TwinIon

Warren has released all of her tax returns since 2008. If she made a bunch of money working for big companies prior to that, who cares?

DP

I like Bernie's goals here, and while he's clear about what regulations he'd put in place his plan is a lot of "I will fix it by fixing it" talk without much in the way of specifics. Breaking up cable monopolies is fine, but unlike most other monopolies that doesn't actually fix the problem. If you break up Facebook, suddenly there are multiple competing social networks. If you break up Charter or Comcast or whatever most people still only have access to one broadband option. A federal law to override state laws preventing municipal broadband is good, but that by itself just opens the door for competition without actually providing any. I don't think there is anything in that plan that would incentivize actual competition in broadband. It would be great if ISPs had to play by better rules, but I think you're only going to get so much out of forcing them to be better.

Nevermind then.

Biden calls an Iowa voter a "damn liar" when the man says Joe set his son up to work for a Ukraine energy company. I'm sure his campaign has put some thought into what to do when confronted like this, and somehow this doesn't seem like the best idea to me.

My understanding of JL is that Snyder shot a lot of it, left the project, and Whedon came in and re-wrote much of it and finished shooting. If that's the case, then it seems likely that some of what Snyder intended to shoot was never shot, so it's hard to imagine getting a completely Snyder version of the film. It would have to be some assembly of what each of them shot. I like Snyder well enough (Watchmen is great), but I don't really trust his story instincts. If Whedon thought that much of it was unusable, I'd guess he was right. Now something I can easily imagine is that there were some very Snyder-esque action sequences filmed that did hit the can, and if they put those back in a lot of DC faithful would probably be happy enough, regardless of how much of a mess the story remains.

The obvious model for this is Netflix. You're selling a monthly service, so first you need to pay other people for their content just so there is enough to justify the monthly sub. Build up your own first party content offerings until they become a sufficient selling point themselves, such that when third parties have other options or even their own competing services, you still provide sufficient value to your customers.

That was poorly worded. I suppose all that I meant was it makes a lot of sense for these devs to work on Alyx. As far as I can tell, Valley hasn't been canceled, it's just a function of Valve's unique work structure and the Campo Santo folks going all over the place to work on whatever they want.

The Trieu industries logo is an elephant. I don't think it really needs an explanation, but wouldn't mind if there is some deeper meaning.

I enjoyed Firewatch, and I'd be excited to see what Valley could be, but Half-Life: Alyx is far more exciting to me. It does make some sense to me that you'd put your recently acquired devs on a game that is actually coming out. How many people at Valve have worked on a single player game in the last decade? Also, Firewatch is so very much about atmosphere and feeling, skills that I think will translate very well to VR development.

So, Zack Snyder posted a photo of reels of film labeled as JL Directors Cut... The running time is listed there at 214 minutes, a full hour and a half longer than the theatrical cut. So yeah, don't expect random fanboys to stop brigading random WB threads asking for the Synder Cut anytime soon.

Not a bad trailer. Based on that trailer I'd assume this isn't a musical, do we know if that's the case?

I feel like this is verging into semantics, but even if you consider the Xbox One and Scarlett multiple skus of the same platform, xCloud streaming certainly realizes the idea of an "Xbox ecosystem." I don't entirely agree with the tweet though. I think we'll see Nintendo continue to tie software to individual pieces of hardware. Whatever replaces the Switch certainly could be an in place upgrade of the same form factor, but I doubt it. I won't bother to speculate what shape their next console will take, but I'd bet money today that much of the software that it runs will be exclusive.

And it seems to be increasingly true. You buy an Xbox One game and it works on the OG, S and X. Odds are they'll work on Scarlett and Lockhart as well. It will be interesting to see how long the OG Xbox One and PS4 continue to be supported, but even when big games stop supporting them the One X will likely remain for a while.

I don't see a lot of TV ads, but I'm pretty sure Bloomberg's are the first campaign ads I've seen on TV this year. I think it's a shame that Harris dropped out, even if she's not my first choice. Sure does seem like having Iowa and New Hampshire going first isn't the best idea if there's any desire for diversity in the candidates.

