Zoraptor

I wish they'd get outraged over Malaria then. At least Monkeypox is low infectivity and has a vaccine already (bonus, since it's the smallpox one we'll get to see antivaxxers' heads explode if it's brought back). It's still 200 million cases and 700k deaths from Malaria each and every year, but it's barely mentioned.

That's the definition of tenuous. (1) Images are simply too low res to tell what is shown. (2) The colour palettes don't match. (3) The time of day/ image incident angle don't match either and give a very distorted height perspective- which is extremely easy to prove. Open the images [1] [2] in separate tabs, and switch between them. Buildings appear to ~treble in height over the course of two days... He's also got the image alignment wrong (near the south wall, not north) but that's just nitpicking and has no practical effect (and is a mistake I've personally made at times too). Have to lol at ISW again though. It may sound like I'm slamming the the initial guy (Oliver Alexander) but he does appropriately use equivocal language "appears" "possible" etc for things that may or may not be correct- but in the ISW summary they've become plain old definite 'open graves'. Alexander may even be correct, but he'll need more images from subsequent days to correct for the biases, and higher resolutions. The fundamental problem with such things is that if someone isn't willing to go on the record and you're getting it from a journalist you have very little idea what was actually said and how (with the proviso/ assumption that no one is deliberately lying). You could very easily have one source saying "it wasn't HiMARS, so it wasn't Ukraine" and another saying "it wasn't HiMARS but we can't rule Ukraine out" [as it could have been a M31 class rocket fired from a M270 instead of HiMARS, since I know that both systems can fire the same rockets]. There are also pictures of physical evidence despite what the sources claim- though nothing that couldn't have been planted.

HiMARS warheads are 91kg, but only a third of that weight is explosive. There are also some videos of demos for HiMARS' M31 series warheads available publicly, and the explosion is not huge; it's mostly designed to impel the shrapnel that makes up the bulk of its weight*. If we want to get technical only about 60% of that 30% is actual actual explosive too, an RDX derivative, so in the 18-19kg range. The rest is ~20% plastic and ~20% aluminium powder- which together make a rather nice fireball, though it's amazing how many experts manage to omit the latter when it's (in)convenient**. It's also amazing how many people insist that there would have to be a crater because a tin roof wouldn't trigger a warhead when, like many munitions, you can fuse them to explode above ground- and that is the recommended fuse for light fortifications like a cinder block building (plus anti personnel use, iirc). While the roof is corrugated iron or equivalent the building construction is pretty solid looking otherwise, decent foot thick cinder blocks or similar. As anyone who has dealt with explosives to any degree knows, they're lazy. They'd far rather peel back a light tin roof than knock over a heavy wall, if they have the option. The pattern of damage to the walls also seems consistent with shrapnel damage from HiMARS warheads, but not from explosives placed in the roof. That's relying on a few Russian supplied photos though, so mileage may vary appreciably in reality. *presuming, if it were HiMARS that that is the warhead they'd have used. There are alternatives, but they don't fit the scenario. **possibly the most silly objection anyway, since it's extremely likely that the main source of fire was secondary, from bedding and the like, and pretty much any explosive could set that off. I don't imagine the Russians are particularly careful to buy non flammable stuff, and typical cheap synthetic bedding burns ridiculously well and ridiculously hot, if briefly. Not surprising as chemically they're similar to components of napalm. The exterior pictures also clearly imply a sustained fire, not an instantaneous one, since there is soot char around the windows similar to that seen on the Moskva. The Russians have supposedly invited the ICRC, whether they follow through or not or have constant to permanent delays though... Frankly even autopsies are unlikely to fully answer the question. If no bodies have shrapnel, sure, but it wouldn't be too hard for the Russians to bring in bodies that had been hit by HiMARS and claim they were there, nor for pro Ukrainians to say that is what they did even if they didn't.

