Zoraptor

What will get people upset is that SW was just about unique in that just about everything (excluding, ironically given what the current press release says about referencing 80's stuff, Marvel's previous comic run replete with giant anthropomorphic rabbits and spandex budgie smuggler wearing pirates) was considered canon unless contradicted by the films and there was no Star Trek or comic like reboot system. Plus, I don't think there's much confidence at all that whatever replaces the current EU will actually be better, despite quite a lot of the current crop being not the highest quality.

I always preferred the Vintorez because it's far more flexible than the SVD, usable as a sniper rifle (never had much problem with bullet drop either, if you're not of a bullets=laser beams mindset from the outset it isn't much of an adjustment) and in close quarters, plus it is lighter and easier handling. The second is less important in CoP where there's generally less close stuff, but if I'd had an SVD for the brian scorcher or Chernobyl assaults in SoC instead of a Vintorez I'd have run out of bullets- I used a G36, Groza/5.45 and Vintorez to cover the three common high damage bullet types. The thought of trying to use a big sniper rifle in close quarters even as a last resort does not appeal. Even in SoC the SVD did have some good uses though such as the Red Forest road, and it was pretty useful in most of CS and CoP since they had less general emphasis on confined spaces.

While I generally try to avoid most of the SJW trollbaiting stuff on principle bad statistics are without any doubt far far worse than no statistics at all. No statistics give no authority whatsoever so people can make their own minds up, right or wrong, bad statistics give the wrong impression and give that wrong impression a sense of authority it does not deserve.

As Socrates* (iirc) once said: If you insist that people should not use the term bossy are you being bossy yourself? : philosoraptor : Evidence suggests that that is the last thing the US wants- after all, the self appointed non democratic coup putsch junta etcetc regime has (re)commenced their "anti terror" operations the day following visits by the CIA chief and Joe Biden. Hardly seems that they have been urging restraint... *Could have been Zico or even Pele, not sure

It's just a theory, in that case literally just a theory, it's a hypothesis to fit a base observation. There are any number of other explanations for why we haven't been contacted by (or detected) Greys- eg we've only been broadcasting detectably for a century or so, plus the more planets we find the less interest anyone else would have in ours and in making contact with us (Terra_Sol_3 registering on the equivalent of intergalactic twitter has little impact if there are 5 million other users who've all upgraded past the gauche noobness of using EM waves, and are heartily sick of each any every new user thinking they're super special, and nobody will tramp light years across the galaxy to grab our planet if there are plenty of easy access alternatives nearby). Funny though, I always rather suspected someone from Bioware was familiar with it as The Reapers from Mass Effect were a Great Filter, just one placed after the event of interstellar travel.

Bruce is far more likely to be Oby than Mor is, since the shtick is pretty much the same- find topic(s) that generate butthurt and that people cannot resist, then try replacing the haemorrhoid cream with linament*. "Deflections" is just shoving anything that challenges one's set beliefs no matter what into a nice big safe box with a big "irrelevant" label on it, then burying it. Far easier than reading or trying to understand, no need to consider than you're wrong or that your side may not be squeaky clean and you can keep repeating things as if they haven't been rebutted multiple times with a renewed sense of moral superiority for being on the side of right. *And it looks like I generated some butthurt without trolling once :smug:

How are you supposed to judge from that pic anyway, you can't even tell if her elbows are too pointy. (looks like she's had some ME3 type Ashley-isation, and a lot less like BG2 Imoen. Do I care? not really)

That really isn't very good at all. Why? Well, this article from the Beeb does exactly the same thing that they complain about, at such an almost exact point for point level that I'm not sure it isn't actually an Onion hijack. Article 1: vague unidentifiable uniforms == Blackwater, don't make me laugh! Article 2: vague unidentifiable uniforms == Russians, yes, a sage point! Article 1: NATO weapons used == clear propaganda statement! Article 2: look at all the Russian weapons! Russian weapons! Yes, so the asterisking Taleban, the Ukrainian military and every tinpot revolutionary in the world uses AKs (and Dragunovs too, for the better funded), but still, Russian weapons! Article 1: crisp $100 notes and Yarosh's business card, clear set up (well, yes, far too convenient, but...) Article 2: A group called the "Sabotage reconnaissance group" of the "Russian Intelligence Directorate" takes group photos with identifiable individuals. Know how many identifiable pictures there are of serving New Zealand SAS officers on the internet, let alone group photos? Zero. Because covert ops groups do not take group photos and post them on the internet- much like the other Ukrainian agitprop in a similar vein, finding ID cards with (poor Russian syntax and) Occupation: Spy written on them. Who would have thought it though, ZZ Top was a Russian front group. Or maybe it's Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart from the Hart Foundation? Article 1: Russians make ludicrous nazi accusations and allege that fake flyers handed out- in an article just after actual fake fliers were handed out in the east, complete with widely reported 'accidental' translation error making them appear to be legit? And somehow the BBC article still manages to spin that anti Russian too. Article 1: Russians claim sacrilege. Yes, and Ukrainians claim they'll win because 'God is on their side' and that Russians are evil. And yes, the Beeb did report on that as well, though Mr Ennis seems to have missed it. Yeah, the Russians are using propaganda, but it most definitively ain't like the other side aren't. I eagerly await Mr Ennis's balance providing follow up articles, which I am sure will follow.

