CatBus

Jetrell Fo said:

Also, as far as I know, there isn’t a single reporter assigned to the press briefings that is a registered Republican.

I don’t know of any who are registered Democrats (and would it even matter if the news organization they represent is as conservative as most are?). But you know that white-supremacist-lite conspiracy theorist with the pedophile fixation you were quoting earlier? Yeah, that guy. He’s got a press pass now. Think he’s not a Republican? Although I do throw up a little when I try to call him a reporter.

SilverWook said:

CatBus said:

SilverWook said:

None of us ever imagined as kids that we would have to resort to “alternative methods” to keep these historic versions from fading away to memory, before nobody remembers them at all.

My take? Scratch this. To a media PHB, it’s a threat. And illegal. And piracy. And a war crime. And the end of civilization as we know it.

Understood. I kept it vague, but they have to be at least aware of such things. 😉 The idea is not to threaten, but underscore the passion for a film we cannot easily obtain.

Still not nearly subtle enough IMO.

Now, I’ll admit I don’t think this thing has a snowball’s chance. But the path it’d have to follow is to somehow end up with someone who has some influence and hasn’t made up their mind yet, via some fluke. The newly-promoted mid-level executive who might not even know that the movies they’re selling are not remotely the same as the movies the fans love.

You want to cue curiosity, maybe research into projected sales. You do not want to cue a call to the legal department (remember, this is the new PHB, so the same lack of institutional bias we’re counting on for making the pitch will also mean they won’t know about the restraint Lucasfilm has shown in this regard). Especially since the letter points right back here 😉

Jetrell Fo said:

Trump has a better chance at getting re-elected than you seem to give him credit for.

For once I agree with Fo, in conclusion if not in how I got there. It should come as no surprise to anyone that when polled on issues rather than candidates, “Democratic issues” win by enormous margins. Part of the problem is clearly messaging.

When Democrats run on their policies, they win. What was missing this last cycle? Well, the top media topics were: Benghazi, Emailghazi, Sneezeghazi, pussy grabbing, and penis size. Whether true/important or not, these were character issues and not policy stories. Was Clinton’s character fatally flawed? Maybe, but the Trump team is also very, very good at waving shiny things in front of the media–even if it doesn’t reflect well on them–to prevent people from talking about policy issues. Does it matter that nobody knew where Trump stood on any issues? Not as long as they kept people from knowing where Clinton stood.

And as Lee Atwater said, when Republicans run on race, they win. America hasn’t seen a campaign as racially charged as Trump’s since George Wallace, and it’s unlikely he’s going to change the strategy that put him in the White House.

Democrats seem hell-bent on pursuing policies that appeal to the most people. Trump seems hell-bent on ignoring what appeals to the most people and simply appealing to the right people (the disproportionately influential white/rural working class). Where does that leave us? With a Democratic Party that’s successfully outpolled their opposition in 6 of the last 7 Presidential elections, and is simultaneously wondering how they can change to become relevant in national politics again.

The wild card is that the Trump team loves to play the victim card, and it worked well when he wasn’t an incumbent. When you control all three branches of federal government and the vast majority of state governments, it’s tough to convince people the mean system is rigged against you. Not that he’s not trying, what with Obama’s microwave spying on him and all. I just can’t see them changing tack on this one either, and it could lead to people seeing him as a paranoid nut, which might work against him. Or not.

SilverWook said:

None of us ever imagined as kids that we would have to resort to “alternative methods” to keep these historic versions from fading away to memory, before nobody remembers them at all.

My take? Scratch this. To a media PHB, it’s a threat. And illegal. And piracy. And a war crime. And the end of civilization as we know it.

Maybe just say: None of us imagined twenty years ago that we’d still be watching Star Wars on the exact same VHS tapes, while other films easily leapfrogged past that home video quality many times over.

We live in a era where even a “bad” movie is loved enough to get a meticulous restoration, and can be easily purchased.

