majestic

Catalonia is one of the wealthier regions of Spain, but they don't really stand to gain much from any independence as far as I'm aware. Especially since they'd lose EU membership, and from what I've read on the news some companies and banks have already cut bait after the referendum. The actual cause goes back a ways what with fascist Spain actively trying to repress Catalonian culture, but I'm sure 213374U can give you more details on the matter. The EU is behind the Spanish central government, so no, there won't be any rustling, let alone chatter - for various reasons. Unless it's not in any EU region and can be rubbed into the face of the "bad guys" (Kosovo and Serbia) we can't have a region seceeding, imagine what that would do to other regions in Europe, e.g. northern Italy - Lega Nord is already actively lobbying for more autonomy - or the entire hoohaw in the Ukraine. Accepting an illegal referendum would instantly legitimize Putin's annexion of Crimea. Although to be honest as an outside I enjoy Rajoy making an ass of himself. I hate that guy any everything he stands for with a passion. As far as I'm concerned every EPP member can go to hell.

There's a civil war on in parts of Sweden, all of France and if the Freedom Party is to be believed in Vienna as well. Hordes of invaders gathering in something akin to the Purging. Movies made reality. Not sure but I think Finland's winning at the moment. Damn snow is too much for the towelheads.

Heh. After two episodes of Discovery that were actually watchable (maybe even good) they of course had to... make a time loop episode. Worse, one with incredibly lame attempts at romantic comedy and humor. There have been really fun time loop episodes (SG-1, Dark Matter) and interesting ones (TNG) but this one is so tone deaf it hurts, and to rub some salt into it the showrunners felt that Michael needed to narrate her actions so that the audience really gets what this is about. Just in case one managed to miss the enforced awkwardness of the character ever since she got assigned to Discovery. Useless science fiction technostupid of the week: Weaponized dark matter. It's like they're not even trying to come up with semi-plausible concepts any more. Sure old Trek was soft sci-fi as well but they had people with more than a single brain cell check the scripts for such obvious faults. Well, most of the time, anyway. Didn't stop Picard from finding a planet with a surface temperature of -500° C but that entire episode (The Royale, for anyone interested) was so bad that it would be considered the worst Trek episode ever if it weren't for Voyager's Threshold. Meh.

Yeah, other than one time someone not wanting someone who was "obviously" gay, most of the reasons have been stupid rather than discriminatory. Funniest reason was that the guy was too into programming to be hired as a programmer Oh yeah, that one I've seen too. The last opening we filled didn't go to the nerd who showed up in a Slayer sweatshirt* because, uhm, he was a "full-blooded" coder. The main concern was that someone like that wouldn't be able to understand the needs of the users and would produce needlessly complex modules that nobody can work with - just like the guy who quit did (except that guy got his "skills" during his electrical engineering education... programming microcontrollers which he picked up as an ECA of all things). *I have to admit that I was impressed that this wasn't cited as the reason for not hiring the guy. Much less impressed with the real reason tho. Especially because the guy we hired had prior experience in... programming microcontrollers. Man, what could possibly be any more removed from OOP development of ERP software modules? *sigh*

Actually I'd hire women if at all available and qualified. I hear they work for much less than their male counterparts.

Watched 2 episodes last night. I liked the first season, but I'm not feeling this one yet. I'm thinking Wynona is particularly bad so far. Odd, I thought she was hysterically overacting in the first season and is much more toned down and better in season 2.

Finished Stranger Things 2. I had huge reservations about continuing Stranger Things. It seemed like a recipe for disater but it somehow it worked really well, loved season 2. Maybe even more than the first, it also went a lot lighter an relied less on the 80ies shtick and had more substance.

The West does? Really? Here I tought we were too busy fellating the Sultan of Turkey, the grand Erdogan to actually give a flying f*ck about the Kurds (as long as they're not useful idiots).

Managed to get my hand on a reasonably priced SNES Classic Mini. Sat down and replayed Starfox, then tried Star Fox 2 and... it's really easy to see why it was scrapped. A few good and fun ideas but boy oh boy. Starfox had some serious framerate issues, I wonder if the original had that too (it's been too long and my original cartridge is, uhm, long gone) or if the emulator's crapping its pants there.

Posted this in the regular music threads already but since this is TEH METUL OEN11!!!: ABBA + Therion = heaven.

Aw, c'mon, give Volo some credit. Coontext would be right up his alley. And if it really was a typo it was what Bob Ross called a happy accident.

Looks like filter-bypassing to me. Assuming "coon" is actually filtered. Let's see... Nope, it isn't. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a typo but Volo making a pun. Co(o)ntext, civil war, slavery, and all that.

Meh, there's a certain irony in Americans arguing against size of all things. Isn't bigger is better a quintessential US pilosophy? The evul gubernment aside.

Everspace got an expansion/DLC. Guess I'll sink more hours into the game to keep my 100% completion rate. Plus there's a new ship to play around with... one that allows component modification four times rather than three. Mmmm, welcome my new 3k range Beam Laser M, meet some dead Outlaws...

Terranigma was the epitome of (action) JRPGs on the SNES. It certainly is better than Secret of Mana in pretty much every aspect, but it never got an official North American release... in terms of atmosphere and storytelling I'd rate Illusion of Gaia/Time also a bit higher than Secret of Mana, but that might be just me. Well it should also be mentioned that the various translations and releases vary a bit and the adaptational botching is apparently pretty strong in SoM. It has a special place in my gaming history as a sequel to Final Fantasy Adventure (aka Mystic Quest) which is pretty much one of my favorite games ever.

This thread went far too long without some Moonspell:

Wheee!

No, but they have to partake in the public plan - costs vary between nations and are usually shared by the employee and the employer. It's not all medical costs but also other types of insurance (e.g. workplace accidents or unemployment), paid sickleave, vacations and last but not least pensions. How much that is depends on the nations and vocations - some high risk jobs come with larger insurance costs (but usually at the employer's end, what with us being commies and all). There are companies offering additional benefits. The place I work at offers a tax free additional pension plan where a certain amount of money is deducted each month from my income before taxes, free use of the nearby tennis courts and uhm some hokum voodoo stuff like shiatsu massages.

For adults, yes, at least at a first glance. For children, no idea to be honest, but most likely not the full rate. Public insurance automatically covers one's children and a non-working spouse as well. You'd also remain covered while receiving unemployment pay or our needs-based minimum benefit. Minimum benefit is vailable for every citizen, them dirty foreigners as long as they have lived here for at least five years and refugees who were actually granted asylum. The actual costs for the minimum benefits are just a tiny speck of the budget (in the area of roughly 1%). To put things into perspective the money that went into the bank bailout during the financial crisis (uhm, too big to fail and all that) could have financed the minimum benefit system for 30 years. Eh, sorry for the tanget here.

's where I bought NWN from, the collector's edition with the cloth map. Boy what a fine disappointment that ended up being, at least until the expansions came out and some really good user created content was available. The shop's been kaputt for a while now though.