Not really- the estimates of those Stalin killed were massively over what the documents say and have been revised down hugely following release of documents. See this, from the author of Bloodlands (a pretty rubbish book, but he cannot be accused of being pro Russian). That leaves the rather odd situation of having a (supposedly) monolithic academic establishment putting Stalin high on its love in lists while simultaneously having him be 10x+ the mass murderer he actually was. It's almost like they aren't quite as monolithic as they're made out to be. Besides, FDR does very well on non academic based public opinion lists as well.

He's leader of the Liberal Democrat Party (of Russia, he's not Nick Clegg's alter ego; rather a bizarre name considering they are whacked out detached from reality ultra nationalists). It's similar to how in the Westminster system you'll usually have speaker from the ruling party and deputy(-ies) from the smaller parties.

To illustrate that point, the troops that lost the APCs rather publicly a few days ago were paratroopers, about as close to elite soldiers as Ukraine has and they ought to be the most reliable too- that, presumably, is why they were sent into a difficult situation. It's the same problem Yanukovich had, despite all the 'anti terrorist' rhetoric the soldiers know they'd be fighting their own countrymen and in some cases their own comrades, and simply (and sensibly) don't want to. OTOH, the government probably could rely at least theoretically on some of the armed militias, though sending them in would be at very best a double edged sword since one of the big rallying points for the separatists is fear and dislike of the Right Sector types.

Yeah, and quantum mechanics has stuff with mass moving instantaneously/ faster than light as well. That's one of the reasons I dislike physics, they have all these theoretically immutable laws but if you look closer they tend to be more advisories than actual laws. Stuff cannot travel faster than light (and neither can we), except, of course, when it does. 'Blah' is a constant, except when it isn't. 'X' doesn't fit our models, so we'll just make something up to fix it. Physicists, truly the tarot readers and old gypsy ladies of science.

What always confuses me about light speed is how the observable universe can be 46 billion light years across but only 14 billion light years old. Where does the extra 18 billion ly diameter of the universe come from if light speed cannot be passed?

Yeah, could write a point by point but meh, it'd end in a pointless back and forwards, so I'll deal with only a couple of points only. Besides, what is or is not a great power is a peripheral issue anyway. While not directed at me this question illustrates perfectly why it isn't economy uber alles. The USSR did not collapse primarily due to economic factors, it collapsed because Gorbachev was a decent guy who took the lid off the pressure cooker and initially lacked the will and eventually lacked the power to deal with what came out. If it had not been Gorby but had been Stalin, or even Putin, then the USSR would not have collapsed because they would have had the will and ability to hold it together whatever the economy. Personally I'm glad it was Gorby, and he bears no responsibility for the execrable incompetence of his successor- the worst leader of any major country in the past fifty years with daylight in places 2-10, a drunken incompetent sot fondly remembered in the west precisely because he ran his country into the ground. We probably wouldn't even have the mess in Ukraine if Boris had been competent, Kravchuk was happy enough for Crimea to go to Russia prior to the USSR's dissolution and Yeltsin said no. Really bro, that is exactly what they have been doing the past 5+ years because that is exactly what 'quantitative easing'- printing money- is. The US can get away with that to a greater extent than others because it is the reserve currency, but that is what they are doing. Try telling anyone with savings that their money has not been inflated away when they've been getting zero percent interest for five years. Point is, the whole system on which western economics is based seized up when one bank went bust five years ago, and has not been fixed. It's a horrible, unbalanced system that currently favours lunatic bubble economics like buying properties in London with no intention of living in them or even renting them because other speculators push the price up 20% p/a, instead of the former lunatic economic bubbles of loaning money to people who have no hope of ever paying it back and relying on eternal property price increases to recoup the principal from a mortgagee sale- because both of those rely on mythical, eternal property price increases. Banks are still too big to fail, they just know now that they can take risks for profit, safe in the knowledge that Joe Taxpayer will bail them out. It's a classic pyramid scheme, and like all such things it will inevitably implode spectacularly at some point under its own weight.

