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Most people fell back in love with the Star Wars franchise when it first came out, with the prequels really sullying our good memories of the original trilogy (that would come to define all sci fi movies that came after it). But then the prequels happened and (insert what you already know about how shitty they were here) and that kind of fucked up everything. But just when we felt like there was no new hope (yes, that was on purpose) “J.J. Abrams, reboot master” pops into the picture and gives us fans a Star Wars experience back we have been so hungry for in the last decade (or three). But after Rogue One some people have some questions and concerns. The movie was by no means bad, but at this point, how does a badasss franchise that has pretty much milked itself dry stay badass?

Just follow these five simple rules I came up with. I may not be George Lucas but I can definitely handle his franchise better than he can at this point, and now that Abrams is out of the picture, should we be concerned? Read on to find out.

Get Hard

This fake trailer gets it.

No, I don’t want Star Wars to get erection. I am referring to that Kevin Hart movie (you know, that one where Kevin Hart plays Kevin Hart?). In this sense, getting hard means toughening up. I have said it before and will say it again but more GEN-X’ers and baby boomers fill the seats to those new movies more than the tweens do. WE grew up on the series. So why not age like we did a bit (and I don’t mean get old, many of the cast did that, actually. R.I.P Carrie Fisher).

I mean make a Star Wars that deals with heavier issues and maybe has some actual blood. I can PROMISE you an R-Rated Star Wars would do fantastic at the box office and redefine the way people looked at it (A.K.A lose the whole “it’s for kids” rep it has had for 40 years now). You know C-3PO uses that red arm for fisting, let’s not even play games.

Don’t Just Reboot Us

Only a sinner would delete scenes from a Star Wars movie.

As a lot of us came to realize, The Force Awakens wasn’t as much of a new Star Wars movie as it was a sort of refresh of the first plot with some new faces and side stories. I thought it worked really well to bring us back INTO that world, but we need more than that to keep us coming back.

In other words, if Star Wars VIII in the series coming at the end of this year is just a reboot of Empire Strikes Back, (we will be kinda happy because that IS the BEST Star Wars movie, period) but we will also start becoming weary. Using the base storyline as the roots for this new story is great, but please, take us in unexpected directions.

But keep the second movie in this trilogy thematically as dark as Empire. That is what made Empire so jaw-dropping in the first place, it left the audience hopeless at the end.

Flip the Switches

A redemption down the road for Kylo Ren would be awesome to see!

Obviously, what is laid out on the table for us is Rey getting more masterful at her Jedi skills while Kylo Ren does the same, only on the evil side. How about Rey finds out about her past and is disgusted and goes bad (she was orphaned, after all) and Ren realizes he has been manipulated this whole time by the bad guys and his family LOVED him. Boom, he regrets killing his Dad and severing his familial ties, and he goes full- good to take down Rey, who is clearly more powerful than him right now.

THAT WOULD KICK-ASS!

That is the kinda shit I mean. Throw some curves that do not fit into the Jedi blueprint to really redefine the series and keep us wet. Yes, our vaginas. Even us men. Wet them and wet them good with twists and turns on this ride NONE of us can see coming (pun intended yet again).

Add Some Mass Effect Elements

Yup, just watch these scenes to understand.

I am sorry, but whether you know it or not, Mass Effect was bioware doing an original Star Wars. They had done KOTR (best Star Wars game ever BTW) and after that and Jade Empire, they decided to take a stab at the space opera themselves and the end result was astounding and some of the best sci fi we have had in years. So as much as Mass Effect borrowed from Star Wars, maybe Star Wars needs to repay the favor. I know what you are thinking. How?

One of the cooler elements of the game was bringing together a ragtag group of different SPECIES who did not always get along and your Shepard had to do some politicking to get them to agree or work together. Yet everyone who joins in on the good guy side of the Star Wars movies always pretty much just get along from the start, outside minor bickering.

