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My father called and told me someone's remote controlling his computer. A minor heart attack and some blame-throwing later I went over and was properly confused that someone would hijack his computer to play Trailmakers on it. Turns out it was my nephew who used Steam's Stream-Play feature. Heh.

It's part of a very long joke being played on the world.

Little bit more on the Harpoon deals by Ukrainian sources. Probably overestimation, but even if that statement is 50% true, this is pretty big deal, and all the wheat might be able to get out of Odessa soon... Also yesterday report of ISW was very interesting, and pretty much confirms, that the Ukrainian tactics of waiting for Russian implosion, although greatly costly, works. More and more pro-Russian bloggers are talking about the mismanagement and incompetence of Russian officers, which has catastrophic consequences for already shaken servicemen and officer morale... Well this is what you get, when you assign your promotion based on how much are they up in your ass, instead on how competent they are "Ukrainian forces are also suffering serious losses in the Battle of Severodonetsk, as are Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure. The Russians have concentrated a much higher proportion of their available offensive combat power to take Severodonetsk than the Ukrainians, however, shaping the attrition gradient generally in Kyiv’s favor. The Ukrainians continue to receive supplies and materiel from their allies as well, however slow and limited that flow may be. The Russians, in contrast, continue to manifest clear signs that they are burning through their available reserves of manpower and materiel with no reason to expect relief in the coming months. Evidence of eroding military professionalism in the Russian officer corps is mounting. The Ukrainian Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported that Russian commanders are attempting to preserve military equipment by forbidding drivers from evacuating wounded servicemen or providing supplies to units that have advanced too far.[1] Refusing to risk equipment to evacuate wounded personnel on the battlefield—other than in extraordinary circumstances—is a remarkable violation of core principles of military professionalism. Such behavior can have serious impacts on morale and the willingness of soldiers to fight and risk getting injured beyond their own defensive lines. ISW cannot independently confirm the GUR’s report, but commentary by Russian milbloggers offers some circumstantial support for it. Russian milblogger Alexander Zhychkovskiy criticized the Russian military command’s disregard for reservists on the deprioritized Zaporizhia Oblast front. Zhychkovskiy reported that Russian commanders trapped lightly-equipped infantry units in areas of intense Ukrainian artillery fire without significant artillery support and did not rotate other units through those areas to relieve them.[2] Zhychkovskiy noted that Russian commanders are responsible for high losses and cases of insanity among servicemen. Another milblogger, Alexander Khodarkovsky, said that Russian commanders are not sending reinforcements in a timely matter, preventing Russian forces from resting between ground assaults.[3] Waning professionalism among Russia’s officers could present Ukrainian forces with opportunities. Russian morale, already low, may drop further if such behavior is widespread and continues. If Russian troops stuck on secondary axes lose their will to fight as the Battle for Severdonetsk consumes much of the available Russian offensive combat power, Ukraine may have a chance to launch significant counteroffensives with good prospects for success. That prospect is uncertain, and Ukraine may not have the ability to take advantage of an opportunity even if it presents itself, but the current pattern of Russian operations is generating serious vulnerabilities that Kyiv will likely attempt to exploit."

@majestic lmao that was actually pretty close to the same kind of feeling @Sarex I'm just glad I'm not the only one being a complete bastard about it...this time.

There are always exceptions. One of my all time favourite movies was Finding Nemo. Pixar managed to make a desk lamp more expressive than anything in all Lucas' post 1980 movies combined. But for every exception, there is a horde of generic, soulless CGI movies...

I don't know what it is about CGI, but it usually just feels very "lifeless". The kind of stuff you would use to prototype a live action movie sequence with, to show your actors how you imagine an action sequence should happen before doing it for real

was that a joke comedy trailer, or was that for real (e): I just watched it again, and it's even funnier the second time, but I feel like it's unintentional

Some information on the extent of corruption and/or inefficiency in Russia: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/28/world/europe/russian-soldiers-military-supplies.html Unfortunately, the capacity to wreak havoc and kill people is still great indeed.

Well, I can tell you that I had to force myself through s3, but for s4 I had no issue with just sitting down one episode, one more episode, one more episode... The only reason I didn't finish it right away yesterday is because I was super tired already and then saw the 1 1/2 hour playtime of the last episode. S4ep1 is maybe a bit too slow. It feels kinda cluttered, because they show all these characters and everyone has like 2 minutes of playtime, and it's like they have to cram as many early 90s song snippets into the episode as possible, but with ep2 I was ready and back into it.

Just finished part 1 of Stranger Things s4. Liked it a lot. Much better than s3. And the best thing: part 2 will be out next week. Also as I've just found out, part 2 is only going to be 2 episodes... but basically movie length. Ep 8 is going to be 1 hour and 25 minutes, and ep 9 is going to be 2 hours and 30 minutes(!!!!). Pretty hype, not gonna lie. Didn't thought the show would pull me in like that again after the meh season 2 and the meeeh season 3.

