CatBus

dahmage said:

CatBus said:

Puggo - Jar Jar’s Yoda said:

I’m curious what festivities you are all planning for Loyalty Day? I’m looking forward to the parade, and have my notebook ready for the dear leader’s field guidance.

I am planning to peer in my neighbor’s window to confirm that they are adequately celebratory, and report them if they show signs of disloyalty. I am so glad we finally got rid of all of the Communist connotations associated with May Day.

^ Reported

Ooh, recursion! Excellent work, friend citizen.

Puggo - Jar Jar’s Yoda said:

I’m curious what festivities you are all planning for Loyalty Day? I’m looking forward to the parade, and have my notebook ready for the dear leader’s field guidance.

I am planning to peer in my neighbor’s window to confirm that they are adequately celebratory, and report them if they show signs of disloyalty. I am so glad we finally got rid of all of the Communist connotations associated with May Day.

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 😉

Mike O said:

Vile? Maybe just honest. There’s some harsh but accurate criticism out there.

To be fair, I don’t actually know this Matt Dillahunty person from a hole in the ground. But if your description of “anti-Catholic” was accurate, vile works fine for me. This is probably Religion or Politics forum stuff, but I’m atheist myself and it pisses me off to no end that Dawkins and his crowd think being technically correct gives them the right to be complete assholes to the rest of the world. It’s like they feel atheism is a Get Out of Decency Free card. But I may have been reading too much into what you were reading from this other guy.

VPN’s are just a technology to allow secure communication over insecure networks. They’re used all the time for regular corporate communications. However, in addition to protecting your data from prying eyes, they also allow you to make your Internet connections appear to come from the VPN endpoint rather than from your PC. As such, they are used to get unfettered Internet access under repressive regimes, bypass country restrictions on services like Netflix, and hide/unblock torrent activity. So the tech is legal and widely available. The usage? No idea, probably varies.

You need (usually free) VPN client software on your PC, and some (probably not free) VPN endpoint on the other side willing to accept communication from your machine. I’ve never done this for recreational purposes, so I know the technical concepts but honestly don’t know what the options are. The truly paranoid might hop over multiple VPNs to better hide their location. The even truly paranoider might wonder why those people on he other end of their VPN are being so nice about encrypting their traffic for them, and if they happen to be a front company for some three-letter agency who could just read their unencrypted data before encrypting it. The question of who exactly you’re trusting with your data in the process of hiding that data from people you don’t trust can get pretty knotty. A secure system can often be compromised intentionally or unintentionally by a poor implementation choice that would probably be invisible to a non-expert. So enjoy your sense of security, it’s probably real. But possibly not.

Also, you’ll be fine downloading Harmy’s stuff, as everyone here has said. And 720p actually pretty well captures the available detail in the official Blu-rays, so 1080p won’t be a huge step up unless there’s another source with more detail than the Blu-rays. ESB (2.0) and Jedi (2.5) are both damn near perfect already. Star Wars is… really good with a few warts (get 2.7). What are you waiting for?

TV’s Frink said:

Elizabeth Warren is a moron? First time I’ve ever heard that.

There’s a school of thought that all socialists are morons. Go to any Ayn Rand convention. But don’t drink the Kool-Aid.

Jetrell Fo said:

I never knew Elizabeth Warren was American Indian? I know she’s a moron but why give her so much credit by associating her with a well known historical figure?

Because making fun of Native Americans never gets old, and never loses votes you weren’t planning to get anyway. Besides, even your hypothetical non-racist observer won’t necessarily know that there’s a long recurring theme of “prove you’re a real Indian” in Native American history, so they won’t see this as part of a larger problem, just a one-off for Warren. Documenting your Nativeness must be as simple as a trip to the DMV, right? *sigh*

Luckily for her, Warren pretty much has a lock on Sanders supporters due to their policy similarities.

EDIT: Whoops, forgot about the HA Goodman faction. But they were never for Sanders in the first place, so they’re certain to hate Warren.

lovelikewinter said:

I was reading up on the Legacy 4K Scan and I’m wondering why Lucasfilm is so afraid of it. They let Despecialized and Silver Screen have free reign. Hundreds of copies sold on ebay. But Verta was told point blank if it gets out, they will go after him.

Mike is doing everything above board–this was an intentional strategic choice of his from the beginning, and it has aggravated a lot of people here (“The best Star Wars preservation you’ll never, ever see!”). He would not be able to get the (unspecified) help from industry professionals if he could not assure them that his preservation will be 100% within the law. As such, he’ll “release” it when the copyright holder permits him to do it, or when the copyright expires. And not a moment sooner. The “threats” are in many ways redundant – the project is built on trust, and Mike would piss off a lot of litigious people by changing his plans now, not just Disney.

Harmy operates on the “no profit, no foul, buy the Blu-rays” principle, which has so far worked. But it’s not as legally sound as Mike’s project. And Silver Screen? Jeeze, -1 has changed his name at least twice and pretended to move to Ecuador (okay, I made that last one up). He’s clearly worried. I’d say needlessly, but nevertheless, he has engaged in an incredibly long and ineffective campaign of covering his tracks.

Disney’s light touch in this respect probably has more to do with the Streisand Effect and pissing off their customers than legal opinion. They aren’t any more hard-ass on Mike than anyone else–they just have a door they can knock on in his case. In fact, he knocked on theirs.

Mike O said:

I’m deliberately going back to it. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but it’s like some sort of compulsion. I “forgot” my phone all day at work today, and when I came home, I ran to it and ran to this particularly nasty new one that bothers the most yet. Something must be wrong with me 😦. I was barely able to get out of bed this morning.

My completely uninformed take: You get a fight-or-flight (adrenaline or somesuch) rush when you encounter someone being truly vile like that. But by just reading some screed on your phone, you just get the hormonal rush without any real danger to your person. IMO it’s like watching a horror movie. You don’t actually like murder but OMG did you see that disembowelment?!? You may not actually consciously enjoy the feeling–in fact you may consciously hate it–but your body/subconscious may crave the hormonal stimulation derived from it nevertheless.

As for solutions: all I see are OCD medication and substitution. OCD medication sounds like it’s already being worked on (lots of trial and error I’m afraid), but you could try substitution. Find something else that gives you the same rush. Honestly I’d try lots of exercise first–if you can manage to get your hormonal fix via runner’s highs (or swimming or biking or whatnot), that’s way better on you emotionally and physically than these hateful screeds.

EDIT: I guess I should also mention that many people with OCD self-medicate with enormous amounts of stimulants (“A Plague of Tics” by David Sedaris comes to mind–his “cure” was chain smoking). It’s not really the recommended path, but if you just gave up coffee and/or cigarettes and now your OCD is acting up, well… That said, depending on the person caffeine and nicotine may not be strong enough stimulants, and then you have other reasons you should avoid the self-medication path (expensive/illegal/dangerous take your pick).

As for “something must be wrong with me”, I hope you can get to the point where this can be something you manage and channel, and not something you hate. Not to tie our situations too tightly together, but I did subtitle Star Wars in 38 languages, 36 of which are complete gibberish to me. It was definitely not done entirely out of the kindness of my own heart. By all reasonable measures, something must be wrong with me too. But I’ve reached a place in my life where I’m cool with that, and I hope you can reach a similar place yourself.

9% of the ACA Marketplace (~700,000 people) will lose health insurance this year if the CSR funding negligence continues much longer.

https://www.axios.com/molina-will-exit-exchanges-if-aca-payments-arent-made-2381795012.html

darth_ender said:

Bearing in mind that I voted third party and don’t regret that decision…

Are we willing to let Trump evolve?

I think the “flip-flop” criticism comes pretty much exclusively from: A) people who supported the original position and don’t like the new position, and B) people trying to goad the people in Group A. As such, “letting him evolve” doesn’t appeal to the politics of Group A, or the motives of Group B.

And then there’s the people in Group C, who see the “evolution” from Muslim Ban Campaign Promise Trump to Muslim Ban 1.0 Trump to Muslim Ban 2.0 Trump to be so insignificant that it doesn’t qualify as evolution, so the whole flip-flopper argument sounds like a joke. The fact that he seems to change positions on issues that he clearly doesn’t care about at all doesn’t indicate any sort of change in his core politics.

