If it is as on the nose with its misogyny as Barbie was with its misandry? And if it it starts with an absurd premise like the existence of a GI Joe Land? Then yeah, she probably would think it was a joke.

After all, I already know she hates that stuff because she has been upset when hardcore manhating was done in the past, especially on characters she likes. And she doesn’t like the other modern trend of them making all the female characters into being an absolute bitch and then calling it “girlboss”.

Which is why she mostly watches Anime now, where they still make characters that are interesting for both sexes and don’t step on each other’s toes.

My fiancé saw it without any idea of the creators, actors, or their beliefs. And she thought the movie was hilarious, and was intended as a satire of the hardcore Rad-Fem types with how Barbie was treating Ken.

And from what I have been seeing, that is what a lot of normies are taking away from it.

It is like a lot of Nolan historical movies (a la Dunkirk). I was expecting more about the Manhattan Project, but it is more about his life. And to that end, it jumps around a lot so you do need to be paying close attention. But if you are interested in the man, I do recommend it. And the parts where it did cover the Manhattan Project were interesting. And I do enjoy that they got the physics of a nuke right (which is rare in movies), where you see the blast long before you get hit with the shockwave. So there is an eerie quiet as you are watching the mushroom before everything gets blown over.

But I will say this. My fiancé went and saw it while I went to see Oppenheimer. And she ended up loving the movie and thought it was funny. But she doesnt really keep up with the sort of things we do, and she is utterly convinced that Barbie was making fun of the Ultra-Feminist types, and that nothing about it was serious.

And from what I have gathered second hand from other people who went and saw it and dont normally like woke stuff, it sounds like that is the prevailing sentiment. Which I imagine is not the reaction the actors or film makers wanted.

Perhaps not exactly what you are looking for, but I think my favorite subversion, and an example of one that is actually fun and interesting unlike most that happen today, off the top of my head is the twist about 2/3rds of the way through the Lego Movie. (and spoilers ahead for anyone who cares)

Basically, the entire time up to that point in the movie, it has seemed like a very simple children's movie. It has its moments where as an adult you can laugh at things, but most of the jokes are making fun of other movies, making fun of adults, show Lord Business as being evil because he wants everyone to follow the rules all the time, simple stuff like that.

Then the main character Emmett is forced to sacrifice himself to save everyone else in LegoLand from danger, so he jumps into a portal off the side of a cliff, disarming the bomb that he had been unwillingly made into the trigger for.

[SECOND SPOILER WARNING]

And then the whole movie shifts to the real world. Where we see that the reason it was all very simple and relied on pop culture references...was because it was the imagination of a child playing with the Lego set. And "Lord Business" is his dad, who the kid is upset about because he keeps getting scolded for playing with the Legos by his dad (who obsessively follows the instructions and built a model city out of them). And it actually ends in redemption where the dad realizes he was being a dick to his son and he starts treating him better and letting him use the Legos.

I have seen a lot of movies try to pull off a similar sort of twist, but few have been successful, and I wasnt expecting something that deep in a kids movie.

Actual walking? No. But you can get the camera down to street level, so you can at least see the city from the POV of your own citizens.

I would definitely recommend looking at the Dev Diaries if you want to know the exact changes they make or are adding. So far, they are making a ton of huge ones compared to the original game, most notable ones being things like:

1. Demand for different land value properties to reflect people's money needs for housing or apartments (instead of just trying to max out everything for the most taxes).

2. Significantly larger and more realistic sized city services, especially for power plants and airports. (Just to visualize scale, here is a Nuclear Plant in CS1 vs. the Coal Plant in CS2)

3. Telecoms now being a city service that needs to be provided for, which has never been a consideration in previous games of the genre.

4. There will be a much more complex economic model, where there are significantly more options for the goods Factories will make, markets can get saturated if you overproduce, and Offices now have output that follows the same demand laws (meaning there is actually a purpose to have both industry and office in a city).

5. They are yoinking the modular/upgradeable buildings from SimCity 2013, and putting them in a game that deserves such a feature.

