I started watching Fallout last night, and it is just crazy to me that the games I was playing close to thirty years ago that no one had heard of and my friends called me a dork for being such an avid gamer are now completely and totally mainstreamed. I’m happy about it, regardless, and glad that video games are being recognized for the works of art they are.
One of the greatest game design decisions in history has to be the selection of the music for the Fallout series of games, and it shines just as brightly in the tv series. Really a masterful idea.
I’m too depressed to talk about politics. Like I am not personally depressed and in the hole I was a month ago, but just thinking about it and that fucking Trump makes me depressed.
And what the fuck are all these university president’s doing calling the cops on protestors.
Martin
Protecting their gift pipeline.
Renie
Holy Shit! Bibi just bombed Iran, Syria and Iraq. Just breaking. This is insane
piratedan
@Martin: and now, seeing reports that Israel has bombed Iran. So it appears that Bibi has zero intention of stepping away if he’s escalating into a regional conflict.
so what’s next, Israeli internal coup?
Pennsylvanian
@piratedan: This will get out of control and …
wjca
I have a similar reaction (albeit 50 years rather than 30) about D&D. But then, I remember when the rules were mimeoed on cheap paper.
Harrison Wesley
@Renie: He’s having a pretty good day. US put new sanctions on Iran and vetoed the Security Council resolution to give Palestine full UN membership. Then a trifecta missile strike. Let the good times roll.
Renie
@Harrison Wesley: He is a madman. The people of Israel need to throw him out of office.
Quadrillipede
Fallout (and to a lesser extent, Bioshock) is the reason I taking music recorded before around 1955 seriously.
NorthLeft
The starting scene to the series is one of the best openings that I have ever seen in a series ever. I was mildly interested in watching it beforehand basically just because of a stellar review in The Guardian. That opening hooked me completely.
NOTE: I had never even heard of the video game before this series came out.
Also, Walton Goggins is one of my favourite actors.
Harrison Wesley
@Renie: I don’t think he has the power to order this himself – that’s why there’s a War Cabinet. Presumably they decided that if America doesn’t like it, America can pound sand. If it blows up, which is likely, they figure Uncle Sam will come to the rescue. They’re probably right.
Renie
@Harrison Wesley: I hope not. So far obviously no statements from the Biden people. Bibi is going to drag everyone into a regional conflict.
Honus
“And what the fuck are all these university president’s doing calling the cops on protestors.“
you should have been around in the old days, when they had the cops beat us, tear gas us and shoot us.
signed,
A boomer
Harrison Wesley
@Renie: The only thing I saw on BBC and Reuters was mention of airline flights being diverted in western Iran and explosion (s) around Isfahan. I think I’ll call it a night and wait until sometime late tomorrow morning (maybe noon) to see if there’s further clarification. I agree that it looks like a hell of a mess.
Jackie
Congress needs to rethink the financial package for Israel. Bibi is literally thumbing his nose at the US.
Harrison Wesley
@Jackie: Probably just that Philly attytood acquired when he attended Cheltenham High.
Dangerman
Trump trial about to start. Israel drops a few. Gas lines and cost goes up. Trump elected.
Renie
@Jackie: Agree. Bibi will do whatever he wants. He needs to be talked to about aid money being held back.
SpaceUnit
Q: What do gaming, social media, and expecting Israel to show restraint all have in common?
A: They’re a waste of time. Better to spend your time sniffing glue and watching porn.
ETA: Ahem, not that I would ever engage in such activities.
Another Scott
https://www.twz.com/news-features/israel-strikes-back
They seem to be trying to quickly collect news about Israel’s response.
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Splitting Image
I’ve been playing The Sims 1 recently. What it has in common with Fallout is that the music in the game is the stuff of legend.
I bought Fallout at the same time as a bunch of other RPGs which were on the market because of the big resurgence of the genre after Baldur’s Gate came out. I actually put it aside for awhile because there were simply not enough hours in the day to play all of those games even back then. I went back to it some years later. Terrific world-building.
Lyrebird
@SpaceUnit: Well I guess they’re more entertaining that sniffing pr0n and watching glue?
Srsly, the world was already too much on fire, and I am embarrassed not for my rude comment up above but for forgetting which UCLA (??) prez had the campus security people out, was it targeting BLM protestors maybe? And they sprayed pepper spray right in the kids’ faces on purpose?
Jackie
@Renie: Didn’t Biden warn him if he retaliated against Iran, Bibi was on his own? Or am I misremembering?
