Gorth

Speaking of huge... playing Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons. Only 4 days in, so still a long way to go (skipping everything except the main story line at the moment)

Currently busy playing Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons... the Asian inspired expansion. Being no expert, I couldn't tell what culture it leans most heavily on. Could be Korean, could be Chinese, could be Khmer, could be a hybrid... Welcome to New Kaineng The game has it's own stylistic art direction. A bit like watercolours The city is "tall", with the nobility and who's who living in the upper layers and the rabble and gangs living on the ground levels Old Kaineng, which (like the city of Lions Arch) was destroyed in the tsunami created by Zhaitan when it raised the nation of Orr from the sea botton Welcome to the new player "home" while in Cantha, the ruins of Arborstone, being the new base of operations

I couldn't find any easily accessible list of demands of Ukraine other than honour the Minsk accord (which Zelenskiy effectively declared they were not going to implement after all) and don't join Nato. But The Guardians seems to have a decent list of demands made of Nato (including not accepting Ukraine as a member) and to pull Nato troops (I assume this refers to "foreign" troops in the countries in question, the countries would still remain Nato members) back. Lastly, that the US honours the INF treaty, which they unilaterally abandoned in 2018. Did I miss anything significant? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/17/russia-issues-list-demands-tensions-europe-ukraine-nato

Welcome to Queensland (The Sunshine State) and Brisbane, the (new) Venice of Australia 🙄 Watch out when crossing the streets... not because of traffic, but bull sharks https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-23/how-shark-infested-is-brisbane-river/10731866 Edit: Oh look, the weather forecast 😂

While the price is high, you could argue that such an outcome is giving Putin exactly what he wanted and then ask, why did that have to take a bloody war? As for reparations, I (jokingly) suggested before the war, as compensation Russia could provide Ukraine with all the LPG they need for the next 100 years or so (probably less as hopefully renewable energy sources will have replaced fossil fuel before the end of such a period). Mind you, that was just a pragmatic solution. Ukraine gets rid of a headache (all the Russians living on the wrong side of a "border" that should never have existed where those places to begin with, but the west being the west etc. perfectly happy to recognize the Ukrainian invasion of the independent Crimean S.S.R in 1991 and accept Ukraine imposing direct control of an occupied country, similar to China's invasion of Tibet in the 50's). Now there is the added cost in both human lives and material. Edit: That was a rhetorical question, as I do know the answer. Nationalist pride getting in the way of sensible solutions.

Let me guess, you don't want to criticize him for lying through his teeth about... well just about everything he says? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/14/deceit-boris-johnson-liar-prime-minister-joke-mendacity "he prime minister’s unhappy relationship with the truth is longstanding and embedded in his character. Veracity is trumped by ego. Most of his recent catalogue of woes – Brexit promises, dodgy peerages, sleazy colleagues, flat decorations, lockdown parties – could have been soothed had Johnson simply come clean early on, appeared frank and apologised. He seems psychologically unable to disentangle falsity from half-truth. A life spent in bland denials and upmarket jokes has lent him a high-risk belief in his invulnerability. From each laughable lie he could, in one bound, leap free." No, he's still not as bad as our own beloved, glorious and inspirational leader here down under, but he also had a professional career in playing loose and fast with the truth, before he turned politician. It's not for nothing he's known as "Scott from Marketing"

Speak for yourself 😝 Edit: I noticed some fancy new buzzword on the internet in recent months... sigma male (/facepalm)

It probably sounds better on domestic TV. No, the government from 2014 to 2019 wasn't "NAZI", just right wing and very nationalistic. Not the same. But NAZI Germany was the last existential threat to Russia (USSR), hence portraying the enemy as such. You have to go back a lot further to when French troops made it to Moscow, or even when Poland invaded Russia and burnt the city down, but those are most likely too distant events in peoples awareness.

Gen X says hello

Are you sure about that? https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/03/world/europe/putin-sanctions-proofing.html "Crucially, the once-dominant dollar now accounts for only 16 percent of Russia’s currency reserves, which Moscow has replaced with euros, China’s renminbi, and gold." Edit: $631 billion is the nominal value of Russia's currency reserves, but an insignificant part of it is US dollars (according NY Times)

Meh, it's overrated. After too many years of 200% utilization, you feel "burnt out" in a real, bad way 😖

I usually share their viewpoint. Proud Patreon supporter too 😁

Moved a number of ageing posts from the Ukraine thread to here, as it was more about the age of political leaders in general...

Mostly of interest for Australians (federal election coming up this year). For non Aussies, Clive Parker and his UAP is to Australia what Donald Trump and the current Republican Party is to the US.

Nobody ever explicitly, verbally or in writing forbade it. It does make sense though, as cost of living in Fiji as also about 20% of Aussie prices at the time (may not be the same now, 15+ years later) Different roles in the company had a base salary plus a bonus arrangement. The formula behind the bonuses were not secret (tl;dr; the more overtime you did, the better you got paid) Edit: Our boss would present an Excel spreadsheet at the end of every month for the team, showing how much utilization each consultant had for that month, to encourage competitiveness in doing as much overtime as possible.

I think his marriage was "arranged" originally (a requirement for Soviet spies, to make them more resilient to honey traps iirc). He always went through a lot of trouble hiding his family from the public eye. Maybe he just need to get laid?

The first company I worked for in Australia (many years ago by now) opened up a Fiji office at some point. Charging customers Aussie prices for services provided by people who got paid 20% Australian salaries. Hard to compete with that for profitability. After rains and floods, the sun is shining again and temperatures back up close to 30C (around 85F for those who don't speak metric). Doesn't mean all the water is gone. Note to self: Buy more deodorant, as air humidity is close to 100%

The thing about nuclear war is, there wont be a "what's left". This isn't a Fallout game.

He may surprise you. He's very religious, married (has some pretty daughters) and hates vodka, to the point that Russian vodka makers might be the first on the barricades protesting against Putin. So much misinformation floating around (doctored images, wrongly attributed video clips, you name it) https://www.bbc.com/news/60554910 From 2018 gas explosions to Ukrainian Palestinian girl telling Russian Israeli soldiers to go back to their own country.... lots of examples in the BBC piece.

Not necessarily the "truth" (nobody has a patent on that I think), but an interesting take on what makes Putin tick (warning 30+ minutes long, but quite interesting)...

It's so silent outside... for the first time in 4 days and 4 nights, my roof isn't getting hammered by rain. It's been literally non-stop torrential rain since Wednesday 😖 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-27/queensland-severe-weather-rain-flooding-bom-warnings/100864896 Brisbane river rising, Australian Defence Force evacuating areas, people dying... generally very wet at the moment https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-27/wivenhoe-dam-level-rising-staged-releases-more-rain-falling/100865762 Wivenhoe Dam capacity above 180pc and rising despite staged releases, more rain falling Looking at the bright side, the bush fire chances are very low at the moment 😌

Ever heard of the Spanish Civil War? While the Axis forces supporting Franco's Fascist army were regular military, a large number of volunteers (including Russians) fought for the Republicans. Lots of them civilians having been shown how to remove the safety from a gun.

Those BUK air defence systems seems better at taking down civilian targets than military ones... (j/k) Way too much misinformation and propaganda on both sides to trust anything on the internet at the moment. After a few years of fact checking, some of the messages may stand the test of time.

Speaking of cats... Australian breakfast TV 🙄

Umbrella: Check Stockpile of bottled water: Check Crackers and canned food: Check Torches: Check Good thing I live on high ground (we've had nightly rainfalls of 100-400mm rain for a while now)