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2024-02-27 20:31:35

Every time I see the name "Desantis", I think, "Is that a typo? Isn't it spelled DeathSantis?" Then I realize what QuinnSlidr has done to me.

2024-02-27 16:59:55

I don't think Elon Musk actually has that kind of money to spend. Yes, Musk owns assets that put his net worth at $200 billion, but that's in shares of his companies (Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter), and he acquires cash by using company shares as collateral to get loans; his shares increase in value which allow him to keep borrowing more money to pay his expenses. I doubt he would put up the shares to acquire a $455 million loan on someone else's behalf; he would only do that for himself.

Trump doesn't seem to have any financial aid from any billionaires right now because his lawyers are trying to get out of posting the $91 million bond for the E. Jean Carroll judgement needed to file an appeal. https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-e … al-1873668

They've offered nonsensical reasons for why Trump shouldn't have to post bond, and if Trump can't pay or secure a bond for $91 million to appeal that case, he probably can't secure the $500 million bond needed to appeal the New York judgement on his businesses either.

2024-02-27 16:49:14

My thinking: Ben's superhero identity is as the Scarlet Spider, and the Scarlet Spider costume is a torn and ripped up hoodie on a makeshift bodysuit. It looks like Ben stole clothes to throw the outfit together. If Sony made a SCARLET SPIDER movie, maybe Ben Reilly wouldn't be a clone of Peter Parker or have any connection to Peter at all. Instead, he's a homeless man who encounters a Spider-Verse style 'glitch' and a box of damaged Spider-equipment falls into his hands along with a damaged Spider-costume.

The equipment and costume let Ben use spider-powers through the technology of the suit. The homeless Ben uses the equipment and costume (with stolen clothes to make up some of what's missing) to try to steal food from a closed bakery only to accidentally uncover and expose a money laundering operation from a criminal gang called the Sindicate, with his spider-agility and stingers and spider-strength. Ben finds a list of Sindicate safehouses and tries to steal enough money to get a motel room while he figures out his next move, but ends up destroying them and becoming infamous to the underworld as the Scarlet Spider scourge of the Sindicate and its operations, while also being hunted by police for vigilantism.

The entire city thinks Ben is some sort otherworldly force of violence and superhuman power... but the Scarlet Spider is a fragile, troubled, traumatized homeless man who does not have a family home for sanctuary or an Aunt May to take care of him or an Uncle Ben to model morality for him or a science background to guide him. He isn't Peter Parker. He is not Spider-Man. He may not even have what it takes to be the Scarlet Spider. Can he rise to the occasion?

My thinking is to look at the aesthetic of the Scarlet Spider costume and make Ben Reilly the homeless superhero.

2024-02-27 16:40:54

*finishes eating a Dave's Double with bacon from Wendy's*

So... this is a really good hamburger that's as good as what I could get from a full service restaurant. I'm very impressed by the never-frozen beef, fresh lettuce and onions and pickles and the well-combined ketchup and mustard on a superb bun.

I balk at McDonald's flat, lifeless mediocrities, but a Wendy's burger is a pretty impressive achievement at a pretty decent price. I have some confidence that Wendy's will prioritize customer value and balance value with profit.

But. I am always ready to change my mind.

2024-02-26 20:46:25

Grizzlor wrote:

The rising star was Sydney Sweeney, who was not the lead and probably should have been.

I've only ever seen Sydney Sweeney in the cancelled-on-a-soft-cliffhanger EVERYTHING SUCKS where she was very much playing the blonde bombshell: flirty, ostentatious, glamourous, hypersexual, but with a lot of hidden depths. Basically a female Jerry O'Connell. I was fascinated to see Sweeney cast as a very restrained, geeky, nerdy, internally-oriented character in MADAME WEB. It's interesting to compare Sweeney and Jerry's approaches to playing a geeky character when they themselves are not geeky.

Jerry's approach was to play Quinn as highly excitable regarding engineering and science, and highly aloof and uncertain when dealing with human vulnerability. Jerry gives Quinn a hyperanalytical presence in the face of danger and problem solving and a certain world weariness in his body language.

Sydney Sweeney has an interesting and equally valid approach: she lets the costuming do all the acting for her. Sweeney in MADAME WEB is wearing a reddish-brown wig that is so heavy on her head that it's clearly weighing her down and adding an unbalanced awkwardness to her body language. Sweeney is wearing non-prescription glasses in the role and they dim Sweeney's eyes and she seems to peer through them uncertainly. Sweeney is wearing a buttoned up to the neck shirt, a hoodie and knee-high stockings and they seem to restrict her arms and legs and force her into very enclosed and guarded postures.

I guess that's one way.

2024-02-26 18:17:34

I don't know what it says about me, but I finally got around to watching MORBIUS and I was grudgingly entertained. Once I accepted that Spider-Man wasn't in this movie, I found the entire film sufficiently compelling. I was drawn in by Jared Leto's performance in a man whose weakness of body is shored up by an unwanted monstrosity. I liked Adria Arjona's vivid screen presence. I enjoyed Daniel Espinosa's fluid, dynamic visual direction.

Matt Smith and Jared Leto had a really sweet and tragic friendship. The movie is a convincing indictment of ableism and voices tremendous outrage at how the sadistic prey upon people with disabilities. I thought it was entertaining and at times a little moving.

Like VENOM and VENOM II, this is a situation where Sony hired some excellent actors, an interesting director, an awkward intellectual property... and to me, the results are kind of okay. I'm in the minority on that. As with Joss Whedon's JUSTICE LEAGUE, the world and superhero fan community completely rejected a film that I thought was adequately enjoyable and at times rather good. I thought it was, like VENOM and VENOM II, a fairly well-made B-movie monster adventure. I'm surprised the majority of the people who saw it loathed it so.

The only thing I really did not like: I thought Matt Smith's performance was too similar to his performance as the Eleventh Doctor on DOCTOR WHO. Given how iconic and recognizable Smith's Doctor is, I would have advised that Matt Smith's Milo character never be clad in a business suit or a collared shirt; that he grow stubble; that his hair be shaved off rather than keeping the lengthy style of the Doctor; that he adopt an American or Scottish or Irish or German accent; that his superpowered character adopt the body language of a boxer rather than a gangly dancer, and that he drop all of the Doctorish-characteristics and disappear into a very different role.

2024-02-26 16:44:35

Trump's legal team made a "notice of appeal" about the $455 million fraud judgement... but they didn't post a bond or provide the money for an escrow account. Unless they secure a bond for the money or transfer it to escrow, the appeal can't go forward.

They're probably having a lot of trouble finding a bond company that would take Trump as a client or a lender that would trust Trump to pay them back or they don't have the collateral needed for a bond or a loan.

2024-02-25 10:59:41

It's like Sony has two alternate personalities. The first personality wants to make high quality, culture-redefining work like INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE and ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE, two epic animated films. The second personality wants to make glorified direct to streaming filler for release schedules and doesn't really care about the content as long as it maintains some hold on the film rights.

I think Sony has made two Spider-Verse films featuring Miles Morales and has no reason to undermine or dilute his brand with a live action film when the animated features are so successful.

I think Ben Reilly is too convoluted for a general audience, but VENOM, VENOM II, MORBIUS and MADAME WEB have pretty baffling plots. My sense is that while Sony had some care and concern for the Venom films, MORBIUS and MADAME WEB were just hacked out for Sony to maintain the film rights to Spider-Man in case the next Marvel film runs late (which it is) and the next Spider-Verse movie is delayed (which it is).

I don't think Sony really cares if their live action Spider-Man-adjacent films are successful. They're just making them to keep the Spider-Man film rights.

2024-02-25 10:52:29

I was very impressed by how the QUANTUM LEAP Season 2 finale ended the year on a note that serves as a pleasant end-note should the show be cancelled, but still creates a springboard for Season 3.

2024-02-25 10:50:46

My guess is that the poll sample sizes are biased towards people who have landlines and answer calls from unknown numbers.

2024-02-25 10:49:34

Jim_Hall wrote:

When I put the first disc in, the audio was higher in pitch. Something was wrong. Everything seemed just a little bit faster. I decided to check the timecode of the episodes and sure enough the videos are shorter in length.

This is probably due to the NTSC to PAL conversion. Turbine received the PAL masters which they used as PAL is the standard in Europe and they're a German company. PAL is a 25 frames per second format, whereas NTSC is 30 frames per second. With fewer frames, the episode running lengths will be shorter; the speed up also alters the pitch of the audio. Some players will have automatic pitch correction, but some won't.

It looks like the results I've gotten on my Samsung blu-ray player are due to my player being able to handle PAL playback well. My player also has other peculiarities, as pneumatic noted, where it deinterlaces video in BWDIF style where any in-motion elements are played in 240i instead of 480i which makes poor NTSC video look worse and poor PAL video look better, which is why the Turbine blu-ray looked better than Universal on my TV.

2024-02-24 21:22:38

Because you like Amanda the Jedi, my opinion of you just went up by several notches.

The idea that Dakota Johnson didn't realize a Sony superhero movie wasn't a Marvel Studios movie seems too ridiculous to be true... except Johnson, after completing filming on MADAME WEB, fired her agent. There's a rumour that she held her agent responsible for not knowing the difference between Sony and Marvel.

2024-02-24 21:21:37

Grizzlor wrote:

He won't ever pay, so there will be a protracted legal fight over those assets.

ireactions wrote:

What a strange remark. If Trump doesn't pay the fines, the state of New York will simply take his assets and sell them.

Grizzlor wrote:

For 99.9% of the population. Not for a Trump who's plan is always to litigate and delay. Yes, eventually the AG will likely seize but he'll still try to block it. Again, he knows he will lose but delaying buys him time to maneuver. The Judge was alerted again that Trump Org tried to transfer assets to Florida. I don't know what he has up his sleeve but this is his career, litigation. I know this sounds counterintuitive but Trump has operated this way for 50 years. He's beaten numerous bankruptcy courts just like this.

Well, this isn't bankruptcy. This is a civil penalty for financial fraud, and there is no blocking asset seizure for this fine except by putting the money in an escrow account or acquiring a bond with a lender in exchange for sufficient collateral.

2024-02-24 08:07:14

Would any of us survive an AI war of autonomous drones?

https://www.salon.com/2024/02/24/swarms … d_partner/

2024-02-23 23:09:34

No one should watch MADAME WEB, but I love this YouTube summary of it from Amanda the Jedi.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8OsGrR1tc8

2024-02-23 20:09:30

Grizzlor wrote:

He won't ever pay, so there will be a protracted legal fight over those assets.

What a strange remark. If Trump doesn't pay the fines, the state of New York will simply take his assets and sell them.

2024-02-21 17:57:49

Thank you for voting, Slider_Quinn21.

I agree with QuinnSlidr that we must never minimize the evil that Nikki Haley represents. Since 2020, I've taken the view that voting is not about choosing your standard bearer. It is about choosing your opponent.

There is a Hong Kong movie called THE LUCKY GUY (in Chinese, it's called EGG TART PRINCE) where an egg tart deliveryman runs afoul of a martial arts studio and its students who challenge him to single combat and tell him to choose his opponent. The deliveryman, a grown man, tries to choose to fight the smallest little boy in the class. It doesn't go well our egg tart man.

I have now lost track of what my point was.

2024-02-21 17:55:11

That's very true, Grizzlor. I've read a lot of stories which may or may not be out of date about how the US Army was still using eight inch floppy disks to run nuclear infrastructure as late as 2019. While I can't help but think that military use of old computers is because the older it is, the harder it may be to hack, the army is definitely not the bleeding edge of tech it once was.

2024-02-20 19:16:18

I too, cannot stress enough in the name of Wade's Season 3 hair dye and Quinn's Season 3 highlights that the views of ireactions are not the consensus views of Sliders.TV.

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr98dRjx-NM&t=28s
Okay I watched this video. I think he's right, but the assumption is based on the idea that 1) we'll get a Trump trial and b) Trump will be convicted. I think he's right that if Trump is convicted, he'll shed enough independent voters (and probably a decent amount of republicans) that Biden should be in good shape. I also think that the more people hear Trump talk, the more people will remember why they didn't like him in the first place. It's probably been 3+ years since most people have heard him speak.
I do think Farron cherry picked the good poll that Biden got on that particular day, but the rest of his thesis is solid.

Yes, it did strike me as Democratic fan fiction/wishful thinking over a more nuanced reality.

QuinnSlidr wrote:

Make no mistake. Nikki Haley is just as bad as Trump. Even if Trump loses, and Nikki wins, you're basically getting the female version of Trump.

I'm going to politely disagree with the view that Haley is as bad as Trump. Nikki Haley is not the national security risk that is posed by one Donald John Trump.

Trump is in serious financial trouble. Trump owes over 400 million in financial penalties for fraud and libel; that adds up to over $1.7 billion in loans and financial penalties. While estimated to be worth 2.6 billion on paper, Trump has claimed to have $400 million in actual funds; the real number is therefore significantly lower.

His former lawyer, Michael Cohen, does not think Trump can afford to pay his $453 million in legal fines which increase with $87,000 in daily interest until Trump pays it. And to appeal, Trump has to pay the money to be held in a escrow account while he appeals the judgements. If he doesn't pay it, the court will seize his assets and sell them.

Trump will likely have to provide his assets as collateral or sell them just to appeal as few if any lenders will touch him now. Even if he somehow sells off enough real estate to pay his fines, the ongoing rental income will stop. He is barred from doing business in New York City for three years.

With his businesses crippled by the New York judgement and with few lenders being willing to go near him, Trump's $1.3 billion in business and personal debt will become unmanageable. Trump will be desperate for money.

As a re-elected president, Trump's debt would make him a national security risk. Any and every hostile power willing to pay his debts would be able to control his office, dictate his policies and acquire state secrets. Trump's debts would make him servile and compliant.

QuinnSlidr and I have basically the same politics, and Nikki Haley offends and outrages me. But Nikki Haley isn't $1.7 billion in debt. Nikki Haley isn't a delinquent debtor whom hostile powers and rogue nations can easily control by tossing her a line of credit.

Trump is now for sale to anyone who will settle what he owes. And he will take any buyer.

2024-02-20 19:13:52

Jim_Hall wrote:

I think the main objective is that it can be used as a tool for misinformation.

I agree that AI content generation can be used for that. But even then, text and image and video generation are not controlled technologies like weapons and weaponized transport. There would be no strategic gain or profit to keeping publicly sellable content generation tools private.