TBone
@Lyrebird: it was during Occupy
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Davis_pepper_spray_incident
wjca
The great thing about Johnson splitting the aid package into pieces (assuming he actually does) is that it’s then possible to stop the Israel piece without stopping the Ukraine piece.
SpaceUnit
@Lyrebird:
I remember that. How do these people still have their jobs?
VFX Lurker
I watched that opening scene two more times after finishing the Fallout series. It’s amazing how much art and story fits into just seven minutes. So well-done.
wjca
Perhaps just not organize shooting down Iranian missles next time. No overt action by us. But the message should get thru.
TBone
@Jackie: he said we won’t be part of any retaliation but I don’t know if that means we won’t help defend Israel any longer.
mrmoshpotato
I’ve been skipping a lot of Dump posts for my mental health. I hear you there.
Watched Jeopardy episodes and YouTube camping videos tonight.
Mike in NC
@piratedan: If anybody is eager to start WW3 it would be Netanyahu.
Jackie
@TBone: Defending Israel is not the same as supporting Bibi’s determination to declare war on Iran or Gaza – or any other country Bibi chooses to attack.
piratedan
@Mike in NC: He’s making a bet that the US would never abandon a long-time ally. He could be right, many of us olds would have a difficult time reconciling that call.
On the other hand, Netanyahu is certainly playing us, and he’s playing his citizens, based on the amount of public protests and in staunch defiance of the old proportional response methodology of avoiding nuclear confrontation.
I’m positive that there are other layers of consideration here that could be in play, nuclear threats? Netanyahu avoiding jail? Putin pushing buttons?
If Biden said, no more arms and US Troops will take over aid to Palestine and if you kill any of them we will take you the fuck out, I’d be behind that but would the rest of the US support that? What the fuck would be the GOP response?
HumboldtBlue
Now that Salad is gone, maybe I need a cow.
CaseyL
College presidents are shutting down campus protests because, if they don’t, FTFNYT will start a moral panic that gets them fired.
Re Israel – Bibi wants Trump in office, and he figures starting a regional war in the Mid-East is a good way to make t hat happen. The moral morons who say they won’t vote for Biden “because Gaza!” will be, trust me on this, utterly silent when Trump lets Bibi turn the region into a mass grave.
BethanyAnne
There was so much I missed the first watch through of Fallout. It’s so great to have my favorite video game series be the one that gets a good adaptation. “Get that Jello mold out of here!” Hehe
SpaceUnit
Bibi is fucking up. He’s been watching Fox News and reading the New York Times.
It’s inconceivable to him him that the Dems are going to throw a haymaker this November.
prostratedragon
Live updates from the Guardian
piratedan
@SpaceUnit: If Netanyahu escalates this into a regional conflict, stays in power and Biden doesn’t thread the foreign policy needle, it could peel off a LOT of support. Pragmatic types like us, no. Young voters, and those siren voices that state that both parties are just the same will get traction.
Let’s not forget, the GOP will lie about any response that gets made and the Media will amplify those voices and do so more “intelligently” than the GOP will by showing more campus and regular citizen protests, all while the GOP will not allow Biden any freedom to act because they will have zero compunction playing it for political gain (as we’ve seen with Ukraine).
Comrade Bukharin
Probably 99% of Democrats don’t want us involved in a regional war in the Middle East. If that happens Biden will lose.
SpaceUnit
@piratedan:
Well, I agree. I assume that’s exactly what Netanyahu is thinking.
But I think he’s wearing blinders.
Chris
@SpaceUnit:
No, it’s very conceivable. He’s hoping to drag the U.S. into a regional war precisely because he wants that not to happen.
There also has been no evidence whatsoever that the Democrats winning in 2024 would lead to him paying any kind of price, so it’s hard to see what he’s fucking up.
SpaceUnit
@Chris:
I’m not so sure. Biden has shown limited patience with Bibi’s bullshit. I think a second term Biden is going to show even less.
Lyrebird
@TBone: Thanks, that’s it! I don’t know how someone could become pres. of another enormously prestigious uni and in some important areas not have learned anything!
piratedan
@SpaceUnit: I know that Biden believes in the Democratic process, and that Netanyahu is pulling the same kind of crap that Trump would use to hold onto power. For me the maguffin is how do the people of Israel remove a wannabe dictator?
I don’t believe that Biden is ruthless enough to have Bibi fall from a window, nor is he likely to sponsor a coup. Cut off military aid? Economic aid? Intelligence sharing? Send an ambassador home? Help the Palestinians and dare Bibi to attack US troops?
