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There’s no medicine like a dog’: Ex-soldier who trains shelter dogs to become veterans’ companions to be honored on Memorial Day

I'll see your Spelljammer and I'll raise you Al-Qadim: I miss the days when D&D had a bunch of different setting. Sure, Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, and Dragonlance were fairly similar to one another, but there was also Al-Qadim, Spelljammer, Planescape, Dark Sun, and Ravenloft. And then everything just became Forgotten Realms, on the video game front, at least. I miss Al-Qadim.

Everyone's probably thought of these, but just throwin em out there: Flies: Found in the garbage pile the most, but also found around soda cans and juice boxes, and will attack anyone touching their trash. Grasshoppers and crickets: It'd be great to hear more grasshopper and cricket noises at night, and see them jumping over the grass. They should be neutral or hostile (maybe killing them gives you stuff to make string instruments for fun). Wasps: A much more dangerous threat than bees. They'd attack on sight, and be much tougher to kill. They'd be seen around soda cans and juice boxes like flies. Maybe a wasp nest and wasp queen boss. Worms: mainly just a decoration bug, not used for much, except maybe for the slime on them. They'd move around like grubs, but much larger. Butterflies: Seen around flowers and high in the tree, and very harmless. Maybe drops wings to glide with. Moths: Seen only asleep in the day, and flying near big lights at night. Maybe attracted to base's lights, and bites on the roofs, like they would with clothes in cartoons. Frogs: We've seen the tadpoles, but it doesn't make sense to have tadpoles with no frogs. They'd hand around the pond on lily pads, eating flies, gnats, mosquitos, you, etc. More birds: Woodpeckers, blue jays, red cardinals, stuff like that. Just as decoration, but maybe the smaller birds could be more of a threat, and pay more attention to you. They'd drop different feathers for customization of things that need crow feathers.

First and foremost I want to say that this game is fantastic and I've enjoyed playing it immensely. There is so much potential this game could yield it's crazy. Feel free to comment on my suggestions and ideas. Also I will try to put areas to match some of these creatures in another post. Creatures: Centipede: Hear me out on this. In North America the average length of Centipedes are anywhere from .4-4 inches. They have a Wolf Spider that averages .75-2 Inches. Meet in the middle in terms of size and they wouldn't be an end all be all Creature, but they would definitely be a tougher fight. Of course an armor set and weapon ( Maybe a whip due to Centipedes coiling or Khopesh ) would be obtainable. Praying Mantis: I've seen this one suggested a plethora of times and again, hear me out. Average size of Mantids are 2-4 Inches. You could add in a boss Mantis for the big size BUT add in Nymphs to actually fight. Breaking the legs of a lumbering Mantis would be a fantastic boss fight. Armor set and weapon: Scthye or Sickle. Cricket or Grasshopper: Imagine a TRUE leaper in the yard. The fights would add in the element of an extreme agile creature that uses jump attacks with audio cues to know when to move. Armor that enhances jump height or distance and a weapon: Warpick. Tick: We need another bloodthirsty creature and this one would suffice. The grass is quite tall so having ticks in certain areas that wait on grass blades and jump down to attack would be a good jump scare and advise people to be aware of higher up. Maybe armor and weapon: Katars Fly: Unsure why these aren't a thing already but having food and trash in areas makes sense for flies to be present. Swarm enemy that pester you just as normal life. Armor to improve carrying capacity for food items and weapon: Cudgel Water Striders: Imagine the pond all still until you see Striders on the surface. It would make use of the lily pads as combat areas and make the pond more formidable. Armor to "Skate" across water and weapon: Unsure ****roach: A durable enemy that could be sparce throughout the yard and make some elite armor with a "Undying" status to survive a fatal blow once. Weapon: Scimitar Black Widow: Honestly if you want another Spider then go with a true horror. Formidable venom, Sleek black and red design, Patient but deadly. Armor to alleviate poison all together and Weapon: Sais or Kamas. Ironclad Beetle: This one is boss territory and could make use of the Oak tree a bit more. These beetles enjoy Oak trees in real life so having a boss battle inside of the tree would be memorable. Extreme endurance fight that test all skills. Acorns and "Stashed Goodies" could be found in the area. Armor that doubles damage threshold OR last twice as long and Weapon: Glaive. Midge: These are another bloodthirsty creature but what could make them unique is that these creatures can survive colder temperatures making them a perfect fit for a Cooler/Mini Fridge area. No armor but Weapon: Frozen "Icicle". Wasp/Hornet/Yellow Jacket: Now I personally despise these creatures in general but having these guys under the Shed in an underground nest would be horrifying. Multi stinging, relentless, and ever so painful. Armor and Weapon: Throwing Knives. I made a post about areas in the game to be added and these bugs could fit most of those areas or fill in the areas in game even more. Feel free to comment your likes and dislikes and thank you for reading.

