Nappi

Has anyone else tried the new stock mail client? I was positively surprised about how easy it was to set-up my Gmail and Exchange accounts, but slightly disappointed (and not that surprised) that it did not download any of my emails on either account. I can see the folder structure and contacts so the account settings should be correct. I can even send emails using the app. I just don't see any of the emails, no matter what settings I use.

Nice!

The idea of Nick clipboard coaching his girlfriend about Rocket League tactics is a hysterical and not least bit surprising. Great work!

After some frustrating research, it seems that the issue is not with the space on the destination drive but with free space in the partitions to be backed up. I have plenty of space on C: for the creation of the shadow copy. However, windows also creates a copy of the system reserved partition and there I only have 7 MB out of 100 MB available, and I would need to have more. The normal, hidden and system files do not amount to 93 MB so I don't know what is taking all the space. For most people it seems, the system reserved partition is filled due to an anomaly in the Change Journal System which causes the change journal entries to be created in this small partition. You can delete the change journals by hand in cmd prompt to free up some space. Unfortunately, this did not free up enough space in my case. I think I'll just give up and update to Windows 10 without a backup image. I don't need this shit.

I decided to enable backup and create system restore image in Windows 7 before the Windows 10 update hits, but I keep getting an error about there not being enough space to create a system image, when there totally is. Good times. EDIT: I now know more about Volume Shadow Copies, System Reserved Partition, and Change Journal Records than I'd care to know, which is to say, I know something about these things. Maybe I don't need to create system restore point after all...

While I was checking which The Black Angels song was playing during credits ("Black Grease"), I also found out that the music that was playing during the sex party was apparently "Harmonielehre: Part II. The Anfortas Wound" by John Adams / San Francisco Symphony. The piece is also featured in Civilization IV. With songs by Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, The Raveonettes, Black Mountains, The Black Angels, etc. I'm really digging the soundtrack of this series. More thoughts about the episode later...

Chris, Jake, Sean: Could you create threads for the remaining episodes in advance, so that we don't have to wait for the podcast to start discussing the episode?

Just watched the episode. I was so fucking disappointed about that revelation, as well. Also, spoilers for those who have not yet watched episode 6, so..

Yeah, fair enough. I remember being confused for a bit too after what the state attorney lady said, but quickly decided that he had probably killed or at least "incapacitated" the guy Frank had pointed out to him, mainly because of Ray's personality and the ongoing agreement between Ray and Frank. At the very least, they could have used a bit more organic line to confirm that. Or else, just leave it hanging for a bit until the next episode.

Yeah, I noticed that. It was neat, although I was secretly hoping that they would just keep changing the color of the indicator LED of her e-cig, as a nod to the hardcore fans and to Twin Peaks.

"Frank set me up," says Ray in the presence of his ex-wife who does not know anything about Frank. "I don't know what that means," she replies and leaves. The writing style seems to range from expecting the viewer to remember names that have been mentioned only once or twice in previous episodes, to expecting the viewers to totally miss important and fairly obvious plot points if not highlighted, underlined, and faxed to them a dozen or so times. I am quite sure that the viewers' knowledge of Ray's past actions, his utter bewilderment after hearing that his ex-wife's attacker has been caught, and the following scene where he confronts Frank would have been enough to inform viewers that Ray finally realized that Frank set him up even without that bizarre exchange of pulp talk.

Yup. Related to that: Has anyone here reached the skill level where they can comfortably boost in air, and control the flight? I have seen a couple of player perform amazing tricks high up in the air, while I still miss a significant percentage of easy jump shots?

Yup. I noticed that as well. Rarely happens online, though, as everyone is boosting towards the ball to get the first hit. I'm enjoying this game quite a lot, even though I'm still not very good at it. I'm gradually getting better at judging the height of the ball, but I still spectacularly miss a high percentage "easy" jump shots. Also, great shot EwanSuttie!

Given the initial setup, I would have expected the story to have progressed much further in the first half of the season. Up until the hippie cult revelation and the gunfight of this episode, the story has been basically this: Ugh, the final scene made me cringe. How lucky for all three main characters come out in the end without so much as a scratch! Good thing too that Velcoro's broken ribs did not hinder him any during the action. My favorite bit in the gunfight segment was Frank's somewhat confused look after the explosion and him telling his wife to go inside. I'm not entirely sure why. By the way, have we figured out yet what happened to the missing girl from the first episode? If not, then do you think she was there just as a way to introduce us to Ani's hippie dad or will she play a larger role in the latter part of the season? I hope and expect that we will hear at least something about her soon.

