Don’t think he was in the same simulation level. He was aware of the 1899 simulation, can monitor the people on the ship, control their environment & stay out of the endless loops that 1899 people went through.

Bog Iger was a close friend to the late Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs, he spoke a few times in the past about Disney/Apple merging.

Bob Iger says Apple & Disney would have merged if Steve Jobs was alive - Dec 21, 2021

> In an interview with CNBC on Tuesday, Iger noted that Jobs was passionate about "everything that Disney did." He said the late Apple co-founder and CEO always appreciate combining "great technology" with "great creativity."

> "The intersection — one side liberal arts, one side technology," Iger said. "That's what made his heart sing."

> Iger continued, adding that Disney's content would have been a natural fit for the way that Apple was changing how it delivers content to users.

> "I'm pretty convinced we would have had that discussion," Iger said. "I think we would have gotten there."

> This is not the first time that Iger has brought up the potential of an Apple-Disney merger if Jobs had lived. In his 2019 memoir, Iger said that he believed "if Steve were still alive, we would have combined our companies, or at least discussed the possibility very seriously."

> The 71-year old executive also said that the hiring freeze his pink slipped predecessor Bob Chapek announced on November 11 is still in place. Offering his perspective from being outside the company the past year after decades at Disney, Iger told staffers additionally that rumors of a merger or deal with Apple were just that – rumors. The man who bought Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and Fox for Disney during his last stint as CEO also noted that the House of Mouse wasn’t looking to make anymore big ticket acquisitions any time soon.

> Coming just over a week after Iger was returned to his perch at the House of Mouse and Chapek was unceremoniously shown the door, the once and current CEO’s attempt to rally the Disney troops comes at a precarious time for the media giant. On one hand, Disney has the top movie in the world with Black Panther sequel Wakanda Forever. However, this past weekend also saw the company take a more than $100 million thump with the box office crash and burn of animated feature Strange World. In that context, the December 16 release of James Cameron’s much anticipated Avatar: The Way of Water poses potentially more big screen success and financial stress for the studio.

> Quickly purging the upper ranks of Disney of the short-lived Chapek’s top lieutenants in the hours after being renamed CEO unexpectedly on November 20, the notoriously successor-uncongenial Iger also has a 24 month deadline to leave the company in stable hands – an effort that floundered from almost the get-go with Chapek.

> Somewhat anti-climatic, according to one source, the 40-minute town hall today found Iger sidestepping Florida’s discrimatory “Don’t Say Gay” law that tripped up a flip-flopping Chapek earlier this year. Essentially, noting you can’t please all the people all the time, Iger said the matter shouldn’t be a political issues, we hear.

Given that they revealed the nature of the simulation so quickly, I’m thinking maybe the 2099 reality is another level of the simulation program, a bit like ‘The Thirteenth Floor’ movie.

Level 1: The ship in 1899.

Level 2: The father in the monitoring room/ the black pyramid landscape.

Level 3: The spaceship in 2099.

Netflix's ‘1899’ was first announced in 2018, whereas Yellowstone's first Spin-off '1883' was announced three years later in 2021.

> France’s 2-1 victory in the World Cup group stage over Denmark on Saturday evening drew an average 11.6 million viewers to TF1 from the 5PM hour local time. This is second best audience score of the year for all programs and across all channels in the Hexagon. Upon entering the tournament last week, Les Bleus set a record for viewership in 2022, and since June 2021.

> Viewing figures peaked on TF1 at 14.6 million for the France/Denmark face-off on Saturday with a 63% share, which is significantly higher than Tuesday’s 48.1% share when France beat Australia.

Damn! Looks like Egyptian government's paranoia has gotten much worse since my last visit couple years ago.

Thanks for sharing the video.

> Or is it just that they expected a bribe?

Probably. It's a common practice in Egypt to pay a bribe, overcharging foreigners.

Just look at what was happening during COP27 conference in Egypt:

> Instead, top officials from Europe and elsewhere have been investigating reports that youth delegates have been left without beds, subjected to extortion, forced to sleep in rooms with no locks and woken up in the night by arbitrary demands for documents — all as part of a program sponsored by the Egyptian Ministry of Youth and Sports.

> According to three people familiar with the situation, around 80 youth delegates who had paid around $700 each for their accommodation arrived at their hotel late on Saturday to find they either had no rooms, or were being asked to pay an additional fee of between $300 and $600 per night.

