213374U

But it works! Source: Petersen is a pretty cool guy. Eh fights wamen and doesnt afraid of anything

Yeah. Even though I'm not a fan of the strident tone and hyperbole (3-day detention is hardly comparable to deportation and forced labor), there is an authoritarian drift going on in Europe, and possibly the world at large. We've had people handed jail sentences for twatter jokes, insulting the Crown, and other trivial **** that no one in their right mind would have suggested constitutes a criminal offense a generation ago. Meanwhile, we plan a general strike and mass demonstrations on "international women's day". Seems legit. Everyone knows we are a banana republic kingdom, but it's somewhat unnerving to see it also happening in countries that supposedly enshrined individual rights. Props to the guy for not making a 10:01 video, but regardless, it's still rather weak substance-wise. Oh well, at least it's not Sargon.

Haha. The only place you'll hear a Catalan politician speak Spanish? A German TV documentary.

None taken. But I still don't see what's there to figure out. Brute force > tactics. Among other things because enemies don't heal themselves (other than Ashe's Aegis, which is one of the few things you should deal with), interrupts don't work very well but that's not much of a problem because the AI doesn't use many control/status effects and/or they are weak, and mob stats are all over the place. For instance. High threat Scarlet Fury snipers have large HP pools and high armor, while frontliners are trash. Looks good on paper, until you realize that engagement attacks are a joke and you can ignore them. Just chain stun and focus the Furies, and then it's game over for the AI. Casters? Who cares, worst thing they do is cast a smelly cloud or something that will prevent your melee from casting spells... which they shouldn't be doing anyway. But sure, let's give them massive defensive bonuses, because reasons. Just... not very good design all around. To me the gold standard is still Stratagems. After all these years I don't think I ever managed to beat Kangaxx without Disruption and ProMagic cheese. And the double dragon brawl at Chez Abazigal? Just keep that quickload handy. Funny thing... they are all legit characters, with only level-appropriate items and abilities. Why can't professional devs into combat design?

Heh. I'm just replaying Tyranny because DLC is on sale yadda yadda, and much as I like the game, I'm really struggling to finish because the combat is just so bad. For some reason, designers figured that it made perfect sense for enemy casters to have higher defenses and physical resistances than melee fighters, as well as comparable HP, becuz muh challenge or something. Game's combat is plagued with that sort of stupid ****. And it's one of the newer iso CRPGs, you'd think they would have it down pat by now. I'm much happier after switching to story mode. Shame this game doesn't just have a killsw01 equivalent that I can use to reduce the time wasted to a minimum. I more than fulfill my raging quota in PUBG, thank you very much. Don't need any extra aggravation. I really never had an issue with the combat in Tyranny, I mainly play a caster though. Have you tried min maxing, and choosing some spells to buff your characters skills? I just spam Lore training so I can open with 3-4 max damage storm-style spells and the combat is finished even before lord somethingorother has finished blabbing about this or that. Or buff myself to 300+ parry with mirror image and exploit riposte with a vampiric weapon, and sit there cackling and repeating "stop hitting yourself". It's nowhere near as fun as it sounds, really. You have specific caster-disabling abilities (such as Eb's drowning effect) that fail 90% of the time because casters are more physically durable than frontline fighters, so there's little point in using anything that isn't brute force. And then you have Lantry's anti-mage stance which, with a sufficiently low recovery, allows him to keep several casters locked down by himself. Bah. And that's on Hard. So I just set it to easy to avoid the cheese-fest. Click that, stuff dies, next talk. My point was that the combat system is... bad, the tuning is worse, and there is just so much of it.

HA! Good Fun! ps @ gd: is sad/funny to do searches for little kids who were suspended or expelled for making the finger-gun gesture at a school. is not a singular oddity. This poor kid didn't even do that much. He just commented the radix a symbol used in math for some 700 years no is not more looked like a pistol. I guess we'll ban square roots and radicals from class now. It will make math a little easier for the kids. It will be problematic for the future advances in science and engineering though. At least for American students. If someone mentions the + looks like a rifle cross hair maybe we can get addition banned too. Better stop teaching vector product in high schools. Better safe than sorry.

Heh. I'm just replaying Tyranny because DLC is on sale yadda yadda, and much as I like the game, I'm really struggling to finish because the combat is just so bad. For some reason, designers figured that it made perfect sense for enemy casters to have higher defenses and physical resistances than melee fighters, as well as comparable HP, becuz muh challenge or something. Game's combat is plagued with that sort of stupid ****. And it's one of the newer iso CRPGs, you'd think they would have it down pat by now. I'm much happier after switching to story mode. Shame this game doesn't just have a killsw01 equivalent that I can use to reduce the time wasted to a minimum. I more than fulfill my raging quota in PUBG, thank you very much. Don't need any extra aggravation.