Again, when dealing with a media PHB, a bad movie is one that didn’t make enough money to justify a home video release. Direct-to-video movies are all good movies, QED.

Maybe focus on something along the lines of Star Wars in 1977 being a revolutionary and groundbreaking A/V experience in 1977–and yet in 2017, it’s easily outshone by the very films it once stood apart from, because those other films have gotten meticulous restorations, released on modern home video formats, and can be easily purchased.

We have nothing against the Special Editions. They simply aren’t the versions we grew up with and loved.

Meh. I suppose you can say this, as long as there are at least two of us who believe it to qualify for the use of “we”.

I agree with Puggo to the degree that booting a few million people off health insurance won’t hurt Trump’s re-election chances. However, it could play badly in certain legislative districts, and even flip some state governments (Florida, for example).

What’s interesting to me is that many of the arguments about the ACA (“why should I pay for someone else’s healthcare?”) are actually arguments against the concept of insurance in general and not specific to the ACA or even health insurance. It goes back to John Birch or even further back, when people railed against insurance companies, not only because they’re rich (which they are), but because insurance is an inherently collectivist concept. And worse, it’s an example of a collectivist concept that appears to be the only reasonable solution to a common market problem. And that is a real problem for Birchers/Tea Partiers, etc.

Lack of any insurance whatsoever–health, life, auto, etc–would actually be seen as a real success by this group, a triumph of “freedom” over collectivism. Never underestimate the power of ideology–some people will march right over a cliff if they think freedom’s on the other side, and they’ll keep believing it all the way down.

I’m not sure it will actually help Trump though. I think he’s currently assured to get about 45% of the vote in 2020, and I’m not sure this changes that. The only question is who the other 55% vote for, and where they live.

Jetrell Fo said:

CatBus said:

Jetrell Fo said:

CatBus said:

Seems typical legit.

You couldn’t find your own shtick?

😉

If you don’t like unoriginal schtick, don’t post unoriginal conspiracy theories.

There’s a Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy theory?

Several, actually. The one you posted, which was that this was tied back to the Clintons is the one I was talking about. There’s also one that ties it back to Trump. New York’s millionaire social scene is smaller than you’d think, and you can invent all kinds of crazy connections, as it appears Mike is rather used to doing.

Jetrell Fo said:

CatBus said:

Seems typical legit.

You couldn’t find your own shtick?

😉

If you don’t like unoriginal schtick, don’t post unoriginal conspiracy theories.

Mike O said:

I’m fucking sick of shit. “Oh, wait for the 40th anniversary, oh wait for May 4th, oh Wait for 2020.” Fuck this shit. I’m not getting any younger.

This “rumor of a pending new decent OOT release” business is almost old enough to buy its own beer. It’s not gonna quit now just because it’s been wrong every single time for a couple decades running.

Info on Mike Cernovich for those who don’t want to crawl through the sewers:

http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/12/how-mike-cernovich-is-pizzagating-his-latest-victim.html

Maybe the first thing to understand about Cernovich — in the context of this story, at least — is that he has a tendency to accuse people he dislikes, whether politicians or the subjects of his online disputes, of terrible sexual predilections. He does it really, really frequently, and is particularly obsessed with pedophiles and their enablers and cover-uppers: Cernovich believes they are absolutely everywhere, that the world is awash in pedophile conspiracies.

Numerous examples given in the story. So basically he’s a prominent white nationalist-lite conspiracy theorist with a pedophile fixation.

Seems typical legit.

In better news, Trump has appointed negative1 to head the Federal Witness Protection Program. We attempted to contact Team Vitale to see how they felt about the new leadership, but they did not answer their phone, and their listed address appeared to be a burnt-down building.

I’ll show myself out.

SilverWook said:

Jetrell Fo said:

SilverWook said:

generalfrevious said:

I’m sick of the Russian hacking conspiracy. Let’s instead focus on the real problems, like the GOP taking away people’s healthcare, or gutting environmental policy, or the executive branch trying to destroy free speech.

