Zoraptor

God bless you Henry! (Kingdom Come: Deliverance series/ movie adaptation under development, apparently)

I'd have to admit that AMD is the victim of their own success perception wise. A replacement for my 1700 would be more expensive but it would also have +~1Ghz and about +~40% IPC. If you went 3 years back from the 1700's launch in 2017 the increase was... ~6% IPC and nothing clockwise from haswell to skylake? and who cared if Bulldozer had any improvement, even if it did it was from rubbish to slightly less rubbish (and IPC went backwards from the older Phenoms, iirc). And to be fair to AMD, the 3600(x) is selling well below its launch price and has been for some time. That will probably happen with the 5600 at some point too.

It's a big enough (relative, obviously it's not that massive absolutely) price jump that the 10700/k becomes competitive. 1600/ 2600/ 3600 were near no brainers for mid budget gaming over the past 3 years because for GPU bound operation the cheaper option was better since you just needed a 'decent' CPU; and they typically had other advantages over their direct competition like SMT vs HT lacking 8400/9400/9600 and better out of the box cooling. The 10700 is a decent CPU, has HT, and it will be cheaper than the 5600X- though that stock cooler is still a dumpster fire. Probably the 5600 would be cheaper, but there's no announcement on that so it's mythical for now and it isn't like lower AMD SKUs have brilliant availability even this gen- eg the near literally mythical budget king 3300X*. Dunno, just seems like a missed opportunity to really go for Intel's jugular, everything else is great but the pricing gives something to complain about. *Caveat: AMD should have improved fab availability with Huawei gone and Apple migrating fully to 5nm, and presumably the bulk of launch console production is off to assembly by now.

I'm impressed with everything except the pricing. The 5600x will be more than I paid for my 1700 3.5 years ago despite having 2 less cores. Maybe a bit unfair considering that TSMC 7nm is far more expensive than GloFo 14nm and there's a load more cache on the newer chip, but still, the people demand more cores for less money! There was a Big(gish, may well not be Biggest) Navi slide shown at the presentation. Looks like that extra 100W for 10% performance really was necessary for nVidia as 3080 is only just ahead. It's certainly enough to put the 'only a 3070 competitor' to bed. (As noted, 'Badass' quality is the tier above 'ultra' for BL3)

Gah, Rocket Lake is only up to 8 cores. The weird 16/24 config is Alder Lake's big/ little one.

Pretty sure Alder Lake is slated for next year too so they may have a new gen every six months. Then again Alder Lake is meant to be desktop on 10nm so it will almost inevitably slip as every other 10nm product has. The most amazing thing about Rocket Lake (even more than it being 16 core/ 24 thread) is that for once it won't need a new motherboard.

After DivOS2 I'd be very happy with 'a bit over the top and irritating'. Though I guess that was mainly the way every fight devolved into an epileptic seizure inducing clash of environmental effects rather than direct spell effects.

The price differential in Europe is usually cited as being due to typically having high VAT. OTOH Steam definitely does charge GST here while GOG doesn't (? there's a turnover limit for 'having' to charge it, and I'm not sure there's much that can be done if a fully online overseas store refuses to comply) but their pricing is generally identical anyway; and $5 doesn't cover a 15% GST. Given that both BG3 and Cyberpunk have the exact same pricing- $65.08- I'd suspect it's a straight conversion from 99.99NZD 89.95 AUD to USD, which would be the 'typical' retail price. Historically they had (high) regional pricing here due to having to physically distribute relatively few copies over a large area, which did incur some extra costs. They then maintained the elevated prices throughout the shift to downloads which was... more difficult to justify. They're not bad now, but it is mostly due to US prices appreciating while ours haven't changed since the late 90s.