How about we enliven the gang a little by adding some warring species into the mix. It would be a great way to address racial tension in our world right now and it would make it all feel just a little less “by the books” and a little more realistic. No crew of any massive craft of any kind all get along, but that doesn’t mean they can’t learn how to work together. Seeing that evolution could benefit the series greatly.

More of The Stuff We Love

I got me a Fett Fetish.

A good example of this is Boba Fett. We all loved Boba Fett then they dropped him into the sarlacc pit and that was that (except in extended U where he actually escaped but we will leave that alone). That was weak. Then you get the most badass Game of Thrones female character, put her in super shiny armor, and use her for two minutes in TFA. What was that? So many people went into that movie thinking Captain Phasma was gonna be a favorite. And then puff. Gone. Not cool.

Granted, we didn’t see her go into compactors like Finn said, so we have to assume she is alive and we will see her again but don’t play with your fan’s balls like that. Give us less of the wrinkly old CG lady and more of the badass characters we love to hate to love and you know what Star Wars, you just might make the 100 movies you clearly have in mind.

Just be careful, a movie a year is a great way to burn people out, especially if they are all so similar. Just ask Marvel who seems to go with a movie a month now. You don’t want to drown your audience in material, you want to give them just enough that they choose to jump in and swim. Follow these steps and that is just what will continue to happen with Star Wars.

Featured Image Via

via Forever Geek
5 Things Star Wars Needs To Do To Stay Badass

via TechCrunch
Wrapify raises $3M from Avery Dennison to pay you to wrap your car in ads

After spending 35 hours researching 18 big, high-resolution monitors and testing six finalists, we recommend the 27-inch HP Z27n for most people. Its out-of-the-box measurements are phenomenal, it has a bevy of useful features including a USB 3.0 hub and a highly adjustable stand, and its slim bezels make the screen look even larger. It’s an excellent choice for anyone who wants to upgrade to a larger monitor. (If you’re looking for a 4K monitor, we have another guide for that.)

via The Wirecutter
The Best 27-Inch Monitor

USA -(Ammoland.com)- When Ontario Knife Company (OKC) recently introduced the Carter Prime, it quickly became a top seller, and for good reason.

The Prime was designed by Robert Carter (son of longtime OKC designer Joe Pardue and grandson of legendary designer Mel Pardue) to be world class and it proved to be so.

Now, fans of the Carter Prime can look forward to the knife’s sequel: the Carter 2quared (pronounced: ‘squared’). Like its precursor, this new design by Robert Carter has been built with premium materials for uncompromised use in the field.

The design of the Carter 2quared is clearly aggressive, intended to reflect its overbuilt nature. “The vision for our collaboration with Robert Carter is to create products that engender absolute confidence,” said Deneb Pirrone, Vice President of Sales & Marketing at OKC. “This product is built to perform dependably throughout a lifetime of vigorous overuse. The Carter 2quared looks like it wants to be used and this work ethic is reflected in its ability to perform.”

The foundation of the Carter 2quared starts with its titanium handle. Titanium has the highest strength-to-density ratio of any metallic element, and includes inherent corrosion resistance, including in saltwater environments.

Plus, titanium is an ultra-lightweight material, which minimizes weight in pocket or pack. The ergonomic handle is designed for sure grip in slippery situations.

The business end of the Carter 2quared is a 3.55-inch (9.02 cm) drop-point blade constructed of D2 Steel. This metal features elevated chromium levels for superior corrosion and stain resistance while maintaining a hardness of 59-60 HRC.

Since this is a very hard tool steel, the knife is considerably abrasion resistant and durable in the face of heavy use. The titanium frame lock is designed to keep the blade in place even under considerable stress. With the blade open, the overall length spans 8.375 inches (21.31 cm).

The OKC Carter 2quared is made in Taiwan and designed and distributed in the USA.

