Gorth

Considering that Microsoft now owns both Obsidian and ID Software... Doom meets Outer Worlds sounds like a nice blend to me.

You could argue that the embargo and blockade by the US for 60 years now, has done more to cripple the economy and enforce hardship on the Cuban population as a whole than any domestic policy ever did. That's all speculation of course, because we'll never know the alternative if the embargo hadn't been placed there. Fairly sure they would have been screwed over even more if Batista had remained in power for decades. The same kind of government as the military junta that ruled Chile for decades. Edit: Venezuela is very different, the plaything of a meglomaniac who squandered oil money rather than invest in education and infrastructure (and now oil if just about worthless)

Still playing that old SSI game "War in Russia" (as the Soviet side). Almost at the end of 1941. Three consecutive weeks of blizzard has left The Wehrmacht in shambles. Even the various SS Panzer Corps shatters like brittle glass when one of my still befuddled commanders get the bright idea of sneezing in their direction. Now spending recklessly of my manpower to inflict maximum casualties while the the weather lasts (it's random from week to week). Using my meta game knowledge of being able to outproduce the enemy 5:1 in both manpower and tanks at the end of 1942, I'm attacking heavily fortified cities with just infantry and artillery, as each attack wears down a units "Readiness" factor and also starts lowering its entrenchment level. In short, send in the peasants! (anyone who ever played Bretonnia in Warhammer will know what I'm talking about) My biggest obstacle is going to be German air superiority which will still last a while unfortunately, even if I got lucky twice and managed to destroy HQ units (with all their air units). Planes are completely inefficient during blizzard, but once the weather turns to plain winter/snow, the Luftwaffe will have a field day level bombing my peasant on the open fields again. A situation I don't really expect to change significantly until the end of 1942 (because, meta gaming again, I know significant USAAF forces will start flying regular raids on German cities, drawing air units away from their eastern front). May the best comrade win!

Dear Microsoft, for Christmas, could I please have an Alpha Protocol 2? Who owns the AP IP at the moment??? That would have been my preferred MS acquisition

Digging through a lot of old stuff... and suffering several bad cases of nostalgia in the process. Dusting off my collection of old Joan Jett DVD's I put on my headset and just started blasting away at full volume. Found a youtube video of one of the tracks edit: that should have read CD's, not DVD's... oops. Music videos on DVD's weren't really commonplace 20-30 years ago.

Oh look, it's not only the Australian banks that are rotten to the core... https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-54225572 HSBC allowed fraudsters to transfer millions of dollars around the world even after it had learned of their scam, leaked secret files show. Britain's biggest bank moved the money through its US business to HSBC accounts in Hong Kong in 2013 and 2014. Its role in the $80m (£62m) fraud is detailed in a leak of documents - banks' "suspicious activity reports" - that have been called the FinCEN Files. HSBC says it has always met its legal duties on reporting such activity

In a few months time, Austria will be your favorite EU country then Just a tip, you'll need separate visas to go Austria and the UK when that time comes... don't get stuck at the border

Tulips actually tastes very much like green peas. A friend and I once got kicked out of a place for nibbling a bit on the table decoration

Not sure if related, but cut and pasting something from Forbes magazine: "The Cambridge Analytica scandal may have exposed the raw truth about data security and manipulation on social media, but the issue is rooted in the platforms—the potential for deriving intelligence from otherwise innocuous data. Many of the tools are new, leveraging AI and pattern analytics to map relationships between people “through link analysis,” to use natural language processing to “assign meaning or attitude to social media posts,” and to mine data for information about “past, present, or future locations.” And so are you really being watched? Probably." All governments have to do is flick the switch and get the end of the month summary report on the populations mood and tendencies.

2020 just never ends, does it? New thread here

Old thread Vote Gorth for dictator! No more more uncertainty, no more pointless political wrangling, no more endless debates! On a slightly more serious note, previous thread ended with whether or not there was a point in third party candidates. In the orange corner Guard Dog, in the purple corner a tag team of other forum members

Just a curiosity. One of those little forgotten pieces of military history from a different age (before ICBM's) A large military exercise... where results got classified for half a century because it didn't fit the official line.

The world lost another one of its interesting characters... Ruth Bader Ginsburg: US Supreme Court judge dies of cancer, aged 87 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54214729

He's spent too much time with Xi and Kim Edit: Check my signature for what I think of nationalism. "Patriotism" is just trying to make nationalism sound nicer.