Well they did already release a whole bunch of free content, including stuff like fightes and bombers for space battles, new quests and quest chains etc. And considering the way Endless Legend kept growing throughout its support period, I'd say chances are good. Sure, I have no reason beyond my own jadedness to disbelieve the devs' statements in this regard. I was pleasantly surprised by how responsive they are and patches seem to be released regularly. The free content is nice, but I hope they will keep releasing it in the vein of the Galactic Statecraft update rather than making it subject to Steam account linking. I'm perfectly happy to buy your DLC if it offers good value, but don't make me make yet another throwaway account goddammit! Their track record regarding DLC and apparent openness and interaction with customers is what finally sold me on ES2 before Stellaris, but that's not really a game-specific point.

I haven't played Stellaris that much (I got it only for ST New Horizons), but they are different types of games. They share the "strategy in space" theme, but that's about it. Stellaris is your typical Paradox grand strategy simulation, with rather unfocused campaigns. Not that that's a bad thing, but in contrast, ES2 has clear, well-defined victory conditions, to be reached within a given amount of turns. Games are much shorter in ES2, but you can change this by playing on slower speeds. This isn't something I would personally recommend, as game speeds aren't the most thoroughly tested element and you can get stupid interactions such as your systems not producing enough food and pops starving on turn 1. ES2 is a more traditional 4X game, where you start with one node and two units and go from there, in a randomized environment. What I like about ES2 is that the different factions not only have their own distinct quests and lore, but they really play differently. For instance, the Riftborn mentioned in an earlier post do not reproduce naturally* and need to be manufactured, which puts you in the difficult position of deciding whether to delay production or growth. The Vodyani are shipbound and do not grow naturally either, but make up for this by being nomadic and can just pack up and leave for greener systems, or squat on your neighbor's backyard to prevent them from seizing some nice real estate. You can also create your own custom factions, and make them as broken or gimped as you want. Civics/government is less well developed in ES2, no two ways about it. You get one government type out of four available, which aren't necessarily all that different, and which you can change after researching the requisite tech, and a ruling party which determines available policies. Who are the ruling party(es) is influenced partly by your decisions, partly by your political system, and partly by the makeup of your pops. This is one of the weakest points of the game, but AFAIK, the devs have promised to revise and expand on it. (Promises, promises...) Pop management is really basic in ES2, and it ranges from awkward workarounds to downright infuriating mechanics you can do nothing about. On the other hand, I'd say combat is better because it allows you some agency in battles in the form of tactics "cards", and it isn't just about who has the bigger stack. Ship design is elementary, but can give you a huge edge if you know what you're doing. The combat system is deceptively complex, but the details aren't something you need concern yourself with at the beginning (or at all). Research/tech is your usual 4X tech tree, only modified by racial affinity, in contrast to the semi-random approach which is one of the bigger selling points of Stellaris. For the time being, Amplitude hasn't hopped on the DLC milking model bandwagon too much, but they are Sega now, so the cynic in me warns that it's just a matter of time before they go full Total War. As is the case with pretty much every game these days, ES2 needs some serious patching before it can be considered a polished experience. It's currently perfectly playable and the issues are mostly minor, but they can add up. Or maybe I'm just old and cranky. Whew, that came out rather long-winded. Hope it helped.

Don't mind me. I'm just here to point out the EUSSR Supreme Soviet's latest push for online censorship (ironically, at the behest of their corporate fat cat paymasters). Enjoy. (edited to add a more up-to-date link) slowpoke.jpeg

Someone mistakenly flipped (or forgot to flip) a switch somewhere, and the expansion that was due for release on the 25th was actually released yesterday. Not sure if it's still live and if so, if it will remain that way, but so far, I seem to have access to the expansion content.

https://www.avclub.com/the-fccs-ajit-pai-now-openly-mocking-net-neutrality-pro-1821278546 So, what was that about a stabbable face again?

"First they came for the lootboxes, and I did not speak out- because I hate microtransactions..."

I don't doubt that you could, but aluminiumtrioxid already said what I was going to, so instead I'm just going to make a quick reminder that, romantic imagery aside, it is physically impossible to pull oneself up by the bootstraps. Maybe that's the "joke"? Equal opportunity doesn't mean anything, if regardless of effort, odds are that you are going to lag behind. "Life ain't fair" is not really a very good argument for exacerbating man-made unfairness. The market and wealth distribution are not naturally occurring phenomena over which humanity has no control. Economic fairness means everyone gets to compete in a level playing field, without being hindered by, among other things, the fact that labor pricing is largely outside of the control of workers. It's not really a commercial transaction, which is what selling labor is (ought to be), if you have no control over the price of what you are selling, and are forced to accept whatever you are offered because the alternatives are homelessness, starvation, the works. In practice that's actually closer to extortion. You said you worked for free. I did, too. The only difference is that I could not really afford it, so I was literally forced to tell them to go **** themselves, even though I made the connection through a family member and that reflected badly on them. Now, that's not very "fair", is it? You cannot have a luck-based meritocracy, it's an oxymoron. edit: er, just to be clear, I'm not saying that Timmy is to be given half a cookie for no work done just as Jimmy who did 40 hours. More like, make sure both Timmy and Jimmy get a cookie if they both worked 40 hours, instead of having Jimmy receive a bunch of ****ing crumbs because he has mouths to feed and no bargaining power. And btw, the world may need ditch diggers now... but not for long.