It's got regional pricing, and I'm not in the US. Price is definitely 65USD here. (To be fair- ish- it seems like we're getting less screwed over by regional pricing now because typical US base pricing has risen from 40 ->50 -> 60$ over the past 20 years but ours has stayed static around 100NZD/ 90AUD. We now only pay an extra $5 for the extra distance the photons have to travel)

It's only a 67GB download though, per GOG. OTOH 65USD definitely seems a bit steep for the privilege of beta testing. Bannerlord had a decent discount and cheaper base price.

Do they use any licensed music? I saw someone mention music rights for the first games, and I know the first two games' original soundtracks have had a relatively recent commercial re-release.

Bruce linked to a sites.forbes.com article which is, basically, a blog. There's even less editorial control and oversight there than with an opinion piece in a newspaper/ website. If something from a reputable- and much of the time even semi reputable- source contradicts a sites.forbes article on a matter of fact it's almost certain it's the forbes blog which is wrong. (There are some pretty good opinion pieces from forbes- eg Erik Kain on entertainment- but it's almost entirely useful just for opinion)

Presumably because it doesn't really apply to Trump. Obviously low income would be an appropriate factor for Trump in 2015 and the years previous going by his tax returns, but he at least gets the Presidential income now- not as high as many would think, but which is certainly well above low income.

I'd put 25% at the upper limit of credible improvement, so long as they can get clock improvement as well as IPC it's doable. Zen -> Zen2 was around 15% IPC and 10% clocks so there is precedent. Also, Raja excepted, AMD has tended to underpromise and overdeliver the last few years. Skepticism is good though, that way you can't be disappointed, only pleasantly surprised.

First performance leaks for 5000 series have been found from CPUZ and AotS, showing 20-25% overall performance improvement from 3000 series. Still grain of salt for another week though.

Wasn't Aran'gar technically a lascivious bloke rezzed into a hot woman's body as a bit of irony/ punishment? Or am I misremembering? (loads of implied same sex stuff with the female Aiel and Aes Sedai, can't think of any male homosexuality though)

If Trump had condemned all racially motivated groups it probably would not have made much difference to the critic/ pundit reaction. The commentary would be about how he'd dodged the question of condemning specifically white groups and how he was saying that a BLM guy protesting George Floyd's death and Tim McVeigh were the same in magnitude. Weird as it may be failing to condemn the Proud Boys or whoever is almost certainly not a vote loser for Trump, anyone who viewed such things as disqualifying isn't voting for him anyway. As for why workers and farmers would vote for Trump he does offer more hope for them than the Democrats. What really lost Clinton the election- because it lost her those 3 critical rust belt states- was her telling all those desperate people that they were irrelevant and had to get with the program and become web designers/ programmers/ 'new economy'. If you're offered that as an alternative Trump saying he's going to bring back the jobs and take on Chinese manufacturing offers the only hope. Same for farmers, practically Trump's idea of being pro farming is pro corporate farming rather than pro mom & pop farming, but Hillary (and Biden) are 100% economic orthodoxy including things like the TPP which the farmers feared and Trump got rid of (ironically, the TPP also got far more attractive for all remaining participants as soon as the US left). It doesn't matter if you're offered false hope when the other side is telling you you're on an inevitable spiral to oblivion. I always find it far more 'confusing' why US voters are so keen to vote along moral lines and impose their own morality on others rather than they'd vote for someone who offers them at least a theoretical future vs someone telling you you're a dinosaur staring at an oddly expanding star in the end Cretaceous sky.

If the figure bandied about here is true and 100 million people watched it would be an order of magnitude bigger than any other single thing- conventions, rallies, interviews- in terms of influence. A bit above 130 million americans voted in the last election so at least in theory they reached ~3/4 of the voting electorate in a single go. I do agree on them not being in a vacuum, though that works both ways. Part of it not being a vacuum works in Trump's favour, those Trump wants not voting were those with pre-existing reasons for disliking Biden and who are voting for him more or less solely because he's "better than Trump". The debate was the biggest chance for Trump to target those voters with the idea that they're flip sides of the same coin.

