Zoraptor

Hitman 3 spoilers:

There's at least some evidence that there were narrative issues too and it isn't just incompetence from everyone else. This in particular ("..and to my knowledge, there were no delays caused by the Bloodlines 2 narrative development.") triggered a slight twinge since they had already stated during the recent MCA kerfuffle that all MCA's content had been superceded/ removed even prior to that controversy. That's not too surprising given 5 years of development, but there clearly has been quite a lot of narrative revision going on if it had all been removed and would not have been taken lightly given MCA was a big name for the story to hang on. Though that could, of course, be due to tinkering with other aspects influencing/ requiring narrative changes.

There's been a bit more information on the Xbox seriesX from Hot Chips over the last day or so. Most of it was known or rumoured beforehand: 8 core Zen2 (2x4 chiplets) 52 CU RDNA2 video (26x2 pairs) DLSS equivalent (previously rumoured, but now confirmed) Some raytracing numbers, though they're hard to directly compare with nVidias. "3-10x performance uplift" is probably the least equivocal statement. ~170W power draw, no thermal throttling on CPU or GPU so they run at 3.8/ 1.8Ghz sustained Power draw is pretty impressive, since it's less than a desktop 5700XT's but there isn't that much difference in frequency (+~200Mhz for the 5700XT; boost, not sustained) between the SeriesX 52CU GPU and the 40CU 5700XT, and the xbox figure is whole system so includes maybe ~65W for the CPU etc.

Guess I'm fortunate in not ever being very tempted to preorder. Project sounds like a bit of a disaster at this point. Most interesting thing from Mitsoda's statement was that he was fired a month before the organisational changes were announced but only made a statement today. In some ways it's completely unsurprising, Paradox's history outside its core competency of strategy games has almost never- Cities: Skylines being the obvious exception- been a successful one, either because the games were rubbish, didn't sell or because their relationship broke down with the developers (eg Mount&Blade). It wasn't necessarily a 'bad' decision to fire Mitsoda. Sometimes writers write too much stuff, or stuff that cannot be easily implemented- see MCA and Dying Light 2 for an example. There is such a thing as being too enthusiastic about a project. I doubt that's the case here though. One of the persistent factors in Paradox's awful external performance has been dreadful production oversight; if Brian were writing far too much or tinkering or whatever Paradox should have stopped it ages ago. They're just not very good at all at external productions. Who knows, maybe the new Paradox CEO wants to go back to his roots and make it a free-to-play phone game.

Yeah, they've only ever done low core count chips on 10nm, and the cannonlake SKU didn't even have a functional iGPU. They still only have 4c/8t offerings with 10nm and all(?) the Tigerlake offerings top out at 4/8 too, but they are meant to launch server chips Soon(TM) and that would imply better and more reliable yields- or that they're doing chiplets. Alderlake desktop's only meant to go up to 8c (8 single threaded big cores, 8 atom small cores) and for desktop the big question is probably what clock speeds 10nm can get to, the problem with the current 5.3Ghz flagship chips is that if their replacements cannot match that a lot of any IPC improvement is canceled out- and a 9900k may still be faster if its HT virtual cores are faster than an atom/ Microsoft doesn't do scheduling properly or whatever.

Yeah, there doesn't exactly seem to be massive responsibility taken by those in high office at big corporations. A list of CEOs at big corps who have been actively fired would be short, those fired without a massive golden handshake even shorter. They almost always 'resign', with a massive pay out. Here at least poor performance by State Owned Enterprises almost always results in a worse result for those responsible precisely because it's owned by the state. If they're badly run politicians' careers are badly effected, so poor performance tends to get stamped out. OTOH corporate leadership tends to get longer to perform, and way more soft landings for failure (eg Theo Spierings at Fonterra; 8 million dollar severance pay- best part of a billion dollars of write downs and loss associated with him. And while that was not entirely his fault he was running a literal monopoly)

Some more information (though not much) on Intel's consumer GPU offerings via Architecture Day. External fab, hardware RT, launch 2021 expected. A few other interesting bits like them licensing a GDDR controller rather than designing their own. Otherwise, not much from the event unless you're interested in laptops (better iGPUs/ Tigerlake SoCs) or are invested in making jokes about Intel's node size conventions: Tigerlake now isn't 10nm++ but 10nm SuperFin. Presumably, AlderLake will now be 10nm SuperDuperFin instead of 10nm+++. They've also retconned Cannonlake's 10nm iteration to be 10nm- presumably to stop people calling icelake's process 10nm+. Of all the things wrong Intel responds to it's memes about 14nm++++++.

