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The version is almost ready (might take time cause I don't have much time for the release notes though). I have buffed Spiritshift, Fury subclass and Druids in general quite a lot, so it might require some tweaks later. As a summary : - Spiritshift weapons now deals both Slash / Pierce (except Fury) - Wildstrike now gives 10% + 3/(PL -1) lash - Greater Wildstrike now gives 10% + 5/PL lash Fury gets : - 8-13 damages -> 10-15 damages (3s recovery, dual wield) - Wildstrike buff - +10% damages per kills up to 30% under storm blight shift (plus the regular duration extension). This is especially strong in situation where Garden of Life is strong for other subclasses. Bonus : - all spirit shift bonuses stack with everything - Shark does +25% BASE damages. - Wolfs added bonus Vs disengagement attacks - Stag : a Stag companion like carnage effect on crit. Basically a pseudo Wildstrike Frenzy. - Better Weather the Storm - non random Blight Summon So quite a lot of changes for druids. And there are also changes for other classes / items etc...

Also, the lethality of the Turkish drones blows my mind. If ours perform at an equivalent or better level, I could take over the world with a swarm of 5000. Hell, send 200 against a carrier and punch a bunch of little holes all over it. THOR is going to be a game changer though.

@pmp10@Zoraptor@Gorth One more video about Moskva, this time from impartial source based on leaked pictures and videos. They come to an outcome, that the damage on the ship was definitely much higher than on the first sight. There are a lot of areas on the whole ship, which shows significant cook off inside the ship. Also it was said somewhere in the comments, that this ship had their officer quarter just above the storage of munition (can someone confirm that this is true?). Therefore both of these indices are showing the possibility for a lot of casualties (mostly in the ranks of officers), even though all of the rescue boats has been deployed.

When Putins War is over this will be one of the most damaging and long term economic consequences. This type of brain drain cant be replaced easily This is actually the perfect time for all those who dislike and mistrust the West and its ideology to immigrate to Russia. Russia will need committed people and I can imagine getting a work visa and citizenship should be easier than anytime before? And you can learn Russia, I wouldnt see that as an obstacle ? Their is absolutely no reason for anyone living in a Western country to be forced to be part of that type of corrupt, Colonial, Imperialist and Capitalist system? Strike while the iron is hot I say

is why we gave up on bruce. is no different than blm. bruce is looking for the answer which corresponds with what he wants to believe, so he finds convincing and latches onto any story or headline which confirms his bias. he will keep coming back to crt until he gets the right response or answer. is exact why we don't give him a simplified definition for crt 'cause you know he will twist whatever definition is provided so as to legitimize his own preconceptions. am guaranteeing this is not happening in hurl's classes, or any other middle school classes... though admitted am not aware o' any law school prof who requires students to stand when responding nowadays, so that part is different. and in spite o' fact we don't know with absolute certainty, we would bet every cent we have that k-5 math classes in florida is not being taught like professor kingsley's example. is safe to say having students do the bloom taxonomy analysis, apply and evaluate at law school or grad school levels is so not happening at any public primary or secondary school in the US. have mentioned previous how impressed we would be if such were the case. explore banking regulations and fec rules through socratic method as a means o' considering the inertia o' systemic racism in the US is a common lesson o' crt and if hurl were doing legit crt in his classes o' snot-nosed crumb-snatchers we would applaud his edumacational skilz as beyond 1337. 'course the aformentioned fantasy is so not what is included in a 5th grade florida math textbook which perhaps mentions harriet tubman in a rando word problem... or lord only knows what is the actual obstacles florida identified in their textbook review and denial as they refuse to provide examples. however, none o' this matters, 'cause (and AGAIN, and again and again and again,) at least one boardie will keep coming back to this until he gets the right answer. HA! Good Fun!

...there will be another homemade table (vs. boxes..) on the left side, so I'll finally have my "U". Meaning when done, from the doorway hubby might still get to see the top of my forehead. Long day. Time for bed.

Those Saab NLAW's works differently from traditional armour piercing ammunition as far as I understand it. It's not the missile that hits the armour, it flies above the tank and explodes in the air above the tank. There's less reactive armour on top of the tank compared to the front and sides (and probably even less so on top of the turret). Not sure how effective reactive armour is anyway when it's the air burst explosion hitting the armour, rather then a projectile/missile?

