Zoraptor

Yeah that would be my guess for all digital distributions True, was a dumb question, forgot most of the world doesn't act like my company. Given what happened with Outcast only a month ago, ie none of the accumulated patches being applied at release on GOG until days later, it certainly isn't a dumb question.

Wing Commander 2. Thought the torpedoes I used were nuclear! Forgot I had the expansions actually, will be good to kill Jazz..eventually. Well that's what you get for asking Maniac what he'd like to see in a new fighter model. Of course it ends up carrying a dumbfire nuke. Torpedoes were just phase shield piercing missiles, according to the manual. I think Wing Commander 2 was the first game I've played where the storytelling affected me emotionally. I was sad when Spirit died and I really hated Jazz. With a passion. Wasn't the first game to get an emotional response from my (that would be a party wipe in the first Wizardry in the level 5 (?) repeating maze, 6 year old me was devastated) but yeah, I loathed Jazz. Indeed, despite there being better written villains he may still be the villain I've actively disliked the most in videogames. WC 2-4 were very well written, and even Prophecy had decent writing despite its problems.

It isn't just the number of buttons though, it also requires context. 'Console' fps typically lack leaning not because of an absolute lack of buttons, but because of a lack of contextual buttons- you have to use a left/ right button combo for left/ right leaning. Use those (shoulder, usually) buttons for something else and it's bye bye to leaning for no reason other than controller limitation. OK, you don't need leaning in fps, but it is nice to have. Personally all my favourite fps have leaning, albeit I'm far from a fps fan ion general.

That article is factually wrong in places- the Thrawn Trilogy/ HTTE was the first book in ages, but the Dark Empire comics predated it and was directly contradicted by it in places despite both being canon, and Zahn did not have carte blanche on the project either. His blueprint would also have failed because Harrison Ford would have refused to do 3 more movies, especially at the height of his fame and bankability in the early 90s. Pretty sure that Fisher was also... not at her most reliable then either. Peripherally I'd also very strongly argue that you don't have to have hard set binary morality in Star Wars and that was not why TLJ got a lot of dislike. People didn't hate Luke being 'morally grey' (for want of a better term) in TLJ just because it wasn't jedi like, they hated it because it was a direct contradiction of Luke's established characterisation. 'Grey' morality in SW is certainly polarising though, both 'Traitor' and KOTOR2 have a lot of people who love them and some who hate them for not conforming to the usual good/ evil dichotomy.

From the before mentioned invasion of Vilnius and Czech lands to the polonization policies in the east.And that's before we even get to the topic of internment camps, pacifications and eventual reprisals during the war. Or of the pervasive antisemitism that's still going strong and is used as an excuse to justify that 'Polish death camps' nonsense. I could go on but the point is that Poland needs an honest look at it's history not western-style denial and shouting-down of anyone who disagrees. Yeah they did most of that, but to iterate, there really wasn't pervasive anti semitism in Poland, since people are likely to reflexively disagree with Sharpie. Nationalism, sure, and at times that was as unpleasant in Poland as in most places hence inter war Poland's behaviour was not always the model of restraint, shall we say. But, most of the stories about Polish anti semitism are Israeli Creation Myth propaganda- there literally being no safe place for the Jews except Israel. There may well be some anti Israel resentment now, but that's neither anti semitism nor unjustified given that Israel is effectively slandering them for their own political purposes. If you compare Polish anti semitism to those in similar positions the vast majority of persecution and murder of Polish Jews was direct by German Nazis with no help from Poles in general and very little help from them at all. In the Balts and Ukraine there was an immediate, organised native program to murder and betray Jews (and others, of course). There was even direct collaboration in 'enlightened' occupied western countries; indeed, they all did things like contribute SS units etc many of whom were the most fanatical fighters in the entire war, and given that that includes Japan it's really saying something.

