Lurker > Proto_Spark

I think weekly ratings don't matter from a business sense, but they certainly matter from a Pro Wrestling sense if that makes any sense?

the ratings stuff comes from the narrative surrounding the Monday Night Wars. When the week-to-week ratings were considered a cornerstone of the entire battle, and that has stuck into wrestling fans minds so much Eric Bischoff's podcast is called "83 weeks".

So when AEW and NXT went head-to-head, the only direct way of trying to compare things that are both subjectively and objectively so similar, was the only thing to get tribal over. It doesn't matter that the ratings don't really matter from a business sense, WWE has spent 20 years talking about WCW in a way to imprint in every wrestling fan that the weekly ratings do matter from a wrestling sense. I think this is also really why TK and AEW would constantly brag about it.

Also, the specifically anti-WWE crowd (the Venn diagram between the anti-WWE crowd and the AEW-stan crowd is almost a circle) has a huge victim complex, so of course when something supports them it'll be screamed from the rooftops, but when AEW suffers from the same thing, it's "oh you know ratings don't really matter". Which is really funny given any time like, an actual wrestler is asked about it, they're all "yeah man, its cool there's so much cool stuff going on I love that there's another company where my friends can do cool stuff".

AEW is on a huge cold streak and had some crazy competition (including just the concept of a national holiday where a ton of people will just be doing other stuff).

An open world Spyro the Dragon wouldn't be all that different - basically just removing the loading zones - though it would make it a bit tougher going between all the levels with how much they vary level to level.

RIP

loved his channel, its basically the only way I kept up on superhero stuff.

Your mileage may vary, but IIRC The defence is almost a formality. You wouldn't be getting it if they weren't willing to pass you.

Congrats! I remember the mountain that was suddenly off my back when I finally finished my masters thesis, I can't imagine how it must feel to finally be done a Ph.D!

• Hi-Fi Rush is a really fun game worth looking into.
• Octopath Traveler I and II if you're into JRPG kind of games - not really taking advantage of the Series X tho.
• In the same vein, Bug Fables is like Paper Mario and really fun if you liked those kinds of games
• Fallout 4 just got a next-gen update and is actually playable on Xbox for the first time in like 5 years
• Outer Wilds is supposed to be an incredible game, but I haven't gotten around to it yet
• The Telltale Walking Dead games are a really engaging time if you're up for a point-and-cick step above visual novel kind of game.
• The Quarry is similar to the Telltale Waling Dead games.
• The various Assassins Creed games (at least the new ones) really take advantage of the extra power if you want to see some more high-end graphics.

I only have a Series S, so I don't totally know many of the games that really show off the Series X.

vycebrand2 posted...

I understand. It's just one of my things. I buy 4 games full price a year. Recently It's been mostly switch. If I had a XSX which I dont I would want to actually own a game not rent it. I never bought into the GP hype. I buy my games, kept a live sub. Imo GP was just a stop gap from when MS shot a hole in the boat. It's a patch, and it's not a good one

Ehh, there's a ton of games where I'm fully invested in playing it once and have a good time, but then I'm done and it just kind of sits there to never do anything again on my shelf or Steam library or wherever. If you want to play the newest COD with your buddies, but you're all gonna drop it and move on to some other game in 3 months, GamePass is the perfect thing for you. But if you want Minecraft or something so you can play it for the next 15 years, just buy it.

I think GP is kind of overrated, but it's a cool idea I think has its place.

Its kind of funny how Maher's politics have drastically changed over the life of his HBO show, and its entirely based on the fact he's a crochety old man who wants to snub his nose at the young people.

Though Maher's leftmost politics have always pretty much just been "legalize it" and "religion bad"

I got on the hype train and bought the collectors edition to even play a couple days before the official release. It was my most played game of 2023. And overall, might still be my most played game of 2024, depending on when I get back to it.

It was pretty fun (and still is). Don't really regret my purchase. Though if you asked me if you should buy it, I'd probably say to wait until it was on sale. Always thought it was mad over-hated.

They finally launched the creation kit or whatever its called and set up console mods - so there will probably be some fun stuff to go back to.

The series also has two siblings kiss and Rey/Kylo was still somehow more awkward.

Making that her first paragraph in her legal filing is actually very kind - helps make it clear to everyone who would actually care that there is zero case here and its going on purely for attention.

Just in case anyone may have naively thought otherwise.

AceMos posted...

she is a billonaire and she lives in a fucking castle

she loves money

She has fuck you money now. She can do whatever she wants the rest of her life worry free about her finances, and as a result any additional money doesn't really mean anything beyond number go up.

Rowling likes attention much more, and to do so she needs to hold onto Harry Potter like a vice.

Bladesyphon posted...

