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I think once oby got promoted to forums that actually matter, Comrade was assigned to us.

in somewhat related news, Russian official media and its watchdog forbids to use word "war" when talking about Russia's invasion in Ukraine, insisting the correct term is "special operation". Russian denizens of the 'net discuss merits of Lev Tolstoy's famous novel "Special operation and peace" and argue which part of "Star special operations" saga is the best.

Classic forum autocrats doing their dirty work again

Poor old Lord of Flies, subsumed wholesale in the collective consciousness of the Obisidian Forums and replaced by a pale imitation. Am I the only one to keep the flame of memory burning? (fricken oby posted 'virile russian men in front of hot MiG' to the sexy men thread and the whole thing was ruined permanently because they were toting decidedly non virile Swiss SIGs instead of AKs/ Grozas/ Vintorez or something suitably appealing. LoF never would have made such a mistake, never)

There's also the Gell-Mann amnesia effect to consider: "You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know."

A lot of these people are from places are about as far away from Somalia as they are Ukraine though. When guys start expressing shock about war happening to "civilized countries", it's hard to take as anything good.

The fact that (at least in America) the discussion of salary has been discouraged also leads to things like pay gaps based on race and gender. You don't know you're being paid 20% less than your coworker, unless you talk to that co-worker about how much everyone is getting paid. Lotta stuff has changed since I've been on this. Still in Minnesota, Single again (that was.... an unpleasant relationship) And trying to be more social.

When I hit the MegaLotto, I wont tell anyone, but theyll know.

Yup. All those Ukrainians dying are saving NATO's sorry ass. Ukraine is paying the ultimate price so that the West can relearn these lessons from history yet again.

The transformation of Germany is the most amazing. A week ago they remained adament that they would not cancel Nord Stream 2, would not agree to kick the Russians out of SWIFT, and would not lift their ban on supplying military aid to Ukraine under any circumstances. Now, not only have they resolutely turned around on every one of those issues, today the chancellor said in the Bundestag that Germany had made a big mistake cutting back its military to where it's at now and so he was going to raise German defense spending above 2% of GDP to rebuild German military strength. Truly amazing! Welcome back to the real world, and to the transatlantic alliance, Germany!

How Putin made the EU great again

Are you deliberately trying to prove my point, if so, thanks. They're literally literally European- unlike Georgia. Ironically, Chechens are also white as anything, being, well Caucasians- from the Caucasus- a lot more than the average whitey. Loads of gingers too. What's the difference that makes them not European? Let's see if we can get an answer which doesn't boil down to them being uncivilised muslims... Some people today would get a bit of cognitive dissonance if they searched for Avala Tower or RTS, but I suspect there'd be a lot more "but that's just different, because." Maybe, even if they thought back a year or so to when Israel destroyed the AP building in Gaza. Best to manage expectations though. That's because it's a personal opinion/ observation, and not really analytics. I might think it's founded on objective reasoning, but I would think that or it wouldn't be my opinion. I wouldn't dispute that a lot of the level of coverage is because it's happening in Europe, it's also impossible to think there's anything apart from racism at work when reporters specifically say that they're trying not use racist terms to describe something they think. "Surely I can't be racist, I used People of Colour to describe arabs being inherently violent...".

and don't forget about Ireland

When given the choice of Eurojank or literally anything else, Eurojank is always the correct choice.

I guess so, can tell the next employers I did do some DevOps work. The whole "DevOps" title is bull**** anyway, is basically consolidating two roles into one. Is like the joke about looking for a "full stack developer" meaning you want to pay one salary instead of 4

It's not really a question of economic strength, but one of "Will Putin incinerate the world on his way out?" and the answer most certainly is far too close to "it's entirely possible" than I'd like it to be.

Don't get me wrong, I understand your argument (ie that people have different scope to their job that may not be understood by colleagues who have the same basic job title or job description). I'd argue that is a problem in not having clarity in job titles and descriptions, more so than a problem whose only cure is to make talking about ones salary a firing offence. I always figured you for more of a Scrooge McDuck in his money vault type!

