Off-Topic Tuesday!

[icon_uk]

In the comments to these weekly posts (and only these posts), it's your chance to go as off topic as you like.

Talk about non-comics stuff, thread derail, and just generally chat amongst yourselves.

Well, it's finally here, one way or the other, the grand finale of the most bizarre and genuinely terrifying reality show that the Western World has seen in decades.

Your vote is your own and is as private as you wish it to be. If you are an American voter I would encourage you to, on behalf of the rest of the world too, to get out there and make your vote count. This is not the year for not voting. (I would also note that it it the only election EVER where all the currently living Presidents from both parties agree that the Republican candidate is not fit for the job, but don't let that sway you)

Here are a few tips to remember to ensure your voting process is as smooth and simple as possible,

Here in the UK, we have the too painful to be enjoyably ironic situation of the Brexit supporters who campaigned for British Sovereignty to reign supreme, throwing a tantrum because the British High Court (exemplifying the independence of the British legal system) made a ruling that they happened not to agree with about Parliament needing to be informed and involved in the Brexit process, rather than just the Government making decisions on their own. Our "press" has not covered itself with glory, actually implying that one of the judges was not fit to make such a judgement because he is a "homosexual former Olympic fencer"...

As an antidote to all that toxicity, if you need something fluffy and cute (and who could blame you), here is a link to Pixar's short filme Piper, which they ahve ,ade available online and which is delightful and adorable.

NASA has completed the successor to the Hubble Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, ready for launch in 2018.

Videogame Mass Effect: Androemda has a trailer which is pleasing and annoying people because it exists and is terribly non specific about gameplay respectively.

Comments

[nate_abril96]

I saw the story about Brexit and the High Court's ruling. Unfortunately, I am really ignorant about British politics due to living in the US and was left a little confused. Would it be accurate to say the High Court functions like the US Supreme Court in terms of function?

Also, I have gone out and already voted. Unfortunately, due to the fact I currently reside in Guam, a US colony... oops "unincorporated territory," our votes for the presidency are not counted, so I was only able to vote locally. Our professor told us though that Guam has accurately guessed who the next president would be, so I "voted" Clinton to see what our island thinks. John Oliver did an excellent video summarizing our dilemma in Guam, and in case you haven't seen it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CesHr99ezWE

I am remaining cautiously optimistic Trump loses... badly, and strongly encouraging all my friends in the states to go out and vote. This election means too much for America to screw up. Especially with how hard Obama has worked to repair our reputation after the previous eight years before him.

[icon_uk]

I literally, just found the best summation of the Brexit farrago about ten minutes ago

This is pretty much completely accurate

I'm not an expert on jurisprudence, but our High Court is the second most powerful Court in the land. The Appeal that the Government is filing against the High Court ruling will go to OUR Supreme Court (which replaced our old "Law Lords" a whilst back, which is good for democracy, but a bit of a shame as I love the phrase "Law Lords".

I'm personallly hoping Trump loses by the largest possible margin known to humanity, but based on the surprises of Brexit and the last General Election, I'm nervous about predicting anything.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

"Our "press" has not covered itself with glory, actually implying that one of the judges was not fit to make such a judgement because he is a "homosexual former Olympic fencer""

Classy....

Was that your guy's basic Fox news, or regular assholes?

[icon_uk]

We have three VERY Right wing newspapers in the UK which still sell a lot of issues; The Daily Mail, The Daily Express and The Sun and they have all been rabidly Brexit.

The Mail in particular has been singularly ghastly, recent headlines have proudly displayed racism, Islamophobia and now homophobia and all but encouraging mob violence on an genuinely extraordinary level.

[janegray]

Anybody in the Mass Effect Fandom can clear something up for me?


*Spoilers, probably. I'm going by hearsay here*


I heard that the final game of the MA trilogy ended with Commander Shepard sacrificing themselves to save the galaxy. So, what's the deal with the protagonist in Andromeda? Are they a brand new protagonist, or are they the old protagonist who somehow survived?

[scorntx]

Brand new protagonist, called Ryder.

In all likelihood, Andromeda's probably going to be mum on what happened to Shepard. Or at the very least, be astoundingly vague.

