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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-05/russia-risks-bigger-longer-sanctions-hit-internal-report-warns "Russia Privately Warns of Deep and Prolonged Economic Damage Confidential document contrasts with upbeat public statements Report says key sectors face sharp drop in output, brain drain" Interesting read.

And looks like Ukraine just “cancelled” the “referendum” in Zaporizhia oblast, together with a bunch of FSB officers original source: https://t.me/info_zp/14972 Google translate: “In Kamianets-Dniprovska, the storage of pseudo-referendum ballots and the FSB base were destroyed Fighters of the Special Forces of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine conducted a special operation in the temporarily occupied Kamianets-Dniprovska The place where the ballots were stored for the pseudo-referendum was destroyed. At the same time, the warehouse was blown up by an explosion from inside the premises. All existing printed materials have been destroyed. Along with this, the base of the unit of the Russian FSB, which guarded the warehouse of ballots, was destroyed. The exact number of killed and wounded is being clarified. The surviving and wounded Rashists are urgently evacuated in the direction of the occupied Crimea. This is what the jewelry work of the Ukrainian military means That is why the occupiers announced a curfew in the city” EDIT: it’s already in Pravda as well: https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/09/5/7366157/

Yes I might overestimate it, but I am somehow more inclined to believe more people at Yale, than on zerohedge https://www.dw.com/en/yale-study-shows-sanctions-are-crippling-russias-economy/a-62623738 On the other hand, you might overestimate the friendship between them and their trade partners and their willingness to risk secondary sanctions, in the longterm

@Gorth aside: if you are thinking o' switching weapons from greatsword to something else, we would recommend other higher crit range weapons, particular as you decided 'pon the trickster mythic, yes? the wintersun sword is a viable endgame weapon, but your other greatsword options is near non-existent. if you don't wanna go the exotic weapon route, falchion is a good choice as there is a few extreme useful falchion's in the game. wilcer garms (sp?) sells jinx, a +2 cold iron falchion with an excellent secondary property which involves a damage increase if the target is under the effect o' a hex. underrated weapon. there is also a holy weapon falchion potential available in act iii. you will find a few nice bardiche and glaives in the game as well. exotics? munchkin builds gravitate to fauchards and there is multiple options which is ez to find, including a drezen merchant selling one o' the two best fauchard's. there is powerful wotr scythes, but am admitting we can't bring our self to go the scythe route 'cause is such an utter impractical weapon. great axes? there are a few greataxes and earthbreakers which make it worth considering 'em in spite o' the typical craptacular crit range. in fact, there is a greataxe available in act iii which provides a crit range o' 18-20, so your trickster barbarian should have no complaints. all our suggestions is 2h weapons. but again, once you acquire the wintersun greatsword, is only one more option in the base game which maybe deserves a second glance other than finnean. HA! Good Fun! ps greybor is essential for an act iii quest which we believe is impossible to miss. the title o' the companion quest makes obvious why he is in your party even if you forget the details. talk to the dwarf in the half measure tavern soonish. btw, slayer is a great base class and greybor only has one or two headscratcher feats in his ten levels o' progression, so am calling that a win from our pov. dwarven war axes suck in wotr. personal recommendation: switch to some other dual wield weapon and go full slayer progression w/o any multi-class dips. is just too late to pick up an animal companion, so am thinking greybor is not in your party much save essential quests as he is preternatural slow with his dwarven legs and medium armour. nevertheless, is relative ez to build a useful greybor for those quests you need him.

