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First arbitration of Ukraine against Russian Federation in Hague has concluded. Ukraine’s Naftogaz was awarded 5 billion USD for the economical damage, they incired after Russia annexed Crimea. https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/04/13/7397683/

The Super Duper Update Hey there Grounded fanatics! We're totally stoked to reveal a rad new update packed with awesome new features and improvements. New Features Wasps Swarm the Yard Get ready to buzz with excitement as wasps invade the yard. Battle with wasps and drones that guard their mini hives across the upper yard. Keep your eyes peeled for the hidden main nest as well. A word of caution: piss off their kin and you'll release the full fury of the hive. New Boss: Wasp Queen Cozy within her hidden hive, the ominous queen of the skies awaits. Super Duper (Item Duplication Machine) Introducing the Super Duper! The Super Duper is a new piece of equipment installed in the Oak Lab that duplicates gear and items using Raw Science. Find Duper Discs in the yard labs, which upgrade the Super Duper to clone even more items. The first disc unlocks operation of the Super Duper, while the other discs unlock duping of higher-tier equipment and items. Any equipment that is duped will include all the item's Smithing upgrades. Higher-tier equipment costs more Raw Science to dupe. It can even duplicate trinkets, unique items, and upgrade stones! Example: Duplicate an upgraded equipment set for your friends if they are joining your party mid-way through your adventure! Chillax at your Base Bases are more than just protection against giant insects that want to eat you. They are also for making you feel warm and fuzzy inside. Buildings now exude cozy vibes when you are nearby. If you are around enough cozy buildings, your level of coziness will rise. For each new level of coziness you reach, you can unlock new things: New decorative building recipes A mutation useful for base building New emotes to expand your body language Being in a cozy location will also give you status effects that decrease your hunger and thirst drain and slowly heal you. Multiple buildings of the same type don't give you the same level of coziness. For example, one bed will provide lots of coziness, but a second bed of the same type will only give you a little more coziness. There are five levels of coziness. Your current coziness level will show on your HUD if it is at least 1. Note: Some existing decorative buildings are now unlocked via the coziness system instead of by analyzing a material (such as the Grandfather Clock). Handy Gnat Helps You Build Have a large base renovation in mind? Tired of gravity holding you down? Then see what the buzz is about and call on your local construction pro: Handy Gnat! As Handy Gnat, you can fly around to build and customize bases to your heart's content. In order to use Handy Gnat, you must have the "Handy Gnat Unlocked" custom game option toggled on. This option is on by default in Creative and Creative with Bugs game modes. For Survival game modes, you must convert your game to a Custom Game first in the Game Settings menu to enable this feature. Once enabled, Handy Gnat can be activated in the Crafting menu or the Construction radial. Handy Gnat can build from storage near your teen and even haul Grass Planks and Weed Stems. Additional Custom Game Options All Mutations Unlocked Start with all Mutations unlocked and available. Fully Yoked Start with all Milk Molar infusions fully maxed out. Handy Gnat Enabled Allows you to activate the Handy Gnat build helper. "All Recipes Unlocked and Free" has been split into two separate options.: All Recipes Unlocked, and All Recipes Free. Loot Luck Increase the chance of obtaining rare drops and receive more loot in general! Loot luck comes in 2 forms: Generic Loot Luck Increases drop rate for all items on all creatures. Targeted Loot Luck Greatly increases the drop rate for all items from a specific creature type (for example, "Loot Luck: Black Widow" will increase the drop rate specifically for black widows). This new luck status effect can be found in various places, most easily by utilizing the new "Rub For Luck" feature on all the stuffed creature buildings! Turret Improvements The Pebblet Turret and Pollen Turret have been converted to be a single Turret called "Acorn Turret" that can load different ammo types like a bow. When in the Turret, you can press 'R' or Right Bumper to swap ammo types on the fly. The new ammo types you can craft are: Rocky Rounds Pebblet rounds made smooth with bug acid. Pack a punch and push targets back. Groundy Rounds Sticky turret rounds that don't do a lot of damage but can ground flying insects with ease. Pointy Rounds Sharp and simple. Very small cooldown between shots. Sappy Rounds Gooey rounds that are perfect for slowing down enemy crawlers. Burny Rounds Hot little suckers that can set the ground around them ablaze. Pollen Turret recipe and Pollen Turret Science Store entry have been removed. If you previously purchased either the Pollen Turret or Pebblet Turret, you will have access to the new "Acorn Turret" building recipe. If you previously purchased both Turrets, you will be refunded 4,000 Raw Science. Turret aiming angles have been increased so you can aim higher and lower. You can now see the health of the turret while inside of it. Yoked Gardening Muscle Sprouts can be grown in the Garden Patch now. New Achievements Three new achievements added related to the new features and content. Photo Mode Improvements Added Depth of Field slider. 5 new poses added. Steam Deck Support Grounded has been updated to include official Steam Deck support. Fixed issues and improvements include: The game now boots past the initial loading screen. The Xbox log-in window properly displays. Tuned the default graphics settings for Steam Deck to provide an enjoyable experience. Also includes some Steam Deck-specific optimizations. Steam Deck virtual keyboard pops up when selecting any input text field in the game (entering a multiplayer game password, naming your trail marker / storage, pet, etc.) Control prompts no longer flip flop between displaying gamepad and mouse/keyboard controls when using the touch pad or gyro. Note: The Steam store page will not reflect this official support until after the 1.2 Public Test period is complete. Quality of Life Features View Enemy Status Effects Status Effects applied to creatures now appear beneath the enemy health bar while you are attacking them. Building: Hold to Place Many Tired of placing one wall at a time? Then utilize Place Many! You can press and hold the build action and move your cursor to place many structural buildings all at once. You can also bind the "Place Many" control (default unbound) to start Place Many with one button press instead of using the "Hold Build" action to activate. Example uses: Place a horizontal line of 10 foundations all at once. Place a vertical set of 8 walls all at once. Use both directions to make a 10x10 set of walls all at once. Cool Extra Examples: Quickly build a vertical spiral staircase. Quickly build a fireplace with a chimney as tall as you want. Relocate Walls / Floors / Roofs / Foundations You can now relocate walls, floors, roofs, and other structural buildings as long they are not the sole supporter of another building. Mutations You can now configure 4 Mutation loadouts and quickly swap between them using the new Mutation Loadouts radial. The default binding to open the new radial is Right D-Pad on controller or T on keyboard. To make room on the controller, the emote and chat radial have been combined into a single radial. There are five new mutations to unlock. Active Mutation status effects display in the UI next to your other status effect icons. Shared World Backup Saves Shared Worlds now create local backup saves on the last host's machine anytime a save is made. These saves are not stored in the cloud like the primary Shared World save and thus only the host that made them has access to them. Backup saves can only be loaded if you were the last host for the Shared World when the backup save was made. This is done to prevent multiple players from loading very old backup saves that stomp over the current playthrough progress. Beneficial use case example: Your base is completely destroyed and the current host wants to load a backup auto-save from 15 minutes prior when the base was still standing. New Content New Equipment / Items Wasp Morion Wasp Breastplate Wasp Greaves Bard's Tudor Bard's Bow Wasp Queen Trinket 6 secret trinkets Pollen Arrows More smoothies and meals New Buildings Over 90 new buildings have been added for your base building needs! Utility Large Storage Chest