213374U

Not so hot because, shockingly to many, our public health system has gone down the ****ter after years of cuts (and then power transfers to regional governments who are even worse) by politicians of both colors. Almost unimaginable amounts of incompetence have resulted in basic constitutional rights being suspended, in an unprecedented overreach by the government since democracy was installed 40 years ago. Worst of all is a vast majority actually support this because they are scared out of their minds. I wish I could say I'm disappointed, but I think I completely lost that ability about a decade ago. Personally I'm fine, but no doubt that will change as the government crashes this economy with no survivors. Thanks for asking though.

Ghost Recon Breakpoint. The patch that dropped last month basically turned the game around from yet another insipid shooter-looter into something resembling a worthy successor to Wildlands. I'm having a lot of fun with it but, as always, coop makes just about anything fun. Speaking of which, they made it so that game owners can invite up to three other people who don't have it, to play in the same session.

Not exactly. You will be arrested for (repeatedly) ignoring a lawful order, which amounts to resisting authority. The order in question is to accompany them to the station for an identity check, but you will not be under arrest so they can't cuff you, book you, make you spend the night in a cell, or subject you to any of the other generally unpleasant consequences of an actual arrest. If you could just ignore cops' orders and walk away, they wouldn't be the "authority" at all.

A Tiger at Bronx Zoo Tests Positive for COVID-19

Split the conversation about the virus to the corona thread to try and keep it, er, contained there.

That looks a lot like the crew quarters on a cruise ship. Past outbreaks on ships simply haven't reached the epic proportions you suggest. I'd guess there are procedures in place to deal with outbreaks aboard warships, and again, the rate of positive tests does not equal the rate of spread. So on one hand you have cases of outbreaks aboard ships and estimates of IFR based on data, and on the other you have... Gromnir's apocalyptic hunches. Ok. So, whatever, I have neither the time nor the inclination.

Not maths, but "maths". You are going off a simplistic assumption where the susceptible fraction never decreases and so the doubling rate remains constant forever until 100% infection is reached. It just doesn't work like that. Just like "the surge multiplying death rate" doesn't work like that either, because you are not looking at a general population sample, mechanical ventilation isn't a requirement in the overwhelming majority of cases, as much as 50% of infections may be asymptomatic, and rate of positive tests is not the same as rate of infection. "Maths". A hunch tells you it'd be literally the worst ever. Ok.

So... you have a hunch it'd be worse? Ok.

Fair. I have no idea what the actual powers of an (acting) Secretary of the Navy are. If the removal is unlawful, one would imagine that a lawsuit would immediately ensue. I hope that will be the case. And while I'm sure the men under his command reckon that he did right by them, if it turns out that he did really go around the chain of command, I have very little doubt that he will have lost the confidence of the Navy -and not just that of the administration du jour- if only because the leak can make it look so those higher up were aware of the problem and chose to do nothing out of incompetence or callousness, while he looks like he sacrificed his career to save the day. This is a separate matter from concerns about political micromanagement of the military. Doubtful. As I posted in the other thread, the infection fatality ratio for SARS-CoV-2 is currently estimated at .66%. So with a complement of 5,700, you're looking at roughly 38 deaths, assuming a 100% infection scenario, which is unrealistic in and of itself. And that .66% is the gross figure, but it's known that there's a heavy age bias. How many sailors or airmen are aged 70+? A scenario that may help put into perspective how the disease would progress on a ship is the Diamond Princess, where 712 out of roughly 3,700 embarked caught it, and 12 died. Again, that's on a cruise ship with many more seniors on board than a warship. Then compare to Scorpion or Hobson. That being said, I agree with Crozier that no sailors needed to die in this situation. 40 servicemen losing their lives just so Trump can save face is unacceptable. But let's keep our shirts on.

Has Crozier actually been disciplined? I read he had been relieved of command. Sea commands are discretionary assignments -- if he went around the CoC, it stands to reason that he'd "lose the confidence" of the Navy to be in command of the Roosevelt. That may have career-ending ramifications, but is he facing actual charges? Takes guts to throw your career away like that so hats off in that regard, though I'm not sure if it'll serve the intended purpose. If you're going to fall on a grenade, so to speak, make the sacrifice count and all that. As for randomly asking for IDs, that's the norm here as well (and in most of Europe as far as I know). It's funny because while you can be fined and arrested for refusing, there's jurisprudence that you cannot be charged for not having it on you, because the law can't -or at least doesn't- require one to have an ID on them at all times. Worst that can happen is you'll have to accompany the cops to the station so your identity can be verified, but you won't actually be under arrest unless you resist. Last time they stopped me they gave me these pissed looks and "recommended" that I don't leave the house without it. I played dumb, but I know better than to give cops lip.

No, I don't think they'd shoot themselves in the foot like that. It'd be enough to simply build or upgrade an infrastructure that uses "New IP" for peanuts so no reasonable government would choose the competition, with assurances that an implementation of dual stack or whatever will guarantee compatibility with the wider net. It's all speculative at this point of course, because there isn't an RFC as far as I'm aware, and some of the things I've seen reported are simply idiotic ("devices within the same network communicating without going through the internet"?). But I doubt they'd just work on something they know has no chance of ever being adopted outside of China -- if even that. And I'm aware that NSA spyware-laden hardware is not a better alternative. %country% spyware on top of a network protocol with built-in censorship and surveillance features for freedom-loving democratic Western governments to exploit is something I'd much rather avoid.

