Zoraptor

Kind of a weird release which makes me wonder if they've had something Go Wrong somewhere; at AMD/ radeon specifically, not the reviewers. From the hardware it ought to be close to half way between 4080 and 4090 (raster) performance wise, and it's a fair bit behind that. It is still better value than a 4080, but it is also a bit disappointing it isn't better value/ performance. Will be interesting to see if they can claw back that 'missing' performance with drivers or AIB cards, though in terms of marketing it would largely be irrelevant. Also interesting to see if the speculated 7970/90 eventuate.

Love Actually is the only Christmas movie I can actually recall watching (exc Die Hard, I guess) and... I didn't like it. Even as a kid I can't remember watching any though I surely must have. Watched plenty of TV specials and the like though. I think Christmas being in the middle of summer here really cuts down on movie watching- big difference it getting dark at 9pm instead of 4-5 and being warm.

Israel started the 6 day war when they bombed the Egyptian air force. The Israeli claim they were attacked by Jordan and Syria so seizing their territory is fine is rather like saying that France and Britain brutally attacked Germany in 1939- you have to ignore Germany attacking Poland first. Of course, Germany/ Israel only did that because Poland/ Egypt was planning on invading them... Even worse than Poland the Egyptians were so prepared for that imminent invasion that they lost in, well, 6 days hence the name of the war. Not really the same thing, since Palestinians 100% existed- and have essentially none of the freedoms Israeli Jews have. I'm not a great fan of BOTs or the British history of colonialism in general, but that comparison is not even close to like to like. Indeed, as you can tell from the names most of the islands that weren't terra nullius had the initial colonisation (and inevitable atrocities vs natives) carried out by France or Spain, not Britain. Gibraltar has been part of the UK/GB longer than it was part of Spain and by a pretty hefty amount too, about +50%/ one century. The troll option would be to give Gibraltar back to the Moroccans so the Spanish can complain about that (while, of course, they are still maintaining Ceuta and Melilla as exclaves in Africa, for maximum irony). Falklands is already held by its native population, as are all the other ones that were genuine terra nullius. No one to hand them back to, all you could do is give them to someone geographically close. Pitcairn etc would probably be fine going to us, I doubt St Helena would be keen on going to... Angola? though. And they're too small to be independent.

About half of those were genuine terra nullia and have no native population (Falklands, St Helena, Ascension, Pitcairn (and friends; natives died out before european discovery), South Georgia and South Sandwich). Most of them have devolved rule too, even Pitcairn and pals with its few dozen people. You can supplement that with Diego Garcia though, since the treatment of its native population- well within living memory- alone more than compensates for any claims of having left the colonial legacy behind. Even worse, they were depopulated specifically to benefit the US, not even the UK. Should also add that the 'some people' in the case of the Falklands amounts to literally three people out of near 2000 voters, according to the 2013 referendum.

Had no less than 4 half drunk bottles of vodka in the house* so made limoncello. Ants managed to get into the white sugar, so ended up making it with brown sugar instead. Wouldn't score highly in terms of looks, but still tastes great. *not a fan personally, but people know I'm not so bring a bottle themselves, and they accumulate. At least I noticed one was feijoa vodka before adding it.

Rodents may be the default lab animal for testing but they're intrinsically poor when it comes to aspartame- they actually lack the receptors that make it sweet to us, for example. I've always liked dioxin toxicity as the go to to show how big differences in effects can be; hamsters and guinea pigs have a 1000 fold difference in toxicity and that's despite both being rodents. (Aspartame is one of those chemicals where bad effects make a lot of sense in theory as it will dissociate to methanol, aspartic acid and phenyalanine all of which may have bad effects. Aspartic acid and phenylalanine are both essential amino acids though so will be present naturally, and the amounts of methanol you get from it... well, don't drink beer or spirits, or eat bread, if you're worried the levels of methanol you'd be exposed to from a typical dose of aspartame. Aspartic acid causes anxiety and that is where that effect comes from. Really though, who drinks 1.5-2L of diet soda per day anyway?)

