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When J.J. Abrams' feature film "Star Trek" was released in theaters in 2009, there seemed to be a clear creative mandate at work. "Star Trek" was set prior to the events of the 1966 TV series on which it was based, telling an alternate timeline version of how the well-known "Trek" characters all first met. Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto), and the rest of the crew were all depicted as younger, hotter versions of themselves, each one more youthful and impulsive than their adult counterparts from 1966.

Given the hot-headedness of the Enterprise crew and the entire 2009 film's "action-packed" vibe, the mandate mentioned above seems to have demanded the filmmakers kick everything into OVERDRIVE. It's as if they wanted critics to respond with the phrase, "This ain't your grandpa's 'Star Trek.'" 

It's worth noting that the writers of "Star Trek" -- Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman -- were basing their characters not on how they appeared in "Star Trek," but on a general, unfamiliar pop culture interpretation of them. Kirk, to cite the most obvious example of this, was depicted as a young, horny, arrogant ladies' man who winks at danger and is generally rude and reckless. The "reckless cowboy" image of Capt. Kirk (William Shatner) perhaps originated from a mere handful of 1960s behavior examples, paired with a healthy comparison to the far more studious Capt. Picard on "Star Trek: The Next Generation." In observation, Kirk was in fact a much more reasoned, restrained character than the pop image of him might have non-Trekkies believe. And yet, the cowboy was what a mass audience knew, so that's what the 2009 filmmakers went with. 

The real reason for Kirk's behavioral change, however, may be something far nerdier that can fit handily into "Trek" canon.

Kodos The Executioner

Yes, delving into the fineries of "Star Trek" canon is one of the dweebiest intellectual activities imaginable. But activating that particular neural gland gives Trekkies no small amount of pleasure, and good-natured nitpicking is one of our most edifying joys, so delve we shall, fellow nerds. Spreading headcanon amongst ourselves is the thing that brings us together. Indeed, credit goes to William Bibbiani for initially making this post's central observation. 

Trekkies may recall the original series episode, "The Conscience of the King" (December 8, 1966). In that episode, the Enterprise is called to a distant planet to investigate the identity of a local actor named Anton Karidian (Arnold Moss). Karidian is appearing in a local production of "Macbeth," and has spent the last few decades building his profile as a performer of classics. An old friend of Kirk's (William Sargent), however, strongly believes that Karidian is, in fact, Kodos the Executioner, a murderous monster who somehow escaped apprehension decades before and who changed his identity.

Years before, Kodos was the mayor of a distant Federation colony that was rapidly running out of food. The starships with supplies were so far behind, the colonists began to starve. Rather than let the colony waste away, Kodos elected to murder half the population. As it so happens, Kirk was present for the massacre of Tarsus IV. Kirk had moved away from Earth, only to witness the deaths of 4,000 people. By Trek's timeline, he was only 13 or 14 years old. 

In "Conscience," Kirk has to investigate Karidian to see if he is actually Kodos and also stem the rash of rage from other officers who also witnessed the killing. 

Surely, witnessing a massacre would change a child.

Trauma Versus No Trauma

Indeed, if Kirk has witnessed a massacre as a teen, having escaped being murdered himself, he would likely be a soberer, more wounded figure. He likely spent many years in counseling. It may also be what drew him to an organization like Starfleet, a peacekeeping outfit that is devoted to structure and exploration. Kirk was willing to engage in military tactics if the situation called for it (see: "Balance of Terror"), but he rarely went in with guns blazing and clearly had no taste for killing or for military conquest. 

The 2009 version of Kirk, meanwhile, was brash, lascivious, and rebellious. According to the timeline of the 2009 film, a vengeful Romulan named Nero (Eric Bana) traveled back in time to 2233, on the day of James Kirk's birth. He attacked the U.S.S. Kelvin, which was being piloted by Kirk's father George (Chris Hemsworth). In killing Kirk's father, the timeline shifted, and the entire "Star Trek" universe changed. In the parallel universe, a fatherless Kirk became an unsupervised brat, stealing vintage cars and listening to vintage music. His life of rebellion led others to encourage him to enlist in Starfleet (not apply for Starfleet Academy, weirdly), sensing that he is destined for great things. He never left Earth to live on Tarsus IV, and never witnessed a massacre. 

As such, this new version of Kirk wouldn't be marked by that trauma. He would, instead, experience a very general sense of 20-year-old ennui. 

(Curiously, Nero's time travel shenanigans also somehow changed where starships are built. In "Trek" lore, Starfleet vessels are constructed at the Utopia Planitia Feet Yards orbiting Mars. For some reason, in the Kelvin timeline, they're constructed on Earth only a few miles from Kirk's home).

The New Kirk

When the new Kirk became a Starfleet captain, it was without the sobering experience of youthful trauma, and without years of counseling. Shatner's Kirk was not immature nor rash. He did often rely on his masculine wiles to escape desperate situations, and did occasionally rip apart entire civilizations because they were, say, run by the malevolent computer Landru, but for the most part he was practical. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) was too logical to lead, and Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) was too passionate. He was the balance between the two. 

Conventional wisdom may dictate that the Enterprise crew as they appeared in the 2009 film were driven by their youthful energy and uncontrolled, immature impulses. This, I think, is only part of the story for Kirk. He's not just young in the 2009 film, but an entirely different character. When young Kirk cheats on the unpassable Kobayashi Maru test at Starfleet, he doesn't even pretend that he's being tested. Instead, he eats an apple and flippantly walks out of the room when he passes. Shatner's Kirk may have also cheated at the Kobayashi Maru, but surely he would not have been so brash about it. When it comes to growing up, Chris Pine's Kirk had a longer way to go. 

Also, the Kelvin-verse eventually saw the destruction of both the Romulan homeworld (in Nero's future timeline) and the destruction of the Vulcan homeworld (in the past). The Kelvin-verse "Star Trek" movies took place in an era of enhanced military preparation and constant violence. Pine's Kirk, then, would never be allowed to grow into a calm-minded, diplomatic leader. He would, rather, become a tactician, a winking military general, willing to take action. 

That is quite far from where Shatner's Kirk would end up.

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

The post The Real (Nerdy) Reason Why Chris Pine's Captain Kirk is so Different From William Shatner's appeared first on /Film.

A Chinese state-sponsored threat activity group tracked as RedGolf has been attributed to the use of a custom Windows and Linux backdoor called KEYPLUG. "RedGolf is a particularly prolific Chinese state-sponsored threat actor group that has likely been active for many years against a wide range of industries globally," Recorded Future told The Hacker News. "The group has shown the ability to

This article contains spoilers for season 3, episode 7 of "Star Trek: Picard." 

The best thing about the third season of "Star Trek: Picard" is getting to see all of our old friends (and foes) from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" again. Some fans had a difficult time with the first two seasons of the series (myself included), but season 3 has been like the "Next Generation" movie we always wanted, giving us some truly satisfying interactions between some of the franchise's most beloved characters. Occasionally the fanservice gets a bit overdone, but the simple joy of seeing the cast perform together overrides it all. After rescuing the Data/Lore human hybrid (Brent Spiner) from the basement of Daystrom, his former crewmates might have hoped to just boot him up and talk to Data, but things are never that simple. Geordi (LeVar Burton) explains that Data and his evil brother, Lore, are entwined within the same mind, and Lore's personality is just too strong. Booting them up could very easily mean Lore taking over and deleting Data, something Geordi says he simply couldn't bear. 

