majestic

And that's after they tuned the necessary XP for level ups down. Twice. In other words, happy grinding. At the end of the day this is a JRPG style game.

We're currently having a lively debate about tax-funded esotericism after it became public that a certain hospital currently under construction that already has to deal with major cost and time overruns has been "energetically cleaned" by a quack claiming to be able to "permanently protect a building from negative energy" by creating an "energy ring" around the estate. For the small change of only 95k €. 's pratically a steal, right? Can't have that negative energy seeping into already sick patients and all. Perhaps that'll raise public awareness a bit, because so far there's been no outcry that hospitals wasted good money on Grander water which is very much on the same level of quackery.

The random soul readings are backer content, hence the wildly varying quality. They're not even really part of the world building, so you could just ignore them.

Finished my rewatch of Enterprise. I know I've posted a lot about how terrible the first two seasons were, but to be fair to the show one also needs to point out just how good the fourth one was. I'd put the season in Trek's top tier. They finally hit their stride and started doing stuff a Trek prequel of the era should have been doing all along, and I enjoyed the format of shorter storylines spanning a few episodes (the Xindi story in season three, while good and much better than what came before suffered a bit from going the full duration of the season). Well, here's to hoping STD will take an equal turn for the better. Hopefully before it gets cancelled. Although ENT always at least had likeable characters (and continued the Trek tradition of having great doctors. Uhm, yeah, maybe except Beverly and that Pulaski thing).

Got the No Khan Do achievement in my current Stellaris game in the most underwhelming and hilarious way possible. The part of the galaxy where my empire is still had a small patch of utterly unexplored systems beyond a neighbouring empire that my federation "liberated" a while ago. The small, unexplored patch was bordered by a marauder empire on one and a fallen empire on the other end. Sometime during the mid 2300s I got the message that the Great Khan unified the tribes of a marauder empire that I never heard of. It was right in the middle of the unknown regions. The Great Khan was, uhm, stuck between hostile marauders and a fallen empire and promptly proceeded to get his entire fleet trashed, effectively killing the first marauders and his own in one fell swoop. 'Twas easy pickings from there.

I've played a couple of hours of Vaporum and I'm bound to finish it eventually - once I finish one of my Stellaris campaigns. *sigh*

As long as the work is self-conscious about it there's a chance for it to be good. One of the things I don't agree with Jay is on Kung Fury - he didn't like it, I found it hilarious (it is referenced in their Turbo Kid Half in the Bag episode I think). At the end Kung Fury is still the product of someone's love for 80ies action and sci-fi flicks and it has the Hoff, because of course it does. That said I'm not going to either dismiss or watch anything based on an io9 review.

You're like the love child of Karzak and Caelis, and if you don't do that on purpose then maybe you should re-think that. You've got a real gift here.

I too saw Annihilation on Netflix (based on Mike & Jay liking it) and I was left both impressed and a bit disappointed. The disappointment was not from the actual movie but my own expectations. The film was great, having the potential to become a classic, it just wasn't nearly as thought provoking for me as I thought it would be based on the comments and reviews I've read and seen. Anyway, very much recommended for fans of classics like 2001.

Was without interweb after my cable modem died after almost 20 years of faithful service. The guy at the service point barely believed his eyes when he saw the thing. I also took the offered cable package upgrade. I now pay less per month for four times the bandwidth (in return I lost the second public IP I had until now, which I no longer need). =) Here in commie land unless you initially agreed upon a fixed term a landlord cannot unilaterally terminate a tenancy agreement at any given point unless the tenant is in clear violation of the contract or represents a danger to the building or other tenants.

That reminds me I still need to play Banner Saga 2.

You'd be surprised how often that argument comes up in earnest. It's a staple question or demand of many a populist party in Europe at the moment and while it sounds reasonable it is just emotionally loaded. Commiting crimes does lead to deportation. It is not immediate for legal (and moral) reasons. The times were all criminals were just dumped in Australia are sort of over, for better or worse.

I always thought people who actually stare at the butts of their characters instead of paying attention to what's happening on screen to be the reason why I spent to many hours yelling at my screen infrustration while playing MMOs. The hell, the only important thing is the hitbox of your character relative to environmental dangers. Why bother giving a rat's behind about how it looks? Yay, earworm attack. And for everyone who didn't get it, just so you can enjoy it too: Time to rinse my ears with some Rammstein.

I kind of struggled through Season 1... and the only reason I kept watching was for Doctor Who Kilgrave. Then again, my favorite Marvel anything is Agents of SHIELD so I might not be the best point of reference.

*grabs a pitchfork, some tar and a torch* Kill the heretic! Fie!

