“Just Look Inside This Gorgeous Star Wars Picture Book” (T/W: Slideshow)
“Marx saw competition — especially market competition — as a destructive force”
“I cannot believe I got jumpscared by a broken window in 2024”
Friday Afternoon Links
About The Author
Riven
[riv-uhn]
noun
1. a gaming, lifting, shooting, intoxicated, ravenous, and happily-taken nerd.
2. often aims to misbehave.
3. and though she be but little, she is fierce.*
And rumor has it that she (and her husband) are also delightful dinner companions. You didn't hear it from me, though.
The only decent video game movie I remember (up until very recently) was the original Mortal Kombat movie. Yes, it was cheesy, there was a thin excuse of a story, they changed Reptile/Scorpion/Sub-Zero, but it stayed relatively true to the (thin) characterizations that were in the games, had the special moves, and didn’t overstay its welcome.
I had high hopes for the Final Fantasy animated movie (I recall it being the first full CGI movie) but there was no story there, just pretty graphics (which I guess does hold true to the games…).
I liked Doom.
It was awful, but…
Is Arcane a video game adaption?
Or is it not relevant because it’s a streaming series and not a movie?
I was talking about the dark ages. There’s been several solid attempts in the past couple of years for both series and movies. Which are now becoming the new hot property to mine for movies/shows since a couple were successful. I expect a couple years of generally good ones, with a rapid drop off in quality as people start licensing games that should not be made into shows/movies (and I doubt we’ll be lucky enough to get another Clue out of them).
I think I watched Mortal Kombat at some point. Beyond that, the only other adaptions that I am sure I watched would be Resident Evil and Tomb Raider.
There’s adaptations and adaptations. Some (I think some of the older ones, especially, but I’m way out of my lane here) tried to basically film the game – playthrough as storyboard, if you will. Some of the more recent ones (Arcane, Fallout) more, use the game world as the scene for the movie.
No argument on the Mortal Kombat movie, that one’s highly in the “Guilty Pleasure” category (and that’s coming from someone who wasn’t even that into the game series..).
The recent Mario movie was okay — my son enjoyed it, I think (he’s a fan of the genre and wanted to go) — I thought it wasn’t great, but wasn’t terrible either.
Mass Effect would be a good series to make a movie out of its prequel lore (so you don’t have to touch the whole question of the Reapers and the idiotic ending). Humanity discovering the Prothean relics on Mars, expanding and coming into conflict with the Turians, etc. Could easily be a solid trilogy ending with Humanity being recognized by the Council and some lovely shots of the Citadel and whatnot… then the final film post credit tease could be Sovereign starting to wake up in Dark Space and all.
There’s already work being done on a Zelda movie, which could be good, or it could wind up being hot garbage. One issue with adapting video games is too many of them try to adapt a single game into a movie, regardless of the fact that it’ll take 40+ hours to play through the game. In my estimation, doing a series/movie in the game world but not necessarily tied to a single game’s plot (or having that go on in the background/periphery) works better to avoid that issue.
Zelda would be a disaster, and I say that as an intense fan of the property. I hate to say it, but we’re talking about a heroic adventure story with a twinky crossdressing elf protagonist. It would just be too tempting a target for the wokesters to keep their filthy mitts off of…
EvilSheldon:
It’s happening already. One big question is if they’re going to let Link talk in the movie or keep him a heroic mime… both have big downsides.
Ugh. I’m having horrible visions of Michael Cena being greenlit for the Link role…
Mass Effect would be great but like Neph pointed out, showrunners like to take an epic journey in which millions take part over countless hours and condense it into 2 hours of content. Drinker was right, there will never be a more perfect trilogy from literature than LOTR
I think Homeworld would make a good movie/series of movies/limited series, too. But I have a serious soft spot for that game, so . . . .
I have a soft spot for “Resident Evil”.
Well, I would think if you tried to like Transient Evil it would just keep moving away — so there’s a logic there.
Squatting Evil was the worst of the trilogy.
I liked the (I think it’s two?) Silent Hill movies.
And yeah, they’re awful but in a good way.
