Agiel

Mattis Backs F-35 Stealth Fighter Criticized by Trump Called this on the Credible Defense reddit. Still, I have to imagine Trump's thought process of deciding that a Superbug used by the Navy would be adequate for _Air Force_ requirements: "Quality means everything, just like the name 'Trump!' Look at that name 'Superhornet'! It's from the 'Super-,' you know. It says that it's great and means 'quality'! Only the greatest, the best for our Air Force!"

trump Presidency in 2:07 Congressional impotence is partial to blame for the possibility of trump. even so, is only so much trump can screw up domestic w/o Congress adopting a Three Wise Monkeys posture. am hopeful trump scares Congress outta their indolence. HA! Good Fun! Was speaking more to the possibility of a mixture of carelessness, lack of experience, and attention-seeking that could lead to an unintentional security breach, I'm reminded of this passage from David E. Hoffman's "The Billion Dollar Spy": In the same book, Adolf Tolkachev AKA CKSPHERE was compromised by an agent-in-training, Edward Lee Howard who was fired. He did not know his name but nonetheless knew enough about the case that the information he offered to the KGB put them on the right track to identifying and arresting him.

Welp, Trump is getting an intelligence briefing tomorrow in Trump Tower. I half expect him to accidentally expose a CIA asset or some such from a tweet.

Was expecting either a holiday or January 2018 release myself. After all, I remember it taking forever between the first major gameplay reveal of Inquisition to its final release.

Sounds awfully Orwellian to me. What's next? Food shortages are "ration adjustments?"

I'm just bracing myself for John Carpenter, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Kurt Russell, Christopher Walken, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, and Sigourney Weaver for 2017.

Or have a voice actress impersonate her over radio comms to the X-Wings, or something. I guess 2016 decided to slam the door into our collective asses as we walked into the new year.

Damascus, K-219, and a whole host of other incidents soundly and definitively convinced SAC/STRATCOM that volatile and corrosive liquid fuel rockets the Russians broadly favour for missiles aren't the way to go for ICBMs, so fat chance of that. As one Pratt & Whitney rep observed in the 90s in a fact-finding trip to Russia in spite of their strong tradition in liquid rockets they were lightyears behind in jet engine and solid fuel rocket development.

Well so long as you earned the unlocks while online you are free to use them offline, which was a situation that was a damned sight better than what was a few months ago (being offline basically meant you were limited to using your trusty coins, fiber wire, and basic pistol).

Props to it that it knows enough to imply the chestburster (spineburster?) and the xenomorph. However, the cover song for this gave me a Predators vibe for some reason, as in it turns out to be a passable movie but doesn't come close to holding a candle to the original. Though of course since this is just another movie in a long-running franchise that's a bit much to ask, but that one audiodrama "Out of the Shadows" filled me with confidence that there's still some awe and wonder to be found with the series.

A good friend of mine gave me this over Steam for Christmas: http://store.steampowered.com/app/379980/ I suppose laughter is the best medicine for the pervading sense that civilisation is dying.

Re: "Let there be an arms race" lunacy, DOD/IC words from four years ago. Hilarious of Trump to speak of "yuge" cost overruns of F-35, then speak of a wholly unnecessary and costly expansion of the strategic arsenal.

I kind of am in the same spot, though it's RTWP switched with TB for me. Curious on your thoughts on WeGo turn-based gameplay that you see in the Combat Mission games. Seems to me it solves a lot of the realism issues some people have with turn-based gameplay (even if it unrealistically compresses the first O and D of the OODA loop immensely, just like RTWP does).

Just finished a playthrough of their preview section after the latest update and it seems to be shaping up quite nicely. They have since added a fairly lengthy sidequest that I have found to be the most engrossing yet that ties together a lot of pre-existing pieces I found to be underutilised before in previous builds. Other observations: -The original Crisis tutorial and "Mere" sections from the first beta build is sorely missed. I think its omission gives the sense of being thrown into the deep end and messes with the initial pacing, though from what I've read it will be re-implemented after some tuning up. -Massive performance fixes. Also the file size has been immensely reduced, which is welcome given that hard drive space is at a premium on my SSD. -I have not yet tried any Crises with one of the new companions, Rhin. My initial impression is that she's some kind of skill monkey for non-violent playthroughs, though I wonder if you have the tenacity and grit to endure the howling agony of hamstringing yourself in the Crises for a good while with that character it turns out she's like Neo from the Matrix and your party walks through all enemies in the rest of the game. Would be interested in hosting a game club (like a book club) over this game, it seems to lend itself well to it.

To addend to that, here's an excellent 18-part series on the development of the Standard Missile and Aegis Combat System: http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/u-s-navy-missile-defense-the-transition-from-guns-to-missiles/

I kind of never got over the fact that the Illuminati ...

Damn, picked up Guilty Gear Xrd: Revelator today too. Got a pile of gigabytes to download when I get home.

Richard Aboulafia summing up this year. Note that this does include some civil aviation talk that many will find a snooze. Most of these emphases are Aboulafia's, but there's one that's mine. Try your hand at guessing which one it is:

Apparently there's a demo out for Resident Evil 7. I am posting this less out of any attachment to the Resident Evil franchise and more because the idea of a playable demo coming out for a major game release now seems so quaint and anachronistic (unless one were to count "public multiplayer test betas," which I don't); the last AAA game I remember playing a demo for was Mass Effect 3 back in 2012.

Kind of got the sense that this implied that Deckard was a Replicant (who can somehow live a full human lifespan).

In a year that has taken so much from us, I thought it appropriate to post something remembering what around this day five years ago took:

I think they've said that TOR is supposed to basically serve as KOTOR 3-7 or so. That said, is there not a 3 millennium gap between the KOTOR series and Yavin? Just like with 40K, there's a huge time period between established events people can create their own stories in that sadly goes underutilised.

Hey, if you want, hit me up if you'd like to team up for Vermintide.

I stopped reading at this part 'Even without Iran’s direction and sponsorship of militias killing of thousands of American soldiers in Iraq'... Hands up anyone who believes the Sunni insurgents are supported and backed by Iran? Bonus points if anyone believes Trump is going to tell Boeing to drop the new deal for 80 airplanes destined for Iran. He might, just has to bribe them elsewhere. Meshbacks will clap I think even if the deal is actually inked the actual number of jets Iran will get will only amount to a dozen or so (and knowing Iranian maintenance standards, half of those will be hangar queens anyways). This is for a number of reasons: 1. Competition: People in Iran heading abroad (the United States is a popular destination) are already well served by Gulf hubs, and a great deal of Iran's own fleet is regional jets anyways (though given Iranian aviation's atrocious safety record, Iranians are probably better off rowing a boat across the Strait of Hormuz). Besides, other national carriers have a surefire way of tempting away Iranians from their own flag carriers ("We serve booze"). 2. Economy: Iran needs oil well above $90 a barrel in order to balance their books. Though recently OPEC and co have finally come to an agreement on production caps, there are already severe doubts as to whether or not major players such as Russia and Iran will actually comply with them, to say nothing about the fact that Iran is rife with corruption and its private sector is regulated to the point of near strangulation. 3. Risk: The Iran deal included snapback sanctions and Iranian carriers will be guaranteed to rely upon outside financing to actually afford those jets, and given that Iran is not a part of the Cape Town Convention which allows financiers to repossess jets in the event of delinquency (as Aboulafia mused: "Can an airliner be taken hostage?") the Iranians will be hard-pressed to find good creditors.