"Star Trek: Picard" has dealt with some pretty heavy problems that we encounter as we age, including inflicting generational trauma, the power of legacy, and how grief shapes us. Geordi's grief over the first death of Data has made him more protective over his daughters and more cautious in his own life, and it changed him as a man. Burton and Spiner get the chance to dig into that pain, and it's one incredibly emotional moment. 

Life Rarely Gives You Second Chances

When the situation on the U.S.S. Titan becomes dire as the villainous Vadic (Amanda Plummer) and her goons board, Geordi and his daughter Alandra (Mica Burton) hook DataLore into the ship's computers in hopes of defeating Vadic. Unfortunately, Lore does what Lore does best, and he unleashes chaos on the starship by assisting Vadic wherever he can. He also taunts poor Geordi while he does it, knowing full well that his other daughter, Sidney (Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut), is in grave danger. Geordi breaks down and starts appealing to Data, trying to get him to fight his way past Lore. He also seems to confess things that he's always wanted to say but never had the chance, and it's heartbreaking. He tells Data:

"Life rarely gives you second chances to say what you should. You made me better. You made me a better man, a better father, a better friend. And when you died, it broke me."

He goes on to explain how the memory of Data was the thing that kept him going even in his toughest moments, and Burton's voice cracks with grief. It's a stellar performance, and while Spiner has to give him almost nothing back because he's Lore, he does give brief moments of Data's recognition before the kinder, gentler mind is able to take over. It's a deeply nuanced performance that works perfectly counter to Burton's bigger, more emotive one, and the two play off of one another beautifully. 

'The Memory Of You'

Almost everyone on "The Next Generation" had some kind of personal relationship with Data, because he served as sort of the heart of the ship. He was like the Enterprise's tin man, forever looking for a heart despite the fact that he really had a huge heart all along. Geordi was one of the more reserved members of the crew and could be rather shy, especially compared to the boisterous Riker (Jonathan Frakes) or the theatrical Picard (Patrick Stewart), but Data could bring out his fun side. The two had an innocent and funny friendship that countered all of the seriousness of the series, and thinking of the loss Geordi must have felt when Data died the first time is devastating. 

Almost anyone who's ever lost someone has regrets or things they wish they could have said. The things that went unsaid are a huge part of grief, and when Geordi gets the chance to maybe tell Data those things, it's a healing moment for him. Data manages to pull himself out of the void and override Lore because of his love for Geordi, and it's powerful without being overbearing. Geordi's line about "the memory of you" is an all-timer and has the same kind of weight as Kirk and Spock's goodbyes at the end of "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan." "Star Trek: Picard" has had an emotionally resonant season 3 with lots of great moments, but Geordi and Data's heartfelt and heartbreaking reunion is one of the best.

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

Read this next: The Strongest Star Trek Villains Ranked

The post Levar Burton and Brent Spiner Just Gave Star Trek One of Its Most Emotional Moments Ever appeared first on /Film.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Microsoft is "exploring" putting ads in the responses given by Bing Chat, its new search agent powered by OpenAI's GPT-4. Microsoft confirmed this is happening, albeit in an experimental form, in a blog post published today. Here's the relevant bit from the very end after "a bit of context" explaining no one should be surprised: "We are also exploring additional capabilities for publishers including our more than 7,500 Microsoft Start partner brands. We recently met with some of our partners to begin exploring ideas and to get feedback on how we can continue to distribute content in a way that is meaningful in traffic and revenue for our partners. As we look to continue to evolve the model together, we shared some early ideas we're exploring including: - An expanded hover experience where hovering over a link from a publisher will display more links from that publisher giving the user more ways to engage and driving more traffic to the publisher's website. - For our Microsoft Start partners, placing a rich caption of Microsoft Start licensed content beside the chat answer helping to drive more user engagement with the content on Microsoft Start where we share the ad revenue with the partner. We're also exploring placing ads in the chat experience to share the ad revenue with partners whose content contributed to the chat response."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Earlier today, more than 1,100 artificial intelligence experts, industry leaders and researchers signed a petition calling on AI developers to stop training models more powerful than OpenAI's ChatGPT-4 for at least six months. Among those who refrained from signing it was Eliezer Yudkowsky, a decision theorist from the U.S. and lead researcher at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. He's been working on aligning Artificial General Intelligence since 2001 and is widely regarded as a founder of the field. "This 6-month moratorium would be better than no moratorium," writes Yudkowsky in an opinion piece for Time Magazine. "I refrained from signing because I think the letter is understating the seriousness of the situation and asking for too little to solve it." Yudkowsky cranks up the rhetoric to 100, writing: "If somebody builds a too-powerful AI, under present conditions, I expect that every single member of the human species and all biological life on Earth dies shortly thereafter." Here's an excerpt from his piece: The key issue is not "human-competitive" intelligence (as the open letter puts it); it's what happens after AI gets to smarter-than-human intelligence. Key thresholds there may not be obvious, we definitely can't calculate in advance what happens when, and it currently seems imaginable that a research lab would cross critical lines without noticing. [...] It's not that you can't, in principle, survive creating something much smarter than you; it's that it would require precision and preparation and new scientific insights, and probably not having AI systems composed of giant inscrutable arrays of fractional numbers. [...] It took more than 60 years between when the notion of Artificial Intelligence was first proposed and studied, and for us to reach today's capabilities. Solving safety of superhuman intelligence -- not perfect safety, safety in the sense of "not killing literally everyone" -- could very reasonably take at least half that long. And the thing about trying this with superhuman intelligence is that if you get that wrong on the first try, you do not get to learn from your mistakes, because you are dead. Humanity does not learn from the mistake and dust itself off and try again, as in other challenges we've overcome in our history, because we are all gone. Trying to get anything right on the first really critical try is an extraordinary ask, in science and in engineering. We are not coming in with anything like the approach that would be required to do it successfully. If we held anything in the nascent field of Artificial General Intelligence to the lesser standards of engineering rigor that apply to a bridge meant to carry a couple of thousand cars, the entire field would be shut down tomorrow. We are not prepared. We are not on course to be prepared in any reasonable time window. There is no plan. Progress in AI capabilities is running vastly, vastly ahead of progress in AI alignment or even progress in understanding what the hell is going on inside those systems. If we actually do this, we are all going to die. You can read the full letter signed by AI leaders here.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Star Wars actor Mark Hamill has lent his voice to a Ukrainian air raid app to warn citizens of incoming attacks during the ongoing conflict with Russia. The Verge reports: "Attention. Air raid alert. Proceed to the nearest shelter," says Hamill over Air Alert, an app linked to Ukraine's air defense system. When the threat has passed, Hamill signs off with "The alert is over. May the Force be with you." Invoking his beloved Luke Skywalker character, some of the lines contain recognizable quotes from the Star Wars franchise like "Don't be careless. Your overconfidence is your weakness." You can hear a few lines in the following video starting around 56 seconds in [here]. The crossover of sci-fi fandom might feel like it's trivializing the real-world conflict, but some Ukrainian residents have found solace -- or perhaps the Force! -- in Hamill's Star Wars-influenced voiceover. "It's a very cool phrase for this situation," said Olena Yeremina, a business manager in Kyiv, in an interview with The Associated Press. "I wouldn't say that I feel like a Ukrainian Jedi, but sometimes this phrase reminds me to straighten my shoulders and keep working."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This post contains spoilers for season 1 of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds."

