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The Russian explanation for the fire(s) appears to be faulty wiring, or something. This is completely understandable. Someone confused input and putin.

Choosing between Macron and Le Pen is like picking between cholera and dysentery. No matter who you vote for you'll end up sh*ting yourself, but at least one of the options comes without blood in the stool. Not sure what this is going in a separate thread, it's not like the politics one is currently featuring a raging debate that would threaten to drown this subject otherwise.

Dude cooties.

Wild Mind effects will proc on reflected spells. Had Serafen's Time Parasite get reflected and my whole team turned invisible as well as most of the enemies.

There's the rub. Russia wants to have its cake and eat it, too. In other words, it wants to be a part of the international community that takes part in Wimbledon and so on -- but it also wants to break all the rules of that international community. And now it gets angry because it can't have both. "Russian Wimbledon" would have such a small number of participants that it would look ridiculous, and of course we all know this. Good that you brought up South Africa, the bans on SA were a good earlier example of this same thing. The way these bans work is not entirely fair, but it's not entirely unfair, either. I.e. I think banning both SA then and Russia now are good ideas, although there have been plenty of bad ideas, too.

Because Engineering requires masculine energy (was told this once by a classmate I usually fantasized about garroting, actually...did that for a lot, strange.). Your age, maybe. More and more women are getting into it over time. And also might be the discipline, I've always found it odd that the women engineers at my University were heavily into Chemical, Mechanical and Aerospace. The smartest ones (well ok, with highest GPA) were all Elec's though, funnily enough.

Not sure, but I am a football expert and I'm sure this is a Tight End:

Nothing all that revelatory, to be honest.

Le Pen winning will make the year more interesting, so will go for that.

Can I indict Ukraine for crimes against humanity?... at least crimes against good taste!!!

There's a *lot* of trashmob killing that drags the game down into boredom, but when they actually give you an RPG, it's fun. Also some obvious budget issues with the recycled buildings.

They simply do not have the manpower to do that. So Odessa is pretty safe for now.

Upgraded Death Stranding to the Director's Cut or something. That is one clunky update process since they decided to delist the original version (can't buy it anymore). First patch your original game if you had it for save compatibility, not sure if anything else. Then download the entire (new version) game again for the D. Cut (so it's installed twice, different folders). Then if you want to load old saves (I don't really care), it'll auto-port them in from the patched original. I was trying to keep old and new versions separate so I deleted the copied saves from the D. Cut folder. It kept just writing them back again (erasing all game option settings you did, in the process). Fine. Maybe if I copy back the unpatched original version first, but for now, don't care/ignore. "New Game". Note: I believe if you did care about ported saves, once done/started etc. you could uninstall the original version to save space. Anyway ... still gorgeous, moody. I think non-DLSS maxed 4k performance might've overall dropped just a tad (5fps or something) but it's been too long don't remember for sure. Oddly, DLSS set to Quality doesn't seem to give much of a FPS boost now. I think it did a little (like 10-12fps) before but now it didn't even seem to give that. And while DLSS looks "fine" I still find it gives this slight softness that I don't like. So back to native 4k and a not quite solid 60fps. Whatever. Now time to see if I have the patience to drag Norman Reedus across America again. Actually, all of that would be fine, it's the Mads chr. combat chapters I don't want to do again. Those were annoying. Edit: oh, also, the save system on PC for this game still sucks, if you like to manage saves at least, just like it sucked on console.

So when I was a wee lad way back in the dark ages of the mid to late 80s and early 90s I grew up with a kid that was very, very obviously different and often had a really hard time because of it. Just because they were too young to be sexual at the time didn't mean that they and all the rest of the kids didn't pick up on the fact that they were different. I don't know anything about this bill but I do know that they got a lot of support at school from teachers, aides, and counselors and if they had not gotten this their life may have turned out more tragic than it already did, at least last time I heard about them, was probably a decade or more by now, they transitioned and were mostly disowned by their family and a fell into drugs and prostitution.

