Zoraptor

No, it doesn't. No. That just plain isn't how it works, you cannot add them like that. To illustrate, let's take a theoretical country that has 90% depreciation. What happens if you just add that 12.5-15% to that, as you want? You get a currency with 102.5-105% depreciation. Which gives you a negatively valued currency. Which is, well, impossible. You cannot do it that way. Doesn't matter how much you'd like to. Best you can is try to apply the 25-30%, or made up 40%, to those other countries' depreciations then add that. Which is also untenable, but at least couldn't generate impossible results. Shrug. I haven't misquoted experts, used graphs with fudged timelines that don't cover a quarter of the time I'm supposedly interested in and haven't wanted to do economically impossible transformations to data. You've done all three, in your last half dozen posts.

I wouldn't worry about whether it is going to fund or not when deciding whether to put money down as the worst that can happen there is that funding fails and you don't get charged a cent, same as if there had never been a kickstarter. That happened to me with the Fresh3D/ Outcast KS. Some of the crowdfunding sites have flexible funding where partial funding will be accepted, but KS doesn't. If you think it looks good and want to put money down do so, if you don't don't. Don't worry about whether it funds, there really isn't much at all that any single person can do to influence that unless your last name is Persson.

The trouble there is the same as with all sort of 'cultural sensitivity' type stuff. Who is getting offended, what is the threshold of offence, whether practical benefits outweigh the costs of second guessing everything you do, selective application etc. People will object to it for much the same reasons people object to PC, because it is much the same concept dressed up in much the same 'perfectly reasonable' language.

... That would prove nothing except how significant the oil price drop was on Russia's currency, which is what I've always said. You have to deal with empirical figures- until the oil price dropped the rouble had barely flickered in value, 20-25% of that, heck even your made up 40% would be utterly insignificant. I was doing you a favour taking it as an absolute, it's actually the thing that makes your argument look least silly- take out the oil drop and you get 25-30 or 40% of even less, for far less absolute effect. And as below, I was already maximising your claimed effects, not minimising them. [chart] Oh dear, 2014, really? Not from when sanctions were first applied (March 2014, conveniently) to now? That's what I did, since I'm not relying on Weaseling by using a convenient timeframe. Here's a handy link, March to March of a USD vs RUB chart. If you change the 'RUB' in the URL to other currencies' abbreviations you can generate charts for each of the top ten traded currencies, or any you like. Do so and you'll find that your chart is out by, well, a significant and painful amount, shall we say? eg, AUD has dropped about 17%, March to March, not 10%, NZD has dropped ~15%, not 7%, the Euro has dropped ~30% instead of 12% etc. And that's straight March to March, not the yearly max to min I used to generate Russia's currency halving in value, to be charitable and maximise the amounts your claim would generate. Again, your use of figures is at best extremely ill-informed.

Not exactly a surprise. One of the reasons I far prefer 'Cultural Stalinism' to 'Cultural Marxism' is the tendency to turn on those who don't believe enough, or those who believe slightly differently, or those who are just perceived to believe slightly differently, every bit as much as those who are the theoretical 'real' enemies. They're always going to disagree somewhat on what the real goals should be, who the real targets are, what the real philosophy is etc, and with a 'no dissent' environment all of them will think right is on their side.

Very sad news, though not really unexpected. Dementia/ Alzheimer's is just the worst thing. The run he had through from about 'Small Gods' (one of the books I'd unequivocally recommend everyone reads) to 'Feet of Clay' was one of the best sequences I've ever had the privilege of reading.

And it isn't. It's less than 9/10 of the top traded countries had, without sanctions. Whatever things were effecting them effected them more severely than the sanctions effected Russia, and without the oil price drop Russia's currency would have appreciated relative to 9/10 of them (or 7/10, if we remove Canada and Mexico for the oil drop having a negative effect on their currency), even with the sanctions- indeed, the Euro has fallen in value by about twice the amount sanctions caused, even with your made up 40% figure and no reliance on oil exports. And, of course, we have the dial back and redef which happens every single time you get caught out with hyperbole: "we used words such as painful and significant" with 'painful' suddenly disappearing... Now sure, with the effects of the oil price drop added it becomes severe, that is what I've been saying all along- and you've now started defending my 18 month (to 2 yr figure) for just liquid assets as well. So we're now at the stage where you agree with me. Progress has been made.