The first season of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" has a Blu-ray set to be released into the universe, which includes (among other things) a gag reel of the cast breaking down on set. Jess Bush, who plays Nurse Chapel on the show, especially loves that gag reel. "I get all warm and fuzzy watching it," she told me in a recent interview. "There's the story and then there's behind the scenes moments that touch a special place in your heart." 

I talked with Bush about that gag reel (including who the actor was that made her laugh more than everyone else) as well as what we might see of Chapel in season 2 of the show, particularly in her relationships with M'Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) and Spock (Ethan Peck).

Note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

'We're There For So Many Hours A Day That You Start To Go A Little Bit Cuckoo'

I know you're doing these interviews to help promote the season 1 home video release. Have you seen any of the extended features on that at all?

I have. I have seen the gag reel, which is so fun. I get all warm and fuzzy watching it, because we get to see what was really going on for us. There's the story and then there's behind the scenes moments that touch a special place in your heart.

I would love to hear your thoughts about what it really was like on set between takes. Was it jovial?

I think it depended on what exactly we were shooting, whether the stakes were very high and there was a lot of moving parts. I think for more complicated scenes, people had to just be a little bit more focused. It also depended on who was working that day. Everybody has a different chemistry together. But most of the time, we're having as much fun -- it's a good time. Everybody's there creating something really special. And there's lots of time spent on set where we're waiting around and can chat. There's definitely some very silly, funny times. We're there for so many hours a day that you start to go a little bit cuckoo.

Is there one actor that always just cracked you up more than others?

Celia [Rose Gooding, who plays Uhura on the show]. She's just got the best spirit and is so passionate and dedicated to her work and also embraces the lightness. She's just a ray of sunshine always, singing always, laughing always, but also so heartful. I love her energy on set.

With Nurse Chapel — and I know you've talked about this before, about how you're taking on a legacy character and we're seeing different facets of her. But one thing I love about what we saw on season 1 was the relationships she forms with other crew members. She has very distinct and meaningful relationships with everyone, but especially with M'Benga, with Ortegas, and Spock, of course. I know you can't get into details too much about season 2, but I wondered if you could tease anything about how those relationships play out or interact in the upcoming episodes.

How can I do this without spoiling anything? I think Chapel's relationship with M'Benga is very special and very deep and almost familial, and that really gains more color in the second season. Her relationship with Spock gets a lot more complicated and deepens, as well. I think you just start to see a little bit more deeply into what Chapel provides in a relationship, whether that be platonic, familial, or romantic, both strengths and weaknesses. I really enjoyed fleshing that out in season 2.

'Let's Just Say Chapel Gets To Be A Total Badass'

We also saw in season 1 that there's some action scenes for Chapel. I wonder if there's anything you can say about your direct involvement in any action-related scenes for season 2.

Let's just say Chapel gets to be a total badass. I was very excited when I started to read the script for season 2 for that reason.

What was that like for you, preparing for that? Have you done a lot of action before, or is that something new for you?

I haven't done a lot. In an independent film I did when I was much younger, there was a bit of combat. But not in my work have I done a lot of action. I'm a very active person and naturally athletic, so I tend to take pretty quickly to choreography and physical challenges, which I feel very fortunate to have that natural ability. It was really fun to explore that more in an acting sense. I loved it.

And it must have been fun using the "Star Trek" props that are available to you for those things.

Yeah, totally. So many "pinch me" moments of being like, "I am doing X, Y, Z on a spaceship set. Wow. I'm 30, and I'm on a spaceship in Canada doing this crazy stunt."

'It Was Like A Sparkly Breath Of Fresh Air'

One episode we do know is coming in season 2 is the crossover with "Lower Decks." What was it like for you in that episode, that dynamic on set of having the "Lower Decks" folks there? How was that whole experience?

It was like a sparkly breath of fresh air. It was so, so fun. I remember in a table read when the folks from "Lower Decks" were in there, it just injected this whole other energy into our cast and everybody in the room lit up in this different way just because the tone of "Lower Decks" is so different to ours. So it was very exciting to have this new concoction of energy on set. It was so much fun. And [Jonathan Frakes, who also plays Will Riker in "Picard"] is so wonderful as a director. They were an absolute hoot, total professionals. So warm and inviting, and we had a great time.

Do you have a favorite scene from season 1 that just stuck with you?

There were a couple. Hemmer's funeral was really beautiful just because it was really moving. What we were shooting was very moving and very sad as [actor Bruce Horak] was also leaving the show, so it had some real weight to it. But also we were all there and we're not often all there at one time. So the days when we're on set and everybody's there are really special. And the director had an old record player and was playing old blues music between takes, so it had this very surreal, heartfelt vibe about the day.

But there was also a day on episode 9 — it was a whole day of scenes that were just me. It was all of the intense terror moments for that episode. It was an amazing acting challenge and so thrilling to tackle that on my own for the whole day. It was very rewarding. I loved that episode.

The first season of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" is now streaming on Paramount+ and available on Blu-ray.

Read this next: Every Star Trek Show And Movie In Chronological Order

The post Strange New Worlds' Jess Bush Says The Chapel/Spock Relationship 'Deepens' in Season 2 [Exclusive Interview] appeared first on /Film.

The return of actor, Ahmed Best, to the Star Wars franchise has sparked a new theory for The Mandalorian suggesting the actor’s original character, Jar Jar Binks, will return alongside Best’s Jedi role as Kelleran Beq.

Star Wars fans will know that Best first appeared as Kelleran Beq in the game show, Jedi Temple Challenge, wielding a purple lightsaber, which caused fans to think Mace Windu had returned in episode 4.

Created by Jon Favreau for Disney Plus and starring Pascal as the titular bounty hunter, The Mandalorian follows Din Djarin who is hired to track down a child known as Grogu – more commonly Baby Yoda – but ends up doing everything he can to protect him from Imperial forces.

• MORE MANDO: The Mandalorian actor Matthew Bellows previously worked stunts in Hereditary

The Mandalorian Jar Jar Binks theory

Shared by the TikTok user, Bombastic, this Mando theory picks up after the events of episode 4, The Foundling, within the Order 66 arc.

Kelleran Beq saves Grogu from the Jedi Temple, and the Jedi reassures the child that they are going to meet up with some friends of his.

After Beq crash lands and meets with a member of the Royal Naboo Security Force, he then flies off in an H-type Nubian yacht.

This sparked the theory that Beq’s next location will be Naboo and one of the friends he plans to meet up with is Jar Jar Binks.

Jar Jar Binks is from the Gungan race and served as a military commander and politician on his homeworld of Naboo, later assuming an important role during the Invasion of Naboo and the Clone Wars.

The creator explained how the people of Naboo are currently open to uniting with the Jedi against the opposing forces at this point in the timeline and Jar Jar is a prominent figure who could help.

