Bartimaeus

I'm sure it's a fine show. Except for the fact that it made me want to decapitate the main character within the first minute of watching it, and seeing the rest of the episode only made me want to slowly draw and quarter him instead. Could be the greatest show or movie of all time, if I hate the main character and can't connect with them when I'm supposed to, it's not going to be enjoyable. Call it an issue of appeal more than anything else, since they clearly weren't trying to appeal to me with that bozo. @majestic I was wondering if you were going to give Amentep an earful for daring to post that, particularly without the context of having seen the show himself. Although I should admit that I almost nitpicked the same thing about the first ten or so episodes not even having Chibi-Usa...but the thing is, I did restrain myself. Luckily, I had you to pick up the slack, . Personally, I saw the show as an adult first and didn't have an issue with Chibi-Usa and liked her outside of SuperS, but most everyone and everything is wrong in SuperS, so I'm not going to hold it against her personally even though she and her pegasus problem are definitely the absolute worst part of that season. So unless Scrappy Doo is actually magically much better as an adult (and that would be very difficult to believe), the comparison really just doesn't fit for me.

Scappy Doo was just an awful joke character that was constantly getting in the way and being annoying for comic relief...but Chibi-Usa becomes a protagonist where much of the story is told exclusively from her perspective with a big focus on the way she feels. If you hate Chibi-Usa, this is probably much worse than just being the joke character, .

I'm just glad we won't have to much hear or see Mitch McConnell. Now there is a guy that I could do the rest of my life without ever thinking about again. Having the Georgia seat is important for another reason as well: the 2024 senatorial elections will defend 2018's results, and that was a blue wave year in a large way, so it is likely that one or multiple of those seats will flip. In particular... 1. Sinema's seat in Arizona (who may be primaried out anyways) 2. Jon Tester in Montana 3. Jacky Rosen in Nevada 4. Sherrod Brown in Ohio 5. Joe Manchin in West Virginia ...are probably all the most vulnerable seats, especially IMO Tester and Manchin (both of these guys are kind of unicorns for continuing to win their seats). There doesn't look to be even a single seat in 2024 that Democrats could realistically expand their majority with - maybe Indiana and Tennessee, but I'd say both are long shots. (e): One other positive from this election has been that the cries against "fraud" and democracy have been way less compared to two years ago. Seems like a lot of the conservative anger has instead been directed towards Trump and other leaders not named Ron DeSantis; DeSantis and Trump look to be the presumed heavyweights for the 2024 presidential election, assuming Trump is still a free man by that point. DeSantis winning that battle could certainly be...interesting, what with the cultish fervor Trump inspires. On a completely separate note, via ballot initiative, it looks like Connecticut will implement early voting, Nevada will implement open primaries and ranked choice voting, and Michigan will implement early voting.

As mentioned a few days ago, it was expected that the Nevada senatorial race would go Democrats' way, and it now has, with networks starting to officially project Catherine Cortez Masto as the winner and for Democrats to retain control of the Senate before the Georgia run-off. The House is still too close to call, although Republicans have an advantage.

Edgerunners: Yeah, I watched one episode and was like "this protagonist is the absolute worst and I hope he dies in a fire but I'm never going to find out because I can't keep watching". I'm guessing that I wouldn't have been particularly pleased watching the rest.

A truly lovely story. Based on his body of work, I have a feeling that I wouldn't be nearly so keen on a Tarantino A Clockwork Orange, . I guess I cheated, since I did have subtitles enabled. I thought most of them were relatively clear thanks to the context of their usage, but...reading them so that you know that what you're hearing is correct certainly helps a lot. 2001: A Space Odyssey is probably next in line for Kubrick films I have to watch...

Oh, see, I was of the complete opposite bent. Going into it, I didn't know it was going to be so ludicrously British, or in fact even British at all, and there is something about the British style of very seriously acting out the most patently absurd satire that appeals to my senses in a way that attempts by most others really just can't quite capture for me. It's no doubt due to my somewhat greater than average childhood exposure of British television/cinema and literature - thank you very much, mother. At least she didn't curse me with any kind of appreciation for British music as well, that would've been a step too far. That makes it twice Kubrick has surprised me, what with this and The Shining. I liked this more than The Shining, but I truly expected to loathe The Shining going into it, so coming out of it with any kind of positive impression has to be considered a win.