the greatswords in wotr are not... not great that is, at least not for the most part. is two available to you at this point in the game worth considering, beyond the talking weapon, which does have the capacity to be upgraded and is arguable one o' the better weapons in the game, particular against a number o' foes which rely on high armour. chances are finnean is a solid late game weapon for at least one member o' your party regardless o' what your main character decides to use. other greatswords: there is an overland map called the ruins of ashberry hamlet, or something similar. we won't spoil but there is an alright greatsword reward. technically the encounter were available pre drezen assault, or at least it were. is a noteworthy difficult encounter. the wintersun location will also yield a greatsword... maybe. depending on how you complete wintersun, you should be able to access a vendor who will then sell you arguably one o' the best not-finnean greatswords in the base game. is possible to miss the wintersun greatsword, which is a shame if you is a greatsword haver and you don't wanna indulge spoilers. there is another act iii greatsword which is... odd. has variable bonuses, some o' which is kinda unique and for specific builds it could be the best greatsword in the game, particular if you are doing a gish (fighter/mage) kinda build. more unsolicited advice, 'cause is ez to overlook and failure to do so may bork your act iii crusade endeavors, HA! Good Fun!

Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord - I think it is pretty much feature complete at this point. It releases on consoles soon, so I imagine they are pretty much locked in. I'm enjoying building my warband, and I've decided to back the rightful Empress and help her rebuild the glory of the old age. I took part in my first castle siege. That was pretty chaotic, but it is amazing how well the engine handles all the chaos of hundreds of troops and siege equipment. The game runs very well on my mid-range laptop.

HA! Good Fun! ps we keep mentioning how not a biden fan is Gromnir. however, is few things any recent President has said with which we agreed so unequivocal... and yet is more than passing curious how in 2022 a US President had to answer such a question the way he did not the mention the heretofore improbable pushback biden receives for making such observations. water is wet. not controversial. hardly praiseworthy. brave new world territory.

This build is in reality an "end-game party composition" because a priest is needed, and it is about not one, but two builds of hired SC Barbarians who behave as one entity. Most of time, it is easy to estimate the DPS, but in this case, I dont know how many strikes are done per second. Classes : 2* Barbarians (Berserkers, because of Tenacious) Races : Humans (+7acc, +15% damage) Stats : Might high Constitution very low Dexterity low Perception very high Intellect very high Resolve very low Needed abilities and passives : Carnage (default) Blooded Accurate Carnage Bloody Slaughter One Stands Alone Bloodlust Uncanny Luck Improved Critical Leap Brute Force Blood Thirst Spirit Tornado for one, Blood Storm for the other Barbaric Retaliation Prestige Equipment (for both of them with Import, otherwise the grey item as alternative) : Serpent's Crown - Heaven's Cacophony Torc of the Falcon's Eyes -Charm of Bones - Baubles of the Fin, Strand of Favor Violet Redemption - Cloak of the Theocrat Glove of the Dungeon Warden - Gauntlets of Accuracy (same effect) Harmonie (only for one) / Kuaru's Prize (for the other) - Ring of the Marksman - Ring of Overseeing Boots of the Stone - Sandals of the Waterlily Effigy's Husk with Eye of Blackstone , Aloth's Leather Armor (without Fire in the Hole) Food : Mari Crudia - Crusted Swordfish Pet (watcher) : Atlas/Harley (or Blinky / Nikky, see below) Weapons: The reached point with the equipment and weapon choice is to have +100 from deflection value in accuracy, to get 100% crit chance at melee (see below). Dual weapons, the melee crit part : Rannig's Wrath (Flanking and Redoublement): +20acc (modal), +5accurate, +4 Thrusting >>> +29acc The damages-to-enemies part : Fire in the Hole (the bounce, the modal AoE (with Perception immunity) or, optional, Keeper of the Flame (the fire AoE vs reflex, +4acc with Sweet aroma) >>> +33acc or Current's Rush or the Weyc Wand Also, nice alternatives with this build are Estocs, with a damaging effect to enemies limited to Carnage (excepted for Eager Blade). Estoc modal (-15 defl, +2pen) dont stack with frenzy, so -5 deflection, translated into +5acc) Eager Blade (Vehemence (+8acc) and Bounding Strike (pierce AoE vs reflex))>>> +13acc Blade of the Endless Path (Seeker's Prize (+10acc), Marking (-20 deflection)>>> +35acc Engoliero do Espirs (for Cruel Blade)>>> +5acc Concretely Barbaric Retaliation trigger a full-attack on crit that doesnt have neither action time neither animation. The retaliation can obviously also crit. With their stats and legendary upgrade for weapons, so considering a base acc of 105 and a base deflection of 67, these traits become in fight : 105 +7 (human spirit)+ 5 (Dire Blessing) +10 (Devotions of the Faithful)+10 (Serpent's Crown) +29 (for Rannig's Wrath, see above) +3 gloves : 169acc 67 -10 (frenzy) = 57 deflection That mean the couple of barbarians, when attacking each other at melee, have 100% chance to crit, triggering a cascade of full-attacks and carnage in ping-pong that cause vertical lignes of damage to close enemies. The bounce from Fire in the Hole (and his AoE from the modal) or the AoE from Keeper of the Flame proc each time, also carnage do. Without the Harmonie Ring, to immunity of intellect for both barbarians, the other party members can die immediately. And without immunity to perception (Effigy's Husk), barbarians loose 10acc (-5 Dire Blessing, -5 per), but that can be adusted by the Serpent's Crown (+10acc on crit). Because of Spirit Storm 's staggering effect on hit (downgraded to nothing with the Boots of Stone for barbarians), enemies will suffer to -10 fortitude, and Carnage and Fire in the Hole's bounce (vs deflection) can target the fortitude with Brute Force. Carnage is affected by PL, Accurate Carnage, Serpent's Crown, Perception, Dire Blessing, and Devotions for the Faithful. Without Priest and Barring Death Door, the barbarians are insta-killed. A brilliant priest can indefinitely prolong that, but for most of the fight, +20s from double cast of Salvation of Time is largely enought. Salvation of Time is mandatory because sometimes, the couple of barbarians have to go nearby other enemies (at carnage and bounce range) with Leap, so that require time. Without Dire Blessing and Devotion for the Faithful, Blinky or Nikky as watcher's pet allow to reach the difference of 100 between deflection and accuracy. (157acc) With BpM, carnage can crit, so can trigger Hemorraging from Effort, and Avenging Storm. I mention that because it is a double-chain, but the Rannig's Wrath / Fire in the Hole combination is already a big deal.

