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Revived Picard believes there are 5 lights. ... ... I'll get me coat.

...and another thing. I feel like this push to Picard to have some deep dark secret he was running away from is the very sign the writers don't understand Star Trek of any SCIFI. You don't need a dark secret to want to captain a spaceship and explore the mysteries of creation. That in itself is enough. It has always been enough.

Naughty ! It's only fascism if it's from Italy during the early to mid 20th century. Everything else is just sparkling right-wing authoritarianism. Real talk, there is always another mask. The thing about fascism sparkling right-wing authoritarianism in the present context is a veneer of deniability or respectability to mask it. While I can agree with the first statement, because repression is bad, I'm not sure about the second. Aside from Trump's persona, in terms of policy he did just pack in the old Bush (2) ghouls to run things for him while he did rallies and ****. And in terms of foreign policy, there isn't too much real difference between the two parties. So maybe he would try to invade Mexico or tries to stealth bomb while disguised as PRC planes, but most likely we'd be seeing the same thing as now but with some dumb tweets.

Maybe youre a precog? If so, please provide me 5 numbers between 01 - 70. Then 1 number between 01 - 25.

Oh, oh, oh! Time to once more address the poster, not the issue! *snort* Hmm. Hmmm. Hmmmm. Why yes, you agree 100% here? What is this now, final mask-off, mein Führer? Feels good, right? Let it out. Give in. Purge the undesirables from society. Plus, beat some miners back to work. @BruceVC I also declare victory, but if you want I can call you an -ist first too: FASCIST. Oh and since you like videos so much, have one: But bugie surly you simply must agree that unlawful protests must be punished ? Their can be no exceptions ! edit: In all seriousness, the level of political repression in Russia is horrifying at the moment. To see people agreeing with that - no matter who that person from the KKKodex was, yeah. You know what, Biden might be a feckless idiot and a doddering old fool on the cusp of dementia (or even beyond already), but can you imagine how much worse this situation would be if Trump and his fascist coup brigade would hold the reins right now?

On an only tangential note, History Matters is an awesome channel and can be recommended to anyone who wonders about the lesser known stuff. He mainly focuses on the "weird" questions in world history, the things people rarely think about. Like why does Belgium exist? or why did Sweden side with North Vietnam? Most of the videos are about three and a half minute and a few "longer" ones close to ten minutes. The humor in his videos is usually top notch too

Whoever BBC follows or not follow and wherever Ukrainian troops hide or not, it's not them who are responsible for civilian deaths. They are not killing those civilians. Russian army is killing them.

IIRC Russian "parliament" speaker came up with the idea to replace leaving companies and brands with Russian versions, such as Uncle Vanya's instead of McDonald's, though the logo is just a meme, I think. Kind of like these:

Looks like they did their calculations and start to care a little bit more. Today it was reported in our news, that Lavrov was flying to China, but on the half-way there, his plane suddenly changed his course back to Moscow... Seems like Pooh noticed, how is Putler moving a lot of their armies from Siberia to Ukraine, and starts new round of calculations... Zelenskyi would never accept Austria-like neutrality. That would mean "peaceful-type" of army with almost no offensive capabilities, and that would mean, one more invasion, after Russia recovers, if Putin would be still in charge. This time, with more horrific outcome for Ukrainians. The best deal which I can imagine would be, that they would be neutral with Turkey guarding their skies. Erdogan, as much he is an ass, he is only NATO politician, which has some kind of respect in Moscow. And in other interesting news: Moldova wants the Russians gone from Transnistria Uzbekistan as one of the closest allies to Russia has raised some fingers. Statements like this would be unimaginable few days ago... Aftermath of the Ukrainian attack on Russian occupied airport near Kherson Another information from Slovak news: "Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to the head of the office of President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, said that the Ukrainian army had destroyed the command post of one of the Russian armies involved in the invasion of Ukraine. The positions came under fire from Ukrainian artillery. "It is a great military success. It may mean that several generals have died and caused the disorganization and disruption of hostile activities aimed at continuing the military operation," Arestovych said. The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valery Zaluzhny, said that the headquarters of the 35th Army of the Eastern Military District of the Russian Federation had been destroyed." Alleged footage near the area

Yeah, maybe you're right, but still, better not having to find out.

Picard's dark secret should be that he doesn't actually like earl grey.

