Dabinett delivered
It's apparently been announced that when the next season of Doctor Who debuts, it'll be simulcast in the US on BBC America. (No word on whether that'll be the case for subsequent episodes) And, it appears the 2017 special, Twice Upon A Time, will be released on UHD BluRay! I'm not clear yet whether it was actually produced in 4K, or if it's simply an HDR upscaling.
Here's an EU survey enquiring into opinions regarding summer time - whether you support the switching or not, how important it is to you, and what your preferred option would be. Myself, I went for keeping summer time year-round, offering a bit more light in the afternoon, when I'm cogent to appreciate it. The original justifications, around the time of World War I, are long gone, and with the switches come increases in road accidents, as drivers find themselves with suddenly rather different lighting, versus a gentle progression with the year. With no justification for it, why perpetuate the scheme?
That bodes well! Lauren Faust's helping craft "DC Super Hero Girls" for Cartoon Network.
I'll want to hear more about this: Brenda Chapman and Kevin Lima will produce "The Cartoon Touch", for release by Fox Family. BC you may recall as the creator and original director of Brave, whilst KL's best known for directing A Goofy Movie and Tarzan.
A rather horribly comprehensive list of just how extensive the US' involvement in South American politics since the dawn of the 20th Century.
Maybe not a huge surprise, but there've been some murmurings of Doctor Who possibly ceasing Crimbo specials - apparently not: "Director Wayne Yip (Lie of the Land, The Empress of Mars) has a Doctor Who Christmas special listed on his agents website. There have already been rumours that he was directing an episode and this appears to be some form of confirmation."
I've only just begun reading it, but it seems to have promise - rather an interesting looking webcomic, The Property of Hate. It's one of those settings/worlds where little is familiar, so you need to pay attention to how this world works, as well as why. Being about 40 pages in now, I feel more confident in offering a recommendation, if you're in the mood for quite a novel tale.
I finally got to see Ocean's 8! ^_^ Monday was shaping up to be a particularly hot day, which suggested to me that spending the peak of that in a nicely air conditioned auditorium might be a more pleasant way of spending the time, particularly with the good company of jayblanc. ^_^ I'm delighted I did, certainly - the screen chemistry on display was remarkable, underpinned by a tight script, and characters I could genuinely appreciate. The setting - the New York Met Gala - demanded some noteworthy costume design, and the production didn't disappoint, though that skill permeated the rest of the film ably. I'd certainly recommend it, and for me, I think there's enough likelihood I'll want to rewatch it now and then that I've placed a preorder for it. Not long to go, either! iTunes US just began showing a release date of Aug 21 2018. ^_^
Being in just the right spot to do so, we also caught Incredibles 2. I'm still not quite sure how I feel about it, TBH - I certainly appreciated Elastigirl and Violet getting more screen time, Violet especially, but the pacing felt rather wonky to me, where the original flowed very well, and the villain wasn't terribly surprising. (And I'm not the sort to try second-guessing the writers) Still, it's an easy choice to watch - anyone who enjoyed the first will find plenty to like in the second.
And the following night, the roomie offered up Wes Anderson's latest, Isle of Dogs. ^_^ It's stop-motion animated, as you doubtless know, with distinctly Japanese sensibilities throughout, making for quite an original production. TBH, about the only significant criticism I can level at it is that it's disappointingly feeble on the feminist front, with minimal feminine involvement, beyond a couple trophy roles, and a rather more important human character. The cinematography's superb, naturally - it's as exceptionally stylised as any of Wes Anderson's works, perhaps even moreso, being literally engineered frame by frame. I admit to preferring Pixar's style of largely eschewing star names for their roles, but, the A-list cast definitely behaved themselves. =:) It wound up as one would hope - simply very well acted, without feeling weighed down by its preponderance of stars. Good show. ^_^ (FWIW, I notice it's $19.99 on iTunes US, and £9.99 in the UK; buy accordingly!)
Oooh! Affinity Designer just debuted for iPad, and for the silly price of $14. *yoink* As one might expect, it does require a semi-recent device: "iPad Pro, iPad Air 2 and iPad (early 2017 onwards)". I wonder what happens on an unsupported device? I may fetch it on the iPad Air as well, just to find out. =:)
So, Ace of Base and Nazi symbolism.. =:P
Finally, new MBPs! Nothing revolutionary, but it's nice to see the new chipset (now a hexacore i9) supporting up to 32GB, which'll be handy for some folk; I'd be more interested in the SSD capacity, now extending up to 4TB. =:D The display resolution remains unchanged, at 2880x1200 (similar to 1.5x HD, but 16:10 rather than 16:9), but I'd live. =:) I'll be interested to see how it compares to Garnet - I imagine the GTX 1080 will still reign supreme, but of course, that comes at a hefty cost, with it being not a lot of use without being plugged in, and with no integrated GPU option to fall back to when high performance graphics aren't required. Maybe I'll wander along to an Apple Store sometime, and see how SL performs, given what an unusually heavy CPU and GPU load it presents, given its arcane graphics pipeline. I suspect this is the revision I'll lay my paws on, at the appropriate time - Hazel's still an excellent performer, though, even as it approaches its fifth anniversary. ^_^
So, someone new to r/furry - u/fennecgf - wandered into the sub, and offered free sketches. Their style looks intriguingly dynamic, so, I thought I'd offer up a couple examples of myself in SL by way of references. This is what they came back with. =:D
Here's an EU survey enquiring into opinions regarding summer time - whether you support the switching or not, how important it is to you, and what your preferred option would be. Myself, I went for keeping summer time year-round, offering a bit more light in the afternoon, when I'm cogent to appreciate it. The original justifications, around the time of World War I, are long gone, and with the switches come increases in road accidents, as drivers find themselves with suddenly rather different lighting, versus a gentle progression with the year. With no justification for it, why perpetuate the scheme?
