The reason for two ZZZ streams is that Monday is the LAST day to pull S-Rank Billy, which will require a spot of grinding, and, late Wednesday night, Version 3.0 drops what promises to be a thermonuclear lore bomb. Definitely looking forward to that!
No science, history or movie streams because the IRL RNG is being a gremlin.
For folks who don't know, Ken White used to be a really reasonable guy, and an excellent lawblogger. I read Popehat Blog a lot back in the day, but his descent into...this...Has been genuinely scary. "Gradually, then suddenly..." to paraphrase Hemmingway.
Thing is, he's a really intelligent guy (he has to be, he passed the Bar Exam).
His writings can't be an inspiration anymore, but they can be a horrible, horrible warning that even the smartest of us can be swayed by the darker angels of our nature and will end up in the same place if we aren't alert.
Here's a hot take: as a general rule, calling for a political opponent's death, even obliquely, is not a best practice as long as elections still happen.
Here's a hotter take. It's easy to just point and laugh at Ken White because he is on BlueSky, a leftwing platform known for celebrating and advocating for the death of people like me. His arguments in this matter are silly and his desired outcome is evil. He is marinated in one rather wacked worldview on a platform that does not abide dissenting views and this has driven him clean out the Overton Window into the online equivalent of a Jacobin lynch mob.
BUT:
He is a guy who passed the bar exam.
Even smart folks can fall into the same murderous frenzies of chimpanzees on the warpath, because we are all fallen sinners and the great apes are not a peaceful lot.
I say this not to excuse White's abhorrent views, but to warn people that his path to perdition is only politics indicative and not politics exclusive.
I've seen, in the last few days, smart folks I admire, having been blackpilled by some recent events start to mutter things that are nearly as bad and taken to their logical conclusion would be far worse.
There is much stupid right now.
Don't yield to it.
Don't be online at all times.
Touch grass and talk to people.
And remember:
If one finds would-be despot from Eternia can have a humane and nuanced take on what's black-pilling one, then there is no need for one to embrace the darkness.
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You are giving way to much credit to "passed the bar exam." That's not intelligence. That's the ability to study, do the homework, and remember what you read. I've had several lawyers say that the single most important requirement to studying law and passing the exam is a good memory. The ability to reason from principles is not even third or fourth on the list, and empathy can be a detriment.
There is a reason why two of my favorite lawyer jokes (both told to me by lawyers, btw) have the following punchlines:
"I lost my eligibility before the bar last week."
"Oh? Why?"
"I learned who my father is."
and
"Of course you can get pregnant from an*l s*x. Where do you think lawyers come from?"
Posted by: David Eastman at Sun Jun 14 23:55:29 2026 (GJD0V)
USS Nevada (BB36) fires the first shots of Operation Neptune, the Naval component of Operation Overlord (D-Day) 82 years ago today.
Photo from a German gun battery in Normandy making life stressful for a U.S. Coast Guard 83 foot patrol boat from Rescue Flotilla One 82 years ago today.
An 83 foot patrol boat from the U.S. Coast Guard's Rescue Flotilla One tows the wreckage of a landing barge lorded with survivors out of the range of German guns, 82 years ago.
37 years ago today, the student know to history as Tank Man stood up to murderous oppression and for a brief moment gave the whole world hope, before Tiananmen Square became an abattoir.
An ironic footnote: Tiananmen Square is the park outside the Tiananmen Gate into the old Forbidden City. Tiananmen means 'Gate of Heavenly Peace'
Special Event
Tonight at 9pm EDT 1am UTCs (9pm, EDT 1am UTC) Join Myself and Hyasynth Live over at https://twitch.tv/brickmuppet for a break from the usual as we screen aa absolutely superb documentary film from 1925. GRASS: A NATIONS BATTLE FOR LIFE follows a tribe of nomadic Iranian herders as they do their annual trek as they chase the seasons that provide them with the key to their survival: Grass.
Here is the schedule for next week (ending June 6). While the early part of the week is my usual muddling through video games with delusions of adequacy, Friday will see a special treat! We're doing a collaboration with Hyasynth Live and screening a 101 year old film that is genuinely historic.
Grass: a Nation's Battle for Life is a fascinating documentary and is generally considered to be only the second ethnographic documentary ever made. Telling an epic story about the migration of a nomadic tribe in Iran, the film itself also has a wild story, which we will be delving into on stream. Don't miss this. It's neat! As usual, streams start at 6pm EDT / 9pm UTC except Friday's stream which will be at 9pm EDT / 1am UTC at https://www.twitch.tv/brickmuppet
*****
Tonight though, at 6pm EDT / 9pm UTC, in the aftermath of last Thursday's unfortunate turn of events, we will be spending the evening in a desperate search for polychromes, as we continue to explore New Eridu in the bombastic, high-energy, fighting gacha, Zenless Zone Zero.
