generate some minor descriptions for generic stuff in my TTRPG campaigns.

Need a quick 200 word description of the interior of an apothecary? Or a band of marauding orcs? It’s been a huge time saver for me.

3 Astronauts. 1 candidate. Only really got to know one astronaut (family friend) and one candidate (supervised her training in an unrelated field) super well. I’ve had long term interactions with two wannabes who were disasters.

Unfortunately, in contrast to astronauts, most of the politicians I’ve met are complete shits. Only met a few at the civic level who are excellent. And one at the federal level. Everyone else has been truly🤮.

It’s funny. Literally every astronaut I’ve met is exactly like this - quietly competent, affable, team player. As is the astronaut candidate I’ve met.

And yet…

Every person I’ve met who has been keen on becoming an astronaut or astronaut candidate has been an insufferable self-aggrandizing jerk face. Like, just awful people who suck all the air out of any room they’re in, expounding on how they (or the idea they’re selling) are the most amazing thing ever.

For iPhones, if you have Find My turned on, you can’t activate the device without the iCloud password, unless the owner removes the device from their iCloud account. Which is what the scammers are trying to get her to do here.

Interesting. I will take a look and see if that fixes it. Thanks for the tip!

The layout of Plex definitely fits my brain waaaaay better with respect to navigation. But I hardly use it because I keep running into playback stuttering which doesn’t happen on Infuse, which I point at Jellyfin in my Synology. Will give this version another try.

Why do you believe that judges (or even juries made of lay people) can make sense of the very things that you’re so confident legislators or regulators cannot?

I’m not saying regulation is perfect, and as a result, certainly there is a role for judicial review. But come on, man…lots of non sequiturs and straw dogs in your argument.

That’s more of a Shelbyville idea

Or maybe, like, regulation?

You can absolutely set up an AppleTV with no other Apple device in your possession. It is a very good player for many things but much of this is dependent on your choice of application. For compatibility and no transcoding, Infuse is the best I’ve found, provided it’s pointed at a Jellyfin instance. Not a great choice just pointed at a local or cloud SMB share (though possible) as its cache gets cleared frequently.

AFAIK, Shield Pro remains the only option that can play back Atmos from ripped media, but would be happy to be corrected on this.

Darn. I have no idea where I got my code and don’t have one to share (I just looked on my profile). It looks like others have helped out. FYI the latest 4K version (1.0) is from February…

There are multiple versions. I suggest you get these from the official site (free, but donations support the cost of equipment, purchasing film reels, and HDD space) and make sure you have the most recent 4K version. I don’t think you will know with certainty which version you have if you try to get this through other means.

I get the sense it was a tricky restoration due to the film stock (and film scanning equipment) they had available, which was spread across 16mm, Kodak 35mm, and Fuji 35mm (which had better colour preservation but was incomplete). They explain it much better on their website, but it is an iterative process, and earlier versions might have a different quality.

I guess it depends on the piece. Is the movie trying to be entertainment or art?

Certain kinds of art are definitely “not for me”, yet are entertaining to some. And I still consider the films I find entertaining to be “art”. I wonder if this is a false dichotomy?

Addendum: I will admit that well written characters and dialog isn’t as easy to come by in Hollywood media. But movies that mainly focus on the writing and are great do exist.

I find it helpful to not conflate good writing, good characters, and good dialogue. A story does not require dialogue to have its plot be propelled forward, to make us feel what is at stake is important, to make us care deeply about what happens to the characters (e.g. A Quiet Place, Wall-E, for example). Similarly, excellent dialogue simply isn’t possible if the audience doesn’t care about the characters nor the stakes - the words will simply fall flat. It’s all connected, and there is considerably more to writing than dialogue.

The spinning top totem at the end of Inception. Neo stopping the bullets in The Matrix. The first shot of the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. The Nazis’ faces melting in Raiders.

Dialogue can be wonderful. But visual storytelling that treats the audience with respect is what cinema is all about.

Check out the (now defunct) YouTube channel Every Frame a Painting. The video on Drive in particular opened my eyes to how Refn composes shots to incredible effect.

And it is NOT about capturing “pretty” scenes, but about manipulating the viewer’s emotions in ways they do not even perceive.

Agreed. The syncing can be managed other ways. The only thing I’m left with is using on a work computer for some reason, where one’s own devices aren’t available/permitted? But that’s probably not a common usage case.

To sync across different devices maybe?

Sorry friends. Here’s the Exalted form:

Yeah that’s what I expected. I think the Kodi suggestion for the Shield is the most promising lead. Hope it works out.

Infuse for Apple TV will do this. You can point it to any folder on your NAS as an SMB share. It’s how I play back my own Blu-ray Discs, 4K or otherwise. It doesn’t do menus that I remember, but you can select the title easily enough.

Highly recommend also pointing it to your Jellyfin instance and using that as your front end for other files as it seems to me to have the best ability to do direct playback without transcoding, and the fewest hiccups for audio playback sync issues which can be annoying.

While you can just point Infuse directly at your other folders, its metadata cache gets dumped frequently by the OS, and it has to get rebuilt which is slow and annoying when you just want to watch something. Pointing at Jellyfin also lets you use whatever custom Jellyfin posters you’ve selected which helps for keeping special versions/collections identifiable visually.