And I know what you mean about time sink. But for me, that is part of the appeal. I like to play them while I am watching a movie, or on Youtube, or watching Anime. Because then I dont have to take my eyes off of the thing I am watching to babysit my game constantly.

The youth in the game are going to appear less because it's all based on reality

I dont understand what their point was in this article. They literally made a single blurb about how it is unfortunate that transportation (both private and public) will have a money cost to it, and that this is somehow unfortunate because younger citizens are the ones most affected by it. Then it just starts doing quotes from the dev diary that have nothing to do with their stance.

Personally, I am pretty hyped for the game, and from what I have seen with the Dev Dairies thus far, they are set to revolutionize the city building genre yet again after doing it with the first game. Which also involves dabbing on the corpse of SimCity because Cities: Skylines 2 is essentially looking like it is going to be everything SimCity 2013 wanted to be and do it better, while still not having to be force connected to the internet.

Disney doesnt have that kind of money though. They have barely $4B in assets and liquid cash they can use for acquisitions, and they are already being forced to either sell Hulu or buy out Comcast share (they dont have the cash for that, by the by). So you know damn well they dont have the cash to get copyright changed again, especially when they have pissed off a significant chunk of one party who will probably still say no just to spite them.

It really is amazing how much Iger has fucked it all up for his own pride.

I think it is a little bit harder for it to "get better" with Autism since it affects so much of brain function, and I would likely turn down any "cure" (for lack of a better terms) because I have no idea what it would change about me and the way I think at a most basic level. But like I said, it is different with Autism. The Blind and Deaf have no such excuse since theirs are 100% a disability with little to no benefit, unlike Autism where in high-functioning cases you are trading some social skills (which you can learn anyway) for things like improved memory and enhanced attention to detail.

At the same time, you are right about those who especially have low-function Autism, like the kind who can barely even speak. In those cases, I think it would be wise to find a way to if not "cure" them at least raise their function level.

The usual problem: For actual people who have it like me and just want to be normal people, it is something to get mad over. For the activist, it is just another case where the intersection of causes must be fulfilled.

As for me, I will have nothing to do with this. Because in general, I want nothing to do with the Autism advocacy groups. They are either raging, hardcore Leftist who do raging, hardcore Leftist things, or they act like Autism is a life destroyer in all cases and think that those who are high functioning (like myself) deserve to be treated with the same things as someone who is legitimately unable to care for themselves.

I am also leaning toward it being entirely in "for the memes" land.

I also put that Iron Oath game on my wishlist, so I guess let me know what the actual status of those reviews is.

It wasnt directly on sale, but I snagged up Jagged Alliance 3 since it had a pretty hefty discount for preordering (and it comes out tomorrow). Looks like they are running that nice ground everyone has always wanted, where they are updating the old Jagged Alliance formula with modern graphics and strategy improvements, but they want to stay true to the old style for the story. To the point the studio who made it brought in the old writer for the original games.

Then the tail end of the year is going to be a very busy one for me, with Armored Core 6, Cities: Skylines 2, and Manor Lords coming out (maybe on Manor Lords, since it is still kind of up in the air).

It is amazing how often I forgot the strike was even happening. It is that meaningless for them doing it.

I can hear Valliant laughing in the corner. He called this like a week ago because he does financial shit for a day job, so he was reading the tea leaves long before it became obvious.

The interesting one that could come out of this is Nelson Peltz may come back for Round 2. He has apparently been using the downturn in Disney stocks to buy up more shares, and one of his conditions of backing down last year was that Disney set about a solid effort to replace Iger. With Iger effectively sitting on his chair and saying "I! AM! Disney!" this breaks Peltz ceasefire, and he will likely come back swinging for a hostile takeover.

especially after seeing Velma getting a second season

There is a good chance the only reason it got a second season is because they already had it made and paid for, they just didnt release it. That is typically what happens with these sort of animated works, according to people I listen to who know the industry.

And it gets more "fun" for them because they are being forced by Comcast to either sell their stakes in Hulu or buy the remaining shares of it, and it is going to cost them billions of dollars. Billions they dont have, either in liquid cash or stock value, which means they will have to sell shit.