However, I had heard good things about this film and against my better judgement I spent WAY more than movies used to cost to go see it.
I'm really glad I did.
This film is excellent, being a very enjoyable thriller that keep providing twists and surprises.
Thing is: This review has been sitting in draft for 2 weeks because the film is SO full of twists that's it's hard to review without spoilers. (The audience is not told what is going on at the beginning of the film and figuring it out is a major part of the movie).
The film is a surprisingly hard sci-fi flick, and features some aliens that are genuinely alien...and yet relatable...frequently....mostly. Except when they aren't.
The film is a thriller and after a bit of tension build-up it delivers the thrills in rapid succession and in great quantity. However, the movie is also literate, thoughtful, and poignant.
This film is Absolute Cinema.
It's one of the best films I've seen ever, and despite my aforementioned hiatus, I used to go to the movies quite often.
If you can find it in theaters I HIGHLY recommend it. It really is best viewed on a big screen. If you can only find it streaming, well I STILL recommend it. And you won't pay as much.
So: In the current and exceedingly silly Little Hexinzirkel story, Team Chibi-Pocalypse is playing around with 'Introduction Magic' which gives one a floating introduction poster listing ones name, applicable nickname, motivations, affiliations and a bit of lore....just like we've had for almost EVERY pullable character and some otherwise consequential characters as soon as they reveal their true identity to the traveler.
This is revealed to be a magical invention by Alice (which is hilariously spot-on from a character standpoint).
This happens with considerable regularity and the spell itself is explicitly stated to be affiliated with only the Hexinzirkel and specifically Alice. Heretefore I'd assumed this was just a conceit of the game, but the spells introduction as canon in this unreasonably cute little side story opens up a few possibilities.
The ONLY time we see this introduction when Traveler is not present, IIRC, is with Varka when he encounters the fellow who later turns out to be Rerir.
The only times we see it used multiple times is by members of the Hexinzirkel. (They own the spell and like to make grand entrances).
My theory is this: The Hexinzirkel went around and placed a essentially harmless curse on Varka and everyone really important that Varka was likely to meet in his travels including, but not limited to, all the Archons, known Dragons, every Fatui Harbinger and anyone else that Barbeloth scryed as important to Varka's upcoming quests. When they realized that Varka could be freed up to fight the Abyss abroad, because Traveler had unexpectedly arrived and was only a few weeks/months from Mondstadt, they placed a trigger spell on Traveler like they had Varka, likely during one of their early unhinged interactions.
Now whenever the two of them encounter someone that Barbeloth has deemed potentially important, this glowing poster of motivations and affiliations shows up giving their two champions a quick rundown of who they are talking to, and providing valuable context and intel. Of course, Barbeloth is only nigh infallible, and some people far exceed expectations, so Kachina, Collei, villains the Hexinzirkel did not anticipate and a few others get their grand entrance in a later meeting, mostly because they've got Nicole running around frantically keeping tabs on Varka and Traveller.
UPDATE:
Sorry...paragraph breaks nullify the spoiler tag.
Perhaps I should hire some specialists in arcane magic, OH. LOOK!
Back From the Outer Regions
I'm back from a sudden trip to visit family.
This week's Twitch schedule is up: For those following the Discord, Yes, the Hiatus is over early. Tonight's stream is actually starting 30 minutes late (6:30 EDT/ 10:30 UTC). Friday's programming is currently in a state of flux. These 3 discrepancies are all due to REASONS. The channel is at https://twitch.tv/brickmuppet
1
When you look at one of the places where you can claim prizes for Bootopia, in stream it looks like you have a few more that were not completed. So if the timer is not ended, maybe you need to check if the big Chungus convo lets you interact with the Bootopia again.
Posted by: PatBuckman at Wed May 27 09:09:23 2026 (s6adZ)
Space-X is launching the third and reportedly definitive version of their Starship space transportation system. This will be HISTORY or this will be FUNNY! Then we'll geek out a bit
(over humanity's future in space or awesome pyrotechnics)
BUT STICK AROUND! Because, the much anticipated Genshin Impact 6.6 is here and WE'RE ON IT!
1
When I saw that you had rescheduled, (yesterday evening on the 19th), I checked spacex, and spacex is saying the 21st, not the 20th. Either way, I am also looking forward to the Genshin.