Yes, and it's really problematic because it just gives the culture war brigade a readily exploitable point of attack. Almost 20 years ago, we were discussing Star Trek Enterprise on the Interplay forum and making fun of Ensign Mayweather, the token black guy on the crew, actually counting his lines and marking episodes down where he had more than one. He was so obviously a token character the writers wanted on the show for inclusivity's sake but didn't know what to do with - but at least the other characters on the crew felt a little more fleshed out. Discovery, meanwhile, feels like the entire crew was made to check every box on the token minority list, and not many of them are real characters beyond that. There's a gay couple, a body positivity girl, Michael is of course the token black hire, Michelle Yeoh rounded everything out as the Asian lady on the show. Half of those weren't even real characters, and the half that were got mostly terrible writing to work with. Subsequent seasons added a token trans character and a token non-binary and it's painfully obvious that the writers don't know what to do with them either. From there you can just so easily point to diversity ruining your show, while that has very little to do with it. These characters would all be crap even if they all were caucasian and cis-heterosexual. One could easily also get the impression that these shows are insulated from any professional criticism on account of their tokenistic approach, and I've argued before that this is perhaps one of the reasons to include them - or better put, to keep including more and more of them. Discovery airs to raving critical reviews all the time, while the show is just plain terrible. While such things are always subjective, Discovery has a writing and direction problem, and had so right from the start. I watch that, look up reviews and wonder what's wrong with the world. Then you watch a YouTube video by Critical Drinking Billy 'I hate cuckservatives' of Akkad III telling you that in the past, your favorite shows used to be better because critics treated them fairly and writers worked hard on them because the culture war garbage didn't force them to include every minority under the sun, and you might actually find yourself agreeing with it. It's insidious. Especially because in the case of Star Trek, it's a franchise that was always very progressive for its time. It would be the perfect vehicle, but they're just making an utter mess of it. Also, because I'm contractually obligated (but also want) to, I need to once again point out that most of these things were done better by a now 30 year old cartoon adaptation that had a group of girls transform into superheroes by putting on makeup and nail polish and fight evil in the name of love and justice - and yes, that was more than occasionally just about as campy as it sounds, but it also had real characters, almost always treated everyone as equal (and if anyone did not, it came from the villains) and never felt as if it was pushing an agenda. It wasn't perfect by any means, but it was a damn sight better representing equality and acceptance than Star Trek Discovery or that Captain Marvel film. I had a good chuckle at RLM's comment in their Midnight Mass video that I watched after the fact when they said it was the best Stephen King adaptation ever that wasn't based on an actual work by Stephen King. I made the same point very early in my posts about it, I think.

Hard West had a lot of good ideas but it was very rough around the edges. Phantom Doctrine was waaaaay more polished and a much better game. I enjoyed it quite a bit. My biggest criticism is that once I figured a couple of strategies out, it became too easy. At that point, completing levels became trivial, it was all about meeting challenges I imposed on myself.

Watched Midnight Mass and Sweet Tooth on Netflix. Sweet Tooth was better than I expected really and overall pretty good. Very weird 'feel' to it though, the whole premise shouts Young Adult, but the content really isn't. Decidedly ropey CGI/ prosthetics at times, but after what high budget WoT I'm not sure there's too much scope for criticism. Also ends on a cliffhanger, which I'm not overly keen on. Took me approximately 5 minutes to work out that it was filmed in New Zealand too; obvious McSuburbs, Auckland Hospital, beautiful establishing shot of Wyoming was recognisably Beech Forest. And of course the bevvy of ex Shortland Street actors in bit parts (including the obligatory bad/ variable american accidents [accents and I was sorely tempted to leave that typo as was], and a few who'd been told not to bother even trying). Midnight Mass was excellent for the first 6 episodes, but rather fell down at the end. The acting was very good, as was the scripting; and the episodes were long but felt short which is always a good sign. Oh well, ending a series like that well is always the hardest part, and it was still a very good watch overall. Eh, that would be plagiarising Doctor Who. (And I'm not even sure whether I'm making a joke or serious there)

Hard West (not to be confused with upcoming Weird West) is getting a sequel. The original was a more story driven XCOM wanna-be, and it was rather crap. That is led by another studio (good!) but the new studio didn't do many games, and I am unfamiliar with any of them. Oh well.

More footage from Kherson airport, after Ukrainian attack. Looks like some Russian guy made the video. Russians lost ****ton of stuff

I should make this my new avatar pic

Does Quantum Mechanics Rule Out Free Will? - Scientific American

People are always equating Russia and China, but there are some fundamental differences between the two states and regimes. The Chinese, unlike Putin's Russia, do care about such things as their standing and reputation in the world and being *perceived* (I emphasize this word) as a responsible world power. They also, unlike the Russians, don't want to completely reorder the existing international system, because that system has actually been very good to China (for example, China supports globalization, but wants it to be a China-dominated phenomenon, or at least a "neutral" one, rather than a US-dominated one). In international relations literature, states like China are called 'revisionist' states, meaning they want to reorder the distribution of power in the system but while largely maintaining the system in its current form. States like Russia (and Iran) are 'revolutionary' states, which want to fundamentally destroy the existing system and replace it with something else. And for completeness sake I'd mention states like Germany, or Japan, or India, or Brazil, which are considered 'status quo' states, states that are generally satisfied with the existing system and are only seeking marginal changes to suit them (though for some of these states, whether they are status quo or revisionist is open to debate).

Picard season 2 episode 3 Episode that boldly asks "what if everyone was stupid".

Of course he is, thats why he crossed out the word war . ( I quoted him verbatim ) People that make that point are highlighting the absurd propaganda from Putin Its completely sarcastic

I think you should do an IMMEDIATE scan of your PC and devices to look for any spyware !!!! Imagine the next speech from Putin" and as Katphood from Obsidian forums said we want Ukraine to be neutral "

It says 'Putin wants Ukraine to be neutral like Austria'. But that's what I said earlier... ...is this guy reading my posts?!

Who said barter economy was dead? The floods are finally receding in east Australia. Now starts the political **** fight over why the Federal Government refused to let the armed forces help in regions that vote for the opposition party... https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-12/scott-morrison-flood-qld-emergency-call-adf-boosts-numbers/100905714 "We have the Fijians coming through, a US Navy ship (USS Frank Cable) is pulling up and 100 sailors from the US Navy will start working in Brisbane in the coming days," Major General David Thomae said. On Friday night, Mr Morrison visited the Governor-General to sign a national emergency declaration for flood-affected communities in New South Wales. A day earlier, he said he would make the declaration for parts of Queensland, even though Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said it was not needed anymore as the state had entered the recovery phase of the disaster. I.e. true to form, The Liberal Party (ALP) delivering too little and too late to make any (positive) difference for Australians. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-16/liberal-upper-house-mp-to-quit-over-flood-funding/100914460 A Liberal upper house MP is resigning and a Northern Rivers mayor has gone to the Governor-General over concerns about perceived favouritism in the allocation of federal flood assistance. Key points: Communities in the Labor-held seat of Richmond are yet to receive extra disaster relief from the Commonwealth Liberal upper house MP says she's quitting politics because of "unethical" funding Ballina Mayor complains to Governor-General about delays getting support for flood victims Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week announced extra financial support would be available immediately for people in Lismore, Richmond Valley and Clarence Valley local government areas (LGAs), which all sit in the Nationals-held seat of Page. Being a Patron, I've seen the preview of the upcoming "Honest Government Ads" on the subject (of selective spending of federal tax funds to ALP seats). Will post it once the public version is available. Almost as bad as when Morrison appropriated hundreds of millions of dollars ear marked for supporting grass root sport for young Australians, to build facilities like fields and gyms in impoverished areas and spend it all on luxury indoor swimming pools and recreational facilities in some of the most affluent areas where his constituents live.

Of course not, the demon took one look at the 2020s and asked to be put back in the rock.

2 British Iranian prisoners freed today. Quite possibly another sign that the nuJCPOA is moving closer. Though by the purest of pure coincidences, Britain also recently paid back the 400 million quid they stole from Iran for tanks Britain never delivered. These were parallel events though, and completely unrelated. Much like that Iranian tanker seized off Gibraltar being coincidentally released when the Iranians nabbed a british tanker in the Straits of Hormuz.

Wonder how much it will cost. With the Barbarian/Druid DLC being 9.99...

From former Telltale devs: It can't possibly be worse than what Kurtzman Goldsman & Co. have done with Star Trek.

They made a point of mentioning that it's not PC to call them that, while continuing to call them that...

Ah, wow, the bold makes it way less visible, the strike is still regular face. Just link it next time.

Grooming calls ? The hell kind of business are you in ?

Nothing in the words you took from the Codex comes across as sarcastic.

Sony will probably ban me from PSN for life.

I vaguely remember reading that their boss pressured them into repeating The Walking Dead's success? Not just financially but the award shower too? Elden Ring got a patch with some interesting additions: https://www.bandainamcoent.com/news/elden-ring-patch-notes-v1-03

Хуйло's been doing rants like that for a while now. It's just people outside Russia and its grubby paws reach zone were not exposed to them and had no reason to look closer at. P.S.: somewhat related. Dude in Tomsk stopped by protesting people, got fined for "silent support of unlawful protest aimed to discredit Russian army and its military operation": https://meduza.io/news/2022/03/16/zhitelya-tomska-oshtrafovali-na-45-tysyach-rubley-za-molchalivuyu-podderzhku-antivoennogo-piketa

https://www.abc15.com/news/national/russia-ukraine-conflict/china-denies-us-claims-that-its-aiding-russias-invasion-of-ukraine I thought China didnt care about Western sanctions and that it would stand by its friend Russia ?

