Agiel

I'm eternally disappointed with the Nexus being so fixated on better sex and animated prostitutions mods, and not be enterprising enough to make a mod where you can spin revolvers, Ocelot-style, or fan the hammer of the single-action guns, or live out my fantasy of being Lucas McCain.

Finally came around to picking up the "Enemy Within" expansion pack for XCOM. After re-installing the game I downloaded a few mods from the Nexus and Jesus Christ, trying to get my head around the mod installation process is giving me an aneurysm. I think I'll stick to planning the air strikes of Operation Desert Storm for now, thank you very much.

We've talked about the "drone doctrine" and runaway AI controlled guns going on killing sprees being the precursors of Skynet, but what do "robits" mean for the economy? https://medium.com/basic-income/self-driving-trucks-are-going-to-hit-us-like-a-human-driven-truck-b8507d9c5961 In a society that sees greater and greater mechanisation and automation, where does that leave the working population of that society in 30 years (if that) time? For every industrial revolution the world has undergone (and the lack of capitalisation of "industrial revolution" is intentional, as is the use of the plural), we've managed to see at least a new set of jobs around the new industries created that replace the jobs that were rendered obsolete on an almost 1:1 basis, and that manages to keep most of the general population employed. But in a notional future, how many people can be employed with the advent of autonomous production lines and 3D printers? Anecdote: I worked my way through college in retail and became acquainted with people who have had to do that for a living (plus 1 or 2 other jobs on top of that), frequently they were one catastrophe away from ruin. And after graduating from college I took up a position as a product photographer and photo retoucher for a fashion company that was very much production-oriented before finally getting promoted to a content artist. I was extremely grateful for that job since while I was able to be gainfully employed so soon after graduating (or at least get a position that had opportunities for growth, or gain experience as proof that I could be relied upon), I couldn't have said the same for about at least a fair portion of my graduating class. In the notional HAL-9000-oriented workforce of the future, what jobs for us squishy meatbags are left now that the only jobs on the market are CEOs, maintainers of HAL-9000, and his marketing team? I could definitely see that job I took up after college being done by a program in 20 years time (and there was already a great deal of automation being done with it, thanks to "Actions" in Photoshop) if it doesn't get shipped overseas before that, so some poor bastard who graduates from college will probably be SOL. Conservatively that can mean 25% unemployment; can our society function as it has with 1/4 of the working-age population idling about?

I think the question we should be asking is: "After Fallout 4 comes out, will Obsidian get to make a 'Fallout: New ____'?"

This. The Soviet Union really was just the old Czarist Empire in new clothes. The dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the subsequent break-up of the Soviet Union was part of the same breakdown of the old European colonial system represented by India and the like for the British Empire and Algeria and Indochina for the French, it just happened a little later for the Russian Empire, the only difference being that the Empire was land-based rather than sea-based as the British and French Empires were; only half of the pre-collapse population of the Soviet Union was Russian, and given the demographic problems plaguing Russia now even if its military hadn't spent itself into bankruptcy, the demographics issue would have had a similar result at maximum a few decades down the line. Without the vestiges of the old Empire, Russia is "just" (emphasis not mine) another European country, albeit one that's abnormally large and doing its damnedest to go it alone a la Norway.

In honour of the XCOM 2 announcement: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BqoEJUWKVRFSKXOA2Ks3Ce7Kvphmg0kAFKcuXJHgmr0/mobilebasic?pli=1

http://i.imgur.com/dWIIMJp.webm How to reload an AK with one arm out of action.

From the History Channel Youtube channel, but worth a watch. In terms of quality, almost erases the stain of all the years of pawn shops, Duck Dynasty, and Nazi "aliens": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcVzfOmt4Tg Supplemental piece from Gwynne Dyer:

Again, not my footage. But it all looks awesome and well edited (and the tune is quite jaunty as well).

"Trust me, I'm an engineer."

Sounds like the casting decisions for "The Good Earth" to me.

NSFW:

Something that has kind of bugged me through the years about the seal of the Great State of 'Can't-afford-ya': Is the grizzly bear a pygmy? Or is Minerva a Zentraedi?

Not my footage, but still a thrill to watch:

There should be an ellipsis in there to make it: "Rock... or something."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlBiLNN1NhQ

Raided some of the boxes I never bothered to open up and unpack after we moved to our new house and found some of my old copies of the Salamander book series by Bill Gunston and illustrated by Mike Spick on late Cold War aircraft. A lot of it tends to be quite prophetic and relevant to this day, but one volume, Future Fighters (published in 1984) quite keenly demonstrates the 2001: A Space Odyssey effect: "The past's future always does seem at least a little silly in retrospect." For instance, the entry on the Advanced Technology Bomber program that would eventually lead to the B-2A Spirit:

Super stoked for Torment, regardless of the combat mechanics (as long as it's fun and the encounter design is well done, though I'll admit, this quote: “Combat isn’t our primary focus” is our way of saying “if we had to fail at either dialogue/story/reactivity versus combat, then we will choose to fail at combat" is a bit disconcerting). I would have preferred RTwP since honestly turn based doesn't make a ton of sense to me from a verisimilitude perspective. I'll never get past the imagery of someone quite sportingly standing where they are, picking their nose as a guy casually meanders up to him and gives him four consecutive clonks on the head. That said, turn-based hasn't stopped my enjoyment of Fallout, Temple of Elemental Evil, and Divinity.

Seems like it could turn into a spiritual successor to that game, Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason.

Navy "Aggressor" F/A-18s and F-16s at the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center at NAS Fallon.

Yes, let us march on Edmonton against those 10 foot tall, subterranean lizard Jew bankers of Bioware

That's some esprit de corps: