CatBus

Selamat Pagi! PM’s sent. There were English differences between 9.3 and 10.0, but they were minor.

SilverWook said:

I’m old enough to recall when the NYC crime rate was a running gag on SNL.

Those jokes are dated in a number of ways. I remember when Chevy Chase reported that New York City had changed its emergency number from 9-1-1 to 1-1-1 because of all the people who died while waiting for the 9 to come back around. These kids today don’t even know what that means anymore.

yhwx said:

In other news, Democrats now have an almost 13-point lead of Republicans in generic ballot polls. Even if you were the most negative Nelson, you’d have to agree that if these poll numbers hold, Dems have a clear shot at the House, and maybe, the Senate.

Sgt. Nelson reporting for duty, sir.

We may get a replay of this race in Mississippi, FWIW. There’s another racist blowhard who already hasn’t conceded losses in the past (coincidentally making claims identical to Moore’s that high black voter turnout is a sure sign of fraud) named Chris McDaniel, getting a lot of support from national fascist groups to run for the Senate in 2018, against the incumbent Republican Roger Wicker, who’s just your mainstream run-of-the-mill hard-right racist who knows how to keep his mouth shut about it when the cameras are rolling.

Differences from the Alabama race–

Pro-Wicker:
Wicker’s got a long enough history of speaking at CCC (read: modern Klan) events that McDaniel may not be able to peel away enough of the racist votes. The Alabama election results will likely push fence-sitters toward Wicker.

Pro-McDaniel:
There is no evidence McDaniel sexually assaulted any minors. The Alabama election may push conspiracy nuts to double down on the crazy, and there does not appear to be any end to the crazy.

Pro-Republican:
Mississippi is a deep red state that’s simply not competitive for statewide offices. Trump carried the state with an 18 point margin. The Democrats haven’t yet fielded a credible candidate.

Pro-Democrat:
Trump won Mississippi by a smaller margin than Alabama, so they “only” need to gain 9-10 points, rather than 14 like they successfully did in Alabama. Mississippi has a larger black population than Alabama, so if black voters mobilize on a similar scale, it could make for a larger swing. Regular election year turnout should be higher than special elections, which tends to favor Democrats a little, although it’s still not likely to match Presidential election year turnout. If the Democrats manage to field a good candidate, there is plenty of material that could be used in a campaign to paint whichever Republican as deeply racist – but whether or not that would actually work to make the Republican more appealing to Mississippi voters is a legitimate question.

My take – Wicker’s already so racist, the Trumpites won’t see any reason to turn on him. He’ll win the primary, then the general, but he’ll win the general by less than 18 points over some placeholder Democrat if that’s any consolation.

I issue you a super-mighty preemptive welcome.

No welcome, no welcome… you’re welcome!

Jeebus said:

Going by the popular vote isn’t going to fix the underlying problems with the first-past-the-post system.

No, but the electoral college is a problem that can be fixed without a constitutional amendment. Other problems are more due to the fact that we don’t have a parliamentary system, which would allow for things we don’t currently have, like third-party relevance.

PM sent, and please let me know if you spot any problems with Romanian. You may be my first customer for those, and those were based on OCR scans of the official Blu-ray subs with rampant typos, so there’s a good chance some improvements could be made.

Ah, just the once actually. That part hadn’t had a chance to … er, stick with me, apparently.

SilverWook said:

If you were, you’d have a Wookiee chasing after you waving one of your arms around. Don’t worry about it. : )

Still less nightmarish than whatever your avatar is right now 😉

towne32 said:

Took a look at Ebay to see how bad the Despecialized selling is at the moment, and was quite surprised. Only one item (an AVCHD with the nfo shamelessly copied from the forum. You’re famous, Catbus!) https://www.ebay.com/itm/star-wars-despecialized-edition-Trilogy/122871793458 (feel free to report)

I just saw this. Yay?

But seriously, this is always going to be an uphill battle. There’s a product out there that quite a lot of people want, and no legal means of buying it. As long as that disconnect exists, people will be selling fan projects. And buying them – I myself paid pretty good money for TR47 discs some decades ago, back before I knew better (based on a review on this site, actually, how quaint). In the dark times, before Cowclops 😉

nhoj3 said:

Lol… thanks to most for understanding what I meant. I’ve not even brought my 4-year old to a theatre yet and won’t until he’s proven he can sit still without talking at all throughout.