All equally valid concerns, but if you think they aren’t trying to pull this crap in other countries’ elections, and won’t try messing with ours again in 2020, I have some lovely Florida swampland you might be interested in.

Let’s not forget that our own Government has done the same thing to other countries trying to promote Democracy.

We’ve hacked other nation’s elections and secretly recorded blackmail videos of candidates? 😉

These things have a long shelf life. What we did to Iran in the 50’s still shapes our relationship not only with Iran, but the whole Middle East. And what we did wasn’t really that much less sophisticated than propaganda and pee tapes, although it clearly wasn’t identical. Same thing for any of the countries where we’ve done something similar. The fact that we can be on good behavior for a few years really doesn’t change that. They don’t see it as something Eisenhower did to them and he’s long gone–they see it as something the US did to them, and the US is still very much around to blame for the fallout. And yes, there is quite a lot of fallout still around today from a 60-year-old coup.

I imagine the relationship between NATO countries and Russia is now changed in a similar fashion. We’ll be dealing with Trump fallout long after Putin’s dead and buried.

EDIT: I guess I should clarify that it’s not like NATO and Russia got along great before. However, now within the domestic politics of NATO countries, people can now blame domestic issues on Russia with some credibility. That’s basically how Cuba worked for decades–Stuff is bad? Blame the US embargo. Which wasn’t a complete and nuanced answer, but it was true enough to work. Now NATO countries will likely do this with Russia. No health care? Blame Russia (not me, the poor hoodwinked Senator who voted for it, blame Russia!). The fact that there’s truth behind it doesn’t mean it’s a good development.

Anyone know what sort of delay is on the AHCA that passed the House today (I know nobody’s read the whole thing–just that part)? I’m assuming the tax cuts for the wealthy would be more-or-less immediate, but they hold off on the insurance cuts until after the 2018 midterms. I could see the delay getting stretched past 2020 though, so there’d be not as much of a visible downside until after the next round of redistricting.

DominicCobb said:

You shouldn’t feel like you have to date a girl to prove you’re not gay. But you also shouldn’t feel like you can’t date a girl because you also like guys. Point being, don’t worry about gay, straight, don’t worry about how people perceive you, focus on your feelings - do you like the girl and would you want to be in a relationship with her? A simple question, and your answer (and only yours) will tell you everything you need to know.

A much better and less hard-ass answer than mine, thanks. Frankly coffee’s probably got a lot of feelings going on right now so sorting them out isn’t going to be exactly easy.

But think to yourself: what are the things you like most about this development? That she likes you? That she makes the thought of Thanksgiving with the parents and significant other a whole lot less complicated? That the long distance takes some of the physical pressure off? These are “hmm” answers.

Or is it that you like her? This is a “yay” answer. Unfortunately you may have a mix that changes with your mood. That’s normal. Welcome to hormone city–population you.

DuracellEnergizer said:

I seriously love that painting. 😃

I tried not to, but it’s impossible.

SilverWook said:

nickyd47 said:

MisterRey said:

Fang Zei said:

Lets at least wait until 9:41 PM EST 😉

https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2006-05-03-star-wars_x.htm

And then until May 25 😃

Nah, let’s freeze ourselves till 2077

And then we have to battle a bunch of evolved otters for the last surviving copy of the OOT? 😉

Thank you SilverWook for making this image topical!

suspiciouscoffee said:

If you go back several pages you can find a post about me meeting a really nice girl at a camp I went to. It’s long and I don’t feel like quoting it. Anyway, we’ve been texting each other for a few weeks now and a couple nights ago she admitted that she really likes me. It shook me up a bit… a lot. We live about two hours apart, but she seems interested in a long distance relationship, but do those ever work out? Are those “real?” This is all very new to me.

Okay, end of childish nonsense post.

Long distance relationships can work, and well. They can also fail spectacularly. In other words, they’re a lot like close-distance relationships, except totally different 😉

However, something in the back of my mind is urging me to admonish you, “You better check yourself before you wreck yourself.” Lots of gay men find girlfriends, get married, raise families, and then… well, I’m just saying. Be a little surer of yourself than you sounded a few pages back, cause “avoiding the issue” isn’t really an option–it’s more like “delaying the issue and increasing the stakes”.