[deh_tommy]

Mass Effect: Andromeda's protagonists are a Brother and Sister named Ryker, part of an exploration program to scout a new Galaxy for Planets to colonise. Since the game takes place years after the original Trilogy and is set in a different Galaxy altogether, I imagine the Story will have little to do with Shepard outside of small in-jokes and references.

If you're interested, all three games were made available on the Xbox One and have been added to EA Access (a sort of Amazon-esque streaming service for EA games).

[halloweenjack]

Brand new (as far as we know), and given that there's a gap of six centuries, even if you picked one of the endings in the third game that result in Shepard surviving (in one form or another), they probably don't still exist, at least in any recognizable form.

[informationgeek]

And here we are folks. The day of the election. I didn't have much to say last week, but... here we go Let's look at a summary of Trump's final days on the campaign trail, curtsy of DailyKos member, RepublicanInsanity:

October 22nd, 2016: Abraham Lincoln, the founder of the Republican Party, gave his most famous speech, the Gettysburg Address, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. On this date, however, the current standard bearer for his party, Donald J. Trump, was to give a speech about what his first 100 days in office would look like. And Trump, ever inspiring, decided to use that hallowed ground to threaten the women accusing him of sexual assault with lawsuits. Speaking of that, the number of women accusing Trump of sexual assault hit twelve.

October 23rd, 2016: It was a rare quiet day from Trump and his campaign, where only Kellyanne Conway turned up on Meet the Press to indicate that the only reason Trump hadn’t made good on his threat to sue the women accusing him of sexual assault by laughing and saying that it was only because they were “too busy winning the presidency”.

October 24th, 2016: Trump finally addresses the accusation of his twelfth accuser, adult film star Jessica Drake, by blowing it off and saying, “Oh, I’m sure she’s never been grabbed before.” Do not adjust your screens, a presidential candidate just played what amounts to the “you can’t rape a hooker” defense.

Also, Trump's “The Election is Rigged” hit parade continued, as Trump declared that all the polls were also influenced unfairly by the Democratic Party, and rigged against him. These would be the same polls that when he was leading in them through the Republican Party, and at points in statistical ties with Hillary Clinton after the Republican National Convention hat he proudly touted.

October 25th, 2016: Donald Trump, while campaigning in Tallahassee, Florida, responds to remarks from the previous week when Vice President Joe Biden said “I wish I was still in high school so I could take him behind the gym...” after the VP heard Trump's tape bragging to Billy Bush. Trump's response:
"Did you see where Biden wants to take me to the back of the barn? Me. I'd love that. I'd love that. Mr. tough guy. You know, he's Mr tough guy. You know when he's Mr. Tough Guy? When he's standing behind a microphone by himself."
Please note... Donald Trump was standing behind a microphone by himself when he said this. Also, he’s a terrible listener, because Biden wanted to take him behind a gym, not a barn. (Twenty bucks on Biden if it happens, incidentally.)

And, in the world of Trump surrogates… multiple-time adulterer Newt Gingrich decided it would be a good idea to defend Donald Trump from Megyn Kelly’s reports on his misogyny by trying to go on Fox News, accuse her of being "obsessed with sex", and claim there was a double standard because the never reports on Bill Clinton's infidelity (she corrected him, because she HAD). He then started demanding she say, "Bill Clinton: Sexual Predator" and she cut the interview, asking him to seek help for his anger issues.

October 26th, 2016: Trump, for whatever reason, decided to start off his day working hard in the battleground state of Washington, D.C. No joke, he prioritized the grand opening of his new hotel (which faces a wide boycott) over continuing to run for president. At the press conference, he also took time out to praise Newt Gingrich’s embarrassing interview with Megyn Kelly from the previous day.

Later in the day, Trump appeared on the radio show of former failed presidential candidate Herman Cain, where he continued railing against alternative energies, insisting wind turbines “kill all the birds".

October 27th, 2016: Trump opens up his day with a Good Morning America interview, where he continues to insist he didn’t sexually assault any women with his wife Melania, who he promises will be giving “two or three big speeches” before Election Day, which is about double or triple the number of speeches she had given up until that point. Even Melania seems surprised by this news.

