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This piece contains spoilers for the second season of "Yellowjackets."

So, remember back in the first season of "Yellowjackets" where it seemed like queen bee Jackie (Ella Purnell) was going to survive the 19 months the soccer team spent in the woods? One of the seemingly-damning pieces of evidence was her diary, which her former bestie Shauna (Sophie Nélisse and Melanie Lynskey) reads during a visit to her house. As an adult, Shauna sees that the pages of Jackie's notebook are covered in writings about things that couldn't have happened when they were stranded in the Canadian wilderness, like referencing movies that had yet to come out. For a while, it was pretty plausible that Jackie did survive and avoided being eaten by her teammates, but as the final moments of the season finale rolled around, we realized that was far from the case.

However, despite Jackie becoming a sleeping popsicle, one question was likely on everyone's minds. If she is dead, then why was her notebook full of references to the then-future? Well, we don't have to wait long for that answer, because the season two premiere of "Yellowjackets" has got us covered. As it turns out, Shauna was writing in the notebook the entire time in a bizarre but strangely understandable coping mechanism.

Mansion, Apartment, Shack, House

As Smashing Pumpkins' "Drown" plays in the background, we see a sight nobody probably expected in the flashbacks: a clearly alive Jackie playing a game of MASH with Shauna. She gives her a startlingly-accurate reading of her former best friend's future, saying that she will live in a house married to the school's quarterback, Jeff (Jack DePew and Warren Kole). Shauna doesn't believe it at first, so she grabs the notebook from Jackie's hands, only to reveal that Jackie is a hallucination. It's been two months since she froze to death outside of the cabin the survivors are living in, and Shauna has kept her frozen body in the cabin's shack to keep conversation with. The rest of the team thinks it's weird, but at least she has a supporter in Coach Ben (Steven Krueger), who defends her by saying that these "meetings" bring her comfort in an otherwise horrific situation.

That doesn't make it any less weird, though, especially when hallucination-Jackie begins grilling Shauna on what happened between her and Jeff that eventually got her pregnant. When her inner monologue gets to be too much, Shauna pushes Jackie's body against the cabin wall, the force tearing off one of the corpse's ears. Take a wild guess what Shauna decides to do with that ear.

An Effective And Emotional Twist

The "dead friend becomes the main character's conscience" trope can be a bit tiresome. Pardon the pun, but it's been done to death in several movies and television shows by this point. However, Jackie becoming the manifestation of Shauna's guilt makes all the sense in the world. The two were the closest of friends before the accident, growing more distrustful of each other until Shauna kicked Jackie out of the team's cabin out of anger. She knows that she is responsible for her friend's death, and as Ben tells the rest of the Yellowjackets, Shauna needs to pretend to make peace with Jackie lest she not lose her mind.

Her writing in Jackie's diary as she pretends to have conversations with her only solidifies this, especially the pages that reference the supposed "future." This coping mechanism of hers wouldn't just stop after their rescue in 1998. She likely continued this for a long time afterward, wanting to imagine a world where Jackie survived and came home with the rest of the survivors. In order to avoid the real situations she finds herself in, she wants to imagine a reality where she has total control. Even though she eventually stopped writing in the notebook, Shauna's desires to maintain that perfect fantasy manifest in other ways, such as overprotecting her daughter Callie (Sarah Desjardins) and killing her side lover Adam (Peter Gadiot) at the first hint of betrayal. In both the flashbacks and the modern portions of the show, it's only a matter of time before she snaps for good.

Read this next: The 20 Best Female Friendships In TV History, Ranked

The post Yellowjackets Season 2 Solves the Mystery of Jackie's Notebook appeared first on /Film.

This post contains spoilers for the first episode of "Yellowjackets" season 2.

Comparisons between "Yellowjackets" and "Lost" were always going to be inevitable. Even before "Yellowjackets" proved itself a character-driven thriller capable of doling out mysteries and WTF moments at an impressive pace, the two clearly shared significant narrative DNA. With multiple timelines, a plane crash, and a possibly sentient setting that's at once magical and spooky, "Yellowjackets" is a fantastic heir apparent to the hit 2004 series — one that arrived about a decade after everyone quit looking for its successor.

In its season premiere, though, "Yellowjackets" sets itself apart from "Lost" and most other mystery box shows like it in an intriguing, major way. The contrast comes in the episode's cold open, a tremendous montage set to Sharon Van Etten's "Seventeen." The scene gets viewers up to speed after a time jump, showing us what the stranded teammates' typical winter mornings look like inside the abandoned cabin they now call home.

The Premiere Introduces A Strange Morning Ritual

As the snow falls, the girls sleep by a well-tended fireplace, bundled in their thickest clothes. They've clearly developed some efficient systems since we last saw them; Taissa (Jasmin Savoy Brown) sleeps tied to Van (Liv Hewson) to prevent sleepwalking, the team catches drops of water in a bucket for later use, and when Travis (Kevin Alves) and Natalie (Sophie Thatcher) bundle up to go search for help (and Javi) they cram papers into the lining of their clothes for added warmth. This group is clearly clever and capable. But the explorers also do something else before they head out: stop to receive a blessing from Lottie (Courtney Eaton), the possibly prophetic or possibly mentally ill girl who managed to inexplicably kill a bear in the first season finale.

Lottie greets the pair with a complex ritual, involving putting ashes on their palms, waving a smokey branch in their faces, and having them drink from a mug of water that includes a drop of her blood. She also draws the mysterious symbol we've seen before on the window after they leave. "It's not like this wicca bulls**t is doing us any good," Natalie says, but she takes the mug anyway. Lottie isn't phased by the comment. "Well, you keep coming back alive, don't you?" she points out.

Mystery Shows Love A Good Faith-Science Dichotomy

The opening sequence sets up a unique dichotomy between the explainable and the inexplicable, one that sets "Yellowjackets" apart from other mystery-driven shows of the past two decades. While series like "Lost," "Dark," "Under the Dome," "From," "Manifest," and so many others hinge their central plots on questions about whether a phenomenon is scientific or supernatural, the "Yellowjackets" premiere finds a surprising middle ground. It's an unexpected albeit enjoyable change-up for the series, which ended its first season by positioning Lottie's occult-like practices as sinister but powerful. Now, they've become a part of everyday life, a superstition equivalent to not stepping on a crack or throwing salt over your shoulder. Unlike its genre contemporaries, there's no need for a big explanation involving a chalkboard or an upside-down game board here.

There's something refreshing about the show's embrace of its spookier elements, especially when they're utilized in conjunction with practical measures and, in the case of some members of the group, a healthy dose of skepticism. Mystery box shows are rife with characters who love to loudly deny whatever is going on around them, whether it's Jack Shepherd (Matthew Fox) refusing to give in to Locke's (Terry O'Quinn) island-based spirituality in "Lost," Agent Scully (Gillian Anderson) rolling her eyes at countless inexplicable situations in "The X-Files," or Kevin Garvey (Justin Theroux) crying his way through a world that makes no sense in "The Leftovers." While some mystery box shows end up with a clear-cut "answer" to their own central question about faith and science, others are ultimately able to reckon with the two options and land in a beautiful place of ambiguity. Very few, though, go the "Yellowjackets" route, interweaving both the impossible and the explainable into the fabric of the series.