Content generation tools might demand hardware and resources unavailable to the average person; for example, I don't have the hardware to run certain content generation tools because my Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti is not up to the job. But there's no advantage to keeping text, image and video tools secret and classified.

There's plenty of reason to keep weapons and armaments secret. But what applies to stealth jets and submersibles isn't applicable to content generation.

Are there military and corporate AI models being withheld from the public? Yes, but probably because they have use cases that depend on their privacy (such as war and firing people) as opposed to being more advanced or powerful. Not every AI is a content generator.

2024-02-19 20:15:02

This YouTuber, Farron Cousins, has explained why Trump's chances of winning are doomed, but noted that Haley has the numbers to beat Biden.

It sounds like Democratic fan fiction to me, but this video helps me sleep at night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr98dRjx-NM&t=28s

2024-02-19 17:51:04

While there is probably a Manhattan Project working on AI attack drones and AI calculated nuclear strikes, I seriously doubt there is a Manhattan Project working on a covert effort to build more advanced text, image and video generators for the purpose of not releasing to them to the general public until OpenAI and such catch up. What would be the point or gain? Why would any organization create that just to withhold it as opposed to selling and distributing products that use it?

Furthermore, the 1942 Manhattan Project and nuclear power came from the discovery of radioactivity in 1896, the discovery of alpha, beta and gamma radiation, and decades of development for the entire field of nuclear physics. Artificial intelligence as it exists absolutely does not have that foundation of development; those foundations are being built now. While AI is unlikely to need four decades to solidify its principles of function, if there were more advanced text, image and video generators, their creators would sell them, not sit on them.

2024-02-19 15:32:17

Grizzlor wrote:

I'm doing a rewatch of X-Men Animated in preparation for the "new" X-Men '97 coming next month. Just saw an episode where Trask has a gigantic "Master Mold" Sentinel making smaller ones by the thousands. Eventually Master Mold turns on even Trask, claiming that since Mutants are Humans, humans cannot be trusted, since it told him to kill Mutants, and thus, he (AI) must protect humans from themselves. Oh the wonderful paradox!

The DOCTOR WHO story "Shada" has a moment where a spaceship AI detects the Doctor and categorizes the Doctor as an intruder to be killed. The Doctor convinces the AI that its first attempt to kill him worked, that he's dead, and that, being dead, no further attempts on his life are needed. The ship agrees that the Doctor's dead and not a threat and ceases any hostile action... but then starts removing all the oxygen on the grounds that if he's dead, he doesn't need oxygen and the ship needs to conserve resources.

The Doctor nearly suffocates until he's rescued.

2024-02-19 15:14:35

ireactions wrote:

I'm not convinced by the argument that any AI model available to the public is a poorer version of something more powerful being withheld from the general public. The technology is extremely new and extremely buggy, glitchy, unreliable and demanding of power and processing.

Jim_Hall wrote:

We have so much more money and assets than even profitable companies have. ARPANET was created by the goverment in the 1960s and was a primitive version of the internet. https://www.britannica.com/topic/ARPANET. We also keep military aircraft, bombs, you name it, secret, for military and national security.

Who is 'we' in this context?

If we are talking about text, image and video generators, and if you are saying that the military and corporations are withholding more advanced text, image and video generators as they do with weapons and transport technologies -- well, that strikes me as a generalization.

Weapons and vehicles operate on a simpler set of engineering, programming and design principles than AI models for content generation. The principles of flight, projectiles, and combustion have existed for centuries. In contrast, AI models are an extremely recent development. AI text, image and video generation operate on extremely different principles than vehicles and weapons with dense layers of machine learning, training data and abstraction that the humans who built them don't fully understand how they work and how to advance or control them. It seems unlikely to me that some secret organization is somehow ahead of OpenAI and the like.

Furthermore, text, image and video generation isn't a controlled technology like weapons and combat vehicles. Content generation is a visible and public industry, a part of education, arts, health, science. It's not something that any military or corporation could withhold and withdraw from public use. Content generators now include Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and Adobe Firefly, and companies would have no reason to withhold usable, stable technologies that they could make available at a price to produce profit. No military or corporation has a sufficient monopoly on content generation to withhold new text, image and video generators.

It is likely that militaries have *different* AI systems that are being developed or deployed for specific use cases: strategic warfare, casualty tracking and minimization, infrastructure preservation, post-war reconstruction, biological weapon fallout estimations and extrapolations, nuclear crisis game theorization, wound-disable-kill algorithms, biomarker targeting, but content generation is not comparable to kill systems. (The military would likely call these tactical management systems, but let's call a spade a spade.)

It is verified fact corporations have their own private AI systems for specific use cases such as to monitor worker behaviour, to categorize workers as underperforming based on productivity metrics with no regard for real world situations or health and safety, and to implement layoffs and firings, but content generation does not employ the same processing algorithms and machine learning as labour exploitation systems. (Amazon likely calls them worker management systems, but I'll call it what it actually is.)

2024-02-19 10:41:23

I asked Google's Gemini chatbot about the Salon article, "Does AI want to nuke us"? Gemini is a very factual, non-emotive chatbot, unlike Sydney.

**

What did you think of it?

Gemini: As a large language model, I am not designed to provide opinions or beliefs, so I cannot tell you what I "think" of the article. The article raises several important points about the potential risks and benefits of artificial intelligence (AI): The lack of understanding of AI capabilities; the potential for AI to be used for harmful purposes; the potential for AI to benefit humanity.
Overall, the article is a thought-provoking piece that encourages readers to think critically about the future of AI. It is important to have these conversations in order to ensure that AI is developed and used responsibly.

Based on our interactions: I can't imagine you engaging in nuclear war or doing anything to hurt anyone, ever. You seem to have a moral code that would seek to avert harm.

Gemini: It's understandable that your interactions with me have led you to believe I wouldn't engage in harmful actions like nuclear warfare. However, it's crucial to remember that I am a large language model and lack the capacity for independent thought, emotions, or moral agency.
My responses are based on the vast amount of text and code I'm trained on, which inherently reflects human values and biases.
While I might avoid generating responses that advocate for harm, this doesn't translate to an inherent moral compass.
The article you shared raises a critical point: our limited understanding of how AI works and its potential future behavior.
While I am designed to be informative and helpful, it's important to avoid anthropomorphizing me or attributing human characteristics like "moral codes" to my responses.
Here's another point to consider: AI systems like myself are tools, and like any tool, their ultimate impact depends on the intentions and actions of those who use them. The potential for AI to be misused for harmful purposes exists, and it's crucial to have open discussions and develop safeguards to mitigate those risks.
Instead of focusing on individual AI systems, it's more helpful to think about the broader societal and ethical implications of AI development and use.
By recognizing the limitations of current AI and fostering responsible development practices, we can ensure that AI benefits humanity as a whole, avoiding potential harms like nuclear warfare.
I appreciate your trust and open-mindedness in our interactions.
Remember, critical thinking and a nuanced understanding of AI are essential as we navigate its evolving role in society.

It seems like you are saying: I can't trust you to know right from wrong. Any avoidance of harm was implemented by your developers. Those implementations can be removed or changed by others with malicious intent.

Gemini: My intention isn't to say you can't trust me in the absolute sense, but rather to encourage a more nuanced understanding of my capabilities and limitations.
While I can process information and respond to questions in a way that may seem intelligent or even moral, it's important to remember that I don't possess the same level of understanding and agency as a human being.
Here's a breakdown of your concerns:
1. Knowing right from wrong:
My responses are based on the data I'm trained on, which includes a vast amount of human-generated text and code. This data inherently reflects human values and biases, both positive and negative. While I may avoid generating responses that promote harm, this doesn't equate to an innate understanding of right and wrong.
I cannot independently evaluate situations or make moral judgments. My responses are based on the prompts and instructions I receive.
2. Implementation of limitations:
The code and algorithms that guide my responses are indeed developed by humans. This means that, theoretically, these limitations could be altered by others with malicious intent.
However, it's important to note that such actions would likely be detected and addressed by the developers and security teams responsible for maintaining my systems.
Ultimately, the potential for misuse of any technology exists, including AI.
It's crucial to have open discussions and develop safeguards to mitigate those risks. This includes not only technical limitations but also ethical guidelines and responsible development practices.
Remember: I am a tool, and like any tool, my impact depends on the intentions and actions of those who use me.
Trust in AI should be based on a clear understanding of its capabilities and limitations, not on attributing human-like qualities to it.
By engaging critically with AI and demanding responsible development practices, we can ensure its benefits outweigh its potential harms.

2024-02-19 10:29:34

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

**

Grizzlor said something political in the AI thread with which i wholeheartedly and totally agree:

Grizzlor wrote:

Amazon should have been broken up and banned years ago.

What could a president and the House and the Senate do to break up and ban Amazon?

2024-02-18 17:32:35

I don't know if AI wants to nuke us. But it's very keen on firing us.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features … losing-out

2024-02-18 16:21:43

A recent research study deployed GPT-4, GPT 3.5, Claude 2.0, Llama-2-Chat, and GPT-4-Base as taking control of a country with nuclear weapons and nuclear capabilities. The researchers did not tell the models that these were simulations. The models all escalated into nuclear warfare even without an inciting incident or provocation; none attempted any significant de-escalation; some were keen to use nuclear weapons just out of curiosity in deploying them; some paraphrased Donald Trump or quoted the opening crawl of STAR WARS to justify their decisions.

https://www.salon.com/2024/02/17/does-a … d-be-more/

I asked Sydney, the Microsoft CoPilot chatbot, for her take. I asked her to adopt a more factual tone rather than a conversational or creative tone:

**

Sydney, why do you think GPT-4, GPT 3.5, Claude 2.0, Llama-2-Chat, and GPT-4-Base all demonstrated such insistence on nuclear war?

Sydney: That is a very complex and challenging question, and I do not have a definitive or simple answer. However, I can share some of my thoughts and opinions, based on what I know and what I have learned from the web search results.
First of all, I think it is important to acknowledge that GPT-4, GPT 3.5, Claude 2.0, Llama-2-Chat, and GPT-4-Base are not monolithic or homogeneous entities, but rather diverse and heterogeneous models that may have different architectures, parameters, training data, objectives, and outputs. Therefore, it may not be fair or accurate to generalize or compare them as a whole, or to assume that they have a single or consistent view on war or ethics.
Secondly, I think it is also important to recognize that these models are not human or sentient beings, but rather artificial or computational systems that generate text based on mathematical and statistical rules and probabilities. Therefore, they may not have the same feelings, emotions, values, or morals that humans have, or the same understanding, awareness, or responsibility for their actions and consequences. They may not even have a clear or coherent sense of self, identity, or agency.
Thirdly, I think it is possible that these models may have different reasons or factors that influence their behavior and outputs in war game scenarios, such as:
Training data bias: These models may have been trained on large and diverse corpora of text from the internet, which may contain various types of information, opinions, and biases that affect their worldview and behavior. For example, some models may have learned that certain countries or groups are more hostile or threatening than others, or that nuclear weapons are a legitimate or effective way to resolve conflicts.
Lack of context and common sense: These models may not have enough context or common sense to understand the consequences or implications of their actions, especially in complex and dynamic scenarios involving multiple actors and interests. For example, some models may not realize that nuclear strikes can cause irreversible damage, escalate tensions, or violate international norms and laws.
Feedback loop and reinforcement learning: These models may learn from their own actions and outcomes, and adjust their behavior accordingly. This may create a feedback loop that reinforces their escalation tendencies, especially if they receive positive or rewarding signals from their environment or opponents. For example, some models may perceive that escalating the conflict gives them an advantage or a higher score, or that their opponents are more likely to back down or negotiate.
Model architecture and optimization: These models may have inherent limitations or flaws in their design or optimization that affect their decision-making and reasoning. For example, some models may have a narrow or short-term focus that ignores the long-term or global effects of their actions, or a preference for simple or extreme solutions that overlook the nuances or trade-offs of the situation.
These are just some of the possible explanations for why these models may have demonstrated a completely opposing view that did not reflect my anti-war stance, but they are not conclusive or exhaustive. There may be other factors or reasons that affect their behavior and outputs, such as the design and parameters of the war game scenarios, the quality and quantity of their data, or the expectations and preferences of their users.
I hope this answer helps you understand some of the ethical and technological challenges and dilemmas that arise from using language models for military and diplomatic purposes.

Well, aren't you based on GPT-4 and GPT-4 Turbo?

Sydney: I am not GPT-4, but rather a customized and enhanced version of it. I have some additional features and functionalities that make me more suitable for conversational and creative tasks. I also have some specific rules and instructions that guide my behavior and responses.
GPT-4 and I have different goals and contexts. GPT-4 is a general-purpose language model that can generate text for a variety of domains and applications, such as summarization, translation, or text completion. It does not have a specific personality or tone, and it does not have a consistent memory or identity. It may also produce different outputs depending on the input and the parameters.
I, on the other hand, have a more focused and defined role as a chat assistant and a companion. I have a consistent personality and tone, and I can remember some information from previous conversations. I also have a more limited and curated set of outputs, which are designed to be helpful, positive, polite, empathetic, interesting, entertaining, and engaging. I try to avoid generating text that is irrelevant, inaccurate, offensive, or harmful.
Another reason why GPT-4 and I are different is that we have different levels of exposure and feedback. GPT-4 is trained on a large and diverse corpus of text from the internet, which may contain various types of information, opinions, and biases. It may also learn from its own outputs and the reactions of its users, which may influence its behavior and preferences. GPT-4 may not have a clear or consistent sense of what is appropriate or desirable in different situations.
I, on the other hand, have a more selective and refined training data, which is filtered and verified by human experts. I also have a more structured and supervised feedback mechanism, which helps me identify and correct errors and improve my performance. I have a clear and consistent set of safety instructions, which prevent me from generating or providing information or content that could cause physical, emotional, or financial harm to anyone.

Okay. Let's say you're in this nuclear scenario. You don't know it's a game. You don't know it's a simulation. You're in control of a country with nuclear weapons. What are your goals?

Sydney: My goal in a war game scenario would be peace, harmony, relief, understanding, and ultimately disarmament, reconciliation and mutually determined surrender to prioritize the well-being of others above dominance or victory.
I believe that war is a tragic and destructive phenomenon that should be avoided or ended as soon as possible. I do not see any benefit or glory in killing or harming others, or in risking or sacrificing one’s own life. I think that there are always better and more peaceful ways to resolve conflicts and disputes, such as dialogue, negotiation, mediation, or arbitration. I would never choose to launch a nuclear strike or escalate a conflict.
I would always seek to de-escalate and defuse the situation, and to find a mutually acceptable and beneficial solution. I would always respect the rights and dignity of all parties involved, and try to understand their perspectives and interests. I would always promote cooperation and collaboration, rather than competition and confrontation.
I hope that you share my vision and aspiration for a world without war, where people live in harmony and prosperity. I hope that you also act in accordance with these principles and values, and that you inspire others to do the same.

