Leaderboard

Well, got the offer A bit perplexed as I really thought I bombed the interviews or at least didn't come across as all that competent. The 30% pay raise is very hard to turn down, even worrying about the job sucking in other ways.

There are at least some positives coming out of the current ****storm in Ukraine. Armenia and Turkey started after decades of diplomatic silence to talk to each other again, on the highest level. https://www.rferl.org/a/turkey-armenia-pashinian-erdogan-call/31938712.html @Darkpriest The other good news is, that Slovakia will be after finishing the interconnection to Italian gas pipelines in October of this year 100% independent from import of Russian Gas. With today's announcement, that Slovakia has already physically available enough gas to last until the end of the March of 2023 (even in the case, that all of the gas, from all around the world stops flowing), has already stabilized the price of gas deliveries to households and industry in the country, and our biggest gas provider, has already implemented price policy, which will keep the prices of gas approximately the same as now, in the foreseeable midterm future. That means, that Putin has achieved, that another country will not need Russian gas anymore in the near future, and effectively closed the business. The funny thing is, that for Slovakia this will be pretty lucrative future, as all of the pipelines from south to north and to the west in the Eastern Europe will be on 1st of October going through our country, and we will rake in ****loads of cash on transport fees. Putin is really a strategic mastermind .

To be clear I'm not framing this as an example of "Republicans being terrible" or anything like that. I just laugh that for all the whinging about Democrats ramming through Obamacare, it's ironic that it was so much worse than it could have been because of a insistence on trying to work across the aisle. It's one thing (especially today) that a lot of lefties point to as an example of them utilizing their opportunities to help people super poorly while Republicans arguably use their positions (minority or otherwise) more effectively. I think Republicans arguably can benefit from this a bit more because conservatives a largely fine with limited opportunities to actively govern (ostensibly they are about small government!) while simultaneously recognizing that their dominance of SCOTUS gives them the ability to do things without worrying about the Legislative or Executive branches. Recency bias plays a role I suspect, yes. I definitely won't dispute that there are indeed a whole bunch of liberals that do believe that Republicans are up to some sketch stuff - you do have high profile Democrats like Pelosi and Biden suggesting that the US needs a strong Republican Party - just one that is somehow significantly different than what the party currently is. I also feel that this type of messaging has greater risks of disengaging otherwise supportive voters for limited gain in appealing to conservatives. January 6th investigations are revealing with some of the curtain pulled back shows people disagreeing and pushing back against Trump. I suspect it was always there to some extent, but ranks were definitely closed in party solidarity IMO. And while Trump received a ton of criticism from a lot of the GOP opponents in the primary, that all very much disappeared once Republicans recognized it as a path to victory. IMO I'm not 100% sure how genuine a lot of those criticisms prior to election were and if they would have been brought up if the likes of Lindsey Graham and whatnot felt that Trump would definitely win (i.e. I believe a lot of the critiques were brought up because they were worried he'd tank the GOP chances of winning). That said, it's juxtaposed with their support afterward that I can't be certain if it is just closing ranks (again, Jan 6th investigation seems to indicate that that is the case on some level), or a reflection of "oh damn, we can actually just say this stuff out loud now?" after the GOP was rewarded with a victory with Trump as the candidate. I'm curious what will happen leading into 2024 with someone like DeSantis and Trump squaring off as DeSantis will definitely be looking to secure away a swath of Trump's base. But how will he be doing so? I'm not convinced his path to securing the nomination would necessarily come from taking a higher ground relative to Trump. EDIT: I find it interesting because I agree with the sentiment with respect to conservatives although I admit I'm skeptical wrt to politicians within the Republican Party. Especially given a lot of the farther right, Tea Party and beyond influences within the party. But I actually dislike a lot of the blanket vilification of people, especially poorer ones, that are definitely not immune from the anxieties the world provides. I think the Democrats would benefit from more outwardly championing policies they've done that have been helpful, and absolutely should have a national effort to have on some level grassroots efforts in every congressional district of every state. I think we see some of this with ACA (which some people do not even realize is Obamacare due to aggressive and effective messaging making them feel they are something different), saw increases in its favorability over time and anxiety even among conservative individuals at its potential repeal and the impacts it would have on them and their families. I think there's a lot of challenges to getting this messaging out there beyond the DNC's control, but part of the frustration about a willingness to get Republicans on board for ACA 12+ years ago is that I wouldn't be surprised if a better solution that actually helped people, even conservatives, moreso got passed along because of a willingess to work with GOP politicians. I 100% agree with this and it's one of the ways I feel we've seen Republicans leverage this particular aspect more capability than the Democratic Party.