 

About Ontario Knife Company:

Founded in 1889, the Ontario Knife Company is an award-winning knife, cutlery, and tool manufacturer operating out of Upstate New York for over 125 years. OKC produces a wide range of tools, including cutlery and kitchenware, hunting and fishing knives, machetes, survival and rescue equipment, science and medical tools, and tactical knives. OKC has a long tradition of building knives and tools for the U.S. military, producing high quality equipment that has seen continuous service since WWII. In addition to being a major supplier to the U.S. Armed Forces, OKC leverages a network of distributors, dealers, and major commercial retailers to sell its products nationwide and internationally to over 35 countries. OKC’s custom manufacturing division Jericho Tool, advances capabilities including a broad-spectrum of injection molding, tool and die, and machining operations to provide white label and OEM manufacturing services for consumer and industrial goods. Collectively OKC’s product lines and manufacturing services reach the house wares, sporting goods, tactical, security, law enforcement & first responders, education, science & medical, and industrial & agricultural industries.

For more information about Ontario Knife Company and its industry-leading line of advanced knives, machetes, edged products and specialty tools, contact Ontario Knife Company at P.O. Box 145-26 Empire Street · Franklinville, NY 14737 · Telephone (716) 676-5527 · Or visit their website. The Ontario Knife Company is a subsidiary of publicly traded Servotronics, Inc. (NYSE MKT – SVT).

This post Designer Robert Carter Over-Delivers Again with OKC’s Newest Utility Knife appeared first on AmmoLand.com Shooting Sports News .

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Designer Robert Carter Over-Delivers Again with OKC’s Newest Utility Knife

In this blog post, we’ll look at how “operator error” can cause serious problems (like the one we saw last week with AWS), and how to avoid them in MySQL using

--i-am-a-dummy

.

Recently, AWS had some serious downtime in their East region, which they explained as the consequence of a bad deployment. It seems like most of the Internet was affected in one way or another. Some on Twitter dubbed it “S3 Dependency Awareness Day.”

Since the outage, many companies (especially Amazon!) are reviewing their production access and deployment procedures. It would be a lie if I claimed I’ve never made a mistake in production. In fact, I would be afraid of working with someone who claims to have never made a mistake in a production environment.

Making a mistake or two is how you learn to have a full sense of fear when you start typing:

UPDATE t1 SET c1='x' ...

I think many of us have experienced forehead sweats and hand shaking in these cases – they save us from major mistakes!

The good news is that MySQL can help you with this. All you have to do is admit that you are human, and use the following command (you can also set this in your user directory .my.cnf):

mysql --i-am-a-dummy

Using this command (also known as safe-updates) sets the following SQL mode when logging into the server:

SET sql_safe_updates=1, sql_select_limit=1000, max_join_size=1000000;

The safe-updates and iam-a-dummy flags were introduced together in MySQL 3.23.11, and according to some sites from around the time of release, it’s “for users that once may have done a DELETE FROM table_name but forgot the WHERE clause.”

What this does is ensure you can’t perform an UPDATE or DELETE without a WHERE clause. This is great because it forces you to think through what you are doing. If you still want to update the whole table, you need to do something like WHERE ID > 0. Interestingly, safe-updates also blocks the use of WHERE 1, which means “where true” (or basically everything).

The other safety you get with this option is that SELECT is automatically limited to 1000 rows, and JOIN is limited to examining 1 million rows. You can override these latter limits with extra flags, such as:

--select_limit=500 --max_join_size=10000

I have added this to the .my.cnf on my own servers, and definitely use this with my clients.

via Planet MySQL
MySQL, –i-am-a-dummy!

Link

(PG-13: Language) The merc with a mouth drops by to remind us of his existence with this hilarious parody of a famous superhero trope, a Stan Lee cameo, a pint of delicious ice cream, some fast moving smallprint, and more snark than you can shake a stick at.

via The Awesomer
Deadpool 2 (Teaser)

Ryan Reynolds has made our collective dreams come true by unveiling the clip that teases Deadpool 2‘s impending arrival. Freak-out time!

