majestic

You're welcome. To be fair to this pile of garbage, which is really hard, that sort of creepy goes back to the olden days of pre-modern anime. This crap is a rather direct, unchanged adaptation from the source material. Actually, Sailor Moon Cosmos is so close to the source material that the best fan sub that is currently available was - supposedly - not made with the film, but rather with the one of the manga editions, and then just timed (and later retimed) with the film. If nothing else that makes the film a wonderful case study for what happens when you do not adapt source material, but transfer it 1:1 to the screen. It is a right mess. It was the music of the intro that caused the reaction more than anything that happened in the film up to that point. Why does this horrible version of Moonlight Densetsu even exist? There are two far superior versions of the old anime to chose from. No, no. This is what they used in the anime to flesh out the villains, actually. In this film and the manga, which is only explained later, and it was my mistake to assume that the original anime took that story bit from the manga (in hindsight, yes, that was pretty dumb, huh?), the Sailor Animamates (i.e. Iron Mouse, Aluminum Siren, Lead Crow, Tin Nyanko and Heavy Metal Papillon) aren't actually mind controlled Sailor Senshi. They're just mercenaries and traitors who joined Galaxia for the promise of power and have been granted the powers of actual Senshi through the bracelets they wear. Phi, Chi, Lethe and Mnemosyne are real Sailor Senshi who joined Galaxia. Just not through mind control or force, but because they wanted to. I hate Ami x Makoto more than Rei x Minako for the simple fact that it seems to be a fandumb favorite, constructed out of two freaking scenes of the original anime. One where Ami helps Makoto with studying for their high school exams and Makoto's rape episode from SuperS where Ami dances with her. You know, the episode where she waits ages for Tigereye (a man) to come back. That is the basis for this pairing, by far and large. Watch out, femoids of the world, the incels of the world will turn you into lesbians if you ever dance with a fellow femoid. That is not to say that I don't despise Rei x Minako for the terrible framing in the manga, and thus, the film, I just loathe it less than Ami x Makoto. These scenes with Minako in Crystal/the manga are pretty bad - the girls all have massively reduced character development due to the breakneck pacing of the chapters, and Minako being utterly boy-happy is one of the few things that make up her somewhat quirkier personality (as opposed to her earlier, much more serious version). Hinting at her hitting it off with Rei diminishes what little character development she gets in this. Arguably even worse with Makoto whose only wish is to be accepted as a normal girl in a world that shuns her for non-conformity (taller than normal girls, stronger than normal girls, wavy instead of straight hair). Fantasy-shipping her off with Ami is just a giant middle finger to everything she represents and has to go through. F*ck you, fandumb. Huh, look at me getting angry, I guess I am not completely dead inside from all of this yet. Go me! I don't think they are in there enough to matter. Just like everything else, they're an afterthought thrown in to fill chapters, even though they're more fleshed out than most of the villains. Ah, the framing of the post-credit scene was a little unfair on my part, but I needed to strike back at the film. This just looks like what it looks like and isn't really what it looks like. It is just Mamoru kissing Usagi in bed after waking up, but the implication still lingers. I mean, Usagi can't get pregnant without the intercourse part, but to be honest, the stylized sex scene from season two was a lot worse. I mean, scenes like that in the first three seasons is what makes this film the best out of the bunch. The worst thing that happens with the regular cast is that creepy Hotaru stuff and Seiya kissing Usagi without consent. It says a lot of the series and films - and the manga - that this is counting as the least terrible entry, huh?

