Zoraptor

And a year plus for the Abrams. Can't help but wonder if all the pontifications about Russia constantly running out of ordinance was a bit of projection based on how quickly western stocks were being depleted and with the Russians supposedly still firing off three times as many shells per day as Ukraine. Funnily enough, the guy 'executed' via sledgehammer by Wagner has turned up alive and chatting to Prigozhin in a couple of videos. Exactly what they got out of faking it, who knows. Dude definitely loves a good troll. I also, for some reason, feel compelled to mention that it's nearly a year since Sergei Shoigu was one or more of dead, fired, plotting a coup, executed and having multiple heart attacks. Multiple times, for some of them. I think we can take the same rumours about Prigozhin/ Kadyrov etc with... a moderately large amount of skepticism.

13.9% finished per the achievement for doing so. Though I also have 2.1 and 3.7% for Pathetic/ Playful rather than 2 and 3. Number of players shouldn't make a difference from Steam, if everything else was equal. The two big potential differences is that GOG probably has a more, hmm, committed user base but also doesn't force you to use Galaxy- and if you don't you show as zero achievements.

The Elephant Man is one of the very, very few films which I absolutely unreservedly loved. And the thing is, if you described it to me I would have bet pretty much anything that I'd hate it because it really ought to be pretentious, maudlin, and preachy. To be fair, it probably is all three but it's so well done I really couldn't care less.

The Russians have been attacking Bakhmut* and Vuhledar for literally months. It's no more The Big Push than Kreminna-Sviatove was the Ukrainian's Big Push, though at least that had some pro UA types saying it was. Don't think I've seen a single pro Russian who thinks The Offensive has started with... exactly what they've been doing for months beforehand. *Chasiv Yar and especially Kostiantinivka would be the key captures. If they take Chasiv Yar they get Bakhmut as a bonus anyway.

Even LEO satellites hit a resolution wall. IIRC that's with using 'tricks' like interferometry as well. It's a pretty good resolution limit but you can still get better with something closer that also doesn't have to go through so much atmosphere. That just tends to be less convenient and more prone to being shot down/ being seen as a potential act of war. The other factor is that atmosphere can scatter and absorb some EM emissions, and they tend to weaken exponentially. Being a tenth the distance in a balloon (or drone) --> 100x the signal power if I remember my 6th form physics correctly.

Far more interesting to see who, if anyone, covers it in the media, and how. Especially given their prevalence for repeating information from 'anonymous intelligence/ military insider' acritically, when they want what is being said to be true. In terms of what Hersch says... there really isn't anything at all concrete. It probably was the US (or proxy) and always was due to who could do it and who benefited, and the scenario is plausible, but that's all. Balkans or South Europe. East <-- former eastern bloc for most. Though that certainly isn't an absolute designation. Ramzan's a poor man's replacement for Zhiro when it comes to sabre rattling.

There is no box that can hold me. Suggesting to eastern Euros that their views are informed by Russia will always risk a strong emotional response. Far more so than suggesting to me that I'm a Russian shill. 19/20 that would elicit the equivalent of the rolled eyes emoji, just far more verbose on the occasions I don't have my impulse control dialed up. And the 20th time it's the rolled eye emoji with an equally long winded equivalent of "you disingenuous knob" tacked on. I can see chilloutman's point, far too often people's genuine beliefs are dismissed as actually being someone else's- Russian, or Chinese or whatever- because that's way easier and safer for the person making the accusation than trying to address those beliefs. I don't for a second think it was intended that way this time though, it was clearly just shorthand because a more accurate explanation would make a long post even longer. (Gotta say, pity oby or LoF aren't around still, their opinions would really get some people's knickers knotted. Funnily enough I did defend them against accusations of being Russian shills. Because it was obvious they were just baseline trolling westlings with bad impulse control rather than believing or being paid for what they were saying)

It reducing symptoms/ effects is why the infectivity period is shorter (essentially, less severe symptoms --> less time coughing etc and faster recovery). The vaccines don't have much effectiveness at stopping mild infections, but then mild infections are pretty much just the sniffles. They are very effective at stopping death and hospitalisation though which is important for a properly functioning health system and so you don't get the early pandemic scenes per Italy, New York or Britain of oldies being left to die at home because the system simply couldn't cope. That also saves a lot of money, a lot of money. There is plenty to dislike about the vaccines/ general response to covid, vaccine efficacy isn't one of them though.

Wonder how (if) they've solved the ammunition problem for the Leopard 1s. Pretty meh anyway, not only are they old but they have the exact same problem the Leo2s had in Syria- ready use ammo stored in the turret -->-->--> and that was with no artillery to deal with, better armour, and vs mostly 70s era ATGMs instead of modern ones.

