Really excellent article, thank you for sharing! I’ve noticed more and more alternative color grades and fan edits of popular movies making their way onto torrent sites over the past several years. Recently acquired a version of Jurassic World which removes the aggressive blue color grading. Big fan of the results.

They’re entering their Gish era.

Right on, Omahomie! How bout that performance of Descenscion!? Walking into the venue, I told myself I would be stoked to hear Sentry the Defiant or Gravity’s Union. Wasn’t even registering as a possibility that I’d get both.

Its a fun element which differentiates them from their peers, and one which drew me to the group early on, but it’s definitely not necessary. Their lyrics are borderline inscrutable even without the layers of meta they get infused with, but they make it sound good.

I don’t use Linux, and I didn’t know if there was a difference between any of those terms. Soni just used all of em 😅

I’ll attempt to suss it out a little bit, as you seem to have given his argument it’s due, even if it doesn’t click for you. It doesn’t for me either. My cynicism tells me that, if he weren’t eying a White House run, he would have just signed it. However, as pretty much the presumptive establishment Dem favorite, he’s been listening to the ghouls in the DNC who say things like “Trans rights are a losing issue, we have to divest ourselves of ‘fringe’ politics”. As a smokescreen for that bit of realpolitik, he is couching his stance in terms of “eroding executive authority”.

My understanding (IANAL in Cali or otherwise) is that California law currently grants the office of the Governor exclusive discretionary power in whether to honor extradition requests from other states (provided the governor is not otherwise compelled to respond in a certain manner e.g. a federal court issues the request or something). Newsome’s argument is that it is improper for him, a term-limited outgoing governor, to “willingly” divest the office of an exclusive discretionary power like that. It’s similar, in principle, to the arguments some years ago regarding the Senate confirmation of political appointees during a President’s second term. I.e. it wasn’t “fair” that a lame duck might have a chance to stuff the government with “their guys”, possibly sabotaging the incoming President of a different party. Not exactly the same, but the principle stands, I think.

Of course, when McConnell made those arguments, he was lying through his teeth, as is Newsome, I assume. It’s just a convenient cover story that makes the common clay of the New West (y’know…morons!) think, “wow, that’s a level-headed so and so with a mind for good governance and bipartisan cooperation, that sure is something that this country could use!”

Where the argument falls down is that, as you pointed out, the Legislature passed this. He already had the perfect smokescreen to say, “there’s nothing I could do, I’m no loonie lefty, but the people of California spoke through their elected representatives and I had no right to veto it merely because it slightly reduced the power of the executive office.” He chose not to, because he’s deathly afraid of the pro-maga-ganda machine painting him as a coastal elite out of touch with middle America, as if that’s not going to be their exact tactic against him regardless of his record. I’d stop just short of him saying he’s eroding the Legislature’s authority though. He’s using the veto power of his office as it’s intended. In theory, overriding the passage of legislation popular enough to make it through that whole process will harm him politically, which is happening to an extent. This is a biased space, obviously, but clearly his decision is unpopular here. Whether or not it helps or hurts him in primaries or the general remains to be seen.

I would hope that the legislature could override his veto, but I am not familiar enough with California state politics to know if they have the votes.

Fascinating. The first time I ran across the superstition was in a high school English class, in which the teacher would wheel out the TV and her Slings and Arrows dvds whenever she didn’t want to do the lesson. I don’t recall much (other than it being quite funny), but the “curse” of the play (and it’s legitimacy) came up frequently over the course of one of the seasons.

Is the Scottish play superstition only for theaters which are currently rehearsing/performing that play, or is it an all-encompassing sort of He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named situation, where the proper title is never utilized if it can be avoided?

Heh, glad someone else immediately thought, “Well, that’s Lovecraftian”. Also, man, I should dust off my collection of his fiction. Abominable human being, but his writing sure is evocative, if a touch on the purple side.

Due to wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey shenanigans, actually this IS Bjork, and now you know why she called her first project The Sugarcubes.

This just in: scientists have determined that a more direct cause for the towers falling than defective spray-on fireproofing may exist. Rumors have begun to circulate that the WTCs collapse may be attributed to the two aircraft which collided with them. Details at 6.

(I kid, I kid)

Agreed. A funny and entertaining story in one medium does not necessarily translate 1:1 to a different medium. However, there are things that cinematic storytelling does differently (arguably better, though that’s a personal preference) than experiential storytelling. One area that an adaptation of Portal could focus on which was (intentionally) de-emphasized by Valve is the potential for mind-bending visual trickery and bonkers shot compositions. Not that these things were totally absent from the game, but Valve’s longstanding refusal to move away from a limited first person perspective put a hard ceiling on what they could accomplish visually. A filmmaker who doesn’t have that same bugaboo could probably do some pretty cool stuff with the concept.

Of course, interesting visuals don’t mean the adaptation will be good, but at least there’s an avenue for doing something with the property that the games did not explore.

There may not be a vegetarian authority, but God help you if you cross into vegan territory. Those guys are real sticklers.

I’m sure there will be a campaign with loads of expensive cinematics and linear set pieces. Unknown if it will be good, but I’m sure it will be there. I assume there will be a multiplayer component as well, though I wonder if theyll have the restraint to leave it free from seasonal content.

I don’t actually follow wrestling all that closely, but it may as well be purpose-built for generating silly meme fodder.

Nah, that.was just a classic set of Marine armor, but in Terran Dominion colors, as opposed to the more typical good guy blue. Given the speaker in the trailer sounds a lot like Arcturus Mengsk in full Emperor mode, I’m guessing that this game takes place in between SC 1&2. Maybe even during the Brood War? Seems like that would make sense for their open world shooter set up.

I updated my Single Player Tarkov install for the first time in years and have been playing around in that space. I know, I know, Russia bad, Battlestate Games bad, etc. but I bought the game back in 2020 and I can’t unspend that cash.

I’m so thankful this project exists, as nothing I’ve come across scratches the itch like Tarkov, but SPT removes a huge swath of the problems with playing that game. Like the other players, for instance lol. Plus, being able to tweak various settings (like inventory space and stack sizes for items etc) to make the experience slightly less hostile is a godsend as well.

Plus, it’s kind of an interesting example of the same game having two different development paths. Like I said, I’ve been out for a couple of years, so this may not be 100% accurate, but my understanding is the Tarkov’s 1.0 release is not compatible with SPT. Therefore, SPT runs off an old, pre-release version of Tarkov. However, amazing individuals have continued to develop the SPT client with all sorts of patches and updates. Some are just incorporations of fixes that the base game has added since release, but others seem tuned to SPT in particular. Like I said, I’m just incredibly thankful for this projects’ existence and the work people have done to maintain it.