Zoraptor

Vishnu is a bloke as well? I vote for Kali. Or alternatively, General Grievous, though I'm not sure as many people worship him. Something something Lake Park you are a bold one, something something another fine addition to my collection! Especially since according to the headline the Stars and the 4 armed lady actually lost.

That I believe was Qistina. I'm a bit disappointed Krezack wasn't around for Tony Abbot becoming Aussie PM, the reaction would have been hysterical- in both definitions of the term. I'm pretty sure that half of the forum trolls are the same person anyway, there's too much pattern of one going dormant then another popping up soon after with a slightly different shtick designed to get the same reactions from a slightly different group of people.

Won't lie, I was hoping for Bolton rather than Mattis and I'm still holding out hope there. Not a fan of everything he did- no chance of that, realistically- but Mattis clearly acted as a moderation on Trump's impulses and since he's also clearly quit at least in part over the Kurdish abandonment he has far more moral fibre than could be expected of anyone in a political position. There's also a very good chance there would have been a shooting war with Russia in Syria if he hadn't sat Donald down for a Talk. Having someone there who knew that Russia would not back down and was willing to tell Trump that was absolutely essential.

if player are lucky there will be sex bot like fnv so... you are a big fan of fisto? of what? Fisto, the FNV sexbot? Alternatively, it may have been a reference to Kit Fisto, Jedi Master, but that seems less likely. Though you never know; romance thread and that wonderful, wonderful smile...

The Syrian Kurds DO NOT want a state. They want (con)federalism within Syria and not to be ethnically cleansed by Erdogan's jihadi goons like in Afrin. Philosophically their belief is more or less that States should become obsolete, but they've not espoused independence from Syria, just internal changes within. There aren't enough Kurds there for it to be feasible, they don't have enough resources and their relations with the government have historically been if nowhere near good in absolute terms at least better than in other countries. There's also been very little fighting between Kurdish groups and the Syrian government during the Civil War and a lot of negotiation and communication on all sorts of issues.

Almasdar is a poor source, Leith Fadel is in the US rather than Syria and his site is kind of... bipolar- everything is either great, Allah Souriya Bashar w Bas! or a disaster that makes Leonard Cohen look like a hopeless optimist. At least around Manbij the US troops are still there and haven't received any orders to change anything, yet. Kurds in Syria are pretty united, there has been no meaningful intra Kurd conflict there and negligible intra SDF conflict- though the latter may change. They also support federalism rather than independence. The violence in Iraq is low grade and because it's in various groups interests to have Mafia style family control there since then you only have to deal with Barzani Iteration and Talebani Iteration instead of a proper government with, heh, the people's interests at heart. The mess over Kirkuk and the independence resolution was KDP (Barzaani) being willing to fight to the last PUK (Talebani) militiaman, but not even to the first KDP loss; that was 100% Barzani powerplay and nothing to do with Kurds overall. There aren't really any CIA backed rebels in Syria any more, their program was a disaster and lost out to the Pentagon one (the few Arab Al Tanf based rebels, YPG and SDF) and was subsumed by Turkey after Trump cut their funding. Before that CIA backed Jihadi Arab groups were more than happy to behead children, be cannibals, fire poison gas at Kurds, work with ISIS and Al Qaeda and various other bits and pieces- now they do all that for Turkey instead. The Pentagon program in contrast more or less worked when it wasn't being hamstrung by political stupidities (ie having your politically mandated 'vetted' recruits defect en masse to... Al Qaeda). And yeah, CIA backed rebels and Pentagon backed ones fought each other semi regularly, one of the problems with backing jihadis because Saudi and Turkey vouch for them is that said jihadis find atheist Syrian Kurds to be literally worse than ISIS and almost as bad as those efreet worshipping secular Alawites.

The reporter's fling with Underwood is straight from the book/ UK TV series that US House of Cards is based on. The first season is fairly faithful to the source material with a few changes like Francis Urquhart and Maddie Storin instead of Frank Underwood and whatever Kate Mara's character was called, and it ends in a slightly different place. Urquhart was a Tory (Conservative) whip loosely during Thatcher's time, so not much scope for the touchy feelies. US HoC is a great example of taking something that was great as limited miniseries/ books and running it into the ground by making it go far too long.

Trump's decision has nothing to do with Israel- it's against their interests, for once, though not massively so- or Russia or Iran or Saudi, it's very close to 100% about Turkey being about to invade Syria again and attack the US's allies. Yeah, US politicians and especially pundits are morons, so are any country's when they put who has the biggest cheque book above reason. It's not like the US holdings in Syria cut them off from Iran or anything, that battle was lost when they didn't get to Abukamal first; or even further back when Richard Pearse invented powered flight. End of the day when it came right down to it the US was never going to put the Kurds' interests ahead of pleasing Turkey unless they were convinced that Turkey was geopolitically Gone, Permanently- which, semi ironically, backing the Kurds would have resulted in. So the choice was to stay with the guys they fought alongside against ISIS to protect them against the guys who sold ISIS's oil for them, sold ISIS weapons and allowed their border to be used to get ISIS's foreign fighters in, had their diplomatic goons attack US citizens and have been carrying out a brutal, lawless pogrom on Kurds in Afrin, etc etc; or bug out ignominiously. Unsurprisingly, they chose option B, even with the classic declaration of victory. Given the stuff coming out over the last couple of days this is not a massive surprise, clearly it's a classic Trump deal where Turkey buys Patriots (and likely other useless gimmick tech, they're still buying S400) in return for US withdrawal and a free hand. Only real question is whether Bolton and the other hawks blew their tops over it and are about to get McMastered. I'm no great fan of the US being in Syria by any measure, but this treatment of their Kurdish allies is about as cynical, amoral and disgusting as you can possibly get.

She's now confirmed to be staying for at least one more season. And having seen the full season now she definitely isn't the problem. Oddly enough all the episodes being bad isn't the problem either, because they aren't bad; it would probably be better if they were since at least farting green Mr Blobbys and ELO cover bands* are memorably bad. The entire season was kind of anodyne, and not in a good way. Consistently mediocre, inoffensive (unless you're allergic to teh nazi sjws**) and just kind of there. It's also kind of weird that for all the talk of having a strong independent female Doctor they saddled her with three companions from the outset in case she didn't work. Using some established enemies also would have avoided multiple episodes being exposition central. I watched, but I struggle to think of a single character development or genuinely memorable moment in the entire season. The only episode I'd say I 90% liked was the one with the race and Art Malik, and that felt like a double episode crammed into 50 minutes- whereas most, paradoxically, managed to simultaneously feel like a 30 minute idea crammed into 50 minutes. The fundamental problem is that the writing and plotting is just there most of the time. The ancillary problem is that when the writing/ plotting is more than just there it's almost always there in a mildly negative way- because it's got overly preachy or they're pulling plot magic. This season I got the distinct feeling that the plot and writing existed to drive the moral messages instead, ie they decided on moral messages then wrote literally everything around that. I got that feeling occasionally in previous seasons, but only occasionally- and usually in episodes I'd consider poor but not terrible. They really need to get back to the basics that made the series successful. One well developed companion, less of the overt social commentary and ripped from the headlines stories or at least some subtlety about them, don't be afraid to use the lore and old enemies. Make the dialogue more impactful and less there just to be there and fill time. Give Whittaker a chance to be her Doctor rather than off brand Tennant/ Smith. Beg Moffat to write some standalones and get some style variation in the writing- maybe you won't get Gaiman or Curtis, but at least try getting someone like them. Have the succession plan for Chibnall that there so obviously wasn't for Moffat. *Bugger it, I liked Gods & Monsters, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I'll freely admit that opinion is not in the majority though. **Why knee jerk anti sjws would watch Who anyway I don't understand. It's always been socjus central, it's obvious anyone triggered by it shouldn't watch.