But in answer to the question, I would give him a chance if he did evolve–something like if he fired all of the white supremacists currently working for him (Bannon, Gorka, Miller, Anton, etc). I’d take that as a meaningful change in direction, even if he kept Confederate fetishists like Sessions around–although I’d prefer if his ilk left as well.

Dek Rollins said:

I think a big issue is that some people are so stupid that they think it’s a good idea to protest in the middle of a highway, and especially those who don’t get out of the way when a car isn’t slowing down.

If a car doesn’t slow down when there’s a person in the road, you don’t have to look further than that for the problem. Maybe the person is blind and lost. Maybe they’re trying to escape a rabid porcupine. Maybe they’re sleepwalking. And maybe they’re stupid. But you slow down, even for stupid people.

Dek Rollins said:

This is about protesters who illegally abstruct the highways, and subsequently get hit by cars because they’re being idiots. The drivers are not at fault if they hit a person who shouldn’t be out on the road like that.

There have also been cases of people ramming cars into protesters. This law means anyone who gets hit in that situation has to prove the driver intended to hit them, rather than the driver having to prove the protester was unavoidable. The switch in burden is significant.

Now, I don’t think people should hit protesters on the road, but it’s the fault of the protester that they’re out there on the road illegally.

Right of way isn’t a death penalty affair. You drive, you avoid obstacles.

Jetrell Fo said:

CatBus said:

SilverWook said:

I hope they catch holy hell for that.

Check the date on the article. There was a small media dustup about a month ago, and nothing.

Meanwhile in North Carolina, HB330 just passed the House, which protects you from civil suits if you run over protesters with your car. Veto expected, but how the crap can a majority of any collection of human beings vote for this?

I put the date in the post for a reason. I wasn’t trying to hide anything.

Was responding to SilverWook.

SilverWook said:

I hope they catch holy hell for that.

Check the date on the article. There was a small media dustup about a month ago, and nothing.

Meanwhile in North Carolina, HB330 just passed the House, which protects you from civil suits if you run over protesters with your car. Veto expected, but how the crap can a majority of any collection of human beings vote for this?

Dreamaster said:

Ouch:
http://movieweb.com/star-wars-classic-trilogy-disney-wont-alter-restore/

It was always a longshot that Lucasfilm would either turn Mike’s restoration into an official release or do their own. But Mike’s restoration still exists. Someday down the road, it may be the source for a good-quality release by an outfit specializing in public domain stuff, like Laserlight. We’ll never see it, our kids will never see it, it’s unlikely our grandkids will ever see it either–but the restoration still exists for that day.

Darth Id said:

Possessed said:

Unless I’m misunderstanding I think he’s just spoofing a huseni post?

I don’t know who that is

Suffice to say, is one of the users we cannot hear!

Someone out there was engaged in an anonymous, passive-aggressive protest that really amounted to strategic littering on a New York street. The residents subverted the protest and brought their community together around it. It’s still littering though, I guess, but at least it’s pretty now and community-approved: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/love-cross-nyc_us_58ff5447e4b0b6f6014ac24e?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

Warbler said:

CatBus said:

SilverWook said:

Handman said:

I hear they put the 1891 monument in storage, which is better than simply destroying it. I think it’s important to remember not just what we value now, but what we once valued in the past, this includes the bad. The monuments are physical evidence of this. We never valued Benedict Arnold, but we do value all the innocent lives lost in the conflict, and once valued the lives of people like General Lee, who I honestly can’t fault for fighting the Union anyway, the guy might be the worst Confederate figure to point at for dishonor and suppression.

In regards to the rest of the discussion, I’m in general agreement with Dom (I think this is the first time we’ve been on the same side of an issue in this thread).

http://www.neatorama.com/2014/01/01/Americas-Monument-to-Its-Most-Infamous-Traitor-Benedict-Arnold/

Wow, I guess we’re closer to naming a military base after the guy than I thought.

Also, from an art history POV, the Confederate statues are mostly just mass-produced statues of the same guys over and over with different plaques underneath. They could probably destroy close to 700 statues and still have the complete set available for museums.

you think they are mass-produced?

At least a large portion are. Most were made all at once in a rush of Confederate fervor (basically when Reconstruction ended and the former Confederates wanted to signal to everyone who was in charge of their states again and not to get any ideas about things like retaining voting rights–they were intended to intimidate the nonwhite population, not to be the anachronistic larger-than-life participation trophies they are today). It’s cheaper to make one cast for multiple statues than one cast per statue. As long as you have enough different statues that there aren’t duplicates within one city, nobody will know the difference. At most, the local newspaper may run stories about how a statue had a “twin” in the town down the highway, just for local color.

