Zoraptor

Watership Down RPG/ builder sim. Like Dwarf Fortress, but with less... obsessiveness. That's at least a semi serious suggestion.

I honestly suspect that Trump hates Bolton and he gets mentioned all the time as a bit of a trojan- Bolton is transparently keen to be back in the limelight, and if the alternative is John Bolton then just about anyone else looks like an inspired choice.

Intervention in Iraq created the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, who is a big player in the Syrian conflict. The US also funded rebel groups to fight Assad. And actual intervention by the west in Syria would have achieved precisely one thing- many of the people living in government ruled areas, plus the 7 million IDPs living there, would have fled the Saudi/ Turkey vetted moderate* Wahhabi/ Ikwhan head choppers, and then their constant, inevitable, infighting. Early enough and you might just have the same number of refugees, they'd just be all the Kurds, Christians, Armenians, Yazidis, Syriacs, Alawites, Shia, secularists etc fleeing Ergogan's dream of a neo ottoman Republic of Northern Syria and the Saudi dream of Caliph Muhhamed bin Salman instead of 'Ibrahim'. And then the west would have wrung their hands and said "my goodness, who would have thunk it... Ho hum, how about that Chelsea vs Barce match or Kim Kardashian's mammaries?"; and all after Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya etc. The west is utterly useless at interventions having good results- biggest refugee source in Europe is actually fricking Kosovo, their only supposed success- so much so that you have to question Poe's Law. And no it isn't deliberate in the proper sense, it's just utter denial of reality and constant reliance on utterly crap 'expert' opinions from interested parties. *the 'moderate' Turkish backed forces in Afrin include literal child beheaders- indeed Harakat Nureddin Al Zinki was US vetted as well, which shows how good their judgement would have been in any intervention.

Agreed, that's kind of why I mentioned Shi. For the US system he's a far better model strongman type than Putin as he's a lot more subtle about things while being immovable when he thinks it necessary, and both China and the US have huge economic clout that can be used as influence. Which- apart from gas, and that's a double edged sword- Russia lacks almost entirely.

Economically the US is absolutely safe until such time as the USD isn't reserve currency. Nobody is going to call in loans when doing so makes the repayments, many of your investments and much of the world's economy effectively worthless. Owning debt is also good leverage, though limited due to the first reason. Domestic US politics is pretty opaque to foreigners, it could be close to some sort of systemic collapse and no one would know because people are always saying it's close to some sort of collapse. Putin is shorthand for the phenomenon, certainly. He's the prominent current example of a 'decisive' leader and there's a certain obsession about him and a need to either beat him- or be like him- from many in the US including Trump. That contrasts to, say, Shi Jinpeng in China who is just as authoritarian but less directly assertive/ confrontational, internationally, and has far more soft power but only attracts relatively small amounts of attention. (The phenomenon itself probably goes back to Alex the Great- or Julius Caesar. Veni vidi vici, alea iacta est; it's like politicians desperately want to get similarly 'decisive' achievements to be remembered by while not remembering that JC wasn't exactly concerned with legalities and norms; and should have been utterly curbstomped by Pompey in Greece because he ignored reality)

Somewhat relevant to this, I can't help but think that the US has learnt completely the wrong lesson from Putin's success. Trump- and a decent proportion of the US in general- confuses respect and fear and wanted a 'decisive' leader to bring back fear rather than respect. Part of being 'strong' in that sense is not having dissent in the ranks, hence Trump wanting yes men in every position (plus his fragile as bone china ego). But the fundamental problem remains the same as with GWB's big projects, it's not actually a lack of decisiveness but a lack of acceptance of reality that is the fundamental problem, and having only yes men exacerbates that rather than ameliorates it. Putin has a lot of fear and respect (and for Russia the fear aspect is an enhancement, as they have very little soft power at all) because his decisions, while autocratic, are also realistic and so have a far better success rate. US decisions are far too often based on what they want to be true, rather than what is true. That leads to massive erosions of trust when things don't work out: if you say that Iraq will be stable for 15 consecutive years and it isn't or that the Taleban is losing badly for 17 (!) consecutive years and they don't then you're only ruining your credibility. Given that Trump's knowledge is not the greatest a 'gut feeling' based US policies with no internal dissent looks terrible, even if the US system overall moderates things a bit.

Lauren Southern is definitely a troll in the older sense. Which makes banning her entry pretty stupid, and about sums up modern Britain unfortunately. Needs a big chequebook for buying some Typhoons, then she'd get receptions from Queenie and the Archbishop of Kent even if she were deliberately starving half a country.

A requiem for a video game company, if it doesn't sell eleventy billion copies.

While it is sad to see Hawking go 76 is a pretty decent age to go even if he hadn't been given 2 years to live in his 20s.

