Gorth

Just a quick recap of Frieren 19, while waiting for episode 20 to show up (hopefully available tomorrow morning, local time)... The test takers for the first class mage exam, got split up into a number of groups of 3 mages each. The goal is to capture an elusive bird within the time limit (a few days, forgot the exact number). The bird is lightning fast, tough as nails, moderately resistant to magic, highly developed magic detection skills (in this universe, magic is a manifestation of "mana", some beings have it, some don't, those who can actively shape it tends to become mages). In short, a bunch of mages trying to catch a bird that is fast and elusive, spotting a mage from a mile away and making a run for it... Frierens group holds a strategy meeting... and in the end, agrees to Frierens plan (she got inspired when one of the young girls mentioned something about being able to manipulate water) The plan? "Poison" every water hold they can find with mana, so the birds will have to come to a water source of Frierens choice... I didn't make screenshots of blood and gore, but it happens too. Monsters prey on the test takers, using their corpses as bait and there are no rules that stipulates test takers can't kill each other, then take the bird from another group that may already have acquired one. Frierens group realizes all of them will be up in arms and come after them when they have cornered the market so speak, leaving only one place to catch the birds. Frieren has learnt a powerful bird binding spell, that should overcome the birds magic resistance. Problem is the spell has a 50cm range 😂 Hence why they needed to narrow down the possible locations for the bird to seek water. Frieren puts on the statue act, sitting at the pond shore pretending to be a rock The spell worked At this point, Ferns group has also captured a bird and general infighting breaks out amongst the mages and blood start flowing. Ends somewhat abruptly... and now waiting for episode 20

Just 50 from the world of domestic politics... https://www.crikey.com.au/dossier-of-lies-and-falsehoods/ Then there are of course international politics... similar lists from Trump, The Bushes, Boris Johnson, Vladimir Putin, Modi, Bolsano etc... Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq? Brexit will be a net positive for the UK!, We will not invade Ukraine... etc. etc. All in all, whenever a new state leader swears to serve his people (when he really means serving the interest groups that got him/her in power) Then there are all the corporate ones... Former and current CEO's of Boeing, most bank CEO's and the majority of their executives, local telco CEO's lying about data leaks, outages and impacts on emergency calls etc. The church lying to the public for half a century and denying that the worlds largest pedophile ring is not doing anything wrong and diligently investigating claims to the opposite... All of which only gets exposed because luckily some journalists still dig into these things. Feel free to add to the list, but those were just what sprang to mind within the first 15 seconds. Could probably write a thesis if I felt like putting the effort into it.

If it interests you, I do consider myself one of the masses. Hence why it p.....s me off no end when I feel constantly lied to and spend a lot of time and effort fending off attempts to deceive me

While Drachinifels is my goto internet historian for all things naval warfare (iirc, his native language is Portuguese, so I guess he's either Portuguese or Brazilian), my second goto channel would be Ryan Szimanski (sp?) and Battleship New Jersey https://www.youtube.com/@BattleshipNewJersey For all things civilian shipping, designs, history, disasters, famous people etc. my goto channel would be Oceanliner Designs https://www.youtube.com/@OceanlinerDesigns It sort of sprang to mind, I've been subscribed there for a while and a recent video told a story I remember hearing many years ago about "Miss Unsinkable", a nurse that survived all three sisterships, Titanic, Olympic and Britannic edit: Not sure I would board a ship if I saw her boarding it 😂

It turned out to be a storm in a tea cup, the cyclone headed west once hitting the coast (instead of the expected southerly course), so dodging the bullet I guess. It's mixed. I used to have it provided by utility companies in my previous places, but this place doesn't unfortunately. Also, I like the smaller bottles (3.7kg) for my bbq) It was mostly a precaution if water and electricity supply got disrupted.

The "Rules Based Order" is a bit of a myth, just like El Dorado. Enough repetition of the phrase and some people start thinking it exists. Let's be honest though, powerful countries do what they want, when it suits them and it benefits them. Nothing's changed since the fall of the western Roman Empire there. It's always an easier sell to your population if you can justify why a lot of the serfs have to die for their lord, but in the end, it's just a way of placating the masses. Sometimes the justifications are easier to come by, sometimes they have to be manufactured and sometimes, countries just go "ah screw it, too much work" and do what they please (both England and France used to live by the credo might is right in the past). It's still very much the case today, realpolitik and powerful interest groups acts our their objective grabbing through governments (which are usually appointed by whoever controls popular opinion, again, a commodity you can buy if you have the means)

Did a bit of extra shopping the last couple of days. Looks like it’s going to get very windy and quite rainy for the next 3-4 days, so got things like bottled water, dry food, candles, batteries, lpg bottles for cooking etc.

Looks like the Boeing 737 MAX (9 series) isn't flying anywhere anytime soon. At least in the US...

Spent most of Saturday in Australia Zoo (more specifically a place called Beerwah, the zoo being founded by Steve "The Crocodile Hunter" Irwin. Nice place. Lots of animals. Lots of space for the animals... and 33C and close to 100% humidity (that's 91.4F for the colonials) Sneaky alligator wearing a Ghillie suit... African long-necked predator hiding behind a tree, waiting for unsuspecting prey to stray too close... I mentioned it was a warm day... the meerkats agreed as did the rhinos... and the dingos... A crane species iirc... A cassowary taken from a safe (I hope) distance, using quite a bit of zoom Poison dart frogs... Cheetas (probably heading for the shade) Not all animals are behind barriers 🦎 Not all animals are behind barriers 😱 Even without the animals, the landscaping done to the area is gorgeous ...and I got my 22000 steps for the day 😫

It's not a new plan... https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/10/10/denmark-election-parties-on-left-and-right-back-controversial-plan-to-send-asylum-seekers- The Danish government decided in 2022, that it was the way forward

Looks like someone found the poor old forums walking stick for it again, as it feels like it has picked up the pace! 😁

Finally finished painting another squad for my Horus Heresy tabletop wargaming army (a unit of Lernaean Termintors for the Alpha Legion). I guess finishing up my Contemptor Dreadnaught is next... For the Emperor!!!