Yet another woman came forward to accuse Trump of sexual assault, this time a former Miss Finland.

Late in the evening, Trump talks about just cancelling the election, and declaring him the winner at a campaign rally. Meanwhile, in a perfect metaphor, Mike Pence’s plane skids out of control off the runway at LaGuardia airport.

October 28th, 2016: The news media falls all over itself when FBI Director James Comey leaks out a statement claiming that “more Hillary e-mails were found” (as it turned out, they only found e-mails sent from Huma Abedein TO Hillary, while investigating Anthony Weiner). Still, once the story hits, Donald Trump starts acting like he just won the election, claiming the red herring story proved Clinton executes “corruption on a scale we have never seen before”. By the next day, the story was re-examined as an unprecedented partisan maneuver by the FBI Director.

October 29th, 2016: Even though the latest “revelation” into Hillary Clinton’s e-mails was a non-starter, Donald Trump continued clinging to it like a life preserver on the campaign trail, in both Colorado, and in Phoenix (where he was still fighting to make sure he wouldn’t lose Arizona). At the former rally, Trump claims election officials would throw away mail-in ballots with votes for him. At the latter rally, a protester who was totally not anti-Semitic, I’m sure, chanted “Jew-S-A!” at the media pen. Ten days to election day.

October 30th, 2016: For the second straight day, Donald Trump is campaigning in Colorado, and claims that mail-in voting is an easy system to commit voter fraud, and suggests that people could vote twice by requesting a second ballot after already sending a first one (he’s wrong, of course). Nine days to election day.

October 31st, 2016: Trump campaigns in New Mexico (a bizarre choice, given polling showing he has no prayer of winning there), and tells an audience that Hillary Clinton would be so terrible as president with illegal immigration that the U.S. Population “would triple her first week in office”. That… is beyond stupid. He literally says “650 million” people would cross our border in a week. That’s over five times the entire population of the entire country of Mexico. That’s more than the population of all of the countries in North America combined, including the United States’ 325 million.

Oh, and a group of computer scientists began doing research into finding out if Russian hackers were influencing the American election after learning they had hacked the DNC. So, they concluded that they might have also attacked Republicans, or interfered with the Trump campaign, so they began to check to see if they did that. They… didn’t find anything to show the GOP was attacked. They did not, however, but instead discovered there is a computer server owned by Trump's businesses that showed they were directly communicating with a Russian bank.”

November 1st, 2016: With national polls tightening again, Trump is revealed to have stiffed one of his own internal polling agencies to the price tag of over three-quarter of a million dollars.

November 2nd, 2016: Donald Trump continues raving on the campaign trail in Florida, calling Hillary Clinton unstable, and for a second time, singling out NBC News reporter Katy Tur by name so his crowd of supporters can threaten her.

November 3rd, 2016: Donald Trump, at a rally in Florida, loses his ability to have internal monologue, telling himself at the podium, “We’re going to be nice and cool, nice and cool, stay on point, Donald, stay on point. No side tracks Donald, nice and easy.” Later in North Carolina, scoffs at the idea of Hillary Clinton being Commander-in-Chief, because the men who make up our generals and admirals would refuse to listen to “her”.

Melania Trump, meanwhile, gives one of the speeches Donald promised the media she would give prior to the election, where she talks about the menace of cyberbullying, somehow oblivious to the fact that her husband and his followers have been some of the worst offenders.

November 4th, 2016: The Wall Street Journal releases a report about Donald Trump having an affair with a former Playboy Playmate, Karen McDougal who sold the story to the National Enquirer for $150,000, but the paper, a longtime Trump ally, chose not to publish it. It is believed that Melania Trump was pregnant at the time of the affair.

Meanwhile, conclusive evidence emerged about Melania Trump that she had worked as a model illegally without a work visa.

Trump surrogate Rudy Giuliani, meanwhile, brags that he had advanced knowledge of the FBI's investigations into Hillary Clinton’s e-mails, he turns around and starts claiming he didn’t know anything about the leaks. Several investigative journalists begin rooting out the cause of leaks from the FBI, and find many old Giuliani loyalists who still leak information to him (while he’s working for the Trump campaign), and Jim Kallstrom, who often appears on Fox News to claim inside knowledge of investigations within the New York FBI office.