I like Fallout.
There. I said it. But for me it’s about the production design more than anything.
Hey, Tonio. Just wanted to say I really enjoyed your short story the other day. I thought the frat boys playing a prank on our hero after he got back was just perfect.
The story is there…they just have to step outside of what is expected and just make it happen while throwing little nuggets to the fan base. Modern audiences are more autistic than the waiting room at a Mayo clinic
Flawless assessment.
NERDS!
I think I got about 2 and a half books in and just got bored with it. I’ll come back to it at some point, I suppose…. but just felt same old, same old really. No real spark there (for me).
RC — saw you updated your avatar image, bananas are definitely more visible now, I like it.
Happy Friday to the rest of ya reprobates. Enjoy the weekend as you can — I plan to try my best to not think about politics for the sake of my blood pressure.
I think I read 5 or 6 of the Expanse novels. Looking at the series list, I can’t remember.
I read Hyperion decades ago. Just started rereading it and remembered how fantastic it is.
I loved Hyperion, and the first book of The Illium. Haven’t really liked anything else by him.
Never read Hyperion.
Heading on vacation tomorrow, maybe I’ll pick it up for the beach reading.
I’ve read it (and its follow-up) three times and I still have no idea what’s going on through much of it.
Hyperion is just a retelling of The Canterbury Tales.
With the Shrike.
Can recommend Hyperion, especially the first book. The Shrike and the Steel Tree is just brilliant stuff.
I’m stalled somewhere in I think it’s book 4.
Frankly, the TV series (which I haven’t finished) is more compelling.
SDF, I had the same reaction to the Expanse books – good, but when I sort of fell out of getting the next one, I didn’t miss it.
Oh, and I think this avatar does work better. I’ll keep it for awhile, but I like my emoji avatar, too, so I imagine I’ll go back at some point.
😀
All these worlds are yours, Doc — except Euwopa.
Is there a bigger tool than Colbert?
Because Marx was a loser who couldn’t compete and never held a productive job in his life.
Also, Thoreau.
Talk to me about great audio design and creepy, creepy space monkeys chittering in the distance.
Not the Bee:
NPR Poll: 67% of voters say Trump’s guilty verdict makes no difference in their vote. 15% say they want to vote Trump even harder now.
It will be interesting to see how the Republican Party behaves. My guess they will eventually flush themselves to where they flushed the Whigs.
I mean…it was never going to move any scales other than a handful of folks who truly believe the America of old is still alive and well. Which those fall into the two camps: Questionable charges versus Democracy!
… I just realized that this new laptop is not far below the core specs of my dekstop (the desktop has two more cores and trounces it for video card and raw storage).
My desktop must be getting old.
Time for a Threadripper Pro!
I have expended my discretionary purchases budget for a good while.
In a more prosaic update, I’ve gotten Firefox wrangled to normal behavior, Libreoffice reconfigured to my workflow, and have been commenting here from the laptop.
I’m going to shut it down for now.
Colbert was not the only person to make such claims, of course. Senate Democrats said that if we failed to save Net Neutrality, we’d get the Internet “one word at a time.” Actor Mark Ruffalo said that repeal was an “authoritarian dream,” and actress Alyssa Milano called it a threat to democracy itself.
If you’re listening to a show-biz type for an opinion on any subject more involving than “Do you have enough room in the toe?” then you get what you fucking deserve.
Well, I think many of them could off good advice on which knee pads work well on hard wood floors.
I know those are the people I want to design my network infrastructure.
These are the same people who -somehow – believe that Musk’s approach to Twitter meant the end of free speech.
These idiots really believe that if you step off of the Progressive plantation just a bit, that the world is going to be doomed to Hitlers.
What about Wreck-it Ralph? Does that count as a video game movie?
It’s good… and that’s not bad.
Sometimes it can be bad… and that’s good.
Just don’t go Turbo on anyone.
Came out to move my truck and watch as a lady parks by feel. No visible damage but there was contact on the front bumper/license plate.
People are insane.
Case and point.
Ackchually, it’s “case in point”. Should probably be “case on point”, but it’s not.
