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Oh so that's what the bond movie after Casino Royale was called.. It was just kinda forgettable and all it's noticeable moments were direct callbacks to other movies. The only parts I can remember are the painted woman, a boat chase, and a talking at a party scene. The biggest thing I can remember after seeing it at the theatre was my Dad complaining that all of the action happened too fast. I brushed it off a the time but it might be a good point. Most of the action scenes I can remember as being good follow the approach highlighted in that Jackie Chan action tutorial. Basically they do show reaction shots to the big things that happen to give it more impact and make it more memorable. But a lot of 'new' Bond action scenes are tightly wound and choreographed except that one scene at the start of Casino Royale that did have slower pacing. Anyway I haven't seen Skyfall or Spectre and only seen QoS once so maybe I'm mistaken but that was my general impression. Anyway I'm off to see the new Del Toro movie with some friends. I haven't heard much about it other than it's a well made movie with not much special to it but with Del Toro that should still be a good thing.

If you want a 'fun' science podcast try The Infinite Monkey Cage. How Stuff Works tends to do decent accessible science topics too.

Yeah I've re read the thread again. I did skim it earlier and was around for the original stuff just haven't had anything to say and it's been ages and bleh. Anyway so its mostly about making something for people to find attractive but the creator or fandom doesn't really have the courage to say "Yeah she's like that because we want her to be"? It was JPs that, that particular discussion came up although something similar (more directly related to BGB) came up in Podquisition recently with Kojima's whole "You'll feel ashamed you thought it was this" statement. My first firefly statement was mostly riffing about Urthman's post and somehow I blended it up into a meta thing about the whole thread. I still stand by what I later said about Inara I think from what I remember of her as a character she did things that were in line with her personality (so what Griddled said I think). The show and camera deciding to interrupt her frequently when she bathed or whatever might've been a different story but it's been ages so I can't do much more than say yeah there was probably something problematic at some points? Anyway sure people don't all want a deep discussion about misogyny in media but it's a thing I from time to time enjoy talking about so well bleh. Don't feel forced to take part in that if I do? I haven't expected it all to support more serious discussion I just get into modes when I'm inclined to lean into one. Anyway for me personally of the alphabet soup of problems with BGB works is when the character doesn't take part in their own sexuality. Like for me I think that yeah there's currently an issue with how female characters in Dota 2 are all good looking and we have a literal succubus running around. But if they introduced more divergent humanoid female designs and started to actually include visually appealing men (beyond what, Sven, Juggernaut, and .. Axe?) things might start looking brighter for it. As for the current one Twig's talking about. Are you guys saying it doesn't count if it's just implied? Like what sure lore says she has to change her clothes if she goes into her super mode but like, did her spirit friend pick that outfit for her?

Not doing Halloween this year but my mum dug out this batman cape I must have had back when I was like 6 and apparently I wore it so much after Halloween that the elastic had frayed.

I'm still buying the narrative that Blomkamp has some really good ideas and abilities. He just needs a Peter Jackson or a Del Toro to hang around and give him advice. Kinda like what some people are saying about David Cage right now. I mean District 9 is great and this sci fi focus on Johannesburg has been really cool but I feel like if Halo the movie hadn't tanked and PJ + Wingnut Films + Weta weren't sitting around wanting to make a sci fi film District 9 could have just been another almost good sci fi film. Slightly related I got to see the Weta workshop tour and they have a stuffed Sam Niell sitting in a fully functional Warthog that can go 50kph sideways (it might have been mph actually). Oh and all the District 9 guns were really cool to look at/hold.