Yeah, that I rather like. Technically it's probably bad design being able to stumble on a lich so early, but meh. It's interesting, and gives you something to aim for. I love the Piranha Bytes games where you spend 1/3 of the game running away from overgrown domestic fowl. Is it great gameplay? Again, maybe not in the technical sense and it's probably deeply annoying if you're playing because you want to feel awesome from the start. OTOH, once you start dealing to the overlarge turkeys and start beating up the mutant porcupines or velociraptors you actually feel kind of awesome, and like you made an improvement. If you're stuck fighting the 20th perfectly balanced encounter for lvl 10 parties and 'anticipating' moving on to the 20 perfectly balanced encounters for a lvl 11 party on the other hand... I literally can't imagine anything more pointless.

I found IWD2 to have the same basic problem that PoE had, perhaps unsurprisingly- everything felt over designed. I'd actually agree with IWD2 having a smooth gameplay experience, it's just that to me that is pretty much synonymous with, well, being boring. Which is the worst sin possible for entertainment, far worse than merely being bad.

That only means it wasn't grads, which was pretty obvious to anyone since they're an inaccurate saturation weapon. Anything precision can hit with that accuracy, by definition, which includes HiMARS and some Russian stuff like Krasnopol. Though really, if it was the Russians the only thing that would make sense is to do what the Ukrainian official claim is: (they) just plant(ed) explosives; bring in parts of missile casings later.

It's not exactly a video that can be shown on the news, and if you can't show it you can't talk about it much except to say it happened. For some, like the Brits, there may be... other factors at play too. Difficult to shout too loud when castration was used as colonial policy well into living memory.

To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to appreciate Icewind Dale. The game is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical combat mechanics most of the gameplay will go over a typical player's head. There's also David Ogden Stiers' nihilistic narration, which is deftly woven into the plot progression - his character's philosophy draws heavily from literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of the gameplay, to realize that it's not just combat- it says something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Icewind Dale truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, having giant skeletons that explode into snowballs which is itself a cryptic reference to the snowball fight in Witcher 3 The Wild Hunt I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Black Isle's genius unfolds itself on their monitors. What fools... how I pity them. And yes by the way, I DO have a Yxunomei tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It's for the ladies' eyes only- And even they have to demonstrate that they're within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand. (Funnily enough on pure gameplay I 100% agree with HoonDing on order, though I'd probably put the self mutilation before BG1 and have an entire lower category for SCS)

ComradeYellow may be a bit of a numpty, but as Bruce says that's about as metaphorical as it's possible to get, and obviously not literal. It definitely isn't him rejoicing in the death of people in the last few posts. That's not how GPS works. A GPS receiver only receives a signal. It then decodes it and gives you position on a map. It doesn't send data back. You can broadcast/ narrowcast/ send your position somewhere else having decoded the signal, but it isn't obligatory. As one of the replies says, it's very likely to be a back up system anyway.

Alien3 is one of the movies that benefits most from its director's cut (or whatever they call it in that case). Literally made no sense at all in its theatrical release. It suffers mostly from two factors (1) it's 'thematically' a sequel to Alien, but worse in pretty much every respect and (2) in actual sequence it's a sequel to Aliens, but is significantly different*. That manages to alienate (ohoho) both sets of fans pretty effectively. Resurrection... well. I know it isn't great, but I can't help but watch it whenever it's on. Closest comparison is probably to Starship Troopers**. I know ST has an utterly unsubtle political critique (which A:R doesn't have), I know that it has 'bad' acting, I know it has 'bad' scripting. I still enjoy it though because in that particular case I just don't care that it's stupid. Everyone looks like they're in on the joke (except Caspar van Dien, and Winona Ryder for Resurrection; and them not being in on it and taking it serious just makes it better) and having great fun, and for me that goes a long way. Probably the same reason I love Sleepy Hollow as well, loads of good actors producing more ham than a pig abattoir. *and immediately and unceremoniously dumps the Aliens characters, which a lot of people hated. I don't really get the attachment though personally. **or maybe Bad Taste which is even more stupid, has a less sensical plot but is even more fun. Way more obscure than ST though even with the Peter Jackson factor.

They've had a CDPR goodies give away before, maybe it doesn't show up for those who already have it? Or they released it early.. They obviously have something planned as it's their 20th anniversary.

Iberia was 1000 years ago. Even if you push it as far as you can it's still 500+ years. Most of Africa was still colonised well within living memory.

