Zoraptor

Been replaying Kingdom Come Deliverance (1) on hardcore difficulty. Not quite what I was hoping for- which was equivalent to top level difficulty on Stalker where it's more difficult for everyone, not just you- but nicely unforgiving and it's still a top tier experience overall. It is a bit janky for a low save game though, so far I've got stuck on terrain twice, had two ctds and two cutscenes that looped perpetually. Also, I find it hard to believe that c15th Bohemia didn't have compasses. No automap doesn't matter to me but using the sun for orientation is tiresome- since half the time I go the exact wrong direction, as the sun 'points' north in the southern hemisphere not south. Have a fight in the woods at night though, no chance of working out which direction you're facing at the end of it half the time.

That's far from the most onerous requirement. Assuming the document is genuine there's no way anyone could sign it. That's the sort of document that has a high chance of ending with you literally literally dead, not just politically dead. "..The new document states that revenues from Ukraine’s resources would be directed to a fund in which the United States would hold 100 percent financial interest, and that Ukraine should contribute to the fund until it reaches $500 billion.."* In practical terms that is signing away 100% mineral rights, not 50%. If the US decided Ukraine's share would best be used to buy F35s or $1015mn pac-2 patriots then that's where the money would go. If they decided it was best spent on fricking TrumpCoin that is where it'd go. *there could always be a misinterpretation of the terms, since it's second hand info. As it stands though while the document commits to "[the US] intend[ing] to provide long-term financial support to help Ukraine develop economically" the whole point of the fund is to pay back the 'aid' already delivered. Only logical conclusion is that the US will be 'giving' its 'aid' out of Ukraine's 50%, not from an actual commitment from them.

Didn't Musk do exactly the same thing with Twitter? Quite apart from the procedural mess around buying it in the first place. Does make you wonder how he got so much money in the first place when he seems to be trying to alienate both Twitter and Tesla's userbase simultaneously. Otherwise yeah, meme department makes meme mistake; and we'd better get used to it as there will only be more coming.

I'd have said the most likely outcome of inviting Russia was them not turning up for the first meeting, which would have been even better for Ukrainian and Euro feelings of righteousness. They probably would have for the second though. As it was the results there were hardly lent credibility when a sizeable number of the hand picked participants refused to sign the communiqué precisely because Russia wasn't there (or didn't turn up to it). There's limited practical utility in preaching only to the converted in order to convince oneself of one's moral superiority. It really isn't a peace conference if there's both no prospect of it resulting in peace and it does nothing to progress towards it, that's just one side making demands to an audience- and that's true whether it's Russia or Ukraine missing from the negotiations. In any case lending legitimacy to claims is something which is always said about negotiations. Said it for Hamas, said it for the IRA, said it for the Taleban, and others; and for far more minor issues than the current one. For practical matters there was always going to be a negotiated settlement unless you Believed the constant barrage of pipe dream fantasies about Russia's imminent collapse- which, it seems, rather a lot of European leaders did. In that scenario by far the most important factor is not making Euros feel righteous, it's that Ukraine would have been in a far better position for negotiations then as opposed to negotiations now.

At the moment the only one who isn't visibly losing it is Putin. Trump being Trump, some ludicrous comments and headless chook behaviour from the Europeans (particularly frustrating, not like they had 3 months to prepare for Trump and had Afghanistan as a blueprint for what to expect), Zelensky all over the place. Which is, at least, highly understandable. I'm also slightly annoyed- but not surprised- by the outraeg!!!11!! about Zelensky being excluded from the talks and selective memory being applied. Talks without Ukraine are exactly as useful as talks without Russia. And lest we forget- since it seems most journalists have- there were multiple talks held without Russia resulting in a succession of peace plans from Zelensky that were unrealistic, then, and even less realistic now.

Don't think I'd ever describe using something as open to very obvious abuse as blanket preemptive pardons as 'smart'*, that's a step too far. We are, most likely, going to now enter a cycle of outgoing administrations issuing preemptive blanket pardons for the term of their administration as a matter of course when there's a change of party involved. I'd save a bit of snark for the 'Robust Republic' types as well. If you've got nebulously defined/ limited powers that are open to abuse like pardons and EOs that is absolutely a systemic failure, which was always going to become a problem. There's limited utility talking about how things should work or were envisaged to work if the practicality is different. *necessary, ok, in this specific case that is hard to dispute given Trump's personality. But it's a can of worms opened nevertheless.

Seems entirely appropriate that DOGE has meme level security.

Seems likely. Though if anything has changed recently NWN2 wise or they've just got around to progressing the EE enough for us to hear about it is an open question. Aspyr was doing a KOTOR remaster(?) so simply may not have had the ability to do NWN2 but not the time. I don't think Atari have been listed as publisher on any D&D CRPG for a couple of years at least which implies they lost the rights then.