If the spiders... and crocs, ants, sharks, snakes, cassowaries, platypuses etc. doesn't get you, the plants just might Toxins produced by Australia's stinging trees bear a strong resemblance to those of spiders and scorpions, scientists have found. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-54199816

I've tried to preserve manpower in this campaign, throughout the end of 1941. Can't wait for spring 1942, The Third Reich will never know what hit them. Trying to beat the game in 1943 as Soviet player this time, but it's depending on how fast my command structure stabilizes and improves (Soviet units are disastrous at following orders in 1941, often ignoring or delaying actions, making a mockery at attempts of coordinating counter attacks)

What would the world do without great statesmen like this?... https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54172311 Ok, I was being sarcastic Coronavirus: Trump denies downplaying severity of virus At a televised event with voters, Mr Trump said he had "up-played" it. The claim contradicts comments Mr Trump made to journalist Bob Woodward earlier this year, when he said he minimised the virus's severity to avoid panic.Mr Trump also repeated on Tuesday that a vaccine could be ready "within weeks" despite scepticism from health experts. Guys... do me a favour, if you're in the US and somebody offers a vaccine within the next 3 weeks, stall! Edit: Not saying don't take vaccines, but anything that gets forced through at that pace and still somehow labelled "safe" (granted, probably safer than the bleach that was first suggested) would make the approval process of the Boeing 737 Max look like professional work. Wait until it's deemed safe by somebody other than the current governments henchmen.

Make the Beach great again! Sorry... couldn't resist

True. I played BG2 for a few years before I got BG1, so there's that. But on my very first play through I fell into the Yoshimo trap (man, was I pissed off) and kept my dear sister all the way to the end as my main mage.... (facepalm). In subsequent play throughs, Yoshimo could find his own way and Imoen was left behind too for her own good, as soon as someone with lockpicking skills could be found. I would often play thief myself (my favourite class to play in several crpgs, heck even my main character in Guild Wars 2 today is a thief). Things got better with modding tools where I used Imoen as single class mage. Minsc and Lilarcor were like made for each other, but after a few games it got tiring too, so Korgan (was that the name of the angry dwarf?) often got the slot as the partys muscle, at other times whatshisname the self righteous paladin when feeling like using twohanded swords.

Apparently it can be very, very hard to distinguishing facial expressions when experiencing pain and orgasms. Those clever British are working hard on it though, putting their hard earned tax quids to good work on research. Soon the days will be over where it can be faked! Ah Brexit... you guys will be missed "Significance Humans often use facial expressions to communicate social messages. However, observational studies report that people experiencing pain or orgasm produce facial expressions that are indistinguishable, which questions their role as an effective tool for communication. Here, we investigate this counter intuitive finding using a new data-driven approach to model the mental representations of facial expressions of pain and orgasm in individuals from two different cultures. Using complementary analyses, we show that representations of pain and orgasm are distinct in each culture. We also show that pain is represented with similar face movements across cultures,whereas orgasm shows differences. Our findings therefore inform understanding of the possible communicative role of facial expressions of pain and orgasm, and how culture could shape their representation.Author contributions: C. Chen, C. Crivelli, O.G.B.G., P.G.S., J.-M.F.-D., and R.E." http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/168190/13/168190.pdf

At the latter, according to a law from 1851, they were NOT allowed to leave the reservations (without a written permit)... At the former, I think I had that conversation years ago with Walsingham, as England is generally (rightfully or not) credited with inventing modern concentration camps, used to eradicate the Boer population in South Africa during the Boer wars.

Yeah, how dare they take up arms and defend their ancestral land against the pure, noble whites.... One thing you got right here is, everybody should be held accountable for their actions. As for reservations, they were effectively the koncentration camps of the 19th century. Every time the settlers had trespassed enough into native land and conflicts arose between native population and the new immigrants, the military got sent in to evict the native population. Sometimes they would be given a token piece of land, Just to get them out of the way (probably cheaper than having to buy enough bullets to execute them all). Often tracts of land unsuitable for agriculture and hunting, leading to famine, starvation and epidemics. Short version here https://www.ushistory.org/us/40d.asp No, they weren't "genocided away" in the strict sense of the word, as their genes still exist, but cultural genocide is also a thing. You can kill a mans spirit just as well has his body Gromnir could probably tell WAY better then an ignorant foreigner like me how life in reservations was and is.

I'm not going to post the bill of lading, but lets just say it was a lot of books, a lot of dvd movies, a lot of Games Workshop stuff (when I say lot, I mean LOT, like several thousand metal miniatures, including long out of print stuff from the beginning of the company), wall units, book shelves, living room furniture, tumble dryer, lots of tools and power tools, clothes, my grand old plasma tv and dvd and a blu-ray player, kitchen stuff.... just so many things. As for the personal stuff, lots of things that only makes sense to me, like a teddy bear that I've had since I was 2 years old (with clothes knitted by now dead family members which is why it's important to, never mind the silly bear), drawings and later letters made by what was then little nephews and nieces for their uncle etc. As said, entirely only of personal value.

Now I imagine something like this, when you put it that way...