The End of Sailor Moon: Sailor Moon Cosmos. I have no words for this. This travesty of a film is almost three hours long, and in order to save my sanity, I shall turn the playback to 2.0 speed. What in the everblazing infernos of Hell is that? This post might have less screenshots than usual since it will be much harder to capture stuff at 2 times the regular playback speed. After a brief opening scene, the intro begins, and thankfully it is over really, really quickly. However, I felt the need to punish myself and go look for it on YouTube, because it needs to be seen to be believed. Well, and heard. Heard too. Three minutes into the movie and I already want to kill myself. Okay, so this begins with Usagi waking up, then leaving the house. Chibi-Usa and Hotaru are holding hands and are gossiping, and Usagi complains about them being awfully close, to which Hotaru replies that she and Mamoru are also holding hands like that. Score one for the creepy romances. I mean if Chibi-Usa would have said that, it could have been her just teasing Usagi. Hotaru has no reason to tease Usagi. And, after not even five minutes, I already wish there would be actual brain bleach. Instead I will forever be stuck with the image of Hotaru and Chibi-Usa holding hands with Hotaru comparing it to Usagi and Mamoru. "The pain will only be passing. You should survive the process." -- Joneleth Irenicus Well, to be honest, Hotaru is a better choice than Pegasus the Pedophile Alicorn, and it is only natural after Hotaru's experiments with the crystal butt plug in season three, but why is this scene even there? We switch to everyone meeting at school, and by that I mean everyone. Haruka and Michiru are there, for no particular reason, and Setsuna is the school nurse. Sure, why not. Wait, wasn't she studying physics back in season three? Well, whatever. I already forgot the actual plot of the season from the manga, instead of Mamoru being hit by Galaxia's attack on the plane, this one happens right in front of Usagi's eyes. With Mamoru dead, Usagi falls into a catatonic stupor that nobody seems to notice. She tells everyone Mamoru arrived safely in the US, and everyone is just buying it. Chibi-Usa goes home, making the romance scene even dumber than it already was, and Minako sort of notices that Usagi is acting weird, but nothing comes of it. Oh. And now I have something to tortue @Bartimaeus with. Behold Sailor Moon Cosmos' version of Sailor Iron Mouse. She's at a Three Lights concert like this, and no one cares. Sure, it's Japan, but seriously, what? Okay, so we get the full girls transformation sequence, then Uranus and Neptune show up, and Sailor Star Healer just obliterates Sailor Iron Mouse. One shot kill. Boom. No Chopin for you this time, Mouse. Bye! Good use of a villain. Well, villain. Mind dominated pawn, as it were, but who cares about makin such minutiae clear to the audience. Usagi remembers Mamoru being obliterated, but then just forgets. Can I have the original series back please? Please? Chibi Chibi shows up, while Seiya is a creep and stalks Usagi. Why is everyone who is interested in Usagi a creepy stalker? Look at that, Haruka's boob job from Eternal went away, but she suddenly dresses like a teenage girl. Usagi is on the school roof and writing a letter to Mamoru, and I was staring at it for a bit and went "man, her writing is really terrible", and then the Three Lights show up. Yaten looks at the letter and tells Usagi that her handwriting sucks. Well, I laughed. A little. Haruka shows up and tries to defend Usagi. She's wearing the same school uniform. Hello, hey, uhm, hey writers. Anyone, hello? Two seasons ago, these characters were university students, why are they at Usagi's High School now? They all go to a concert, some stuff of no consequence happens, then Seiya finds Usagi on another rooftop, purely by coincidence. Sailor Aluminum Siren shows up and obliterates Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Mercury. Poof. In return, Aluminum Siren gets oblibterated by Fighter's Star Gentle Uterus. 30 minutes down, two hours and ten minutes left. Please, release me from my pain. Can I make this go faster and still read the subtitles? Let's try 2.25x playback speed. Uranus b*tch-slapping Venus. Because why the hell not? Hey look, I need to apologize to the writers of Sailor Stars. Haruka carrying the stupid ball and being all negative towards the Three Lights seems to be in the manga too. She threatens the three for absolutely no reason other than that they were on the roof too and helped with dealing with Aluminum Siren. Great. If nothing else, this is going to make me love Sailor Stars more than I already do. Some plot stuff happens in fast-forward, Usagi forgets that Makoto and Ami died, nobody gives a flying fart about that, and she takes off to talk to friends of Mamoru to see if he contacted them. Which obivously they did not. Then there is this scene. Hush little Rei, we are alone on the roof. Just relax. Also, please do not mind that I am coming from volleyball practice and am probably all sweaty and stuff. Quick question to anyone who has read up until here, tell me, do Japanese students really have access to the school's roof like that? Seems to me that in a land where suicide is as prevalent as in Japan, it might