TwinIon

4 hours ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

Sainz may he interesting to watch, because this whole season is going to be like a job interview to hopefully get signed for next year. 

A situation that 13 (I think) other drivers also find themselves in. For some (Stroll) it's more of a formality, but it's really a make or break year for much of the grid. 

No one should be under the impression that this is a slam dunk court case for Yuzu. Copyright law is weird and non-deterministic, and there is absolutely enough space for Nintendo to win on at least some counts. I look at Google v Oracle and think that Yuzu may well lose that case based on the criteria SCOTUS came up with, even if Yuzu might not be dealing with APIs in exactly the same way. Despite what some gamers would like to believe, there isn't a clear cut "right" to emulation.

The whole right to repair movement is tackling very similar issues of what rights you have to something that you have purchased, and I think it's telling that they're not cementing their rights by taking John Deer or Apple to court, they're passing laws. If it remains an open question as to if you have the right to fix a broken tractor without the OEM's parts or software, it's definitely an open question as to what you can do with software you purchased.

Didn't realize that Remedy didn't fully control it already. Probably bodes well for Remedy that they feel comfortable buying these rights.

I'm excited for the season, but I don't expect much of a challenge for the title. I think Max has this wrapped up already if the car is anywhere as good as it looks. Much like the years Merc was dominant, we get to the end of a season and it looks like other teams are making headway, but it's only because the dominant team stopped developing that years car in order to get a head start on the next. Midway through last year I decided to lean in to the idea of just watching Max win. Yeah, it's not very exciting up front, but there's still value to watching maybe the best season of F1 that anyone has ever had. If we get more non-Max winners this year, I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Still, the great thing about last year was just how close the rest of the field was. I have no idea how things will shake out between Mercedes, Mclaren, and Ferrari, plus there is potential for Aston (or at least Fernando) will show some more flashes of brilliance. I also expect to again see some real shifts during the year. It's pretty hard to match the kind of fall off that Aston had or the kind of gains Mclaren made, but hopefully we'll see more of that shuffling just by nature of the field being so competitive.

I don't really have a team I specifically root for, but I'd love to see Lando finally win a race. I'd love to see Williams take a big step forward and really fight in the midfield. I hope that Aston has a good enough car to battle the top teams, if only because Nando is so much fun to watch when he's fast. I've got some friends that are big fans of Checo, but I'm honestly not expecting much.
 

With Hamilton going to Ferrari, I feel like the 2025 silly season has already begun. With so many drivers without contracts and so many seats open, everyone is going to be fighting hard for their next drive. It'll be fun watching the "Max's next teammate" sweepstakes (my money is on Riccardo). I expect Fernando to go to Mercedes and Sainz to Audi, but who knows.

So yeah, excited that F1 is back. It's a great low-investment sport. There's only 10 total teams, 20 total drivers, the rules are really not all that complicated for viewers, and there's only one race every other week or so, and it's only two hours or so. If you get more into it you can watch quali and practice and follow along with the development race and what not, but I think people can enjoy it without getting super into it. So if you're not watching, give it a try. There's plenty of drama and action and I've really enjoyed my time watching the sport.

This looks like he was jealous that he couldn't star in 1883, so he made his own.

It could well just be YouTube compression, but even at 4K something about this trailer doesn't look quite right. I feel like it's not very consistent in it's color or noise or sharpness or something. Hard to put my finger on it.

Trailer didn't really sell me, but I'm always down for a solid western and it sure seems like Costner cares a whole lot about this, so hopefully it pays off.

Up to episode 4 and I'm enjoying it well enough. It's not great, not terrible. I think they did an admirable job of combining elements from the original episodes, but even when they're clever, there is something to be said for focus. I'll keep going.

It'll be interesting to see what they do with their first balance patch. They've been busy with more pressing matters, but eventually they're going to have to address some things and I'm curious to see what their approach is.

They definitely need to make other primaries compete with the breaker, but does that mean a buff for specific others, or just a nerf for the breaker? Same could probably be said for the rail gun.

They need to figure out armor penetration in general, as right now it feels like the key issue and weapons that say they penetrate armor hardly seem to.

They also could take a stance on the farming situation and just make those quick missions worth far less, or maybe make them worth less when done in repetition.

Two cases are being heard at the supreme court that could decide how the internet gets moderated. NetChoice v. Paxton and Moody v. NetChoice are the cases looking at Texas and Florida social media moderation laws, and all sorts of issues could be at stake. Here's SCOTUSblogs' primer on the two cases, and here's the Verge's story stream (start from the bottom).

Thomas seems intent on making this not only about the laws in question, but section 230. Kagan is trying to figure out if it's legal to only go after big tech. There's a lot of talk about what qualifies as a "common carrier" and if striking down these laws necessarily protects the status quo for these sites, or if it could leave them open to more regulation.

Personally, I think these laws are absurd and should have no chance at all of remaining on the books, but with this court you never know what they could try and sneak into the ruling. I don't expect them to take away 230 or decide on a wholly new interpretation of the first amendment, but I won't feel good about the outcome until we see it.

