#it WILL challenge your ideas of what a matrix movie should be

[suga-muffins]

in a matrix mood but i'm trying to challenge myself so i'm watching some cis man try to analyze resurrections.. when you knock on this dude's head, I swear to you, it echoes

"resurrections is lazy because it repeats the exact plot points of the original" wow sherlock it's almost like that is the explicit intention of the film.. BUGS SAYS THAT OUT LOUD WHY IS THIS YOUR CORE CRITIQUE

[seoenthusiast]

9 Free Market Analysis And Competitor Analysis Tools

The advantage of using Census knowledge is the ability to understand where the market has been, where it currently is, and projections. Typically, primary and secondary parts are included in this type of examination, but they can vary based mostly on what type of competitive evaluation you wish to complete. If a buyer can find a similar product to yours, a prospect is more likely to choose the competitor with a greater value. Generally speaking, prospects care most about rates and pricing, and it is always a highly considered choice for all of our buyer satisfaction surveys. Although improving your website's consumer expertise can typically be a stand-alone project in itself, On occasion, our group recruits users to go to your website live through a display screen share where a moderator asks questions.

You can use this information to enhance your personal strategies, merchandise, services, and buyer experience. Having the sensation that your organization is falling behind the competition is frustrating, right? Competitor research is an efficient strategy for staying one step ahead of the game. You can learn about your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, gain competitor analysis strategy valuable insights into their strategies, and ultimately improve your personal business. In this guide, we’ll define the steps for an aggressive analysis and clarify how you should use this marketing strategy to improve your corporation.

Founder of Intemarketing, B2B advertising supervisor, and creator of the e-book marketing plan instruction handbook, without a clear and unambiguous construction, one can quickly neglect to draw the proper conclusions from the data gathered. A step-by-step plan for conducting a good Competitor Analysis follows below.

Competitive advertising analysis challenges your assumptions, as the market is constantly changing because of disruptive influences like new know-how. Doing this exercise regularly provides entrepreneurs with an extra proactive approach to business concepts and processes. Many companies function on preconceived concepts about the market panorama, customers, and competitors.

One approach to staying ahead of your competitors is to arrange a system for constantly monitoring and analyzing them. This contains tracking their pricing strategy, product offerings, advertising campaigns, and buyer suggestions. By monitoring your opponents, you can possibly establish adjustments and modify your strategy accordingly.

You can put them on a bar graph or on a matrix with four quadrants. The more data you may have, the more practical a competitor analysis shall be. You ought to remember competitor analysis services to categorize the competitors and gather enough information about them to find a way to conclude with a correct analysis.

Before you begin comparing your product to those on the market, you need to know who you might be competing with. There are several methods you can use to research and identify your opponents. As a part of a competitive analysis, the supermarket could also test which promotion strategy consumers are more reactive to. To develop an aggressive analysis, it's crucial to outline exactly what information is needed to know the competition. A competitive analysis is a vital part of market analysis from the client's perspective.

Learning where other brands are succeeding and what strategies they’re utilizing helps you intend and strategize extra tactically. It also gives you a good idea of what works and what doesn’t for your own prospects. Web optimization gap analysis, typically called content gap analysis, audits all the SEO content that your rivals publish. As part of our web optimization competitor analysis services, we’ll comb through their blogs, webpages, whitepapers, ebooks, movies, and social media accounts. Our team will analyze the subjects and kinds of content they’re producing.

If they've already made the change, find out why they made this choice. Direct rivals are companies that provide a product or service that would be an identical substitute for yours and that function in a similar geographic area. Comprehensive market analysis helps set the stage for an effective gross sales and advertising strategy that helps your organization stand out from the crowd. Competitive analysis may help you study the ins and outs of how your competition works and establish potential alternatives so you can possibly outperform them.

Especially when finishing your first aggressive analysis, you might make some frequent mistakes. Below, we have outlined a number of the most typical pitfalls when making an aggressive analysis. You can analyze the next key channels to allow your shopper to improve and decide on messaging and positioning. Analyzing developing and declining know-how will provide you with an idea of the direction your company should be taking.

[the-firebird69]

Watch "Giant drives C8 like Mario Kart #bodybuilder #fitness #giant" on YouTube

He's a child and he's challenging her son so he wants to see him get in the car that's a giant my son says at my height I would not be able to get it at all and have to sit on top of it and I don't want to wait around to get rid of you so he said that to the guy he said that doesn't work at all it's going on trying all this stuff and hitting him and taking his people down you won't shut his stupid f****** mouth for any price we have tons of units out now shut these idiots down they're going out there and attacking factories to make AI attempts and they're losing all the computers they don't have any AI shortly and they won't come down either then that's he says we just pretend that we have the AI and two stuff to them I mean pretend they have it and we'll keep doing stuff to them and making sure they don't it's a good idea in a rough time this morning and get mad but we understand why so this guy is a dick and it's Trump and he's saying he's John Cena you say he's a giant he's a sissy and he's not big and he looks awkward like John Cena does and he's saying something but who cares we're tired of hearing from you you're the fourth or 5th string group that demands to be out front and that's what you're using with your power and you're ruining your people absolutely ruining them we have to adapt to we did you're very annoying but you're not going to have a damn thing to take over from anyone we don't give her stuff up to anyone for any reason. So going after you if you're asking comments I'm going to lay you low I'm going to take away your Corvettes all of them and the ships I'm tired of hearing from you about it you're f****** nutcase you're a loser you need to lose all your stuff for you to be civil we're taking your robots now we took a huge number of them last night and retrofitted tons of them they took tons of them today we have a game plan we helped come up with it it's very nice it sounds great it looks great it works and very evil to you people and most of you don't care cuz you're stupid you don't care if you're stupid you're in a face like today what time you have you're going to be gone that guy's going to feel the pain tonight last night I guess he swallowed up on when he was mutated yeah a big chunk of his frontal lobe and his eyeball and that was Trump's frontal lobe. You didn't know what happened and it was the sun feeding it to him and his son didn't know what happened that way it was too crude most of them don't care about getting it back they want to just cut it out and grow back a new one and most won't do it so he kind of did him a favor. But he hates him he's going after him cuz he didn't do it on purpose and he actually throws the Garth out the window and guys goes flying it's because Garth is talking his ass off on purpose has other people talk his ass off that's what it means when using the car he's yelling to attract the enemy. A lot of people understand it or son did our daughter did and a lot of people should and he's right he's way out of line he gets thrown out there takes a tumble but survives it because he's possessed he comes back it's part of these Shazam team no comes back to something different in taxing relentlessly and eventually he's dead in the movie Prometheus doing an act of supposed sacrifice she kept saying our son would do and he's a loser and that's what we want we want to see him blow himself up Mac is captured into the matrix as the teamster guy Jimmy Hoffa but it wouldn't be odd for him to get captured twice and they show the building blowing up in the distance so I'm trying to cover it but he's in a lot of trouble for doing that he's in more trouble for what he did today they were going to pummel him flat he doesn't think so he's a complete nutcase.

These idiots are being arrested tons of them are being arrested for attacking factories all over the world are terrorists and they wanted by everybody and it's a full-blown War now it's going out on The wire and finally that took a long time and they're getting mowed down they're probably at 7.5% and pretty soon 6.5%, there's going to be a thousand lined up at all those places including to try and take over the United States. We have a lot of customers at the wall 300 trillion and that's a good portion of that percentage so if you get up and beefing it up and we're beefing up to Midwest slice them in half and gut it before he can blink. I'm going forwards with our sons idea and daughters going to lunch hours right away these are huge ships and they should not be underestimated and what they can do if we make an error we do not need people harassing us from our side we need people to stop these idiots it's a law by the way and we have laws that we have to abide by. In the military we have a system but they're still laws unless you have orders so please don't break the law. I want to get a ship out tonight Hudson Bay is probably too early they want us to go for that first and we won't have any ship out so I'm going to say a different one I'm going to try for it so all I thank you for your help and keeping our son alive I see it took work he doesn't know what happened but he has to assume somebody was working at it I am thinking you all it's a big team and I think those that showed up garth he's a stinker and he doesn't do the right thing falls on his face more than Trump does but he's there doing it and his own risk. You think so sweet he says we're a heavy-handed but that's the way it is we don't want people doing the stupid s*** that he is so you understand it and John reborn all the time and it's supposed to be family and hurt family and you should realize it's wrong but I guess he has to lose most of his so he's going to try and do something different cuz this is ridiculous now there's a few things happening one of them is the Sun is getting some weird markings on him and he scratched himself but it shouldn't be that easy so we need to help him out

Thor Freya

It's kind of the process of oxygenating but we have to help him out so he looks all right

Zig Zag

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

“The Matrix Resurrections” movie review:

Short review:

Lana Wachowski must really love Danganronpa V3 since this movie feels more like that game rather than a Matrix sequel. I give it a 6/10. 

Long review:

So...this movie is...challenging to discuss. Because on the surface, I can just say that the movie sucked on a technical level. The fight choreography was terrible, the Matrix-ness of the franchise is missing (for example, the green gradient that the series is known for), and it doesn’t really justify its existence. By the end of the movie, I didn’t really feel like we needed a continuation, which is a shame since the trailers did a good job hyping the movie up.

But that’s not the full story, is it? No, we need to talk about the “meta-ness” of the movie, the one thing that people took away from the story. That’s why I compared Matrix 4 to Danganronpa V3; it’s not really a sequel, it’s a meta self-critique that challenges the whole idea of the franchise. 

I can definitely see why the first act is so divisive. In a not-so-subtle sequence, Neo goes through a series of discussions about how to approach the next Matrix game. So, aside from the obvious meta point about having the Matrix literally be a franchise within the Matrix, the discussions that unfold focus entirely on deconstructing the series as a whole. It seems to mock the aspects that people loved about the Matrix trilogy, such as bullet time and its political commentary.

Then you have Bugs (Jessica Henwick) literally encountering a cutscene which acts as a recreation of the first scene in the original Matrix, with Trinity running from the Agents. And that’s not the only callback to the original trilogy that we get in this movie; there are clips taken right from the trilogy inserted in various scenes which are meant to draw a deliberate parallel. 

Why? As Agent Morpheus (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) says, “Nothing comforts anxiety like a little nostalgia”.

Other people have made a more in-depth analysis of how nostalgia plays into the story of Resurrection. For me, I’m a bit of a mixed bag. It’s mainly because I get what Lana was trying to do. It’s a deliberate send-up to the fact that Hollywood has been taken over by the need to reboot every single famous franchise and, coupled with the fact that Warner Bros has been pushing the Wachowski sisters to make another Matrix movie, you could read the movie as Lana venting out her frustrations with the company. I mean, she even namedrops WB in the movie, the jabs are not subtle.

You can also read the meta-aspect of the movie as Lana questioning her own legacy. Unfortunately, as most people should know by now, the Matrix has inspired a toxic following where people say they have been “red-pilled” by rejecting more leftist/liberal values and taking on more right-wing views. There’s also the misogynistic angle of being “red-pilled”, namely with the infamous subreddit r/TheRedPill. It’s just extremely ironic that this was the legacy of the Matrix movies, especially when you remember that the Matix movies are left-leaning and were meant to be an allegory for the trans community. 

So, I don’t really mind the meta commentary. Even though it’s in your face and blatantly told to you, it’s an interesting idea that really forces the audience to think about what they’re consuming. My issue with this is that although the idea seems interesting, I don’t think the execution was there. 

I feel that’s a common criticism when it comes to the Wachowskis. They’re obviously really creative writers and have a ton of great ideas. But, just like with Reloaded and Revolutions, the execution of those ideas was not the greatest. Specifically for Resurrection, I felt like I was watching a series of interesting ideas that didn’t really come together as a whole. 

For example, I like the idea of humans and machines working together. I like the idea that the Matrix is using itself within the simulation as a way to maintain control over Neo and Trinity (the Matrix being a franchise within the Matrix). I like the idea of Agent Morpheus being a combination of Neo’s memories of Morpheus and Agent Smith, which goes back to the theme of humans and machines joining forces. I like the idea that this movie was primarily a Neo-Trinity love story rather than trying to save the world. I even like the idea of Agent Smith sort of becoming this anti-hero/anti-villain who will work with Neo if their interests are aligned. 