Yes and no. Since Im not a fatcat then I want them to pay, but make no mistake, if I ever get the opportunity to become a fatcat, then this will be my wife and I.

Dont worry, English isnt your first language. Look at my grammar...I have no excuse Thats why @majestic is helping me, you can ask him

Well, time for some food pictures. Some homemade bread, fresh from the oven... Local variant of goulash (more like pörkölt with no tomatoes) to go with it... And finally, while that was made for tomorrow as it's a staple for Ash Wednesday, one has to, ah, sample it, right? Herring salad. Minor spoiler how the sauce of herring salad is traditionally made, don't click here if you're faint of heart: Don't blame me for clicking, eh?

Belorussians are on the move Okay, but you'd still at least want radar for command and control and I assume that is largely gone now. Then again, maybe NATO would provide that as part of intelligence.

Ugh, I made the same mistake by playing the entire series on insanity, and that no doubt played into how incredibly bored I was of the combat by even the second game - it's tediously difficult with how quickly you can eat it. If I were to ever even consider replaying them, it would either be on normal or even easy, and I wouldn't really even think twice about it, especially because I'd no doubt want to be Cheat Engine-ing that sucker up to 2-3x speed for much of the game. Don't want to die to stupid crap and replay any of the combat, that's for sure. But I don't really see myself ever trying to replay them - shooters just aren't really my thing anymore for obvious reasons and the games are so long and they probably haven't aged very well... I like (and believe in*) D&D as a general setting, even if it's the very overplayed Forgotten Realms, so that's something it immediately has over Dragon Age, where I simply could not care less about anything to do with the setting or world. I don't really know why they went with such a by-the-numbers set of party members, though...and the whole main plot was pretty boring - a literally mindless corrupted guardian is passively destroying the world, oh how terribly exciting. However, I would wager that if you disliked just almost everything about the original game, you prooobably wouldn't love MotB either. *Believing in a non-Earth world/setting is something that is difficult for me to do regardless of whether it's books, games, or film - does a lot to help sell a sense of investment. I am generally way more amenable to fantasy/sci-fi that has at least a tenuous connection to Earth/the real universe than ones that don't, so it's notable when there's an exception. I hate party AI, so having to program my party to not make the combat the worst pile of garbage in the world because the controls and such are so gosh-awful is extremely off-putting to me. Even outside of that starting dungeon, a lot of stuff in MotB was immune to sneak attacks. Lots of elementals (immune), undead (immune), machinery (immune), and spirits (immune).

There's another fun tidbit about me playing the Mass Effect series. I finished the trilogy on Insanity, and the looked up stuff and apparently realized it wasn't that hard, while I actually struggled with the initial stages of the first and second game, at least. Quake on Nightmare mode, for instance, was comparatively easy. In a thing that only ever happens to me, I missed that you're supposed to import a previous character played on another difficulty level when playing on Insanity. The first part is the most annoying to start as fresh Insainty character with, because everything almost one-shots you and the gameplay is pretty awkward at first. Kinda the same thing that made me go through Dark Souls while wondering how casters are supposed to be the "easy mode" of the game when bosses lose less than half of their health and I'm out of spells and forced into melee with a character not really built for it. Buying multiple copies? Why would I do that? I already got the spell. Right? Unintentional hard modes for the win! Strange how diametrically opposite our experiences are. I couldn't ever finish the original NWN2 campaign, and I actually finished the OC of the first NWN. I keep hearing how Mask of the Betrayer is one of the best (if not the best) of Obsidian, and yet I just can't get there, because I just can't start with it and the OC is so... off-putting, boring and, well, terrible that it breaks even my need to soldier on*, and that realiably. Quite a feat. I almost quit over that tutorial, and kept hoping it would improve. Right. It didn't. Dragon Age: Origins, meanwhile, I finished twice (noteworthy insofar as I barely ever replay games that length). However, I despied Awakening. What a terrible expansion. On the other hand I also did what I always do with games like that, build a character that plays itself. The "combat" of Dragon Age: Origins was making an Arcane Warrior and clicking some party scripts together, then watch it play out on its own. There's only a handful of fights that need direct control intervention. I'm fairly content with the game playing out this way, but it anyone wants an actual gameplay experience or riveting tactical combat from BioWare games I think they've been looking at games from the wrong company. It's not really like DA:O created the BioWare game template. *I actually finished Pools of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor. I don't think dwarves are allowed in Orgrimmar.

