Bartimaeus

​Sorry, I'm a dummy, and was missing the greater context of "attacking the Wall". I think that's really up to Kelemvor. It seemed to me that a part of him hated the Wall (hence why he originally stopped using it, but was eventually forced to return to it after he was found to be screwing everything up and possibly risking his godhood because of it). So maybe it was his way of rebelling against the other gods, letting attacks to continue on it while only putting up a half-hearted fight so that he could claim he was defending it to the other gods. I was also under the general impression that though deities have those kinds of powers, they are not really supposed to use them except in extreme cases - direct interference will just lead to other gods directly interfering. This may be one of those extreme cases (attacks directly on a god's home subplane would seem to qualify), but Mystra, for example, seemed to still oppose the Wall of the Faithless - perhaps she would prevent something like the instant death from happening. I think the subtle resistance thing, and perhaps a sort of general kindness on the part of Kelemvor, is more likely, though - he appeared to have a better understanding of the plight of mortals than most, and probably wasn't really in the business of coming down as harshly as he possibly could on people trying to (in their minds) do a valiant act that he once would've strongly agreed with.

But doesn't that say that *any* greater power could do that, not just a greater power who also happens to hold the death domain? I mean, I guess the god of death could start killing people and then immediately start destroying their souls (maybe?) so that they can't be raised, but Ao and the other deities wouldn't stand for that for long - didn't Kelemvor get slapped around for trying to do the opposite? Can't see how the other gods wouldn't try to stop that. ​ ​​Yes, I'm reading now that both Kelemvor and Mystra were yelled at by the other gods for their favoritism and unbalancing of the realms, and it was put a stop to. So yeah, can't see how that'd work out.

​What makes you figure they could do that?

​Furi, got through a few more fights, and then it ended my game and erased my save file because I apparently sat around in a room too long. Uh, okay: uninstalled. Who the hell decided that was a good idea? The gameplay's not so good that I want to redo them all... ​ ​Okay, I looked it up on the wiki. Apparently, if you stay in that area for 5 minutes, it ends the game. Unfortunately, I was playing with Cheat Engine on 10x speed to get through the bad lame story bits that didn't matter, so that was actually only 30 seconds for me. That's partially my fault sort of, but why did it have to actually erase my save game? I was halfway through the game already, I don't want to start over...

​better there than anywhere else!

Princess Kaguya. The first 30-45 minutes I was somewhat bored, but right around the running/dream sequence is where things took a strong shift for the better for me. A weird but good ending.

It didn't help that the two things that seemed interesting - Comey calling the Steele dossier unverified but then apparently using it to justify FISA surveillance (bad), and Steele's apparent extreme bias against Trump (especially bad when combined with the previous point) - turned out to be a lie in the former case, and a half-truth at best in the latter.

Yeah, I think so, because then your new payment rolls over to the next month. They're trying to make people stay subscribed, not only subscribe for one month to get the current crop of games.

You're best off actually contacting Humble themselves if you were already subscribed.

​Fantastic artwork. Fairly mediocre (and sometimes a little off-putting) story and writing, and the gameplay isn't much better than that. It's not a bad game by any means, but I was unfortunately pretty disappointed in it when it came out, .

​they stole that pretty patty from spongebob ​ ​ ​ ​although black is a new and bold (...and disgusting-looking) direction, I'll admit

​I mean, they aren't exactly the same, but they're pretty similar. "Not likeable" in the context of film, especially when referring to what're supposed to be the heroes, is pretty similar (and almost always negative) criticism.

​Asked if Trump has faith in Rosenstein and/or plans to fire him, Trump replied, "You figure that out." Yeah. What a joke.

​...That's it? It's basically just a glorified complaint that Steele was biased against Trump, and it was his information (the infamous dossier) that provided a justification for the FISA surveillance against Carter Page? I mean...alright, sure. Yeah, Steele seems like a real dumb dumb, but it doesn't in any way invalidate all the others findings since then. ...Also, I'm reading elsewhere that Page had already had been being monitored since 2013 2014* for his involvement with some Russian spy ring? And if that's the case, then that blows a huge hole into the "the FBI only started monitoring him because of the Steele dossier" - at best, it would be the deciding factor as to why they continued to monitor him perhaps longer than they initially thought necessary. (e:) Also also, the memo specifically mentioned "information" in the Steele dossier being used to justify continued surveillance - not the dossier itself. That likely means information corroborated from elsewhere - very careful wording there, it seems. Trying to paint Comey as a liar after he said the dossier itself was "salacious and unverified" but then apparently used information that was in it to justify continued monitoring, when in reality, it's more likely he got corroborated info elsewhere that was used instead. ​ ​And we have Paul Ryan out here calling for "cleanses" of the FBI. What a joke. If this is the nonsense used to end the Mueller investigation, I'm not so sure that we live under the rule of law anymore. ​ *​2014, way before the creation of the Steele dossier: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/former-trump-adviser-carter-page-under-fisa-warrant-since-2014-report/article/2630576

