Zoraptor

Answer is that it probably wouldn't inconvenience me much, since I doubt I'd have much problem circumventing anything short of a full Great Firewall of New Zealand. However, compulsory use of the internet for storage of important information like your identity needs opposing on principle, especially when it's done mostly so politicians can take An Achievement to The Electorate. Last month a compulsory use privately run health database got hacked here that was used by a third of the country's population. It appears they gained access through brute forcing a password, and much of the data wasn't encrypted- about as basic mistakes as it's possible to make. So far, zero consequences for the guys running it. You also know that people will go full UK and let Peter Thiel/ Meta/ Cambridge Analytica et alia have access to all that lovely data.

Is it going to be harder to circumvent than the Aussie one? My nephew and all his friends are still happily posting on their toktiks, chatsnaps and instagrammes months into the ban, and he's a pretty obvious 12 year old.

2 years is a bit far the other way. How many AA level games take two years to make nowadays? I can't actually think of a single one recently. I'd also rather suspect Avowed in particular suffered somewhat from the MS acquisition; suddenly there wasn't pressure on to deliver a game in a way that would keep Obsidian solvent. Average profit margin is almost certainly rather misleading, because most games don't make any money back at all. You have 5 games with identical budgets, one makes double its costs, the other 4 make only 80% back. That's an overall/ average 20% profit over those five games. But only one was a success and made money, four lost it.

I think Gromnir's pretty safe from that at least. You deliberately write badly, then blame others for their 'misinterpretations'. This happens very frequently and has happened at least three times in this thread. It's also happened to others. It's very much a you problem. Again, I'm specifically not arguing with you, that's why everything is just repeated. Took long enough for you to notice, since I told you in the very first reply. Bonus, takes me nearly no time at all. Probably 75% is mucking around with quotes and the disappearing cursor. OK, you brought up Blix, in the context of WMD, per the quote of yours that you keep on ignoring (this is a pattern). I just brought him up to show you didn't provide sources. Very relevant here, since you complained about me not providing them. OK, you kept repeating that searching for information about Reza Pahlavi when you wanted information on him was ridiculous while searching for iran protests was the thing to do. I even quoted you doing so the post previous. Another literal lol. Pointing out that you do exactly what you accuse others of is not whataboutism, nor is it gaslighting or any other phrase those who cannot argue their way out of a paper bag use reflexively; it's just the truth. The first defence of anyone caught out in hypocrisy is to scream whataboutism (we're talking about what is wrong with you only! anything else is whataboutism!) and the only reason you're doing it here is because you don't have an actual refutation, because you cannot have an actual refutation. All those things you've accused me of you've done yourself. I'm generally of the opinion that even people I don't like or don't value the opinion of are at least worth listening to, but this and you... I even feel bad laughing at this point.

30% doesn't seem unreasonable to me. Perhaps even quite reasonable, within the limits of what you'd expect from MBA types. I'm not sure there are any publishers that would metaphorically get out of bed for something that takes 5 years to generate a 10-20% profit even in a sector where most products lose money; the lower end is probably a practical loss due to inflation. Companies will take low reward so long as it's also low risk (and low opportunity cost, ie you don't have something better to do with the money) but gaming is really not low risk; on an individual title basis it's high risk and mostly relies on big returns from a few titles rather than moderate returns from lots. That's a not unusual length of time for games today, at least when they have pretensions about being a big hit. Which is a bit of an indictment on the industry as a whole.

It's not illogical in the slightest. It's the result of your writing in pidgin, which is a choice you make. As it stands, I'll take it as that though because this is even more boring than the rest. That's in the context of you not providing sources and congratulating you for finding one that time. Highly relevant, given your conduct here. And congratulations even if- or perhaps more so because- it showed what I was saying was correct. Really? You called looking for reza pahalvi ridiculous, on this very page, to whit: Oh dear. Well, someone can't it seems, though you do seem to be predominantly lying to yourself. Makes things easy for me, I just have to check your posts on the same page since you can't be consistent between them.

Finally finished watching Rings of Power after a bit of a summer hiatus. Overall, still rate it as being OK, and the first season would have got a lot less criticism if it had been more like this. Most of the criticisms of the first 6 episodes still stand, though most of them are just kind of annoying more than anything. Rather less of the extremely annoying once you notice it indirect speechifying in the last two eps at least due to all the ackshun. However, much of the improvement was due to what we seemed to deliberately not get much of in S1: aping the still far superior movies. Balrog, Sarumanesque wizard standoff; the siege of Eregion was... strongly reminiscent of Helm's Deep, even allowing for both having to have similarities ie both being sieges. And it still has the ultimate problem: if Sauron can subvert Celebrimbor's mind- and he'd be at worst the third greatest elf on ME behind single G and double G- then what does he really need the rings for?

Other way around iirc; while Feargus may have wanted a Skyrim like- and who in gaming management wouldn't, really- Avowed started off active development as a multiplayer game; then switched to single player, then with zones rather than seamless. That interview was from 2016, before even PoE2 launched. I don't think there's much evidence of unusual development trouble in either really, you just tend to notice issues more in games you pay attention to. Both games had pretty close to standard dev cycles time wise for games of their scope; Avowed slightly longer and OW2 probably a bit shorter. If there's one thing Avowed delays stuffed up for sure it was staggering releases properly, ideally you'd want longer there.

