Gorth

Awww.... he pulled a "government" on you and told you what you wanted to hear 😂

Still chugging my way through Mass Effect 1 (from the legendary edition). Driving around in the MAKO still feels like a chore, the side missions you have to do there being a bit "samey". Find merc/criminal/warlord base and kill goons, scan some object and do the mind numbingly boring mini game (luckily I have a small stock pile of omni gel now, so I can auto solve the more tedious ones). I've only played ME1 once before, so I don't remember all the little side stories, which I guess is a plus. Exploring the Citadel was fun as was all the politicking and lobbying going on in various circles there. Combat is still the most fun in any of the 3 games IMHO. Probably helped by being a slightly less linear corridor shooter. Two things I miss in the first game though... Garrus polishing his big cannon 24/7 and my fish tank 😔

I saw somewhere, that an all out trade war with China (i.e. no trade at all) would cost Australia 6% of it's GDP. It will hurt, but it's survivable. The process of replacing China with other trading partners already started a couple of years ago, to make the country more of less indifferent to what Beijing does in that regard. Doesn't mean Canberra will just sit and wring its hands if any allied country or territory gets embroiled in a war.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-65370284 A fundamental rethink of Australian defense strategy (called the biggest rethink since WWII). In order to counter the red paper dragon up north... Scrapping plans for armored vehicles and self propelled guns in favour of more HIMARS, long range missiles (300+ miles) and a few hundred extra cruise missiles, expecting a war with China being fought over long distances rather than massed ranks of infantry and armored battalions and lets face it, most of the area north of Sydney is about as populated as The Strip in New Vegas (unfair dig at the game, as that was really a console game limitation at the time) It recommends that Australia's armed forces switch focus from land-based armour to "longer-range strike capability, with munitions built in Australia", Defence Minister Richard Marles said. "We need to have a defence force which has the capacity to engage in 'impactful projection'," Mr Marles told reporters. The minister said the acquisition of "precision strike missiles" with ranges in excess of 500km (310 miles) would give the army "the firepower and mobility it needs into the future".

/nitpick That was actually an easy prediction to make. If you’re wrong nobody’s going to be alive hold it against you 😇

Erdogans price may end up being steep though. It would require at least a few billion dollars on his Gibraltar and New Jersey bank accounts to buy Ukrainian membership 😝

Having things in storage sucks... I spent 5+ of my life missing 2/3 of my stuff because it was in self-storage facilities... occasionally in a different country or continent 😖 It got messy too when I finally got reunited with my things. A number of things you just can't live without, so I had duplicates (and in some cases multiplicates) of a number of essential things like dishes, cutlery, cups (just about everything you have in a kitchen really), beds/mattresses/linen, furniture, clothes... you name it 😝

The Nando one was great. Very clever. The KFC one... just a guess, banned for promoting (tire) burnouts? It's a big problem in some suburbs down here and I think that ad would get in trouble for those 1-2 seconds alone. The other ads were... ok?

Sadly, I changed my Windows 10 to a Windows 11. I just kept getting tired of the constant blocking my login, hiding the "keep Windows 10" button with it's microscopic text at some remove corner of my login screen or hit the big flashing upgrade to Windows 11 button in the middle of the screen. I'm sure that guy designing that, read the consumer psychology 101 about dark patterns and every other shady (and often illegal) marketing method... It took me a bit to get rid of the most obnoxious parts and ended up with the menu's back in the lower left corner, search bar removed etc. Only hiccup so far is possibly linked to the upgrade although it may have happened independently to it. My Kaspersky now regards Steam and the god awful new EA App as virus and blocks any attempt of the two programs to connect to the internet. I don't mind blocking the EA app, as I rarely play EA games (but yikes is that an awful downgrade from the old Origin program). Starts up with Windows and runs as a constant background service. No thanks. Disabled its automatic startup, only to be run on demand. I tried to add both as safe apps to Kaspersky, but it ignores it and blocks them. Time to check support pages I guess.

Best water heater I ever had didn't have a tank (a previous place I lived in Brisbane). It was a "heat on the fly" system, where the water would pass through some 's' shaped pipes over gas burners, heating up the warm water on a need basis. Only a tiny pilot flame in use when no water passing through the pipe, then lighting up all the heaters when water was passing through the pipe. No constantly keeping half a ton of water warm 24/7 wasting a lot of energy.

A comparison of two countries and their debt ceilings... a bit of hypocrisy I think, when suggesting the US should just get rid of its debt ceiling from a country that also has a debt ceiling in its constitution no less (I don't think many countries actually has that, but I didn't check) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64878254 Rather than address long-term fiscal sustainability through bipartisan reforms, lawmakers operate as if significant changes to American fiscal policy can only be made with "a gun to their head", he said. "I don't think this is how you get good policy." Mr Kirkegaard supports getting rid of the US debt ceiling, which he argues is more of a "nuisance" than a tool that constrains government spending. But he thinks neither party would risk doing it because "they are then vulnerable to the charge that they don't care about fiscal sustainability"

Continued from old thread:

/Ron Pearlman voice: War, war never ends... (badly misquoted)

Information is as good as ammunition and food in a war... if (big if) Ukraine downplayed their losses considerably, it may negatively impact the morale of the defenders when revealed to be misleading. Deflated numbers may also hide, that they struggle to launch the much advertised counter offensive in any meaningful manner. Something Russia would appreciate knowing, as that could definitely affect their planning (such as it is) and strategy for conclusion of the war, which needs a new objective now that the original operation didn't quite meet its targets and is very unlikely to.