22 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Interesting... I've found the opposite to be true personally. People that join on me usually want to go around the map completing as many objectives as they can and collecting the most samples they can find. I just did a couple of missions today and that was they case... we roamed the map completing as many secondary objectives and finding as many secrets as we could find. Maybe it was because I was in my own game and people joined on me? I don't know. It wasn't just High level players... in most of the matches I play, I'm the highest level player (level 21) or there's one guy my level or higher. I'd suggest starting a mission on your own so you players can see what mission you're running... folks who want to XP farm won't join if it isn't a simple defend mission or destroy X many bots mission. Also I'd recommend not trying to tackle Hard missions unless you have a full squad. I'm level 21 and have yet to solo a challenging mission solo.

That's kind of the problem. I want to play on hard, but I find it a struggle right now with fewer than 3 people. So if I start a mission on hard and can't get two other people to stick around, it's kind of a problem.

Hopefully I just had bad luck with matchmaking and it won't be the norm going forward. I had good luck this morning. Found a couple groups that were generally good teammates playing well and working together and were playing through all the missions in a group (whatever that's called).

I miss when Vizio was the TV brand that had image quality above their price class. For a while they seemed like the go-to option for "I want a good TV, but I don't want to buy a Sony/LG Plasma/OLED." It seems like ever since the failed LeEco purchase way back in 2016.

Only saw the first episode and the tone is so different from the original. I'm trying not to judge it too harshly for that, but it is much more serious in a way that the One Piece live action show was not. The thing that makes me more concerned is that they don't seem that consistent in that slightly more gritty tone. The costumes are all bright and colorful and look brand new. Appa is as doofy in live action as in the animation. It makes me think they're going to be struggling with the nature of the show as taking place during a brutal war and the lightheartedness that the animation achieved.

Some of my fears are already coming true as players try to "optimize" their time. I played a bunch of games yesterday and found it difficult to find a group that wasn't just trying to farm the easiest defend missions. I saw similar complaints on reddit who blamed the phenomenon on youtubers and streamers telling people the fastest way to level up is to just grind those missions, but who knows. They are the easiest for sure, but you hardly get any samples and I just don't find them that fun. I think the joy in this game is in the craziness that is occurring as you're exploring the map and trying to complete the objectives. When I'd start my own mission and hope people join, people would just drop out. Playing on hard with only two people at ~15 is not great.

Hopefully that was an aberration and not a new normal. The existing matchmaking system is dead simple, but it makes it difficult to find players who want to play in a specific way. There's no good way to advertise that you want to collect all the samples and not just rush main objectives.

That said, I've overall had pretty good luck in finding random teammates, and when you do have a full squad that is working together on harder difficulties, the game really comes alive. It's a great sandbox to muck around in and I still have plenty of toys to unlock.

2 hours ago, Biggie said:

Is this game good/fun playing with randoms? Be honest. 

Surprisingly good.

I have had the problem of finding a group through. I'm guessing people aren't turning their matchmaking to private when they want to be alone. I had a run this morning where as soon as I joined people (via the quickplay button), they either kicked me or left immediately five times in a row. In a couple cases even when joining a mission in progress.

Finally got to try it out after a few days of ownership. It's a lot of fun but it has a lot of problems beyond just the server issues. My first time loading into my ship the game froze. My very first mission the random that joined me got stuck interacting with something, so I had to kill him to reset. Another mission landed me on top of some geometry, and the game clearly didn't know what to do with me 100 ft in the sky, though I did make it down fine. I think the map could use some work, though I think the Konami code ux for strategems is nifty.

I got up to level 5 and unlocked "challenging" difficulty and decided to give that a go. I got paired with a lvl 15 diver, which was good because I was unprepared. After I started using his weapons I became much more useful. I think I'll unlock a few more things before doing that again, but it was fun to have a helpful teammate in a difficult mission and to get a glimpse of what the game looks like after a few levels up.

I don't think this is a game that I'll play forever and it doesn't seem like something that would consume me, but it is a lot of fun to mess around in. I think the fate of this game is going to rest in the hands of the community. Right now everyone is just figuring things out, and if people can remain genuinely helpful and co-op minded, then I may keep playing here and there for a while. If people end up getting hyper focused on optimization, it could suck the fun out of it.

Reviews are starting to come in and it seems they're pretty mixed at this point. It's at 62% on RT. Picking through a few reviews, it doesn't sound like a train wreck, so at least there's that.

Yeah, that doesn't look great.

What in the world is Cate Blanchett doing in this movie? She seems very out of place.

Probably doesn't bode well for physical media if Disney doesn't think it's worthwhile to run their own operation.

I feel like this puts a clock on how long Disney even bothers releasing physical versions of their content.

Sitting at 62 on Metacritic. Not great.

After watching the Skill Up review, the conclusion is that there is fun to be had, but it's a real disappointment when put in context.

The comparisons to Black Flag are pretty brutal. Seems like it's not a complete disaster, but it doesn't live up to it's potential as a AAAA game after such a long development cycle.

