Fez

I guess this is the thread for it, since no trailer is out yet for that thread. Netflix has released the first stills from the live action Cowboy Bebop. https://bloody-disgusting.com/tv/3679522/netflixs-live-action-cowboy-bebop-series-will-premiere-november-first-images-revealed/ Also it'll premiere November 19; I don't know if that's news or not. The actors look on point, especially Cho. There's something a little off-putting about the sets to me though; like they're caught halfway between live action and animated. It almost reminds me of the sets from the Dick Tracy movie. Maybe they'll grow on me in motion. At least the designs seems faithful to the original.

He's gotten 22.5 years, with credit for 199 days time served already. Not the maximum available, which would've been 30 years. But it is more than the sentencing guidelines recommend of about 12.5 years for a first time offender. The judge cited the cruelty of Chauvin's actions as reason to go above the recommendation.

He had already had exemptions for most things for a while, this win extends them. More info: https://www.pgatour.com/fantasy/major-qualifiers.html .

So he doesn't give proof in the article itself (and also it is Andrew Sullivan), but supposedly

As an outsider, I certainly don't have the best perspective. But my understanding was that the reason why it was once considered a good thing for cops to march in the Pride parades was that it helped normalized the idea that absolutely anyone might be gay. It was part of the whole change in the culture to get people to understand that they almost certainly knew people who were gay already and that it wasn't a big deal. Now at this point it seems like that battle has been won. So if the vast majority of participants aren't comfortable with gay cops being there, it probably doesn't hurt the social movement for them to be excluded. However, Pride parades aren't just for people who are gay. I don't know if there are any publicly transgender or non-binary cops who have marched in a Pride parade, but, if there are, that seems like something that would still send a powerful message.

Nope. Try again. I literally didn't say anything about police training.

Obviously you don't understand my point. Maybe you should up your reading comprehension before trying to attack. I mention Trump because if the survey found he had 50% or 60% approval, or anything like that, we would know that the sample was flawed and it can be ignored. However, because the survey found approval around where we'd expect, maybe even a bit lower than expected, we know that the survey is representative of the US. And therefore its findings are representative of the US. Also, the poll you cite is asking a different question. And it shows that people do want reforms for sure. However, the overall favorability of the police shows that anyone talking about radical ideas like abolishing the police (which you do see on Twitter a fair bit) is going to run into some major issues.

NBC just did a wide-ranging national US poll, and among other things asked about current opinions of the police. I'm posting it just as a reminder of the lens that most Americans have: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20690434-210098-nbc-news-april-poll-4-25-21-release That's a 58-24 positive opinion. And it goes to show that while certain incidents, like the murder of George Floyd, can galvanize people; overall there is majority support for the current system. I'll also note that this same poll asked about Trump, and found opinion of him to be at 32-55. This is not some fluky conservative sample.

Sure. But in that video there was no time to talk; everything happened within seconds. Also worth noting, the US has an intentional homicide rate 4x higher than the UK. So yes there are plenty of times that US police are committing murder, like Derek Chauvin; however, it also makes sense that there will be more justified killings by US police than UK police, because US police are more likely to encounter a violent assault in progress. UK police killed 5 people in 2020. Because of how rare it is, presumably most people would agree that all 5 were justified. Normalize that to the US population size and you get 25 police killings. Multiple that by 4x to account for the higher violent crime rate and you get 100 police killings. The US actually had 1,146 police killings in 2019 (most recent data year), which goes to show how bad things are with the US police; and I've never disputed that. However, it would also mean that about 1 in 11 US police killings are justified. And my point has only ever been that all the evidence so far says that what happened in Columbus is one of those justified ones. But there seem to be some people who think that police killings are never justified, no matter what.

It's been a while, but I think Pyramids was the first Disworld book I read. I was pretty young though, and didn't really get how the series worked or who Pratchett was. I thought every book was totally standalone, and the back cover of that seemed interesting. I didn't really get it though. A few years later, when I was older, I read it again and thought it was okay, but not great. I had a better understanding of Discworld at this point, and had heard Small Gods was great, and standalone. So I read it second, did think it was great, and then decided to read the rest of the books in chronological order. It used to be hard to pick a favorite, but I'd probably have said Reaper Man or Interesting Times for a while. But then I got to Night Watch and was just blown away.

It is interesting though how little the numbers have moved for older adults though. I suppose after so many years they've either internalized how they identified in the past, or they just don't see it as worthwhile to change at this point. It's also worth noting that this isn't asking "How do you identify to other people?" it's just "How do you identify?" So presumably there would be some people, particularly in earlier iterations of this survey, who were in the closet but willing to come out in an anonymous survey.