Having Ahmed Best return to not only his Jedi role in The Mandalorian, but also his voice role as Jar Jar Binks, would be a monumental moment in the franchise. 

@staybombastic

Do you think they’re going to do this? #starwars #starwarstiktok #fy #fyp #foryou #foryoupage #gaming #gamingontiktok #gamingdaily #starwarsmemes #disney #starwarsfan #mandalorian #themandalorian

? original sound – Bombastic

• MORE MANDO: Star Wars fans still hope Hondo Ohnaka will appear in The Mandalorian

The Mandalorian episode count and release schedule

The Mandalorian season 3 is confirmed to have eight episodes, following the episode count of its previous two seasons.

Season 3 will follow the pattern of most Disney Plus shows and release weekly, with new episodes airing on a Wednesday.

Each episode lasts between 30-50 minutes and the season 3 finale is confirmed to take place on Wednesday, April 19, 2023.

Season 3’s full release schedule reveals when you can catch every new episode of The Mandalorian until the finale.

By Jo Craig – jo.craig@grv.media

The Mandalorian season 3 is now streaming on Disney Plus.

The post The Mandalorian theory suggests Jar Jar Binks will return with Ahmed Best appeared first on ForeverGeek.

Chinese cyberespionage group Mustang Panda was seen targeting maritime, shipping, border control, and immigration organizations in recent attacks.

The post Over 200 Organizations Targeted in Chinese Cyberespionage Campaign appeared first on SecurityWeek.

A group of academic researchers devised an attack that can intercept Wi-Fi traffic at the MAC layer, bypassing client isolation.

The post New Wi-Fi Attack Allows Traffic Interception, Security Bypass appeared first on SecurityWeek.

I love all things The Last of Us, so it pains me to report that the PC port of The Last of Us Part I, which launched yesterday, is a buggy mess. Thousands of reviews on Steam are categorized as "mostly negative" and are filled with mentions of frequent crashes and poor hardware utilization. Meanwhile, Steam Deck users are reporting that it takes more than an hour for the game to compile shaders on its initial launch — and even once that's done, performance is an issue. 

I don't have a powerful gaming PC, but I do have a Steam Deck and can confirm these issues. Once I got the game installed and waited around 90 minutes for the shaders to compile, I started playing the standalone DLC Left Behind, and the game crashed during the opening cinematics. Once I started playing the game, I saw it was using 102 percent of the Steam Deck's VRAM. Dropping all graphics settings to low got me under 100 percent, so crashes will probably be less frequent going forward. I only played for a few minutes, so I can't say how things work once you're taking on Infected, but I won't get my hopes up. 

A few hours after this story was first published, Naughty Dog released the game's first patch, a hotfix for some of the stability issues. The company didn't have a ton of details on the specifics, but it says that more updates will be coming soon. I spent an hour playing the first part of the game on the Steam Deck, and it feels a lot more solid than it did yesterday, though I still haven't gotten to the most graphically intense sequences yet. Still, things seem to be moving in the right direction — playing on medium with the frame rate set to max out at 40fps, things ran pretty smoothly.

It's worth nothing that Sony didn't provide reviews with a demo code for the game until launch day, something that often means the game is either being worked on right up until the last minute or the experience isn't very good (or both). This made a bit nervous about how The Last of Us Part I would run, and it seems like my fears were well-founded.

Photo by Nathan Ingraham / Engadget

Developer Naughty Dog didn't waste any time addressing the problems, tweeting out last night that they're "actively investigating multiple issues" that players have reported. The company also has a "known issues" page running, which acknowledges the shader loading issue as well as a potential memory leak, older graphics drivers leading to instability, and the game being unable to boot despite systems that meet the minimum requirements.

A number of high-profile PlayStation games from Sony's first-party studios have been ported to PC, including 2017's Horizon Zero Dawn and 2018's God of War, as well as Naughty Dog's own Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves collection (which includes remastered versions Uncharted 4 and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy). Both Horizon and the Uncharted collection had pretty serious issues at launch, as well. Since then, updates have made the games work much better, but it's still a disappointing trend. 

Even after delaying the game about a month from its original March 3rd date, things were clearly not ready to go. Sony likely wanted to capitalize on the popularity of the HBO series, which wrapped its first season earlier this month, but a delayed launch is probably better than a launch that no one can play. As of now, Naughty Dog hasn't released an update for The Last of Us Part I, but we'll be keeping an eye out for any fixes. I've been dreaming of having this game on-the-go since it was announced, so my fingers are crossed Naughty Dog can make it work on the Steam Deck — not to mention for the many people who want to play it on their powerful gaming PCs.

Update, 3/29/23 3:25PM ET: Added details about the first patch that Naughty Dog just released to address performance issues.

Update, 3/29/23 4:20PM ET: Added details about how the game plays on Steam Deck following the patch.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-last-of-us-part-i-for-pc-is-a-buggy-mess-144036281.html?src=rss

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7 Best Ad Blocking DNS [Free & Paid] is a post from: Raymond.CC Blog

This article contains spoilers for season 3, episode 5 of "The Mandalorian."

Series creator Jon Favreau certainly knows that the Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal, et al) and Grogu duo is a huge reason why viewers continue to tune in to "The Mandalorian" on a weekly basis -- but the show isn't solely about their (mis)adventures. Throughout the course of a little over two and a half seasons, the pair have come across several fan-favorite characters who could easily shoulder the weight of their own entire spin-off shows. Some of these guest stars, such as Temuera Morrison's Boba Fett and assassin Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen), have already gone on to headline "The Book of Boba Fett." Others, such as Timothy Olyphant's Cobb Vanth or Katee Sackhoff's Bo-Katan Kryze, have stolen the spotlight during their many appearances yet remain supporting players. With the latest episode, however, we may have just received our biggest hint yet at what a since-shelved spin-off could've looked like.

Early on in "Chapter 21: The Pirate," the assault on Nevarro by the pirate warlord Gorian Shard (Nonso Anozie) motivates the reluctant Magistrate (er, make that High Magistrate) Greef Karga (Carl Weathers) to send out a distress call to the New Republic. Who else but our old friend Captain Carson Teva, the X-wing pilot portrayed by Paul Sun-Hyung Lee in season 2, should respond with the urgency the situation requires. But as he struggles to get the slow-moving New Republic bureaucracy on Coruscant to approve sending reinforcements and protect the planet, this plotline can't help but recall Lucasfilm's plans for a very different "Star Wars" show altogether.

In effect, "The Mandalorian" is giving us a glimpse into what the now-scrapped "Rangers of the New Republic" spin-off series could've been.

Your Mission, Should You Choose To Accept It...

In a better world, Disney and Lucasfilm would've originally cast a much less vitriolic (and, dare I say it, slightly more talented) actor than Gina Carano as Cara Dune, the ex-Rebel soldier featured in the first two seasons of "The Mandalorian" who was meant to lead "Rangers of the New Republic." In light of her terribly offensive comments, the studios made the wise choice to part ways with her entirely and cancel any plans for her spin-off series. But while all that storytelling potential seems to have been squandered, "The Mandalorian" might have repurposed some of that original concept into its latest episode.

