Yup. I also liked this, but I’m trying hard not to just quote the whole thing back, because it’s all good.

Their wealth insulates them from friction so effectively there’s no incentive or pressure for them to develop an imagination, or diversify their knowledge to the point where an imagination might emerge on its own. I can’t think of a better argument for a humanities requirement than a billionaire being asked “how do we know what is real?” and responding with “cryptographic signatures.”

Thanks, Richard.

I learned to shoot at Boy Scout camp when I was about 13. We shot .22 long rifle and 20 gauge shotguns. Many of my friends hunted (never appealed to me) and learned even earlier.

I would just about bet Meshy AI gave a “non-manifold” model. 3-D models that are intended to be digital assets can have that issue, and I would suspect it’s easier for an AI to produce them versus properly manifold objects ready to be made solid.

There are ways to fix them though, and Meshy even has their own suggestions (Blender and Meshlab).

By the same token, when you do finally get back to the main missions you can tank them solo and keep all your companions safe at your base because you’re so damn OP.

Just try not to think too much about the conversations they’re having while you’re gone. 🤣

I don’t math so good, so I roughly counted layers and used the formula for area of a circle, reduced slightly for gaps. First guess was a good 10%-15% off but got within 12 on the second. Then I seriously overcorrected on my third.

A = pi(r^2) is a hell of a drug.

I’ve used adhesive steel wheel-balancing weights on a couple of my modded keyboards. They’re cheap, low-profile, and have to be lead-free. If you have room on your bottom plate, just slap a bunch on there. You can put down masking tape first if you want to avoid damaging the plate if you decide to remove them.

The bliss theme, complete with activation notice, is very nifty, LOL.

I don’t think this is much of a spoiler, as it’s stated within the first couple of minutes of the movie, but…

Our family did the KPop Demon Hunters sing along last weekend, and it was fun. We’d already seen the movie at least once each. The Honest Trailer video kinda nails it: “Frozen” energy with a hint of Spiderverse style and some memorable songs. Netflix must be absolutely salivating at the franchise potential too.

Then, I just finished Superman. It was nice. Gunn’s sensibilities worked well, and I kind of like the new DC setup where we can hopefully be spared a million origin stories.

the movie working hard to act like 8 didn’t happen

Honestly, that would have been better, and even as a TLJ-stan I would have understood. Instead, it went out of its way to fuck up its own pacing and damn near break the fourth wall to call out how much it didn’t like TLJ.

TL;DR: Agree on TFA. Disagree on TLJ; it is the best sequel. TRoS is almost unforgiveable.

I will stick up for The Last Jedi til the end of time. JJ dealt Rian Johnson a bum hand with Luke. The only options are shame-based self-exile, or something that would be concealed by a story of shame-based self-exile. There was also clearly a mandate not to make the legacy heroes the ones who solve the problems of the plots. That’s to say nothing of JJ resetting the political board in the least helpful way possible.

Given the constraints, I think RJ did a great job making a more character-driven piece that actually tried to play in the sandbox JJ created. It added notes of ambiguity and, yes, subverted certain expectations, but not so many as it’s accused of and still ultimately settled on the legend and the hope being worth fighting for. Poe’s arc was good. Luke’s arc was good. Rey’s arc was a bit confused but ultimately effective. Kylo being set up as the primary antagonist of Ep9 because he was too deeply damaged to (immediately) redeem was probably the single best direction they could have gone. Then, as you say it looked great. It was also the only sequel to directly embrace the prequels at all, and it included two of the most beautiful “Lucasian” tone poems of the entire series with the Luke-Yoda scenes and Rose’s sister.

Now, could certain things have been better? Yeah, definitely. Finn’s arc was only an incremental move from the one in TFA, and one that might plausibly been implied from it. A bit of a time jump would have given the characters room to breathe and not have rubbed the more resistant fans’ noses in Luke’s resistance to training Rey. The your-mom joke had a narrative purpose, but it simply didn’t land and therefore made the character beat less impactful. Rian should have understood that a non-negligible percentage of Star Wars fans want sci-fi consistency when they can get it and should have tied hyperspace tracking to the Holdo maneuver to make both of them too rare to be common either in the past or going forward. The set piece on Canto Bight could have been a little more Star Wars-y, which I think would have blunted accusations that it was boring.

For me, TRoS does NOT get a pass because it was such a blunt and heavy-handed reaction. It didn’t need to have Rose specifically refuse the call to action because some fans didn’t like her Leia gave her homework. Even if “Big Bad” wasn’t JJ’s preferred direction, it didn’t need to immediately place Kylo Ren back in a subordinate enforcer role. It didn’t need to half-assedly use outtakes of Carrie Fisher when it could have “Ben Kenobi’d” Luke to have a much more engaging training sequence. It didn’t need to literally lift the conflict from some of the worst Expanded Universe stories or the climax from Avengers Endgame. It definitely didn’t need to put half-baked fan theories about Rey’s origins into a hat and then pick one randomly. Everything about it was petty and lazy and so much worse than it needed to be, even if you chafed at TLJ’s choices.

My kiddo just started middle school, so my wife got us tickets as a celebration (if things went well, and they mostly have) or as a palette cleanser (if they hadn’t). I liked the movie well enough, and the songs are catchy, but this is going to be an interesting experience.

Yup! We called the good ones “happy secrets,” and they’re perfectly okay.

Sounds like you might be able to bump that to 20.

Very cool, though JFC there’s no way MY printer will be fine tuned enough to generate the channels. The whole process reminds me of the rednecks who pour molten aluminum down fire ant hills, in a good way. The sealing with glorified Elmer’s glue is also clever.

Now all that said, you wouldn’t want to make anything that’s going to have much contact with water, so a lot of typical applications are risky: “My PCB is leaking!” I do wonder if you could do the same thing, but less immediately recyclable, with PLA and a 3D pen.

Literally yes. They’re dropping a trailer and a couple of the “silence your phone” style vids so they can add more commercials.

You are apparently not an 11 year old girl, LOL. I liked it alright, but my kiddo loved it.

It has its charms, including some very catchy tunes, it hits on a subculture (or two or three) that’s becoming increasingly prominent in the west, and it checks a lot of the right boxes for broad popularity, including being kinda light and accessible. Many of the storytelling weaknesses (which you are absolutely right about) are also perfectly set up as loose ends to tie up when making a franchise, which I’m sure they’ll now do.

Once you play a blond in a Game of Thrones show, you’re on the “potentially a villain” list. Them’s the rules.