Avengers: Endgame Introduces The MCU's First Openly Queer Character
The Marvel Cinematic Universe doesn't have the best track record when it comes to representing minorities. All but three of the franchise's 22 films have been focused primarily on straight, white men--and the three that aren't only came in the last two years. It's not a spectacular ratio when you really break it down. Avengers: Endgame didn't exactly tip the scales in favor of diversifying the line up in any meaningful way, but it did include the big screen MCU's first-ever openly queer character.
Sure, the character was an unnamed cameo by co-director Joe Russo, but, look, we're going to take the win we can get, even if it's a really embarrassingly thin one.
And in terms of including any level of queer representation, Russo's cameo was actually handled pretty well for as minimal as it was. Here's how it went down: Captain America is moonlighting as a grief counselor running a therapy group for snap survivors. In group, Russo's character explains that he went on a date--a big step--and that it went pretty well, except for when he started crying, and when his date, a man, started crying too. The trauma of the Snap is obviously not something people are adjusting to easily, even five years later.
Steve offers up some kind-hearted advice, and tells everyone that it's best to focus on the things that are positive about their situation and they need to work on moving on. It's all over in about five minutes, but it's an exceedingly normal five minutes devoid of any real stereotyping or poorly handled tropes.
In an interview with Deadline, Russo spoke to their motivations and intentions in including the scene. "It was important to us as we did four of these films, we wanted a gay character somewhere in them. We felt it was important that one of us play him, to ensure the integrity and show it is so important to the filmmakers that one of us is representing that. It is a perfect time, because one of the things that is compelling about the Marvel Universe moving forward is its focus on diversity.”
The sentiment is nice, to be sure, and appreciated. But it's important to look at this moment in context of not only Endgame, but the entire cinematic universe. This is not a monumental victory--all things considered, it's a tiny drop in a very, very large ocean. That isn't to say it doesn't matter, but it's ultimately a tiny scrap being tossed the way of queer fans and what may or may not be an empty promise for movies to come.
For all the MCU has lacked genuine representative queer relationships in the past, there has been no shortage of subtextual coding--everything from the wildly popular assumed romance between Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes to the extremely loosely implied past love life of Valkyrie during Thor: Ragnarok's flashback sequence. By the same token, there have also been characters that are explicitly queer in the source material--Valkyrie again, members of the Dora Milaje that served as Okoye's inspiration, Loki, and Korg, to name a few--who have been transported into the live-action universe, only to have their sexualities and identities written around or outright erased. All of which is to say that the MCU has had a bunch of opportunities to start including non-heterosexual characters into the mix and blatantly chosen not to do so. That's not something that can be undone or corrected by a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo.
But we've got to start somewhere right? Hopefully Marvel Studios will deliver on Russo's promise, and hopefully future representation will be more than a tiny, inconsequential Easter Egg.
iPhone XR sequel might gain twin-lens rear camera in 2019
By Roger Fingas Friday, April 26, 2019, 02:05 pm PT (05:05 pm ET)
Rumors suggest Apple’s iPhone XR follow-up will upgrade to a dual-lens rear camera in 2019, potentially delivering the company’s advanced photographic technology to an entry-level smartphone model for the first time.
As with the iPhone X and XS, one lens would be wide-angle and the other telephoto, Mac Otakara said on Friday, citing information from Chinese suppliers. The current XR has a single wide-angle lens, identical to recent base level iPhone offerings.
Traditionally Apple has used telephoto lenses for two purposes, the first being 2x optical zoom instead of digital enlargement. The second, though, is Portrait Mode photos accomplished in the iOS Camera app — the telephoto becomes the primary lens, while the wide-angle captures depth data used to isolate the subject and simulate DSLR-style bokeh.
The XR employs specialized algorithms to achieve a similar Portrait effect, but the resulting image is zoomed-out and not necessarily as accurate as its XS counterpart.