The indications of what this spin-off could've been start when we visit Carson Teva in a ramshackle bar populated by other former Rebels and now-current Rangers of the New Republic. Alerted to the message sent by Greef Karga, Teva happens to be the one to spring into action in honor of their past shared history. But it's easy to imagine an entire series where Dune, Teva, and other do-gooder adventurers respond to distress calls scattered throughout the galaxy, operating as the law people of the Wild West -- an apt comparison in an episode featuring pirate kings and other criminals running roughshod in a chaotic, post-Empire galaxy.

While Teva's rescue efforts get caught up in the muck of New Republic politics, stonewalled from helping because of petty bureaucracy, that only makes the prospects of a ragtag and technically law-breaking group of renegades acting in the best interests of the defenseless all the more exciting. Without the help of the New Republic government and free to choose their own missions, I for one would've been on board with the "Star Wars" version of Ethan Hunt and the Impossible Mission Force.

Filling In The Gaps

While the overall reputation of the sequel trilogy has been soured by the thoroughly divisive "The Rise of Skywalker," there's one major oversight from "The Force Awakens" that may have kneecapped the new movies before they ever really got off the ground. Decades after the fall of the Empire, the state of the galaxy and its new political reality without an evil emperor calling all the shots anymore were never really explored at all. Sure, we knew that the First Order had risen from the ashes of the Empire, the Rebellion had been replaced by the Resistance, and somewhere in the middle of it all was some government entity known as the New Republic. Otherwise, however, "The Force Awakens" never really stopped to explain any of this.

Now, it seems that "The Mandalorian" has decided to help tie up some of those loose ends, paying off Kathleen Kennedy's prior comments that "Rangers of the New Republic" would "...figure into future episodes, I'm sure, of the next season of 'The Mandalorian.'"

That seems to have come to fruition, as season 3 dives further into the new status quo of a recently-freed galaxy. Just because the Empire is (mostly) no more, naturally, doesn't mean that bandits and pirates and certain overambitious Imperials no longer pose a threat. By bringing Teva back into the action and finding himself at the whims of a corporate quagmire on Coruscant, "The Mandalorian" continues its interest in paralleling the New Republic with the Empire. In the process, season 3 may be killing two birds with one stone: providing important world-building context for the New Republic while giving us more insights into the paths left untraveled in "Rangers of the New Republic."

New episodes of "The Mandalorian" premiere on Disney+ on Wednesdays.

Read this next: Star Wars Movie Villains Ranked Least To Most Powerful

The post The Mandalorian Reveals What The Canceled Rangers Of The New Republic Spinoff Could Have Been appeared first on /Film.

This article contains spoilers for season 3, episode 5 of "The Mandalorian."

The question of what, exactly, "The Mandalorian" is about has eluded the first live-action "Star Wars" show. It is not about bringing Grogu "home," since the series already did that in season 2. It is not about discovering the fate of Mandalore, because that happened early on in season 3. So, the only logical conclusion is that the show is about Mandalorian culture as a whole, and the slow process of reclaiming the Mandalorians' lost homeland and its massive treasure of precious metal beskar. In a way, that makes it the "Star Wars" equivalent of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit," which would make Grogu the show's Bilbo Baggins — in a matter of speaking.

It makes sense, then, that the show has shifted focus from Din Djarin to Bo-Katan, the most capable Mandalorian, the one who actually knows Mandalorian culture, had seen the planet Mandalore before its destruction, and has a personal stake in its retaking, as well as experience in leadership. We have seen her struggle in the fight to reclaim Mandalore — and get so sad about losing her squad that she didn't leave her chair for nearly two whole episodes — and we just saw her get tasked with uniting the different Mandalorian clans for whatever this show's answer will be to the Battle of the Five Armies.

There is just one problem: The main Mandalorian clan we know in the show, the one we are seemingly meant to follow and support, is a violent extremist cult of religious zealots that caused a civil war on Mandalore and even supported Darth Maul. And how do characters on "The Mandalorian" react to this information? With the shrug emoji, basically.

Wasted Possibilities

In season 2, when we met live-action Bo-Katan, she explained that the group of Mandalorians we had been following on the show up to that point (the ones who had saved Din Djarin as a kid and given him shelter) were not like the rest of the Mandalorians, but actually an extremist cult called the Children of the Watch. They are obsessed with restoring the Way, an ancient faith of the first Mandalorians that they deemed had been lost by the rest of their kin.

This explains why this particular group of Mandalorians never remove their helmets when everyone on Mandalore was fine with it during the Clone Wars. Indeed, they are extremely weird about the whole helmet rule (which the more we find out about, the less it makes sense), and why they kicked Din Djarin out for removing his helmet despite it being in front of his adopted son, who is now an official Mandalorian foundling!

This prompted many (including me) to assume that the show was going to go on a deprogramming arc for good old Din, who was going to realize that his adoptive family was full of cultists and he had to learn what it truly meant to be a Mandalorian, without the whole indoctrinating children thing. Except, the series appears to be headed in a different direction.

Instead, season 3 has seemingly forgotten all about the Children of the Watch being zealots. Instead, they've become major characters we are supposed to care about and who have welcomed Din into their ranks full-time now that he bathed in some special water. Paz Vizsla, who once tried to kill Din, is now his biggest fan, and we are apparently meant to simply forget he's descended from an infamous Mandalorian terrorist from the Clone Wars.

Forgotten Threats

For the uninitiated, the Death Watch was a terrorist splinter group of Mandalorians during the Clones Wars that was fixated on restoring what they believed to be the true way of Mandalore -- one they felt the planet's pacifist government led by Bo-Katan's late sister, Satine Kryze, had strayed away from. They even attempted to take over the planet several times and eventually resorted to allying with Darth Maul to seize control. Paz Vizla's ancestor, Pre Vizsla, was the leader of this terrorist group, and Bo-Katan herself was a member at one point.

Considering Death Watch was a huge part of the animated "Clone Wars" TV series, it's kind of baffling to see "The Mandalorian" tease some kind of reckoning for the organization, only to apparently swerve in the opposite direction. What's more, season 3, episode 5 ends with The Armorer charing Bo-Katan with uniting all Mandalorian tribes, yet there's no mention of whether they are going to make a truce or if the intention is to indoctrinate them all into the Children of the Watch.

The fact that we don't know, coupled with the show's apparent lack of interest in exploring what the Children of the Watch even stand for anymore, is a huge wasted opportunity at best, a betrayal of "Clone Wars" at worst.

New episodes of "The Mandalorian" premiere Wednesdays on Disney+.

Read this next: The Biggest Questions The Mandalorian Season 3 Needs To Answer

The post The Mandalorian Season 3 Really Wants Us to Like the Extremist Group, Doesn't It? appeared first on /Film.

Love running around blowing everything up? There's a quality new game selection in the Best of Boomer Shooters bundle.

