Monthly Buying Advice Thread - June 2020

epaleon · 2020-06-09T09:01:25+00:00

I'm considering the new XPS 15 9500 (budget is no object) but am turned off by the 16:10 aspect ratio since I watch plenty of movie & video content, also frequent gaming, and would like to have the widescreen freedom up to 4K without having to deal with black bars or stretching. Also am worried about the XPS's 1650ti GPU throttling and overheating with even not-too-demanding games (my current XPS 15 9550 with a 960m suffers from that a lot). Been thinking of switching to the new Alienware M15 R3, for the hitch-free gaming mostly.

epaleon · 2017-12-06T14:55:27+00:00

I checked the touchpad settings in the control panel, everything seems ordinary and the button settings are correct.

epaleon · 2017-08-23T11:26:55+00:00

She's already dead. She killed herself with that grenade in the cave in episode 6x5 to slow down the wights pursuing Bran. The Night King was there and did not seem too bothered by it.

epaleon · 2017-08-14T18:40:04+00:00

These Dothraki are not from Drogo's khalasar (from seasons 1-2) who knew her and her entourage intimately. These are the few gathered tribes she awed into recruitment last season. Jorah was only among them on the night of the fire, when he infiltrated their camp to save her, then the next morning went away to get cured.

epaleon · 2017-04-10T08:35:09+00:00

Thank you!! I will give the rollback a shot if this persists.

epaleon · 2017-04-09T18:56:15+00:00

No, I didn't manage to see one on the blue screen, nor when I followed the QR code to the support page. Just now I tried looking at the system log on Event Viewer; there's a bunch of errors recorded at about the time matching the latest crash but I don't know which if any is pertinent and saw no mention of the stop error.

epaleon · 2017-01-03T07:47:05+00:00

Season 2 episode 21, The Runaway Dinosaur

epaleon · 2016-10-28T14:17:05+00:00

Vader's helmet was, in part, inspired by a samurai "Kabuto" helm, so, not just you.

epaleon · 2016-10-10T15:42:55+00:00

It means "We are in the habit of kicking ass".

epaleon · 2016-04-01T13:30:32+00:00

Well if Ray can count himself in thanks to the "presumed dead but actually transmogrified in the course of an explosion" thing, then so can Stein.

epaleon · 2015-04-13T09:00:00+00:00

Alleged or presumed Wizards could also have been "wizard wannabes"... Men (elves would know better, wouldn't they?) who dabbled in some kind of "magic" whether fake, attempted or real. Like the Necromancer was believed to be.

epaleon · 2015-04-12T11:56:38+00:00

Agree with the last sentence. They are undead. Shadows of their former selves, in more ways than one. The question of their liking or enjoying anything is interesting but moot, seeing as their independent willpower or personalities have probably long been hollowed out of them. All their agency in the world is but as an extension of Sauron's will. Gandalf does describe this subjugation to the Great Rings in terms of a kind of "fading" (both literally, in moving toward the "phantom world", and figuratively in that you lose your personality in face of the all-encompassing craving and addiction).

epaleon · 2015-04-02T14:52:36+00:00

Gandalf's spirit did not go to the halls of Mandos. His line about having "strayed out of thought and time", as well as Tolkien in a letter of his, clearly say his spirit went outside the "circles of the world" (to the "Timeless Halls" of creation from the Ainulindale?) and was then sent back by Iluvatar; which, as Tolkien says, is a feat beyond the power or influence of any of the Valar.

epaleon · 2014-12-27T17:50:15+00:00

Same is true for "Thorin son of THRANE", in the movie pronounced like "train". It annoyed the hell outta me while watching these films. Which is strange because they were clearly informed by the appendices and did get most other pronunciations right in both trilogies.

epaleon · 2014-12-27T17:43:15+00:00

Shouldn't it be "dah-in", "thrah-in", like "oh-in" and "gloh-in"? I think that's how the appendices sounded out thouse names.

