Of books I’ve finished, The Da Vinci Code. It’s been a long time since I read it, so I can’t recall specifics but I do remember the moment to moments of the plot being contrived and stupid, and the writing to be bland and simplistic.

The only reason I read it was I was stuck somewhere without a book and I found a copy of The Da Vinci code that had fallen behind a shelf. I figured it was super popular so there must be something to it as I slogged through.

The Prosecutors: Legal Briefs, episode 117.

The show is hosted by two prosecutors, so in various episodes on criminal cases their opinions skew heavily pro-prosecutor, but when laying out facts like going through a SCOTUS case they tend to be more fact based and less opinion based, I have found.

A: they’re betting most people will accept it, and they’re right.

Yes. Remember when Netflix put a stop to password sharing and the internet went aflame with people declaring that Netflix had shot itself in the foot? Netflix subscriber counts went up.

The average person will put up with so much more of this nonsense than techie people will.

Its an educated wish.

“What makes money” is always relative to how much it costs to make though.

Season passes, microtransactions, and DLCs. Additionally creating brand recognition among the masses along with flashy trailers. These are all reasons that AAA behemoths are still banked on to make huge net profits.

Sometimes these massive games fail and lose money in spectacular ways, but it happens a lot less than us enlightened good taste gamers would like to imagine. Money gets shoveled into creatively safe massive games because they usually make a huge profit. I love say, Wasteland 2, but that game probably has made less money in its entire life than the newest Fifa game made in a week.

cannot be set higher than an amount that is reasonably likely to ensure the defendant’s presence at the trial

That is a sentence that you can really roll over in your head. It does not necessarily also mean an amount within the resources of the defendant. I watch a lot of hearings, and something I’ve seen at least a few times is a set of allegations and past facts (usually something like multiple failures to appear in the past, and/or fleeing from police) in a situation where the actual charge being bailed on has a statutory requirement that bail be offered. The judge doesn’t want to let the person out on bail, so therefore sets the bail at $1 million or something which is functionally the same thing as not giving them bail.

Usually this triggers a motion for a hearing about the bail amount by the defense lawyer to argue down the amount, but if the court date on the charge is earlier than court date for the motion, it becomes a moot issue.

I’m not an expert, but I did just listen to a podcast on this (which basically makes me an expert, right?)

I think yes, technically, legally the federal government could. ‘Kelo v. City Of New London’ ruled that purely economic development was a sufficient justification for using the takings power (eminent domain). The reaction by most states was to make their own laws limiting eminent domain powers so that the Kelo situation couldn’t happen with the state government, but the federal government has never passed laws limiting its powers. Bills to limit federal power like S.1313 were introduced but never passed.

Perhaps they are going for a tone of heroic escapism, or fantastical drama over gory and downbeat “realism”.

If you really just want to see heroes maiming people it’s been done. Invincible, The Boys (show and comic). Even back to the 90s there were comics like Stormwatch that centered on the premise of “realistic” consequences of super powers.

Personally, I think Star Citizen is shallow and pedantic.

It gets me thinking. Tech literate people are the types to install blockers, and would be the same type of people both motivated and knowledgeable about how to switch browsers. On the line of thinking it seems like it is just going to drive them away from Chrome. Tech illiterate people remain unaffected since they are getting ads anyway.

But then on the other hand, if someone is tech literate then why are they even still using Chrome? Does such a person value whatever advantage Chrome theoretically provides over their ad-blocking?

Unfortunately the good taste of people who actively comment about games often has only slight overlap with what makes money.

Three of the top ten US game earners in 2024 were yearly sports game rehashes. One of the top ten games was Call Of Duty. One was Fortnite.

These are money making machines. We can argue and beg and plead all we want. There is a huge mass of gamers out there was simply don’t care, and who will continue to buy formulaic rehashes and microtransaction infested treadmills.

The AAA publishers are not in it for the art. Look at AA and indie if you want games that are willing to appeal to a niche. I’m talking to you and everyone else reading this because this might actually have an effect. Saying what AAA publishers and developers should do is pointless, not like they will ever read it.

Oh boy. Time for an 800 comment long flamewar about Star Citizen. I’m ready.

and the whole hooters/twin peaks concept

I haven’t thought about Hooters in years. It always did seem like a dated concept from the 1980s that was somehow still clinging to life in the 90s. It’s still in business, so obviously somebody must be going to them, but I don’t know if I’d call it normal for most Americans.

Anecdotally this is also my experience. I grew up with shoes off in the house, but even up to the early 00’s it seemed to be a cultural outlier in the US.

These days I think the majority of people who I go over to visit have a shoes off rule. Seems like the split is between the older half of millennials and up shoes on, and younger half and down shoes off for the most part.

If a business has a sign posted stating “no guns allowed,” you can still legally carry your weapon in that business.

I’m sure that’s the practicality, but I am skeptical of the legality of a CCW permit trumping the rights of the property owner.

It sounds more like breaking the law and just not getting caught. Do you have any links to CCW permit overriding property owner rights?

Alcohol sales vary hugely between states. In some states, you can get hard liquor at Wal-Mart while in others you can only get it at state run stores.

The rules about licensing mean some areas gas stations usually don’t even sell beer, while in other places they have giant walk in beer freezers.

Some states or counties have dry laws where they don’t sell alcohol on Sundays, or maybe no hard alcohol, or maybe you have to wait until noon to be able to buy it.

It’s all over the place.

As for the Wal-Mart machineguns, I think you’ve gotten enough replies on that detail, but again gun sales are something with huge variety. Some states have put restrictions in place where a Wal-Mart theoretically could still sell guns but doesn’t because of the hassle, and gun stores end up being few and far between, while other places basically just have the Federal minimum in place.

[Untranslated Wookiee speech]

But he di’d bring a bomb

I am on a similar wavelength, but harsher as the plots and film structures of the prequels are also just no good. The prequels are bad. I have trouble putting myself in the headspace of people who genuinely enjoy them as films.

As terrible as I think they are, the fact that Lucas clearly had passion and love of the universe he created did give them a flavor which is missing in the sequel films. While the prequels failed at being coherent films, they succeeded in creating a whole new era in the Star Wars universe that was ripe for other people to come and tell stories inside of. The prequel era feels so different from the OT, but at the same time is undeniably proper Star Wars. Other creators came in and built so much there. The strength of those other creations are actually why I think some people have convinced themselves to re-examine the prequels.

The setting of the sequel era is just so bland and lifeless. There is nothing there which was set up by those movies really for other creators to get passionate about and flesh out. The Mandalorian wedged itself between OT and sequel era to get some stronger tie in with the OT, but really there’s been very few stories set firmly and entirely in the sequel movie era, and none that anyone seem to care about.

tied with Australia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Latvia, and Spain

But of course that’s not a proper attention grabbing headline.