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No sweat, we are still a thing. Amazingly so actually because I did not want to drag her into my current difficulties. Life is strange and wonderful sometimes. My actual relatives have sent nothing but radio silence and my biggest supporters were strangers just two years ago.

I mean, yes, it's a thing to do in the future. But that does mean cutting holes in the quilted layers of flak vest, and fixing it all into place. Not something I'll get done overnight before heading to London manana. Also, I planned on the magnets approach because it would give my flak-vest a cleanlook. I'd basically velcro in place magnets on the inside of the flak, and have fixed ones to the armour. So it would just.. casually snap into correct place without too much hassle. Which it did. For x amount of time before the adhesive pads the magnets came with failed. I'm going to try a bit of re-sand the inside of the armour, dab some superglue on the adhesive pads, then add some epoxy resin around the outside of the magnet on the armour, just to help hold it all in place. Then I'll see what it's like in the morning. Edit: Just for the general bit; Here's how it looked as it was (note, just in a basic wearable fashion for SWC, not a finished article), it's the backup belt, that doesn't actually fit my main blaster, and none of the assorted accessories that the finished product will be carrying. And how you can tell things were starting to go wrong....

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<placeholder post to acknowledge Melkathi when he posts something postworthy>

Conan Exiles - My new base and thralls are coming along well. The sorcerer stuff is exciting. You aren't throwing fireballs or anything crazy like that, but you can do some pretty interesting things with it. It also adds a good deal of lore and story to the game. I'm excited to get the teleporter stuff up and running, so I can start a new base is a better spot. Right now I'm near all the early game stuff, which is good, but I am almost ready to move on.

This interview might be of interest to some: https://dossier.center/fso-en/

I was 45 hours into IWD2 and about it go into the Underdark when the game crashed on that loading screen I then spent about 5 hours troubleshooting it by removing mods and reinstalling mods and the game and it just made things worse. None of my save games would load. It was very frustrating and I was about to quit the game but then someone on Codex mentioned that you must loads mods in the same original order because IWD2 is a buggy game. I decided to try one more time to fix the issues and I did the following I uninstalled the game completely from GOG I then deleted any folders or files that were left over that were mostly mod related I reinstalled the game I then used my normal windows download folder to guess which mods I would have installed first And it worked, I could load save games and go into the Underdark

I'm in the middle of sorta watching a Diablo retrospective video (all three games). Near the beginning they mention trudging in the dark in D1, beating monsters, and suddenly that ring-drop sounds and your excitement ratchets up like crazy. ...sooooooo true. I remember hearing that sound and sometimes pixel hunting with the mouse for 10 minutes trying to find it. "I know it dropped, I heard it, dangit!" Sure it was likely going to be junk but they were rare enough and maybe it'd be a Zodiac ring and... I miss that. I don't think I've had that same kind of item-drop sensation from a sound cue, in a game, for a long time. These days half the time it's more about visual or icon/text color cues then sounds. And they're not rare. >.> Well, in games I play anyway.

All well and good. But why does my fantasy baseball team still on have 1 stolen base??

The algorithm thinks I like JDM cars, JDM hand tools, OSR TTRPGs, pro hoops, noodles, pasta, and Initial D. Checking my open tabs seem to indicate that this is correct.

Product of being bored at work, came across this - the hero Thompson is in this. One of the soldiers, Hodges, seems really out to lunch compared to rest interviewed, the others seems pretty torn up and he says "We carried out the orders in a moral fashion... we did not violate any moral standards".

Pence won’t appeal ruling that compels his grand jury testimony on Jan. 6 cnn free version HA! Good Fun!

Boom! Thank you so very much for the info and the link. Several hundred hours in this game, and I absolutely did not know that. I was actually looking at Lovers Embrace last night, but I'm a destitute aristocrat at the moment. oh, an initial cursory read makes me want to put Scordeo's Edge and Sungrazer on my MC. Stacking recovery chance, especially, for mid - to - late game could be interesting. Plus, I do like beating enemies with a flail. Something about it makes me happy

Project VENOM will see F-16s converted into highly capable drones (interestingengineering.com)

It would be better if it would, but even with Community Patch change, it still doesn't count as a weapon attack in all cases. It works for Focus, but for other effect it depends. And it would be fairly technical to change (without further consequence such as enabling AoE enfeebled with AoE weapons).

have personal been waiting to play beyond early act 2 as we hoped to see a few bugs addressed in a patch. new patch better than nothing HA! Good Fun!

