213374U

Paradox Interactive: "The 70/30 revenue split is outrageous" I wonder what was the split when they ran GamersGate. Paradox talking about greed is rich, in any case.

INSTEX is, as far as I know, a way to handle trade for private actors. This is not the same as, say, Italy buying 1,000,000 barrels of crude straight from Iran (and paying in euros) to then resell internally. It's going to fail because (1) private companies will not want to risk violating the embargo and (2) Euros are pussies that won't scratch their noses without getting express permission from the US first. Though, after Trump backpedaled on the whole Huawei mess, I'm not sure who would take any such ultimatums seriously anymore.

Iran advertising that they are breaking the agreement imposed limits by wednesday or whenever looks to me more like an attempt to force concessions out of Yurop than a genuine effort to build a nuclear arsenal. At some point, however, what else are they going to do with all that weapons-grade uranium? I wonder if it would be possible to negotiate a deal with Iran to pay for oil in euros. I understand private companies not wanting to run afoul of the US embargo, but if the German gov't wanted to indulge in a bit of economic command...?

Heh. Yuri Bezmenov was certain that "true believers" would be the first to be lined up and shot after they had served their purpose and became disillusioned. I guess you believe that Bernie actually buys what he's peddling himself. Me, I'm not so sure. Fun fact. Robespierre was, early on, opposed to the death penalty. Hammurabi.

This in spite of the fact that he specifically and repeatedly mentioned that it could be a problem with Muslims pushing for Sharia as well? What an odd assumption to make. And I'm pretty sure that Christians aren't victims of any persecution worth noting in Australia. Context and ****.

Yeah, that's what I was asking about. Coming from a place where the Church also holds disproportionate power and influence, my perspective on what other countries view as normal regarding the weight of religious sentiment is skewed. I get the feeling that with the general erosion of confidence in the current social contract as a result of rising inequality, corruption and sociopolitical polarization comes the threat of a weakening of support for the -⁠secular- framework that allows a degree of peaceful coexistence in Western societies. I don't think you can stop religious groups (or any other group that nurtures their own myths about the "common good") from resisting secular law from time to time. The anomaly is that secular magistrates aren't coming down on them like a ton of bricks. Can you guess what happens if instead of some picayune issue like, oh, sexual abuse of minors, an organization starts routinely resisting taxation on moral grounds? The cries of discrimination in this context are yet another example of idpol being rubbish.

From what I remember from reading r/battletechgame, that's a common objection -- frequently mentioned in the Steam reviews too. Apparently, outside of the new biomes, a lot of the things included in the DLCs had been done by mods before. Personally, for $20 I'd expect something like air support and infantry, a new campaign, and a handful of new mechs. It's not even worth my time to reinstall the game for what they offer currently.

Does 5e still use Vancian magic? I was under the impression that that system went the way of the dodo with 4e.

take a seat young Skywalker

I asked specifically because I didn't understand the 19th century remark. I think we can all agree that pond scum should be allowed to sue for whatever. Doesn't mean the courts can't immediately throw out lawsuits due to lack of merit, and slap plaintiffs down as frivolous litigants if they persist. I guess the issue is how he's going to frame the complaint. If he's claiming that he was wrongfully terminated as a result of religious discrimination, he'll have to meet whatever threshold of evidence the law prescribes for that. That would probably require finding other instances of discrimination against other overtly Christian players. On the other hand if he's simply suing for breach of contract and he hasn't done anything illegal, well... it's a matter of contract law between two private entities, isn't it? Maybe FA will learn something from it. In either case, it seems to me that this is just one occurrence of some guy being a waste of oxygen, rather than a problem with Australia. Unless what you are worried about is the amount of support he gets from "Christians" across Australian society -- hence my question.

Does it bother you that he can bring a lawsuit against his former employer over this, or that self-styled "Christian" groups are willing to foot the bill?

The bumblebee thing is actually the other way around -- just one guy (an entomologist at that, rather than an engineer or biophysicist) claiming it was "impossible" rather than any kind of broad scientific consensus. You know, similar to how Einstein rejected the probabilistic aspect of quantum mechanics, despite having had a leading hand in laying the foundations for the theory himself, and against the accuracy of its predictions. When one is completely clueless about complex topics, it's advisable to keep an open mind rather than immediately embracing the opinion of the one expert, even against the consensus of other specialists in the field or, well... readily observable facts.

It might be. But then who's going to pay for those $200M+ drones?

That's... outrageous! Shouldn't someone make a YT video or ten about it? https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/iq-rates-are-dropping-many-developed-countries-doesn-t-bode-ncna1008576 The stultification is real.

The original class stories remain, for me, the best part of the game. The problem is the gameplay that comes with them them is... rote and stale, at best. I'm not sure if you experienced it, but since 4.0 (?) companions basically play the game for you, and level sync means that previously formidable end-chapter bosses are reduced to starter-planet level jokes, in many cases. If you are a previously experienced player capable of such heroic feats as reading tooltips, interrupting casts and using DCDs, the difference between what you remember and what is will be even more acute, resulting in basically a ruined experience of what was very decent content. You're better off just reading about it or watching the story in YT, I'm afraid.