I actually haven't seen the original so cannot compare. Sometimes feel like I'm the only person on the planet who hasn't.

I watched the new Avatar last week. First movie I've actually seen in a theatre since, uh, The Force Awakens? I think. It was OK; I wouldn't go out of my way to see it again but neither would I actively avoid it. Obviously overlong, obviously formulaic, obviously preachy and at times very, very obviously had bits stitched together from half a dozen other (mostly but not all James Cameron; he obviously loved Whale Rider, and not just because he cast Cliff Curtis in this movie) movies but I expected most of that and for what it was it was done well. Replete with plot holes (hello- or goodbye- disappearing green navi in final battle) but I was kind of expecting that too. My nephews seemed to really enjoy it though, and they're a lot closer to the target audience than I am. Load of young kids in the theatre and I was kind of surprised only one skipped out on one particular scene.

Well yeah, with 6-800k troops Ukraine could at least theoretically lose 20-25% of them and still have a functioning army. Per Milley and von der Leyen they've lost 100k+ and still have a functioning army, and they have clearly had significant losses way above the 18k (?) officially admitted to. But, that report doesn't do well on the smell test in any respect.

The ending is fairly easily predictable in the general sense and is near exactly the same as at least one other series* though presumably as it is for a different in universe reason. The funny thing about Netflix and its algorithm is that it almost certainly thinks my favourite stuff is like Squid Game or Bridgerton or something because I watched them over a short period; but I wouldn't actually pay a cent for either. Even though I didn't think 1899 quite worked as intended I'd still pay to watch it not quite work but with a decent amount of ambition- but The Algorithm would have counted me as one of the people who didn't complete it because I took more than a month to watch. *

88 isn't obscure though. Indeed its origins are specifically German, as a way to avoid the ban on nazi symbols like swastikas etc. Now, them sending 14 Leopard 2s, that looked coincidental since that's the number of tanks in a company and didn't actually originate in Germany. Somehow though they've managed to 'randomly' hit 1488. And yeah, it probably is still coincidence but it's a very funny one.

Well akshually... Portugal traded nearly twice as many slaves as England, and about half the total. Which is not surprising since Portugal had the most colonies in Africa until well into the 19th century.

Dear Germany, If you don't want comparisons to World War 2 might I suggest sending pretty much any number other than 88 Leopard's to Ukraine? What next, insisting they be used exclusively by Azov? Maybe you could show friendly intent by painting a prominent symbol of pacific Jainism/ Buddhism on them indicating their peacefulness? Just make sure not to mirror it, eh. 88 --> HH --> Hulk Hogan Heil Hitler, for anyone wondering. Very hard to imagine the Germans managed to miss the significance there so I'm rather skeptical the number is actually true despite being picked up by some relatively reliable sites. And a few days old now, but a bit of correction for something earlier... Morocco says Czechs sent their T-72s to Ukraine without permission. So far from it being a sign of how widespread support was for Ukraine even in Africa it was just yet another example of Euros seizing African assets for Europe's benefit. Or at least, making public a backroom deal Morocco didn't want public, since it's unlikely they weren't in fact paid.

Lisa Su is AMD's lord and saviour, not the general publics'. Hard to see how AMD could be 'artificially' keeping prices high in the GPU sphere though. Nowhere near enough market share relative to nVidia and if they're just aping nVidia's prices... well you wouldn't blame Suzuki for overpriced cars if Toyota was doing the same because Toyota sells four times as many units and a lot of people buy their cars because they're Toyota and just work. Things are a lot closer in the CPU sphere though, and AMD has dropped prices a decent amount on 7000 series since they were selling embarrassingly badly. It will be interesting to see if TSMC's pretty hefty price cuts to get volume uptake will get passed along (or taken up even, hard to see if they're still going to charge for unused capacity on old nodes)- and they're probably the most guilty of price gouging a near monopoly of anyone, including peak Intel and nVidia.

There is a lot of action, but it isn't very evenly distributed. Some episodes have a lot, and many have very little. I'd suggest at least watching until episode 5, since that's a more hijinks adjacent and action orientated episode.

Warrior isn't really a hijinks show. There are certainly, hmm, hijinks adjacent episodes but the context is pretty much entirely political/ ethnic/ gang conflicts, all the time. Personally I liked it a lot overall, and the 2nd to last episode of S2 was outright great in part because there was so much build up to it. Definitely more of a 'Spartacus' (minus stylised action) than a 'Banshee' though, due to the historical context.