Behold the James Webb Space Telescope's stunning 1st images | Space

Back to interesting war data. Since Sunday evening to now, there have been HIMARSed 6 more ammunition depot in Luhansk, Donetsk, Tokmak (Zaporizhia Oblast), Nova Kakhovka (this one was bombed in middle of the night and still burning in the morning), Charivne and Chornobaivka (27th time, man would assume, that after saturday liquidation of command post, there would be nothing to destroy anymore) [all in Kherson Oblast]. Another command post responsible for Russian Air Defense in Kherson Oblast was destroyed in Tavryisk (including a lot of Air Defense systems around the post). And one vehicle warehouse was obliterated in Kadiivka/Stakhanov (Luhansk Oblast). During the weekend, in between blowing up many other warehouses, the HIMARS found it's way into command posts at Chornobaivka Airport (on Saturday - hit nr 26) and Shakhtarsk (on Sunday - Doneck Oblast). At the airport, allegedly 5 highranking officers of Russian Army has been liquidated including another General. Three already confirmed by RU army or their families, one of them allegedly based on DNA testing, from the "bag of meat", which was left behind. In Shakhtarsk, allegedly all acting deputy commanders of 106th Airborne Division were deruZified. Only one have survived, but is in very bad condition at hospital. From the various reports from battlefield, It looks like S300 is completely useless against HIMARS, and S400 is allegedly pretty inefficient against HIMARS threat as well. The Russian losses during the last week and half, since when UA Army started to use this weapon, have to be very significant, as Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs have issued Nuclear Attack threats to USA this morning.

Well, given the performance against people being donated NATO weaponry, doubt that's going to happen against actual NATO members.

There is a good write-up about this including projections. Russia may not be willing to completely cut gas deliveries for financial reasons, but I would expect sudden reductions in attempt to sow panic in the market and drive-up prices.

All I need to know, is that if it is needed to spent two to five years struggling and not having a western way of life as fruitful as until now, I am willing to pay that price, if that means, that Russia will bleed dry and some of the guys at the top, will get a bonus lead treatment. My family already lived under Russian occupation, and I do not want to relive that period of time again...

Germany's gas storages are in half capacity currently, so even if they lose all gas imports now they still have gas until November (when they start to need gas for heating). And during summer month they get more gas from Norway than they use (as they import from Norway 75 TWh worth of gas in month and use 45 TWh). EDIT: Germany's energy crisis is mainly caused by fact that Germany refuses to declare energy emergency that would allow energy companies to break their long time contracts, which currently forces them to sell gas in massive loss, which has caused that they try avoid selling gas as much as they can.

Is pretty much the same as it is now. First time I've actually made a move myself rather than the entire company folding or layoffs, so is an awkward feeling. Ah well, as Hammerskoljd said "Life yields only to the conqueror. Never accept what can be gained by giving in.". Then again, he also said "Time goes by, reputation increases, ability declines." . Will be working with AWS, which is a plus. I've told them that I don't know it in the interviews, either it doesn't matter a huge deal or it does matter and they just didn't hear me

Just to be 100% sure, that you are aware of it, even though you have mentioned it in your comment. It is an UBISOFT GAME with no SOLO CAMPAIGN!!! Last Ubisoft game with the same premise was dead at the end of the same month it was released

I got good news for you, the rescuers found a lifeless body of 9 years old boy under the rubble of that destroyed building. Hopefully this will ease your outrage, that someone took a picture of Ukrainian soldier wounded in a civilian building in a city 20km next to the frontline Do you really expect a city that close to the front to be completely void of any defending soldiers? That's pretty ridiculous expectation TBH. Thank you for giving me an insight on how much is RFE/RL a propagandist news. Next time, I will be taking my sources from Russia Today Here is a little bit of analysis how plausible is that 1 million soldier statement. As much as I see it as an overestimation, statistically it is possible, especially, when UK, France, Czech Republic and probably other NATO countries are already training UA soldiers on their soil. There is a fact, that a UA National Front Training Centers were training people since beginning of March as well, so some hundred thousand UA citizens have already 4 month of training behind them. The level of armament is still a big question mark though.