SilverWook said:

Handman said:

I hear they put the 1891 monument in storage, which is better than simply destroying it. I think it’s important to remember not just what we value now, but what we once valued in the past, this includes the bad. The monuments are physical evidence of this. We never valued Benedict Arnold, but we do value all the innocent lives lost in the conflict, and once valued the lives of people like General Lee, who I honestly can’t fault for fighting the Union anyway, the guy might be the worst Confederate figure to point at for dishonor and suppression.

In regards to the rest of the discussion, I’m in general agreement with Dom (I think this is the first time we’ve been on the same side of an issue in this thread).

http://www.neatorama.com/2014/01/01/Americas-Monument-to-Its-Most-Infamous-Traitor-Benedict-Arnold/

Wow, I guess we’re closer to naming a military base after the guy than I thought.

Also, from an art history POV, the Confederate statues are mostly just mass-produced statues of the same guys over and over with different plaques underneath. They could probably destroy close to 700 statues and still have the complete set available for museums.

Back to the subject of suspiciouscoffee actually reaching out and needing help…

I don’t know how much my advice is worth to you. I’m a straight old white guy, married with kids and a mortgage. And I’m atheist too. So as far a shared life experiences go, maybe not so much. But I know quite a good number of gay folk, and I’ve witnessed at least one complete nightmare trainwreck of a coming-out scenario, so maybe I have something to offer.

My advice: There’s no universally correct way to be gay. Maybe you get giddy and enjoy dancing with girls. That’s not really unheard of. Maybe you’re not a big beefy physical sports guy. That’s pretty common. But you know what? It’s also not unusual for big beefy physical sports guys to be gay too, so don’t heterofetishize that lifestyle too much. A lot of coming to terms with being gay is better described as coming to terms with being yourself. Because if you’ve got these preconceived ideas of what comes along with being gay (“but I don’t like interior design!”), you’re just going to ride the roller coaster of maybe-I-am-maybe-I’m-not a little longer. Maybe you’re gay, maybe you’re bi, maybe there’s no label for what you are. Does the label help? If not, don’t focus on that. Focus on what you think might make you happy and fulfilled. You have a better sense of that than you think.

Community is important. For a lot of people, coming out means saying goodbye to a lot of previously available folks. Church, family, friends. That’s the killer. Without a community of accepting friends, coming out is much, much harder. Find that community–and you won’t know for sure until you come out, but they’ll support you–I’m sure you have a good sense of safe spaces by now, and you should trust them. That’s kinda what we are here–the worst we can do is throw odious words at you anonymously–we’re relatively safe. But in-person safe people are needed too. Start with a new church if church is important to you. Even if you don’t buy their lefty-loosey Bible interpretations–you’re not in it for the dogma, you need the community. You’ll even have some shocking support from some quarter you’d written off. It happens. Once you’re out, the trouble doesn’t end–not by a long shot–but the anxiety, the dread, it all washes away. Slowly, but it does. You know the “It Gets Better” campaign? They’re not wrong.

DominicCobb said:

It’s not a black and white situation.

I know it’s not what you meant, but I’m requoting this bit because I can’t pass up irony.

DominicCobb said:

CatBus said:

DominicCobb said:

CatBus said:

DominicCobb said:

the north started the war

April 12, 1861, the first shots fired were not by the Union. The “War of Northern Aggression” is exactly as much of a misnomer as it seems.

Like I said, the phrase is silly, but the South didn’t come knocking on the North’s door, it was kinda closer to the other way around.

I’ve been to Fort Sumter (Charleston is really quite a beautiful city), so I understand that kerfuffle and I think I get where you’re coming from in regards to calling them “terrorists,” but I think that’s pushing it a bit. Point being, there wouldn’t be a war if the Union hadn’t decided to take back the South. Don’t take this for me saying they shouldn’t have, I just mean from the eyes of a southern soldier, they were defending themselves.