Rybar, much like Girkin/ Strelkov, is precisely as reliable as the observers' biases*. For pro Ukrainians If he's saying the Russians/ Wagner are advancing and, inevitably, UkrMoD says they're not he's unreliable. If he provides footage without meeting their expectations then it's faked or historical**. If he says something people want to be true then... VDV still has a big presence in Syria anyway, and you'd suspect they'd be withdrawn from there if really needed. Most likely as with a lot of the original Russian forces they've been reorganising. (They'd have had a lot of casualties for sure, but that doesn't necessarily reduce effectiveness in the longer term since you add in replacements constantly. The Golden Division in Iraq suffered more than 100% casualties over the course of fighting ISIS for example, though they were the only really effective regular Iraqi army formation full stop) *much like anyone really. Funny how Arestovich got reliable to pro Russians when he said things that disagreed with the Ukrainian official line too **he provided the footage of 4 Ukrainian S-300s getting hit by a cluster munition which appeared in the last week. Couldn't be current though, said Ukrainian Hasbara, no snow on the ground! So must be fake, or from last spring or... Check last two weeks of weather for Kharkov though and: no precipitation, and every day had temperature above freezing. Check satellite image for provided co-ords and they look identical too, no snow and same field pattern. Ho hum. Whatever gets you through though, I guess.

Yes, I think everyone does have to have a tragic backstory in nutrek. Indeed, not only does everyone have a tragic backstory (or its close relative; dark secret) but of course Pike has tragic foreshadowing as well...

If it's the Ukraine/ Kosovo stuff it has been reported a decent amount. (There's definitely some funky things going on with the search though, Milanovic + Kosovo doesn't return the Reuters mothership article on DDG for some reason nor a bunch of articles based on the agency report. It does return the MSN reprint though...)

Fair to say that most people hated Enigma and either skip it or use a guide. Personally I thought it was OK. The puzzles aren't particularly hard, once you know what they want, but they're very badly (or barely) explained and there are far, far, far too many of them at once. Far too much combat too, though that's a general criticism of the game not just the specific area. Most of it is there at least trivial and easy to blow through in a few minutes at most, and the ones that aren't are better designed/ more interesting than most filler combats. And I actually liked the final fight despite it having what is usually a super annoying structure. Oh yeah, and their response was to ask if the 2nd tranche of dlc should have a dlc dedicated to puzzles. Pretty sure that was trolling. Pretty sure.

The actual writing in ME2 was pretty good, but story progress wise... dunno, it's kind of like going on a balanced diet and having one meal consist of chocolate cake. Of course everyone likes that meal. The problem comes when you have to design the next meal and find you have to stuff a load of nutrition in to it but a minimum of calories. Of course ME3 did manage to, uh, overcook the brussels sprouts so to speak anyway, but if ME2 had done its narrative job better they could have been deliciously pan fried in butter instead of boiled. Whether that's any reflection on Walters though, who knows. I'd suspect the decision to put just about the only piece of actual plot advancement in ME3 behind a dlc at least was a management decision to get people to buy dlc.

If you're only going to apply principles when they're local, to white people and- let's be frank, this is the kicker- to your geopolitical advantage then, well, they aren't actually principles, are they? They're just a way of making yourself feel like you're a good guy™. Of course, helps when you do some massive revisionism in the media to make yourselves the heroes all the time. Apart from the "EU never made it them or Russia" stuff which comes up regularly there's a real beauty in that article Gorth posted that illustrates things really well. Haha yes, impartial and well informed Beeb. Shall I quote the relevant OSCE report for the election prior to the 2014 coup (2010 elections)? Normally I might be a bit of a knob and wait for someone to dispute things, but this time... I particularly like this one: Oh dear, seems someone at the BBC has been guilty of massive revisionism and repeating unsubstantiated allegations like a conspiracy theorist. Strangely enough, massive revisionism and unsubstantiated rumours that turns the people they support into heroes. Could it be that thing you earthlings call... propaganda? I also rather like the quotes that make the process seem altogether more democratic than a lot of 'proper' democracies, like this one (and there are a lot of others too): Sounds more pluralist than a choice between, say, asses and pachyderms. Of course, Zelensky has democratically banned multiple opposition parties, in a show of freedom which can only enhance the diverse political views, eh BBC? In amongst all the positivity there was, inevitably, some complaints, eg That was... hmm, pro western candidate and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko using the PMs office to campaign. Wonder if the people fired/ resigned list includes Arestovich, who reigned for having the temerity to say that a Russian missile hit an apartment block having been shot down, not as a deliberate act. Probably, and that really isn't anything approaching corrupt, just counter narrative.