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  1. am not predicting jury results w/o having seen jury behavior. been in such situations too many times to realize predict from outside courtroom is inherent flawed. jurors is people, and we all should know the people is the element o' chaos indivisible from so many human activities. that said, am gonna take a quick opportunity to observe how there is no legit reason to wait for the verdict to protest. IF you believe system is rigged or flawed, is flawed regardless o' verdict. anybody saw any evidence this trial were handled poorly by da, judge or other governmental actors to ensure a defendant win? this were an extreme transparent trial, and we ain't heard any complaints o' government sabotage. IF you are bothered by laws which make chauvin less likely to be convicted, such has nothing to do with the trial in general or the verdict specific. IF you are angered by law enforcement treatment o' people o' color, the jury verdict in this case does noes not make law enforcement more or less culpable. IF you simple believe jury trials is bs, then verdict is inconsequential. people are on the edge o' their seats waiting for a verdict to express outrage, but the verdict shouldn't make a difference for any source o' outrage we can identify... other than outrage at specific jurors which is an unavoidable if you got jury trials. am bothered by so many waiting for this verdict as some kinda litmus test or bellwether. is not. just ain't. HA! Good Fun! ps somehow got culpable autocorrected to capable. fixed.
    3 points
  2. 3 points
  3. There is no way to tell (far as I know) who may purchase a gun and then 1, 2, 4, 10 years later suddenly "snap" for some reason. Background checks and psychological evaluation upon purchase is fine, but does not address all the weaponry already out there, illegally purchased or stolen guns, kids/other family getting their parents stuff, and all that jazz. And because you never know if or when someone will "suddenly" mentally deteriorate, such a psychological evaluation, imo, would need to be repeated as a requirement to maintain gun ownership - and ofc even then it wouldn't "catch" most cases in time, at least imo. Because of this, I think the main long term solution would be ... people, and attitudes. That is, we need to be rid of the stigma and secrecy of mental health concerns so people aren't afraid/ashamed to talk to others and/or seek counseling (or fear of being fired, or something), we need to have more lower cost options for such, and we need to have more awareness in the general public. There is also, of course, the economic stress factor - the more the masses feel disenfranchised, "not economically viable", hopeless, live in fear of debt and/or debt is ever increasing while personal financial goals/dreams ever further away, the more people who might not have actually quite reached a breaking point, may reach their breaking point. So to speak. It all adds up. It is not, imo, just about "gun control". People want fast answers and results, tho ... I just don't think there are any.
    3 points
  4. Have to attend a 1 hour meeting to tell us to work harder.
    3 points
  5. which is why am thinking this ain't the win many is gonna imagine it to be. were the +9 minutes and the refusal to listen to concerns o' others present and the failure to remove pressure once there were no pulse and... chauvin behavior were shock the conscience level stoopid, and as much as people hate cops 'round here, is rare we see a trial when is quite so obvious. nothing is gonna change precise 'cause is so easy to identify multiple points when chauvin shoulda' done something he did not. sooper cop got rolled up by his own department as a police captain and training expert testified against him? don't count on that happening in the future unless the foolishness is equal extreme. oh, and in spite o' fact we observed multiple times we thought outliers such as dp were not how reasonable jurors would see, we nevertheless were not sure the jury would do as we thought reasonable jurors should. chauvin were exact what law enforcement claims is the problem: a bad apple. the bad apple has been identified and discarded so it may no longer poison the rest o' the barrel. everybody wins. the system worked, no? law enforcement pundits and more than a few folks on the right will agree chauvin got his proper reward 'cause doing so reinforces the bad apple narrative. everybody wins? HA! Good Fun!
