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Perhaps because the US just passed a bill providing $17 billion to Israel to fund the war effort? Anyway, here’s an article on what Z was talking about last night.

I’m talking about tone and feel, not necessarily the plot details.ESB dosent feel depressing , badly slow paced and boring like Andor.

Given that the US isn’t a direct participant… I’m not sure I understand the point of disrupting US Universities.

As long as you aren’t doing any gay bashing, you have nothing to worry about. Being upset about the existence of gay bashing is NOT a way to have a preemptive strike against thise who disagree with you and its sad if you think most people (andbnot a few outliars) do this.

And, of course, it had the assassination of Greedo by the coward Harrison Ford.

I had the good fortune to see The Iron Claw yesterday, another wonderful film by A24, by far the most interesting studio working right now. I remember seeing the trailer for this a few months back and it seemed to me that there was some buzz for it back then, but that seems to have fizzled out somewhat as it didn't garner any nominations for the Academy Awards which is absolutely criminal, especially in a year that saw such a dearth in good male performances in both the lead and supporting category. The Iron Claw on the other hand is full of great performances by male actors. Zac Efron has never been better, Holt McCallany as the despotic wrestling patriarch was a revelation and all the other performers from Jeremy Allen White (who goes from The Bear to playing a character with bearish strength in this film) to Harris Dickinson to Stanley Simmons are outstanding as well. Each of the male supporting performances in this film was miles beyond Downey Jr.'s pity oscar performance in Oppenheimer. Zac Efron's Kevin Von Erich was also better than Cillian Murphy's Oppenheimer to me, so it's a real shame he did not even get a nomination for his leading role here. I guess wrestling is just to low-brow for the Hollywood brass. The story was also incredibly touching, with a lot of big emotions artfully channeled into these characters who were not equipped to healthily handle their emotions. I was flabbergasted to learn that director and writer Sean Durkin has actually downplayed the tragedy in the lives of the Von Erich dynasty, as their real life story is even more sad, but he did so to great effect. The narrative drive in this film never lets up and I was genuinely touched by their story. This despite not knowing anything about wrestling beyond what I learned from Mickey Rourke's 2008 film The Wrestler and South Park's parody of a few years ago. That being said, I saw it with a mate who has some knowledge of the sport and he loved it as well, so I guess it definitely treats the phenomenon of wrestling with respect. Out of all the films that had their original release in 2023, I think only Poor Things was better and it's actually really close for me in terms of quality. I'd definitely recommend seeing this film, it's a real treat and the type of film I want to see more off! I have read about this scene online and really hope someone will upload it to YouTube soon, because I'm very curious to see the result Quoted for truth. For that matter, in the original Star Wars the Empire Very lighthearted stuff indeed.

For someone with such a 'its just a game' vibe, Jokic lost his shit.

I agree warfare has definitely changed, and drones are a massive part of it, but how goes the meme: improvise, adapt overcome? The reason why tanks and every other ground/surface vehicle (armored or not) is so vulnerable to them is because none of them were designed to withstand them or to kill them. They were all designed and produced between ca. 1945 and 2005 and they were designed to win a fight in every war prior to 2005, in none of those wars cheap ass drones were a thing. What we already see is improvisation with things such as reactive armor, cope cages, turtle tanks, (multiple) machine guns (sometimes WWI water cooled ones, that allow longer bursts) against air, Jammers, DEW (such as lasers), various manpads, decoy vehicles (inflatable or just painted), and the "resurgence" of Flak (tanks such as Gepard). We also see a certain change in the way that tanks are used (tactics and operations) more as infantry support vehicles and indirect fire vehicles rather than in the "classic" tank role. All with various degrees of success, trial and error, military evolution unfolding right in front of our eyes. The tragedy is that those errors cost lives. Whoever designs the next generation of military vehicles will design them according to the threat of drones, swarms of them, of various kinds (even ones that are not yet operational). They will be operated in combined arms to protect each other from both "classical threats" artillery, tanks etc as well as drones... I expect that future tanks and military vehicles (including ships, submarines, boats, etc.) will have major changes. For the next gen tanks I could see the following ones: Autoloaders with separated ammo compartments (reducing crew from 4 to 3 and reducing turret size, while increasing firing rate) Remote operated turret and turret machine guns 360° (optical) sensors allowing to operate the tank at all times with hatch closed Increased capacity of software/AI that will further reduce the crew from 3 to 2 New motor/engine: currently it's either a diesel engine or a gas turbine: in the future it will be a hybrid engine: gas turbine electric, diesel-electric, gas turbine-diesel-electric combined with a modern (solid state) natrium or lithium battery and hydrogen fuel cells. This will reduce wear and tear, repairs, fuel consumption, engine size and placement, heat and noise (thus making IR less useful) Probably a combination of Anti drone measures: (more flexible) machine guns, shotguns, jammers, dews, cage armour, reactive armour on top of the tank, flares, smoke grenades, more layered armour on top etc.

