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Tom Lehrer - 'When Kissinger won the Nobel peace prize, satire died'

Its interesting to me that people get upset about things that happen in foreign lands and/or before their birth. But now that I think about it, I still cant get right about that rat bastard Attila the Hun so I dont have room to talk.

ok, am having said more than once am not a fan o' puns, but we did chuckle at ms. carter's pithy offering. HA! Good Fun!

Putin just ordered another army expansion. He didn't even bother to wait until Russian elections were done with. A bad sign for any near-term freezing of this war.

Phew, been a while since you whined about how white people are treated.

am in agreement, but... perhaps owlcat took a practical approach and assumed that as soon as the game were released, a few persons would start digging into code and even if nobody did, somebody would discover and then want credit for discovering. the reality is, the secret ending requirements were discovered extreme soon after the release o' the game. maybe you recall the ring of wizardry at the friendly arms inn from bg1? if you don't, many others hereabouts will. the only way to discover the ring is complete accident or individual pixel hunting... which is what a few folks did to find other curiously rando loot in bg. yeah, no doubt multiple somebodies would try to puzzle out the heavy breathing in the ineluctable prison, 'cause is improbable something like that is an accident, right? so am not doubting somebody figures out eventual, but is also inevitable other somebodies would dig into code and unlock all the secret ending requirements. am suspecting owlcat were perfect ok with either resolution and that they assumed that once the secret ending were known as 'posed to rumor, people would do find solutions via the online community. am agreeing some o' the secret ending clues weren't so much clues as just rando requirements, but here we are two years following the game release and near everybody who wanted to complete the secret ending probably did so. owlcat russian developers is perhaps predictable practical. owlcat knew it didn't matter if their trail o' breadcrumbs leading to completion o' the secret ending requirements were rational and reasonable, so why sweat such nuance? HA! Good Fun!

Hey, Pinocchio is a silent protagonist. Well, jokes aside, it is okay for characters to have motivations that the player needs to come up with, but in such instances the games surrounding that decision need to support that. I am uncertain if I can come up with a video game example, but since I played D&D with friends in the past, well, while there is a DM that prepares an overall game to go through, everything else is player driven. That is fine with me, really. It does not have to be much, I was fine with IWD's character motivation. You're an adventurer and there's money to be made, then you just stumble into the game's story - although I did not really enjoy the game too much, as having no connection to any of the characters in my party was not a very enjoyable experience for me. Having to come up with something on my own in a world and/or scenario that does not support it at all just makes my mind go . That is different from being shown something that needs a whole lot of personal interpretation, for instance, something like Utena is acceptable as long as all the other elements are good enough (which in Utena they were not). See, I almost quit playing Dark Souls right after the tutorial area because nothing about it made sense, and then it got worse, because not only are you the chosen one, you're the "chosen one" for a reason that is entirely for your own to come up with. What? It is a good tutorial area to explain the gameplay, but it does such a poor job at explaining the whats and whys of anything else that I just had no desire to continue, although the biggest reason I continue to talk about Dark Souls whenever such a topic comes up is because there's an army of fanboys telling everyone what a great story the game has. Insofar, yes, I'll take a poor explanation and attempt at giving me motivation and a plot to follow than none. I find it easier to deal with (slightly) worse gameplay when there's an attempt at storytelling, than vice versa, i.e. the absence of sense and motivation weighs worse than anything else in a game, and that extends to a whole lot of games, not just ARPGs. Sins of a Solar Empire was the biggest disappointment ever, in spite of being an otherwise enjoyable game with fantastic presentation (well, for the time). Way, way back my fellow students in high school all raved about how great Total Annihilation was, so I checked it out, and... never got beyond the third mission or so. The game's just a collection of skirmish maps. Thanks, but no thanks. I finished the ludicrously terrible Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight, where every single element is horrible, from the gameplay to the storyline where it is revealed that Kane is in fact the biblical Cain, and an alien that got stranded on Earth thousands of years ago. I dropped Total Annihilation like a hot potato, because the game allowed me to, and because I did not like it. Hey, perhaps you do have a point. The absence of anything that drives my need to finish something might really be a good thing, after all. Well, still beats playing the chosen undead who is chosen for no reason, locked up for no reason, and freed for no reason just so the game can begin in a tutorial prison. Although, well, I don't think Lies of P is a game that you would enjoy. It might not lock you into one particular playstyle like Sekiro, but it shares some other elements that you heavily criticised. Next to having a group of uncanny valley characters, justified since they are puppets or not, there's still the issue of exploration being absolutely limited and not really worthwhile.