Well, if he said that before Trump actually became president, I'd at least give the statement the benefit of the doubt. Yeah, he looked like an incredibly awful candidate by most every objective standard from the beginning, no doubt - but in his own way, he was kind of promising some of the same things Obama had ("change", as it were), and I think it's what a lot of more sensible folk were really hoping he'd actually live up to...and they were, of course, hoping that he wouldn't prove to be as awful and unstable of a person that he had seemed up to that point (...sadly, it's really only gotten worse since). I had several friends that tried to make me understand that's why they were voting for him, anyways, which I sort of accepted...but didn't agree with, as I had more pressing concerns at the time (especially knowing that it was very likely the GOP would have both the House and the Senate on top of it, which is exactly what ended up happening). Right. ​Checks and balances never amount to anything when everyone's in on the scam with each other. If all our politicians suddenly united to call a Constitutional Convention to suspend elections and subsequently declare themselves absolute rulers of the land, the only option we'd have at that point is a violent revolution. Which we'd probably lose due to apathy.

​"-missing string-" especially made me laugh.

Didn't Guard Dog vote libertarian this last election cycle? Can't put the blame on him for Trump - at least he tried to participate in our joke of an election system, unlike...uh...what, 100m+ potential voters? ​ ​Also, we *do* have a pretty good set of checks and balances. They just don't amount for much when two of the three major branches are colluding with each other. I guess our founders didn't account for that possibility. Not that they should've had to (and indeed, trying to probably would've just created flaws elsewhere).

​I haven't seen it, but I think the Red Lettter Media guys described it as Saving Private Ryan in Star Wars, but with a plot you already know the ending to and zero likeable or memorable characters, which, again, totally turned me off from watching it, because I quite frankly don't give a crap about endless boring action sequences, especially not in Star Wars, where they've never been the point or one of its strengths anyhow. If that's what you want to see, though, great - at least it's supposed to be competently directed, unlike a certain set of prequels.

​What smjjames said, on all three lines. If the GOP are going to craft some memo with the apparent intention of discrediting the FBI and the Mueller investigation through talking points (...and continue to edit it after its initial review by Congress), we should at least be able to see the rebuttal. Also as James said, we should also be able to see the original version that was approved by Congress (which we're apparently not going to get to, because Nunes continues to prove that he's just a political hack). ​ ​@Guard Dog above: agreed.

"​The fact that a liberty-hating statist like Trump is so adamant to releasing it reinforces that it MUST not be released." ?

Why didn't they get a PC they *knew* was CPU-limited (think lower-end dual core with like a GTX 1080 or something), and test with that? Might as well test with several RAM speeds while you're at it, too... You had a shot to either kill or confirm this thing, and you wasted it!

It's probably because I'm watching them all within such a short amount of time (the first I saw was Nausicaa about two weeks ago?) that I had a little more muted reaction towards Laputa. It was fun and pleasant and there wasn't really anything particularly bad about it, but I didn't feel it was all too special, either.

I didn't know that about it - that might be it. The dialogue pacing feels very different from the other Ghibli movies I've seen (which I actually kind of like), but on the other hand, it feels like some connecting scenes were missing, leading to characters acting a little...odd at times. Furthermore, the final quarter of the movie was pretty Disney-esque, which I was actually surprised (and a little disappointed) by, as none of the other Ghibli movies I've seen had been. Great first half, but not quite as great second half, I guess. Yeah, that's quite a good way to sum it up for me. It's probably one of my least-favourite Miyazaki films, which is really not saying much since it still is very enjoyable and featuring a number of moments of sheer excellence, not to mention being as creative and visually striking as ever. i can't say I noticed much with regards to the dialogue pace but it's been years since I've seen it myself, and neither did I really feel the ending was too 'Disney', rather that, as you say, the thin connective tissue towards the end made it a feel a bit more jumbled and uneven. So which ones have you seen so far, Bart? Everything just falls neatly and perfectly into place and resolves in a completely ideal manner at the end, even though I wasn't totally sure how we even got to that point. It just didn't feel...earned, I guess, which made it a little dissatisfying. I've seen Nausicaa, Laputa, Only Yesterday, and Kiki's Delivery Service. Right now, I think I'd rank them 1. Howl, 2. Nausicaa, 3. Kiki's, 4. Only Yesterday, 5. Laputa. I've mentioned seeing all of them in this thread so far besides Laputa (which was...in terms of pure enjoyment, maybe was higher than Only Yesterday, but it was much less interesting, which gets it ranked a little lower).

Today, he came out and said the opposite: that he would not resign, and he would in fact publicly contradict and provide a rebuttal to the memo if it's released.