feelthedarkness

Yeah, I love The Americans. I can't believe The Venture Bros ends again next week. I wish they made these faster. Last nights Casino inspired episode might be one of my favorites, though I had sort of thought they were going to "go through with it."

I'm familiar with Boatmurdered, but what was the other DF story that they said was even better? Anybody got a link?

I think they did, it just took like 20 years to get there.

Unqualified Worker could be a fun game. Kind of like Space Team + physics engine? Maybe that is just Surgeon Simulator.

also, in case anybody sees dinguses harping on the trump nazi grandma, via that reddit image, it is NOT one of sander's people false flagging. (always a conspiracy). totally different older white woman: https://www.facebook.com/cynthia.ubaldo/posts/1025514727494481

I'm one of those people who really didn't like Myst when it came out, and I think you guys hit most of the reasons. It was around an odd crossroads in PC gaming. Part of it was due to my not liking the direction Sierra was going. This all feels super silly to type out, but I didn't like most of their VGA point n click games, and I blame the fidelity/interface transition more. Around 1992/93 we had PQ3, QFG3, KQ6, and SQ5. They looked nice, but I thought they were less interesting, and I think Myst struck me similarly. There was also a bit of proximity to the FMV "games are the new Hollywood" explosion, and I probably felt Myst was closer to that. It had the smooth motion, but generally less-"interactive" nature. It wasn't like 7th Guest or anything, but it seemed more like that to me, when my favorite game at the time was Ultima 7, which was pushing "total experience" in a way no games had at that point.

if clinton or sanders win it will likely be in a bit of a sweep. assuming they're facing cruz or trump the potential for downballot massacre is significant. particularly with trump i believe. it was one of the reasons mcconnell was talking about basically running ads against trump, to protect senators. the senate can flip, house, unlikely.

i wonder what the odds are we'll get a clinton/sanders ticket? too white? i feel like that used to be very common in both parties, for the 2nd place person to vp the winner. particularly in this case where the likely winner doesn't need somebody shoring up their foreign policy credentials. (regardless of how poorly you think of her foreign policy decisions. har har.)

but this is like EXACTLY what i want to hear! “Moral dilemmas, human issues, complex characters, and a genuine sense of optimism: These are the cornerstones of Star Trek and are what have made it such an influential and beloved franchise for the last 50 years,” Roddenberry said. “While I will always be humbled by its legacy and the legions of fans who are its guardians, it’s a genuine honor to be joining a team of imaginative and incredibly capable individuals whose endeavor it is to uphold the tenets of Star Trek’s legacy while bringing it to audiences in a new era and on a contemporary platform.” Honest, it's just the "sense of optimism" part that gets me. We need that now! haha.

I know there is the mistake of conflating anecdotal evidence with statistical, but this guardian article of emails from Trump voters actually surprised me by the amount of outward nihilism: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/03/secret-donald-trump-voters-speak-out The thing that is sort of cracking me up lately, is that in the last nightmare debate Trump said "it was the first time he's heard about his small hands" despite the fact that he has been sending Graydon Carter, now editor of vanity fair, press clippings with his hand and fingers circled for 25 YEARS. That is some bold lying!

there is a constant issue of "money leaving the us" which entirely is a tax dodge employed by the wealthy, and it is a loophole they maintain by their power. you cannot overstate the extent that the US government supports the wealthy, through subsidy, the building and maintaining of infrastructure, financing the training of future workers (which companies used to do) guaranteed business loans, strong arming foreign governments to benefit us corporations, and especially fed bailouts (think savings and loan in the 80s, or the 2008 collapse). those collapses would have been abject, apocalyptic disasters if the US government didn't provide "welfare" to bail out pure greedy risk. the kind of skeezy loan bundling and derivative trading provides no value to manufacturing business. it does not finance corporate expansion, which is why you sell stock in the first place. these riskiest financial practice does not benefit our economy or the average american. they don't obey the normal stock market rules and they're only effective financial instruments if you have very large sums of capital, which is to say you or i will never benefit from them. the us government supports the corn industry EXPORTING corn to the global south well below actual cost with guaranteed rates. companies sell this well below the lowest prices even impoverished farmers in those regions can match. the taxpayers support those industries. the taxpayers support us sugar makers with tariffs and incentives that keep latin american countries out of us markets. given how much leverage the government provides american business there is no reason we need to accept the idea that the wealthy is allowed to move their money out of the IRS's reach. we could easily say we'd suspend those subsidies for companies parking money. to end my rant, there is always money available for projects with political will. i.e. the trillions spent of the iraq disaster. if those trillions went into the pockets of the people one might judge most harshly, the money would still probably wind up back in some local businesses cash register.