[link] [370 comments]

quonset writes: In what has to be one of the most inconceivable confluences ever, the Norwegian company Nammo says it is unable to expand its production of artillery shells to support Ukraine because of "cat videos" on TikTok. To placate European scrutiny, TikTok is opening two data centers in Europe to house European user data locally. One of those data centers is in the Hamar region of Norway. Because of this expansion, there is no excess capacity for the factory to ramp up production of artillery shells. "The chief executive of Nammo, which is co-owned by the Norwegian government, said a planned expansion of its largest factory in central Norway hit a roadblock due to a lack of surplus energy, with the construction of TikTok's new data centre using up electricity in the local area," reports the Guardian. "Elvia, the local energy provider, confirmed to the Financial Times that the electricity network had no spare capacity after allocating it to the data center on a first-come, first-served basis. Additional capacity would take time to become available." "We are concerned because we see our future growth is challenged by the storage of cat videos," Morten Brandtzaeg told the Financial Times.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft, extending a frenzy of artificial intelligence software releases, is introducing new chat tools that can help cybersecurity teams ward off hacks and clean up after an attack. From a report: The latest of Microsoft's AI assistant tools -- the software giant likes to call them Copilots -- uses OpenAI's new GPT-4 language system and data specific to the security field, the company said Tuesday. The idea is to help security workers more quickly see connections between various parts of a hack, such as a suspicious email, malicious software file or the parts of the system that were compromised. Microsoft and other security software companies have been using machine-learning techniques to root out suspicious behavior and spot vulnerabilities for several years. But the newest AI technologies allow for faster analysis and add the ability to use plain English questions, making it easier for employees who may not be experts in security or AI. That's important because there's a shortage of workers with these skills, said Vasu Jakkal, Microsoft's vice president for security, compliance, identity and privacy. Hackers, meanwhile, have only gotten faster.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This post contains spoilers for the "Yellowjackets" season 2 premiere.

"Have a little cannibalism, as a treat." So said the season 2 premiere of "Yellowjackets" in its closing moments, as the teenaged Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) chomped down on her BFF Jackie's (Ella Purnell) severed ear two months after the latter froze to death in the season 1 finale. It was a characteristically surprising payoff for Showtime's multi-timeline cannibalism thriller, a series that spent its initial 10 episodes messing with the very conventions of the puzzle box TV series format.

Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, though, we probably should've seen this coming ... and not just because it was subtly foreshadowed in season 1, as /Film's BJ Colangelo observed in her meticulous breakdown of the season 2 premiere. Prior to being stranded in the Canadian wilderness with their fellow Yellowjackets, Shauna and Jackie had a co-dependent, toxic relationship that felt all too real. Heck, even after finding themselves trapped in life-and-death circumstances, Jackie couldn't help but make something as important as Shauna's unplanned pregnancy all about her. Once she discovered the identity of Shauna's baby daddy to be, it was inevitable the two were headed for a brutally painful breakup.

Considering Jackie died right after their big blow-up, before the pair could make so much as a first attempt at mending fences, it's no wonder we found the deeply-traumatized Shauna imagining conversations with her friend's frozen corpse in the season 2 premiere (going so far as to fill out her notebook to maintain the illusion). According to the "Yellowjackets" showrunners, there was never any question as to whether or not Shauna would eventually turn to literally consuming Jackie to hold onto her. No, the real point of contention among the show's creatives was how best to depict the ear-munching itself.

Destroy That Which You Love

Speaking to Variety, "Yellowjackets" co-showrunner Jonathan Lisco noted there is, in fact, a practical reason for Shauna being the first Yellowjacket to turn to cannibalism. "Of course, she's hungry and she's pregnant, so she eats the ear that accidentally broke off when she pushed Jackie down — but it's really about their friendship," he commented, adding:

"It's about this very specific friendship that Jackie and Shauna had, where Shauna loves Jackie, but also was always in her shadow. She adored this friend of hers, but also in some ways, was always wanting to kind of destroy her — maybe that's going a bridge too far? But I think that is very relatable to a lot of people who are in these intense friendships."

Indeed, this idea of wanting to destroy that which you love isn't limited to unhealthy relationships between humans. It's also at the heart of toxic fandom, wherein people form harmful attachments to the pop culture they enjoy, even tying it to their identities in a way that brings Shauna and Jackie's dynamic to mind. It's how we end up with fans defending corporations over individuals, as they go from finding legitimate enjoyment in engaging with something to merely "consuming" the thing. So it is with Shauna, Lisco reasoned, albeit with "consumption" taking on a much more literal meaning:

"And so the next step of that is consumption, right? I literally want to consume this person, because I love them so much — but I also want them no longer to exist in a way. I also want to keep them a part of me for my entire existence. We were playing with that kind of plasticity on a psychological and emotional level, and not just have it be about, 'Oh, I'm gonna eat the ear!'"

How Does One Eat An Ear, Anyway?

Co-showrunner Bart Nickerson not only echoed Jonathan Lisco's observations during that same interview, he took them one step further. "Two things. This idea of wanting to destroy that which you love — there's almost a part of me that's starting to create this theory that those aren't actually opposing views," he explained, comparing it to when people claim "they're just so overwhelmed with cuteness and affection that they actually want to destroy the thing that is the object of that."

Perhaps proving his point that certain things might not exist in opposition to one another the way we assume, Nickerson shifted pretty smoothly from that rather disturbing insight to a much more darkly comedic tone:

"And then the other thing is — and I usually don't want to do this, talk about what almost was — but I just think it's hilarious the amount of time that we spent both in breaking writing, and then in editing, deciding how much of the ear — like, should it go in the mouth, should it not go in the mouth? Should there be a chew?"

Co-showrunner Ashley Lyle added:

"There's a crunch, yeah. We went for it. We ultimately decided to go for it, but definitely debated endlessly. Cutting as it went up. And it felt as though — like, we're already here."

The end result is a pretty perfect mic-drop to the season 2 premiere, capped off by Tori Amos' "Cornflake Girl" playing over the closing credits. It's unquestionably to the show's benefit its creatives took so much time getting Shauna's big moment precisely right. All we need is a taste of what's to come for the time being. Er, you know what I mean.

New episodes of "Yellowjackets" stream Fridays on Paramount+ and air Sunday evenings on Showtime.

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

The post Shauna's Big Moment At The End Of Yellowjackets' Season 2 Premiere Was A Constant Debate Behind The Scenes appeared first on /Film.

Quality has its price! | Noctua offer a wide portfolio of high-performance air coolers and have been regarded as a top brand for years when it comes to the topic of air cooling. In this short review, we have taken a closer look at the Noctua NH-U9S, the NH-D9L and the NH-La9-AM5, which can be fitted into many cases thanks to their size. Additionally, we have tested whether the three test subjects could tame an AMD Ryzen 5 7600X.

If you know the name Quentin Dupieux, you likely know it from "Rubber," the slapstick thriller about a sentient, bloodthirsty car tire he directed in 2010. Now acclaimed in his home country of France for his unique brand of surrealism — at once wickedly humorous and nonchalant, even underplayed — Dupieux's filmmaking career took off in America with a string of riffs on schlock films. Before that, he was acclaimed (again) in France as Mr. Oizo, an electronic musician whose 1999 single "Flat Beat" spawned the beloved Levi's mascot "Flat Eric," built by Jim Henson's Creature Shop.

Dupieux has lived a storied life, and his latest film, "Smoking Causes Coughing," could only have been made by someone who understands the power of stories. The film follows a ragtag squadron of superheroes called The Tobacco Force who harness the powers of noxious fumes to destroy giant turtles and evil lizard men from space. More Power Rangers than Avengers, the members of the relatively gentle Tobacco Force are played by some of the leading stars of the French film scene, such as Anaïs Demoustier and Vincent Lacoste.

