The Dark Tower. Good movie in its own right, especially if you like Idris Elba.

First, they took 8 Stephen King books, some of which were like 2" thick, and decided to turn it into a 90-minute PG-13 film. A single film.

Second, because the racist element was so offensive (a Black woman taken out of the 1970s, who has personally experienced racism toward her, is taken to a foreign world, an alternate reality, where she basically is led by an old white man (modeled after Clint Eastwood) and naturally she feels a certain type of way about that) they decided they were going to change it up. Make her white, and him Black. Hence casting Idris Elba as a guy based on Clint Eastwood. Then they dropped her character entirely. I will argue that Elba made a hell of a Gunslinger, but the reason they cast him was because they wanted to turn the whole racism plot on its head. For no good reason. It was fine in the books (this would be The Drawing of the Three, and The Waste Lands, the second and third books).

But for all that, it was an entertaining action flick with a bunch of Stephen King references. I quite like it. As a reader of the books and a fan of Stephen King, I shouldn’t, but the movie itself was good.

Honestly that the movie exists at all is the worst change, though.

IANAP but it seems like it would be trivial for a client app to do. Look at the combined vote weight (e.g. -8 + 4 = -4) and if it’s below user inputted threshold, don’t display it.

That said, Lemmy isn’t Reddit. When I see a post with a negative score, I can sometimes see why it’s not popular, but it’s seldom straight up garbage, and I can still vote accordingly. Never used the feature on Reddit because I’ve been brigaded by entire communities for acknowledging that their favorite show’s latest season exists (it’s not Game of Thrones, but similar energy), and I don’t think people should have the right to censor others; I believe each person should have the right to choose what they see.

There isn’t a phone. They’re just photoshopping other phones into photoshops of gold cases.

There isn’t a phone. All there is, is a grift.

So it gets blocked in the UK, or the UK just continues to impose penalties on it that they can never collect? Article isn’t clear what noncompliance means.

The people running 4chan should probably not plan any trips to London any time soon, though. I don’t know if they can be arrested, but I wouldn’t want to find out.

Delivery isn’t worth it a lot of the time. Even eating out costs too much. I can cook, so I’d rather just do it myself. If restaurants start to fold, I will have no sympathy. They priced out the working man, and if the rich man doesn’t support them, well, they gotta lay in the bed they made.

Making a burger was easy before. Air fryers mean anyone can make a burger that beats any fast food place and most sit down restaurants. What separates a burger made by a pro chef from mine is, the pro chef uses better meat, that is freshly sourced and ground that day. They also mix two or more kinds and grind them together. They use American cheese and pickles for chemistry reasons and they’re good enough for most people. I use pepper jack because it’s higher quality and tastes better.

I’m working on my taco game. Tacos are so hard to get right, but when you do, when you get on par with local Mexican places with Mexicans cooking it, it’s so rewarding. (Getting over Taco Bell is child’s play.) I will not say I’ve done better than authentic. I’ve gotten close to their level though. A local taqueria is hard to beat!

Pasta is too easy. There are a couple tips. Learn al dente and stop cooking pasta just before that stage. Drain but leave a little of the starchy water. With pasta sauce, check the ingredients for sugar! If they’ve included it, fine. If not, add some! So tomatoes are super acidic. They will upset your stomach. Sugar counters that. I also add crushed red pepper, cayenne powder, Abe either Texas Pete or Tabasco — basically a red hot sauce. Frank’s is another one. So basically I make something called arrabiata — that’s Italian for angry pasta. Not too hot but a bit of a kick. With meatballs and penne pasta.

Pretty sure we watched The Outsiders in school. Good movie. Great book.

As someone who’s only used Telegram to chat with real people, this headline confuses me. I keep hearing about Telegram channels but all I find are scams.

It’s going to be plagiarism so yes, it is.

