Odine

2 hours ago, Zathras said:

Gah! No more Kennedys please!

Why do you say that? Not a fan? I thought the Kennedys were a fairly universally respected political family as far as the broader population was concerned. Obviously they have had some staunch opposition.

Interesting, I appreciate the insight! 

My stepfather has long since recovered, but it was pretty dicey for a while there. 

I thought you might say that. I listened to him speak for about 2 hours on that subject, and my take away from it was not that he was an anti-vaxxer but that vaccines are inherently dangerous and not without risk. Some vaccines in particular that are mandated the risk outweighs the benefits. Obviously he presented a significant amount of evidence to back these claims but my recall is not good enough to site it here. 

I'm not sure about COVID misinformation, but if it was about the COVID vaccine being ineffectual and carrying more dangerous side effects than benefits, that's not misinformation. Heart arrythmia, very high inflammation, pulmonary issues including embolisms, cardiac arrest, and a dramatic uptake in all cause mortality post COVID vaccination programs. That's not misinformation there is well documented evidence to support that. Even anecdotally my step father had pulmonary embolism post COVID vaccine, massive inflammation that left him bedridden. The only reason he didn't die is because his base metabolic health was so good to begin with. My mother developed arrythmia seemingly out of the blue post vaccine. And many many other people have similar experiences. There is more and more evidence every day to support this. I regret ever having the two COVID vaccines. 

Anyways, I don't particularly want to get bogged down in a conversation about vaccines. Just more interested in a presidential candidate who wants to run on a platform of peace, who generally distrusts the Industrial Military Complex and Pharmaceutical industries and can actually string a coherent sentence together. 

I don't know too much about the guy, other than the fact he is a litigator and was doing a lot of cases against the pharmaceutical industry, and he wrote the book The Real Anthony Fauci. 

But this speech has me very impressed. Seems like leadership the world could use right now 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iZUZZTtZw_s&t=1619s

I'd vote for him given the options available 

I had a dude cat when I when I was child through to teen-ager/adult. His name was Luciano. Was a ball of muscle. Part Burmese, and absolute specimen. When we moved house about 5 miles away, he disappeared out the cat flap one morning. Days went by without him coming home. We heard rumours from our old neighbours that they saw a cat that looked a lot like him cruising round the old streets. A week went by and we were thinking we might have to accept the fact he'd been hit by a car or something. At the end of the second week, he just came wandering back in through the cat flap, a few more battle scars on his nose and ear, and he had lost a little weight. He just gave his typical deep meow and went and sat by the cat bowl like nothing happened. It was like Christmas having him back.  Absolute legend. He lived 22 human years. 

I still miss him.  Fuck. 

The first season doesn't start for a while (like months maybe)anyways so you're not missing out on any of the live service elements yet. My experience with it so far is it does seem a return to glory for Diablo. Albeit with horrible monetization 

Cool! I think that'd be how I would enjoy it too. As long as chipping of mistakes is not too difficult! Lol 

So far I'm having a blast. The last two nights there have been server and login issues which is a bummer. But once I'm in the game itself is amazing. 

The monetisation is a bit grim, but I won't be engaging in any micro transaction shenanigans 

That's cool, did you design any of the placement of the peices for the final look or did you just smash stuff together on the fly and it resolved itself? 

First season is a slow burn, almost like the Wire and there is a load of characters to keep track of but it's super enjoyable.

I'm about six episodes into the first season, and so far loving the slow burn of the series. As a biopic I'm enjoying it a lot more than Straight Outta Compton, and the fact that it's a series gives a lot more time to character development. I feel a lot more invested in everyone rather than just going along for a ride. I have no idea how much of the show is accurate and how much is myth building, but with RZA and Method Man as executive producers I would assume there is a decent amount of myth building going on, which I'm okay with. Fiction often makes a more compelling story than truth, but I'm sure the important beats of the story are true.

Anyways, great series for anyone who's interested. I'm watching it on Disney of all places but think it's also on Hulu 

Lol

I've heard it's really good. 

I've never played table top DnD but plenty of the crpgs inspired by DnD or the DnD ruleset. I want to see the film at some point cause ive heard it's a really good romp. I used to love the cartoon when I was a kid 

I tried to read up a few things about semaglutide on some bodybuilding forums (cause there are big time pharma nerds in that community). From their reports semaglutide seems to work differently than other appetite suppressants in that it uses specific pathways and hormone regulation so surpress hunger rather than simply masking it like other 'surpressors'. In other words it's the nuclear option for appetite suppressants, not to be taken lightly. Think of it as a pharmacological/seriousness  equivalent of taking anabolic steroids only for totally different purposes, obviously.

