Zoraptor

I kind of can't believe it has to be said again, but Russia blowing the pipe up does not get Russia out of their contractual obligations, it makes it worse. Indeed, if the EU/ NATO etc were sure that Russia did it why not go with the UN investigation, hmm, would remove any idea of bias and get them their massive compensation payment with less problems... I mean, international investigations are good enough for CW usage in Syria, or whether Putin is kidnapping children. Them not being good enough here, well, it almost seems like they aren't quite sure, and may be ever so slightly worried about what an independent investigation might find. As it stands, and per the sureness with which they've made their accusations they are (1) giving up financial pressure on Russia, for no reason, (2) refusing to embarrass Russia, for no reason, and (3) not committing to an independent investigation, for no reason. In contrast, Russia would have given itself a massive repair bill and very difficult repair task while handing the market to the US and all for what? Some obfuscation about something we all- including them- know they'd be accused of doing anyway, whether or not they did; and when they had multiple, far better alternatives. I mean, if they're going to do that then blowing up the pipes through Ukraine is a far better choice. Sure, they'd be accused of doing it, but apparently that doesn't matter and they'd be excused any contractual obligations by saying Ukraine did it. Easy to repair, spikes prices and causes panic, and hey, if it's hard to repair or keeps happening there's always Nordstream 2 that could be opened. But no, far better to blow up the ones that don't benefit Ukraine instead. We don't just need Good Guy West, not wanting to embarrass Russia; we also need Good Guy Russia not wanting to deprive Ukraine of its transit fees... That's kind of the point though, eh. If Prigozhin were actually a rogue outsider he simply wouldn't be able to run a PMC, in Russia, because they'd use that law against him and be worried that he'd launch a coup or whatever with his PMC. They don't, so he isn't actually a rogue outsider, he's an insider. It's just convenient to have controlled opposition.

Yes Russia blew it up. In the belief that that way no one would blame them for it and it would be good for their PR. Once again, they were mistaken which no doubt would have surprised literally no one on the entire planet. What was I saying about people defending obviously implausible ideas with ridiculous arguments? If I had the contractual obligation to deliver some clothing and I blew up the road to stop the delivery... I'd still be in breach of contract, y'know, because I blew up the road in order to prevent the delivery. Breach of contract would probably be the least of my problems then, what with the borderline terrorism, but well, still breach of contract as the cherry on top. Really though, it's amazing how far the west has gone to protect Russia. They even prevented a UN investigation, presumably to spare, uh, Russia from the obvious result. Very kind, especially since it spares Russia from... massive fines for breach of contract too. Guess the EU is just generous like that, they are after all renowned worldwide for their financial magnamimity where Russia is concerned. Meanwhile the poor old US, forced to sell the EU gas at an enormous mark up and poor old Ukraine, forced to accept transit fees for Russian gas. I mean, some might say that the Russians would blow up the pipelines through Ukraine first of all for that reason, but oddly enough... they haven't. Only the one Biden said wouldn't exist if Russia invaded was hit. So clearly- yes, clearly- the real reason was that Russia wanted to embarrass Biden! Yes, that must be it!! Case solved!!! Ho hum.

Prigozhin isn't renegade. His whole point is doing things Russia can disclaim and for that you need a level of (apparent) conflict. Mercenary companies are illegal in Russia, if there was any actual and serious disagreement he wouldn't be where he is and never would have got there in the first place. Worst day for Ukrainian air defence in a while, with 4 S-300 destroyed. At least they weren't all parked together close enough to be hit by a single cluster munition though, unlike the last time they lost 4 in a day in February. Also a Gepard claimed, but no actual evidence yet. Yeah, there's footage now. Looks like it may have had a mechanical issue beforehand as it was immobile half way off a road.

Ah, so it's not just good guy Denmark that didn't want to embarrass the Russians, it's good guys Sweden, Germany, Poland and the US as well. I'm sure they've sat on that critical information for 7 months because... to be honest I can't even come up with a sarcastic reason, let alone an actual one. One thing's for sure, it's certainly not 'national security'. Are we really meant to believe that NATO monitoring Russian warships, in the Baltic, after February 2022, is a major revelation that will critically endanger intelligence gathering? That would be nothing less than an insult to anyone's intelligence. The funny thing is that this is exactly the tactic everyone accuses the Russians of whenever they do something bad: coming up with multiple implausible scenarios about how it wasn't them in the hope that one sticks. Funnily enough The Shaggy Defence gets a lot more media/ twitter analyst examination when it's the Russians using it and even the most blatant inconsistencies get papered over when they're from western sources. Can anyone come up with an actual, plausible, explanation for why they'd have sat on this information if they had it? (Bet Mr Texeira wishes he was the 'anonymous source, ie leak, for this one, eh? Pretty sure whoever 'leaked' this isn't getting Danish SWAT rolling up with assault rifles and MRAPs anytime soon)