According to the guy who owns GSC one of the main reasons for them shuttering was that the devs kept on trying to turn Stalker into a MP game behind his back. Given the obsession with faction wars it might not have been BR, but certainly was as at least as much PvP as PvE focused. Funny really, the teams spawned by GSC and Stalker haven't actually done 'proper' Stalker since. Metro is linear as anything and more reminiscent of FEAR, and the Vostok people seem to be obsessed with MP despite Clear Sky being the worst Stalker by a mile.

Maybe, but as he has France on the brain, just doubting he'll be looking at Russian parades with ICBM launchers. I guess all Mattis et al. have to do is maybe wait a month or two before the plan's forgotten about. Grand Military Parades seems like exactly the sort of meaningless pantomimery Trump wouldn't forget about to me. It's a great way to shout your own importance from the rooftops and would appeal to the typical Trump voter who wants the US to shout its importance from rooftops. And of course you can accuse detractors of being against the troops and anyone who doesn't clap of being traitors as well, another added bonus.

I'm not pro Polish at all- for all their whining about being stabbed in the back they stabbed Lithuania and the Czechs in the back beforehand, unapologetically- but Poland simply did not build death camps. Death Camps means Birkenau or Treblinka type camps which were constructed to specifically kill people, not a concentration or POW camp where people died from neglect, and as bad as that is in itself. You'd have a hard time finding major countries that haven't used concentration/ pow camps with high death rates. And to be fair to Poland you'd go a very long way to find a country that cooperated less with the Nazis than them- maybe Russia proper and Byelorus and that's it. Even the Serbs had incidents with their Cetnik resistances helping Germans. Using the term 'Polish Death Camps' just because the Germans happened to build them at Oswiecim etc would be pretty irksome. I suspect if Germany decided that Guernsey/ Aldenay/ Sark/ Jersey should have death camps instead we would not talk about English Death Camps, for example. Stupid way to tackle the issue though, no doubt about it.

Bunch of Close Combat games released- 2,3,4 of the original series plus the modern Caen and Mortain games. While the AI in the old games was frequently not very intelligent and the engine was creakier than century old wooden floorboards by the end they were great fun, especially 2 & 3. Nothing quite like creeping around Arnhem with your last PIAT squad trying to one shot Tigers (that the AI would helpfully move up without infantry support and then park facing the wrong way rather too frequently, but still...).

CDPR did a reverse takeover of CDP a few years ago- IIRC it was part of a shortcut scheme to get onto the Polish sharemarket by taking over a 3rd company which was already listed there, then changing its name. So CDPR now owns CDP, and GOG. Previously CDP owned CDPR and GOG.

Not really, I'm saying that 'kowtowing' is irrelevant, ie Obama or anyone else (since GWB did it as well with the Saudis) bowing is simply irrelevant and means nothing. Unless you're obsessed with not showing weakness, and- to paraphrase the great philosopher Tywin Lannister- the people obsessed with such things are themselves deeply insecure. Practically and politically Akihito is irrelevant but bowing to him is regarded very positively in Japan. MbS/ Salman is different since they're definitive tyrants in the old meaning, but still Trump could literally have dropped to his knees in front of MbS on live TV and nobody should care- if it has a purpose and if the rest of his policy had been sensible.

Meh, according to the mainstream media "Assad fights ISIS" was a lie when Trump said it. They've lied about Trump's lies extensively and repeatedly. And it's not like Trump doesn't lie enough anyway without them making more up, they just cannot help themselves. Trump has definitely kowtowed to the Saudi far more in practical terms than Obama. Bowing is irrelevant except as a nicety, it only means something to people who aren't secure in their power. I'm pretty sure that Obama would have mentioned the large US base in Qatar before giving the Saudis the green light to invade instead of Sexy Rexy having to make a frantic phone call to remind MbS of that fact. If anything Obama was the least Saudi subservient US leader in recent memory.

Trailer or not I wouldn't be putting much faith in the Solo movie to be good. It has clearly been very troubled and has had director replacements, extensive rewrites and reshoots and a lead actor who supposedly had to have acting lessons (!) while shooting. None of those things exactly fill me with confidence as to its end quality. On a more fundamental level I have little interest in Han's backstory and wish they'd do something a bit different with the side stories instead of Han and How The Rebels Stole The Death Star Plans v16 (albeit R1 was a different approach to previous SW movies in many ways). Even the supposed Kenobi movie is still a very conservative and safe option.