November 5th, 2016: Trump, at a campaign rally, lies that President Obama was “screaming” at a Trump supporter who turned up at a Hillary Clinton rally the day before. The media covered that story, though, and noted the President was chiding the crowd of Democratic supporters, and encouraging them to allow the man to speak. He also tried fanning the flames of the already weakening case against Clinton her e-mails, telling a crowd, “Can you imagine Anthony Weiner has probably every classified email ever sent?”

Trump also throws out a 12-year old protester with cerebral palsy in a wheelchair out of his rally, as his deplorable supporters kick the young man’s wheelchair as security escorts him out.

November 6th, 2016: FBI Director James Comey releases another statement regarding e-mails found on Anthony Weiner’s computer… they are all duplicates of ones Clinton and her State Department staff had already turned over to the FBI, and she was cleared of wrongdoing. So, of course, only eight days after the FBI nearly handed the election back to Donald Trump by commenting on this, earning Trump’s praise… at a rally stop in Michigan, he railed against them, saying the FBI was part if the system being rigged against him:
“Right now, she is being protected by a rigged system. It’s a totally rigged system,” Trump told supporters in Michigan. “You can’t review 650,000 new emails in eight days. You can’t do it, folks.”


November 7th, 2016: Trump holds multiple rallies at various stops throughout the country, the highlights of which include him lying about leading in several polls in several states where he is not, in fact, leading, and a celebrity guest appearance by Ted Nugent, who grabs his testicles in front of the audience. Hillary Clinton’s home stretch, meanwhile, sees her appear at rallies with Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Jon Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama (among others). It was pretty clear who had the momentum.



And here we are folks. This is it. All I can say is get out there and vote. Hell, if you are not interested in the presidential election for some reason, remember we have other reasons to vote. David fuckin' Duke is on the ballot in Louisiana, this could be the year we boot Sheriff Joe Apario out of office, and more. Get out there people and show the deplorables we don't want them anymore.

[icon_uk]

Trumps misrepresentation of Obama's treatment of a Trump supporter at a Democratic rally is this whole damn election in a nutshell.

I had to look up that "kid in a wheelchair" bit because I found it hard to believe that even Trump, a man whose morals I would compare unfavourably to a rabid weasel, would stoop THAT low. wrong again Icon_uk.

On the plus side, the current President then ensured that the kid had somewhat better memories of the US political system.

Damn, but no matter who wins I'm going to miss that man's presidential style.

[junipepper]

Oh please let us not forget the Donald's whining that all the celebrities being for Hillary was "a form of cheating."

[informationgeek]

Oh and one more thing. For Harlem voters who are members here or if members have family out there, I want to give you a warning about someone on your ballot. This profile was developed by republicaninsanity of DailyKos as well:

Welcome to “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” here on Election Day, 2016, where the subject of our 535th original profile is none other than New York State Senate Candidate for District 80, Jon Girodes. While Girodes has managed to get his picture taken with prominent Republicans like Sean Hannity, Chris Christie, or Newt Gingrich, apparently it was not their clout that wore off on Girodes, but some of their worst racial sentiments and ability to be tarnished by news reports of being void of ethical integrity or moral character. District 80 of the New York State senate is better known as Harlem, a place that Republicans will always have a tough time gettng elected in, for reasons as obvious as just pointing to the party’s demonizing of “inner cities”, or their policies that impact African Americans negatively from education standardization to voting rights, to civil rights, to… you get the idea. But how could Jon Girodes find a way to be even MORE abhorrent to African American voters in Harlem, by not just being a Republican?

Well, Girodes gave himself the October surprise of sending out an e-mail promising “Kool-Aid, KFC, and watermelons” to people who attended a Harlem campaign rally. And when people immediately went, “HOLY F***, THAT IS RACIST AS ALL F***ING GET-OUT!”, Girodes, inexplicably DOUBLED DOWN. Yeah, that’s right. Jon Girodes explained he was just offering free food, everybody stay calm:

“What I think is anyone who gives free food to people is doing them a favor. Get a bunch of people who say it’s offensive and let me go into their neighborhood and give it out for free and see if they take it.”