Slashfilm originally reported that a Deadpool teaser, called “No Good Dead,” is playing before Logan in theaters. Now it’s available to watch in all its Chimichanga glory. The clip features Reynolds, as Wade Wilson, witnessing a crime and (with much difficulty) changing in a phone booth to try and stop it. Sadly, it doesn’t quite work out, but at least he and the victim share a nice moment. There’s even a Stan Lee cameo!

Some people are reporting that this isn’t the version they saw in theaters, which didn’t have a Stan Lee appearance and the phone call joke, among other things. This either means they’ve changed it since then, or have a slightly different version for online release.

Here are some of the things we spotted!

1) Outside the phone booth, there’s graffiti for “Nathan Summers Cumming Soon” (har-har). Obviously, that’s a Cable reference. But if you look inside the phone booth, you see “Hope!”, which could mean that Hope Summers (aka the Mutant Messiah) also makes an appearance.

2) Firefly posters! Lots of Firefly posters. This could mean one of a couple of things. Either this hints Nathan Fillion will be the next Cable, which has been speculated, or it’s an homage to actress Morena Baccarin. Or hell, maybe Wade just really likes Firefly. I wouldn’t blame him.

3) Plenty of references to the Logan film, in true Deadpool fashion. Plus, the long scrolling text at the end is a Deadpool-esque version of The Old Man and the Sea, which has some thematic parallels to Logan’s journey in the film. Although I don’t think Logan’s going to open a Red Lobster franchise by the end.

4) A few other graffiti pieces I spotted but couldn’t identify: “Oggy was here,” “Victim of the Brain,” and “Alley Cats.” If anyone has an idea what these could mean, if anything, let me know in the comments!

Watch and enjoy, dear io9ers.

[YouTube]

via Gizmodo
Ryan Reynolds Releases That Deadpool Teaser

Google has a long history of introducing, then forgetting about, and finally officially killing off its products. Most recently, that included Google Spaces, a service that most of us never knew existed to begin with. Let’s take a tour of some of our favorite services Google’s killed off over the years.

10. Google Buzz

Google Buzz was introduced in 2010 and quickly discontinued in 2011. Buzz was basically a Facebook clone that also integrated with your email for some reason. You could share photos, videos, and links directly to your contacts or the public at large.

Buzz died a quick death because it was unclear exactly what you were supposed to use it for, but it planted the seed for a number of improvements with its rival, Facebook. Google+ followed suit as Google’s own replacement to Buzz a few years later, but even that’s barely hanging on at this point.

9. Picnik

Picnik was a free online photo editing tool that made it easy to make minor adjustments to photos without the need for desktop software. After uploading photos you could easily adjust brightness, color, and more, then save the edited image back to your hard drive.

This type of service is pretty abundant these days. Even when Picnik died back in 2012, the best replacement was Google’s own Google+ Photos, which Google replaced with the much better and more privacy-minded Google Photos. If mobile photo editing is more your game, you have lots of good options on both Android and iPhone.

8. Picasa

Speaking of photo management, Picasa, Google’s desktop photo library tool, was one of our favorite ways to organize your digital photos until Google decided to kill it off in 2016. The good news is that most of Picasa’s features made it into Google Photos.

While Google Photos lacks the desktop management tools that Picasa had, the online version is plenty robust as a replacement. Which is good, because except for Apple Photos, there really aren’t many desktop photo management apps left.

7. Google Answers

Google killed Google Answers way back in 2006. Unlike current competitors like Stack Exchange, Quora, and the always-insightful Yahoo Answers, Google Answers incentivized good answers by offering up cash payments.

When a user asked a question on Google Answers they could also post a bounty between $2-$200. If you liked a well-researched answer, you’d pay out and could add a tip on top of that. Before Google Answers, Google had a similar service, called Google Questions and Answers, where you’d email Google staffer a question and they’d answer it for $3. While Quora is the best replacement, there’s no money involved there, but services like Fiverr and Amazon Mechanical Turk take a similar approach if you’re looking for someone to do your research for you.

