Links: Week of Mar 01 2025

A.I. and Vibecoding Helped Me Create My Own Software: The limitation here is my imagination.

Humanoid Robots are coming. Wild dogs will not stop me from paying good money for a bot that can iron and fold clothes.

First world problem?: Nebraska Man Struggles to Change Daughter’s Name From ‘Unakite Thirteen Hotel’. For two years.

Michelle Trachtenberg: I did not watch Buffy or any of her other work but it is always depressing to see so many child celebrities die early deaths. This job is hazardous. To be clear cause of death is not known and I do not want to speculate.

What struck me was this bit in the report:

In a 2012 interview with Complex magazine, she recalled a scene in the 2006 film “Beautiful Ohio,” starring William Hurt and Rita Wilson, that featured her “naked tush.” It was, she said, “probably one of the most horrendous moments of my life.”

“It would take an army — or Martin Scorsese — to ever get me naked again,” she added.

As a viewer, I almost never think about the person behind the character. Sure if a Christian Bale loses nearly 30kg for a role, its visible enough and stark enough that one is forced to think about the how of it. But for the most part, I watch the program and move on. Maybe if there is something really interesting or shocking, a comment to my SO.

So it is a jarring to see that the impact of a brief scene stuck with the actor for years after the fact.

These days there is enough nudity on screen that most of us are desensitized to seeing it and I hope the actors are too, to performing them. Even in 2006 or 2012, when maybe it was less common, I would not have imagined an actor, and especially an American¹ actor, would be so traumatized by such a scene.

Maybe it is because she grew up in a time when that was a much bigger deal that it was harder on her. Perhaps actors like her were the trailblazers and paid a price and it is easier for actors now.

It is, however, possible to imagine a possibility where being naked on screen is traumatizing, no matter how common and acceptable. According to Claude, the “being naked in public” dream genre is common across cultures and age groups and more common in adoloscents.

If that is the case I shudder to imagine the cost of all the content on Netflix and other services in a few years time.

The report also has a bit on another scene she was not happy about. And guess what? At the time (and thankfully no longer), the report carried a photo from that scene.