Bjorn

Shrine of Amana - Yep, always been there As for summoning - There are no barriers between the cycles anymore, you can summon and be summoned from any cycle as long as the level requirements are met

That boss is one of the odder ones in the game, in that for some builds it's laughably easy (like a 20 second no risk fight) and for other builds it's one of the most challenging fights in the game. I'd suggest massively stacking Fire and Dark resistance (rings/armor/one buff). It uses all three types of magic, but I find regular sorcery to be the least threatening. Things can come undone so quickly in the back half of the fight that even being able to take one more hit can be the difference between victory and failure. The last time I beat it was with my Pickaxe build and fuuuuuuck was it a nerve wracking fight.

That said, I also agree with Problem Machine that copyright is a completely broken and unreasonable mess in many ways that doesn't just need an overhaul, but likely needs rebuilt from the ground up. But as things stand, I think that creators getting a share of revenue or a licensing fee from YouTubers is a reasonable stance.

Mystery Science Theater 3K had to license every movie they used (except for the ones that were in the public domain). I don't see a significant difference between MST3K and YouTubers.

That doesn't seem like it would be out of place at all in MGS.

A museum in St. Petersburg is dedicated to trying to save the last remaining arcade machines and soda machines produced by the Soviets in the 70s and 80s. It's all around a fascinating article.

Thanks, to you and the other people who replied, hadn't had much of a chance to be on here to respond over the last few days. Not any progress to speak of, but I do appreciate everyone's thoughts here.

I know several other people bought this during the sale. I started it last night, and am digging the hell out of it. Mechanically, it's a side scrolling JRPG, but set in a crazy depressing post-apocalyptic world in which only men survived. I'll have more thoughts once I'm through it, but I wanted to start a thread to give anyone else a heads up to start the game on Normal, not Painful. You're given the option to set the difficulty during the tutorial, and that's the only chance to set it, you can't change it later. Painful has some additional content and changes to Normal, but it radically changes the save system. The game uses save points, and in Normal each save point can be used as much as you want. In Painful, each save point can only be used once. You can't save again until you find the next one. I started on Painful not knowing this, and ended up losing an hour of progress last night to an incredibly stupid death (literally walked off a cliff by accident) because I hadn't found another save point yet. I'm going to restart on Normal, as if I have to deal with losing that kind of progress again, I'll just delete the damn game. Scanning some forums, it sounds like if you know where the save points are, you can manage Painful pretty well by skipping some save points to use later, but that's much more doable on a second playthrough. Also, very early on you have to make an incredibly difficult decision involving a party member. In case you're wondering:

That's something I've tried, but the reaction is "I can love people in spite of who they are" and the response I want to give is, "Go fuck yourself, try loving people for who they are because when you say that, you're still saying that there's something wrong with them." But I'm trying not to make the situation worse. Yeah, I've been struggling with how surprisingly regressive some of his ideas about sex and sexuality are, for a man who is otherwise incredibly thoughtful and intelligent. Ugh. Anyways, different topic. I took the lady and another friend of ours to the Oddball Comedy Festival last night for the lady's birthday, headlined by Amy Schumer and Aziz Ansari, and it put a lot of the earlier discussion we had about that Atlantic article and comedy in context for me. It also made me think that author and a lot of the comics in it are full of shit and willfully ignoring some of what people are choosing not to book on college campuses. There were something like 15 total comedians, a pretty even mix of local/regional talent and national acts. Schumer and Ansari were great, and Bridget Everett was FUCKING AMAZING AND I WANT TO BE HER BEST FRIEND. Seriously. But then there was the other side of the spectrum, which was full of a bunch of asshats (all men, and almost all white). A selection of bits that various comics did (this comes from a total of 5 or 6 guys): A long bit about how much a guy hates his daughter, how much he wishes he had a son, and just how fucking terrible raising a girl is A bit about how bitch ain't such a bad word A transgender bit lamenting about how you can't even say "chicks with dicks" anymore A Caitlyn Jenner bit about how her being transgender is really because she made a deal with the devil to be a great athlete Another Caitlyn Jenner bit about being a fan of anyone who kills a woman with a car A bit about getting off watching a stripper fall off a pole and break her nose, because it meant he didn't have to do it himself A bit about how an audience member was so ugly that even Bill Cosby wouldn't rape her (which came off much more as being just about being mean to an audience member than it did say anything particularly interesting about Cosby) At least 10 different "black guys have big dicks" jokes from multiple comedians, which is just like the laziest fucking joke without even getting into all the reasons it's just fucked up. None of this shit was transgressive, or interesting, or funny, or pushing boundaries, it was just telling mean jokes that shitty people will laugh at. So when people try and defend how you have to let comedy have more leeway, it's like, sure, it can have some leeway, but that doesn't mean it gets a carte fucking blance exemption from being criticized.