lol Well I guess the 'enthusiastic amateurs on sail boat' approach had fallen apart rather spectacularly, so something else was needed. I particularly like the hedging at the bottom of the article still mentioning that story as if it were credible. Not quite as much as people still trying to insist the Kerch Bridge was blown up by a maritime drone with 65kg of explosives, but I do love a bit of informational interference running with my morning coffee and you take what you can get. Anyway, good guy Denmark wanting to protect Russia from repercussions for- checks calendar- 7 months. Some might say that Denmark has been more stridently anti Russian than anyone bar the Balts and Poles, but clearly this was an incorrect assumption and things like all those Leopards they pledged were actually... It's truly, truly unfortunate that their reluctance to embarrass Russia has dragged the story out for- checks calendar- 8 days instead of announcing they had the evidence a week ago and they had to bow to public pressure and make a statement. I do hope they won't be forced- forced I say!- to release some images of a russian ship somewhere in the Baltic in a weeks time, however much they want to prevent knowledge of their, uh, ability to take photos at sea being public knowledge as a matter of National Security. Why, next they'll be admitting they have small remote controlled air vehicles with cameras on them on something. No doubt they are also looking extremely hard for whoever leaked the information that they had the photos in the first place. They must be literally livid about that flagrant breach of security. I expect arrests and trials at exactly the same time as whichever Swedish official leaked all the information about Assange.

Sunk cost <--> tax write off, as other relatively close to finished products have become. While the "Zaslav has seen it three times, thinks it's the best superhero movie of all time! Of all time!!!" stuff is, maybe just perhaps, marketing hype it is entirely possible they genuinely think it's good and will do well at the box office. (Will be interesting to find out whether Miller's cameo in the TV Flash version of Crisis was some sort of reciprocal thing for a similar (same?) scene in the Flash movie. It was certainly shot noticeably differently than the rest of the episode(s) were- and was actually kept a pretty good secret unlike a lot of the other cameos like Lucifer/ Ellis)

The mobilisation was slow because they thought they didn't need to, same with the power stuff. Don't want to blow things up that you [think you] will own yourself in a few months; you just end up paying for blowing it up and repairing it. They clearly believed they'd get both the Zap' and Yuzhno' nuclear power complexes, plus the Dniepr hydro systems; and that is the majority of Ukraine's production (and a pretty large majority too, iirc).

Haha yes, I knew someone would mention that as soon as I saw the headline. They may also have had 9 brigades worth of equipment pledged, but... well. Those few battalions of modern tanks pledged are going to be doing a lot of heavy lifting for all the 70s stuff like M113s (that were pretty awful even then). Suppose I should mention the leaks confirming that the Russians can effectively jam military GPS too, since it was a subject of some debate a few years ago during the US attacks on Syria. I mean, the previous list would imply that they weren't actually a threat beforehand, yes*? I doubt the technological sanctions will actually do anything much except make a few things marginally more expensive. We've had interminable articles about how they're crippling Russia's war production, but no actual evidence and it seems that production is either unchanged or increased for most things. That isn't particularly surprising though, as most of the western wunderfwaffe supplied actually use components older than a Playstation. *though I don't really agree, their performance was ruined by the belief that Ukraine wouldn't fight so they could do it all quickly and cheaply. If they'd focused on defeating them militarily they'd likely be in a far better position.

Oh no, not Elnor! I'll be cuing up the Sarah McLachlin tonight in his honour. Amazingly, he's the only OC from Picard S1 whose name I can actually remember. A bit like K** L*** from ME3 I'm not sure if it's because he was an effective character (uh, no, I don't think so) or just awful enough to stick in the brain.

Stoltenberg's done that at least twice in the last week or so and he's been told no agreement has been made by multiple countries, including the US. May have gone rogue, more likely some sort of good cop/ bad copesque schtick. Annual debunking of Bruce's entirely inaccurate analysis of Assange Follows: Reminder that Julian Assange was told that he was fine to leave Sweden and would not be facing charges. Then a new prosecutor reinstated them, leaked massive amounts of information including victim statements, for which there were no prosecutions. Reminder that Assange was sentenced to 50 weeks by Britain, in 2019. So he's now in his 3rd year of extra detention explicitly due to the US charges. Oh yes, and because Bruce is big on The International Law or only when it suits him? he's being held under Arbitrary Detention per the UN since... 2015.