I’m not sure what options he has available and how much latitude, the GOP Congress, the SCOTUS and the press will leverage in his dealings.
eclare
@HumboldtBlue:
Awww…
David 🏀Caitlin Clark🏀 Koch
@Honus: Somewhere Clark Kerr Is smiling.
SpaceUnit
@piratedan:
Those are relevant questions, and I don’t have the answers.
But I believe that Netanyahu is drunk on the same Kool-Aid that the American right has been guzzling with the encouragement of our media. He believes that trump is inevitable. He believes that Biden is senile and unpopular with Democratic voters. These are all complete concoctions. He assumes that the American right will be triumphant but is unprepared for a serious GOP implosion. I don’t think he understands the Dobbs decision.
Personally, I think he’s betting everything on a pretty bad horse.
ETA: Which, I suppose, is a thing that desperate people do.
dc
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-missiles-hit-site-iran-abc-news-reports-2024-04-19/
Wapiti
@TBone: Yeah, I think that part of defending Israel is to ensure they don’t get so pressed that they launch nukes.
prostratedragon
Nothing to see here, foiks.
“Isfahan,” Ellington & Strayhorn, feat. Johhny Hodges
(Better if it stays that way.)
eclare
@prostratedragon:
That’s nice, thank you.
Shalimar
@SpaceUnit: The only part of that I know is wrong is that Netanyahu has to know Biden isn’t senile or losing it. They talk regularly at great length. But he’s definitely betting on Trump, and betting on Biden not doing anything to stop him until Trump takes over.
SpaceUnit
@Shalimar:
Yeah, good point. But I’m sure Bibi’s all in on that dipshit narrative.
prostratedragon
Thread summary of Russian and Chinese election interference tactics.
wjca
When you’ve mortgaged your home, and pawned you possessions, and gambled them all away, and then for your last hand all you’ve got is a 4 high busted flush, well all you can do is bluff hard, and hope the other guy folds. That’s about where Bibi’s at now.
SpaceUnit
@wjca:
Huge agree.
Craig
@Splitting Image: sims is great. Long ago, maybe Sims 2, or 3, the guitar player from my old band got hired by a friend at EA to create a metal channel for the game. He got budget to write a wide all genre metal catalog, and hire all our friends to record it. It’s a stellar chunk of music. Point being, that it was about this time that video game studios realized that they were really driving near future culture. Unfortunately they hired him on a work for hire contract, so no chunk of the millions sold. For him it was worth it at the time.
eclare
@HumboldtBlue:
Watch this before you let your cow indoors
https://x.com/theawakecoach/status/1768748098762027082
HumboldtBlue
@eclare:
Saw that one. His own damn fault.
Tony Jay
“I don’t see what the fuss is all about. No one at the cocktail parties I attend has a single speck of sympathy for the smelly little booklickers or their sand-dwelling friends. Send in the nightsticks, I say. Remind them that he who payeth for the new academic wing maketh the rules.”
Or something like that. I don’t go to too many cocktail parties since ‘the incident’.
Jay
@Tony Jay:
what “incident”?
T works for a major Uni here. CUPE, Admin Asst. The Uni are $20m over budget, and have been for a while.
With the cut in Foreign Student Visa’s, (a major cash cow here), despite not even coming close to being in the top 20 for milking the cash cow, the Uni is talking layoffs. To add into the drama, the past year saw all the Unions win wage and benefit increases, after 10 years of stagnation, through strikes and each union, (there are 5) supporting each other.
None of the cuts are defined yet, but the Uni is going after the low hanging fruit, (eg. cleaning staff) and trying to break the Union solidarity formed in the past 2 years.
And yet, enrollments are up, revenues are up,……….
Tony Jay
@Jay:
Fermented donkey wang is one hell of a drug, especially when administered via a vodka vector.
Other than that, NDAs, etc.
lowtechcyclist
@piratedan:
Wait, how does Bibi get to do this by himself? He’s part of a coalition government right now. Wouldn’t his co-leaders have to sign off on something like this?
Tony Jay
@lowtechcyclist:
The crazy thing is, Netanyahu isn’t the most gung-ho General Ripper type in charge over there. He’s a corrupt, backstabbing shit on the shoe of humanity more than happy to shed the blood of innocents in whatever capacity necessary to give him immediate advantage, but he’d be happier stretching things out as a low-level genocidal occupation of Palestinian land with the odd cross-border flare-up with neighbouring states and infrequent missile/drone hits abroad, all the better to keep him War PM and out of jail.
