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Current mood about Russia in Kazakhstan.

Yes, of course she is. She's also really terrible CGI when having to go somewhere or an obvious hand puppet, depending on the episode budget and the scene. The most hilarious part is, when she's a plush toy, she really is a plush toy. When Ami first sees Luna, she talks to her, and Usagi comes to Ami and says: "I saw you talking to my plushie."

Sometimes it feels to me as if Germany is the only country that self-reflected and tried to change itself after ww2. Kinda curious why that is.

Like Anne Applebaum noted, since the breakdown of the Soviet Union, Russia has had ample opportunity to reflect upon why its immediate neighbors tend to either hate or fear it -- and indeed often do both. This still hasn't happened: there appears to be no capacity for self-reflection in "the Russian entity", i.e. the nation as represented by those in power. What has increased is the Stalinist rewriting of history. I very recently listened to a presentation on what the Russian children are taught about WW2, and it's not pretty. As is to be expected, everything that is even slightly uncomfortable is simply ignored, for instance. There's no question that countries in general tend to do something like this, but there are degrees, and Russia is an extreme. (Interestingly, Great Britain has also been particularly poor in reflecting upon its past. But it's both less militant and much more trustworthy these days.) EDIT: Speaking of those fires in Russia, I have just read that Russia is among the world leaders when it comes to accidental major fires. There are over 150 000 of them per year, and fatalities from fires are eight times that of what they are in the neghboring Finland. I cannot verify these numbers because I don't have proper sources.

Because genetics always interested me... https://www.bbc.com/news/health-63859184 A teenage girl's incurable cancer has been cleared from her body in the first use of a revolutionary new type of medicine. All other treatments for Alyssa's leukaemia had failed. So doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital used "base editing" to perform a feat of biological engineering to build her a new living drug. Six months later the cancer is undetectable, but Alyssa is still being monitored in case it comes back. ... They started with healthy T-cells that came from a donor and set about modifying them. The first base edit disabled the T-cells targeting mechanism so they would not assault Alyssa's body The second removed a chemical marking, called CD7, which is on all T-cells The third edit was an invisibility cloak that prevented the cells being killed by a chemotherapy drug The final stage of genetic modification instructed the T-cells to go hunting for anything with the CD7 marking on it so that it would destroy every T-cell in her body - including the cancerous ones. That's why this marking has to be removed from the therapy - otherwise it would just destroy itself. If the therapy works, Alyssa's immune system - including T-cells - will be rebuilt with the second bone-marrow transplant. ... It may have been a fluke, but maybe they're on to something. While Mama Merkel's billions swayed Biontech to change their line of mRNA research from cancer to covid, I do believe the "reliable" cure for cancer is through targeting the cells with a scalpel approach rather than the sledgehammer/tnt approach of chemo and radiation, trying to kill the patient as much as possible and hope the cancer cells dies before the patient.

Another live service game. I can barely contain my excitement.

Yeah, maybe just a bit too young. I'm not sure if I have anything to recommend to kids that age. Maybe The Straight Story (yes, ANOTHER David Lynch film). I guess it does depend on how well the other stuff work for you. Maybe I'll watch it and see if it pisses me off too.

I finally finished Callisto Protocol. I'd give the game 3.5 stars out of 5. I enjoyed playing it overall and want to see if the franchise improves for sequels, but there's a good chance I'll never play it again if it does not. I say it's a good game, but a good part of that is just how starved I am for space horror that's not put together entirely with assets from the Unity asset store. The combat system works, but not so well you can play 10+ hours (Steam says I have 15) dodging side to side without begruding it quite a bit. For a sequel to excel, they'll need to not make this the center of the gameplay. And maybe don't use the same encounter as a mini-boss 4 times. When I say "the combat system works" I'm not counting any boss fights. It didn't work for a single one.

Stone Ocean 30-31 We finally learn about some characters' past. Jolyne's pursuit slows down to a snail's pace. There were several things I didn't understand: Spy x Family 23 The tennis tournament is over and they get the dangerous and shocking evidence that could reignite the war.