In Yellowackets, Practicality And Superstition Coexist

Despite the relative lack of precedent for a show like this, it feels right for Lottie's woo-woo nonsense to coexist with the girls' practical, everyday activities. After all, "Yellowjackets" is a story about girlhood and womanhood in a way that few of the aforementioned mysteries are, and women have long since been associated with earth-based magic across cultures. History books are full of references to women witches, healers, goddesses, and mystics. When civilizations build in spaces for the mysteries of the world to flourish, they are, in many cases, women's spaces. 

The survivors' casual incorporation of Lottie's magic will likely be viewed as a non-twist in an episode that has plenty of other elements worth talking about (that ear!), but it deserves to be highlighted as a particularly clever writing choice in a show that's always been smart about its character dynamics. By side-stepping, the fraught, prolonged conversations about what is and isn't possible, and allowing Lottie skeptics and Lottie believers to live together under one roof, "Yellowjackets" poses a much more interesting question than "What part of this is actually real?" Instead, the show asks us to think about what it takes to survive; not just strength and smarts, but also intuition and openness. What's more, it asks us to consider the power and necessity of finding something to believe in when enduring the unbelievable.

New episodes of "Yellowjackets" air Sundays on Showtime. The season premiere is available on the Showtime app now.

Read this next: The Best TV Shows Of 2022, Ranked

The post Yellowjackets Reinvents the 'Puzzle Box' Show By Throwing Away the Usual Playbook appeared first on /Film.

Bob Odenkirk played the character of Saul Goodman for 13 years, first appearing in the second season of "Breaking Bad" to guide Walter White into the depths of the criminal underworld. Future appearances marked him as a key player within the show's supporting cast, able to function as a comic archetype as well as a moral barometer for just how far White had fallen in his quest for power. Two years after "Breaking Bad" ended, Odenkirk returned to lead "Better Call Saul," a spin-off that arguably surpassed its parent series by the final episodes. Odenkirk received five Golden Globe nominations, five Emmy nominations for "Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series," and another six Emmy nominations for "Outstanding Drama Series" in his capacity as a producer for "Better Call Saul." Taken separately, Odenkirk's performances in "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul" are impressive. Together, they represent a process of long-form character excavation that no longer exists on television in the United States.

In an interview with "The Tonight Show," though, Odenkirk acknowledges that he never expected to play Saul for such a long time. "I was supposed to do 3 to 4 episodes [of Breaking Bad,]" he told host Jimmy Fallon. "Then it turned into my whole life." Odenkirk isn't the only "Breaking Bad" side character to see his role radically expand over the course of the series. But he's the only one whose character attained such a life of his own that he kept the "Breaking Bad" engine humming for a 63-episode spinoff starring himself. As he said earlier to Fallon, "They keep calling me back!"

13 Wonderful Years

A lot can happen in 13 years. The distance between showrunner Bryan Fuller's "Dead Like Me" in 2003 and his 2013 network barnburner "Hannibal" is just 12 years. "The Sopranos," "The Wire" and "Deadwood" all finished airing on HBO within 10 years, from 1999 to 2008, and "Lost" wrapped up three years later in 2011. Netflix has been releasing original programming for just a decade, starting in 2013 with "House of Cards." These are all paradigm shifts that changed the way that people watch television today. Yet it's easy to forget that these transformations happened in a relatively short period of time. The beauty and malevolence of "Breaking Bad" changed the way that TV was made in the late 2000s; by the time "Better Call Saul" wrapped up in 2022, the fracturing of streaming had changed TV yet again.

Odenkirk's career did not begin with "Breaking Bad." The only two Emmys that he's won in his career so far were for "Saturday Night Live" in 1989, and then "The Ben Stiller Show" in 1993. After toiling for years as a writer and actor, he co-starred in the groundbreaking HBO sketch comedy series "Mr. Show" with David Cross ("Arrested Development") from 1995 to 1998. Their work inspired Tim and Eric (of "Awesome Show, Great Job!" fame) as well as Key and Peele. Had this been Odenkirk's legacy, it would have been enough. Yet Vince Gilligan was impressed enough by Odenkirk's performance on "Mr. Show" to hire him years later for "Breaking Bad." Who better to play a two-dimensional sleazeball like Saul Goodman than a sketch comedy master? But then the role grew, and grew, and a job that was meant to be a guest spot changed Odenkirk's life.

The Way Stalactites Grow

This was not out of the ordinary for "Breaking Bad," a series that thrived on chaos. Jesse Pinkman was famously meant to be written out in the first season, only for the staff to keep him once they realized what actor Aaron Paul brought to the series. The 2007-2008 writers' strike gave the staff the chance to retool their plans for future seasons, saving Gilligan from his "self-destructive impulses," per Alan Sepinwall's "The Revolution Was Televised." Odenkirk isn't even the only "Breaking Bad" cast member to transform a bit part into a supporting character role through sheer ability. Jonathan Banks, who played the popular character Mike Ehrmantraut, was himself brought on board to substitute for Odenkirk. Banks stuck around to become not just a highlight of "Breaking Bad," but a key player in "Better Call Saul." "I thought, 'I'll go in here, I'll guest star and I'll be gone,'" Banks told Sepinwall. "It didn't turn out that way."

In "The Revolution Was Televised," Gilligan refers to "Breaking Bad" as "an epic crime drama driven by process." His goal as showrunner was not just to capture the rise and fall of a bad man, but to "show the stuff that nobody else bothers to show." It seems absurd on the surface that a series beloved for its sense of escalation was built to emulate "the way stalactites grow." Yet many of the show's best-loved episodes, like Rian Johnson's bottle episode "The Fly," were just that. The process was also the heart and soul of "Better Call Saul," a series that per critic Sonia Saraiya "knows how to make emptiness staggeringly dramatic."

The Role Of A Lifetime

In an interview between Saraiya and Sepinwall for Salon, the two critics discuss the power of time. "You spend years of your lives watching them," Sepinwall says. "So you want to see them end right." The alternative is to suffer the fate of "Lost" showrunner Damon Lindelof, punished for dropping the ball after six sporadically great years of television produced by his team. As for Saraiya, she writes for Vanity Fair that "television keeps going, year in and year out, pacing its story to match the show unspooling of our lives." Speaking personally, I've caught myself marking time not by my home address or job, but by what TV program was airing at the time. To be an actor on that same TV series, sharing a life with millions of viewers over more than a decade, must be something else entirely.

Bob Odenkirk's career might have gone in a totally different direction had he moved on from "Breaking Bad" as was intended. Instead, he will forever be known as Saul Goodman, a role that snowballed over the course of 13 years into a career-defining performance. Some might be intimidated by the weight of that accomplishment, but Odenkirk doesn't mind. "I'll always be thankful for that role," he told "The Tonight Show." "The role of a lifetime." Saul Goodman became a great character thanks to Odenkirk's talent as an actor, as well as the hard work of the team behind "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul." Yet Goodman is also "the role of a lifetime" because today, TV series are lucky to last a handful of seasons. There may not be another opportunity like Saul Goodman for a lifetime — or at least, a lifetime on television.

Read this next: The Best TV Shows Of 2022, Ranked

The post Bob Odenkirk's Saul Goodman Was Only Supposed To Last 4 Episodes, Not 13 Years appeared first on /Film.

The interrogation of CEO Shou Zi Chew highlighted US lawmakers’ own failure to pass privacy legislation.

It's fairly common for directors to spend years in-between projects, and one would think that finishing Stanley Kubrick's vision for 2001's "A.I. Artificial Intelligence" would call for a much-needed vacation. But in 2002, Steven Spielberg was on a roll. In the same year, he released two distinct films featuring two different, massive A-list stars. In June, Tom Cruise played the leading man in Spielberg's sci-fi blockbuster, "Minority Report." And in December, Leonardo DiCaprio took on the role of Frank Abagnale, Jr. in "Catch Me If You Can," an ambitious semi-biographical drama where DiCaprio played opposite Tom Hanks. Both films were critical and financial successes, becoming the 10th and 11th highest-grossing films of 2002 respectively.