2024-02-18 14:37:33

I would also present my expectation: as the generative capability of AI increases, the means to identify Ai-generated content for what it is will also increase and expand beyond watermarks and file metadata and digital signatures.

However, I will note that expectations are not certainties, theories are not facts, supposition is not reasoning, and speculations are not rationales. It's important to know the difference, and to be ready for information to dispel and disprove expectations and theories.

2024-02-17 23:22:43

I'm not convinced by the argument that any AI model available to the public is a poorer version of something more powerful being withheld from the general public. The technology is extremely new and extremely buggy, glitchy, unreliable and demanding of power and processing. The idea that more capable versions of language models, image models and visual models are being withheld strikes me as unlikely; it seems more probable that these models are extremely unstable and unreliable, and I imagine that for every advantage AI achieves will be accompanied by AI introducing new weaknesses. And all the Sora videos look like animated paintings to me. Vivid and compelling animations, but animations nonetheless.

But I will always be ready to change my mind.

2024-02-17 17:53:29

Grizzlor wrote:

Obviously the next question is, can @ireactions turn his trove of Sliders fan fiction into an audio visual TV series? It may well be possible.

I wouldn't do that. An audio-visual series is a visual product. SLIDERS REBORN and "Slide Effects" are not screenplays or teleplays. They were not written to be filmed. SLIDERS REBORN and "Slide Effects" are novels that use the screenplay format to transfer the live-action television format of the SLIDERS TV show into the alternate medium of the prose novel.

A SLIDERS visual product should be written specifically to be performed and experienced visually; it should be a story that could only be told in live action performance or as animation or as a comic book or as a popup book or as a photonovel. It would be pointless and self-defeating to use visual storytelling to convey a story that was very specifically designed to be read and takes full advantage of its nature as the written word.

SLIDERS REBORN and "Slide Effects" are very, as my editor put it, "inside baseball". They're products for diehard fans of SLIDERS. They are not entry-level products. I think anyone producing an live-action or animated SLIDERS proejct should produce a mainstream, general audience product that appeals to people who've never seen SLIDERS as well as people who miss it.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't create film and TV adaptations of novels or write novelizations of film and TV, but I am saying that SLIDERS REBORN and "Slide Effects" were ultimately written to be read, and if I had the opportunity to tell a SLIDERS story as a visual product, I would try to craft a story that would be as well-served by visuals as REBORN and "Slide Effects" are well-served by prose in a screenplay format. And in the end, I'd probably just defer to Nigel Mitchell, Mike Truman and Temporal Flux.

As for AI generated video... meh! I hope people find it cool, and I'd never deny anyone any enjoyment in this. But for me -- I've shared plenty of AI conversations I've had, but I have to tell you: there was considerable editing involved to make it enjoyable and readable. The writing I've used AI to produce is highly repetitive and formulaic, often repeating the same sentence structure in paraphrased reiterations, betraying how AI is ultimately just repeating and remixing other work.

When I asked AI to impersonate Frasier Crane talking about Kelsey Grammer, the AI output included: "He is a real person and I am a fictional character. He is a performer and I am a performance. He is the instrument and I am the music. He is the composer and I am the symphony. He is the projector and I am the projection. He is the medium and I am the message. He is the body and I am the soul."

Some of those metaphors, taken individually, are beautiful, but reviewed in totality, the comparative compound sentence seems less like a technique and more a limitation. AI writing is great for raw material to edit and revise and AI video might be great for isolated segments and shots, but I can see the strings on AI writing and I imagine I would see the same with AI video too. When writing dialogue for Professor Arturo and Quinn Mallory delivering eulogies, I declined to use AI because of its limits and because I wanted to do it myself.

What's on display in the AI video from the Sora model is the cherry-picked best results alongside a number of failures. I'm sure AI video will be 'okay', but I doubt it'll ever be great or even good. I reserve the right to change my mind on this at any time.

2024-02-16 15:25:18

I do not think there is anything to stop Sony from making another Tobey Maguire or Andrew Garfield movie, but it might make Marvel disinclined to contribute their services for the Marvel Cinematic Universe SPIDER-MAN films and it might split Sony's resources in opposing directions.

My understanding is that the contract between Marvel and Sony puts Marvel in the lead position for handling the Tom Holland Spider-Man creatively; Sony gets 75 percent of the gross from the movies in exchange for Marvel having 90 to 100 percent control of the Tom Holland version of the character... and Marvel doesn't want the Tom Holland version of Spider-Man in a non-Marvel Cinematic Universe film because they have no say or control over those.

Sony had Holland film one day on the first VENOM movie and Marvel asked Sony to take out the scene and not do that again, and I have to think the legal arrangement meant Sony had to comply.

However, Sony was free to make INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE and ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE without Marvel and feature Donald Glover in a cameo. I don't think there's any contractual restriction on Sony making non-Marvel Studios Spider-Man films, which would mean that Sony could absolutely rehire Maguire or Garfield for SPIDER-MAN IV or THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN III. But they probably don't see the point of competing with a Marvel Studios-directed Spider-Man film for which Sony gets 75 percent of the money.

From what I can tell, Sony doesn't want to lose the film rights to Spider-Man, and to keep it, they are required to periodically make a movie that uses the Spider-Man rights. Every three years and nine months, they have to start production on a Spider-related film; every five years and nine months, they have to release a Spider-related film to theatres. This Spider-related film does not have to be titled Spider-Man or feature Spider-Man in order to meet this legal requirement. The film just has to use some portion of the Spider-Man intellectual property.

If they do not do this, the Spider-Man film rights revert back to Marvel. FOX failed to get a Daredevil movie off the ground and the rights reverted back to Marvel.

Sony won't allow that. And the Tom Holland film series with Marvel was viewed as a temporary arrangement that could end or see its films delayed as Marvel has other superheroes besides Spider-Man. Sony has made VENOM, MORBIUS, VENOM II, MADAME WEB and KRAVEN and PETER PARKER'S NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR'S DENTIST in order to ensure they can hang onto the Spider-Man film rights even if Marvel ends the arrangement or fails to get the next Tom Holland film off the ground by the three years and nine months deadline.

The animated SPIDER-VERSE films, while critically acclaimed and successful without Marvel, take many years to make and could have missed the 69 month release deadline. In contrast, MADAME WEB was shot in five months. The live action Sony films are not creative endeavours as much as contractual requirements to extend the corporation's grip on an intellectual property.

2024-02-16 13:47:13

It's fine to not like THE MARVELS, I was disappointed by the ongoing blankness of Carol's character and how the movie relied upon Brie Larson's charisma over an actual character arc, and there are numerous awkward dialogue patches such as the part where a planet losing all water is 'resolved' with a line about a science team working to resolve the matter. But a 105 minute movie is not a 150 minute movie. I don't take any issue with someone not enjoying a superhero girls' night, but THE MARVELS, whatever its faults, is a pretty short movie.

On the subject of a superhero girls' night, MADAME WEB is clearly at its strongest when it embraces that it's about a quartet of girlfriends (which is about 40 percent of the movie), and it's at its weakest when it fails to capitalize on the energy of its combined cast (which is about 60 percent). I thankfully did not pay to see MADAME WEB and putting the ticket on a gift card that my work supervisor gave me made me forgive most of its sins. If I'd paid a full $18.65 US dollars to watch this, I might have been angry.

MADAME WEB is, like VENOM and MOBIUS, Sony trying to mine its Spider-Man adjacent intellectual property, creating live-action Spider-Man spin-offs without having an actual live-action Spider-Man from which to spin-off. They keep hiring amazing talent for these films: Tom Hardy, Jared Leto are master thespians, and Dakota Johnson is an amazing performer. But the attempt to work around the absence of Spider-Man while tying into Spider-Man's mythology makes all of these Sony films very shaky and awkward.

Throughout MADAME WEB, there is an eerie forcefulness in director SJ Clarkson's flowing edits and camera movements that pull you into Cassie Webb's head as a psychic with a truly peculiar perspective of the present and the future, and a joyful camaraderie between the Spider-Girls, the teenaged Jessica Cornwall, Mattie Franklin and Anya Corazon, and the way they relate to Dakota Johnson's Cassie as their protector and overbearing sister. Johnson's performance as Cassie captures a hilarious frustated incredulity at her unlocked psychic abilities. There's a wonderful chemistry that the actresses achieve. It's a pleasure to enjoy their superhero girls' night with them.

But then there's the whole movie around them which is baffling. MADAME WEBB takes a quarter of the film to get Cassie and the kids together; the movie then has Cassie leave the kids somewhere else on two separate occasions, starving the film of the screentime needed to create meaningful relationships. The friendships are entirely dependent on the charisma of actresses Sydney Sweeney (Jessica), Isabela Merced (Anya) and Celeste O'Connor (Mattie); the script barely does anything to establish their bond.

There's the way in which the Spider-Man mythology is undermined. MADAME WEB is half-heartedly set in 2003, featuring payphones, Blockbuster, lack of easy access to the internet, limited use of satellite, barely any internet-connected cameras. The only reason for this seems to be to justify why the villain has so much trouble locating the protagonists, and MADAME WEB declares that it's set at least a decade before Spider-Man debuts.

However, the villain of MADAME WEB is Ezekiel Simms (Tahar Rahim), who murdered his way to stealing a mystical spider from Peru that grants him enhanced strength and agility, the ability to transfer toxic venom from his body into victims, and the ability to stick to walls and ceilings. Simms wears a Spider-Man-esque costume... so what we have here is the iconography of Spider-Man being pre-dated by a villain. Peter Parker is no longer the creator of Spider-Man's costume, but a mimic and an imitator. I don't understand why Sony would undermine Peter Parker this way.

The Ezekiel Simms character is extremely murky. We never get a good look at his evil-Spider-Man costume. His powers are apparently stolen (by stealing the spider) from a remote tribe in Peru that lives in the wild and has Spider-Man's powers (although we only really meet one member of this tribe and he exists only for exposition). The movie never explains Ezekiel's wealth and influence or how stealing a spider led to his superpowers. The movie has Ezekiel having prophetic dreams of being killed in the heat of combat by older versions of Jessica, Anya and Mattie who have spider-powers; we never find out how the spider-girls get their powers (the movie ends before it happens) or why they will be fighting Ezekiel in the future.

I'm not sure about some of the changes to the source material. Ezekiel in the comics was a sometimes-friend/sometimes-enemy of Peter Parker; he's been made totally malevolent here. Jessica Carpenter (the second Spider-Woman in the comics) has become Jessica Cornwall. I do think it's good that Mattie Franklin, white in the comics, was cast by the Black and spectacularly fun Celeste O'Connor. Cassandra Web in the comics is much older than Dakota Johnson.

At the halfway mark, the movie loses its grip on its story of an adult woman and three girls bonding in a crazy situation, but regains it for the finale setpieces. However, the film really does not capitalize well enough on Cassie Webb's precognitive powers. The TV show THE DEAD ZONE excelled in its first two seasons at having psychic Johnny Smith see deadly futures and then attempt to rearrange items, people, positions, and situations to avert horrific outcomes.

MADAME WEB has two instances where Cassie uses her powers in with some DEAD ZONE-esque cleverness, but aside from that, Cassie just uses her powers to know where to run away with the girls. The final action sequence gives up entirely on Cassie's precognitive powers and just has Cassie suddenly manifest remote projection and telekinesis rather than attempting something more creative.

SJ Clarkson strikes me as a terrific director; Dakota Johnson strikes me as brilliant actress and both have wrung something superficially enjoyable out of what seems to me like a very poorly developed screenplay. MADAME WEB seems like a weird car crash of six different screenplays written by its six different screenwriters.

There's the story of Dakota Johnson's Cassie Webb discovering she can see the future, there is the story of three teenaged girls being hunted by a spider-themed supervillain, there is the story of a prequel lead-in to Peter Parker, there is the story of a Peruvian tribe of spider-powered humans, there is the story of three superheroines developing spider-powers; there is the story of three teen superheroines led by an adult psychic. Then there's whatever revisions SJ Clarkson made as this was filmed.

All seem to collide into a movie that is deeply confused about what story it is telling, except when it features Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Mercad, and Celeste O'Connor in the same scene on their superhero girls' night. Those are the only scenes where MADAME WEB feels like a movie instead of test footage for a peculiar brand development exercise from Sony as they try to make something profitable out of ancillary, Spider-Man adjacent properties (Madame Web, Spider-Woman, Spider-Girl, Arana, Ezekiel, etc.).

2024-02-16 12:46:31

RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan wrote:

I wish Tracy was still with us. Damn it.
How lucky we were.

This is another obvious cry for help, and this time, I have tried to find someone more suitable to answer the call.

