Zoraptor

Mali had a good sized and very rich empire for multiple centuries. They certainly are a lot more of a legit Civ faction than Maori are at the very least, and I should be biased towards including the Maori.

It's definitely good news for nVidia users, I'm mostly amused that they've done it in the most nVidia way possible.

At this point you might as well wait three days for CES. AMD will have their CPU/ GPU news and Intel/ nVidia will have something as well. Probably not much from nVidia though since they've just launched their new range, maybe not much more than formal 2060/1160 and below cards and a big campaign to replace Freesync branding with 'G-sync® Compatible' branding. A fair bit will be announcements rather than actual releases but it should clear things up a bit for the future.

Bro, how could you forget the classic post GB non FR D&D game Planetscape: Tournament? Thing about the FR games is that theoretically it's a pretty diverse setting, but they hardly ever use anything apart from its Tolkienesque bits like the Sword Coast and that has got really, really stale even with the dearth of recent D&D games. It would be fine- better at least- having only one 'world' if people used the other parts of that world a bit more.

Probably not that well since 'classic' SLI is deprecated as the new cards use NVLink, and it's always been a bit variable in terms of support/ stability and practical benefit. Would be an option if there was also more DX12/ Vulkan support, but there isn't. At that level of cost the Turing cards would be the best option, though they're not great value in an absolute sense.

If there's one programme on TV that makes me happy that it exists it's Legion. Not my favourite by any means but there should be a place on TV for shows like it.

It's difficult to recommend a 2080Ti to someone looking at a 1080 since the cost discrepancy is so massive* even though it is the fastest. He'd be looking at roughly the same cost to buy a 2080Ti as to build an entire 1080 based system. *OK, it's Boxing Day sales, but I could literally buy 2.9 1080s for the price of the cheapest 2080Ti at the moment...

4k/60fps is more 1080Ti/ RTX 2080/Ti territory if you want it consistently. But the top end RTX cards are overpriced for their conventional performance with there being very few titles using RTX as well, and the 1080Ti is discontinued. There isn't really an alternative though unless you're willing to drop the settings a bit. I don't think it's a great time to be buying a graphics card to be honest. Better than when the mining craze was at its height to be sure, but RTX is immature, the best AMD card is around 1080 level so there's no top level competition and there should be 7nm cards available next year from AMD and probably from nVidia- and the RTX tech will presumably mature and get better adoption in games when they go 7nm as well. But there's always limited point in waiting, as there will inevitably be another new release to wait for.

Definitely, indeed they did fight to keep it after the abortive independence referendum in northern Iraq last year- though that was far from a full on conflict and had only a few hundred deaths. Syria is a bit of an odd man out in that they fairly actively supported Kurdish separatism via the PKK. The current PYD/ SDC (YPG/ SDF) shares a parent organisation with the PKK so they have had better relations than most despite a fair few institutional negatives.

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.