But just because those ideas are good doesn’t mean they compensate for the flaws of the movie. At times, it felt like I was watching a first draft of the script since a lot of concepts felt half-baked. For example, the Analyst explains that by making it so that Neo and Trinity will always meet but never come in contact with each other, that leads to more power being produced for the machines. Apparently, Neo and Trinity can exert power by just being around each other. 

My question: How? 

Since when did Neo and Trinity turn into Cloak & Dagger? There is no basis for this sudden change in how the machines generate power, especially when you remember that machines harvest humans for their body heat and electricity. You’d think we’d get a solid explanation behind this new development but instead, all we get is the Analyst talking about hope and despair (Danganronpa again?) Just accept that this is the story and move on.

Also, Trinity is now part-One. Why? Just accept it, move on. And that’s the pattern for a great deal of the movie. This is why it feels like Resurrection was a first draft, a lot of the ideas feel like they weren’t fully realized or thought through. Which makes the whole meta-aspect a little ironic since even though the movie criticizes reboots for being soulless and uncreative, Resurrections doesn’t change the wheel either. Instead, it just pushes forward ideas that seem intriguing, but doesn’t really do anything with them.

Then there are the other problems plaguing this movie. Dialogue was clunky and constantly broke the “show, don’t tell” rule. Bugs’ crew and the Io characters were extremely forgettable (I remember there was a Neo stan and a Trinity stan, that’s about it). For the new characters that I did remember, they were mostly under-written and bland. Action scenes were badly choreographed, which is jarring since this is a franchise known for good action. 

And in the end, I didn’t really feel moved by the movie. It was just an underwhelming affair, mainly because it didn’t feel like the movie was needed and that the people making it were just phoning it in. Or perhaps Lana was trying her hardest, but she needed help in fully realizing her ideas. I’m leaning on the second possibility since this movie was missing Yuen Woo-Ping, Lilly Wachowski, Bill Pope, Laurence Fishburne, and Hugo Weaving. Trust me when I say that you can feel the absence of those people in this movie. 

Then there’s the third possibility; Lana made this movie to vent out her frustrations against Warner Bros and the red pill movement. That’s why the “cool” aspects of the Matrix are nonexistent in Resurrection, a sort of cinematic ‘fuck you’. If that’s the case, then Lana succeeded; she made an intentionally underwhelming movie/Matrix sequel meant to frustrate audiences. Well, I’m pretty underwhelmed, so...job well done?

Side note: Before anyone brings it up, I don’t care if this movie was meant to be a parody of the original trilogy. You can’t just use the fact that movie is self-referential as carte blanche to do whatever you want. Even movies that are self-aware need to follow the basics of telling a good story

[ygreczed-3]

Your wonderful ideas

...That didn’t inspire me at the moment but... They’re all really creative and sweet ! Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me :)

Anonymous :

Aww, isn’t it cute ! I really love poetic quotes, they usually inspire me for more elaborate illustrations, with colors and all. I don’t have the time for this today but I really loved this one.

Anonymous :

Thank you so much ! I think that this community really helped me get better and supported me... So you can all thank yourself for my art lmao ! BUT ! THIS AU THOUGH !!! You should like... write a fanfic ! it’s so good ! You have the human-machine duality, and Connor’s quest for identity but in a whole different universe ! I find it amazing ! What about an ending where Connor stands in front of a beautiful dawn (just like the movie), and realizes Hank saved them all, and he starts to cry because he thinks he has lost him forever... and then Hank comes from behind him and they hug and kiss ? OMG I really love this AU (I love the Matrix trilogy !)😎

@pinkwebby :

Ahaha ! I know Reed900 is a very fertile field for all kind of jealousy tropes ! They’re not my favorite but I’m sure some people are gonna enjoy this prompt so I share it anyway ! I can totally see Nines crushing something he holds, wearing a 100% “-_- face”... while watching Gavin from afar ahah.

@skyfitzgeraldthefucker :

Awww, cute quote 💖 I really believe they can’t live with each other too ! Sorry I didn’t pick up your idea Sky, hope you were happy with the one I illustrated anyway ! Take care too my dear !

@taonpest :

Ohhhh !!! I admit I really really hesitated between this one and the Reed900 idea ! I finally decided I missed Reed900 and wanted to draw them... But this pose is really cool ! I always struggle to find interesting couple poses for some reasons... This one really is great ! Thank you for sharing ! Plus Hank and Connor chilling in a pub is sooooo nice to imagine ❤ (Also, I really wanted to thank you for reblogging my comics every time. Reblogs help spreading my art and it’s truly gratifying ❤)

@theneekytree :

Hhhh no 😭 No angst here I can't take it, I'm not ready to 😂 The problematic of Hank's mortality really is a topic I avoid because it makes me really too sad ! I know this is like the summit of romantic tropes, Eros and Thanatos, love beyond death and all but I just don't like to think about it. I know this is a reality for Hank and Connor but I'm in total denial when it comes to artistic representation of it 😂

Sorry I didn't illustrate it 🙏 I might be seen as a naive person but I really have a sweet spot for "feel good" vibes 😊

Anonymous :

What ?! Angst again !!! Geez you really want me to cry 😂 Makes me think of a never completed series with Hankcon slowburn... Hank being dumb and dumber and refusing to date Connor because he thinks he's not good enough for him... Then he finally changes his mind but Connor went to Cyberlife to get an update and lost his memory in the process... and forgets he loves Hank. This fic hurt my feelings so much 😭

@just-a-fangirl7 :

That definitely counts as Hankcon ! And I'd love to draw Reverse AU Connor one day ! Maybe on a future comic ? 👀 Thank you for this proposition ! I really liked it, if I had more time I'd definitely have drawn it 🤝

Anonymous:

Ahahah yes 😂 Connor getting full angry at someone/something trying to hurt Hank is one of my favorite tropes ! We all see how Hank is acting protective with Connor, but I'm sure our favorite robot boy could go "full murder" as you said on the people trying to hurt his beloved partner. Really, nice idea ! It's a bit hard to draw imo 😅 I wasn't feeling like challenging myself ahaha !

Anonymous:

Such a GAVIN REED thing to do ! They really like to mess up with each other ! Nice idea anon, maybe it'll give someone out there the inspiration they need !

@kiisekii96 :

LMAO ! I'm not exactly good at baking either ! And I can like... totally see Connor trying to cook something really sweet for once to surprise Hank (because he usually tries to cook healthy and Hank finds it lacks salt and sauces ahaha)

But then it's way to sweet, even for Hank 😂 The man would be "I changed my mind, I prefer when you cook healthy" 😂

A bit hard to draw, plus I'm excessively bad at drawing food 😂 But very nice idea !

@au-bunny :

As I said I really like cute lolita dresses, and I'm sure Connor amd Nines would look great wearing these, but I was in a mood for something dramatic and glittery 😂 I really liked the choice of dresses ! You took opposite black and white patterns dor each boy... Cute 🥰

@wingedauthor​ :

Thank you for the compliment ! And LMAO that would have been that, Gavin trying to spar and Nines kicking his ass like a boss ahaha ! Nice idea !

Thank you everyone for your propositions!

Maybe I’ll do something like this again when I reach the 2k followers milestone (I have no idea when i’ll reach it but heh. Or a lotery again. We’ll see !

[lastsonlost]

Oh my God Elon said something we don't agree with. God I hope Apple and Starbucks disagrees with you too.

Owning a Tesla, the luxurious electric car, is a major liberal status symbol. It signals nothing more than good taste — the perfect balance of wealth with care for fossil fuels. But the man behind the brand is crafting a very different persona online that may now prove to be a challenge for his fans.

Elon Musk, the bombastic head of Tesla and SpaceX, exhorted his 34 million Twitter followers on Sunday to “take the red pill.” The comment was quickly embraced by his followers, including Ivanka Trump, President Trump’s elder daughter, who announced that she had taken the pill already.

The exchange referred to a scene from “The Matrix,” the 1999 science fiction action film. But the meaning of “red pill,” and the idea of taking it, have since percolated in online forums and become a deeply political metaphor. And with Mr. Musk and Ms. Trump, the phrase is now lodged more fully into the mainstream.

So Tesla owners are having to grapple with a car that carries a few new connotations.

“Honestly, Musk is becoming a liability and the Tesla board needs to seriously consider ousting him,” wrote Markos Moulitsas, author of “The Resistance Handbook: 45 Ways to Fight Trump.” “And I say that as a proud owner of a Tesla and a SpaceX fanatic who truly appreciates what he’s built.”

So what is the red pill?

[ I hope your fuckings Tesla explodes. You don't have to be in its but you should be forced to walk everywhere.]

In “The Matrix,” the movie’s hero, Neo, played by Keanu Reeves, is given the option to take a pill that lets him see the truth.

The world he thinks is real turns out to be an entertaining lie; his body is actually trapped in a farm where people are being used as human batteries. Taking the blue pill would let him return to living in the ignorant but blissful lie, while taking the red pill would launch him into an arduous journey through a brutal but fulfilling reality.

The idea of taking the red pill later grew to mean waking up to society’s grand lies. It was embraced by the right, especially by members of its youngest cohort who organized and spent their time in online forums like Reddit and 4chan.

The truth to be woken up to varied, but it ended up usually being about gender. To be red-pilled meant you discovered that feminism was a scam that ruined the lives of boys and girls. In this view, for a male to refuse the red pill was to be weak.

Red Pill forums were often filled with deeply misogynistic and often racist diatribes. The more extreme elements splintered into groups like involuntary celibates (“incels”) or male separatists (Men Going Their Own Way, or MGTOWs). Conferences like the 21 Convention and its sister convention, Make Women Great Again, sprang up to gather red-pilled men. Being red-pilled became a sort of umbrella term for all of it.

As these conversations seeped into the mainstream, pulled along by a host of other internet language from message boards to establishment Republican conversations on sites like Breitbart, the meaning broadened and got watered down. To be red-pilled can now mean being broadly skeptical of experts, to be distrustful of the mainstream press or to see hypocrisy in social liberalism.

What’s going on with Elon Musk?

Mr. Musk has been pretty wild online for years now, which has made him a major internet celebrity with devoted fans who call themselves Musketeers. There are fan pages like Musk Memes with nearly 100,000 followers, and a Reddit page with 200,000 members in constant, extremely active conversation.

Most recently, Mr. Musk has been a prominent skeptic online of the coronavirus, calling the response to it a “panic” and “dumb” and wrongly predicting��close to zero new cases by the end of April. As of Tuesday, there were more than 90,000 deaths from the virus and more than 1.5 million cases in the United States alone.

The night before Tesla’s earnings were released last month, Mr. Musk tweeted an anti-lockdown rallying cry: “FREE AMERICA NOW.” He had a showdown with local lawmakers, threatening to move Tesla headquarters out of California and deciding to reopen a Tesla factory in Fremont, Calif., despite the local county’s restrictions to prevent the virus from spreading.

When State Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez objected on May 9 with an obscene tweet, Mr. Musk responded, “Message received.”

Defending his reopening of the Tesla factory, Mr. Musk wrote on Twitter that he would be on the factory floor and offered himself up to authorities. “I will be on the line with everyone else,” he posted on May 11. “If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me.”

This month, he and his girlfriend, Claire Boucher, the musician known as Grimes, had a child and named him X Æ A-12. And Mr. Musk announced that Tesla shares were too high and that he was selling almost all his possessions to the point of owning no house.

“We have a phrase, it’s E.M.M. — Elon Moves Markets,” said Bill Selesky, an analyst at Argus Research who tracks how Mr. Musk’s messages impact Tesla’s stock price. “People want to listen to him no matter what he says. He tends to be thought of as a great visionary.”

Mr. Selesky said even Mr. Musk’s detractors parsed every tweet and utterance. “Plus, if you have a Tesla, nobody can ever complain about you because you’re good for society,” he added.

This leads back to Mr. Musk’s message on Sunday, telling his followers to take the red pill.

Do ‘The Matrix’ creators like this?

No. Lilly Wachowski, a “Matrix” co-creator, told Mr. Musk and Ms. Trump in colorful language on Twitter that they could take a hike.