*chuckle* am gonna guess you weren't a fan o' taming of the shrew? "singin'" boasts a few o' the most lauded choreographed musical numbers evar, not least o' which is the cyd charisse contributions. *shrug* as to musicals in general we will watch nightmare before christmas a couple times before january 1, and am also a fan o' a few fosse musicals (all that jazz and cabaret in particular,)as well as little shop of horrors , the blues brothers and purple rain to name a few. is a whole lotta bad musicals and even the good ones is kinda different than other cinema. am having no idea why animated musicals should be distinguished save that they typical remove the dancing element which is a shame but is an understandable limitation o' the medium. am enjoying a few musicals, but we also like a few anime films in spite o' near universal horribleness; am just that open-minded. HA! Good Fun!

All of them (when speaking of native population, in most of them french and british people make majority of population), making them independence these days almost impossible EDIT: France assassinated leaders of independence movements in Africa way after WW2. UK was not much nicer to its colonies. They just didn't have resource to keep bigger territories.

because you got beaten, easy

Japan is, once again, a peculiar case. There have been changes, but if you look at the atrocities committed by the Japanese and the ways these have been handled, the process isn't very good. Think of the question of "comfort women", for instance. The relations between Japan and South Korea have been very strained because of this, and Japan has been anything but forthright about it all. (Japan also continues to be quite racist, but I'm not sure whether this is entirely the same question.) As for Eastern Europe, you are indeed quite right. There is the old joke about Russians being tortured in Hell, and when one of them manages to escape, the other Russians pull him back in because they can't stand the idea of him escaping suffering. This is approximately how it was with Eastern Europe: the Soviets weren't free, so they didn't allow anyone else to be free, either, if it was in their power to do anything about it. Funny that you should use the word "crushed", because there's a book called Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956 by Anne Applebaum.

Native people of French Guiana, French Polynesia, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Mayotte, New Caledonia, Réunion, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Martin, Saint Pierre and Miquelon and Wallis and Futuna probably would disagree with that sentiment. There are also some people in British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar (especially after brexit), Anguilla, Bermuda, Montserrat, Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands who also disagree with the sentiment.

Spy X Family 23: The End of Tennis Anya shows up for only a few minutes but still manages to do several Anya faces.

I think, Japan might be second example as well. There were few attempts at self-reflection after ww2 in eastern europe as well, but they were all crushed by Soviet occupation.

For the random quirky interest:

Have you ever thought to save only partial components to save mod size? E.g (default): "Trigger": {"A": 0, "B": 1, "C", 0}. You want to change "A" -> "Trigger": {"A": 1, "B": 1, "C", 0}, but your mod only needed to save "Trigger": {"A": 1, "B": 1}, because the game would default C. I doesn't seem like much in this example, but suppose you're modding lots of components were most of the values are 0/false/none. It would save a lot of space, plus make the mod more readable.

Definitely do not watch this if you do not like musicals. I can be kind of wishy-washy with them, and it tends to be easier for me to do animated musicals as opposed to live action (...in fact, it may be that the only live action musical I like is The Sound of Music). Singin' in the Rain's musical numbers did not get it right for me at all, as I'd say it was 1/3rd okay, 1/3rd ugh, and 1/3rd concentrated pain. The positive takeaway that I have from this movie is from the main character starting out as a lowly stuntman in Hollywood before becoming a star: my niece loves that kind of silliness. I told her that was actually a real job that people do in order to film some of the crazier stuff you can see "actors" do in movies and TV, and that there's a real talent in learning to avoid getting seriously hurt for it, and she seemed to really like the idea. So at least there was that.

@NoqnI thought it was strange that the duration trigger were on the attack speed effect. Now I understand why. It's because it's not just on the attack speed, but all Blood Storm effects have that trigger. Which meant my mod were buggy and didn't work. Rather than editing the TriggerAdjustment for 13 different Frenzy effects, I changed my mod to use the Blood path and swapped the Blood Storm attack -> Spirit Tornado AOE attack instead. Just to make it a little bit more polished, I also changed the names and used custom icons for the abilities.

Anyway, how often do you guys think they had to re-shoot that scene? I'd love to see an outtake reel for that episode. Looking all serious like that, talking to a plush toy, with that dialogue? Yeah, no. Rei looks like she's about to burst into laughter, just half a second later she's hard at work keeping the corners of her mouth from forming a big grin. Edit: Usagi and Makoto transform into nurses to sneak into the hospital where Minako is after a minor car accident. I... I think that's it. I officially really enjoy watching this series. Bizzare, but there it is.

