Gorth

He'll probably blame the Democrats rather than the Christians, but who knows... The senate tried to get rid of him a few times, but in the end, it was the bad blood that had developed between him and everybody else (the Legions, the Praetorian Guard, the Senate etc.) that did him him in. He was so paranoid that he eventually killed himself when he thought everyone was out to "get him" and didn't have the guts to face being held accountable. History, history never changes (based on a Ron Pearlman quote)

Ouch... feel your pain mate. I do ERP systems for a living (no, not Erotic Role Play, I wish) and recognize some of the things in your laundry list of misery. Worst upgrade I did took 5 days and 5 nights for the SQL scripts to finish the data conversion. Mind you, their old system was probably 10 years past it's "best by date" tl;dr; the upgraded system worked like a charm once completed, but we did three complete test upgrade runs to get a feel for the timing and then scheduled the work over a weekend plus the days before and after where it would be least inconvenient for their operations.

Only when you got bytes full of bits... very old processors were 4 bit (no kidding, try googling the TMS 1000 from the 70's) The thing about bits is, they are sort of binary and completely self sufficient individuals... or not The 8 bit legacy is still very much a thing and like the metric standard for dimensions, one of those things that are just ubiquitous in the wold of computing. Edit: I remember having to do math in Octal numbers in Computer Science back in University... that's 3 bit numbers Edit2: Just because Melkathi distracted me, shoo! Playing a lot of Tomb Raider and Master of Orion 2 these days... GOG is a heaven sent for those of us who like the older classics. If I could just get my Saitek Flight Stick and Throttle out of storage and hooked up to my PC, I would be all over X-Wing vs. TIe Fighter again... haven't really played it for ages.

My gut answer would be 'cat'. I get to keep humans as pets, I like fish... and the internet worships me

I wish I could like Alpha Protocol, but the times I tried starting a game it just came to an abrupt halt after the first few mini-games. I effing hate most mini games of the pick a lock, hack a circuit (or mass effects tetris games). It was too much of a turn off to keep persisting with the game (QTE's can go to a hot place which is unlikely to freeze over too) (edit: One of the things ME3 did right was to finally ditch the mini games completely, never mind whatever other issues it might have had) (edit2: I don't remember which one of the first two ME's had the tetris game, there was also a really, really, really tedious connect the dots on a circuit board mini game in one of them)

For the Spanish challenged among us.... Google translate to the rescue: "Good morning, gentlemen I bought the Deadfire last edition American version with a lot of desire to play them but today when I started the game I realized that there is no option in Spanish, even though the Spanish flag is on the back of the card, gentlemen this is deceptive advertising, please please a patch so that the Spanish-speaking person can enjoy the game"

Yeah, damn Polish imperialist kept making border raids into western USSR in an attempt to seize chunks off it. Luckily the combined military forces of the USSR and Nazi Germany were able to neutralize the threat before Poland took over all of Europe! On a more serious note, Stalin was way too busy with purging the military Erdogan style (and reforming the NKVD) and didn't need a war, so he would be likely to sign any treaty that would keep the Nazis off his doorstep until the firing squads ran out of Soviet officers to execute (for the greater good).

Reminds me of the time the Soviets went in the opposite direction... not smaller, but bigger is better. Most stuff around the Tzar Bomba is scary reading, except the one comforting factor that it was too big for any practical application, literally too big. No Soviet plane at the time could reliably deliver it, even if finding suicidal pilots (at full yield, no out flying the explosion). The one and only actual test was with a "gimped" version, which limited it's yield to "only" 50 megatons (edit: and a parachute to slow its descent so the airplane crew could get more time to get away). Without the dampeners it would have yielded 100 megatons. Basically, screw precision, just turn everything into glass. Edit2: They just don't make nukes the way they used to...

Real Time Strategy (RTS) is a misnomer, rarely ever involving anything remotely resembling strategy. A type of games that became popular with Generation Z, who seems to have the shortest attention span in recent history (8 seconds... even Millennials have longer attention spans, about 12 seconds) There are MMO's with better story, characters and voice acting (and single player experiences) than most single player games (emphasis on most, if you search long and hard enough, there are single player games that wipes the floor with the limp bodies of MMO's) Games were better in the 1980's

The two obvious things from top of my head are the requirement to be male and to be a land owner have been taken off the table.

Not sure if I'm much of a fan of Athenian democracy... I guess it was nice. If you were a wealthy, white, old, male. Otherwise you were excluded from the decision making processes. I would like to think humanity had progressed just a little bit in the millennia since. But, then I look a modern societies and realize, we probably really haven't evolved much the last 2500 years, still being a bunch of primitive savages

Not sure if coffee ever had any military application (other than helping sentries staying awake), but the microwave oven is one of my favourite pieces of military hardware spin-offs Edit: I know the internet is also a by-product of arms race and military technologies, but you could argue whether or not it's really beneficial for humanity. At least it gives a place to worship cats if nothing else.

