I'm guessing the cards have a tell etched in to the sides, he does a subtle thumb riffle at about 4:47 while distracting everyone. The idea that the cards are well and truly shuffled drops everyones guard for that 5seconds after.

The "playing seconds" I'm sure is a large role in the final bit as well and at normal speed with his technique, it really is impossible to notice.

I think Sam Harris is awesome, so there was a lot of interesting stuff in there even though it came from before the election.

I agree with everything he said about who Trump is; his motivations (or lack thereof), narcissism, potential psychological issues, etc. Yet I disagree with his threat analysis. I still think that Trump's "balloon flying around randomly" presidency seems like it could easily be better than a Clinton presidency.

Trump will cause some incidental damage with his chaotic randomness. But basically, it will be 4 years (please) of loud noises and flashing lights that mostly goes nowhere. Hillary, with all the baggage and rumors etc. that may not true, is still in general the kind of person that people like Hitchens said she was. She's savvy, subtle, and frankly dangerous. And she's extremely well connected. When Trump randomly bungles his way into some big screw-up, we're going to hear about it. If Hillary weaseled into some dirty back-door stuff that could cause real long-term problems, there's a good chance we'd never find out about it.

Then he mentioned the "Trump vs random US citizen" argument. Jesus, I'd have taken random US citizen in a heartbeat over Trump or Clinton. Hell, I think that would be a fantastic way to call a mulligan and replace every last member of our corrupt, incompetent, and entrenched congress...

No "apology" necessary -- I can definitely see how it would look like bad AI in a one-off context like this, I just wasn't sure if you were making a sarcastic dig at them or not (and it would be fine if you were, also).

There's actually an amazing level of depth in subtle details that get put into the GTA games. Some of them are immersion-enhancing things that you tend to only notice on a subconscious level, like "tick tick tick" sounds of car engines cooling after you shut them down. And some are little in-joke tropes like this.

Honestly, it seems like it would take a LOT of work to coordinate all of those details and references and keep them fairly internally consistent. On top of that effort, the payoff is arguably somewhat dubious in cost-benefit terms -- a few people with notice these things and find them a little bit funny, a few will notice them and be offended to varying degrees, and a bunch either won't notice at all or will chalk them up to AI / simulation glitches.

But I still think it is cool that Rockstar doesn't shy away from including this kind of stuff, and/or stuff that more blatantly pushes the limits.

Doesn't Netflix have Dagon and Necronomicron: Book of the Dead? I looove John Carpenter's Apocalypse Trilogy and The Mist RULES! Frank Darabont has also made many a Stephen King flick (Shawshank especially).

Off the top of my head, I would say HP Lovecraft isn't simply about madness driving horrors, it's biological horror, rather than supernatural. So almost anything by David Cronenberg, a lot of Japanese and Korean film, such as Akira, Uzemaki, The Ring movies, (which is based upon a Japanese folklore, but in modern times became biological horror, the Ring is actually a hybrid biological, technological virus), etc.

Also, the Matthew McCant-spell-his-last-name's True Detective breeches the Lovecraftian realm on a subtle and then not so subtle way in the end, such as the concept of "black stars" in a constant daytime of white background. I would say it's pre-Lovecraftian mythos from authors in the 1800s writing nihilistic almost biological horror, more just heavy uncomfortable writing. I can't recall the primary author who inspired Lovecraft beyond Bram Stoker's The Lair of the White Worm.

Anyway. I love horror, thrillers, suspense, nihilism, pulp and gothic literature.

Please expand, because while I can see that he's picking and choosing some easy targets for criticism (over the top SJW stuff) that may not be representative of the at-large "Progressive" agenda, nothing really jumped out at me as a "straw man" argument.

I'm a somewhat conservative-leaning person (at least on issues that I think should be in the realm of government), but I feel like I have a legitimate beef with some of what the party that is "supposed" to cater to conservatives actually does in government; what the GOP seems to present as its "platform".

This guy is a liberal-leaning person who feels like he has a legitimate beef with some of what his party thinks their platform should be. And I tend to agree with a lot of what he's saying.

And I would hope that even if I didn't agree with anything that he was saying, I'd be all for protecting his right to say his piece. Some people/groups test our patience for that, like the Westboro Baptist Church -- ostensibly a crazy right-wing organization that just wants to get their message (of hate and bigotry) out there. But in reality they are just a bunch of con men who stir up trouble in order to provoke violent or other responses that they can start litigation over. The point is, there are good ways and bad ways to deal with idiots like that.