I'm a Fassbender fanboy so I didn't mind that they gave him an even more central role in Covenant. I agree with you about Shaw fixing him though, technical problems aside. David as a literal talking head had interesting potential, and I always liked that scene in Alien in which, after getting beat up with a tire iron, Ash calmly patronizes the crew. I wasn't impressed by what they did to Shaw either. Watching the movie itself, what bothered me most was that supposedly competent professionals can't seem to stop doing really stupid **** all the time. Alien had none of that and they were just glorified space truckers. I'm not sure what kind of movie were they even going for in Covenant. I also remain unconvinced that they had any idea how to solve the Engineers in an elegant manner -- an inherited problem. I think Covenant in general suffered from being a movie made for the sake of making a sequel rather than having a strong idea or two of its own, to build on.

"If there was no insanity, it would be necessary to create it" -Catbag

No. My understanding is that it'll simply access your all of your libraries (that you give it permission to) to launch titles you have purchased from other storefronts. All with one click through Galaxy's interface. No need to have other launchers installed, but your games won't really be on your GOG account unless you purchase them from GOG.com, just like it is now.

I'd say wait at least a month or so, if you absolutely must and have nothing better to do with your time. They are supposed to be testing expansion changes on PTS during summer so you'll have a better idea of whether it's up your alley. Any effort you put in now is going to be more or less wasted.

Is it though? Seems to me that's exactly how you escalate the situation. One or two dead SAM operators, and next week they are the ones saying that doing nothing is how you encourage further aggression. And so they try a massed missile strike against the destroyer that launched the tomahawks. See where this is going? Do not lose sight of the fact that, even if they broke your expensive toys, no one has been killed yet. Call me crazy, but wouldn't it be more effective to present a clear case with indisputable evidence that Iran is the bad guy here, to try and get broad support before banging the war drums? That's assuming the goal here is to avoid war, of course.

Man, I miss hybrid builds so much. They were so quirky and oddly inefficient... and yet so flexible. Healer (and tank) DPS is still important, though, and I'd say it's mandatory for healers to do some damage in certain encounters. Tanks are already at a point where stock equipment puts you deep in diminishing returns territory for mitigation, so I'm running with all power mods, which also have better endurance to boot. Some even recommend an alacrity enhancement or two. As for gearing, the much-maligned Galactic Command system made sure that you didn't depend exclusively on boss drops to be geared, which I believe is an improvement, even if the actual implementation leaves a lot to be desired. Currently they are using a system where just running dailies on a certain planet is more than enough to get you overgeared for even nims, and their stated intention is to reduce the impact of pure RNG while also making gearing through raiding and pvp valid paths for people who engage in them. Promises, promises...

EA: "We don't call them loot boxes", they're "surprise mechanics"

Nice. You have way more experience than me then, both in the content and in the "politics". Personally, I just enjoy learning the ins-and-outs, checking combat logs, identifying mistakes, and training to execute a strategy. I'm the weirdo without any titles on and only ever using "activate random mount". Most people I've come across are all about "cheevos", though. As I said, there's no drama to speak of, but I can definitely see the potential for the mood to go sour. That'd be my cue to bail. There is no current "mandatory" tanks currently among other things because of overgearing. PT gets a bad rap, but people have cleared all content with those, so everything is "viable" at the moment. Maybe not the best choice for cheesing Brontes orbs, but the team can readjust -- and if they can't, well, maybe they need to work on that. Having an AoE hard stun, grapple, and ranged abilities is nice on Tyth, for instance. I don't know about healers being able to heal through mechanics anymore, though. Our DDs get thorough grillings for standing in stupid and their DTPS is almost as closely monitored as their DPS. But it's possible you were simply... better? Actually, in my experience if the healer bites it, it's usually the tank's fault (barring occurrences of standing in stupid).

It's a matter of definitions, I suspect. Iran is claiming that the drone was inside their "airspace". It's possible it technically wasn't within the customary 12NM area while still remaining inside Tehran Flight Information Region. FIRs aren't interchangeable with sovereign airspace, but countries are still responsible for air traffic control within their respective FIRs.

I mean, I've been playing this game on and off since 2013 and only stepped in a nim instance last month. It's a good time to be a noob because we are a full two gear tiers above content tuning. And yeah, Shadow/Sin is downright unfair with its "**** mechanics LOL" button and spammable 60% DR. But it's kinda made of paper otherwise. If I screwed up DCD management or slip with Dark Ward, I was getting hit for 110k+ on Kephess. From hero to zero with this simple trick / healers HATE him, etc. Mostly I'm curious to see what they are going to do with the expansion because everything they've been saying sounds too good to believe. I've been hurt before and all that.