There's two answers, or rather, one answer with two components. First, the writers all have no concept of astronomical scales, but that's probably something Alex Kurtzman got from Jar Jar Abrams, or maybe it was the other way around. Han could watch the "Republic" die from Angkor Wat in The Force Awakens and Spock watched Vulcan disappear in a red-matter black hole too. The other is that since we barely have established any locations, Vulcan, Earth and Titan are the entire sum of the places the viewer is supposed to care about from the last season. In the third season, Discovery could jump to Titan because it was outside of Earth's sensor range, and the outpost on Titan was capable of launching raids on Earth without being discovered. All from a moon of a planet that's visible from Earth with the naked eye. Combine that and what does it matter that the DMA is large enough to encompass the entire Solar System and it's closest neighbours. Last minute addon to the series. Like, literally. Chakotay and Seven are seen having a date in the very last episode, with an undertone of "this has been going on for a while" while nothing of the sort ever happened in the series. After on and off teasing a potential romance between Mr. Boring and Ms. Bipolar.

I wish Putin knew this. Ukrainians and Russians are brothers. They are slavs. Great people. Hope they can all live in peace someday.

Yeah, DAO is a good game. It had perhaps the most generic setting ever made and was a bit long and a bit clunky, apart from that, fine. I actually enjoyed Inquisition/ Andromeda well enough too, for that matter. I'd have difficulty separating them at all as they managed to feel almost identical in every respect except I guess setting. Way, way too long for the amount of actual decent content; but I played them until I got bored, didn't care about not finishing the plot and didn't regret the time spent on them. I don't think it's time for my biennial rant about ME2/3, and I'm too busy watching some bunch of clowns get reamed by the BruceVCs in cricket, but suffice it to say that I outright liked a lot of ME3's structure. The plot was hamstrung by ME2 not advancing it at all until the last dlc, and there were three decidedly bad ideas there- Kai Leng, the star child (mostly because it was unearned, and felt massively pretentious. As a concept it could have worked but it needed a lot better implementation than we got), and Kai Leng. I know I mentioned Kai Leng twice, but to steal a joke from Red Dwarf, it was so important I thought it deserved two points to itself.

'Hey, what is the best way of traveling with a tank without getting ambushed?' 'Use the highway' ...a few moments later:

I've been saying for years that there needs to be an age limit on politicians and world leaders. There is this weird idea that people just keep getting wiser as they age. My mother-in-law is 70 and can barely operate the television. She doesn't need access to the red button at her age. People retire in their 60's for good reason.

BTW, I have decided. I'm gonna run with a SC Mage Slayer, even though furrycosplayshaping wardmonster most likely is more powerful. Companions will be their default class. Eddie the Fighter, Alotta the Wizzard, Xoti the priest of zombies, Blue fuzzball as a wild mind (more strategic fun) cipher, Tech9 as druid and ... well, you get the idea. MS seems like fun challenge that has not been theorycrafted to death. This will be different with lots and lots of new ideas

Totally stealing this!

I've been so busy with work lately. The biggest problem is the tedium of data entry. The data that I use for my work comes from multiple platforms because we are using multiple vendors. I am pretty handy with VB so I use Excel & Power BI for my actual work. The tedium is all this data has to be entered into excel. Manually on some formats. Some come in .csv so that's easy. Bri was over doing her laundry and we got to talking about it. She offered to do the data entry for me. I told her there was $20 an hour and a license for MS Office in it for her if she would. She agreed and my workload just got cut in half. Sub-contracting. Why didn't I think of that???