not be the best idea to present students with such an easy way to plunge to their deaths. Yes, that is actually what I am wondering about while Minako and Rei have their moment. Half a second later Minako is yapping about them finding boyfriends. Half a second later, we are back to the, uhm, implied lesbian shenanigans. We don't need boys, they say. Oh brain bleach, where art thou? Lead Crow shows up at Rei's temple and it is revealed that Rei's crows are actually Sailor Phobos and Sailor Deimos. They are from Lead Crow's home planet. How does that make sense? It does not. Does that matter? No! Nothing matters in this pile of garbage. Lead Crow kills Phobos and Deimos, then fights Venus and Mars until Sailor Moon shows up and Lead Crow is annihilated by Sailor Honeymoon Therapy Kiss. Must be some therapy, eh? You know, writers of this pile of garbage, you might want to think about adapting something in a way that makes sense. This is basically just stringing animated manga chapters together in a film and calling it a day. If that would work for a film, it would not have been released as a manga, but a freaking film script. Star Trek: Into Derpness is less disjointed than this. Galactica shows up and kills Venus and Mars in front of Sailor Moon. Well, at least that convinces Haruka to drop the idiot ball. Small steps. Meow. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto return to their castles (for anyone who forgot about that, they're all princesses with castles) to technobabble some protective shield around the Solar System. You know, given that you have had a whole bunch of alien and interdimensional incursions in the past, oh, four years, wouldn't that shield have been useful all along? Why is it not turned on? Galactica kills Pluto in half a second. Hotaru teleports away (they can all teleport when necessary but they never teleport themselves out of harm's way, the writing of this is so bad), then Seiya and company just storm into Usagi's room through her window because that's how and where all the creeps come into her home, and Chibi Chibi transforms and the Starlight's princess shows up. That was like in one of the last episodes of the original anime before the final plot starts, and we are at roughly an hour (of 2:40) into the film. No wonder the ending of the last season had pacing issues. Tin Nyanko is trying to kill Luna, Artemis and Diana in their human forms. The cats survive the attack because reasons (no animals were harmed in the production of this film, except Iron Mouse, Lead Crow and, eh, never mind), there's some more dumb exposition from the Starlight's Princess, and she's basically drooling over Usagi, the mostest powerfulest of all the most powerful Sailor Senshi. Seiya kisses Usagi. I mean, she just kisses her, unbidden. Why is everyone in this series assaulting Usagi all the time? Mamoru when she was drunk and sleeping, Haruka in season three, now Seiya. For crying out loud. 1:08 into the film, and Galaxia meets Usagi and proceeds to obliterate Tokyo. So, basically, I am looking forward to what, an hour and twenty minutes of fighting Galaxia? Really? Is that a joke? Usagi had a vision of all her friends being dead. Seriously? What the hell, Uranus, Neptune and Saturn had an off-screen death? Are you kidding me, film? Or maybe not. You could also just have Chibi Chibi deus ex machina away all the destruction. Yes, that just happened. This looks so bad it hurts staring at it. Galaxia blows the planet up because it is trash - can't disagree with that assessment, just look at how awful that CGI is. Tin Nyanko shows up to apologize for failing, and Galaxia Dath Vaders her arse. Is it just me or is her end in the original series much better? Having her black and white conflict before being destroyed. Exposition dump explains that stars are forged in the Galaxy Cauldron at the center of the galaxy. Usagi resolves to find Galaxia and dispense justice. We all know murder death kill Usagi's justice. First half over. Yay! Just how much of this insane manure riddled plot did the writers of the original anime drop? The next half opens with Usagi leaving home and her mother ominously saying that it feels like she is never going to return. When Seiya saw Sailor Moon's rad wings, she wanted to have wings too. Wings! For everyone! Must have been a Halloween costume sale somewhere. They're off to check what happend to Uranus and the others, and Pluto and Saturn get a flashback death. Take that Neptune and Uranus, you don't deserve nothing. Nothing. Usagi resolves to go to Saggitarius Zero Star, so basically the center of the galaxy. She's had it with Galaxia. Roll opening two. Why? Just why? Uhm, a giant CGI door opens and we meet someone new. Hello, I am Sailor Lethe, and your tour guide through a not quite accurate inspiration from Greek mythology. A ferryman in the middle of a desert. Sure. It's okay. Usagi, just keep one thing in mind: Usagi gets separated from everyone else, some weird girl shows up and finally kills Artemis, Luna and Diana. They even seem to disappear in the future of Chibi-Usa and Neo-Queen Serenity, just to drive home how dire the situation really is. Something's changing the past. Oh my. Chibi-Usa had it with people changing her life, and transforms, in come the Sailor Quartet, you know, the circus girls from the season with the pedophile horse guy. Sailor Mnemosyne shows up and talks to Lethe. Exposition dump how Galaxia destroyed their homes and they joined her. The exposition explains that they're twins, the imagery of the film implies they're not just really good friends, but really, really good friends, if you catch my drift. They let everyone go. Okay. Sisters, close friends, lo... erm. Yeah. Because this crap just can't stop having creepy scenes, and someone really seems to like incest. Naoko, is that you? Sailor Phi, who is Galaxia's gardener (no, really) shows up with Sailor Chi (uhm, also Sailor Galaxia's gardner) in tow. They can't have that betrayal and kill Lethe and Mnemosyne, and then the Starlights. Behold: Chaos. Well, we get a look at Lord Chaos, Galaxia's master, who looks like generic evil being #25 from stockcgivillainimages.com. Moon, Chibi Chibi and Kakyuu (the Starlight's princess) walk into a graveyard. They are crucified and greeted by, well, I can't even type it. I just need to show you. I am so glad to be done with this soon. Chibi Moon shows up and saves the day by just killing Sailor HEAVY METAL PAPILLON. I'd sign a contract with Galaxia. Well, they talk about how Chibi Chibi could be Chibi-Usa's daughter. You know, that would be less dumb than what Chibi Chibi really is (Sailor Cosmos, Sailor Moon's final form from the distant future). Phi and Chi show up and kill Kakyuu, Kakyuu and Sailor Moon share some last words, then Moon kills Chi. For some inane reason shadow copies of the Sailor Senshi show up to fight Sailor Moon. Not sure If I missed Phi dying in the fast forward action or if she just died off screen, but who gives a damn. Mamoru shows up and orders the Senshi to kill Sailor Moon. Sailor Moon Shinjis it out by standing there. Chibi-Usa is the only one with half a brain and realizes that these are just fake shadow copies made by Galaxia, but it's not like Sailor Moon listens to her. Then she has a change of heart, gets a power up and just obliterates everyone. She chases Mamoru to Galaxia who proceeds to kiss her. Wow, how original, that's what BRACK RADY did in this idiotic series three seasons ago. Galaxia gives some sob story about her cruel past (including an allusion to being raped) and then runs off to the Cauldron and Sailor Moon chases her. Galaxia throws everyone's crystals into the Cauldron, effectively killing them for real this time. Well, sort of. Maybe. Galaxia goes full level Bond villain and tells Sailor Moon her entire plan, Sailor Moon and Chaos will destroy each other and she will rule as the strongest Senshi left. With Mamoru gone, Chibi-Usa disappears before Chaos shows up and attacks Galaxia. Good thing no one saw that coming, but Sailor Moon saves her. Chaos' eyes are now more of a purple hue. Why? Who knows. Who cares. Chaos also goes full Bond villain, and he tells Sailor Moon that he was behind all the evils she faced in the past. Sailor Moon talks to Galaxia. There's some exposition about life and death, the fate of the galaxy, and peace meaning that the galaxy must die (the source of everything destroyed, as it invariably creates light and dark, and thus, conflict). This philosophical part isn't half bad. It's half-baked and comes out of nowhere, but it's not terrible. Galaxia randomly kills herself because why not kill yourself after your miniature-redemption. Sailor Moon is not into the whole peace through death thingy. Hands up, who saw that coming? Me neither. Blah, blah, blah, something, blah. Sailor Moon destroyed Chaos with OUR POWER COMBINED and turned into CAPTAIN PLANET, or something. Lambda power! Well, maybe not into Captain Planet, but Sailor Moon just remerged Chaos with the Cauldron and herself, basically pushing the reset button, and everyone starts being reincarnated. Sailor Cosmos reveals herself as, well, Sailor Cosmos to the Quartet, the only ones who are still around. Things get really surreal now, as Usagi wakes up wearing a night gown, with Mamoru and everyone else showing up, clad also in... nightgowns. Well, it beats Haruka's teenage girl getup from earlier, so that's something, I guess. Can you guys please make up your mind? Oh, no. I am sailing, I am sailing, home again, 'cross the sea... yes please more of this ship. Yay. Ami x Makoto confirmed?!!? Guardian Cosmos shows up (why not make up characters at the eleventh hour, that is always a great choice) and sends everyone home. Credits roll, and I feel free. Since I am watching on 2.27x the regular speed, I feel like I can just let them run, only to discover, much to my dismay, that there is a post credit scene! IT BURNS MY PRECIOUS. IT BURNS. NASTY. NASTY. OF ELVEN MAKE. IT BURNS. I am sorry, I can't come up with a caption for this. Mamoru proposes to Usagi. Marriage. Usagi feels a new star born inside her. Yay! It is FINALLY over. I AM FREE OF THIS. FOREVER FREE. If Toei ever decides to milk the franchise for more money, I hope nobody tells me. One last word, out of everything Sailor Crystal, this was the least terrible entry. Not that it was a good film, mind you, but it was the better than Eternal and the first three seasons. You know, in the way that lung cancer is better than pancreatic or stomach cancer, because it will kill you slower and you have more time left.