6. Google Wave

Google Wave existed between 2010 and 2012 and was one of the company’s most ambitious failures. Wave was too ambitious though, as nobody was quite sure how to use the email-instant messenger-document collaborating-wiki-forum-blogging tool. Once Google laid Wave to rest, Apache took over some of the protocols, but little came of it.

As baffling as Wave was for most users, it laid the groundwork for a number of now-popular services, including Slack and Discord, which are the closest modern equivalents when it comes to Wave’s chat systems. If you miss the document collaboration features in Wave, you have plenty of alternatives in Google Drive, Dropbox, or Office.

5. Google Helpouts

Google Helpouts was a service that connected you to live experts for video chats. Helpouts managed to last almost two years. It was essentially the video version of a something like Quora, but with a live Q&A.

The general idea of Helpouts was connecting you, a normal human Google user, with an expert so you can ask questions live. Some of these Helpouts channels cost money, but most were free, which is why it failed in the long run. Still, it was useful in theory and the ability to ask experts questions on everything from home repair to Photoshop was appealing.

There aren’t a ton of alternatives that work the same way as Helpouts, but Clarity.fm is similar if you need help with a startup and our own Ask an Expert series is great provided the topic of the week is useful for you.

4. Google Notebook

Google discontinued Google Notebook in 2012, but it lived a long and full life by Google standards. As the name suggests, Google Notebook was an online notes platform where you could store notes and even add web clippings provided you were using Firefox or Internet Explorer. If that all sounds familiar it’s because it’s basically Evernote.

The good news is that replacements are a dime a dozen. Google Notebook might have been one of the first online notes apps, but nowadays Evernote, OneNote, Simplenote, and Google Keep all fill the void. While all of the modern options have far surpassed Google Notebook, it still holds a special place in our hearts for being one of the first good options around.

3. Google Labs

Writing about weird Google Labs experimental features was Lifehacker’s bread and butter for a very long time. Google Labs made it possible for the general public to test all kinds of weird new Google features and apps in a variety of its services, from Google Calendar to Google Chrome.

While the main landing page for Google Labs is gone, the spirit lives on in one way or another. Chrome has its experimental flags and Gmail still has a slew of experimental options built into it. Google Labs might be technically dead, but that doesn’t mean the company doesn’t still release weird, random new apps before quickly forgetting about them.

2. iGoogle

iGoogle, which initially launched as Google Personalized Homepage, had a good run from 2005-2013, and the internet mourned its death with surprising despair. iGoogle was a totally personalized startup page that you could customize with whatever you wanted, which, in the age of algorithms, is a long lost feature.

You do still have some options though. For now, myYahoo still exists, igHome looks almost identical to iGoogle, and Netvibes is the most modern option of them all.

1. Google Reader

On July 1, 2013, the internet lost one of its most faithful companions: Google Reader. The RSS Reader that millions counted on since 2005 was gone and in its place was a radio wave shaped hole in all our hearts.

Well, that and a few dozen replacement services. Feedly is still going strong and easily the best alternative to Reader, though plenty of other alternative like Feeder, The Old Reader, and Digg Reader are all worth a look.

via Lifehacker
Top 10 Services Google Killed Off

via TechCrunch
NASA released a ton of software for free and here’s some you should try

Douglas Crockford famously declared browsers to be "the most hostile software engineering environment imaginable," and that wasn’t hyperbole. Ensuring that our websites work across a myriad of different devices, screen sizes and browsers our users depend on to access the web is a tall order, but it’s necessary.

If our websites don’t enable users to accomplish the key tasks they come to do, we’ve failed them. We should do everything in our power to ensure our websites function under even the harshest of scenarios, but at the same, we can’t expect our users to have the exact same experience in every browser, on every device.

The post When Your Code Has To Work: Complying With Legal Mandates appeared first on Smashing Magazine.

via Smashing Magazine
When Your Code Has To Work: Complying With Legal Mandates