Holds 60 items. Large Plank Pallet Holds 60 Grass Planks. Large Stem Pallet Holds 60 Weed Stems. Hot Tub Seats up to four tiny teens, who gain the "Hot Springs" status effect upon soaking in it. Decor Bunk Bed Petal Bed Pupa Leather Couch Trash Can Ant Candle Spider Candle Acorn Shelf Koi Scale Shelf Pinecone Shelf Toenail Chandelier Fireplace Hearth Fireplace Chimney Fireplace Half Chimney Fireplace Chimney Clover Roof Fireplace Chimney Crow Roof Fireplace Vent Picture Frame Pinecone Table Pinecone Armoire Short Pinecone Dresser Tall Pinecone Dresser Vase D Vase E Vase F Weevil Statue Aphid Statue Koi Statue Yoked Girth Statue Moldorc Statue [REDACTED] Statue [REDACTED] Statue Standing [REDACTED] Brazier Sitting [REDACTED] Brazier [REDACTED] [REDACTED] Base Structures Clay Half Clay Foundation Curved Clay Foundation Pebblet Half Pebblet Foundation Curved Pebblet Foundation Clover Clover Peaked Roof Clover Peaked Dome Roof Clover Valley Clover Awning Clover Awning B Clover Awning Corner Clover Awning Diagonal Clover Awning Diagonal B Crow Feather Crow Feather Valley Large Crow Feather Peaked Roof Crow Awning Crow Awning B Crow Awning Corner Grass Grass Outer Curved Floor Corner Grass Stairs Interior Corner Grass Stairs Corner Grass Half Stairs Interior Corner Grass Half Stairs Grass Valley Weed Stem Stem Outer Curved Floor Log Valley Acorn Acorn Stairs Acorn Half Stairs Corner Acorn Stairs Interior Corner Acorn Stairs Corner Acorn Half Stairs Interior Corner Acorn Half Stairs Mushroom Mushroom Stairs B Corner Mushroom Stairs Interior Corner Mushroom Stairs Mushroom Valley Pinecone Pinecone Roof Pinecone Roof Corner Pinecone Roof Squared Corner Pinecone Roof Interior Corner Pinecone Flat Roof Pinecone Flat Triangle Roof Pinecone Peaked Roof Pinecone Peaked Dome Pinecone Valley Ash Ash Valley Other Bur Outer Curved Floor Buoyant Foundation Ramp Wall Mounts Infected Wolf Spider Infected Gnat Grub Wasp Wasp Queen Stuffed Infected Wolf Spider Infected Gnat Grub Wasp Wasp Queen Other Changes / Tuning Audio Updated pickup and equip sounds for weapons, armors, and items. Many more objects will now play the proper material impact sounds when hit. BURG.L Quests Raw Science reward values granted from Kill quests have been simplified: Passive Creatures = 50 per kill Tier 1 Creatures = 100 Tier 2 Creatures= 200 Tier 3 Creatures= 300 Conversations BURG.L now plays talking animations during conversations. Milk Molar Upgrades There's now a sixth level of the "Health" upgrade. Health has been rescaled. Previously: 30 → 50 → 65 → 75 → 80 Now: 30 → 55 → 75 → 90 → 100 → 105 Stamina has been rescaled. Previously: 20 → 35 → 45 → 50 → 55 Now: 25 → 45 → 60 → 70 → 75 Hunger and Thirst rates have been rescaled. Previously: 80% → 70% → 60% → 55% → 50% Now: 80% → 65% → 55% → 50% → 45% Healing upgrade has been rescaled to have diminishing returns like all other upgrades. Previously: 15% → 30% → 45% → 60% → 75% Now: 20% → 35% → 45% → 50% → 55% Combat Creatures now have a stagger cooldown to prevent them from being stun-locked, ranging from 1 second to 20 seconds depending on tier/creature. Perfect Blocks now deal significantly more stun damage to flying creatures. Mosquitos now have an extended hit box to make them easier to hit with melee weapons. Increased stamina to swing club type weapons. Base unarmed damage reduced because it ignores resistances. Bosses The Broodmother has been updated to provide a slightly harder challenge. You can no longer hurt the Broodmother as she slowly descends from the ceiling. No longer receives specific damage type resistances as her phases change. Now applies various debuffs on her attacks. Idle time spent between attacks has been reduced. Health has been slightly increased. Broodmother no longer attempts to leap to specific egg sacs after a phase change. Added a new "backwards dodge" attack to the Broodmother. Mutations Lil Fist: Bonus damage stacks now clear when you take damage. Mastery bonus proc chance reduced. Trapper PEEP.R final tier now requires 60 gold cards instead of 59 to even out the tiers (20 → 40 → 60). Meat Shield bonus health value increased. Buff Lungs bonus stamina value increased. Cardio Fan stamina regen buff increased at all tiers. [REDACTED] Stranger: Proc chance doubled. Damage of [REDACTED] summon increased. Shocking Dismissal proc chance increased. Grass Master bonus damage increased. Rock Cracker