I think what I like about The Idle Thumbs, Snap Judgement, Giant Bomb and The Adventure Zone's ads is that they actually deliver them infused with their own personality. Even if there isn't always a tonne of variation from the script they still seem to make the delivery fun. I got to listen to two podcasts deliver the same Chipotle adspot recently and the difference was night and day. One person just sounded like they were reading a complete press release of how great Chipotle is and it just sounded mechanical. The other presented the adspot in their own words and delivered it in a much more lifelike enjoyable way. In a universe where podcasters have to deliver adspots every episode for the same sponsors what lets me enjoy and appreciate the amount of tedium this could be for the casters is the work they put into making yet another naturebox or meundies adspot feel fun and that's what stops me from skipping (actually the ads I've heard on these casts were always so painless that skipping never entered my mind but shh). It's like how there's a college radio station in NZ called Bfm that has a huge listenership outside of college and one of the fun things about them is that they script and deliver their own advertisements for their sponsors and it just feels like more funny show content.

This thread has me thinking about a recent meta discussion on a discussion about 'logical boobs' where a bunch of people were pointing at the new Lara Croft body and feeling that it was a good change because it was more logical for her to have this new chest size. I'm thinking that a lot of the comments here and the BGB idea in general is concerned primarily with the logic of having say a largely attractive and sex positive female firefly cast (let alone a decent range of conventionally attractive men about). I think the difference between a female sexworker who at multiple times states that she enjoys her work and feels like she owns herself versus Major Kusanagi and Yoko is that the former acknowledges and participates in her own sexualisation. Many of the BGB characters don't seem to take part in their own sexual appeal, instead they wear paper thin 'logical' in universe explanations like the less clothes for camo thing or just ignoring that a bikini they wear is inherently sexualised and it's actually all about that freedom of movement yo. I think fundamentally we're all asking for a larger range of representations right? That there still would and should be some sexualised representations should go without saying I think. But the major thing that makes any of the sexualisation gross to me is that the characters are either treated as too cold, too oblivious, too damaged, or too childlike to enjoy themselves which to me is the real reason they come off like little dolls being made to breathe by men. I think Quiet is the ultimate example for this. Instead of just inexplicably having yet another sexy bikini girl sniper in media we get someone who can't talk, can't wear clothes she wants to, is supposedly forced to act in super childlike ways. All because of her debilitating physical injuries (are the emotional ones even addressed?) that force her to breathe through her skin. So the in universe explanation ends up taking a giant dump on her to justify her 'sexy' design. But aside from the way she poses in the end it's the game's camera that does most of the sexualising legwork. So I think after listening to a lot of sex positive discussion about things lately the sin isn't that we have yet another character that little boys and men can get off to; it's that despite being obviously designed to serve that purpose she herself doesn't get to feel sexualised except through a gross sexual assualt. She's a stoic one woman act oblivious to the fact she presents like a bombshell pinup because of her debilitating BGB reasons that are supposed to be there to explain why she's so sexy. She's being oppressed by her backstory just so she never has to wear clothes. Anyway I haven't read the whole thread and it's hard to review a post through a phone especially when you've just woken up so if I'm eating my own tail here or completely talking past everyone's concerns then sorry, my bad. I dunno I just feel like in a media environment where all of the cool shit happens 'just because' arguing whether female sexiness is justified because of the amount of logical sounding lore in place feels like a miss step even if our time investement in that reasoning is to poke holes in it; I feel like there are better ways to address the idea that so many female characters are glorified dress up dolls without tangentially arguing with nerds about lore. To paraphrase Dungeons of Dredmor, are we the demons?

I ahh kinda hate twitch ads with a passion. But that's mostly because I generally only see one or two different ads for maybe a week or two and they all tend to be really macho boy focused. Like I don't need to see that edgy Mafia 3 ad a million times or I don't need to see some advert where a nondescript white gamer guy walks through a parade of military shooter dudes and a bunch of cosplayers who look like they walked straight out of Harajaku to sit down and stare creepily at a computer safe in the knowledge that Gigabyte or whoever supplied his motherboard. Erh I dunno. I've turned off adblock on the usual media outlets I frequent and this discussion is reminding me to update that whitelist. But I guess I just dislike that add targeting isn't perfect (hah) so I either end up with adverts for Mitre Ten Mega (basically Home Depot), or really gross overly 'gamer' targeted ads for 'big boys and their toys'. I don't know; maybe I should be okay with it. Not all ads are terrible. Maybe just the ones I see lately?\ Oh and I found a link to I don't care about The Living Channel at all but I think that series of ads was really well done.