'Reasonable' is completely subjective- I voted for decriminalisation here, so my personal opinion on punishment is obviously different from, say, Singapore's. Very difficult to argue that my personal opinion of what is reasonable trumps Singaporean (or Russian) law though, especially when they are well publicised. End of the day, if you're going into a country it's fundamentally expected and reasonable that you are bound by their law. If you don't like that don't go. You'd be surprised how little sympathy some people have for their compatriots. IIRC a plurality of Australians actually supported the execution of two of the Bali Nine (Australians busted for exporting drugs from Indonesia, in Indonesia; looks like it was 47% approval for their execution from wikipedia). The most realistic interpretation is that the 9 years was never going to be enforced anyway and she was always intended to be swapped. Indeed, there was pretty clearly some leverage applied too such as the reports she would be sent to a gulag which were probably designed solely so that there would be a 1:1 swap.

https://www.yenisafak.com/en/world/serbian-defense-minister-one-spark-is-enough-to-ignite-everything-in-kosovo-3656869 https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/tense-situation-in-north-kosovo-following-explosions-attacks/ Though according to those there were 'provocations'/ provocations in the form of explosions. Certainly wouldn't be out of character for the kosovan government to just make them up though.

Yeah, just don't bring the drugs with you seems to be the actual answer to her problem. Doesn't seem to be any doubt she actually did the crime, the only disputation is whether the punishment was politically influenced. (Probably a location thing, but NZers who get caught with drugs internationally get very little sympathy in general, because you get it drilled into you that most nearby countries will at absolute best stick you straight back on a plane with a return ban and fine if you're carrying any. Otherwise you know you'll face anything from rattan caning- compulsory in Singapore for drug importation, for example- to months or years of fun in an Indonesian/ Malay/ Brunei/ Filipino/ Thai jail. I can personally attest that all of those except the Philippines- never visited- make it incredibly clear that bringing in drugs is illegal and will earn some extremely bad consequences for you)

Kotick has awarded himself rather a lot in bonuses over the years though, and will continue to do so if Activision isn't sold. Even if he somehow gets forced out it will be with a platinum plated golden parachute. The rules of the game are written so whatever happens, he wins. But yeah, end of the day MS are most definitely buying Activision to add to their gaming/ xbox division, there really isn't any other possible reason; and if they're doing so it's because they believe that will drive profits via exclusivity. Their actions with Bethesda certainly will not be putting them in a good light for claiming otherwise either.

I didn't think Time could get more cringe than awarding 'you' the Person the of the Year in 2006, but that at least comes close. (Zelensky is a perfectly fine choice, but jesus f christ the Star Wars Poster Format should only ever be used ironically guys)

Wikipedia is precisely as good as its references. Which for simple stuff like numbers are usually* as good as any other source. I wouldn't go to wikipedia for anything close to an 'opinion' based analysis for anything remotely political or current though; at that it's generally useless- and far too often worse than useless. *with some notable exceptions. It will always be amusing looking at the casualties for Operation Bagration as ultimately all its 'credible' estimates are based on German sources (which mostly resolve to... Joey Goebels, in the end). All the glorious victories kept getting closer to Berlin indeed.

Yeah, dissing on wikipedia when the alternative is Arestovych is... an interesting take. Especially when it isn't difficult to check. 66 Tu160s and Tu95s per new start (different link from the one above, no download req) The weasel word is, of course, 'active' though more likely 'damaged 20% of the bombers present' is way closer to the truth. Could even be one of those translation errors. As Gfted said, in this case old stocks so no cost. Also, since they were intended for a nuclear payload +/- a few hundred metres didn't matter so they just use bog standard inertial guidance which is, at heart, the same thing a V-1/2 used in the 40s. More generally, any dummy will not be a 'smart' missiles, and rocket fuel is also very cheap unless it has to be something unusual (which of course you wouldn't use for dummies). Even machining isn't expensive if you don't need precision, no one will care if the odd dummy goes off course. Israel has been using the same sort of thing in Syria for years to overload Syrian AD, their ratio has sometimes been as high as 9 dummies to 1 live. Dummies just need to look like 'real' missiles on radar; which is trivial to achieve since they are missiles, they just don't have a warhead.

People who support Arsenal are so mentally destroyed by the constant disappointment that they take it out on the national team.

Despite holding a British passport I shall be vehemently allez-ing for les bleus. Good lord the English supporters would be obnoxious if they won; at least everyone else would be obnoxious in a language I can pretend to not understand.

It's not to do with that at all. There's a fundamental difference between interpreting greatest (-->'best') and greatest (-->most significant). The media mostly interpreted it the first way because... that's what made a catchy headline; the actual question posed was as the MT had it though, as who was most significant. ie, Stalin was being voted most significant by Russians, same as he was given two Man of the Year awards by Time for being the most significant man in 1939 and 1941, not for being the best person. It got mistranslated to greatest. Not the first time either, see Ivan the Terrible where Terrible is technically an accurate translation of Grozny, but it's in the near archaic sense you get in Battle Hymn of the Republic's "Terrible swift sword". Tempestuous or Stormy is a far more accurate literal translation and 'righteous' probably the closest figurative one. For an unrelated example, unsurprisingly Chinggiz Han/ Temujin was voted most significant Mongol in history, by Mongolians (and most of the top 10 were associates/ successors of him). That doesn't mean that current day Mongols are endorsing the depopulation of much of Asia. It's just pretty difficult to argue that any other Mongol leader has been anywhere near as important and those that it could be argued for like Subotai or Kublai Khan have the same baggage.