A Clockwork Orange (1971). Well, I put off watching it for a very long time, but I finally did. It is a marvellously constructed film, with the way all of it thematically loops back in on itself to tie everything together so perfectly. Thanks to that, it goes from being a film I probably should've rightfully hated (if it were handled by a lesser filmmaker) to a film that I did end up enjoying, which I did not expect.

Tell a better joke next time, sucka.

Even if it wasn't, I'd just like to make it clear that my ire is really reserved for those who poke their noses into everything and believe themselves knowledgeable about all of it whilst only armed with a woefully inadequate surface level of understanding. It is perfectly normal to be ignorant of the million different subjects in which you do not claim any substantive/authoritative expertise over (there's only so much time in life to learn the fine details!), but way too many are wholly incapable of knowing that they don't know enough and have an inexplicable sense of pride about it when they painfully come to face with it. Don't be that guy, nobody likes that guy...and you're just going to keep proverbially urinating yourself when you get into discussions with people who actually know their stuff, and that's embarrassing for everyone involved. (e): And on the subject of elections, it sounds like Democrats have good reason to believe the Nevada senatorial race will go their way; if Arizona is won as well, it would make the Georgia race redundant for control of the Senate. And it looks very possible Republicans will only win the House by the slimmest of margins, possibly literally right at the exact mark for control.

Without personal reason to be invested and care, any knowledge I could have of said elections would undoubtedly lead to the same shallow "understanding" that results in ignorant and oft annoying jerk-ass comments like we see about American elections from both too many voters here at home and ye poorly informed foreigners, foreigners who understandably couldn't ever even begin to grasp the issues at play without actually living here...and that's with American elections evidently being covered to an unhealthy degree in at least the anglosphere. It's already a serious undertaking to be at least a little knowledgeable about American elections to the point of being able to talk about them, and I try to be aware of when I don't know enough before I open my mouth about something, so I will graciously leave the Canadian elections to the Canadians and the German elections to the Germans. Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it and remove all doubt and all that.

Polarized and desensitized at the same time. The new normal is being constantly pushed past its limits... Yeah, I don't know the first thing about Canadian or German elections, their parties, their lawmaking processes, or really much anything else...but that kind of takes care of itself, because I also wouldn't try to comment on them in any substantive way. But if Lexx meant long-term, that makes a lot more sense and it's a lot more difficult for me to say "no, that for sure won't happen".

The U.S. has a lot of cyclical features to its elections that have been studied and talked about ad nauseum. One of them is that the president's party always loses the midterms, and right now, these results are being looked at as a bit of a defeat of Republicans because of how weak they are for them. No, it's not the resounding triumph over the fascist/conspiracy/hate-spreading elements that most of us would like, but it's certainly not all bad either. More generally, the U.S. is fully in the throes of social, politic, cultural, and economic divides that are currently cleaving our nation in two...or maybe more like three or four. There's not going to be an instant fix for all of it, and in fact, I'd say it's a lot more likely to get worse before it gets better because none of the actual problems can or will be fixed by a collection of mostly ineffectual, time-biding, focusing-on-the-wrong-things politicians, which is just going to drive further and further extreme division as everything continues to get worse. But...time does have a way of working these things out. For example, global warming may well cause Florida to collapse straight down into the seabed within the next generation or two, and what an uplifting effect that would have on the U.S. and the world in general, .

In order to pass bills through Congress, one must have the following: 1. A simple majority (50% + 1) of votes in the House of Representatives vote aye on the bill. 2a. A filibuster-proof majority (60/100) in the Senate vote aye on the bill, or... 2b. The controlling party eliminate the filibuster or at least agree to carve out an exception so that the vote is exempt from the filibuster, and have a simple majority (51 or 50 + Vice President) vote aye. 3a. A president that signs the bill into law, or... 3b. A president that vetoes the bill that is then overridden with 2/3rds of both the Senate and the House voting aye on the bill. In other words, with a split Congress or even with a Congress where both chambers are controlled by the opposition, you can therefore expect Congress to do what it's best at in terms of legislation: nothing. Now, I know that American elections are overblown on the world stage, and that's nobody's fault but our own, but let's not get crazy here, okay?