Cris Tale ~ a game melkathi uninstalled at the very final boss fight: Cris Tale is a jrpg thingie with theoretical old school turn based combat with... QTEs. The basic concept is great: you are a young girl... or teenager? A girl in one of those worlds where it is normal that adults stand by as children do the fighting (so possibly the Sudan). Anyway, you are a girl who as it turns out is a Time Mage. Time Magic is a neat idea: When you walk around a city the screen is split into three parts. In the centre are you in the present. Everything to your left you see in the past. Everything to your right in the future. If you run along an NPC, you'll see them in past, present and future. Similarly you will see the state of the city. As you do quests, you may see the result of your actions in the future. You even have the ability to affect the past and future that you see. So there may be a loot chest in the future, so you grab the loot that will be in the location eventually. Of course that is a bit of a paradox, but okay. It allows for a few puzzles, as you for example plant a seed in the past so you can have the grown plant in the present. Sadly these interactions are not as numerous as you'd want from a game where time is such an integral part of everything. During combat you can use time crystals. As your party is in the middle of the screen, enemies on your left can be sent to the past, while enemies on the right to the future. If you inflict a DOT (poison or fire) on an opponent and then send them forward in time, they will instantly suffer all DOT at once. If you send someone back in time, they may lose all status effects affecting them. And most importantly, their stats will change and they may even use different abilities. Early on, as the game teaches you these things, there will be a boss battle. Here you can't damage the boss until you cast water magic on the shield, then send them into the future for the shield to rust. It is a great interaction. Sadly, while you are shown this in the first 10 minutes of the game, no clever use of time crystals will happen in the rest of the game. Other bosses are either unaffected by time magic, or they simply change stats a bit. Maybe in the future you have to do a few hundred damage less, but often that is the extent of how the fight is affected. So it is a gorgeous game, made with a lot of love, but where the devs seem to have exhausted their concept during the tutorial and then found them selves having to follow it up with a whole game. If it weren't for the QTEs, I'd say give it a go because it is cute. But the final boss instakills you if you don't get the timing of your parry 100% right, and if I wanted to see my time wasted like that, I'd play Elden Ring like the rest of you.

Released a new mod. It's WIP right now and writing could use a bit of polish, but right now it adds 2 new romance options (Aenalys and Ydwin) and makes some tweaks to many of the endings which make them more satisfying (in my opinion). It's all silent of course so if you need voice acting, this is probably not for you. Even if you just want to look my writing and offer some constructive feedback on how to better word a line or whatever, I don't mind. Mod can be found here: https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/606 Hope someone enjoys it!

Pretty much.

If you play Mars: War Logs remember to...

"Not even Stalin would not be able to win this war." that bad huh

Just watched it few minutes ago. We are slowly phasing out from phase 3 to phase 4. Found this today and it is pretty much a nuclear bombshell - Evaluation of Special military operation by "father" of People's Republics idea from 2014: TLDW: - translation is not mine, but from one journalist, whom I consider pretty credible. - Strelkov, one of the main protagonists of the Russian aggression in 2014, later Interior Minister DNR, a former senior FSB agent and his statement. He doesn't hold back much: - Nothing good will come out of this military campaign, as everything is decided by people, half of whom are Putin's pulpiters (really), half of whom are simply retards and the rest will betray him at any moment. With this, it is impossible to win the war. - Not even Stalin would not be able to win this war. With such "staff" it is impossible. - FSB failed across the board. - The Ministry of Defense knows how to organize parades, but the soldiers are not able to fight. - With a battle hardened by the enemy, Russian forces were not able to achieve a single strategic victory. - Russians could not conquer anything except the cities that the Ukrainians left strategically. Volnovakh and Mariupol, who are still not conquered, are also counted there. - Diploma failed with Lavrov. The secret services have failed, the army is also failing. - The failure can also be seen in the place of the commander-in-chief - Putin.

...so I hear Gorth liked slav popmuzik

Looks like Ukraine is also using their pop music to destroy Russian Army Donetskaya Oblast

Unlike all other upgrades, going from Superb to Legendary only grants +3 Accuracy for a total of +15. Literally unplayable.

@Malcador Countries often ban other countries from sports events especially if those countries are involved in egregious human rights abuses and unprovoked wars and conflicts. SA was banned from numerous sports events during Apartheid which was understandable And Wimbledon is a private sector event as far as I know so you dont even need to be motivated by official sanctions by your country to decide to ban Russian athletes. Putins War is motivation enough in the same way many Western companies pulled out of Russia like McDonalds. Companies can make business decisions around their own moral compass and value system Why doesnt Russia creates its own " Russian Wimbledon " and invite countries that support Putins War like Belarus, Syrian, Eritrea, NK, Cuba and Venezuela. Russia had its own athletics event when they were banned for state sponsored doping so that would be my suggestion. Create a " Russian Wimbledon ", problem solved ?

Every time someone posts something like Bokishi I get all jealous, even if I totally don't need any kind of upgrade for my current usage/habits.. Then I notice the 3080ti FTW3 is on Amazon (available! 18 left!) for "only" $1360 or so, and my lizard brain starts screaming at me. Must...wait...for the 4080ti...

the real real slim shady HA! Good Fun!