Sharpe is an excellent series. Also one of those series where there's almost always a young guest star you recognise from later stuff, like Paul Bettany or Mark Strong. Its only drawback is that when it comes right down to it Cornwell's heroes are all basically the same character and there's a certain template the stories tend to follow.

I wonder if a movie/tv-series adaptation was ever made of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. At least I could have held the fast forward button down It was painful reading through it, but maybe I was just too young and immature to enjoy it at the time. I was way less proficient at English too (at 15).

Probably that they should have bombed Serbia harder. "Arguments that focus on loss of life in strategically marginal countries – and there is no other way of describing Argentina, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Chile, Cyprus, and East Timor – must be tested against this question: how, in each case, would an alternative decision have affected US relations with strategically important countries like the Soviet Union, China, and the major western European powers?” The US won the cold war, and that means that the “burden of proof” is on critics to show how different policies “would have produced better results”. The Rules Based Order laid out neatly, I guess.

And Cambodia was just one of hundreds of things Kissinger had his hands in.

The notion that what Kissinger did is something that happened in the past without lasting negative consequences that we live with to this day, and will continue to live with for the rest of our lives is, at best, deeply naive.

you know i just realized after writing my last post that i do have some more directly relevant pointers here, because i actually am using ydwin as a front-line character as a pure sc cipher. some things that i've been doing with ydwin to ensure success: (not saying you have to do all these, but these are how i've been thinking about it and maybe give you your own inspiration) immediately picked up spear proficiency and spent money on fine and eventually exceptional spear for main hand, for the engagement so ydwin can actually control enemy foes. eventually i got the club that grants bonus engagement, so i've been using that instead of a spear, though eventually i'll swap back to a spear that has the enchantment to get occasionally free recovery attacks. magical spears are pretty uncommon so it's a weapon type you just have to shell out for. and it's important to shell out because you have no way to penetration-boosting modal. so you need those enchantments to boost PEN (on top of the other normal benefits of magical weapons) i started off keeping ydwin equipped with medium armor, dual-wielding. i gave her items that would boost resolve or deflection. eventually i get fleshmender (superb light armor that has bonus to AR and health regen that goes away if hit). as usual i pick up tough (early on i also use an amulet to boost health instead) i use ydwin primarily as an alchemy character, with a tiny amount of athletics. action economy is very tight for melee cipher, esp with medium armor's penalties, but alchemy lets me load up beforehand with drugs (coral snuff, deadeye, and ripple sponge are my favorites), and at the start of fights, while stealthed, i quaff a helpful potion or something (like merciless gaze or deftness). i also almost always rest with Grog for her (and i have the drunkard's regret ring which eliminates hangover effects... more relevant for me bc i'm also using rymyrgand's challenge so it's frequently a waste of money to rest multiple times just to clear hangovers). also, making lesser health potions very effective is good. a bit controversially, i picked up the soul whip upgrade that increases weapon damage, not focus gain. just to try something different. in practice there's not many focus powers i want to use, because i also picked up the two beam powers, and you can't double up on each of the beam powers anyway. party support comes from pallegina with lay on hands and my merc, whose build i'll probably post here eventually b.c. it's played out very interestingly. merc is a warden (blackjacket/druid) who has out of the fire, which i use if ydwin is getting overwhelmed. overall i think it's pretty good and last time i checked ydwin was also party damage leader. those beam spells are really good. especially if you have a neat line of enemies and you empower a beam. outputs tons of damage.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2023/11/30/henry-kissinger-anthony-bourdain-cambodia/ TL;DR: You can't travel the world like Bourdain did and avoid seeing the work of Henry Kissinger, which has a death toll in the millions.