Yep, the performance of the board can easily be called arse. Maybe even from the arse, as it were. If you are less into fecal humor, one could say it blows or sucks. Goats. Hard.

Is it my bias and/or political leaning that makes right-wing/conservative satire always seem so incredibly cringeworthy, or is it just really just cringeworthy?

Don't let the reviews or the fanbyos fool you, good choice. AM5 had some serious teething issues, or maybe still has, supposedly the AGESA updates to improve compatibility with DDR5 helped. Just, uhm, make sure that your mainboard settings in the BIOS don't allow your CPU to overdose iself on power. There seems to be a creeping stability issue because current mainboard settings allow the current Intel CPUs to chomp too much power for their own good. Basically all new CPUs can overclock themselves depending on certain conditions, and with the 13900K and the current 14th "gen" CPUs, these limits seem to vector off into unstable regions if your mainboard allows the CPU unlimited power draw. Asus is particularily insane, with it's default setting allowing the CPU to pull up to 511A (in words five hundred and eleven, just to make sure you don't think this is a typo) through the VCC rail, which is way beyond the "extreme overclocking" limit set by Intel, and as the name implies, exreme overclocking just might not be entirely stable or safe for your CPU. Not that Intel is actively doing anything to discourage that, because it makes for bigger numbers in reviews, and bigger numbers is better. Biggerbetter, so to say. In the not very distant past, AMD didn't either, until their CPUs started exploding.

I found @BruceVC's next game to play, and probably his first 100/100 on the BruceVC whatever game scale. Slightly NSFW. Click me!

Fake news by AMD to make Intel look bad! I have a 13700k and had no stability problems in Hogwart's Legacy or Lies of P. Actually, Lies of P is one of the most stable games I have played in years. Not a single techincal issue, never mind crashing, and I have played it for roughly one hundred hours. No, but seriously, if simply going by the comments of people having the described problem, they all seem to be having a rather diverse range of reasons. Plenty of people with Asus mainboards, but not exclusively. Putting in the proper power limits or manually underdlocking the CPU appears to solve the problems. Guess Intel, just like AMD, isn't looking too closely at what Asus puts as their default settings in their BIOS. Looks like it could be a similar degredation issue, sans the exploding CPUs and all.

I'm not that familiar with the lore of Warhammer 40k to properly know all the ins and outs, but these events are not necessarily mutually exclusive. The Age of Technology lead to a great conflict that almost destroyed humanity (the war against AI, hence the AI ban in the Imperium), while the excesses of the Eldar led to the birth of the Prince of Darkness, heralded by intense warp storms, isolating clusters of systems and leading to the Age of Strife.

Well, not quite the same, but similar, yes. Warp storms, dimensional barriers, the effect is the same, I suppose.

That depends heavily on what you would consider a happy ending. You can avert a galactic crisis and foil the plan of an insane fascist, so if that qualifies, then yes, the game does have one. If by happy ending you mean creating a better place in the Warhammer 40k universe, then that is actually also possible, albeit after a fashiohn, if you follow a certain conviction and achieve its secret ending, but (warning, spoilers): Hey, it's Warhammer 40k, there's got to be some grim and dark even in the happiest of endings.