DuracellEnergizer said:

He’s just a little grabby! He’s still good, he’s still good!

Did you intend for us to read that in Jarvanka voice? Because I totally did.

Same thing with the crowd size and popular vote obsessions. It’s not the crowd size or vote totals per se that matter, it’s the fact that Presidents that engage in loud, heated months-long feuds with reality end up with credibility problems. The fact that a shocking proportion of a Republican primary debate was devoted to disputing the reputed size of Trump’s penis was not an outlier. This is the current state of politics–and now we have added “wiretapp” to our lexicon to describe such divorced-from-fact disputes, and a healthy and growing stable of websites devoted to keeping those disputes alive and inventing new ones.

Jetrell Fo said:

The Ocean-Filled Earth Gang never quits.

Technically it’s not an ocean, but science doesn’t quit, it just slows down when you cut its funding.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25723-massive-ocean-discovered-towards-earths-core/

The Round-Earth Posse rides again.

Jetrell Fo said:

http://www.wnd.com/2017/04/did-extortion-17-cover-up-sink-rep-chaffetz/

http://circa.com/politics/retired-air-force-captain-says-attack-on-extortion-17-could-have-been-prevented

Something I read today. My heart sank thinking this is actually true.

wnd.com: It’s safe to say it’s not.

Mike O said:

CatBus said:

You’ll probably get more detailed and correct info here:

http://originaltrilogy.com/discussion/How-Tos-and-Technical-Discussions/id/12

But the basics are: TSMuxerGUI can create a BD-compliant file structure from an MKV, and ImgBurn can make a BD-compliant disc from a file structure. How much more complexity you want to add on top of that is up to you. TSMuxerGUI creates an auto-playing menuless BD that repeats when done. I like that (except the repeating part, which is fixable), but if you like menus then you have a lot more work ahead of you.

As for disc art, my only suggestion is for God’s sake do not use those printable adhesive labels. Use real printable discs or a sharpie. Those adhesive labels can lose their adhesion in a warm environment (such as inside a piece of electronics), and then gum up the inside of said electronics. Not super likely, but way more likely than having the man come down on your for downloading a fan edit 😉

What about case art? This sounds more complicated than I thought. Maybe I should just skip the menu.

I think skipping the menu saves a lot of work, and you don’t honestly lose that much in the process. Again, this is better suited to the technical HOWTO section, but case art can be tricky because much of the default image printing programs (the Windows image viewer) don’t pay any attention to the size the image is supposed to be, and size is really important for case art. There should be free software out there to do it, or Photoshop if you happen to have that lying around 😉

Supposedly, h_h got access to Pro DPL decoder software for the latest DeEd’s. So ROTJ 2.5 may sound better (or not).

SilverWook said:

So, zombie Andrew Jackson could have stopped the Civil War before it started?

I think it goes without saying that the Civil War would not have happened if the US had elected an unapologetic slaveowner instead of a moderate abolitionist. I don’t think that was even thought through well enough to qualify as a dog whistle.

Mike O said:

I’m still not sure if this is straight-up OCD; for it to simply manifest itself for No reason when I’m almost 30 just makes no sense to me.

This is a pretty new and still-controversial diagnosis, but have you asked about PANDAS? The “P” is for “pediatric” meaning for children, but it does describe the sudden onset of OCD where none was present before. Maybe there’s an adult equivalent? Again, fair warning, it’s a brand-spanking-new diagnosis and hasn’t even had enough time to differentiate itself from the pseudoscience-of-the-week (and it may well end up being a dead end upon further review), so you’re likely to get a raised eyebrow at the very least for even discussing this. Still, others have reported the sudden onset of OCD behaviors, regardless of the cause.

The downside of new diagnoses is that the therapies are even less proven, if they exist at all.