Yeah, Russia knows the separatists are not going to trust the westerners/ coup government in any case, since they reneged on the deals made during the February crisis including those involving EU mediation- before the ink had dried, even. And Russia won't genuinely pressure them to, as the separatists ignoring their pleas plays right into their "we're not involved, honest!" hand. Massive diplomatic victory for Russia, as with Syria, and the US at least knows it by shouting about more sanctions from the rooftops to try and make tough prior to the mid terms. The only bright spot for the Kiev government is that they now have an excuse to avoid further embarrassment and abject failure from their 'anti terror' operations.

And for anyone who read that article earlier they have now fixed a rather significant, but assuredly completely accidental 'translation error' where they originally had the Donetsk Republich leader admitting his group was behind it- when he actually said the exact opposite and it was distributed under his organisation's name but was not authored by them. Still, I'm sure it was an honest mistake. (To be fair, at least they did fix it, more than we'll get from certain other parties who leapt on it like a Pavlovian conditioned Kangaroo expecting a tasty morsel.)

I rather like the combat in the Stalker games, hits a sweet spot between the autism of OpFlash/ Arma and the pewpewplinkplink of most other shooters. Never had a problem quickly dropping mooks with headshots either. On the other hand I really didn't like aspects of CoP, not least that I ended up with a Vintorez and plenty of ammo very quickly whereas achieving decent kit was a long but ultimately rewarding experience in SoC it felt like the stuff was handed out like lollies in CoP. Plus, for some reason they stopped doing the extremely atmospheric and utterly awesome underground levels like the X labs after SoC, and that was very disappointing. grrrrrr Seriously bro, use a real names mod. I beg of you.

The essence of butthurt is taking something oh so very seriously, and oh so very personally. That's a bit harsh, I'm sure the argument would be that the EU wouldn't be foreign once they'd joined- though the domination part is pretty accurate... Meh, at least the easterners don't want to force the western parts into a union with Russia that they don't want and only want the right to do so themselves, which puts them a step above the westerners. Who don't have the same consideration when forcing their eastern brethren into an EU process that they don't want. No, at least on the illegal part. The ICJ judgement on Kosovo established that it is not illegal to outright secede under the complete military occupation of an external power. And while it would be nice if '(un)ethical' meant anything in politics, it doesn't.

Yep, just like in Crimea where they shot on sight. Sheesh, there was discussion here not just about how many simply Ukrainians defected without a shot fired, but how a lot of the armed men in Crimea didn't even have magazines deployed in their rifles. Contorting that into shoot on sight is... a bit of a stretch. I'd ask for you to show anyone who has said that, but it'd be pointless since we both know no one has said that and you're putting everyone who disagrees with you on ignore anyway. That'd be Ukrainian military grade weapons, gear, (ffs, someone even pointed out some were using Ukrainian manufactured AR-15 variants, though no doubt that's just a Cunning Plan) and they quite obviously have hesitated to fire given that there isn't a single confirmed death yet. Still, top notch imagination on show, truly Poland has a successor to Andrei Sapkowski in the making. Most of all, and not directed at the loony Russaphobic they-beat-me-up-and-stole-my-lunch-money-it's-a-fact fringe of the forum, I think people really need to have a look at themselves and at how much they've bought in to the propaganda. The facts- facts- are that Yanukovich was elected, primarily by the east, in a fair election and set aside, primarily by the west. The east is more prosperous but has been disenfranchised, the Maidan forces immediately tried some pretty moronic triumphalist crap like reverting the language law that could not have been better designed to annoy the east etc etc. It's absolutely obvious that some in the east will asterisking hate that- obvious, a significant proportion of any people would feel the same under the same circumstances and denying that dehumanises them and says that they cannot have valid complaints that run counter to your personal beliefs. And clearly, even shown on unfriendly state media like the BBC, you do have ordinary people going and standing in front of Ukrainian tanks. Yet, I suspect some will immediately believe that they must be brainwashed in not welcoming their new western overlords' armed forces with open arms. Yet, the same people who insist that the Maidan was some sort of completely spontaneous (disproven of course) and utterly peaceful home grown grass roots movement (during which a bunch of policeman committed suicide by molotov roostertail and gunfire to slander the protesters, yep, they're just that evil, so evil they too used tanks, planes etc they just painted them with invisible paint) and any other interpretation is tin foil hat conspiracy automatically accept the exact reverse here- it's a planned foreign influenced entirely armed and violent tiny minority who haven't killed anyone yet because they, uh, haven't had the chance to? Oh, and there aren't any defections, the people stopping the peaceful Ukrainian tanks/ flower dispensers and being buzzed by jet defenders and defence helicopters are clearly spetsnaz now that the recruitment has been relaxed to include old women, children, 60 year old men and any armed men must be russians not any of the Ukrainian defectors or- in a fantastic parallel with the stupidity of Bremer et al in Iraq- the Berkut they disbanded. (I particularly liked the Ukrainian 'proof' of Russian involvement that included an ID card with, I kid you not, Occupation: Spy printed on it)