Putin awards precisely those troops accused of war crimes in Bucha. Let no one anywhere be in doubt as to whether the wholesale slaughter of civilians is intentional or not. It is a priority. This is also Putin's way of giving the finger to the west. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/19/ukraine-russia-war-bucha-brigade-award/

Quote for the Day: “If you haven’t done anything wrong then you have nothing to hide.” Honey do you think I lock the bathroom door because ****ting is against the law?

Speaking of which, just last night my wife booked us a week long vacation in Cabo in August. Were doing our typical stay at an adults only, all inclusive, resort. w00t! Were a little burned out on Cancun and the Pacific beaches are much nicer. I just hope the reefs arent torched yet.

OMFG... Kherson airport for the 17th time... And Ukraine will get finally some aircraft... And long range Artillery...

Got a shipping notification, my hardware will - any issues aside - arrive on Thursday, so that gives me all of tomorrow to prepare. Not exactly my most favorite part, but I am looking forward to the reduced loadng times.

Berbers on the Barbary Coast --> Bearbears on the Bearbeary Coast. Practically writes itself.

I do wonder if the Japanese would have had similar headlines in 1942 as to Kherson had twitter/ youtube existed. Probably yes; we'd have had "Henderson Field on fire again, Guadalcanal to fall imminently, when will those stupid Gaijin learn?" for like 9 months. They have to be the right type of Explosive Reactive, and they have to be where the atgm hits. As Gorth mentioned NLAWs (and Javelins) do top down attack, and you can't put ER over the whole top (turret) of your tank as you've got hatches etc. T-14 is meant to have that fixed though, as the turret is unmanned. There have been some other ad hoc defences tried, like cages you sometimes see added, but they don't seem to be very effective. You also need updated ER for modern atgms with tandem warheads. The first warhead on a tandem atgm sets off the ER, then the second works pretty much as if the ER didn't exist. The blocks on the destroyed tank above are kontakt-1, which is old. The Russians have at least three more effective blocks (Kontakt-5, Relikt and Malachit) that can defeat tandem warheads. They look like big slabs rather than small blocks. There's also no point in stealing ER, it isn't worth anything. Far more likely any tanks missing blocks had them fall off in action or had them cannibalised to replace missing blocks on active tanks. Eh, Bayraktars have done pretty much nothing verifiable in Ukraine. A lot of stuff is attributed to them by their horde of fanboys, but in pretty much every single case it's turned out to be something else that was actually used.

Yeah, she's pretty much "the girl" for being "the girl"'s sake, which I do not generally view very positively. Perhaps not as bad as an actual terrible or annoying character I wish would be completely cut out of something (Mari from Rebuild who is both says hello!), but still not my cup of tea. I see that a Japanese BD was already released a few years ago, but no U.S. version. Although people already spliced together four different English dubs into the Japanese BD, which can be a bit of a time-consuming technical process to do with just one, never mind multiple (English dubs: "2003 Pioneer", "1996 Manga UK", "1995 Streamline", "1979 Toho", ). I once considered trying out the Lupin show until I saw how many entries into the series there were, plus the second TV show is very long... Don't think I've seen Hotel Transylvania, though I did hear at one point that my good man Tartakovsky worked on it...guess he's the director and everything. Hmm.

Saw this myself in wire service reports. Blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of people under your occupation. But what's even more shocking is that there are credible reports that Russian troops are threatening and forcing people to be drafted into Russian military service in parts of Russian-occupied Moldova and Georgia as well.

Well some movies simply have bad sound mixing, there is no way around that. The disclaimer here is that I do not have a good sound system, but I did help my brother get a decent one and upon doing research nothing does everything good. It's always a give and take, and about what you care about, be it bass, vocal, balance, etc...

On PS4 I can unplug the 'net cable from the console and still play D3 and the few other games I have on there. It's the only reason I bought it on there, years later, when I technically already had it for PC. The portability of the console means hey sometimes I won't have reliable 'net, I'd like to be able to still play games then y'know. You might get a box saying certain online features aren't available (like leaderboards or whatever) but it doesn't alter the game itself. Also, I only buy PS4 games that don't require the Playstation Live account, which I do not/refuse to have. I think the PS5 might enforce PS Live more often now just to play, but I'm not sure. I think that's what console-Diablo4 was planning on doing (assuming they don't change their minds). The fact those new map/challenges were season only was the main reason I thought I'd do it just to check them out. If they don't appeal I'll just quit/go back to non-seasonal only. The only other time I might do D3 seasonal is for a pet. I just didn't know about the mini-Diablo one until season was almost over so no point. I'm not someone who would get to GR70+ in 1-4 weeks. >.>

Wheel of Fortune does me like that. Whenever the theme music is playing I cant hear what Pat is saying. But it only happens with that particular show.