Is ‘red pill’ a Silicon Valley thing?

To some extent.

There has long been a strain of men’s rights activism in Silicon Valley, exemplified by James Damore, a former Google engineer who was fired after writing a memo arguing that the reason there are fewer female engineers is biological differences rather than discrimination.

Mr. Damore became a folk hero for a simmering movement in the technology industry of people who thought the efforts toward 50/50 representation at tech companies were absurd. Cassie Jaye, who calls herself a former feminist, made a 2016 documentary about the Red Pill community and said it had flourished in the tech world.

But the more common phrase in Silicon Valley to signal contrarian thinking is “narrative violation,” which is often used to describe an event that cuts against the mainstream media’s consensus on a topic. The idea is that there is a story being told about the world and how it works, but that the story is too simplistic to be entirely true and an event occasionally pops up to remind people of that.

Why does any of this matter?

Few products today are as deeply entwined with a person’s brand as Tesla is with Mr. Musk, and so his comments can feel personal for Tesla drivers.

“As a Tesla owner, a 47-year-old male recovering from Covid-19, and someone very concerned simultaneously about the environment, the economy, my kids’ and my parents’ future, this ain’t great,” said Jeff Guilfoyle, a product manager at FireEye in San Diego. “This disease is no joke, and the long-term health impacts are unknown for survivors.”

Many have implored Mr. Musk online to stop.

Raja Sohail Abbas, the chief executive of an outpatient psychiatric clinic in Allentown, Pa., wrote: “I am a Tesla owner and love the company. You have to stop being an idiot about this.”

“Tesla owner and Fan here, but this was a disappointing tweet despite the frustrations of and holdups,” added Alex Goodchild, a D.J. in Brooklyn. “Words are weapons especially when used during situations like the one we’re currently experiencing. You sound just like Trump in this tweet.”

The debate has riven the Tesla community.

“The last two months, there’s been this polarization in the Elon Musk fan club,” said Paula Timothy-Mellon, a technology consultant who moderates that LinkedIn-based fan club, which has 22,000 members. “There are those who are believers in these California guidelines and there are those in favor of his push to re-open Tesla.”

“As a Tesla owner, a 47-year-old male recovering from Covid-19, and someone very concerned simultaneously about the environment, the economy, my kids’ and my parents’ future, this ain’t great,” said Jeff Guilfoyle, a product manager at FireEye in San Diego. “This disease is no joke, and the long-term health impacts are unknown for survivors.”

Many have implored Mr. Musk online to stop.

Raja Sohail Abbas, the chief executive of an outpatient psychiatric clinic in Allentown, Pa., wrote: “I am a Tesla owner and love the company. You have to stop being an idiot about this.”

“Tesla owner and Fan here, but this was a disappointing tweet despite the frustrations of and holdups,” added Alex Goodchild, a D.J. in Brooklyn. “Words are weapons especially when used during situations like the one we’re currently experiencing. You sound just like Trump in this tweet.”

The debate has riven the Tesla community.

“The last two months, there’s been this polarization in the Elon Musk fan club,” said Paula Timothy-Mellon, a technology consultant who moderates that LinkedIn-based fan club, which has 22,000 members. “There are those who are believers in these California guidelines and there are those in favor of his push to re-open Tesla.”

Driving a Tesla often carries great symbolism for the owner (and observers).

“If you own a Tesla, you feel you are directly connected to Elon Musk and people think that Tesla owners are directly connected to the politics of the C.E.O.,” said Sam Kelly, a Tesla owner and investor based in Spain who posts under the name SamTalksTesla.

He added that he did not think the red pill comment meant any big new political awakening from Mr. Musk.

Asked to explain his thinking, Mr. Musk pasted an image of the Urban Dictionary definition of red pill in an email. It read:

“‘Red pill’ has become a popular phrase among cyberculture and signifies a free-thinking attitude, and a waking up from a ‘normal’ life of sloth and ignorance. Red pills prefer the truth, no matter how gritty and painful it may be.”

Seriously get a refund, buy a prius and

GET THE FUCKS OVER IT!

[atamascolily]

Okay, more Matrix re-watch thoughts.

The first movie is still perfect. I love everything about it. It’s like a carefully constructed jewel that works on multiple levels and everything holds up on re-watch--perhaps even better once you know the twists.

For instance, I realized the reason Smith says “No, Lieutenant, your men are already dead” at the beginning is because he’s tried to jump there and there’s no human bodies to inhabit because Trinity’s killed them--which is why she has to kill them in the first place, so the Agents would thus be forced to take the long way up to her.

Also, Cypher is a prime example of  why Morpheus and company should no longer liberate “minds above a certain age”--his age is unspecified but he appears to be much older than the rest of the crew (or maybe that’s just his world-weary attitude?) and he says he’s been out for “nine years” but... the irony is that no one on the crew realizes this until it’s Too Late.

Will Smith was originally supposed to play Neo, which is interesting to contemplate--especially since I then immediately think of Jada Pinkett-Smith as Trinity. Somewhere, there’s an alternate timeline with this movie and I want to watch it.

The actor playing Tank got written out of the sequels because of a dispute over salaries, which is why he gets an off-screen death in Reloaded. It’s too bad. Don’t get me wrong, Link is fine, but I really enjoyed Tank’s style.

I also really like Reloaded overall! I think the biggest problem is that audiences weren’t expecting the final twist--that the One’s apparent rebellion is actually a part of the system--particularly as it comes right at the end of the movie in a long speech. On re-watch, however, I think it works great and I love it. 

One thing I would like explained/elaborated on is how Morpheus can take on an agent in direct combat. There’s been a six month-ish time skip between films, and no doubt he picked up some tricks from Neo, but somehow we went from “no one’s ever fought an agent and survived” to “Morpheus fights an agent and survives” and even if we don’t see the Level-Up on screen, I would at least like some allusion to the work it took to get there??

I hate the Lock/Niobe/Morpheus love triangle so much, especially since it doesn’t go anywhere, sigh.

I like the Kid and the fact that’s that’s apparently his name, and his hero-worship of Neo is adorable. Neo’s denials that he had anything to do with it come off as modest, but according to the Animatrix, it’s literally true, Kid is supposed to have “self-substantiated” himself out of the Matrix on his own, and I’m... not sure how I feel about that?

I love the Zion fashion! The Wachowskis have such an eye for costume design, and you can really see that here and in Jupiter Ascending.

I love how Neo and Trinity are in that stage where they literally can’t stop touching each other--the elevator makeout made me laugh so hard.

Also, I like the Zion rave juxtaposed with the sex scene--not only is is great music and beautifully filmed, it’s also symbolic of the fact that given a choice between literally all of humanity and Trinity, Neo chooses Trinity, thus foreshadowing his earlier choice.

Everybody leaving offerings for Neo and projecting their hopes/dreams/fears onto him is so good. Also, I’m not sure what the point of the scene with Neo and the council member is--I like the emphasis that human beings still depend on machines, but I wish we got a reference/callback to that later on in the story, since they never meet or talk again.

Bane feels to me like knockoff!Cypher, but I appreciate the irony that Cypher was fully human whereas Bane is under Smith’s control. 

Seraph is described by the Wikipedia entry as “as the personification of a sophisticated challenge-handshake authentication protocol which guards the Oracle. ... As a challenge handshake authentication protocol, Seraph is effectively a login screen that fights the user to authenticate their identity.” I LOVE THIS SO MUCH, YOU HAVE NO IDEA.

As much as I enjoy the fight scene between Neo and the Smiths--the One vs. the Many--I’m not sure why he doesn’t fly away at the beginning? Also, not sure why the Smiths can’t fly, given the end of Revolutions, where he’s shown doing just that. He must have gotten a power-up in between but I’m not sure where or how.

The Merovingian is such an asshole, and I really like the juxtaposition between him and the Architect, especially since they both emphasize casuality and determinism. They’re the two sides of the same coin, just as Smith and Neo are foils to each other--two white men in suits who believe they control everything in their facade of refinement.

Persephone is amazing, full stop. She barely gets any lines in Revolutions and what I actually want is for her to depose her terrible husband and rule the Matrix underworld in his place after their spat in Reloaded.

I think the whole point of the orgasm cake is to show us that the body within the Matrix--and without--can be manipulated, and also that the Merovingian is gross and that cake is delicious. I could be wrong, though. Also, this is an example of a program influencing a human--I think it would be interesting to see the humans turn around and do that to a program (i.e., literal hacking). The end result of that sequence is to convince me that humans and sentient programs aren’t so different after all, which is why Neo can influence both after going to the Source.

that bathroom is amazing and I love the waterfall!

I also love the Keymaker so much, even though he’s literally a walking macguffin for most of this. I’m so sad he dies at the end. DOES HE GET REBOOTED? REPLACED? HOW DOES DEATH EVEN WORK FOR A PROGRAM?

the fight scenes in Reloaded are so good! I think the one in the Merovingian’s palace is my favorite in the entire series because of its use of convenient background weaponry, but the freeway chase is also extremely epic, and both the teahouse fight and the square fight are memorable. Also, everything with the Twins makes them perfect antagonists.

I’m curious to see where Matrix 4 is going to go. The ending of Revolutions sets up the possibility that Neo will return in some fashion, but apparently Morpheus is not in it? This suggests it will be more Matrix-focused and the Zion storyline will be dropped, but still, I love Morpheus, and it’s sad to learn he’s not in the next movie.

[pagetgram]

Paget Brewster, Bay Dariz, and Oliver Thompson at the 18th Annual Dance With Films Festival Opening Night Party (x)

Paget: “I had worked with Kyle and Molly before. Molly sent me the script and my first thought was, “Ugh, first-time indie director — oh man, I don’t know!” And then I read it and instantly fell in love with the story. I’ve never read anything like it. So I emailed Molly back right away and said, “What do I have to do to get on this film?”  

(full interview below)

Interview: Oliver Thompson’s ‘Welcome to Happiness’ Is the Most Original Indie You’ll See This Year

by Danny Miller, for Cinehiled

Welcome to Happiness is a wildly entertaining metaphysical drama about a children’s book author, Woody (American Sniper’s Kyle Gallner), who is the secret gatekeeper to a magical door in his closet. Strangers show up at his apartment and go through a series of questions and tests, provided to Woody by an old dot matrix printer that seems to work autonomously, letting him determine whether or not they are worthy to pass through the door. Where they are headed and what they will encounter on the other side, however, is a mystery. Oliver Thompson’s first feature is one of the most refreshingly original films that I’ve seen in a long time. It had a jam-packed screening last night at the 18th Annual Dances With Films festival in Hollywood and recently won the Outstanding Achievement in Filmmaking Award at the 2015 Newport Beach Film Festival. Welcome to Happiness boasts an impressive cast including Nick Offerman, Paget Brewster, Frances Conroy, Brendan Sexton III, Olivia Thirlby, Molly C. Quinn, Keegan Michael-Key, and Josh Brener. Just before the film’s Los Angeles premiere, I sat down with writer/director Oliver Thompson, producer Bay Dariz, and cast members Paget Brewster and Brendan Sexton III. I sat down with writer/director Oliver Thompson, producer Bay Dariz, and cast members Paget Brewster and Brendan Sexton III.

Danny Miller: I loved this movie but as I was watching it I kept thinking that no studio would have allowed you to make it. They probably would have forced a lot of changes on you because they wouldn’t have trusted that audiences would “get it.”

Oliver Thompson: Oh, they absolutely would have, yes.

Paget Brewster: This could never have been a studio film.

Oliver: I mean, those are absolutely necessary people who are just doing their jobs.

But are they absolutely necessary? I guess I’m thinking of the 22-year-old studio executives giving you pages and pages of insane notes to make the film less “challenging.”

Ooh, that’s pretty accurate.

What I love about movies like this is that they’re like Rorschach tests — I doubt two people seeing it will have the same impression of what’s going on.

Brendan Dean Sexton III: We’ve certainly heard from people who completely identify with different characters.

Brendan, I think I identified most with your character, Nyles, I’m a little terrified to admit.

Bay Dariz: When you say “challenging,” I think that’s true in the sense that the movie challenges the way audience members look at life, but I don’t think it’s some weird art film that’s inaccessible.