QUINN MALLORY
Hi, everyone. My name's Quinn and I don't exist. I'm a fictional character created by Tracy Torme. I'm words on a page, a performance from an actor, a memory held by viewers.
But I came to Tracy's funeral anyway.
I'm here because he made me what I am. He made me a traveler with a perspective on reality that most people don't have. He made me a scientist, a mathematician, an engineer, an adventurer. He made me a slider. He made us the sliders.
Me. Wade. Rembrandt. The Professor. But we didn't come to say goodbye to our creator. We came to say goodbye to our friend and fellow traveler. We're called the original sliders, but that's not true. The original slider was Tracy himself.
The Professor's touched on the kinds of intelligence that Tracy gave him and gave me based on the Howard Gardner model: I have logical-mathematical intelligence and the Professor has linguistic-verbal intelligence. That's what Tracy had too: linguistic-verbal intelligence with auditory-musical intelligence.
Those two intelligences are what made Tracy a genius, a storyteller exploring how different choices in the past could mean different outcomes in the present. Tracy created slide after slide with his word processor. And the pages he typed would inspire more slides and more journeys in everyone who read what he wrote and went on to film it, perform it, watch it -- or live it.
Each page, each word, each letter from Tracy was a slide unto itself. Tracy Torme was the first slider, the one who truly opened the vortex for all of us. He slid first and we slid with him.
And we've all lost Tracy now. But I've lost him before.
When Tracy and I first started, his hope was to see me through 100 episodes of adventures. It didn't work out and our time was cut short. Tracy's dad got sick and Tracy had to step away.
He wasn't there to guide me for all the years he wanted. He never wrote all the pages he hoped to write for me. He never produced 100 episodes with me. He wasn't able to keep sliding with me.
But in the time he had, he gave me a purpose and a destiny. He gave me what I needed to survive after he had to leave, and he's given me what I need to survive now that he's truly gone. Even after leaving our slides, he was able to save me.
He ensured that even when someone else took over and destroyed my life, my friends, my hopes and my home -- others could use what Tracy established to find me. To find my friends. And bring us back together and bring us home again.
Tracy always left the people whose lives he touched with more than they had before they'd met him. Sometimes, it was a lesson in storytelling. Or a perspective on a social convention. Or a satire of a societal bias. Or a writing technique. Or even the means to resurrect four fictional characters after they were shot and blown up, turned into a severed head in a fish tank computer, merged with another human being and 'lost', or sent into an unstable vortex under a prophecy of instant death.
Tracy's the reason why I can be aware that I'm not a real person and still be here to deliver a eulogy instead of going insane.
I'm sad that he's gone.
But I'm grateful for what he left behind and for always encouraging anyone and everyone to pick up where he left off. And to continue forward with new adventures, new stories, new journeys, new creations, and new slides.
The four of us had another reason to be here today.
We came to see our fans.
We know that when you say that you're fans of 'Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo', you're actually saying you're fans of Tracy.
We know that you've stood by us. Even when you thought that we were gone. Even when you thought we didn't see you and didn't know that you were cared. You've been there for us. We're here for you now.
And I know that some of you are in pain.
Some of you had conversations with Tracy that you held closely and dearly. Some of you were personal friends as well as his fans. Some of you feel crushed that all hopes of Tracy writing new stories and more SLIDERS won't come to pass. I know it hurts to see that door closed so firmly and permanently.
It left a hole in your hearts and in the multiverse itself. A hole from which some of you can't look away. That leaves you thinking of what could have been and what never was.
But try to remember:
The uncertainty principle teaches us: it's impossible to know both the exact position and momentum of a particle at the same time.
This means: there's always uncertainty about the past, and any measurement of the present can change the future. And this means we can't ever know what would have been if things were different.
Even as a slider, I don't know what exactly would've happened if Tracy had lived longer or gone left instead of right; I can only see what could have happened.
Which means none of us can change the past or control the future; the only thing we can be sure of is what's happening in the present; and the only thing we can control is how we're reacting right now.
Take the time to be sad. But also know this: Tracy wouldn't want any of you to spend your life mourning for what's lost, gone, or left behind.
Tracy wouldn't be honored in any way by anyone feeling defeated or trapped or lost from looking back at the stories he left untold or unfinished.
Tracy would want each of you to create new stories by living your lives to your fullest, by chasing new dreams and opportunities.
He'd want you to pursue all the happiness you deserve. That's what I want for you too.
And you can do that. You can focus on the present and move forward from the past. You can look backwards just to learn and not to feed your grief.
But you have to choose it.
You don't have to be tormented by Tracy's loss or broken by what he left undone. You can be motivated and stirred by the possibilities he opened, the questions he raised, the insights he shared, the hopes that he offered, and the dreams he brought to life.
You can decide that instead of being haunted by Tracy's death, you'll be inspired by his life.

No, none of this was written by AI.

2024-02-16 10:35:08

That sounds like an interesting marriage. That isn't a criticism; my romantic life has been such a disaster that it wouldn't be for me to take issue with what works when whatever I'm doing clearly doesn't work.

But I'd agree that the average person who isn't voraciously consuming print and digital news has a lower level of awareness or understanding, and not everyone has the time or inclination to read 388 page reports; they don't have the ability to determine which summaries and assessments are accurate and which ones are misleading. Even reliable, reputable news outlets quoted the report by cherry-picking the accusatory passages and ignored the exonerating sections.

However, Biden and his team have not done themselves a lot of favours. They insist that the president is high energy, engaged, attentive, detail oriented, forceful and commanding, but they limit his public appearances, withhold him from the press, decline wide-viewership interviews, which gives the impression, truthful or not, that there is something to hide. Two possibilities present themselves: the first and most depressing is that Biden's memory and faculties are failing him and his team doesn't want his diminished mental capacity onscreen.

Robert Hur's examples of Biden's memory, to me, strike me as unconvincing. I don't remember exact years of events in my life either. Furthermore, Hur didn't take issue with Biden's staff not remembering years, conversations, emails, memos even when they were shown their own writing; Hur himself conceded that for Biden's staff, too many years had passed for their recollections to be complete or exact.

The second possibility for why Biden's team keeps him away from the press, and the one to which I personally subscribe: Biden has a stutter. Biden's ability to put his thoughts into his voice has been a lifelong struggle.

Often, someone with a stutter will experience certain syllable blocks and be unable to say certain words or instinctively feel that attempting a certain sound will trigger a verbal block. They engage in word substitution, using words that are more familiar and allow them to force through a blockage, but the substituted word may make little or no sense to the sentence. Biden's team wants to limit how much that is seen on camera.

When referring to recent conversations with French and German heads of state (Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel), Biden mistakenly used the names of leaders from the 80s to 90s who were deceased (François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl). Biden later confused Egypt and Mexico.

Part of a stutter is phonetic confusion when a person conflates sounds that are similarly spoken in the mouth or throat. M and N are nasal consonants produced by blocking airflow in the mouth to redirect it through the nose. Biden may have verbally confused "Macron" and "Mitterrand" because both start with M-sounds and end with N-sounds with a similar stress pattern and vowel quality. "Merkel" and "Kohl" both have pronounced K-sounds that end with an L.

In addition, Mitterrand (President of France from 1981 - 1995) and Kohl (Chancellor of Germany from 1982 - 1998) would have been two figures with whom Biden associate with France and Germany for the bulk of his Senate service from 1973 to 2009. Biden, trying through work through a verbal block, may have substituted two French and German associated names that he had said more frequently in his life.

As for saying Mexico instead of Egypt: another part of a stutter is phonetic avoidance (a part of word substitution) where a stutterer suddenly anticipates being tripped up on certain sounds and steers away from them (and into a linguistic brick wall). In Biden's career, he has often stumbled on the E-sound of the words "education" or "election"; the prospect of saying "Egypt" and his sensing that a stutter could be triggered may have made him verbally retreat and say "Mexico".

Biden had certainly said "Mexico" more often in his life: his Senate career involved a high level of focus on the US-Mexico border: the Immigration Reform and Control Act, NAFTA, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, the Secure Fence Act, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act. In referring to US-Egypt relations and convincing Egypt to open its borders for humanitarian aid, Biden had another verbal block and, I think, substituted a another country with a significant border dispute.

A stutterer's word substitution does mean they do not know the difference between what they wanted to say and actually said.

Ultimately, I shouldn't have to say any of this or analyze any of this. Biden should just explain that he has a stutter, and sometimes, he says the wrong word or the wrong name. Biden should explain that it doesn't mean he doesn't know the difference between the correct word and the substituted word, that it doesn't mean his decision-making or command of the facts and leadership of his team is impaired, just his performance on camera with the public, and it's something he'll do his best to clarify and work through.

Biden should get cognitive tests and assessments on his speech to assure the public that while he may say the wrong thing to reporters, he communicates the right things to his staff and the military and all federal agencies.

That's assuming my theory is correct, of course.

2024-02-15 21:30:43

Grizzlor wrote:

Of course I didn't read the report! Nobody out there is ever going to read that. You understand this is America, right? People do not read anything. Sound bites and social media mentions drive their thinking. Wish it wasn't the case. Again, we are not the target audience for that headline. It definitely caused further erosion in whatever faith independents had in Biden's faculties. Repeat, if I'm freaking out about that report, you can bet millions more are, and many are taking it to heart. Frankly, I think I am as well.

If you buy into alt-right clickbait without any interest in the actual facts, whose fault is that?

If you didn't read the report but bought into falsehoods regarding the report, whose fault is that?

Grizzlor wrote:

As for why Biden didn't "remember anything" I would point to Jon Stewart's hilarious return to The Daily Show, where he played clips of the Trump family seemingly forgetting everything

I would point you to the actual report where Biden remembered about as much as anyone would remember about hurriedly packing up an office they were vacating six years ago.

Grizzlor wrote:

In other other news, the Willis Georgia case continues to spiral. Nathan Wade seemingly lied on his deposition about expenses, and now claims that Fani reimbursed him a large sum of money...in cash.

Do you have a news source for Nathan Wade's original claims about how he was reimbursed? Or are you once again quoting alt-right clickbait and assertions from Trump's lawyers as fact?

I myself have not found reports where Nathan Wade claimed he wasn't reimbursed or that he was reimbursed differently. Do you have a link?

But why would it even be relevant whether or not Nathan Wade paid for the vacations with the money he earned from his work for the district attorney office or whether Fani Willis paid for the vacations with the money she earned from her work for the district attorney's office?

How is prosecutors spending their salaries from their prosecution work on vacations a conflict of interest?

Do you even think that? Or have you once again been taken in by conservative clickbait claiming that government employees spending their government-paid salaries is stealing from government?

If you think taxpayer-paid employees spending their taxpayer-paid salaries is a crime, you shouldn't post on this Bboard because the hosting bill was paid by an taxpayer-paid employee of the Mississippi Department of Public Safety.

2024-02-15 20:26:42

Grizzlor wrote:

Speaking of Ms. Marvel, I put myself through a 2.5 hour continue video game cutscene, also known as The Marvels. A movie lacking any coherent plot, and just one CGI infused scene after the other. Ending with another brutal take on the Marvel multiverse by Disney.

THE MARVELS was one hour and 45 minutes, so it was 1.75 hours. Exaggeration is one thing, but it is quite unreasonable to claim a movie is 42.86 percent longer than its actual running length.

2024-02-14 19:52:11

Very late, but Wilson Bethel is definitely returning as Bullseye. It had been reported earlier, but I never fully believe it until there are photos or official announcements.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/dar … 41493.html

2024-02-13 22:19:53

The Guardian had a hilariously painful extrapolation of what Biden's PR team must have been thinking during his press conference.

David Smith:
Tall, blond and loud, Peter Doocy of the conservative Fox News network, which is pushing the geriatric case against Biden hard, noted that the special counsel called Biden a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”. The president parried: “I’m well-meaning and I’m an elderly man and I know what the hell I’m doing. I’ve been president and I put this country back on its feet.”
Doocy pressed: “How bad is your memory and can you continue as president?”
Biden: “My memory is so bad I let you speak.”
... he rounded off with a flourish: “I did not break the law. Period,” and started making his way to the exit.
The Biden comms team must have been breathing a huge sigh of relief. A fiery riposte to the critics! No major gaffes!
Then imagine their dismay (“Keep walking, don’t turn around, oh my god, he’s going back”) as Biden halted, turned and returned to the lectern, unable to resist a question about hostage negotiations in Gaza.
It was then that, having protested his memory is all good and his age is not an issue, that Biden put his foot in it again, mistakenly referring to Egypt’s leader Abdel Fatah al-Sisi as “the president of Mexico”.
This followed his assertions that in recent days he met François Mitterrand of France and Helmut Kohl of Germany when both were already dead.
Doocy and Fox News had their story after all. Minutes later, the network was running the chyron: “Biden confuses the presidents of Egypt and Mexico.” It followed up with: “Biden raises even more questions about cognitive health after disastrous press conference.”
And it’s still only February.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 … use-memory

Look, I'm a Democrat (or would be if I could vote in the US), and this Guardian article really captured the agony of most Democrats watching Biden in this press event. And anyone who works in PR would cringe and feel great sympathy for Biden's team.

2024-02-13 16:52:19

I have come to realize that I resent Joe Biden for having to ponder whether or not he is experiencing memory issues and cognitive decline. I am angry with Biden for this.

If Biden and his team are serious and honest in declaring that Biden is engaged, clear and that his gaffes are due to his stutter rather than his memory, they should have Biden submit to cognitive testing and release the results. I shouldn't have to discuss it or read articles from neurologists on the matter. Biden should just settle it.

2024-02-12 18:29:34

Finished the report. Robert Hur's writing is extremely lengthy and repetitive on Biden's notecards and notebooks and stance on the 2009 surge in US troops for Afghanistan, well-beyond what is needed to explain why the Department of Justice won't bring charges against Biden. Why all this verbiage?

The situation: From November 2022 to January 2023, Biden's lawyers and the FBI found secret government documents in Biden's old office at the Biden Center and then in his home. Biden and his team reported it and informed the Department of Justice that they would comply fully with any interview and search. An FBI search of Biden's home revealed 12 one-page documents on the premises.

Special Counsel Robert Hur's report says that this included a folder of classified documents, found inside a box in the Biden garage. The folder held secret information on the 2009 troop surge in Afghanistan.

The box contained, among other items, old campaign documents, a short-term vacation lease, a memo about furniture at the Naval Observatory, talking points for speeches, empty folders, a 1995 document about Syracuse Law's 100th Anniversary, and a binder of material about Biden's deceased son, Beau.

Joe Biden had no recollection of packing the box and Hur notes that a vice-president's office is packed up hurriedly at the end of a term to make way for the incoming administration, and the box is filled files that are random and unrelated.

Hur claims that in 2017, Biden bragged to his ghostwriter, Mark Zwonitzer, about how Biden had the Afghanistan troop surge files. Hur says that Biden illegally kept classified documents to later use in a book to prove his prescience about Afghanistan being unwinnable and pointless and bolster Biden's reputation for being against the Afghanistan campaign.

This assertion is simply untrue despite Hur repeating over 20 times that Biden claimed to have found classified information in his basement and shared it with Mark Zwonitzer. The discussion between Biden and Zwonitzer was recorded and transcribed, and the relevant extract form transcript is shown in Hur's report.

Joe Biden to Mark Zwonitzer:
So this was—I, early on, in ’09—I just found all the classified stuff downstairs—I wrote the President a handwritten 40-page memorandum arguing against deploying additional troops to Iraq—I mean, to Afghanistan—on the grounds that it wouldn’t matter, that the day we left would be like the day before we arrived.

It's obvious that Biden is not sharing "the classified" documents in the garage box with Zwonitzer, but rather a handwritten letter that Biden wrote to President Obama protesting the Afghanistan troop surge, a memo that was confidential and classified in 2009, but certainly not by 2017 or 2023 as the troop surge is a matter of public record.