Yeah, my wife would never come here. She's confused about why I spend so much time here but doesn't care enough to investigate.

Watched the last Trevor Noah episode. I didn't care that much for him in the beginning but he really grew on me over the years.

But only if the pet is the size of a small puppet and floats right behind your character at all times.

Oh, I remember feeling that my barbarian would have so much more character if I could just like buy a pet, a unicorn maybe? That'd be pretty fly with a darth vader mask

Agreed. I remember playing my Necromancer and thinking D2 is okay but it's missing something. If only I could fork over some of my hard earned money to put a Santa hat on my Necromancer.

Yeah, I do remember always thinking that the atmosphere of Diablo II would be so much more engaging if I could just spend a little more money on it, maybe buy a few skins and have the starting camp be full with idiots jumping about.

Not an exploit really. Ancestors Memory is just the most straightforward on-demand source of the Brilliant inspiration (which lets you regenerate resources like spells cast) in the game, which combined with either Wall of Draining from your bloodmage or Salvation of Time from a priest lets you overcome the attrition of resources that tends to be the biggest problem in every Megaboss fight except Auranic.

Using a shield can make a lot of sense if either... A. You're just not that great at reacting quickly or consistently getting your timing windows down. It's okay to not be great at soulslike games and the skills they require - do your best with the tools the game gives you. B. You're facing an enemy whose moveset you either don't know, can't seem to understand, or which has some kind of unusual advantage that makes it difficult to avoid without a shield. If you've played PVP, you should know that B comes into play when you're fighting another player whose weapon you don't really have great familiarity with, particularly if said weapon has quick strikes that are difficult to react in time to (I know, for example in DS1, my most favored weapon the Great/Lifehunt Scythe had the sprinting light attack that was very difficult to effectively counter without a shield because when another player is sprinting straight into you, it can be difficult to read if or when exactly they're going to attack and the scythe's sprinting light attack goes off unusually quickly for a heavy weapon - was always my favorite for scoring quick and cheap hits with virtually no chance of reprisal, particularly because even if it's blocked, the Great/Lifehunt Scythe still builds up bleed out).

Yeah we just need more open standards and not have graphics features locked to one gpu vendor

Excellent, thanks for the summary PS5s often load in very quickly. They do have built-in SSDs but you can buy upgraded ones. Shouldn't be a problem though. New bugs sound a bit annoying but like you stated above, if it's nothing gamebreaking then it's fine. I'm forgiving when it comes to technical issues. Cheers for the reply mate!

First Saru Sichr, then the Willbreaker. It also lowers Will on hit which is good for several good chanter invocations because they target Will (see Ben Fidel's Neck and Killers Froze Stiff etc.). Yes, although the PEN bonus is way more important than the damage bonus. I wouldn't max Survival for that alone. Yes - but there are a lot better AoE weapons for Whispers of the Wind because WotEP has a cone that you can't aim manually during the execution of WotW... and thus it often gets targeted in directions where nobody stands. Better options are the two hand mortars (especially with Blindin Smoke - counts as weapon attack and causes Resonant Touches - and Chain Shot - additional bounce of the AoE of the mortar whichg is also great for Resonant Touch), Keeper of the Flame is very good in combination with Saint's War Armor and Imagined Pain (endless wounds with no received damage). Also Watershaper's Focus with modal (Blast) and Ondra's Wrath is very nice. Mohora Tanga in the offhand and a mortar or Keeper of the Flame in the main hand is also a very good combo if you pick Swiuft Flurry + Heartbeat Drumming. The Red FLag DoT can trigger a main hand attack with Swift Flurry - because alls attacks from Swift FLurry and Heartbeat Drumming will be executed with the main hand weapon, even if it got triggered by an offhand weapon attack.

