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CatBus

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Join date
18-Aug-2011
Last activity
11-Jul-2025
Posts
5,971

Post History

Post
#1149528
Topic
Dealing with People Selling Fan Projects
Time

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 😉

Post
#1149331
Topic
The Last Jedi: Official Review and Opinions Thread ** SPOILERS **
Time

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.

Post
#1148185
Topic
Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)
Time

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.

Post
#1147473
Topic
Politics 2: Electric Boogaloo
Time

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.

Post
#1147014
Topic
Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)
Time

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 😉

Post
#1146861
Topic
Politics 2: Electric Boogaloo
Time

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.

Post
#1146571
Topic
Politics 2: Electric Boogaloo
Time

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.

Post
#1146477
Topic
Politics 2: Electric Boogaloo
Time

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.

Post
#1145668
Topic
Politics 2: Electric Boogaloo
Time

Whoah. A recount in the Virginia General Assembly has flipped another seat to the Democrats, making it a 50-50 split, with the Democratic Lieutenant Governor breaking ties.

This is huge for so many reasons. There’s already a legal challenge to the existing gerrymander, so the legislature is likely to be ordered by the courts to redraw district boundaries. And even if they don’t, the Supreme Court has already ruled that off-year redistricting is perfectly okay for no reason at all, as long as you don’t violate the normal rules around district lines. So I suspect Virginia will have new districts drawn before the next election, regardless of how the court case goes.

Why does this matter? Virginia is a state where Democrats easily win statewide offices, and Republicans easily dominate the Legislature (usually hovering around a veto-proof margin). Even in general assembly races, Democrats regularly outpoll Republicans there by a large and growing margin, with only the gerrymander keeping them out of power. Basically, with an unbiased map, Virginia would be “bluer” than California. And I hope the Democrats don’t just turn the tables and gerrymander themselves into safety–they’re already safe with no gerrymander.

The Republicans are likely going to have to win back their majority by actually getting more votes than Democrats. In Virginia. Good luck with that.

EDIT: Argh. R’s still control the Senate there. Nevertheless, if the court orders a redrawn map, the House can now hold out for an unbiased map, and if they don’t get it, they can happily let the courts draw the lines.

Post
#1144673
Topic
Politics 2: Electric Boogaloo
Time

TV’s Frink said:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/18/politics/trump-russia-investigation/index.html

Trump is boasting to friends and advisers that he expects Mueller to clear him of wrongdoing in the coming weeks, according to sources familiar with the conversations. The President seems so convinced of his impending exoneration that he is telling associates Mueller will soon write a letter clearing him that Trump can brandish to Washington and the world in a bid to finally emerge from the cloud of suspicion that has loomed over the first chapter of his presidency, the sources said.

Interesting theory.

Could be pre-spinning like they did for the IRS “scandal”. It goes like this: After Citizens United, the IRS came up with a fairly hokey and unprofessional way to filter the new flood of nonprofit applications that effectively targeted liberal groups slightly more than conservative groups. Congresspeople write a letter asking specifically for details about the conservative groups that were targeted. The IRS responds to this strangely specific request, and their response is used to create a media narrative that conservative groups were targeted more than liberal ones, even though the opposite was actually true. To this day, people still believe it.

So Mueller clearly suspects Trump of wrongdoing. Someone with authority to do so submits a formal request to Mueller for information that is equally specific. Such as “do you have direct evidence corroborated by three witnesses that Trump committed this particular felony?”, or “do you have any suspicion that Trump engaged in tiger poaching or driving a forklift without a valid license while in Russia?” When Mueller writes back a formal statement, that’s all the exoneration FOX needs to blanket the airwaves with it for the next six years: “Mueller exonerates Trump in Russia probe”

Also, then when he fires Mueller the next week, it’s not obstruction, because he’s not under investigation. If it convinces enough Congresspeople to keep sitting on their hands doing nothing, it doesn’t matter if it’s implausible.

Post
#1143858
Topic
Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released)
Time

FWIW, I’ve always treated DeEd as “what a respectful Blu-ray transfer would have looked like”, and the various film transfers as “what it actually looked like in theatres” – although obviously a just-struck print would look much cleaner than the prints we’ve been able to find and use. For whatever reason, I still prefer DeEd in the end.

Post
#1142583
Topic
Politics 2: Electric Boogaloo
Time

TV’s Frink said:

Marco Rubio found a bit of backbone? Whaaaaaa?

Is the Republican party finally starting to wake up?

Hahahahahaha. Sorry.

I think they’re seeing that the press gives them a lot more favorable coverage for their announcement of a principled stand than critical coverage for their abandonment of those principles a week later. The McCain doctrine.

Post
#1142399
Topic
Project Threepio (Star Wars OOT subtitles)
Time

Just nailed down the final options affecting appearance – I just thinned the black border around the letters, which was designed more for DVD’s/showing up on an SD CRT. New border will be thinner by default, but will be thickened on DVD downscales. Some of the previous mockups are down, but you can see the old thick black border pretty well on the shot of Vader from ESB with Spanish subs.