That makes sense. Pacifica is light on content. Hearts of Stone added more quests and points of interest in the wilderness around Novigrad and in the city of Oxenfurt because both areas were light on content when the Witcher 3 launched. I wouldn't be surprised if the expansion also added stuff in the area where the nomad origin starts 'cause that's a whole map they made and only used once.

Imperials...

rofl! Classic, I love it. Always nice when it turns out to be something like that. Thanks, I needed that chuckle.

Well, maybe the show is just not for you then. Not everyone has to like everything. If it sucks, just move on, don't pull a Star Trek on it where you force yourself to waste time in the hopes of ever seeing joy again.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/vladimir-putin-dead-russia-ukraine-27093054 Well, that's something.

I think theres been a small cultural shift just in my lifetime. We used to play "cowboys and indians" and run around the blocks with cap guns literally having play gunfights. Now you never see kids playing like that (including mine) and I dont know if you can even buy a cap gun nowadays. Meaning, the culture of "playing guns" has changed from my perspective.

I remember that I watched Stranger Things S1 and I liked it quite a bit. Then I watched S2 and a realization came over me: Oh no, the creative well is dry already. I don't remember if I actually finished S2. I didn't even bother with S3.

Ukrainian fighters take to electric bikes in the war against Russia Plus they are difficult to spot using infrared.

Reboot: The Guardian Code was one of the funniest series I've ever watched, but none of the comedy was intentional. The Sourcerer is villain of the century material though, and it has Nicholas Lea in the second season.

Buying guns here is very easy if you have the money, when I bought my .44 it was no questions asked at all. And if you don't have the money, there are installment plans to pay for the gun.

Spy x Family 8 A hilarious episode. Yuri, Yor’s brother, comes to visit the family and everyone has to pretend to be someone else. Luckily he came late at night and Anya was not there to read his thoughts. And of course Yuri is an interrogator torturer for the eastern country’s secret police. It is not mentioned in the anime, but I read on a website that it is called the State Security Service, or “SSS”. Sure, nothing bad there. Yuri is also a spy. Who would have imagined? Oh, and he is looking for Twilight, who he considers to be his natural enemy. Although he is only 20 years old, he seems to be really good at his job. I’m sure everything will be fine once he discovers the truth. One moment they show us Yuri doing his work and the next Anya watching a torture in the spy tv show. Not serious torture, but still Loid is just there near her not caring at all. So much for him deciding to be a better father in the previous episode. Yuri visits the Forgers and he and Loid immediately become suspicious of each other. Yuri is obviously jealous and displeased and he doesn’t even try to hide it. And there is the problem that Yor has been officially married for a year and never told her brother. Her excuse? “I forgot. And then I forgot that I forgot.” Yuri ends up getting drunk and telling a story that Twilight saw in a manual for the secret police. So now Loid is aware Yuri is not just a public servant. But Yuri gets suspicious too and demands that they kiss to prove that they are indeed married. And then the episode ends. Yor: “I could never tell him that I got married so that I could continue killing in peace!” Yuri: “What did my sister see in this guy? Just because he can cook, he is handsome, tall, considerate and a doctor…” This one almost killed me: Yuri: “She would always work herself to death for me.” She literally used to arrive home covered in somebody else’s blood: Teacher: “How much is 5/6 – 2/3? Anya?” Anya: “3/3!”

I've learned some rather interesting tidbits about certain characters in Swansong. I'm not sure what good they will do me on this first playthrough as I'm probably headed for a horrible end regardless, given my many failures. I suppose I could use the intel I have gathered to make sure some people share my ultimate fate, if it comes to that. This will definitely be useful information for playthrough #2 though. I suspect a good number of people wouldn't like this game, given how slow paced and dry it is. This would be an absolute snoozefest for your typical CoD or Fortnite gamer. It's definitely a niche game, that niche being glacially slow paced, dialogue-heavy, narrative-driven suspence/detective game. Luckily, I happen to fall squarely into that narrow niche. Getting wrapped up in a web of deception is my jam. They really do have to fix the audio issues, though. They are quite jarring. I suspect that they are utilizing a tech where sound sources can be placed in a 3D level and the game engine dynamically adjusts said audio depending on the camera's distance to the source, walls, etc. This works well when walking freely around a level and overhearing conversations, not so well in dialogue cutscenes, which there are a lot of. The problem is that there are quite a lot of camera cuts during these dialogue cutscenes, showing the scene from different angles for dramatic effect. Visually it's great, but it's accompanied by sudden changes in volume due to how close or far the camera is to the speaker. Volume should remain constant during a conversation.

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.