bill clinton's popularity shot up after he lied under oath about his lewinsky relationship. after perjuring himself, clinton became more popular with democrats? is also good to recall how unpopular trump were when he won in 2016. is only 'cause trump were running against even less popular hillary that he eked out an electoral college victory. somehow four years o' impotence, impeachments and brazen unconstitutional behaviour resulted in 45's enshrinement as the cult leader o' the gop? am no longer shocked by how political bad guys doing bad things become more popular at least in the short term. am also gonna suggest IF the feds decide to charge trump for the mar-a-lago documents, that is the case which looks most solid at the moment. (clarification: keep in mind am basing such an opinion on public known info available to everybody else. we don't know what evidence franni willis has and am not certain o' wapo and nytimes info regarding the fed's documents or jan6. cases. no special knowledge and new info could complete change our opinion, so take with a healthy grain o' salt.) am knowing conservative media has been doing the svengali bit regarding the possible espionage act charges in play which might be applicable to trump, but please keep in mind we has now seen fed judges pierce the attorney-client privilege veil for this case and is no way that happens unless is already compelling evidence not only o' wrongdoing by trump but by his attorneys. initially we were suspicious o' the suggestion the feds were trying to prosecute trump for his theft o' documents. is only extreme rare cases when somebody is prosecuted for such and those prosecutions always involve intent to share such documents with foreign powers or something equal sinister. we noted specific in our earliest posts on the matter that it were possible the feds ultimate and overriding goal were to get the documents back and once that happened they would consider it a victory and that might be the end o' the issue. what has become increasing apparent since the mar-a-lago story first broke is the clear and unrepentant obstructive efforts trump indulged to prevent the return o' government documents. court docs suggest the government is unconvinced all relevant documents has been returned even after their subpeona search and subsequent trump team searches. mar-a-lago docs is so not like the discovery that pence or biden had classified documents in their possession, 'cause those two individuals cooperated fully with the feds in retrieving doc and is no evidence they lied 'bout such material. trump is not being targeted 'cause he had government documents in his possession but rather 'cause once he were aware he had such documents, he were bold in his efforts to obstruct and he went to extreme lengths to maintain his possession o' documents which he had no right to keep. georgia also looks like a strong case, but... trump is gonna face a jury in the possible fed cases as well as georgia and to say am suspicious o' juries is an understatement. feel free to discuss the law and facts o' a case, but keep in mind juries as often as not is deciding based on factors you is unaware. jurors may not like a prosecutor or judge. too much eye contact or not enough eye contact from the defendant? a key prosecution witness looked "shifty?" the feds ordinarily don't go to trial unless is a slam dunk. state and local prosecutors is elected and they often need show results if they wanna get reelected. is gonna be circumstances wherein state prosecutors go to trial with less airtight cases. the georgia case sounds strong and is multiple recorded phone calls o' trump pressuring state officials. multiple smoking guns. even so, is a better than fair chance at least one juror won't wanna convict trump and they will possible tie selves in knots trying to find an excuse for trump. the feds appear to have video o' trump rifling through boxes containing classified govt documents after he received the subpeona to return such documents and the piercing o' attorney-client privilege suggests there is compelling evidence trump specific told his attorney to do something illegal. serious? in georgia, am assuming the defense for trump is gonna be that the x-prez believed the 2020 election were illegitimate and that it were his duty to try and convince georgia officials to do the right thing to uphold the law. is ridiculous and maybe not even relevant, but at least 1/3 o' the country already believes such hokum, so the chances one georgia juror is willing to refuse to believe what their own eyes and ears tells 'em is hardly beyond reason. repeat for emphasis: gonna suggest the media is in fact underreporting the significance o' the piercing o' attorney-client privilege to have trump lawyer(s) testify. such news is huge. HA! Good Fun!

How a Minneapolis bus driver helped a lost 9-year-old during a recent snowstorm

U.S. renewable electricity surpassed coal in 2022

I don't post here much because I don't really care about politics anymore. And the current criminal case against Trump sounds like a short road to nowhere. Reading Grom's analysis confirms that. I'm just going to say it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy! I'm a little taken aback that all of this is only increasing his popularity. Also even though it seems likely he will survive this one there are two other torpedoes in the water. The biggest of which is in GA.

If someone were to put some effort into developing it, Slaughterbots are quite feasible, atleast according to the Swiss Drones and Robotics Center.

Lagavulin 11 year

The near future is going to be very interesting as drones become smaller and more swarm coordinated. I love the Trophy system (Trophy (countermeasure) - Wikipedia) for conventional AT weapons, but something like the Stryker Leonidas (Stryker Leonidas – General Dynamics Land Systems (gdls.com)) will need to be incorporated into armored brigades to handle the drones. Imo, lasers arent the answer. Maybe for ballistic/supersonic/cruise missiles, but not for drone swarms.

Might not be so bad if you're in a Western tank, have all that shiny armour and APS.

Have to respect the grift - https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-mugshot-campaign-1234708971/

Which reminds me: [sorry if I posted it already before. I can't keep a track.]

Everspace 2 getting decent reviews https://www.pcgamer.com/everspace-2-review/ https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/everspace-2-review

more lamplighters Dev Diary 4#: Infiltration into Turn-Based Combat HA! Good Fun!