mincome is also a tremendous driver of economy, particularly for people working at the lower end of wage curve. pay for it by returning tax levels to immediate post war rates. we don't live in a world with a pure meritocracy. the class you're born into statistically determines where you'll likely stay.

Haha, that's awesome/funny about the "noo". That totally makes sense regarding the narrative. They both share a kind of meticulous specificity, but I think put to different uses, with UC being more granular in its "emotional expression", like the particular use of color with certain characters, rather than just abstraction type of symbolism. I hope we get another movie before 2024. EDIT! Checking his wiki, The Modern Ocean is under way starring Keanu Reeves, Anne Hathaway and Daniel Radcliffe, so I'm guessing that might happen sooner than later.

One thing I love is the idea that Primer and Upstream Color came from the same person. I think both are fantastic, but it seems so unique to me to have such a detailed/concrete narrative film, and then such a deeply symbolic/emotional one? It strikes me as fairly unique quality for a director's style.

The thing I have wanted most in Bioware type games is a forcible split of the party, that lets you play all the characters. I try to get everyone in, but I think like most people I stick to favorites. That would also probably let them get a little more mileage out of their writing if they knew all characters would be in play.

I hope I'm not misinterpreting what you meant by "organizing principle" but I got the feeling that Hail Caesar, does have a what I referred to as a meta-narrative. Like O Brother is the Odyssey, or Lebowski as either history of post-war usa or of global capital, I just don't know exactly what it is. haha. I think the narrator is the key.

Yeah, they're on a Hitchcockian run (including some mild, but still worthwhile boners). If there aren't already I assume there will be film school classes on their work?

I really liked Hail, Caesar, and feel like it's one of those movies that will grow with some rewatching. I got the feeling there was an effective meta-narrative I wasn't picking up on, based on the narrator. That Channing Tatum is talented.

jealousy.gif/meme

man, i'm super bummed i missed the premier showing, now that i'm living in alamo town. it sold out super fast. i wanted the poster. also, were you guys given a poster? those patrick ledger ones look great.

i'm loving it. it's like the sunday magazine section of the times

Hey heyyy. So this moved into early access. I backed it pretty hard, and I'm totally looking forward to playing it. Has anybody tried it? As somebody with a regular human's monster backlog, and a high degree of anticipation, should I play this? I usually don't do much beta/early access with non-system driven games because I don't want to spoil it.

I love ILD as a study of an artistic purist in a world that values trends, not to belittle dylan. in new TV i'm really loving The Expanse. I love sprawling space shows, and space stations.

i definitely think "7s" are the best games. usually it's a sign that it has some rough edges, or is trying to do something specific that alienates the widest possible audience. which for me, is also where the real art lives. i think all truly great creative works have that "warts n all" quality. it can also be a sign they spent more time trying to develop some specific quality rather than smooth out all the rough edges. i think STALKER and ALPHA PROTOCOL are kind of quintessential 7s that are truly great. both were sort of panned at the time, but over time the consensus has shifted. i can't think of many/any games that i've played that have been so irreparably broken that i couldn't deal with it for fun underneath. i've got a particular fondness for Obsidian game, which get a bad wrap. not to go down this rabbithole, but i've had just as many total breakdowns in Fallout 4 that I did in FNV (most of which went away after i fixed that CPU Core usage thing in the INI files).

Do the people making paid Valve mods not get any of the money?