Captain Loony 007

For everything we do here, please be sure to be careful with what you edit, and restart your computer to lock things in. If you don't have access to the Group editor, (likely to happen if you're on base windows) you can do this as well by opening your Registry Editor app, then inputting this after your 'computer' or whatever the initial segment is. (Mine is computer. If I just try and paste the below string it gets SO mad at me)

\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsCopilot

Navigating to your "turnoffwindowscopilot", hit modify, and set the value data to 1.

If done correctly, it'll look like this.

While we're at it, you can also get rid of the integrated search, (or that thing where it searches the web when you search anything, whether or not you want it to) and such through regedit as well.

Integrated search will have you going to

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer

Navigate to your "DisableSearchBoxSuggestions" bit, if you don't see it, you can make it by right clicking and creating a new registry D-Word key of that exact name. Edit the key, set it to 1. It'll look like this if you do it right!

To get rid of Windows Spotlight, (The thing where it pulls up ten billion pages on windows start page, shoving ads in your face and cluttering everything) we go to

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DesktopSpotlight\Settings

And set "Enabled State" To 0. If you do it right, it'll look like this!

Disabling edge on startup will also help a fair deal with processing speed and the like. This you can do in all sorts of ways, the easiest being turning it off entirely on startup through settings in the like.

If you want to kill it *entirely*, though? :)

In regedit, run along to Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft

Navigate to your MicrosoftEdge key subcategory. If you don't see it, you can make one! Note, this is a KEY, not a d-word. *inside* that subcategory, we want to either make or find the D-Word key of PreventLaunchEdge and set that to 1 in the same way as all the others. It'll look like this.

Aaaand while we're here, I'd HIGHLY recommend shanking Killer Networking Services. It's just bloatware. (Ostensibly it's supposed to monitor your network bandwidth and even things out, but that really means it's constantly monitoring and pinging things, which eats up the bandwidth you DO get, and also chunks your computer's processing power.) Getting rid of it entirely is borderline impossible, since it's set to redownload on regular updates and intel is very pushy with its updates.

This you can do by opening your Services.msc, which basically shows you all the background stuff that Windows does. Find Anything with Killer in the name, right click it, go to properties, and disable startup. It should look like this, if done successfully. It will probably reenable itself in time/in later updates for windows, but it's a quick fix. I'd also check your TaskScheduler app to make sure that nothing's scheduled to open up there, either.

If you CAN completely kill Killer services through uninstalling and the like, I would warn that at very least for my computer, the only ethernet/lan support applications that are available ARE Killer's. When you download updates, you really do have to do it manually and ONLY download the ethernet services, or just be cool with not having Lan functionality.

One last thing, not a shit application but is a shit service. If your computer's constantly overheating or just warm, you likely have Turboboost enabled. (Default setting that you can't change) If you want to be able to turn it off and drop your temps by like 40 degrees, in Regedit go to

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings\54533251-82be-4824-96c1-47b60b740d00\be337238-0d82-4146-a960-4f3749d470c7

(Note- This isn't the string copy paste from the reddit thread, this is mine that does the same thing. If my string doesn't work for you, check the reddit thread string. If that doesn't work either, you can follow the path and find it pretty easily. Probably has like, one letter of difference somewhere. The bits all start the same, though, so it's easy to find.)

and go to "attributes". Set the value from 1 to 2, and now in your advanced Power Plan settings in control panel, you'll be able to *see* turbo boost and turn it off.

It'll look like this, and in power options, a successful disabling of boost should look like this.

Turning off quick startup's also a good call, since that basically stops your restarts from actually shutting things down properly.

"Hero Prop" is the term for Boromir's armour, indeed any armour, costume or accoutrements worn by a Principal Character in LOTR or any other movie.

"Hero" has nothing to do with the character's alignment, applying to Sauron and the Witch-King as well. It means any costume, weapon etc. made as detailed as possible because the character wearing it will be front and centre in very close shots, where an IMAX screen might make any flaws a metre high.

(Bernard Hill was amazed by the details in Théoden's armour, some of which only he and his dresser ever saw. More here.)

Now there's the Numenorean bargain-basement rig up there, and the full plate of the Action Heroine here.

I don't know what it's made of, but it looks like vac-formed, spray-painted plastic.

Compare it to an example of Elven armour from The Hobbit movies, which notoriously didn't have anything like the development time of LOTR...

According to one of the gents at WETA, it was on every sword for every Gondorian soldier, even just extras who are there to stand and look at something happening out of shot. Something to make them feel part of the Gondor team. It's barely even visible if you're not looking for it, but it gives so much depth and history to the armour

It's also worth noting WETA did do some work on The Rings of Power, with concept design, props, prosthetics and some of the weapons. They've posted loads of the art on their website and it really throws the rest into stark relief:

The side opposed to The Dark Side in those films is usually referred to as the Will of the Force, the Balance, or just the Force itself.

Hey everyone! Thanks to your advice, I made a masterpost for all my Good!Vlad au comic chapters!

Hope it’s easy enough to navigate:

The Revelation

The Speech

The Call

The Door

The Talk

The Confrontation

The Chance

The Montage

The Campaign

The Advice

The Session

The Promise

The Confession (Part 1)

As a sampling, here are some books I’ve read and particularly enjoyed in the last two years:

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser

The Cooking Gene by Michael Twitty

The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Song of the Cell by Siddhartha Mukherjee

On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe by Caroline Pennock

Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs by Camilla Townsend

The Five: The Untold Lives of the Victims of Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold

The Last Days of the Incas by Kim McQuarrie 

The Dream and the Nightmare: The Story of the Syrians who Boarded the Titanic by Leila Salloum Elias

Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Yeats by Andrew Knoll

Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky

The Food of a Younger Land by Mark Kurlansky

Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking by Anya von Bremzen

Jesus and John Wayne by Kristine Kobes du Mez

Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution that made China Modern by JIng Tsu

The Last Island: Discovery, Defiance, and the Most Elusive Tribe on Earth by Adam Goodheart

Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake

National Dish: Around the World in Search of Food, History, and the Meaning of Home by Anya von Bremzen

The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World by David W. Anthony

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann

Here are my recs!

Jacquard's Web by James Essinger

The Golden Thread by Cassia St. Clair

The Laws of Medicine - Siddhartha Mukherjee

The Man With the Electrified Brain - Simon Winchester

The Disaster Diaries - Sam Sheridan (don't get put off by the subject matter it's actually very optimistic)

A Paradise Built in Hell - Rebecca Solnit

Dawn Light - Diane Ackerman (actually all her books are great)

True Grizz - Douglas A Chadwick

Good Apples - Susan Futrell

i don't know the etiquette for posting other peoples tiktoks but the delivery of this punchline hit me like a FUCKING TRUCK please

how many are affected, you might ask? intel says shut up. how can you tell if your CPU is going to die? go mind your own business. is there a recall? absolutely not. what can you do about it when your shit breaks? go fuck yourself is what

the first video is talking with wendell from level 1 techs, who has been one of the first and main people to investigate these issues, and has been collaborating with gamers nexus to get to the bottom with this. the second video is further investigation and speculation because intel was refusing to admit to the problems while gamers nexus "cannot recommend intel CPUs right now", the third video was when intel finally admitted to some of the problems and what steve recommends affected people do, and the fourth video is largely about how badly intel is lying and trying to hide as much as they can for as long as they can.

as steve mentions in the 4th video at almost exactly 40 minutes in, he believes laptop chips are affected to some degree by the same issues as desktop chips, due to knowledge about how they are manufactured and reports of them failing in similar ways. gamers nexus is currently purchasing laptops thought to have an oxidizing CPU so they can investigate further. they are also interested in lower end vs higher end laptops, and how the potential problems might vary between them. ie: higher powered laptops might have a higher failure rate.

if you want to learn more about this situation, especially about laptops being affected and intel potentially lying about them not being affected, gamers nexus will have more information in the coming days. they are stopping all other activities to investigate.

I think a lot of people in the notes of this post are insisting that only desktop chips are affected because intel says so officially, but the entire fourth video is an extremely detailed overview of why you should take everything intel says right now with a grain of salt, because they have been trying to bulldozer every other part of this under the rug for as long as humanly possible. it really is very bad and intel has been extremely scummy about it, and the video even proves they have been rejecting RMAs for these problems despite knowing about it.

I have seen steve's work, I respect his expertise, and I find it responsible to defer to what he says. if someone has a better source than steve right now saying laptops are definitely not affected (other than intel), by all means throw it my way.

next up:

if you bought or built your computer before 2022, or you have a mac, your CPU is not affected by these specific problems.

this only affects intel CPUs manufactured between 2022 and 2024. check your CPU model on windows. check your CPU model on linux. the manufacturing problems causing the oxidation issue have allegedly been fixed, but intel has yet to provide a date range for which CPUs were manufactured after the fix.

for intel, you typically wind up with one of four prefixes for a CPU model: i3, i5, i7, and i9. take off the last three digits of the model number that comes after the prefix, and the first one or two digits indicate the generation number.

so if the CPU says i9-9900, that makes it a 9th generation CPU. if it says i7-13700, that makes it a 13th generation CPU. if you are unsure, check out this list of intel CPUs and their generations.

there are two factors to the current problems: bad code and bad manufacturing. the bad manufacturing makes the chips get damaged at voltages and temperatures that they should not be damaged at. the bad code in the chips makes them run at voltages and temperatures higher than they can handle, but makes the chips look stronger on paper compared to the competition. the bad code makes the chips unstable, and causes issues with computers. some of the instability in these chips is from the bad code.

but bad code also makes the bad manufacturing physically destroy the chip faster. the main bad code fix comes out in a few weeks, but there are some updates available now that you might be able to apply depending on your hardware. make sure all your components are as up to date as they can be. as for whether or not these chips can get destroyed without ever being in contact with the bad code, that is part of the investigation. but the stronger the chip, and the faster it runs, the more likely it may be to get damaged.

and once these chips get damaged, they are not fixable by code, because they become physically damaged by oxidation. once that CPU damage worsens to a certain point, the only way to make the computer work properly again is to physically swap out the CPU. while PCs are one story, not every laptop can have the CPU taken out easily by an average person without specialized equipment. so if this does affect laptops, I think we could all safely say, holy fucking shit.

so, what can you do?

officially, intel has extended the warranties on boxed CPUs, and is encouraging customers to send in potentially oxidized CPUs for repair. if you get denied, intel says you should keep trying to get it sent in. there are reports of them still rejecting broken devices for RMA, but it is still worth a shot. intel says (partial quote, check the "bloodbath" video to see all of the rest of what they have said as this situation has developed):

We stand behind our products, and in the coming days we will be sharing more details on two-year extended warranty support for our boxed Intel Core 13th and 14th Gen desktop processors.

In the meantime, if you are currently or previously experienced instability symptoms on your Intel Core 13th/14th Gen desktop system:

For users who purchased systems from OEM/System Integrators – please reach out to your system manufacturer’s support team for further assistance.

For users who purchased a boxed CPU – please reach out to Intel Customer Support for further assistance.

basically try to return it to the store or try to return it to intel.

here is what steve recommends. 3rd video at 19:50.

steve is concerned with people feeling a constant wave of anxiety about this, so he also said in this video if you have not noticed any instability yet, either apply any available updates, keep an eye out for the 'fix' in a few weeks and move on, or try to return it. the updates will help with some instability from bad code, but not if it has been affected by oxidation. if your device is new, steve says to consider returning it, but whatever you do, he says to make your decision and move on. try not to be overwhelmed by this, because you are absolutely not alone and this is just beginning.

he also recommends not buying devices with 13th and 14th generation intel CPUs right now.

if you experience trouble with intel related to this situation, especially in getting RMA for an oxidized CPU, gamers nexus wants to know about it. email: tips (@) gamersnexus dot net.

steve's audience is mostly people who build their own PCs. so here is rune advice

if you have a 13th or 14th gen intel CPU:

at the very least, BACK YOUR DATA UP. especially before updating.

storage is pretty fucking cheap these days. do not risk data loss. have a plan for what happens if your computer breaks suddenly, know where your most important data is, and stay tuned for the results of the gamers nexus investigation. they do fantastic work. hell, if you have a 13th or 14th gen mobile CPU in your laptop and your laptop is acting wonky, maybe they are still buying machines.

right now is a waiting game to find out more. if you are feeling frustrated, you are far from the only one. but knowing about these issues puts you ahead of the game, because intel has not even been straightforward about alerting potentially affected customers. this entire unstable CPU fuckery has damaged businesses, this has fucked over consumers, there will almost DEFINITELY be lawsuits about it, and this is not the last you will hear about this situation.

if you have a 13th or 14th generation intel CPU desktop or laptop, and are now aware of this issue, you now have a much better chance of being able to follow through with whatever happens next. I will be updating folks with the results of the investigation when they come out.

(Check out the other parts here)

Deadpool from Marvel knows he's in a comic book (or movie, show, game, etc)

Rick Sanchez from Rick and Morty knows he's in a TV show and knows what season it's on

Snap from ChalkZone knows he's in a chalk drawing

Grover from the book There's a Monster at the End of This Book knows he's in a book and tries to stop the reader from turning the pages

Next:

Pikachu from Pokemon, like most Pokemon, can only say his name or parts of it

Wylis, AKA Hodor, from Game of Thrones, can only say the word 'Hodor'

Groot from Marvel can only say 'I Am Groot' (and occasionally variations)

Shnitzel from Chowder can only say 'Radda Radda'

Next:

Green Lantern from DC Comics became the villain Parallax and then turned back to heroism

Cassandra from Rapunzel's Tangled Adventures turned to villainy under the influence of an ancient wizard but then turned back to good

Anakin Skywalker from Star Wars became the villainous Darth Vader but then turned on his master and returned to good near the end of his life

Riku from Kingdom Hearts became a villain under the control of Ansem but then overcome it and became a good guy again

Next:

This is a sequel to this poll

The Sonic Bible was a fan favorite, as half the listed here are. I said "Which one did I miss" and you all said "Oh, remember when BDG said he never played a Sonic game?" and its treated as this big masterclass of trickery when really it's not. Tons of people are aware of giant media icons and don't interact with their source material. Pokemon is like, the biggest media franchise and there are Poketubers out there who have never played a Pokemon game. It's Plato's cave out here, and not playing a Sonic game isn't so much a reveal as it is the natural cadence of the video. A lot of BDG videos are like that. Or maybe I'm just fucking stupid, idk.

Shapeland was insane from conception to reveal. The long explanation about how such a model was difficult to implement, much less repeat. The giant timecard about how this was exactly what he did. Then the reveal that ShapeLand IS real, that it's a real park with real attendance numbers on a real date in actual history, that they could run this with ANY date - that was insane. That was iconic. No one does it like Kevin Perjuror.

The Dark Brony Double Life was insane because of the LACK of theatrics. To this day, my Discord status says "AND SO THE PONY CONSUMES ITS OWN TAIL." because of the spiralling nature of the concept of horse famous. Jenny foreshadows the reveal ONCE, and then casually just goes "by the way, I made Friendship is Witchcraft" and it utterly recontextualizes not just that video, but the other Pony videos she's done. She's not just a dedicated fan vis a vis her Star Wars and Harry Potter videos, no, she was HORSE FAMOUS, to the point that she had IMPERSONATORS. You all had a pick and you were right, good on ya.

Alex Lasarenko won last time, too. Tbh, its pretty good. The whole video was leading up to the reveal of Alex writing the Disney Channel theme, but slowly, the video becomes more than a deep dive. It becomes an obituary, a tribute, a biography of a late man who soundtracked a lot of kids' childhoods, with a single four-note melody. And Kevin decides to not let that define Alex's life, like he feels Defunctland might one day define him. And so, throughout this mystery-biopic, he plays Alex Lasarenko's music, and only ever tells you this once the time is right. And it flips the definition of Alex Lasarenko on its head, and THAT'S a reveal that has me on the brink of tears every time.

QAnon is a reveal, yes, and I'm glad you all recommended this one because I HADN'T seen it before. It's a sobering reveal, however. You're having a time, learning about the decline of flat earthers and you're learning how antisemitism and the like fuels most modern occultism and conspiracies, and then you're hit with how they're all at QAnon now, and you're explained the cult of QAnon, and this becomes historical horror. Because the history is now. And the horror is you can SEE the end result as it is. SEW isn't a sibyl, but goddamn was that a portent. With the way y'all were batting for it, I figured it'd be higher-rated. Ah well.

Waluigi, in my opinion, was an insane reveal because it wasn't just the reveal of the video - it was the reveal of a full SEASON. Of REAL LIFE. For those of you unaware of Polygon history (unlike me, who had an on-off crush on Pat Gill), Brian was some hairless Baltimore twink like some kind of emaciated harbor seal, and one day, he decided to grow a mustache. This was, as I'm sure you'll imagine, unpopular with his fanbase because he was a white twink in a suit. He had to publically go, in a video that season, "You aren't my friends and you have no say in what I do with my body". The Gilbertheads (they dont call themselves that) were INSANE over this mustache. And then he makes a Waluigi video, who was ALSO becoming a popular meme because... I assume Reddit or 4chan was responsible somehow. And you slowly realize, as the video goes on, ESPECIALLY when the words FMV tumble out of his lips, that, oh no, he's attempting to BE Waluigi. And then he opines about the nature of Luigi, after disparaging him the whole video. And behind him, fucking Vesti la Giubba from Pagliachi has been growing in volume. And he says "[...] I'm-a Luigi." so despondently it alters his color scheme, culminating in him shaving off the mustache ON SCREEN. Ridi, Pagliaccio.

People have said that the Victorious series finale infuriated them, and GOOD. Throught the mini-miniseries, Quinton had been casually stating the episode number, implying a finale was going to happen, potentially even gaslighting people into thinking "wait, WAS there a finale?" and since he reviewed the Victorious episodes as they came, you were ultimately left unsure. This is Quinton Reviews, the guy who dug up the very first Garfield newspaper comics and BECAME the foremost expert on Garfield (in what I like to call his Agatha Christie moment), of course he might be thorough enough to dig up some lost media finale. He found theslap.com, for god's sake. And then he introduces the finale. And the screen goes black. It's black for a little too long. And the lights come up. And he reveals his trick. Notably, he had never actually SAID what was in the finale, just alluded it happened, and subtly building up to it. And it never existed. And he WANTS you to feel enraged. Because that was the attitude at the time.

Tommy Talarico, I'll admit, wasn't so much of a reveal as it was a deranged second video. Of course, that's if Tommy Talarico was the reveal in and of itself. A few eagle-eyed pollers may have noticed that I never specified WHAT aspect of Tommy boy was the reveal, and that's because Tommy Talarico is a rabbit hole that would make Frederik Knudson squirt across the room (go follow him on Twitch, he's an owl-themed VTuber now (Fred, not Tom)). He was never on Cribs. He bought his world records. He lies constantly for his own ego. He's a throwaway line on the first half of the video, and then HBG turns off the greenscreen and begins a long exposé on the son of a bitch. And every single line there is another bullet to the chest. It's its own brand of unhinged, and I respect everyone who got it to second place.

The Forgiveness of Jon (u/Rojom, 2020, Pencil on paper) wasn't really a reveal, so much as a notable piece of r/imsorryjon lore. In the same manner as Sonic, this isn't so much a reveal as it is the natural conclusion of the way the video was heading. One might CONSIDER it a reveal, as many will point out it's a direct contrast to the way Jon was depicted in all other works, up to and including the ending of the Sex Survey Results, but its a reveal in the way a final magnum opus from a long-dead painter is a reveal. However, perhaps that's all it has to be. Still a little ill-fitting for the poll, tho.

like, he’s entitled to sick leave, he really ought to take a couple months to break the curse and come to terms with whatever the fuck just happened to him, but instead of embarking on a journey of self-discovery and healing he just keeps showing up to work. no one can get captain maximus to go on his fucking voyage of self actualization and fix the curse because he’s obsessed with catching flinn ryder. everyone really fucking hopes that when he finally catches this guy the curse might be broken anyway, but it isn’t.

he just keeps showing up to work. he glares at the stablehands until they saddle him up. everyone’s gone over the regulations a dozen times but there’s nothing there saying you’re not allowed to saddle and ride the captain of the guard if he makes you do it. his former second in command rides him around like ‘sir i really don’t know about this’ and he’s just like ‘are we going to catch some criminals or what.’

you can see in the movie that everyone in the royal guard defers to this horse. it’s absolutely because that’s their boss. and secondarily because now he’s two thousand pounds of percheron.