I suspect a lot of people really dislike that sort of win-above-all type of justice, but they're politically irrelevant since their only real alternative is Trump. The votes of people who are fine with railroading the poor or stupid and gaming the system to get a conviction is at least theoretically up for grabs; anyone who doesn't like it mostly vote D already.

Will CNN etc even show it though? Watching the reaction all the D establishment figures are bringing it up to try and shut it down, implying it was Republicans who'd made the observations about her prosecutorial record despite it being Gabbard and Warren who took Harris out. Oh well, just claim Tulsi was a Russian plant and bring up Warren formerly being a Republican is it gets traction, I guess. Fox OTOH will probably play it on a loop unless Murdoch has decided Trump is definitely going to lose. Still, if you're left in the US what are you going to do? Vote for the milquetoast status maximus ultimus quo with ultimately meaningless progressive trimmings, or Donald Trump. Exact same situation as last time from the Democrats, hoping that leftists will swallow a turd rather than risk Trump. Will probably work this time too, after 4 years of Trump, but just shows how little the D establishment actually learnt from 2016.

The perks thing in TWitcher2 is pretty much identical to what Alpha Protocol did a couple of years earlier.

Nothing weird about how Lukashenko has been acting. He's always tried to leverage Russia by threatening to go full west, and leverage the west by threatening to go full Russia. Arresting 30 Wagner mercs to show he's still 'independent' is pure stunt. The threat- to the west- is that if the pressure gets too much he signs and enacts the Union act with Russia instead of stalling it again. As for VP picks, could there possibly be a less appealing enthusiasm hole than a Biden/ Harris ticket? Well, apart from Pence/ Trump or Hillary/ Kane of course.

The Russian vaccine is far more likely to simply not work than do active harm. Doubt most people knew Putin was even married until he got divorced, his daughter has been mentioned a fair bit but is certainly no Ivanka publicity wise. 4 new non quarantine cases in Auckland here in a single family, so it's back to level 3. Wish I lived 10km down the road, no atrocious Auckland Council only interested in gross city vanity projects, no awful Auckland Transport with no fuel levy to pad AT's coffers and pay for ludicrous central city vanity projects and no (well, fewer) Rona restrictions.

If it's as bad as it seems atrocious may be a gross understatement.

When it comes to privacy there's as much separation between the Chinese State and their companies and the US State and its; excepting maybe Apple. The main, indeed in most cases only, evidence that Chinese apps and Chinese hardware is phoning home with everything is that US apps and US hardware definitely do, so the presumption is that China does too. People really ought to complain equally about both, including those in the US. After all, outside war or extraordinary personal circumstances you're always at greater risk from your own government than from a foreign one. But yes, hard to complain about the US reciprocally banning Chinese apps without seeming like a hypocritical CCP tool.

Yep, and I theoretically agree with you. I think things like the 'Burqa ban' in France- albeit that's the reverse of forcing people to wear something- is utterly moronic doctrinaire stupidity for example, and almost as bad as the state compelling people to wear religious iconography. But, face masks do have a good public health justification instead of a philosophical 'mais muh secularité'; and the 'freedom' argument holds a lot less water when that freedom is potentially harming others instead of yourself. If it were easy to avoid people exercising their freedom I'd also agree, but practically it isn't. People can quite genuinely think they don't need to wear a mask because they aren't sick, yet be infectious, people can intend to maintain distance but not etc. Any one of those situations can result in death or sickness, for others. Essentially, it's the clash of theory vs practice, and in this case the practice side wins out over the theory side. I'd suspect there are a lot of places where masks cannot be legally mandated and laws would have to be changed if they were, like here. But they'd be able to get around it pretty easily even if they didn't change the law because private entities would mandate them, and public transport, buildings etc already have rights to refuse access to protect public safety. (I'd actually argue that there is a 'right' to drive- and there is here (and by a quick duckduckgo in the US too) the right to drive unlicensed on your own land. The state should not be able to deprive you of being able to drive for any factor, except you not being safe to others when exercising that right)