We don't really know what happened with respect to that, nor will we, given the nature of the FISA court. Is it even possible to independently check at what time/ date a FISA warrant is issued and for what reason, or do we have to take interested parties such as the FBI/ NSA's word for it? Rhetorical question, that. There certainly seems to have been leaks made based on the surveillance which is a direct intervention by someone in the FBI/ NSA, even if was not by the NSA or FBI as organisations. So far as I am concerned as vaguely neutral that is where the strongest point of attack for Trump lies- and manipulation by the intelligence community is far more of a risk to US democracy than anything the Russians can do. Everyone who isn't a nationalism induced moron knows that the US tries to influence Russian politics and the Russians try and influence US politics; the problems are always worse when you have the state's own security apparatus deciding to interfere politically. Plus in a more general case, if it were collaboration with the Saudis or Israel that were regarded as being worthy of surveillance the only candidate in 30 years likely to avoid monitoring would be- maybe- Obama. Steele was picked by the Democrats in the first place because he was biased. if someone wrote a piece on Hillary or Bernie paid for by the Republican Party it would clearly be biased since, well, neither R nor D are interested in an unbiased scientific type analysis but in generating maximum political capital. They will deliberately employ people who will give them what they want, not a disinterested academic. Steele's dossier is replete with gossip, doubly removed hearsay and is almost entirely unverifiable even when it drifts towards direct information- and is also at multiple points self contradictory (eg, Russians cultivating Trump for 5 years, offering him deals etc and Trump turned them down; yet later in dossier (p8) saying Trump's lack of property in Russia was "not for lack of trying"). That's what they wanted and what they paid for. That stuff is also very easy to 'soft' corroborate either by using the same source speaking to a different person/ organisation or a different person reporting the same rumour.

I wasn't expecting it to do anything much, and that's exactly what it delivered. The way both sides were talking about it it would have been easy to expect it to have some actual substance though.

Trump's memo is hardly convincing. If they want to go after the FBI or the investigation they'd be far better off catching them leaking, which they've done extensively and for obvious political purposes. Bit difficult to do when the people who should be catching the leakers are the ones leaking though. Just another sign that the whole US intelligence apparatus is a law to itself and uncontrollable though. Speaking of which, using a warrant from that abject rubber stamp FISA court as evidence of anything is a joke, and is either a sign of ignorance or deliberate obfuscation from Bloomberg. It rejects one warrant application every four years on average, or one out of every 4500 cases if you prefer. That's out and out kangaroo court territory- you're more likely to have the 'prosecution case' rejected in North Korea than in FISA.

The mysticism was always the worst part of BSG, such a shame they doubled down on it rather than dialed it back. There's probably a bit less of it in the second season, but even more in the 3rd and especially last seasons. And yeah, definitely used a crutch to avoid having to write things logically. People make dumb decisions throughout the series. They also repeat the same mistakes, there's an obnoxious love tetrahedron that goes on far too long, massive hypocrisy and as above they handwave stuff with deus ex machina- and think they're being 'deep' doing so. But when it does stuff well it does it very very well. Despite not being a massive fan of BSG by any means Exodus I & II is one of my absolute favourites 2 parters, better than even Best of Both Worlds or Chain of Command in TNG. In terms of Sci Fi I thought BSG was as good as or better than SG or ST, when it was trying to be Sci Fi. Both SG and ST have massive amounts of handwaving as well, they just dress it up in trektechnobabble rather than mysticism, and they tend to forget the technobabble when convenient. Without the mysticism BSG was pretty believable and consistent, tech wise, far more so than Warp Drive destroying the fabric of the universe for one specific week or the galaxy being liberated by half a dozen plucky US airforce personnel with P90s and a healthy dose of mcguyverism.