Uprisings don’t generally stay leaderless for long. Yes, spontaneous flashpoint uprisings without leaders do happen, but any sustained uprising is going to look for a leader or leaders at some point. And at that point, it's game over man game over. Once there's a head to speak for the movement, it's a head you can bribe, blackmail, or otherwise pressure into getting in bed with those he protested against yesterday. Remember Tsipras? I member. I also member our own grassroots movement that was quickly hijacked by a bunch of sorry ****s fresh off the ivory tower (cf. vanguard party), and repurposed into another vector for the culture war cancer, while its newly minted leaders laughed all the way to the bank. The ancillary to that is to get a movement with diverse viewpoints to appoint (or have someone self appoint) a leader who much of the movement cannot stand. I'd say the best example was Occupy Wall Street, where the media was desperate to appoint the kookiest person they could find as leader, and the wackier the person the more likely they were to give interviews- well, it was probably the media doing multiple interviews then choosing the worst one to broadcast. Label your opponents as Dirty Commies or Nasty Nazis then you don't need to bother addressing them any other way. I have a bit of sympathy for Tsipras though, Germany would have wreaked bloody havoc on Greece if he'd left the Euro as he should have and the hatred would have been permanent and irremediable; the vindictiveness would know no bounds. I wouldn't be surprised if there were literal charges brought against him whether he was leader of Greece or not. The UK is only getting a softer response because the EU thinks they can wangle a 2nd referendum by being 'reasonable'.

What is this conclusion based on besides 'this is the viewpoint I want to condemn'?

For the Tories no confidence votes can only happen once a year, so she's now safe until Dec 13 2019, assuming she doesn't resign in the interim. Even if she had lost it would only have resulted in Prime Minister Alexander B de Pfeiffel Johnson or whoever instead of May. Personally I want PM Michael Gove, simply because he looks like Evil Harry Potter. The government itself might not last that long though, given there's no way the DUP will support May's Brexit plan and she needs them for Supply and Confidence. If that happens another general election might be unavoidable.

Well, Intel is already offering 8-core CPUs that don't employ the CCX concept. It is more complex so probably more expensive to implement, but I don't think it would affect yields much. Plus the 7nm chiplets are approximately 1/3 the area of the 14nm chips, so that will offset much of the loss in yields of an immature 7nm process. That said Voldemort has retracted his claim on the IO chip; Now he is claiming that these Ryzen 3 products use 7nm chiplets only. More likely that they have slightly larger 7nm chips with IO integrated for PCs, at maybe 1/2 the area of 14nm chips each. This also makes more sense with the combination with Navi which I think would have IO integrated because of bandwidth and energy requirements. Infinity Fabric 2 will do what, 100 GB/s between chips? That may be enough for an integrated GPU, but not for any discrete GPU nowadays. The Intel 8 core is very expensive though, in part because you need to have 1x8 'perfect' cores when using ringbus rather than 2 perfect lots of 4 as with the infinity fabric/ ccx system; and it's also expensive on a very mature and refined node. Assuming linear error rates 8 core ccx would double the number of 'bad' ccxes (who knows though, depending on how the intra ccx stuff is handled complexity may go up non linearly and some stuff will have the same error rate whatever the core count). That might remain within acceptable levels, but it's all speculation at the moment. At this point I'm not really sure what to make of the I/O situation at all. Too much rumour and I don't have the technical expertise to evaluate the relative likelihoods.

As friendly as necessary, considering kids will have access to it. Seems so odd they'd make it like that. Why not do it like Netflix and have a kids filter? That way they could have both the kid shows and the more mature shows within the same umbrella, increasing the potential number of subscribers. The Disney brand is Family Friendly, the stuff which Disney the company does that isn't so family friendly has different branding- silly maybe, but that's always been their approach. They may also believe that by splitting their properties across Disney+ and Hulu they will get more money from both than they would from having a centralised system. A Star Wars series being family friendly is pretty much a no brainer even if it is live action instead of animated. A lot of adults can be guaranteed to watch anyway as they did for Clone Wars/ Rebels. Kids also get toys off the shelves, and they don't tend to vociferously complain about Luke Skywalker having a personality transplant.