But "Smoking Causes Coughing" plays like a perfect antidote to superhero franchise fatigue. Rather than build the film around climaxes of righteous violence, Dupieux sends his supes to a lakeside relationship-building retreat, allowing the stories they tell each other beside the campfire to take over the film: A man alive despite being processed to the neck by a woodchipper; a "cone of contemplation" which turns a placid holiday into a horror movie; a tragic tale of ecological betrayal from the POV of a fish.

Dupieux has cooked up another weird and wild ride, and in the interview that follows, he gets into stories about storytelling, financing your most out-there ideas, and the Marvel and DC of it all.

Note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

'I Was Obsessed By This Idea Of A Tire Slowly Following A Girl'

I'm curious, because you are the sole writer of almost all your films, what is your way in? What's the first thing that brings you into a new project? Is it a character, is it an image, a concept?

It depends, actually. It's never the same thing. To give you a very easy example, when I did "Rubber," the movie about the tire, I only had this visual in mind. I was obsessed by this idea of a tire slowly following a girl — a little bit like "Jaws," the shark movie, but with a tire. And that was the visual I had in mind, this tension of following a tire who is actually following someone. This was very exciting, and that's how I started writing the movie.

Then when I did the giant fly movie, "Mandibles," I wanted to work with these two French comedians [David Marsais and Grégoire Ludig] because they inspired me. So I started creating stupid characters for them. This led me to the fly concept. It's never the same, it depends on the movies, but usually there's a desire for a visual idea.

Was it the same for "Smoking Causes Coughing?" What was the thing that got you into the script?

I wanted to create, let's say, a new ... even if it's not new, because we've seen movies like this, like "Creepshow," for example. Do remember "Creepshow?" You're maybe too young.

Of course.

So, I know I didn't create this concept of a movie that tells different stories inside, but when I started writing this one, I was looking for a new structure, a movie with some surprises inside, like, "Oh, there's another story." And then you come back to reality, but then you go somewhere else. That was the main goal, to basically create a new format, even if I know it's not new. But it was new for me.

'Everything Was A Nightmare To Me'

One thing that has been a huge subject of conversation lately is that these blockbuster superhero movies are not doing well. It seems like we might be at the end of this period of supercharged activity. So this film was really refreshing to me. You could have made a kind of cruel and snide movie, because everybody's so sick of superheroes. But you treat your characters with compassion, they're all so lovable, and they're also not buffoons. Creating that anchor story, were you thinking at all about the big superhero trend — Marvel, DC, all that — or was this something totally separate?

No, because actually I know nothing about these movies. I only see the posters. I know there's a lot of this stuff coming out, but I've never been into it. Maybe I watched the first "Spider-Man" by Sam Raimi, I don't know what, 15 years ago, because it was something new. I wanted to check how it was done. But I've never been into this stuff.

When I was still living in Los Angeles, I went to a movie theater with my son to watch an "Avengers" movie. I think it was the first "Avengers." I don't know. It was a nightmare for me. The sound, the noise, the explosions, the loud music, the editing, everything was a nightmare to me. So I think at this point I stopped. I was like, "No, this is not for me." And the movie we are talking about today is maybe ... it's like the reverse of this. It's slow. The pace is okay. There's no aggressive music. What can I say about superhero movies? Are you still watching these movies? It's impossible.

It is getting harder, because in some cases they're getting worse.

It's a torture. It's a torture. Plus the fact that it's almost like watching a video game now. The charm is missing. Who are these creatures? They're all made with CGI. Even for the kids, it's just like a stupid program. They don't get an emotional connection with these movies anymore because nothing's real. So they watch it, they enjoy, I guess, for a bit, but they have no emotional connection to these movies.

'I Need These Famous Actors To Basically Finance My Movies'

Part of that conversation has been people realizing that maybe what these huge companies are doing is trying to create characters that are box office draws and not actors, so they can increasingly get actors that they don't have to pay as much for. You do the opposite in "Smoking Causes Coughing." Not that people are going to go to the movie solely because of the stars, but it's funny that you first encounter all of the different characters with their helmets on, and then they take their helmets off, there are lots of big movie stars under those helmets. And I wonder, what was behind those casting choices?

I mean, let's put it this way: I need these famous actors to basically finance my movies. I'm working with them also because they're very talented, of course, and because they also want to work with me. A movie like "Deerskin," I don't know if you've seen this one, it was impossible to make without Jean Dujardin. I needed someone that big to be able to find a little bit of money to shoot the movie. Otherwise, nobody cares. They come for pleasure, they also come for the experience, because it's very different from what they're doing actually in some other movies.

I actually need them for their talent, but also because in a way, they validate the movie by being here. They say to the audience, "We think this director has something to say." You know what I mean? The same movie with only unknown actors suddenly will be hard to promote.

That period of time when you were living and working and making films in America, you didn't work with too many American stars. I mean, you probably worked with a lot of American actors, but you didn't anchor your films with American stars. Two that do jump out to me are Ray Wise and Grace Zabriskie, and I'm curious what it was like working with them.

There's no why, really. It was more like I wrote this movie and suddenly, exactly what I do on every movie I make, at some point you have to find actors for these small parts. I forgot how it happened, but I think we got Ray Wise ... in a meeting, someone just dropped this idea and I was like, "Oh yeah, he's a strong actor." And then someone else 10 days later brought the idea of, "Oh, we should get Grace Zabriskie too, it would be funny."

It's hard to explain -- working with them was, of course, exciting and interesting for me. But at the same time, when I look back at this moment, I have to say we didn't share much. Now working in France again with some French actors, and I'm getting better and better, I know the work I do now with actors is more complex. Back in the day, for example, the stuff I did with Marilyn Manson ("Wrong Cops"), it was fun, but I was not really directing him, if you know what I mean. It's hard to explain. I was so excited and fresh in this business that working with all these people was ... it's very different from what I'm doing now when I work with actors. And if I go back to English-speaking movies, I will now work more.

'Everyone Who Reads The Script Has A Different Movie In Mind'

Something that has always struck me about your work, and I definitely saw it in "Smoking Causes Coughing," your films are usually very funny, they can be very zany, they can be irreverent and they can be very light even when they're dealing with heavy subject matter. But there's always a little sliver of sadness. Where I saw it in this film was in the story that the little girl tells from the perspective of the fish. And it looks above the water and it sees the pollution being dumped into the lake. That was really sad.

Yeah, it's the worst. It's the worst.

It's so upsetting, and it's just sandwiched between those two longer stories. It makes such an impact because it's so distinct from them.

But you know what? Maybe it's because this one is true. This one is a real vision. And even if it's a little girl saying it, it is happening and it is real. So that's why it sounded so sad. The two other stories are crazy enough to make you think, "Whatever, it's a movie." But this suddenly, it's said by an innocent little girl, so then it's like, "Oh s***, yes." And the fact that the superheroes are shocked by the story makes it funny again.