Posted by: PatBuckman at Wed May 20 10:07:25 2026 (s6adZ)
2
It happened the 22nd. It was nice. Everything else about the launch could be spoilers.
Posted by: PatBuckman at Mon May 25 07:44:59 2026 (s6adZ)
A Question for Folks Who Do Video Editing
This isn't so much a question, or even a blog post as it is a screech of rage and despair:
I was finally confident enough of having licked my audio issues that I had decided to expand and professionalize my channel, resuming multi-streaming, returning to Kick.com and dipping my toe into You Tube & X. Last nights stream (mentioned below) seemed to go reasonably well. However, watching the V.O.D. of what had appeared to be a near perfect stream, the GAME AUDIO cut off 3/4 of the way through the broadcast. As near as I can tell, this was associated with a scene change (I activated a BRB screen, and, on the V.O.D., after said scene was closed out, my game audio was taken by the Fae.)
My sound board looked right, chat said nothing ( Yes I actually had chatters and interacted with them during this time) yet the V.O.D. shows no game audio...just me commenting positively on Yo Hoyo's "gnarly sound design" which is, of course, not in the V.O.D. audio.
Looking at my OBS archival recording, the game audio after that point is audible, but only * just* barely.
Saturday had been a very long, physically demanding day and I do note that towards the end of the stream, I had begun to slightly slur my speech (a sign of exhaustion that is a lingering side effect of the stroke), so a P.E.B.K.A.C. error is certainly possible. However, I cannot imagine what that could have been. I assume, that the audio channel for the V.O.D/archival recording is ONE channel, and not split up in some bizarre way by OBS sources.
So: Those of you that do AV editing:
Has anyone had anything like this happen? This is so odd and specific that it almost HAS to have been an error on my end, but it seems to be running fine now. (At least the archival recording is). I'm sorry to bother everyone with my interminable derpitude. I'm just grasping at straws. Now I'm slurring rather spectacularly, so I don't want to do a test stream.
1
I have no idea. From what I can tell, this category of software is just not very consistent and reliable, and I cannot tell how much is simply microsoft. (I did have my first audio error (that I did not bother troubleshooting) on Linux recently.)
Posted by: PatBuckman at Mon May 18 09:59:48 2026 (s6adZ)
2
Well: I cannot get the error to replicate. OBS is haunted.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Mon May 18 19:55:23 2026 (dLZLE)
My illness cut into the number of streams this week so as compensation we will be doing a Saturday broadcast.
TOO KNIGHT! @ 9pm EDT/1am UTC Join us in chat over at https://www.twitch.tv/brickmuppet for the very first animated dinosaur film ever! Gertie (1914). This short was actually filmed by the great cartoonist Winsor McKay. While not quite the first animated film ever, (it's 3rd or 4th) he debuted in it most of the techniques that made modern cartoons / anime possible. The film is only about 6 minutes long, so after geeking out on it. we'll stick around and do a thorough discussion and play through of the thermobaric cluster-bomb of lore that is Zenless Zone Zero 2.8.
1
Dinosaurus is just the Latin style version of Dinosaur. Or Dinosaur is an English style version of Dinosaurus. McKay's generation used Bible references and classical references as markers of education. The way our cohorts (wrongly IMO) use a lot of Marxist stuff as 'I am educated'.
Posted by: PatBuckman at Tue May 19 06:42:22 2026 (s6adZ)
I was streaming during the event, I was unaware of it until much later.
There is not much that is known at this time. What is known is that a Teacher of the Year from California ran the scanners at the White House Correspondent's Dinner and got off several shots before being subdued.
Thankfully unlike the Butler shooting, no one was killed. One Secret Service Member was shot but his bulletproof vest's manufacturer is going to have a field day with advertising.
Not counting the Iranian backed attempt from 2024 (which was disrupted during the planning phase and seems to have gotten nowhere near the president), this was the THIRD assassination attempt. The third time shots were fired at him.
At this point, I think it likely that Trump does not finish out his term, and think it likely that he joins Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy.
I also think that will be a disaster, as it will normalize political violence in a way the 4 others did not. The opposition party is openly calling for this, the protesters outside the WHCD cheered when the news reached them.
IDK who Jason Howerton is, but he's correct. almost everyone doing politically motivated assassinations right now is on the far left. The only one I'm aware of in recent years that was an assassination of a left winger was the brutal murder of the leader of the very left wing Farm-Labor Party. However that turned out to be a leftist who was angry that Melissa Hortman had voted against a measure to bring more Illegal Immigrants into her state.