bonus damage increased. UI Survival tutorial quests can be toggled off in the options menu. On Steam, the Main Menu will not ask you to log into an Xbox account until you access multiplayer features. Recipe lists in recipe buildings are now sorted by tier. Some of the buttons on the UI have been modified to look more like buttons when using the keyboard. Additional clarification on weakpoints has been added to the creature cards. Weapons that maintain their original damage type after upgrading down an elemental path should be communicated more clearly For example, an axe that's upgraded down the "spicy" path should now communicate that it's spicy + chopping World Treasure chest in Black Anthill storage room now always gives 2 crow feathers instead of randomly giving 0 to 5. The Stump Lab has been improved to have less frustrating platforming. Added a quest objective and map marker for finding the Hedge Ascent for the Hedge Lab quest. Wolf Spiders will not wake up on their own for the first 3 nights of starting a new game. Large Feather nodes can now drop up to 10 feather resources, up from 7. Small Feather nodes can now drop up to 3 feather resources, up from 1. Pets Pets will jump to their homes or masters when the party rests. Active pets will magically appear near the player if they are very far away. Optimization Notably reduced the amount of network traffic between hosts and clients when playing Multiplayer. Improved framerate on extended playthroughs with larger bases. Creature pathing will not fragment memory so much, which should help prevent out-of-memory crashes. Improved CPU performance of based built on top of buoyant foundations. Improved CPU performance when items are floating in water (example: Lint in the Undershed water). Other general CPU performance improvements. Buildings The "Copy" action is now mapped to R3 for Gamepad. It was previously unmapped. Sitting in chairs slows your hunger and thirst drain. Roof Interior Corners are now placed by flipping Roof Corners (default 'G' or Y button). Several types of buildings will now conform better to the ground during placement. Player can hold the Drop button to drop all hauled items into storage buildings. Minor performance improvements on saves with large numbers of static freeform buildings, such as partitions, stuffed creatures, and vases. The Grinder will now work with nearby palette storage. Asymmetric Ash buildings now have a flip option. Aligning buildings with the terrain will be smoother, particularly close to the player. Ceiling-mounted buildings can now be optionally grid-snapped. Armor and Weapons The repair hammer now repairs buildings when thrown. Crossbows now grant the "Rough Reload" effect. Block canceling is enabled after firing a shot. Damage is significantly reduced on the next shot if fired faster than the normal reload duration. Spears: Rusty Spear base damage reduced. Thrown base damage decreased across all spears. Melee range increased across all spears. Ant Club base damage reduced. Bonus poison damage granted by spider armor sleek effect reduced. Super Gas Arrow damage reduced (normal gas arrows unchanged). Sleek Ladybug armor extra healing effect slightly reduced. Toenail Sword base damage increased. Fire Ant Club charged attack damage increased. Prod Smacker base damage increased. Salt Morning Star base damage increased. Sour Battle Axe stun damage increased. Pinch Whacker: Damage from AoE shock increased. Stun damage from AoE shock increased. Sour Arrows: Stun damage when used in crossbows increased. Stun damage when used in bows increased. Mint Staff base damage increased. Sour Staff: Base damage increased. Damage per pulse on charged projectile increased. Stun damage from direct hit of charged projectile increased. Mosquito Rapier: Base damage increased. Charged attack damage increased. Tiger Mosquito Rapier: Base damage increased. Charged attack damage increased. Spiky Sprig attacks now apply a small bleed DoT. All poison DoTs provided by weapons and armor now have the same tick rate. Increased Poison Nova's damage per tick to compensate for new slower tick rate. Increased [REDACTED] Club's bonus venom damage from [REDACTED] perk effect to compensate for new slower tick rate. Items Roasted meats now heal the same amount as base smoothies, instead of that of beefy smoothies. Unarmed bonus attack triggered from the power droplet base damage