Penetration vs. armor is one of the most important mechanics in combat. You are right that everything that either raises your PEN and/or lowers enemies' armor ist quite useful. Very useful I'd say. Cipher's "Driving Echoes" is a very valuable penetration buff, one shouldn't sleep on it - even if the Cipher himself cannot profit from it. I would just make a beeline for it. It's loot from an isolated island and the local "quest" has no ties to anything else. And the fight to get it isn't that difficult (esp. if you keep the fight to the one enemy that carries the pistol which is easy to do). Then come back later to finish the "quest". It's rel. easy to get the pistol early that way. But of course it's kind of spoiling the exploration aspect of the first playtrough to look up where you can get it and all that. I think a Soulblade is almost always better as a multiclass character (if not deliberately build to suck). The main feature of the Soulblade (Soul Annihilation) profits so much from a lot of other classes' abilities - and not so much from the Power Levels 8 & 9 of the Cipher single class. I think good candidates for SC Cipher are Beguiler and also Psion. Both are not really about melee combat (Beguiler could be, but since a Beguiler can generate much more focus with casting Deception spells than usng a melee weapon most of times one tends to deviate from melee combat quickly in my experience). Some very good and also fun to play melee ciphers are (to me): Soulblade/Trickster, Soulblade/Shattered Pillar (Community Patch version) and Soulblade/Bloodmage. I guess Soulblade/Barbarian could be nice due to the combination of Blood Thirst with Soul Annihilation. I heard that Soulblade/Stalker is also good. I could maybe see a melee SC Cipher with Whispers of the Endless Paths as main weapon, given that Shared Nightmare would enlarge the cone of the weapon a lot. But I don't know if that's worth it tbh.

i'll let others w/ more experience w/ soul blade comment on it, but cheap shred is good, and there is some insane cheese you can do with the soul blade's ability, if that's your thing. chanter/troubadour is always aces. i would personally suggest you lean more towards int and con than might in such a build. might is less important for a tank, and getting longer linger/larger chant and more survivability would be helpful if you're going to be on the front line. if you're not into summons, i suggest giving tekahu a whirl as a pure, single-classed chanter. i've geared him up like a tank, with heavy armor, a high-quality small shield and a hatchet to start (until better defensive gear and chants), and also make sure to pick up chants like ancestor's memory for heal or her courage thick as her shield and especially silver knight (for bonus deflection and engagement). chanters start off a little squishy before you lay on all the defensive chants, but overall it worked out very well as a secondary tank, and tekehu's unique invocations can be very good (chain lightning is great when it unlocks, so is tornado, and tekehu has unparalleled chanter cheese capabilities with avenging storm + sasha's singing scimitar). you lose summons but it sounds like you don't want those as much. (edit: another consideration is that tekehu gets so many invocations for free that you can spend your ability points on tons of passives that aid survivability or general utility. in fact with tekehu i typically don't really pick up any invocations explicitly except for maybe the resurrection or the tier 9 class resource restoration one.) not that important IMO. not worth dumping it, but also not worth investing heavily into. i think konstanten is underpowered as a companion because he puts so many of his stat points into constitution. a properly built party with careful enemy management can skate by even with a front-line with minimal constitution investment (my aforementioned fighter only has 12, investing mostly in might, my other frontline in this run is ydwin who has 10). i also always pick up tough for virtually every character (incl ones i've dropped their con below 10), and IMO that's a way better bang for your buck than investing in con with your precious stat points. res you have to be a little careful. it can be very insignificant but it can also be very good. for a tank i would consider strongly finding a way to get to 19 or 20 that still leaves you happy w/out too much compromise on the other stats. but you have to back that up with a shield as well as weapon+shield style. you get increasing returns from resolve/deflection and it'll all pay off. (but it can feel rough on esp PotD early game some enemies just have such stupid accuracy that it doesn't always feel like a good trade-off, but it eventually works out). an underrated side benefit is the reduced harmful effect duration from res (a new aspect compared to poe1). another reason you get increasing returns here. at 20 res, debuff durations are down -30% which, thanks to complicated inversion math in deadfire, can be much more powerful than you think, able to cancel out up to +43%'s worth of duration boosts from the enemy (mostly intellect). and it keeps getting better the more resolve you add on. basically a high-resolve tank can shrug off attacks and debuffs really easily. in my current run i have a merc that only has 6 resolve, and compared to my higher-resolve fighter it can be a massive difference in debuff duration sometimes. not as different as in poe1, but there are still differences: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/classes-single-classing-focus. the most notable one is fighter, who gets a +5 deflection bonus, which makes them already pretty tank-appropriate, and any fighter multiclass will get only part of that deflection bonus (i forget if it rounds up or down). on the other side barbarians get -5 pretty punishing combination with frenzy

