Zoraptor

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.

To me tik tok is still a song by Kesha. Or Ke$ha, but I feel like my IQ drops every time I type that. If tik tok goes my nieces will be devastated and have to rely on the wholly non data harvesting Youtube/ Google/ Alphabet instead. Well yes, but the existing ones are fronts for the NSA and corporates. Tik Tok is (supposedly, of course) a front for the CCP instead which is bad. Kind of funny really, the rumour that [chinese entity] is doing something is bad, [US entity] definitely doing the same thing on the other hand...

New Zealand took in a refugee from the US* last week, though he'd got here before covid. Caused a mild scandal because he was here at the invite of an MP, and had promised he'd obey his temporary visa and not try for refugee status here (instead, it got fast tracked approval of course). Not sure Volo if has thought his maths through fully anyway; if 99% of countries are vastly worse than the US that means there are a grand total of two countries better than the US. *ok, technically he came from Iran originally, but he had refugee status in the US and traded up.

Bit hard on Jar Jar comparing him to Graham. Can't go anywhere due to covid. That's why Trump is so keen to get it fixed, so all the libcucks can emigrate.

Hah yes. I got the first few Malazan books on a recommendation but stopped reading after there was some sort of massive continuity error/ retcon. Though to be honest I can't even remember what that continuity error was, so I obviously wasn't that invested.

Witcher 2 was a bit too clunky. Its formula was far better realised in 3. I don't think either 2 or 3s overall plot worked that well as part of a trilogy of games (purely as narrative and individually they're fine) because most (all?) the main decisions in 2 had zero impact on the plot of 3 and 3's plot relied heavily on nazi elves from outer space an alternative dimension which is about as silly as you can get. It was the subsidiary plots in W3 that lifted the game. Even then W3 had problems with some subplots, most notably the ludicrous plot ending for Dijkstra. I imagine it was originally intended to be the elves v humans inflection point that you had multiple times in the previous games, if they'd kept Iorveth's W3 plot, and you would have had a far more sensible choice between backing BRoche/ Temeria and Dijkstra/ Iorveth. As it is it's just stupid, makes everyone involved look stupid and is only there to determine a world end state in a Radovid less scenario. And of course neither W2 nor W3 has consequences for the most major world changing thing you could do in W1, uncurse Adda so she marries Radovid keep Berengar alive when fighting Azar Javed. Still disappointed. So, Witcher 1 is the best game of the three, and it's a hill I'm willing to die on.

As I've said before Martin's chances of finishing writing can be summed up by him stating that if he hadn't finished WoW by the time he visited New Zealand this year we could imprison him on White Island until it was done. 6 months later that island exploded killing 20 odd people, and the whole country is shut down to foreigners thanks to covid. Someone really doesn't want him finishing, and it isn't just him. I think it would be interesting to see how long the typical (single author) SF series takes to write and how much the time taken changes between books as the series progresses. 10 odd years ago Robert Jordan was kind of the stereotype 'slow author that would never be finished' that Martin is today; but Jordan still regularly produced books, they just were subject to a lot of bloat and glacial plot progression. IIRC the average time between those books was not that much over a year with the longest gap (excepting when Jordan died) being about 2, and they were hefty books too.

You mean not as fast as NVMe. M2 is a form factor rather than an interface; there are SATA SSD with M2 form factor but they have the same speed as their 2.5" form factor equivalents. But yes, having shifted from a M2 SATA to a NVMe drive for most things there's almost no difference, though it does make loading a bit quicker. However, there was little practical difference in cost at that time (and as of today, model for model, literally a dollar here) between SATA and NVMe drives so there's no reason not to save that 30 seconds a day.

The fight between China and the US has been brewing for 20 years* and would have happened in some form even if Hillary were elected. The only 'election' which might have put it off was if Xi had stuck to his limited term and someone a little less Xi like (assertive/ aggressive depending on view) had replaced him. Even then it would be delayed only. Hegemons are natural enemies, and both see themselves as hegemons. *ironically, it traces back to the western 'triumph' in Kosovo. That was the final nail in the already disintegrating Yeltsinist approach in Russia when dealing with the west, and blowing up the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade with no repurcussions set the scene for how China's leadership sees the US. Neither would put up with similar treatment again. Just another way Bill Clinton's Presidency looks worse in retrospect than it did at the time.

Their maths is fine. Discounts are always applied sequentially, if for no other reason than it stops 2x 50+% discounts == being paid to buy a game. 100*0.85*0.83=70.55% price, or 29% discount. People may expect a 32% discount from 100*(1-(0.15+0.17)) but that isn't actually what should happen.