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Got myself a Smart Trainer (an Elite Direto) and trying out Zwift. It's pretty good, but steep at $15/month. Will give it a go for the week-long trial before deciding whether to seek out cheaper/free alternatives.

It's nice that they added the option of choosing from a larger pool of games, but most of them still don't interest me. I'm likely going to cancel my subscription when it runs out. Also, sorry for the rare updates.

not to put words in shady's mouth, but that isn't what he said. if were just kobe who died, shady woulda' been ok with critique o' kobe, yes? maybe not fair to lump him in with you and hurl and skarp on this. and how long is enough o' a grace period for fans o' an accused rapist? we waited a day. how much time do you need to grieve before it becomes kinda horrific not to mention kobe's 2003 issues? kp raised example o' harvey weinstein. imagine harvey dies today. if hollywood sudden pretended not to recall #me too and we got Presidents and celebrities pouring out their heartfelt sorrow at harvey's passing, would you be surprised? why? if somebody did a "whoa. hold on a sec," and pointed out that harvey were not a swell guy, would you be annoyed by the critique coming a day after his passing? if the internet, following epstein's suicide, gave us non-stop adulation regarding all the charity works in which jeffery were involved while ignoring the darker subject matter, would you not have been a bit shocked? if kobe died september 2003 in similar circumstances, would we be having this same conversation? if kobe's victim were your sister or mother or close friend, would you feel same? am not gonna change hearts and minds on this, so am quits. that said, mention kobe's death didn't bother us 'til we had a day's worth o' weeping and laments w/o any recognition o' 2003. found such accidental and/or willful oversight to be disturbing. what does such oversight say 'bout the living?

Not really sure if it should go here or the funny thread...

So true...

If Gromnir didn't mention Kobe's actions (and if Malc hadn't linked something with a link going over the details of the case) then I honestly wouldn't have thought of it. I was 11 in 2003 and in 17 years all I can recall of hearing about it was an off the hand comment someone made in another message board when Kobe Bryant won an oscar for an animated short. If it's taboo to mention anything that reflects poorly on the recently deceased then I think we're going to effectively whitewash the legacies of people who have done some bad ****. If I'm an insensitive bastard so be it, but I'd rather we talk honestly than let horrible acts fester.

i never see what teknoman posts...

I don't think it's wrong to point out the bad things Kobe has done and may or may not have done but I probably would have given it a little more time. Not for Kobe though but rather his family as they didn't just lose him but they also lost a daughter/sister. If it was just Kobe then I'd say have at it.

Re-started CK2 again. I am going for the most difficult thing I could find: A Lunatic Lady Chieftain in a one island norse kingdom. She is good at killing people and little else. Surviving a pregnancy is the biggest problem. Also finding a man to marry. Smaller annoyances was C'thulu emerging from the waves near my island, but I rammed him with a longboat and killed him.

I'm embarrassed I didn't think of him in all this brainstorming. Let's see if anything happens if I spam feed him pires pands. Maybe he's the Noober of Deadfire.

Got The Division 2 on sale, in hindsight it was a poor purchase, but can play with my friend so is useful that way. Prefer the NYC setting and winter rather than DC and summer, although did have a fun moment of fighting Hyenas with the sun at their back - shame the reverse would not matter.

At least my norse raiders have Federation transporter technology. Was raiding in western Ireland when I got attacked by a far larger army. My raiders retreated into Scottland, where they were again attacked by a far larger army. My character dueled the enemy commander, beat him but let him live (they are now pen pals). This gave my raiders the opportunity to retreat. So they appeared on Orkney, and apparently laid siege to the village and captured one of the courtiers. All the time my ships where still anchored back in Ireland.