I'd kind of presume that most of the non bulk advanced stuff (ie not ATGMs) has... countermeasures against being simply sold off- that is likely part of what the NATO special forces mentioned in the leaks are tasked with. Not like there's a huge amount of advanced equipment anyway, and much of the newish stuff is like the Caesar- just a gun on a truck with a guidance system the French were selling to the Russians a couple of years ago, so not much to learn from. Even if China started supplying stuff (and frankly, they almost certainly are already, to an extent) it won't be J-20s or Type 99+s or anything else remotely 'interesting'. Old ex Soviet knock offs with plausible deniability and consumables like ammo and rockets, or things they can pass off as being supplied by DPRK/ Iran etc only, most likely. Depends a lot on Taiwan and general western relations though, but even if they get sufficiently annoyed there they still won't be supplying the good stuff, just more openly supplying old systems. End of the day there's nothing in something like a Type 80 tank anyone would be particularly interested in, 30 odd years later. If you were as the US you could, well, just buy a Pakistani or Sudanese one, after all.

Non issue for China, since they wouldn't be sending/ selling their advanced stuff anyway. Far more significant issue for the west who have sent some advanced stuff among the older junkers that makes up most of the aid, and will probably be peeved about Iranian knock offs of Javelins and NLAWs turning up at some point much like they were a bit grumpy about Toophans (ie cloned TOWs) and cloned drones. Should also be noted that while China has been saying they won't sell weapons to Russia, to the west, they've been publicly saying the exact opposite to the Russians- with the sure knowledge that some people in the west can speak Chinese/ Russian. Given the Chinese penchant for trolling they're probably not selling anything to Russia, but selling them to the D/LPR under the spirit of US arms sales to that internationally recognised integral part of China, Taiwan.

Funniest thing about Norway in WW2 was how close it came to them being a co-belligerent on the Axis side- literally the few days difference between the Allied invasion plan and the German one. Strangely enough that Allied invasion plan of a neutral country... isn't widely publicised. Indeed, if certified military genius Winston Spencer Churchill had been in charge 6 months earlier he'd have had the UK fighting Germany, Italy, the USSR and Norway simultaneously by June 1940. Potentially France too, and they'd been his ally a week prior. Thank god for Chamberlain, and you won't see that thought expressed very often. Winnie sure had some good speeches though.

You don't, but you also really don't want your own side knowing either. If Zelensky says 7:1 losses in Ukraine's favour* and that isn't the case then you have two issues. Firstly, it shows he lied about that so trust is lost and he's less likely to be believed in other things which may be true. And secondly if the ratio is 7:1 Ukraine is winning since Russia will run out of troops first- if it's closer to 1:1 then Ukraine is losing, since they'll run out of troops first. That's bad for morale, and you end up with people who don't want to fight because there's no point dying for an inevitably losing cause. Not necessarily a massive number and those people clearly exist to an extent already anyway, but it also doesn't have to be a massive increase or absolute number to have a significant effect in terms of numbers of surrenders or drop in combat effectiveness. That also drags down the effectiveness of those who are willing to fight. A collapse in morale is far more of a threat to Ukraine than outright military defeat. End of the day the Russians/ Ukrainians will probably have a decent idea of opposition losses already, anyway, albeit a bit too positive for their own side. *7:1 can be 'true' if you go by raw reports. The trouble with raw reports is that everyone is John Rambo when it comes to raw reports and massively overstates their own effectiveness.

Yeah, Ayn Rand is technically a decent enough writer, her problem is that she was writing, basically, religious texts for her personal philosophy ie Objectivism. If you love Objectivism you tend to think her writing is fabulous because you like the content and excuse any technical limitations, if you don't like objectivism it's the reverse and you think it's rubbish written terribly. There's a lot of language in fantasy writing which is inevitably, um, anachronistic Any wording based on real world figures like odyssey, herculean*, sadism, caesarian or idioms based on real world things that doesn't exist in that fantasy world. It'd be pretty difficult to write any novel of length wholly without using such terms, even if you were careful. *kind of weird really, they're both Greek but we use the latinised Hercules/ Ulysses in general for the people, but while an arduous task is herculean a long trip is an odyssey rather than a ulyssey...

Dunno, I have seen plenty of objectivists like Sword of Truth; and the writing in that really does make Salvatore look like Goethe.

..then they impaled babies on their helmets after turfing them out of their incubators. And I know I get all my economic news from analysts for the, er, dailyhodl. Nothing says authoritative study of the important trends of the day like, hmm, using a fricking reddit meme when naming your website.

I suspect one major factor* in US considerations for a ceasefire is worry about the cascade of countries dropping USD trades- not just Russia, but China and even ostensibly US friendly countries; and that has been massively accelerated by events in Ukraine. These sort of things tend to rapidly gather momentum once a critical mass has been reached, and while the US would definitely survive without dollar dominance it would make some stuff... considerably more difficult. Like financing the military on credit, or exporting the inflation from quantitative easing. The EU came out saying that they wouldn't seize- only freeze- Russian state assets for similar reasons last week. Freeze the conflict and you can freeze talking about the sanctions etc and hopefully status quoism reasserts itself. Oddly enough, countries aren't keen to store their money places where it might get taken by geopolitical whim, nor to use a currency that an external party can block you from using in attempts to ruin your economy/ trade. *along with distraction from China and a few other things. For events in Ukraine specifically, major concern would be that a failure in their counteroffensive --> general collapse in morale and a far worse end point than a negotiated settlement, now.