WB wanting to buy out the Harry Potter rights from Rowling has very little, if any at all, to do with Rowling's opinions on the trans community and the fear of what it might have on the franchise, and everything to do about WB not wanting to share profits with the creator, especially with Universal's new park opening up with an entire portion of it dedicated to the Wizarding World, as well as the insane success that Hogwarts Legacy received last year.

Its likely both. The amount of damage control that was being run in the lead up to Hogwarts Legacy is something they likely don't want to have to deal with every single time a HP product is released. Separating the product officially from J.K. Rowling is likely a great way to drop all of that. It was never going to make Hogwarts Legacy fail by any stretch, but officially cutting Rowling out is the easiest way to avoid all of this completely unnecessary flak.

It also doesn't help at the same time, Rowling was publicly using the success of this game (which is also loudly decrying her) as vindication for her shit ideals. It's a completely unnecessary huge drag on the IP. Which meant all of the people involved in Hogwarts Legacy had to run a lot of damage control that could have been spent with more productive marketing.

Not to mention, even without the trans stuff, Rowling hasn't been a great boon to HP since the series ended. She insisted on being the primary screenwriter for Fantastic Beasts, and even though the first one showed more HP products should have basically printed money, she wasn't a good screenwriter and it tanked the whole series. The decade before she started her "political" bend, she kept making random retcons she didn't include in the books in sort of a "why aren't you still paying attention to me" kind of thing.

At this point, Rowling is purely a drag on the series. It won't totally sink the franchise, but it's a completely unnecessary hindrance, that will likely cause more problems the longer it goes on for. WB is only interested in their own profits, for sure, but officially separating HP from Rowling is a boost in several different areas.

This sounds like you're really trying to sound extra smart. It's got the whole "lot of words to say nothing" vibe. Maybe its even like, ChatGPT.

Economics is just sociological analysis under the lens of value (which in the modern world, is money). Its not really any different than any other kind of sociological analysis like looking at society through a feminist lens or a racial lens, economics just has more math because money or employment statistics or whatever is a more quantifiable tool.

It also sounds like you're inflating "economics" with "capitalism". Even under like, communist regimes, there is still an economy.

MisterPengy posted...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmLt2-GaKtY

It looks repetitive, and it doesn't seem they incorporated the Bludgers.

Quidditch is kind of a ridiculous game to begin with, I'm not sure how it would actually be reproducible without skipping some things here or there.

masterpug53 posted...

So it's reasonable to assume that WB is at least weighing their options over whether or not it would be more profitable in the long run to buy her out and negate her influence.

It's probably in WB's best interest to "officially" separate Rowling from the rest of HP. Hogwarts Legacy's bad press came entirely from being associated with Rowling, even though it had more than one case where it was a pretty direct "we aren't explicitly saying we think Rowling is full of shit, but she's full of shit", including basically letting your character be trans.

Compsognathus posted...

Honestly, I do think that WB does realize that Rowling has become a net-negative for the franchise. Like obviously it's still extremely popular, but Rowling and her influence actually harms it. WB would like to remove her influence before the harm becomes more substantial.

I don't think Rowling really is at risk of being more harm to HP, but rather her refusal to let go of the whole trans thing means she'll bring Harry Potter down with her. And that would be a huge problem for WB.

J.K. Rowling needs as much platform as she can because her brain has completely melted around the single issue of hating trans people (women most specifically, but really all of them). J.K. Rowling is the kind of person to name search herself on Twitter so she can publicly attack someone saying something like "care about trans people maybe?" to her audience that is larger than many European countries.

She's never letting go of Harry Potter, because that's the only thing giving her relevance. It's not like any amount of money would matter, she already has fuck you money. But if she's officially separated from the IP, she no longer has anything worthwhile to do.

Bad movie. It wasn't bad in a "so bad it's good" kind of way, it was just not really worth going out of your way for.

I think the most memorable part about Bright to me was this Lindsay Ellis video about how its setting/worldbuilding is really bad:

https://youtu.be/gLOxQxMnEz8?si=xNIWeItWPJtx63q5

I think its the kind of "let's pretend to acknowledge some stuff to make it look like there's actual thought here", like when someone who denies climate change acknowledges the climate is changing, but climate change isn't real. It makes it sound like you have principles or a thought out position even though that statement I made is completely nonsensical if you put any real thought into it.

Hogwarts: Legacy.

Do you think it'll still count if I change the difficulty down to "story mode" or whatever the easiest difficulty is? Its not super tough as it is, but better safe than sorry.

going vegetarian really seems like the least messed up one. I could always use an excuse to pay more attention to my diet.

IIRC North Korea has a weird tourist vibe that you're getting a glimpse into some bananas alt-world. They have a whole industry even though it's also quite restrictive.

I would guess if you're interested in going somewhere like Samoa you'd just go somewhere with more prominent tourism, like the Caribbean, that still has a similar climate.

I think the bigger question, is who are the two people who did tourist stuff in Kiribati in 2022? How do you even manage to get two tourists?