To be fair to the Battle of Winterfell, it wasn't even the most stupid 'battle' in GoT*, amazingly. That honour goes to Euron Greyjoy 360 noscoping a dragon from a moving, pitching ship, with a ballista, from a distance of hundreds? thousands? of meters, because the dragons had gone blind, and Danaerys had developed a very specific form of early onset dementia which makes her forget about fleets. At least a few things in tBoW worked (well, kind of), that had no redeeming features whatsoever. *and would probably have been better received if everyone had the same a/v equipment as the producers had so could actually see what was going on. Oh god yes. They got a lot of criticism for how they handled Whispering Wood (? when Jaime got captured) and it being offscreen but the Battle of Blackwater was, in retrospect, an utter disaster for GoT longer term. Or at least their need to constantly one up the last battle in spectacle (but little else) was.

House of the Dragon, episode three There are two sides to this prequel show. One side is on screen when whatever is happening is mostly character interactions with a splash of soap opera drama added to the mix. This side is happening mostly in front of actual sets, looks good and is quite interesting, in spite of everything being forgone conclusions, helped by mostly delightful acting. Even Rhaenyra was fine in this episode, which opened with a three year time skip. Then there's the other side of the show, when there is a lot of CGI on the screen to make things look grand, but in doing so makes everything just look uncanny. Much to @Hurlshort's delight, there were three CGI animals in this episode (not counting the dragons as animals, for the record), and they all looked bad. There's also Daemon's dragon which just looks awkward and is animated in such a ludicrously bad manner that I cannot but wonder if anyone got paid for how it looks, or worse, if anyone actually wanted it to look this way and it was not just sheer incompetence at work. This other side also has terrible action sequences and warfare on a scale of stupid that it possibly out-stupids the Battle of Winterfell in Game of Thrones. The final ten minutes of this episode very much ruined all the good will the rest of the episode built up. Needless to say that this battle necessitated a departure from the source material, but that is not even the biggest issue. Time economy and resources dictate that certain events must be changed in an adaptation, however, a little more sense applied to it would be nice. Early Game of Thrones did not have the budget to depict battles, and I think the show was better for it. This one would be too. They definitely had too much money to burn, and it shows. Overall this would have been a great episode, if not for the battle at the end.

