Gorth

I would love to try out various types of guns, small and large, on a firing range some day. I would probably hurt my shoulder and get bruises from it in the process, but I think it would be worth just for the heck of trying it once...

🐑🐑🐑🇳🇿💕 As for the India rules, it's not an easy question to answer and I might give you a different answer if asked twice about it. I can see the practicality of it, as most of the lockdowns happening after the initial lockdown last year was caused by people traveling from India. On the other hand, locking your own citizens out of your country is not illegal, but might be "questionable" ethically. Mind you, it's not like people in India can't travel to Australia, but they would have to be somewhere else in the two weeks before returning. I think the cricketers actually took a two stopover on the Maldives before returning from India to Australia. Effectively being quarantined somewhere else before returning. They have opened up a bit for travel from India now, but you have to produce a credible, fresh negative covid test before being allowed to board (and still have to be quarantined upon return) Edit: Australia technically has a constitution, but it has little to do with people and rights and is all about the power sharing between the federal government and state governments (responsibilities and limitations of each) Edit2: It has no bill of rights

I believe that depends entirely on the rest of the world and how it handles the pandemic. If anything, the tightening of the rules regarding India shows how far they are willing to go to keep the virus out of Australia. We can always kidnap some Kiwi's if we fear inbreeding... If the rest of the world doesn't get it's act together though, yeah, I think it will be a long time before international travelers become a thing.

Repeating myself from the last 15 years... I wish they could work out something with Games Workshop (and someone who wants to publish it) some day. The world needs more games featuring tentacle violence and ritual virgin sacrifice 😛

I've only really played 3 mmo's and tried out a few more (when they went free to play or had trial periods). WoW was definitely not my thing (never made it to level 10 on my one and only character). Black Desert Online... it came, I saw, it got uninstalled. Final Fantasy XIV... same. Tried it for 3 days. Bye bye. Not that it was bad, I just didn't "dig it". Warhammer Online was the first I ever tried and that only because I'm passionate about the lore of Warhammer/WH40k. It was a realm vs. realm mmo with a cardinal sin (the combat was probably the worst, clunkiest poo pile of any mmo). Which leaves me with swtor and GW2. I enjoyed the 6-7 years I played swtor, but as you guys mentioned, the lack of content slowly drained my interest. The uninteresting grind fest that was KotFE and worse, the droid planet (which I've repressed the name of) killed the game for good for me. Disclaimer, I did get a 2 month non recurring sub recently to play through the Onderon story line and level a toon up to 75 on imp side. Struggling to find the motivation to repeat the feat on pub side. GW2 on the other hand? Playing it daily for years now. Content (story content and open world events no less) coming out at a pace where I'm struggling to keep up...

I caved in and bought Nier Replicant ver. 1.22....etc. First I thought the game was broken, as my hero (ugh, does he really have to look like a kid???) constantly stuck in "parry/combat" mode. Then I realized my new controller was the problem. Unplug and replug controller and it all ran fine. Other than hating the whole concept of "save points" (there has to be a special hell for whoever came up with that idea long ago). Visuals are nice and the music is gorgeous. Story was a bit confusing, so I checked a few youtube videos covering the backstory, including Drakengard. Was a little less confusing afterwards, if not by much 😂 Still early days though and I was warned beforehand, that first half of the game is slow paced. Edit: Regarding graphics and animations, everything runs smoothly in 3840x2160 👍

Iirc, it was about crucial things like whether it made sense that Mandalorian assault craft were lobster shaped with a rider on the back (because that's how the Dark Horse comic had shown them) or assault craft shaped (small troop transport) when doing planetary drops 😝

I do 😎 Sadly I didn't contribute anything iirc... a bit self conscious at the time I guess. I was busy being a troll and picking ugly fights with a few die-hard Bioware fanboys at the time

An interesting interview by the BBC with the director of Russian intelligence. https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-57144297 What i found interesting wasn't whether "they did it", but how politically savvy the guy is. You can always argue for or against whether they were and no doubt you would *not* get an honest answer in an interview. The fascinating part (for me) is how good he is, without a script, to respond without commitment to an actual answer. E.g. Q: Did you do it? A: The things we're publicly accused of, no! 😂 Also, when the talk is about MI6 estimating that they're only aware of 10% of all Russian intelligence operations in the UK, he doesn't answer yes or no (which sort of makes it impossible to pin him up on any outright lies). Like or dislike, got to admire skill in dealing with media when you see it.

I sometimes use a yahoo address for stuff I think might be a bit suspicious, but want to keep, I'm in the lucky owner (ok, not owner, paying customer) of a hosting service where I manage my own email accounts, ftp, website etc. Also a place where I park a number of domain names I own, including my family name and some legacy game sites I bled a lot of money for to acquire, "liberating" them from becoming parking domains for cheap mortgage type links. I would rather see a blank, white page on those addresses than seeing them being desecrated by low life spam links. Anyway, it enables me to create any number of email accounts for short term purposes that can just be deleted when I don't feel I need them anymore Edit: Ok, not quite true that I prefer blank white pages, but I never found the time to put up some proper memorial type sites for something I really loved playing way back.