DS9 was the high water mark for Star Trek IMO. That show was almost always good. It was sometimes outstanding. And when it was Trek was never better. Except the ending. That was kind of a mess. But let's face it, few shows ever end well. In fact the only one I can thing of that really stuck the landing was Cheers.

marinara is meatless, but throw in some sausage is not gonna ruin any marinara. marinara "recipes" is almost pointless as there is maybe a handful o' ingredients and nothing particular complicated. is little tricks individuals use which may (or may not) improve. 1/4 extra-virgin, best quality you can find, olive oil 4-6 cloves garlic... sliced thin like paulie does don't need actual razor, but smaller is the mince or slice, the more flavor with less bitter you get. 1/2 large onion fine chopped. a couple 28 oz cans o' plum/pear tomatoes (crushed by hand in a glass bowl) small handful o' basil. chop or tear or even mince. salt & pepper red wine optionals: dried spices... forbear maybe a bit o' sugar 1/2 teaspoon worcestershire caramelized tomato paste heat oil and add onion. we add salt pepper and whatever dried spices we may fancy at this point. using dried basil and oregano? not our thing, but we have done so and some folks like, so... whatever. add dried spices to onion and oil as will suffuse oil with flavor. stir onion 'til well and good translucent but not caramelizing. add garlic and cook 'til noticeable fragrant. maybe a minute. likely less than 2 minutes for garlic. add tomatoes and bring to simmer. (can add your meat here as well.) cook for at least an hour. add 1/4 o' good dry red wine when adding tomatoes never hurts and is part o' our ordinary operation. tomatoes, particular if you cook in a metal pot/pan can take on a sharp and, well, metallic kinda bite. add 1/2 teaspoon o' sugar if you notice any metallic bite. the tiny bit o' sugar will not alter flavor o' sauce other than to counter the acids. last 10-15 minutes or so o' cooking, add your fresh basil. add at end will impart basil flavor but herb should remain bright green, which is aesthetic appealing. is actual better to cook in glass or nonstick pans/pots 'cause tomatoes is highly reactive. can strain the seeds outta the tomatoes if you really want to. is curious, but while we live in the sacramento valley, which boasts arguable the tastiest tomatoes on the planet, we prefer canned tomatoes for marinara... if nothing else. no doubt there is some arcane science which would explain, but we cannot say what is reason for superiority o' canned. many folks swear by san marzano tomatoes. most stores carry san marzano variety. can always order from amazon. a small splash o' worcestershire (small) will add a bit o' welcomed umami flavor, but if you add sausage is likely unnecessary. bolognese is a classic italian meat sauce and is not served with pasta. traditional bolognese does not include any tomato. a ragu, on the other hand, will include tomato, but not much, and may be served with pasta. as tomato is a minor addition to ragu, am not thinking it is not what you were looking at building. HA! Good fun!

can you see it now?

Am I ready to take on the mighty Nadaig? Nope...

Most contract loans follow an amortization schedule that determine how much of each payment is interest and how much is principle. All contract loans are going to be front loaded. You are going to buy interest before principle. That is a hedge for the lender in case you pay the loan off early. Once the interest for the loan is bought the loan is amortized and now all or most of the payments go to principle. The thing is, the amortization schedule is negotiable. Heck just about everything in the loan is. BEFORE you sign it. Some lenders put really nasty things in loans like pre-payment penalties and such. You MUST read that contract before signing it. If you don't like something insist on changing it. If they refuse tell them where to shove that contract. If you can't understand it take it to someone who does. I realize 18 year old college kids are getting screwed coming and going. Hurlshot is right. The colleges are screwing them by jacking up prices. Lenders screw them with bad loans. The government is screwing them by requiring to take classes that have nothing to do with their field of study. The students get it coming and going but mostly they walk right into it. And that is the problem. They are adults and they AGREED to the terms they are saddled with. I didn't agree to it? Why the hell should I have to pay for their ignorance? Most of the Democrat candidates think I should however. Nuts to that. There is another problem with this loan forgiveness BS. When has subsidizing the ability of the consumers to buy widgets ever resulted in a decrease in the prices of widgets? Never. Do you think the University is getting a nickel less? They are not.

Alien Isolation was my second favourite Alien property after errr... Alien.