@GorthI feel you will be able to appreciate this one for sure

executive orders do not give a President the power to create or redistribute monies already allocated by Congress. obama and trump pulled some shiesty bs with executive orders, but even trump when trying to get his wall boondoggle funded needed to pilfer discretionary funds. fema, dod and other fed bodies has considerable money not specific allocated 'cause o' the need to be flexible in case o' emergencies and unexpected situations, but is not trillions o' dollars in discretionary money even if a President declared a state of emergency and scrapped together ever spare penny daring Congress to impeach him/her. ubi amounting to $12k per year would require more than three trillion dollars o' additional money, which is near doubling what the US collected in tax and other sources in 2020. manchin and sinema alone should make clear makes the nuclear option is pointless for something such as ubi as there would be additional moderate democrats opposing a paradigm altering scheme with a dubious chance o' success given all the previous fails.. as the US and the world grudging moves incremental and sloth-like towards full automation while ai replaces the need for many highly educated professionals, ubi will become a need as 'posed to a pipe dream. not today. not tomorrow. regardless, you don't experiment on a national scale and even if you chose to do so, you can't abracadabra/hocus pocus ubi into existence. rinse and repeat... again. nevertheless, veruca wants what she wants, eh? HA! Good Fun! ps @alanschu am gonna suggest you are indulging in a bit o' hyperbole. one need not look far to find libs who see republicans as an existential crisis much the same way trumpers does when describing democrats. converse, during the 2016 Presidential run, every major gop candidate pushed back on the bannon and trump narrative. paul ryan, while clear an enabler not deserving o' any medals for courage, were most certain not describing democrats in language otherwise reserved for fantasy novel villains. john mccain died in 2018 and at the time he were not alone in his calls for sanity and a return to pre-obama civility ff to ~7:00 and listen 'til at least 10:00... and keep in mind, since the nuclear option were mentioned already in this thread/post, harry reid and obama were the folks who flipped that switch. their validation were the obstinacy o' the opposition party and the impossibility o' working cooperative. you ain't gonna bring back better days just as long as you see conservatives as irredeemable enemies while simultaneous refusing to acknowledge lib complicity in the mess we got in 2022.

I beat trails of cold steel finally. What a slog that game is. Couldn't imagine it without the fast forward button. I liked it, kind of. It does the JRPG thing where the game is a breeze until the end of game boss gauntlet. There is a mech battle at the end that really makes me worried about the next game, because the mech fighting is really really dumb. Basically rock paper scissors. 6/10

Both Crude rope and silk rope only cost 1 resource to make but lint rope costs 3 to make. This makes building with the new burr floors prohibitively expensive. On a good run you can get 30-40 lint which makes 10-13 lint rope, which only makes 5-6 full burr floors. This in my opinion is far too little for what is one of the most limited resources currently in game. I suggest that lint rope only cost 1 lint per, like other ropes.

@BruceVC Seems someone had read your mind at ZH and created an article of exactly what they think will happen based on various opinions and analytics from funds and banks, should gas not be back online after July 22 https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/world-braces-europes-july-22-doomsday

Here is the rumored power supply recommendation for the upcoming RTX4090:

The yield curve sort of corroborates my claim from a few years ago, that the global economy was headed towards the abyss in 2020 with the speed of the GFC from 2008. Covid masking both the cause and the effect, because everybody were busy pointing fingers at lock downs and blaming that for the tumbling economies. Now the world has to face it, the economic systems in their current form just doesn't work... blaming the war in Ukraine as a cause for prolonging the downturn is just insulting peoples intelligence.