The parallel would be to something like Pasteur's swan neck flask- it's a sealed system (remains sterile, minimal atmospheric exchange) but it isn't fully airtight. IIRC they make military ammo watertight using a plasticised lining/ sealant, that's expensive and overkill for civilian rounds where incidental immersion just means you throw the ammo away and maybe don't bag any deer or rabbits that day. Firing a gun underwater was more of a digression about there being fundamental problems with it apart from ammo getting wet, and it's at least passably interesting (to me, at least) as a reason for why you have torpedoes rather than underwater guns and why torpedoes have a severe speed limit unless you're very imaginative (motor at front sheathing the torpedo in air). Could have just left it at mines/ torpedo warheads/ depth charges not needing oxygen, I guess.

Any modern gun can fire in space, modern cartridges are sealed so don't interact with the atmosphere anyway; that has a major military advantage as sealed cartridges stay dry and don't age anywhere near as quickly as they used to from oxygen exposure. The side effect is that they will also fire without an atmosphere. It works because the propellants don't require oxygen since they either have an oxidiser added or intrinsically degrade upon triggering. eg, for nitroguanasine since wikipedia has the equation handy: H4N4CO2 (s) -> 2 H2O (g) + 2 N2 (g) + C (s) No oxygen required, just a percussion (or whatever, generally electricity or heat would work as well but guns use percussion, so...). Guns firing underwater are a different problem to do with water's density and incompressibility, a gun may fire underwater due to having sealed cartridges- if it doesn't it's due to water getting into the percussion mechanism and slowing it too much or similar- but you won't get a happy result from it, a blown barrel or breach, whichever is weaker, I'd suspect. If you want a gun to fire underwater you need a way to clear the water from the barrel first and it cannot work over much distance anyway since it will lose its impetus too quickly. Hence underwater 'rockets', torpedoes, being favoured. Consider torpedo warheads, mines or depth charges as well, none require oxygen and they are, in essence, just giant cartridges with no bullet.

Modern bullets have had their own oxidiser as well as reducer for ages? A cartridge is, after all, a brass cylinder sealed by a lead projectile so is impermeable to oxygen as is. Now I'm curious if you could use a gun to fire a bullet into orbit on Mars. You can theoretically here, of course, but it's very much in theory with our atmosphere/ gravity/ planetary radius.

The State Department being a shambles is 100% Trump's fault, not Tillerson's. Trump is meant to appoint ambassadors, and (largely) hasn't and the hiring freeze is from Trump as well. Trump's general policies and attitude is also detrimental to staff retention, and if they aren't being replaced it will only up the pressure on those staying and make it even more disfunctional. You can't do your job well if you aren't allocated the appropriate resources. Tillerson has done a good job mending fences- in some cases stopping fences from being demolished- and had the one thing that is absolutely critical in a top diplomat: the respect of those he dealt with. Pompeo's reputation as a yes man to Trump and that he is replacing a popular guy and will have to try and get people on board with hugely unpopular decisions will make his job extremely difficult and respect very hard to earn. If the State Dept is still under resourced he will have the exact same problems as Tillerson, probably up to and including Trump wanting to get rid of him for not making people understand his great vision and for being responsible for the continuing degradation of US standing and soft power.

The White House has said that Russia was likely responsible, albeit after the State Dept did. Trump has clearly wanted to get rid of Tillerson for months but Tillerson was very popular with just about everyone overseas from allies to, oddly enough, the Russians. I'd bet that this has far more to do with Iran and Trump wanting someone who will back him reneging on the nuclear deal since that abrogation is going to be extraordinarily unpopular with everyone* except Israel and Saudi and he wants someone who will back him wholeheartedly. For Tillerson that decision might even have been a resignation level issue, if so firing him preemptively simply had to be done and the latest it could realistically be done is around now which allows a month+ for Pompeo to get settled before the excreta hits the air circulation device. *and has parallels with GWB reneging on the North Korea nuclear deal which has lead to where we are now. DPRK actually honoured the Clinton deal until GWB decided to pull a Darth Vader and alter the terms arbitrarily.

In England? That's what you get when you have a monarchy, even one as disempowered as British nobility. If you don't want that, ditch the monarchy. Spain, presumably since numbersman is from there. They certainly have an occasionally enforced Lèse Majesté law (in their post Franco constitution, iirc). Indeed, they only have a monarchy at all because Franco won and the Spanish Republic lost the civil war. I don't think England has a Lèse Majesté law any more, "God Save the Queen" didn't hit any Lèse Majesté problems- which it would have for sure in, say, Thailand- just public disorder and soft boycott ones. Even then most of the legal problems were deliberate to get publicity. Technically all crimes in England are against the crown, but that's an abstract concept as much as crimes being against 'the people' at this point.