I thought it an appropriate reply to the question of having a hopeful story set in the Warhammer 40000 universe. One might as well ask for warm ice cream or dry water. Edit: For clarification, I am aware that it is possible to create hot "ice", i.e. solid water at room temperatures or well above that.

Yeah, Imma gonna go have some nightmares now.

Default font size is a bit tiny, at least on actual computer monitors. It works better on mobile, but for a mole like me, eh...

If it is fundamental enough, then of course it can be. See, for instance, I would never vote for a libertarian, even if I would agree with every other stance that person had. On the other hand, if there would be a candidate who realizes that class warfare is not magically over just because the Soviet Union dissolved, but who would be to oppose legalization of cannabis, then that would be an issue I could live without. It is just not important enough.

A combination of economic lobbyism and European Union law. Only a handful of religious minorities (including our 4% protestant population) had Good Friday as a public holiday in Austria, meaning that roughly five percent of the population had an extra public holiday, i.e. basically one day of paid vacation more than everyone else, as long as they are members of their congregation. Which the European Court of Justice found to be a discriminatory practice, and it is hard to argue with that finding. Faced with the decision to either take away Good Friday as a public holiday for religious minorities or granting it as a public holiday for all residents, the choice was easy: economic lobby groups said that the economy would collapse if everyone had one more paid day of leave, and thus it was taken away. Needless to say that we had a right wing government at the time, headed by the People's Party with their supposed Catholtic roots. One would think that good Catholics would be amenable to add such an important day of Christian belief to the roster of public holidays, but, well, when the party donors do not want to deal with a work time reduction of 0.0038% (I calculated this based on the average work time of Austrian employees, based on official statistics for 2023), then they do not want to deal with it. There's a certain irony in some of the same lobby groups insisting on a 3.75% decrease in overall work time just four years later during negotiations for our collective agreements. To make working full time more attractive.

The tithe is tax deductible, but only up to 400€ per year. As for the "benefits", well, you can have a proper Christian burial, receive the sacraments, have a church wedding and participate in communion. That is for non-orthodox Christians Churches, and I have no experience with congregations of other faiths. All for the tiny price of 1% of your yearly base income before income tax (your yearly gross income after all prior deductions, i.e. social social security, tax free income and payments specifically exempted from income tax, like our variants of a 401k). You have to calculate your tithe yourself, but if you don't, then the church will collect an estimate based on sex, age and education. Whether or not it is benefitial to let the church estimate your tithe depends on how much you earn above or below average. I have let the church estimate my tithe for years now, as they were generally way off the mark (to my benefit, obviously). How very Christian of me, huh? That is the same, you can just visit any mass, funerals or baptisms, you are just not allowed to participate in communion. Theoretically, that is, it is not like anyone actually checks your congregation membership when you partake. Data protection is just an excuse. Your parents sign you up via baptism, and at age fourteen you are supposed to confirm your membership through ritual, which I suppose is the same for the US offshoot of the Catholic Church, although I have to admit that I have not put in the effort to check. When you do, the moment you start earning an income that is not from any apprenticeship, the church will send you a letter, demanding money. The data your congregation has on you is simply your birthday, sex and place of residence. How much this is just a silly hurdle designed to prevent people from readily leaving congregations they joined is seen in the inverse: if I were to sign up for another congregation, that can be done directly with them. Joining? Easy. Leaving? Oh no, please go to your district administration and tell them that you want to leave and they will inform your congregation for you. Just to make sure nothing goes wrong. There is full separation between church and state here (in theory, at least), but the first couple of elected governments after World War 2 were lead by the People's Party (or, as it was called at the time, the Christian party) and had deeply Catholic roots, and thus decided to reinstate Austro-Hungarian Empire laws passed in 1868, but conveniently keeping the church tax law from Nazi Germany.