It is absolutely insane to me how much Iger has managed to screw up. And it is Iger, because Chapek wasnt even in charge long enough to make changes to the company, and was being undercut by Iger every step of the way.

Yep. If I was going to boycott B&J, I would have had to actually buy B&J. I never have because I have always considered them overhyped and overpriced, and I can get ice cream that taste better and is cheaper from store brands or local brands (where I live, the most popular being the stuff made by the university Dairy Science program).

When it comes to Top Gear, the "Three Stooges" are Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond.

Front Mission Remake

I would KILL to have the Front Mission games remade so they can be played on PC.

The game is realistic, except for cowboys and other weirdness.

People take on the aesthetics of cowboys when they are off exploring the wild frontier of space? What is so shocking about that (its Leftist, we already know the answer).

Top Gear Argues that women can be prize winning F1 drivers as well.

Me thinks Top Gear should be more worried about the fact that barely anyone cares about them anymore after they got rid of the Three Stooges.

As for the ones that are, you know, 3rd generation identity conflict ones; those are easy too. They are going to either go full one way, or full the other. They'll abandon the way of the old country, or decide that they should stay "true to their self" and "be with their people", and then proceed to fuck off.

I have seen that exact trend being cited as one of the reasons that the Hispanic population has been taking such a hard turn toward voting Republican in more recent elections. A lot of them are starting to identify not as their nation of origin (Mexican, Guatemalan, Salvadorian, etc) beyond a cultural heritage like the Germans and Italians before them. Instead, they are identifying as American, and starting to act American in terms of their beliefs and attitudes. Which is then causing them to shift their political leanings to match the new identity.

Also true. One of the interesting ones to find out when you look at the stats was that the American-crewed Shermans were one of the most survivable tanks in the war, but British-crewed Shermans were running in line with most others (making them significantly less survivable than the American ones).

This is largely because the British classed them as "Cruisers" for the purpose of their army, which were tanks that took on an effective role on par with cavalry. And like the cavalry of old, British Cruiser tanks were crewed by the insane and the unhinged, who would do things like "Shove extra shells into every last nook and cranny" and "carry extra fuel tanks outside of the armored ones", which ends rather explosively as I am sure you can guess. But since the British were the first to get the Shermans into combat, and those issues existed then in Africa, it was the reputation they got even if they didnt deserve it.

Another interesting thing is that when Shermans and T-34's fought in Korea, the Shermans usually won. Because it turns out the T-34 also has an overly inflated reputation (being much more dangerous to crew and easier to destroy than the reputation says), and while both had similar guns and armor, the Shermans had significantly superior "intangibles" (things like crew ergonomics, optics, magazine placement, etc) that allowed it to usually be the one to get the first shot off and win the fight.

I have a better idea: The German arms industry has degraded to shit over the last decades, and they are desperate to make sure people dont know about it because it is one of their only industries that is still profitable. For instance, one of the reasons they were so against sending tanks earlier in the war was entire due to the fact that they were worried about other Eastern European nations getting rid of their Leopards and replacing them with Abrams (like the Polish did).

Of course, like is usual with these sort of articles though, I imagine there is some missing context or truth-twisting going on.

As for the Ukrainian losses, I don't know the details, but if they're going on the offensive, well, they're going to have to take some risks, aren't they?

They are. And so far, the hardest part has been pushing in through the south where the Russians are heavily dug in and have mines out the ass at every strongpoint. The infamous picture of the disabled Bradley's and Leopard that was getting shared around came from an attack where they got boxed in by mines and then Russian gunships came in and attacked them when they had limited movement options.

However, it is also worth pointing out that unlike Russian vehicles (on both sides of the war), the crews in the Western vehicles have been suffering significantly less losses than their counterparts. Which in the long run will allow crews to learn from their mistakes and avoid making them again. Similar to how in WW2, the US Navy initially suffered against Zero's because the Wildcat was slower and less maneuverable. But since it was tougher and had higher crew survivability, eventually American pilots developed tactics that let them get around their weaknesses that Zero pilots typically fell for because they were usually newer pilots (the old guys got shot down).