reduced. Crafting Reduced crafting cost for most meals. Bug Fixes Crash Fixes The game will no longer crash when dropping certain items directly from a chest. Fixed a rare crash linked to Building Integrity. Major Fixes The player will no longer clip into objects at the end of a zipline trip. Clients no longer always see the Oak Lab explosion flames when joining a game after BURG.L has already been rescued. Mantis fight no longer lags when the Mantis attacks. Using Photo Mode for long periods of time while hosting a Shared World will no longer make the Shared World appear as if it is not being hosted anymore. Other Fixes Player's head will appropriately render when interacting with beds or in conversation. Boss music will correctly play after retriggering a boss fight after loading a save game. The player cannot sit in chairs when the seat is obstructed by something. The player can no longer place overlapping grid-snapped buildings by looking straight up. Wolf spiders will not wake up until the third night (second fix). Sunken Bones no longer jump around when digging them up on clients. The Garden will now ask the player for confirmation when they cancel production using the hotkey. Triangle Ash Walls can no longer be walked on. Acorn Shells dropped from wall-mounted heads will no longer clip into walls. Items on ziplines will no longer clip through objects. Fixed collision on car tire rim to allow player to properly drop through small holes. ORC Disruptors will drop ingredients when destroyed by the player. ORC Disruptors will now play audio correctly on clients. Gnats will no longer continue playing animations while dead. PEEP.R '???' UI element no longer can get stuck on screen when a creature walks out of PEEP.R view. Highlighted key words in item descriptions no longer have large spaces around them when playing the game in aspect ratios smaller than 16x9. Grubs now have a hit reaction animation. The player's weapons will no longer be shown while zipping after loading a save. The player will no longer become oddly stretched when loading a save while on a zipline with a shield. Copying unflipped buildings will set the building being placed to unflipped. Deposit All can no longer overfill plank and stem pallets. Half Stairs can now be placed directly against walls. "Take All" will work correctly on Sap Catchers after loading a save. Guard Dog mutation and turret damage bonuses now properly work on wave versions of Lawn Mites, Antlions, Larva, Orb Weavers, Orb Weaver Jrs, Ticks, Tiger Mosquitos, and Fire Ant Soldiers. The player's facing direction on the map now faces the correct way when they are ascending ziplines. Player nameplates will fade out in the correct locations on aspect ratios other than 16:9. Curved walls can now have curved floors placed in the middle of the wall's inner side more reliably. Foundation Ramps can no longer be placed up against and clipping through walls. Items will no longer become stuck on the hotbar when consuming the last item while entering zipline placement mode. The player can no longer relocate walls with wall-mounted buildings attached to them. Camera monitor feeds no longer show labs with missing art. Certain destroyed buildings, such as diagonal walls and straight roofs, will no longer leave floating buildings they previously supported. Creatures will no longer sometimes be improperly deleted on load. Freeform buildings optionally-snapped to grid buildings will now properly collapse when the supporting buildings are destroyed. [Redacted] was asked to hum less. Water Containers will display the correct levels after loading a save. Lure arrows and gas arrows will now have correct textures when loaded in bows. Adjusted the position of a few pre-placed ziplines to make them easier to reach when going up them using the ZIP.R upgrade. Diagonal walls will now appear at the correct rotation when changing their material. Filtering lists like the Recipe list is now correctly case-insensitive in non-English languages. Clubs no longer lose their generic damage type when upgraded down elemental paths. Power Droplet no longer triggers the Quickdraw effect Infected Wolf Spiders no longer sometimes die while jumping. Dead aphids will no longer become stuck in mid-air when falling onto a choppable plant. Players with the ZIP.R upgrade will now consistently start zipping in the direction they are facing.