^Yeah that was really fun.

Gah I feel so accomplished today. I heard from my boyfriend yesterday that my mum had landed us some volunteer work setting up a computer network for a brand new office floor in a government sublet department. Anyway 6 hours, 70 terminals, 20 phone hubs later and we've transformed a jumble of lcd screens, cables, and thin clients into a professional office. The IT Operations and the Project Manager were really nice, we ended up meeting my mum's boss who bought us a lunch, and said hi to the head of IT for the company and checked out their flash new server setup. It was really cool to go from studying Comp Sci, and even doing It Operations as a paper to seeing related skills being applied in a real environment. Plus we have some kick ass referrals from the head of their IT coming our way The only thing that could top that is if we ended up being accepted to work on the help desk for the office we set up seeing as we both need some stable income and it'd be a really solid line of work to have on our resumes plus they've seen us work to a great standard. They're a place that sends emails back if you're no longer being considered so the hope is that we end up being accepted into the January/Feb recruitment and I actually land some real damn work that isn't seasonal farming or once in a blue moon film industry gigs (as a boom operator).

Like Chris and the previous two posters I ended up building up weird second hand knowledge. Mine was over graphics cards before I even owned/had access to a windows computer just from being really into the hardware section of PC Powerplay as a kid. Aside from the themed columns and the occasional big review that hardware section just ended up being my staple, must always read section. Oh and Downwell, where did all my time go?

God of War did have good QTE's. They also made you do horrible things. I remember teenaged me feeling quite satisfied in what ultraviolence pressing both thumb sticks down enabled me to do to poor Poseidon in GoW III. I think another element about the QTEs in that series that should be used more in QTE games is that they actually added to the feeling of dynamic motion in those cutscenes. Like you'd press a series and end up swinging around a great hydra and each new leap you took was in the direction of the button you pressed; or you'd fall down for a K.O. Etc.. It's one of the few series where it felt like they added something to the game. Just another thing about QTEs, I do enjoy it when more power corresponding actions have some sort of windup and I hate most instances of button mashing of it doesn't make sense. Like say Fear 2 you have to wrestle over a shotgun at one point, rather than mash A to win it'd be more interesting if you had to alternate or wriggle something to show both people are struggling. I think with controllers I have most of the mapping down. Only if it's for an Xbox or PS but I've gotten used to using the ps3 controller my pc thinks is a 360 controller. Using circle to accept and square to shoot being normal for westerners might just be one of those weird metal gear conventions; at least that's my only experience of it.

Ru Paul is just so stately now; She's like the President of Drag.

So I bought this today mostly on the strength of Chris Remo's experience. Which is weird since I'm not actually someone who ever played Spelunky after the tutorial (or even got far into the tutorial). Anyway I'm loving this game a lot right now. I jumped straight into using a controller on my PC and it's super satisfactory. Funnily enough aside from roguelike games and Nuclear Throne what this game reminds me of is another Vlambeer game called Ridiculous Fishing. Even though that game only found it's way to the phone the premise that you're supposed to go down as far as you can while dodging anything that can break your run is a fun similarity. I hope this game has a secret ending where your specific map is flipped and you have to jump back out of the well upside down.

And it's still one of the best wide release movies I've seen since Mad Max: Fury Road. Taking that lone blip out it's probably the best wide release movie I've seen for a few years.

The Martian was great. Best movie we've seen for a while. Best space movie I've seen.

Maybe what the galaxy really needs is a Jawa shipbreaker service?