this has happened with every neutral I've encountered so far

I have been enjoying this base building update, i have ran into a few issues and have an idea for one that i think would be a quality of Life improvement, iv been facing a re-occurring problem with the factions and i think it would be solved if we had a faction UI or something like that, Where you can make a Progress bar or Something for the different faction types so you could see which ones are reacting to you, i know they have the little icon pop up on your screen but i would like to have a solid Ui state or something in order to track it, since i havent been able to receive some of the pop ups. followed by complete destruction of my base lol. idk just a thought.

Yes they are the land-based version of the Harpoon. Many US allies have Harpoon, but Denmark is one of the very few countries that has the land-based version. Apparently those Harpoons and more US M777 howitzers were very recently delivered. The M777s are only now getting into the fight in the east, and are being assessed as highly effective. On the M142 HiMARS, apparently the White House has decided to send them, but don't want to make a big public spectacle of it because the Russians are screaming about that crossing their red lines.

And sorry for triple post, I have just noticed it now. It looks like, that after a very long time of stalemate, the Ukraine started at least some small scale counteroffensive in Kherson Oblast. https://t.me/lumsrc/1589

Spanish diver rescues whale who was trapped in an illegal fishing net Asi se hace!

The results of the world’s largest study on kindness are in. Here’s what we learned It's probably good to remember that only the worst things are reported as news.

and it's so much easier being brave a few thousand miles away with a keyboard as your weapon of choice. HA! Good Fun!

Maybe they hit the cameraman and that's where the shake came from?

I think it is a case of the technique being used incorrectly (and badly) instead of an issue with the technique itself. The scene feels very artificial to begin with, the cgi dominating the background combined with perfectly smooth camera movements makes me think that everything was done by machine. Then when we get to the camera shake it just feels wrong. If it was closer up then it would be more tolerable, but this just gives the impression that someone was shaking the dolly accidentally. Some of it was ok, but I wasn't very impressed for the most part. I guess we've gone to Vecna for the villain now, which is kind of weird that after all these years(?) they encounter an evil humanoid instead of whatever the hell the other entities were.

Having watched it a few times I can that it only gets worse. It doesn't add anything but distraction to what should be a harrowing scene.

I think it would be better if it was a real camera shake, but this stinks of being an after effect done in post production.

It appears to be. https://www.wsj.com/articles/uvalde-residents-voice-frustration-over-shooting-response-11653588161 Edit: Behind a paywall, this isn't https://www.thedailybeast.com/uvalde-mom-says-she-was-handcuffed-while-urging-police-to-enter-robb-elementary-during-school-shooting

Y'know, I think I registered on the BIS forums back in June of 2002, and I have never actually started a thread on that forum or any of its successors. But now it looks as if I have, even if I wasn't actually responsible for it. So after 19 years and 11 months, the streak is broken, thanks Tepid. Anyway, continuing on with the FM21 Touch adventure. I've now played 3-4 seasons in the Eredivisie, sticking with Excelsior. To be fair, only one other club has tried to poach me away, and I turned them down as they were a mid-table side, a distinctly sideways move despite them offering to triple my wages. I wish the game would let you do stuff with your personal money, like buy a Ferrari or something. That said, it's hard going because it takes a long time for a yo-yo club to improve their finances enough to compete with the established top division club. Especially true when in two seasons running, the board decides to upgrade the stadium instead of allowing any meaningful transfer budget. Actually, worse than the transfer budget is the wage budget - I'm trying to play a "realistic" game with proper delegation of responsibilities, i.e. scouts and the Director of Football find me players instead of me trawling the database looking at hard numbers. But there's a problem in that the game is essentially set up to find what it thinks are an appropriate level of ability without regard to finances. So the vast majority of recommendations are for players who cost double my entire transfer kitty, and who demand triple the maximum wage I can afford to pay them. Thanks guys, very helpful. Finally, being in a league with VAR for the first time exposes the game's rather primitive implementation of it. Offside call? Always offside. Penalty call? Always a penalty unless it's a question of whether the foul was in the box, in which case it's always outside. And for those penalty calls, play is always stopped, and the ref always jogs slowly to the pitchside monitor to review it himself. I might think the real-life implementation of VAR leaves a lot to be desired, but Football Manager takes it to the next level of pointless awfulness. The sad thing of course is that FM Touch has now been discontinued, so I can't even look forward to future improvements to the system, once they get it right in 5-10 years. If I ever start a new game I might just do one of those where I use Instant Result for every match.

I don't care about their family lives... unless it's symptomatic of their personality. I.e. married/unmarried/same sex marriage... couldn't care less. It's completely irrelevant. I do expect my politicians to show traits I appreciate in a politician however. Honesty, dedication and hard work in all aspects of their lives. If they are not trustworthy outside a parliament, they are not trustworthy. End of story. But what I expect of a government is a bit different. I think the Swiss are on to something. Let people decide on issues, big and small between elections. Most governments (and oppositions) will run on single issues or close to it. But all the "other issues" that barely get addressed? They are decided by governments in ways that sometimes take the people who voted them in by surprise. To take an example from decades ago... people vote in a government in Copenhagen on some promise of blah blah. Without consulting anyone else in the matter they sign a treaty to sell the oil rights in the North Sea to a private company. Or sign a treaty to build a bridge between Denmark or Sweden. Or... you get the picture. People were never asked if they wanted any of those things, because it happened between elections. I know it's not viable in a lot of places in the world, but Denmark has the infrastructure to allow a lot of things to be done online, including elections. Might as well send out issues for referendums too. Even if Maastricht 1992 still scares the **** out of politicians (the politicians and the elite were like 95% in favour of Maastricht, problem was, the Danes themselves weren't). But we need a lot more direct democracy on a number of issues, without letting the politicians run roughshod over people, only asking if the "other party" is worse or less bad every 4 years or so.

The polearm that you can summon with a chanter has 10 knockdowns. I find that is particularly effective, even on the tough bosses.

@BruceVC I was being semi serious when I suggested Trump would’ve been more likely to support Russia over Ukraine…. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-61614782

I agree, people were much happier and content in those days. Think about all the violent protests and unhappiness nowadays that people put themselves through. No one complained about " white, male privlidege " back then....everyone was happy and we know this is true because the level of civil disobedience was almost non-existent

I fully admit not noticing it.

Yep, it does, but it allows me to just use DDG on my home page but still use Google when DDG fails me...

To put it bluntly, you are correct… oh also, circling back to the “urban legend” of how Russia is minimising the civilian damage, which some people still wants to believe… here you can see in comparison how the real minimising of nonmilitary damage actually looks like when performed by UA artillery. And compare it to Russian “advancements”..

I think that positive morale is very important for Ukrainians, there needs to be a will to keep fighting back despite overwhelming odds, so they hide their losses as much as they can and amplify Russia's as much as they can. As for the news in the west, I think they are giving it their all to try and keep this conflict in the public's eye and a hot topic overall. We'll see how long it will take before the Ukraine topic is once again old news.

The other thing, that UA is waiting for, is that the EU will do their homework, and will make stricter and stricter sanctions to Russia. In the west of EU, there might be some people spewing bull**** like Kissinger, but for the east of EU (except Hungary ofc), it is unthinkable, to allow Russia win this war. On one hand, economic might take long to affect the Russian ruling elite, but there is serious lack of a lot of stuff, which Russia depends on, which was imported from the West. And they just simply cannot count on China to substitute EU in all of the stuff. The fact, that many people are omitting is, that Russia is more dependent on EU than vice versa. Slovakia less than month ago was whining, that we will pay to Russia in rubles for their gas. In less than a month a second biggest **** in our government, who wanted to pay in rubles, managed to make deals around the world for the same price as current Russian price, that we will be cutting off 60% of all Russian gas imports on June 1st 2022. If our useless **** in government are able to make such advantageous deals, everyone can... The Russian economic elite is already starting to become very worried how dire the whole economic situation in Russia might get, if the war does not end soon. Today 4 Duma members of Communist Party, signed the demand to stop the war... Something unthinkable just few days ago... And the discontent slowly grows. The easiest to notice, that the situation in Russia is getting to hell is to follow some Russian social trolls in Eastern Europe. They write a lot, about how awesome the denazification goes, but as soon, as Kissinger opened his mouth about ceding some Ukrainian soil to Russia for exchange of peace, the activity all of these trolls has arisen tenfold, with all of them praising how wise this guy is... If EU will do their homework as good as Slovakia did with the gas, and adds oil to it as well, Russian economy will implode sooner than anyone would dream of few weeks ago. And Russian army with no money, will be no threat anymore. T-62s instead T-80s will be then just the tip of the iceberg of their army's issues then... End if you really think, that ceding some soil to Russia will change anything, just look back at 1938, how did the ceding of Sudetten, Silesia and South Slovakia to Germany, Poland and Hungary helped to change something at that time...