And you'd know they were bleating more than once. Show your homework. Classic Gromnir: write something ill thought out in pidgin; expect others to work out what you really meant. Bit of a pattern and I suspect why you stick with the persona. Funny thing is, you very obviously do think what I claim, since every argument you make is semantic about me not proving it rather than just saying outright that you don't. Same as you very obviously wrote ignoring me as an option, but tried to back out of it later just because it made you look like you were trying to score cheap points. In the context of you refusing to source something, not wmd. I thought that was a mortal sin against argumentation or something, or is that only when other people do it? Again, it was you who brought up the wmd part and seemed inordinately proud of not providing links. Highly relevant for this argument since its Classic Gromnir: rules only apply to other people. As for the rest, I said all along I wouldn't argue with you. I'm telling you you're wrong, because you are, engaging with misrepresentations and fantasies from someone whose opinions you consider worthless is just a waste of time. Telling them they're wrong isn't, at least so much. And not when there's genuinely laugh out loud moments like: Absolute lol. If you're looking for something about a specific person you shouldn't search for them, according to Gromnir. Mentions of the person you're looking for are incidental. And the utterly hilarious thing is that that has been the essence of your argument. Don't search for reza pahlavi, search for iran protests. You do exactly the same, you're just a hypocrite about it. Your only problem is when it's someone else doing it, not you. Same as you hate speculation, unless it's you doing it. Hate people being ignorant about your country, but you being ignorant about theirs is fine. Think semantics is obfuscation, unless it's your semantics. etc etc In the end, for all the single examples that is the essence of Classic Gromnir: rules and ethics only apply to other people, they don't apply to Gromnir.

Microsoft's approach was awful. Super premium pricing discouraged both casual and dedicated initial interest; and that is just about impossible to overcome just with quality because no one likes the feeling they're being taken advantage of. Very odd choice to try a new higher pricing level on them. PoE/ Outer Worlds 1 were not Fallout and were not Baldur's Gate, indeed PoE2 did notably poorly at launch, but eventually made money. You can't price as if they're must haves. They will probably/ hopefully have decent tails at least, at a more sensible pricing level.

Looks like if there was a truce on Ukraine's energy sector- and even Zelensky seems to think it was a request only in his daily briefing- it's well and truly over after last night. Ukraine admits to 71 strikes getting through as well, which is unusual.

The sheep were bleating. If you told anyone that you actually meant the sheep bleated once, they'd think you mental. So, show your homework. If you didn't mean that, yet wrote it to stay in character, that is your fault not mine. Not the first time you've claimed people misrepresent you when it's your deliberate shtick that's the problem, and it's you misrepresenting yourself. Absolute Classic Gromnir. It's other peoples' fault that they aren't blessed with literal telepathy. No, you didn't. Your immediate response was: "oh and low energy zor is not gonna once again cowardly retreat from his blix misrepresentation. can't even be bothered to literal google "hans blix berkeley"?" I can understand you not wanting to write the correct response you made, because it makes you look like a massive hypocrite again due to refusing to provide sources- the thing you started complaining about here. Classic Gromnir. Accuses someone else of misrepresentation, then proceeds to do exactly what he accuses them of, accuses someone else of not providing sources, didn't provide them himself. No. Again, you're hiding behind Gromnir speak as an excuse. Again. You offered it as an option, and you've certainly misrepresented what you said at the time up to and including deciding that or . Classic Gromnir, accusing someone else of doing the same thing. That's what you said in defence; as if you cannot offer mutually exclusive options like eating a cake, or not. That either betrays complete ignorance of the meaning of words, or... I struggle for a different interpretation except the obvious one: you cannot stand being wrong or looking bad. Most people wouldn't care about being called on a stupid rhetorical device since it's a stupid rhetorical device, you obviously do. Either way: literal lol moment that. Jesus, this is embarrassing even for you. So, according to Gromnir searching for the thing you're looking for is 'ridiculous'. So, so, if you're looking for a specific recipe, just do a search for 'recipe'. If you're looking for information on a Toyota corolla, do a search for 'car'. If you're looking for information on measles do a search for 'disease'. Or maybe that's too precise for all of them, and you should just do a search for 'humans'. I'd call that reductio ad absurdum, except your whole argument starts off absurd. One might even say it's ridiculous. Double Classic Gromnir: say something objectively ridiculous like you shouldn't search for what you are looking for and doing so is 'ridiculous' and once again try projectile vomiting information at the screen in the hope the other person Just Gives Up.

