EmperorPenguin's recent activity

  1. Comment on Breakthrough in nuclear spectroscopy would lead to more accurate clocks in ~science

    EmperorPenguin
    Link Parent
    Mentioned in the article.

    Mentioned in the article.

    The achievement would allow today’s atomic clocks to be replaced with a nuclear clock that would be the most accurate clock to ever exist, allowing advances like deep space navigation and communication. It would also allow scientists to measure precisely whether the fundamental constants of nature are, in fact, really constant or merely appear to be because we have not yet measured them precisely enough.

    11 votes

  2. Comment on Scavengers Reign (2023) - Best sci-fi I have seen in years, aside from Dune in ~tv

    EmperorPenguin
    Link
    Funny that you post this now, since I just finished watching this show last night. This show really is a hidden gem. The aliens have a lot if cool designs, ranging from cute to creepy to...

    Funny that you post this now, since I just finished watching this show last night.

    This show really is a hidden gem. The aliens have a lot if cool designs, ranging from cute to creepy to whimsical, and it keeps that balance well. Nature in real life is like that: sometimes it's pretty, sometimes it's messed up and gross, it's all part of it.

    I really enjoyed the character Levi. In general I love seeing how different sci fi stories handle android characters and what different authors choose to do with them.

    I think this show highlights what can be done when you use animation for sci fi and fantasy stories instead of forcing everything besides family friendly content or adult swim comedies to be live action. The only place you really see stuff like this often is in anime. It's a huge shame American audiences are so averse to animation outside of the places they expect to see it.

    I just watched it on Netflix without knowing there was any drama about cancellations and getting picked up and if there would be a season 2 or not. I think season 1 works well as a standalone story, and if the creators and Netflix want to make more, they should. Whatever happens is fine with me.

    4 votes

  3. Comment on Is serviceable CGI here to stay? in ~movies

    EmperorPenguin
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    I saw the movie a few weeks after it came out, so I went into Furiosa with the popular complaint "the special effects are really noticeable!" prominently in my mind. Once the movie started, I...

    I saw the movie a few weeks after it came out, so I went into Furiosa with the popular complaint "the special effects are really noticeable!" prominently in my mind. Once the movie started, I didn't really think about the CGI at all. When there was that one scene with Chris Hemsworth and the bullets, I heard beforehand that was a really distracting CGI moment, but during the movie I didn't care.

    Of course when a movie has really amazing effects I'll notice and appreciate it, but when the effects are "ok", as in not terrible, and the acting, world building, or story are good, I kinda filter out the effects and don't think about them, which I guess means they're doing their job.

    3 votes

  4. Formula 1 Austrian Grand Prix 2024 - Results

    ~sports.motorsports Ask
    Warning: this post may contain spoilers

    JCPhoenix is out today, so I went ahead and filled in!

    Bad day for Red Bull on their own track. Max messed up, and Checo is a bit of a Haas sandwich!

    Provisional Race Results -- SPOILER
    POS NO DRIVER CAR LAPS TIME/RETIRED PTS
    1 63 George Russell Mercedes 71 1:24:22.798 25
    2 81 Oscar Piastri McLaren Mercedes 71 +1.906s 18
    3 55 Carlos Sainz Ferrari 71 +4.533s 15
    4 44 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 71 +23.142s 12
    5 1 Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing Honda RBPT 71 +37.253s 10
    6 27 Nico Hulkenberg Haas Ferrari 71 +54.088s 8
    7 11 Sergio Perez Red Bull Racing Honda RBPT 71 +54.672s 6
    8 20 Kevin Magnussen Haas Ferrari 71 +60.355s 4
    9 3 Daniel Ricciardo RB Honda RBPT 71 +61.169s 2
    10 10 Pierre Gasly Alpine Renault 71 +61.766s 1
    11 16 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 71 +67.056s 0
    12 31 Esteban Ocon Alpine Renault 71 +68.325s 0
    13 18 Lance Stroll Aston Martin Aramco Mercedes 70 +1 lap 0
    14 22 Yuki Tsunoda RB Honda RBPT 70 +1 lap 0
    15 23 Alexander Albon Williams Mercedes 70 +1 lap 0
    16 77 Valtteri Bottas Kick Sauber Ferrari 70 +1 lap 0
    17 24 Zhou Guanyu Kick Sauber Ferrari 70 +1 lap 0
    18 14 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin Aramco Mercedes 70 +1 lap 0
    19 2 Logan Sargeant Williams Mercedes 69 +2 laps 0
    20 4 Lando Norris McLaren Mercedes 64 +7 laps 0

    Fastest lap: Fernando Alonso

    Source: F1.com

    15 votes

  5. Comment on Montreal becomes largest North American city to eliminate mandatory minimum parking spots in ~transport

    EmperorPenguin
    Link Parent
    I recommend checking out Not Just Bikes or Adam Something. As wundumguy said, it's actually a good thing. Parking minimums cause a lot of systemic problems in North America.