Multiple reports have pointed to flagship 5.8- and 6.5-inch “XI” and “XI Max” OLED iPhones coming with a triple-lens camera, the third lens possibly being a super-wide unit. Mac Otakara added that two out of three lenses/sensors may be used as common parts to keep costs down.
Separate design changes may include iPad-style mute switches and the use of 3D-molded rear glass, even covering the phones’ larger camera bumps. That same all-glass design is expected with the dual-camera XR successor, which could rely on a familiar 6.1-inch LCD screen, the report said.
It is also possible that the new phones will include USB-C to Lightning cables and 18-watt USB-C power adapters, but keep Lightning as their wired data type.
Last week, the Nintendo Switch Online app got a little bit more attention than usual when the latest update for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was released on the Nintendo Switch.
The mobile application also received an update, allowing users to view shared custom-made stages and then download them directly to their game. While it’s not much, the iOS version of this Nintendo app has now apparently received an update. As with a lot of Nintendo software updates, the details are incredibly vague. Version 1.5.1 makes a number of bug fixes, but nothing else is mentioned beyond this. The Android version of this update is expected to roll out soon.
Have you been using this smartphone application since the Stage Builder mode arrived in Ultimate? Were you using it prior to this for voice chat and to access extra data and content in games like Splatoon 2? What else would you like to see added to it?
Katana Zero Sold More Than 100,000 Copies In Its First Week
The 2D action-platformer Katana Zero is absolutely killing it on the Nintendo Switch right now – in more ways than one.
According to the game’s publisher Devolver Digital, it has managed to become the company’s second fastest selling game on Nintendo’s hybrid platform, right behind the 2017 hit, Enter the Gungeon.
Shout out to @askiisoft as Katana ZERO is our second fastest selling Nintendo Switch game behind Enter the Gungeon! Thrilled for the dev team and thankful for the support of @NintendoAmerica and @NintendoEurope!
Although no exact figures were provided by the publisher, not long after this, Katana Zero’s developer Askiisoft revealed the Switch and PC version had surpassed a combined total of 100,000 sales in the game’s launch week.
The developer also mentioned how work on the first free DLC, including a speedrun mode, was already underway:
Thank you so much for playing and sharing Katana ZERO – we’re excited that we’ve sold over 100,000 copies in the first week! Work on the first free DLC plus a speedrun mode is underway.
Last week, we found out the game had become Devolver Digital’s most pre-ordered Nintendo Switch title to-date, surpassing pre-order demand for games such as The Messenger, Minit and Downwell.
Have you downloaded Katana Zero on the Switch yet? What do you think of it so far? Tell us below.
On the heels of its release of k3s, a lightweight Kubernetes distribution designed for the edge, Rancher Labs has announced an accompanying operating system called k3OS.
The k3OS preview release is available with support for x86 and ARM64. With k3OS, Kubernetes cluster configuration and the underlying OS configuration are defined with the same declarative syntax as other Kubernetes resources, meaning both can be managed together.
Rancher has been working with a number of customers including wind turbine company Goldwind Smart Energy on using Kubernetes in resource-constrained environments.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 04-26-2019, 10:32 AM - Forum: Lounge
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James Bond 25 Fully Revealed (Sort Of)
James Bond's 25th film adventure has been revealed--sort of. Following a recent tease, fans expected the movie's title to be unveiled, possibly along with a trailer, but neither snippet was forthcoming during the film's reveal livestream, which you can watch below.
Instead, we got some details regarding cast and crew and more clues about the film's plot. As expected, Daniel Craig, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, and Lea Seydoux will all reprise their roles in what is still only known as Bond 25. Jeffrey Wright and Ben Whishaw also return.
Actors new to the series include Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody), Billy Magnussen (Game Night), Ana De Armas (Blade Runner 2049), David Dencik (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy), Lashana Lynch (Captain Marvel), and Dali Benssalah. Malek will seemingly play the film's villain, as he stated his excitement to be a part of the film before promising to make sure "Bond does not have an easy ride."