...do you know what the word 'bleating' means. Do you know what 'were bleating' means. Do you know what the plural form is. Show your homework- or clarify in plain english that you don't actually think I am or was 'obsessed' with Blix and WMD. Then, it could all be put to bed. You won't do either though, you'll no doubt just pretend you didn't say what you did. Or we can conclude that that is another thing you demand of others but not yourself. No, I brought him up in the context of you managing to find a source while still taking a just trust me bro approach to something else- at least a theoretical improvement over previous conduct. That just happened to be the Blix video. You brought up the wmd aspect, in the other post I quoted, which for some mysterious reason you are pretending doesn't exist. Truly, mysterious. That the source actually did show that Johnson knew what Aleppo was and was hit by a gotcha question unrelated to the prior sequence was, well; you posting a boxer punching himself is 100% Classic Gromnir. No it wasn't. Took you three years, and me saying I wouldn't look for it for it to turn up. Did 'low effort Gromnir' just decide not to post it for three years because it was so easy to find? We both, and any poor sod unfortunate enough to still be reading this drivel knows if you had it, you would have posted it. I most certainly don't actually care about the video since it was refutation of your delusions of what I said, but the refusal to post it or inability to find it then trying to blame someone else and complaining about you having to find something trivial is the Holy Trinity of Classic Gromnir. lol. My suggestions were to eat a cake... or ignore it. Obviously I cannot eat a cake and not do it, so not eating it was not a stated option. Do you know what the word or means. You're either so obtuse you've rotated past reflex a few times or really do need remedial english. Or you're just arguing perpetually in the hope the other person gives up and you can 'win'. <-- it's this one. Classic Gromnir. Literally lol. Doing a targeted search for Reza Pahlavi doesn't give you relevance, but iran + protests does? Pretty much sums it all up, since we know you'd blow a gasket over that sort of conduct, from anyone else. You want that done solely because it returns everything no matter the direct relevance. Again, favourite tactic for those who don't want to find information, since altavista. FTR: 70 results for iran protests today. 54 for reza pahlavi. Classic Gromnir. My god you really are throwing everything at the screen, aren't you. He has as much chance of leading Iran as cause celebre* Bana Alabad had of leading Syria, and she was a 6 year old girl advocating for rebranded al qaeda. Both of them were embiggened for a completely different reason to Pahlavi. *no alt codes anymore? what even is this new software.

Really man, you said, and I quote since you didn't- for obvious reasons: No asking to prove a negative there; show your homework. Or is that just for other people again? I do remember the wonderful Senate Report you linked though, and selectively quoted. That is the context- in part, since it was pattern forming- for not believing you about Blix plus your persistent inability to provide a video you insisted was real and easy to find (yet you didn't) until after I said I wouldn't watch it anyway. Due to it being irrelevant to what I actually said instead of what you imagined I said. You never answered how Rumsfeld's definitive statement about knowing where the wmd were wasn't a lie, by the way. We both know you won't this time either. Wasn't anything about WMD though, was it: "Still, at least this time you've managed to find a transcript, unless (sic) your mythical Hans Blix video, and it's actually relevant". It was about you refusing to provide a source, and demanding I find it- highly relevant to now, given your initial complaints yet you clearly being able to identify the articles I used. Pattern, since the first time I brought up Blix it wasn't directly about WMD either, much as you've tried gaslighting that it was. Ironic, and classic Gromnir. Who wanted help doing their homework? As always, the whole thing was based on a straw man argument where you argued persistently about what you wish I'd said, rather than what I did. yeah, Gromnir presented as an option, which is why your question made no sense after we fully explained not only why we didn't personal choose the ignore option in spite o' identifying it were the choice o' wisdom You presented it as an option you'd consider, hence the use of the first person. You then said you'd never actually do it- not a surprise to anyone, I'm sure. So, why list it as an option in the first person? At this point I'll just answer for you: grandstanding. Classic Gromnir. To whit: As I said, if you design a search not to find something you won't. Classic Gromnir. And the best way to do that is to get as much general stuff in there as possible. Hope you didn't waste too much time. As previous, non specific searches has been a favourite tactic of the sophist since altavista became a thing. So, I crossreferenced the general search with a specific one for Pahlavi. Advanced stuff, I know, but I do like a bit of intellectual vigour when refuting what is, really, the rhetorical equivalent of vomiting on the screen in the hope the other person will give up. Now, you will no doubt burble about that not being 'fair' because it doesn't replicate the original search I did and wasn't limited to the first few lines; sure. Neither does yours though. If you criticise me for it, you are, once again, trying to enforce rules on others you won't follow yourself. I was not reciprocating your methodology; that would be stupid since it's solely designed to 'prove' your point by filling search results with irrelevant stuff. I could do a similar search with some other prominent Iranian opposition figures that have repeatedly featured in the news as a comparison... but despite paying a fair bit of attention, I can't remember any? Only Pahlavi. You?

Don't think anyone believes that Russian losses are light, just that their losses aren't as high as Ukraine claims, and Ukraine's aren't as low as they claim. Certainly not me, the mediazona numbers are pretty bad, their equivalent is just worse comparatively for Ukraine. Same of course holds true for Russian casualty claims, in reverse.. The 1.2 million claim is certainly recursive, ie: Ukraine claims it, media and agencies repeat it, when people question Ukraine's numbers people then reply that it's confirmed by media, think tanks and agencies.