I'm all about nitpicking, it's my superpower.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the 18-year old kids taking out these loans deserve a little slack. You have universities raking them over the coals and financial institutions jumping at the chance to lock them in to long term debt. College costs have skyrocketed over the last couple decades, and banks are making a tremendous profit off that. But yeah, let's just pin it on the people who are barely old enough to legally drink.

You can't be crazy, you have dogs.

Mongo like PT

Grim Face (Hearth Orlan, Priest of Eothas) & Co - Part 3 Intro Part 1 Part 2 Anslog's Compass, Xaurip's Camp. We took a position in a bottle neck north-west of camp and applied food buffs, Eder lured Xaurips and we noticed that Xaurip Priest prepared Divine Terror so Grim Face cast Prayer Against Fear followed with Inspiring Radiance+Interdiction, Aloth cast Chill Fog+Combusting Wounds, Durance applied Consecrated Ground+Aspirant's Mark and Eder set Xaurip Skirmisher prone. Our 'Rangers' focused Xaurip Priest and after some Arcane Assault by Aloth only two Xaurip Champions remained, who fell in due course. Only Eder got some negligible damage and that's it. Ippon! Dank Spore Cave. Again Eder lured Sporelings to the Cave entrance. Those are charging Grim Face so after applying Inspiring Radiance+Interdiction me hide under Withdraw, Durance fired Consecrated Ground+Bless and we focused them one by one. Then Eder tanked Dank Spores wearing Hermit's Hat while others shoot from afar. The rest of foes pose no threat and it's safe from now on for Ranga and Ponamu Bird-Scorned to carry their business. On the way back to Gilded Vale we finished sanitizing Magran's Fork of Ludrana's party (again two Goldpack Palladins charged Grim Face so I had to Withdraw), three Wolf packs and some Boars. For the Crew of five level 4 characters it's quite a trivial work. Aloth learned some new spells from Ludrana's Grimoire (Ghost Blades, Fetid Caress, Necrotic Lance). Back in Gilded Vale we where honest with Aufra about Ranga'a mixture and now, after some rest at the Hound (and the Ale Astrid has left for us), we are ready to sanitize the local Temple of Eothas. to be continued...

if were an issue o' recreational drug use or unpaid taxes or something similar, we would agree. sexual assault? rape? am unmoved by the feelings o' fans and well wishers at this time... or anytime since 2003. how reflects on living? imagine how his rape victim(s,) a living person must feel. she is no doubt conflicted 'cause she took the money rather than forcing trial and now must needs listen as celebrities and Presidents lament the passing o' a great person. btw, one o' his lawyers, jeffrey scott shapiro, wrote a book and claimed other women were willing to come forward with "me too" stories right up until team kobe started attacking the the victim's reputation in public. how do the other women, most whom we assume is living, feel? am indeed moderate disturbed by how the outpouring o' grief for kobe reflects on the living. as gd mentioned, he forgot 'bout the incident. were 2003 after all and after 'bout a year, most o' kobe's sponsors returned and very few people bothered to mention the unfortunate incident in CO. fact so many forgot is understandable, but is all the more reason to be mentioning... to remind the living. o.j. is in a different wing o' the gallery. different kinda wrong and were a generational kinda trial. ben and kobe never made it to trial, but every few decades we have a court case which polarizes a nation and facts become secondary. stuff such as lizzie borden, o.j. and trump is curious. 'course lizzie and trump ain't athletes, but if not for the bone spurs, who knows what kinda sports giant trump mighta' become. HA! Good Fun! ps as for gd recollecting michael vick and not kobe, am not gonna criticize. have mentioned once or twice how we worked county probation for a few years-- juvenile hall. we worked mostly security and intake, but also we were in j-unit, where the high security "kids" were held awaiting trial. j-unit kids were being held for such stuff such as multiple homicides and/or rape. odd, but we discovered we didn't care what a person were being held for as we were able to treat 'em all the same. or rather, we were able to not care. were surprised how easy it were for us to kinda encapsulate crimes and make the offenses a non issue. when a new resident were added to the population o' j-unit, we would read file. seemed responsible. unfortunate, we read file o' a person who had, in addition to a carjacking, done unspeakable things to multiple dogs. literal unspeakable for us as we refuse to ever discuss details. we mention 'cause we realized after reading file, we did not treat the resident same as everybody else. we were no longer unbiased and fair, though were more subtle than overt. nevertheless, we could not forget what we had read in the file. for us rape and murder were water off a duck's back, but graphic animal cruelty were different? might say something wrong 'bout Gromnir, but am sharing 'cause we never forgot how easily our impartiality were undercut, and were result o' harm to animals.