Perhaps most impressively, in 2001, Spielberg was able to accomplish production on these films while writing term papers to earn his Bachelor's Degree from Cal State Long Beach, something he committed himself to doing to honor his parents and set an example for his own children. Despite his accolades and his huge box office successes, Spielberg's children, as it turns out, would be his toughest critics.

In an interview with the late Roger Ebert in 2002, titled "Catching Up With Spielberg," Ebert praised his second theatrical viewing of "Minority Report," to which Spielberg answered:

"l haven't seen it again since it was released. I rarely look back at the movies I've made except when my kids see them for the first time. So I get a chance to see all my own movies again through my kids' eyes, which is always fun, you know, because they tell me whether they like 'em or not right away. Or they walk out. I've had my kids walk out of my pictures."

So, which Spielberg movie left his kids too bored to finish?

'They Were Bored By The Legal Stuff'

There are two kinds of Steven Spielberg films: The genre movies that put him on the map, and the political/historical pieces that Spielberg became passionate about even after his well-earned Academy Awards for "Schindler's List."

Though Spielberg's political/historical dramas are just as valuable to his artistic identity as the more celebrated genre films of his career, it isn't exactly a mystery which side of his filmography would better entertain young children, including his own. "They walked out of 'Amistad,'" Spielberg told Roger Ebert back in 2002. "I lost my whole family. All my young kids, you know. I wouldn't ever show them the middle passage and I didn't let them see the very beginning and they were bored by the legal stuff. They left."

Based on a true story of a 1839 Spanish slave ship, "Amistad" came out in 1997, the same year as "Jurassic Park: The Lost World." Though it received an initial warm critical response and boasts great performances from Morgan Freeman as Theodore Joadson and Anthony Hopkins as John Quincey Adams, with time it has been one of the more mixed historical drama efforts by Spielberg — often criticized for its white savior narrative. Especially since he skipped over some uncomfortable key scenes, leaving behind mostly the political interludes, it's hard to imagine what a kid would gain from that viewing experience.

Ironically, one of Spielberg's best traits as a director is how he approaches each of his films with a genuine sentimentality and child-like wonder that he hasn't lost touch with. His willingness to engage with his movies from the lens of his own children is not only sweet, but is fitting with his artist persona.

Read this next: 12 Best Performances In Steven Spielberg Movies

The post The Steven Spielberg Movie That Left His Kids Too Bored To Finish appeared first on /Film.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Framework has delivered on the promise of its original 13-inch laptop. Three product generations in, the company has made a respectable competitor for the Dell XPS 13 or MacBook Air that can be repaired, modified, and upgraded, and owners of the original laptop can easily give themselves a significant performance boost by upgrading to the new 13th-generation Intel or AMD Ryzen-based boards the company announced today. Framework is now looking to build on that track record with an all-new Framework Laptop 16. It's a larger-screened model that can fit more powerful processors, dedicated GPUs, and a range of different keyboard modules, all with the same commitment to repairability and upgradeability seen in the original Framework Laptop (now retroactively dubbed the Framework Laptop 13). Framework isn't discussing many details yet; preorders won't open until "this spring," and shipments won't begin until "late 2023." Today, the company provided a preview of the laptop's features, along with developer documentation to encourage the creation of new Input Modules -- components that allow for keyboard customization much like the current Expansion Card system allows for port customization.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Telecommunication providers in the Middle East are the subject of new cyber attacks that commenced in the first quarter of 2023. The intrusion set has been attributed to a Chinese cyber espionage actor associated with a long-running campaign dubbed Operation Soft Cell based on tooling overlaps. "The initial attack phase involves infiltrating Internet-facing Microsoft Exchange servers to deploy

The following article discusses Star Trek: Picard, Season Three, Episode Six, “The Bounty.”

When the Original Series cast made their swansong, they left Star Trek in the rudest health it had ever been in. The Next Generation had reached its creative peak, Deep Space Nine was a year away from starting, and the movie series was making good money. The Undiscovered Country gave fans one last adventure with Kirk and co. that gently highlighted why it was time to move on. By comparison, Nemesis’ soft box office meant there would be no grand finale for the TNG crew. DS9 and Voyager were done, and it wouldn’t be long before pre-Kirk prequel-series Enterprise would leave our screens. There was quite literally nobody to pick up from where Picard and co. left off as “current day” Trek went into enforced stasis. Now, it feels like 2002 all over again, with the only “current” Trek series, Discovery, canceled and the only other live-action Trek show yet again being a pre-Kirk era prequel. They say that history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

This sense of unease about the future permeates “The Bounty,” as Star Trek: Picard hints that the next (next) generation aren’t up to scratch. Picard, Riker and LaForge are all fathers struggling to deal with the gifts and curses they handed down to their children. The show keeps implying that there’s less hope in these kids because they’ve spent so long in their parents’ shadow. Sidney LaForge isn’t speaking to her father, who grouses to Picard how hard it was to raise her. The show has already hamfistedly tried to cover Riker’s grief over Thaddeus, while Picard has given his son a terminal case of Irumodic Syndrome. When Jack gets the idea of stealing the Bounty’s cloaking device, he and Sydney can’t get it working without Geordie’s resentful help. Come on kids, get out of the way while dad, once again, picks up your mess and fixes the things you can’t cope with. The subtext is one of disappointment, of darn kids with their avocado lattes and oat milk toast who can’t do anything as well as their baby boomer forebears.

It’s an interesting perspective from a franchise that has always worried about its own coolness, fretting that it’s too thoughtful, too middle-aged. Chekov joined The Original Series cast because producers wanted to woo a younger crowd with a Davy Jones-type mop-topped pretty boy. This anxiety is most visible in the Next Generation movies, which are constantly battling each other in attitudes around age, aging and relevance. Generations leaves Picard at peace with his own age, but everything that follows repudiates that position, mostly as Patrick Stewart’s behind the scenes power grew, so did his desire to remake the character in his own image. The vest-clad man of action in First Contact, the romantic lead of Insurrection and the off-roading petrolhead in Nemesis all stem from this desire. Rather than a desire to become the wise, elder statesman of the Star Trek universe, Picard raged against the dying of his own light. And rather than lay the table for his successors, he judged them all and found them unworthy.

This mistrust of youth goes hand-in-hand with a fetishization of the past that goes beyond nostalgia and into paraphilia. “The Bounty” has not one, but two trips to space museums so that the fans can gawk at objects of desire, stripped of their context, there for nothing but fan service. Riker, Worf and Raffi beam onto Daystrom Station, home of Starfleet’s “most off the books tech, experimental weapons, alien contraband,” which when you think about it is really daft. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think the US Navy stores secret chemical weapons at MIT, which is, or was, the best point of comparison for a civilian robotics research institute. Along the corridor, there’s the Genesis Device! (Why? It was blown up when the Reliant combusted and turned into the Genesis Planet, its existence makes no sense) A Tribble! And James Kirk’s Corpse!... Wait, that seems weird, why do that? That seems weirdly perverse, why would you store a decorated officer’s dead body in a site for military weapons when there’s nothing special about his physiology in this timeline? Oh, that’s why, because our heroes don’t get to gracefully die in Star Trek any more, they just become objects of fetishization.

