Why Netflix? Because some lawyer thought Netflix's pockets were deep enough and that they looked like a low-hanging fruit.

Only two lines? That means they didn't have to pay him SAG rates! Tho he'd be due a bump for 'special business'.

I'd go further and say the best acting is more body language than facial expressions or speech. Body language brings the *whole* character to life even when there's no face or dialog. Without that, Chewbacca would have indeed been a walking carpet; with it, he's an enduring character.

As an extreme example, remember Star Trek's horta? it worked as a character (at least as well as it could for what it was) because the director understood that the way it moved was a good deal of how it conveyed itself to we-the-audience.

You are right, but I think what the comment about 'em being hidden so he can use non-actors is getting at, is that Lucas mistakes the costume for the character. The reason those 'hidden actor' characters in the first three films were so successful is that they were a character first and a costume second. Conversely when Lucas is left to his own devices, we get a talking costume with no character in it regardless of whether the actor is any good or not.

Actually, Lucas is terrible at worldbuilding -- when he's in charge of that, we get Jar Jar and mitocloridians [sp?]. Trouble is he really doesn't have the SF mindset that extrapolates whatever into a universe. What he does have is a toymaker mindset that thinks the more weirdness you stuff into it, the better, and he doesn't know when to stop. His universe isn't built; it's cluttered.

He's pretty good at whizbang scripts and throwing out concepts when that's all he does with it (I say, having seen early SW4 iterations). He's not good at exploring the people beyond their surface reactions, or the world beyond throwing toys at it. Again, that's why we get crap like Jar Jar, who shows us how (Lucas thinks) we're supposed to react to all this clutter.

And he's not getting better; he's getting worse, because he's successful enough to be "uneditable" and can afford to totally indulge himself... something he couldn't yet do with the first three films. Plus back then he had real SF authors involved.

"I am your father" was character depth? Er, well, yeah, but SW fanfic explored that immediately after the first film, and IMO Lucas stole that idea straight from fanfic regardless of whatever he may claim. It sure isn't where the early concepts were going with the Vader character.

And about the first film, he originally insisted: "There will never be a Star Wars sequel. Sequels are made by people who can't think up new material." (That's from memory but it's real close to an exact quote.) Then when it became such a howling success, first there had always been three, and then there had always been nine...

Oh, the irony.

I'm with you. I've seen it on LinkedIn when people boast about the amazing lunch at the amazing convention/tradeshow full of amazing people.

Facebook: Actual friends and interests you have.
LinkedIn: Keep it strictly business.
Twitter: To follow the odd interest.
Google+: So you can say "I'm on Google+!"

I hate it when you see someone posting the same tripe across all their social networks. No one on LinkedIn cares what you ate for lunch.

Too little or too much iodine can fuck up your thyroid (only because it uses iodine directly), but otherwise it's not real sensitive to lifestyle or diet... however it can influence what you want to do and eat (low thyroid causes sugar craving and lack of motivation/energy to do anything). TSH levels fluctuate depending on iron, selenium, and sugar intake, but there's no strong evidence that any of these will cause more than transient deficiency; indeed, low thyroid is a known cause of poor iron absorption, so it's rather the reverse -- eat well and you still won't get good use of it. At least one gene has been identified that causes poor T4-to-T3 conversion, IOW the DNA that controls the required enzyme is defective. Anyway, if you try treating hypothyroid with diet and exercise you won't get far. I can point at myself as a good example -- I'm more active than most folks (I've done physical work my whole life) and I eat almost entirely home-cooked, nutrient-dense food, but that doesn't do a thing for my Hashimoto's.

If I find that particular paper again I'll let you know. And depression as a consequence of subclinical hypothyroidism is very well established, but no longer generally acted upon. It used to be routinely treated as such, but when the TSH test came to prominence, most doctors started treating to make nice test results rather than treating the patients' symptoms.... despite that all the evidence is against using TSH as anything but a crude marker that something is wrong. False negatives are extremely common.

Here's a starter kit:
http://hormonerestoration.com/...

I have Hashimoto's thyroiditis, and I've had to take up reading the Journal of Endocrinology in sheer self-defense. It's quite shocking how much well-established endocrine research has never filtered down to GPs, never mind other specialty fields, despite that a malfunctioning endocrine system can fuck up just about anything else. I've concluded it should be the first line of inquiry (since fixing the thyroid will commonly cure a whole raft of apparently-unrelated physical and mental symptoms), but most doctors act like it's the last resort.

There's nothing better for turning you into a nervous wreck than knowing that your every word and motion are going to be dissected with the goal of disqualifying you...

Probably the most common cause of depression is subclinical hypothyroidism, specifically with low T3. One psychiatrist found that he could cure 90% of his patients by prescribing T3 to bring their active thyroid hormone level up to normal. (Prescribing T4 alone didn't work, probably because poor T4-to-T3 conversion is part of the problem here.)

Then it needs to be part of the qualifying exam, not external to that. If it's part of the exam, then it's obviously not going to be secret from the pilot examiners.

(Actually, I thought this was how it is already, at least in the U.S.)

This weekend I saw a guy apparently picnicking across the road from my house. After a while I went over to see WTF, and turns out he was working for a mapping company (and the company drone was flying overhead, snapping photos). He told me that their maps are accurate to within 1/8th inch.

Or someone will figure they can tromp the pedal ALL the time because the car will take care of it... then when they get to a higher speed zone, the car will speed up inappropriately and run someone else off the road, or slide off the road because 45mph was okay on ice but 65mph is not. Or it will slow when doing so is dangerous (frex, when that truck behind you can't slow down that fast), but the sign said to. Situational awareness is not just the speed limit. It's a continuous series of judgment calls based on the whole damn road and everyone on it.