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Nothing important, but since HBO is now MAX, I noticed they had some of those true-crime shows I liked from whatever channels they were ages ago. So I'm working my way through some seasons of Homicide Hunter/Lt. Joe Kenda. I remember liking a couple seasons of that, and there's a lot more seasons. They use a persistent actor to play young Joe Kenda during re-enactments. Sometimes it's rather cheesey, sometimes less so, the music is always way over-dramatic, but they're shortish and Mr. Kenda himself has this dry delivery and occasional sense of humor I find watchable. Just one of those good for casual viewing while eating/exercising shows (which seems to be almost the only time I watch video media anymore). There was also apparently a semi-recent Forensic Files 2, which I didn't know existed. I loved the old original one from the late 90's, back before such shows were quite so cheesy/over-dramatic. It was probably mostly what got me on that whole kick in the first place (well that and CSI...). FF 2 isn't as good but it's still better than most modern shows. The first few episodes the new narrator (Bill Camp) was totally overboard and I thought "oh no" but they must have told him to take it down several notches and became at least tolerable. The original Forensic Files narrator (Peter Thomas) had the most awesome voice for such, but he passed.

Patron - got to around 3300 population. The save file takes much longer both to load-in, and when processing exiting game, now. Although save file doesn't seem super huge or anything. But I'm starting to get a little bored with expanding mostly for sake of keeping citizens from complaining about no housing, there's no other motivation at this point. I mean, I'd still love to fill the map but the performance keeps dropping, too, ofc. So it might be time to try another map/try with different land challenges. I think I did figure out why citizens still get grumpy re: no housing even with Shelters - I think they will stay in Shelters for a while but eventually get annoyed and want a proper house, perhaps as part of an "angry citizens may leave or riot" mechanic. Thus kind of negating Shelters supposed no-births growth-damper effect. Only need 3-4 Shelters, because they start to get annoyed before any more will fill up.

I would guess average modern town/colony builders end things/want to start over somewhere around here. Maybe more tightly packed houses. I've been kinda all over the place building those. And then there's the people like me. Sadly I don't think PC will allow filling map entire. That's still only maybe 2/3. At around 3300population now.

Im have no problem with savescumming when its necessary because of bad design or because of laborious respawn mechanics that force you to repeat the last 1-2 hours Time is limited in this world

I had some ~*Dark Souls experience*~ with Fear and Hunger for myself over a weekend, that is, played a number of sessions without the savescumming mod and just let bad luck take me wherever. It went like this: † Won three Necronomicons in a row, won the coin toss to read them all without going mad and consequently dead, lost the toss to a monstrosity next door, died; † Had a lucky streak with good armor and weapons, won the coin toss for successful rest, but it appears that if you don't kill this one really weak enemy beforehand, he drags you to his torture room where you, well, eventually die; † Forgot to give the little girl I rescued from the cage her whiskey and opium, she got too sad and left; † Some **** of a mage sang my limbs away, fortunately was able to will myself into suicide; † Defeated some monstrosity surprisingly easily, it dropped a thing that would cancel annoyances like bleeding, infection and worms away, couldn't equip it because of cursed item in the slot; † Okay, "What if I jump into the latrine?" is entirely on me. And that's with mercifully brief combat. If I had to experience all this plus a drawn-out twitch-based fight before kicking it? Gimme that sweet Necronomicon. On the savescumming runs, one party failed forward straight into their goal, unfortunately the dude I was hired to rescue turned up dead, so hauled my arse all the way back to see if I were allowed to leave since what's the point of staying there anymore? Indeed I was allowed to leave, got "Ending E", which implied endings A, B, C and D. Went to game's wiki and it appears I missed, like, 90% of game? Okay good. Wasn't planning to quit it any time soon anyway.

It doesn't help that the lore seems to have two conflicting narratives around humanity's downfall before the events in 30k. One version it was the Eldar created warp storms (as their excesses grew out of bounds) and in a different version it was humanity's hubris fiddling with technologies that shouldn't have been invented that lead to them imploding

MSI gonna MSI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZG-WP8A_2c tl;dw - The MSI Claw is a mess and presents the worst value proposition of all the currently available PC handhelds on the market. There is literally no reason to buy it whatsoever.

Ukraine will be able to use Norwegian F16s to hit targets deep in Russia, if they desire so. https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/04/15/7451323/

Well, not quite the same, but similar, yes. Warp storms, dimensional barriers, the effect is the same, I suppose.

Black Hawk Down. It is kinda amusing how a film about American event involving very American dudes has a cast with half, if not more, British actors. Also an Aussie and a Dane. Probably because the director was a Brit too.

Opting out of not one, but two, Alfred Hitchcock films, a John Ford film, a Coen Brothers film, a Terry Gilliam film, every adaption of a certain Dumas story, and if you're not that particular about the article "The", then also a Miloš Forman film.

I guess I'm really talking about those progression mechanics that I didn't really like in TOW : the fact that weapons had levels and the poor perk selection. I hope that we have a greater selection of unique weapons with unique effects or mechanics, and no levels. As for the perks, I guess there is an easy fix : excise the perks that are automatically tied to skill progression and fold them back into the perk list.