It’s not racist, because people would take that free food. Just… Residents of Harlem admirably responded to Girodes’ offer by offering “to donate various foots to his ass”. (Seriously, that comment makes my heart soar.)

Now, if it weren’t enough that Girodes was a Republican who apparently took his candidacy as an excuse to be a racist troll towards African Americans… he wasn’t done with scandals in October. Within eight days of the news breaking about Girodes’ racist food giveaway, he was back in the news again for being arrested on grand larceny charges in a rental scheme where he would collect deposit money from potential tenants and then still leave them without a place to live. He collected deposits from twelve people on one apartment, and left them unable to reside there, and responded with various lies to most of them, threats for others. Perhaps the most outrageous is that he threatened to rape a disabled prospective tenant in a phone call who he had swindled not just out of the deposit, but several months of advanced rent. (We can only speculate on if such a rape would be “legitimate” or not, had Girodes carried out his threat.)

Given that at our last check, Girodes has not posted bond after his arrest, so between that, the racist food giveaway, and how Harlem leans left, we’re pretty sure he’s not going to be serving in the New York State Senate.

Happy Election Day, everyone. Get out and vote so idiots, fanatics, and lunatics like the ones we profile don’t remain in office.


Jon Girodes is pictured here being placed under arrest for grand larceny.

[scorntx]

Any Star Trek buffs in the audience?
Remember that DS9 two-parter that showed America (Well, San Francisco) of the 2020s, where the jobless, homeless and mentally ill were thrown into ghettos and left to rot?
And which also mentioned Europe was violently and dramatically falling apart?

Because, uh... that's more than a little bit unnerving.

Also, just as a side note, Trek canon claims World War III, that big ol' nuclear war that directly killed at least 600 million, kicked off in 2026.
(That actually seems a little optimistic right about now...)

[owlbrigade1]

Yeah, the one where California opened ghettos to shut the poor into. Kinda like Proposition Q.

[janegray]

Take a look at this Batfamily comic, it's awesome :D

http://questbedhead.tumblr.com/post/152356652525/that-feel-when-u-just-wanna-be-a-lil-dramatic-but

[speedingtortoise]

Oh my god that is adorable XD

[scorntx]

On a non-terrifying note, saw Doctor Strange at the weekend.

All things considered, it was enjoyable, if a bit...predictable?
(I was mostly just there for Ejiofor.)
The most major bother was the score. It was just... Giacchino reusing the same damn refrain he used all the freaking way through Star Trek.
(Fitting, I suppose, given Strange starts off as an arrogant, unlikable berk who becomes a slightly less arrogant, unlikable berk because he's just so gosh darn brilliant. Doesn't make the lack of creativity any less annoying.)
Plus, there wasn't one glimpse of Agamotto.
Just one glimpse of a giant tiger-based godlike being isn't too much to ask for in this day and age.

Though I did enjoy the fact that they had magic, and they damn well called it magic. None of that "oh, this is just tech that might as well be magic to your puny mind" BS.
Real magic!

(But oh, man, I cannot wait for Black Panther, and a main character who ISN'T A ****ING WHITE DUDE.)

[spidermanwashere]

The plot was pretty generic Marvel origin story, but the visuals were awesome and the fight scenes well done.

[junipepper]

Today is the first Presidential election since my daughters became eligible to vote. They will be voting for a woman. (They had damn well better be voting for the woman, or we will have words.) I feel like the momentousness of that has kind of been pushed aside.

Huh. In my first Presidential election, I voted for Walter Mondale. Here's hoping they get a MUCH better outcome!

Has anyone seen the new Black Mirror series?

[deh_tommy]

The Community Rules dictate that if insults are acceptable, they should be directed at actions and not people themselves. However, I occasionally see vitriol, if not outright hate spewed towards certain individuals (particularly Donald Trump, Frank Cho, Mark Millar, Peter David and Frank Miller). Why does that happen?*

Mod Note!

[icon_uk]

Our rules make it quite clear that there is a significant difference between a "personal insult" and "Calling out other members or creators for discriminatory or oppressive behavior".

We do not approve of the former (and would ask that anyone spotting such behaviour report it to the Mod Team), but the latter is actively encouraged, as if we do not confront such things, they will continue unabated.