Bacause we are now paying for 60+% of our gas to Norway and Croatia and other Netherlands in USD/EUR. The last 30+% we got from Russia is also payed in USD, because all of our Gas import is performed by state owned company, which gives us much better leverage, than private companies in the west, which must obey their shareholders as well. And if they turn us off, we have already enough gas stacked to have a chance to survive this winter. So we have now 1 and half year to find a way, how to substitute the last 30+%.

One Teacher’s Brilliant Strategy to Stop Future School Shootings—and It’s Not About Guns This seems like a great idea.

Girls' Last Tour, episode 2: I'm watching this part where blond girl is shooting the hot pipe, and the show is playing like...this slow "hopeful" string music as her bullets bounce off the pipe and ricochet. This scene genuinely feels better when I mute it - why telegraph what's going to happen in the scene so hard with this kind of music? Totally unnecessary, especially because you could've had a little tension what with these bullets richocheting around (not that the characters seem to care...or even notice - literally no reaction at all, much less even an attempt at a suggestion that this might not be the wisest method to do this; don't show the bullets ricochet if you don't want me to notice the complete lack of reaction to said ricochets, ) as they desperately try to get some heat and water. It's not the first offense where the music has made scenes feel weirdly artificial so far, but it has been the worst one so far. Music being used to telegraph how an entire scene will go is one of my pet peeves of modern film-making though, because of how extreme a lot of shows and movies will go with it - makes me thankful for when there's silence instead, particularly if the alternative is strings or pianos. Ironically, I like both pianos and strings as instruments...just not how they're overwhelmingly used in media like this. Lmao, I'm not kidding, I just unpaused the show after I wrote all that and after the pipe did indeed burst, and then the show immediately hits me with the stupid "muted joy" piano music. I just...it makes me want to grind my teeth how horribly predictable it is. Find some other stinking instruments besides pianos and strings to use, you hack freaking frauds - I'm sick of these tired attempts at emotional manipulation through this lousy style of music! Let me decide how I want to feel about what's happening in a scene without you trying to press your thumb on my ears. ...I'm gonna set this episode down for the moment, since the show hasn't been bad enough to warrant me being mad at it for its incredibly stale use of music.

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...

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...

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"...

Nathan's hot dogs were on sale at a steep discout at my local Food Lion so I bought 2 packages of bun length. For maximum authenticity I decided to make dirty water dogs. I don't usually cook hot dogs this way, but maybe I should do so more often. Anyway, I am topping them 2 ways: 1) Sauerkraut 2) Tomato, pickle, and onion Both delicious.

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.

Sorry for deflating your excitement. But for what it's worth, Spelljammer is one of the old D&D settings that is coming back, and according to the CEO of WotC they are planning on making video games in all of the active D&D settings. So at some point in the future you should get a Spelljammer game.

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

Starfinder really doesn't have any science in it, so I'd have a hard time calling it scifi. It is nautical space fantasy.

Owlcat teased Starfinder as their next game today. I think it was today. Wait, what's today?

Agree.....some kind of faction meter. Also.....if the player does not aggravate or disturb the offended faction for a period of time, the meter should go down. Personally, I just wish we could toggle this completely off or on, as the individual player desires. Not just on custom games, but for any current game as well. Played 1,400 plus hours on my first playthrough and did not build with War Games in mind. Started a new playthrough (custom game) just to avoid this entire issue. And placed my first playthrough on hold until the faction base raids are tone down a bit or can be toggled off. But your idea is a nice step in the right direction.....especially for players who like the new update's direction. Makes a lot of sense.

To build off the glider idea, maybe they could add moths at night and butterflies during the day. We could strap the wings to our backs and actually glide, not just slowly descend like we do with tufts. Then again, I'm not sure theres enough high areas that an actual gliding gadget would come in handy for.

O.K., I've now experienced the pain majestic was talking about - that presentation in episode 1 was torture. Well, actually, everything related to Eleven/Jane in that episode was torture. I woulda skipped it if I could. Otherwise...a pretty decent first episode with some fun moments. Hopefully it won't just become complete monster mash silliness like last season did. Shaving, sterilization, and destruction of @Lexx deferred for the time being. ...I've now watched the second episode, and it's starting to feel like monster mash silliness already. Shaving, sterilization, and destruction of @Lexx...well, let's just say it's not entirely off the table, but we'll see. (e): I had this thread up for a while and didn't see your post until just now. I guess we agree big time on that at least, .

I agree with that somewhat, but I guess they had issues with pacing and thus felt it was better this way. Personally I'm ok with that now. Oddly enough, I don't even mind the 1 week break until release of part 2 - usually I like it more when everything gets released at once. Maybe it's because it really did feel long at times and I'm happy for a short break? In any case, it's better than the return of the 1 week per episode thing, which is happening more and more now, and which I still hate very much. One thing I also wanted to point out is that .... I really don't care about the 11 storyline. Every time it comes up, I just want it to end asap, because it's just such a drag for the most of it. Ugh.

No words, just tears.