Celan

9 hours ago, The Good Doctor said:

I just love that she learned who Sauron is at the end of season 1, so he disguised himself with a wig and pointy ears.  

This universe has only ugly male elves, so he was hoping to dazzle them.

I'm dubious

Someone in the comments pointed out that they got an all-female director lineup so that when inevitably people hate it, they can blame it on even more sexism and racism.

You'll be unsurprised to know that one of the "diverse directorial staff" has credits from... The Witcher.

1000% more entertaining than the trailer itself

15 hours ago, TheCzarsHussar said:

It's so thin though, that skinny lil suit won't offer much protection

If it gets the job done...

While I won't bore anyone with aviation trivia, I know at least some of you are interested in space.

I was actually looking forward to watching the launch of the Lockheed/ Boeing Starliner crewed mission last week. Much delayed and much ballyhooed, much needed after all of Boeing's bad press lately, and it all went down like a wet fart again. Meanwhile SpaceX had not one but two successful launches last week, in the process breaking the record for successful launches from the shuttle platform, and all without breaking a sweat. It must really grind the gears of Elon Musk haters.

NASA spent twice as much on ULA (Lockheed) and Boeing, expected more from these two venerable companies, and now "they are growing concerned."  You think, boys?

I'm going to try to go down to Canaveral in 3Q/4Q for the Polaris Dawn launch.

SpaceX also revealed their new exploration suit. Pretty slick.

2 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said:

HBO waited for Amazon to drop their shitty RoP trailer before releasing theirs immediately after.  

Looks fantastic. @Celan 

 

Something with actual weight of story and character building behind it, instead of vague platitudes about "evil and darkness."

I wager to say that the TV series has exceeded GRRM's writing in this case. I wasn't very impressed by The Princess and the Queen when I read it, and I hear that Fire and Blood is as dry as my business school textbooks. 

40 minutes ago, BigBossBalrog said:

Round two motherfuckers! Let's see how much they fuck up this time. At least the special effects look much better. 

This looks like nothing at all, just random actiony shit. I can't get over how ugly the male elves are. If the only beautiful male elves I get are Sauron's, hail the Dark Lord.

18 hours ago, BigBossBalrog said:

Here's another thing I thought Fallout 3 did well; the gritty, horror-esque, visceral nature of the environment. There's just something awesomely grimy and filthy about the entire thing. 

It has 10/10 art direction (which is probably why New Vegas re-used so many designs in it )

Fallout 4 in comparison is very lacking; everything is pristine. The raider camps no longer have meat hooks, and the grim covering the Super Mutant Dens are non-existing. 

 

The Pitt was truly creepy, and I loved climbing up to the highest point. Nothing in FO4's comic shooting gallery remotely compares.

I've been noticing more minor characters like Helaena. She's the dotty sister who gets married off to her brother. Apparently her mutterings are all prophecies. I really didn't get it until I watched again... "ohh, that beast beneath the boards..."

21 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said:

That’s kinda where I’m at too, though not because I want to be. They just got driven so deep in the dirt that I more or less gave up on them. Only thing from them that I really care about anymore in Andor, and it’s cut from a different cloth.

HotD feels really overlooked for how good it is. It’s not just a solid show; it’s downright excellent. Viserys and Daemon had better arcs in one season than most characters ever will. 

Daemon's anti-hero turn in episode 3 is what turned me from bitter GoT cynic to a fan of the show. I still find him horrifying and sexy, and it only gets darker from here. Fortunately I don't remember much about the rest of the story so it will be fairly new.

10 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said:

I listened to this video while mowing today. It got some laughs out of me.  

I could care less about any of these franchises so it's just pure entertainment to me.

On the up side, I've been re-watching HoTD season 1 and appreciating it more. I thought it was slow when first watching it, but now that I'm able to pick up on things, I can see all the subtlety. I also like how they made the Velaryons and Targaryens feel ancient and somewhat alien.

Those photos are from Pennsylvania, btw. I think down here in Charlotte it was just a red sky.

Listening to corporate earnings calls has never been so fun:

Hang on, I think it was a Mac compatibility thing.

12 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said:

If you click Add Files on mobile, instead of Other Media, you can share them directly from your phones photo library. From the sizes it’s showing, those shouldn’t be too big.

I'm on my laptop. Usually it just lets me add photos. Oh well.

I don't know why it's attaching instead of embedding, must be the files are too big.

Not sure if this file is too large for me to post but I'll give it a go. I picked up a cold from flying, so my voice is scratchy.

Got to see the International Space Station go overhead and some cool photos of the Northern Lights.

Northern Lights Northern Lights 2 Northern Lights 3

Apparently the ban got removed, so pitchfork put back in the corner.

"Hey, we love your fan film so we're going to make a movie based on it.

Oh BTW, you're banned."

Never change, Holly fucking wood.

7 hours ago, The Good Doctor said:

Shareholders are watching. Every hundred million counts.  

I think I saw MBA 590: Bamboozling Shareholders on my class list.

WB has announced a LOTR prequel movie, Hunting Gollum.

Quote

a live service third-person combat game in which Batman is a villain.

WTF?

Prime Video shooting a limited series Blade Runner 2099. The showrunner did Halo in 2022.

9 hours ago, The Good Doctor said:

That’s funny, because most the criticism I’ve heard has almost been the opposite. Starfield is too much like other Bethesda games, in many of the wrong ways. You can only do the same tricks for so long before people get tired of them.

Especially given that Bethesda’s awful writing, mediocre gameplay, and wonky engine have always been carried hard by The Elder Scrolls and Fallout being incredible settings. If anything, Starfield’s reception proves that they aren’t really worth much without their brands.

This is exactly it. Bethesda can't say "we tried something different" because they have been embracing these design criteria steadily for the past few games- replacing actual written quest lines with radiant quests, using procedurally generated content, simplifying things to the nth degree, using mindless filler combat in place of branching story. It's more that the game is too Bethesda.

29 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said:

Cynically, this feels like the modding equivalent of planned obsolescence, except it’s the devs who planned to make mods obsolete instead of the creators.

-Wait almost a decade for most modders to move on and stop supporting their mods

-Release a super-late patch that breaks most modded saves

-Advertise shiny new "paid mods" that were added by your patch

-Keep profiting off a game whose sells dried up years ago.

Even the stuff they added was pretty meager and lacking in textures etc. Contrast to CDPR’s excellent and substantial free updates.

BTW my BF who is a geek but not a gamer thought the TV series was dumb and only watched one episode. I was curious how it would come across to someone not familiar to the games.