Sadly, there is no evidence that suggests that this "perfect competition" environment that would ensure absolute economic fairness and control of your destiny is anything but a fantasy. None. In fact, the more things veer towards deregulation, the worse the results for the vast majority. The typical ancap comeback is "that's because there's still much regulation impeding proper competition", but that's an unfalsifiable load of ****ing horse****, my friend. Pure rhetoric. Being honest, what do think is the cause for the expanding ranks of the working poor? Are they lazy? Are they stupid? Both? Didn't you get your education on the GI bill? Don't you think it's incredibly hypocritical then that you're crying bloody murder about the same taxes that allowed you access to better employment opportunities? The bottom line seems to be: wealth redistribution, it's awesome if "the market" does it. If the state does it, it's oppression, tyranny, etc. right? But nominally, the state represents the people. Who does the market represent, exactly? As an aside, I find it rather baffling how you keep going on about being lined up and shot when it's actually you who's constantly reminding us how willing you are to take up arms to defend your property... maybe put the guns down for a second and try to work out a compromise that doesn't involve anyone getting shot, eh?

We agree comrade, why should your boss get 85% of the value you produce? I'll see you at the next IWW meeting.

>talking about proceeds from capital/wealth "management" >talking about inheritance "but muh hard work!"

All I hear is "me, me, me". I thought this was a left-wing thing? It's perfectly legitimate to want to protect your own interests, but you don't live on a desert island. Your profits aren't earned in a vacuum, and more specifically, they are invariably the result of unequal power relations that rest on the leverage provided by the ownership of the means of production. The concept of "yours" is at society's discretion, because many others are involved in the creation of that wealth. So if the defense of your interests begins putting the whole social contract at risk, your interests are going to have to take a back seat to stability and social peace.

I love it because this argument works for everyone. If you need it, everyone else needs it too, which leads to an obviously absurd conclusion. Per your logic, I guess I am a god. QED And you are absolutely right, you only need air to breathe, food and water, and a modicum of sunlight. Medicine and shelter circumstantially, without which you may die. Which is what I was getting at before. A need does not automatically engender a right, and a right does not always represent a need. I'm not exactly sure how you think this reinforces your point, however. Speaking of privilege, property is just one such. There is no natural law that says that you can deprive anyone else of anything on this Earth -- which is ultimately what the concept of property is about. Depriving everyone else but the proprietor. This deprivation is necessarily accepted in the context of the social contract, to which it is subject, and without which you own exactly as much as you can kill other people over.

Yeah. I'm not a statistics wiz, but it's the "respondent-driven sampling" method used, rather than "true" random sampling, that I find somewhat suspect. I think the sample size is fine, though -- certainly enough to make inferences about the three cities in the study. AFAIK, it's inadvisable to extend conclusions from a limited study in this fashion, but on the other hand you'd have to argue that significant differences exist in workplace legislation violations in other major population centers. It's also worth noting that most of the data collection was carried out before the 2008 recession's effects were in full swing, so it's likely that, as you say, they are underestimating the problem. Honestly, at this point I just silently pray that someday people can realize their dreams of creating an objectivist utopia out there on the high seas or in orbit where they can establish whatever tax policy they want to. I always remember that quote about libertarians being anarchists that want police protection from their slaves. Meanwhile in Ancapistan...

Brütal Legend free: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/brutal-legend Can't beat free (unless it's Deus Ex: The Fail, in which case they effectively pay you)

Wow. I just found this pearl. You do realize that diabetes is among the top ten causes of death globally, right? So yeah, you really need "diabetes medicine" if you are diabetic. The skill with which you defeat your own points is... uncanny.

Bureaucrats and assorted public servants make up the lion's share of government* personnel, and that's a good thing if we're going to have a government at all. Much like judges, you really don't want n00b clerks handling your tax filings, for instance. Highly professionalized, well-paid public servants actually reduce government mismanagement and corruption. The problem with capping the pay of political appointees is that that's going to make problems such as influence peddling, client politics, revolving doors and other not-so-subtle forms of corruption like outright embezzlement even worse. Hopefully Stephen Hawking is right and AI will be taking over soon, completely fixing the social contract. *state, really

More likely she works for him and so he's entitled to 85% of what she writes.

Wow, you really know your stuff! Oh, wait. Not really.