If the UK took up the nazi's offer of neutrality, how long would it have been before they would have gone to war regardless? Similar to what happened with The Soviets?

Fascism isn't exactly a ideology that's known for getting along well with others.

Will we finally get the Project Red iPhone 15s?

Kinda weird they never released those. Its usually super popular and they've been doing it forever.

When I was younger, I was basically taught "why use a bookmark when you can dog-ear?"

I don't do it anymore. I guess its a good thing kid-me didn't read much.

It feels like stop-motion. Which I mean, is a really freaking cool idea. I don't know how well it will feel when you're actively controlling someone there.

Though in the actual gameplay outside of cutscenes (like the combat) it still looks fairly smooth, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

I don't recognize many usernames, but yeah, that guy's the worst.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


This is honestly the most delusional take IMO. It sounds like you've really put effort into it and tried to do your research, but is actually just saying "I understand all of the evidence saying climate change is happening exists and we have a long record of using this to determine how the climate works and changes, but I'm going to ignore the obvious conclusion to that anyways because just denying climate changes makes me look stupid and I want to pretend I'm smarter than you"

Tyranthraxus posted...

He will never pass on a mantle. He will die and the GOP will schism like Islam did when Muhammad died.

Trump dying is a perfect for the GOP I think. They'll be able to put whatever words into his mouth they like, and that'll be enough to get the Trump crowd behind someone like Ron DeSantis, who the Trump crowd was totally behind up until the minute he came into conflict with Donald Trump.

If the GOP can control "who Trump would/wouldn't support" they can have the rabid extremist group of their party support anyone - especially since the rabid extremist group has already largely taken over the party.

Somehow, Shadow the Hedgehog managed to be even edgier without it.

Pow_Pow_Punishment posted...

I'll have to check if this iPhone 13 has an always-on display, but to your second point, it's not about camera quality or a knock on the iPhone's camera. When sending to Android through SMS, the iPhone video clip quality gets horribly compressed in the transition. Supposedly this will be fixed once Apple provides support for RCS later this year.

Apple hides the always-on display to their pro models, so you probably won't have it. Its a stupid choice, especially since Android has had this for like, at least a decade.

Though isn't something I personally use, but is a limitation if you like it.

Baha05 posted...

Party of freedom or whatever they claim to be?

"Freedom" by conservatives have always meant "the freedom to do exactly what we want the way we want it and to not be allowed to do anything else"

PraetorXyn posted...

Ad-free YouTube and YouTube playback with the screen off like ReVanced (AltStore probably has something for it, but I havent tinkered with that yet)

The easiest solution to this is to download Brave Browser (which blocks ads) and use Youtube's mobile site. You can also go into the settings and enable background play. Its not as good as something like ReVanced, but it works well enough to be fine with me.

I just bought an iPhone 15 about a month or so ago. So I haven't been Android-IOS too long, but the short answer is aside from really minor things (like slightly different touchscreen gestures) I think the two might as well be the same.

There area couple minor differences, but at this point, the general experience of both iPhone and Android are damn near identical. IOS has weird limitations like not being able to choose anywhere on the screen your little app box thing goes, but that's really not that crazy a deal. I was never one to go crazy with launchers or whatever on Android either though.

I have noticed zero difference in messaging, even though most of my family/friends have iPhones. Granted I'm not really a social butterfly, but from my use there's no difference.

I sort of count as an Apple Sheep now, because getting an iPhone suddenly meant I could link my MacBook and iPad and AirPods, and its neat how they connect, but its nowhere close to as cool a thing as people seem to act like it is. I doubt I would miss it in like 2 years if I buy an Android phone.

Notifications are worse IMO on IOS, because if your phone is locked they don't have the same information, and its easier to have them just go away meaning its tough to "save" a notification for later if its something you aren't dealing with right now.

Overall, I think the difference between them is pretty vastly overstated.

The whole "The Jedi Order fundamentally failed" thing. Obi Wan and Yoda proceeded to exile themselves, I don't think they were really in the mood to fight back. And just kind of doing the thing that failed again really wasn't a good idea - Luke doing this was why the new republic collapsed again between Eps 6 and 7.

Also, even if they were top tier Jedi, two Jedi and some toddlers wouldn't be able to compete with The Empire - who would be much more aggressively hunting them if it was known they were actively training new anti-Empire warriors.

Has Edge actually jumped off the cage before? I don't actually know - he was always more one to fall off things than jump off things.

CRON posted...

Looked like he had second thoughts about the spot and hesitated.

100%

Maybe he got up there for like a splash (Like the splash to Finn Balor in his HiaC match) but realized he didn't put Black far enough away and couldn't get a better move where he was.

BlazinBlue88 posted...

Should have called an audible and had Black win the belt. Copeland really doesn't need to be more than a transitional champ.