There are plenty of examples of just this in history, and furthermore no one is saying it is all him alone. It is entirely possible some other crazy ultra-nationalists (the Sergei twins for example) happen to share is obsession with Ukraine. But the bottom line is that he leads a dictatorship, and by definition that means he answers to no one else.

@Lexx Yeah, it ain't Putin alone but he sure does get all the credit. One thing that bothers me with this war though: the west and the EU get a very undeserved boost from Russias defeat. They created this mess in the first place...as always, like, for the nth f-ing time...

The same thing Chakotay suddenly saw in Seven of Nine, out of nowhere. Lines of a script, written by hacks. A-koo-chee-moya. I shouldn't be too hard on Voyager. Voyager is pretty watchable compared to the other stuff that came afterwards. Like One Night in Sickbay, which was probably the worst Star Trek episode until These Are The Voyages... which was the worst until every other Discovery episode became the worst until the androids in Picard summoned Mecha-Cthulhu from Dark Space (tm). Oh how I wish I'd be exaggerating just how breathtakingly stupid this was... edit: Ah, minor tip here, I don't think it'll help, but try not to think about anything that happens in Discovery going forward. It'll just break your brain if you try to make sense of it. Just "enjoy" the ride. You'll get to watch Skynet ASSUME DIRECT CONTROL at some point. That'll probably make no sense yet, but unfortunately it will soon enough...

Seriously can't even begin to imagine what B'Elana saw in that moron - guess it was her Klingon side telling her to fall for the closest angsty human version of a Klingon substitute possible.

He may surprise you. He's very religious, married (has some pretty daughters) and hates vodka, to the point that Russian vodka makers might be the first on the barricades protesting against Putin. So much misinformation floating around (doctored images, wrongly attributed video clips, you name it) https://www.bbc.com/news/60554910 From 2018 gas explosions to Ukrainian Palestinian girl telling Russian Israeli soldiers to go back to their own country.... lots of examples in the BBC piece.

Wouldn't it be great for China and India if the West and Russia erased each other with nukes and they get to rule Africa and what's left of Eurasia.

More information is slowly coming out now about Putin's state of mind. Even some people in Russia who were/are close to Putin are now coming forward to talk about their concerns about Putin's mental state. They say he has been suffering from medically diagnosable conditions of delusion and paranoia for some months now. He literally lives in isolation in a bunker, and has stopped communicating even with people who used to be his highly trusted confidantes; that he used to actually ask for and listen to alternative pov's, but not anymore, and now just demands outcomes from subordinates no matter how unachievable; that he has sunk into an obsession with Ukraine, and believes some people are out to "get him" including to kill him. This is the stuff that worries me most, that as the war goes poorly, his economy in tatters, his image and reputation destroyed, the whole world rallying around people he has determined to be "nazis" and "criminals," he will suffer a complete mental breakdown even while having that finger on the nuclear button.

On a side-note...

There are a lot of Evangelion OP edits like that, A Cruel Arthur's Thesis is one I liked. I guess it's because a lot of that shows were really weird. King of the Hill was definitely something else.

Wut.

Heck I don't need a bar of soap to smell like that! I usually need one to make me STOP smelling that way!

After hemming and hawing over purchasing Elden Ring, I decided to switch it up and pick up Elex 2 instead. At least I know it will perform well on my PC.

Space Cobra Episode XIV - "Dai Ma Ō Garutan" aka "The Great Magician, Galtan" aka Cobra is bored in space, and wishes he had a tower of treasure and a bevy of babes. And then, just like magic... "Whoa, the sun's gotten really close!" A bit of a nutty episode, very much a fantasy story with very little of the science fantasy of other episode. Edit: Also noticing a trend in this episode -

Speaking of cats... Australian breakfast TV