In a word yes, though it'd depend of course on the request and specific situation. (Fundamentally, shifting the focus to US v China and parking US v Russia alters the balance of leverage for Russia <--> China as well, which certainly favours China markedly at the moment. Russia, now, would have difficulty refusing any half way reasonable Chinese request or agreement offer and, if it hurt the west, likely wouldn't particularly want to anyway. It'd still be highly unlikely Russia would go out of its way to help any anti Chinese western efforts, given recent history and with a realistic 'normalisation' to the US. If the US asked them to, say, close their borders to Chinese goods they wouldn't under any reasonable scenario. But you could certainly expect them to extract a price from China much as China has from Russia, and could get them to up the price by offering sanctions relief or release of currency reserves. Neither of those could be offered under a more Bidenesque approach)

It's far simpler to just get a bunch of people to say that the game is being review bombed and get the rating manually (or 'manually') curated by removing all the zeroes. Indeed, that's what happens fairly often eg to Rings of Power on IMDB* and various games on Steam. *purely coincidental who owns that site, of course

There does come a point where the balance shifts and you have to accept that some of the outrageous things he says are what he actually wants and intends to get- or at least, that you have to take the threats/ statements seriously. And at that point it isn't him living rent free in your head any more, it's real concern that he might actually try invading Greenland/ Canada/ Panama or ethnically cleansing Gaza- or 'sell out' Ukraine. But none of the Ukraine stuff should be a surprise, Trump's position was signposted extensively and there's a pretty direct precedent in what happened in Afghanistan where negotiations almost exclusively took place between the US and Taleban without Afghan government involvement. That Europe in particular seems to have made zero preparations is an indictment on their historically incompetent leadership (well, short term history, not like von der Leyen is literally Hitler) coupled to wishful thinking on pretty much every single aspect of everything. If you want to target China, as Trump obviously does, you need to have Russia if not on side then at least not as an enemy, and that's basic geographical fact.

At this point I think it's safe to say it's Hasbro/ WOTC that's the root of the issue. One issue with games rights/ developers might be a coincidence but they've had issues with Interplay/ BIS, Bioware, Atari, Obsidian and Larian- just off the top of my head, limited to D&D and with me not paying much attention. They just don't seem to be very good at all at anything computer game related and when there's a success it's despite them.

Bad PR for Israel: not with the press coverage we're all getting. Israel raping an orthopaedic surgeon to death- who was kidnapped every bit as much as any Israeli hostage was- with a broomhandle doesn't even rate a mention while skinny hostages is literally the end of the world. But starving Palestinian babies... that's fine because some people voted for Hamas 17 years ago. The biggest death toll caused by Israel's creation is still the Lebanese Civil War. Unless Israel managed to kill more than 150k Palestinians, which is a possibility considering Israel's obvious strategy was to kill anyone counting so the toll stalled out despite the attacks never letting up.

Looks like a NWN2: Enhanced Edition is happening, developed by Aspyr.

Someone in Ukraine must have looked at an overview of why Trump wants to annex Greenland and made sure to mention rare earths repeatedly. The best thing about that play is that it was a Biden era agreement that Ukraine shelved for months so as to pad Trump's ego. Not sure it's worked given some of his other recent comments like "they may be Russian some day" (Trump's 500bn dollars worth of rare earth reserves would supply US imports for, uh, 2500 (two thousand five hundred) years at the current rate of just under 200mn p/a. Which actually dropped from 2022 numbers. But I also can't find a single independent source of Ukraine having any proven r/e reserves, at all. And of course the 'funny' thing about it is that their proven reserves of other minerals are disproportionately- and pretty massively so- in the Donbass, which realistically they aren't getting back)

Don't think it's that they're outraged over that per se, even indirectly. It's that being pro US so often meant being pro previous administration and pro US foreign policy orthodoxy both of which are things they hate- most would have no problem supporting Iranian opposition media so long as it was in Farsi and only anti Iran (or, given their bias and general lack of self awareness, was pro Trump). The perception that it was a soft money pro Democrat Party and Liberal Agenda* slush fund was reinforced by how much of the media aimed at [countryname] was written in english, and thus obviously aimed at, well, english speakers. The more pragmatic and realpolitik sorts may also be a bit miffed that the claims of independent media being foreign agents made by adversaries have now been proven correct despite all the repeated claims to the contrary. Makes it a lot harder to paint the Georgian foreign agent law for example as being a blatant threat to independent journalism when their accusations that the media aren't independent but are being funded from overseas are now shown to be largely accurate. *le sigh, but it is the sort of term they'd use to describe it

I did, and I certainly did a far better job of it given I didn't make a sweeping unreferenced generalisation but a not so sweeping, referenced, one. Serves me right for not adding 'or an irrelevant citation' to my previous post as I meant to though. BBC Media Action isn't media itself, as the press release notes.