Gallup has done their first poll on LGBTQ self-identification in the US since 2017, and its got some interesting resulting. https://news.gallup.com/poll/329708/lgbt-identification-rises-latest-estimate.aspx Overall 5.6% of adults identify as LGBTQ, up from 4.5% in 2017 (with another 7.6% answering "no opinion", up from 5%). That's a big jump in just 4 years, and it primarily comes from Gen Z; where 15.9% self-identify, compared to 9.1% of millennials, and 3.8% or less for every older age group. And digging into the data, while all identifications jumped up among Gen Z compared to millennials (and millennials saw a jump among every identification compared to Gen X), the biggest driver by far is the number of people identifying as bisexual. What the study can't identify is whether this is because younger adults, particularly Gen Z, are more comfortable in stating their identifications or whether there is something affecting how younger adults identify. Regardless though, it seems like another indication that even if the courts attempt to rollback any rights, it at least won't last very long.

More of a listening question than anything else, but I don't want to start a whole thread for it. I've been bingeing Brooklyn-99, and that led me back down the Lonely Island rabbit hole for the first time in a decade. I was listening to their single 'Jizz in My Pants' (lyrics NSFW) And I was reminded that, while the whole song is a fun, catchy parody of synthwave/electro-pop; the bit from 2:00-2:15 goes a bit beyond that. The lyrics in those 15 seconds is as goofy as the rest of the song, but it is so incredibly fast-paced and catchy. I've been looking for more 'real' songs that have that kind of sound, but I've been out of luck; nothing I've found has that combo of a tempo that fast, so completely ignores the concept of bass, and has lyrics. For instance, I've listened to a decent amount of Daft Punk, and while their songs are better overall, I haven't heard any that have quite that sound. Anyone have any recs?

I've been DMing a 5E D&D campaign online with friends for about 16 months now. It's been fun. Started as a way to keep in touch as folks moved about the country, and was a good distraction to keep going during the pandemic. It's the first time most of us had played, and the first time I DM'd. After seeing so much of what 5E has to offer, I've decided that I like it, but I think I'm interested in some of the other tabletop systems. I think I'd prefer something with fewer rules, fewer spells and gear, and more focused on the role-playing. And also, hopefully much faster-paced combat since players wouldn't need to look up abilities and spells so often to remember what they've got. Also, as rewarding as DMing has been, I think I'd prefer being a player in the future.

Last night I heard the news that's been spreading through my family, which is that a cousin of mine has come out as transgendered. As far as I can tell, the family's been supportive; although I know she and her parents have years of tension covering all sorts of issues between them that I'm sure exists. This isn't a cousin I'm particularly close to, I think I've only seen her maybe 3 times in the past 10 years, so I don't think there's much I could provide in way of support. But there are some big family milestones coming up in the next couple years that I suspect we'll both be at. So I was wondering, what are some tips for making sure I'm being sensitive when I do see her? For instance, the name she used to have has a very widely used feminine version, but she didn't choose that as her new name. She chose something else. Is it okay to ask her about that if we're making conversation at a family gathering? Or is that too personal to talk about with a relatively distant cousin? (Although, on this side of the family, I'm her only cousin; we're a small family, but distant) How much should I press about how things are going for her and whether there's anything I could do for her? (We are distant, but she's still family). She's had a pretty rough life the past 5-6 years, and I don't know how much stems from stress related to this, versus other things entirely.

There was definitely talk of it at one time, for all the stuff they own/have distribution rights to through studios like Fox, Fox Searchlight, Mandeville Films, Mayhem Pictures, NatGeo, UTV, Fox STAR, A&E etc. Plus the former studios and distribution deals that in some cases still have rights retained to them, like Dreamworks, Touchstone, Hollywood Pictures, Caravan Pictures, Bruckheimer films, Spyglass, etc. It may just have been rumors. But the story I heard around 8 months ago was talk of up to five services, which would usually be bundled but that you could go a la cart on. One for truly kid animation stuff, one for PG-13 family stuff, one for mature audiences (saying adult just sounds like porn), one for foreign language stuff, and one for sports (maybe? I can't remember the fifth). Clearly that's not the plan anymore because the animated films and PG-13 family stuff are all on Disney+, but I thought there was still a second service and that it wasn't just Hulu.