I always consider it poor taste to jump on somebody right after they die. I understand the desire to temper some of the praise he is getting right now, but it reflects more poorly on the living than the dead.

Seriously? At the day he died tragedly with his young daughter and 7 other people? A little decency and respect. If not for him then for his family and fans.

Seriously the rest is unnecessary. It's neither time nor place for this.

And yet we are talking about sales numbers and low barriers to entry and accessibility. If you want people to grasp a ruleset quickly then a systemic approach is mandatory. Having to study and memorize a lot of exceptions is what will put off a significant amount of non-hardcore-players who don't want to get a Master's degree in that specific ruleset or to write a thesis about the unique spell effects of spell XY (I include PoE/Deadfire here as well). In the end it doesn't really matter how the spell effects goes through what attack resolution, if that's a unique mechanic or not . What matters is if it feels nice to cast it. For example Pull of Eora is a unique spell effect but it uses the same attack resolution. It's more interesting than Fireball which uses the same attack resolution but is fairly boring. So I would argue the uniqueness or joy of spells should come with their effects and impact on the game world and not how they are applied mechanically. The advantage of a universal attack resolution: nobody needs to look the hit mechanics up each time they want to cast a spell. I've played my fair share of P&P during school and university and I can only say that most players hated it if you had to reach for the rulebook all the time. A supernerd who could recite every rule was very welcome, even if he (usually a he) didn't contribute much else and fell asleep at some point because all the "role-playing" bored him... There always were some hardcore-nerds who loved to take a deep dive into the depths of exceptions and special rules - but most don't. Also those experts often really like the game to stay that way. They will usually argue that a more systemic (doesn't mean simplistic!) ruleset will "dumb down" the game or make it less interesting. I guess a part of that is that they invested a huge amount of time and brain schmalz to learn all that stuff. What's that worth if everybody suddenly can grasp or even decuct the rules quickly? Those players are gatekeeping. At the same time they only buy one copy like everybody else... D&D games most certainly don't sell well because the mechanics are so awesome, interesting or unique. Simulationisticly and also in terms of convenience they are bad. They manage to be complicated and at the same time don't really simulate anything very well. That's ok because they are a result of organic growth over long years with massive legacy problems (thanks to conservative and vocal hardcore-nerds) - and it doesn't matter much because the P&P audience is used to it and the whole other stuff around the rules is -whike at times a bit chaotic and silly - very rich and attractive and most players know it - they even grew up with it. Nostalgia, custom and popularity are more important than a slick, high quality ruleset when it comes to commercial success. A clear advantage of every D&D licensed game. Another thing: I read that Stardew Valley sold 10 Million times now. After release for PC only it sold 1 million copies (which is pretty awesome for such a game). Only after the game was ported to consoles and more importantly mobiles (iOS and Android) it surged again and went for the 10 million mark. Imagine a Deadfire version for mobiles... What changes would it have to go through in order to make it playable and fun on mobile devices? I mean if we look forward to a possible third installment? RTwP seems to be a pain on small screens I reckon?

since we were on the subject

Trying to give Crusader Kings 2 another chance. This seriously is the worst tutorial ever made. I pause the game to read the tooltip and keep getting interrupted with pop up messages. Which then pop up to stop me from reading the previous messages. I think the devs mistook the malware advertisement spam for a great idea to bring information across.