If that rumor is correct and it's similar in power to a PS4 Pro, that would put it below the One X, which seems like a mistake to me. Games like Control and Fallen Order already struggle on the One X (though I imagine an SSD would help a good deal). Putting out a new, far more powerful console along with one below the current top spec ensures that it'll be a sub-par experience forever. I feel like the move is to wait until you can put the One X internals in a discless case for the target price, and launch that as Lockhart.

I know this isn't news, but the man only watches his own propaganda. It's scary and bizarre, and I can only hope that when Historians look back at this time they point to it as the apex of the this horrific feedback loop. I can hardly believe we live in a world where the President is certain of his infallibility because of cable news pundits proclaiming it so.

It certainly looks like a Bond movie. I believe this was known before, but it's definitely continuing where Spectre left off, which means I might have to revisit that one, which I'm not entirely looking forward to.

83% on RT Available now on Amazon Prime, The Report follows a senate staffer tasked with researching and writing a report on the CIA's torture program following 9/11. It's a slow, quiet movie that lacks the flair or emotion of The Post or Spotlight, but it feels somehow more essential than either. At a time when government infighting is in the news every day and the very idea of separation of powers is about to be interrogated before the supreme court, The Report is a reminder about the importance of transparency and accountability. It's also a grim film, repeatedly showing scenes of torture in progress and pulling no punches when it comes to the suffocating nature of a bureaucracy intent on self preservation. (Real life spoiler) There is no catharsis here, no title card at the end telling us how everything is now ok and that justice has been served. It's also a film that wants to be very clear on the facts being presented, at times almost distractingly so. It's a film that feels the burden of this story, and desperately wants viewers to understand that there are no mitigating factors here. In Spotlight, the crimes uncovered are monstrous on their face. In The Report, there's the added burden that it needs to convince viewers that these crimes were not only evil, but ineffective and unnecessary. Due to the nature of story, it also has to do without a lot of characters. Adam Driver never gets to sit down and interrogate anyone from the CIA. There is very little direct confrontation, which forces the facts being presented to carry the drama. What drama there is to be had is propelled almost singularly by Adam Driver's performance. He's on screen for nearly the entire run, and as time passes and his academic and professional courtesy deteriorate, you can feel the weight that this job has put on his character. It won't win any awards, but it's another example of how he's today's most versatile leading man. It's not flashy, but it's also not boring, and if you've got Amazon and a couple hours to spend, The Report is well worth a watch.

I hate it when San Diego is in the news because of this criminal moron. I'm also kinda bummed we don't get a trial. It was scheduled to start in January (I think), and especially with his wife testifying against him I think it would have been exciting.

Just another way that this show is basically a video game. Star Wars has always been like that, but I don't really feel like it needs to be. Would it really be a sin if a planet had multiple biomes? I don't want to break the universe wide open, but I feel like people would be willing to accept the possibility that a planet could have a desert and a forest, and maybe even places where it's cold too.

I guess. I feel like the better solution to get rid of the lawsuits is to make it easier (or even possible) to identify and get rid of bad cops. When you read about stuff like the evidence scandal with the Orange County Sheriff, I care far less about the tax bill for the lawsuits (though it might be significant), and more about being able to get those cops off the streets.

I hadn’t heard of that before, but that makes sense to me. Doctors get malpractice insurance and it hasn’t destroyed the profession. Of course, when you’re dealing with a union, I’m not sure how that would work exactly. Wouldn’t the union get a blanket policy, rather than having officers get individually covered? If you’re aware of any literature on the subject, I’d appreciate a link. Still, we’re so far away from holding officers accountable for anything in the US that “incrementally making an officer more expensive to insure” is pretty far from where we need to be. I propose we start with “murder is not acceptable behavior for a policeman.”

That admirable, but also a huge bummer. I don’t want Watchmen to be the next True Detective.

Yeah, but I don’t know if we have a lot of context for that term. At first I read it as specifically “Mandalorian orphan,” not necessarily generic orphan.