It’s other on the Coalition War Council, the supposed ‘moderates’, who are all in on a wider general war with escalation and big booms aplenty. Netanyahu might have agreed to this, but you can bet he wasn’t the driving force behind it.
Wider regional state-to-state wars are dangerous! He might get hurt!
JWR
Well f*ck. ;(
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: Yes, Netanyahu could not order such a strike on his own, Gallant and Gantz would have to sign off as well.
Ed. They are the other two members of the War Cabinet established when Benny Gantz brought his party into the government. The Knesset ratified the agreement last October 12
Baud
@dc:
Yeah, what I’m seeing this morning is that it was some type of minimal petulant “I hit you last” strike and Iran is actually being the adult in the room. Any reported casualties?
Geminid
@Baud: From Turkish journalist Ragip Soylu (@ragipsoylu):
It sounds like someone, presumably allied with Israel, may have launched drones from within Iran. This happened on the Fall of 2022 when Iranian missile factories were struck by drones. There are people inside Iran who hate the regime much more than the Israelis do and they have served as proxies for Israel before.
Or, Iran may be downplaying a direct Israeli attack.
MagdaInBlack
@NorthLeft: That opening scene is stunningly horrifying. I must have watched it half a dozen times. I am not a gamer, I have no familiarity with any of their story lines, but I am fascinated and impressed with both “The Last Of Us” and “Fallout.”
brantl
@Jackie: Bibi is thumbing his nose at decency, and the world.
Betty
It looks like the Israel-Iran tit for tat has simmered down for now. I read that the US was notified just before the attack. Bibi still doing any and everything he can to stay out of jail. He has to humor his extremists.
brantl
@wjca: What it means is, the Democrats could stop the Israeli aid, and the Rethugs will stop Ukraine’s aid.
brantl
@Jackie: Weapons are fungible, he will use them wherever he wants, if he has them. If we want to only defend Israel, we will have to do it directly.
Chris
@Tony Jay:
Yeah, we fixate on Bibi too much sometimes.
Bibi and his attempts to Orbanize/Putinize Israel into his own personal banana republic, and Israel and its attempts to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians and kick off a bigger regional conflict, are two different things. They’re not unrelated (Bibi clearly wants to use the latter to help him with the former), but a lot of what we’re seeing on the international front would be happening regardless of who’s in power. I suspect even getting rid of Bibi wouldn’t solve the basic problem of “the Israeli government would rather have Trump in power than Biden, whom they regard as a boring scold and an unreliable squish, and is perfectly willing to do whatever it takes to cost him the election in the hopes of having a total clean check later.”
Bibi needs to be gone, if nothing else, for the fact that his horrific policies, namely his subordination of literally everything in Israel to his own political interests, is the reason 10/7 happened successfully in the first place. But it’s unclear that whatever came next would be any better for either us or the rest of the region.
Chris
@brantl:
This.
But also the elephant in the room is that Israel doesn’t actually need the aid. Not in any existential way. Ukraine does. If Israel stops receiving American weapons, Israel has to curtail its current bombing spree and has a big sad. If Ukraine stops receiving American weapons, Ukraine ends as a country.
That makes it a lot easier for one side than the other to just shrug and say sure, shoot the hostage.
les
“And what the fuck are all these university president’s doing calling the cops on protestors.”
Too young for Viet Nam, Civil Rights Act, eh? I spent a night in jail because the U of Iowa (out of town at the time) prez heard the dirty hippies were protesting on the steps of the admin building, freaked out, and about 50+ of us were arrested. Then as now, they have valuable property to protect. And it ain’t intellectual they care about.
DMcK
WARNING: MINOR FALLOUT SPOILERS AHEAD! Enjoying it so far, but I’m finding it a bit bothersome that the Vault Dwellers’ culture is premised on the diligent preservation and eventual rebuilding of a caricaturish vision of “America” without fully acknowledging that it’s an America from the 1950s: pre-Civil Rights act, strict conformity to traditional gender roles, etc. At the very least it would make the journey of Lucy’s character more interesting (I mean, Titus would likely be the first Black person she’s ever encountered, if she’s even aware they exist at all in the first place!). Not a fatal flaw in a show that’s otherwise fully engaging and well-realized, but a flaw nonetheless in that it feels like a missed opportunity for some fruitful storytelling.
MinuteMan
@wjca:
That will never happen: crossing small fascist wing of the Zionist movement makes openly opposing the former NRA look like a walk in the park. Every GQPer will support that aid and 90% of the Dems will as well.