idk, when I see pictures of giant huntsman spiders just chilling out on walls, I think "eh, at least she actually earns her keep around the house unlike my stupid cat" oh who's a good spider, who's a good spider? youse a good spider! -spider expert

The forecast has gotten worse in the five hours since your post and they updated the article: "The "very destructive core" of the storm will bring "extreme" wind gusts of up to 315km/h (195mph) in parts of the Kimberley and Pilbara regions, the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) said." 195mph is nutso!

Wartales is out of Early Access.

I'd love ORDER OF THE BLACK EAGLE to get released. In other news..

This channel is hilarious. "I have heard that at expos, kids sometimes walk away with a Gaboon Viper. Why not give them a revolver?" "To make this clear, a rattlesnake is a better idea. Not a good one, but definitely better. Rattlesnake bites you, you show up at the hospital, they'll take care of you. It'll cost you $ 100.000, but they'll take care of you. Gaboon Viper? That'll cost you $ 100.000, an arm or a leg and you might still die."

What is Swish? Regarding banks, it is worrying when some of them start going under then the fed has to bail them out. Oops, that's right, the current administration has assured out that they won't bail out banks any more, so instead it's an "injection of capital" or whatever flowery synonym for bail out they're using these days. Then they feed us the hilarious line that taxpayers won't pay a cent for this. Bull****, taxpayers ALWAYS foot the bill, one way or another, they'll just get creative in how they disguise and distribute said bill. Far more worrying than that, though, is the potential for our government to leverage this and use it as a scare tactic to get people to buy into a centralized digital currency. We MUST reject any and all attempts to institute a CDC or any steps toward that end at all turns because a CDC has some terrifying dystopian implications. Even if the current administration's aims for instituting a CDC are completely benign (a likely story) that doesn't mean a future administration wouldn't abuse the power and control it would inherit over people's money. Once we allow the government to take away any of our liberties in the name of "security" they will never give them back (see also: Patriot Act).

Been swapping between Conan Exiles, and Elite Dangerous (since Star Citizen 3.18 is still a disaster area). In Elite I made the dumb decision to fly to Colonia, the furthest out inhabited system, as a rookie. It was a learning experience, to be sure, made a lot of bank too, but really dreading flying back to the Bubble... The universe is big, it turns out. Who'd a' thunk? I've also started flying with HOSAS. Just soooo much more enjoyable, and I got used to movement surprisingly quickly. Star Citizen uses the 6DoF a lot more actively though, so it will be interesting to see how I manage there. Also, manual landings in SC... In Conan Exiles I've picked up a character I created a long time ago but didn't do much with[*]. Decided to build in the Savannah as starting location and started building a main base on the volcano (near the hidden exit), linking both with a portal. Bit of a shame that even though you can build up pretty darn high you literally have no view due to all the clouds Also the size of the map room is getting really annoying (only took, errr, all these years for me to get annoyed by it? ), creates some annoying constraints if you're trying to build in weird spaces. I wonder if there's any mods that just shrink it down a bit. The in-game store is also starting to really annoy me. Funcom always claimed DLC were locked down for modders so the assets don't get stolen (which is why there's no mods to improve/extend Siptah, for example), but now they're selling extension building pieces to the already very expensive DLC at absurd prices on their in-game store At least they finally fixed most of the snap points on the DLC building pieces. Really, I love Conan Exiles, but I'm not touching that new Dune survival game from Funcom due to how absolutely disgusting their treatment of CE has been. Anyway, goal-wise I've been going through the new Journey steps. It seems they completely dropped guiding players through the storyline of the Exiled Lands, which is a real shame. The new system is just a bunch of tutorials and doesn't really guide people towards any of the story stuff at all, omitting some of the really important parts for the plot entirely (eg. some story-related dungeons aren't in any of the steps). Really hope they revise these, uncovering the story was one of the main things I liked about CE compared to most of these types of games (like Ark, for example), but some of the steps are really...obtuse so the guidance of the Journal was helpful at quite a few points. [*] I created a little tool to be able to switch between chars on the same save db, or create a new char even. There's tools that do the same out there as well, but the ones I found weren't updated in ages, or not FLOSS. Regardless it can quite easily be done manually if you know some SQL.