    I recommend checking out Not Just Bikes or Adam Something. As wundumguy said, it's actually a good thing. Parking minimums cause a lot of systemic problems in North America.

    13 votes

  6. Comment on How bad are Nvidia GPUs for Linux really? in ~comp

    EmperorPenguin
    Link Parent
    I see, thanks for your input. I have a 3080 myself. I can run the games I want to play on Steam Deck, so I don't suspect the hardware's power or Linux itself to be an issue, just any Nvidia...

    I see, thanks for your input. I have a 3080 myself. I can run the games I want to play on Steam Deck, so I don't suspect the hardware's power or Linux itself to be an issue, just any Nvidia specific problems. I think I've heard in passing that newer Nvidia cards like 3000 or 4000 series are an issue, while older cards aren't, and I'm hoping that's not the case...

  7. How bad are Nvidia GPUs for Linux really?

    ~comp Ask (advice)
    I've been interested in switching to Linux, or at least dual booting, for some time now as Windows has kept getting worse and Proton for Steam has been getting better. I'm particularly interested...

    I've been interested in switching to Linux, or at least dual booting, for some time now as Windows has kept getting worse and Proton for Steam has been getting better. I'm particularly interested in trying Mint Cinnamon.

    In every Linux thread on here or Lemmy, I always hear people complaining about Nvidia drivers for Linux or other hardware problems that they avoid by having AMD.

    I have an Intel CPU and Nvidia GPU. How big of a problem is that, really? Does it make it an unbearable experience? Does it make it a lot more work to get things working? Does it make certain things impossible to get working? What's your experience?

    Also for dual booting, I hear people have problems with Windows messing up their Linux install. Is that a common problem, or a few people having bad luck? Is that avoidable?

    30 votes

  8. Comment on I toured a 'pocket community' of tiny home - the builders are trying to help solve the housing crisis in Canada in ~life

    EmperorPenguin
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    Whenever the topic of tiny homes comes up, I keep thinking of this video by Adam Something. He's one of the YouTubers criticizing weird tech bro ideas from the likes of Elon Musk. A lot of these...

    Whenever the topic of tiny homes comes up, I keep thinking of this video by Adam Something. He's one of the YouTubers criticizing weird tech bro ideas from the likes of Elon Musk. A lot of these kinda ideas seem fun, futuristic, or environmentally friendly, but the devil's in the details, and they usually end up being much worse than very conventional solutions.

    TL;DW:

    • Tiny home communities don't scale well
    • The land would be much better used building apartments or similar types of buildings. Tiny homes would be able to house a fraction as many people
    10 votes

  10. Comment on Dune: Prophecy | Official teaser in ~tv

    EmperorPenguin
    Link Parent
    Dune (before the 2021 movie of course) was in a bit of an odd place in terms of being "obscure" or not. Everyone had surely seen content that parodied it (such as South Park episodes) or content...

    Dune (before the 2021 movie of course) was in a bit of an odd place in terms of being "obscure" or not. Everyone had surely seen content that parodied it (such as South Park episodes) or content inspired by it (like Star Wars), but only the types of people who, well, read sci-fi novels had read it, and were familiar with it beyond the surface level memes like "The spice must flow!" That doesn't include general audiences: the Star Wars, MCU, and Jackson LOTR film fans. How many of those MCU fans read comic books, or how many Jackson trilogy fans read the books? To those audiences, Dune was pretty obscure. Pretty much any series that exists solely as books is obscure compared to movies and TV, with the exception of successful YA novels, which promply get a much more popular adaptation. ASOIAF existed before Game of Thrones, but I sure didn't hear about it until the show.

    7 votes

  11. Comment on The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power | Season 2 official teaser trailer in ~tv

    EmperorPenguin
    Link Parent
    This is actually a good take supported by scholar interpretations of Tolkien. It reminds me of something I read on the Wikipedia page for The Simarillion: Right now there aren't a lot of Tolkien...

    I see Tolkien's Middle-Earth stories in general as a mythology, and the movies and Rings of Power are simply a retelling/different version of it.

    This is actually a good take supported by scholar interpretations of Tolkien. It reminds me of something I read on the Wikipedia page for The Simarillion:

    The Silmarillion was commercially successful, but received generally poor reviews on publication. Scholars found the work problematic, not least because the book is a construction, not authorised by Tolkien himself, from the large corpus of documents and drafts also called "The Silmarillion". Scholars have noted that Tolkien intended the work to be a mythology, penned by many hands, and redacted by a fictional editor, whether Ælfwine or Bilbo Baggins. As such, the scholar Gergely Nagy considers that the fact that the work has indeed been edited actually realises Tolkien's intention.

    Right now there aren't a lot of Tolkien adaptations, and one of them is particularly excellent which raises the bar really high. Some of the others are very underrated (I've seen the OG Hobbit cartoon and it's worth a watch). Stories being reworked and remixed into new canons is very much in the spirit of the stories that inspired LOTR in the first place. Once Tolkien's work eventually enters the public domain, there will be a lot of slop cash grabs that are far worse than this show, but also a lot of cool stuff, and we'll be better off for it. His work is so foundational to western fantasy it would probably be the best and most natural addition to the public domain since those old mythologies. People have pretty much taken as much as they were legally able for years and it's hard to imagine modern fantasy without that.