I've tested 50% Blood Surge myself and it was fine. The overall high costs and scattered efficiency of Barbarian actives meant it doubled as QoL.

Adam Driver on SNL. The show has been on a roll lately. Eddie Murphy was a huge boost, but I don't think there has been a weak show this season.

I can't thank you enough for this mod! I found one missing aura: Xoti's Lantern upgrade "Light of the Dawnstar" (possibly "Threshing Aura" as well?)

Well, that's entirely subjective. I don't think I'll ever get over my love of Tolkien-esque, fantasy worlds, so I didn't think the Dyrwood was bland at all. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by 'awaken and watcher are very difficult to understand and pointless.' Your character is a watcher, and I don't see how either PoEI or II could have existed of you weren't awakened and a watcher. Lady Webb's death did carry weight, though. So did Duc Aevar Wolf-Grin's. When Lady Webb dies, you see the real Thaos, the man you've been searching for all along. It fleshes them both out, and I was sad to see her dead. When the Duc dies, it literally starts fires and rampages throughout Defiance Bay, forcing you to flee the city. That's certainly weighty.

There's probably an app for that. Of all the wonders of the internet that one's my favorite. Ordering and paying online, limiting my interaction with people to accepting the delivery and tipping the wage slave delivery guy. Same with online banking. Except for the tipping. Tipping bankers. Tsk. What a concept. If that post doesn't make sense then that's because I just spent the past 24 hours fixing problems with data migration scripts that were made by the monkeys that run around calling themselves IT professionals, developers or software engineers. Morons, the lot of them. Probably "majored" in "CompSci" at the Advanced Computer Engineering Ape University of Monkeyland at some point.

The first time I came to it with level 11, without having played the expansions, only with the equipment that you can cope with in the base game, my main was a cipher (cipher and druid are now my favorite classes) melee two-handed (complicated to wear, but once you get used to it, it's amazing). Eder, Pallegina, Durador, Kana, Aloth and my cipher. I do not exaggerate anything when I say that I was hours and hours, many hours, many attempts and always dying, in fact I created a thread here asking how I could kill this dragon xD For me the key is in the buffs for the group and the debuffs for the dragon, once I got into the head that I had to use buffs, it took me less than 2 minutes to kill her, 2 minutes counting that more than half of that time they were buffs / debuffs, the remaining time is what it took to kill her hahaha PS: Not all the fighting comes out the same, other times I have reached it with level 14, after killing Concenhault (even though I didn't use the hammer or anything, I just had more level) and throw myself 9 minutes to kill her xD I hope it is understood, my English is a bit basic :S

oh Sadie, you always know what to say

Why would they pay for an IP after already developing a fairly similar universe themselves?

Add Amira's Blessing to the list! +2 dexterity. You get it from solving the Neketaka burning house scripted interaction in a certain way.

SOMA studio's ARG to tease new game is underway

Friends can anyone handle this wonderful picture? I would really appreciate it!

This is why most people will not take your opinion seriously. You might have adressed some weaknesses - but you bury your potentially valid points under exaggeration and puerile rants which will put off most readers who are not with you already. So either you never learned how to successfully reason with others - or you are not interested in a productive discussion but only want to sow seeds of discord. Both is difficult to work with in a forum.

I've also been using Galaxy since last summer and can vouch for this. 2.0 is great, especially if you're a thrift shopper like I am and have games on basically whatever happens to be the cheapest.

Galaxy 2.0 is the only launcher that allows you to integrate and organize all your platforms in one place and thus organize and manage your entire game library in one launcher. It keeps track of achievements, hours played and games owned, combined across platforms. I've been using it since august last year (closed beta) and it's very impressive, and the kind of evolution I want to fully support -- hence my choice of GOG as my primary platform.

https://imgur.com/a/sTqpe According to the description, the item should give me resistance to dex afflictions. My rogue has it equipped, but no effect is shown in the character or portrait screen. Once again: How much resistence am I supposed to get?