The only plot hints given away were that Bond is "not on active service" at the start of the film; he is instead "enjoying himself" in Jamaica. A plot synopsis continues: "His peace is short-lived when his old friend Felix Leiter from the CIA turns up asking for help. The mission to rescue a kidnapped scientist turns out to be far more treacherous than expected, leading Bond onto the trail of a mysterious villain armed with dangerous new technology."
Producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson confirmed the film's script has been written by longtime Bond duo Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, along with newcomers Scott Z Burns (The Bourne Ultimatum) and Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag, Killing Eve).
Lastly, director Cary Fukunaga revealed a segment of filming has already been completed in Norway, and the crew is about to begin shooting in Jamaica. Production will then move to London and, finally, Italy.
The Bond actor himself, Daniel Craig, appeared reluctant to return for Bond 25. After wrapping Spectre, the previous film in the series, he claimed he'd rather slash his wrists than play the character again. He also said if he were to play Bond again, it would "only be for the money." A year later, a report claimed that Craig was offered $150 million to star in the next two 007 movies, before the actor confirmed his return in August 2017.
Talking Point: Do We Still Want Achievements On Switch?
It’s been many years now since Xbox 360 introduced its achievement system and added an extra layer of gamification to your games. Microsoft’s system-level Gamerscore was introduced way back in 2005 (that’s right, fourteen long years ago). That little dopamine hit on hearing the ‘Achievement Unlocked’ sound struck a chord with a whole generation of gamers and they soon became an addiction. Bragging rights for grabbing the most obscure, most difficult ones made adding to your Gamerscore a point of pride for many.
Valve soon followed suit on Steam and Sony’s Trophy system made the word ‘platinum’ a verb. Nintendo gamers, however, never got to experience that sweet, sweet addiction – not at a system level. Many titles implement the achievements used elsewhere into the game itself, but Nintendo has never created a similar framework of its own.
If we’re honest, after fourteen years achievements have fallen off our personal radar somewhat, and wouldn’t rank particularly highly on a wish list of features for future Nintendo consoles. We’ve got used to not having them. Of course, they’d be a fun extra, but we’re not clamouring for them like we did a decade ago. In fact, we thought that was the general feeling amongst Nintendo gamers, but a quick scan of social media shows that there’s still a healthy appetite for a platform-wide system on Switch:
With Xbox achievements arriving on Switch in due course thanks to the release of Cuphead and Xbox Live integration, it seems to have reignited people’s passion for the little pop-ups. Calls for Nintendo to ‘get with the times’ are easy to hear, although for a company that believes ‘the true value of entertainment lies in its uniqueness’, implementing a system based on a competitor’s fourteen-year-old success hardly showcases the ‘Nintendo difference’, does it?
Still, it’s a feature that many players crave. Personally, we’ve fallen out of love with them a bit, for various reasons. For every game that uses them creatively and encourages you to experiment or play a different way than you might otherwise, there’s another which simply doles out the cheevos as you finish a level. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but they lose significance to us if they’re simply a mark of progress – sure, you can ‘prove’ to your online mates that you’ve completed a game, but that’s not enough of a draw.
They’re not particularly developer-friendly, either. Microsoft’s mandate that all games were required to include unlockable achievements created extra work for game devs, and its easy to understand why so many take the uninspired form of ‘You completed Level 3!’ or ‘You jumped 10,000 times!’ It’s another layer of work added to each platform the game releases on, and while it’s often easy to track certain player stats and actions (especially on modern platforms), it can be more difficult for smaller indies already crunching to get the game running and not wanting to tack on a bunch of dull, token achievements after they’ve worked so hard on the core game. Being creative takes time and the best achievements are imaginative and playful.
They can be mighty intrusive, too. You’ve just completed some emotionally significant narrative moment – shot a traitorous friend, galloped into the sunset or whatever other video game scenario you care to remember/invent – and up pops the notification. You’ve completed a game, spending hours battling your way to a reckoning and you sit there, bathing in emotional and physical catharsis as the screen fades to black… doop-doop! ‘Achievement Unlocked – Winner Winner!’