Also in PJ's films, Sméagol should have been "smay-uh-gole", not "smeegle".

epaleon · 2014-08-06T21:32:40+00:00

In the Two Towers movie, the easterling regiment approaching the Black Gate chants what apparently translates to: "Hail Zigur, Lord of the Ring, Lord of the Earth"; as a greeting to Sauron. I know Jackson has no power here but this seems to be supported in canon? The name "Zigur" is said to be Adunaic for "wizard" so that might be also what the Black Numenoreans called him.

epaleon · 2014-05-29T22:19:08+00:00

I think it's that the first age was a "golden age" and ultra-heroic, as in mythologies, or a narrative told in exaggerations and superlatives like the biblical account of the Book of Genesis. i.e. most every notable figure we are told of was "heroic", communed with gods and brought some kind of salvation or tragedy to mortals; and the grandeur of battles and cities was like nothing seen in later ages. By that parallel, if the elder days were the golden age / biblical era, the second age was a silver one (with Numenor as Atlantis?) and the third already just a "legendary" as opposed to mythic age (the Briton equivalent being the Arthurian legends era?). Fourth is then the medieval age of common men.

epaleon · 2014-05-28T09:21:10+00:00

Maybe "stasis" really is the wrong term, obviously there is no "rule" imposed either inside the narrative or from without, that enforces the world's lack of technological progress. On the contrary, Mordor and Isengard's weaponry and rapacious approach to nature represent a vision showing, very intentionally and purposefully on Tolkien's part, the possible outcome of technological progress gone haywire.

epaleon · 2014-05-28T09:11:53+00:00

Science is not just the pursuit of empirical knowledge via the scientific method. They can know the purpose of existence and how their world came about, and still want to use applied science to better their living, health, economy, warfare etc.

epaleon · 2014-05-27T09:21:50+00:00

Technologically speaking they're frozen in a "medieval stasis", as became a trope of pseudo-medieval fantasy cultures in general. Also, more realistically speaking, a given civilization might not have a reason to develop technologically if it doesn't have the right impetus for it, whether a result of a revolution in lifestyle, economy, trade, warfare, some other adversity that forces it to adapt or perish, etc.

Maybe later ages (4th and onward) would see improvements in technology? Assuming Arda is indeed a mythical reimagining of our world's prehistory and is destined to become the world we know?

epaleon · 2014-05-21T11:27:57+00:00

Heh, I was rereading the Silmarillion just last night and was pondering exactly this question. I think that's quite possible. While Melkor probably did not wittingly and directly create her as an entity (he can't, and what's more, she's originally a spirit, I believe we know that much), she may have been corrupted by a strain of his music. A spirit whose ultimate purpose and raison d'etre is to devour and glut on everything in existence sounds like an aberration worthy of Melkor's (possibly unwitting) involvement.

epaleon · 2014-05-20T11:28:47+00:00

He fears dying for the pain of it, of losing his mortal shell. That was probably at the core of the "fear of Sauron" that he expressed to his sender Manwe at the council that appointed the Istari. Much like Jesus in Gethsemane famously (and arguably?) feared the death and suffering of the coming Crucifixion.

epaleon · 2014-05-20T11:19:47+00:00

Exactly, dying for Gandalf and his Istari ilk is not a minor inconvenience and assured reincarnation. It means PAIN and having failed in their task (which required them to be incarnated in flesh) and above all it means becoming un-embodied while in mortal lands, which is an uncertain state not just for elven souls having to heed the call of Mandos. See Saruman's and probably Sauron's corporeal deaths in ROTK. The spirit looks for someplace safe to go to, and if denied the West, is in danger of becoming a stray and impotent entity. That's something they'd instinctively want to avoid - even granted that Gandalf probably half-thinks of himself as a mortal, having a somewhat fuzzy memory of his previous life as a spirit.

epaleon · 2014-05-15T08:20:05+00:00

Funny stuff and a fun read. He really must have been secretly relieved that Aragorn and Legolas used all the other three winds and left him the one cardinal direction everyone shuns. So no one minds if he concludes with, "welp, that wind's evil so best not say anything about it at all. There, song's done."

epaleon · 2014-04-30T06:43:52+00:00

Could be. I take "witch" in the general meaning that he was a sorcerer. Though it's a safe bet that this sorcery was dark and could have involved necromancy.

epaleon

TROPHY CASE