Depends on how arbitrarily you make the distinction between 'terrorism' and mafia type stuff. Ukraine has and had a huge amount of mafia style violence ever since independence, it's just that up until recently it studiously ignored top level politics in terms of killings and the like. Same is true for Cyprus actually, there are a lot more recent 'terrorism' incidents than 1964 but they tend to be not regarded as actual terrorism.

Let's be honest here, it would be an extreme surprise if it weren't the Russians, and most of the doubt comes from the rather ludicrous formal story around Litvenenko*. But equally, if the UK could have whacked Kim Philby in Moscow post defection they would have, and most of the same people getting upset now would have celebrated, with a nod and wink about responsibility and no matter if a brave Moscow Bobby and x civilians were effected. Skripol was a traitor same as Philby without even Philby's excuse of doing it because of honest belief, he did it because he was paid. *who was probably killed by the Russians, but the British public inquiry is full of holes- Russia is not the only source of Polonium and, for example, multiple lethal doses of Po were and are simply lost by US and other western research facilities, the idea of Lugavoy being used (he was jailed by Putin in the early 2000s, and is an opposition member of the Duma) is unlikely and the idea that he wandered around for days or weeks with an open container of one of the most deadly substances known to man is barely possible, let alone probable. And he cannot be extradited- as is never mentioned- because the Yeltsin written Constitution bars it. He wouldn't be extradited from the UK if the roles were reversed anyway, because the evidence against him is way too weak. Koftun, on the other hand, seems to have completely disappeared, and is a far more plausible candidate- but a Chechen doesn't make for anywhere near as good an accusation and he has disappeared, (or been disappeared).

BBC has gone rather off the rails lately, very Daily Mailesque. A couple of days ago they had a report on the World Service about Syria that made absolutely no sense to anyone informed on the matter, namely that Jaish Al Islam (Army of Islam) was going to evacuate all the islamist fighters from East Ghouta so there would be no excuse for a continuing offensive there. Problem being that Jaish Al Islam is islamist themselves, obviously even if you can't understand Arabic, as are all the major East Ghouta groups and the Al Qaeda guys they were referring to have been busy fighting JAI* in East Ghouta for the past year+ and are in a separate area so wouldn't be doing anything brokered by them anyway. Turns out JAI were willing to deport their Al Qaeda prisoners, that's all. Exactly why anyone would allow let alone applaud that I'm not quite sure, and why it would remove any excuse to bomb Ghouta (as if one is actually needed anyway) I'm not quite sure either. To be fair, they did rewrite their website article to be far more accurate; better late than never. *Part of the Saudi/ Qatar feud, Qatar supports Faylaq al Rahman who are fighting against JAI alongside the formally ex Al Qaeda affiliate HTS. Bit redundant now since they don't even border each other any more.

"Putin Ordered Plane to Be Downed in 2014". An article written pretty much entirely for the headline on the assumption that 90% of people won't actually read the article and presume it refers to MH17. It doesn't. Nice work, BBC.

It's inevitable consequence of steam's lack of curation. And yes, that answers both the what and the why.

The problem with that is the same problem as with any 'Unreliable Narrator' approach- people tend to think that inconsistencies or incorrect information are due to poor proofreading, bad editing and poor writing- and in games, bugs- rather than due to realism. That's why so few take that approach, as well as it being a lot of extra work for little if any reward, indeed per previous it often adds to criticism. Well, I think we all know why that's the case. "Racist Gamergate Child Murder Simulator Game Released, Ban This Sick Filth" © 2018, Polygon.

Been playing Into the Breach. Don't think it will have anywhere near the legs that FTL had. I know Chris Avellone is credited with some writing for it but there's barely enough writing to justify writing credits. I also got Origin Access or whatever it's called. 40NZD for a year was just too good to pass up. So i will be playing Batman: Arkham City soon.

Seems sensible since I cannot be the only one who always read it as "No Truce with the Furries". Which at least gave it name recognition, I guess.

90% of the time you aren't fighting but are wandering around or talking or whatever. And while a bit reductionist if you're only really worried about hitboxes then you end up with no visual customisation of the character, and would thus miss out on gems such as Big Bushy Beard, Crusty Jugglers Fisherman Hat + Orange Aviators Mike Thorton being complimented on blending in to Naples Rome by Conrad Marburg. It's actually far more about the voice for me, as I tend to pay more attention to women's voices. More people probably should play as females for that reason since (scientifically) both men and women pay more attention overall to a female voice- hence why you have far more Bitching Betty warning systems than Droning David ones.

Heh, I said near exactly that last time this came up here. (I don't mind spending hours looking at a guy's butt when it's the right guy though, like Commander Jax from Piranha Bytes' seminal masterpiece ELEX.)