Agiel

I believe that if it's been proven that truly exceptional women can hack it to be in infantry or even special forces units (just as exceptional or at least well above average men can), then the current physical standards should remain in place. And absolutely no one is contesting that those exceptional women do exist (for instance the three women who managed Ranger School, and I've read somewhere at least four women are operators in the Australian Tier 1, mosaics-over-faces, "we can neither confirm nor deny that we were never here" outfit, the SASR).

Saw the Martian on a date. Had a good time (in spite of spots of cringworthy dialogue every now and again), and from the looks of things so did audiences and critics. Wonder if this is where people say Ridley Scott turned the corner.

I had a theory that the anglo-american feminist bent owed more to the "moral guardian" tradition where continental European feminism had roots in sex positive "free-love." And I guess this comic kind of proves this:

Working as a "courtesy clerk" for a supermarket in my high school years, this was precisely why cart duty was the only enjoyable part of the job (that, and you could put on some headphones and listen to your tunes on your iPod.

http://www.pcgamer.com/valve-writer-says-half-life-3-will-not-be-a-vr-game/ Frankly don't have much of an opinion on VR gaming, but I guess Half-Life 3 can't be a VR game if it never comes out at all.

Mistrals previously earmarked for Russia go to Egypt instead: http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense-news/2015/09/23/france-says-egypt-buy-mistral-warships/72667012/ Didn't see this one coming. Thought a sale to Brazil would have been a slam dunk.

Mirage 2000C module for DCS: World coming in December 2015

A former Bundeswehr tanker I've spoken to (and is one of those people I can just sit down, shut up, and listen to about tanks) wholeheartedly believes that "nanosteel" composites, alternate propulsion, and electromagnetic and DE-based (with electrochemical or electrothermal in the interim) gun assemblies represent the next stage of evolution for AFVs. Unfortunately he doesn't believe the political will to seriously develop a new tank currently exists in Germany, and means we won't be seeing a production model until ~2040.

Teal Group's Richard Aboulafia's take on the LRS-B competition: I have to disagree with Aboulafia... the X-32 was the happiest-looking fighter prototype I'ver ever seen.

The situation isn't much better for parolees who can be extorted to bend to their employer's will with accusations of drug use on the job, stealing from the register, etc.

SSN-21 USS Seawolf breaks the ice in the North Pole. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/03/u-s-sub-takes-on-russia-in-santa-s-backyard.html Not the first time a boat of her class has done this. Probably the most famous incident was when her sister ship, SSN-22 USS Connecticut surfaced to find that a polar bear tried to take a bite off of her rudder, to no avail:

I almost always play on easy at first - even new games in a series I've played for years on end. Its just nicer to not hit a wall of frustration and you can usually adjust difficulty going in. I kind of have this approach with RPGs after beating them "the real way," where for instance in Fallout: New Vegas I pump up my Courier's stats when she wakes up so that she's a knife-throwing badass on a mission instead of someone who has trouble figuring out which end of the blade goes into that Powder Kegger. Or in Icewind Dale when I import my level 18 characters and play through from the beginning (though I like the challenge of the main game, I'm not a fan of Hearts of Fury mode, to be honest).

As far as sexuality goes, I think there's at least ten times more going on between Snake and the guys on Mother Base when they ask him to beat the crap out of them, or when he sneaks up from behind them and puts them into a chokehold than however titillating Quiet's outfit is.

I don't particularly care for seeded rolls either, since I tend to skew towards letting players play the game how they want to play it (you can bet your ass I abused the hell out of alchemy and enchanting in the Elder Scrolls games). I guess Inxile would be better off just letting the save system be abuseable in the normal mode and just put in the Iron Man mode for the try-hards.

I'm curious as to whether the Effort Checks will be seeded in the final game so as to curb save scumming. If it was, then would probably raise less of a hoopla if they added a difficulty modifier that removed that (and if you did that, it precluded you from getting an achievement or something or other).

I do hope they somehow manage to retain the fluid animations (of course while still making it very responsive). I think little touches in animations really do their part in bringing a game to life, especially with a top-down game,

Actually, this part might have been more apropos to illustrate my contribution: https://youtu.be/faFuaYA-daw?t=50s

Ordered a fancy new monitor this week and had it delivered to my workplace (since if you live in the part of town where I do, you'd sooner trust your sister to Hugh Hefner than your package not getting stolen from your apartment's doorstep while you and your roommates are out at work). Problem was it arrived today, a lot sooner than I expected, on a day where I took the Gixxer to work rather than my car. So I had to leave it under my desk over the weekend, and hope the the technicians don't get any funny ideas when they do their rounds in the studio.

Second Alpha test portion is out now, relating to exploration. Submitted two bug reports relating to the conversation UI and the game being unresponsive if you tab out and click back into the game again.

Though somewhat doubtful that there's anyone here with any interest at all in Christine Love's repertoire, out of some perverse curiosity I did check out that "Ladykiller in a Bind" website that just went up and had one stray observation: How much do you guys want to bet there will be a petition on 4chan and Tumblr to get that thing circled changed?

Welp, David Duke just gave Trump his endorsement: http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/25/politics/david-duke-donald-trump-immigration/

Yeah, I guess they're the only ones with problems in the Far East... oh, wait.* *Plug into Google Translate. Roughly, SS-N-18 Mod 1 Stingray liquid oxidizer leak accident in the process of removing from Delta III SSBN docked on the Kamchatka Peninsula.

The initial report said they were Marines, though I suppose this makes it even more humiliating for Dae'esh; they couldn't hold their own against an enlisted man from the cushiest service and a reservist.

"Dragon Lady" at 60: http://aviationweek.com/defense/lockheed-martins-dragon-lady-60#slide-0-field_images-1346411