Threats to free speech from the other side of spectrum are much more subtle, and therefore perhaps more insidious and dangerous. For example, at about 3:00 in the video where he lists "racism, bigotry, xenophobia, homophobia, and islamophobia" as "meaningless buzzwords". For many people, those words are NOT meaningless, but real, concrete problems that they actually have to face in their lives. Problems many orders of magnitude more significant and weighty than any of the minutia that can make or ruin our average day. Unfortunately, those words do tend to carry a lot less weight when they are bandied about willy-nilly every time we disagree with someone for any reason.

I guess, we all really do have more things in common with each other than things that separate us from each other. The frequent and extreme factionalizing and partisanship today seems very counter productive. And there's plenty of blame for that to go around.

Me too, I thought the second one was a great sequel, poked fun at itself and had a ton of subtle lit and history jokes. Depends on the script of course, but,I think it could be really fun to see another installment. We'll see.

@newtboy
you were not the only one who put me on the defensive for supporting chis hedges.
so if you feel singled out,i apologize.

the point of this post is put into light an adored spokesperson for the left,and a commentator who is also left leaning (and many of his upvoted videos can be found on the sift) to make a point.

and by your comment,you are struggling to reconcile the two.
but you DID reconcile,and you did so by giving maddow a tacit pass and condemning kyle for being a "complete bombastic liar".

when the truth is:
they both are...kinda..sorta..

they both are approaching,and making their points by using biased and slanted data to influence you,and i for that matter,into adopting their viewpoint.

these are not outright and pernicious lies.they are lies that serve a purpose and i find maddows far more egregious,because it is far more subtle..and you appear to have bought it.

she did so by using the innocuous word "might",yet her inferrence cannot be mistaken.they call it the "dog whistle".this is a wink and a nod that those dirty ruskies own our new president.

wink wink...nudge nudge..know what i mean?

now kyle is not exactly lying either.
he is using russias reaction to the new deployment from putin himself.who has stated that there was an agreement that there would be no new encroachment after the GDR,but that simply reveals the cleverness and political saavy of putin.

the real truth is this:
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2014/11/06/did-nato-promise-not-to-enlarge-gorbachev-says-no/

or is it?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-s-eastward-expansion-did-the-west-break-its-promise-to-moscow-a-663315.html
from 2009?

maybe this is the truth?
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-shifrinson-russia-us-nato-deal--20160530-snap-story.html
from 2016.

well,personally i am going with the LAtimes and der spiegel.
brookings is a right wing think tank with deep tentacles in the pentagon and DoD.

but CNN reports that poland LOVES the new troops:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/14/europe/poland-us-troops-nato-welcome/

look,
while i will agree that putin is a vicious thug,who murders political opponents and tortures dissidents.that he is ruthless and relentless political player.

i do not see any evidence of russian hacking influencing our elections,nor do i see a new russian empire pushing for those cold war expansionism days.

the only entity/country i see pushing for expansion and a renewal of the cold war..is us..the pentagon and the department of defense,and those juicy juicy defense contracts!

i feel my time on the sift is coming to a close.
having to defend my admiration for a pulitzer prize winning,war correspondent and author is just...weird.

at least i know i am biased,but i do my best to self-correct.

@bcglorf

think we are talking about two separate issues,with a only a subtle overlap.

i totally agree that when it comes to russian politics,and/or state sanctioned military operations,RT tends to lean in favor of the russian state.

but in my opinion this does not detract from the works of hedges,or hartman or even abbey martin.who used to have a show "breaking the set" and "empire files".

we can view american corporate media through the same lens.

FOX=republican message of the day
MSNBC=democrat message of the day
CNN=the american state message of the day.

taken in aggregate,these corporate media outlets are all propaganda/misinformation machines.

but..taken singularly...

shep smith on FOX does some good work.
while personalities such as o'reilly,cavuto and carlson are simply demagogues.

or rachel maddow on MSNBC.
who does an excellent job of disseminating the politics behind a lot of republican shenanigans.sadly her show is incredibly biased and partisan.so while i LOVE her analysis..i realize that it is a tad bit biased and slanted.

i do not watch CNN.except when i want to know what bullshit excuse the american government may be focused on.

so i get where you are coming from,and i agree for the most part.
i simply refuse to outright ignore someone like hedges,with his credentials,because of the venue he has been relegated to in order to express his criticism.

is/does RT sometimes promote russian propaganda?
yes..of course.
does this equate to chris hedges being a russian propagandist?
no..it does not.

and i am also not necessarily disregarding your discernment and discrimination towards hedges.
we all have a metric we use when discriminating.
yours is simply different than mine.
this does not equate a moral right nor wrong,just different.

but you and i may disagree on some things,but i would like to think we have both earned each others respect.

so when you post a comment.i read it with that respect dictating the lens with which i view your words.i know that you consider your words carefully,and i think it polite to give those words the same consideration that you gave them when writing.

we can disagree,and have,but i always walk away with at least understanding WHY you may feel a certain way.