Nope. I used the term 'not severe' and indeed it's the term you've actually managed to quote me as using, as opposed to when you use Weasel Debate Technique #1: deliberately overstate the other person's opinion by claiming I said no effect. Yeah, I do. Can't say I didn't warn myself that maths would give you problems, but sadly I have no patience to explain proportions, fractions and their reciprocals to you in depth. As always, it was you who started talking about 40% [sic, misquoted] of the currency devaluation being due to sanctions, then complained about not using Putin's 25-30%. Well, the rouble has had an overall devaluation of 50%, it has halved in value, the proportion of that which matches Putin's estimate is 12.5-15% devaluation (0.5*0.25*100 to 0.5*0.3*100 so you can follow on your calculator)- and from Kudrin's- maximised- estimate, 20% (0.5*0.4*100); about half what the Euro has had against the dollar in the same timeframe. It doesn't show what you thought? 1) Quelle surprise and 2) tough noogies; you, again, picked the figure and defended it same as the 6-12 month claim and that agricultural imports that had appreciated 100% would help decrease 30% greater food prices- if someone is to blame for you picking rubbish figures it's you. And that so many of the worlds major currencies have performed similarly to that without the effect of sanctions is exactly the point.

So, more or less Galaxy Quest's premise (minus, presumably at least, getting picked up by real life aliens at some point) as a webseries? Sounds good.

There isn't one in this context- Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen, Assad in Syria, much of Iraq's population and the protesters in Bahrain are all (broadly speaking) pro Iranian yet are also arab. Ethnicity is a factor in the regional rivalries, but it's far less so than the sectarian divide because arabs are far more likely to be persecuted by their own ethnicity following a different sect than by Persians. Conversely, there are some Sunni 'Persians' (well, Baluchi, but they're about as similar to Persians as a Morrocan Maghreb arab is to a Syriac arab is to a Bedouin arab) who are supported by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

"Bruce, dear fellow, you agreeing with me is one of the things that would get me to question whether I was right." 'Irrelevant' verbiage that changes the meaning can not be irrelevant- as it changes the meaning. If you change the meaning from maximum to exact by omitting words it is not irrelevant, by definition, because exact and maximum do not mean the same thing. Unsurprisingly, he doesn't say that, that's just your interpretation. Indeed, he said Russia had plenty of reserves and would be back in growth inside two years- though he is, of course, biased every bit as much as you or wsj dude, just differently biased. In any case, and since you insist: 25-30% is still 'not severe'. Unfortunately I must use maths and statistics to illustrate how, so you may have difficulty following. The rouble has roughly halved (50%) in value against the USD (somewhat less than halved, but I'll round 'up'), proportionately 25-30% of that is a 12.5-15% total devaluation. Leaving the large majority, 70-75% proportion, or 35-37.5% total devaluation not related to sanctions. You know who have had the same or larger devaluations than 12.5-15%, of the top ten (exc US, for obvious reasons- it's had a 0% change relative to itself, after all) traded currencies? Nine of them, China being the only exception. So if that is severe then the effects on the Euro, Pound, non US anglophone dollars, peso, krone, Sfranc and Yen must also be 'severe', and nine of the top ten currencies must be approaching crisis. The extra 70-75% makes it 'severe', but that, by your own logic, isn't due to sanctions. Well, at least you tacitly admit to the other two. Though of course 'everyone disagrees with you' rather loses its impact when you're tacitly admitting to restating your opponents arguments using bizarre absolutes- after all, that is precisely why people restate arguments as bizarre absolutes; so they can say everyone disagrees with the bizarre absolute that was just made up.

If I didn't know anything about it I would have said Seven Dragon Saga sounds like a Japanese/ Chinese based game. Which wouldn't be bad at all. (Brave using Saga in the title, King might send them a sternly worded letter)

The number 1 terror sponsoring state is Saudi Arabia, and by a fair distance. Which is jolly inconvenient, so generally ignored.