I'd argue that Clarisse, in Cagliostro really doesn't get enough time in the film to be a character; she propels the plot but she has no real control over the events unfolding to her and is, for the most part, a prize to be fought for by other characters (to rescue, for Lupin; to exploit, for the Count). At least in The First, Laetitia actually has a role to play in the story and a character arc of her own, its just a shallow arc once it gets revealed in my opinion. But her character arc is imbedded into the plot, and Laetitia is an active participant in the story who helps in the unfolding action, unlike Clarisse who is, to be fair, locked in a room for much of Cagliostro. The animation is a real strong attempt to translate 2d anime into 3d, IMO. From an animation perspective, it reminds me a bit of Genndy Tartakovsky's pulling in 2d US animation style in use of weight and motion into the first Hotel Translyvania film, but in this case for a certain type of anime style (sorry, less up on Japanese anime styles, so not sure I can articulate it better, but it seemed recognizably anime, even though it was 3d). I thought it worked well, but YMMV. I think Mystery of Mamo is going to get a bluray release soon here in the US (if it came out on that format before, I missed it), so that'll probably be next for me Lupin wise, as I'm not sure I have time yet to finish the original TV series. These anime series to watch really stack up if you don't keep up with them!

The Russian position is inherently contradictory in so many ways and doesn't bear much scrutiny. For instance: 1) Russia acts as if NATO is a threat and intends to attack it. 2) Russia also clears essentially all of its western front in order to attack Ukraine, because it knows perfectly well that NATO has no intention to attack it, ever. Or: 1) The ship Moskva sunk because there was a fire on board. 2) Retaliatory attacks on Ukraine are needed because the ship Moskva sunk. Or: 1) Major Russian figures publicly regard the west as corrupt and despise it. 2) Major Russian figures also send their own children to the west because they know life is so much better there. Or: 1) Russia's special operation in Ukraine is intended to protect Russian life. 2) 44% of the citizens of Mariupol, by far the most demolished city, were ethnic Russians. (This, however, is perfectly in line with the old Soviet thinking. All countries either neighboring the Soviet Union or within its sphere of influence knew perfectly well that if the Soviet Union came to "help" you, it meant that it was either coming to "oppress" you or, more likely, "kill" you.) Etc. For the psychologically inclined, this is an excellent study in cognitive dissonance. Also, madness.

New Diablo3 season started recently. Normally don't care but eh, why not. Once 70 (doesn't take too long) and a bit of gear/crafting mats. the Greater Rift grinding starts. Still playing it because it's easy to do a bit a day and the PS4 is simpler to turn on/off at a whim. But now that I'm mostly set-up, maybe it's time for that Death Stranding dlc now.

That was the worst part in the one Lupin-related thing I've seen as well, The Castle of Cagliostro - the girl felt pathetically underdeveloped and like she was there just to be "the girl". I'll check it out. I can't decide if I like or hate the 3D character models and animation from stills, so I suppose the only way to know for sure is to watch it. I appreciate that they're not just amorphous blobs like so much of Disney and Pixar, at least, and the influence of the old style still looks to be there. Yeah, I had a huge snort of derision from reading the subtitle - that's how he got into this mess in the first place! Sounds like a pretty solid ending to the adventure. Eh, I think stylistic comparisons are always valid, even if it's between something that's good and something that's bad. Doesn't have too much bearing on how novel or well-executed it was, . I'll watch one or a few someday and get back to you on Escaflowne, except that I'll have completely voided any memories of the Escaflowne movie by then. Honestly, my brain has already forgotten a lot of it, just like I did with Rebuild immediately. Oh well. When I think about how freaking long Rebuild was, that is certainly an inhibiting factor. I guess I'd probably rather watch a highly abridged version of Rebuild where I'm skipping all the crap I don't care about (75% of it all?) than watch a highly abridged Escaflowne because there's really nothing much for me to care about in Escaflowne in the first place, but from beginning to end, yeah, I suppose you're right.