But then we can't have lolEdgewins

I've done that before - They didn't reach out the second time either.

If it's a job you really want, you can apply again - push some kind of "this is how much I want this job" angle, but ehh. Probably better to just move on to the next place.

The whole point in the whole series is that the important part is that there is balance to the Force, not that one side wins. That's why the Republic was able to fall, is that they weren't interested in Balance, and that lack of insight was what allowed Palpatine to take total control and eradicate the Jedi.

The Jedi in the prequels interpret the prophecy to be the end of the Sith, as if that's what "bringing balance to the force" means, but they're totally clouded by their own biases and actions - that's sort of a big point of the Prequels.

Then Luke tries a very similar thing after the Empire falls and it fails again. That's the whole reason he's a hermit in Episode 8.

I have a silly fan theory that "the Force" is basically just a helicopter parent, and it keeps needing to choose new "chosen ones" because it's too involved. It tries to be too hands off with Anakin, which allows him to be manipulated when his emotions get in the way, and that fails the whole republic. So it tries again, being a little more heavy-handed with Luke, except this allows him to continue being very reckless, which is what lets the reformed republic fall apart in between Eps 6 and 7. Then it's really heavy-handed with Rey, and Rey still fails at the end of Ep 8 when she steals Luke's Jedi texts to try and restart the order. We haven't seen Rey's choices blow up yet, because there's no ep 10, but we do see her almost give in to the dark side when her emotions are tested in Ep 8.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. Though tbf, to 100% it, you basically just need to play through the game.

Before that, maybe Hades? Though I didn't actually 100% it, but did get all the achievements.

An extra flip or twist to an attack makes it hurt more.

They point to it in the movie - When Kylo goes to see the Emperor in the beginning and its full of half-failed clone bodies, which is partially why The Emperor looks like, extra-decrepit.

They don't expressly write it out, but its there.

The minor things are always the hardest part to get started on because it doesn't feel as significant as making the big steps. Playing around in something else where you can still actually make something or be doing the "important stuff" is always much more appealing because it's the "fun" part. Especially if this isn't like, your job or you have a pretty vague due date that isn't like, right now, it can be really hard to push yourself to sit down for the menial tasks that also have to be done.

But in my experience, there isn't really an option besides forcing yourself to sit down and get to work.

Try something like a Pomodoro timer - which is basically set up a timer for ~15-25 minutes and exclusively work during that time, and you can take a break only when the time is up. Oftentimes after 20 minutes of actually working you'll have gotten over the big hump (which is just sitting down to get to work) and you'll just keep going for a while, and if not, you can take a 5-10 minute break, then sit down for another 15-25 minutes of work.

Qui Gonn is a great addition for the whole series. I think it really adds to the Obi-Wan/Anakin dynamic that Obi-Wan didn't actually want to take Anakin. Obi Wan became Anakin's mentor because of his teacher's dying wish, and his failure at that was a big part of why the whole Republic fell. That's great. Obi Wan took on a task he wasn't prepared for because he felt forced to, and it ended up failing literally everyone. Perfect excuse to explain why he goes into exile leading into Episode 4.

Honestly, I think the general plot of The Phantom Menace is actually a really good first part of a trilogy. Two Jedi Knights are just kind of doing their job, when they stumble into a dark force threatening to overcome the whole republic, but not recognizing the actual threat that actually succeeds in basically toppling the government. It's a kids movie and you want to sell toys, so Jar Jar is fine to add some more lighthearted shenanigans to the otherwise kind of dark movie. Jar Jar has the same problem a lot of other "added for kids" things are, in which someone who has zero concept of what kids like thinks kids actually like "obnoxious as fuck" instead of like, likeable traits.

Cut the filler. The Pod-racing scene could be like, 1/3 as long and miss nothing.

The problem is in like, the terrible dialogue and such. Fixing up some dialogue, and some better organization and the movie would be good. But the actual overview is pretty good.

Why? Its not like the UK is at risk of being invaded by anyone.

I remember a random bit of trivia about that movie I heard one time, but have no idea how accurate it is.

The movie made a special blue eyes card that was given out in packs with the movie (the only card I DIDN'T GET but I'm not mad) that required you to sacrifice A Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon for it. But the Blue-Eyes ultimate dragon card, despite being in the anime from like, episode 4, didn't actually release a literal trading card until 2-3 years after the movie came out, making it impossible to actually play.

Kylo and Rey's romance was supposed to die at the end of TLJ. That was the whole point of their relationship thing in the movie. Going back to it just awkwardly throws away all of the character dynamics the two had leading into the final movie.

Anakin and Padme also had a poorly written, unearned relationship, but they never had a section specifically telling you the lead was dead and then continued on with it anyways.

The Rey/Kylo kiss is literally the most awkward scene in the franchise, and that also includes a kiss between two siblings.