Zoraptor

Yeah, Shtora probably wouldn't have made much if any difference in those circumstances, it being turned off is more indicative of the government forces not always being as competent as they should be, as were the open hatches. Shtora would definitely help against older missiles or their Chinese/ DPRK knock offs though and there are plenty of them around. They've spent 5 years getting shot for sitting still like they're invulnerable citadels (as here, though at least they had some cover) or charging around wildly or charging into built up areas, and almost always without proper infantry support. Nowadays they probably have the help of Russian helicopters to target ATGM teams but it's still no substitute to proper infantry screens or moving your tank around after a few shots.

That was a T90, it has Kontact-5 Explosive Reactive Armour which is designed to defeat TOW's dual warhead, plus the hit was on the best armoured part of the tank. It had the Shtora countersystem but it was off either due to incompetence or maintenance (it can only be operated relatively briefly/ not continuously due to heat/ battery life). It was probably functionally knocked out, ie could not be used further, just not destroyed. You can tell almost instantly the result from videos as rebels cut the video off quickly if the tank isn't destroyed by a hit. Most Syrian tanks have either no/ partial ERA of the old Kontact-1 variety that is now basically useless except against simple RPG rounds, plus are less armoured or have jury rigged partial extra armour so have been very vulnerable.

Nice classic selection. Will probably get the FF and Railroad titles, already have the XCOM series and (pretty sure) Pirates! elsewhere.

Software as a product has been the rule here for more than a decade via the Consumer Guarantees Act (which is a genuinely excellent bit of legislation). I haven't read the SSA recently but at one point there was NZ explicit stuff dealing with software-as-product issues and we'd obviously be a smaller market than Aus.

If no one reaches a majority then, er, no one can be said to be acceptable to the majority* and any resultant candidate is the result of the 'establishment', one way or another. In any case, Kasich can not really be said to be the establishment favourite- he's basically their least disliked remaining choice/ last man standing, even just in the active phase of the campaign he's been 3rd and last choice behind Jeb and Marco. One way or another their remaining candidates are all deeply flawed. Cruz is borderline unelectable and only seems a reasonable choice compared to Trump, Trump has a large 'anyone but Donald' anti following to balance his popularity plus no actual policy as opposed to sound bites and Kasich is... moderate, unremarkable, uninspiring, just a bit boring. Of the three though- and it's true in comparison to Hillary as well- merely being a bit boring could be a significant advantage since while he's unlikely to bring in droves of enthusiastic supporters he's unlikely to alienate significant numbers either whereas the other candidates may be more inspiring but they're also far more divisive. Plus, he's from an electorally crucial state and while Donald may think he can carry New York he's about the only person who thinks that. *Barring a VP Kasich type compromise

This one, presumably, since that's the official order. I can't remember which game has which codename though.

With that level of commitment and the budget for it coming out of training it doesn't really matter to Russia if it drags on for years. And it is working, since November at least there's been nothing but local, temporary, opposition success versus significant advances by the government. Another year of such advances and the opposition would be practically finished as a formal military force so there isn't any need for the quick success. Troop numbers have never been the primary problem for the government and they are getting and have had significant imported troops. A shambolic and ossified military leadership, corrupt and inept logistics and low morale from poorly equipped and trained conscripts have all been more important than just troop numbers; as shown by Hezbollah who have none of those problems being almost uniformly successful. Most of those problems have been (partly at least) dealt with without adding more troops. And of course Syria makes a very useful bargaining chip for Russia, they can step up their intervention or reduce it for political or PR purposes unrelated to the actual conflict. That's why I rather doubt they're putting anywhere near as much pressure on Assad as many think, once Syria is settled that leverage goes.

What? In most places with a prime minister local elections are separate from national elections. I think what you mean to say is that the legislature elects the government. I presume he means 'constituency' and 'member of parliament' rather than local body/ council elections for 'local senatorial'. Because they generally do elect the PM, with some exceptions and if you don't have that system you probably don't know the correct technical terms- much as non US people will often get Congress/ Senate/ House and their functions mixed up.

Palmyra recaptured by the government from ISIS. It's a city of around 50k with some of the most extensive archaeological sites in Syria many of which have unfortunately been blown up by ISIS; it was originally lost during the extraordinarily bad period the government had about ten months agp. After Qaryatayn to the south is taken the next step would probably be As Sukhna, which is the only significant settlement on the way to either Raqqa or Deir Ez Zor from Palmyra.