We’re exaggerating, of course, and other platforms do allow you to mute notifications, but a platform-wide system is inherently ignorant of the actual content of the game, so if a developer hasn’t thought carefully about how achievements will unlock across all supported platforms, you often get these pop-ups destroying the atmosphere of a tender or significant moment. These interruptions occur on Switch already, of course. While playing Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice a couple of weeks ago, emotionally striking and heavy moments were repeatedly interrupted by Switch telling us that ‘Tony80085 is online’ (a pseudonym has been used to protect Tony’s true identity, but we do wish he’d make his bloody mind up!).
Despite Switch not having an overarching infrastructure, many games implement their own achievements lists, and perhaps that’s enough. No, you don’t get the platform-wide integration or that satisfying unlock sound, but we’re rational human beings for crying out loud! Do we really need that – or even want it – in all our games?
Perhaps the best place they could fit in on Switch would be the selection of retro titles that come with your Nintendo Switch Online subscription. Little objectives could provide some of the focus lost with the introduction of save states and give players an incentive to revisit those old classics on the service. Many of us have fired it up, dipped into a few classics before losing interest and closing it down after a few minutes. The wall of games arguably induces paralysis and it somehow feels ‘easier’ – or more satisfying – to play something else despite loving stone-cold classics like Super Mario Bros. 3 and Zelda.
Save states would render anything as boring as ‘Achievement Unlocked: You finished 8-4!’ utterly pointless, so Nintendo would have to be very creative – very different – with its challenges. We’ve seen that the company is happy to play with these classics with the SP versions it’s been dropping and the service only contains a small selection of games, which would make a blanket ‘system-level’ structure possible where it would otherwise only be realistic (logistically speaking) from the very start of a console cycle. Others have already taken the trouble to gamify retro titles in this way – Retro Achievements has been doing it for ages.
There are plenty of opinions available on the subject of achievements, and the most interesting ones tend to come from game designers themselves. Keith Burgun and Chris Hecker’s thoughts are worth a read and delve more deeply into ideas of intrinsic versus extrinsic rewards and the mechanics of how achievements actually work.
They used to be the new thing – an incredible bit of seasoning to go along with Xbox Live on the 360 – and we have fond memories of them, but now achievements themselves are almost retro. Some would argue that they’ve had their heyday and it’s probably time to forget about them. Nintendo-only gamers never sampled their addictive properties in the first place, but anybody who has gone cold turkey with Switch need only hear that little unlock ‘dong’ once to have their nostalgia booted up and experience little ‘cheevy cravings.
What are your thoughts on achievements at a system-wide level? Do you still care about them on other platforms? Have Nintendo gamers really missed out? Feel free to share your thoughts with a comment and vote in our poll.
Random: The Karate Kid’s Son Upgrades To Switch In Cobra Kai Season 2
It almost looks like a Nintendo Switch lifestyle shot
One of the most popular web television series on YouTube right now is Cobra Kai. It picks up exactly thirty-four years after the 1984 All Valley Karate Tournament at the end of the iconic film The Karate Kid, where Daniel LaRusso (played by Ralph Macchio) defeats his rival Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka).
The new series is currently in its second season and while it’s mostly filled with a lot of flashbacks to the original films, there are also a lot of modern cultural references thrown in for good measure. For example, throughout season two, the popular television and book series Game of Thrones is name-dropped, and in the first and last episode, Daniel’s son Anthony “Antonio” LaRusso can be seen playing a Nintendo Switch.
In the previous season (released on YouTube last year), the character is spotted playing Tekken on a PlayStation Vita:
The sixth episode of season one – Daniel wonders why kids are so obsessed with technology Who could resist Tekken?
Of course, the roles have been reversed in the past when Atlus brought The Karate Kid to NES back in 1987, a game which loosely followed the action of the first and second films.