Watch out, it doesn’t necessarily go away with age. Mother-in-law. Just saying.

nhoj3 said:

With all due respect, no I don’t think it’s selfish. There are many franchises that have gone back to the well too often, to the detriment of the overall experience. I feel the same way about everything after Aliens, Terminator 2, Highlander, Predator, The Matrix, Robocop, Ghostbusters, etc.

Obligatory XKCD reference.

I applaud Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale for not caving into calls for any reboots, remakes, or sequels of “Back to the Future” while they’re alive.

Not sure if serious or making unusually selective XKCD-style memory edit.

PM sent. I’d love corrections for Korean (or any other language) if anyone has any to suggest.

PM sent.

notoryous: PM sent.

bromeo: Not yet. I’m redoing a lot of appearance-related things and posting mockups and soliciting feedback, but none of that will be available until 10.1. The screenshots in the first post are always pretty up-to-date with the currently available version.

EDIT: There are two things that would probably trigger a release of 10.1 – the impending release of Despecialized Empire 2.5, and a complete new set of Arabic translations (we’re currently two out of three on that score, so it’s coming). Also, if I start to just get embarrassed about the current state of the project, which isn’t that likely right now, but the chances increase every time I see a screenshot with the current Arial font.

PM sent.

I dunno. I always thought that had Dan White murdered only Mayor Moscone, he’d have gotten the death penalty. But since he also murdered Milk, he got seven, reduced to five. Sometimes an extra murder makes the law more lenient than it would be for just the one.

SilverWook said:

https://thinkprogress.org/new-pro-trump-ad-features-little-girl-thanking-trump-for-letting-us-say-merry-christmas-again-11131bee0a79/
They’re spending One Million dollars on this ad campaign. Maybe they could have donated to a charity or something? And here I was feeling guilty for buying myself a Christmas present!
I’m sure the little girl was coached. Say the line, and we’ll give you a puppy! 😛

The cult of imaginary victimhood got him elected. He may as well run a “President Clinton’s ATF thugs are going to lock all white people in FEMA trailers and make them inhale chemtrails until they become gay” ad, but I guess this is more seasonally appropriate.

FWIW, I took a look through many fonts that are naturally narrower than Arial in an attempt to address Bluto’s concerns about Noto Sans SemiCondensed. I was very sorely tempted by Myriad Pro, which at the same height and weight was only slightly wider than Noto SemiCondensed and was a stylistic close match as well, but at least for now I’ve decided to stick with Noto Sans. Also, I learned some stuff. At least for Noto, Condensed is 20% narrower than Regular, SemiCondensed is 10% narrower.

So if this whole thing blows up on me, Myriad Pro may be my Plan B. But that plan looks a lot like an iPod commercial 😉

And here’s a good example of why courts are so critical to a functional democracy:

The DOJ recently charged peaceful protesters with rioting and destruction of property, because other people at the same protest rioted and destroyed property. The first six defendants have been found not guilty on all charges. Because even the prosecution stated they didn’t actually do any of the things they’re being charged with. But they were protesting Trump, so were charged anyway.

We’re not Poland yet.

ChainsawAsh said:

Jedi Master Skywalker said:

Just release all films sepperatly on each of their 40th anniversary

A little late for that…

Yeah, but I’ve got dibs on all speculation regarding the 50th anniversary. 60th is still available though.

yhwx said:

I don’t buy the assumption that Virginia is “bluer than California.”

Depends what you mean by blue. California Republicans have won statewide offices and have recently run a legislative body with clear popular mandates. Virginia Republicans have been losing handily for a while now, with the gerrymander covering up for their unpopularity. At the national level, you’re right – California is bluer. But at the statewide level, I think California is still pretty purplish. Probably because your so-called “sane” Republicans like Schwarzenegger still hold some leverage in California, if not nationally, and your California Democrats like Gray Davis could easily be confused with a Republican elsewhere in the country.

IMO, the odds of Mueller making it through January are hovering around 20 to 1 against. The odds of Congress not doing anything meaningful to stop it are dead certain. How good’s the Schneiderman backup plan? I suspect we’ll find out soon.

In related news, we’re seeing that even though the pawns Putin’s put into place in Poland and Hungary are clownish idiots, the overall plan is working. The EU waited too long to sanction either nation for undermining basic democratic institutions, and neither can be stripped of EU voting privileges without unanimous agreement among all other nations. Which means by turning two members initially, Putin can take his time in slowly spreading fascism throughout the rest of Europe and adding to his growing stable of new vassal states.

PM sent.