A public figure who has engaged in the sheer quantity of misogyny, racism, Islamophobia and generally privileged behaviour that Donald Trump had, is very likely to be called out on his behaviour in a thread such as this (or others relating to the election).

The creators you cite (apart from Peter David, whose history with this community is an unpleasant one) are generally, as far as I am aware, called out for their depiction of women and/or minorities in their work, rather than them as individuals.

[dr_archeville]

Cyborg Superman is coming to Supergirl! But will it be Dean Cain's Jeremiah Danvers as Cyborg Superman, or David Harewood pulling double duty as both Hank Henshaw!Cyborg Superman and Martian Manhunter!Hank Henshaw? Either way… holy flurking schnit!

Also, the university library I used to work at (NCSU, Raleigh, NC) is having a very cool exhibit highlighting the cultural and academic importance of comic books, both emerging and historical. Here are some pics!

[thezmage]

You know, I posted on Facebook before the season began that I was sure the only reason they cast a Superman was to do a Cyborg Superman story arc. I'm gonna claim I called it.

[dr_archeville]

Also, two interesting (and/or terrifying) developments in the field of A.I. experimentation:

Google's A.I. learns how to encrypt itself
and
Google-backed U.K.-based DeepMind wants to train a bot that can play StarCraft II in real time — making decisions about which military units to send on scouting missions, and how to allocate resources and ultimately conquer other players.

We already have robots who've passed a self-awareness test for over a year. Let's be nice to them, okay?

[janegray]

Every single sci-fi story I've ever seen with murder robots has them start out as nice and friendly, get oppressed and tortured by humans, and turn evil as a result of the abuse. Even the robots in The Matrix! All it would have taken to avoid the Apocalypse was "do not be a dick."

So let's not screw up in RL when the time to coexist with robots finally comes, hummmmmmm?

[locuatico]

I commited a mistake last week: NOW the Overwatch Fandom is Hyped

[sir_razorback]

So I had one of those times where nothing goes according to plan. I had planned on dropping my ballot off at the local elementary school. I've had it for a couple of weeks now, but I like to actually hand it in. reassures me that getting lost in the mail won't happen. I know, odds are probably slim to none on this, but a guy has to have a few personality quirks. If you don't, you become Al Gore.

Anyways, my wife grabs hers and I go to get mine, and I see the envelopes aren't there. I start looking around, and I find both of them... sealed.

If you don't live in Washington, here's how the system works. You get your ballot in the mail, in an envelope containing four things. The ballot, an instruction sheet, a security envelope, and a mailing envelope. You have to put the ballot in the security envelope, then drop that into the mailer, and send it on it's happy way.

As I said above, mine were both already sealed, and I hadn't dropped my ballot in them yet. The mailer also has your address affixed to it and places for you to sign and date everything. But, the little turd did a pretty complete job, no minor stuck-spot here. So I tell my wife what's up, and we decide to go down there together to see what can be done.

It turns out that the poll volunteers there had a pile of spares for both, I just had to write my personal information on the outer envelope by hand and all is good. Votes dropped off, ticket punched, all that sort of thing. Just a little shot of unexpected in the middle of everything.

[thezmage]

In California, if you accidentally seal the envelope without your ballot, you have to go in and get a provisional ballot and vote that way. Learned that lesson today. Still rather pissed off about it.

[thanekos]

Donald Trump- because Jed Bartlet's not real, but Greg Stillson is.

[kamino_neko]

There's been reports of violence by Trump supporters are a handful of polling places.

I really hope they haven't been successfully scaring off minority voters (but given how close it is, and showing a Trump lead in reporting states, it really feels like it has...).

[janegray]

I already suspected it, but I'm now convinced that ideological purity is a disease. When people are obsessed with ~following your conscience~ over doing the practical thing for the greater good, evil prevails.

[thezmage]

That's why conservatives will always win, and things will never get better for the poor in the long run. Because every hard fought victory is blamed for being hard fought and immediately bargained away to get another conservative into office.

[halloweenjack]

Anyone wishing that we had a President-elect Luthor instead?

[scorntx]

What about President Superman of Earth-23?