Agiel

"Touching the neck of the guitar is illegal in many countries, but is socially acceptable in France."

Kind of figured that Kingmaker had a lot going against it with the RPGCodex crowd (RTwP instead of turn-based, romances out the wazoo, straightforward quest design, and a fairly by-the-numbers, though nonetheless well-written, main plot).

Highly informative and entertaining review of a game I never worked up the constitution to endure, yet whose remake I'm looking forward to playing:

I don't know about that. Today we might have a chuckle at the idea that a collection of polygons in their underwear dry-humping each other is a realistic take on intimacy, but damned if I could say that FMV rape scene in the first Phantasmagoria, which I only experienced through a Giant Bomb let's play (paywall), is an improvement.

While I do not believe that the purported violation is as serious as Bolton and his ilk are suggesting (if anything I believe the whole debacle arose due to poor oversight of Russia's defence industry that got a missile with the _range capability_ rubber-stamped by the MoD rather than any actual deliberate intent on the Kremlin's part to violate the treaty) and I think Obama dropped the ball when his administration was frustratingly vague on what was the offending missile at the start (if it is true, as some are suggesting, that it had come from a deeply embedded intelligence source and they were vague so as to protect it then I'd rather he never brought if up at all) the Russian counterclaim is far flimsier. Breaking the claims down... 1. Nuclear missiles can be launched from the Mk. 41 cells. It makes close to zero strategic sense to put them in a _fixed_ launcher. One of the main reasons why the GLCM, Pershing II, and SS-20 were so scary was because a handful of mobile launchers could have been anywhere in enemy territory and it would take dozens, if not hundreds of tactical nukes to account for all of them, let alone with conventional weapons. Compare that to an Aegis Ashore facility that you can be sure will always be there and can be overwhelmed by no more than a baker's dozen warheads (even less if some of the 24 cells at each facility hosts the notional nuclear missile). 2. The ABM interceptors can be outfitted with nuclear warheads and turned on ground targets. The Exo-atmospheric Kill Vehicle that serves as the "warhead" for the SM-3 missile weighs 140 pounds versus the 290 lbs of a W80 variable yield warhead. If one had the will, time, and resources could that warhead be eventually mated to that missile (see point 4)? Well, why not? But at those dimensions good luck getting it to range as far as Moscow. 3. Nuclear-tipped Tomahawks have existed, and they can be launched from the Mk. 41 cells. The TLAM-N has been removed from service since 2011 with both the missiles and the W80-0 warheads having since been dismantled (in fact it was the US Navy itself that considered it redundant capability early in the Bush administration). Even if production for both the missiles and warheads could be restarted it would be close to thirty years behind modern Flights of Tomahawks in guidance methods, signature reduction, and networking capability, which brings us to a common misconception... 4. A nuclear warhead can be swapped with the conventional warhead of a modern Tomahawk. This vastly underestimates the amount of engineering nuclear weapons systems require on both the launch platform and weapons side. Nuclear weapons have a degree of complexity that goes quite well beyond an ordinary cruise missile with a unitary high-explosive warhead; on the weapons side it includes additional electronics to power additional systems such as the permissive action links, safety features, arming mechanisms, and so forth. These in turn must be powered up and be able to talk to additional equipment from the launching platform (it was for this reason that for the Indian Air Force's MMRCA the Dassault Rafale was selected, as it already had the necessary equipment for employing nuclear weapons, and because these systems have been removed why the B-1B Lancer is no longer considered a nuclear delivery platform for purposes of arms control agreements). Could the US cheat on the above? Well, I find it highly unlikely they would be able to get away with it, as journalists have consistently been able to to get a reasonable idea of the budgets of supposedly highly secretive special operations outfits like JSOC (mostly by looking out for budget items with painfully mundane and highly vague titles like "Army Compartmented Elements" and "Development Group"). Then there's the fact that the GRU could simply look up GAO reports related to Tomahawk development (to quote Sir Humphrey Appleby: "Open government. Freedom of information. We should always tell the press freely and frankly anything that they could easily find out some other way"). Finding these wouldn't exactly be a smoking VLS cell but at that point their counterclaim would carry as much weight as the current administration's claim that the SSC-8 is an INF violation. I would have settled for "even a broken clock is right twice a day," but the concept is _axiomatic_: An un-monitored obstacle is virtually useless. As Raithe's quoted post also pointed out in the case of Trump's wall it would be even worse than useless, as it would impede the ability of border patrol to keep track of the movements of anyone attempting to get over, under, or even through it. Most everything that Schumer and Pelosi offered in lieu of the wall (more border patrol agents, UAVs, additional helicopters and vehicles, FLIR cameras, etc.) would prove far more effective, especially for cost, than the wall. There were even things they proposed such as more asylum claims judges that is the stuff some immigration activists truly slide their fingers down their shirt collars and tug at them nervously over.

"Fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man." -George S. Patton

There are other ways in which one's idiocy can affect others. For instance, should one suffer grievous injuries as a result of not wearing a seatbelt or helmet I don't see many people advocating paramedics administering the "Emperor's Peace" on them to save on medical costs instead of nursing them back to health.

Neverwinter Nights 2 coverage starts at 1:41:17.

They do carry that look into their promotional material:

None So Vile, the album from which the Cryptopsy track comes from, came out in '96 and is widely considered a landmark brutal tech death album, so probably would qualify as "Classic Metal."

Doom composer is hiring voices for a ‘heavy metal choir’ I would like to recommend that he get in contact with Dave Hunt of Anaal Nathrakh... ...and Lord Worm, formerly of Cryptopsy:

IWD2 could benefit from proper widescreen support. Modders have already done an admirable job implementing it for other IE games even before the Enhanced Editions came out, whereas IWD2 has only an imperfect fix. A shame given how if I were asked at any given moment between IWD2 and BG2 what was the best IE game I'd have to give it a long think before I could give an answer. The big thing about NWN2 I would change is some optimisation, which probably warrants a patch rather than an actual new product. The graphics by no means hold up particularly well, but as with the IE games they look as good as a "retro" game from 10-20 years ago needs to.

Would be quite a sight if Bungie wound up getting contracted to make new Halo games.

I swear it's a bit like John Malkovich entering his own mind: "Nazi nazi nazi nazi nazi, nazi nazi nazi. Nazi nazi nazi!"

Learned recently that Erik Lindmark, frontman and until recently sole remaining founding member of legendary death metal outfit Deeds of Flesh and founder of Unique Leader Records has recently passed.

Origin's "The Aftermath," or if you'd like "All the Sweeps."

At our FLGS we have a running Kill Team campaign which is great for having your best painted models out front and center and experiencing the highs and lows of a persistent experience. As one example of a low my best friend was utterly crushed when he had his Lictor get turned into a melted puddle trying to charge one of my Harlequins who managed an overwatch with her Fusion Pistol (for those not in the know the same short-range melta-gun designed for use against _tanks_ in a compact pistol form).

This is about the best explanation of why those of us into Games Workshop properties love them so, courtesy of 1d4chan:

Excerpt from a piece that I found particularly noteworthy: Worth remembering that in 2016 Clinton managed to take Orange County, an upper-middle class conservative stronghold that hasn't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since FDR.

Actually I think the reverse is more the case; the places in the US with the greatest backlash against immigration tend to be the ones with the least exposure to immigrants, whereas suburban and even rural places like Erie, PA that have taken them into the fold come around to them. Perhaps the "white male deaths of despair" would not be so prevalent a phenomenon if those disaffected populations learned the joys of shawarma, pho, and tacos de pescado.

Doing a playthrough now with the Flame Dancer, which substantially increases fire resistance in an aura. Now Octavia and my own PC (who gets certain fire spells herself at level 8 ) can throw Fireballs nary any consequences to the rest of the party, in addition to no-selling enemy Alchemists. It was a class that I became aware of the potential of when I managed the Ratnook Hill encounter at level four.