    That being said, the show did make a lot of mistakes, and there's a lot of room for improvement for season 2. We could do without scenes like "The Southlands are Mordor now" and the scene where someone tells a master blacksmith about metal alloys. But it is REALLY cool that a second age LOTR show was made and shows stuff like Numenor on screen. Worst case scenario, some people enjoy season 2, I don't, and the books and Jackson trilogy still exist.

    6 votes

  12. Comment on Dune: Prophecy | Official teaser in ~tv

    EmperorPenguin
    Link Parent
    Well, this was ordered in 2019 before Villeneuve had released the first part (as JackA said). Villeneuve was still working on book one, and was interested in making Dune Messiah as well. It...

    Well, this was ordered in 2019 before Villeneuve had released the first part (as JackA said). Villeneuve was still working on book one, and was interested in making Dune Messiah as well. It would've been weird to step on his toes for book 2, or to adapt book 3 or 4 out of order, wouldn't it?

    Prequel stuff can be released at any time, but a show adaptation of Children or God Emperor should wait until the Messiah movie.

    13 votes

  15. Comment on This YouTuber has been uploading Half-Life 3 ‘updates’ every day for over six years in ~games

    EmperorPenguin
    Link Parent
    Alyx did that though, but it left a new cliffhanger for HL3.

    Alyx did that though, but it left a new cliffhanger for HL3.

  16. Comment on Warner Bros. to release new ‘Lord of the Rings’ movie ‘The Hunt for Gollum’ in 2026, Peter Jackson to produce and Andy Serkis to direct in ~movies

    EmperorPenguin
    Link Parent
    What's funny is someone showed me the trailer for that game right after I made that comment.

    What's funny is someone showed me the trailer for that game right after I made that comment.

  17. Comment on Warner Bros. to release new ‘Lord of the Rings’ movie ‘The Hunt for Gollum’ in 2026, Peter Jackson to produce and Andy Serkis to direct in ~movies

    EmperorPenguin
    Link Parent
    I don't hate the show, I just think it could've been much better. I recognize a lot of things it did badly, but there were a lot of aspects that I did really enjoy. It looked excellent as you...

    I don't hate the show, I just think it could've been much better. I recognize a lot of things it did badly, but there were a lot of aspects that I did really enjoy. It looked excellent as you said, but then there were moments like someone suggesting the concept of metal alloys to a master blacksmith.

    7 votes

  18. Comment on Warner Bros. to release new ‘Lord of the Rings’ movie ‘The Hunt for Gollum’ in 2026, Peter Jackson to produce and Andy Serkis to direct in ~movies

    EmperorPenguin
    Link Parent
    That is true, but I really think the premise is pretty hard to make a decent story out of. And no matter how good of a story you do make, you could've made something a lot more successful a lot...

    That is true, but I really think the premise is pretty hard to make a decent story out of. And no matter how good of a story you do make, you could've made something a lot more successful a lot easier if you just used a different character. Strider is a badass, so you could make an action game about him easily. Hobbits are wholesome and cozy, you can make a farming sim about The Shire very easily. Gollum is a pretty depressing character who lives in a cave doing nothing for 500 years, so he doesn't lend himself to main character status very well. The one good idea I can think of would be a horror game, but I think there's a lot of other ideas for other characters that would have broader appeal.

    8 votes

  19. Comment on Warner Bros. to release new ‘Lord of the Rings’ movie ‘The Hunt for Gollum’ in 2026, Peter Jackson to produce and Andy Serkis to direct in ~movies

    EmperorPenguin
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    Wow, the movies just made the same mistake that the games just made! We got a Gollum spinoff game, and it was... gestures at how critically panned it was, and how the studio shut down ...not good....

    Announces Lord of the Rings Spinoffs

    Starts with a Gollum spinoff

    Wow, the movies just made the same mistake that the games just made! We got a Gollum spinoff game, and it was... gestures at how critically panned it was, and how the studio shut down ...not good.

    Normally I say "there's no bad premises, only bad executions", but Gollum just isn't a good place to start for LotR spinoffs. He's a pretty boring and grounded character, and LotR and The Hobbit really gave us all of him we needed to see. Gollum's big claim to fame is how good the CGI for him was and that Andy Serkis gave a great performance, not that the character is super interesting. The only reason to make a movie about him is that Serkis is involved. You could say "money!" but I bet a lot of other LotR movie premises would get more butts in seats than this.

    It makes way more sense to focus on a cooler character, or to adapt a larger story arc using the appendices. For solo movies, there's a lot of other LotR characters, Strider or Legolas for example, that are much better ideas. The Amazon show, for all its faults, has a decent premise: to show the second age in live action for the first time. The execution of the show was pretty bad, but the premise is solid, and there was a certain novelty to seeing stuff like Numenor on screen.

    31 votes