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04 Feb 21:54

This Week In Star Wars

Star Wars: Visions Volume 2 Announced, The Mandalorian Season 3 New Look, and More!
04 Feb 21:54

Star Wars Insider #216 On Sale 2.07.23

Check out a quick preview of the next issue of Star Wars Insider on sale on Tuesday!
20 Dec 23:04

Jeremy Bulloch Passes Away

We've just been informed that our dear friend is gone.
09 Dec 05:40

Star Wars: The High Republic - Light Of The Jedi Special Edition Hardcover

An exclusive bundle that includes a Limited Edition cover, pin & socks!
08 Dec 14:53

Tonight’s comic is about the scariest aspect of Star...





Tonight’s comic is about the scariest aspect of Star Trek

http://www.dieselsweeties.com/ics/451/

11 Sep 14:43

Tesla Temporarily Boosts Battery Capacity For Hurricane Irma

by EditorDavid
Slashdot reader mikeebbbd noticed this in the AP's Florida hurricane coverage: Electric car maker Tesla says it has temporarily increased the battery capacity of some of its cars to help drivers escaping Hurricane Irma. The electric car maker said the battery boost was applied to Model S and X cars in the Southeast. Some drivers only buy 60 or 70 kilowatt hours of battery capacity, but a software change will give them access to 75 kilowatt hours of battery life until Saturday. Depending on the model, that could let drivers travel about 40 more miles before they would need to recharge their cars. Tesla said it made the change after a customer asked the company for help evacuating. The company said it's possible it will make similar changes in response to similar events in the future.

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05 Mar 20:22

Death Note Complete Anime Series on Blu-ray $35

by BenCallihan
Death Note Complete Anime Series on Blu-ray $35

Thumb Score: +39
Gohastings.com has Death Note: Complete Series (Blu-ray) on sale at the prices listed below. Shipping is $1.29. Thanks BenCallihan[LIST][*]Omega Edition (Blu-ray) $44.99[*]Standard Edition (Blu-ray) $32.99 (Pictured)
06 Aug 13:27

Reddit Updates Content Policy, Bans More Subreddits

by timothy
AmiMoJo writes: Reddit's new CEO, Steve Huffman, announced new a content policy and the banning of a small number of subreddits today. Additionally, some subreddits will be "quarantined", so users can't see their content unless they explicitly opt in. "Our most important policy over the last ten years has been to allow just about anything so long as it does not prevent others from enjoying Reddit for what it is: the best place online to have truly authentic conversations.I believe these policies strike the right balance." The names of the nixed subreddits make clear that they're not exactly neighbors exchanging pleasantries.

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29 Jul 13:14

maxxing and relaxing http://ift.tt/1IGG7ai



maxxing and relaxing http://ift.tt/1IGG7ai

12 Oct 05:58

Snowden's Tough Advice For Guarding Privacy

by timothy
While urging policy reform as more important than per-person safeguards, Edward Snowden had a few pieces of advice on maintaining online privacy for attendees at Saturday's New Yorker Festival. As reported by TechCrunch, Snowden's ideas for avoiding online intrusions (delivered via video link) sound simple enough, but may not be easy for anyone who relies on Google, Facebook, or Dropbox, since those are three companies he names as ones to drop. A small slice: He also suggested that while Facebook and Google have improved their security, they remain “dangerous services” that people should avoid. (Somewhat amusingly, anyone watching the interview via Google Hangout or YouTube saw a Google logo above Snowden’s face as he said this.) His final piece of advice on this front: Don’t send unencrypted text messages, but instead use services like RedPhone and Silent Circle. Earlier in the interview, Snowden dismissed claims that increased encryption on iOS will hurt crime-fighting efforts. Even with that encryption, he said law enforcement officials can still ask for warrants that will give them complete access to a suspect’s phone, which will include the key to the encrypted data. Plus, companies like Apple, AT&T, and Verizon can be subpoenaed for their data.