It seems like a positive sign for Nintendo when one of the most popular web television series of 2018 – and one that’s likely to be similarly huge in 2019 – has swapped from a Sony console to its hybrid system. Then again, it has been a natural move for many gamers in the real world as support for PS Vita dries up. You’ve got to hand it to Sony’s portable, though – it has hung around long after first party support ended and it’s always been a nice little system; Switch should be proud to pick up where Vita left off.
Are you a fan of the Karate Kid? Have you been watching Cobra Kai? Do you think movies, television and web series are an effective way to promote video games? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 04-26-2019, 10:32 AM - Forum: Windows
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Anniversary update for ‘Sea of Thieves’ available for free April 30
The Anniversary Update for Sea of Thieves is available for free on April 30 with Xbox Game Pass or on Xbox One, Windows 10 PC, and our biggest update yet is packed with content we know will appeal to players of all kinds. From the glory and gunfire of competitive multiplayer in The Arena to the serenity of fishing up your latest catch for the Hunter’s Call Trading Company, the Anniversary Update brings something for everyone. If you’re the adventurous kind of pirate, though, it’s likely Shores of Gold – our first set of narrative-driven Tall Tales – that caught your eye when we unveiled the update back in March.
Today, we’re taking a closer look at what it means to bring story-focused adventures to a shared-world game, and some of the new gameplay features players can expect as they seek out the mythical Shroudbreaker relic.
Shores of Gold is made up of nine distinct Tall Tales, each of which can be tackled as part of a pirate crew or by a solo player. Although each Tale is part of a larger saga that spans the Sea of Thieves, they can be enjoyed individually and you’re able to replay Tales you’ve completed previously. In fact, each Tale has been structured to be played repeatedly, meaning you won’t always find secrets and solutions in the places you might have been expecting them.
Your quest to reach the Shores of Gold, a legendary location filled with untold riches that lies within the deadly Devil’s Shroud, begins with the hunt for an ancient relic that can clear a path through the fog – a relic once sought by the Pirate Lord himself. All of this takes place upon the same shared seas as always, so other pirate crews may have their part to play in your adventure.
This perilous endeavour is just the start of an epic journey that will lead players across the Sea of Thieves. There’ll be ancient parchments to decipher, puzzles to solve, traps to dodge, and battles with fearsome enemies that stand between you and your ultimate destination – the massive, mysterious island known as the Shores of Gold.
Along the way you’ll meet a rag-tag cast of heroes and villains, some of whom are familiar faces from the game and the Sea of Thieves expanded universe, along with an all new assortment of warmongers, cursed rogues, star-crossed lovers and more. Every tale features professional voice acting to help advance the story, not to mention secret lore books and commendations to work towards as you play.
If all of this has you itching to take the wheel and weigh anchor, you haven’t got long to wait before the Tall Tales – Shores of Gold arrives as part of the Anniversary Update on April 30. Until then, more clues await in the official trailer.
Key Features
Tall Tales – Shores of Gold brings nine story-driven adventures to the shared world of Sea of Thieves.
Players can enjoy each adventure as part of a crew or alone, and Tales are designed to be replayed and enjoyed again and again.
New types of gameplay, including enchanted tools and artefacts to master and new locations to explore.
Decipher long-lost journals and ancient puzzles, battle against fearsome new foes and dodge deadly traps in underground labyrinths.
Tales designed to imbue excitement, fear, sadness and joy, with characters voiced by professional actors.
Available to all players for free as part of the Sea of Thieves Anniversary Update.
New to Sea of Thieves? Join the adventure with Xbox Game Pass or on Xbox One and Windows 10 PC. If you haven’t tried Xbox Game Pass yet, join today to get your first month for $1 and get access to over 100 great games, with new titles being added all of the time. Prospective pirates can learn more at xbox.com/seaofthieves or visit the Sea of Thieves website at SeaofThieves.com to embark on an epic journey with one of gaming’s most welcoming communities.
In this short quick article, we will show you how to change a user password in Ubuntu Linux using the graphical interface as well as the command line interface. As you are well aware, most operations on Ubuntu are applicable to its derivatives such as Linux Mint, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, and many others.