Since it hasn't been mentioned previously Bernie won the three caucuses (Hawaii, Alaska, Washington) from yesterday, all by around 50%. They'd have to go Kasich, surely. I presume that's the only reason he's still in the race. (Do you have to be an active declared candidate for a brokered convention? For a contested one it seems obvious you'd have to be, but I kind of presumed a brokered one could have a wildcard candidate. Not that it really matters, since there isn't an obvious wildcard candidate in any case)

I remember when Oby himself was a 17 year old Russian girl. Ah, those were the days. Then those bastard moderators forced him to become a bloke. Please, let's not drift off into impossibilities.

The French situation says it more eloquently- why not just make demonstrations illegal, open endedly? At least the Brussels situation was a request based on ongoing police operations requiring available manpower.

Don't worry, Atari zombie Infogrames is used to it. Oddly enough the idea of selling an 'early access' kickstarter game retail doesn't phase me much at all. Theoretically it ought to be as bad but I guess when you've funded via, essentially, the unsecured credit/ hopes and dreams of thousands of nerds it just doesn't seem such a big deal to sell a merely incomplete product as opposed to one that doesn't exist at all.

While I agree with the sentiment... those sort of 'infographics' always leave me with a slight desire to grind my teeth. There's dozens of extra examples that could be added some of which such as the Speicher massacre were massively above the scale of anything else listed, some of the chosen examples are distinctly questionable- for example in the Tunisia attack listed 30/38 killed were British and all killed were European so there was not (likely to be) any muslims killed, and it got extensive coverage in Britain especially- and as previous some of those chosen did get extensive coverage. Reads like an american watching Fox News/ USCNN, googling 'ISIS terrorism', going to wikipedia and then not reading any links just generating a list. Or perhaps from a Saudi PR group, which would certainly explain the lack of Speicher coverage since Saudis would say that wasn't against real muslims.

... The whole point of doing it is so it will be pointed out. That's trolling 101, and Bruce does it all the time. In all seriousness, Bruce purports to be fine with prostitution and not fine with an open marriage. Even if they were honestly held opinions rather than the forum equivalent of Gawker clickbait (no surprise Bruce would defend them, they're peas in a pod) there's literally no point even arguing with someone that disconnected with reality; the level of cognitive dissonance that would be required to honestly hold both opinions renders it utterly pointless.

They almost certainly leaked the second (well, extended bits of the first featuring Hogan dropping N bombs more than Macho Man dropped elbows) tape against a court order as well. That was probably why they ignored the order to take the original one down, because they thought Hogan would pull out of legal action under threat of the extended version being released. I have to admit to finding it basically impossible to feel any sympathy for any Gawker employee- their employers are just so over the top villainous and so transparently over the top villainous that I can't imagine working there and not being aware of it. They couldn't/ can't even tone it down during legal action when it's not merely sensible to do so but pretty much essential to do so.

They took their jerbs! Personally, I've always hated the rebels in Star Wars. First they blow up the death star taking a horde of perfectly innocent janitorial staff with it, then they blow up death star 2 before completion leading to the summary dismissal of millions of construction workers, those who weren't liquidated along with the station at least. Won't someone think of the working man Gawker and their moral stand against publishing sex tapes involving 4 year olds? Now, 5 year olds though... (Yeah, I know, extreme example and I should definitely tender my apologies for comparing Nick Denton to Palpatine and Gawker to the Galactic Empire. So unreservedly: Sorry Palps, please don't force choke me.)

Gulf countries don't take in refugees because Bangladeshi/ Pakistani/ Nepali/ Filipino slaves are cheaper, more malleable, easier to chuck out and less likely to revolt or cause problems. Seriously. Plus who is going to put pressure on them to take them, the US? Don't make me laugh. Yeah, one. The vast majority of these attackers do not need to wait in line with the refugees. They have the resources to get around that. Pretty sure he actually was a local though, using the refugee system to avoid being flagged as a returning jihadi. He wasn't Syrian/ Iraqi/ Afghan, he was French/ Belgian. Once he's in Schengen he doesn't need refugee status and can just go home without triggering anything.