    2 points
  6. I'm hard pressed to come up with any anime I've watched that could compare to Sailor Moon, and certainly not when it comes to the combination of art style, tone and tropes. Not very surprising either. When it came out it was something new born out of old genres. There's been plenty of super sentai anime and magical girl stuff, but a combination of the two that transcended the limitations of either genre and that doesn't happen too often. In the end, even though really popular entertainment is often overrated, in this particular case there's a reason why many fans attribute liking anime at all to having seen Sailor Moon. When I watch German clips of Sailor Moon, the YT commenters often state "This was the first anime I watched!" which is patently 100% untrue unless it was literally the first animated show you've seen on TV in Germany. The others usually don't follow such a distinctly anime animation style (even if Sailor Moon itself looks different, what with the budget and all), but were animes regardless. I'm not entirely sure where Cardcaptor Sakura is going (if anywhere at all). There's an early episode where she's stuck at home on a Sunday because she traded household chores with her brother, and like two thirds of the episode are spent on Sakura cleaning with the help of her friend, and the monster of the week is a completely non-threatening tree that just happens to grow out of the basement. That does sound boring, for some reason it isn't. It's completely adorable. The issue here is... the English dub is... oh boy. Bad. So bad. Then there's revolutionary girl Utena on which, as you already know, a lot of people invovled with Sailor Moon worked on. But that's decidedly less fun. There are still fun scenes, but it's made to make you think, not roll on the floor laughing or having your brain melt by way of fremdschämen (great German word for what you call second hand embarrassment, literally "foreign shame" i.e. the shame you feel when someone else does or experiences something incredibly embarrassing). Said it before, it bears repeating I guess, I know what you mean. If you had shown me screencaps of Steven Universe I wouldn't have watched it without an endorsement. Madoka proper - that is, the show made movies, is a total of four hours, i.e. 12 episodes with a net runtime of roughly 20 minutes each. The third movie came later (haven't seen it yet). The visuals, yes, initially at least, everything about the first two episodes (almost) is meant to set up this typical magica girl anime setting. Except for the one fight scene that is there where Mami scares off a bunch of, uhm, magical things. That look like this: If nothing else, Madoka has a great antagonist that's being consistently voted into the top 10 anime villains of all time - and that's from a show that came out in 2011. It's also one of the few times - if not the only - where the antaganoist is both the most vile thing imaginable but completely free of malice or even evil intent (the actions arguably are, the intent, however, isn't). Indeed, that's fine. It's pretty much all any entertainment can hope for if consumed outside of formative times. 's the nature of things. Obviously I agree. Even the supporting cast is usually great, unless they're (ab)used by the writers to carry the idiot ball for some forced conflict. Yes, looking at you Haruka. The most amazing thing is how the writers were able to occasionally make this both silly and meaningful at the same time. Hmmm. Time to watch episode 192 again.
    2 points
  7. Would appeal as soon as they can regardless. Remarkable how this fool could have avoided all of this fuss if he'd heeded the rookie's suggestion.
    2 points
  8. That's a lot of porn, man.
    2 points
  9. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/04/eu-lawmakers-propose-strict-curbs-on-use-of-facial-recognition/?
    2 points
  10. Estocs are damn good. Eager Blade and later Engoliero de Espirs for aoe (but also Action Speed and Accuracy for Eager Blade and life leech for Engoliero), Blade of the Endless Paths for single target.
    2 points
  11. answer: prohibit Americans from owning so many handguns. is the obvious solution. accidents, intentional homicides, and suicide attempts resulting in death by firearms overwhelming happen 'cause o' the accessibility o' handguns. firearms are lethal and they are designed to be lethal. act surprised we got so many die in firearm incidents is national level obtuse. the only meaningful solutions are the ones which serious limit the access americans have to the firearms they use to kill each other. however, handgun ownership is Constitutional protected, which is kinda weird 'cause the most recent 2nd amendment cases, written by textualists, took a decidedly originalist approach focusing on history o' gun laws and intent o' the founders n' such. arming a militia circa 1787 as the basis for the kind o' weapons being protected by second amendment is gonna result in the ar-15 kinda weapons getting protection as 'posed to handguns, no? no. also, as weird as it may be, there were no comprehensive history o' gun laws previous to heller, so scalia and others were kinda talking out their arse and turns out they made a few objective wrong assumptions. moot. 2nd amendment current protects handgun ownership. all liberties have a body count. nobody wants to face that truism. protect freedom o' religion means those folks who believe invasive medical practices taint one's soul is protected from government interference even if it means children will be denied basic life saving procedures. taken to an extreme no previous Court would recognize, freedom