We get a brief cameo from Daniel Davis’ Moriarty as part of Daystrom’s not-quite security system before we hit the big reveal of the episode: Data!. Or, something else, a Soong-type android with the brains of Soong, Lore, B-4 and Data all mashed up in one body. (Why B-4 and Lore? Why would you put the unworkable prototype and the psychotic brains in there with the two functional ones? Because we’ll need an inevitable betrayal two or three episodes down the line, not because it makes sense.) And then we’re off to the fleet museum for a brief interlude of spaceship porn and, wouldn’t you know, the ships deemed worthy of preserving are almost all hero vessels from the Star Trek franchise. I mean, look, I’m a starship porn type of guy, and any loving shot of Andrew Probert and Richard Taylor’s Enterprise model will always have my heart soaring. But it just feels all so soulless, like the characters in Star Trek are now behaving like Star Trek fans.

The conclusion of the episode reveals the changelings stole Picard’s corpse from Daystrom Station for reasons as-yet unknown. Meanwhile, Riker has been captured by Vadic and taken to the Shrike, where he’s shown that the baddies have also captured Deanna. But not before the 70-year-old Riker is given a dose of good old 24-style face punching, to match the rest of the series’ Bush-era politics.

The biggest problem with this sort of all-the-characters-grew-up-watching-Star Trek nostalgia, of course, is that it collapses the size of your narrative universe. Star Trek is big and broad enough to sustain a massive trans-media ecosystem covering every corner of its fictional universe. But Star Trek: Picard makes out that Starfleet is made up of five ships not called Enterprise, none of which are worth remarking upon. The notion that the Enterprise is just one of hundreds, or thousands, of starships having wild and crazy adventures on the frontiers of space is beyond comprehension. In a way, I’m glad nobody in TV-land is familiar with Star Trek: New Frontier, lest it turned out that someone at Daystrom has collected Mackenzie Calhoun’s eyeballs on a shelf for the lolz.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/star-trek-picard-3-6-the-bounty-review-130030243.html?src=rss

The post Furies – Netflix Review (3/5) appeared first on Heaven of Horror.

There are over 14,000 species of mushrooms on Earth, ranging from poisonous death caps to delicious morels to mushrooms of the psychedelic variety. I’m sure you’ve seem them growing from soil, cow paddies, rotten wood, and just about everywhere else, and maybe thought, “How hard could it be to grow edible mushrooms at…

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Look, I’m not anti-bidet. I have one at home and I appreciate it. But there are some nonsensical bidet related myths going around that need to be flushed away. Chief among them: the idea that if you don’t use a bidet, you are walking around with a poop-encrusted butthole.

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The Pokit Pro and PokitMeter are all-in-one multimeters, oscilloscopes, and data loggers that fit into your pocket.

SLUDGE LIFE is a first-person / open-world / vandalism-centric stroll through a polluted island full of cranky idiots and a vibe so thick you can taste it and it's free on Steam until March 30th!

The post Free Game on Steam: Sludge Life appeared first on Indie Game Bundles.

Surprise! The long-promised patch that brings ray tracing to Elden Ring is here, over a year after release. There’s much more in the version 1.09 update besides – the patch notes list plenty of balance changes and bug fixes – but given the sheer amount of time the new ray tracing features have been in the works, not to mention the fact that Elden Ring has never exactly been an exemplar of technical reliability, I wanted to focus in on 'em and see what performance is like on PC.

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On March 15, 2023, the SEC announced a proposal for new cybersecurity requirements for covered entities.

The post Analysis: SEC Cybersecurity Proposals and Biden’s National Cybersecurity Strategy appeared first on SecurityWeek.

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This article contains spoilers for season 3, episode 6 of "Star Trek: Picard," "Bounty."

Fans who have been watching "Star Trek: Picard" are already well aware that the Klingon warrior Worf (Michael Dorn) has changed quite a bit since we last saw him in "Star Trek: Nemesis," but the rest of the crew he worked with on the U.S.S. Enterprise weren't quite up to speed. After helping to uncover more information about the weapons at the Daystrom Institute and the possible motives and plans of the terrorist Changelings, Worf and his work partner, Raffi (Michelle Hurd), convene with Admiral Picard (Patrick Stewart), Captain Riker (Jonathan Frakes), Commander Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), and Captain Shaw (Todd Stashwick), and it's the first time some of these old comrades have seen each other in a long, long time. Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) is overwhelmed with joy, giving Worf a big hug even though Riker reminds her that he's "not a hugger." It's an awkward reunion for Seven and Raffi as well, as they didn't leave their romantic relationship on a great note in season 2, so everyone's a little unsure of themselves in an already tense situation. 

What no one could have expected was that Worf's pacifism and new ways would annoy the heck out of Riker so much, or that it would be so much stinking fun to watch them butt heads in a very non-Klingon way. When the two team up, along with Raffi, to go get the superweapon out of the super-warehouse below Daystrom, there's a lot of charming and authentic banter between them, and it helps keep the fanservice-filled episode aloft. 

Reunited And It Feels So Weird

When Worf and Picard first reunite in the teleporter room of the Titan, Picard mentions that it's been a long time since they last saw one another, and Worf knows the exact time: 11 years, 5 months, 4 days. In those 11 years, he's had some contact with Riker through calls and video messages and Riker has sent him sour mead from Chateau Picard once a year, but the two have still missed a lot of one another's lives. While Picard seems shocked at Worf's appreciation for sour mead, he explains that "it is quite tart, sir." Given the Klingon's love of cranberry juice, it makes total sense that he would love a sour and slightly sweet alcoholic beverage. Mead is also the drink of Vikings, who bear cultural similarities to Klingons, but I digress. 

Much more surprising to everyone is that Worf has adopted a new life code that revolves around pacifism. That's right, a peaceful Klingon. Riker cannot even begin to believe that this could be true and questions his old friend with a simple "whoa, seriously?," to which Worf replies with an extremely on-brand "I just said it." Worf has never been one to mince words, but then again, he shows later in the episode that he has been working on more effective communication with non-Klingons.

A Changed Man

If someone on the Enterprise of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" or the titular space station of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" needed a blunt, honest opinion, they could always go to Worf. The Klingon officer may have been raised by humans, but he didn't have much of a filter or patience for human social norms, which meant that he could be hilariously frank. Even that seems to have changed, as he reacts to the awkwardness between Raffi and Seven by trying to comfort them with an anecdote about how he has "gone into battles with lovers countless times" and "it can be therapeutic." While he definitely went into battle with his Par'Mach'kai, Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) on a few occasions, this seems like a pretty strange reassurance for Worf to say. When Seven interrupts him to explain that she's not coming along, Worf sighs and explains:

"That is a relief. I was practicing deceit. Breakups on my home world seldom end without bloodshed."

Worf is trying to practice deceit, people! He's learning how to lie in order to prevent hurting other people's feelings. This Worf cares about people's feelings. Given his track record of being a stubborn, bull-headed dork used to getting his own way, that's pretty impressive. Honestly, Worf has grown and become a much more healthy, whole person, though there is still a sadness that lingers in him (likely grief over Jadzia, which never fades completely). One person doesn't like this more mature Worf, however, and that's Riker.