Marxist Monopoly from FreedomToons:
https://youtu.be/4T0CcSC_qYg?si=B8r25agSyFjgJSQB
Achtung, Swiss
According to the house’s Zillow listing, the domicile underwent a renovation in 2018, though the current owners sought to “[maintain] the architectural detail and integrity of the home’s most memorable and recognizable spaces.” All told, one lucky buyer will get their money’s worth: this place has five bedrooms and six bathrooms, and sits on a half-acre lot.
Let’s toast to the late Great American Experiment. Come see the violence inherent in the system (and the Zooms)
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87821224358?pwd=eW55MTRDbDNtQkh2aHd3M1Nmenlzdz09
End of month, and lots of reports to type. I probably won’t be along.
Maybe…been super busy lately.
If you don’t show up, you hate America
Dont promise me a good time.
Right now, I kind of do hate America.
I kind of do hate America.
I’m fine with America.
I despise the Democratic party.
I fear the institutions they have corrupted.
And I am disgusted with the many well-meaning idiots that vote for the Dem party.
Aside from all the institutions that have been rotted by leftism, which would be all of them, institutional America if you will, I’m OK with Remnant America (that fraction of the population that opposes it) and whatever scraps of society they still control. I’d be a lot happier with Remnant America if it wasn’t so complacent about it all, though.
“…well-meaning idiots that vote for the Dem party.”
There is more evidence of STEVE SMITH than there is of such people.
Also, it’s Kraken & root beer night. At least at my place.
I’ll stick around if we’re making fun of Sloper but as soon as you black pilled jerks start with the belly aching I’m out.
Also shouldn’t ‘belly aching’ be ‘belly-aching’ and who gets to decide which compound words get hyphens and which don’t ? .
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-mocked-disturbing-smile-after-ignoring-question-about-trump-being-political-prisoner
As Biden walked away from the podium, a reporter shouted out a question: Donald Trump refers to himself as a political prisoner and blames you directly. What’s your response to that, sir?”
The president paused, turned to the reporters and flashed what some called a “disturbing” smile for almost 10 seconds before walking away, not offering a verbal response.
He must feel very satisfied at this point.
Did he draw his thumb across his throat, too?
Too complex of a movement to program
It’s going to be an interesting July. What will the sentence be? And what will the Republican Party do? I expect their convention to be pitched warfare between the RINOs and the MAGAts. Don’t think for one instant the RINOs aren’t happy with the conviction, and scheming to use it to keep him off the ballot.
https://x.com/terMaatMike/status/1796548234414031234?t=wGq1kvqsLDyIpa3uLaACvA&s=19
LP is fine with the Banana Republic. Maybe the LP wants to be the useless “opposition” party who only exist to keep up the pretext of democracy.
Someone tell me he’s getting dragged.
Good to see you back, Winston.
Let’s hope they did all the same legwork as the last supposed deal and this is all horseshit. Certainly I see zero reason the US should be rebuilding anything. Frankly, I don’t really feel Israel should either. Not everything is a Marshall Plan, jackals. (Oh… but the grift! The lovely, lovely grift! they cry…..)
A Friday dump, no less.
What a piece of shit. But yeah, it sounds like horseshit to me.
In phase three a major reconstruction plan for Gaza would commence,” Biden said. “The United States will work without partners to rebuild homes, schools and hospitals in Gaza
Why?
Votes…do you really need to ask why?
Or dollars but yeah that amounts to the same thing.
I welcome our new banana overlords. The next guy to seize power will hang Biden, his family, and the retainers. Fun times.
Seems there is a country and point in history this may follow. I can’t remember because we are in Year One.
To be fair, hanging is the traditional punishment for treason.
Although not all of his family participated. Many did, but not all. As far as I know.