When you say it fast... at least as a non-native English speaker... the name sounds like Spa-sex Time for a cold shower I think: Run, A68. Run! You were born to be free, not some "On The Rocks" for a cheap whiskey swilling bogan! World's biggest iceberg makes a run for it https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51389690

Congrats and well done I guess was part of the story behind the user name

Ask yourself, who owns the media? Especially the popular ones. Last time I checked Rupert Murdoch owned a **** load of the worst ones and is a rabid Trump supporter, hence a situation a bit like Berlusconi's grasp on power in Italy for a long time (he owned most of the media, hence, there was never really any "fair" election campaigning going on). Something the Russians at least seems to be aware of, using bots and teams of dedicated "influencers" to manipulate popular opinions, if not outright writing their favourite on the ballots, then spreading out some wide nets trying to catch the stagglers and fence sitters to make them vote fodder for their preferred candidate. Trump is your classical High School Bully. Full of insecurity and complexes, he reacts with the only thing he knows, violence. Whether physical or just verbally abusing people. Similar to the teenage bully, he loves the adulation of the masses. Hence why once in a previous politics thread mentioned, he would have felt completely at home on the podium of the Nuremberg Rally. Good thing for Poland that it's Greenland that is the next neighbour to the east... His vanity is alto the key to control him... if you're smart. Netanyahu, Kim, Putin etc. are smart. Khamenei, for all his flamboyant rhetoric is not smart. The former knows how to play on his vanity. I don't know all the domestic movers and shakers in the US, but wanna bet? There will also be a share of smart and not so smart people, those who plays Trump like a fiddle and those who ends up just being on the receiving end of his abuse. Edit: @MedicineDan haha, thanks for the kind words mate, you've been missed for a long time Edit2: I think it's safe to add Modi and Boris Johnson to the list of heads of state that Trump gets along with splendidly.

You can almost hear the tap tap tap sound of Happy Feet dancing on the floor from Putin and Kim... as I'm fairly sure both prefer a predictable and easy to manipulate president (and yes, once you know his quirks, he's so predictable you can set your watch after him and gullible enough you point him in any direction of your choice once you pull his trigger) Edit: Just appeal to his vanity and constant sense of insecurity.

Nationalism... this appeal to the lower brain functions seems to be a universal thing. Maybe it appeals to some inner, tribal instinct in humans? World War I + II says hello. Why work to improve your lot in life when you can go out in a blaze of glory, sacrificing life and limb for the privilege of inflicting atrocities on your fellow man, because something as abstract as a country demands it of you? (that was a trick question, the people that runs the country wants YOU to die for them, but it's an easier sell to the gullible masses who are all flag toting and anthem singing, switching off higher brain functions at the same time).

"That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die" No, haven't changed my mind since my original contribution to this thread edit:

I'll probably end up ruining @Gromnir's fun, but from memory, the people in front of us were an elderly Indian couple (guessing on my part, I couldn't honestly tell if they were from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, whatever, but "South Asian"). Sort of adorable in their affection for each other, hugging, obviously caring for each other and sharing a plastic bowl of what looked like home made curry. With one spoon, taking turns. Anyway, the couple were sort of the "short and round" type, guessing mid 50's to mid 60's of age, wearing, if not traditional, something that looked inspired by traditional clothes, the woman wearing a head scarf. Covering her hair and shoulders, but not her face. The guy didn't really need anything to cover his head as he was mostly bald Edit: My Serbian friends and I got lucky with the weather at The Open, not too hot and not too cold, just perfect for hanging around with a few handful beers throughout the evenings...

From Gorth's "shaky cam" mobile phone... Edit: Yeah, apologies for the terrible audio. You just can't capture stuff like that decently on a phone.

Sorry Gromnir... I just checked the other pictures from the night, unfortunately none of them shows the mystery object from a better angle

I went back to the Australian Open yesterday evening, not to watch tennis, but to watch Billy Idol who were the evenings entertainment on the AO Live Stage. He still got it. In fact, I found him great and deserving of a much better audience than a bunch of tennis goers just expecting to be entertained. Bunch of lobotomized wet noodles all of them (me included). I caught a few songs on my phone, which I'll see if I can't get uploaded to youtube a bit later.

Somebody needs to arrange an "accident" for whoever currently has the license to make WH40K video games so another studio, like Obsidian, can have a go at it. What's not to love about role playing a Slaanesh cultist???

Why would anyone run around with 500K worth of jewelry in their backpack???

I'm just too worried, that if I ever slow down, age will catch up with me. I have to keep running! As mentioned somewhere above, got to spend the day at the games. A slightly one sided affair unfortunately, where are the marathon 5 sets when you finally get a chance to watch it??? Djokovic won, outcome wasn't really much in doubt after the first two sets. Still, it was great to try a new experience. Taken with my phone... edit: Those serves... sheesh. display at the far corner says 224 km/h