I decided to try this out after the Giant Bomb Quicklook, and was positively surprised. I rarely play sports games and almost never play online games, but this game is super fun! Ball control and especially dribbling are really hard at first. Reminds me of playing football back in school in a much less unpleasant way than I would have thought. You might be interested in 2K Sports NBA series. At least in NBA 2K15 the career mode is excellent. I enjoy playing as a single individual much more than playing as whoever has the ball at that moment. Contributing to your team's effort by playing solid point guard (or whatever) game feels really satisfying. However, I can see how playing as a single part of the team would be much less interesting in a sport with different pacing and less specialization, e.g. football or ice hockey. Plus, EA Sports' NBA efforts have been abysmal in recent years.

Yup. I was surprised to see that this still goes on (and on and on) in episode 4. I wonder if any of these contacts will become meaningful in future episodes, or are they all here just to convey the same thing, i.e. that Frank desperately needs money, has to resort to his ganster ways, and is not respected anymore like he used to be. If the police were actively investigating him, they could now spend the entire rest of the season interviewing the associates he has contacted in the last couple of days.

:(

My friends and I played some RoboRally during our summer cottage visit. It was excellent choice for our group and for this kind of trip because it could be played simultaneously, because it was random enough that no one took it too seriously, and because it was really fun to see everyone's plans crash and burn when one of the other robots fucked up with the program execution. I loved it basically for the same reasons why I love Cosmic Encounter so much. RoboRally has the added benefit that the rules are much simpler. I wish Wizards of the Coast would give the game a Chromecast / Game Show video game treatment where the players could program the sequence using their phone, tablet or computer, and watch the thing unfold on the TV screen. This way of playing would not have been suitable for our summer cottage setting but I imagine that it would make it much easier for some groups to get into the game, because they could just sit on the sofa and not worry about the movement of the robots and conveyor belts and so on.

I liked the first scene, not least because the singer reminded me of young Michael Palin in a country singer getup. I was secretly hoping for the song to turn into a ridiculous Monty Python parody at some point. These. After the couple scenes of Velcoro and his son, I was sure that I would actively detest him for the rest of the season, but now I'm mostly just hoping that he'd switch sides for good and help Ani burn that city down. I'm not sure if I want any more scenes with him and his kid, though. I still don't know what to think of Paul. His backstory feels a bit too cliche (which is weird because many of the characters are more cliched than him, and they don't bother me nearly as much) and I haven't found his storyline that interesting so far. It is also the most loosely connected with the rest of the threads. On the other hand, it feels that there is some potential in his storyline, so we'll see. I find the corruption / murder mystery really hard to follow at times, to an extent that I sometimes feel forced to pause the episode to check stuff like "Who the fuck is this dead guy Stan?" I hope things get a bit more clear in future episodes.

I enjoyed the mechanics a lot. The story, not that much, although it started out really promising. Question about the ending of the game:

I listened to This American Life episode The Friendly Man, and found Scott Carrier's voice and style really intriguing and absorbing. I already asked if anyone has read his books over at the Books, books, books... thread. Shortly after that, I discovered that he has his own podcast Home of the Brave. I have listened a few episodes so far, and most of them have been pretty good. I can't really describe why I find his stories and style so compelling, or even what is the deal with this podcast. Somehow the name and the picture of a mangy three-legged dog* seem really apt, though. * Which is actually just a wet four-legged dog, but whatever.

Loved the story of Chris' vault. He is approaching Nick level of fucked-upness in strategy/simulation games. Regarding Danielle's comment about the quality of Witcher 3 quests, here is the most memorable side quest I have encountered so far. Spoilers for Black Pearl side quest ahead. No spoilers for the main quest line.

For future:

I just listened to This American Life episode The Friendly Man which consists of four Scott Carrier stories. I found the episode, and him, really fascinating. Has anyone here read either of his books Running After Antelope or Prisoner of Zion: Muslims, Mormons and Other Misadventures?

Interesting, I totally did not notice that they had rearranged the verses. I wonder if listening to the song (Leonard Cohen's "Nevermind", which he apparently released as a poem "Never mind" some ten years ago) will spoil important plot points in the future episodes.