Still Stellaris with some Half-Life to mix things up a little. I stopped my machine empire game for the time being until the domination issue is ironed out. Taking the last few enemy planets will just annoy everyone else, what with the whole xenophage issue and all (oh which is also happily bugged, or at least was while I still played the machine empire game).

I've played Syndicate extensively when it came out. The research system, the way you can buy more intel on a location before going in, the atmosphere and the fact that you have to mind rape people into following you while essentially playing an evil multinational corporation hell-bent on world domination and all that back in '93, seriously, what's not to love? The combat isn't really an issue, the gameplay is slow enough. It's nowhere near the level of current RTSs and MOBAs in terms of APM requirements. Planning the missions and figuring things out is great fun and you even have a certain degree of freedom in how you approach your objective (well not in the early missions like the first one). Steal cars, mind-rape civilians and put them in the crossfire, climb on a tower to snipe down or use your rocket launchers to incinerate a well fortified position while watching the people inside run around in panic and burn (yeah well you can see them moving on the scanner, just imagine the screams and all). Hell you can outfit your agents with a self destruct device and make them very effective suidice bombers (mind rape a few civilians to follow the bomber for extra fun). The original only had one really difficult mission where the real time nature of the game became a bit of an issue and that was Atlantis Station, and in normal playthroughs that's the very final one you'll be attempting. Also, like with many other games that age you can use a fan made improved engine in the form of FreeSynd.

I've been rewatching ENT for a while now. Started two months before Discovery first aired I had planned to at least see ENT and TOS before STD started but... that didn't work out due to me getting stuck in ENT's second season for a long time. Considering how STD turned out I'm glad I didn't bother brushing up on this era's Trek timeline (iI mean not because I don't like TOS but STD wouldn't have been worth the effort to push through ENT's dreadful start). Still, I now managed to pass season 2 and ended up binging the third season. It's a pity the show got the axe just when it became interesting to watch. I'm looking forward to season 4 (well except the opening two parter, dear god) but I dread the end. ENT had the worst ending of any Trek show and it ranks high up there with all the worst TV show endings ever.

To echo one of the comments on YouTube: There is one thing wrong with the song: It ends!

Both empires on my borders formed a very early defensive pact forcing me to deal with both or do nothing. I eventually defeated them both by salami slicing their empires and defeating their fleets by placing outpost and starbases with defense platforms near the borders and goading their fleets into attacking them. Progress is slow and constatnly fighting on two fronts racks up war exhaustion quickly. Took me several declarations of war with enforced peace treaties in between to finally punch them hard enough so they no longer matter. I just wish I could make them vassals or tributaries. For some reason while I can adpot the domination tradition it didn't unlock the options for me. Googled a bit but I still don't know if machine empires aren't supposed to be able to create vassals in 2.0 (and should have a different set of traditions in place of domination) or if it is just bugged.

Pretty sure I posted this before but here goes nothing:

Tried sneak attacking my annoyed neighbor, with the effect that I lost three systems to a major counterattack I wasn't exactly ready for. Started to rebuild my forces while expanding a bit. Guy next door kept claiming systems and declared war. I thought I was done for but luckily for me most of his fleet were still the missile bearing corvettes from before and my shiny new destroyers came with point defense installed. 'Twas fun seeing the two fleets evenly matched at first with the enemy fleet power dropping to half in a few seconds. A status quo peace offering left me with getting most of my old systems back. The new war system is pretty nice. It's too early to judge but so far warfare feels much more lively and less static than before.

I'm also on a new Stellaris game what with the major changes and the new DLC. My little machine empire is doing quite well, but I accidentially annoyed a neighbouring empire by... accidentially closing borders. I mean I meant to close my borders, just not with them. Ah well. I wonder if I'll ever see the synthetic or spiritualistic ascension paths. Playing a hive mind without having to worry about ethics drift and factions is just too tempting. Especially since I like larger galaxies.

The first five and a half minutes of Half-Life, the only thing you could do was walk around a bit in your train cabin. And it was the best thing ever. 1998 was an incredible year for gaming. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Metal Gear Solid, Half-Life, Fallout 2, Baldur's Gate, StarCraft, Pokemon, Grim Fandango, Thief: The Dark Project, Banjo-Kazooie, Unreal... Actually it might just have been the best year in gaming of all time.

Having a copy of a record for private use is specifically stated not to be a case of copyright infringement in the US and most of the EU (the UK being a major exception here). One might find it morally objectionable but it's not illegal in the same way some nations handle drug possession where having a small amount of recreational drugs for private use isn't illegal but the act of selling and producing them is. Of course that means one can't legally acquire a blunt or two but you can smoke them without fear of legal action. So, not sure why discussing Pink Floyd is still a thing.