Reported for racist comments!

From the linked text: "Capitalism — laissez-faire capitalism — is the ideal economic system. It is the embodiment of individual freedom and the pursuit of material self-interest. Its result is the progressive rise in the material well-being of all, manifested in lengthening life spans and ever-improving standards of living." Uh huh... laissez faire capitalism was what they had in several European countries from like 1760 to 1860... next to the dark ages, one of the darkest periods in European history. Living standards took a dive to match those of serfs in the 1200's, people becoming effectively slaves and considered property of the factory owners, not unlike slaves kept on cotton farms in the south of the US half a century later. Both were considered less than live stock and expendable before anything of value (like machinery). Hopefully the world will never see "laissez faire" capitalism again.

Saw a movie trailer on youtube yesterday, which looked quite funny (a movie called "Deadpool"), so being my impulsive, rash self, of course immediately ordered the dvd from a store. Should be here in a weeks time I hope. I noticed it has a sequel, but let's watch the first one first and then decide. If it sucks, it's the equivalent of 10 us dollars wasted, and my tears will dry up fast.

The story of David "Radioctive Boy". A young man with an obsessive compulsive disorder that forces him to build nuclear reactors... sounds weird? Probably one of those young men who is sort of part mad, part genius once you realize how far he got before getting caught (and later joined the navy, serving on a nuclear powered carrier). Also covers his tragic end after military service and he just couldn't resist trying to build a nuclear reactor at home.

Ask @kirottuabout sharp knives... 😇

As long as Germany (and Germans) do business with China, they are in no position whatsoever to lecture anyone else on the subjects of human rights and environment issues, being a knowing accomplice to the violation of both. Claiming otherwise is hypocrisy. At least I know the Australian federal government is a bunch of no good cretins owned mostly by the mineral and fossil fuel industry and they've made no secret of wanting to promote coal and it's like at the expense of renewable energy projects (and runs de facto concentration camps on remote islands to process "asylum seekers", although lets be honest the genuine asylum seekers are an almost non existing minority amongst the economic migrants) They don't pretend to care about the environment (and actively fight windmills in true Don Quixote style, to prevent renewable energy from getting a foothold in Australia) or human rights (it's not profitable for the Liberal Party)

Gives entirely new meaning to gas masks 😉

Did I mention that I think the world would be better off without Facebook? apparently the European Supreme Court does too https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/5/14/facebook-faces-devastating-data-transfer-ban-after-irish-ruling Facebooks claim that privacy protection violates free speech because it makes targeted advertising harder or some such was dismissed by court and transmission of personal information of European users to the US had to end very soon (because nobody trusts the US to respect European data privacy laws)

Lucky bastard 👍 I’ve had grey hair for so long that I’ve almost forgotten there was a time before it. I had noticeably grey hair at the age of 22 and friends at uni asked me if I used some kind of peroxide to create a particularly noticeable white, curly lock in middle of my forehead 😖 Other than the hair colour I’ve seen to maintain a “youthful” exterior though, people often estimating my age at early thirties. I guess I should just shave my head and remove the grey evidence of my advanced age 😇

Peace in the middle east died in 1995 with the murder of Rabin by a right wing extremist and the (deliberate) efforts to sabotage the Oslo Accord in the years immediately after. Too much conservative resistance to the idea of peace and an independent Palestinian state in the late 90's. Edit: The conservatives were probably scared of what happened in the worlds only other apartheid state, South Africa, where it came to an end in 1991 and real, democratic elections happened in 1994. You can almost hear them thinking "Not on my watch!" in the Knesset and so the deal on offer got made continuously worse from 1995 to 2000 in true Darth Vader style (heavy breathing: Pray I don't change the deal anymore)

It was actually Jagged Alliance 2 that taught me the word. It's a trait you can pick for your main character and I had to look it up, not knowing what it meant. There is no word for it in my native language. There is a word for left handed (which roughly translates into "awkward handed"), but no word for ambidextrous. It stuck to my mind after that

First I thought it was a misspelling of Ambitious, but then I read the text underneath... 😂 (being ambidextrous in real life myself, I was a bit familiar with the word, but it's not one you come across often)

Don't get me started on haircuts... I currently have what can best be described as a "fro" although mine is part grey I did have an appointment with a hairdresser a while back, but then Brisbane got hit by a snap lockdown as it escaped the quarantine. Didn't really have time to try again until tomorrow. Need to get at least 10cm off! As for vaccinations... the situation in Australia is a complete mess (courtesy of our notoriously incompetent federal PM). Even BBC is making jokes about it now... I'm going to see my GP in a couple of weeks time to renew my prescription (for high blood pressure, otherwise I might just instantaneously explode in a shower of red goo), a good time I think to inquire about what the situation is regionally and when to expect/prepare for and what vaccine is/will be available. Would prefer Pfizer/Moderna over AZ/JJ anytime. Willing to wait a bit for it too.

In the end, it all boils down to: Does the story sell? Does the story need a bit of help for it to be sold? Who *really* has an interest in selling the story? Who owns the media? And who owns the owners of the media? Etc. I know, it's a rabbit hole, but welcome to my way of thinking