Come on, those parts were great comedy - the kid combusting while Shepard gives a blank face.

it isn't the fuel which ignites. is the gaseous fumes from the fuel which is burning. an aircraft traveling at ~300kmh wherein the fuel is not contained in tanks but rather open to the great blue sky is gonna be a challenge to set alight and result in any meaningful damage regardless. the fuel dump itself were kinda silly as am assuming the drone is built to fly through heavy rains which is gonna be more immediate impactful than would the largely aerosolized fuel dump. HA! Good Fun!

I think I rage quit ME3 when the second dream sequence started. I will never return to that series. In retrospect my opinion of the game has worsened even more, not helped by the defenders who claim "only the ending is bad". No, the beginning is just as bad, as is the middle, and everything else. The Mass Effect series parallels the the Rambo movies quite neatly, come to think of it. The high concept vanishes pretty much immediately after the first title. That's being too kind to ME3 though. It doesn't just lose the original point, it twists back on itself and delivers the exact opposite message it originally attempted to convey. _____ As for the others, I don't recall much of KoTOR, no strong feelings about it either way. I suspect that's because it's wedged awkwardly between my fondness (at the time) for BG2 and my general dislike of Star Wars. Never played JE.

By "well established" you mean they did a twist in BG1? Fortunately for me, I played BG2 before BG1, so I completely didn't see the twist coming for KOTOR. I was rather lukewarm on the game before that happened. For JE, I think twist works for the character we play. Flaw and "Great Strategist" did raise red flags for me as a player, but as long as it is not obvious to the character I tend to be onboard. I saw JE twist as a narrative payoff, rather than trick on the player, and in my book it is the best twist one can have.

am a bit older so our recollections show a kinda evolution. when we were young am recalling at least a handful o' kids initial backing out of future farmers or 4-h sales, but those reluctant children were never allowed to win such conflicts as parents would step in and utilize increasing corrective pressure up to and including the application o' a beating just outta view o' fairgoers. is one example o' how am thinking some progress has been made in child rearing as we has seen a clear temporal trend in favour o' avoiding the use o' force or emotional blackmail to make children reach a correct choice. ... gonna admit that a few decades past we woulda' read the story and been nonplussed by the involvement o' law enforcement, but given the way we were raised and the time in which we grew to adulthood, our initial reaction woulda' been to blame parents for not teaching their child responsibility. "“Our daughter lost three grandparents within the last year, and our family has had so much heartbreak and sadness that I couldn’t bear the thought of the following weeks of sadness after the slaughter of her first livestock animal,” she wrote to Shasta District Fair Chief Executive Melanie Silva." 80's Gromnir: sorry but everybody has a hard luck story and it don't sound as if the grandparents all died within days before the sale o' the goat, so were the parent's responsibility to prepare their child for what was going to be nowhere near the hardest choice she would need eventual make. suck it up buttercup 'cause life only gets harder from here. 80's Gromnir were a bit less huggable. is also worth noting how shasta county is kinda like a nightmare brigadoon with too many residents channeling an 1800s mentality... or maybe 1600s 'course the academic support for teaching children lessons through corporal punishment and/or emotional trauma is non-existent, so in spite o' our own experience, am now firm opposed to the shasta county, "teach this little girl a lesson," efforts. is more than a few studies which conclude that treating kids as if they is very short marines going through bootcamp is bad and while there is indeed a few studies which is ambivalent on the matter, we have yet to see support for the soul crushing approach save for the unconvincing anecdotal, "when i was a kid," kinda evidence. however, am not a parent, so am also recognizing how is far easier to be judgy w/o needing raise a child who is perhaps less amenable to kindness and gentle persuasion. am only kinda kidding 'bout shasta btw. on the positive side, is doubtful @Hurlshotand his daughter need worry they could end up being part o' the next la times story 'bout goats on the lamb as is doubtful gilroy and santa clara county would take the shasta approach. HA! Good Fun!

Basically how he sees himself in his films.

I started messing around with text to image AI image generation and, while it's far from perfect, it's both thoroughly impressive and more than a little terrifying. My input was "Neil Breen drawn in the style of Boris Vallejo" and this is what was generated: Now that you've seen it you can't unsee it. You're welcome. Edit: I think I have a new profile picture.

Costco Islay Scotch. Not bad.

I am playing on PC via Steam Whenever I try to login via my Microsoft account for crossplay/multiplayer, I receive this message: "The request has been blocked. Ref A: 757D11EEE18C4E07832571831DD7C601 Ref B: BL2AA2030106027 Ref 2023-04-03T18:17:33Z" Has anyone ran into this problem? I tried to search the forum and Google, but to no avail. Thank you in advance for your help, Brandon

i just clicked on one video, i swear I will have to live with it for next week or so.. not that I mind it...

Is there something you're not telling us?

Even the dogs make faces...