11 hours ago, Spork3245 said:

Yea, that’s the thing, he’s always criticized Dems, always, but it’s not even close to the same way he criticizes Republicans. If you think “if you offer any criticism about both sides, you’re both sidesing it!” then, like… I guess? However, you really have to ignore what he’s actually saying to get to that conclusion, IMO, as Stewart has always been incredibly clear that “while both sides suck, one side sucks SO much worse and only one side is actually dangerous”. “Yes, but” has been his way of making points since he took over from Kilborn.

I feel like the both-sides argument for that particular episode stems from just pure time spent. I'm pretty sure that his language around Trump was far more harsh, but I'm pretty sure he spent more time talking about Biden and why it's fair to criticize him for being old or whatever, as if it's not the most common Biden talking point. I didn't love or hate the episode, but I don't really feel like Stewart brought anything new to the discussion. I agree with Jon that it's perfectly fair to be concerned and to criticize Biden for his age, but I feel like the age talk has been over saturated at this point.

The same night during his opening monologue Colbert addressed the age thing much more briefly and (to my mind at least) effectively. He said "We are where we are. Unless something drastic happens it's Biden vs Trump. Voters are just going to have to choose between a sympathetic, well meaning, elderly old man with a poor memory, or a contemptible, malicious, elderly rapist with a poor memory."

After watching more of this it certainly has my attention. Hopefully the servers clear up enough to actually give it a go.

I'm pretty much right there with you. There was a lot to like about season 4, but it never really made the most of it. There were interesting characters with complicated dynamics and there were two mysteries, but neither mystery really ever felt urgent or exciting. Part of that is that Liz and Navarro seemed only interested in the Tsalal murders because of Annie's murder, and part of it comes from what I think is a lack of more procedural work. The way the show is setup we get front loaded with all the deaths and the circumstances of their deaths, but there's not much to work through there. It's basically a big question mark until the end (where it still isn't really resolved). I didn't actually mind the lack of entirely definitive answers, but I do think the pacing of reveals and everything is poorly handled.

North America is fortunate to be getting a total solar eclipse this year on April 8th. I'm very excited because this will be the first total eclipse I'll have had the chance to experience and I'm curious who else on D1P is planning on seeing it.

Here is a great interactive map to get incredibly specific information for your location.

In 2017 I didn't travel, but I have some friends that did and while they loved the experience of the eclipse, they had some trouble with lodging. They had booked their AirBnb well in advance, but the hosts figured out very near the eclipse how much more could be charged, so my friends were left scrambling at the last minute. Looking not to replicate that experience for 2024, they spent some time finding the best place they could get a hotel that was aware of the eclipse and are arranging a group trip to Mazatlan. Since I decided to join this trip,  enjoy photography, and have most of the gear I'd need anyways, I figured I should try to get one of those cool corona shots for myself.

The result has been falling down a rabbit hole that is so much more complex and annoying than anticipated, even as I remain committed to the idea (have spent enough money that I'm rather "pot committed" as well). First I discovered that eclipse chasing itself is a hobby with some rather intense interest, filled with some very dedicated people. Then there are the solar eclipse photography people, who are often already into astrophotography, but often not into general photography. Still, even for those that are into astro, solar photography is still it's own niche with it's own quirks and requirements.

A lot of the advice that I've seen is that a total solar eclipse is a unique experience and that you don't want to be spending those precious moments messing with your camera. Trying to take that advice to some degree, I decided that I wanted to automate my photos. A number of programs exist specifically to automate eclipse photos, but it turns out that's a world of complications. The best software for this kind of thing was mostly written by individual amateurs that don't really keep them up to date. The most recommended program is Solar Eclipse Maestro, which only works for MacOS 10.6 - 10.14 (which was released in 2018). There's a windows option in Eclipse Orchestrator, and while it runs in Windows 11, lets just say that it's not exactly a modern piece of software. Heck, getting it to shoot fast requires buying or building your own shutter release cable from old intervolometers. Add in that I'm using high end modern Nikon cameras, and things get messy. Nikon support in general is far worse than that for Canons, and it also seems like support for the really high end ones has been limited.

I've been reading an ebook specifically about photographing eclipses, I've been spending a lot of time going through old threads on Cloudy Nights, and I've been spending hours trying to get some piece of software working that will let me script my shooting for this eclipse, and so far had very little luck. At this point I've given up on the Z9, which is an amazing camera and a joy to work with, but I can't find any software that can reliably control it at all, much less run a script with very specific timing. I'm now trying to get my D850 working, and while I've had some success, it's been mostly failures.

Anyways, while I'm mostly ranting about what a time sink and mess this has all been, I'm still excited for the eclipse itself. Who else is making plans?

Huge momentum behind this film going into the Oscars.

I just re-watched this weekend. Still love the film and think this praise is well deserved.

4 hours ago, Chris- said:

I'm sure his net worth is that high but he definitely doesn't have the cash in hand.

In April 2023 in a deposition for the rape trial Trump said that he had $400M in cash. I can't seem to find a great primary source for that, but the number is referenced in a few articles on the topic.

Not that I'm willing to take Trump's word for it. Still, it could make it slightly harder to get out of paying these fines when they have him telling a court that he has the funds.

Being a sizeable jump from Control is a good sign for them. They deserve all the success in the world.