The problem with efficiency is... well, if you're after efficiency you should pretty much only consider a chip from a plucky start up company from Cambridge UK, or one of its many derivative designs, rather than anything from Intel/ AMD (though both, of course, have an ARM license and indeed AMD's NSA back door vector PSP is actually ARM rather than x86). You certainly shouldn't be using a 7600+ though at least unlike most earlier Ryzens it has 2xRDNA cores so you save on a mandatory GPU for browsing etc. On desktop gaming though efficiency is just nice to have for most people, it's nowhere near the top factor. That's Intel's calculus for its ludicrous top end power inefficiency. OTOH if they found the same variation on laptops it would potentially be massive since they often have their utility limited significantly by power draw. Speaking of which: While I 100% agree with the latter there's a pretty big difference in draw/ efficiency there's a certain irony in saying that a single chip analysis shows similar efficiency at 95W, given the context of the rest of the post. (I mostly nit pick this because analysis on laptops of the equivalent mobile chips shows a pretty significant efficiency advantage for the, er, 7945HX over the, um, 13980HX, on performance per watt basis)

Jared is the lead in the CW 'Walker' series. I presume The Winchesters shoots in Vancouver as Supernatural did and Walker in Texas so there would be some logistical and scheduling issues with him appearing on both even on a very limited basis.

I have some questions about how functional a Mandalorian helmet on a Togruta would be. (I'll add it to my list of big Star Wars questions below "How does Watto manage to fly with wings that size?")

There are a few ways the 4 episode rumour could be right. They could have lowered the episode count by making the episodes longer; 4x2 hour 'movies' for a LotR series would make a lot of sense in some ways (and not much in others, the RoP episodes were already long, after all). Or they could have split the season into two four episode halves (ie S2A/ S2B) to have something to show annually, if it were taking longer to film than expected. I very much doubt that is what has actually happened though and yeah, actually reducing the minutes shot seems... unlikely. They do likely have a lot less of a blank cheque now though. A lot of their money was spent very badly in S1.

They could have picked a better ytimg since there ain't nothing wrong with a Mosin Nagant, so long as they're used for the right job and have a scope rather than ironsights. They're far more accurate over considerably longer distances than most ARs- which aren't really designed for accuracy but rof- and unlike other similar era rifles use a cartridge that is still widely available in the 7.62x54. Indeed, it's still used by the highly regarded Dragunov/ SVD series of sniper rifles as well as medium machine guns (not just infantry weapons like the PKM but also including those on most tanks/ ifvs etc). You wouldn't particularly want to be sitting in a trench facing a stereotypical human wave attack using only a M N since it's bolt action and thus has a slow as treacle firing rate, but if you're sitting further back picking targets off in a trench they're as good as many and better than most. They'll also penetrate most body armour set ups, and at decent range- which isn't true of 5.45 AR rounds. Mosin Nagants are also being used by Ukraine extensively for similar reasons- along with Maxim guns, designed even earlier and using the same round.

Well, you could theoretically get close to working it out. Or at least work out the top end and a plausible scenario. per Nielson, 9.4bn minutes of RoP watched, 557 minutes series length --> 16.8 million full series equivalent views in the US in 2022. That's the upper limit, and assumes that around 34mn people watched exactly 2 minutes then quit --> total viewership of ~51mn. A more plausible scenario would be quitters watching on average the first 2 episodes each (132 minutes). That would reduce total series watches to, hmm, around 12 million? and partial series watches to around 23 million* for about 35mn total viewership. Then try and extrapolate out to world wide. RoP definitely has a bit of Tall Poppy Syndrome about it, but, a retention rate of 37% really is poor verging on disastrous. It implies the audience for RoP S2 in the US would be ~12 million max. Retention rate is of course a very limited measure practically since it doesn't measure enjoyment or whether people maintain their subs based on liking it, indeed while I hated WoT with the burning passion of a million suns I watched to the end, so even I'd be included in a positive metric. It even looks like I subbed to Prime specifically to watch it. *head maths, too early in the morning here to solve accurately. It's going to bug me though, since I am at least mildly interested in the answer 9.6bn minutes under that scenario, so pretty close.

There's no reason why anyone would be unless there were special circumstances. If a random Chicagoite were lured into an Embassy and dismembered while alive that would get coverage too. "One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic" Good old Apocryphal, quote to fit any situation. And that one really does fit. People are way more likely to feel bad about the death of someone whose name they know and whose picture they see repetitively than about a long list of names or a big number; it's just human nature.