Yeah, I wouldn't be too sure on that. It also depends on whether they actually 'removed' the Denuvo DRM or just... 'neutered' it so it never triggers. If it's still doing its DRM functions but they've been set to always return as 'OK' then there would be no effect on performance- since the checks etc that effect the performance would still be being done. That's how the hax solutions to Denuvo DRM work, and indeed how most removals of SecuROM's limited activation system worked as well (SecuROM was still there, it just accepted any hardware profile as legit once it was 'removed'). That method requires limited testing as opposed to properly removing it. Having said that, the reduction in loading time suggests that at least one part of Denuvo's DRM system may have been genuinely turned off at least, since it was doing constant read/write as part of its DRM encryption cycling, leading to accusations it was trashing SSDs prematurely.

If it discredits the investigation then of course Trump wants it released, but, if the investigation deserves to be discredited then that should not be a consideration in its release. There clearly have been issues with the investigation (people on it getting fired for anti Trump emails etc) and with the intelligence community at large with respect to Trump and they clearly preferred Clinton as a candidate. It's clearly going to be political, but everything is- questioning the accuracy of the memo is political, the investigation and IC leaking like a sieve is political etc etc.

Must be due to Russian Hax. In further Mohammed bin Sultan- shining light of Saudi Arabia- news, the quagmire in Yemen got even worse as the South Yemeni separatists who were the only organised native force fighting the Houthis predictably decided that what they really wanted was an independent southern state rather than to pointlessly fight and die in the north for Saudi and just overthrew whatever dregs of the formal government remained in Aden. And, of course, they used their MbS supplied weaponry to do it. Truly the man is Reverse Midas. Sadly that sort of thing happens pretty much every week- last week it was a hotel attacked. The security situation in Afghanistan is still dreadful and not improving.

Unions are useless right up until the point you don't have them, or need one of their services. Much as insurance is useless, unless you crash your car or burn your house down.

They all depend on how much strain they put on the CPU- what you're using the program for, how demanding the program and its functions are, whether it's multithreaded or not and whether it uses the GPU and for what. If there's a different bottleneck than the CPU there shouldn't be much effect unless it hits one of the other areas Meltdown/ Spectre fixes effect like certain types of disk functions. From what I remember Photoshop is badly optimised and has no effective multithreading at all and little (only with a couple of functions, iirc) GPU based acceleration so I'd suspect it would be adversely effected especially for intensive processes; IIRC the others all have some degree of multithreading andor GPU acceleration built in so are likely to be effected less, dependent on what exactly you're doing with them. It will also be dependent on what your hardware is, a well threaded program on an 8700k may be slightly slower than before but still faster than any other non enthusiast platform (though a very well threaded app on a r7 will likely be faster since SMT>>HT and the r7 has 2 extra cores). OTOH something a little bit older, less powerful and with fewer threads is likely to take a bigger hit since it's more likely to be struggling already.

There aren't many turn based games, and even fewer where there is a significant AI 'turn' to take into account, hence "almost all" games being GPU limited by the ability to draw and fill polys and apply effects. It may also have an adverse effect on frame rates if you're playing at 720p low details with a 1080Ti, but that combination is also pretty rare and practically only used if you're trying to make a point or doing CPU testing.

There will need to be BIOS updates to fully implement protection as well, so the exact performance loss is still unclear at this point. But yeah, certainly shouldn't be much if anything for games since they're almost always limited by the graphics card power rather than CPU; and most basic productivity and home computing tasks are not taxing on modern CPUs either.

Grammar Nazi SJW. That is still double posting. Then the definition of 'double posting' has certainly lost much of it's meaning. The definition of double posting has always been exactly what it says and what it was since usenet: to post twice in succession in the same thread. Nothing more and nothing less. That's a lot easier to do and more excusable in systems with no subthreading like most forums (especially if the built in quote function is, uh, erratic if you try and do just about anything with it) and less excusable in those which do have subthreading like usenet or its rough modern equivalent reddit- but it's still double posting if you do it.