Odd and ends
piranha solution: so aggressive, it dissolves flesh and bone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTVd_WxblGI
The Archimedes, Ulam, and Sacks Spirals, Euler’s Prime Formula, and the Non-random Distribution of Prime Numbers
https://platedlizard.blogspot.com/2024/05/the-archimedes-ulam-and-sacks-spirals.html
“Voting for freedom is like praying for atheism.” – some YouTube comment
From the LP platform of 1980:
***
3. Victimless Crimes
Because only action which infringe the rights of others can properly be termed crimes, we favor the repeal of all federal, state, and local laws creating “crimes” without victims. In particular, we advocate:
a. The repeal of all laws prohibiting the production, sale, possession, or use of drugs, and of all medical prescription requirements for the purchase of vitamins, drugs and similar substances;
b. The repeal of all laws regarding consensual sexual relations, including prostitution and solicitation, and the cessation of state oppression and harassment of homosexual men and women, that they, at least, be accorded their full rights as individuals;
c. The repeal of all laws interfering with the right to commit suicide as infringements of the ultimate right of an individual to his or her own life; and
e. The use of executive pardon to free all those presently incarcerated for the commission of these “crimes”.
…
17. Immigration
We hold that human rights should not be denied or abridged on the basis of nationality. We condemn massive roundups of Hispanic-Americans and others by the federal government in its hunt for individuals not possessing required government documents. Undocumented non-citizens should not be denied the fundamental freedom to labor and to move about unmolested. Furthermore, immigration mus not be restricted for reasons of race, religious or political creed, or sexual preference.
We therefore call for the elimination of all restriction on immigration, the abolition of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Border Patrol, and a declaration of full amnesty for those people who have entered the country illegally. We oppose government welfare payments to non-citizens just as we oppose government welfare payments to all other persons. We welcome Indochinese and other refugees to our shores, and condemn the efforts of U.S. government officials to induce Indochinese governments to create a new “Berlin wall” that would keep them captive.
***
And 17 there is why I’m not a Libertarian (or really a libertarian probably). I believe nations should be allowed to exist and that they should be able to set their culture and who’s allowed — free association principle writ large. There’s no right for people to wander onto my front lawn and camp either (because we aren’t British and wankers).
Cracky for LP instead of the putz they chose 2024!
Same. That plank is a pipe-dream completely disconnected from reality.
Piranha is also called SC1 or “Standard Cleans One,” part of the RCA (yup that RCA) cleaning process.
“We condemn massive roundups of Hispanic-Americans”
Have the feds ever conducted massive roundups of American citizens?
But, yeah, wide open borders is a hard no from me. If you want to be an anarchist, be an anarchist. If you want to be a minarchist, well, that means you have a country, and citizens, and certain things follow from that.
Err, let me clarify “massive roundups of American citizens under immigration laws” – yes, Saint Roosevelt did indeed order massive roundups of American citizens who had the misfortune of having Japanese ancestry.
Late to the party:
Thanks Ron for the Stoic post. I really needed it today.
This morning, AlexinCT mentioned a Russian research institute. Turns out they made an interesting supercomputer called Zhores there.
***
In the process of solving the problem of designing, assembling and configuring the powerful energy-efficient supercomputer “Zhores”, which became the sixth most powerful supercomputer in Russia and CIS in 2018 with a capacity of 1 petaflop per second, the task of forming a compact highly professional technical team of engineers, architects and system administrators was also solved. It would be impossible to create the supercomputer as well as develop and operate the computing complex without the team.
Now the supercomputer has 74 computing nodes, 26 nodes with powerful graphic accelerators with tensor nuclei for deep machine learning, each of which includes four NVidia Tesla V100 with NVLink and GPUDirect RDMA; and a data-storage system with a parallel file system for 0.5 petabytes.
The supercomputer power consumption does not exceed 90 kW.
***
That’s about 1000x better in terms of power consumption for a petascale machine. I wonder if they cool it with mineral oil.
Can’t find the power specs for this petascale guy, but it was surely way more than 90 kw.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaguar_(supercomputer)
If Trump does end up being elected president, I hope he awards himself the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Who should hang it around his neck? Kanye? Giuliani? A newly pardoned Snowden?
One piece of good news
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/may/31/eddie-duran-deputy-who-fatally-shot-black-airman-r/
Nuts…can’t tell from link – but sheriff fired deputy.
