BertramDitore
@BertramDitore@lemm.ee
- Comment on Amazon is allegedly canceling orders for the "Megalopolis" Blu-ray release. 1 day ago:
This is a great interpretation. I guess the nice thing about the movie is that you could have this totally believable read on it, and I had essentially dismissed the time stopping thing as an unnecessary surrealist gimmick that was never resolved or necessary for the plot. I like your take better, it fits the cerebral tone.
- Comment on Amazon is allegedly canceling orders for the "Megalopolis" Blu-ray release. 1 day ago:
This is weird, but I’m sure it will get a full Blu-ray release pretty soon. It’s a divisive movie, and frankly I really struggled to get through it (the dialogue was so contrived and stilted). I found myself frustrated and yelling at the screen more than once, but I’d likely grab a 4K Blu-ray whenever it comes out so I can give it another chance and see if I somehow totally missed the point.
I think the movie is probably good from a technical perspective, and the message it tried to communicate was worthy of the attempt, but the plot was incoherent, the dialogue was impenetrable, and the gorgeous visuals were completely out of step with the overall narrative.
- Comment on USA President term limits 1 week ago:
US Presidents are limited to two terms, it doesn’t matter if they are consecutive. Grover Cleveland is the only other president who has served two non-consecutive terms.
Term-limits are a relatively recent addition though, the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution was only ratified in 1951 after Franklin Roosevelt served four terms.
- Comment on Is it expected to tip for furniture deliveries? 1 week ago:
If it’s coming via FedEx, UPS, or USPS, I’d say no, unless for some reason they come into your house to help, then yeah if you’re generous. Moving company 100% yes tip. Normal corporate delivery service I’d say no unless they did something extra.
- Comment on Is there any, any takeaways at all from the next 4 years that's about to happen? 2 weeks ago:
I appreciate the question, and like many Jews I love questions like this. It is never hateful to be curious.
Like many/most identities, being Jewish doesn’t mean just one thing to everyone. First and foremost, Judaism is a religion that is passed down through the matriarchal side of the family. So if your mother is Jewish, you’re Jewish. You’re Jewish particularly to other Jews in this instance, even if you don’t necessarily consider yourself Jewish.
Judaism is not a race, full stop. Just like Christianity is not a race. There are white Jews, black Jews, Latino Jews, South Asian Jews, East Asian Jews etc. There aren’t a lot of us as a whole, but we do exist in most racial groups. But Judaism is often correctly linked to ethnicity, which is a set of shared traditions, culture, language, and norms.
There is a huuuuge range of ‘orthodoxy’ under the umbrella of Judaism. Different ‘sects’ holds fundamentally similar values (for example: you won’t find very many anti-abortion Jews), but people inside these different groups will observe their traditions at differently levels/extremes or not at all. Most Jews in America don’t keep Kosher, for example, but most Orthodox Jews do.
Judaism also has a rich tradition of questioning everything (which is why we usually love these kinds of questions). It is not considered heresy to question beliefs or authority, in fact it’s usually encouraged. You’ll find many Jews who openly identify as atheists, and yet most still fully consider themselves to be Jewish. This usually doesn’t bother anyone, Rabbis included. Atheists even hold a place of honor in some Jewish communities, because atheists get their morality from their own values or other people, not from a fear of god or some external force. This is part of why it is pretty common to find Jews (observant or not) who consider themselves atheist.
All of that is to say you don’t necessarily need to believe in god to be considered Jewish.
- Comment on [Même] Which movie was this for you? 2 weeks ago:
- Comment on Is there any, any takeaways at all from the next 4 years that's about to happen? 2 weeks ago:
Atheist Jew here. They really hate me.
- Comment on [Même] Which movie was this for you? 2 weeks ago:
Me too! I saw it in theaters and cracked up the whole time. Haven’t watched it again since then, but I did listen to an interview with the director who essentially disowned the movie. He said something to the effect of: “the couple of moments that were cute were not worth the overall quality of the film.” He said Klein and Smith had no chemistry. He also basically confirmed the Will Smith MIB fart rumor in the same interview.