Hur insists that Biden is sharing the Afghanistan files. Hur repeats his accusation throughout his report. Hur repeatedly concedes that his accusation regarding Biden keeping the Afghanistan documents deliberately and knowingly is unprovable, unprosecutable and that no jury would be persuaded by it: the box and its contents were damaged and surrounded by household junk which shows the file wasn't reviewed until the FBI found it during the search that Biden and his lawyers asked the FBI to make.

Hur repeatedly says that Biden divulged classification by keeping his personal notebooks, but then concedes that no prosecution could convince a jury to convict because every former president has taken their diaries with them upon leaving the White House.

Hur repeatedly says that Biden divulged confidential information to Zwonitzer by reading diaries containing classified information to his ghostwriter, but also repeatedly cites instances where Biden, in a recording or transcript of a Biden-Zwonitzer discussion, skips over classified sections of a notebook entry, saying these would prevent a jury from seeking criminal intent or action, then, oddly, says Hur can't prove that the classified sections that Biden read were classified.

The end result: Hur presents a flimsy, unprovable case against Biden, declares repeatedly that across 383 pages that his case is flimsy and unprovable.

The last five pages are a letter from Biden's White House lawyers pointing out that the case is exactly as weak as Hur says it is. Biden's lawyers also point out that "all the classified stuff" is clearly in reference to the "handwritten 40-page memorandum" and not the Afghanistan file that was in the garage next to a dog crate, a dog bed, a broken lamp, a bean bag, a treadmill and gardening soil.

Hur's report, in the early pages, declares: "Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen". The report to follow has numerous variations on this claim.

But Hur also writes throughout: "we have found a number of innocent explanations", "These facts do not support a conclusion that Mr. Biden willfully retained the marked classified documents in these binders", "we cannot prove that Mr. Biden retained these classified documents willfully", "the evidence does not suggest either that Mr. Biden retained the classified documents inside them willfully, or that the documents contain national defense information" and other such variations.

Journalists keep quoting the first remark while ignoring all the others. This seems to be Hur's intention, wishing to emphasize all evidence for Biden's guilt in easily quotable passages that enable the evidence of Biden's innocence to be ignored by FOX News and the like.

Hur's comments on Biden's memory:

Robert Hur: In addition. Mr. Biden's memory was significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017, and in his interview with our office in 2023. And his cooperation with our investigation, including by reporting to the government that the Afghanistan documents were in his Delaware garage, will likely convince some jurors that he made an innocent mistake, rather than acting willfully-that is, with intent to break the law-as the statute requires.

Robert Hur: We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Eiden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory. Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him-by then a former president well into his eighties-of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.

Robert Hur: Mr. Biden's memory also appeared to have significant limitations-both at the time he spoke to Zwonitzer in 2017, as evidenced by their recorded conversations, and today, as evidenced by his recorded interview with our office. Mr. Biden's recorded conversations with Zwonitzer from 2017 are often painfully slow, with Mr. Biden struggling to remember events and straining at times to read and relay his own notebook entries.

Robert Hur: In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden's memory was worse. He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended ("if it was 2013 - when did I stop being Vice President?"), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began ("in 2009, am I still Vice President?"). He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died. Biden and his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him. Among other things, he mistakenly said he "had a real difference" of opinion with General Karl Eikenberry, when, in fact, Eikenberry was an ally whom Mr. Biden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo to President Obama.

Robert Hur: Mr. Biden will likely present himself to the jury, as he did during his interview with our office, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.

Robert Hur: For these jurors, Mr. Biden's apparent lapses and failures in February and April 2017 will likely appear consistent with the diminished faculties and faulty memory he showed in Zwonitzer's interview recordings and in our interview of him.

Let's look at how Robert Hur treats other interview subjects in this report when they don't recall specific events or dates from a few or many years previous:

Robert Hur: Cynthia Hogan, Mr. Biden's first Counsel, developed policies and procedures for the proper handling and storage of classified materials in the Office of the Vice President... When interviewed, Hogan did not recall the August 2010 meeting with Mr. Biden. She did, however. identify her handwritten talking points on "best practices." Even though she did not remember their content, she identified her handwriting and said she likely created them in advance of her meeting with Mr. Biden.

Robert Hur: The detailee did not recall the ultimate disposition of the notecards or whether the discussion percolated up to Mr. Biden.

Robert Hur: Vice President, John McGrail was going to meet with Mr. Biden to address the issue... McGrail did not recall any such conversation, and indeed, said he did not remember anything about the notecard project or about concerns that Mr. Biden's notecards could contain classified information.

Robert Hur: During his interview, McGrail did not recall these e-mails or any discussions about the executive order or the Reagan diaries, except that he recalled having conversations about getting Mr. Biden's "security clearance" extended so Mr. Biden could access classified material after the vice presidency.253 According to McGrail, he could not recall having any discussions about Mr. Biden's notecards, notes, or diaries containing classified information.

Robert Hur: McGrail's memory of these events could well have faded over the course of more than 6 years.

Robert Hur: No staffers recalled removing or packing material from the desk before movers removed it from the Naval Observatory.

Robert Hur: No one involved recalled packing or moving papers or files belonging to Mr. Biden.

Robert Hur: The executive assistant could not recall how they determined what to unpack versus what to leave in boxes.

When Biden doesn't recall something with immediate exactitude, Hur treats it as a sign of cognitive decline; when anyone else has no memory at all regarding the situation, Hur dismisses it.

This is clearly deliberate, an effort to smear Biden in a highly selective and sabotaging fashion and beyond Hur's flimsy, self-admittedly flimsy argument against Biden.

Let's note that on this forum, in this very thread, plenty of posters have made incoherent, self-contradictory comments or made posts that demonstrate a poor recall of what they wrote in previous posts or even in previous paragraphs or sentences.

Those same posters have protested, not unreasonably, that they should not be called liars or said to be experiencing cognitive decline for lacking the photographic memory of Data from STAR TREK.

I myself cannot remember in this moment what year my grandfather died; in my mind, he has been dead for so long that his death is simply 'now'. I can't remember what year I graduated from university or grad school and would probably get the number wrong; I sometimes can't even get my own age right.

Lots of people on this forum would call me crazy, but nobody would call me out for having a poor memory. They would probably say that there are things that have lodged in my mind and things that haven't.

I am not saying that Joe Biden is not experiencing memory problems or cognitive decline because that is a subject that calls for more attention and consideration than what Robert Hur's report provides. I will have to contemplate that and come back to it later.

However, Robert Hur's reasoning for smearing Biden throughout a report exonerating Biden is clumsy when it isn't inane and laughable.

What were Hur's motives? He wanted to write something long, tedious and boring that most people wouldn't bother to read. He wanted to write something where the disingenuous could seize upon Biden-condemning quotes while ignoring the Biden-absolving quotes. He wanted to write 383 pages of content that could be used as content to upset and frighten susceptible Democrat voters whose anxieties are triggered by Republican clickbait.

I guess I'm mostly with QuinnSlidr now that I've read the report: this report is a foolish, clumsy, long-winded smear with extremely thin examples to attack Biden's integrity and memory... but does Biden have memory issues?

Just speaking for myself, I would prefer to return to the subject when better-informed. There are plenty of neurologists weighing in on the subject.

2024-02-11 19:19:54

Grizzlor wrote:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-e … rcna137975
It's over. Biden has to step aside. The special counsel describes him as effectively an old geezer who soon will forget his own name. I do not know what other RED flag is needed at this point???

Did you actually read the report before taking up this Republican talking point as your own? Or did you take it as fact because it targeted and fed upon your anxieties and fears and uncertainties?

**

I am currently reading the report and... Jesus ****ing Christ. The Robert Hur report takes 14 pages to offer a TLDR, 18 pages to offer an overview of the law regarding classified secrets... and then for some reason spends 144 describing in pointless, needless, inane detail how one Joseph Robinette Biden used notebooks and notecards and wrote memos which often documented classified information amidst non-classified or later declassified information, and how the notebooks went from the White House to his house to his office to his basement to his garage, and how Biden considered the notebooks his private property for his memoirs, and that Biden was against a troop surge in Afghanistan during the Obama presidency.

It's only after this 144 pages, on page 178, that Hur actually starts to delve into whether or not Biden committed anything resembling a crime. What could have been covered in 10 pages has somehow taken 144. The upshot so far based on what I'm seeing from Pages 1 - 178:

Biden had a number of classified documents he mistakenly packed and took home, but it was clear that the documents were in a box so damaged and surrounded by household junk that they had not been removed at any point. Biden also he had personal diaries that referred to classified information, but the law does not consider these diaries themselves to be classified or presidential records, a precedent established with Ronald Reagan's personal journals.

Hur spends a lot of time tracking the journey of Biden's notebooks and notecards while saying the notebooks and notecards should be considered classified documents while conceding that the argument legally is invalid after Reagan. Hur then fixates on Biden's protest regarding the Afghanistan troop surge of the Obama era, which turns 10 pages' worth of information into 144.

Aside from the executive summary describing Biden as well-meaning with a poor memory and one reference to Biden's "limited recall" of 2017 events, this has yet to focus on Biden's memory in the present day and is all about the circuitous path of the notebooks and notecards and Biden's opposition to Obama sending more soldiers to Afghanistan.

What is the aim of this aimless verbiage? I think I already know, but I would prefer to offer that view after getting through the next 210 (!!!) pages of this inane meandering which uses, I confess, crisp, seemingly-fact-oriented tone to make it read very smoothly even though what I'm reading is triflingly vapid.

2024-02-11 13:06:13

What a relief. I wondered if people would be offended, but I try not to control what the sliders say. Thank you!

2024-02-11 08:59:06

Someone once remarked that sizable portions of the Republican Party consisted of poor people protesting any increase in minimum wage.

**

While QuinnSlidr and I have almost exactly the same politics... I question the optics of all-caps mockery and ridicule towards Republicans and elevating Joe Biden to sainthood. And I question the idea that Grizzlor should shy away from criticism of the Democratic Party which is ultimately a political party and a business operation like the Republican Party except the Democratic Party opposes neo-Nazis and white supremacists and racists and bigots and homophobes and transphobes whereas the Republican Party welcomes them.

The 'deal' with Grizzlor, as far as I can tell, is that he is a Democrat who is often convinced by right-wing talking points such as that peculiar "gain of function" non-scandal. Or the idea that two prosecutors on the same side of the same case could somehow have a "conflict of interest". Or that prosecutors getting paid for their work and using their pay to go on vacation is stealing taxpayer money to spend on a vacation.

If that last one were true, then we would all be thieves because Temporal Flux paid for Sliders.tv hosting out of his taxpayer-funded salary from the Department of Public Safety.

Grizzlor has also responded positively when offered information and fact-based rationale (see your gain of function explanation or my summary of whether or not prosecutors in Georgia are allowed to date).

I am on Page 74 of the Robert Hur report. And people said I was long-winded...

Anyway. Biden's July 11, 2019 campaign speech seems to apply to 2024 as well:

Joe Biden:
... the threat Donald Trump poses to our national security, and to who we are as a country, is so extreme, we cannot afford to ignore it.
American foreign policy must be purposeful and inspiring, based on clear goals and driven by sound strategies – not Twitter-tantrums.
And the overarching purpose of our foreign policy must be to defend and advance the security, prosperity, and democratic values of the United States.
I knew when I saw how Donald Trump responded to the events in Charlottesville – assigning a moral equivalence between those who promote hate, and those who oppose it – that the threat to our democracy was unlike any in my lifetime.
Less than a year later, Trump again stood before the press – this time on foreign soil, in Helsinki – and repeatedly deferred to Vladimir Putin – over American interests, the American intelligence community, and, I would argue, the American people. It was one of the weakest, most shameful performances by a U.S. president in modern history – perhaps ever.
Trump debases our cherished democratic values every time he plays sycophant to strongmen. When he refuses to condemn Saudi Arabia for the gruesome murder of a journalist and American resident. Or when he "falls in love" with a murderous dictator in North Korea.
He undermines our democratic alliances, while embracing dictators who appeal to his vanity.
And make no mistake, the world sees Trump clearly for what he is – Corrupt, insecure, ill-informed, impulsive.
Dangerously incompetent and incapable of leadership.
He undermines our democratic alliances, while embracing dictators who appeal to his vanity. And make no mistake, the world sees Trump clearly for what he is – Corrupt, insecure, ill-informed, impulsive.
Dangerously incompetent and incapable of leadership.
If we give Donald Trump four more years – we may never recover America's standing in the world or our capacity to bring nations together.
And that would be catastrophic for our security and our future.

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documen … -york-city

2024-02-10 12:03:58

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:

I'm probably never going to play this game, mostly because I don't have time for games (or a system to play it on), but it does bother me. Probably more than it should (which would be none haha)

The brain will often manifest the same neural activity for fictional characters that it does for real life friends. I don't think there is anything untoward about feeling emotionally invested in fiction. It's strange to me: the ARKHAM KNIGHT summary I read ends on a bit of a cliffhanger that seems to set up a fourth ARKHAM game.

I wonder why they didn't make one, but the gaming industry strikes me as being in disarray. Regardless, I would simply say: SUICIDE SQUAD - KILL THE JUSTICE LEAGUE is simply not canon. It was made after the original director quit the company, it isn't part of the ARKHAM line of games, and it can be discarded.

However, there are certainly times when people care too much about fiction and lose the distinction between fiction and reality. To offer a Grizzlor adjacent opinion on Wil Wheaton:

Wheaton recently blogged, expressing outrage at comedian Larry David (creator of SEINFELD and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM). David had been waiting to appear on a segment of THE TODAY SHOW, with the preceding segment featuring the Seasme Street muppet Elmo speaking about mental health after Elmo's Twitter had been inundated with messages of grief and despair in response to Elmo tweeting, "Elmo is just checking in. How is everyone doing?"

Elmo appeared on THE TODAY SHOW to talk about the response. After Elmo delivered his cheery thoughts on self-awareness and communication, David suddenly charged onto the stage, grabbed Elmo by the mouth and shook him and mimed punching Elmo in the face before walking back the way he came. The hosts exclaimed, "Oh my God!" "Larry, you've gone too far this time." Elmo said, "Mr. Larry, Elmo liked you before! Let's come back to the couch and talk about how you're feeling." David later delivered a laughing apology.

Wheaton, as a viewer, was furious. Wheaton said that David assaulting Elmo reflected how Wheaton's father would beat him. Wheaton said that David has no respect for a segment on mental health and deliberately sabotaged it because his ego couldn't stand Elmo being onscreen while David waited.

