TwinIon

I was also really hoping this game would have a lengthy single player. Glad I didn't preorder it.

I hope that all those investigations of Pruitt keep going. Make him pay the price for all his abuses of power. It is bizarre to me how long he was allowed to stay in. It can't be that hard to find someone that will just do whatever Trump tells him and otherwise just does the worst thing for the environment all the time. Was Pruitt somehow notable for his shamelessness in perusing that agenda?

I think it's also reductionist to blame this all on "crazy people," as if these kinds of issues arise only from some tiny population of clinically insane people. I would guess that most of it comes from otherwise "normal" people. I think the problems are the result of people basing their identity on media properties. When someone makes a bad movie (or even a good one that makes choices you disagree with), it feels like a personal attack on these people because they've decided that these media properties define them. Some companies work hard to make people feel that way, but somehow as a culture we need to be better at preventing that. The other part of it is an unnecessary and destructive differentiation in empathy when using different modes of communication. No one should feel comfortable harassing or threatening people just because it's done over the phone or the mail or the internet. I'm sure that there's a plethora of reasons that these kinds of interactions are so different than "normal" conversations, but I think we need to do better at bringing more civility into our online discourse. It shouldn't be any more acceptable to berate someone on twitter or facebook or in freaking twitch chat than it would be to do it in person. As so much more of our everyday conversations migrate to these public platforms, we need to do better at framing all those conversations as normal and have similar expectations of what conduct is acceptable.

I bought it for VR, and it is really amazing in VR, but the game is also really difficult to understand. I had no idea what to do, and when I figured out something to do, I had no idea how to do it. I spent 20 minutes googling and watching videos to figure out how to dock the freaking ship. I'm convinced there is an amazing experience hidden in that game (especially in VR), but I just didn't have the patience to find it.

I honestly don't know enough about the NBA to say if this would work, but what if you greatly increased or completely got rid of max player contracts, but kept the team salary cap? If players like Durant and Lebron were getting paid closer to their actual value, teams just wouldn't be able to afford to put together all-star rosters. Right now a player like Durant taking a small pay cut to play for the Warriors means he misses out on something like what, $5M-$10M, for a nearly guaranteed title. Without the max contract limit, the money difference between what the Warriors could pay vs a team without multiple superstars should be enormous.

Then you've been pardoned by the US government of that crime and the state shouldn't be able to try you for it. My understanding of pardons is that you've effectively been "convicted" of the crime in so much as that you've admitted guilt (which would end the trial) and the pardon is releasing you from the consequences of the crime. So in either case, if you're actually convicted or you're pardoned, as far as the US government is concerned, the issue of you having committed the crime is over. My issue with this (or the specific scenario that @CitizenVectron mentions) isn't a question of double Jeopardy, but one of the President's pardon power. The situation with Trump is obviously unique and it certainly seems like he and his cronies will probably get off because of it, but that doesn't mean that double jeopardy between the States and the Federal government is a good idea. The guy in this specific case was convicted of a crime by the state and sent to prison for it. Then the federal government convicted him again of the same crime and sent him back to prison. That not only seems obviously wrong and blatantly unconstitutional, but it's also an incredibly stupid and inefficient way for a criminal justice system to work.

That Rey foreshadowing Kylo gif is amazing. Somehow I imagine there is still so much more like that I haven't noticed.

Setting all Trump nonsense aside, it kinda seems like this should be the case. I understand there is a real distinction between the State and Federal governments, but you probably shouldn't be able to be tied for the same crime twice, especially if you're convicted by the feds in the first place.

Good and easy to win.

My loyalty has been rewarded! I've heard a few good things about NieR: Automata, so how about that on the PC.

3 electoral votes is what it would get if it were a state, so maybe it could exist as a state without a constitutional amendment? Like I said, I think there is a valid legal challenge to DC statehood, I'm just not sure how it could possibly work.

Not really news, and it aligns with what you might expect, but Rian Johnson's longtime producing partner Ram Bergman thinks that Rian's trilogy won't start for at least 2 years. With episode 9 due in 2019, it would make some sense to go right to another trilogy the following year, but I think a 2 year gap would make sense as well.

