Category: Uncategorized

If there is a poster child for the Hollywood beast and its relationship to the audience, it is Dune 2. It’s a movie that hoodwinked (seemingly) everyone besides myself, a downgrade from the average part 1 in every respect, and a movie that, like so many other sequels, is a kind of hate letter to the source and to its fans, and yet the audience excuses its failings (of the story variety) because it has a few pretty sets and some good (monochrome) VFX.  Make no mistake, there are great things about Dune Part 2, just like with the first…

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This is not the kind of article I like to write, since I prefer not to attack anyone directly, but in this case, what I want to discuss is bound up in the example of a specific person and a specific product. I would not call the person in question evil, and in fact I like things about him and other content he has done. Recently Planefag did a very thorough blow-by-blow review of Shad Brooks (a.k.a. Shadiversity, a youtuber most known for talking about medieval things). Here’s the whole thing, but I’ll be focusing on a few points that…

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The idea of a shot to lose weight is making waves this week, and for some very good reasons. This is a very disruptive idea in the current ideological battle over fatness and fitness. To quote the FDA: Wegovy works by mimicking a hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) that targets areas of the brain that regulate appetite and food intake. The medication dose must be increased gradually over 16 to 20 weeks to 2.4 mg once weekly to reduce gastrointestinal side effects. Semaglutide (the actual name of the hormone) ends up acting as an apatite suppressant. This is nothing new;…

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One of the stranger things about online culture to arise from Internet 2.0, or the internet after the hegemony of social media, is the rise of various “masculinity” circles and gurus. Some important influencers, including Mike Cernovich and Jordan Peterson, have built their initial followings speaking about “masculinity” to an audience of primarily Gen X to Millennial men. This phenomenon is a bit of an oddity, historically, since the essays and talks tend to revolve not around philosophical and spiritual questions about the nature of man and his energies, but of what masculinity means on a personal, actionable level. That…

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In short: -Solid gameplay on the micro level -Less interesting macro (leveling, skill building, crafting) -Very polished experience -Somewhat convoluted story and lack of likable characters -Can we give the “Catholic Church is secretly evil” trope a rest? It’s in far too many jrpgs at this point. -Worth buying at a discount, but doesn’t feel like a 60-dollar game. Obligatory book links:

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I played many games in 2022 as it is one of my favorite ways to wind down at the end of the day, after I finish my work and before I go to sleep. I figured this out when I was writing horror—when you are working independently from home, it’s beneficial to do something to help you disengage from work before sleep. I was lucky enough to get a steam deck when they released this year, and I also was lucky to get a PS5 (back in 2021 when they weren’t so readily available). Despite these shiny new toys, most…

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I’ve already said everything that can be said on AI image generation months ago elsewhere, but I’ll sum up everything you need to know about the controversy: Problem 1: People thinking that AI art is “art.” That is to say, it has some expressive artistic value. While valuation of art is in the viewer, intent is in the artist. 20th century artistic trends, both in academia and in pop culture, have divorced both the artist from the art as well as the intent of art from its effect. Thus people can, with a straight face, say that Disney gets to…

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It’s well-known by users that the majority of Twitter accounts are automated; that is, they are bots, not humans. Most posts are also automated, but Twitter works to keep these facts hidden from certain users. First, with journos, their follower counts are often very high, but their engagement is low, except when they post key pieces of (dis)information. Journos are often blindsided when they get ratio’d by anons because their followers are bots, and the anon has real humans interacting with him. The writer in question likely doesn’t realize his 500k followers are mostly fake accounts created to make his…

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Before I get there, let me quickly mention that I’m off of social media until Easter, and I’m very busy with moving preparations so there may be less YouTube content coming out. If you need me, shoot me an email at stu@dvspress.com. But to the point: Edited by JD Cowan, and containing content by him, Brian Niemeier, and myself… and available now for free! But what is this collection and what is it about? In short, it’s about the generation of people born in the late 70s through late 80s and their perspectives on the massive gulf between the world…

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