I would, if I knew any of the actors. But just searching up their name doesn't give me any useful information other than their looks, and well, that can be changed anyway, so I know next to nothing about these people.

Will keep that in mind. Alright, here we go... Marry Jaime Bang Rhaegar Kill Robert (an inhuman feat, I'm a supermaaaan) This was surprisingly hard to decide on. Next choices: the Stark brothers, previous generation Benjen, Eddard, Brandon

Lakers got nothing from their bench. Such a shame. Gabe Vincent's play proves that Spo is the best coach in the league. Dude is worse than a 0, -6 today.

Let me try. Although I'm not very good at it probably. Umm, has it been seen in only a female POV, and not a male POV?

While I am very much in the camp of fairness is more important than inclusion when it comes to elite sports, I refuse to accept anyone would put themselves through that much, just to win an Olympic medal.

Brunson has been historically (for him) inefficient and we're up 2-0? We'll take it. Josh Hart is quickly becoming one of my fav all time Knicks.

Still funny now, IMO. But these Deadpool movies really do nothing for me, and this seems no different, even with Jackman as Wolverine wearing the original costume.

The Liefeld joke indicates some element of time travel, since it would last have been funny twenty years ago.

I don't think I have ever heard The Empire Strikes Back described as light hearted. Apparently I missed the humor in Luke's father cutting off his hand or Han being frozen alive. Han gutting a creature and stuffing Luke in it definitely was a hoot and family friendly! Most of us old people (I was 5 when I saw Star Wars at a drive in theatre on laying on top of a van) who grew up on The original trilogy disliked the prequels specifically because they were too light hearted and pandered to kids. Yes there were serious elements sprinkled in but that's all. Rogue One was the only movie made since the originals that I truly enjoyed and will happily rewatch.

Well I think that’s a good ending to the series and true to the books. Still felt they could have done Mariko and John better but the show ended on a high note.

Star Wars TV programs since Disney bought Lucasfilm that are kid-friendly: The Clone Wars (return), Rebels, Resistance, The Bad Batch, Visions, Tales, Young Jedi Adventures, The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wab Kenobi, Ahsoka, the forthcoming The Acolyte and Skeleton Crew, Jedi Temple Challenge Star Wars TV programs since Disney bought Lucasfilm that are not kid-friendly: Andor. Let the adults have one serious dramatic TV show. Some of us even like (some of) the other stuff.

Yeah and they want to pump them out in 4 year cycles. Kinda makes you wonder about EAs shitty mismanagement with BioWare. And Bethesda also taking waay too long for games of a similiar scope. Ever since Fallout 4 their timelines have been sloppy.

Four offices/teams across Europe and North America and over 250 staff members? With enough smart project management and good communcation tools, I can see how it'd be feasible to manage two projects and organise production pipelines and project milestones.

In my younger, wilder days, I occasionally went to bed at normal time after a few days of a bender and slept until 1800-2000 the next day. That fucks you up for days. I could probably do that now, my arsehole son had me up from 0330 yesterday and 0215 today, my wife is working away and I have a 15 hour shift. People are probably getting shouted at today.

I'm still tickling myself with an idea I had in another thread - that in the prologue to TWOW, Sybell Spicer (Maggie the Frog's granddaughter) prophesies to Jamie that he will be killed by his sister. Won't their meeting up be interesting!

Funny you should say that. I'm currently writing a novel where a megastorm is the inciting incident to the whole narrative. Even funnier is you should mention Hamish Macbeth. The TV show was one of my favourites ever. My novel is coincidentally set somewhere in the vicinity of Lochdubh. When I have free time and nothing better to read, I read a few chapters of the books. M C Beaton astonishes me - one of the worst writers I've ever encountered whilst still managing to be entertaining!

Apparently it’s gonna be a new IP unrelated to Divinity. I’m just impressed they’re able to develop 2 huge games at once.