What a wonderful idea with Aloth. I know you are a fan of Miasama (as am I) it is such a strong debuff. And it targets will I think, which is usually a lower defense compared to reflex or fortitude. So he ends up having draining touch in the mainhand, and Kapana in the offhand? I think a cipher sounds great. Maybe even a Psion/chanter, or a druid, or priest. Lot of great options to debuff. For action economy, I bet a chanter would fill the role nicely. Thank you!

Well the fact is, that all the weapons from e.g. Lend Lease has not yet arrived, that's why the Ukraine is going full defense with leaving their positions as late as possible (see Lyman). As I said, even Zelensky says that on Donbas battleground the Russia has 5-times more equipment than Ukraine. The reason is simple. Russia has allegedly 50% of all troops currently in Ukraine around Severodonetsk and Lysichanks. So the most logical thing to do, is hold the ground as long as humanly possible, retreat, and be sure, that Russian casualties are bigger than Ukrainian. This really sucks, but they do not have any other option until more weapons arrive On some fronts, like Avdiivka this works for more than 3 months already, without need to retreat. At some other places, like Popasna and Rubizhne, it did not work, due to the terrain being less in favor to Ukraine, than around Avdiivka, which is like 5km away from the capital of DNR - Donetsk City. If enough weapons arrive soon, UA may start counteroffensive around Kherson, and hope, that the danger of turning off the water-pipe to Crimea again, would make Russian move some of the tremendous army power away from Severodonetsk and Lysichansk cauldron...

What can I say, I was born 182 years too late.

And here is the article about the Doneck spearatists complaining, which I've mentioned earlier. Google translate. But it is pretty much very close to what the WP says about Ukrainians. And it also states the obvious, that the collaborators who betrayed their own nation are for Soviets/Russians worth less than women for Taliban... https://www-startitup-sk.translate.goog/odmietame-tu-zomriet-separatisti-z-donecka/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp Also the Eastern Front is real mess, no doubt about that. The lack of equipment has been even addressed by Zelensky, Arestovych and even pro-Ukrainian bloggers. So the Washington Post article, pretty much states the obvious and logical things happening. I just don't understand, that some people are thinking, that being pro-ukrainian automatically means being a goof living in alternate reality... I'll leave that to consumers of Russian "news"...

Been watching the Umbrella Academy. Finished season one. I usually find child actors insufferable but the kid who plays #5 is really good.

Doesn't bother me in the slightest. Drink, screw escorts, go to church, read comic books, whatever makes them happy. Leave me and mine alone. don't try to take my f----g money, stuff, etc and don't be too horribly incompetent and stupid us into a war or cause a fuel crisis, currency collapse, or something. That's all I want from my government and I am certain I will die disappointed.

Well, Ravenloft was already back. And recently we had the announcement of the return of Spelljammer and Dragonlance this year. Here's all the recent D&D-related news, including title and release date for the D&D movie: https://www.geekwire.com/2022/wizards-of-the-coast-reveals-upcoming-projects-for-dungeons-dragons/ https://www.polygon.com/23034058/dungeons-dragons-dnd-direct-movie-release-date-cast https://www.belloflostsouls.net/2022/02/dd-on-track-to-deliver-one-digital-release-a-year-starting-in-2023.html

You know what? I'm dumb and was thinking of Spelljammer. Which is a shame, because my excitement is now gone. I wanted this:

I played a chapter with Galeb in Swansong and I was absolutely nailing it. I figured out several puzzles (credit to Big Bad Wolf for including legitimately tricky puzzles that will no doubt infuriate some people), took the time to find and complete all the optional objectives, won all the confrontations, I was acing this chapter. Then it all went horribly horribly wrong at the very end, quite literally the last scene of the chapter. I am tempted to go back immediately and replay the chapter, but I will stay the course and let things play out before trying to get the best possible result in a subsequent playthrough. I'm pretty sure that I'm heading toward a bad ending.