Mass grave near besieged Ukrainian city Mariupol spotted from space (satellite photos) | Space

It only took 600 years, but now those medieval quacks have been vindicated. Turns out apparently there is a way how wet cupping can detox you even without suffering from haemochromatosis. Who would have thought? Just checked, theoretically I could donate blood plasma 50 times per year, i.e. pretty much once per week, and it pays 30€ per donation to boot. Huh. That's a pretty penny and has health benefits. Regular medical checkups and blood testing included. Win-win-win, I guess.

Speaking of cabbage, that made me go dig in my pictures: Eh, also... hungry now. Great.

The final boss has this stupid ability where they AOE your whole party and reduce them all to 1 HP and apply Burn, killing them with the DOT the moment they activate. The solution: put necklaces on everyone that makes them immune to Burn. But then the boss does a double attack instead of the Burn, setting everyone's HP to 1 and then insta-hitting them again. Possibly, with a perfectly timed parry you can prevent the second hit. But if you are slightly off, party wipe. Avoiding that attack though is all there is to this boss. He has no interesting mechanic - just a party wipe attack ever so often. Before that, the toughest fight that people get stuck on actually has a tactic you need to figure out. It's a boring fight because once you know what you need to do, it is simply longish, but it has a "Oh, so that's what I am supposed to do" moment. I was fine with the QTEs in Last Remnant, where it was simply about getting a better effect on the attack and every now and then avoiding some damage. But there never was a "don't hit the button on time and you lose" moment. Cris sadly has that. If they killed two out of three characters, that would be fine. It would put you in a crummy situation, but you'd be struggling to rebound from it.

"Comrade, do you want the pill, or the pistol?"

Considering that they have tried to attack to them weeks, it does indicate that Russian leadership didn't have accurate picture of them as they know got order just to surround area. I am not familiar of the landscape of the area, but it seem that flooding those tunnels isn't simplest operation or at least requires equipment that Russian troops don't have, as there is no indication that they have even tried such. Bunker buster bombs aren't that good against long tunnels because they are designed to direct their explosion directly downward to break bunker ceiling, but in case of tunnels they have been ineffective in past conflicts because they are more expensive than 'normal' bombs and breaking small part of under ground tunnel network usually does nothing to prevent enemy using them. Which is why USA had lots of problems with ISIS and Vietcong's tunnels, even when they were able to locate them.

This is the reason that FF monk/cipher is my favorite multi class. There are many ways that enfeeble enriches ciphers. Of course, if you have BMP you don't need the FF monk, since that mod boosted Fractured Volition from weakened to enfeebled.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/owlcatgames/pathfinder-wrath-of-the-righteous/posts/3487115

Ah, makes sense. Which dungeons are you refering to? For me "legacy dungeons" (so Stormveil Castle, Raya Lucaria Academy, Volcano Manor) has been easily most interesting parts of the game. Open world stuff and smaller dungeons got a bit stale by now. Then again I am DS junkie :-).

Hey, good point! This reinforces my idea of sports being important for Russia in general and Putin in particular, and so this ban does have some sense. The disappointingly mild reaction to Russia's state-controlled doping may have been one of the reasons why Putin regarded the west as weak and not likely to put up much of a fuss if he attacks Ukraine. And to anyone about to whatabout, yes I know Russia is not the only country with doping problems.

Well, not as fancy, but here goes nothing: Corsair 4000D Airflow black Intel Core i5-12600K ASUS ROG STRIX B660-A 32 GB DDR5-5200 Corsair Vengeance ZOTAC GAMING Twin Edge RTX 3060 2 TB M.2 Samsung 980 PRO be quiet! Dark Rock 4 4x be quiet Pure Wings 2 The 3060 is up for a replacement once the 40s come out and prices have died down a little, but it's more than good enough for all my needs right now, so not really much of a priority upgrade. Quite a deafening silence in the room now. Eery.

Quote of the day: "The fox knows many tricks. The porcupine knows only one. But it's a really good one."