WOAH!

We have a thread for just that!

Seriously, thank you for admitting it, I needed a chuckle tonight. Sooooo, anyone have any advice on talking Feminism 101 with a very patriarchal old christian man? Like, angles or avenues to try and get some ideas through?

Yeah, I was eventually able to solo the Sunken King's gauntlet (twice, because I wanted that stupid skirt for another character) and the Iron King's (just once). But the Ivory King I was never able to get through by myself. Ultimately I ended up friending a guy I met running around the Iron King and we were chatting, and he offered to help me out with the Ivory King. Made it on the first attempt with him, but just fucking barely. I'm not sure I ever would have gotten through it without his help.

That's....fucking ridiculous.

Woot! I will buy this if for no other reason than I got Lisa for dirt cheap during the sale and actually kind of felt bad after I ended up enjoying it so much. I am a bit disappointed to hear that it's combat focused though, as the combat was (usually) the least interesting part of the game.

So rentboy got raided and 7 of their employees arrested.

I assume no good intentions when it comes to Fox News. Supporting Kelly now is just what he's decided is the path with the greatest reward. If he thought throwing her under the bus would be better for Fox News or the Republican party, he would in a heart beat.

The DLCs are, I think, pretty much meant to be able to be entered when you gain access to them. They are tougher than many of the regular areas, so you might elect to run around and finish some stuff off in the main world before going back if they give you problems.

On the subject of trying to re-write history the way the puppies do, this interview with Samuel Delaney is fucking amazing.

I had a similar reaction to the host's voice, but I wasn't sure if that was just me. I had to turn it up louder than I usually listen to podcasts to understand everything she said. If I didn't know Kendra personally, I don't know if I would have finished it or not.

For something that's probably out of the realm of typical listening here, a friend of mine who works as a sex surrogate gave an interview on a podcast about her work.

This is what my friend Chris had to say about the whole thing, he made this public post after everything was all said and done with the Hugos this year. Chris is my window into the inner workings of sci-fi. He's one of the people that runs KU's Center for the Study of Science Fiction, is a published sci-fi author, teaches sci-fi, was mentored by one of the (actual title) Grandmasters of science-fiction, and is one of the organizers of another sci-fi conference and award. Dude knows his shit.

So one of the Bonfireside Chat guys is writing a satirical Worlds of Power style book based on Dark Souls, and naturally it's got a Kickstarter. I only vaguely remember the Worlds of Power books, I'm sure I read a couple of them my library had, but they didn't leave much of an impression on me. Still, a potentially neat project.

There's the most famous individual example of Serpico, where a cop who had been pushing back against corruption was sent into a dangerous situation, backup was withheld, and fellow officers didn't call for medical aid after he was shot. And you can find more recent stuff, like an officer warning a cop they may go home in a casket. The thing about threats like this is they don't actually have to be very likely to happen. I'll bet almost every cop in America knows what happened to Serpico. There's just enough history to make the threats feel very real.