It's not as simple as that, there is a broad range of systems depending on the use and of course the price. Most cars/SUV with awd have open differentials, which means the power will take the path of least resistance, ie. to the wheel that is slipping. They usually handle this by applying the breaks to the wheel(s) that is losing or has lost traction. While this is better than 2 wheel drive it will not help you much in rough terrain or in extreme situations. More expensive variants of awd have either a limited slip differential, or a locking differential. A limited slip differential will, in basic terms, limit the difference in speed between the wheels and thus not allow the wheel without traction to be the only one spinning and will spread the power to the other wheel (s). A locking differential offers the ability to the driver to, as the name says, lock the diff and keep the speed constant between the wheels. This eliminates any power loss in case of loss of traction to a wheel. The negative side of locking the differential is that when you lock the wheels to the same speed you get wheel hop when cornering (when cornering the left and right wheels have a different distance to cross thus the speed cannot be the same on all the wheels), basically the car will keep making little jumps until you go straight. This is usually why most passenger cars either have an open diff, or a limited slip diff, as people do not know how to use the locking diff functions. There are also 4wd systems that have transfer cases with low range speeds, but I won't get in to that. This is a gross oversimplification of the whole matter because awd cars have 3 differentials and each of the 3 can be different. I guess my point is that something much better is coming with the advent of EVs. They have a much superior power delivery as they usually have one motor on each axle and in some cases one motor per each wheel. That makes power delivery infinitely adjustable and is something that will probably come to all passenger vehicles as the technology gets cheaper. edit: rear wheel steer is also something pretty nifty that will hopefully trickle down from the more expensive vehicles.

I generally think you don't trust anything called Pravda. Sort of like how if a country has "Democratic" in their official name...

So it started…

"in soviet labor camps, they knew your name" - oh, they knew names in german camps as well. We were very good at tracking everything thanks to our need for bureaucracy. The thing with the crimes we also had covered, or does he not know about the differently colored stars?

Vysokopillia in Norther Kherson Oblast has been liberated. Russian VDV troops which were stationed there did not get artillery support, which they requested for few hours, so they decided to retreat (from RU sources). It is rumoured, the artillery men were drunken, lol… EDIT: it has been officially confirmed by UA side as well. https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/09/4/7366056/

it was around 100K people, for record protests against our last prime minister had 250K and against covid lockdowns around 150K but yeah people here are pissed, but not because lack of energy but because we are selling it high to germany to cover their gas power plants, we are 100% self sufficient but we are selling it on Leipzig energy stock exchange

HA! Good Fun!

Yeah, loved that movie. Very nice. Also sad.

I'll reserve judgement until independent 3rd party benchmarks. I think it's safe to assume AMD is going to slaughter Intel in the power efficiency department, but a fair percentage of people don't care about that, so raw performance benchmarks regardless of power consumption will be of interest to those people. Power efficiency is of high interest to me since the eventual mobile APUs, where power efficiency definitely is important, are my focus.

I have some thoughts on what might have happened... lol It's frustrating because the same people (our... politicians...) that will justify increasing wages for our politicians to ensure we get quality people and for some reason that definitely does NOT apply to our educators.... We're having similar issues here in Alberta (and Canada wide I think).

Congestion... finding parking spots in urban areas just gets harder and harder

Quiet quitting: