Paizo, AI Art, And Copyright

from The Memory Palace, by Nate DiMeo

After shoving Hansel in the oven, the witch turns to Gretel - who is currently fending the witch off with a gingerbread chair - and says:

“I can’t believe you thought a trail of breadcrumbs would save you. I mean, honestly, this is a forest! It’s full of animals. Honestly, the very idea that a dumb shit like you thought you could get the better of me is absurd.”

Gretel hits her in the face with said chair. To be fair to the witch, she takes the chairshot like a champ.

“Ow!”

“Did you know,” says Gretel, “that crows are capable of facial recognition?”

“Eh?” Says the witch, clambering to her feet and pulling a candy cane sledgehammer off the wall. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Not only that,” Gretel continues, “but they can remember both friends and enemies. And they’ll often follow people they remember as friends.”

The two fence with their sugared weapons for a moment, before the witch knocks the chair out of Gretel’s hands.

“Enough with the bird facts! Honestly, this whole attempted escape has been utter clownshoes. Get in the fucking oven!”

She seizes Gretel by the collar. Gretel immediately sandbags, letting her whole body go limp. This eminently practical defense forces the witch to try and deadlift her. Which is hard, as the witch often skips leg day.

“For example,” Gretel says, as the witch struggles and grunts, “if you feed crows a lot of breadcrumbs, they’ll probably start to see you as a friend and follow you in the hope of more food.”

The witch stops. Outside, she hears the thunder of wings.

“They’ll even bring you shiny things they find as presents!” Says Gretel, as a corner of the gingerbread ceiling is suddenly cut away by a large crow with a knife in its mouth.

“Oh shitballs.” Says the witch, as the crows descend. “I hope you know this is a great unkindness.”

“Technically,” Says Gretel, “It’s a murder.”

Ready Player One

The following review contains mild spoilers. None of the major set-pieces or sight gags after the first act are detailed, but charac...

My review of Ready Player One -- a fun film, though also a thin one with some problematic thematic issues.

There’s also Terrence Dudley, but it’s understandable why you might forget him.

Barry Letts is (I believe) the only other one.

How many people have both written and directed Doctor Who? Only Peter Grimwade springs to mind.

He may well be it.

Real conversation I had last night:

Her: so my journalist character was tricked by someone posing as a person with big secret news to tell her

Me: Ah so she was taken in by the expectation of having a Deep Throat

Her:

Her: WHAT

Me: ... oh

Me: SO in 1972--

I sort of suspect this might still play into it - I always remember thinking that shot was weird. Remember the Mistress talking in one of the earlier episodes about how happy she was that she "chose" Clara. It wouldn't surprise me if this came back up as somehow the answer. Not sure how the ring fits in, but it's not like Stephen Moffat has never come up with clever explanations for tiny details before.

Although it might just be a bizarre artifact from using a long lens (or fully zoomed-in zoom lens) with a shallow focus in a fast shot with lots of movement. Nick Hurran's wild, unhinged use of the camera results in a number of bizarre moments, which are usually just kind of charming quirks as a side-effect of his visual flourishes.

When they get out of the painting. -unnoun

The hand is clearly Clara’s - the rings match. (Look a minute or two later, when she’s observing the board.) Whatever’s going on with the camera angle, it’s still clearly Clara.

I’ve always had a fascination with early Antarctic Exploration. But I’ve mostly sidestepped the related early Arctic exploration except where the two directly intersect; now I’m reading Furthest North, which goes through the early exploration (from the 1500s to 1926), and focuses on telling the stories through eyewitness accounts. It's a great book, but man, arctic exploration is so much more depressing than Antarctic exploration.

Like, the usual Antarctic exploration story will be something like, “The 26-man expedition lost 1 man when he was driven mad by the sunless winter and died for no clear medical reason, and 1 man to scurvy because he refused to eat seal meat, but the other 24 safely returned home, having mapped huge previously unknown areas and achieved immense scientific research. And also there were several delightful stories of penguin encounters, and here's a photo of the most badass member of the crew adorably snuggling some puppies.”

And the usual Arctic story will be, “25 men laboriously dragged their ship across the endless fields of ice to find the legendary Open Arctic Ocean. At first, they somehow managed to make 15 miles a day, but due to the southward flow of the ice, they only gained a net 17 yards per day. As they one-by-one got scurvy, they started losing ground. Things took a turn for the worse when the captain suddenly died of a mysterious illness; a century later, his body was found buried in the ice, and the mass levels of arsenic suggests he may have been right when, in his dying words, he accused the expedition’s doctor of poisoning him because they were writing love letters to the same girl back home. Without their navigator, they finally gave up and attempted to drag the ship back to the open sea so they could get back to land. But just as they were approaching open water, the ice trapped the ship and crushed it. They reverted to their lifeboats, one of which disappeared in a light fog, never to be seen again. The exhausted, undernourished, fatally sick final survivors made it to a desolate island. There they all slowly starved to death while the one healthy man among them was three days’ travel away, trying and failing to communicate to the confused Siberians he’d found that there were people who urgently needed rescue. He finally moved onto a second village, where one guy spoke German for some reason, and he was able to mount a rescue party. They arrived two days after the last journal entry of the expedition leader:

“ ‘October 28 - Hungry. Ate last of the boots yesterday. Feet cold. Spirits high.’ “

I’m not sure if you guys know what’s happening in Sudan right now cause all I’m seeing are posts about raising awareness without giving a proper coverage in regards to what’s happening there or how it all started. The Sudanese people have been peacefully protesting for months to remove Omar Al-Bashir from office (a dictator and a human rights violator, a president who has been in power for 3 decades. Mind you, Sudan has been an independent country only for 63 years). The pro-democracy protests were lead by an organization called The Sudanese Professionals Association (تجمع المهنيين السودانيين), a group lead by doctors and local unions. The oppressed minorities in the country with the less oppressed Arab majority lead by the SPA came together to overthrow Al-Bashir by peacefully protesting. A large number of protestors were women in front rows of every single protest since last December. The Sudanese people succeeded in overthrowing the government on 11 April 2019 but the military stepped in to run the transitional government, they’re the ones causing the recent killings, rape and violations you’re hearing about right now. The military ruling right now is composed of people like general Hemediti, a man who has been accused of human rights violation years ago for arming militias and unleashing them on the rebels and civilian farmers in Darfur. He was recorded a few days ago threatening protestors who want to see civilian rule. The SPA is fighting back by calling for civil disobedience and nationwide strike. They’re still fighting for their fundamental demands which started all of the protests. They’re fighting for a civilian government, empowering women and ending the brutal militias. The peaceful protestors are being killed, raped and arrested. There has been an internet blackout and people are being silenced. Spreading awareness and making people pay attention to the current events will aid a lot in ending the terror Sudanese people are facing. People have been protesting for months to end the country’s suffering by overthrowing a dictator, their hard work can not end in them being ruled by militias and new dictators. This can’t be how it ends for them and we need to help in changing that. We have to be their voice now, they rely on us. 

Tomb Raider [2018]

Say what you will about the previous Tomb Raider films, but they made a brilliant casting choice in Angelina Jolie. Already a great, Aca...

Alicia Vikander kicks ass in a Tomb Raider movie that fails to kick ass. Deja vu.