o' religion means even if we know groups o' people singing in close quarters indoors for an hour or more great increases the risk o' covid-19 transmission, Court says such religious gatherings need be protected, tacit accepting the resulting body count. freedom against unreasonable searches and seizures or self incrimination means guilty people will go free and be free to prey 'pon and even murder american citizens in the future. etc. second amendment has a body count which is more easily observed than most liberties, but is no different. as Americans we have accepted the body count as necessary, or at least unavoidable-- a cost in blood to protect a priceless freedom. right to bear arms allows an individual to protect themselves not only from bandits, british invaders and indians, but from the US government if it ever decides to go too far, with "too far" being an admitted subjective measure. am not mocking as is indeed a legit concern and as vulgar and crude as it may appear, am personal recognizing some kinda body count is indeed warranted to guarantee americans is able to protect themselves from bad guys, especial if those bad guys is claiming to be agents o' the government. 'course the history o' 2nd amendment protections is NOT as described by most o' the 2nd amendment honks here and elsewhere. literal were not until after ww1 that the fed took any meaningful position on gun regulation by the individual states. is this weird narrative that the government is itching to take your guns and your God-given second amendment rights which has existed since the founding. utter poppy****. you have more second amendment protection today than during any meaningful span o' US history... evar. government, and Courts, inexplicable keep finding ways to expand you gun rights, in spite o' the nonsense nightmares concocted by the alt-right which suggest that w/o constant vigilance, washington would beat down your door and take away your guns the moment they thought they could get away with doing so. regardless, solution would seem to be bans on handguns, and am honest not giving a freaking darn 'bout recreational use exceptions. deaths attributed to ownership o' shotguns and rifles, while frequent the most lurid when presented in the media stories, is resulting in negligible body counts when looking at the totals o' tens o' thousands. even the guy in las vegas were representing a near insignificant addition to the yearly total o' firearms deaths. try and ban only bad people from owing guns as a solution to the problem is doomed. such limits is a way to make people feel like they did something useful or have some kinda agency. obvious accidents happen all the time and background checks don't prevent the child from killing himself in a walmart when he gets ahold o' the s'posed secured weapon in mom's handbag. worse, most gun deaths which is intentional is resulting from impulsive action. is not just the clinical insane and/or felons who act stoopid for a quarter hour. you are most likely to be shot and killed by somebody you know as 'posed to a rando stranger trying to take your stuff. nevertheless, gotta start with being self honest. accept the reality o' some kinda body count. recognize how the protection o' the particular liberty in question is gonna result in dead americans. one reason our cops act as if every american is armed is hostile is 'cause statistically there is more than one gun per american. hundreds o' deaths in school shooting over the past decades is a tragedy. tens o' thousands o' firearms suicides yearly is a statistic. etc. so own it. as a society we can't act shocked every time ameircans die in a firearm tragedy. the deaths are anything but unpredictable. is not difficult to come up with ways to prevent firearms deaths. problem is there is no way to get americans to accept the genuine effective solutions, which is fine just so long as people would be honest 'bout the costs and their willingness to accept the predictable body count. you won't get any significant percentage o' democrats to agree to a serious ban on handgun ownership. instead folks will argue over relative minor restrictions such as background checks and waiting periods. firearms are lethal and they are designed to be lethal. act surprised we got so many die in firearm incidents is national level obtuse. HA! Good Fun!
    2 points
  12. *Yoga Fire Took me a while to recall that.
    2 points
  13. My situation is a little different than yours, but I kind of know how you feel - really miss being able to eat quick and easy stuff. WHY CAN'T I HAVE A POPTART IF I WANT TO HAVE A POPTART, LIFE? Let me eat my garbage! Sadly, everything pre-made is primarily wheat (which in your case, means carbs) or sugar, if not both.
    2 points
  14. Whoa, some old names in this thread. As to your topic, to legally purchase a weapon, I think we need to incorporate some kind of psychological exam. But theres no realistic way to comb someone social media posts. Of course that does nothing to control the sales of illegal guns but its a start.
    2 points
  15. Curse with maxed INT isn't a problem if you also max RES and focus on items and food with -x% hostile effects. Because maluses are far more impactful than bonuses in Deadfire the effects of 10 INT vs. 30 INT aren't that far off IF the maluses to hostile effect duration are big enough. Especially when combined with a high-INT Clarity of Agony. If you solo you can also use the Ring of the Lone Survivor which adds another big malus to hostile effect duration. High INT is only a "problem" in the early-ish game. But there you don't need to spam FF that much imo because less enemies.
