I dropped my whole year in March and I came home with nothing to do and no new Friends episodes to watch. I had just discovered a new tool though, Kazaa. Now disappeared, that P2P file sharing application helped me quench my thirst for more Friends. I couldn't find any good French version of the episodes though. So I took a decision that still shapes my life today; I started downloading, very slowly (even ADSL then wasn't fast enough to have an episode in less than a few hours). I remember I was downloading, during the best times at about 50 Kb/s. 

I was so impatient, I was previewing the little I had downloaded of the episodes multiple times so I would know every intro by heart, in English, even if I sometimes didn't understand everything. I started downloading from Season 1, even though I already had them in French. This is how I most improved my English listening comprehension. Much more so than the years of English classes in middle school and then high school. I spent hours watching and rewatching every episodes I had. By then, Season 10 was almost finished in the US, but my downloading was too slow. I think when the last episode aired in May 2004, I was still midway through Season 6.

By now, I've probably seen each episodes at least twenty times. My wife, thankfully is also a big fan of the six friends. I bought the 10-season-DVD-set as soon as I could, about six or seven years ago. We watch it very regularly, sometimes even just as a background because we love to be with them. Each of these characters are unique, and the chemistry between them is something I've never seen since in a sitcom. 

Favorite Character

Even though I love all six of the Friends, my favorite has been Chandler from the beginning. He's the one I feel the closest to, I love his jokes, his sarcasm, and my wife often tells me after one of his lines: "It sounds like you could have said that!".

Favorite Episode

S03E02 - The One Where No One's Ready. It's hard to choose among all of the gems, but this one, set up as a play, one decor (Monica and Rachel's Apartment), one long twenty minute scene, with a frenetic rhythm and above all the friendly fight between Chandler and Joey makes it unforgettable to me.

Favorite Season

Season 5. The Season where Monica and Chandler hide their relationship is for me the high point of the whole show. Includes also the episode where Chandler can't make jokes, Ross moving in with Chandler and Joey, the Thanksgivings flashbacks, Ross flirting by talking about the smell of gas and more.

Now, tell me what are your favorite character, episode and season.

Streisand Effect : restaurant sues a bad review and gets bad publicity

In France, you're allowed to write a bad review about a restaurant in your blog, but apparently, you're not allowed to be referenced by Google too high, or you could get sued.

Photo used in the original post

This is what happened to Caroline Doudet, under the name "L'Irrégulière" on her blog Les Chroniques Culturelles, when she shared her disappointment about a dinner she had at Il Giardino in Cap Ferret, southwest of France. She deleted the blog post after the judgement, although it is still accessible on archive.org. For those who can't read French, the opinion column is titled "The place to avoid in Cap Ferret: Il Giordano", it is a chronological description of what happened that evening, from the moment they entered the restaurant until the check and finishes with "I incite you to blacklist [the restaurant] if you come in the area" followed by the address.

Her complaints in the whole post are numerous: bad service (with multiple examples), unfriendly and non-business-minded owner, low quality meals. Her points are backed by examples and we can feel the unpleasantness of the dinner through the words.

Ten months later, the disappointed customer got fined 2,500€ for "denigration" (1,500€ for the restaurant, 1,000€ for the justice fees) and constrained to change the title of her blog post (as I mentioned earlier, she decided to delete it altogether instead).

The restaurant, primarily but non-exclusively serving pizzas, thought they had won. That dreadful publicity, ranked on the first page on Google searches, was doomed to disappear. That was without thinking of the repercussions of that conviction. Media recounted the judgement. To nobody's surprise though, potential customers were not happy with the decision and started giving bad reviews on websites like TripAdvisor (with one listing it as Streisand favorite restaurant and grading it one star out of five a few days ago) or on Google Plus (average of 1.3 out of 5 after 194 reviews).

For those unaware, this is called the Streisand Effect. By trying to censor something they considered bad (reportedly, before the judgement, the page had been read less than 500 times), they created a negative internet buzz that reached hundreds of times that number.