Right. It’s more challenging for studio executives who think moviegoers need to always have the answers and know what’s happening.

Brendan: Yeah, I think “challenging” is a good word to use. The characters in the film are challenged to make some decisions after they walk through the door and the film challenges you in terms of how you think about humanity and the meaning of life.

I loved that we didn’t see what happened when they went through that door. Oliver did you ever consider showing that more explicitly?

Oliver: Never! It was suggested to me one time by a producer but I really think that would have wrecked the film.

Paget and Brendan, you are both such busy actors and you and the rest of the cast obviously don’t choose to be in a film like this for a big pay day. What drew you to the project?

Paget: I had worked with Kyle and Molly before. Molly sent me the script and my first thought was, “Ugh, first-time indie director — oh man, I don’t know!” And then I read it and instantly fell in love with the story. I’ve never read anything like it. So I emailed Molly back right away and said, “What do I have to do to get on this film?”

Bay: Molly showed us that email, by the way, did you know that? We all said, “Whaaat?! Paget Brewster is excited about US?”

Paget: Oh my God, really? But it was such an evocative script and I think the movie came together even more beautifully than what you see on the page. The themes are just extraordinary, you don’t find that very often.

Brendan: Yeah, I thought it was a visually compelling literary script that moved really well. Not only was it a great role and a great script, it also tackled big things. Just reading a great script is such a rare thing — getting a chance to be involved with one is an even rarer treat, especially a film that really tackles the human condition.

I love all the little touches like making Kyle Gallner’s Woody a children’s book author.

Oliver: I wanted him to have a certain innocence about him. I used to be a music teacher at a small private school in Michigan — I wanted to have him involved with kids in some way. I toyed with the idea of making him a teacher or even a nanny, but then I went with a more literary approach.

I love that you showed all those children’s books that he wrote. I know they weren’t real but I so wanted them!

What’s crazy is that there’s so much more to those fake books that what you see on the screen. We show the cool front covers but they all have back covers, too, with a photo of Woody, a bio, bar codes, even prices for the U.S. and Canada. Some of those books were completely written and illustrated by Bay!

I love that attention to detail, you should really sell them! How has it been showing the film to audiences?

Before Dances With Films, we only screened it at the Newport Beach Film Festival so far. The audience reaction was overwhelmingly positive — it was just fantastic, better than we could have ever imagined.

It’s crazy that you don’t have a distributor yet but I’m sure that will change very shortly.

We’ve had some people from that world sit down with us and try to prepare us for what we’ll probably hear: “You have to cut the film down to 90 minutes! Change the title! What were you thinking starting your title with a ‘W’?!”

Why is that bad?

Because when you’re on HBO GO, it’ll come up at the end of the alphabetical list.

Oy. Do audience members try to get you to tell them what the film means?

At Newport Beach, we had a phenomenal Q&A after the film. People asked very meaningful questions about things we couldn’t even believe they noticed. We went so long that the theater finally had to kick us out because they were turning off the lights. As far as what the film is about, I don’t think I’m in a place yet to pull the David Lynch “you figure it out on your own” card, but I’d love to get to that place. I think I have to be a little more giving but to tell the truth, it’s fun to talk about that.

You should give wildly different answers every time someone asks you to explain the film.

(Laughs.) That would be great. Did you see that documentary Room 237 about all the supposed meanings behind Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining?

Paget: Oh, that was great! All these conspiracy theorists saying that Kubrick was trying to tell us that we faked the moon landing.

Oliver: Yeah, they presented several different crazy theories including that it was really about the genocide of Native Americans!

You want it to be like that Marshall McLuhan scene in Annie Hall when McLuhan appears in that movie line to tell the pretentious blowhard that all of his theories about his film were total bullshit!

Oliver: I haven’t heard any crazy theories about Welcome to Happiness yet, but who knows?

Brendan: I think the world Oliver created here is so rich and compelling it could lead to crazy theories. I think it would make a great TV show, too.

Oliver: Well, two of my biggest influences for this film were Twin Peaks and Lost. They were buzzing around my head when I wrote this script.

Brendan: You could have a new case every week or maybe focus on three different characters each season who go through the door and see how they intertwine.

Bay: Sshhh! It’s been discussed!

Just promise me you’ll have a series finale that’s less aggravating than the one on Lost!

Oliver: I don’t know. I realize that ending didn’t really answer a lot of questions but I was pretty moved by it. In my opinion, people think they want all the answers, but they really don’t.

Paget: And we’re still talking about that finale five years after the show went off the air! I think that kind of response is a lot better than an ending that is just “meh.”

Oliver: I heard director Nicolas Winding Refn say that if you’ve made something that half the people love and half the people hate, you’ve made something great. But if you make something that everyone loves or everyone hates, you probably haven’t succeeded because it didn’t really penetrate.

He doesn’t have to worry about the lack of people hating his most recent film!

The truth is, I’m very aware that this movie is not for everyone. But look at how many viewers Lost had each week. There was never a more challenging hour on TV! “What did I just watch? I have no idea what’s going on!” And yet people tuned in. I really believe there’s an audience for that kind of stuff. People are smart — they like to think. It’s just that a lot of people controlling the money don’t always realize that people like to be engaged or challenged with thought-provoking material.

Bay: One thing I noticed about our Q&As is that we don’t get a lot of those typical film festival questions.

Oliver: Right. “What did you shoot it on? How long was your shoot?”

Ugh. Who gives a shit?

That’s the thing. In this case, people got right to the heart of the film and wanted to talk about the characters and the themes. People were so engaged by what was on the screen that they didn’t care about what was behind the screen.

[ticktickblog]

New School Year, New Chapter

Special Offers for Students and Educators

Gone through the “Sci-Fi movie” called 2020, life goes on and unfolds new challenges for us all, especially for those students and teachers who have just experienced not-so-efficient remote learning and for those who are new to the college this autumn. At this key stage, turning life into a new page and getting more focused on what’s happening next is obviously important. 

TickTick is here to help you gain more control back over the new challenges in the coming school year, with the special educational discount for all qualifying students and faculties!

There are up to three benefits that you can enjoy:

1. All enrolled students and educators are eligible for a 25% discount when upgrading to TickTick yearly premium. This is a long-lasting program. Learn how to apply. 

2. From today to 30th of September, everyone who successfully upgraded to premium through our special offer for education, can get 3 extra one-month TickTick premium gift codes! This is for you to share with any of your schoolmates, colleagues or friends, which means they can enjoy the one-month TickTick premium service totally for free! 

3. If any of your friends who used your codes continue their subscriptions for TickTick’s yearly plan, you’ll then get one more month automatically extended to your current premium status too!

Ready to kick off the new school year? Here’s a step-by-step guide for students. 

Be prepared for school with simple to-do lists

Before the school starts, preparing for the move from home to uni can be very daunting, particularly difficult if the uni is in another city or even country. To help yourself a little bit, writing everything down and getting reminded is what should come in the first place. 

For example, creating a packing list by using the “Packing Template” in TickTick and then divide the lists into multiple “Sections”: clothing, stationeries, electronic gadgets, and etc. A reading list regarding one of your newly chosen courses can also pre-equip you with a general idea and get you ready for shifting to the study mood. Meanwhile, a social list for the events you’d like to attend in the welcoming week, and societies you’d like to join will prepare you for a new start of uni life. A document list for enrolment, or a sightseeing list to explore the new city where you’re going to stay, are also essential for your quick settling.

Build a study-based workaround 

Step 1: Creating different Lists for different courses you’re enrolled in. 

Step 2: Creating different Tasks for components of the course within each list.

For example, in the list called Sociolinguistics, there could be three tasks: Task A: Lectures, Task B: Seminars, Task C: Workshops. Here, you can set the tasks as recurrent, for example, 10-12 am every Friday for Task A: Lectures.

Step 3: Adding Subtasks within the tasks. I suggest you create those subtasks according to the topic of each class. 

For example, under Task A: Lectures, there could be many subtasks: Lecture 1: code-switching, Lecture 2: translanguaging, Lecture 3… 

Subtasks can be further split if necessary. For example:  Lecture 1: code-switching can be divided into three new subtasks in the second level: Preview, In process, Revision. 

Step 4:  Defining the context of your tasks/subtasks with Tags. 

In the daily study life, it’s common to have different types of tasks, e.g. Reading, Discussing, Researching, or Writing. Therefore, you can actually add different tags to the tasks to make sure they are well sorted out, and then plan out accordingly based on their contexts.

Step 5: Prioritizing your tasks and identity what’s important.

I believe you may have heard about the Eisenhower Matrix before (sorting your tasks based on urgency and importance). Important and urgent, important but not urgent, urgent but not important, not important and not urgent. Based on this, TickTick offers 4 choices of Priority: High, Medium, Low Priority and No Priority, to help you decide what needs to be done first.

Step 6: Taking notes and connecting everything related to the course.

When taping into a task/subtask, you’ll find a wide blank area for task description. You can write down/upload more details here regarding your tasks, whether it’s reading resources, professors’ contacts, random ideas, or lecture notes from the class. Markdown (a way to quickly add formatting like headers, bold, bullet points, and so on to plain text) is supported here in the task description section, in order to help you take notes easily and beautifully on your digital devices. 

Not a fan of digital writing? Not a problem. You can also add attachments in the description, to include any files you feel relevant to your tasks, like notes written on paper.

With these steps above, you’ll find all your course-related materials and tasks can be well organized and scheduled just in one place. 

* Would also like to plan out social and daily life? Then creating multiple Folders to collect lists is what you need to do. Move all lists for study in one folder, and get another for social life. Easy, right? Or simply subscribe to other calendars, and all the events from there could be synced into TickTick.

Beat procrastination with Time Blocking 

When the courses begin, the struggle comes in the form of knowing exactly what to do but just can’t find enough motivation to actually do it. With so many tasks at the same time, like readings and group assignments, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. The 48-hour essay writing and one-night-oil exam reviewing are probably the most often heard stories in the uni. 

How to be a master of time management and stop being the last-minute person, is perhaps the most important skill we should all learn in uni life. One of the solutions for this could be practicing Time Blocking with TickTick’s built-in Calendar. 

Step 1: Customizing when week 1 starts at the Date & Time Settings in TickTick. 

The first week you set can be the first week when your courses begin, and the following weeks will be able to show in sequence in your TickTick calendar.

Step 2: Arranging tasks in the calendar. 

After going to the calendar, you’ll be able to see tasks you’ve created before, as long as they have a due date. For example, it will show the timetable of your classes, social events synced from your local calendar, or other tasks in daily life. 

If you’d like to add, move and arrange new tasks, simply use the feature “Arranging Tasks”, where all your tasks are  displayed by Priority, Tags and Lists. Via drag n’ drop, anything can be put into time blocks in the calendar. What’s already in there can also be moved. 

Learn more.

Be more focused with Pomodoro Technique

With so many distractions around us, it’s even harder to stay focused than we thought. One of the main features designed to help you keep focused in TickTick is actually called Focus. 

Within Focus, there's a Pomodoro Timer. Based on the Pomodoro Technique, it’s a pre-set timer normally combines a 25-minute work session with a 5-min break. This goes in cycles at least four times, and you’ll then get a longer beak (normally 15 minutes). You can always change the settings for these sessions. 

So, to get Pomo started, you may first have to choose a task you’d like to focus on, and then a white noise as the background sound. Start working till the Pomo timer ends, and you can’t back out of the app, otherwise you would lose this Pomo. But if you’re an Android user, there is actually an allowlist in which you can add other apps. You’re then able to use other apps with your pomo timer keeping running in TickTick. 

Find more about Focus.

Be active in group work with Kanban boards 

Group assignments take a big part in uni life. What may become the hindrances sometimes are the responsibility division within the group, disconnection with others’ progress, or inefficiency  in group communications. Kanban in TickTick offers a solution. 

First used by line-workers in Toyota’s factory, Kanban is a project management method to visualize your workflow. Group work can be displayed on different Kanban boards, so that you can clearly see what should be done by who, when it needs to be done and what’s the progress of others. Commenting on tasks on Kanban also makes it more efficient to communicate with other group members.