My friends and family have been following the refuge crisis from NZ. A few are on their OE's right now so they've met many people who are camping out at places like train stations hoping that they can find their place to restart. One friend even decided to buy something like 50 kebabs or more and passed them to people she saw stranded around Turkey and a whole bunch of supporters sent her donations so she could do it more while she stayed there. I've forgotten the number that John Key said we were taking but I remember that it sounded pretty low and for the longest time it was a struggle for the PM to stop giving crappy non answers and even acknowledge there was a refugee crisis (wouldn't be surprised of he said migrant instead). Something tells me that if his govt hadn't watered down our social services and turned our state housing into a joke (despite relying on state homes as a kid) welcoming the displaced middle class of a nation that once had an even better standard of living than ours might do wonders for our economy. Also on the TPPA front it's all done and dusted. A deal ten years in the making brokered by MFAT a department that costs 250m a year to run has taken a perfectly reasonable deal between comparable economies of equal bargaining power and turned it into this shadowy deal almost no one but lobbyists and lawyers knows about that's expected to garner NZ a return of about 2.8 billion over the next decade.. .. For reference the destruction of Christchurch costed around 2 billion. Y'know maybe in the long run instead of making terrible trade deals like the TPPA or the upcoming EU FTA we're in talks for now, maybe our diplomats could talk about issues like climate change which are sure to bring us bigger costs than what measly FTA returns can cover.

If they're going to be specific about a visual shorthand they may as well define what they're referring to? Couldn't it be equally misleading to assume that the kind of fan service tropes used to entice straight men are the same ones that excite lesbians? Would bisexuals also be murky to include in a definition with the assumption or distinction that both the male and female bisexuals respond to those visual cues in the same way? Does any of this overcomplicate the natural flow of a conversation? I don't have any articles on hand but there is some research into how different sexes/sexualities perceive things like porn and despite groups having a preferred sex in common they often get different things out of them. Think the difference between exploitative lesbian porn done for a straight audience (which is in way more abundance) vs lesbian porn for a female audience. Or how some people who aren't gay end up watching gay porn because it's easier to find people who aren't faking the emotions they're feeling which ends up being more erotic than the actions and genders of the people themselves to some people. There's other ways to define and call out the problems many people could have with the stereotypical 'male gaze' thing that people of other sexualities/backgrounds might not like/might be more sensitive to than the average straight male audience member but I'm not going to get stuck in much farther than this. Maybe it is wrong/due to gendered bias that people indirectly refer to homosexuals over similarly inclined lesbians by earmarking straight males. But they're also specifying the primary audience and usual creators of the content. It's mostly men that defined and formed the traditions of it which could be important to distinguish. Edit: Ewokskick said it way better.

I think the closest analogue would be WoW although even WoW by now does offer discounts to existing players for a limited times after the big launch window. Sometimes as early as within the first six months of the expansion coming out you can nab it for 40% off (or more). Price drops aren't always advertised, and when they are they usually come at a time when they're expected to drive net sales up. But we are at a point where if you go on steam and buy a game for $60 and see it on sale for $40 a week later you can actually go to steam and request to be refunded in order to purchase the game at sale price which shows that there is some understanding that refusing some kind of recourse/benefit for earlier adopters is being seen as consumer unfriendly. At least enough for companies like Valve to give money back to steam users. Besides I think that applying the clean version of your argument (i.e. take my money now) without filtering it through the context of price discounts for the expansions of a game and/or flash steam sales ends up being quite harsh when full priced game expansions are more of a consumer oddity in today's market left to game lines like WoW or Starcraft, or Destiny: The Taken King (which people complained about as many saw it as being Destiny 1.5 [or Destiny: Actually Enjoyable] sitting at a $40 price point). Basically it's becoming an oddity that only games with publishing juggernauts like Guild Wars' own Arena Net can get away with and even then people are annoyed with it. I think the other question is if the content being added from here on out as expansions is really worth a full game's price every time. Is a longtime player of this MMO expected to invest say $150 into the franchise if they played from launch? Most people have already met the microtransaction store more than once. A-net has given a generous amount of content for the game already through it's living story updates, fractals, and frequent in game events, they actually do put in a really commendable amount of free content into the game and I think I'd even sympathise more if they just bluntly stated that this expansion price isn't just to cover the cost of the new class, raids, extra pve pvp zone, & class rebalance but also the content that they've already created (although each new event does come out with MTX and judging from how much the new shiny gear does crop up during events I'd expect they already cover their costs). But in the end it's a AAA priced Buy to Play game with a micro-transaction store that already does well for itself asking for an additional ~$50 =+|-10 every time they come out with anywhere between 3/4 -1/3 of the existing game's content in a big new drop. I'm all for paying the creator's what their expansions are worth. I'm sure the things they're putting in took a lot of time and effort and will be well crafted, ect. But I still feel like they should at least acknowledge existing users beyond a single character slot which is only being given out so people can play the new class. If they're not going to knock the price down they could at least give away a custom skin set + pet or something. Also while I don't know how viable it is I actually like it when developer's start with low price points for early adopters and then raise their price at release. I think it's cool that they lower the barrier to entry for their game while it's still unproven/unfinished. I think Jason Roher's The Castle Doctrine is a good example although I wonder if his no sales at all policy did eventually hurt his game's exposure as it feels like small pc indie games tend to fall off most people's radar until the steam summer sales come around.