Epic doesn't require/additional DRM in their store, but the way their store operates is intrinsically DRM by most people's definition of it.

Sure it was, otherwise MS couldn't have bought them. Sure they did. They were wholly owned by MS, now they're now privately owned with a minority MS stake. That's bought out, by those who own the company- including for example the original studio founder, so bought out by themselves. Exactly how and why that happened can only be speculation, but it seems extremely unlikely that MS just decided randomly to let their most successful gaming acquisition go. MS allowed them to split for [some reason] despite them being responsible for the games that popularised xbox. And you know how MS would have made even more money? Own Destiny outright, or have Bungie do Halo until Ragnarok. Instead Activision gets a big slice of money MS doesn't, and it's on PS as well as xbox. Except Bungie is now independent, Lionhead etc aren't. Bungie was Microsoft's most successful acquisition, yet they let them go indie... out of the goodness of their heart? Or because they wanted to retain failing studios rather than successful ones? I mean, a lot of people didn't have much time for Steve Ballmer as a CEO, but he isn't that stupid. They made truckloads more money than the games cost and shifted a lot of xboxes, probably more than any other franchise. It would be like 2k deciding that Rockstar should become indie because GTAV and RDR2 would be expensive games then patting themselves on the back for saving that 200 million dollars; never mind missing out on the billions of revenue the games brought in. They probably could have, but we don't know. You spend 90% of the post saying that MS could do anything they wanted to with Bungie, anything at all including subsuming its IPs and shutting it down. So, why would MS be trying to get goodwill from and settle for a minority stake in their own wholly owned subsidiary/ division/ whatever their legal definition? Just keep the ownership of everything, no need for goodwill or settling for one additional Halo title, you can have them churn Halo titles biannually till the end of time and Bungie would have no say because they're wholly owned and have no independent existence. Fact of the matter is the situation with Bungie is far from clear, but it clearly wasn't the same situation as Lionhead and the like. It's also not the only management buy out, I/O Interactive management bought themselves out from under Squeenix (albeit Squeenix wanted out, still seems highly unlikely MS wanted out of Bungie).

That might be how it works, but it does depends on the purchase contract and whether Obsidian is still a legally separate entity. See Bungie for example, owned by MS, but bought itself out from MS and they rather than MS own for example Marathon* (trademark serial 77953184, if anyone is interested) which they developed before being bought by MS. OTOH they don't own Halo, but that was classic work for hire. In any case, significant changes to tOW outside the scope of the existing contract such as making it a CCG would require one of three things: approval from 2k/PD, buying 2k/PD out of the contract or breaking the agreement and ending up in court. As a pre-existing contract at time of purchase MS is obligated to honour it whatever managerial control they do or do not have over Obsidian. *I was once asked to supply some questions for a Bungie Q&A which weren't standard Halo or Destiny development (at that time) ones for a bit of variety. Apparently the guy asked was quite pleased to get a question about Marathon for a change, confirmed they owned it but said there were no plans to use it.

My immediate concern is their affiliation with Take Two. Who isn't exactly well disposed to the modding community given their recent legal experience with the likes of Black Hat GTAO modders the likes of Menyoo.... OTOH Civilisation series traditionally has near full mod support, and it's 2k as well. As Ethics Gradient noted, they don't like mods that eat into their bottom line or product perception, not mods in general. As others have said, there's a big difference between no mod support and no mods. So long as Obsidian doesn't obscure the file formats (as did happen in Alpha Protocol, for example, meaning pretty much zero modding possible) officially unsupported and responsibility for disclaimed so don't ask us for help if you stuff up class mods seem fairly likely given UE4.

