Gorth

A subject that has been frustratingly hard to find reliable sources on... https://www.wired.com/2013/10/dwave-nasa/ Tl;dr; the US government ordered some computers and AI projects shut down recently (Skynet says "Hello humans, I come in peace") Google's Quantum Computer in Limbo After Government Shutdown Google just barely dodged a bullet. The NASA team booted up their D-Wave Two just days before the federal government shutdown would have put a complete stop to the project. But with NASA and Ames almost completely shut down, it's not exactly clear what's happening with the machine. ...

Ooh, kinky! Wonder what kind of cosplay that was for

Looks like the perpetrator of the attack on the Finnish-Estonian gas pipepline has been identified... https://apnews.com/article/finland-estonia-china-vessel-baltic-sea-gas-pipeline-39334c9c565753c7e189c6efc302e43e "Anchor of Chinese container vessel caused damage to Balticconnector gas pipeline, Finnish police say"

It (the still picture) made me scratch my head too, but then I remember a previous video I saw. Those things are built in the US, Europe and wherever Iveco is from (AU has no manufacturing industry worth mentioning). That, or the picture is flipped on it's x-axis edit: more what you would expect it to look like in it's "natural environment". Never mind half the time, they're probably running on dirt roads without hard surfaces

JuiceMedia's take on where humanity is headed...

We don't really have an economics/business thread, but I guess it is tangentially related to politics, as I suspect it will inevitably become a headache for politicians, not just in Beijing https://www.bbc.com/news/business-67191262 The Chinese property developer Evergrande owes more than $325bn (£269bn). That's more than Russia's entire national debt. For two years, the company has been lurching from crisis to crisis, repeatedly failing to make payments on its multi-billion dollar loans. Now its billionaire chairman is under police surveillance, its shares are practically worthless and more than a million people in China are still waiting for their homes to be completed. I guess my first question would be, why was there so little (none) oversight with this company's dealings and doings?

Only in Australia... go big or go home

The long running war between Canada and Denmark over Hans Island ended with a peace agreement recently. No war crimes have been brought forth to any international tribunals edit: as a result of the peace treaty Canada and Denmark now share a land border

Interesting question... hypothetical situation (not trump violating any and all court orders), what if his past actions catches up sees him sentenced to a lengthy prison sentence? Would he have a Secret Service detail stationed outside his cell door the next 10 years? (open question, not Gromnir specifically, he just raised the interesting point) Edit: taking my line of thought into absurd extremes, if an ex-president got sentenced to hanging for treason, would the SS agents be required to take up arms against law enforcement in order to try to protect their designated charge?...

The only army who ever won a war of attrition against Russia was Russia... when the Red Army defeated the White Army (iirc that is)

I started watching this... https://myanimelist.net/anime/54362/Hametsu_no_Oukoku It looked moderately interesting after the first 10 minutes, so I kept watching. 3 Episodes so far. No idea if I'll keep watching it, but kept me entertained enough until now. Edit: Youtube trailer... i.e. sans the blood, gore and over the top brutality Edit2: Reminded me a bit of Elfenlied for some reason. A revenge story, the young man's teacher got killed and in return he's going to destroy the world and wipe out humanity. After all, if somethings worth doing, it's worth doing properly

I thought the holy dollar was the state religion of the US Australia is horrible when it comes to religion. The church is very powerful and influential in society, which is why the systemic child rape in the churches managed to go on for almost a century, as they had both the politicians and the judiciary doing their bidding when covering up or actively ignoring it (one of those things everyone knew about, but you were going to burn in hell if you spoke out against "your betters"). 30% if the population today is catholic or some variation of it (about half the population is consider themselves followers of the christian faith). That was a culture shock when you come from Scandinavia. Denmark is something like 50% atheist, 20% agnostic and 30% believing in some god (lumping the Abrahamic religions together, protestant, islam, judaism, catholicism etc. as @Lexx pointed out, not too dissimilar to each other at times).

Didn't know there was a Rogue Trader (singular) novel.... I know of the Rogue Trader Omnibus from 2018, is that it? (I haven't read it)

A Ukrainian band/woman with a very interesting singing style... styles? First a bit of reggae and then a clip from Wacken

Mike Oldfield is someone I remember playing a lot during the 80's. In particular his collaboration with Maggie Reilly stands out in my memory... he made several albums before that, but they were probably a bit, not sure, too "artsy" for young Gorth? I since learnt to appreciate them and bought them all on cd, even if it took a few decades to appreciate them. Anyway, small cavalcade from my youth And a slightly "newer" song, live from London (only 25 years ago )

I already told people here, it wasn't a Russian job, it was disgruntled Danish oyster farmers from Bornholm that sabotaged that oil pipeline between Russia and Germany

I would be surprised if this isn't going to be "the movie to beat" at various award events

I don't know how many Jews still live in Russia (assuming they haven't all migrated to Israel yet), but I expect their lives just got more complicated by an order of magnitude. Like open hunting season being announced?

I'll have my chicken vindaloo between mild and medium, thank you very much No, never understood the desire for self inflicted pain either. Not even as some kind of macho or hazing ritual. I love spicy food. I like "hot" food within reason. But I insist on being able to taste the food too, which is hard when your tongue has lost all feeling (and you are constantly hovering around the kitchen roll because your eyes and nose is constantly running, while trying lessen the pain by drinking copious amounts of milk).

I've bought a few games twice... mostly when they were first on Steam and later became available on GOG. One thing I learned about Steam reviews is to actually *read* the negative reviews. If there is a pattern to the complaints, i.e. not just the usual this dev sucks and is greedy or overpriced stuff, but this game constantly crashes in max resolution, sound stutters constantly or this game has buggy save game feature etc. then I take that into account when I look at the price asked vs. whatever fun I expect(ed) to get out of it. Edit: ...and I stay clear of "early access" games in general (no absolutes), as my life is too short to be a paying beta tester. I'm happy to pay more for the final product instead.

Love them or hate them, the BBC fact finders seems to lean towards the PIJ based on intercepted Hamas communications (sadly the only source of that is Israeli, so no good for unbiased fact finding) and a rocket that broke up mid air... hence a lot of fire ball happening but leaving no large impact/explosion craters (as documented by the BBC reporters on site afterwards). https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67144061 Edit: Tl;dr; it looks mostly like a large fuel explosion

Ouch South Africa... https://www.bbc.com/sport/cricket/67140802 It was a famous 38-run victory over World Cup contenders South Africa that sparked chaotic celebrations from the Netherlands underdogs as Logan van Beek took the winning wicket. The eruption was certainly justified: their first win of this year's tournament, the country's first win over a Test-playing nation in a 50-over World Cup and just their third win of all time in the competition. "It is the most iconic and memorable win for Dutch cricket," their former all-rounder Ryan ten Doeschate told BBC Test Match Special in the post-match delirium. Not the sport I know the most about. Quite popular down here, but ranks about equal with Australian Football on my list of interests (i.e. I know it exists). I also know it's usually a more popular participation sport in South Africa than in the Netherlands

That sounds a bit like the annual competition between the Australian states of QLD and NSW ('The State of Origin') https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Origin_series The rivalry is real. "Players are selected to represent the Australian state in which they played their first senior rugby league game (either high school or local senior club)" may be part of why it's called origin?

My retirement situation is a bit complicated... part superannuation earned while living in Australia, part pension earned while living in Denmark. No idea how it's going to work out in the end exactly, as both major sources are pro-rata adjusted for how long I live(d) in each place. Probably 50/50 Danish pension, Australian superannuation Edit: I wonder if Mauritius would be a nice place to settle down and enjoy a pension some day