Was (maybe still is) used by lots of countries' air crews during and since WW2 especially in situations where alertness had to be maintained for long periods. Not as systematically as the nazid did though, but... Still a lot of it going on, eg captagon in Syria (very extensively used by ISIS and inghimasi type jihadis) and (albeit natural) Khat/ Qat in the horn of Africa and Yemen where it's ubiquitously chewed by shoeless Houthis when blowing up expensive Saudi hardware. Kind of funny really, the extremes that don't like drugs in theory are often the ones who use them most in practice.

Would have thought that driver licensing would be a better analogy to masks. In theory, if drivers only ever hurt/ killed/ damaged themselves or their property you wouldn't need mandated driver licensing because an idiot/ incompetent driver only hurts themself, and if you stay on your own property you don't need to be licensed (here at least). In reality though they effect other people as well, a crap driver who decides to speed and overtake unsafely and hits someone else head on isn't just cleansing the gene pool of their own stupidity, which is why there's mandated legal licensing requirements. Same(ish, it is an analogy of course) with masks, if it were a matter of personal choice which only effected the wearer then not wearing them and taking your chances is fine. But it isn't, and in situations where there is uncontrollable spread someone refusing to wear a mask is potentially making others sick or even dead every bit as much as the driver who insists they don't need to be licensed because they've never had an accident. People have the intrinsic right to make decisions that effect themselves, but not ones that unduly and involuntarily effect others. Really though, it's just a matter of good manners to wear one when there's uncontrolled spread and it should not have to be mandated. Sure, if you're doing social distancing/ lock down etc properly they aren't necessary, but for that you have to do social distancing properly which most either will not or can not. And on a more fundamental level, those who dn't like being told to wear masks also do have a fair overlap with those who won't do other things they're told to, like socially distance/ lock down.

First Man in Rome is pretty good, so long as one likes (somewhat) fictionalised history. 'I, Claudius' would be the most obvious comparison, though FMiR is both considerably longer page wise and considerably shorter time span wise. Part of a longer series, and the timespans get progressively more condensed the further in. Late but not terminal decline Roman Republic is also an often neglected subject for the more popular triumvirates epoch. It's well written and very well researched, and less dry than reading proper history. (I'd personally go for the first book too though. Interesting subject, and less of a commitment)

Not sure I agree, posting an amp link is just lazy rather than despicable. I'd be surprised if multiple current MKs didn't say similar privately, they'd definitely be thinking it, and there's certainly plenty of effort going into trying to make political capital by trying to implicate Hezbollah from Israel, KSA and the US. Ironically of course, it was KSA/ US patsy Saad Hariri who was in power for most of the time the ammonium nitrate was there. Such is life in the middle east. OTOH kind of hilarious watching Beeb coverage fellating Macron during his visit to Beirut. Thought something was a bit off with Macron's reception, but of course it was Phalange central he visited. Hence them yelling about the President specifically since he's seen as a traitor- Aoun is Christian too, but not extreme enough for them. Would have got a slightly different reception in Sunni or Shia areas. Of course, the Phalange are literally literally genocidal (Sabra and Chatila massacre) though that hasn't stopped the BBC using [Gemayel Iterations] as sources for comment on Lebanon without noting that they are, literally literally, fascists. Unsurprisingly, the Phalange was the predominant western/ Israeli backed force in the Lebanese Civil War, indeed Ariel Sharon actively facilitated the Sabra and Chatila massacre and was cashiered for it, until genociding Palestinians became an electoral asset at least.