Go to TickTick and enter a list, you can then choose to switch it into the Kanban view. Here, you can place tasks onto different boards divided from person to person or phase to phase. Each task can be assigned to others, as long as you share the list with them. The progress of each member can also be easily marked to keep the whole team informed. Commenting on your own or others’ tasks also makes the communication in the group come in real time. Besides, not only available on desktop, Kanban also works on mobile. This literally turns the group work into something that can be done anytime and anywhere! 

Ready to kick off the new school year? Take this guide and the unique discounts we offer to wrap TickTick in your starter pack!

Apply now.

[thesevenseraphs]

Bungie Weekly Update - 1/23/19

This Week at Bungie, the path was found.

The Corridors of Time have been charted. Guardians from around the world took on the monumental challenge of navigating time itself, some losing their minds in the progress. We’d never shipped a puzzle of this size before, and watching the community engagement was a thrill in itself. We’ve seen a few requests for commentary on the creation and development of this puzzle. As always, we’re happy to invite you behind the scenes and share some of the thinking that goes into the experiences you play.

Destiny Dev Team: Over the past week, we’ve watched in awe as the community came together to solve one of Destiny’s most complex puzzles to date. Everyone who took the time to participate in the solution will be remembered for years to come – whether you submitted a screenshot, transcribed puzzle pieces, generated maps, wrote code, worked the data, or cat-wrangled this monumental team effort. Please take a moment to congratulate yourselves. Your efforts and accomplishments were truly inspiring. Watching the first players solve the puzzle in the early hours of Monday morning was a career highlight for many of us on the Development Team. With the puzzle solved and the Corridors of Time closing next week, we wanted to take a moment to talk about our goals and early designs for this puzzle. When we started planning the puzzle, we created a few goals to guide our development:

Create a time maze through which any player can dive to discover secrets and lore

Serve as a shared community puzzle that rewards the Exotic Fusion Rifle

Celebrate community achievement and invite all players to partake in the reward

With these goals in mind, we took inspiration from multiple sources in creating the early designs for the puzzle. The bones originated several years ago with the discovery of the Sleeper Simulant and the ensuing quest to unlock it. At the time, we recognized that the moment of discovery was reserved for the few people that happened to be online at the time when that hidden content unlocked. Similarly, the secret missions for The Whisper and Zero Hour were also moments of discovery reserved for the few people online within a limited time window to experience first. By contrast, this puzzle was meant to be experienced by everybody who wanted to be included.

As is tradition at Bungie during our annual studio Pentathlon (which was held last Friday), many of us spend the entire day solving puzzles crafted by some of our brightest minds. This always culminates in a meta-puzzle that cannot be solved without the contribution of all of the smaller solutions. Similarly, the Corridors of Time puzzle was designed from the start to be very simple in nature, but also require require that all of the little bits come together in harmony before revealing its solution

The delivery of this puzzle came together as the team began exploring the concept and narrative for Season of Dawn. The puzzle seemed to fit well with the idea of the Corridors of Time, with players meandering and weaving through time to find a very specific reality. The early ideas for this space were roughly based on the idea of the cult-classic movie Cube, where you would leave one door and end up in another identical room with a new death trap waiting for you. As always, our artists delivered a mind-bending and stunning visual language that simply brought the whole experience together into something that inspires the imagination. Much like other classic movies, such as Alice in Wonderland or the Matrix, this space and the way it was connected together was done so to invoke questions like “Just how deep does this rabbit hole go? Can you just keep going on forever?", and "Is there even an end to this?” Again, we want to thank everyone who participated in this puzzle or cheered from the sidelines. We’re actively monitoring and collecting your feedback, from the puzzle itself to the rewards contained, to inform how we build experiences like this again in the future.

Now, we look ahead. We’ve got a rundown of performance issues that are currently under investigation, and another patch note preview for next week's update!

PERFORMANCE PASS

Over the last few months, we’ve been gathering feedback associated with game performance. This translates to moments when you may see framerate drops during activities or long load times when accessing a menu. The team has been deep in the code, looking for potential causes of these issues.

Next week, we’ll have a few performance issues addressed in Destiny 2 Update 2.7.1, including:

Improved some performance issues in the Chamber of Suffering encounter.

Fixed an issue where players could die when transitioning from the Necropolis encounter to the Tunnels of Despair.

Improved a performance issue that could occur when chunks of land return, or are removed during the Sanctified Mind encounter.

Improved performance when receiving certain investment related messages. This could be reward acquisition, placing tributes, or interacting with Obelisks.

The largest impact will be in the Tower, but this should help everywhere.

Players who load into Crucible matches faster than their peers will no longer be put in black screen. Rather, they will remain in spaceflight until all players have loaded into the match, as before.

Some proposed fixes are currently in development for the below items. These need to pass through rigorous testing before they’ll find their way to a future edition of patch notes:

UI stuttering and framerate drops when loading or applying mods

Framerate issues in Gambit and Gambit Prime

Framerate issues during the Sanctified Mind encounter of the Garden of Salvation Raid

Framerate issues in the Pit of Heresy Dungeon, specifically in tunnel encounters

General improvements to performance on PC when a lot of debris is on the ground

While our goal is to address these at the beginning of the next season, these fixes may be delayed if further issues arise. We’ll be sure to keep you updated as we approach Season of [Redacted]. There are also other performance issues we're currently investigating that aren't listed above. If you've been encountering framerate drops or stuttering issues during gameplay, please make sure to post a report to the #Help forum on Bungie.net. Please include which platform you were playing on, what activity you were in, and a video if possible.

PATCH NOTE PREVIEW, V2

Last week, we had a short and sweet preview of what’s coming in Destiny 2 Update 2.7.1. While Hard Light is creating some excitement, we have a few more patch notes addressing Quests, Seals, Exotic perks, and more.

Investment

Fixed an issue that is preventing Eris from granting her final Lore entry

Fixed an issue where the “Green with Envy” Quest was not progressing for some players

Fixed an issue where the “Playin’ the Odds” emblem was not unlocking correctly for players

This could prevent some players from fully unlocking the Dredgen title

Improved Black Armory Rare Bounty acquisition

Chances increase as you complete weekly and daily bounties

Guaranteed to drop from bounty completion after 5 days if completing all Ada-1 bounties

Sandbox

Fixed an issue where the Heavy Handed mod could trigger from Telesto bolts

Fixed an issue where players could retain buffs from Wormgod Caress, Winter’s Guile, and Synthoceps even after swapping armor

Equip restrictions on Wormgod Caress and Winter’s Guile will be lifted once this patch has shipped

We’ll have a few more notes to share; expect the full list on Tuesday when Update 2.7.1 becomes available.

A MEMENTO IN TIME

Keeping track of every timetable in development could make your head spin. Luckily, you have Destiny Player Support at your service, and they don’t shy away from the task. Known issues, release timelines, and more can be found below.

This is their report.

PASSAGEWAY OF THE AGES

With the Destiny Community changing the timeline, the Corridors of Time have become unstable and will only be available until the weekly reset on Tuesday, January 28. 

Players have until this time to collect the 19 “The Pigeon and the Phoenix” Lore pieces and the “Savior of the Past” emblem, along with a heartfelt message from Saint-14.

UNLOCKING BASTION

We have noticed that some players are having issues getting their Bastion Exotic Fusion Rifle quest from Saint-14. To claim the quest, players need to fully complete the Saint-14 storyline. This includes completing the following quests that can be claimed from Osiris:

Recovering the Past

An Impossible Task

Completing An Impossible Task

After completing these three quests and claiming their triumphs, players can visit Saint-14 in the Tower to pick up the “Memento” quest located in his inventory. Players having issues may need to clear their console cache or verify the integrity of their game files on Steam then visit Saint-14.

UPDATE 2.7.1 AND RESOLVED ISSUES

Next Tuesday, January 28, we will release Destiny 2 Update 2.7.1. This update will resolve some issues currently affecting players. Here is another preview of some of the issues that will be resolved:

Players who have the Leviathan’s Breath Exotic quest will now be able to access “The Arms Dealer” Strike. This quest will become available to all Season Pass owners, regardless of which Season Pass they own. Players can pick this quest up from Banshee-44 in the Tower Courtyard after reaching Power 800.

Progress will now count toward the Season 9: Challenges, Season 9: Rituals, and Season 9: Engagement Triumphs and the requirements for each one have been reduced so they can be completed during Season of Dawn.

Additionally, here’s the timeline for the Destiny 2 Update 2.7.1 release on Tuesday:

8:00 AM PST (1600 UTC): Destiny 2 maintenance will begin. Players may experience sign-on issues during maintenance.

8:45 AM (1645 UTC): Players will be removed from activities and will be unable to log in until 9 AM.

9:00 AM (1700 UTC): Destiny 2 Update 2.7.1 will be released and players will be able to log in.

11:00 AM (1800 UTC): Destiny 2 maintenance will end.

CURRENT KNOWN ISSUES

Here is a list of the latest known issues that were reported to us in our #Help Forum:

The Efrideet’s Gift triumph isn’t unlocking for players who collect 50 Iron Banner packages from Lord Saladin.

When resetting Infamy rank, progress gets reset for the “Get Closer” step for the Green With Envy quest.

The Sundial Fractaline Extractor III, obtained from the Nessus Obelisk, incorrectly states an increased chance to find Polarized Fractaline when completing Vanguard Strikes. The enhancement actually increases the chance to find Polarized Fractaline when completing the Sundial and the Menagerie.

The three Dreaming Tokens given to players during the Wish-Ender quest, sometimes do not all go into a player’s inventory and cannot be reacquired on that character.

The Warlock’s Arc Web no longer chain-lightnings enemies.

For a full list of emergent issues in Destiny 2, players can review our Known Issues article. Players who observe other issues should report them to our #Help forum.

[theotherstephencobert]

Final March Blog a Day Challenge - # 18 and #31

What I know for certain…

In late September of 2001 (stop a moment and think about that date) I was working at the Bank of America call center in Wichita. A caller was inquiring about a deposit he'd made that had a hold on it, and he wanted to know when the hold would fall off. When I told him, he demanded that I guarantee absolutely that the hold would be off by that date. I told him things such as, "We will make every effort to see to it the funds are available then" and "The system shows you may access your funds by that date." Not good enough for this caller; as long as there was the slightest lack of certainty, he wasn't going to accept my reply.

Finally in exasperation I told him, "Sir, I am not the Almighty. I cannot guarantee you or I will be drawing a breath on the day you're requesting. In fact, considering what happened a couple weeks ago, I'm not sure I'd put even money on this world still being here by that date!"

All right, I was being a bit dramatic there; in fact, I think I heard the caller chuckle a little after  I said that. But the story serves to illustrate my answer to Challenge #31. What I know for certain is... not a whole lot.

I have seen a meme a number of times and I think I posted it to this board some time ago: "It is a sign of intelligence to question the things you think you know. Only idiots are dead sure about everything." That's not meant to be a put-down of people who are sure of some things, such as how they feel or their life experiences. But I remember a guy from my high school class (I suspect most of us remember someone like this) whose pet phrase was "I'm positive of it". It was his great argument stopper. It didn't matter if it was that the sun rose in the west or the Pope was Hindu, this guy was oh-so-positive of everything he thought he knew. (And beyond my facetiousness, I discovered a lot of what he said he was "positive" about was in fact wrong. Which didn't slow him down any.)

Looking over the Challenges for this month, I noted I skipped #18, Spirituality, so I will bring that topic in here.

I have made mention on this blog that I consider myself a Christian. I will admit that I am human like everyone else and I have my uncertainties of some things about the Christian faith, especially areas where there seem to be controversy even among Christians (such as "tongues"). I know Who and What I have believed and believe it to be true. But there is an area that brings that whole realm of what we call Reality into question.

The image at the top of this post alludes to Plato's Cave Allegory. The idea was this: If we were chained to a wall inside a cave and all we ever saw was shadow images that were visible on the wall across from us, that would be our "reality". We would think those shadows were real because that was all we were ever shown. If we ever got unchained and saw the light that was making the shadows, we would be blinded by the light until we got used to it... but we would be seeing a truer reality than the one we thought we real previously. (This concept was central - with more modern technology, of course - tp movies such as The Matrix and The Truman Show.)