My first "real life" encounter with drugs was rather personal. Two relatives I grew up with (technically my mothers half-uncles, don't ask, complicated) who were 2-4 years older than me were for years my de facto older brothers. One died from a heroin overdose and the other got killed in a drug deal gone bad. My first encounter with drama/media on the subject was an old German movie (an auto-biography) called "Christiane F - Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo". It may not be shocking today, as viewers are likely desensitized by todays entertainment, but as a drama-documentary it sure was in 1981. It was mandatory viewing in one of the classes in highschool. I'm (or was, it's 40 years ago) unfortunately quite familiar with the seedier side of society, as a result never really felt any desire to read up more on the subject....

Not a lot. Just enough to know that, if you want to compare results, you need something to compare it to. I found very little information from the US other than than the opposite, most communities invested more in their police than in alternatives and crime prevention (October 16, 2022). Because having more para-military forces around just sells better on election day it seems. https://abcnews.go.com/US/defunding-claims-police-funding-increased-us-cities/story?id=91511971 "Overwhelmingly, cities, counties, police departments across the country are not being defunded in any way," Ray said. "In fact, many of them have increased their budgets. Part of the reason why the 'defund the police' narrative has stayed around is because police officers say it and elected officials say it." I.e. it never happened, so you can't really prove if it had or would have any effect... I checked some Canadian results, but not a single noteworthy community even attempted alternatives (i.e. prevention, counseling, community projects etc.). Don't get me started on my own little corner of the world, where it's hard to shake the feeling, that the federal police are the Sturmtruppen of the conservative party (the Australian Liberal Party). There is a decade of other, more pressing mess(es) that needs cleaning up before getting anywhere even near some much needed police reforms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Commission_into_Aboriginal_Deaths_in_Custody (yes, that's almost 500 people dying in their cells) Edit: It's not really a surprise, that one of the last two conservative state PM's got kicked out of NSW in the last election. Some gratifying humiliations too in some local NSW by-elections, flipping colours in areas that had been staunchly conservative for like half a century. Only one conservative state PM left in Tasmania. Let's see if it lasts.

"Defund the police"... all the myths and urban legends around it https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2021/05/19/7-myths-about-defunding-the-police-debunked/ Edit: For those who wants more pictures and less text, the paragraph headers. If you believe in any of these, find the matching paragraph in the site linked to Myth #1: Defund Means Abolish Myth #2: Defunding Will Lead to Disorder Myth #3: Police Protect the Public From Violence Myth #4: Community Programs Won’t Work Myth #5: Most Police Work is Focused on Crime Prevention Myth #6: Police Officers Do Not Need College Degrees Myth #7: Defunding the Police is a Knee-Jerk Reaction With No Research

Since book burning was fashionable in the 20th century... is internet burning going to be a thing in the 21th century? 🤔

A slightly older Rammstein piece. As usual, the band never gives any "official" interpretation of their songs, but there seems to be a fan consensus, that it's about the building of the Berlin wall (Rammstein are from the former DDR). It has English subtitles if clicking the subtitle button

Does games of Horus Heresy and Kill team count? 😇 I know, it's more tabletop wargaming than roleplaying, but if you play story based missions and narrative campaigns, the differences are easy to overlook...

Moved to the correct forum 🍀

This. I really enjoyed Trine 1&2. Trine 3 was so bad I didn’t bother even trying to finish it. Gave 4 a miss because of the bad aftertaste of 3 😳 Btw. Those games are more fun in coop 👍

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-65259342 "Winds in Ilsa's "very destructive core" could gust up to 275 km/h (170 mph) on Thursday night into Friday morning local time, before the storm moves inland, according to Australia's Bureau Of Meteorology (BOM). The BOM also warned of up to 400mm (15.7") of rain and abnormally high tides, with the storm's impact felt across a 600km region from Port Hedland to just south of Broome." Odds are, the world will hear very little (i.e. effectively nothing) about the damages and suffering caused by this cyclone once it lands, as there are no million+ cities in it's path. People may still be killed and thousands be affected, but... nobody is going to know, much less care because it wont sell clicks on the media pages.

'JUICE'... 😁 Only 1 year delay, not bad for a project of that scope I guess 🤔

I'm guilty of some confirmation bias on that one... because he pretty much predicts Russia after Putin the way I predicted Russia before Putin. I.e. breaking up in a number of states run by warlords and oligarchs, all armed with medium and long range nukes and always warring with each other and their neighbours. Which is why I was for a long time generally sympathetic towards Putin and his iron hand rule, presumably leaving one hand on the red destroy all life button rather than 30 pairs with each their own button, motives, grudges and grievances. At least it looked like that's where it was headed back then, as Yeltzin steered Russia towards total disintegration in his perma-drunk state.