^^not yet, apparently. Tony Dow alive, death announced in error. Sadly, sounds like it was very much a premature announcement rather than an outright mistake though.

Foot binding etc was done to other Chinese as cultural practice, not to other nationalities. Uighurs are a good example, but formally they have exactly the same problem that Taiwan has- they are acknowledged as being Chinese, by everyone. Not colonial possessions but part of China proper. Which is kind of fortunate for Taiwan too, as it has its own skeleton in the cupboard in that respect (their treatment of indigenous Formosans). Does have to said that the Chinese benefit historically from being insular for ~4 critical centuries, which minimises the chances of inflicting harm on other nations. Sure, and Europeans also did that a lot to other Europeans. Africans didn't colonise Europe though, outside of BNP type fliers.

Meh, given the mention of Zaire Hoonding is almost certainly referencing the Belgian Congo (--> Zaire, under Mobutu). Which had a slight problem with, well, Belgians killing, mutilating and raping the populace. So much so that they had to stop. Not because it was a Bad Thing morally speaking, but because they were quite literally running out of people to mutilate, rape and kill so profits were being effected. As embarrassing as colonial history ought to be for most colonial powers they can at least bask in the glory of being better than Belgium. Say what you like about the Chinese but they aren't building pyramids of severed hands because their loans aren't being repaid quickly enough. And indeed, they haven't fought a war for the right to sell opium while starving millions of people to death in the country growing the opium either.

Historically you could do a far worse list for those fundamentally western institutions the IMF/ WB. The thing about Chinese projects, even the infamous Montenegran motorway to nowhere- or gold plated Sri Lankan ports, and a host of other things elsewhere outside of Africa- is that at least they actually do get built*. They may not bring the economic returns the countries' hoped for, but they did get built. In contrast... Zaire, Mobutu and the IMF, as just one example. Though if you read that it's pretty obvious that it really is just one example. Real "Want a simple way to lose weight quickly? Then buy this cheap $100mn saw on credit and amputate your leg!" type stuff. Amazing how consistently the IMF/ WB lent money that not only didn't produce anything positive at all, but the stipulated policies associated with it made things actively worse. For decades. Almost like it was deliberate policy, which of course it was. Most of the money lent to Zaire went to Mobutu, and everyone knew it. At least he wasn't a godless commie though. Now they've just switched to "here's money to grow bananas, coffee and chocolate; don't worry about food you can just buy our cheap subsidised grain! What could possibly go wrong?" *and just blaming China unfairly excuses the home grown politicians who approved the projects. What kind of numpty accepted that Montenegran project and how much cash ended up in his Cayman Is bank account? Oh yeah, it's their current President, who's a bit of a western darling.

Running the show from the shadows would still be a bit step down from him being there and micromanaging/ rewriting stuff up to the last minute. Dunno though, I kind of suspect it may be more permanent/ real than might otherwise be the case due to a bunch of circumstances. (1) You'd have to suspect that the WWE's and Vince's personal lawyers are telling him to Stay Away, in all caps, bold, underlined, 72pt font. (1a) Especially so if there are more accusations to come... and let's be honest, it's extremely likely there are. (2) There was the very Successionesque managerial bloodbath which saw Shane, HHH and Stephanie all sidelined and which may leave the latter two a lot less inclined to play cat's paw now they're back. (3) There were the rumours that he was going to sell and that was why the roster was getting gutted, so he may have been prepared to quit anyway. (4) He's got a lot of other skeletons in his closet which would make for some not so great headlines. (5) Johnny Ace being involved as well, and him very much being a Vince guy. (6) Hulk Hogan. Time used to a great healer for reputations in wrestling. Last time Hogan showed up though he was roundly booed, even years later. And for what I think most would consider a lesser offence. While it's allegations at the moment they're pretty damning. Bryan Krzanich got fired from Intel not for how badly he ran their core (hoho) business, but for merely bonking his PA- albeit he wasn't its main shareholder, but... Vince supposedly not only did that, but passed her on to Laurinaitis too, plus used his position to demand sex from wrestlers (and fired them when refused). If that's true then it's going to be impossible to come back from, and very hard even to come back from the allegation of it.