Waiting for the Storm dlc for Midnight Suns to play through that and uninstall the game. Easily the biggest wasted opportunity in gaming in a long time.

at 1:37 is mentioned the narrator sees visual flash from fusion. ... maybe everything else is complete legit, and perhaps the lightshow is for the tourists, but is no way you should be seeing anything. if visual light is escaping their containment, then so too is rather extreme x-ray energy. admitted we did not watch further 'cause we had already read articles 'bout what helion is doing. am actual optimistic 'bout helion particular after the JASON review, but am thinking some o' what o' going on in the video is a glorified flea circus to generate funding. HA! Good Fun!

First art exhibition was yesterday. Was just one among 43 artists participating, but it was a great experience and got very positive reactions. Uploaded some photos to Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cq6EBfXrmbp/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

was busy for easter so kinda forgot to get back to this. apologies. am having mentioned more than once how is a mistake to confuse questions o' right v. wrong with legal v. illegal, or even ethical v. unethical. there is no ethical code for the behaviour o' Justices. we might indulge in a reasonable extrapolation exercise and conclude that obvious what applies to all other fed judges should apply to Justices, but what should be is far different than what is, eh? Justices is different than other members o' the judiciary 'cause not only is there no higher legal authority than the Court in the US, there is also no pool o' Justices who might step in for a Justice who otherwise should recuse self from a case. there is mechanical obstacles for imposing standards on Justices beyond the Constitutional hurdles. while Congress could impose term limits as well as increase or decrease the number o' Justices 'pon the Court, setting standards for Justice behaviour is likely outside the scope o' Article 1 powers. legal there was an ambiguity regarding reporting gifts to Justices and such ambiguities ordinary is decided in favour o' the individual subject to the law as 'posed to the author o' such a law. has been recent clarification that clarence should report all his trips and freebie travel expenses, but such is not gonna apply to past reporting questions. am not personal having knowledge o' all clarence gifts and his reporting activities, but it is possible that thomas' seeming self-serving non-reporting o' gifts were legal until recent. the thing is, early in the Court career o' clarence, he took heat from the media 'cause there were stories 'bout his acceptance o' gift/grift. clarence responded by seeking legal advice and instead o' changing his practice o' accepting questionable gifts, his solution were to stop reporting gifts as 'posed to stopping the acceptance o' gifts. the change justice thomas' undertook reveals awareness on his part that accepting gifts were impolitic at best as well as his conscious effort to avoid future scrutiny. non reporting by thomas o' gifts received may have been legal, but is a far different query than deciding if thomas acted appropriate as a Justice. am also gonna observe how aoc acceptance o' her freebie met gala invitation and and failure to report gift bag goodies bothered us. regardless, am thinking there is gonna be people who try and argue what were the legal and ethical requirements for thomas while trying to ignore the more pertinent issue o' what were the right thing for thomas to do. HA! Good Fun!

There is just one point that irks me a bit - "they never had the money to build a road network" .. maybe they would have, with less corruption and shoveling all that money into their yachts and palaces.

And it is annonced on GOG as well. YAY!

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.

WoW's trading post is a neat idea, just allows for a little grind to get cosmetics. The "grind" is stuff you probably do anyway, WQ's, PVP. Blew through the objectives in about 1 day's playing as well, so that was that. Tried to PVP again, got flamed heavily for suggesting someone say what to do rather than insult everyone for not knowing what to do, heh. Realized I was gifted Everspace 2 last year...so guess will play that.

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

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

ME3 upon release is the only time I ever called in sick to play a game. An hour in and I was wondering if I should pretend to be magically cured and just go to work.

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.

We Finally Know How Ancient Roman Concrete Was So Durable : ScienceAlert

You remind me of Walsingham. Maybe they should give up since it didnt work the first time? I hope I live to see it but at least my daughter will benefit. w00t!

I gave up on mass effect. once I found myself just skipping the dialog and holding the joystick up to paragon dialog choices, I thought to myself, the combat isn't fun, I'm not even following dialog, what am I doing here.

Forgot about this gem actually; My company pension plan was managed by Alecta whom sold off all their shares in Swedish Handelsbanken (That they'd had for 71 years) to buy more shares in american niche banks, most prominently Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. "Only" 20 billion SEK lost