A little piece of advice to the owner: the best response to that review was not to censor it, but to prove it was wrong by providing a good service that would call for good reviews. Free speech, even though attacked from all sides, is a concept that people are very attached to, and any blow towards it will probably have a negative effect on the attacker. I'm even sure that if the fine had been higher, Caroline Doudet wouldn't have had to pay it but the internet would have organized to help her raise that money.

This is one of the most noticeable market effect. I know I won't ever go eat in that restaurant. Without that judgement, it was possible. Thanks to the defense of free speech, I got to read that blog post that I would never have read otherwise. You'll never see me, Il Giardano.

French anti-Amazon law

Today came into effect a law here in France that is nicknamed "anti-Amazon law". Of course, the law doesn't cite Amazon, but the intentions behind the text was clearly and loudly announced to protect small bookstores against the international online competitor.

To have a full understanding of the story, a little background is probably needed, especially for those who have no knowledge of french laws about books. A few decades ago, politician were afraid that small bookstores would be destroyed by the competition of big malls that could sell books for a lower price. So, the government established something called "le prix unique du livre". It can be translated to "book's unique price". In effect, it means that when a book is first published, an advised price is settled, and it is forbidden to sell it for less than this price minus 5%. (Example: settled price 10€, nobody can sell it for less than 9.50€)

So, for a little more than 30 years, there's been no concurrence in France on book prices. As often though, the intended protection for bookstores never existed. The rate at which they disappeared is the same as in any other comparable country, where such laws didn't exist. The only everlasting effect was then that the lack of competition on book prices artificially keeps them at a higher level than in the US for instance: a net loss for the French reader.

Then Amazon came into our lives. The French version of the website still followed the local laws and applied the "no-less-than-5%" rule. To make their service appealing to their intended customers, they instated a free delivery for books, first on all order above twenty euros, then, a few years later, on all orders.

The same way it is anywhere else in the world, Amazon.fr is now a leader in the world of book selling in France. They achieve that by offering their customers what they want: prices as low as possible, an enormous catalog of items and a system of reviews and advice for finding your next purchase. Bookstores, for the most part, are still struggling.

Politicians then had a new great idea a year or so ago. "Let's try to slow down Amazon and bring back the readers to small bookstores." That's what lead to the new law voted two weeks ago. What the text of the law number 2014-779 of July 8 of 2014 (pdf) says -- my own translation:

 "When a book is delivered to the buyer and is not picked up directly in a bookstore, the selling price will be the price settled by the editor or the importing agent. The seller can remove 5% of this price off the delivery fee he chooses, without being able to make it a free delivery."

 A direct attack towards e-bookstores, Amazon in the first place. Today's reply by Amazon France probably surprised no one but the politicians behind that law. They announced on their website than sadly, they can't apply the 5% discount on the books they're selling, and they can't apply a free delivery to their orders. Instead, they decided to set the price to 0.01€ for the delivery.

Let's have a quick look at the actual effects of that law.

• Prices online have increased to reach the level they are in actual bookstores. 
• Delivery is still artificially free. 

For the customer, books more expansive, for Amazon, a raise in revenue of 5% on each order. Maybe the orders will decrease by a tiny amount, but overall, I think they'll gain money out of this. Because ordering books online is convenient, and that's nothing a bookstore can compete with.

The big error that bookstore owners and politicians make here is that they want to be on equal foot with Amazon. But that is simply impossible. Logistics and stocks are both in favor of the multinational company. That doesn't mean that physical bookstores have to disappear. But here's an advice, don't try to compete with Amazon with lobbying for new laws. Adapt!

http://librairie-expression.com/

I actually like bookstores. I like to wander in their alleys to try and find new novels to read. From what I've seen on the internet, a lot of people feel the same. I don't want them to disappear, and for that, there's one solution that the US bookstores should think of also. Adapt your offer. Specialize in certain genres, and personalize your offer, your advice. Adjoin your store to a coffee shop, a tearoom or just a reading room with a few baked goods. These are just the first ideas that pop in my head, but I think that's the way to go.

These are services that Amazon can't offer and they won't be able to compete with you.