The possible side effects of semaglutide injections look pretty damn horrible. If you're gonna get on it I'd seriously think about the risk versus reward if it's right for you.

I've heard that some of the weight loss includes loss of muscle mass, bone density, and connective tissue. But a cursory Google I can't find any articles about that but ya know..pharma are going to surpress that so you might have to dig to find those results/articles.

I can't find anything about the connective tissue loss but here is a breakdown of the negative risks, just to balance the annectdotal success stories/sponsored hype:

https://www.drugs.com/sfx/semaglutide-side-effects.html#

All that said, if you're over 30-35% body fat it might be worth it. But if you're looking to cut a few pounds I'd say stay away

His story has completed IMO. And to be fair, I'd be happy if there were not another season of the Mandolorian regardless of who is cast. It seems to have done some decent world building, and like has been mentioned will likely feed into other series. 

But I don't think we need to explore anything further with the Power Rangers, sorry, I mean Mandalorians.

On 4/12/2023 at 12:39 PM, Hobbes said:

 

Holy fuck thats some next level attempt at corporate indoctrination if I ever saw it. Fuck me that's poison. As well as being cringe. God corporate team building is horse shit. 

Excuse my language but that sort of stuff makes me lose faith in humanity. Every one of those people in pink shirts would be in a cult, no problem. 

Just showed it to my wife being that she's the one in our household with a more corporate job (still in design though so nowhere near as bad as some departments), and she said "if anyone asked me to do that I'd tell them to go fuck themself".

Whenever I think of Vancouver I think of Trailer Park Boys for some reason. I'd love to go drinking with Ricky and Julien 

Mandalorians ARE SW Klingons, of course!.. or space Vikings. 

I can understand where choc is coming from, that having space Vikings being the good guys doesn't make sense in the moral binary of traditional SW. Good guys have to be peaceful and good. The Disney era SW franchise seems to be bringing more things that challenge this and are trying to bring shades of grey for better and worse.

I like Tank's explanation. The mandalorians are meant to be brutal SW Klingons/Vikings that celebrate war and honour. (The ultimate Mandalorian was Canderous Ordo from Kotor IMO.) So it should have been up to Din to unite the clans and show the mandalorians a better way than mindless barbarism. They should have followed him because of his deeds, his honour and the darksaber. He was meant to be the Mandalorian Ragnar Lothbrok. 

There were cool moments in this episode, like the big guy doing his last stand "this is the way" and going to space Valhalla. But they have fumbled the main storyline so hard this season it's hard to care.

Meh

I just wish some of the stuff (the shadow council) with Moff Gideon was at the start of the season, so we felt that looming threat throughout the last however-many-episodes that the show was treading water 

Man they are really churning out the series at a rate huh. I'm not certain more is better. Who is Darth Dad-bod meant to be? He kinda looks like George Lucas. 

There is something intangible about these new series that just doesn't hit the vibe for me. Maybe it's the 70s early 80s feel they're missing for me... Is it the haircuts? Or the fidelity of the image that makes me not like the feel.. I don't know. Maybe the grainy, poorly dubbed video quality of my first experience with the OT  in the 80s is so baked into my understanding of star wars the better the fidelity we get the worse it feels. But whatever it is, things feel too slick and with not enough character. 

I quite enjoyed how cheap BOBF felt. Hokey effects and the B grade aesthetic suits SW, it was the writing that let that series down.

Obviously I'm going to watch Ahsoka..these are just thoughts running through my head 

I've always enjoyed dark side mysticism so I'm curiously excited for the acolyte. 

I generally love existential and magical/mythological stuff so I like going deep on the force so long as they don't go to "scientific" on it and keep it mystical. I hated midichlorians for that reason. But deep dives into esoteric force cults and magic are totally my jam.

Don't care much for an origins of the jedi story unless it's told from a mythical perspective, steeped in improbability and not overly illustrated for lack of a better word.

The seaweed pirate guy was the absolute worst design I've seen in a while. He looked like Oscar the grouch's uncle from Louisiana or something 

Lol. I was thinking this episode felt very game questy. I could almost hear Djin sighing under his breath "all right I'll fix ya fuckin droid problem". 

I don't mind side quests generally, however but this season has felt too rudderless overall. I like the direction it's heading the last two episodes with Bo to lead the Mandalorian repatriation and rule so (hopefully) Djin can ride off and become the lone ranger (with Grogu) again. 

I think the scope has started getting too big. I'd rather just follow Djin and Grogu as they go round taking side quest after side quest. Just make them fun to watch, and somewhat plausible (within the context of SW) not some goofy prequel-like stuff

Yeah it's like you can care as little or as much as you like. This season is a shambles if you care about things, but I'm enjoying it enough.