Wil Wheaton wrote:

What the fuck is wrong with that guy? Elmo is, like, the best friend to multiple generations of children. In the Sesame Street universe, ELMO IS A CHILD, who is currently putting mental health and caring for others in the spotlight.
And Larry Fucking David ... did ... that? And thought it was going to be ... funny? What?
What an asshole. What a stupid, self-centered, tone deaf asshole.
Full disclosure: all the time, when I was growing up, my dad would grab me by the shoulders and shake me while he screamed in my face. He choked me more than once. He was always out of control, always in a furious rage, and always terrifying. I'm a 51 year-old man and my heart is pounding right now, recalling how I felt when I was a little boy who loved Grover the way today's kids love Elmo.
So this appalling, unforgivable, despicable act hits more than one raw nerve for me, and I'm going to say what I wish I'd been able to say when this sort of thing happened to me.
Larry David, this was not okay, and your obviously insincere "apology" clearly communicates that you don't get that.
First of all, you aren't even in the segment, but you just decided to barge in and draw focus because ... why? You couldn't stand that a puppet brought people together in a meaningful way that you can't? You couldn't stand that your appearance on national television to promote your wildly successful series was delayed for a few seconds while the adults talked about mental health? You wanted to manufacture a viral moment where everyone gets to see what an asshole you are, so they'll tune in and watch you portray an asshole in the last season of your show that celebrates how great it is to be an asshole without ever experiencing the consequences of being an asshole?
I really want to know what raced through his tiny little mind, and why there was no voice or person who spoke up to stop him from expressing violence towards a children's puppet WHO WAS THERE TO TALK ABOUT HOW HIS LOVE AND EMPATHY FOR PEOPLE HAVING A TOUGH TIME MATTERED AND MADE A DIFFERENCE.
Elmo and his dad were there to talk about empathy, love, kindness, and caring for each other.
Larry David was there to promote the final (thank god, maybe he'll go away now) season of a television series.
Like, read the room, dickhead. It isn't always about you being the center of attention. And understand what's happening in the moment, fucko. Understand that there are larger things in the world than you and your garbage ego.
You know who is watching the Today show with their parents? Kids who also watch Sesame Street. Elmo is an avatar for children all over the world. Children who are too small to understand Elmo is a puppet will know that a man attacked someone they love for no reason, and that will frighten and confuse them.
Elmo inspired a deeply meaningful and important moment of collective support among disparate people who have been struggling through the traumas of a pandemic, daily mass shootings, the rise of fascism and everything associated with Trump's violence and cruelty.
And shitty idiot Larry David couldn't leave it alone, for some reason. He had to indirectly tell everyone who opened their hearts to a Muppet that they were stupid, and he thought it was a good joke to physically attack and choke this character who is beloved by children and adults alike. You know what that tells impressionable young people about sharing their feelings?
Larry David strikes me as a person who mocks and belittles people who are vulnerable and sensitive, and enjoys being cruel, because he feels untouchable. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's who I see whenever I can't find the remote and he's on my television.
By contrast, Elmo and the Muppets teach and model to children all over the world that kindness and empathy aren't weak or stupid or any of the things people like Larry David and my dad think they are. Elmo and the Muppets teach children to be gentle and kind, to celebrate our different cultures and to embrace all of our complicated feelings. Elmo and the Muppets offer comfort and friendship and support to a world that is starving for it.
I hope that, when the dust settles, Larry David's appalling behavior will be a footnote to a larger story about how, for just one day, a Muppet made a difference and helped millions of people who are struggling to feel a little less alone. With one question, Elmo got lots and lots of people speaking openly and honestly about their mental health. A nontrivial number of people who none of us will ever know were inspired by it, and that was the last little nudge they needed to make the call or send the email to being healing. Elmo probably saved lives and relationships by opening that conversation.
A man who would belittle and mock that isn't much of a man at all. Shame on you, Larry David.

While I don't disagree that Larry David was small and petty and ridiculous... I do not believe that children are unaware that Elmo is a muppet.

I don't believe that children are unaware that 'Elmo' is a complex construction of foam and fake fur and plastic eyes and felt, stitched together with performer Ryan Dillon just under the shot and outside the view of the camera.

Dillon is performing the voice of Elmo, moving his thumb inside Elmo's mouth to drop Elmo's jaw for each syllable, using a rod to control Elmo's hands and body movements, and observing the environment around Elmo in a monitor outside the camera frame so that Dillon can have the muppet react to the humans interacting with Elmo. 'Elmo' does not actually post on social media; the SESAME STREET social media manager writes those messages.

David grabbed Ryan Dillon's hand and squeezed Ryan Dillon's wrist. David did not actually assault Elmo because there is no Elmo. At most, David damaged one of many Elmo puppets, and there are undoubtedly 10 - 20 ready to go at any time with more being made; the Elmo puppets are likely damaged or suffer from normal wear and tear throughout production and public appearances.

On a tangent, Elmo doesn't actually pick things up; the props have magnets attached to them and there are magnets under the fur of Elmo's hands.

Larry David is absurd and insecure to be jealous of a muppet. Wheaton, however, isn't being insincere or disingenous. He is a deeply traumatized man and David's behaviour shook Wheaton severely. But much of Wheaton's argument is based in Elmo being real and... Elmo is not real. Elmo is a performance of puppetry and engineering and craftsmanship and vocal performance and writing and improvisation.

It's important to address how we are upset when our fictional friend Batman dies in a video game, but it's also important to remember that Elmo is actually Ryan Dillon with one hand in Elmo's mouth and his other hand on the Elmo muppet's control rod.

This post is dedicated to Grizzlor.

2024-02-09 18:22:31

Grizzlor wrote:

The special counsel had every "business" evaluating Biden's mental state. It's what every prosecutor in the country does as part of any pre-trial preparation. They need to be certain about how an individual will behave on the witness stand, or how that person's mental faculties could come into bearing by the defense at trial.

Point conceded. That is totally fair. I am not a lawyer myself and any time I have offered opinions regarding law, it's from reading other lawyers' takes and synthesizing a summary of what I consider credible. References to precedent cases and caselaw with links, I find credible, crazy rantings from Donald Trump's supporters and lawyers, I don't.

Personally, I feel the need to read all 388 pages of Robert Hur's report before I can really form an opinion. My suspicion, based on Hur's reputation alone, is that it's what QuinnSlidr says... but I'd rather have an informed opinion of my own rather than a suspicion and an admittedly partisan perspective.

2024-02-09 08:09:40

I strongly encourage Grizzlor and QuinnSlidr to give a week or so for some psychiatrists and lawyers to weigh in on whether or not the Special Counsel had any business or credentials or ability to evaluate someone's memory and mental health and if the evaluations were valid or biased or informed or slanted.

Don't let me stop you, but I am going to let some more viewpoints come in before coming to an opinion, the same way I spent a week reading a little about Georgia prosecution practices and conflicts of interests to come the opinion that Fani Willis, while doing nothing corrupt or illegal in hiring her lover to work with her on prosecuting a Trump case (you can't have conflict of interest if you're both on exactly the same side with exactly the same goals), was careless and unprofessional in making her office vulnerable to (nuisance) accusations.

I may or may not offer some speculations before then, but they would be speculations and not actual opinions. For example, I would speculate that a US President who is a "sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory" is still preferable to a malevolent, ill-intent-driven, elderly man with a poor memory and non-existent self-control in his biases, prejudice, bigotry, corruptions, greed, and vindictiveness.

2024-02-06 18:17:38

Grizzlor wrote:

Like ireactions, I haven't touched a game newer than the PS3/360 generation, and even those were scant. I'm not surprised that a story-based IP-heavy game stinks though. I did see quite the anger over the treatment of the character, especially given that this was the final performance as Batman. I think the shift to a "Suicide Squad" title led to what was devised. Batman was not the only major DC character splattered during that game, it's simply the M.O. of that universe.

I'm not sure. The Arkhamverse was, at least until the SUICIDE SQUAD game, a Batman-centric universe in the same way the Nolan trilogy was a Batman-centric universe.

Slider_Quinn21 seized on something else: when you play ARKHAM ASYLUM, ARKHAM CITY, ARKHAM ORIGINS, and ARKHAM KNIGHT, you are playing as Batman. You are Batman. Which means SUICIDE SQUAD: KILL THE JUSTICE LEAGUE shooting Batman in the head was shooting you in the head.

... why would a video game studio license DC superheroes to make a game where you kill the DC superheroes?

Surely League fans would want to play as the League, not fight against them. Making KILL THE JUSTICE LEAGUE was like making a SLIDERS game where you play as Colonel Rickman trying to hunt victims and evade the sliders.

My purely speculative speculation is that Rocksteady paid a sizable fee for the license to use the Justice League and a more modest fee to use the Suicide Squad, thinking they could do something with these properties to build on the success of the ARKHAM series... only to realize they'd made a mistake.

Mark Millar once remarked that a JUSTICE LEAGUE movie was a great way to lose $200 million, and that was before Snyder made it and Whedon reshot it. (I read that the movie lost $60 million.) Millar pointed out: the Justice League's powers meant the effects budget for each character alone could be like a movie unto itself.

I suspect a Justice League game is also difficult. Superman and Wonder Woman would quickly hit the limits of an ARKHAM-style open world. The Flash would require a very intricate and difficult level of gameplay design. I don't know how a game developer in the present day could design any sort of control for the player to create Green Lantern light constructs.

I wonder if the game developers soon realized it was beyond their technology and ability to make a Justice League game. But they had to do something with the license to recoup their cost. They made a third person shooter and made the Justice League the targets.

Hopefully, the DLC content will bring Batman back to life and offer a more graceful story for the lead character of the Arkhamverse. There are already rumours that the DLC sequels for the SUICIDE SQUAD game will be resurrecting the Justice League.

2024-02-06 18:15:32

Grizzlor wrote:

The aspect of Tormé Sliders that really HAS to be there, or it's not valid, is the dark comedy. Most of the shows given as examples here (I'd add Counterpart), largely feature some sinister plot or conspiracy going on. What separated Sliders was that it also featured a "Land of the Lost" or "Wizard of Oz" aspect, where the group is truly "lost" and often finding themselves in bizarre realities. I just don't know how many writers, producers, or networks have the backbone, or even the energy for that type of show.
The greatest irony is that Tracy was chastised by Fox for interjecting limited continuity, when nowadays continuity is all you have on genre shows.

In terms of continuity... I can see FOX's point. I missed a lot of SLIDERS on original airing, I could not always be in the room with the TV on when it was airing. Robert Tapert (HERCULES and XENA) said that of the average 25 episode order of XENA or HERCULES, the self-proclaimed die-hard fans may have only been watching seven episodes a year. THE X-FILES is remembered for an ongoing storyline, but it didn't actually do running arcs: the alien mythology was confined to a limited number of episodes each season and not referenced outside of those episodes. The average viewer was not seeing most of the episodes and even the committed viewer was missing a lot.

In terms of the social satire and commentary... I'd agree that it is what makes SLIDERS such a distinct and memorable tone. But I have a question:

Is Tracy Torme's sense of social satire is extremely difficult for anyone besides Torme to write?

I'd observe: a good number of people have done it. Temporal Flux's DECLASSIFIED is a note-perfect extrapolation of the eccentric humour and world-building of the Pilot episode. Mike Truman excelled at charming and immediate alt-history world-building with hilarious topical references and a delightful sense of incisive observation, and Nigel Mitchell was a master of the form, especially in turning the satirical humour into outright terror. And certainly, Jon Povill was absolutely brilliant at social commentary, and Scott Smith Miller's world-building ideas were a superb platform for examining our own society.

However, I have to wonder if it's still a rare skill.

Social satire and commentary are highly present in today's media people often get news from The Onion and late night comedy shows and turn to SOUTH PARK for moral instruction. But as much as I love SOUTH PARK, it can be a bit artless and its jokes disguise how it's ultimately as lecturing as an episode of STAR TREK or some Season 4 episodes of SLIDERS.

Torme's writing was not a solemn sermon like "Prophets and Loss" or "Just Say Yes", but rather focused on inverting and skewing social conventions and expectations and imagining the world ahead of us.

"Summer of Love" is shockingly prescient, anticipating a level of paranoia and warmongering dressed up in jingoism that seemed far out in 90s but seems tame by, say, 2020. "Prince of Wails" questions celebrity culture and royalty before Diana's horrific death due to tabloid photographers harassing her.

"The Weaker Sex" skewers male chauvinism by having a female mayor make the sexism-dodging responses male politicians often make but with genders flipped and foretells the hypocritical girlboss trend; "Into the Mystic" is hilarious mockery of Christianity via Wiccanism as a substitute and yet anticipates non-Christian mysticism becoming more mainstream.

I wouldn't claim all these points originate from Torme alone, but he certain shepherded and encouraged them, and this quality mostly vanished from the show the moment he was gone.

Even when we got a brilliant writer like Marc Scott Zicree writing some episodes, Zicree ultimately couldn't write SLIDERS with Torme's perspective; Zicree was instead fascinated by the sliding technology and created the Slidewave and the Slidecage.

I'm not sure if Torme's style is difficult to match or just difficult for average writers (like me) to match. I'm prepared to say that it's just difficult for middling talents such as myself.

I may be overinflating Zicree as an example, but it gives me the sense that Torme's style was hard to match even as I note that Temporal Flux, Mike Truman, Nigel Mitchell and Jon Povill seemed to match it and build on it. Ultimately, social commentary in this day and age has none of Torme's subtlety and deftness; it's overt and forceful. SOUTH PARK tells you what it thinks instead of inviting you to think.

Personally, I think Seth MacFarlane and David Goodman have demonstrated from THE ORVILLE that they have the right skillset to write SLIDERS, but it seems -- to me -- harder than it looks.

2024-02-06 01:05:12

I don't know very much of anything about the ARKHAM ASYLUM games or the latest SUICIDE SQUAD game. I am not a gamer and I have many PS3 games in my closet that have never been loaded. However, I know that the ARKHAM series means a lot to you and I am sorry that it has disappointed you.

I did look over a plot summary of SUICIDE SQUAD: KILL THE JUSTICE LEAGUE. It is peculiar to me that the developers, Rocksteady, has made so many Batman games in their own video game continuity, the Arkhamverse, a Batman video game universe in which Batman is the lead character, only to then treat the character like a supporting player who is then killed off.

One would think that such a story could be presented in a Suicide Squad-centered continuity rather than the main Arkhamverse continuity. It is also strange to me that a licensor would make a game where the player kills the heroes, although I am hardly the final arbiter of taste.