Thanks for all your helpful replies. Also @thelee for your helpful guide. I read a few sections from it that came up when googling stuff even before you mentioned it. Should be stickied or something in my opinion. I just tried using a one-handed style, a pistol with the modal active and it awesome. I am shooting almost twice as fast as Eder is swinging his saber. Given that the enemy is not pierce resistant. I probably will give Eder mace proficiency for the modal to help with that. Or have Pallegina cast that level 1 chanter ability that reduces armor. With how penetration and armor rating works it seems to be quite a useful spell. I just hope that I will get the gun @Boeroer mentioned not too late into the game. What do you think about a Soul Blade as single class Cipher, should that focussing on a melee approach is more appealing to me? I also thought about going with with a Chanter/Troubadour single class just to have another character being able to tank or use summons to protect the backline a bit. Just relying on Eder for that feels uncomfortable. What do you think about a SC Troubadour with the attributes MIG 14, CON 10, DEX 10, PER 14, INT 16, RES 14? Using a medium shield when tanking and perhaps an Estoc against weaker enemies. I really like the idea of combining the Estoc modal with the -2AR spell chanters to handle heavily armoed enemies. And I could also summon mobs as distraction/cannon fodder, although I'd prefer to focus on damaging spells and buffs. What I forgot to ask about: How important is CON? In PoE1 I played a paladin with 10 CON and because my high defenses it worked fine. I rarely took damage so fast that I could not just heal it. For an off-tank/support chanter, do you think that 10 CON and 14 RES would be fine? Do different classes have different health and defense base stats or is it all the same for everybody, apart from class specific skills that aid survivability? Thank's again you all

There is one single weapon setup for a Cipher that I like - and that is single pistol + modal (rushed reload). This combination has only -3 ACC (and increased crit conversion with the one-handed style talent) but an incredible increase in shooting speed which is faster than dual wielding pistols would be (even with the two weapon style talent) . It stacks well with Time Parasite later on, too. On top of that you always have the option to switch off the modal and instantly gain 15 accuracy should you struggle to hit your enemies. I personally really like to use Eccea's Arcane Blaster as my primary pistol then. Its the best pistol imo because of the combination of raw and elemental damage (with its special modal) which takes away all concerns regarding pierce immune or -resistant foes. Once Shared Nightmare is available I like to use Fire in the Hole with Chain Shot as an alternative weapon because its AoE size scales with focus then - combined with high INT you can reach absurd AoE size for the mortar blast which gives a lot of focus if there are enough enemies around. Shared Nightmare also works with Kitchen Stove's "Thunderous Report" which should provide instant ascension after use if you can manage to hit enough enemies with the cone. Of course then it's not a melee ascendant anymore... Single handed melee weapons that could work with a cipher (and not be totally subpar) include all weapons that can proc a damaging effect on hit or on crit: usually those effects count as weapon damage and will generate focus. Something like Sungrazer's enchantments (fiery meteor strike on crit-kill) or Grave Calling's Chilling Grave (a Chillfog that generates focus when it hits enemies). With one-handed apporach and style you can make sure to crit more which would help to proc those effects more often which in turn generate more focus. This isn't super reliable - but it helps generating focus nonetheless. Another option can be to use Xoti's Sickle and scale the Religion skill as much as possible. The sickle will gain up to +60% damage bonus (like a fully leveled SC Rogue's Sneak Attack) after killing a few enemies - and it doesn't matter how you kill those enemies (for example with Cipher spells). But the damage bonus only applies to the sickle itself, so single-wielding it isn't a bad idea (or use it with a shield). That way you can start combat with something strong in order to ascend asap (see mortar shot or thunderous report), then switch to sickle and kill lots of enemies with cipher spells while ascended - and then clear up the rest with the buffed-up sickle which will have great dps from the kills. Yet another option is to use the Magistrate's Cudgel for obvious reasons. It's good with crits (see enchantment route for cipher) and you'll get more crits with single weapon + one handed style. Still... my first recommendation for single weapon + cipher would be pistol.