Finished Bioshock Infinite. As a game it was fine, entertaining, reasonably challenging on hard (except for the ghost lady, which was genuinely hard), pretty engaging plot and nice aesthetics. Had the same basic problem Bioshock original had with its meta plot; it's difficult to do a compelling plot featuring determinism and pointing out all the 'but thou must' s inherent in games without then doing something different with it to subvert its expectations. It's only a bit different having someone say stuff has to happen because quantum theory says it's always happened and having someone say it has to happen because you've been programmed to obey a phrase by a sociopathic Korean. It's simply the nature of written works that they follow the script so there isn't much point pointing it out unless you're going to do something other than just point it out. Burial at Sea kind of had the same problem. I would say it was extremely high quality in every respect for a DLC and had a lot of very obvious work put into it with new (for B: I) systems etc, but you can't avoid the fact that everything that happened happened because it had to. In a vacuum, your 'choice' may have ended up doing some good but also got a lot of people killed; but that's excused because narratively it had to happen. It's the inverse of the very common trope in pseudo 'deep' games (lately, TLOU2 is a good example) where the game forces you to do a bad thing to progress the plot, then berates you for how bad you are for doing the thing you had to do to progress the plot- in BaS you're actively excused for getting a bunch of people killed because it had already happened.

Yeah, nah. Wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if Trump misspoke (said 'attack', meant 'explosion') and then doubled down instead of correcting himself. It's possible that ISIS or someone knew that there was ammonium nitrate there, but blowing up a container of fireworks on a ship to set it off seems a bit convoluted when a car/ truck bomb would be the trick more reliably. Stealthing in 2750t of ammonium nitrate is definitely non trivial and a bit beyond the capabilities of most, and there is (supposedly, since I cannot read arab script) a report begging for its disposal from years ago which suggests it has been there for years as described. Most likely systemic poor management, and bad luck. Tim McVeigh used ammonium nitrate, but his mix was a lot better as an explosive because it wasn't just ammonium nitrate (ie, it was ANFO). Fortunately the Beirut explosion was not that efficient, since you can see a lot of distinctive brown smoke from the various nitrous oxides, ie there was incomplete reduction of the nitrogen. 2750t of ammonium nitrate is a ridiculous amount- theoretically about 2kt of TNT equivalent, iirc- which if detonated efficiently would be one of the largest conventional explosions ever. Current estimate seems to be about 1kt equivalent actually exploded so as bad as it was it could have been worse.

Supposedly a container of fireworks overheated and went off first, which ignited the ammonium nitrate- that had been stored insecurely at the port since being seized off an abandoned ship in... 2014. Could have sent it over here, we'd have used it as fertiliser inside a few months, then wonder why all our rivers had mysteriously turned bright green. 50 dead was the confirmed figure, it will likely be well into the hundreds.

Probably a fair observation, though Tom Hardy is not in many episodes and for those he is in it is usually a brief appearance. (Hardy is probably more famous, but I tend to think Murphy is more recognisable since he has a very distinctive look whoever he's playing. I didn't even realise Hardy was in Dunkirk until the end credits, but noticed Murphy immediately. There's also a pretty massive overlap between well known movies with Tom Hardy in and well known movies with Cillian Murphy in mostly thanks to Nolan, though I guess recently Hardy has had the bigger roles in them)

The game is based on the TV series Peaky Blinders* which is based on the Birmingham (UK, not Alabama) street gang which was famous for keeping razor blades in the peaks of their caps that they used for, well, blinding rivals etc on occasion. *Cillian Murphy (Tommy) would be the most internationally famous actor in it though the most memorable and memeable character is pretty definitively his thickly Brummie accented on screen brother Arfur 'fookin'' Shelby, and there's a very distinctive style and soundtrack (eg Nick Cave does the theme). Good series, well worth watching, may need to turn subtitles on especially for Sam Neill's overly accurate Ulster accent. Pretty sure it's on Netflix internationally, certainly is in NZ.

"Even if that's true, it makes no sense for country A to allow country B to do something in their own country just because they do it. Afterall, China locks up people who protest China but if a bunch of Chinese citizens were protesting the US in China I doubt China would care. L0L" I'm not Amerikkkan though*. The chances of anyone being effected by NZ apps or hardware with backdoors in them from the SIS is... not substantial. Probably the better argument at least for Tik Tok and software is that China happily 'bans' (technically makes it too hard for them to operate, in most cases) US software companies that have strong relations with the NSA such as Alphabet/ Google or Facebook. *I'd prefer neither country to be trying to backdoor every device I own. And the one that definitely is is the US; for all the looking that has gone on neither Huawei nor Tik Tok has had the allegations against them substantiated in any respect.