"Up to" 40%; omitting the "up to" significantly changes the meaning because one says "this is the exact figure" and the other says "this is the maximum figure". If you can't recognise why that is dishonest then, well, you'll be forever doomed to be a Weasel*. You don't have to admit it publicly, that is expecting too much, but you should at least admit it to yourself. And again, hiding behind your entirely made up claim (again, PPOR) that I said sanctions had no impact when the best proof you've offered is that I said they did not have a severe impact. And the now staple rambling and random quotes claiming you didn't really start the talk about 6-12 months despite (1) being quoted saying it yourself and (2) admitting yourself that you did so; and how me making a quote that mirrored that claim with functional identity is misleading because I didn't also say that I called the article you got the figure from crap- context which is irrelevant since no one was going to think that I considered that article as Thucydides reborn writing a Pulitzer Prize worthy magnum opus. And all leavened by some of the most feeble insults man has had the misfortune to see. *to whit: use 'everyone agrees with me' argument- with or without optional misquoting of said experts Restate your opponent's ideas using bizarre absolutes (change "not severe" into "no" damage, make argument absolute) and then refute those For every respectable human quality there is an insulting word that means the same thing. For example, accuse open-minded people of being flakes. Accuse cautious people of being afraid of change etc.

I've been exhibiting 'mercy' throughout, actually, as I don't like making you look foolish and would quite genuinely prefer not to. Indeed, that's why I've tended towards being more civil later than at the start. In any case there is no context stripping by me. You posted links, I said they were crap, you voluntarily doubled down on the claim in the wsj one of 6-12 months and introduced the time frame yourself. But yet, according to you, somehow my "to remind people, you were saying that Russia would be out of reserves in 'six months to a year at current rate of spending'" (as opposed to your) "at current rate of spending, and given that the russian economy were tuned to 100 dollar per barrel oil prices, that $376 billion lasts anywhere from 6 months to a year. which complete ignores actual problems o' the crisis, but nice try." is a vile calumny and gross misrepresentation when they're functionally identical and you chose to back the 6-12 month claim and the only 'context' 'missing' is me calling the article crap to which you posted the 6-12 claim- and I've called that article and its claim crap repeatedly throughout, anyone reading this ain't going to mistake my position on it. Yours, maybe, since it keeps changing, sometimes even within the same post. Again though, those are your words, freely given and stated. If you regret them and want to back out that's fine, but don't try blaming someone else for them whether it be me or wsj dude, no one was holding a gun on you when you posted that wsj article or when you chose to pick its 6-12 month prediction and rally around it.

Relevant to last thread, it appears that 'Daniel Vavra' was added as a filter phrase for their automod/ manual moderation queue.

Kadyrov is Putin's guy, no doubt about that, so I imagine that connection will be highlighted, along with lots of intimations that nothing happens in Russia without Putin controlling it and that the guy who confessed is going to get a sweetheart deal for doing so. It's a bit more difficult to explain away the guy who blew himself up, but I guess you could imply that someone else blew him up as a cover story or something.

Nah. Two posts ago you admitted that you did use the 6-12 month figure yourself*, one of the few accurate things you've said; and, absolutely conslusively the first person to use the 6-12 month timeframe was indeed you**. The quote by me you provide as 'proof' doesn't mention a timeframe at all so you set the parameters yourself next post with your 6-12 months post immediately after. It's exactly the same thing as your claims that I said sanctions would have 'no' impact when even the best quote you've provided says they won't impact 'severely'. Lack of context is the least of your troubles at this point as you appear to have completely lost basic reading comprehension skills and resorted to just making things up. [Source for second quote only, first is from this same page] No 'not my opinion, wsj says or whatever, and from before I mentioned any time frame myself. Doesn't matter how much you regret the 6-12 month claim, you made it. And you weren't in any way shape or form suckered into doing so. If you regret doing so (and it certainly appears you do) then I'm afraid you have no one else to blame but yourself.

Activision owns the IP, which they inherited from Sierra. So you just need to convince Robert Kotick to sell/ license the game. I wouldn't hold my breath for that to happen. But while I don't think there's any realistic chance of it happening if it did a proper balance overall alone would be worth the price of the upgrade.