> According to Israel's Maariv, the Israelis received permission to land in Egypt but were asked to leave when the lack of visas was discovered. The Egyptian authorities cited "national security reasons".

> According to the newspaper, though, the pilots are out of fuel and are not being allowed to refuel. Moreover, the weather was too stormy for them to take off.

> "We received a request and we are trying to help with the authorities," Maariv quoted an Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson as saying. "From our inspection, the Israelis did receive permission to land the planes but did not receive visas for their entry into the country."

> The Israeli newspaper described the incident as "unusual". The Egyptian authorities had not issued any comment at the time of writing, said Anadolu.

"unusual" indeed.

> FTX was founded in 2019 and became one of the biggest and most well-known cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. But in recent weeks, the company has imploded, with upwards of $2 billion in customer funds reportedly missing and investigations underway by federal agencies. There has also been a great deal of scrutiny on Sam Bankman-Fried, also known as SBF, the former CEO and co-founder of FTX.

> According to sources, the Amazon series will be based on “insider reporting” by a number of journalists who have covered FTX and Bankman-Fried, though exactly what source material the show will draw from is currently under wraps.

> It is also the latest limited series about a modern entrepreneur and the rapid collapse of their companies. Recently, Amanda Seyfried won the Emmy for best actress in a limited series for playing Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes in Hulu’s “The Dropout,” while Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway starred in Apple’s “WeCrashed,” which chronicled the rise and fall of WeWork under Adam and Rebekah Neumann. Showtime also has the anthology series “Super Pumped,” with Joseph Gordon-Levitt starring in the first season as former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick. A second season about Facebook is currently being prepped.

There is also an upcoming limited series ‘Hot Air’ about Richard Branson & his company Virgin Airways.

Must be Hollywood's hottest trend now!

It's a typo.

CNN: Microsoft to acquire Activision Blizzard in $68.7 billion deal

> Now that Disney CEO Bob Iger has regained the keys to the Magic Kingdom — less than three years after his chosen successor, Bob Chapek, took over — insiders suspect they know how the beloved executive will find a new way to go out on top during his final two-year stint.

> “He’s going to sell the company,” one Disney insider who has worked for Iger predicted. “This is the pinnacle deal for the ultimate dealmaker.”

> Landing a deal with Apple (or some other megabuyer) would also cement Iger’s legacy. “I think he’d welcome it — he’d be the last CEO of Disney,” a former top Disney executive told TheWrap, noting that the two companies have “similar brand identities” and could benefit from a merger.

> Acquisitions are in Iger’s DNA. Under Iger’s leadership, Disney went on a nearly $100 billion shopping spree to buy animation giant Pixar in 2006, superhero juggernaut Marvel in 2009, “Star Wars”-powered Lucasfilm in 2012 and Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox in 2019. But there was one acquisition he’s publicly lamented as a transformational deal that got away — a combination with the tech powerhouse Apple...

> A deal of that size is likely to draw stiff antitrust resistance at a moment when regulators have stepped up efforts to block other recently proposed media megadeals. Paramount Global this week scrapped the $2 billion sale of its Simon & Schuster division to book publishing giant Penguin Random House after a federal judge blocked the deal, while European regulators have launched a probe of Microsoft’s $69 million billion offer to purchase gaming giant Activision Blizzard.

> Apple CEO Tim Cook, known to be a safe player with relatively few acquisitions under his leadership, might have given Wall Street a big hint in April. During a call with investors, Cook said he would not rule out acquiring a large company, and that the main drive was to secure strong intellectual property and big names.

Edit: Fixed a typo.

CSI

Law & Order

Criminal Minds

The Walking Dead

NCIS

Star Trek

StarGate

Yeah, but each episode will be around 90 minutes.

THR:

> 'Continental', which is set in the unique hotel for assassins in the Wick movies, was initially envisioned as spinoff series but was redeveloped as a three-night event series with movie length and movie budgets. The installments are to run about 90 minutes in length and, according to sources, have budgets upwards of $20 million.

> The “John Wick” prequel series “The Continental” will stream on Amazon outside the U.S., Middle East, and Israel.

> It was previously announced that Lionsgate-produced series will air on Peacock in the U.S. rather than Starz as originally planned. The show does not yet have a premiere date, but it is expected to debut in 2023.

> The three-episode show follows a young Winston Scott, played by Ian McShane in the film franchise and by Colin Woodell in the series. Per the official logline, “Throughout the series, viewers will follow Winston through the underworld of ‘70’s New York, where he will battle demons from his past as he attempts to seize control of the iconic hotel – a hotel that serves as a meeting point for the world’s most dangerous criminals.”

No kidding.

> A series with zero strength, zero interest and lots and lots of filler. The rings of power is a very, very weak series from the very first episodes, with unnecessary plots and completely empty characters, a soporific series.

The glitch might be by a disgruntled employee or RT algorithms really hate the show lol

Yeah, there are many old shows that I can't find on any streaming services.

Night Gallery, Nowhere Man, Space: Above and Beyond, Earth 2, EZ Streets, Harsh Realm & many more.

> In the mid-1990s, The X-Files creator Chris Carter was reaching new heights in his career. The X-Files was at the peak of its popularity, and the 1998 feature film was just around the corner. The only way for Carter to go was up, and so he developed a new series for Fox about a former FBI profiler named Frank Black (played to perfection by Lance Henriksen) who had an unnatural ability to see into the hearts and minds of criminals. The series, called Millennium, ran for three seasons, each unique from the last. For many, the second season was Millennium at its peak, and it's here that the show's iconic Halloween episode "The Curse of Frank Black," which many consider the series' best, became a reality.

> In a season full of retrospective and deeply personal episodes that dive into Frank Black's psyche, "The Curse of Frank Black" is the absolute best. It not only chronicles Frank's continued struggle with personal obsession and responsibility, but it also serves as a very character-driven Halloween story that takes the holiday to new heights. Halloween specials tend to go in one of two directions, either they're cutesie "trick-or-treat"-themed stories that are all about the Americanized version of the holiday (sometimes with a paranormal twist), or they're bloody horror shows that lean deeper into supernatural spectacles meant to frighten both the lead players and the audience. Unlike most Halloween episodes of television, "The Curse of Frank Black" touches on both of these tropes while not exactly fitting into either, making it a must-see Halloween classic.

A brilliant show that is still not available for streaming anywhere.

Let Them Fight!

On a side note, 'Masters of Horror' was created by Mick Garris, a well-known TV director who made several TV miniseries/movies, and one feature film based on Stephen King's stories/novels.

Sleepwalkers (1992 feature film), The Stand & The Shining miniseries in the 90s, Desperation (2006), and Bag of Bones (2011).

He also created another horror anthology series called 'Fear Itself' that ran for just one season. For Sci-Fi fans, he co-produced 'Masters of Science Fiction' anthology series.

That's within acceptable range for me.

If they're going to increase it a lot than that in the coming years, then they need to buy one of the smaller services like Paramount+, Peacock or Starz so then can add their back catalogue to Apple TV+

• 'Revelation Space Universe' & 'House of Suns' by Alastair Reynolds.

• 'The Night's Dawn Trilogy' & 'Commonwealth universe' by Peter F. Hamilton

• 'True Names', 'Across Realtime', & 'Zones of Thought series' by Vernor Vinge

• 'The Uplift series' by David Brin

• 'Galactic Center Series', by Gregory Benford

• 'Culture series' by Iain M. Banks

• 'Otherland' & 'Bobby Dollar Series' by Tad Williams

> COO Greg Peters, who is leading the ad push, was asked by moderator and J.P. Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth about whether many subscribers to the ad-free tier would trade down to the ad-supported one. Any resulting loss of subscriber revenue could offset gains from advertising. The new Basic with Ads plan will cost $6.99 a month, compared with $15.49 for the most popular ad-free plan.

> “We don’t see a lot of members switching plans,” Peters said. “Oftentimes, when they come in for a specific feature, let’s say 4K resolution, we see that to be a fairly sticky choice.” If those patterns hold true in the new advertising phase, he added, the company anticipates “unit economics being neutral to positive.” The cheapest plan has certain limitations — only one stream at a time, no downloading 720p resolution (compared with 1080p for the most popular plan).

1. Fire Country (5.91M) - CBS

2. East New York (5.27M) - CBS

3. So Help Me Todd (4.81M) - CBS

4. Monarch (4.03M) - Fox

5. Alaska Daily (3.59M) - ABC

6. Quantum Leap (3.35M) - NBC

7. The Rookie: Feds (2.17M) - ABC

8. The Winchesters (781K) - CW

9. Walker: Independence (615K) - CW

698 movies/TV and counting!