It should be noted that at least with U.S. standard keyboard layout, holding down CTRL while pressing enter immediately posts your post; I know this is because I never click the "Submit Reply" button. Don't know if it's helpful information at all. (Also, SHIFT+Enter does single line returns instead of the weird double line returns that became the standard when the forum software """upgraded"""" several years back, if you need them for some reason.)

Poor early results for Democrats so far, with the House almost definitely going to the Republicans already, and bad early numbers in key Ohio, Georgia, and North Carolina senatorial races. (e): A reminder for those who were tricked by the overwhelmingly pro-Republican early results and thought Donald Trump won on election night last election: where the votes are coming from matters a lot more than any raw vote count. Having a Democrat up 100,000-5,000 is all well and good...until you realize that there are hundreds of thousands of outstanding ballots left in the biggest red areas of the state and that it's likely going to flip over the next few hours. (e): Maybe not quite so bad as it initially looked. It's looking like Republicans will win the House with a slight lean, while the Senate is still too close to call.

It's not really any different from how it was with Trump and the absolute outpouring of news outlets constantly writing about and reacting to everything he said on Twitter. Well, elsewhere too, but the least we could do is stop caring about the hundred or so tweets he would send out a day. Nope, guess we're gonna start to doing the same thing with Musk - people just can't stop clicking on it.

It's so weird how having even an ounce of empathy for your enemy while still wanting them to be defeated can get you lumped right in with them to at least a couple of posters in here.

Packers and Raiders are both now in the hilariously bad stage of football failure. Particularly the Packers for me, as it has gone from concerning, to disappointing, to infuriating, to genuinely funny in seeing how incompetently an Aaron Rodgers-led offense is run week in and week out.

I don't think the reason for it really matters, because it was difficult to sit through most every moment of it starting with the guys awkwardly staring at nothing and repeating themselves over and over in the very first scene. I was willing to overlook that if it would get moving along after, but it was just stacking goofy and awkward endlessly. Well, it's not for me, that's for sure. Ah, see, now I'm the type of person that wishes they had no eyes and no ears any time I am subjected to full ham theater or play stuff, especially when it is supposed to be serious (I may be able to make exception if it's intentionally tongue-in-cheek), so it makes sense that it just wasn't ever going to work for me.

The gaming benchmarks showed that ECO mode didn't matter at all for gaming with the 7950X because the games they benched didn't stress the CPU enough to hit the power limits (and the power limits are all that those ECO mode settings change - i.e. if playing a game without ECO mode would only draw a steady 140W and then you set the ECO mode to the 105W profile, which contrary to its name allows 142W of steady wattage, then yeah, little to no change is going to occur). Which makes sense, seeing as it's a 16-core $700 processor that you'd be wasting ~$400 of if you're only using it for gaming...which is why I was a little disappointed not to see them do more interesting stuff with the video.

Rashomon (1950) by Akira Kurosawa. I checked this out because the premise sounded more interesting than those I read of other Akira Kurosawa films. It's an extremely uncomfortable combination of serious and hammy that did not sit well with me already within the first few minutes, and the feeling only got worse as the film went on: 12 Angry Men this is not. I especially did not like the lead actor, who I think was supposed to come across as wild and intense, but instead...well, there's probably a cultural barrier there, since that was downright silly. Better luck next time, Mr. Kurosawa: I'll give a director two tries if they're revered enough. Speaking of... Hour of the Wolf (1968) by Ingmar Bergman. And that's the last I'll ever speak of Ingmar Bergman.

"It feels a little bit bad if you spend $700 to buy a part, and then you go into BIOS and intentionally limit the performance." Not for me, this is the information I've been looking forward to the most: performance/power efficiency is the most interesting part. But...I have to admit to being a little disappointed here: it feels like a lost opportunity for GN here in limiting themselves purely to the trash ECO mode presets instead of really experimenting with the power curve or individual settings themselves, while also not bothering to doing any similar kind of power testing for the 5000 series or anything Intel (if Intel allows any kind of power settings modification in the first place?). Still, the results look good: the old power/efficiency king, the 5950x, is pretty clearly dethroned here...if one can be bothered to place the same kind of power limitations on the 5950x, anyways.

Yep: the only other media for it is a manga.

Poor Shinji just keeps getting gobbled up by those angels...