Hindu "nationalism" (it's not nationalism, but religious fanaticism) threatens not only their Muslim citizens, but Christians too. The number of murders, bombings, church burnings (with the villagers) of Christians is on the rise in both India (by Hindus) and Sri Lanka (by Buddhists) https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/22/world/asia/india-christians-attacked.html (meh, paywall, just ignore unless you are a sub already) https://www.opendoorsusa.org/christian-persecution/world-watch-list/india/ https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/under-caesars-sword/christian-responses-to-repression-in-india-and-sri-lanka/5A6C24D44EE79E1DAACFBBBD54F1FF42 https://ucs.nd.edu/report/responses-to-persecution-by-region/south-asia/india-and-sri-lanka/ Just the top of the iceberg... As for Russian girls singing... for some reason I remembered this video from a few years ago. However, my favorite Slavic performance was not singing, but something completely different from this extraordinary and very expressive Ukrainian woman:

An oddity from Finland... the Wife Carrying competition!

@Zoraptor I was going to ask you the same question " why would you think India should be sanctioned for buying Russian oil " but Elerond beat me to it Their are no sanctions around buying oil from Russia until Western countries can insulate themselves from buying energy from Russia and then you just need Western countries and their allies to not buy energy from Russia. I dont support sanctions against the likes of India anyway because I like India and Modi is a bulwark against China Of course its terrible to see the rise of aspects of Hindu nationalism and the egregious treatment of Indian Muslims but as you know the world doesnt really care about the mistreatment of Muslims unless the US or the West is involved then it presents an opportunity for outrage and venting about things like " Trumps Muslim Ban" But I digress, in closing you dont need energy sanctions to bring the Russian economy to its knees and cause a change to Putins War one way or another. But its a long term game, I predict 6 -24 months for the real damage to be seen to the Russian economy but these things can never be predicted with accuracy

My biggest criticism of Telltale is that they never evolved their formula, they just reskinned it for another IP. It took a different studio, Big Bad Wolf, to move the narrative adventure genre forward. I don't necessarily want Dramatic Labs to copy The Council, but just another Telltale game ain't gonna cut it, it needs to be more than that.

Talking about miscalculations, maybe this whole mess would have been avoided if only they had allowed the USSR to join NATO?

Only weapon damages generate focus, not DoT or carnage (it is a status effect). The Amra carnage effect does, it is a weapon effect, but not a melee one! I'm not sure but I think Bloody Slaughter work only with melee weapons, I cant look for the moment the in-game tooltip. Against intellect resistant ennemy, you have to dominate the target to charm her, you are right. Whispers of Treason is cheap and useful, but while charmed, ennemies loose their hostile abilities, they are more impactful while dominated. Both are impactful however!

Why would India be sanctioned when Russian oil is not target of sanctions? US just does not buy it anymore. Saudi Arabia and China have had talks about yuan trade now for 6 years (talks started in 2016). Even though Saudis aren't happy with US, main driver behind their talks with China come economic factors US imports of Saudi oil has decreased to fourth what it was thirty years ago (from 2 million barrels per day to 500k barrels per day). China buy now about 1.76 million barrels Saudi oil per day (25% of all exported oil from SA). China, Japan, South Korea and India buy 65% of SA's oil, which means that dollar trade causes unnecessary overhead in the trades, but Saudis have so far preferred dollar because they have imported so much stuff from USA, but now most of their imports come from China, which makes yuan more attractive, even though they aren't as good as dollars to trade with other countries and it is more volatile than dollar which could cause economic issues for SA. Saudis are also aware that majority of European and US car manufactures are looking to stop manufacturing petrol/diesel cars in next 10-15 years, so predictions says that demand for oil is decreasing in US and Europe, so it does not look like that they will found new demand for their oil in Europe and US, so they have already started to look other markets for their oil. Saudis also would like China to stop supporting Iran, so they are also using switch to yuans as negotiation tool with China to ensure that Iran will face trade problems even if they are able to come some deal with US and EU. Now Saudi Arabia would probably like to prevent Russian oil from Indian markets as they currently together with Iraq India's biggest suppliers where Russian share of Indian oil markets is currently ~2%.

NASA releases first image from an in-focus Webb telescope | Ars Technica

If Russia pulls out and Ukrainians agree not to join NATO I would go with that ?Ukraine can still join the EU when its suitable but it doesnt need to be part of NATO ?

As long as it isn't another survival, crafting, rogue like

The animations look rough, but other than that it seems interesting. Not sure if I'm a fan of the third person camera, though. Also shame it's no *actual* gameplay outside of a little dialog.

Great news everyone! The insurmountable technical difficulties that prevented 5000 series on b350/x370 (but somehow not super budget a320) motherboards have been surmounted! Well done AMD, I'm sure it has nothing to do with Intel finally being competitive again and it was just your top engineers working tirelessly on finding a solution! (dunno wtf has happened to processor prices here but I can actually buy a 5800x for not much more than I got my 1700 all those long years ago instead of +50% too. Even a 5600x was more expensive last time I checked. Maybe it's that competition thing?)