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18 Jul 19:19

Actors

Once again topping the list of tonight's hottest rising stars in Hollywood is ξ Persei!
22 May 12:40

[New post] I really wanted to like Godzilla.

by Janine K. Spendlove
janinekspendlove posted: "Really, I did. I mean, given that I've never seen any Godzilla film before (not even the 90s atrocity), and all I had to relate to was Pacific Rim and Cloverfield I thought the chances were good, if this was like what I heard it would be: a movie about a "

New post on Ailionora

I really wanted to like Godzilla.

by janinekspendlove
Really, I did. I mean, given that I've never seen any Godzilla film before (not even the 90s atrocity), and all I had to relate to was Pacific Rim and Cloverfield I thought the chances were good, if this was like what I heard it would be: a movie about a bunch of Kaiju beating the crap out of each other.

Aside from a desperate need for giant robots, I really should have looked at the cast, which, at the outset seems like progress for Hollywood, right?

image

I mean, yeah, there are a bunch of white dudes, but we've got 2 women, an Asian man, and an African American man. It's not great, but it's better than 1 token woman, and 1 token POC. Progress!

Except, it's not - at least not to me. While Ken Wannatabe has a pretty significant role & that's awesome (which I almost feel like Hollywood felt they HAD to do, since this was a Godzilla movie & it couldn't be completely whitewashed), Richard Jones' "Captain Henderson" plays a mostly background role to Admiral Strathairn.

image

And I haven't even started on the women.

First, we have Sandra Brody, who initially I was excited about. She's a an engineer at a nuclear power plant. She's smart, a great mom and wife, and clearly good at her job. And then she dies like 5 minutes later and her entire purpose is to move the story line of both her son, Ford, and husband Joe along.

image

 

Moving on we have Vivienne Graham… except she never does ANYTHING other than follow Dr. Ichiro Serizawa around, call him sensei, and update him on what's going on.

image

 

Lastly we have Elle Brody, who is Ford's wife, and you probably guessed it, her entire purpose is to be in San Francisco, in danger, to give Ford a reason to want to save the city. I mean, at one point his son gets evacuated, and is safe, but since she hasn't been… well, he's gonna have to go be a hero! (not to mention the fact that this pisses me off because he's a member of the military and I'd like to think he'd go in and try to save San Francisco because it was the right thing to do & he swore an oath to support and defend the American people, not just because his wife was there - it robs him of significant character depth).

image

 

And the thing that irks me most? Literally EVERY SINGLE ONE of the lead characters could have been played by a woman. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.

LT Ford Brody, EOD tech?

image

Oh look, here's a woman who does his job IN REAL LIFE. 

image

How amazing would it been to have had LT Fran Brody, EOD tech going in to disarm bombs and whatnot, while her husband (or wife - DADT was repealed after all!) the nurse, manages to get themselves & their son out of San Francisco ON THEIR OWN so that LT Brody can go in and do her thing without having to worry about her family and if they are ok!

As for Admiral Strathairn…

image

Who's about to be the second highest ranking officer in the Navy, and coordinated the rescue of Captain Phillips in real life? Admiral Michelle Howard (I'd also like to point out the other high ranking woman in the picture, Hollywood)

image

And you can't tell me that Joe Brody couldn't have been played by a woman… or are women not allowed to run nuclear power plants?

image

Hollywood made the conscientious decisions to cast men in every significant lead role in this film.

image

 

You know what I'd really like? I'd like to be able to go to a movie and just sit and enjoy it, but it's pretty hard when the media at large tells me I don't matter, and that my only contribution to society is to be a catalyst for a man's story.

No.

I'm just not going to be ok with that. Ever. Because Representation matters. 

So basically what I'm saying is I want Pacific Rim 2.