“A criminal investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is ongoing.”
Someone is about to get some PTO and weeks of “retraining”.
The city will end up having to open their pocketbook, hand out a check, and a lawyer gets 33% while the taxpayers foot the bill.
OMWC – I swear that better not be you and tomb raider sitting at the next table over in Boru Noodle Bar.
An old dude ordering vegetable (vegan) ramen…
good videos for the coming ammo shortage and general big luau:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENG6ZbTkcu0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAV8_D71M0o
I suspect I’ll be among the first they attempt to round up.
Or the last…fear is a great motivator
The last test of the American experiment will be when the doorkickers come. Will we heed Solzhenitsyn, or not?
Traffic coming home this afternoon was way more annoying than traveling Monday evening.
Oh, how I loathe Columbus. Every one of its facets.
No reasonable prosecutor…
hillary clinton tonight: “anything going on today?”
*audience cheers*
…wants to die by suicide with two gunshots to the back of the head.
That is what they don’t see. They don’t see that people are actually witnessing a system that has decided one person and not the other is deserving of being judged.
Oh, they see it.
Ew.
Behar told the audience she was so excited when the Trump guilty verdict was announced that she said she “leaked a little bit” while she was in Costco.
“I got so excited, I started leaking a little bit,” Joy Behar said.
What a boomer flex. I hate our society.
As long as she’s there, pick up another pack of depends.
Hurk.
I imagine many middle-aged cat lady’s pee pads were sodden.
These people are mentally unwell.
I’m going to assume she meant she teared up.
This is akin to a bully getting punched in the nose and demanding that the rules change. Aint a black pill moment, just more a “what the fuck do you think would happen?” moment.
the furious bluster reverberating across right-wing media still carried its intended effect, burning away public trust in America’s core institutions and leaving a lasting impact on the legitimacy of the rule of law in the United States
You have done that yourself.
Trust in core American institutions? What fucking retard has trust in those, if they aren’t malevolent they’re incompetent.
Sooner or later some disturbed rando who’s not on the FBI watchlist will go full Ed Leshiy on one of the big players in the corrupt
judiciallegal system.Question is, when that happens, does the administrative state go into full roundup mode, or do they pull back and get a bit more circumspect for a time?
Full roundup mode: They’ll continue to double down until they either win or lose completely. We’re in trouble.
Also think full round up.
Yup.
Full roundup. And it won’t stop until enough bodies of regime enforcers hit the ground, and they start having trouble putting together goon squads.
I really think the Troubles are probably the best template for the future unless something changes, soon. Endless, low-level, grinding conflict.
Apparently CNN, criticizing Trump’s press briefing, thinks that he can’t give a speech with coherent sentences. Seems to me that he does well only using notes when Biden can’t even read a speech while hopped up on George Floyd levels of cocaine and meth.
Then again, they are actually just lying mouthpieces for the system. Dishonest is as dishonest does.
I just tried to Goolag “how to donate to Trump” and “how to donate to Donald Trump” and it does not show on Goolag’s search suggestions. Just fyi. The machine is interfering in the election.
I looked using “Donald Trump” and I found a couple of sites. But they sure dont make it easy when you compare it to asking the same question for Biden.
His site pops up front and center.
If you go ahead and type it out and search you get stories about Trump’s post-trial donations and a link to the Biden campaign website…before Trump’s. Nothing to see here. Move along, folks.
Yup. Same. Bunches of stories about Trump making a haul, then a Twitter link to donating to Biden. Helpfully, though, my second autofill for “How to donate to” is “migrants in Denver”.
Why are you using Google?
Unless you are just testing how corrupted it is, of course.
Heard it claimed. I tested it.
JFC.
UK ambassador left post after ‘pointing gun at staff’
Who would have thought that British hippie had no idea about gun safety.
“In Mexico, as in most of his previous postings, Mr Benjamin was a firm believer in the role of the soft power of British rock and indie music. An avid music fan himself, he encouraged major UK bands and artists to visit Mexico, sometimes hosting them in his residence ahead of their concerts.”
Seems legit.
Serious people. For serious times.