Gorth

If I had a real answer to that, I would nominate myself for a Nobel prize. Not that I care about the title (since that one has largely been politicized these days), but the monetary grant could always come in handy The only thing I have is observation skills and opinions. But I guess you have to start asking questions somewhere and I do tend to question people, if I think they have entrenched themselves in opinions. For the this part of The Middle East, the options are somewhat limited. The two sides are not equal, since one side is effectively the one in control and calling all the shots (literally and figuratively). Similar to asymmetrical warfare, you have an asymmetrical power balance, where one side has all the soldiers, all the tanks, all the fighter jets and also all "international recognition" from several of the richest and most influential countries. The other side has been living as a defeated and occupied enemy for close to 70 years, without a proper leadership nor infrastructure (Israel has actually worked against any form for centralized Palestinian control since 1948, which doesn't make it easier to have a face to face meeting between leaders, since one side categorically rejects the idea, that the other side could have a leadership, as that would imply something close to statehood. One idea? Support the creation of a *viable* state for the occupied population to call home. People tend to be easier to negotiate with if they feel they have something to lose other than their lives. They haven't had anything to lose the last 2-3 decades. Hence why you can't bargain with "them" (an abstract them), because they don't have central leadership, no sense of identity (other than victims of occupation) and no sense of purpose. Give them something to lose and see if they are willing to make it work?

I *think* it's due in statistical terms. Just based on memory, one of the locals told me while I was living there, the Wellington fault line caused major earthquakes on average every 150 years. It's possible to miss it in a lifetime, but I wouldn't make long term investments in property Bold face by me... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellington_Fault "The Wellington Fault is also capable of producing earthquakes of up to magnitude-8.[1] While a major rupture on the Wellington Fault can be expected anytime in the next 500 years, a significant earthquake on other faults in the Wellington area have a shorter 150 year return time.[3]" I always found walking down Lambdon Quay a bit unsettling, with all the brass plaques saying 'shoreline 1840', because this shopping mall in the city centre was the old waterfront before an earthquake rearranged local geography. I sort of did the math while living there... 1840 + average 150 = approx 1990, so the next chance of become part of some earthquake statistic was 30 years overdue. I almost felt a bit of relief when moving to a geographically stable area Edit: That should probably read 10-15 years overdue, as I moved to Wellington in 2003 Edit2: They didn't mention that in the job interview

They just don't do genocide like they used to in the old days... Europeans used to be good at that. No rebellions or uprisings when there is nobody left to rebel or rise up. The world has grown soft... Just kidding of course, but they are still all discussing fighting the symptoms of a problem instead of addressing the cause. Edit: which would be something along the lines of too many people kicked out of their homes with nowhere to go but refugee camps and walled in ghettos and no discernible future. Refugee camps with people that have no home and no future will always be a breeding ground for violent agitators

There be dragons then...

I can't put my finger on exactly why, but that video for some reason made me think of OMD. Maybe it's a similar vibe? Similar...ish sound? Meh, for some reason, it just triggered memories of the latter band. Falco... I guess I remember the time period better than the artist I suppose. He did do quite a few hits back then... Der Commissar, Rock me Amadeus, Jeanny etc. One of his last songs (I liked the word play, which does need a bit of knowledge of the language to understand the play on the word "koks", meaning both coke - fuel for heating and cocaine and "kohle" meaning both coal and money depending on context) Some Australian rock/pop band doing a show in some European country (it's not even part of the EU)

Wouldn't that require some sort of logistics and planning, which Russia has shown itself in short supply of the last year or so?

You could try Eve Online

I don't think Australia has any kind of "tracking system" of its people. The closest thing would be the bank knowing most of what you do as more and more stuff becomes payable by plastic card only. You literally become your bank account no. But then, you can have multiple accounts That was a culture shock when you come from Denmark, where you get assigned a literal serial no. when you are born and it follows you throughout your life. Every transaction, every doctors visit, every traffic fine and the address your currently reside at is known to the governments big database. The number is called CPR Nummer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identification_number_(Denmark) The government database is the Folkeregisteret http://www.folkeregister.dk/ The system is/was so effective, the last 4 years I lived in Denmark, I didn't need to do tax returns, as the tax department already knew everything.

I'm not going to search for my old posts, but I did mention a long time ago, a few articles claiming the Swedish government found forensic evidence of who was behind the Nord Stream 2 attack and decided to put a lid on the whole thing. Sadly, the only decent link I could find is to an old 2022 article from WSJ, which leads to paywall... Supposedly 4 explosions in total, spread over Nord Stream 1 and Nord Steam 2 took place (my assumption being, Nord Stream 1 got blown up too, so it couldn't be used as a backup for a sabotaged Nord Stream 2) https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/sep/26/nord-stream-pipeline-blasts-key-details-revealed-by-scientists

Mystary… mystary is good

To be fair, the Diana Rigg of the 1960's was quite memorable

Speaking of old things, I wonder if there by now would be a complete set of The Avengers to be had on Amazon (the old British tv show from the 60's, not the Marvel stuff) Maybe it's time to do a bit of searching... Edit: After all, I did manage to get my hands on Blake's 7, so you never know

Somewhat similar... class of '85 in high school, but started a bit later in university. The 80's were my teen/early twenties years. A good decade to enjoy music

Nanowar's take on the world we currently live in...