Nah, doubt I'll last must longer as I'm having genuine difficulty deciphering what you're talking about enough to refute it- since it seems to have devolved entirely into bizzaro land fantasy where you misquote something (or perhaps quote a blog rather than the claimed article), I correct it, then you say I snipped context when you not only didn't provide the context yourself in the first place but you actively misrepresented it as an absolute figure and not the upper limit the article actually had it as. Sorry bro, I cannot retroactively fix your initial failure to provide context. That's impossible, and if I could I'd have far better uses for such powers. Oh, so you are going for the 'just providing things out of academic interest defence'. Can't say I didn't predict it. I guess that's the only way you can find to bail out, not actually standing behind links you provided and trying to imply I suckered you into your 6-12 months claim when you- freely and spontaneously- posted the article yourself and spent post after post defending it until even you realised it was actually too extreme to defend. Sorry bro, only person who suckered you was you. After all, if it didn't represent your opinion, why post it in the first place? And why defend it? Why not simply say that it was an outlier example or similar? Only answer: because you believed it to be accurate, or you were so stubborn you set yourself up for the fall. OTOH, I stood fully behind the links I provided, right down to being willing to make a one way bet on them- no worries, you don't have to reciprocate. But it shows exactly how much faith you actually have in the wsj article that you won't even back it with something as meaningless as an internet bet.

If I felt ashamed about getting a tingly feeling in my trousers looking at her I might want to blame Blizzard for encouraging necrophilia with unrealistic depictions of corpses or somesuch. (Well, I wouldn't, but I'm sure someone would. Does make me wonder how if zombies were real sjws would treat them)

And on something actually related to Nemtsov, it appears that one of those arrested (and the one who has confessed) is a member of a Chechen militia group related to Ramzan Kadyrov.

You didn't and haven't 'won' on one single point. All you've done is misrepresent, move off when shown to be misrepresenting/ goalpost shift, shuffle and repeat- as you generally do. No doubt next post you'll be back to claiming that 'not severe' means 'none' again, or similar. Oh wait, you do that again, further down. Oookay. So you post articles, defend articles, quote from articles and yet "didn't mention time frames". Then admit you actually did a couple of sentences later. Pretty much sums things up. I said I'd put my money where my mouth is and adopt an ostrich avatar for a year if the 6-12 months estimate were true- and I'll do so even if you had so little faith in wsj guy that you wouldn't reciprocate. Because I have 100% confidence wsj guy was spouting crap. And if your complaint is based on you posting that wsj article as some sort of detached academic exercise then, lol. Nope. Mine was a direct quote of an article you'd (supposedly) already read and provided a link to, made to refute the bald and contextually inaccurate '40%' claim you'd actually pulled from a paraphrasing blog. Uh, it was you who were fixated on the '40%' [sic] figure, not me. I was just pointing out that you were misquoting your expert. If you don't want that to happen then don't misquote him.

Funny how slow this sale was compared to the first ones. Seemed that just about every title went Jack Keane speed. Personally I'd far prefer that type of sale if they had a wallet system or escrow system, multiple small value purchases with transaction fees and currency conversion fees (hooray for stratospheric Aussie regional prices and no NZD currency option) are great- if you're a bank.

That it certainly isn't. For that reason I don't really like SCS as an example of 'good' AI as I tend to think of it as being 'hard' AI instead, and it really is a mod for repeat players looking for a challenge or at very least people who know the D&D systems well. It is probably close to what fighting a human controlled opposition that had previously played the game would be, in one way a big compliment but not necessarily a good thing in all circumstances since you have to fight dozens to hundreds of such battles while they only have to fight one. Personally I found that it just encouraged the use of exploits and meta/ foreknowledge and especially in BG1 but also in BG2 introduced even more 'haha' moments where your (low level, especially) party gets arbitrarily splattered and you just have to reload. End of the day a good AI should be challenging and exploit mistakes and the like, but should not be intrinsically and arbitrarily punishing. Most any commercial game is going to try and avoid AI that is too hard because when it comes right down to it most people want to win.