And this concept is part of the Christian way of thinking as well, at least as I understand it. Believers are told to set their sights on eternal things, not on things of this world which well pass away and prove to have been like the shadows in Plato's allegory. Certainly we are to treat one another with kindness, love and mercy, and to provide for each other. But believers are admonished that the riches and possessions we are so bent on accruing in "this world" are just shadows, things that will prove not to be real.

In his book The Great Divorce (which I have alluded to a few times on this blog), C. S. Lewis suggests that the Afterlife might be compared to "the opposite of a dream": that it will be such a reality that this thing we call "life" will seem like a dream in comparison. With that in mind, almost nothing in this world that one could say they were "certain" about would be certain in the absolute sense of that word. How could that chair I'm sitting in be real, how could that glass of water I drank be real, how could the five dollar bill in my pocket be real, if all this will someday prove to be a sort of dream that we are living? In fact, I can say I know for certain I exist... but to anyone else who reads this, what certainty can they have that I do?

I'm not saying anyone should starve to death because we can't be sure the food is real, or that you should go step out on the highway because you can't be sure the truck coming at you at 65 mph is real. But there is really precious little in this world that anyone can say is "certain".

[eng2100]

blog 08 - neuromancer

So as an introductory note, I’m actually quite a big fan of cyberpunk. I’m a hobbyist DnD player and the first campaign that I’ve Dungeon-Mastered for was actually a simplified version of Shadowrun that I wrote all the backstory and lore for. It’s in what I would call a “sequel” right now that I’m very much enjoying. So bla bla bla I was excited to get to Neuromancer this whole time because I’m a genre fan.

a brief primer to cyberpunk

So western Cyberpunk owes its roots largely to the detective fiction genre-- most notably the hardboiled detective archetype, a darker western interpretation of your Sherlock Holmes type who is usually a jaded antihero that works for money, but still has a sense of justice deep down. You see this more reflected in Blade Runner than you see it in Neuromancer’s Case, but there are still a number of correlations (Funnily enough, Neuromancer and Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep both end on nearly the same line-- “He never saw Molly again.” and “...and I never saw her again.” respectively.) Interestingly enough, Case kind of spawns his own kind of cyberpunk hero trope-- the rebellious hacker, seen in Neo. 

If detective fiction owes itself to the inescapable aura of The Great Depression, then cyberpunk owes itself to the Reagan administration. Cyberpunk’s whole thing, at least in the west, springs forward from the fear of unregulated corporate growth in tandem with the rise of technology, and what the mixture of the two might bode for humanity at large. Both Neuromancer and Blade Runner owe their entire aesthetics to the vision of a world taken over by neon advertisements, bereft of nature, replaced by plasticity. 

Now, why the primer? Well, I think it’s important to preface the discussion of this novel with the idea that cyberpunk is a deeply political genre in a way that not many other genres inherently are. (All fiction is, of course, inherently political, whether intentional or not, but most genres don’t regularly feature as much political charge as cyberpunk, is what I mean.) Neuromancer is politics from an era before most of us in this class were born, and as such, atop being a seminal work of genre fiction, it’s a lurid look into what the landscape looked like in the 80s. We are living now in the times that 80s Cyberpunk once called “the future”-- and, well, what does it look like for us? Are we living in the Urban Sprawl?

not quite

Our dystopian future is significantly more...mundane than coffin hotels and the television sky over Chiba. You might say we got all the corporate deregulation and none of the glimmering aesthetic slickness of cyberpunk-- we really are living in the worst timeline. If i’m going to have to labor under capitalism for the rest of my short life, couldn’t I at least have a slick pair of mirrorshades?

the text

There’s a lot about Neuromancer to like. It earned its reputation wholeheartedly-- it is definitely the legendary cyberpunk novel that it is well-known for being. Its writing style can often be abstract at the same time that it’s luridly detailed, and it uses strange and interesting words to create vivid images in the reader’s mind of this foreign landscape of the Sprawl. It uses a lot of “old world” associations to lend deeper weight to its descriptions (the Tank War Europa game comes to mind in tandem with the Screaming Fist operation that looms over the plot). 

The book doesn’t shy away from the visceral nature of its own plot and setting-- drug binges and cramped love affairs in coffin hotels, fear and violence are all described in visceral detail that grounds the book hard in its reality while simultaneously indulging in a sort of dream-like surreality. I really admire the ways in which Gibson writes physical sensation whether it comes to the sex or the pain or the weirdness of cyberspace. The introduction of the novel sort of failed to catch me until Gibson went into detail about Case’s harrowing journey after losing his ability to jack into cyberspace and the intense, surreal affair with Linda Lee. Perhaps my biggest issue with the writing of Neuromancer is, however, Gibson’s tendency to throw a lot of world-building terminology at you really fast. Nothing bogs down a fictional story more than having to pause to wonder what certain words mean.

Describing cyberspace during a time in which VR wasn’t even a thing yet had to have been a challenge and a half, but Gibson found interesting ways to visualize the experience, and coined interesting terminology for it (ice and icebreakers, most notably). The Sense/Net bits are also pretty cool, but I’m also biased because anything that gives Molly Millions more screentime is just the best thing.

Did I mention Molly is my favorite character? I just can’t get over her. It sucks that her and Case break up in the epilogue, but it also feels fitting in a weird way. She really struck me as a standout character for a woman in a cyberpunk novel-- she’s an active player in her own sexuality, she’s violent and the stronger of the two between herself and Case. She has a sort of unapologetic way about her that feels very fresh even today. The first time Case uses Sense/Net to see through her eyes, I was hit in an unexpectedly hard way by the description of people in a crowd moving out of the way for her-- for most girls in real life, that’s a fairly unheard of experience, and to me, as a female reader, it did a lot to establish to me just how powerful she is.

That being said, this is a good place to segue into the conversation you know my Obnoxious Feminist Ass has been waiting to bring up.

cyberpunk vs women

You can tell a lot about a person’s base assumptions about the world by the way they talk about people in their works of fiction. Now when I say “base assumptions” I don’t mean their political leanings, I mean something that’s on a deeper, more subconscious level-- in this way, base assumptions are inherently neutral in a way, they’re incapable of being truly malicious, even if they’re harmful, because they’re just the base coding of how a person regards things inherently.

What I’m getting at is that at the time of writing this book, I don’t think Gibson had much of a regard for women at all. When the first mention of women in your novel is calling them whores, I’m going to be forced to assume both that you don’t like women very much and that women are primarily sex objects to you-- or at the very least that women factor into your view of the world in a very marginal way that is largely informed by porn culture. Now, let’s suppose that maybe it’s actually the POV character Case that’s just a raging sexist-- that theory might hold water if this were a character trait that is brought up as a flaw, or indeed, if it were really brought up at all in his personality, but it’s not.

To my great frustration, in the Neuromancer world, it seems like “whore” is about the only job available for women! Who knew the job market would shrink in such a way? Now, perhaps you could argue that Gibson was actually trying to make a point about the way in which porn culture commodifies women into sexy leg lamps for male consumption, and I won’t claim to know his intent, but to me, it doesn’t really seem that deep. It seems like to me that, to Gibson, women being mostly vapid sex workers in his dystopia is a foregone conclusion-- he didn’t think about it that hard, that’s just his stereotypical image of what women in an criminal underbelly do.

This problem of a lack of regard for female perspectives in cyberpunk narratives that largely concern themselves with themes of objectification and oppression under capitalist systems and the regurgitation of harmful sexist tropes certainly isn’t exclusive to Neuromancer. Cyberpunk is a economic-political type of genre, so oppression in the genre tends to fall upon class lines rather than race or gender lines-- and perhaps, this could occur in a far flung future in which capital manages to supersede bias, however, I can’t help but feel that this is a lazy way to write a political narrative. Blade Runner, Blade Runner 2049, and The Matrix all have distinct problems with addressing the idea of intersectionality when it comes to the ways in which ones gender and race plays into their role in a capitalist system. 

Cyberpunk, for all its shining successes as interesting fiction and pointed political commentary, totally fails in the regard that it co-opts the struggle of lower-classes and applies the romanticized aesthetic to white male characters completely unironically. (You can read a pretty good take on Dystopias and post-racialism here.)

east versus west

So, when I went over the primer to the rise of Cyberpunk earlier, I left something out (on purpose!). During the 80s, there was another prime ingredient to the mix of the nascent genre’s formation: the rise of Japan as a technological leader in the global market. Before World War 2, and indeed, during it, American’s conceptualization of the future, was, well, American. They viewed themselves as the originator of innovation within the world and the blueprint from which the rest of the world should be based. However, this all changed in the post-war era as Japan began to participate in the market, leaving behind their isolationist ways-- suddenly, Japan was what the vision of the future looked like in American imagination-- the Tokyo urban sprawl.

The imagery of Japan is ubiquitous in western Cyberpunk, whether hardcore or or softcore or simply an incidental portrayal of futurism. Disney’s Big Hero 6 features San Fransokyo, San Franciso and Tokyo jammed together complete with neon signs in Japanese letters. During the 90s, Marvel launched Rampage 2099 and Spider-man 2099, both set in glittering neon cityscapes. The series Firefly featured a strange universe in which everyone seems to speak Chinese pidgins (but there’s no Chinese people in the show, funnily). MTV had Aeon Flux, a U.S. take on anime. Even movies like Total Recall borrowed the bright neon flavor. Video games such as Deus Ex and Cyberpunk 2077 feature these influences heavily, with less-bold-but-still-there influence being seen in games like Remember Me and Detroit: Become Human.

There’s an interesting cultural exchange going on between the east and west when it comes to Cyberpunk, as the 90s were rife with cyberpunk fiction in both places-- The U.S. saw The Matrix (which was inspired by Ghost in the Shell, as admitted by the Wachowskis in a phrasing that I find really annoying as an animator: “We want to make that but for real”.), while Japan had the seminal Ghost in the Shell and Akira. It’s interesting to note the stark contrast between western and eastern Cyberpunk-- eastern Cyberpunk misses entirely western Cyberpunk’s detective fiction roots, for one. For two, eastern Cyberpunk tends to concern itself more with philosophical questions about the nature of the soul in relation to technology and deep-seated cultural fears about weapons of mass destruction and government.

Neuromancer is deeply entrenched in eastern aesthetics-- many Japanese brands are brought up explicitly by name within the model (Mitsubishi, Sony, etc.). Gibson cites the “Kowloon Walled City” of Hong Kong as something that haunted him after he was told about it, and the idea of Coffin Hotels owes quite a lot to it. Gibson is quoted as saying:

“Modern Japan simply was cyberpunk. The Japanese themselves knew it and delighted in it. I remember my first glimpse of Shibuya, when one of the young Tokyo journalists who had taken me there, his face drenched with the light of a thousand media-suns - all that towering, animated crawl of commercial information - said, ‘You see? You see? It is Blade Runner town.' And it was. It so evidently was.“

One of Neuromancer’s primary settings is The Night City, a supposedly gaijin district of Tokyo on the bay-- this...sort of explains why there don’t seem to be a lot of Asian people in Asia, but the issue still stands. This isn’t a game-breakingly “I wouldn’t recommend this book” bad case, but it is something that I felt I should point out. Neuromancer is a foundational work to the genre, which means that not only are its successes carried over, but many of its flaws as well. Now, I don’t want this cricitism to sound like I think William Gibson is a raging bigot or anything-- I really don’t! I follow him on twitter and he’s a perfectly likable guy, actually. Problems aside, I really enjoy his work.

conclusions

Going into the future, I don’t think Cyberpunk is going away anytime soon, and certainly much of it owes its roots to Neuromancer. With shows like Altered Carbon and games like Cyberpunk 2077 on the horizon, I’m interested to see the ways in which our current economic political climate may effect what our vision of a technological dystopia may look like. Cyberpunk is easily one of the most interesting genres of fiction, and if you haven’t looked into it deeply, I highly recommend checking it out.