I would think so. Here's a visual of where we have bases around the world as of 2015: It would seem like having some significant presence in Europe would be useful if we need to deploy troops to much of the planet. I have no clue how the cost/benefit analysis would work out.

DC They don't get screwed like Puerto Rico, but it's the second most populated potential state and statehood is very popular in the district. It's possible that there could be a legal challenge to DC statehood, but if Puerto Rico is successful I think they'd try to be right behind. I really hope that Puerto Rico can become a state. I have no idea what the chances of it actually happening are.

Looks like it often goes on sale for ~$30. Maybe I'll pick it up next time it gets cheap.

It'll certainly be an interesting test to see how many people actually pay attention. Last time that district had a Republican on the ballot was 2014; that candidate got 64k votes. When the democrat was unopposed, there were 91 write-in votes. I wouldn't be surprised if he gets tens of thousands of votes.

I think I'm waiting to hear what's next for desktop VR before I bother to upgrade. It's probably another year or two away and who knows what the requirements will be like.

This is the first successful use of the “arbitrary and capricious” standard I've seen under Trump. There are a lot of changes they've made that could potentially meet that standard. I wouldn't be surprised if they get this through one way or another, but at least they can't do it quite so easily.

He's been rather critical of the Russian government for a while. I think he'll be fine as long as he doesn't try and effect any actual change over there.

Are they not allowing road traffic through as is? I'm going to guess not. Given that it's a pretty short border, this seems like a rather expensive way to prevent whatever little must be crossing that border now.

I rewatched The Lost World and it really highlighted that it's basically the much better version of this film. It's not great by any means, but it does a lot of things pretty right. A big difference is that throughout TLW, Ian Malcom is there being a constant voice of reason and generally making smart choices. The two big mistakes anyone makes are saving the baby rex and sabotaging the In-Gen guys, and both of those are basically all on Vince Vaughn's eco-terrorist character, which makes it kind of understandable. Even Roland, the safari dude heading up the In-Gen expedition, pretty much always makes the right calls. There are elements that don't really work, like Ian's daughter and the whole gymnastics thing, but on the whole I found TLW to be a well directed, entertaining, but ultimately flawed film.

What kind of show would you guys like to see this from this series? The obvious route is to make it about MC and his squad. Keep it tightly focused on them and make it a 'team on a mission' kind of thing. Like if you made an episode of Stargate into a whole series. I think there's potential there but I'm not thrilled with the idea. If they wanted to, they could make this an expanse like show, alternating between the Earth politics of meeting alien life, a ship commander, and the front line soldiers. If you wanted to really get into the Covenant you could almost go kinda Game of Thrones with all their machinations, but I think that's probably a bridge too far. They could do a Voyager/BSG style show about a capital ship that ends up far from home. I think that could make for a flexible premise where they need to solve some big mystery, and there are enough characters and considerations that it's not all about space soldiers shooting stuff.

I can't wait for the "are mean liberals responsible for violent outbursts from the far right?" headlines.

I think it's only a matter of time before a streaming game service becomes a mainstream way to play games, but I'm not sure if we're actually there yet. Bandwidth has to hit a certain level and cloud computing costs have to be cheap enough. If there's someone with the right mix of expertise to make this work, it could well be Google. Still, even if they can make it work, I can imagine them having trouble getting developers on board. I'm personally very much looking forward to someone getting his kind of service right. One of the best things about Netflix is that it works on every screen I own; desktop, laptop, TVs, tablet, phone. The Switch might be the only screen I have that doesn't have at least one way to watch Netflix. I'd love for games to be more like that. If I could get an upgraded Chromecast style dongle and play a game on my TV, PC, or through an app on any of my other devices, that could be a compelling value proposition. There's even a something of an argument to be made for games that are already playable across devices. I often see complaints about how Hearthstone takes up so many GB of data on mobile devices. Just the storage savings might be enough for streaming to become a compelling option.

Showtime has placed a 10 episode order for a Halo TV series from Awake creator Kyle Killen and Rise of the Planet of the Apes director Rupert Wyatt. For now we don't know much more than that. I'm very surprised that this is happening. I feel like Halo has lost some of it's cultural relevance, and this is likely to be an expensive show. Still, there' s absolutely potential there, and I'll be excited to see how it turns out.