I played the 3 purely raytraced games, which are Minecraft, Quake 2, and Portal. The biggest differences from rasterized games is that the lighting is pretty much the real deal, and you can have an infinity number of lights, and they all realistically alter the scene. No doubt it is the future of gaming, tech just needs to evolve so it's not so expensive to process

I am not actually sure how Whispers of the Endless Paths works with Whispers of the Wind. I've never tested that interaction. I would think in general any on hit or on crit effects could be nice with Wotw because Wotw will let you apply those effects/roll against many enemies at once. Something like Saru Sichr for example could put a bunch of dots on everyone if you teleport around the battlefield smashing them in the face with it via Wotw. Mohara Tanga is an especially potent weapon however because Red Flag Flying (the proc on Mohara Tanga) gets its own roll which can also crit, and when it crits, it rolls again. So you can see absurd crit chains where it procs like 20 times in a row off of itself and makes enemies explode for tons of damage. If you search around Constentine did a good thread on weapons with neat interactions like that. There are some other cool ones.

nah, first, obsidian-created npc's don't actually care about your disposition, so they're always at a neutral state (here, it's a 25% lash). second, even if it were somehow at the absolute minimum, it's still pretty decent (~21% lash). but just at 25% lash, spiritual weapons are already competitive or better than many unique weapons from a damage perspective.

BioWare really dropped the ball by not including a Dr. Chakwas romance option.

I'm sorry to hear that all of your pets keep getting stuck in the terrain. Please feel free to submit a support ticket, so we can investigate this issue. Obsidian Support Please include the following information: 1. Platform (Xbox Console, PC Game Pass, PC Steam). 2. Multiplayer or Single Player Game (if multiplayer, can you tell us how many players in total in the game, and their platforms if known) 3. Difficulty level 4. Description of issue. 5. Last thing you did in the game before the issue occurred, if applicable. Thanks

We cannot hear character's voices when they are in water, which is reasonable. However, when I come out of water, the voice lines are still muted. This includes BURG.L's voice lines, and probably the voice logs of Wendel. I am playing on Windows 10 through Steam. Another bug is that, when I bomb the hell out of roly poly, sometimes it flies away and disappear probably due to all the grass planks on the ground. Also, there is a raw-science seemingly on top of the trash can and inside the trash can handle which I cannot reach.

Second grade might be a little on the young side, yeah. It's also a pretty heavy movie when you look past all the silliness, particularly with respect to what she and her sister have gone through in their lives. Hopefully someday there'll be some kind of catharsis for all that, buuut probably not right this moment. It helps when there are other things you like that you can focus on so those kinds of issues don't seem quite so pressing or noticeable. I didn't really have that here, though - live action musicals just ain't my thing by and large, so it felt like they were shoving it in my face just about near constantly past the first fifteen minutes or so of the film.

Usagi helps Minako escape from the hospital and her possessed manager. They end up in a store to buy new clothes for Minako because she got hers dirty in the escape, then the shop lady tells her that her fans are piling up outside. Usagi puts on Minako's old clothes, undoes the braids of her heir, puts on a hat and says that she'll distract them so Minako can escape. Minako wants to say something, but Usagi is off already. Minako: "But... there's a back door. She really is an idiot."

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022) I think it's in the same tier of 2022 films as Everything Everywhere All At Once. Hit me square in the feels in a way that truly feels earned, the beautiful stop motion animation with the horrific backdrop of fascism is going to be in my dreams and nightmares for a while, and Christoph Waltz as an insane grifter is a ****ing delight. God damn it is great.

Minako's manager is incredibly... flamboyant and effeminate. Okay, that's enough about this for now, I guess. Edit: Minako thinks Makoto and Usagi figured out that she's Sailor V, but they're just there for an autograph. Judging by her reaction, I think that might mean she'll be serious Minako. Well, boo.

My wife barely knows this forum exists, so when I die Ill just disappear, nobody will come on to announce it. She also 100% runs the household finances, so unfortunately, she always "spoils" herself to the gifts because shes always peeping the Chase app and the Amazon cart/previous orders.

Playing some Elden Ring again rigth now. I remembered an interesting observation ... back in thy olden days, I was a heavy shield user. My whole playstyle was about holding up a 100% defense shield, striking only after the enemy did his thing. Then Bloodborne came around, and since there are no shields, I had to completely change my playstyle. Now in Elden Ring ... I still don't use shields. In fact, I completely forget about them in most fights. Bloodborne taught me a more aggressive attack stance, and I can't shake that off anymore.