Google has excellent search operators that I can't seem to find elsewhere that make it the only option for highly precise/specialized searches - searches that only yield a total of 1-100 results. That is my primary use for Google searches and why I have to stick with it for the time being. Stuff like "history of the Roman Empire" or "best ways to fry and season chicken thighs" can be looked up on any search engine, but particular program/OS errors written in a very specific way, exact checksums, media catalogue numbers et al. that you're trying to look up online all get the most relevant results on Google, whereas for the life of me I can't seem to make DDG behave when I try to make similar searches there. Man, I was hoping that was going to result in DDG doing the search and serving the results - I created a Google search that only had 6 total results, and then did the same search on DDG and got garbage, then prefixed it with "!g" and it literally just sent me to Google, .

In all fairness, Google's searches have turned into hot garbage recently as well. All these algorithms certainly seem more of a hindrance than a help... I generally just use both (defaulting to DDG), depending on how hot the garbage served by either search engine is... As an aside, for those that might not be aware, you can search Google from DDG by prefixing the search with !g, same for bing with !b, making it quite a bit more convenient to repeat your search in another search engine. Anyway, on the subject of the thread. After my Subnautica Below Zero stint I've been mostly playing Conan Exiles (Isle of Siptah, and yep, still going ), and slowly picking away at my second Cyberpunk 2077 playthrough. Such a shame it appears CDPR is giving up on CP2077 already, and on their engine too. Seems the beancounters finally took over. Oh well, it was a good run while it lasted...

I follow the British colonial practice of naming lands after real people (be it the one who discovered them, or the royalty that was sitting on the throne at the time). So I ended up with Xotland, The Ederlands, Konstantia, Ishiza, Ruasia, Rekked Lands, Watcher's island, Aloth-of-Sand, Grand Kanaria. Since the wordplay with the names of the other companions does not sound as cool, I add New Yenwood and New Cases Nua for good measure.

Trump would probably have sent Stingers and Javelins to Putin, to help him in his war against the "evil Ukrainians". After all, the Biden family are all in cahoots with the "regime" in Kiev, doing shady business deals.

What's the next wunderwaffen ?

And that is OK, Ukraine is thankfully not as stupid as Russia to send to offensive untrained troops... As I have said, they are training mobilised troops, and will attack only, when they train them enough to be not a cannon fodder like most of the LNR and DNR forces, which have even officially complained about the forced mobilization and very low training provided by proxies... And people are then wondering, why even the most optimistic pro-russian military bloggers are now bitching about how failed this "operation" is, due to extremely high Russian casualties...

Something neat about Full Attacks is that ranged weapons take the longer range of the two (or is it the range of your main hand weapon?). So in most circumstances you want to take Open Choke on the Xefa blunderbuss if you're using it on a rogue/monk. Just put a pistol/wand/whatever in your main hand and the blunderbuss in your offhand. No need to get up close and personal to spam Stunning Surge.

Instead of just floating around with a tuft, lets build a hang glider with moth wings, or butterfly wings. Or even made with clover leaves. Could be a fun idea just jumping off a cliff and covering some ground without having to build a zipline.

Daddy Long Legs! Adding daddy long legs would be terrifying. Imagine there being a wolf spider which has a big body, and a daddy long legs with a small body, but the way the legs move would be horrifying. The small body of it would be high up in the air (maybe high enough for a jump attack) and its creepy small mouth, and it dips down to attack, lunges forward with its legs etc. The drops would be its legs and something like more spider fangs or what not, but the legs could be used for a tier 3 spear. It could use the legs (which are durable I guess) and a spider fang and something else that's harder to get to make a poison spear. Tier 3 spear: Like the mosquito needle the recipe would be something like: 2 daddy long legs, spider fangs and some other hard drop either from the daddy long legs or something else idk. Attacks: The attacks could be weak with very strong venom (cause they have really toxic venom but their mouths are to small for humans, but not anymore!) and use the legs for lots of attacks. Whatever it may be, if you see this, thanks for reading.

Haha... good question. That was 2 years ago and I'm in my mid forties... :

The Katrenn fight is much easier on rainy nights. Katrenn and the constructs take cover from rain like other NPCs, and it is possible to kill Katrenn without aggroing all of the constructs.

Something I was thinking was samaras (better known as helicopter seeds) falling from a maple tree (said tree would be in a different yard).

Let's stick to discussing good news and leave political debates in the politics thread... aka the bad news thread.