'I Don't Understand The World Anymore'

Poor Riker is absolutely flabbergasted by the change in Worf, trying to reconcile the pacifist sorta-samurai in front of him with the wild, grumpy barbarian he once knew. When Worf explains his commitment to pacifism, Riker sees it as an omen that they're all going to die, and he jokes as much. Joking has been his way of handling stress since "Next Gen," and he continues to joke by teasing Worf when he's startled by a genetically engineered "attack Tribble" being held in the basement at Daystrom. Worf, truly a changed man, points out that Riker finds "comfort in humor and humor in other people's discomfort." While he's not wrong, Riker is shocked, wanting to know why his old friend doesn't poke back like he used to. 

By the time Worf says that they will enter the dangerous, AI-booby-trapped room as "friendly energy," Riker has had enough. He mutters that he doesn't understand the world anymore, and even ends up finding comfort in the fact that the returned Moriarty (Daniel Davis) is still a jerk and therefore "consistent."

Despite all of this weirdness between Worf and Riker, the latter still sacrifices himself and gets captured by the enemy to save his Klingon comrade, along with Raffi and an android that's part Data (Brent Spiner). That sacrifice in turn makes Worf swear an oath to Picard that he will find Riker and bring him home. Even though these two men don't quite understand one another anymore, there's still a lot of love and respect there, and their friendship will endure.

New episodes of "Star Trek: Picard" premiere Thursdays on Paramount+.

Read this next: 14 Reasons Why Star Trek: Lower Decks Is The Best Star Trek Show

The post Worf Is a Changed Klingon On Star Trek: Picard Season 3 And No One Likes It (Except Us) appeared first on /Film.

This post contains spoilers for "Star Trek: Picard."

Throughout his seemingly unending tenure on "Star Trek," actor Brent Spiner has played the android Data, his own twin brother Lore, an android prototype named B-4, and the creator of all three, the elderly Dr. Noonien Soong. Additionally, since "Star Trek" takes place over such a broad timeline, Spiner also played the son of Noonien Dr. Altan Soong, as well as two of the character's ancestors, Dr. Arik Soong, and Dr. Adam Soong, the latter of whom lived in Los Angeles in 2024. That's six different characters. 

At the end of Start Baird's 2002 film "Star Trek: Nemesis," Data sacrificed his own life to blow up an enemy ship and save the U.S.S. Enterprise from destruction. At that point in "Star Trek," Lore had been deactivated, and the last Dr. Song had died of old age. The only remaining Data-adjacent character was B-4. Perhaps not content with only one Spiner in their universe, in 2020, the writers of "Star Trek: Picard" invented a dubious way to resurrect Data for the show's first season. It seems that someone salvaged a single particle of Data's body out in space somehow, and was able to — heavy sigh — clone his entire android brain, somehow. Data's consciousness and personality were encoded in a computer database, but not shunted into an android body. When the consciousness of Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) was downloaded into the same computer database, he was able to speak to Data briefly. Data felt he had lived a good life, and that mortality was increasingly appealing. Picard deactivated Data, effectively killing the character a second time. 

And yet, for the third season of "Picard," Data has returned. The reasons how are a little complicated.

Every Brent Spiner All At Once

In the sixth episode of "Picard," called "The Bounty," Worf (Michael Dorn), Raffi (Michelle Hurd), and Riker (Jonathan Frakes) have broken into the Daystrom station to investigate a mysterious weapon theft. They find that the station is guarded by a complex A.I. program that temporarily stymies them with holograms of crows and of Professor Moriarty (Daniel Davis). They eventually learn that the security system is tied into the android consciousness of ... well, it's not Data exactly. But it is Brent Spiner. 

A hologram of Altan Soong appears to explain that the aged android in front of them — Spiner is 74 — is a new android model that contains the complete experiences of Data, Lore, B-4, and even Data's short-lived android daughter Lal (Hallie Todd) from the "Next Generation" episode "The Offspring." When Worf and crew revive this new android, it begins to cycle through its personalities rapidly. It's Data for a few moments, but then becomes B-4, not recognizing anyone. Then Lore snarls at them. Spiner used to play various members of the same family, but it's rare that he is afforded the opportunity to play them all at once.

This new composite character — Datalore-4? — is of course a somewhat cheap opportunity for the writers if "Picard" to bring back a twice-dead character in as organic a fashion as they could muster (without time travel, at least). But it may have also been alluring to Spiner, as he wouldn't merely be reprising Data for the umpteenth time. Spiner has said in interviews that he is ambivalent about playing Data, and that he was finished with the character multiple times over. The composite android would, as audiences see, allow him to give a broader, more challenging performance.

Datalore-4

Spiner understood the dangers of playing a well-recognized character on "Star Trek." Many cast members of the 1966 series, for instance, became typecast and struggled to find high-profile work after their tenure on the show. Spiner once said in a TV guide interview that he could win an Academy Award for playing a role wildly against his type and aggressively demanding of his talents, and Data would still be listed first in his obituary. The idea of merely playing Data again was likely uninteresting to the actor. 

The composite android is not Data. It's a new character, recently constructed. It's several characters at once. Data, as Trekkies are able to point out, was constantly striving to be more human, fascinated by our species and the strange social foibles we adhere to. He didn't have emotions, however, beyond slight rudimentary reactions to things. While the "Star Trek" writers took a great deal of delight in teaching Data objective lessons about humanity, Data was often seen, even after seven years, approaching humanity with a fresh face every day. Data was, to employ an acting term, always on the same note. 

Throughout "Picard," however, Spiner has had a chance to do a lot more. His two Soong characters are dramatically different. Altan was timid and peaceful, Adam was aggressive and villainous. Now, with his new character, Spiner is allowed to be all his old characters at once, as well as something completely new. It's the ultimate Spiner "Star Trek" performance, a handy package for the actor to deliver everything at the same time. What audiences have seen so far has been nothing short of astonishing.

Read this next: The Strongest Star Trek Villains Ranked

The post Star Trek: Picard Season 3 is Giving Us the Ultimate Brent Spiner Performance appeared first on /Film.

This post contains spoilers for episode 6, season 3 of "Star Trek: Picard."

The most recent season of "Star Trek: Picard" initially sold itself as essentially a reunion special. Early trailers boasted that most of the main cast of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" would return, including Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Marina Sirtis, and Brent Spiner (even though Data had died several times over). While some Trekkies may have been excited about the promise of a reunion, other more cautiously pessimistic fans could immediately envision a plodding nostalgia-fest wherein characters do nothing but repeat old lines of dialogue, walk around on old sets, and become weepy over the tricorders they used several decades prior. 

Quite mercifully, in the new season's first five episodes, the nostalgia has been relegated to a mere steady drip. The "Next Generation" characters have been introduced slowly, making the reunions more organic. Additionally, they have all been allowed to grow up a little since audiences last saw them in "Star Trek: Nemesis," making the relationships strained rather than warm. This has made for better drama and better storytelling in general. Even when Ro Laren (Michelle Forbes) was brought back in episode five, it was handled with tact rather than nostalgia. It was fitting that Picard (Patrick Stewart) kind of hated her now. When the Changelings from "Deep Space Nine" were re-introduced, it was more mysterious than exploitative.

Episode six, however -- called "The Bounty" -- seems to have collapsed under its own restraint. "The Bounty" goes full-bore nostalgia, throwing in dozens of Easter eggs, cameos, and old-world "Star Trek" ships included for no other reason than for Trekkies to point in recognition. Frankly, it's embarrassing. 

The Easter Eggs Museum

At this point in the series, Worf (Dorn), Riker (Frakes), Crusher (McFadden), Picard, and Geordi La Forge (Burton) have all reunited thanks to the dictates of the season's plot. Worf and Raffi (Michelle Hurd) have been investigating who stole a particularly dangerous piece of technology from the Daystrom space station. That station happens to be located next to Earth and right by a well-regarded Starfleet ship museum. La Forge has become the curator and maintainer of said museum, allowing him to enter the story. While Worf, Riker, and Raffi break into the Daystrom station, Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers) and Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) stay on board the U.S.S. Titan and look out over the ships in the museum. 