[JoWood's contract post split with PB was a G3 expansion, farmed out to some Indians, and G4 plus expansion, with a set time limit after which PB could make Gothic games themselves and JoWood could not; Risen was so they could continue to do Gothic style games before that expiration. It did not involve reversion of published titles though, so Nordic still publishes G2/ G3/ G4] Trademark info per TESS/ USPTO (I bet the formatting will go despite wysiwyg [ho hum] so I'll end up spending ages fixing it then get bored and just abridge it). AP isn't registered with Euro version, Gothic is identically to USPTO. Trademarks value is highly variable, for a company name and the like it's of near absolute importance, for subsidiary items it's far less so. So something like 'Obsidian Entertainment' as a TM would be critically important, 'Pillars of Eternity' as a TM far less so. (Pluto13 is Piranha Bytes' holding company, PB's website is run via Pluto13 for example).

Quite out of date words- five months out of date. First thing to check on any article, especially any article posted by Bruce and in this case it's in the url. Well, it was a nice quiet few days. Now we just wait to see if oby mysteriously turns up again as well. My words were bit sarcastic as said deal that article spoke with Turkey has already failed and new one has been struck, which has been met with great skepticism I'd have used Meshugger's post but it wasn't there when I hit reply. I kind of assumed your reply wasn't wholly serious.

You wouldn't make an AP sequel anyway, not with Sega owning the rights and given the contemporary setting there's little point buying them out just for Mike Thorton (whose name everyone gets wrong anyway), Stevie Heck etc. Some sort of kickstarter funded spiritual successor- a sort of Fallout KS to PoE's Baldur's Gate one- using AP's strengths as a selling point would be better, less limited and avoid baggage. Trademark is not that important. Achtung Panzer Kharkov 43 has two sequels despite Paradox (laughably, since it's from Heinz Guderian's book) owning the trademark and not being involved in those sequels. JoWood would still be making 'Gothic' games (with that name filed off) under the Arcania trademark if they hadn't gone bankrupt, that was the point of calling Gothic IV Arcania, to get a trademark JoWood owned plus their own copyrighted world thus getting around Piranha Bytes owning Gothic's ip. It's probably, overall, the least important part of the IP, though still important- it's useful to us primarily because it's obvious and easy to check whereas contracts and the like are best part of impossible. To illustrate further, EA owned System Shock as a trademark but it wasn't much use if you can't use Shodan or any of the other games' plot because an insurance company owns them, otoh if you're that insurance company you can just wait for the TM to expire and re-register it. Plus Paradox does have a history of IP reversions, unlike most every other publisher, so there's substantial precedent. It's more likely that Paradox owns it wholesale than the alternatives, but it isn't certain by any means.

Quite out of date words- five months out of date. First thing to check on any article, especially any article posted by Bruce and in this case it's in the url. Well, it was a nice quiet few days. Now we just wait to see if oby mysteriously turns up again as well.

How come everyone is so sure the IP will belong to Paradox? Tyranny is a Paradox owned trademark. Pillars of Eternity is an Obsidian owned one. While that is not an absolute indicator, especially for Paradox*, it's usually a good one for how things stand IP wise, and the publisher owning the IP is most usual practice. *historically at least a lot of Paradox games have reverted to the developer- Penumbra, Mount & Blade, Elven Legacy, Lead and Gold; probably 6 years after publication since AKP'43 got pulled from GOG six years after its initial release. Whether that's still true or true for Tyranny is impossible to tell, as you'd have to wait six years to find out.

Probably genuine advisors/ trainers or air support spotters. Syrian tactics have improved immeasurably since the Russian intervention so they've definitely been advising and more effectively than the prior Hezbollah/ Iranian types- albeit the air support helps a lot- and it's a lot easier to call in air strikes to support advances if everyone speaks the same language and is familiar with the same procedures. There won't be regular forces fighting (excluding guarding the air bases) and it's very unlikely there would be special forces directly fighting either. If confirmed it would make 7 deaths for Russia in Syria; 2 from the shootdown (pilot, marine), one suicide, one advisor hit by a mortar, one indeterminate but he was awarded a medal posthumously yesterday and the two today.

2 Russian advisors (5 according to ISIS) have likely been killed near Palmyra. There isn't any official confirmation and some room for it being faked, but not that much less doubt than when the pilot got killed in Latakia- if it's faked it's pretty convincingly faked.