Hello just a brief report from Australian politics. IYKYK

So we know more about the Iranian attack on Israel and its objectives So the Iranian hardliners had to " respond " due to domestic pressure after Israel attacked its embassy in Syria but they want to avoid a war with Israel and the US which they know they will lose but any country that attacks Iran will suffer consequence because Iran is not a pushover So Iran makes it unofficially known they will attack Israel and 99% of the missiles and drones are destroyed and no real damage is done to Israel which was the Iranian calculus but they have also satiated the domestic nationalist fervour for a response And the US unofficially makes it known they wont support an attack on Iran which ostensibly had an influence on the Israel war cabinet decision Because the reality is the US has leverage on Israel and not the other way around which is what most of the Israeli\Jewish conspiracy theories misrepresent And the US doesnt want to be dragged into a war with Iran especially if its not justified and IMO you cant justify a war with Iran considering no real damage was done to Israel and Israel did attack the Iranian embassy with was the reason for the Iranian response We dont know what Israel is going to do but I doubt they will attack Iran without US support so maybe Netanyahu is hoping Trump will win in November and that Trump will support a military attack on Iran. But thats also not a given because we dont know how Trump will respond considering his capricious nature

Wasn't that what led to the end of "The Dark Age of Technology" first time around? Effectively relegating humanity to isolated clusters among the stars (because the Eldar at the time decided to make a mess of warp travel until the birth of Slaanesh) edit: Not aided by the fact, that the weaponry back then was much more destructive than what is currently available to humanity

But with all the domestic political issues in the US are large numbers of people really going to vote because of the Israeli vs Palestinian conflict? I know within some US media circles this gets raised as a " possible " influence on election outcomes but I will be surprised if that will be an important factor or influential factor I have also never seen a single current poll that includes this current war or even Israel as a main reason that people vote for? I have seen R vs W, border security, increased crime and inflation\economy as the most important reasons that will decide the election But I might be wrong, do you know anyone who will cast there vote based on perceptions of how the US is dealing with this latest war in Gaza?

Not a movie per se, but about a movie. How to make a movie on a shoe string budget (and what little budget you had was donated by the rock bands of the time)...

Momodora: Moonlit Farewell. Another good metroidvania, it looks just like the previous one and it's beautiful. It has no complicated or annoying mechanics and I enjoyed it a lot. However, I do have many criticisms: the map is more linear than in the previous game, basically one straight path with some ramification areas (although each area has many short ramifications). Most bosses can be damaged at any moment and the battles become a little boring, with victory depending more on pressing buttons quickly than dodging and trying to find a weak moment/spot. The story is quite simple and the companions could be more creative, but instead are just skin variations of three types.

The trouble is that this is fundamentally a lose/ lose situation for Biden. If he's hard on Israel he'll lose votes, if he ignores Palestinians and Israeli war crimes he'll lose votes. There's very little at risk for Trump who can say what he likes on the issue; anyone pro Palestine or (unironic usage this time, to be clear) Rules Based Order or nuanced responses to international affairs is never going to vote for Trump anyway, and he isn't in power. In this case I don't think Biden has a smart play, from a purely political perspective, only bad and worse. (While a lot of people including myself would like Biden to make a Moral Play and actually use the US influence to, well, stop the starvation, collective punishment, destruction of educational institutions, deliberate targeting of health sites and workers, targeting of journalists, targeting of diplomatic structures, targeting of aid workers, targeting of civilian structures etc etc instead of mildly pontificating about it I struggle to think of a single time a US President has actually made a genuine Moral Play, ie (try and) do something because it's simply the right thing to do, knowing that it'll potentially hurt him politically)

That depends heavily on what you would consider a happy ending. You can avert a galactic crisis and foil the plan of an insane fascist, so if that qualifies, then yes, the game does have one. If by happy ending you mean creating a better place in the Warhammer 40k universe, then that is actually also possible, albeit after a fashiohn, if you follow a certain conviction and achieve its secret ending, but (warning, spoilers): Hey, it's Warhammer 40k, there's got to be some grim and dark even in the happiest of endings.

Bibi has definitely made it clear that he favors the Republicans pretty damn heavily and uhhhh....Bibi may have intervened in the 2016 election to help Trump. So would not be particularly surprising to me. I think the most damning thing for Biden comes from Biden himself, whose unwillingness or inability to rein in Israel makes him look callous or weak. Joe is going to lose to Trump because he can't even call out a guy who hates him for doing war crimes, let alone stop sending weapons to him. More and more I think the Dems just like losing.

Not wholly convinced, but Russia's got to be low on equipment now. But that just means they'll dig in and things go nowhere, maybe? And for a bit of a laugh

At this point I'm not sure Israel isn't trying to make sure Biden doesn't get reelected.

David Axe forbes sites/blog is the source, so no it isn't a serious assessment. (actually not sure he's the ultimate source, but it's the title of his April 7? article. Either way, he's a clickbait merchant and his articles tend to be either 'the sky is falling' or 'everything is coming up Roses' with little in between)