Did you know Time magazine was a big fan of Stalin too, as they named him their Person of the Year for 1939? That's a year after, uh, Adolf Hitler won it, and two years before Stalin won it, again. Plus, of course, Vladimir Putin won in 2007... And that's why you should be very skeptical of headlines. Stalin actually got named most influential (or, if you prefer a reference from a decidedly anti Russian source like the 'Moscow' Times "most remarkable" or "most notable"*). Though of course the MT has- like everyone else except those fine fellows at NPR- managed to make Josif Dzugashvili Russian instead of Georgian. So there were 4 foreigners on the list. Shame Sophie of Random German Principality Cate the Grate wasn't there, or there would have been 5. Oh yeah, and Hitler came... last, anyway. Along with Napoleon. *not a clue why the url is about vaccines for anyone doing a mouseover, as the article is about the poll They aren't all from there*. The Parkinson's one was, after all, from unnamed sources talking to... The Sun. They all are beautiful examples of recursive reporting though, where a volume of people saying the same thing gives them apparent 'authority' when they resolve down to originating from one pretty useless source. *unless that telegram channel is Solovei's I guess since it seems he was The Sun's unnamed source.

Shingles vaccine is free to over 65s here in NZ. Same for flu vaccine, though you have to pay for that one if you're younger or don't have a relevant medical condition ($25; a lot of employees get it for free through their employers though). The covid ones and childhood ones (MMR diptheria etc) are all free as are the ones that need later boosters like tetanus (as I got one myself recently).

Hitting the level cap early is more of a symptom of the problem than the actual problem for me. The root issue is that so much of the content is combat, even in RT mode. And since we're talking about a 150? hour game (I'm on 122, in Iz) that means perhaps 100 hours of combat, and 90% of that combat isn't interesting enough to justify itself, in itself. Late game you don't need money, nor yet another +3 or +4 weapon/ armour/ ring as it's the same, functionally, as money. You aren't getting levels from the experience, you've almost always fought the same enemies before... it's too much of a chore. I certainly have one 'interesting' fight to come in Iz, but often the 'interesting' fights are either cheesy or frustrating... Now, I'd also have to agree that there's annoyance in getting a fantastic ability or item or whatever for use in the epilogue- and as a parallel some people hate games like KOTOR for forcing you to start out as a mundane and 'wasting' levels on a non jedi class. That's mostly a matter of balancing the progression well though. If you get the cool ability at level 20, 2/3 of the way through the game, there's no real reason for stopping the leveling there beyond it being easier to balance the endgame if you know what level everyone will be- and potentially, feeling like you have to have a cooler ability to give at the higher levels.

And yet you're absolutely fine with such 'whataboutism' when you agree with it. Not a peep about MW bringing up Kosovo, and not even with respect to Ukraine but to Artsakh. Funny that. Almost like it isn't the 'whataboutism' you don't actually like. Let's also not be revisionist, your ultimate wobbly was thrown at me for... quoting the definitions used in an international treaty showing that it excluded dual use incendiary systems. Which was 100% relevant to Ukraine, but something you just plain didn't like being told. In the spirit of what's good for the goose is good for the gander maybe you should make a Ukraine circlejerk thread for all the high quality posting about how Russians are intrinsically evil instead of trying to back seat moderate this one?

Yeah; that's nothing to do with you it's just used as an illustration, ie: Bring up Kosovo as an example of carving bits off a country/ NATO bombing civilian infrastructure/ no UN mandate as relevant to the context of Ukraine -->--> that's whataboutism from... let's say pro NATO types, though that's obviously a simplification. Of course, IMO that's just an attempt to shut down a argument that they can't think of a way to counter effectively by shouting an irrelevant buzz phrase instead (but then I would think that, wouldn't I?) However, when MW brings it up as a potential inconsistency in my thinking- and I'd stress, it's absolutely fair of him to do so, as it is a potential inconsistency, just one I can't really be bothered explaining as it's not really relevant- you don't get the pro NATO types calling that whataboutism. Which they really ought to, since if Kosovo is irrelevant in the top cases it's even more irrelevant in that case. Hence lobbing that particular 'stone' back over the fence by calling MW bringing it up whataboutism.