[the-firebird69]

That's right then right in the middle of this conflict and yeah I guess you get hit and you start talking about led Zeppelin that's what I called it you're going to have to start to ponder this I don't think like the band aha it's kind of like this hard knock kicker 5150 as a company and we designed the bikes they're very similar and they're cheaper to buy but they're built well it really inexpensive that is and hard knock kicker 5150 are just continued they're no longer being built by anybody and the company in the UK has not put one out in 15 years. And my company or the company owned by Thor and Freya in Olympus and Hera still on the copyrights and the rights to the company name and the likeness of the motorcycle and logo and more than copyrights and anybody trying to build them would have to go through them if not they'll get sued but they are not competing over it it is illegal to produce someone else's bike it is fraud

Zues Hera

I kind of get this they left the company no they discontinued the bikes and are holding on to the name of the company and the bikes like this and logos and more facilities they say that they had that were storefronts in the Midwest and they're now removed but we do see what you're saying with the kind of people who would start doing that kind of thing and you'll only happen in the next couple years but we think that you guys are holding it for years and he says yes and they still are and he says. So I'm going to go belt a few out and we have better motors everybody does these days those Chinese motors are ridiculous doesn't go anywhere doesn't push anybody not even the bike it's disgusting like that scooter it's like 3/8 inch a whole of the exhaust and it drove off and when you and sound like a sewing machine. It's terrible I guess we're going to try to build these because we're challenged

Dan

Perfect we are on it and we will intercept you and halter progress

Thor Freya

I don't think so we're on it and we're threatening your son and everybody else

Trump

So you don't want to do anything and I'll stop you at every turn you need to be screaming and hollering and we don't work for you and will stop you at a return and you'll get hurt like you do in every movie and it looks like you got terminated in Avatar

Zues Hera

I know what happened I was using remote viewing on my body which makes no sense then again it looks like they put me in the matrix in my body and use a clone body so it could be a clone and it looks like one regardless we're going to try and make the bike

Trump

Try okay and really I have a bike that's the same with selling and it's mass produced

Zues Hera

You sold way too many bikes today and you're using them for all sorts of stuff driving around driving the battles driving to places girlfriend's houses grocery stores movies out to eat they love them they're the best things ever even the scooters are the best things and they want him to have a scooter and we sold about $700 per area for real and counting about 1500 areas ridiculous number like a million octillion that's about what it is 700,000 billion that's a giant number right there it's giant number so he says all these people want him to have a freedom motorcycle 49cc and it looks pretty good I like to HK too a little bit bigger but that's something hk3 is only about 2 in bigger a little bit more than 2 in which we'll make a difference and get a little bigger tires and it looks perfectly fine. Go slower it'll be about 55 mph with a regular tires and 50 with the fat tires they are safer though. He wants to do some kind of idea and not to get people to give money because it's it's about freedom and it's not about always having to pay for stuff and the parks in the United States are free and my son and I and Hera his wife had a lot to do with the park system and it's a wonderful idea and the library too and he's not trying to get one for free but he's saying that people should write into their congressman and senators and any politicians that they know of any race in the United States because it's not about being a certain race and really I guess having battles here is a bit much but he's saying and suggesting that you put a freedom motorcycle stamp on your letter and you send it in and you can write it in code or you can say the way you want is what he really says but a lot of people write in code and you can send pictures of yourselves with the bikes and you can send a letter to like his grandpa, so here's the bikes and we wanted to do this because and one of the reasons come out and here we are the restaurant and he can relax a little and he might be able to have some extra money somehow or at least not have to tow this bike around and he says it's a great idea even though he'd have to come up with some idea on how to store it at night anything she might make like a little shed on the back porch that's something you could remove and Stan says no but everybody does their own thing here you get a store by one and they look okay it's really actually quite small

We're going to publish now it's a good idea

Thor Freya

[blisteringpassion-blog]

Windows Server 2018 Active Directory Interview Questions And Answers

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[iamjacsmusings]

MCU Challenge musings

18 weeks. 18 films. The MCU Challenge. In collaboration with Team #Geekstalkers. Collated musings below, all leading to Infinity War.

#1 - Iron Man

Robert Downey Jnr IS Tony Stark, Tony Stark IS Iron Man, Iron Man IS the first MCU Avenger. Without this we wouldn’t have the MCU as we know and love it. Despite that, coming soon after Batman’s triumphant return as it does, I can’t help but feel the identikit Iron Man Begins falls a little flat. The weak MCU villain problem is present and incorrect right from Mk 1 too.

#2 - The Incredible Hulk

Tonally misjudged and (latterly) at odds with the hulk as we know and love him in the shared MCU. Watching now, 15 entries later, it feels non-canon. As a standalone, inspired by the 70s show, it’s fine.

#3 - Iron Man 2

Probably [one of] the weakest #mcuchallenge entries for me as it aims for “cool” moments rather than developing character or overarching story. On the flipside, it introduces us to ScarJo’s Black Widow

#4 - Thor

In no particular order: the direction of Branagh, the realisation of the Rainbow bridge, the triple H acting of Hemsworth, Hiddleston and Hopkins, the hilarious humour, the majesty of Mjolnir, the Shakespearean plot machinations; all are Thor-some!

#5 - Captain America: The First Avenger

I (too) was predisposed to preferring this origin above all Avengers due to my predilection for Captain America as a character, so the bar was set high. Johnson, the perfectly chosen director, exceeded it by making a boys own adventure replete with echoes of his Lucasfilm roots. It’s underrated in my opinion and should be considered as the Raiders of Phase One. Joe Johnson just *got* 1940s Adventure-era Cap. As too does Evans who only continues to get better with each subsequent appearance. I could watch Cap movies all day…

#6 - Avengers Assemble

Still top 5 MCU of all-time. The Avengers characterisations are spot on in this initial assemblage; no mean feat considering the wealth of source material, the origins of Phase One and the balancing act of at least seven key roles. Come the epic Chitauri invasion finale and from the Avengers arc shot onwards there’s too many fist-pumping, geekgasm moments to mention; spine tingling each and every one of them.

#7 - Iron Man 3

As a fanboy of @BonafideBlack’s buddy banter and noir stylings, I’m on board with his Iron Man entry (noir is an anagram of Iron after all) He write characters therefore it came as no surprise that his take delves beneath the suit to the mechanic that wears it. I’m aware I’m in the minority, but the first two don’t do much for me therefore this is like a shot of extremis to Shellhead’s previously floundering solo entries. It still looks to be Stark’s swansong and, if so, it’s a fine way to finish IMO. Kiss Kiss Iron Man, if you will. The “barrel of monkeys” scene is one of the stand out scenes from the entire MCU too.

#8 - Thor: The Dark World

The tone, palette and plot of this inferior sequel is arguably more aligned with the much maligned DC(E)U rather than the rightly-lauded MCU; make of that what you will. I’d gladly watch an anthology prequel about the Lord of the Aether battle glimpsed in the prologue though…

#9 - Captain America: The Winter Soldier

An espionage thriller every bit as good as the best Bourne or Bond has to offer, Captain America: The Winter Soldier just happens to have a few present and future Avengers at its centre. The undisputed leader of the Avengers as the 18-strong MCU currently stands, the more I revisit Captain America Super Soldier, the closer the film creeps towards my current cream of the big screen comic book crop, The Dark Knight.

#10 - Guardians of the Galaxy

Guardians of the Galaxy is better than any film about a half-Terran cross between Han Solo and Indiana Jones, a walking thesaurus, a talking tree, a green-skinned warrior woman and a bad-tempered raccoon has any right to be. I’ve lost count the number of times I’ve seen GotG already. There’s so much to admire, so much Galaxy to explore. it bears repeat viewing. Every joke still lands. Every emotional beat pulls a heart string. Every character is worthy of fronting their own galactic adventure. We. Are. Groot.

#11 - Avengers: Age of Ultron

There’s much to admire in this movie as Whedon ably juggles the ever-growing ensemble cast; each one gets their moment so, no matter who your favourite is, you should feel satisfied come the conclusion. The action scenes pay off with key moments that remain in the memory: the team line-up, “Go to sleep, go to sleep”, Black Widow on the bike, Hawkeye motivating Scarlet Witch and the arc shot around the Avengers as they end the threat of too many Ultrons. Quiet moments pay off too: the party is perfect (especially Thor’s face as Cap moves Mjolnir), the interlude at ranch Barton is a top idea and the lull in the final fight manages to move; I even welled up a little as Cap and Widow debate their fate this watch. In short, it’s endlessly rewatchable, as my SuperSon has put to the test.

#12 - Ant-Man

Easily the most underrated entry in the entirety of the MCU to date, Ant-Man is also, upon reflection, my favourite solo character origin story. Giant-sized words, I know!

#13 - Captain America: Civil War

War! What is it good for? Captain America movies!

I love Civil War. It’s edgy. It;s important. It’s epic! It truly feels like a “superhero comic book movie” ripped from the panelled page. And, Thor damn, the Russo’s sure can shoot the shit (Sorry, Cap) out of an action scene. Speaking of scenes, there’s one in Fight Club when the Narrator and Tyler mock a Gucci advertisement, asking if it’s what a real man look like. It’s not, no. What a real man looks like is Captain America holding a helicopter with one arm and a building with the other. Swoon.

I could watch this on repeat all day. 

#14 - Doctor Strange

Let’s face it, Cumberbatch was the only choice for Strange, as suited to the hyper-intelligent, egotistical, socially-awkward auteur as Downey Jr was to Stark’s genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist. By this point in the MCU, Marvel can do origin with ease as this return to formula proves. Whilst Doctor Strange does remind you of movies from before (Iron Man, Batman Begins, Inception, Matrix), it patches them together into a kaleidoscopic Frankenstein of its own making.

Oh, one more thing: it goes without saying how awesome Doctor Strange’s enchanted Cloak of Levitation is – I’d argue it’s the single best cinema companion since Gromit!

#15 - Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol Two

GotG amped up to 11, Vol. 2 is less a case of difficult second volume, more Gunn locked and loaded. GotG2 is deeper, richer and cleverer than it’s predecessor, if not as instantly iconic nor anarchic in its punk rock aesthetics or impact. Ego, we’ve all got to grow up sometime. Following the near perfection of the first Volume was always going to be a tricky proposition, but this sophomore space saga soars true enough and will surely, in time, serve as a solid central entry in a worthy Guardians of the Galaxy stand-alone trilogy.

#16 - Spider-Man: Homecoming

Did I need another resuited Spider-Man movie so soon after the last aborted attempt? I didn’t think so until I saw this coming-of-age comedy that referenced Ferris Bueller, BttF: Part II and The Breakfast Club (among others)

Did I need another iteration of Spider-Man and his teen geek alter-ego Peter Parker? I didn’t think so until I saw Tom Holland’s infectiously enthusiastic and ultimately incomparable portrayal of everyone’s favourite neighbourhood webslinging wannabe Avenger.

Did I need another potentially disappointing take on a classic Spider-Man villain? I didn’t think so until Michael Keaton’s birdman soared above almost any other adapted antagonist from the entirety of comic canon – not since Loki have I feared and cheered in equal measure.

Did I need another big screen Spider-Man blockbuster? I didn’t think so until I understood what this wall-crawlers direction was under the genius creative control of chief Watcher Feige within the winning MCU. Now I need more, for thwips sake…

#17 - Thor Ragnarok

Space fantasy as its Flash(“ahh ah”)iest, Ragnarok is: Thorsome, Hela good, Full of gloriously glib Loki asides, a Hulk load of fun, great Valkyrie for money! Third time’s the charm for the God of Thunder. I can’t TaikaWaititi to see the Revengers return in Infinity War!

#18 - Black Panther

Stunning Wakanda world building. Convincing and charismatic cast performances. Strong character motivations. Serious and meaningful underlying themes. Too much CGI. MCU continuity issues. Nowhere near enough Michael B Jordan. Good not great. Middling MCU Challenge entry for me.

[dippedanddripped]

Alfred “Boogie” Chin has hoop dreams. The protagonist of Eddie Huang’s upcoming film Boogie (out this Friday) is a high school basketball phenom in Queens, who he harbors aspirations of playing in the NBA — or, at the very least, earning a D-1 scholarship. One day, his father, who is his most ardent supporter, sits him down to watch Michael Chang’s epic comeback from two sets down to defeat Ivan Lendl in the 1989 French Open final on the day after the Tiananmen Square Massacre. The lesson Huang is imparting is that sports hold unique redemptive qualities for Chinese-Americans.