- Comment on IT'S BEEN EIGHTY FOUR YEARS 3 weeks ago:
Thanks! I was afraid you were going to say that…but it makes sense. Think I’ll go for it. Also means I can wait a while to buy Veilguard while I play Inquisition.
- Comment on IT'S BEEN EIGHTY FOUR YEARS 3 weeks ago:
I’ve been needing a new big game to sink my teeth into, but I haven’t played any of the other Dragon Age games. I watched the glowing euro gamer review for Veilguard and it looks amazing to me (the slightly stylized look doesn’t bother me at all). Do you think I’ll enjoy it without much context? I don’t usually buy full-priced, but I make the occasional exception for games I know I’ll play for a while…Baldurs Gate, for example.
- Comment on Marvel's Midnight Suns is criminally underrated 4 weeks ago:
I loved this game! I got like 6 solid months of fun out of it. It took a really long time for the card combat loop to get old for me. I had never played an x-com style game before this (though I loved their meta callouts to x-com), so the mechanics were brand new to me, but it all just made intuitive sense. The card design and animations are top notch, and some of the fights can be super-challenging, but there’s always a way, and there’s nothing quite like the satisfaction of finally finishing a fight after 5 different tries.
Agree on the story and voice acting, it’s all excellent. There are a couple very recognizable voices in there too.
- Comment on [deleted] 4 weeks ago:
Your anger is entirely justified, and I share it. This whole licensing issue is a massive problem and shows how little publishers care about their customers. That said, this has always been the case, they’ve just covered their legal bases by updating their TOS.
But to answer your question, there’s no reason to keep using steam, other than it’s one of the easiest ways to legally game. It’s totally your preference if you want to keep supporting their business. There are lots of ways to illegally game, or pay way more for some DRM-free games that you can actually own, but then you’ll be extremely limited in your selection. I’ve invested so much time and money in my steam library, that I’m basically locked in (they count on this, of course). Sure I own a bunch of games on GOG, but they represent a tiny fraction of my overall library.
This is a totally unsatisfying answer, but your only actual recourse, if you want to keep using steam, is to reach out to them and express your displeasure at their updated TOS and its implications. But it’s an industry-wide problem, so I think we’re out of luck until Congress gets involved and changes how digital ownership works.
- Comment on Let him go!! 4 weeks ago:
It does:
…the paper was reviewed, and its appropriateness for the journal’s publishing criteria was rated as “excellent” by the journal’s peer-review process. It was accepted for publication with minor editorial changes. The paper was not actually published, as Vamplew declined to pay the required US$150 article processing charge. This case has led commenters to question the legitimacy of the journal as an authentic scholarly undertaking.
- Comment on Has "Self-Driving" devolved? 4 weeks ago:
In general I think you’re right about the tech just being shitty, but a slight correction: LiDAR was not developed for self-driving, it’s just a relevant application of the technology. LiDAR has been around for quite a while, and was initially best known as a remote sensing technology. It is effective at remote sensing because it can penetrate certain solid materials, most importantly foliage. So when an aerial LiDAR dataset is collected for a forested area, since the light can penetrate through most of the foliage, one can essentially ‘delete’ the vegetation from the resulting point cloud, leaving a bare earth model, which is a very close approximation of the landscape’s actual topography if there had been no trees. This can be especially valuable for archaeological research, as foliage is often a significant obstacle for accurately mapping large sites, or even finding them in the first place.
All of that to say, yeah, self-driving buzz made LiDAR well known as tech, but it wasn’t developed for that purpose.
- Comment on ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ Makes $7M In Thursday Night Previews, Receives 36% Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – Box Office 1 month ago:
Well I just learned from this article that the movie is a musical. And I love musicals, but that’s weird.
- Comment on Sucker Punch is planning ‘other spin-offs’ beyond Ghost of Yotei [VGC] 1 month ago:
I think I’m okay with this. Ghost of Tsushima is one of my favorite games.
- Comment on 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' 50th Anniversary 4K Collector's Set includes the original classic on VHS! 2 months ago:
I know that physical releases are having a moment, but a VHS? Really? That’s one format I’m happy to leave in my childhood.