Despite being "pro choice" by nature, I can see the logic of R vs W not really being in the constitution, but something that is up to the state governments to decide on. As long as the states don't "overreach" and try to prevent their citizens to visit other states or prosecute medical staff other states for violating their own, stricter laws. It's supposedly a free country and people should be free to travel and have medical procedures done at a location of their choice. Just my $0.25 and as somebody without a womb to boot.

Berlin was a bit atypical, as most sources include the half a million surrendering German troops as casualties (which is technically correct, as they are no longer an available asset). Atypical because there wasn't really a lot of German held territory nearby to retreat to anymore. Looking just at dead and wounded, it still was an expensive price for victory to pay. Also, most sources only focus on the battle in the city, not the advance towards the city... Best estimates I could find (Quora) are only for the final battle of Berlin (the city itself). The advance or rather the race towards Berlin was considerably more costly in Soviet lives, as neither Konev nor Zhukov cared about casualties incurred in the race to be the first to actually reach Berlin. Sadly Google is not your friend, as any and all search involving the words Soviet and Berlin all leads to the same 20 sites only covering the battle in the city, not the battle to get to the city. The battle for Berlin itself: Germany's Strengths: 1,000,000 soldiers (also children and elderly) 10,400 artillery 1,500 tanks 3,300 aircraft Casualties and Losses: Exact losses unknown But i will try to give the closest number Estimate: Between 320,000 to 400,000 killed or wounded Around 500,000 POW Around 700+ tanks Between 1,500 to 2,500 Aircraft Artillery losses unknown Soviet's Strengths: 2,500,000+ Soldiers 41,600+ Artillery 6,250+ Tanks 7,500 +Aircraft Casualties and Losses: 360,000+ dead or missing 2,000+ tanks 2,108 artillery pieces 900 to 1500+ aircraft

/sigh The old terminology debate. Didn't we already have this one 20 years ago when the forum was new??? Let me add some fuel to the fire and call RTS games for action games, the "strategy" part of the name being completely false advertising

You can add Leningrad, Unternehmen Zitadelle (Kursk) and the battle of Berlin to the list. All strategic victories... gained at loss ratios between 2:1 and 5:1 depending on the battle. As said, throw enough bodies at the fight, and you may just make the other guy despair and give up.

This (I still love my old Saitek X-52 stick/throttle combo)

Probably the closest Israel came to a real peace agreement (the Oslo Accords). Both Rabin and Arafat had come to the conclusion, that continuing the conflict would make nobody other than the respective populist factions on each side happy. Conflict and fear is the bread and butter of populist leaders, they need an abundance of it in order to gain power. Creating it, if it isn't there and encouraging it at every opportunity. I do not doubt for a moment, that peace rearing it's ugly head led somebody to motivate a man with an UZI to kill Rabin "for the cause".

Yeah. The second one pretty much picks up where the first one left off... not a direct continuation, but you get it indirectly as things referenced and happening in the background, enabling you to work out what happened to some of the main characters of the first game. No small feat considering Obsidian didn't get to play the first game until development of the second game was already somewhat progressed.

I have both games and I've played both games through a few times. The second one more so, especially after a few restored content mods (for me a must). The first one has less bugs, but the story is... not good (imho) and the characters feels paper thin so to speak (very 2 dimensional). Biggest crime for me was an encounter which they repeated in Mass Effect 3... you beat the living snot out of the boss and use his face to wipe your boot soles clean, after which the game designer decided "oh, thanks for winning, but you have now lost". And then proceeds as if you lost the fight. Pissed me off no end in both games. The second one has a horrible first map, which I struggled to get through the second and subsequent times (it's a mystery/whodunnit kind of thing and after knowing the background it becomes a grind to do again when the mystery is no more). Apart from the first map, the story is way more up my alley and it has some rather memorable (if criminally underused) Sith Lords and protagonists. Just listen to @Gromnir waxing lyrical about Kreia I hope somebody some day do a if not a remake, then a spiritual successor to the second game (the swtor mmo sort of continued the first game) Edit: About the mods, it feels like almost a third of the game ended up in the cutting room, because of some extreme deadline requirements, like a year or less. The bugs are many and the wtf? moments too, when you feel something is missing (not kidding, it's obvious in several situations, more was supposed to happen).

it worked for the Soviet Union and it was more or less how they won WWII... throw enough stuff at the Germans and eventually they will run out of bullets.

Part of the problem is people see groups like Hamas as the cause of the conflict, rather than a symptom of a much longer lasting conflict that has been going on for 6+ decades.

Is Guy Fawkes day coming up soon?