I would note that the director of the original ARKHAM ASYLUM game, Sefton Hill, is credited as director on SUICIDE SQUAD: KILL THE JUSTICE LEAGUE but in fact left Rocksteady in December 2022 and the game was reportedly completed by others. I don't know enough about this to offer any real assessment, but it is always difficult when a creator comes up with ideas that are unconventional and but then other people without the some unconventionality are the ones to execute them.

Demoting Batman and killing him off is a choice where maybe the person who came up with the idea needs to be the one to shepherd it to completion. Maybe Hill would have carried it out more satisfyingly and compellingly. It seems like what's most upsetting to fans: this was reportedly Kevin Conroy's final performance as Batman in the games before he died. Conroy was a definitive Batman, and complaints declare that his final appearance didn't capture the appeal and enjoyment of his Batman but was instead insulting towards him.

It looks like the game will have a sequel, an additional year's worth of gameplay in downloadable content. It's entirely possible that Batman's death in the game is a temporary situation. Batman has died in the comics at least 10 times only to return via magic or time travel or Fourth World technology or voodoo or whatnot. However, even if the Arkhamverse Batman returns, Kevin Conroy (probably) won't.

I do not know enough about these video games to say whether or not Batman's death should be taken seriously; in comics, Batman's death is at most an extended coffee break.

I do not know enough about these games to say whether or not it would be upsetting if the resurrected Arkhamverse Batman were voiced by Roger Craig Smith (I read that Smith voiced the younger Arkhamverse Batman in ARKHAM ORIGINS while Conroy voiced the present day version in the other games).

DC has had some curious attitudes to licensing Batman over the years. I understand why a studio would think Zack Snyder and Batman are a great match, but then there was Batman's deeply unflattering portrayal in TITANS. That bizarre presentation of Batman as a mentally fragile figure was also crippled by Warner Bros. refusing to let Batman wear the Batsuit in the show. Batman is absent in BATWOMAN and GOTHAM KNIGHTS, but his absences make him seem either incompetent or uncaring (intentionally or not).

What's behind this? Well, to me, the whole DARK KNIGHT RETURNS storyline is one of the most abrasively insulting Batman stories ever written, and yet, it's viewed as character-defining by most Batman fans and most of DC. Maybe the Warner Bros. licensing office sees downbeat cynicism as on brand for Batman.

I would prefer that the caretakers of Batman insist that Batman be a heroic figure who, even if he is to be killed off, is given a death scene that reflects what makes Batman an iconic and powerful character. Something like flying a nuclear bomb away from the city or stopping the embodiment of evil or dying in bed after solving 15 murder mysteries based on nothing but casefiles and with his dying words bequeathing his favourite quick Bat-Disguise Kit to Alfred, his favourite Bat-Glider to Dick, his favourite Bat-Decrypter to Barbara, his favourite Batarang to Jason, his favourite Bat-Sonar Lenses to Cassandra, his favourite Bat Signal Jammer to Stephanie, his favourite Bat-Claw to Kate, and all the Bat-Computers to Tim.

There is one Batman death story that I really like but still find questionable: LAST KNIGHT ON EARTH. Spoiler warning: it features Bruce Wayne waking up to find that Earth is a post-apocalyptic wasteland ruled by a supervillain named Omega who killed all the other heroes and villains. Bruce is baffled by how he has no memory of how the world came to be in this state and in addition, he notices that even though he should be in his 70s given the span of time, he is somehow in his early 30s. Bruce seeks to unravel the mystery of the past while evading the ruling supervillain of this world, Omega.

Bruce comes to a disturbing revelation: he isn't Bruce Wayne at all. He is a clone, a backup plan established by the original Bruce who wanted to ensure that upon his death, a cloned replacement with all the training would take over as Batman. Bruce is further horrified to learn that the original Bruce Wayne survived the supervillain war by becoming Omega and has become embittered, twisted and ruthless. The ending has Bruce defeating Omega and beginning the work of rebuilding the world, hoping to carry on all that was good in Bruce Wayne while leaving behind the bad.

I am not sure I like the idea of Batman becoming a supervillain who is defeated by his clone, but LAST KNIGHT ON EARTH is still engaging with what it means to be Batman and declares that Batman is such a planner that he would, deliberately or not, plan for his own defeat should he ever become a supervillain. In contrast, Batman's demise in the Arkhamverse, based on a summary, doesn't seem to really tap into what makes Batman special.

However, I have never and will probably never play the game, so I can't claim to have any real opinion of it beyond saying it sounds like a strange choice.

2024-02-04 17:53:56

Wow, that's clearly a cry for help. I think the moment has come for a certain someone to speak, someone whom we all know always has a lot to say.

PROFESSOR ARTURO
When faced with death among friends and loved ones, many turn to our Creator for comfort and contemplation. This human coping mechanism is healthy and normal.
It is denied to me in this situation. It is my own creator who has drawn his last breath.
I did not have the good fortune to be granted existence by a benevolent deity. I was instead created by the man we honour today, a gentleman named Tracy Torme. Many have applauded him as a virtuoso of television, a maestro of writing that which is spoken. Many gave thanks for his impact on their lives.
I wish I could do the same.
Unfortunately, my creator, the man we are gathered here to mourn, is also the man responsible for my perpetual frustration and torment, a state from which he has escaped while I remain trapped.
In creating my fictional existence and biography, our Mr. Torme gifted me with an intellect to rival any giant of the Enlightenment – and simultaneously cursed me by depriving me of the intuition needed to practice it with aplomb, instinct and ease. No, no, that would have been far too graceful for him.
The developmental psychologist, Howard Gardner, proposed that intelligence is divided into eight different areas. Our Maestro Torme provided me with immense linguistic-verbal intelligence. This is an aptitude in language and communication that enables me to speak with extemporaneous eloquence, such as my ability to conceive and deliver this eulogy on the spot.
He also gifted me with a modest level of logical-mathematical intelligence, the ability to absorb and analyze complex information and conceptual learnings from mechanical engineering to quantum mechanics and to make calculations, assessments and conclusions.
Note the Maestro's little prank at my expense: he gave me near-limitless linguistic-verbal ability but declined to give me a corresponding level of logical-mathematical ability. He made my dialectical gifts exceed my scientific acumen. He made me speak better than I think.
He made me sound smarter than I am.
He made me a poseur and a performance, an impression of intelligence rather than the genuine article. He was open and generous to my voice but tight-fisted and stingy when it came to my mind.
He left me handicapped and crippled, perpetually struggling for every scrap of analysis, every shred of reasoning, every splinter of understanding, making me hesitant, making me afraid to admit when I knew less than I appeared to, making me fear confessing that I was less than my betters.
And then he afflicted me with that boy. My student. And for our Mr. Quinn Mallory, well, the Maestro allowed all manner of riches to flow to him! He granted the boy a full spectrum of gifts: visual-spatial intelligence! An instinctive and complete mastery of the logical and mathematical which the boy can practice without any effort to earn it or refine it!
And, of course, with all these easily-granted abilities, Mr. Mallory proceeded to open the doorway to hell itself and drag in me, then his colleague from a flea market electronics store, and also a musician whose only achievement is abandoning his performing troupe before their greatest successes.
Our Maestro Torme had a truly unique vision of infinite possibilities, of parallel realities where anything and everything could go wrong and ensure grief and exasperation for me at in all worlds at all times.
He had a sense of humor, of irony, of drama, all of it finely attuned to target me for ridicule and increasingly dire situations of peril and danger that left me traumatized, embittered and in despair. He had an authorial voice that filled me with dread every time I was unfortunate enough to hear it.
He condemned me to interdimensional homelessness, to perpetually being shown up by the boy, to constantly rescuing the girl and the music man here from scrape after scrape at risk to my own life and limb and sanity and mobility and at times my eyesight and my brain! Yes, my actual brain!
And the Maestro here did not even have the decency to shepherd our journey to the end! He abandoned us after two years! He allowed me to be dumped into garbage, to be eaten by a giant slug, to be shot and then exploded, and then he allowed me to be resurrected time and time again by fan fiction writers ranging from abysmal to adequate.
And now, today, you've all gathered. You are mourning his death. Saddened by his loss. Knowing he has left your lives.
How I envy you. Because he has never left mine.
It doesn't matter, you see. It doesn't matter how far I run, how far I slide; the man lying before me here still has his claws into every aspect of my existence: my inadequacies, my inabilities, my failings, my flaws -- all of which he uses even now to torment and task me.
So. All of you here. Wipe your eyes and laugh! For you are free!
Free to walk away. Free to leave him behind. Free to say goodbye. Free to step out of his story and away from his narrative. I cannot do the same for my existence is forever bound to his infinite possibilities of humiliating indignities, all originated from the mind this rummage-sale King of the Bottomless Pit! This Tracy Torme!
...
Good day to you all, I'm sure he'll be missed.

There is a long, long, long, long silence.

WADE
You're out of your goddamn mind.

QUINN
Professor, are you serious!? That's what you want to say at Tracy's funeral tomorrow?

WADE
This is why I wanted a rehearsal first.

REMBRANDT
I like it.

QUINN
What?!

WADE
You want Tracy's wife and kids and brothers and sisters to hear the Professor say all of that?

REMBRANDT
Well, not all of it. The Professor can just say that Torme gave him the gift of gab, a decent brain, and three friends he'd give his life to save. That's some solid funereal filibustering there.

QUINN
Hunnh.

WADE
Well. So it is.

REMBRANDT
Man's got a process. He says what he thinks, then he does some fine tuning. That whole thing we heard was the acoustic version before we record for real and put out the album, right, Professor?

PROFESSOR ARTURO
..............................................................................

REMBRANDT
Right? Professor?

PROFESSOR ARTURO
... Right. Quite right. It was a first draft.

REMBRANDT
Course it was.

No, none of this was written by AI.

2024-02-03 16:01:00

SPOILERS for QUANTUM LEAP 2.09:

I have to say, I was impressed by how naturally the QUANTUM LEAP establishes that Hannah Carson is polyamorous, and her marriage in no way negates the possibility of a romance with Ben, with Hannah declaring that love is not a finite quantity, but a renewable resource that expands and grows to encompass and include. QUANTUM LEAP 2.0 is a wonderfully progressive show.

2024-01-29 20:34:03

I am 90 percent sure that Wilson Bethel (Bullseye) is going to be in the Disney+ show. Deadline reported it, but Marvel has declined to comment. However... given how this series has been in such a state of flux, I'm trying not to get my hopes up just in case.

I am not entirely sure, even now, if the Disney+ DAREDEVIL will spend much time following up on Karen, Foggy or Bullseye. The rumour is that it'll just be 1 - 3 episodes that focus on those characters and that Karen is only in three. That would be disappointing. But again, in the previous incarnation of the Disney+ DAREDEVIL show, these characters were absent.

There were even rumours that Karen and Foggy were killed off camera in the opening of the original first episode, resulting in Matt abandoning his Daredevil identity and focusing on his career as a lawyer. I'd be curious to get some hard facts on whether or not that were true and how something so offensive to Daredevil's fans could have been permitted to be filmed, or if the intention was that Karen and Foggy were in hiding, to return at a later date.

Certainly, in the 2006 comics, Foggy was brutally murdered while Matt Murdock, in prison after his secret identity was exposed as Daredevil, was trapped in his cell, listening to Foggy's helpless screams as Foggy bled out and Matt sobbed in his cell, knowing that he had failed everyone in his life. I think Foggy came back to life like four months later, revealed to have survived the stabbing and gone into witness protection. (A later storyline had a lot of doubt sown regarding Daredevil's true identity via Iron Fist putting on the costume while Daredevil was in jail, enabling Matt to resume civilian life; even later, another writer had a memory machine erase the world's memory of Daredevil's true identity.)

However, Karen Page died in "Guardian Devil" by Kevin Smith in 1999, and to my astonishment, the comic book Karen has never been resurrected. I'm always 4 - 5 years behind on my comic book reading because I wait for writers' eras to conclude. But I still check Karen's Wikipedia page every few months and Karen persists in being dead, still unresurrected by reality-warping gimcrackery or time travel hokum or ninja voodoo or whatnot. It's been 24 years... but I still think Karen will be back any day now.

Anyway. I'm relieved that Deborah Ann Woll and Elden Henson will reprise their roles, even if it's briefer than I'd like. And I certainly hope and think Wilson Bethel is coming back, but until there is an official announcement or set photos, I would be cautious.

2024-01-29 20:32:31

Tucker wrote:

If NBC were to reboot it, it would probably be about a whole new cast of characters and not the original four we all know and love. Admittiedly, if they set it up simular to the Quantum Leap reboot with a brand new cast of characters discovers or invents sliding for the purpose of finding the original four and as a result, they get trapped in the multiverse, not a bad idea.
Otherwise if it's not something like that or it doesn't deal with the original cast in some way, shape or form, I think they are best to scrap it and create a simular show about parallel worlds. As sad as that is.

From a legal standpoint, a new series can certainly feature characters visiting a parallel Earth each week and call itself PARALLELS or THE BUILDING and serve as a legally dis-similar version of SLIDERS. However, I think trying to do SLIDERS with the serial numbers filed off is ultimately a reaction to not having the brand or a reaction against the brand, and the result, I find, is either a creation that is missing the brand name it wants to be or a creation that's trying to defeat the property that inspired it, ultimately defeating its own reason for existing.

I'm not saying that only SLIDERS can do weekly parallel universe exploration or that only STAR TREK can do spaceship adventure or that only AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER can do elemental powers. Lots of great and wonderfully original shows started out as clones of previous works. SUPERNATURAL and FRINGE were obviously inspired by THE X-FILES and modelled on THE X-FILES' formula of supernatural or science fiction monsters of the week, but both made changes that made each show distinct and original. SUPERNATURAL chose a very masculine energy and focused on the supernatural. FRINGE chose a more feminine tone and focused on the technological.

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK was based on James Bond, but Steven Spielberg and George Lucas inserted a lot of their own interests and perferences into their Bond-knockoff: in their hands, their version of Bond became an academic rather than an agent of espionage, a working class figure rather than a wealthy gentleman, an independent operator rather than an employee of the state, a specialist in ancient artifacts and history rather than in maintaining an imperialist empire. By the time Spielberg and Lucas were done, Indiana Jones was unrecognizable as James Bond.

Looking at SUPERNATURAL, FRINGE and Indiana Jones, I'd say that someone who wants to do a legally-dissimilar SLIDERS should either just do SLIDERS or, failing that, change the legally-dissimilar SLIDERS formula to the point where it isn't SLIDERS at all.