No they didn't! That's Russian propaganda! No government would allow people to occupy their buildings, its a known fact per Obama PR mouthpiece (sheesh, at least I could remember Ari Fleischer et al's names, Obama's press secretaries are just so very bland and unmemorable), so obviously the Maidan types didn't occupy buildings. Good thing I never got around to replacing my irony meter after Bruce broke it last time.

I need it to be preorderable so I can cancel the preorder and make a "Preorder Cancelled!" post to emphasise how much I dislike [something] about the game and its publicity. That is the main purpose of preordering, after all. (Actually I need a new computer before preordering anything)

Meh, Yanukovich tried that as well, and the army refused. Since this is the 3rd (?) 'deadline' that has passed the new boss may be having the same troubles as the old boss in that regard- similarly the western narrative is a strait jacket for them, if they go in and kill a bunch of people it's another new boss same as the old boss, just with the 'terrorist' label switched over. Besides, if the reports that many of the activists are actually deserted Ukrainian police and troops are true they will not want to end up with a Syria/ Lebanon situation where the army ends up fighting itself, especially if things get mildly unpleasant, and then things will really get unpleasant fast. I'm always slightly amused when some report implies that the well trained first wave protester dudes are spetsnaz or similar when there are plenty of perfectly well trained ex Berkut and deserted Ukrainian military around who can be simply paid to do it, and if things go south you still have deniability- indeed, the protesters in Kharkov who did get rounded up were, in fact, all Ukrainian. Certainly the pictures of a lot of the militia types shown are definitively not spetsnaz, unless their recruitment standards have really slipped.

Sounds like a fairly straight CiV reskin to me, right down to 1UPT*, and CiV was a pretty poor game overall and significantly worse than its predecessor. Also, CivRev is apparently a favourite of the developers... *Let's fix the one end of the extreme spectrum Stacks of Doom by going completely to the other way on the extreme spectrum, that's sure to work without problems!

They're camellids, so it would be like eating camel. Their larger cousins tend to get eaten more than alpacas though, especially given the price of alpaca fibre. In any case Llama are where it's at for even toed Andean ungulates, and always will be. They had religious figures named after them, were intricately involved in the development of the good SimCitys and can spit comically in Captain Haddocks' face at inopportune moments. They even have the best scientific name of anything, anywhere, Lama glama.

The Chinese were ahead of the west for pretty much 2000 years. Meh, I pretty much agree with Tigranes. Never really understood the urge to point at other people and insist that because I'm better than them it means that everything is fine and I don't need to improve, and that's really what it amounts to. Also never understood the need for validation from being part of a society that I'm part of by virtue of the accident of being born into New Zealand rather than Afghanistan or Eritrea or the CAR. Yay me, such an achievement to be born here, no need to look critically at anything since I can point at survey X and metric Y to reinforce my innate superiority over people from inferior countries. Same with media, Russian media is biased and designed to present their narrative and news that their populace likes, but so are western media. People like stories and media which reinforce their pre-existing views because they make them feel that they are right, and everyone likes being right. People tend to dislike stuff which challenge their views as you then have to entertain the possibility that you are actually wrong. Even if CNN wanted to they would find it difficult to provide balanced news, a significant proportion of their viewership would regard anything even slightly pro Russian (or practically, not anti Russian) as being akin to active treason and literally turn off. Anyway, looks like things are going down in Ukraine in a pretty predictable manner. Most interesting thing was that the AlJ reporter actually said in the video bulletin that apart from the ex Berkut and local police mentioned in that article some of those manning the separatist checkpoints were definitely Ukrainian army, which rather contrasts with the rent-a-mob accusations which are usually heard. And, of course, it's always somewhat amusing hearing yet another Nyoo Zillund uksunt on AlJ.