It's always amusing watching people say exactly the same things they said in 2016 now, when they were proven wrong then. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it and so far the pundit class- and to a large extent the Democratic Party- has repeated just about every mistake from last time. Trump's strategy shouldn't be a winning one, but then his strategy in 2016 shouldn't have been a winning one either, but was. The big problem in getting proper analysis is that most pundits are inside the system and all orthodoxy related to that system- except the last election- says you should not campaign as Trump does. The fundamental problem with the polls is that they analyse voting intentions, not what people will actually do. That debate played into Trump's hand because making the tepid Biden voter disengage is what would win him the election, attracting undecideds or getting people to swap votes is mere garnish. Trump only plays to the undecided voter on the most simple of levels, mostly by shouting about the economy which is always the big ticket item and how he's been tough on China and put America First etc. If every single undecided voter stayed not voting that's fine by Trump- after all, Biden doesn't gain then either- if he splits off the tepid Biden supporters too. Which he does by throwing dirt to make Biden look the same as him, by making the process as unattractive as possible- pie fight debates- and making sure Biden gets dragged into the pie throwing and alienates people wanting something more. If Trump is saying to the Biden supporter "he's just like me, really" and Biden ends up behaving like Trump in the debate it's a win for Trump. Critically, most of the people turned off would still say that they're voting Biden if polled, they just won't when it comes down to it.

Yep, Trump's perception already being bad is the key factor. Political pundits always seem to fall into the trap of thinking as political pundits instead of as voters in an unusual election. That's why they got the last election wrong consistently. Trump is an excellent campaigner (not an excellent candidate, he should lose to an Urkel plushie) because he knows what he has to do to win. His support base is at this stage rock solid, so his aim isn't so much to attract new votes but to suppress Biden's vote. In that respect having a bun fight is exactly the right move because it drags Biden down, not because it will get more people voting Trump. Pundits and even polls saying Biden won aren't relevant, far more important are how many people it alienated who would have voted Biden before watching the debate.

Armenia is almost completely irrelevant to everything outside its immediate region, perhaps excepting its enormous and influential diaspora. Azerbaijan is a major hydrocarbon producer. There's no realistic risk of spillover, the fighting is probably the Azeris mostly trying to get the Armenians back to the table on more favourable (to the Azeris) terms. There's no doubt if they could retake Nagorno-Karabakh they would, and that would involve a lot of refugees since that region is 99% ethnic Armenian and the Azeris... well, anyone can duckduckgo Ramil Safarov to find out how Azerbaijan treats its citizens who murder Armenians; even if they didn't actively drive all the Armenians out they'd likely flee.

I could literally feel my brain cells dying while watching. Missed the start, and even then couldn't stick it out to the end. I have to say that the commentators who are seemingly surprised and appalled they got the verbal equivalent of pie throwing rather than a debate certainly shouldn't be surprised. Trump is fundamentally a salesman rather than a debater, and proper political debates don't suit his style at all. Pie throwing on the other hand most certainly does, and you cannot debate someone chucking pies but also tend to look stupid if you start chucking them back.

As someone who grew up in New Zealand in the 80s... Though I feel vaguely dirty posting even a 30+ year old ad for a Nestlé product.

Dragged in in much the same way an alcoholic gets 'dragged' into a succession of bars etc. Erdogan is revanchist, Azerbaijan is literally their only friend in the region and there are an inconvenient bunch of Armenians between the two countries who had better be careful in case they end up taking another long spontaneous walk while forgetting to take sufficient food and clothing. They are operating the Azeri EW systems and drones already, shooting down Armenian planes is a small step. Having said that, the Armenians have good reason to make the claim since they have a defensive pact with the Russians that doesn't cover Nagorno Karabakh Artsekh Republic but does cover Armenia proper.

Finished the new Lucifer season. Not great, not bad; not particularly worried about the relationship drama nor the rather abrupt ending (obviously due to covid rather than writing per se) but it does rather have one glaring flaw which so very many shows have in exactly the same way...