I fear the we are entering a period of political violence we haven't seen since the late 1960s and early to mid '70s. This was a cycle that has played itself out in many other American countries, and turned many of them into abattoirs. The U.S. has been lucky in that regard, but is not immune to the immense currents of historical trends and human nature.
1
I'm pretty sure I deleted a completely legit comment that had been here while I was in the process of purging spam.
Please, repost your comment if you can. I am very sorry. I am NOT in the business of deleting opposing viewpoints unless they contain obscenities or true threats.
Again. I am very sorry.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sun May 3 19:15:10 2026 (dLZLE)
Thesis was that a) conditions inside the US are declining b) the Iran war is a significant disappointment to Americans, sufficient on its own to determine the congressional elections.
Thus, it predicted that the Democrats would win both houses, and that they would then impeach and convict Trump.
So the pattern of errors, to me, could have a domestic explanation, but I interpreted it as a foreign spammer working for one of the adversarial regimes.
I don't think that anyone sane and informed knows for certain what the House elections will wind up being. The insiders will have their baseball, and their theory of their thumb on the scales.
The Democrat extremists have all along, at least after the 2016 vote, said that Trump would be significant and irreversible. (They generally overstate irreversibility, behavioral processes are not as they model them.)
The Republican voter extremists have been saying that the domestic terrorism and electoral fraud is funded by the federal government.
If either of these two positions are a little bit true, than this cycle could have differences from previous ones that make forecasting more difficult and less certain.
The basic and fundamental problem with supposing that 'Jewish conspiracy controls America' is a winning campaign plank, is that America has a lot of Christians, and Christians know two things. One is that both the Christians and the Jews document things that establish that Islam is a heresy of Christianity, therefore Muslims who want to kill Jews also want to kill Christians. The second is that it is Americans Christians, the fundamentalist evangelical Protestants in particular, who are the basis for the American support for Israel. Another problem is that many non-Christian and Christian Americans understand the American Jacksonian tradition, and understand that the Jacksonians do not, for example, love the Twelvers.
To the extent that Americans are Jacksonian, they don't have a problem with war against Iran, they have a problem with using padded gloves to wage war. Trump is still very 'padded gloves' compared to what the Jacksonians might consider.
Posted by: PatBuckman at Tue May 5 10:58:56 2026 (s6adZ)
1
Scuff alert! Just now today, I watched yesterday's zenless stream. Your BGM channel, and then your game audio channel was fine.
Your voice channel was not audible to me. Maybe check your microphone, and stuff?
I checked several parts of the video, and did not hear your voice, so I guess it was not fixed?
Posted by: PatBuckman at Tue May 5 10:24:23 2026 (s6adZ)
2
It's been a wild week. I went back and watched the V.O.D. to make sure the sound levels were OK and....they weren't. I checked the others, (I usually do a cursory double-check of the V.O.D. before publishing it, but had not this week.) Turns out 2 of the streams had issues, one with game audio, one with my audio.
I spent yesterday morning after work trying to figure out what was wrong since all settings seemed correct. I then went about deleting and re-installing the sources, then activating them via advanced audio options then doping several test recordings and that seemed to fix the issue...which does not make sense.
Last night's stream went OK.
But the solution had more in common with exorcism or magical incantation than any software fix.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Fri May 8 05:53:00 2026 (dLZLE)
3
(I caught a lot of the stream last evening, and it looked and sounded very nice.)
Software man, software.
I'm a little jaded about the software world now.
Given how things seem to me, I am not at all surprised if it seems pretty much like a spell to people who are not technically inclined, and who are not trying to follow this stuff.
Lots and lots of work has gone into hiding the 'finger pinching' bits of software away from users, and in trying to make it seem like it 'just works'. This is fine up until the complexity explodes, and we start having trouble teaching people how to handle the fiddly internal bits. My self-study of this stuff has maybe been one of the more ill-starred. But I do know now that there can be significant gaps in the software fu that we try to teach university students.
What I do is much more 'I look for buttons to push until something works' than I expected five or ten years ago. One or two years ago, I think I still thought that if I read more books, I would start figuring stuff out better.
Posted by: PatBuckman at Fri May 8 13:50:57 2026 (s6adZ)
The vendor trash that you should sell may be everything with a gem icon.
You should probably also try to use the various upgrades in the boxes you have unlocked, in the boost menu.
You can probably also more quickly decide what to grab, and what to ignore or leave behind, by looking at the color bar, and the icon. The purple/pink bar is better than the blue bar items, and those are better than the grey bar/no bar items.
Posted by: PatBuckman at Sun May 10 19:02:11 2026 (s6adZ)
BETCHA' DIDN'T KNOW....