I hadn't heard about this, thanks for posting it. A pity that the COVID crisis is letting things like this fly under the radar, but I doubt that'll be the last time we hear about it. Huawei has its tendrils firmly wrapped around the internet infrastructure in many countries, and they will be in a tough position to refuse implementation. I predict that, as per usual, the EU "recommendation" to watch Huawei will amount to nothing and the bunch of cronies, incompetents and lazy asses appointed to do it will instead let the Chinese further their agenda unopposed. And developing countries don't even have that layer of "protection". I'm bringing this conversation here, where I feel it belongs, I hope you don't mind.

Study estimates overall IFR to be 0.66%. Even if that seems much lower than what one may think, it's worth remembering that IFR for the seasonal flu is ~0.1%. The 1918 one was ~2%.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2238578-uk-has-enough-intensive-care-units-for-coronavirus-expert-predicts/

I've read reports of isolated looting and calls to revolt in Southern Italy. I wonder how long before governments in my neck of the woods start out-CCPing the CCP.

I don't know about Italy, but I can tell you that if there's anything massive about what's going on in Spain, it is the incompetence. By March 8-10, there were massive political rallies going on, crowds gathering outside stadiums (because the venues themselves were closed), a huge feminist demonstration, etc. It was business as usual because back then the official stance was "everything's under control, no biggie". Literally nothing was being done. That very Sunday, the confinement measures were decreed. We're now seeing the consequences of years of cuts in the public healthcare system. One of the reasons why Germany is doing so well comparatively is because they have about 3x as many ICU beds per capita -- not to mention the exhaustive and early testing and contagion monitoring. Hospitals and law enforcement here lack basic supplies such as face masks and gloves because they are now impossible to come by. Retirement homes are being left to fend for themselves because private contractors had been plundering them for years but no one gave two ****s and now hospitals just can't handle the situation. So now we have draconian measures that forbid even going for a walk by yourself in hopes that fines and army rifles will stop a virus. That is the Spanish way. It won't work of course, because there have been more than 1,000 arrests and 100k+ fines already, and we aren't even two weeks in. Good luck keeping 95% of the population under house arrest with no end in sight. I'd like to see a source on that, if possible. Average ICU stay is 8 days, and total hospital stay is 11, from what I've read.

Sure, if it's a binary choice between either design, I'll go for the skill threshold too. But I'd instead prefer a system that lets the player deal with the consequences of actions that carry a degree of uncertainty. So instead of psychically turning the entire village permanently hostile ‑locking you out of content‑ on a failed pickpocket roll, a system that expands on the way DOS2 does it where the guards are called and then they try to arrest you, would be preferable. A failed pickpocket roll becomes content rather than a not-so-subtle encouragement to quick load. At the end of the day it's a question of resources, and personally I'd much rather have said resources allocated to developing interesting systems and mechanics than all the bells and whistles that are more easily marketable but don't add much play to a game.

I managed to do it with a combination of high Celerity, the AoE stun effect from Presence and abusing the melee attack that sends people flying. IIRC you get an XP bonus for saving him, but it may not be worth the hassle.

Save scumming is a symptom, not a cause. The causes themselves can be diverse -- perceived unfairness (XCOM syndrome), design that rewards it, learned habits on the player's part, etc. So yeah, anything that seeks to address the cause(s) and leads to less time spent looking at progress bars and more time playing the game is a step in the right direction. edit: beaten to the punch. And more eloquently to boot.

Yep. It was mentioned in one of the videos posted in the thread that save scumming, while not impossible, was discouraged organically because of how rolls and their outcomes played out. A series of successive rolls leading to different outcomes may not discourage the die-hards that will settle for nothing less than *epic success* in each roll, but it will do away with the situation that Oner described where an early fail means a reload. Age of Decadence made save scumming almost irrelevant as well by virtue of making non-starter scenarios akin to banging your head against a wall. And for all we know the game could incorporate a system similar to that of Alpha Protocol's checkpoint system and delayed consequences to further discourage save scumming. Of course, it's entirely possible that this is nothing but industry-standard puffery and Swen really is just full of it. In any case, I'm thinking the reroll will probably not be like in the originals where the added totals were dumped into a pool for the player to assign freely. More likely it'll be based on the p&p system where you roll 4 and add the best 3 up, write that down, repeat x6. Then you assign the values to each stat. Which significantly increases the needed time to get truly broken totals to possibly... days? Weeks? There's an almost poetic beauty to the idea of folks spending literal days playing the BG3 stat generator slot machine only to get a broken game experience as reward.

Man Faces Terror Charge After Allegedly Coughing Toward Worker, Citing Virus i cant even

Wow, the epidemic is now spreading to other posts!

And since this is only remotely related to corona, it goes here, rather than in that thread as no doubt Bibi would prefer: Was the delay of Netanyahu's trial cynical or legal? - analysis Folks in the US and elsewhere should keep their eyes peeled for local ****bags trying to pull similar stunts.

Plus, you can keep saying that you'd never join a club that would have you as a member.

Again: Thread pruned.