I just sent my declaration of my intent to leave my congregation to the responsible district administration. It is a silly bureaucratic hurdle the churches demanded which requires certain documents to "prove" that you are indeed a part of the congretation you want to leave. The official justification is data protection, because leaving your congretation requires the disclosure of personal information to said congregation. And we would not want to disclose any personal information to the wrong congregation, would we? Yes, that justification is about as silly as it sounds. You cannot just leave your congretation by talking to them directly for no other reason than to introduce extra bureaucratic hoops to jump through in order to deter as many people as possible from leaving a certain Church with a proclivity for child abuse. At the end of the day, this is about money, as both major Christian Churches in Austria and Germany can (legally) collect money from their congregation members, colloquially known as church tax, it is a required tithe that goes back to laws made by the good shepard, The Führer (no, really, the church tax really goes back to laws passed by the Nazis). With the government removing Good Friday for us Protestants as public holiday a while back and the Church now wanting a membership fee in excess of what is tax deductible, it no longer makes sense to be a part of the Protestant Church.

I have an anecdote to share here, although it is, of course, only directly applicable to the media in Austria, and it was over a decade ago. Back then, the company I worked at, was robbed. Goods worth five million Euro were stolen in a matter of hours. The robbers brutalized the workers of the night shift, bound them with gaffer tape and threatened to shoot them if they made any sudden moves. They grabbed their access badges to unlock the fenced off section of the warehouse where the exact goods they were looking for were stored, loaded the pallets they wanted onto their truck, and left. Perfectly orchestrated, it was fairly evident that it was an inside job, particularily since they took nothing else. The media reporting was fraught with errors. All of it. Not a single one that I read, and I checked a lot, seem to have put in the effort to do some fact checking. The most egregiously wrong accounts came, as expected, from the yellow press, but our public broadcasting company (ORF) made massive mistake in their reporting: they filmed a camera overlooking the entrance of the warehouse and wondered why nobody checked who rang at the door late at night. The cameras at the warehouse were part of the CCTV surveillance system in place, and labour law clearly states that the captured footage is only to be accessed by specially designated people and only in case of initial suspicion. It would be downright illegal to check the CCTV surveillance footage with no good reason, and they should really know that. One yellow press article wondered how the truck managed to move past the security checkpoint at the entrance to the warehouse. Why and how was the gate opened for the truck? Indeed, how? Oh, right, that was because that particular warehouse had no security checkpoint and they simply looked at a different branch of the company. How utterly detestable can you be to not even go to the right address for your footage to generate more buzz/clicks? It is really hard to believe that this was a simple mistake, the two locations are not even in the same vicinity (entirely different cities, even). Articles from outlets with better reputation got most of it right, but still openly wondered how and why the night shift workers could be overwhelmed and how nobody noticed it for hours, and why they even opened the door when someone rang at 02:00. Yes, why indeed. They could have just asked, you know. The entire night shift consisted of only two workers, both of which were beaten up and bound. They opened the door because of regular nighttime deliveries for a special project of one of our largest customers, who, at the time, due to irregular shipping schedules, could not properly advise of inbound shipments ahead of their arrival. It was the perfect moment for the robbery, and the robbers, who were later actually caught, turned out to actually be the very same people who made the deliveries. Conlcusion: for at least this one instance, it was shown that our public broadcaster does not know or does not care to check labor laws, the yellow press outright lies for effect and even quality media outlets rush to get their headlines out without due diligence. Ah, sign of the times, I suppose.

Treated myself to a Dragon Roll at our local Asian place. As far as I know, Dragon Rolls are usually made with either ebi tempura or grilled unagi. They just went ahead and used both, and added a little Terriyaki sauce on top, which makes their dragon roll an exposion of taste that goes from perfectly soft and sweet to crunchy fried shrimp when chewing.

Ah, yes. That... Sorry, could not resist.

There's one other thing, the AI models are only going to get better. Still waiting for a model that takes modern, icky digital coloring and makes it look like actual painted cels from the heyday of animation. Where's my "make K-On! look good" AI?

Somehow, even when expecting a terrible film, Sony comes along and proves that indeed, it can always get much, much worse.

Female streamers creating content in the Pools, Hot Tubs & Beaches category are more often hypersexualized than those streaming video games. I am currently looking for funds, I am planning a study to see if water is wet. PM me if you want to contribute, or know someone who wants to.

In case anyone's interested in just how bad performance can get: Reminds me a bit of the good old times in Lagforge. It's been a while.