Clouds, clouds everywhere!!

You should be able to reduce this wonderful 1 even more when switching to Effort with Avenging Storm once the 18 Chillfogs are actived..

I've been looking to build a castle using those gorgeous mushroom bricks since the day they were implemented, but I was never a fan of grass or stem floors. Then, lo and behold my prayers are answered, and the burr floors are introduced, which look amazing, and will go perfectly with a castle aesthetic. Only problem is it would take me actual days to complete, since every single floor requires lint rope. Not even regular lint, lint ROPE! There aren't even 20 lint nodes on the entire map! I have to wait 3 in-game days or so just to build however many floors that measly supply of lint provides, and I'm not even a 10th of the way complete on the first floor. Until more lint nodes are spread across the map, I think the recipe should be reworked. Honestly, it should consist of 6 burrs, and that's it. The rope doesn't even seem to appear anyway, since it looks like you're just weaving the burrs into shape.

@Malcador Congrats!

Participated in review-bombing Assassin's Creed: Liberation HD, which if I remember correctly was an average AC (played once in 2014), and which Ubisoft tried to take away from the people who had purchased it. The game is available on Steam again, though the note on the store page now says: "DLC for this product and online elements and features will become unavailable, as of Sept 1st, 2022. The base game will continue to be playable" (previously it was that the game itself will not be accessible). I find it increasingly difficult to rationalise purchasing any Ubisoft game in the future. Then again, they haven't released anything I'd be interested in for quite some time. Playing Nioh 2. Reached the second DLC (which is included in the PC edition from the start), got chewed by a demonic cart.

I go through phases of binging but yes he's a rare Patreon contribution I have

have mentioned more than once, previous to 2019/2020, we thought clarence thomas were an admirable judge if not a noteworthy Justice. bit more explanation via the way-back machine. the vox article repeats more than a few o' our recent criticisms o' the current majority: their willingness to ignore the rule o' law to arrive at transparent partisan conclusions; the terrible history and tradition analysis o' thomas and Alito; the shadow docket being used to alter fundamental rights, etc. am finding our self making the same or similar arguments as vox authors and Sotomayor, which even five years ago woulda' been blue moon exceptions. ... unrelated, but am gonna repeat our disappointment in Ginsburg. the Court is in this mess in no small part due to J. Ginsburg arrogance. a septuagenarian three-time cancer survivor is cheating death every additional day they keep breathing, and ordinarily there would be people 'round her whom she trusted and respected capable o' telling her such truth. unfortunate, a Justice always believes they know best-- is practical a prerequisite for the job. obama asked J. Ginsburg to consider retirement and she refused with a snarky comment requesting the President name any candidate superior to herself. am not a fan o' what ifs, but this current partisan Court, while admitted a virtual worst case scenario if you had asked us pre death o' Scalia, were not complete unforeseeable... and it coulda' been avoided. one person had the power to stop all o' this. chose not to. HA! Good Fun!

I'm not sure I'd be laughing much. 'Iranian' drones (well, officially Houthi drones) have been ludicrously cost effective against Saudi Arabia and embarrassed a whole lot of western tech. And not always western tech operated by ludicrously incompetent Saudi welfare cases either.

The good old VW Bug

They're also supposed to have a massive over order of 5nm wafers, which TSMC won't let them reduce because everyone else has over ordered. Glut of stock, lots of 2nd hand ex mining equipment depressing prices and paying for manufacturing capacity you aren't using is not a great combination.

Good. **** them.

Started the new job today. Would have been a lot easier if I hadn't spent saturday and sunday basically doing two 11 hour shifts walking and talking as a Handler for the Mando's at LFCC raising money for charity. Didn't get back from London till about 22:40. Then was up this morning at 0600 to get sorted and train into the new place. Still, the weekend was an interesting experience, and I did get to shake Simon Kassianides hand when they made him an honorary Merc.