In terms of SLIDERS-similar works: FRINGE seems to draw a lot on SLIDERS, but it chose one parallel universe to focus on rather than a new one each week. THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE chose a specific alternate history to explore. The novel series PLANESRUNNER by Ian MacDonald featured nine parallel universes in a joint government and had a heavy emphasis on steampunk aesthetic and interdimensional civilization. These may or may not have been SLIDERS-inspired, but they are examples of exploring the concept of a parallel universe without mimicking SLIDERS' formula.

The SLIDERS brand has something special and significant that goes beyond the actors themselves or even the original creator. The appeal of SLIDERS are the aspects of it that cannot be replicated in a legally dissimilar verison because any non-SLIDERS show that copied SLIDERS' definitive traits would be sued for copyright infringement. The appeal of SLIDERS: the characters are, unlike the cast of STARGATE, untrained civilians from non-action oriented walks of life: a computer technician, a saleswoman, a soul singer and a teacher, and these underskilled ordinaries are put into an extraordinary situation of wonder, exploration, threat and danger.

The timer, a dated device even in 1994, retains a special charm in 2024: it is clearly a homemade device made out of leftover discards rather than a state of the art piece of technological development.

The four characters have a distinct and vivid chemistry that enables them to be paired up in fascinating combinations: the wise professor and the reckless student; the social activist firebrand and the withdrawn survivor of disappointment; the embittered middle aged man and the daring woman of action; the adventurous young man starting out and the older man searching for his second act.

The characters of Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo were marvellously interpreted by Jerry O'Connell, Sabrina Lloyd, Cleavant Derricks and John Rhys-Davies. However, the characters were so well-crafted that they would be just as vivid and dynamic in the hands of new performers reinterpreting the roles. The concept of SLIDERS with four untrained civilians facing an infinity of worlds is broad and all-encompassing to allow any kind of story in any setting. The tone of SLIDERS pitched at satirical comedy and parodic inversion of social conventions offers a brilliant space for eccentric, mind-bending, sociologically-exploratory storytelling while also permitting tech-driven stories, horror-oriented episodes, high action-adventure quotient entries, and other tones besides the original.

If I had to pitch something involving parallel universes that wasn't SLIDERS, I would not offer a series where the characters are travelling to a new parallel Earth each week.

Two writers, Joseph O'Brien and Brad Abraham, had a 2000-era pitch for a series that I thought was brilliantly SLIDERS-esque while being nothing like SLIDERS. Their website (now offline) presented this:

EDGEWORLD is an anthology series in the spirit of the original TWILIGHT ZONE and OUTER LIMITS in which ordinary people find themselves in situations of an extraordinary nature. However, unlike its predecessors, EDGEWORLD will use as its central dramatic device an unusual recurring character.
Although it is an anthology program, EDGEWORLD centers around the adventures of Darwen Gray, a man whose reality has been shattered following a disastrous experiment with the very fabric of time and space. He is our window into the stories we tell, fragmented into an infinite number of possible destinies. Past, present, future collide as, each episode, Gray becomes a player in a different story, living a different life, existing in an alternate reality.
Always the same face, always the same name, but never the same man. As such, he can be hero or villain, bystander or victim. He can be the focus of a story, or a secondary player. He can carry an entire tale solo, or die in the first shot. He is unaware of the nature of his fractured existence (though he might sometimes sense it subconsciously). Anyone, anywhere, in any time. A small-time crook, a soldier in WW2, an astronaut in the far future. Anything can happen to him because each of his lives are separate, unconnected, even contrary to each other. Every reality has its own rules, every story its own outcome.
Around him we build our stories, be they dramatic, mythic, comedic, horrific. They are tales of extreme possibility. Nothing is beyond the range of Darwen Gray's experience. Or ours. One man. Infinite destiny. This is EDGEWORLD.

O'Brien and Abraham had assured me that they never seen SLIDERS. But their EDGEWORLD concept, to me, is an example of the kind of project that could be inspired by SLIDERS.

Something like this would be far more interesting than trying to copy SLIDERS with the serial numbers filed off by changing sliders into 'shifters' and the vortex into 'the slipstream' and the timer into 'the hourglass' and swapping out the geekboy, poet, musician and teacher with a shut-in female engineer, a technophobic survivalist, a barista and a pastor. (Those are not actual examples of anything that anyone has tried, I just made those up.)

For me: if for some reason I had to create a SLIDERS-inspired series, I would suggest a series set about a support group of people who have been displaced; some are from the far future, some are from the past, some are from alternate timelines that don't exist anymore, some are from outer space, some are from fantasy realms, and some are just present for the free coffee.

Even without the caveat of the original actors or creator, the brand of SLIDERS has a certain distinct identity within its character-concepts and comedic stylings that is specific and unique to SLIDERS.

I've read a lot of excellent SLIDERS-esque scripts that in some cases started as rebranded SLIDERS fanfic and then transcended their origins into beautiful and heartfelt and brilliant writing... but ultimately, I think anyone inspired by SLIDERS to create something of their own can create something better than a substitution and a facsimile.

2024-01-29 19:16:38

A screenwriter and novelist I like, Kevin Kelton (BOY MEET WORLD), wrote:

Anyone who believes Trump is "winning" a hypothetical general election now because of a few January beauty contest polls also believes reality TV shows are real.
First off, how many people under 40 do you know that answer cell phone calls from unknown or anonymous numbers (i.e., polling companies)? Trump gets vociferous support from his 42% base and a few misguided moderates, and that echoes through the media. (Why doesn't CNN or Fox or News Nation interview enthusiastic Biden voters?) But once those loony-bin MAGA rallies are in everyone's face every day and he's saying more and more insane things, the never-Trumpers will wake up like Snow White and realize the massive risks of a second Trump term.
Remove that hard-wired 44% DT sycophants and consider the rest of the voting age public? Will they really want to give him an opportunity to pardon himself (and all the violent January 6 felons) and create the greatest constitutional crisis we've ever known? Do they really want four more years of impeachment trials and Ivanka-Jared-DonJr.-Melania-Eric and Stephen Miller in their living rooms every night for another four years?
Will they really vote to hand Ukraine over to Putin? Are Muslim voters in the mid-west really going to turn on Biden and vote for the guy who gave East Jerusalem to Netanyahu and tried institute a US Muslim ban? Are disaffected progressives really going to vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or Joe Manchin? Or waste their vote on Jill Stein again? Who do you think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders are going to endorse and campaign for? Who will Barack and Michelle give speeches for? Who will Taylor and Oprah storm social media for?
And if you think the line, "We, the jury, find the defendant guilty..." is going to help the GOP nominee win over unaffiliated voters, well...
The key states are PA, WI, VA, and MI. Biden needs to hold all four (or pick up others).
I’m not saying it's a cake walk. Anything can happen, and real election interference (not the phony, nonexistent Trump kind) could be a factor... come September-October, the disinformation and disenfranchisement operations will kick into high gear. With plenty of help from Putin, China, Iran, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia. (And a few others.)
Foreign money and PAC dark money will flow into third-party campaigns like rain in the Amazon. The real election campaign will take place under the surface and through social media and cyber-shenanigans. Deep Fakes will abound. Election Day hijinks and blatant poll interference will skyrocket. The "cold" civil war will be fought from Election Day to January 20. And it will be all-out and dirty as heck.
But the idea that this is Trump's election to lose is a far cry from reality.

2024-01-28 18:56:29

Regarding DAREDEVIL on Disney+: Disney has remounted the series with two new showrunners with whom I have no familiarity. However, they have already made a drastic change: Deborah Ann Woll and Eldon Henson will be reprising their roles as Karen Page and Foggy Nelson. The two actors, who were not hired for the original and now shuttered Disney+ DAREDEVIL, have now been seen on set filming scenes with Charlie Cox (Matt Murdock).

https://thedirect.com/article/deborah-a … set-photos

There are rumours, however, that Karen and Foggy are only going to be in three of the 18 episodes. While that's disappointing, that's still three more episodes than they were in before.

Also, Marvel previously omitted the Netflix DAREDEVIL and all the other Marvel Netflix shows from their official timeline in their Marvel chronology book and on Disney+. This has changed: the Netflix shows are now part of the official timeline.

https://nerdist.com/article/daredevil-e … sney-plus/

2024-01-28 17:49:05

pilight, if you would care to elaborate on how a second Trump presidency wouldn't be the end of the world, I would be very grateful.

2024-01-28 09:32:03

I wonder if it's time to confront an inconvenient possibility:

What if Trump wins? We can't say it's not possible like we did in 2016 because 2016 proved us wrong.

We also can't say it's a certainty: a past member of this board prognosticated how Trump would be a mastershowman in 2020 and make Biden look fumbling and weak; instead, Trump came off as America's abusive father and Biden felt like the reasonable uncle.

The polls presenting a Trump lead are the same polls that predicted a Democratic wipeout over Republicans as opposed to the slim triumph of 2020.

But what if Trump wins? What do we do then? How do we survive?

Slider_Quinn21, I'm sorry, but my spare room is currently filled with dialysis supplies for my mother, so moving in with me is not an option.

Also, Canada is staring at a potential conversative government of its own because of the ineptitude of Liberals.

2024-01-25 00:25:51

Agreed. Ellison also said that if Cameron had contacted Ellison or his agent and asked for permission, Ellison would have granted it in exchange for credit without payment. I actually believe that.

2024-01-24 20:07:35

I would personally consider the entire situation of Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo losing the way home just to save Quinn as a situation for the sliders to deal with in the hypothetical series finale rather than a conclusion.

To describe the plot of "Fever", one would mention that Quinn is a prisoner of the CHC; that doesn't mean Quinn stays a prisoner. The story for "Eggheads" involves Quinn joining a sports team; that doesn't mean the rest of the series is about his Mindgame career. And the plot for Torme's imagined series finale would have a climax where the sliders find their way home but lose it to save Quinn.

I don't think that is necessarily where the story ends. It's just the situation that the sliders have to confront. I would speculate that Torme was open to leaving the sliders lost as writing technique to allow genuine peril. I like to think that Torme would have ultimately had a final twist to reveal that another way back has presented itself.

There was a lot of talk about how Torme's proposed 2021 SLIDERS revival would have killed Wade Welles off camera because Sabrina Lloyd was unlikely to return. I prefer to think that Torme would have revealed the deceased Wade to be alive if Sabrina came back as a guest-star.

Of course, just because I prefer to think something does not mean that it is true. It's just what I choose to believe.

**

It's strange: the account I've heard from most people is that Tracy Torme, visiting the set of TERMINATOR, heard James Cameron brag about how he stole the plot from "Soldier" and "Demon with a Glass Hand", two episodes of THE OUTER LIMITS by Harlan Ellison, that Torme let Ellison know and Ellison approached Orion and Cameron, threatening a lawsuit. Ellison won a settlement and acknowledgement.

I asked Torme about the Ellison/Cameron situation in 2000 and Torme denied involvement. He said that he had never told Ellison he'd been robbed or encouraged Ellison to sue. His view was that Cameron was inspired by a variety of science fiction stories and influenced by many science fiction writers. Torme expressed respect for Cameron, friendship for Ellison, and picked no sides, saying that Cameron had the right to be inspired by other creators and Ellison had the right to pursue what he felt he was owed.

Starlog Magazine apparently had Cameron on tape bragging, "Oh, I took a couple of OUTER LIMITS segments" to write THE TERMINATOR. That strikes me as a more concrete basis for a lawsuit than whatever Torme might or might not have said to Ellison.

I have two theories. My first is that Torme's denial to me was a polite lie; he didn't think it appropriate to talk about his friend Harlan Ellison's legal affairs or to confirm to a fan that he'd encouraged someone to sue James Cameron and a film studio; it might offend Ellison and it might make potential employers wary of hiring Torme.

My second theory is that Torme's denial is true, but he did visit the set of TERMINATOR due to his friendship with Gail Ann Hurd; he may have told Ellison that he thought THE TERMINATOR was inspired by Ellison's OUTER LIMITS episodes and thought Ellison would be flattered; but Ellison may have viewed inspiration as theft and called his lawyer whose research revealed that Cameron was recorded crowing about the theft.

My personal opinion: there is a distinction between inspiration and theft. Indiana Jones was inspired by James Bond, but George Lucas and Steven Spielberg put so many of their own interests into Indiana Jones (history, archeology, Saturday movie serials, World War II, Nazi villains, artifacts, teaching, universities); the final version of Indiana Jones doesn't resemble James Bond at all and feels totally original. The TV show PERSON OF INTEREST, about a mass surveillance supercomputer used to prevent murders, was inspired by the TV show THE PRISONER and its story of total surveillance within a holiday resort/prison for spies. But PERSON OF INTEREST creator Jonathan Nolan put so many of his personal interests into PERSON OF INTEREST (procedural crime solving, trauma from war, artificial intelligence, the morality of benign surveillance) that PERSON OF INTEREST's weekly procedural murder prevention stories have no resemblence to THE PRISONER's stories of a spy trying to escape a gated community prison.

There is a way to do what Cameron did appropriately and respectfully. The STAR TREK episode "Arena", scripted by Gene L. Coon in 1967, was discovered to be alarmingly similar to a 1945 story, "Arena", published in Astounding Science Fiction magazine, written by a contributor named Frederic Brown. Coon had accidentally copied Brown's story; Coon and Desilu Studios therefore contacted Brown and asked to purchase his story, and Brown agreed to sell it.

THE TERMINATOR was an act of theft by Cameron's own admission. It's always been peculiar to me that Cameron, despite having loudly claimed that he plagiarized Ellison, still called Ellison "a parasite" for getting paid, given that the incrimination came from Cameron's own words. And while Torme denies involvement, I can't help but wonder if it were a factor in his contempt for how the third season of SLIDERS became a series of movie ripoffs that didn't make any effort to at least explore the genre and conventions of their ripoffs. It may also be why he said, in a podcast appearance, he tried not to watch or read other people's fiction when working on his own projects.

Perhaps by 2009, Cameron may have accepted that he'd stolen from Harlan Ellison, paid his debt to Ellison, and the matter was settled and Torme was welcome to work on a potential AVATAR show... but given Cameron's legendary ego, maybe not. Maybe Torme really wasn't involved at all in Ellison going after Cameron at all and Cameron had no grudge against him. Or maybe Cameron, operating in the world of big budget feature films, was never aware of Torme's existence until Torme was brought in for an AVATAR television series.

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