You're often doing a real tonal balancing act in your films. There are so many different tones that you have to rein in and make sure that they're all cohesive. But in this film in particular, not only are you switching between different tones, but you're telling different stories with different characters that have different points of view. So for you, where does the real work come in, in terms of making sure everything feels cohesive? Is it in the writing? Do you feel like things come together in the edit?

Yeah, the editing is the most important part, and that's why I'm doing it myself. I usually say that this is the moment where you actually make the movie. Before that, the writing is amazing, because you start having a concept and ideas and it's very exciting, but it's a piece of paper. And basically, everyone who reads the script has a different movie in mind. I can tell. Some people want to see only the comedy, so they're going to say, "Oh, it's very funny. I had so much fun," and they're never going to talk about the other layers. And some other people are going to see only the sadness of it. 

So when it comes to the edit, you are going to make a movie that everybody's going to receive the same way, in a way. And that's when basically I craft the tone, even if, of course, the shooting part is very important because that's where you find everything with the actors. But yes, I can tell today that yes, editing is where everything happens.

"Smoking Causes Coughing" arrives in theaters and on demand on March 31, 2023.

Read this next: MCU Superpowers That Don't Quite Make Sense

The post Smoking Causes Coughing Director Breaks Down His Silly, Surreal Spin on the Superhero Film [Exclusive Interview] appeared first on /Film.

Apple on Monday backported fixes for an actively exploited security flaw to older iPhone and iPad models. The issue, tracked as CVE-2023-23529, concerns a type confusion bug in the WebKit browser engine that could lead to arbitrary code execution. It was originally addressed by the tech giant with improved checks as part of updates released on February 13, 2023. An anonymous researcher has been

So, it’s been nine months since Dad’s been gone, and about seven since I began writing here. This has offered a lot of time to mope and brood, or, you know, ‘think’, whatever you want to call it. In that time, I’ve had a lot of writing ideas. Everything from games I’ve had thoughts on, to projects I’ve been working on; D&D, commentary, Minecraft, you name it. I’ve had enough material that I could likely kick the site back into at least three or four posts a week, but…Houston, we have a problem.

See, there’s sort of an elephant-in-the-room issue that makes talking about, well, anything feel redundant and repetitive. I want to talk about my love-hate relationship with Stardew Valley, my reasoning for having a thousand ‘smart’ devices, my favorite children’s MMO, and every issue I have with Wizards of the Coast. But, at the end of the day, what I have to say about all those things has a common denominator which would get old to write about very, very fast.

Everything is a monopoly, and every creative decision I want to talk about boils down to money, not actual people. People are interesting, they make independent decisions and sometimes bonkers bad ones. Nuance and storytelling, ignorance and narrow world views, those are things we can talk about. Why CEO #34 made a piss-poor decision that will only really hurt employees and consumers and land him with a four week paid holiday isn’t fun and snappy conversation, it’s fucking depressing.

I won’t lie to myself and wish I was was alive and grown three decades ago when money hadn’t sunk its claws into the video game market. I’m queer and physically disabled, the testing to confirm my diagnoses didn’t even exist back then, but, god, I wish things were more interesting now. Why does the protagonist feel so bland in (insert franchise here) game? Oh, that’s easy: money. Why doesn’t this really cool tech exist even though it would help a lot of people? Oh, another easy one: money.

This means even bad decisions on a writer’s part make me feel like shit to complain about. Because, you know what, if it’s stupid enough to feel like I have a real opinion on it, at least that’s a human error. It’s sort of like a mistake in your box of grocery store sugar cookies. Like, oh wow, it’s different from the others, cool. As long as it’s edible I don’t really care, and the error makes it more interesting than the two hundred other boxes.

Like I said, I’m not as politically averse as my dad was, but that doesn’t mean I want to turn this into an anti-capitalist, angry echo chamber. I am frustrated, but frankly I’m not changing the world by bitching about it, all I’d end up accomplishing is being pissed off all the time and taking a bunch of internet people with me.

So, here’s what we’re going to do. Because there are still opinions left to have, and it sucks to feel like I’m at the mercy of this stupid elephant. This post is here, and I will jovially link back to it when money is the core of an issue, acknowledge it, and move on. CEO #34 gets enough attention, and my energy is better put enjoying the bit of humanity left in this stupid industry.

The popular Nintendo GameCube and Nintendo Wii emulator, Dolphin, is coming to Steam, the team behind the project has today announced.

The joyful news for retro fans was announced on the project's official blog and via one of the creators behind the project - the well-known Switch miner 'OatMealDome'.

[Dolphin Emulator]

Dolphin, a GameCube and Wii emulator, is coming to Steam!

We’ll release in Early Access during Q2 2023 (Apr to Jun). More info will be provided closer to launch.

In the meantime, feel free to check out our store page and wishlist us!https://t.co/m3XRhabK9V

— OatmealDome (@OatmealDome) March 28, 2023

The Dolphin GameCube and Wii emulator offers various enhancements, including save states, netplay, as well as boosted resolution. In addition, Dolphin offers support for 4K displays, modern controllers, and more. The emulator is open-source and will be made available for free through early access on Steam in the coming months (between April and June). More information about this interesting project will be released closer to the launch of the emulator on Steam.

On Twitter, creator 'OatMealDome' writes that Dolphin will also support Steam Deck, which will likely please many retro fans owning a Steam deck. "This has been my pet project for the past little while, so I’m very happy to finally be able to show it off", 'OatMealDome' writes on Twitter. "Thank you to delroth, MayImilae, JMC, and everyone else on the Dolphin team for their help and support."

Of course, those wanting to play Nintendo GameCube and Wii games through Steam will have to own an original copy of the game.

How Does It Work?

Dolphin Emulator creates a virtual environment on your device that is capable of running games originally developed for two of the Big N's revolutionary consoles. However, Dolphin itself does not provide any of the games. It is just a tool to run legally obtained copies of these games. Once you have dumped copies of your games into a compatible format, you can launch them directly in the emulator.

Why Emulate?

Using emulation to play your games comes with many advantages. Dolphin can surpass the capabilities of the original hardware with enhancements like increased resolution, widescreen hacks, HD texture packs, and patches to increase the frame rate. While playing a game, features like quick saves (save states), slow motion, and turbo can make playing through annoying sections a breeze. You can even take your favorite local multiplayer games online with Dolphin's built-in netplay. Once you're bored of a game, you can breathe new life into it by playing community-made mods like randomizers and custom level packs.

The Dolphin emulator has been around for quite some time and over the years, the emulator has received numerous updates, including DX12 support and more.

The post Nintendo GameCube and Wii Emulator Dolphin is Coming to Steam Soon; Will Support Steam Deck by Aernout van de Velde appeared first on Wccftech.

U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday signed an executive order that restricts the use of commercial spyware by federal government agencies. The order said the spyware ecosystem "poses significant counterintelligence or security risks to the United States Government or significant risks of improper use by a foreign government or foreign person." It also seeks to ensure that the government's use of

Rejoice, fellow Nintendoers! Dolphin Emulator - the open-source emulator for Nintendo GameCube and Wii games - is coming to Steam in Q2 2023. The Steam page is quick to note, for probably legal reasons, that “this app does not come with games” and “you must own an original copy of any game” you want to emulate. Dolphin allows you to emulate retro games with 4k support, modern controllers, and it’s totally free.

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