I am intrigued by this bundle offer. The part I'm unclear on is if Disney+ is everything Disney is offering and if all if it is included in this bundle, and if not, what is? Because I seem to remember talk that Disney was going to have at least two streaming services, one would be kid-focused one that has all the animated stuff and one would be the more adult-focused one. Is that still the plan or is there just one giant thing now?

Hey all. Sorry if this seems ignorant, but I was hoping someone could let me know which, if any or all, of these terms are acceptable and commonly used in the community? And also if they are synonyms? And if there are other, more commonly used terms? Non-cisgendered; person born with a uterus; transgendered man; person assigned-female-at-birth We've realized at my job that we our language style guide doesn't cover this, and I don't know what an authoritative source on the this would be. Any help would be awesome.

Late to seeing it, I gave the episode a 5; which is the second lowest I've ever given an episode of GoT (the record holder is S8E4, which I gave a 3 in retrospect after learning how Jaime's character arc ends). In a vacuum, I'd probably give it an 8 or 9; everything production-wise was fantastic and, if you ignore all the context of the show, the writing was okay too. The only issues I'd have were the coincidence of Jaime and Euron running into each other and fighting; and also, if there's a secret passage into the Red Keep, Tyrion can't be the only one who knows about it. Why not just send some assassins to kill Cersei and end the war immediately? HOWEVER, I can't ignore the context of the show, and with that, I thought the episode was pretty dreadful. I can completely believe that most of what we witnessed could eventually happen (except for Jaime going back to Cersei), but everything was so absurdly rushed and poorly explained that it was just silly. I always thought there was a good chance Dany would go Mad Queen in the end, but the show didn't earn it; there was some foreshadowing, but she snapped way too quickly compared to where she was earlier this season. If D&D were burned out on the show, which I get, I'm sure its a tough job and they've been doing it a long time now, I don't understand why they didn't hand off showrunning to someone like Cogman, who was still passionate (and S8E2, which he wrote, is by far the best of the season) and would be up for at least having seasons 7 and 8 be full length. They'd still get their huge EP fees, and could still even come back to direct the series finale if they really wanted. Extremely disappointing how things are wrapping up.

Not necessarily (I tell myself). It could be that he fully expects to die in the process of killing Cersei and doesn't want Brienne following him and getting hurt/killed as well. Of course, that requires a degree of subtlety that I'm not sure the writing is capable of anymore.

A 6 for now. The big variable is whether D&D are doing a poor attempt at misdirection with Jaime and he's going to go kill Cersei or if they are throwing away his character arc. If it's the former, the episode is a 9 (still -1 for some minor complaints) if it's the later, it's a 3 because that's a really terrible move. So I'm splitting the difference for now.

It was going okay, albeit with poor lighting, but then the ending happened and it was deeply disappointing. Night King's end was way too anti-climatic and it was silly how many main characters survived considering how many extra were killed.

I seem to recall someone, either GRRM or ones of the Ds I think, saying that there would be a few more people sitting on the Iron Throne before the end; and this was said when Tommen was already king. Maybe that just means Cersei, then Dany, then Jon, of if there rule together or if someone will fit in after Cersei or if someone else will be there at the very end. Far as Cersei goes, it made sense to me that she declared herself Queen. There's a major power vacuum in Kings Landing now that all her rivals are dead and she's the one with armed soldiers there. Plus, its not like the rest of the kingdom has accepted it. The North, the Vale, the Reach, Dorne, and the Iron Islands are all in open revolt for various reasons; all that Cersei's got are the Westlands, the Stormlands, and the Riverlands (which are mostly in ruins anyway).

Yeah, I'll give that a 10. I won't for the season though. There was way too much stuffed into this episode that should've been spread out better. For instance, the sept and all that probably should've blown up in ep8, that way the Dornish stuff could also be in ep8, and it wouldn't be quite as absurd for Varys to be in Meereen in ep10.

8/10 I wish I could give it higher, it was just unbelievably technically impressive throughout; but the writing was just far too sloppy and/or cliched in too many places. Which just makes me sad. A lot of it I could overlook; but Sansa not mentioning that the Vale might be coming is a bridge too far. It doesn't matter if she doesn't know for sure, just the possibility that they might would make that war council go completely different. If that's addressed next week, awesome, but there were other issues too. Mostly smaller, but they add up. Such as the fact that no army would allow itself to be surrounded the way Jon's was, as soon as they saw the Boltons coming in, they'd charge in one direction to break out before the circle could get in place. At the same time though, it all looked incredible; with the absolute highlight being that tracking shot of Jon. And the Meereen stuff was fairly solid too for the first time in ages. So, 8 outta 10.