Vince McMahon has retired from WWE after a string of sexual misconduct allegations. Who would have thought that someone who pitched an incest angle with his daughter and thought Fabulous Moolah was great would go out like that? I honestly thought the only way he'd go was when they'd nailed shut his coffin, and given his mother is still alive at 100+ that could have potentially been decades away.

8-12 Russians. Funnily enough the source for hundreds of Russians always resolves to... Girkin again, who wanted a war between Russia and the US, preferably nuclear. Hundreds may well have died, but they were locals trained by Wagner. (Basically the rebels in rif Deir ez Zor all defected to ISIS in 2014 and the loyalists were under siege in Deir ez Zor for 4 years; around 200k people. The US supported forces took a very long operational pause in the hope that Deir ez Zor city would be captured by ISIS- indeed the only ever major strike in the area by the coalition was the infamous 'mistaken identity' attack of September 2016 where they spent an hour attacking... Syrian government forces- and that would cut off the alternative land route to Iraq/ Iran along the Euphrates having already taken Al Tanf from Jordan. Didn't really care about the 200k civilians, but then they were also fine with drowning them as well. When Deir ez Zor city was relieved by the government forces Saudi bribed the ISIS aligned locals to swap sides to the SDF (coalition) with the carrot that they could keep the oil fields in the area. Oddly enough the half of the local tribes that were loyalists didn't like that much, and employed Wagner to train them up to go after the Omar field. So it was 95% local anti ISIS fighters being killed there to protect... ISIS fighters who'd swapped sides for the 3rd time)

Officially it isn't the final season and the show isn't cancelled. Since they've released the actors from their contracts and Seth M is working directly on other projects there certainly won't be a S4 any time soon though whatever is said. Re Wheel of Time: Prime (hoho) example of someone with very little talent trying to improve something written by someone with far more talent. Why Amazon thought someone whose main claim to fame was being a competitor on Survivor and had zero show running experience was a good idea for running a big and expensive show who knows. And it was incredibly expensive, but looked cheap, felt both rushed and padded for length and at times would have been embarrassed by 90s era Hercules for both sfx and- lol- battle scenes even without mentioning the non sensical plotting. Then again allegedly 10% of the entire budget goes towards paying Pike... Funny thing is that the one thing that has been universally praised and iirc has got an Emmy nomination is the one thing the show runner had basically nothing to do with and actually follows the books- the animated shorts.

Only bit they really could have cut was the very start, and the obligatory 20/21st century pop culture reference. Orville s3e8- liked this one just about unreservedly.

Orville S3e7 Another good episode, but has a similar problem(s) to the rest of the season so far, just to a greater degree. Overall this season has felt a bit underwhelming but I'm pretty sure that's because Orville is in the reverse position to SNW, ie I was expecting a lot so there's just a lot more scope to be disappointed vs was expecting nothing so there was a lot of scope to be pleasantly surprised.

Not really news, but confirmation it's still in active development at least Pretty much the barest of bare minima information... and it's now approaching two years since Harebrained got the chop.

Malay. Well, ostensibly. If politico-religious disagreements count then Trump's Muslim Ban/ 'Muslim Ban' was more recent (iirc). Bit of a one man band on the pro Trump side, but then so was Qistina.

To be fair to The Boys that's a description of maybe 90% of TV in general. It's amazing how many short 'premium' series end up feeling padded just as much as a 22 episode season on CW or whatever. It can get really weird too, Wheel of Time felt padded yet objectively clearly needed more time- from better writers though. Have to say, as someone who hasn't watched Boys S3 most of the commentary around it does not sound overly good for someone who was already rolling their eyes at the contrivance of not having Homelander just kill everyone in S2. From a mechanistic pov you know why, because it can only happen once and after that the main premise of the series is gone... My personal peeve about subscription shows is how many are obviously focus grouped into having constant cliffhanger endings to get engagement up. It's like watching things out of phase, with the last five minutes of the previous episode tacked onto the next. 'All of us are dead' (may be slightly wrong, Korean zombie show on Netflix) had this to an almost parody degree.