That bodes well! Lauren Faust's helping craft "DC Super Hero Girls" for Cartoon Network.
I'll want to hear more about this: Brenda Chapman and Kevin Lima will produce "The Cartoon Touch", for release by Fox Family. BC you may recall as the creator and original director of Brave, whilst KL's best known for directing A Goofy Movie and Tarzan.
A rather horribly comprehensive list of just how extensive the US' involvement in South American politics since the dawn of the 20th Century.
Maybe not a huge surprise, but there've been some murmurings of Doctor Who possibly ceasing Crimbo specials - apparently not: "Director Wayne Yip (Lie of the Land, The Empress of Mars) has a Doctor Who Christmas special listed on his agents website. There have already been rumours that he was directing an episode and this appears to be some form of confirmation."
I've only just begun reading it, but it seems to have promise - rather an interesting looking webcomic, The Property of Hate. It's one of those settings/worlds where little is familiar, so you need to pay attention to how this world works, as well as why. Being about 40 pages in now, I feel more confident in offering a recommendation, if you're in the mood for quite a novel tale.
I finally got to see Ocean's 8! ^_^ Monday was shaping up to be a particularly hot day, which suggested to me that spending the peak of that in a nicely air conditioned auditorium might be a more pleasant way of spending the time, particularly with the good company of jayblanc. ^_^ I'm delighted I did, certainly - the screen chemistry on display was remarkable, underpinned by a tight script, and characters I could genuinely appreciate. The setting - the New York Met Gala - demanded some noteworthy costume design, and the production didn't disappoint, though that skill permeated the rest of the film ably. I'd certainly recommend it, and for me, I think there's enough likelihood I'll want to rewatch it now and then that I've placed a preorder for it. Not long to go, either! iTunes US just began showing a release date of Aug 21 2018. ^_^
Being in just the right spot to do so, we also caught Incredibles 2. I'm still not quite sure how I feel about it, TBH - I certainly appreciated Elastigirl and Violet getting more screen time, Violet especially, but the pacing felt rather wonky to me, where the original flowed very well, and the villain wasn't terribly surprising. (And I'm not the sort to try second-guessing the writers) Still, it's an easy choice to watch - anyone who enjoyed the first will find plenty to like in the second.
And the following night, the roomie offered up Wes Anderson's latest, Isle of Dogs. ^_^ It's stop-motion animated, as you doubtless know, with distinctly Japanese sensibilities throughout, making for quite an original production. TBH, about the only significant criticism I can level at it is that it's disappointingly feeble on the feminist front, with minimal feminine involvement, beyond a couple trophy roles, and a rather more important human character. The cinematography's superb, naturally - it's as exceptionally stylised as any of Wes Anderson's works, perhaps even moreso, being literally engineered frame by frame. I admit to preferring Pixar's style of largely eschewing star names for their roles, but, the A-list cast definitely behaved themselves. =:) It wound up as one would hope - simply very well acted, without feeling weighed down by its preponderance of stars. Good show. ^_^ (FWIW, I notice it's $19.99 on iTunes US, and £9.99 in the UK; buy accordingly!)
Oooh! Affinity Designer just debuted for iPad, and for the silly price of $14. *yoink* As one might expect, it does require a semi-recent device: "iPad Pro, iPad Air 2 and iPad (early 2017 onwards)". I wonder what happens on an unsupported device? I may fetch it on the iPad Air as well, just to find out. =:)
So, Ace of Base and Nazi symbolism.. =:P
Finally, new MBPs! Nothing revolutionary, but it's nice to see the new chipset (now a hexacore i9) supporting up to 32GB, which'll be handy for some folk; I'd be more interested in the SSD capacity, now extending up to 4TB. =:D The display resolution remains unchanged, at 2880x1200 (similar to 1.5x HD, but 16:10 rather than 16:9), but I'd live. =:) I'll be interested to see how it compares to Garnet - I imagine the GTX 1080 will still reign supreme, but of course, that comes at a hefty cost, with it being not a lot of use without being plugged in, and with no integrated GPU option to fall back to when high performance graphics aren't required. Maybe I'll wander along to an Apple Store sometime, and see how SL performs, given what an unusually heavy CPU and GPU load it presents, given its arcane graphics pipeline. I suspect this is the revision I'll lay my paws on, at the appropriate time - Hazel's still an excellent performer, though, even as it approaches its fifth anniversary. ^_^
So, someone new to r/furry - u/fennecgf - wandered into the sub, and offered free sketches. Their style looks intriguingly dynamic, so, I thought I'd offer up a couple examples of myself in SL by way of references. This is what they came back with. =:D