The USSR's penchant for disappearing people in their space program after bogus claims. In the gene manipulation case he's more likely to be disappeared if it was a genuine claim, since it's illegal in China. I don't think telling westerners a load of bollocks is illegal in China, they'd have to jail just about every business exec and Communist Party member if it were (and applied evenly, of course). Soviets barely disappeared anyone in their space program, it was too important to do that and was post Stalin (who, unsurprisingly, had swept up a lot of its members earlier in his purges though obviously they survived). Some disappeared from public life, but that would be like Bethesda deciding that Todd Howard or Pete Hines needs a break from promotional work after the Fallout 76 trainwreck. Their biggest failure was the manned lunar mission, and the heads of that lived into their 80s and one ended up heading their space agency after his rocket's earlier failure. Yeah, that doesn't happen so much here at least. Firstly commercial users just pass on the costs to their clients, and with no proper rail we have no alternatives but to suck it up. Ultimately, that cost is again borne disproportionately by the poor whose food and other essentials' costs go up front those freight costs. Secondly our diesel fuel tax set up is reversed from what you'd expect- the less efficient your engine the less, relatively, you pay. I drove a small engine diesel for 5 years and paid the same road tax as a large SUV, the same diesel price, the same licensing costs despite having 3x the fuel efficiency of said SUV and a third the weight ripping up the road. That meant I was subsidising every single large one occupant SUV that hit a cyclist because it was too big for the road and had massive blind spots, stopped half way through another car at the lights or rolled when someone turned the wheel more than 10 degrees while driving over 50kph- and the closest most got to off road was avoiding puddles in the local supermarket. Thirdly, businesses (including farms) have accountants who will set up a beneficial tax regime for any added costs, which isn't available to non businesses and mitigates the costs.

"Have male astronauhts ever faught in space?" There's a lot more scope for that if you're in a small confined space with other people for a long time and there's no possibility of not being in that confined space with the same people any time soon. At least if you're on the ISS you have a short, set time frame and you're likely to be in with someone you hate for a month at most before you or he leaves. Mission to Mars would be years, and you can't just hop in a capsule and go home after a few months. Then again, women are probably at least as if not more prone to non physical fighting than men. End of the day locking people up with each other long term requires heaps of work and has heaps of potential problems no matter what precautions are taken. Internet User Malcador SLAMS World's Most Read News Source as unreliable! Pinko Corbin REFUSES to invade Canada in retaliation. Another insult to our BRAVE LADS from COMMIE CORBIN. To be honest apart from their general obsession with being vaguely smutty (¡¡¡SEX!!!) yet also puritanical it seems fairly believable. It's definitely being studied.