“It just looked like 5,000 years of Chinese culture had deteriorated into hating its own people,” Huang explains. “Emotionally, that was a really tough moment, and I remember it. Michael Chang is so significant, not just because he had probably the greatest upset ever in tennis. He's a 17-year-old kid who has no business playing Ivan Lendl, but he also had the pressure of the world's greatest population on his back, because we were ashamed of ourselves.”

With Boogie, Huang uses basketball to complicate and challenge Asian stereotypes and help sculpt a three-dimensional portrait of Chinese-American culture. Like many children of immigrants, Boogie feels caught in between worlds. After he transfers schools in order to increase potential visibility to college recruiters, his struggles to field offers only increases the intensity of competing parental pressures. As Huang has used food as a racial and cultural interlocutor in his career, he sees the same potential in hoops.

Boogie is a movie of firsts. It marks Huang’s directorial debut, as well as the acting debut for Taylor Takahashi, who portrays Boogie. Takahashi was a standout prep athlete himself and holds the record for most career points scored at Oakland’s Alameda High School. He befriended Huang in 2017 after they became teammates in a rec basketball league named Stinky Tofu. (Here are the team’s stats from their most recent season.) Takahashi became Huang’s assistant, and they wound up living together during the production of the film. The film also marks the screen debut for Pop Smoke, the late Brooklyn drill superstar who plays Boogie’s rival, Monk.

Highsnobiety spoke with Huang and Takahashi together last week to discuss the making of Boogie.

HIGHSNOBIETY / LEA WINKLEREddie, what was the inspiration behind 'Boogie?'

EH: The film — it's not some genius plot. You've seen basketball coming-of-age films. I think what this film has that’s never been done is that you're seeing an Asian-American come of age in New York City, intersecting with Black culture and talking about rites of passage and the things we struggle with as a community.

Taylor, how did you become involved in the project?

TT: I showed up one day to a studio in Astoria [in Queens]. Eddie was standing at the front door. He was like, "Let me get your phone, let me get your laptop." And I was like, "Shit, am I fired [as his assistant]? What happened?" And he was like, “absolutely not.” He handed me the lines to scene 44, [where I’m] sitting on the couch with Mr. Chin watching the Chang-Lendl tennis match. And he was like, “I want you to take as much time as you need to remember the lines. We're going to try to record this today.”

It took about three hours. I got a sandwich from a local sandwich shop and we recorded that scene in the office of Mike Tadross, our line producer. I think that was on, like, a Thursday. We sent it to the studio with some words of encouragement [from Eddie.] By Monday, I was cast as Boogie.

Eddie, what did you see in Taylor that made him a good fit for this role?

EH: What I really saw in Taylor was that, culturally, he did not travel the path most Asian-Americans travel. He traveled a path that was quite similar to mine. Every time I tried to do things the straight and narrow way, it didn't work for me. I will always have a spot in my projects for people who took the "other" road and bumped around. And I can't say this for everyone that doesn't go the straight and narrow way, or the corporate way, but for the most part, there is a personal reason why people don't bow their heads and enter the matrix, so to speak. Because, honestly, if you want to join the dominant cultural mainstream world and get a desk job, it's not hard. Anybody can do it. It's about swallowing your pride, swallowing your individualism. And, in many ways, sacrificing this lifetime, because it's just about following rules.

I met [Taylor], and I could just tell that he was counter-cultural. He was in the subculture, and he's really different than a lot of the kids on the [rec] team. It's an Asian basketball team, and me and Tay are the ones that are like, "We don't have jobs!" I really saw potential in him. And I like to give people a shot that didn't just follow the instruction manual for life.

Taylor, could you trace your basketball journey?

TT: I started playing basketball when I was two. My parents played basketball, my older brother played basketball. Basketball has always been a pretty relevant sport in my life. And I played baseball and soccer, too. I had a lot of success in baseball really early as a kid. It didn't challenge me as much as I thought it could. A lot of people in the community I grew up in said, "You should play baseball, you can go far in baseball." But I knew right away that wasn't something I was going to have enjoyment with.

I picked basketball because it was a sport that I wasn't supposed to be good at — I'm 5'8", 5’9” on a good day. As an Asian kid, I didn't see a lot of myself in the league that I played in in high school. And there was kind of a David versus Goliath thing, where I wanted to defy the odds. At one point in time, it was basketball or bust. It was make it to the NBA or go play overseas, and if you didn't do that, and you didn’t get a college scholarship, you failed at basketball. And I learned as I got older that basketball is going to be my beacon for how I foster relationships and how I build bonds with people. I'm able to gain friendships and socialize through the game. It’s really been the best teacher that I’ve had in life.

Eddie, how did you prepare for the task of directing?

EH: The hardest thing for me is stepping away. At one point, the studio even made me not edit for a month. They were like, "You're not allowed to come and edit, just sit at home."

With being a director, the only thing you have to do is manage the actors. You can literally fuck everything else up or do nothing else, but manage the actors, make sure they're happy, and get the performances you need. That's really your job as a director. I had tons of set design ideas. I had a lot of cinematography ideas. I worked very closely with the DP. I brought a lot of my own clothes to this film. Even if I did none of that, I would have done my job and this would've been a good film because of the performances. It's purely about your relationship as a director with the material and your actors. I really love this job.

TT: Eddie is kind of like Phil Jackson, where he understands people, number one, and he really knows what's going to work for one actor or player. And I think that's really important, because if you come in and you're just like, "I'm going to be this way and treat everyone the same way," I think you end up pushing a lot more people away. He figured that out fairly fast.

HIGHSNOBIETY / LEA WINKLERIn the US, basketball tends to be viewed as a Black sport. What are some common misconceptions of the role basketball plays within Asian-American communities?

EH: [Tay and I have] talked about this a lot and I think we agree. There are a lot of Asian people who want their kids to just play Asian league and mainly play with other Asian kids. It's almost a self-perpetuating model minority Asian stereotype, where it’s like, "Oh, we're smaller. We're not athletic. We're not as good. So, let's start in Asian league."

I remember when I would try to get on the court to play in the neighborhood or after school, no one would let me on until, like, all the other kids went home for dinner. Then I was like, "Do you want five on five? You got to let me play." And they were like, "Alright, we’ll let that fucking Chinaman play."

Basketball was this train that I rode, and it allowed me to explore America. Basketball was my way to go to a different neighborhood, meet different people, see different cultures. I mean, even on Huang’s World, the producer knew there's always a day in the schedule where “Eddie’s gonna go and play basketball.” I’ve played basketball in Mongolia, I’ve played in Paris, I’ve played in Istanbul, everywhere I go. You just learn so much more about culture. If you're a sensitive and watchful person, you can see that culture and assess it in the way they play basketball. You can see everything about a person in how they play ball. And people ask me, "Why'd you know it was Taylor?" I’m like, “I just watched that motherfucker play ball. He plays the right way.”

TT: Basketball was the biggest way to grow my confidence. And it was going to the park, it was getting knocked down, pushed around, getting the racial slurs coming at me. And I'm not a big shit talker when I play. I think I’d pull myself out of the game. I've always tried to take that mentality of like, "My game's going to talk for me. I'm going to earn your respect, mind your own stripes. I come into the sport and I'm going to play the right way."

Let's talk a bit about Pop Smoke. After he died, it became even more apparent that he had been blossoming as an artist. His career was moving insanely fast in 2019. How did he get the role of Monk?

EH: What happened was, Dave East was originally cast, and Dave was fantastic. I love Dave. But Dave ended up in a threesome and got hemmed up. I think he got cracked with a champagne bottle. We had already shot a scene with him, and I remember riding to the set with Taylor that morning and it was all over TMZ. We knew we'd have to recast, it wasn't even up to us.

But it became a blessing. At that time, "Welcome to the Party" was going crazy. [Pop] was the hottest thing in New York. I don't know if it was national yet, but in New York, we were all listening to it. And our executive producer, Raphael Martinez, was friends with Pop's manager, Steven Victor. I've known Steven and his people for a minute, too. And also, Despot is on set — he plays the assistant coach — and he’s like, "Yo, you know Pop played ball, right? Like, he was a top recruit in high school.”

So we hit up Pop. He was in Connecticut doing the show. And he's like, "Yeah, I'll be back tomorrow. I'll just come through the crib." So Pop came to the crib. I got home. Nine of his homies were in the lobby, just posted up. And I remember the security doorman says, “These guys are all here for you?” “Yeah, yeah, yeah, these are the homies.” I ran Pop through some basketball drills to make sure his jumper was wet.

We just became fast friends. And when it came time for the audition, Pop knew his line, but I could tell he got nervous for one second. It's the only time I’ve ever seen him nervous, he kept holding his phone real tight. He kept looking down at it and putting it in his pocket and taking it out again. And I said to him "Yo, just put it in your pocket, bro. Don't worry about it. You know these lines." And he was like, "Are you sure?" I was like, "You know these lines, bro. Just be the character. It's not about the work. It's about being the person." And he's like, "Oh, I got you."

And from that moment, Pop figured out acting. He's really that good. We had a lot of first-time actors, but Pop just had it. And what is special about him that's different from a lot of actors, is that Pop has no fear. He's been through a lot in his life. Zero fear. You never get the same take with Pop, but you get something spicier and something different. On days that he was there, I would tell everybody, "Just get ready. It's showtime. Catch this lightning in a bottle. I don't care if he's not on his mark. I don't care if we've got to throw three cameras at it. But he's going to do stuff."

Taylor, you were going up against Pop in a lot of the basketball scenes, including some of the more physical ones. What was it like feeding off his charisma at close range?

TT: Pop is hands down one of the most talented people I've been around. You can just tell right away. [I’d say,] "Oh, where'd you come from?" He’d say, “I just came from the studio. I was in there for six hours recording a song.” It's like, where the hell do you get all this energy, man? He had a whole other set of batteries that we don't carry. And I'll never forget, I think it was during the cage basketball scene. We were walking, just resetting the play, and he looked at me and called me “Tak.” He's like, “Tak, how you be doing this?” I’m like, “I just started two weeks ago, too. I'm figuring this shit out, man. Let's figure it out together.”

EH: Pop would coach up Taylor a little bit to get him in that space of, like, "No, man, you bad. I'm going to fuck with you. I'm going to fuck with you. I'm coming up to you." And it was really cool to see him do that. A lot of actors, they'll worry about stepping on a director's toes, but we just had such a chemistry between the three of us, as brothers working on this film, that Pop actually felt comfortable in scene with his mic on.

A lot of the basketball scenes take place at night. What were those night shoots like?

EH: The overnights were crazy. After five overnights in a row, we would basically start around 11:00 p.m. and we would end around 5:00 a.m. We could only get that court booked five days, so we knew we were going overtime. We knew we were going to be in penalty, but we were just like, "We're going to do this." We had five 16-hour days in a row. I didn't sleep for a couple of them because I was too hype. But they were unbelievable. I felt like I was kind of on drugs because I was taking Adderall, but I felt like I was on drugs the whole time.

TT: They were some of the longest nights I've ever been a part of. You have to flip your sleep schedule in the middle of production. It’s not pretty. A personal challenge for me was, after the first day, I sprained my right wrist pretty bad. It was pretty much not usable. But you get this adrenaline when the camera's rolling, and you try to push as much as you can.

EH: We literally shot all of our basketball scenes with a lead with one arm. He could not use his other hand. We had a lot of challenges on this film, but I felt that this one was karma and a godsend. When he hurt his hand, I was disappointed, because I knew it would affect some of our scenes, but I was like, in the arc of Taylor's maturation as an actor, this is a good thing. And while we cast him because he can play basketball and all these other things, it was acting that got him across the finish line. And he did a really incredible job. He was cast two weeks before the first day of shooting. Had never taken an acting class in his life. But then he carried the film. And I do think that that injury was a thing where I kept telling him, "Look, man, focus on your acting. You are an actor. From the first day you stepped on, you were an actor. So put the acting first.” Blessing in disguise.