While the save system sounded awful enough to put me off initially it worked fine practically for KCD1. From what I remember the autosave function was both pretty generous* and- if you really wanted to- gameable. Far less annoying than, say, Alpha Protocol where you might have a hard autosave going through a one way door with no indication the door was one way and no in mission manual saves at all. *one of the games GOG asked me to delete cloud stuff from a while back iirc it made so many. Though nowhere near as many as, ironically given they share a parent company, Witcher 3.

For example the one Ukrainian outlet that gave a figure gave 80% USAID funding for its budget, with 90% of Ukrainian media surviving on grants. Not 10-20%. I'd ask for some evidence of the 10-20, but we both know how likely I am to get any. No it doesn't. It means independent. Not state sponsored, not state controlled. Your definition would mean there was no independent media outright, since every outlet everywhere is subject to laws that limit what they can say. Someone might say that the BBC for example has an independent editorial line*; but if you tried describing them as 'independent' because of that people would think you're a moron, since they're both state funded and state owned. Though at least they're funded by the state they're resident in**. You're also fundamentally not independent if the only way to get funded is to write what someone in a foreign country wants. The only difference between Russia funding media in other countries and the US doing the same is perspective and whose world view you agree with, not anything objective. *except of course, for when it doesn't. The World Service was run by the Foreign Office specifically under the mandate to promote British interests for decades, after all. **except for the bits partly funded by, well, USAID.

I guess if there's one positive about Trump so far it's him managing to expose exactly how 'independent' a lot of 'independent media' are. While people with critical faculties engaged won't exactly be surprised it is nice to have irrefutable confirmation of just how Orwellian the phrase often was. Unfortunately genuinely independent media will be caught up in it too and tarnished by association, though one cannot discount that being seen as a positive side effect by those who were in charge of the policy. But at End of Day: if you're reliant on a foreign country for funding you are not by any definition 'independent'- that is, indeed, the literal definition of being dependent instead. Also doesn't do much to help with the 'every accusation is a confession' observation when it comes to claims about Russian/ Chinese/ Iranian influence operations nor with the generalised distrust of media- with the latter being a big positive for Trump and pals. (Despite that USAID was a net positive and by a decent amount. Certainly not worth getting rid of wholesale just so I get to have an inconsequential laugh)

No comment on their substantiveness (which will always be a bit subjective) but Obama actually issued fewer EOs than GWB did and the least of any two term president since... Grover Cleveland? If anyone wanted zero from Trump history suggests that they should have held his inauguration outside in the cold and got him to do a long speech.

This stuff, presumably? If so it's what those young chaps like to call copium. It got no media traction because it's essentially worthless. The drop off benefitting Trump and against Harris is exactly what you'd expect from a popular vs unpopular candidate. In MMP terms it's basically the equivalent of a popular MP being returned in a constituency where the party vote goes heavily against their party vs an unpopular one losing their seat despite the party vote in that electorate favouring their party. Trump's an idiot and was almost certainly referring to the vote analysis tool Musk wrote which by all accounts did a very good job, assuming it was the comment in that Newsweek article. Though there's also been a lot of actually fake fake news about stuff Trump didn't say too.

In the end, this is what the American people voted for. Not like anyone can say we aren't getting exactly what was expected from a Trump/ Republican clean sweep*. The first question is whether anything they're doing is illegal, or just against precedent. Seems at least some of it is, since stuff like deporting citizens has been blocked. But for stuff that isn't actually illegal there probably isn't any avenue for stopping it. *which means the media is rather stuck. At least last time they could burble on about the popular vote; this time it's clear cut, and was so after the experience of 2017-20.

Seems likely. Whether people will remember that Biden did exactly the same thing when Trump inevitably does it... Don't think Trump or Biden need to pardon themselves any more though, at least for official duty type stuff. (Very, very much late Roman Republic vibes. Everyone loved the Republic and were only acting to preserve it right down to, well, G. Iulius Caesar Octavianus. Nobody seemed to understand that them breaking the rules meant that the other side would too and that you were instead systematically demolishing the moral authority everything was built on)

I'm not sure that's a new thing though. While the energy price increase and switch to electrics is. At least outside of Europe Euro cars do not have and haven't had a good reputation for value for decades*; you tend to buy them to show off that you have the money to buy them and keep them running and that's a limited market. They've a perception that they've largely kept sales volume up by- frankly- making cars that fall apart after five years and have very low resale value, so you might as well just buy a new one. As opposed to Toyota that makes cars that never fall apart but may stop working, eventually, so have excellent resale value (and hence, relatively low 1st hand sales compared to how many are in the active vehicle fleet). Euro car manufacturing had always been the subject of significant trade protection as well which 'artificially' 'distort' the market. In places where there aren't protectionary measures they've never had great popularity (all Euro cars combined make up ~10% of total sales here; Toyota has almost 8x the sales of world #2 VW. Somewhat distorted by distance and Japan being closer, but then you have the Euro cheese counter examples). *ever? I do seem to remember 80s Mercs have a rep for being indestructible, but also unreliable monstrosities like the Austin Maxi my parents had.