P.S. Just for funsies, hey Hollywood, this is me 14 years ago… guess what? I'm pretty sure you could have gotten away with putting some women in uniform and handed them rifles in Godzilla. Just sayin…

image

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

EarningMyWings-cover-ebookAlso, I put together my flight school memoir and posted it for free on Wattpad. So if you'd like to find out how a Mormon girl from Utah ended up becoming a Marine Corps pilot, head right this way.

Aaaaaand apparently the folks over at Wattpad loved it so much they featured it on both their "Stories4Mom" reading list and the "Inspirational Stories" reading list. 

From my journal, dated 3 March 2002

On Monday something crazy happened. We were flying our Form Solo. I was "lead" so I named our flight "Vader" flight, cool eh? So anyway I was flying us out to the area (2F) & as soon as I leveled us off @ 6500ft I noticed my oil pressure was dropping. This is bad because if it drops too low your propeller will feather & your plane becomes a glider—basically your engine is worthless.

I stayed calm & let my flight instructor know about my problem. The instructor in the chase plane sent my wing home & followed me down & made my radio calls for me while I executed my emergency landing at Brewton field. My landing was ugly—but I was nervous. I didn't break anything & I'm alive. 

Again, you can read the whole thing here FOR FREE.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

ELECTED Front CoverPlease don't forget the kickstarter for Elected is going on now! We've made it to our first stretch goal, where everyone gets a free digital copy of Jean Rabe's novella Wurms. 

It's the year 2185, and in two weeks, Aloy will turn eighteen and take her father's place as president of the country. But to do so, she must masquerade as a boy to avoid violating the Eco-Accords, four treaties designed to bring the world back from the brink of environmental extinction. Aloy hopes to govern like her father, but she is inheriting a different country. The long concealed Technology Faction is stepping out of the shadows, and as turmoil grows within her country, cryptic threats also arrive from beyond the borders.

As she struggles to lead, Aloy maintains her cover by marrying a woman, mean-while battling feelings for the boy who knows her secret – the boy who is some-how connected to her country's recent upheaval. When assassination attempts add to the turmoil, Aloy doesn't know whom to trust. She understood leadership required sacrifice. She just didn't realize the sacrifice might be her life. The Kickstarter for this book is available here.

 

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08 May 14:29

are there any dream projects you want to work on?

There are a ton of them! Now, a lot of those are creator-owned books obviously, but I’m guessing you’re asking about other types of characters.

I was able to write the Micronauts for a bit during my VENOM run, but I would love to write an ongoing with those characters.

I have a pretty great Man-Thing pitch I’d love to get the chance to write.

Other than that, there are a bunch of characters from Marvel, DC, and others… Moon Knight, Devil Dinosaur, Ghost Rider, Warlock (and the Infinity Watch), Dr. Druid, Klarion the Witch Boy, Swamp Thing, Blue Devil, Gamera… the list goes on and on, really.

There are a couple of others, too, but there are things in the works that make me leave ‘em off the list.

15 Apr 20:53

IRS Can Now Seize Your Tax Refund To Pay a Relative's Debt

by Unknown Lamer
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "Just in time for the April 15 IRS filing deadline comes news from the Washington Post that hundreds of thousands of taxpayers expecting refunds are instead getting letters informing them of tax debts they never knew about: often a debt incurred by their parents. The government is confiscating their checks, sometimes over debts 20—30 years old. For example, when Mary Grice was 4 (in 1960), her father died ... 'Until the kids turned 18, her mother received survivor benefits from Social Security ... Now, Social Security claims it overpaid someone in the Grice family in 1977. ... Four years after Sadie Grice died, the government is coming after her daughter. ... "It was a shock," says Grice, 58. "What incenses me is the way they went about this. They gave me no notice, they can't prove that I received any overpayment, and they use intimidation tactics, threatening to report this to the credit bureaus."' The Treasury Department has intercepted ... $75 million from debts delinquent for more than 10 years according to the department's debt management service. 'The aggressive effort to collect old debts started three years ago — the result of a single sentence tucked into the farm bill lifting the 10-year statute of limitations on old debts to Uncle Sam.'"