    2 points
  16. Well, Transcendant vs Psyblade is pretty clear. Transcendant is far stronger offensively (particularly in melee), has far longer (even moreso if FF) / bigger / stronger (even moreso if Helwalker) cipher power effects and is much more synergistic IMO. Helwalker multiclasses are rather squishy, but mighty and certainly a Transcendant can effectively stay out of harm's way OR instantly paralyze/stun/otherwise disable threatening enemies. Forbidden Fist makes your debuffs/DOTs last forever and disables all enemy healing, making even the tankiest enemies easy pickings. Plus a max Res FF with Tuotilo's Palm and Borrowed Instinct can be rather tanky. Psyblade is very durable. Has a nice Crit conversion. But that's about it, as far as synergies go. Personally I wouldn't think twice. Well, a Devoted/SoulBlade could be a decent frontliner, not afraid to trade blows and eventually Clear Out would be fun. But in general there is far less class synergy IMO.
    2 points
  17. Fists are a VERY potent weapon. But kinda boring... I enjoy the various weapons and their interesting and sometimes synergistic (or outright broken ) effects more. Of course, fists are always a nice blunt backup weapon, if you focus on another type. Plus I agree Forbidden Fist is great - he may wield a different weapon&shield / dual weapon combo and still use the Forbidden Fist attack whenever he wants
    2 points
  18. tbf futurevision would probably make me lose my mind too, that would be terrifying seeing so many possibilities of death all around you. Especially for a weak human - we legitimately are capable of dying from incredibly small things every day. Garnet, on the other hand? Not much around that can kill her, and she's way more equipped to navigate past the few possibilities that pop up. I kinda...almost want fish stew pizza, until I actually really look at it. there is so much wrong with this It's further sad for especially me, because I'm...just not really an anime person, try as I might. I wish I weren't so...picky about stuff like this sometimes. There's just this very small range of anime 'styles' (more than just the art - tone, tropes, dialogue, character design/expressions/voices, etc.) that I can wrap my head around, and Sailor Moon just happened to be one of the very few that hit my brain right and made me legitimately want to give it a shot. I'm still gonna try to roll with Madoka because one, it's incredibly short; and two, the visuals, as I recall you mentioning way back when, are deliberately a bit antithetical to the content, and well, I've played Doki Doki Literature Club which does the same thing and very much enjoyed it even with the most ridiculously anime of visuals, so I gotta at least give it a chance. ...Also, it's short, . Sailor Moon will always be special to me as well - never as much as it could be for you, of course, but to be delighted with and fall in love with an entire ensemble of characters, even in such an incredibly silly show like Sailor Moon, is such a rare occurrence for me, it's automatically special. SU:
    2 points
  19. I was disappointed by season 1 because I was expecting getting to watch Dracula raze Wallachia. Instead it was arguably a prequel to the real 1st season, but fun regardless. SU. Garnet reveals one of her powers to Steven and he loses his mind.
    2 points
  20. SuperS. And I remembered that somebody mentioned in this thread that the creeps wouldn't stay for too long. That helped a lot.
    2 points
  21. I was feeling like playing Deadfire again. But since I won't use one of my PoE1 characters, I decided to replay the first game and do the whole journey for my new character, a Templar of Woedica.
    2 points
  22. Full frame-rate video of the flight:
    2 points
  23. They're meant to be inviting 5 teams on a per season basis though, so long as they're Macclesfield or Carlisle Arsenal and Tottenham should be guaranteed to finish at least 6th from bottom. Oh who am I kidding, Arsenal would somehow contrive to lose to Macclesfield and Carlisle too, especially if there's no threat of actual relegation. On the plus side though, there's the perpetual amusement remembering all the people who thought Wenger was the problem...
    2 points
  24. I didn't find P:Km's writing to be an obstacle to my enjoyment of that game. For the record, I agree with the criticisms of its writing several of you have brought up. But I was able to just slough that off and thoroughly enjoy the game for all of its other goodies. In fact, it, along with PoE1, is now my go-to game for replay. Obstacles to my enjoyment of an RPG are such things as: first-person perspective; NOT party-based (including if party-based but with too small a party, i.e. party of just four); focus on multiplayer over single-player; and, TB combat. So clearly these things are subjective. To each their own.
    1 point
  25. Stop saying "WOTC." It's WotR!! You guys are confusing the hell outta' me.
    1 point
  26. "Your workshop isn't big enough." "Your (over 50) granary is full, m'lord." ...oh wait, sorry, wrong games. ...that type of thing is all very absurd tho. Sure, I get it - the fabled "balance" - but they almost always go overboard, imo.