Being happy that the Forrest Gump of war crimes is dead is in fact a very liberal feeling.

It's higher level and more epic than Through the Ashes and even has its own alt-mythic system. It ties back into the main story and as you do more "adventures" the timeline moves along and you hear about what the commander is up to. The 2 major NPCs (gnome and tiefling) are back and they added a third, an android bard lady who immediately tells you she's not for romancing. They added some interesting mechanics and even the new puzzles aren't completely terrible. Difficulty is all over the place but if you've been playing these for a while then you probably already know how to easily game the system... though I'm a big proponent of just lowering the difficulty if you aren't having fun.

Watched Chainsaw Man. Not bad, though the constant sexualization in anime kinda annoys the hell out of me. Maybe I'm too old for this stuff now? It just makes me think all the time.. bruh, don't you have anything better to worry about? It's really not that big a deal...

Not sure if I could possibly disagree more with the thrust of this statement: I will take a game (or movie) not even attempting something 11/10 times over trying and being miserably bad at it. Not trying to do something means you can put your effort and focus towards something you actually do well instead of bringing the whole product down with your sorry excuse for [element]. Dark Souls doesn't have much of anything in the way of a main plot (and the little that is there is fairly nebulous and relies on some creative interpretation by way of the player), so I would agree it is fair to ask yourself questions like "who is my character", "what exactly are we trying to accomplish and why", and "so why should I care"...but I can personally tell you that having to ask yourself those questions and not being able to immediately come up with answers is a hell of a lot better than the games that give terrible answers to those questions and destroy my interest with a bad story that actively distracts me from the things I do think are good (or could be good if not for the bad elements). Playing as a silent protagonist is infinitely preferable over playing as someone whom I wish I could throw off the nearest cliff. Speaking of protagonists... Remember, I'm the person that very nearly quit Dark Souls II at the character creator because I didn't like any character I tried to make...and actually did quit Hogwarts Legacy at the character creator for the same reason, . Having to look at and listen to a total nonce to whom I have share zero affinity or connection to for a whole game will not (or rather cannot) be tolerated on my part, even if I only see them just from the back, .

The Nobel Peace Prize is extremely interesting in that although you can have bad or irrelevant choices in other fields (like, for instance, Hermann Hesse in literature; not sure if there have been any total misses in the sciences), extraordinarily bad choices in the Peace Prize somehow damage the entire idea of the Nobel. I don't think there's ever been a worse choice than Kissinger, but then again, realistically there almost can't be.

People still use 'The Hun' occasionally as a pejorative for germans, and a lot more so 'vandal' for destructive people so we are at least still linguistically upset about people sacking Rome 1600ish years ago. Pol Pot tends to get a 'pass' because he pretty much only killed his own countrymen, inside his own country, which is small and irrelevant. Similar to how Mao doesn't tend to get mentioned because he killed a lot of Chinese at a time when China was certainly not small but was pretty irrelevant. Obviously Kissinger tended to get a pass because... hey I mean George W Bush paints now and it was all so long ago so all is forgiven about Iraq, right guys? We do rather like randomly rehabilitating our leaders. Funniest thing is hearing Kissinger constantly referred to as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Kind of a shame that Mussolini and Hitler didn't win the years they were nominated. Hitler in particular since the year was 1939.