I’ve asked Copilot at work for word help. I’ll ask out something like, what’s a good word that sounds more professional than some other word? And it’ll give me a few choices and I’ll pick one. But that’s about it.

They’re useful, but I won’t let them do my work for me, or give them anything they can use (we have a corporate policy against that, and yet IT leaves Copilot installed/doesn’t switch to something like Linux).

Not an online gamer, but I heard a similar sentiment from a boss about 20 years ago. He told me “if you make a mistake one time, I got your back, but we’ll speak in private and I’ll counsel you. Make the mistake again, I’ll let my pen do the talking. Make it a third time, you’re off the team.”

It escalates quickly, but his management style helped us learn from the mistakes. Sometimes the second time happened. But everyone was willing to go to war with this guy. I mean, proverbially. This was also a guy who would bring his grill to work and cook for everyone one weekend a month. Companies that say you’re family, big red flag. A boss who walks the walk as well as talks the talk? Huge green flag.

So, I don’t like AI/generative AI. But I’m thinking, if I’m an independent filmmaker shooting something on a green screen because I can’t afford to make big sets, what’s the harm in making them with AI?

The biggest issue I see here is it’s trained on data from other creatives who aren’t being compensated. But if I ask for space and it uses public NASA data, what’s the harm? If I ask for a cityscape and it uses public domain photographs, what’s the harm?

I’m thinking another issue is “but you’re putting people out of work who would build you the set.” Problem is, the work was never there because the budget was never there.

The smaller issue is “but it’s not real,” but then again, most movies are fiction anyway. “Space may be the Final Frontier but it’s filmed in a Hollywood basement” like the Red Hot Chili Peppers said. Or like in Galaxy Quest when the captain asks the fans how to get to the engine room. He says they just went from one set to the hallway sets to the engine set. There was never any canon directions on how to actually get there, but the fans worked it out.

Now again, this is speaking for the hypothetical of an independent filmmaker (which I’m not), not Netflix (which I’m also not).

Being that I’m the husband who has drunkenly tried the dancing games, I would say my wife is finding the Rockband exhibit. So we don’t really go to arcades. We do sometimes stumble into the game room at conventions. And someone always has a modded Xbox 360 and Rockband 3 set up with all the anime songs on it. And you can generally just step up and play. When a lot of people want to play, there’s a queue and a system for doing it, but most times we go, you kinda just glance toward the person singing or drumming or whatever you want to do, and they pass off to you when they’re done with that song, or ask if it’s cool if they do one more, maybe that’s their pick they waited for or something. Anyway, I suck at arcade games, so I’m grabbing the Rockband mic. No one wants to sing in public, especially if it’s in Japanese and we don’t know it. The lyrics are described in romaji (e.g. “arigatou gozaimasu” for ありがとうございました which is to say “thank you very much” and is pronounced something like “ah-dee-gah-tow go-z-eye-moss”). As someone who can pronounce maybe 10-20% of romaji correctly and can kinda wing the rest… it’s fun. Plus we turn the mics down and the vocal track up, so if you mess up, you don’t ruin the song for the onlookers (you can do the opposite and only hear the vocalist, for example).

As a guy who wears glasses, heightened vision would be awesome.

Super hearing would be great, too. I’d love to be able to hear all the nuances of music and be able to hear it without turning it up.

Okay, I definitely agree with you on the player being the only romance option for NPCs… for the most part. Looking at it, I do see plenty of existing romances in Skyrim, Fallout 4, and Cyberpunk 2077 — the examples I gave — and I think they’re mostly straight. In Cyberpunk, Judy Alvarez, an established lesbian character who will only romance you if you’re female, has a female ex who is a main character. You meet her before you meet Judy. She’s the one who gets you the heist gig, sort of. The one who hires Dex, who hires you and Jackie. It may not be obvious at first, but if you follow Judy’s story, even as a male character, it will be obvious. And Fallout 4 had a romance with two robots, but that’s mainly played for laughs and most people will never see it. (You have to go to the school in Diamond City and speak with the female robot, who will ask you about love. Give the most heartfelt answer and, the next night, you will see her wed a male robot outside the all-faith chapel, if you’re there for it — you could be elsewhere and you will miss it.) But that’s a robot relationship, and it’s hetero.