    1 point
  27. I love playing transcendents, and fists are one of the best weapons in the game, which you have from beginning to end. You are right that on multiclass monks fists are a bit weaker due to the loss of 2 power levels. However, you can make up for this by quaffing a potion of ascension, which adds +2 PL and lasts the whole battle. If your MC is nature godlike, you'll reach 10 PL, which gives you post-mythic fists, arguably the best weapon in the game. My favorite combo is a melee transcendent, using the forbidden fist and soul blade subclasses. Both give you really powerful attacks (the forbidden fist and soul annihilation abilities) that you can use right from the beginning of the game, and get more powerful as you go along. Like Haplok, I'd probably keep Grave Calling and the Kitchen Stove in my first weapon slots, opening with thunderous report and then using Grave Calling to fight vessels. For most fights, however, I switch to fists, using the Tuotilo's Palm shield in the offhand. With high resolve which you'll need for forbidden fist and the shield, you'll be tanky, shrugging off most attacks while dealing devastating DPS. For the cipher abilities, I tend to pick the important passives, like Hammering Thoughts, (de)buffs like Borrowed Instincts, and of course Disintegration, which hits like a truck when the enemy is already enfeebled by the forbidden fist ability.
    1 point
  28. What do you mean you're not rooting for Dracula?
    1 point
  29. Everyone knows this noise: ...but did you know they purr, too?
    1 point
  30. It's such a shame that BG3 is turn-based only. I tried to enjoy turn-based in D:OS2, but it just doesn't work for me. So, unless there is going to be real time with pause in BG3, I'm simply going to skip it. It may be a great game, but heck, turn-based is too much for me.
    1 point
  31. The ranged weapons you and Boeroer discussed are very nice indeed. But personally on my Transcendant I loved using Grave Calling (saber) + Kitchen Stove (blunderbuss, mentioned by Boeroer) combo. Kitchen Stove Thunderous Report offered instant Ascension, while Grave Calling was used to melee a bit, particularly with vessels present, but mostly to manually kill skeletons summoned by Herald Pallegina (preferably summoned in front of the party and weakened with Aloth's Fireball or some such, when the enemies reached them). This generates party friendly aoe paralyzing Chillfogs, that even provide focus as they tick aoe damage on enemies! Going melee usually wasn't a big problem, besides those paralyzing Chillfogs, I've also used quick Mental Binding quite a bit (duration is solid with Turning Wheel boosted Int). Eventually I moved to Seeker's Fang rapier main hand. Seeker's Fang creates a raw mini-disintegrate effect whenever it crits an enemy. And its Spider's Flurry per encounter cone attack is another method to instantly Ascend - and potentially mini-disintegrate 3+ enemies at once (3 attack rolls per target, so decent chances for multiple crits). Also zooming across the battlefield with Flagellant's Path and instantly destroying squishy enemies with Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming boosted full attack on arrival (with no Recovery!) is a lot of fun! So do not discount melee entirely.... Edit: As for Dichotomous Soul, these are nice summons. But you sacrifice action time and 4 wounds to summon... I like being at max wounds to maximize Int (and burning lash). So it wasn't for me.
    1 point
  32. Sailor Moon After Dark, episode 190:
    1 point
  33. Not a topic to lose your head over.
    1 point
  34. It's Spring, the giant jumping spiders are out in force again, ridding the yard of all the boring usual house spiders. I love how aware they are that I'm there, holding a phone 2" from their face and they only move their head a little to stare you down, while still eating, being all like "yeah, so, you want a piece of me? I'm busy at the moment, come back later."
    1 point
  35. For Balance : Firebrand isn't viable as an ultimate weapon as it is. It is good but not enough. The spell is perfectly fine as a Tier 2 utility spell to get a weapon that deals elemental damages (very important Vs certain foes). That's why I won't change it. Parasitic Staff isn't as strong as ultimate Weapons, but its unique enchant makes it suitable for certain builds. Such as Bloodmage indeed. But that's why I think it doesn't need a buff. For Wizards, it is fine to use it sometimes but switch to other Conjured 2 handers such as Citzal Lance or Warding Staff if necessary. Power Level scaling is a tempting idea but I'm conservative about Keeping the char level instead since it is way easier to balance (PL stacking and differences between Multiclass and Single Class would be a pain).
    1 point
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