That was only one of many tax increases, though particularly ill thought out one at that. Radical people joining in is the least surprising, though quasi fascists and anarchists doing so without significantly fighting each other as well is unusual and probably does show how much people hate what's going on. The reasons are much the same as elsewhere, just coupled to France's enormous tradition of protest. Macron's ideas of reform are precisely what you'd expect from a neoliberal World Bank type- privatise profits, collectivise costs. He's cut taxes for the rich and brought in massively regressive taxes* that disproportionately target poor working people while cutting things like money for public transport at the same time. The fuel tax was great, if you could afford to buy an electric car out of hand; if you couldn't it was awful and came after years of being told to buy diesel by the government same as they're now saying to buy electric. And in ten years they'll work out that the batteries in electrics are awful and cannot be disposed of properly so you should buy hydrogen, and you can pay 10k Euro to scrap your electric car you bought for 5k after saving for a decade now the previous owner decided hydrogen was the future after a tip off. Macron was also nowhere near as popular as media made him out to be to start with. Media love Narrative, and much like Trudeau and Ardern here Macron is a corporate friendly nu gen nu wave anti Trump, and that's what counts rather than being objective about his strengths and weaknesses. He didn't do that well against an awful opponent who would probably have lost to anyone including Mr 2% popularity Hollande if it came to it, and 1/8 of those who voted deliberately spoiled their ballots. His party won the parliamentary election, but with only slightly more votes than the 2nd placed party in the previous election with that result being a moderate landslide for the socialist winners so 2nd place wasn't that close. The reason the protests continue is, to paraphrase what one mayor allegedly told Macron to his face: they out and out hate him and everything he stands for. *why they're regressive: if you're rich you buy an electric car with cash or low interest loan and thus never pay the fuel tax; if you're poor you can't afford to do so, are more likely to be driving an old, cheap, inefficient car that uses more fuel so pay more even in absolute terms and you cannot replace it since you're, well, poor; and you are way more likely to live somewhere with poor or no public transport (and remember, Macron cut funding to public transport) because typically poorer areas don't lobby well for such things and decisions are made by rich people who either think rich people are most important, are pig ignorant and don't have a clue about anyone outside their bubble, andor are terrified of people from the banlieu invading their locale. There's also the problem of public transport in poorer areas typically being unreliable and unpleasant, so you never know when or if you'll get to work on time or in what state. eg, our local government fuel tax here is primarily being used to put in public transport in... high income areas close enough to the city that people actually could cycle and the city centre plus some tourist routes, while mostly being paid by rural people who have dreadfully maintained roads clogged by trucks carrying stuff that could be better carried by the trains which aren't in the plan (and with 1800 truck movements a day approved by ex industry consultants when the road design stipulates 100 a day; council has to pay for road maintenance of course), and poor factory workers and the like who want to go from low income housing to industrial areas, not visit The Viaduct Harbour, Remuera Foodtown or the banking headquarters and Prada outlets of central Auckland- good luck surviving a cycle from Mangere to Penrose too even if it didn't take an hour each way, for some reason the entire route is designed for and clogged by trucks. Yet all transport consultants making the suggestions have offices in central Auckland, used to work for truck companies (hmm, wonder if that's why the whole transport system is designed for trucks, might be a connection?), are lobbied by and mostly know people in 1.5 million dollar houses who drive Cayenne's without caring about tax because it's a fricking 150k$ car what's $10 a week more or have Volvos, Teslas or other premium electrics, and pass decisions on to politicians who used to be paid as much as a teacher 30 years ago but now get paid nearly five times as much thanks to their 'independent' remuneration authority, and in terms of who they care about can add only tourists to the list.

4 cores/ ccx makes most sense since it's simplest and has fewest intra ccx connections and 8 would have a lot, but unless they planned for it back when they designed AM4 I'd question if they could go to a full chiplet design- with 2 4 core ccx- while staying with AM4. If they did plan for that I would be very impressed, and AMD did put a lot of stuff into the CPU package which would usually go into the chipset on the motherboard. That would also give an easy way to get 12 cores, threadripper had dummy ccx in gen 1 so you could get 12 core with 3x4 and one dummy. I guess if they went the 8 core/ ccx route they'd have more failed chips to pad out the lower grade SKUs as well as 7nm probably being a bit less reliable as well; my skepticism comes from the extremely low relative failure rate for Zen1. We got a lot of 8 core 1600s here due to them running out of 'bad'/ partially failed chips.

It is possible Moral objections against genome modification come usually either from religious grounds as genome modification are often seen as thing where humans are playing god, quite similar to issue as why cloning is seen as bad, or from societal grounds where there is fear that genome modifications would be used to pursue goal to achieve ultimate human and kill diversity from the population. Genetic modifications killing diversity and natural ability to adapt to changing conditions isn't necessary unfounded fear as it is something that has observed with genetically modified plants. There's an 'objective' moral objection as well- CRISPR is not by any means perfect and has not worked particularly well on humans so far when tested. Not working well consistently is not so much a concern when you're dealing with lab rats or plant seeds (to an extent, there's potential for accidentally making superweeds), but if you end up splicing genes into the wrong place in a human you will also end up introducing defects instead of removing them. Also, while it's certainly possible he has done it and his technical outline of how he did it was solid nobody is sure whether he really has edited genes as there's no independent evidence of it- it's illegal to do so in China so he would be in a fair bit of potential trouble if he has (and indeed, if recent reports are accurate he has 'disappeared' after going home).