You're at risk of taking things rather too seriously, I fear. This is not, after all, the Oxford Union*. Also, yes, one or two stones might be being returned to owners of glass houses. (eg I don't actually think that bringing up Kosovo with respect to Artsakh is whataboutism, actually thinking that would certainly be hypocritical of me. No, it's fine as a comparison. That just illustrates how 'whatabourism' has become a tool to shut down anything people don't want to talk about; though I mostly don't want to talk about Kosovo because it's been done to death and is of tangential relevance. But, bring up Kosovo in a different context, and it certainly ain't me saying it's whataboutism, eh?) *the Oxford Union debates I've actually seen have had rather a lot of snark and snide in them, but let's pretend otherwise for these purposes.

Last time I checked I'm not an international organisation that claims to stand for the rules based system, I don't have to care about international law; personally. Indeed, I've spent a lot of time pointing out what an absolute crock of crap it is. As for theoretically, you might want to read a history book sometime. Keep defending Azerbaijan though, if nothing else your blatant double standard is something funny in a bad situation. And Kosovo- I'm going to go with the old classic in the good for goose, good for gander sense: nice whataboutism bro. Becoming an ASSR was the legal way to leave Ukraine in the USSR- since they could then vote to leave later. Indeed, they were meant to get a vote on staying in Ukraine anyway, if Ukraine seceded*. The Crimean Parliament voted on 5 May 1992 to become independent, to be confirmed by referendum. That second vote was, of course, suppressed by Ukraine so much so that they changed their constitution to make it illegal, despite it being a requirement of them leaving the USSR. Followed, of course, by sending in 70,000 troops in 1995, abolition of most of its actual autonomy and the banning of a bunch of parties- hence the Crimean parliament having super majorities of 'independent' MPs for most of the subsequent elections *Oh yeah, same goes for Artsakh too, from Azerbaijan, since they were autonomous.

It was suppressed in 1992 by independent Ukraine. The Soviet, of course, recognised Crimea as an ASSR on Feb 12 1991. That's heh, de jure as it gets in the USSR. Ironically, of course, you're happily claiming Arsakh as Azeri in the very same post based on... another soviet decision, and one which didn't have anything democratic about it at all. If one's de jure, both are. I'll be explicit, I don't care about de jure a whit in that situation because there isn't a scintilla of doubt that the Azeris will ethnically cleanse, or just plain kill, the historical inhabitants of that area if given the chance. Anybody who justifies that under de jure terms, well, doesn't understand how international law works anyway (or, as always, should work). With 'Turkiye'- a country so insecure it had to change its name from that of a bird- cheering them on like it's 1915 all over again. Let's not forget, the official Turkish version is still that the Armenians were all traitors who decided to go for a long walk with no supplies and just gave up and died on the way, no fault to them. lol. Macron talks a good game, but it's entirely talk* and worth nothing. Who in NATO is actually supplying Armenia, and what? Here's the list of Armenian equipment- please remember to exclude anything loaned for peacekeeping purposes. Pashinyan is pretty desperate to get aid from anyone and especially to prop himself up politically, and that involves slagging off Russia because that's how he got to power. Hardly a good idea if you want them to be supplying weaponry on credit. Indeed, rather than blame their previous loss on themselves they tried to blame Russia for that as well. Anyway, let's see what the Azeris have to say on the subject, eh? "Russian Peacekeepers Supply Weapons to Armenian Separatists in Azerbaijan's Karabakh Region" -- guess someone is lying. Bit OT for here though, eh? *except for a dozen MILANs. I'm sure the Azeris are... quaking.

This is extremely funny, considering what your reaction is if someone 'but both sides' the Ukrainian situation. Oh yeah, and 'both sided' it without mentioning holodomor as background. Just admit Turkey is too important to offend, you need Azeri gas and Armenia isn't as important as Ukraine so a bit of light ethnic cleansing is OK and be done with it. Because that's certainly the politicians' attitude, they just won't state it. (It's not very similar to what happened in Ukraine at all. Want to paint the Azeris as the Ukrainian equivalent? Poor victims fighting bravely against a country with... hmm, a quarter their population, while backed by a country with 30x Armenia's population and armed forces literally 25% of Armenia's entire population? Doesn't really fit, now does it? And you can't paint the Armenians as Ukraine equivalents either, they fit even worse. This is that cognitive dissonance thing I was talking about at work) Crimea voted to leave Ukraine in 1991 in a perfectly legitimate referendum, lest we forget. Got suppressed at rifle point and memory holed by the media, but it did happen.