A painful amount of time is spent looking at the ships. Seven scrolls through a database, and she and Jack comment on each of the ships that come up. Each ship comes with its own musical quotation from the series or movie in which it appeared. The U.S.S. Defiant gets a few strains of Dennis McCarthy's theme song. The Voyager gets the same from Jerry Goldsmith. Seven wistfully recalls it at the place where she was reborn. Jack looks at the Enterprise-A, last seen in "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country," and declares himself to be "a Constitution-class man." Even the H.M.S. Bounty, the Klingon ship used in "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" appears, and it is implied that its still-working cloaking device may come in handy. 

Each musical cue elicits nostalgic mistiness as well as bitter resentment. Trekkies do love canon references and have a sci-fi machine fetish -- we practically invented the practices -- but this kind of wallowing in the past is self-indulgent, even for a series called "Star Trek: Picard." 

The Easter Egg Institute

Even a moment's thought might have Trekkies questioning the very need for a starship museum. While it may be historically valuable to retain a few ships for their significance, I personally always got the impression that Starfleet vessels were recycled. Some of these ships are enormous, and the actual raw materials needed to make them can't be infinite. As such, surely the Utopia Planitia shipyards would constantly be receiving decommissioned ships to salvage for parts. Also, on "Picard," the ships appear to be constantly powered up, their lights shining through their windows and their warp engines lit. Are the ships always powered up and ready to go? Is life support on? Why use all that power to keep a century-old ship flight ready when there's no crew to operate it and no missions for it to go on? In light of these admittedly nerdy questions, the whole ship museum sequence emerges as gross pandering. 

Also pandering are the scenes on board the Daystrom station. It was established in the previous episode that Daystrom station is protected by an artificially intelligent security system that, as it turns out, adapts itself to the people breaking on board. When the station sees Worf and Riker sneaking inside, it initiated a security hologram program that resurrects the Sherlock Holmes villain Moriarty (Daniel Davis). This is a reference to two "Next Generation" episodes wherein the Enterprise accidentally created a sentient holodeck character that, in one instance, tried to take over the ship. There is no real reason for the character to appear on Daystrom station other than that Riker -- and the audience -- might recognize him.

The Joy Of Reference

While Riker, Worf, and Raffi are sneaking around the institute, they creep past any number of Easter eggs and references, passing lockers containing, say, the remains of Capt. Kirk, salvaged from the Veridian system. Worf finds a locker with a tribble in it, despite a story he told on "Deep Space Nine" where the Klingons destroyed the tribble homeworld. "Picard" is implying that every artifact from "Star Trek" has been stored here. The references and the corresponding theme music are insufferable, and they introduce strange new wrinkles into "Star Trek" lore. Why, for instance, keep a tribble in a space station? Either it's too dangerous to proliferate, or it's an extinct species that can be resurrected. Having one squirreled away in a remote secret locker doesn't help anyone. 

I want to state openly, however, that the references on "Picard" are of a different flavor than the many, many references one might find on any average episode of "Star Trek: Lower Decks," the animated series. It's notable that "Lower Decks" is a comedy series that plays openly with the usual formalism seen throughout "Star Trek." The characters are all ensigns, often called upon to do the most undignified jobs on a starship that has little to no prestige in the Federation. When massive elements of extant Trek lore appear on "Lower Decks," it serves as a comedic juxtaposition of the characters' smallness. Fans recognize it, but then the characters run past it, and we all have a hearty chuckle. 

"Picard" has no such humor, hanging its references with sticky, undue reverence. Just because a character, a ship, or a piece of technology is important to us the viewers, doesn't mean the characters would treat it the same. Trekkies can smell inorganic references a mile away.

Read this next: Every Star Trek Series Ranked From Worst To Best

The post Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Proves There is Such Thing as Too Many Easter Eggs appeared first on /Film.

This post contains spoilers for the sixth episode of season 3's "Star Trek: Picard."

"Star Trek: Picard" has all but reinvented itself in its ongoing third and final season, which has turned the spin-off series following the retired Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) into a "Next Generation" reunion special. Although opinions may vary regarding exactly how well-handled all the nostalgia continues to be (/Film's own Witney Seibold discussed this very aspect in his review of episode 6), it's difficult to deny the pleasures of seeing Picard and Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes) joined by the aged Klingon warrior pacifist Worf (Michael Dorn), Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden), and especially Commodore Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton). The beloved engineer's long-awaited appearance in the latest episode, however, brings more than mere nostalgia — it provides a whole new dynamic to the show's main cast.

In short, Geordi comes back just in time to set our renegade heroes straight and take on the role of the lone adult in the room.

Seriously, let's recap. To this point, Picard and Riker have essentially hijacked a Starfleet exploration ship (twice!) that was simply minding its own business, are responsible for the casualties of several officers who never signed up for this galaxy-spanning mission, and recklessly broke pretty much every regulation in the book along the way. These older versions of our "Next Generation" bridge crew are a lot different in both temperament and technique than they used to be, but at least some things apparently never change.

Thankfully, Geordi remains a voice of reason in the middle of all the chaos. And that's exactly why we love him.

A Rude Welcome

Who knew that the "Next Generation" characters would evolve quite a bit in the decades since we last saw them? "Picard" has gone to great lengths to test its title character's innate sense of idealism and self-righteousness through the reveal of Jean-Luc and Beverly's son, Jack (Ed Speleers). In addition, the reappearance of the defected Bajoran, Ro Laren (Michelle Forbes), exposed how the conflict between her and Picard has festered over the years. Riker has also changed — he's built a family with his "imzadi," Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), which has tempered his more impulsive instincts. Even Worf has undergone a dramatic transformation, becoming much less hotheaded and more prone to meditation than he used to be (to Riker's dismay, hilariously).

And when their adventure brings the USS Titan to Geordi's doorstep at the Fleet Museum space dock — home to the preserved relics of "every legendary starship" in Starfleet's service over the years — the desperate crew experiences a very different welcome than they expected.

Unlike Worf or Riker's tendency to follow Picard with no questions asked, a visibly angry Geordi promptly cuts the Starfleet fugitives down to size. No matter how genuinely urgent and desperate their plight (and being chased by Changelings who have infiltrated the highest levels of the Federation most definitely counts as that!), they still thoughtlessly endangered the well-being of those Geordi cares about most. It's no surprise that the engineer would eventually settle down, have kids, and that both his daughters Alandra (Mica Burton, LeVar's real-life daughter) and Sidney (Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut) would follow in his footsteps and join Starfleet. What shocks Picard, however, is his unwillingness to help in any way.

And, honestly, his reasoning is perfectly sound ... but, refreshingly, perhaps a little misguided.

Family First

With age comes wisdom ... and maybe a little bit of overcautiousness. The years have been kind to Geordi La Forge — he's graduated from the rank of Lt. Commander to Commodore and is the current station keeper of the Fleet Museum. But when Picard drops out of warp, unannounced and fully expecting his old engineer from the USS Enterprise to be genuinely happy to see him, well, Geordi is nothing short of peeved at his former captain's behavior. Unlike the good ol' days, when he chose to put himself at risk day in and day out, he had no say in this latest situation. And more importantly, neither did his daughters.