Actually I called the post-Civil War mob of cop-killers and vigilantes who got a statue honoring them terrorists. The Confederacy was what I called a white supremacist uprising (who only later turned into terrorists in the form of the Klan and the losers behind this statue).

Fair enough.

The whole point of the Ft. Sumter reference was that the Confederates started shooting at the Union long before the Union ever decided to take back the South. The North likely would have attacked the South first, if they’d had that opportunity–but the Confederates simply beat them to the punch. The Confederacy unambiguously attacked first, at Ft. Sumter.

No doubt, but even though that means they literally “started the war,” in the broader sense I think it’s fair to say the Union was responsible for the conflict. In regards to Ft. Sumter, this wasn’t the South trying to take control of northern territory. It was in SC and if the Union didn’t want a fight there, they would have left it.

It was federal property. Even granting the fairly tall order that secession was legal in the first place, South Carolina would still only have the authority over its own territory. They attacked a part of the Union that was completely surrounded by Confederate territory, but it was still Union territory. There is a difference between initiating a war and failing to surrender to an attacker.

DominicCobb said:

CatBus said:

DominicCobb said:

the north started the war

April 12, 1861, the first shots fired were not by the Union. The “War of Northern Aggression” is exactly as much of a misnomer as it seems.

Like I said, the phrase is silly, but the South didn’t come knocking on the North’s door, it was kinda closer to the other way around.

I’ve been to Fort Sumter (Charleston is really quite a beautiful city), so I understand that kerfuffle and I think I get where you’re coming from in regards to calling them “terrorists,” but I think that’s pushing it a bit. Point being, there wouldn’t be a war if the Union hadn’t decided to take back the South. Don’t take this for me saying they shouldn’t have, I just mean from the eyes of a southern soldier, they were defending themselves.

Actually I called the post-Civil War mob of cop-killers and vigilantes who got a statue honoring them terrorists. The Confederacy was what I called a white supremacist uprising (who only later turned into terrorists in the form of the Klan and the losers behind this statue).

The whole point of the Ft. Sumter reference was that the Confederates started shooting at the Union long before the Union ever decided to take back the South. The North likely would have attacked the South first, if they’d had that opportunity–but the Confederates simply beat them to the punch. The Confederacy unambiguously attacked first, at Ft. Sumter.

Warbler said:

CatBus said:

Warbler said:

CatBus said:

Warbler said:

CatBus said:

Warbler said:

Warbler said:

You can argue that the Civil War statues shouldn’t be removed, but the statue honoring a white supremacist uprising definitely had to go.

Civil War, white supremacist uprising. You say tomato…

huh?

You say tomato, I say tomahto–it’s an old song. It means that there is no significant difference between those words.

I’m not so sure you can say there is no significant difference between a white supremacist uprising and the Civil War. I think the Civil War was bit more complicated than that.

It took a lot longer to put down than most other white supremacist uprisings, certainly. Other than that, I’m not really seeing it. Certainly if those cop killers honored by the statue in question had the military capacity of the Confederacy, I’m sure they’d have had delusions of statehood as well.

I’d try to argue this with you, but I don’t think you are going to listen.

Have it your way.

http://www.livescience.com/13673-civil-war-anniversary-myths.html

I never said the Civil War wasn’t about slavery. It definitely was about slavery, but I don’t think that it was the only thing the war was about. Certainly not everyone fighting for the south was doing it to preserve slavery. Some were doing so, because they had two options 1: fight against the union, or 2: fight again their own state, against their own cities/towns. I heard it said that is why Lee was fighting for the south, he could fight against the country or fight against his home state of Virginia, he chose to fight against the country.

In that sense, not all Germans in the Nazi army were fighting for white supremacy, only to avoid fighting their own country. Ergo, the Nazi army was not a white supremacist army?

Listen, I know lots of people’s ancestors fought for the Confederacy. My ancestors fought for the Confederacy. Don’t stop tearing the statues down because of fears for injuring my delicate southern heritage. I’m hardly having a sad that my great-great-great grandwhatever is no longer being honored for being a racist ass. If you’re doing an opinion poll of what white people with Confederate heritage think about the statues, here’s a data point to include–me: good riddance.

DominicCobb said:

the north started the war

April 12, 1861, the first shots fired were not by the Union. The “War of Northern Aggression” is exactly as much of a misnomer as it seems.