I finished char1 story in Weird West and am Pigman now. I am slowely swinging toward SkillUp spectrum on Weird West. I have been playing it less and less. It has traditional Arcane problems that fun stuff tends to be too tedious or unreliable to use, and easiest way to play is also a boring one. So far Pigman didn't change things much, though I try using close range weapons to vary things up (all that means for now that I die a lot, where's it was a rarity with bounty hunter). WW made me go back to Red Dead Redeption2, and that's mostly what I have been playing for the last week. I really got into it now, I think. I did some story mission, but mostly focused on exploring and crafting - most of my time with the game was hunting, and it was most fun I had in RDR2. "Immersion" is the reason, as vague as this descriptor always sounds to me. Digital sun drentched prairie has been a blessing with weather being so crap outside for the last couple weeks over here. As I am in the bit of the story where we are "hiding in the plain sight" I decided to make Arthur look a bit more like a civilized citizen. I dig that look - will be sad to go back to wild Arthur. He seems to me a more sinister character with this look - like a manupulative sociopath when he turnes to crimey things. Rather then being his default brutal, but honest thug.

Commercial for a new The Man Who Fell to Earth comes on and my wife says that seems like something we should watch... from the producer of Star Trek Discovery and Star Trek Picard.

gołąbki/cabbage rolls is kinda ubiquitous eastern european with all kinda small variations depending on region and the babushka from whom one learned the recipe, but is near universal delicious in spite o' simplicity. gonna admit we never use canned stewed tomatoes. have never made cabbage roll soup, but soup is not terribly hard and is having fundamental steps. if we were gonna make a cabbage roll soup, sans the rolls, we would likely do something similar to lc but replace the stewed tomatoes (though is a personal thing as we can't recall the last time we used stewed tomatoes) with whole tomatoes we hand crush to an extreme degree (in a non metallic bowl) or perhaps take a stick blender to the tomatoes and puree, add a bunch o' marjoram, black pepper and cooked rice to ingredients she already mentions. maybe add a bit o' stock. probable avoid the jalapeno. finish with the aforementioned sour cream and dill your significant other prefers. since is a soup, am gonna go more heavy on tomatoes and more stingy on rice and meat. anticipated steps: in a dutch oven sweat the onions in olive oil and/or butter then add garlic, salt and spices and cook for a minute. add in the cabbage and dehydrate to desired amount. meat(s), tomatoes, rice and stock goes in the pot, bring to near boil and then reduce to simmer and cook for thirty minutes to an hour. would also recommend adding a whole carrot, quartered. fish the carrot out at end o' cooking. is natural sugars in the carrot which is gonna cut the acidity o' the tomatoes w/o altering the flavour o' the soup. can always stick blender the soup if you want it smoother than what you got. serve with the sour cream and dill. am suspecting your wife and in-laws would enjoy the result, or perhaps they would wonder why you were too lazy to make cabbage rolls and as such the experiment would be an utter fail. if you are genuine curious, we could trial and error a bit and come up with a cabbage roll soup recipe with specific ingredients, quantities and steps... give us a month as am just finished with our easter feast for visiting family and am kinda cooked out and also lacking refrigerator space as is filled with leftovers. HA! Good Fun!

Yes, yes and yes! I whole-heartedly second that. I like the analogy but actually Cipher Ascended = God Mode. If memory serves me well, I think you had actually written about how you abandoned an Ascendant run because it was just getting a few Time Parasite casts then spamming Amplified Wave faster than enemies could get back up - stupidly powerful combo? I may very well be confused about who wrote that. Even with pretty sweet buffs courtesy of Eric, IMHO Spiritshift is NOT God Mode. Or at least not Ascended Ascendant God Mode.

Triumph of the Will was distributed by UFA. Prior to the Nazi takeover of film in Germany, UFA made a science fiction film F.P.1 antwortet nicht (lit "F.P.1 doesn't answer"). The movie about a race by an idealist, Lt Droste to create a floating platform in the Atlantic for air travel being sabotaged by less-inspired industrialists and political types. Meanwhile Drost, his friend Ellison (a flying ace) and Claire, who owns the docks the plans for the floating platform were created in have a romantic triangle to sort out. A big success, the film inspired an insult to Hitler where he was referred to in the early days of his rise to power as "P.G.1 antwortet nicht." (meaning "Parteigenosse 1 antwortet nicht," or "Party Member 1 doesn't answer.") Maybe you had to be there. But I imagine Hitler took some satisfaction when he took over UFA and had them put out Triumph... F.P.1 was directed by Karl Hartl, an Austian who remained working for the Austrian arm of the German government when they nationalized UFA. Hartl returned to directing post-war in Austria and did so until the early 60s. He died in 1978. F.P.1 starred Hans Albers as the flying ace (who went on to do another sci-fi film that squeaked under the Nazi control, Gold). Albers also stayed in Germany, but as a big star he never endorsed the Nazi party. Albers, after the end of WWII and unlike many actors who stayed in Germany, was able to find work even if in a much reduced fashion, usually in wise old man roles. Partially this was due to his early popularity, partially because he never endorsed the Nazi party and partially because he had a Jewish partner, Hansi Burg. While they stayed partners during the war, for her safety he got her to Switzerland; Albers was so popular he didn't get blacklisted even though the Nazi's knew of the relationship. He died in 1960, having become increasingly dependent on alcohol. His female lead was Sybille Schmitz as Claire. She also stayed in Germany during the war, but post-war her career never recovered despite the fact she had a contentions relationship with the Nazi run film industry. Finding few film roles and spiraling in drugs and depression, she committed suicide in 1955. The third lead, Droste, went to Paul Hartmann. He too stayed in Germany, and like Albers he continued to work after the war through 1969 (and appeared in the 1962 film the Longest Day). He died in 1977. Peter Lorre had a small part as the photographer friend of Albers; Lorre famously fled Germany, first to England and the to the US where he had a long career as heavies in dramatic and comedic roles. Similarly writer Kurt Siodmak, whose book the film was based on and who co-wrote the screenplay, fled Germany, ending up in the US where he changed his name to Curt Siodmak and wrote and directed a veritable 'who's who' list of films that would be recognized by Monster Kids (including The Wolf-Man and I walked with a Zombie) F.P.1 like other big productions in the early sound period was made three times. Once in German, once in French and the Second in English. The French version, called I.F.1 Ne Répond Plus stared Charles Boyer as Ellison. Boyer was already an international star, starring in films made in several countries. While he enlisted during the early part of WWII, he was discharged to make films in the US as it was believed that would support the cause better. He would continue acting in films into the mid-70s. In declining health himself, he committed suicide after the death of his wife. Claire was played by Danièle Parola who made several films in multiple countries in the late 20s and 30s. She was married to actor André Daven and died in 1998. The role of Droste went to Jean Murat who continued making films through the war for France and into the 1960s. He passed away in 1968. The French version of the film is considered lost. The English language version of the film ended up being a much shorter film than the German original. It was released as F.P.1 in the UK, then reissued as Secrets of F.P.1 and released as F.P.1 Doesn't Answer in the US and Where the Light house Shines Across the Bay in Australia (literally WTF Australia?) and starred Conrad Viedt (Cesare in Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari and Gwynplaine in The Man Who Laughs) stars as Ellison. Viedt had a long career in German and UK film, but died young due to a congenital heart condition in 1943. Jill Esmond, Laurence Olivier's first wife, stars as Claire. Her acting career slowed down after Olivier and she divorced so Olivier could marry Vivian Leigh; presumably this was as she had to take care of their son. Olivier and Esmond remained friendly through the rest of his life, and he never stopped paying her alimony. Their son recalls her writing to him late in her life that she still loved Olivier despite everything. She died in 1990. Leslie Fenton played Droste; Fenton was born in the UK but his family had emigrated to the US when he was young. He made many films in the 20s and 30s before becoming a director. His second career was cut short by WWII where he joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve and was wounded during Operation Chariot. Post war her returned to the US and directed a few more films before retiring in the late 1950s. He died in 1978. So all this is the wind-up, but given the Nazi-era film stuff, I thought it might be interesting background. I watched the Secrets of F.P.1 version of this film. Its definitely early sound filming, and I think the shortened running time particularly hurts understanding the relationship triangle between Ellison-Claire-Droste and I think makes the motivations of the saboteurs less clear. But its an engaging early film anyhow, and other than a few quibble about things not being clear in the film, worth watching I think.

Please don't reduce the Spiritshift duration. It's already too low IMO. Raising the cool down period would be preferable I think.

That's not bad. After playing 10 hours of an Elder Scrolls I am usually at the point where I will start deep cleaning my place so I don't have to play any more of it.

Finished Ergo Proxy. The ending was full of revelations, biblical and otherwise A great story. I might have binge watched it a bit too much at times, so little details go lost. I think I've going to re-watch it from the beginning and use my knowledge of the background to pay more attention to the countless little details I missed along the way. Like why some proxies destroyed their own domes, why did Romdeau nuke Mosk? What was that about humans somewhere in space, were they supposed to come back to Earth some day etc. Dozens upon dozens of little detail I hope to pick up during a second watching of the show. Edit: don't get me started on clones and is there a connection between Monad Proxy and Re-l, between Proxy One and Ergo Proxy, so many questions... Edit2: Looks like a decent explanation of the plot: https://cureclover.livejournal.com/759.html