But even the most level-headed Starfleet commodore can still have room to grow. To his credit, showrunner Terry Matalas gives Geordi an interesting arc of having to come to terms with the fact that, like it or not, he himself taught his now grown-up children to follow their own convictions -- much as he once did while serving under Picard. In this case, that means being willing to provide whatever aid he can to the beleaguered Titan. Importantly, Geordi's reversal doesn't automatically justify Picard's run-and-gun attitude. Instead, the Commodore realizes that respecting his daughters' agency and reaffirming his faith in them is his top priority. Helping his old friends comes as a secondary concern, even though they're important to him.

So when the going gets tough, Geordi once again gets going. Forced into jerry-rigging a Klingon cloaking device onto the Titan, the Commodore rises to the occasion, makes use of his legendary engineering skills, and gets right back to work.

Meeting Your Heroes

Of course, not everyone in "Star Trek: Picard" immediately capitulates to Jean-Luc's whims. Though they've since come to a much greater understanding of one another, his roguish and estranged son Jack never lets Picard off the hook for his past mistakes. Riker himself, in fact, had to dress down his former Captain in a previous episode, when his insistence on attacking the villainous ship commander Vadic (Amanda Plummer) nearly cost them everything. But nobody, not even Geordi with his initial misgivings, can even approach the amusing vehemence of Captain Liam Shaw (Todd Stashwick).

Shaw's entire demeanor changes, however, once the venerable Geordi La Forge steps foot on his starship. His icy exterior melts in the presence of such Starfleet royalty, completely changing the stone-faced captain into a total fanboy. The fact that both are former engineers gives them an immediate common ground to appreciate one another's skills. Shaw, of course, has nothing but admiration for all the feats that Geordi accomplished in his heyday. As for the good Commodore, even he takes a beat in the middle of their dire emergency to communicate how impressed he is with Shaw's maintenance of the Titan amid extremely trying circumstances. Two nerds from entirely different walks of life bonding over their shared nerdery? That's what "Trek" is all about, baby!

The arrival of LeVar Burton in "Picard" had to be perfect, and episode 6 delivered just about as well as anyone could've hoped. By giving us an older, wiser, but still relatable Geordi, his potentially distracting presence only adds more meaning to the ongoing action. By gracing us all once again with his cool, calm, and collected personality, Geordi proves that a parent was just what everyone on "Star Trek: Picard" truly needed.

Read this next: 14 Underrated Star Trek: The Next Generation Episodes

The post Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Has Needed Adult Supervision, So Here's Geordi appeared first on /Film.

This post contains spoilers for "Star Trek: Picard" episode 6.

As one of the latter-most series in the "Star Trek" chronology, "Star Trek: Picard" often delivers fans the gift of retrospect. When the show isn't taking a critical look back at some of Jean-Luc Picard's (Patrick Stewart) leadership decisions, it's basking in the glow of nostalgia with a full "Star Trek: The Next Generation" reunion and references to various "Trek" shows of the past. This week was no different: a trip to Daystrom Station brought back a vicious tribble, Professor Moriarty (Daniel Davis), and a new Data (Brent Spiner), while Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) brought back a relic from Captain Kirk's days: the HMS Bounty.

"Trek" fans might remember the Bounty from "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home," the fourth installment in the "Trek" film series and the second directed by Leonard Nimoy. "The Voyage Home" is one of the more successful "Trek" films; it won over fans, made back five times its reported production budget at the box office, and was even nominated for four Oscars. Often referenced as "the one about saving the whales," the film also featured a unique and distinctive aircraft that the Enterprise crew temporarily called home: the stolen Klingon bird-of-prey that McCoy (DeForest Kelley) renamed the H.M.S. Bounty.

The Bounty actually first appeared in "Star Trek III: The Search For Spock," when Kirk (William Shatner) commandeered it while on a mission to rescue his Vulcan second-in-command and best buddy (Nimoy). In the opening scenes of "The Voyage Home," though, we see that the crew has painted the vessel's new name on its side. The Bounty was never seen again after "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home," until it suddenly made its triumphant — and stealthy — return in this week's episode of "Star Trek: Picard."

The HMS Bounty Returns

Although this week's episode is titled "The Bounty," it's not immediately clear that the Klingon bird-of-prey is going to be integral to the action. The plot picks up with Vadic (Amanda Plummer) on the hunt for Picard's crew, while a reunited team including Worf (Michael Dorn) and Raffi (Michelle Hurd) attempts to get to the bottom of the Changelings' new plan, which includes getting up to something dastardly on Frontier Day. Some of the crew heads to Daystrom Station to figure out what weapon the Changelings have stolen, but their mission isn't exactly as under-the-radar as they'd hoped it would be. Vadic's goons soon take aim at the Titan, putting Picard in a pickle. "Short of being invisible, we can't come back, not until they're unable to track us," Sidney La Forge (Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut) points out, and suddenly, Picard has an idea.

That's where Geordi comes in: Picard's crew visits him at the Fleet Museum, where he apparently works among the legendary decommissioned spacecraft of years past. It's a setting that allows for some nice walks down memory lane, as when Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) tells Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers) about the U.S.S. Voyager, the ship she called home, where she was "reborn." The conversation takes a surprising turn, though, when Seven tells Jack about the history of the Bounty. "Ah, right, the whole whale thing," Jack replies. It turns out, the Fleet Museum pulled the Bounty from the bottom of the San Francisco Bay after the events of "The Voyage Home."

This Nostalgic Reference Is Actually Central To The Plot

"The story goes they had a hell of a time finding it," Seven says knowingly, adding, "It disappeared." A-ha! No wonder Picard suddenly has time to talk to his old pal Geordi; the Bounty could be the key to keeping the Titan safe. While the two are busy trying to hash out their differences, the Titan suddenly gets a cloaking device upgrade. Geordi accuses Picard of stealing the cloaking tech from the Bounty — which he endearingly calls "my bird-of-prey" — but it's actually proactive Sidney and Jack who co-opted the Bounty's cloaking device to help their ship go dark.

While this is apparently a treaty violation that Picard says Starfleet can 'put on his tab,' the Bounty ends up helping the crew stay stealth long enough to get to the bottom of the Changeling mystery. In the end, the familiar ship is just a drop in the bucket of the episode's nostalgia, but at least it's a more clever and less extraneous reference than some of the other callbacks. "Star Trek: The Next Generation" fans have spent years hoping to see what Geordi's up to these days, and while "Star Trek: Picard" sometimes misses the mark with its character re-introductions, it does right by the engineer by tying him to the legacy of the franchises' most important and beloved ships.

"Star Trek: Picard" streams new episodes on Paramount+ each Thursday.

Read this next: Every Star Trek Movie Ranked Worst To Best

The post Picard Season 3 Returns to One of the Most Popular Star Trek Movies Ever appeared first on /Film.

JPMorgan Chase is planning to test new technology that would let consumers pay with their palms or faces at certain US merchants. From a report: The bank, home to one of the world's biggest payment-processing businesses, plans to roll out the service to its broader base of US merchant clients if the pilot program goes well, according to a statement Thursday. The pilot may include a Formula 1 race in Miami as well as some brick-and-mortar stores. "The evolution of consumer technology has created new expectations for shoppers," Jean-Marc Thienpont, head of omnichannel solutions for JPMorgan's payments business, said in the statement. "Merchants need to be ready to adapt to these new expectations." JPMorgan is seizing on the rising popularity of biometrics technology, which uses unique body measurements to authenticate a person's identity. The technology is expected to account for roughly $5.8 trillion in transactions and 3 billion users by 2026, JPMorgan said, citing Goode Intelligence. Here's how it works: Customers enroll their palm or face through an in-store process. Then, at checkout, they scan their biometric to complete the transaction and get a receipt.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Elden Ring update 1.09 will be rolled out for all platforms later today following server maintenance, FromSoftware has announced.