I do want to say one or two of them had a couple gay/lesbian romances.

Going a bit off-topic, Animal Crossing — largely considered a kids’ game — actually has a bunch of stuff just beneath the surface that most people will overlook. Flick, the bug collector, is considered by many fans to be FTM trans. He identifies as male but appears to be AFAB. There’s a peacock who identifies as female — peacocks are specifically the male of the peafowl species. Peahens are the females, and they don’t have the big feathery thing. So that’s a female character who was AMAB. Plenty of other characters rock the trans flag as well. Kids would never notice this, and being a Japanese game, they have to be very careful as that country is super conservative. (There’s actually a pretty deep rabbit hole on that game’s lore. Some characters hint toward the game being a game, breaking the fourth wall. There are also hints the game takes place in a post-apocalyptic world and you’re the last human.)

I’m with you though, in that I would like to see more same-sex relationships and LGBTQ+ representation in my games.

Good point. I think the Luncheon Plate Meal is the one with the sandwich? That does appear to have cold cuts.

But sushi, roasted fish, and clam chowder are seafood and are considered by some vegans/vegetarians to be okay for whatever reason. I’m not one or the other — I eat meat, and possibly more than most. I’m good with veggies, but I pretty much main protein and avoid carbs and sugar. It’s a struggle. Anyway, what I meant was that they don’t typically have food made from the kinds of animals that would be your villagers. Oddly there are octopus villagers, so seafood becomes somewhat unethical if you have any.

Also, glad to see some fellow AC fans on Lemmy. Just need to find a good community.

Might be niche, but I was reading the manga for The Promised Neverland and said they should get Erica Mendez for the voice of Emma based on her performance as Konno Yuuki from Sword Art Online II. Lo and behold they cast her!

Also when Fallout 3 or maybe New Vegas was the newest Fallout, I said they should add a settlement system. I said after the main story the existing settlements should face ongoing assault from raiders, ghouls, and other enemies and you should be able to shore up the walls, add turrets, hire more guards, and outfit them with better weapons and armor. A lot of people said that would be too complicated. Then Fallout 4 came out and they did just that.

I had just gotten banned from Reddit for saying people who hurt kids should face stiffer penalties legally. (They said I was threatening violence.) So freedom of speech was importance when choosing an instance.

The one I chose — I think you can see it by my name? — is a little anarchic, but seems to be a good fit? Still working that out. I don’t really feel I need more freedom of speech online than the average person, but it’s nice to have just the same.

About a 5. It’s close to 50/50. I don’t like talking to people who steal energy. Maybe you know what I mean. I have no problem striking up a conversation with a stranger and maintaining it if it’s interesting. I sometimes have a problem dipping out when it stops bringing me joy.

So outside of visual novels, are there good queer games where you get hit on first? I’m in if the story is good and the gameplay is engaging. I am straight but not narrow, and games are fictional.

By making the player make the first move, they empower the player to choose.

Just watched it for the first time last weekend. As someone who liked the Tim Burton Batman movies and Batman Forever, but not the Dark Knight trilogy (normally like Nolan though)… I liked it! Thought it would be too long, and maybe it should have been two movies. I also thought the constantly dark doom was probably hiding some lazy set and costume design, but I’ll take crappy practical effects over slick generative AI, and it ended up not bothering me. Just had to draw the curtains and turn out all the lights.

Can’t get into them for the most part. Two exceptions: Strategic Conquest for the Macintosh in the 80s (long since abandoned) and Warcraft 2. Both fun without being too complicated.

Wondering if any modern strategy fans remember Strategic Conquest. Game didn’t get nearly enough love.