Another rambling philosophical tome from Taleb. It expands on the idea that good policy emerges from the participants having skin in the game. I’m not sure it works as a coherent whole, but there are enough nuggets of brilliance scattered between the insults, diatribes and math to make it worthwhile.
I’ve been watching The Expanse lately and wanted to get a taste of the novels that the show is based upon. This was a good read, and the show is a pretty close interpretation of the story. I’m not sure if I can keep going with the book though. If the T.V series gets cancelled I might have to.
Black Magic is a strange mix of horror and bumbling romantic comedy. Nothing in this movie makes any sense and I loved just about every minute of it. The plot is focused on various characters hiring a voodoo shamen to cast love spells. It’s filled with all sorts of skulls and weird voodoo action like centipede eating, dog wresting, forced lactation and hair stealing. The climax is super cheesy lightning bolt voodoo duel atop a crumbling, unfinished building.
There are a few gory moments, but for the most part this was a rather ho-hum Shaw Bros. kung-fu outing. Silly plot involves protecting a treasure caravan, five uniquely adorned outlaws, and a drunken master. Doesn’t really make sense and the fights are not terribly inspiring.
It’s been just about a year since I purchased The Witcher 3 from GOG.com and I have finally finished the DLC content. The Blood and Wine expansion like getting a completely new game world to explore. Worth every penny. But alas, I think it’s time to uninstall this fantastic game. I suppose I could keep going to try to complete all the achievements but my time and SSD space is limited. For now I will patiently await the release of Cyberpunk 2077. On the up-side, I will never be forced to play a boring round of Gwent again.
Sowell is always an interesting read. However, I find that he can be a bit repetitive in his points from book to book’I get it, minimum wage laws are dumb. Yet, despite his persistence, nobody appears to be listening (it’s no surprise that in interviews he is quite pessimistic about the future). But for all his repetition, there are always a few nuggets of novel insights in each of his essays. My favorite from this book is his observation that demographic statistics seem to ignore average ages of various statistical groupings. When the average age of a particular group is 18–25 you are going to see more criminal behavior on average because most criminals, not matter their race, fall into that age group. There are some other good bits about birth order affecting outcomes and the self-sorting of communities.
A collection of 50s and 60s rock and roll instrumentals from Buffalo Bop. At times a little bit Link Wray and other times a little bit surfy with a some piano-banging rock and roll thrown in the mix as well.
I’m not quite sure why this movie was so popular when it came out. I remember hearing that they watched it in an English class in my high school even though there was a bit of nudity in it (was there a PG rated cut I’m forgetting about?). It’s pretty corny and almost sounds like the actor’s voices were dubbed. There’s a bit of Zardoz lingering here, but not enough to make it fun to watch. It’s like all the budget went into polishing the armor. All that said, I feel like this one might improve with repeated viewings. For now, meh.
This one was a freebie from GOG.com of which I knew nothing about before playing it. Turns out, it is a 2.5-D platformer’meaning, it’s a 3-D rendered game but you only move in the standard two dimensions of a classic platformer. I’m not a huge fan of platform games, I’m not very good at them. Thankfully this one is slow-paced, not too twitchy and yet, it’s not quite a puzzle platformer either. There is just enough action and thinking to keep an old-timer like myself interested for a few hours.
There is a little bit of a story which is told mostly through comic style art cut-scenes. There is also plenty of junk to collect if your the type of OCD gamer that goes for that sort of thing. Exploration is limited and it doesn’t take much effort to uncover secrets. Overall, and enjoyable game that doesn’t overstay its welcome.
A while back I gave this game a spin during a Steam free weekend and ended up setting it aside I guess because I couldn’t quite grok the stealth mechanics. On this second go around I’ve realized that it’s all about using your magic skills for just about every encounter. In fact, by the end of the game the player is well-nigh invincible will his arsenal of teleportation, mind control and time dilation. I’m too old to be wasting my time mastering a video game, so I welcome it when games feel like they get a little easier as I go along.
There’s enough of a thread of plot to keep it engaging to end. It’s all a pretty basic damsel in distress narrative with the usual litany of video game story-telling cliches. At least it is set in an interesting steam-punk world. Or more appropriately, whale oil punk.
I managed to finish the game only having to kill two characters, so I got the “good” ending. Hurray! I suppose.