It's a very subtle distinction, as far as I can tell. It's about hating the other who is less deserving. So---they can accept Obamacare/Kentucky Connect, but be furious about others because they feel that the other people accepting some sort of government benefit are LESS DESERVING...

I think.

And like the very nice lady who had her breast cancer treated says: "I didn't know the government was subsidizing my insurance"...

They tend not to know their own state's economic balance sheets and cash flow statements

@ChaosEngine

i have many:teachers,police,firefighters as facebook friends.

during the run up to the election i was posting a ton of my research,analysis and commentary in regards to the election.

this,on it's own,should not be surprising,what WAS surprising is all the support i received from these people and who were simply afraid to like,or comment.

they were literally sharing my work with other people via private messaging.

each and every one expressed to me a fairly robust paranoia that if they liked any of my posts,or commented,that they would receive disciplinary action and that their jobs would be in jeopardy.

i found this very troubling and what i could not,and STILL cannot reconcile,is how some people not only ignore this very subtle form of censorship,but find it a viable and understandable in the realms of social media.

when you restrict what a person can comment or speak on due to fear.this is censorship.

in the case of justine sacco,she was simply making a joke and when put in context..a really damn good one.but due to the self-righteous moralizing of total strangers,her life was destroyed.

now there will be some that may still find this justified,and that is fine,that is their right but what REALLY chills me is that nobody is addressing the much deeper and far more insidious nature of public shaming.basically:other people saw what happened to justine sacco and will modify their social media persona accordingly.

this,in my opinion,will only result in a vanilla goo like substance that offers no challenging ideas,no conflicting opinions that offer an opportunity to discuss and debate difficult subjects,because debate starts with disagreement,and if you impose a fear of retribution by simply posting any content that may be construed as controversial.then the conversation ends...
and we all pay a price for that kind of groupthink.

this will force the really bad and worst of us to go underground,and reside in an echo chamber where their fucked up ideas are parroted back to them,resulting in a confirmation that their worldviews are correct.

conversely...

those who may have good ideas,or wish to engage in controversial subjects,or in the case of justine sacco..make a fucking joke...will be relegated to the "good little worker bee" position.who never challenges power or authority and simply obeys...for fear of losing:financial security,public standing etc etc.

they become fucking stepford wives.

and in my sincere opinion,this is the real danger.

Y'know, the first thing the new Tarkin brought to mind was LA Noire. To be honest, I think LA Noire did the whole face-scanning thing much better. Now, they had an easier job to do, where the whole game is already CG so perhaps the faces don't stand out as much, but it does feel like they did a better job.

I actually think they tried to control Tarkin's face a little bit too much. I think there will perhaps be a 'realization' in the industry that adding a host of very subtle random fluctuations to a face will make it seem more real.

I found the discussion about lips sticking together to be fascinating, and that's certainly headed in the right direction. There's probably something about gravity being applied to faces that make them seem realer, too. Like that they subtly jiggle and bounce as they move and that at a miniscule level the skeleton of the skull moves first to push the musculature and skin of the face around second. Those kinds of subtle movements are probably what could make this kind of thing realer.

colour grading as in DI is "new" and related to digital film but colour timing, which is the analogue method, goes back to the start of film making.

i've done work for several marvel films, their DI is generally pretty subtle. the raw footage def. has blacks (and negative values in the blacks). the new cameras used wont change this unless they want to change it. the colour gamut has been wide the whole time. OCIO colour may have a certain effect but i can't see it having the colour effect wanted here.

@AeroMechanical is exactly right. the new cameras aren't going to change shit. they're still going to grade the movies to be consistent with past movies. and they've fully had the latitude to grade them in a more vibrant manner the whole time.

and as far as rereleasing them as "UHD Blu-Ray box set" (i'm assuming 4K UHD), they can't. they were all done in HD or 2K (at least the ones i've worked on). uprezing is possible (4K outside of a theatre is actually pretty bullshit, you can uprez HD uncompressed to 4K without that much effect) but resolution doesn't change colour grading/DI.

A subtle bit of hierarchy there *promote sharin' is carin'

The actual joke is the fact that you could find a nice bowl of fruit in a normal upper class home, but this man appears to be a brutish, rugged, cave man like human. To accompany this, instead of a bowl of fruit, he eats a barbaric bowl of meat. Hisnhouse isnbatteed and rough just like him. It's a subtle joke

It's so subtle. I love it.