Today is election day in Virginia.
On the ballot is this:
Question: Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections, while ensuring Virginia's standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?
The wording is ....I haven't taken a civics or poly-sci class in years. I don't have access to the style guide...There's a technical/legal/academic term for this that
OH RIGHT!
It's BULLSHIT.
Sorry for the francophone digression but this amendment is Grand Theft State.
Constitutional amendments are NOT in anyway temporary measures.
The before and after if this gets passed is here:
If you are in Virginia and can legally vote please vote no.
We shall see how everything goes down in the general.
Posted by: PatBuckman at Wed Apr 22 09:11:42 2026 (s6adZ)
2
To be frank, given all the mail in shenanigans, I'm astonished that it was as close as it was. This was a double-off-year special election which is something that Republicans are at a severe structural disadvantage at, and yet they almost pulled it off.
The dumbfounding ineptitude of the state Republican party should not be ignored here. Folks need to loose their jobs over the lack of campaigning for "No!" but just a hair under half the state was informed enough to go to the polls on a date there is usually no election to try and stop this.
This bodes well for future elections.
At least in other states.
For Virginians, however, the future is dark indeed. Spanberger and her team will soon control everything and when they do they'll be singing the song of their people.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Wed Apr 22 10:51:05 2026 (dLZLE)
Hobby Space News of the commercial space industry A Babe In The Universe Rather Eclectic Cosmology Encyclopedia Astronautica Superb spacecraft resource The Unwanted Blog Scott Lowther blogs about forgotten aerospace projects and sells amazingly informative articles on the same. Also, there are cats. Transterrestrial Musings Commentary on Infinity...and beyond! Colony WorldsSpace colonization news! The Alternate Energy Blog It's a blog about alternate energy (DUH!) Next Big Future Brian Wang: Tracking our progress to the FUTURE. Nuclear Green Charles Barton, who seems to be either a cool curmudgeon, or a rational hippy, talks about energy policy and the terrible environmental consequences of not going nuclear Energy From Thorium Focuses on the merits of thorium cycle nuclear reactors WizBang Current events commentary...with a wiz and a bang The Gates of Vienna Tenaciously studying a very old war The Anchoress insightful blogging, presumably from the catacombs Murdoc Online"Howling Mad Murdoc" has a millblog...golly! EaglespeakMaritime security matters Commander Salamander Fullbore blackshoe blogging! Belmont Club Richard Fernandez blogs on current events BaldilocksUnderstated and interesting blog on current events The Dissident Frogman French bi-lingual current events blog The "Moderate" VoiceI don't think that word means what they think it does....but this lefty blog is a worthy read nonetheless. Meryl Yourish News, Jews and Meryls' Views Classical Values Eric Scheie blogs about the culture war and its incompatibility with our republic. Jerry Pournell: Chaos ManorOne of Science fictions greats blogs on futurism, current events, technology and wisdom A Distant Soil The website of Colleen Dorans' superb fantasy comic, includes a blog focused on the comic industry, creator issues and human rights. John C. Wright The Sci-Fi/ Fantasy writer muses on a wide range of topics. Now Read This! The founder of the UK Comics Creators Guild blogs on comics past and present. The Rambling Rebuilder Charity, relief work, roleplaying games Rats NestThe Art and rantings of Vince Riley Gorilla Daze Allan Harvey, UK based cartoonist and comics historian has a comicophillic blog! Pulpjunkie Tim Driscoll reviews old movies, silents and talkies, classics and clunkers. Suburban Banshee Just like a suburban Leprechaun....but taller, more dangerous and a certified genius. Satharn's Musings Through TimeThe Crazy Catlady of The Barony of Tir Ysgithr アニ・ノート(Ani-Nouto) Thoughtful, curmudgeonly, otakuism that pulls no punches and suffers no fools. Chizumatic Stephen Den Beste analyzes anime...with a microscope, a slide rule and a tricorder. Wonderduck Anime, Formula One Racing, Sad Girls in Snow...Duck Triumphalism Beta Waffle What will likely be the most thoroughly tested waffle evah! Zoopraxiscope Too In this thrilling sequel to Zoopraxiscope, Don, Middle American Man of Mystery, keeps tabs on anime, orchids, and absurdities. Mahou Meido MeganekkoUbu blogs on Anime, computer games and other non-vital interests Twentysided More geekery than you can shake a stick at Shoplifting in the Marketplace of Ideas Sounds like Plaigarism...but isn't Ambient IronyAll Meenuvians Praise the lathe of the maker! Hail Pixy!!