I know, don't believe everything you read (especially on the internet), but I do remember it from geography classes from my childhood... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finno-Ugric_languages https://www.quora.com/Why-do-they-say-that-the-Finnish-and-the-Hungarian-languages-are-related-to-each-other "The Finnish and Hungarian languages belong to the same language family, known as the Uralic language family. This language family also includes other languages spoken in the region around the Ural Mountains in Russia and in parts of Scandinavia. Linguists have identified similarities in vocabulary, grammar, and phonology between Finnish and Hungarian, which suggest a common linguistic heritage. However, it's important to note that Finnish and Hungarian are not mutually intelligible, meaning speakers of one language cannot understand the other without studying it." (Estonian also mentioned somewhere as being the third language spoken today, descending from old Uralic)

Isn't Hungary the closest relative to Finland (linguistically and genetically)? Being originally one tribe splitting in two, one heading northwest (Finns), the other southwest (Magyars)?

Nothing particularly exciting, but Denmark got a new head of state. They also got an Australian born queen, something the locals down here are very fascinated with. Interesting bit of trivia, Margrethe II was the first Danish monarch to abdicate since king Erik III in 1146

An interesting article by the BBC on the "tatzpitaniyot" unit. Israel's "eyes and ears" watching Gaza and reporting Hamas movements to the Israeli military and intelligence services. People asks how the intelligence services could fail so badly when the October 7th attack happened. So, the BBC went digging into this unit, being made up entirely of young female conscripts (which doesn't bear arms btw, their job is to watch and observe all day long and report whenever they spot something unusual). Turns out they spotted a lot. From the regular farmers being replaced by unknown faces setting up shop next to the wall, taking pictures to Hamas units shifting from fitness training to commando raid drills. The last two weeks before the attack, they rang the alarm bells and... the BBC couldn't find out how far up the command chain the information went, but it got somehow suppressed from above. Many of the young women in the report got killed on October 7th, but BBC got access to some of the whatsapp conversations between unit members as well as between unit members and their family (sending last farewells etc. a day or two before the attack happened) and frustration expressed by them effectively being gagged. BBC doesn't mention names (too canny for that), but leaves it to the reader to wonder someone in the Israeli government could have an interest in preventing any action being taken that could've prevented the attack (and by extension if anyone had an interest in starting a war) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67958260

Some local humour. Warning, contains Australian words...

Additionally to episode 18, Fern and Frieren gets assigned to two different groups (of mages) for the test, so not on the same team. Frieren ends up with two constantly fighting girls and Fern ends up with an imperial court wizard (that killed his opposition to get the position) and a psychopath young girl, that failed her previous graduation from class 3 mage to class 2 mage, because she killed the class 1 mage proctor of the test... We never really get any hints, that Fern is a curvy young woman besides Frierens references. Probably because she is dressed up like a Taliban bride (minus the headwear), covering her body fully. In Episode 3, Frieren "notices" the differences between the two of them Stark was a local village hero, because the village thought he subdued the dragon threatening the village (in reality, he was frozen to the spot in fear and the dragon lost interest in him). In episode 6, he gets persuaded by Frieren, that they can kill the dragon, freeing him up, so he can join her and Fern as the groups front line fighter. The plan is, he has to keep the dragon distracted for 30 seconds, giving the mages time to prepare magic for blasting the dragon to pieces. After some very long 30 seconds, Stark has unknowingly defeated the dragon all on his own and gives Frieren an earful because she is holding back and haven't delivered the killing blow yet (because he doesn't know himself, that he actually killed the dragon already, he whinges loudly that he has kept his part of the agreement, but Frieren still hasn't finished the dragon off)

Frieren 18... the little group has decided they need to be proper licensed mages. Fern is already a "class 3 mage", because she aced the test as the youngest participant ever. When asked why she went straight to grade 3, it was because it was the first upcoming test date 🙄 Frieren herself is "unlicensed". Apparently the regulatory requirements and the institutions change every few centuries, so she couldn't be bothered to try to keep up. Frieren decides that she and Fern both are going to apply for the first class mage test. and they hitch a ride on a wagon to the city, where the test is administered. The conversations are a bit "strained" 😂 Fern makes a comment, that despite Frieren actively suppressing the power she radiates, she still radiates with the power of an experienced old mage (despite showing like 1/100th of her power) Because Stark took a dig at her in episode 6... Better just to sleep on it for now, because Frieren being Frieren, it's nap time (old people need their beauty sleep after all) There is very little innuendo in this anime, but what little there is, can be quite funny (this is a bit of an obscure reference to a scene in episode 3) I'll add a follow up with the two scenes referenced

Just some old Poms

Sad state of affairs, I’m too old to remember vim 😂 vi was the editor I grew up with TeX/LaTeX compilers to create the postscript files for the printers

The last 24 hours, the forums have felt very "sluggish", to the point of not being usable 😖

Teleporting to Kiev sure worked like a charm 😝 Besides it’s usually Sweden that invades Russia and not the other way around

They have a slightly more humane tradition in Denmark... the finder of the almond usually wins a small prize, like a box of chocolates 😋

Remember old jokes about not opening windows in an airplane?... looks like Boeing 737 MAX is the gift that keeps on giving for Airbus https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67903655 The FAA has grounded the 737 MAX 9 after a window and part of the hull blew out in the air. Time to inspect them again (again again). This time they got lucky and nobody got killed (even if a child got his shirt sucked off and out the hole in the fuselage.