Yeah I understand that they're trying out a model where all newcomer's have to do is make one US$49.99 purchase and they have access to the base game and every expansion after but.. Not even offering a discount to people that did pay $60 for the base game and will likely pay that price over and over for the next few years feels like a really jerky way to treat your fanbase. At least if they offered some in game gems or a free server transfer or something. Wildstar at least gives previous buyers a lot of perks within their freemium model. I actually think they're one of the best examples of a F2P transition from an MMO. There is no sign of progression hobbling (like SWTOR) or annoying Crate and Key (TERA) services around. Well for the time being. That is a very painful thing that I usually try to ignore with the magic of comedy.

So the premier of American Horror Story: Hotel was solidly awful. Within the first minute we felt like it was going to be terrible. My partner managed for a time to hold out on the hope that the show would acknowledge the audience and say that everything we'd seen up to that point was a self referential joke. No such luck in fact. Now the show has never been Fantastic but usually it's been Good Enough to keep watching. This was just a mess. Honestly the worst tv I've seen in years and that's including Game of Thrones Season 5. In other news the Sci Fy show Defiance was actually decently good if a bit cliche at times. It's a shame that it wasn't renewed but a least it got a third season which is more than I can say for many shows on that network. It wasn't Mr. Robot, or Rick and Morty brilliant but I think it was actually some of the better Tv I'd seen in a while. Also worth mentioning is how well it treated it's rape plotline. That feels like a really odd thing to say but with almost every show having a rape plot somewhere in the mix it was nice that this show didn't make me outright hate the way they dealt with it.

I know it just sucks going from being able to buy superfluous things to not having any spending money at all. By the time I do have income again DS3 will likely be out and Bloodbourne will be on PC so the community will have moved on. Eh I'm just having a vent. There are obviously more things out there I can spend my time on it's just annoying to be reminded that I can't get what I want from a particular game because I don't have the particular purchasing power. It's a lucky thing that all of the games I name my best are either F2P or end up with super long term community support and cheap sales.

Sigh I'm kinda pissed that the Scholar of the First Sin revamp for DS2 has kinda killed the way I like to play the game. I've been a decently skilled player but what I really liked about Souls is that if a boss is too hard for you or you needed to repair items, farm souls, gain free humanity , you could just run bosses with people. I think running bosses with people was my favourite part of Dark Souls 2 but it seems like the entire PC community in my area has the SotFS DLC which leaves vanilla DS2 as this sad ghost town for me. Like at the moment I'm stuck with the early forms of a pvp build that I'm only just getting the hang of but I feel stonewalled without the extra help that can get me over weird build hurdles. It sucks and it's made the game super unfun for me until I can afford the expansion if ever. Anyway I just wish that fragmenting the player base like this was a super taboo thing that barely anyone did. I'm feeling the same way with the way that Guild Wars 2 has launched a same price, full prices game expansion with the previous version of the game included and no benefit to veterans except 1 extra character slot.

I'm going to try Not Your Mama's gamer as part of a broad Ess jay dubbuyuh fix. I'm not sure where to go from there. Maybe I'll listen to more of Laura K Buzz?