Gromnir are you still blocking my posts, I hope not because I miss our debates I promise not to make anymore jokes about guns on sale in bakeries or suggesting that GD has been influenced by moving to a liberal state Normally I dont mind people ignoring me but its different with you, I do mind

I'm all for this. The code is already there in the PC version and the current and last gen MSony consoles are essentially PCs. I'm not a game dev, but I doubt it would be a ton of work to adapt the m&kb code from PC to console.

And I have already seen Shoigu today in some video But it is impossible to say, if it was filmed before or after the rumours of his death Well. the Thing might be, as we all know, how rampant the corruption in Russian army is, that the reactive armor might have changed few hands during the modernization of the tanks Here little bit about the overwhelming corruption in Russian army by Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project oragnization. https://www.occrp.org/en/37-ccblog/ccblog/16192-2022-04-07-16-58-47 And Russia has started the offensive at Azovstal at Mariupol. With aerial bombing the nearby hospital. Allegedly 300 people ended under the rubble, no clue if anyone survived... I hope these Russian **** all burn alive... https://t.me/Novoeizdanie/10920 Only in Ukrainian language EDIT: Russian are threatening people of Mykolaiv as well in Kherson, if they do not join the Russian occupants, they will murder them all... only in Russian language

Field Hockey 5?

Supēsu Kobura / Space Cobra Episode XIX: "Naruka!? Gyakuten Hōmu Ran" aka "Will It Happen?! A Grand Slam From Behind" We get the second half of the Rug Ball game. This seems to be the end of the Rug Ball story arc; I really thought they'd continue following drugs to their source, but I guess that's really a job for the Galactic Patrol, not Cobra. **** Not sure if it counts for here, but I also watched Lupin III and the Raiders of the South American Space Ark the inelegantly titled CGI animated move Lupin III: The First. Its a pretty fun family comedy-adventure film. The CGI blends Monkey Punch's original manga designs with the feel of the animated cartoons but all rendered in CGI. If you like some of the other Lupin films, you'll probably enjoy this. Also its a period piece (which I didn't expect) set in the 60s (when the original manga came out) and involves ex-Nazi's trying to get their hands on an archeological secret to resurrect the Third Reich. All the usual players get some good highlight scenes (Fujiko, Jigen, Goemon, Inspector Zenegata). Probably the weak link is the somewhat underdeveloped female lead's dramatic story arc, but its serviceable for what it needs to do in context of the greater story.

Last months trip to New York has borne fruit. We have a new customer and a new project. It will probably be a year (maybe more) before I play a role in that project. G & I spent six days there and had a great time. But I'm glad I don't live there.

You called? I kid. I'm with you an Amentep. It is a term that has lost it's actual definition so it can be a boogeyman politicians roll out to scare voters. Case in point: Florida rejects 54 math books, claiming critical race theory appeared in some I can't remember where I read this, one one of the Florida newspsper sites. Most stories are paywalled after the first few hours. But apparently the objection is not CRT but rather Social Emotional Learning. Never heard of it? Me neither. Had to go to Wiki on that one. It sounds like the kind of navel gazing stupidity you might associate to common core. But Common Core is another term that has an actual definition that becoming lost in the politcshpere. Heck I'm not even sure what it is. Don't much care either. Anyway, the direction I was going with this is why say the mathbooks had CRT and refuse to provide the names and publishers or examples of CRT in the books? Well, there probably isn't any. If the Miami Herald (I'm pretty sure that is where I read it) is right and it's really an objection to SEL no one is afraid of that. But they ARE conditioned to be afraid of CRT. So there you are. Just my $.02.

Yeah, maybe I'm also just alone in getting Kurosawa vibes from Escaflowne. Some of his films are of major film-historical interest, and they were very influential, to say the least. The Magnificent Seven is basically a Westernized (in more than one way, oh ho ho ho ho) The Seven Samurai remake and his oddball goofy film The Hidden Fortress served as an inspiration for Star Wars. As for whether or not to recommend watching the films based on that, now that's something... else. I guess you know that already, anyway. There's a certain melancholy to Kurosawa's movies that is also very present in Escaflowne. Somewhere between 6 and 7/10 seems legit. Perhaps not enough to reach 7/10, there were some things in the film that made preciously little sense and even less if detached from prior knowledge of the series, there certainly was an odd shortcut or two taken in writing. Hard to blame the film for it, as it apparently struggled with funding, and it's fairly easy to see where all the money went - if nothing else, the film is a visual feast that unlike it's late 80ies and early 90ies counterparts holds up much better. I guess, in part, also due to it being more than just visually interesting. Squint a little and one can see that with an extra half an hour of runtime and some changes there'd be a genuinely good film in there. Anyway... It could be argued that the characters and themes weren't put in the garbage bin* as much as they were replaced by a more serious, darker version of something similar. The primary impetus for the resolution of the plot in both the series and the film is Hitomi's arrival changing Van's outlook on fighting. The way they go about it is just completely different, with the film having the two of them fast-forward through depression in an unbelievable manner due to the limited runtime. Rebuild, on the other hand, is just a dumpster fire. If I had to choose, I'd rather rewatch Escaflowne than Rebuild, and that includes the first one, which is arguably the least bad of the bunch, and elements of the last one that were fine for a while - but yeah, in terms of judging Rebuild, I was the meanie zucchini here. I guess I still am. *That may or may not be a garbage bin depending on one's own outlook and interests. It's certainly not wrong to say the film took a giant dump on everything the show was. To me, though, the Escaflowne film still feels less wrong than this Rebuild garbage, but perhaps that's because I already went through the painful process of watching these four dumpster fires, and at least Escaflowne didn't waste my time like Rebuild and it's accumulated total of what feels like twenty hours of screentime.

Well, to be fair if your tank's going to get hit by an ATGM and there are enemy infantry, you're going to have to chance it and run before said MGs regardless of how well your tank manages the hit. Soviet philosophy for ship design is something else though, the "more dakka" approach.

And here's an update on the lessons of Russia's Ukraine misadventure for Taiwan. Another excellent read, @BruceVC. And every item on their list is something I've been talking about for years, but Taiwanese politicians and generals stupidly waste their defense budget on flashy hardware for political PR benefits over practical defense needs, as do other countries I suppose (India being another good example of this phenomenon). https://warontherocks.com/2022/04/eight-new-points-on-the-porcupine-more-ukrainian-lessons-for-taiwan/

Here's the beginning of the long-term damage to Russia: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/13/technology/russia-tech-workers.html https://www.marketwatch.com/story/russias-brain-drain-hundreds-of-thousands-of-professionals-and-highly-skilled-workers-have-left-country-since-putins-invasion-of-ukraine-11649688506

We watched the latest Dune movie and enjoyed it. The music is very moody but the visuals and effects are impressive. I could easily watch it a few more times. One thing I wish media movie releases would do is provide an option where the vocals are increased by about 15-30 Db. It's hard to hear them over the ambient background noises and music.

We had around a dozen family members over for Easter dinner. My wife made a ton of dishes and some of the guests brought food too. Ive got leftovers for the rest of the week.

After more than a week of Ukrainian silence from Mariupol, they shared another anti-orc counter attack. Looks like their situation is still not completely ****ed, if they are still able to do what they have shown in the video... (It pretty much shows why the Ukraine vs Russia casualties are 1:5 or greater)... It is heavily edited, but not gonna link it here. Again courtesy of Українська правда If you are really sure, what you are doing, you can try to search for it by yourself (1:39s long video), cyrillics affiliated with it under the spoiler tag...

OMG... I've been there too Send in the search and rescue team indeed!

Happy Easter everyone!

Was going to just blow the upgrade budget on a 3090ti but figured that my 8700K would bottleneck any large gpu upgrade, so I got the alderlake and built a whole new box and got 3080ti to hold me over, then I can go all out on the 4xxx series when that arrives. Upgrading from the 8700K was a good idea as the 12900K absolutely slaps (wish I held out a little longer for the KS version, oh well). 3080ti is still good too, I can finally play most vr games on the 8KX at full resolution. It's only 10% less powerful than a 3090ti and 60% less cost

Some of us decided we cant sit inside the hotel and waste the Easter weekend so we went for a 2 hour hike despite the bad weather. I took this photos to capture the beauty of this mountain region and the resort from a hill