The news was posted on Twitter via the official Elden Ring Twitter account earlier today. Server maintenance will begin at 0:00 PDT | 08:00 CET | 16:00 JST and will take roughly 3 hours on platforms. The exact contents of the new patch haven't been shared just yet, but FromSoftware did reveal that it will offer bug fixes alongside balance adjustments. As soon as the full patch notes have been released, we'll update you.

The #ELDENRING servers will undergo maintenance today, March 23, 2022 to deploy patch 1.09.
This update contains balance adjustments and bug fixes.

Maintenance will begin at 0:00 PDT | 08:00 CET | 16:00 JST and last 3 hours on all platforms.

Thank you for your patience.

— ELDEN RING (@ELDENRING) March 23, 2023

Elden Ring is available globally now for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The game was released back in February of this year and has been amazingly successful ever since. As covered earlier today, FromSoftware's hit title won the Game of the Year Award at the GDC Awards 2023 last night. Previously, the game already won a GOTY award at the Game Awards, as well as our own GOTY award. Exact sales numbers haven't been shared, but we do know that the game has sold over 20 million copies worldwide.

An expansion for Elden Ring, called 'Shadow of the Erdtree', was officially announced last month. The DLC has yet to receive a release date but is expected to release by the end of this year. Here's what we had to say about FromSoftware's latest Souls title in our review:

"I tried hard to find any faults in Elden Ring, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find any outside of some technical issues that the developers could fix via patches", Francesco De Meo wrote in his review. "I firmly believe that perfection doesn't exist and that it is always possible to improve, but I really couldn't think of anything that Elden Ring could have done better. As such, the game wholly deserves a perfect score, an honor I would have given only to a couple of other modern games, not only for its extremely high quality but also for what it accomplished with its open world and for how it will surely influence video games as a whole in the future."

The post New Elden Ring Update 1.09 Being Deployed Today Following Maintenance; Includes Balance Adjustments and Fixes by Aernout van de Velde appeared first on Wccftech.

A friend, indeed

Are you sitting uncomfortably? I hope so, as it's time for the third episode in Nippon Animation's anime short series Leon and the Mysterious Village — commissioned by Capcom to promote this week's release of the highly anticipated remake, Resident Evil 4.

Episode 3, titled "Help us, Old Man", sees Leon and Ashley ask a friendly villager for help with escaping the crazy village and its infected cultists. As with Episode 1 and Episode 2, it, unfortunately, does not work out too well for our heroes — Though, to be fair, The Old Man does come through with their request, perhaps a little too enthusiastically. I actually thought that this was the funniest episode to date!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgDgKfauShw&ab_channel=capcomasia

Resident Evil 4, a remake of the 2005 GameCube classic, will offer fans a fresh, modern take on the terrifying odyssey of Leon and Ashley as they pick their way through a mysterious European village, fending off wild cultists, infected locals, and some of the creepiest enemies the Resident Evil series has ever known. Bolstered with the power of the tip-top RE Engine, Resident Evil 4 is looking to freak out even the most veteran fan of the original release.

Resident Evil 4 launches tomorrow, March 24, on PlayStation, PC, and Xbox platforms.

The post Episode 3 of Resident Evil 4 anime Leon and the Mysterious Village is the best yet appeared first on Destructoid.

Wherein we discuss the 2023 Oscars, Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Batman, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, Kingdom Hearts III, Diablo IV, Theatrhythm Final Fantasy, the end of the Wii U and 3DS eShop, the Dead by Daylight comic, and Star Trek: Picard.

Rob Zombie's first feature film, 2003's "House of 1000 Corpses," is a filthy little nightmare of a movie. Shot for only $7 million, Zombie's film took a lot of tonal and visual cues from Tobe Hooper's "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre," but filtered through the director's ultraviolent heavy metal sensibility. The film was bleak, violent, grimy, and uncomfortable. It also didn't make a lot of sense. What, for instance, was the true nature of the subterranean cyborg named Dr. Satan? It wouldn't be until the 2005 sequel, "The Devil's Rejects," that the true nihilism of the film's villains would be explored. Zombie didn't seem to care much about the victims of the wicked Firefly family -- mostly traveling students and tourists who stumble into the Firefly's unsavory roadside attractions -- choosing instead to focus on a family who have found solidarity in their mutual evil and innate need to kill and destroy. 

"House of 1000 Corpses" was not well-received upon its release -- it currently holds a mere 20% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes -- but it can now be seen as the bold first step in the career of an undeniably fascinating filmmaker. Every Rob Zombie horror movie, though often cheap, is always harrowing, and undeniably his. He is capable of oily, unpleasant exploitation movies -- "31" and "3 From Hell" fit this designation -- but he began skewing into more thoughtful, adult material as he matured. His 2012 film "The Lords of Salem," for instance, recast Satan as a tool of feminist vengeance. 

According to a report from Bloody Disgusting, Zombie, now 58, will be recording a brand new audio commentary track for "House of 1000 Corpses" to celebrate its 20th anniversary. A special edition Blu-ray will be made available on April 11, and Zombie's new commentary will be on it.

Zombie's Comment

The news of the track was announced on Zombie's Instagram account, the place where he most often contacts his fans (it was from Instagram that the public learned details of Zombie's most recent film, "The Munsters"). The filmmaker said he was working on recording the track that very day, posting, "In the studio today recording a new director's commentary for HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES. Last one I did was 20 years ago."

He also pointed out that his parking spot at the recording studio was, quite randomly, located right next to that of Chuck Norris. 

The Bloody Disgusting article also pointed out that the Blu-ray will possess the usual litany of special features, including interviews with the cast (including Zombie himself, the late Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, Sheri Moon Zombie, Karen Black, Rainn Wilson, Chris Hardwick, and others), a brief making-of documentary film, and other behind-the-scenes footage. 

The 2-disc Blu-ray will be released through Lionsgate, and a limited edition steelbook will be available exclusively at Best Buy. There must be an irony indeed of entering such a notoriously sterile retail environment like Best Buy to pick up one of the bloodiest and least pleasant movies of the last 20 years. Be sure to wear a clown costume when you pick up your copy, as to frighten the clerks and other customers. Then blast Zombie's cover of "Brick House" that he recorded with Lionel Ritchie especially for the film. 

The Best Buy version will cost $21.99. The expanded edition will retail for $44.99, as it will also contain miniature art prints, a miniature poster, and a 60-page book of photos.

Read this next: 14 Horror Movie Flops That Became Cult Classics

The post Rob Zombie Celebrates 20-Year Anniversary of House of 1000 Corpses with Brand New Commentary Track appeared first on /Film.

TlsChecker.cab なるアプリ作ってみた
.Net Framework 4.x で TLS 1.1-1.3が使えるかどうか確認します。



普通のWindows 2000/XP だとこうなるはず。
対応版だと TLS 1.1/1.2 にチェックが入ります ･ω･

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The North Korean advanced persistent threat (APT) actor dubbed ScarCruft is using weaponized Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) files to download additional malware onto targeted machines. According to multiple reports from AhnLab Security Emergency response Center (ASEC), SEKOIA.IO, and Zscaler, the development is illustrative of the group's continuous efforts to refine and retool its tactics