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13 Apr 16:15

Menage a 3 - Maybe the offer still stands

Menage a 3 - Maybe the offer still stands
13 Apr 11:48

IRS Misses XP Deadline, Pays Microsoft Millions For Patches

by Soulskill
An anonymous reader writes "When Microsoft terminated official support for Windows XP on April 8th, many organizations had taken the six years of warnings to heart and migrated to another operating system. But not the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Only 52,000 of their 110,000 Windows-powered computers have been upgraded to Windows 7. They'll now be forced to pay Microsoft for Custom Support. How much? Using Microsoft's standard rate of $200 per PC, it'll be $11.6 million for one year. That leaves $18.4 million of their $30 million budget to finish the upgrades themselves, which works out to $317 per computer."

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06 Apr 21:53

one shirt idea at a time. http://ift.tt/1dZQQOv



one shirt idea at a time. http://ift.tt/1dZQQOv

11 Jan 11:09

I made a WORDS HAVE MEANINGS! shirt yesterday. Looks like...



I made a WORDS HAVE MEANINGS! shirt yesterday.

Looks like I’ll be able to order my first print run today! That’s pretty rad.

04 Jan 11:30

WARNING: Tonight’s comic contains frank talk about how delicious...

03 Jan 14:27

Thank Goodness For the NSA — A Fable

by timothy
davecb writes "Slaw was kind enough to post my fable on how to not have a problem with the NSA, Thank Goodness for the NSA, and a link to the more technical MAC paper. My challenge to the Slashdot community: what's the first big step to making this all come true?"

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27 Jun 15:24

we’ve got five years, that’s all we’ve got

by wil@wilwheaton.net (Wil Wheaton)

What Will River Be LIke In Ten Years?A magazine I don’t have much respect for contacted my manager, and said it was doing a retrospective on the 20th anniversary of the death of River Phoenix. Would I be willing to talk to their reporter?

I declined, because I don’t trust them to be respectful and accurate, but since the request came in a few days ago, I have been thinking about River a lot.

Yesterday, I was looking though my office bookshelves, and I came across some teen magazines I have from the 80s, when I was on their covers. I think they came out of Wilhouse 13 when I cleaned up the garage, or maybe my mom gave them to me when my parents moved out of their house a few months ago.

Anyway, on the cover of a magazine from 1988, there’s a picture of River Phoenix, and it says, “Find out what River will be like in 10 years!” I kept looking at it, past the pictures of me and Sean Astin and Kirk Cameron and Alyssa Milano and the other kids who were popular with teen girls in those days, and something about that was kicking me in the stomach, making me feel sad. I couldn’t figure out why, until I did some maths and realized that River died five years later, in 1993.

We’ll never find out what he would have been like in 1998, because he didn’t make it to 1998. Just thinking about that made me incredibly sad.

I said I Twitter that I don’t think of him often, but when I do, I miss him, and hope that we would be close if her were alive today, because he was good people. I don’t know what kind of 43 year-old he would be, if we’d have anything in common, or if we would be friends. Hell, we hadn’t been close for a few years when he died, mostly because our lifestyles were incompatible and I wasn’t especially interested in his recreational activities of choice.

But he was, in his heart, a kind and loving and caring person. He loved his family more than anyone I can think of, and he did everything for them, maybe — I think — to his own detriment at times.

But he was good. River was good, and he had so much talent within him to share with the world, so many characters to play, songs to sing, and stories to tell … and we’ll never get to experience any of them. That makes me sad.

Like I said, I don’t know if we’d be close, or if we’d have anything at all in common, but when I think of him, I remember the 16 year-old who I looked up to, who taught me chords on his guitar and played video games with me while we listened to music on a tiny mid-80s boom box in Oregon.

I miss him, or at least the memory I have of him. He was good people, and he left us far too soon.