wolfshadowheart

I think there's a wide spread. I'd say that there's westerns like Brokeback Mountain and Dances With Wolves, where the suspense is more from the dire circumstances and grit that they have to work through in order to survive -- few times are their lives gravely endangered. Similarly, there's the Clint Eastwood westerns where you don't really expect anything to be happening to that main character, yet they're still well received. The "True Grit" style Western -- someone to protect while you rough it through the hard life.

And then there's the westerns you're talking about, The Good The Bad and The Ugly, nearly Magnificent Seven style western where the characters present an archetype and have a fatal flaw that leads to their downfall.

The Mandalorian is more like a Western of the Week TV show where you have the drama of the grit, an undercurrent of hope that's played off the main characters hardships.

Idk. Din being invincible in the show is seemingly irrelevant to me, and not even supported in the content of the show. The first two seasons definitely have space Western episodes though, even if they might not be the more typical main character on the verge of death style ones.

Eh. I think characters dying as the only stakes is weak writing anyway. If I were using that as a judgement, all of Star Wars is terrible, especially the Clone Wars. Obviously, that's not the case. Besides, clearly the armor rating is meaningless given the events of the S2 finale -- clearly the armor isn't protecting him from impacts what with his head injury.

We if look to Ming Na Wen's character I'd even argue that being hit by blasters in New Star Wars is just an opportunity to visit the medic anyway, so Din wearing beskar doesn't really remove any of the suspense for me.

Maybe he was worried that Luke would go down the same path his father would, so he kept things vague. That was always my take on Old Ben -- he wasn't really guiding Luke to do anything, it was the Force. "Luke, your father was actually a dangerous madman who slew younglings. In fact, is the right hand man, that academy you were joining? It's Space Fascism, so definitely don't go and join it to be with your father." lol

On the topic of the other two -- Personally, I liked Kenobi. It has some sillier bits, but nothing IMO that isn't easily explained (as an example, there's a scene where young Leia is chased by mercenaries and she kinda dunks on them. People hate it. I think it was a clear example of her Force Sensitivity, so I don't mind it at all.) Its main shortcoming for me was the villains could have been better and Reva was a bit predictable. I didn't think she was as bad as the Internet did.

Ahsoka... I wanted to like. It had a lot of potential, most of my issues were that it seemed like they were filming a video game, but since we're not playing Ahsoka we end up just watching her interact with things we have no meaning for. Other than that, it was decent save for what they did to Sabine, which was just a disgrace to her character. Sabine was disappointing, over and over again. Overall, I think it has been my least favorite of the Star Wars shows as it has had the most visible quirks and awkward shots.

As a continuation of that story it's pretty decent and I'm excited for S2. But as a continuation of that story, the characters were not as strong as I felt they could have been. Time passed and people change, that's fine. This wasn't quite that though.

The mystery is part of the character. He also gets plenty of plot, it's just not shoved in our faces from the get go. The Mandalorian is one of the best space westerns we've gotten in a long time.

At this point digitally downloading things needs to just stop being called piracy and start being called digital archival. WiFi went down, luckily I have my digital archive.

All the people who made the content already got paid for their hours in large media. If you're pirating from a studio that is 1 to 10 people you probably know that and probably know it's lame. The money we're paying to view/listen is literally just the corporation trying to "make money back", even though the CEO and execs are probably a few tonnes richer than the rest of us, and the regular working class is getting paid hourly.

We've really got to be moving away from restricting knowledge, honestly even the idea of a $/hr type thing. Imaging being charged 15c every time you heard 40 seconds of a song or TV show. I like the idea of artists being paid royalties but our current system is such a scam with us, the core creator, getting hardly anything after the corporations get their cut. FFS, audiobook producers get more share of royalties than musicians do (most audiobooks are ~40% royalty share and musicians are lucky to get 25%.

It's hard as an artist. I want to be able to make money off my music, and be able to live from just that. The very real reality is that piracy (digital archival) would have almost ZERO affect on me due to the scale of it. People would be more likely to hear about me through its word of mouth than they are currently trying to buy my music with my advertising (none). I'm also not making music for money, but so that it can be listened to. Making money from it is more of a benefit than the goal, despite how nice it would be to do nothing but make music.

So, really, if I am hardly affected by people archiving my work, why in the fuck would HBO be? And if it were true, why would they remove hundreds of movies and shows from their service, lost forever. How are the royalties from those being lost when I archive it?

No, there is none.

There is only one reason to not digitally archive something. One alone.

Metrics.

If you like something and you want it to survive, fucking pay to watch it. I love It's Always Sunny. I have all of it archived, and mostly watch it there. But I will put money into Hulu once in a while just to stream Sunny, for the new season, for whatever. Because those guys have more hours of my life than any other show, and I want them to be able to continue making it, and they can only do that if FX sees that enough people watch them to justify continuing. I don't agree with everything Hulu does, like their showing ads for networks even on the "Ad free" tier (the network contracted for it, which leads me to wonder when other networks won't leverage for the same deal), and something else that I had on my mind but just escaped me due to the late hour. Those guys all already got paid, the crew and teams, everything is taken care of. But for another season to happen enough people have to have seen it on a platform that matters to them, so the only thing that really matters is the metrics.

Of course, if you're HBO even that doesn't matter and it can be all thrown out anyway... so...

to digital archival I go

There's a good theory that Beskar has some properties that draw bolts to it. Makes sense

Keep in mind that thinner paper is more likely to jam whatever printer you have, so you may want to consider workarounds such as smaller text, wider margins, and thinner line breaks.

It reminds me of that bit from Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia where Dennis is talking about Hollywood movies.

I mean, it used to be only, like, the hard-line conservatives, like the pearl-clutching types, were the only ones that were overly vocal and extreme in their policing of sexuality. But now you got this, like, liberal wave of moral authority sweeping the nation. You know, it's nuts. I mean, think about it. If the conservatives had always run Hollywood, movies would have sucked. You know what I mean? The art would have suffered. So I guess the question we're asking is how will art fare under the oppressive thumb of this new liberal Hollywood moral PC elite?

It's just so silly and yet so accurate. Whether it's social values, politics or even just the opinion of AI and it's capabilities vs. it's potential vs. how people actually use it, there's this pervading idea that restrictions en masse are a viable solution. I feel almost the opposite, like to some extent the oversaturation of it intrinsically lowers the negative reception of it. Prohibition philosophy - when it's not allowed people will work even harder to use it in those ways, when it's not only allowed but widely used and even encouraged, people just inherently care less over time.

We're at a point right now where we are getting some pretty poor quality oversaturation of AI content and the tool alone is what is being blamed, to the point where copyright is being touted as this saving grace despite it consistently having been used against us smaller artists when corporate money is involved. Copyright isn't promoting small artists, rarely has, nor is it preventing AI, but it's somehow suddenly meant to ensure that the art you uploaded isn't reproduced? That seems not only unlikely, but like it's a scapegoat for a larger issue. Generative art isn't a problem because Ms. Jane working two 40-hour jobs uses it to make art featuring existing characters. That circumstance was and never will be a problem because Jane very likely would never have the money to commission an artist in the first place. What Jane makes is 100% irrelevant, so long as she's not claiming it as her original creation and trying to sell it - beyond that? I don't think anyone should care or fault her, because she is doing the amount of art that her circumstances allow her.

What I absolutely agree is an issue is businesses and corporations using AI, cutting staff further overworking employees that remain. However, that Secret Invasion intro that seemed likely AI generated? I can't in good faith try to argue "they should be tried for infringement" but I can fully support the fact that they should have hired an artist who would at least try to better use the tools at their disposal. I can simultaneously feel that the fact that Deforum may have been used is absolutely awesome, while also being annoyed and frustrated that they didn't utilize artists who deserve it.

There is a very large difference between Ms. Jane making AI images, even movies, and any corporate product - or that AI generated rat for the science journal. For the former, it is something that IMO is fully necessary in order for Jane to be able to enjoy the experience of a creative process under the bullshit system we've worked out. The latter is a completely unnecessary replacement used to cut costs. And yet, for neither does the concept of infringement actually matter that much, because copyright isn't the fundamental issue of AI, it's just the one people are latching on to. Without realizing that the likelihood of copyright laws helping someone like us is nil. Especially since there's probably an overlap of people who laugh at NFT's and pirate files because bits of data aren't a physical commodity that runs out, but a generative Imaging tool that does it is... Too far?

I think AI's issues are separate from what I've mentioned here. What people blame AI for is something else entirely. AI is still just the tool that speeds up the process. We have the concept of safeguards utilized as signs, barriers, and nets, so that if someone wants to use a bridge for the wrong purpose there are some measures in place to prevent them. We don't blame bridges for what the person is trying to do - we recognize that there is some reasonable level of safeguard and beyond that we just have to trust the person to do the right thing. And when it does show to be a pervasive issue, even still there is pretty much a bare minimum done - add another layer and a net and call it a day - instead of focusing on maybe why people in society are so inclined to jump.

The issue is always us. Yes AI makes evils job easier, like so many tools have. But trying to safeguard AI to the point of non-existence is just absurd from every angle, given that the bad stuff is likely going to happen in abundance regardless. I don't particularly see AI as the evil so much as the humans creating the meaningless AI generated articles.

SteamDRM on GitHub

This one needs to be remade with the contemporary version.

Answer: "Comment deleted by creator/This user has deleted their account"

Response: "Wow thanks, that worked perfectly!"

I think the only difference is the encoding quality of 1080p can beore noticeable, but if it's a high quality file then it's fine. Other than that, dark movies. Dark movies seem to greatly benefit from 4k even on 1080p displays.

Could be the encode again, but I've tried a few different versions of files

There's a lot of disappointing comments on here, like no shit you would use a different vehicle if you had access.

First, someone mentioned any cop has the right to check for insurance/etc, so being prepared for that and being amicable, as bright-eyed as you can be. Those marks usually get noted I think though. And another mentioned a sob story, harder in some circumstances but you can get pretty creative from Moms colonoscopy to funeral road trip (from the colonoscopy ofc).

However, I would like to add - do you have any way to meet creative people willing to turn your ghetto van into a painted art car? I was wondering what region you're around (don't need to mention it no worries) and you've mentioned a lot of small towns which makes me think mid-south or west. Either way, going over the car with some primer and a theme may help turn it from ghetto to art-van.

I would try hitting up craigslist or posting on local pages, if funds are an issue I would maybe just mention the situation, doing it in sections. A for sure place you can get it done though for free? Pretty much anywhere in the PNW (OR/WA at least) there are all kinds of weird parties and gatherings and I've seen tons of "paint me" vans, and honestly most of the time they look freaking sick. They're always a mix of hand paint and airbrush.

If you are able to save some over time, you could technically apply these yourself for just barely cheaper than an auto-shop, but it would be some work. You'd need 1 - 1 1/2 of grey primer to cover the van - anywhere from $35 (check dates then shake really, really well) to $85. And then probably the spray/air gun.

Either way, you'll want to follow the proper care for treating the car before you paint it - clean, sand, primer, (maybe sand, maybe not if art car), then the hard part is the clear coat. That part I'm not as familiar with unfortunately.

Last random idea, there are these like rental camper vans, probably a bunch of companies but faking one of those. Same idea as the art car just dumber lol.

Anyways, good luck and I hope in the future you have better reception to questions like this - and that you're able to relax wherever you're staying.