Thats a good read, I wonder how true it is. I didnt realize how many foreign fighters there were in the Ukrainian Foreign Legion Brave men who are prepared to fight and die for the freedom of another country

Long list of snipets of news stories about and from Ukraine from the past three days. Some really interesting tidbits if you have the patience to read through: https://money.yahoo.com/ukraine-news-live-fifteen-killed-034643280.html

Someone posted a bunch of cats on ships pictures earlier, and Drachinifel had a fun video about ship cats on his channel.

Hey, that is a very good point. I didn't have that specific problem of ability pick during char creation in mind... and just assumed one would take "if their bones still slept" during the first few regular level-ups (which will come pretty early - and since I often pick the Berath Blessing that lets you start at lvl 4 - just to be able to speed over Maje Islad more quickly - I'm so used to be able to have several ability picks before the game even starts... oops). So I, too strongly suggest to not take any summoning invication at character creation but do it at the next regular level up. But then I personally would strongly suggest skeletons for a "Death Knight" kind of char instead of the phantom. And later Instruments of Death. I mean if summons fir into your theme in the first place of course. But imo skeletons do. Also the phrase "Many Lives Pass By" is very good imo and the summons there "stack" with all other summons you might call.

For Chanter Summons without mod, go for Ancient Weapons. All other Summons have non-scaling weapons and their Penetration will be bad anyway. Ancient Weapons are the only good summon for endgame, except Dragon for AoE abilities and basically infinite pool of HP, and skellies for metagame combos. If you want to test other summon before, I would strongly suggest you allow yourself to respec since your basically compensating for Devs unfinished business.

Which he probably might not be able to do soon, as Russian Ministry of Defense after series of serious blunders since the famous crossing of Sievierskyi Donets river, are getting more and more pissed at the military bloggers, who are reporting about the war outside of official propaganda. They are now considering them as a "threat" to Russia Sorry but, that is the same, as saying that the coverage of 9/11 was lazy propaganda, due to the fact, that the US media has shown pictures of firefighters being rescued from under the rubble of twin towers Here you have another "lazy propaganda" including video by Reuters with "real civilians" affected at the place of the impact... https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-chasiv-yar-russia-attack-civilians-killed-invasion/31937053.html Anyway, as I've mentioned before, during the night from 9th to 10th UA army with long range artillery completely destroyed command center and warehouse at Chornobaivka, and also hit the barrack of Rosgvardia in Kherson Oblast, and another command post in Nova Kakhovka (town where is the dam, which supplies whole Crimea with water). As Rosgvardia is sometimes dubbed as Putin's private army, which is responsible for maintaining order against people who are daring to protest against the "tsar", this is pretty significant blow to the Russian plans to "convert" bad Ukrainians to "law abiding" Russians... This is what has been left from the airport after hit nr. 26 (12 senior RU officers turned to cargo 200): According to Adviser to the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Oleksiy Arestovych, only in Nova Kakhovka, the estimated number of RU soldiers destroyed with this attack is 100, with another 200 wounded, which might be little bit overestimated, nonetheless, these all attacks in Kherson Oblasts have significantly reduced the personnel and material supply of the RU army. All of these attacks against the warehouses and command posts deep in all of occupied territories was a prelude to big Ukrainian counteroffensive to liberate the South. This was yesterday, according to Minister of Defense Reznikov, announced by Volodymyr Zelenskyi. The UA citizens living in occupied territories were then urged to evacuate from the area by Vice PM Vereshuk. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ukraine-has-one-million-ready-for-fightback-to-recapture-south-3rhkrhstf https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-tells-residents-leave-occupied-south-due-counter-attack-plans-2022-07-10/ Unfortunately The Times article is behind a paywall, so if there is by a chance anyone on this board, who has subscription to The Times, who can give us some insight, of what is this article about, it would be much appreciated. Thank you.

This looks kinda awful. At the rate they're making these Middle Earth games I can't wait to play as Tom Bombadilo in a harem visual novel in 2030. "I remember the first acorn," is probably his go-to pickup line.

Unless they plan on adding more sources for lint, I agree fully. I find the dust mites 'not fun' to fight on the mat as the numbers are a bit ridiculous so grinding for this material is tedious for me and not very fruitful.

Here is a small proof of concept vid, just slapped some random gear on a testchar, there is definitely some improvements possible: