Bay 12 Games Forum

I never actually played 23a.

My account here was registered betwixt the (0.28...)39f and 40a releases, but not sure how long before this I actually started playing. It was a year and a half since 23a's time but 11 months since Z levels and everything else I cut my teeth on.

And, so saying, I rather liked many of the '40d' major release features. Some annoyances (e.g. the economy) I could happily continue to not have to trouble with. Other features (the hard-bottom to the world, while possibly having no chasms, underground rivers, spires, etc, depending upon embark footprint) I actually made good use of by digging out from the surface almost down to bedrock, which has progressed to habitually redefining the inter-cavern gaps to be larger (to give me enough uninterupted rock-column for my various dorfy purposes).

I've never really messed with minecarts, as an example of later additions. I tend to avoid/mitigate were-creature and necromancer issues as best I can. Other 'new' stuff I have embraced. Yet I have still not so far actually dabbled with the Steam Graphics version (I keep promising myself I will; and it's not for any philosophical objections, just "maybe later"ism with various other priorities/distractions getting in the way).


So, which do I prefer between 23a and v50.x? Dunno. My whole DF career technically spreads across almost the entire span between these two markers... And many a happy hour spent waiting upon a worldgen being completed perfecting and tuning my gameplay for the various latest versions I've had to get used to!

** ~23h56m04s

Usually, when people use the phrase "Leftist Mainstream Media", they're specifically excluding Fox News. It used to also be the phrase "Leftist Mainstream Media" also primary was said on Fox News, so it was kinda obvious that they weren't talking about themselves.

Don't know about anyone else, but "Leftist Mainstream Media" was not what was I responded about.

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Quote from: ChairmanPoo on September 12, 2023, 07:02:29 am

I suspect Iran's army is more modernized than Russia

AHAHAHAHAHA

GLORIOUS DEAR LEADER PUTIN IS OF MAKE COUNTRY GREAT AND STRONG

Surely now Russia will be able to finally overcome their great rivals and peers (in 30 years) like... Turkey, or Turkish Cyprus

Well, when they are apparently arranging for military assistance (in return for food..?[1]) from Kim's country, it seems to suggest an amount of desperation.

Which is not to say that the military might north of that particular DMZ isn't significant, but it seems more geared towards the local regional situation. And sending enough equipment to Russia to make a difference to its active military aspirations would surely mean stripping NK of significant amounts of its hard-won 'deterrent' level. Psychologically, I can't see the native military-industrial-complex production being diverted to export without some hefty form of recompense to fill some other gap in its attempt to maintain parity against the SK/ally enemy.

Which means that it's all rather funny and/or worrying, depending on how seriously we should treat the meeting of the leaders. (It might just be as meaningful as the fleeting detente with the prior US President, of course.)

edit: I wasn't aware that he'd actually started his trip yet, after the rumours over the last few weeks, but shortly after posting the above I came across this news item which covers some of the same speculation. Yes, "tourism" (more Little Green Men? But I was pondering either offers of Wagner-style instructors, or maybe something else) and agriculture. But indeed strong hints that there may be a space-tech dimension to this. Haven't heard what China thinks about this, though, given the on-off nature of Sino-Russian cooperation and more direct Sino-NKorean relations, could be either way.



[1] For the sake of ordinary Best Koreans, I would rather hope so. Some of that grain that they can't/won't export via the Black Sea due to the repurcussions from the hissy-fit over whether Ukraine can do so (with whatever hasn't been roasted by Russian rocketry). Either that or research levels in niche technologies, but I don't know how much help even Putin would give to assist NK's nuclear ambitions. Maybe just its rocketry. "For peaceful purposes."

...not the only problem with that splurge (not least that it was a splurge)... Though I do actually recall staring at that exact phrase, thinking that something was off; however, it was the -"ale" that I put most of my focus on, before deciding I was definitely right about that. Meh. Close, but no cougar!

Just watched Under Siege for the first time in a long time, because it was handy.

Reminded immediately of one of the biggest plot-holes (or strangenesses) that it has. For the audience, clearly the 'stripper' (Miss July 1980-whatever?) was a Ms. Fanservice, like the inexplicable bit with 'Cueball' shaping-some-moves[1] is avjarring bit of Down-Wid-Da-Kids-service. But for the mercenaries..?

I mean, her presence was likely additional inducement for more than just gourmet-pizza-lovers to attend the mock celebration. If you're bringing over a small army disguised as waiters and band-members, it would only be a more modern (or forward-looking) film that might have a suitable femme-fetale-for-hire who doesn't mind playing her party-part up until the point it turns out that she does like guns and will kill people (on a more enlightened modern navy ship, she may well even be eventually bitch-stomped by the mousey female crewmember who becomes part of the rag-tag team of heroic fight-backers). But here they decide that their faux-party needs an actual genuine pin-up-girl as part of their cover, and one that they don't take into their concidence (it is implied that the Colm Meaney character is pay-master/recruiter with deep pockets who could surely find someone who will fulfill the purpose of tits-for-hire but willingly fit in with the rest of the plan, or at least enough of it how they might explain it).

They don't even need her to do her actual cake-thing (Birthday Boy is to be killed in his cabin), which then makes her superfluous to the take-over. And, it appears, they completely forget about her!. Not even told "sorry, gal, we're going to lock you in the fo'c'sle, too" (with a lot of frustrated sailors, of course, which sounds worse than the film would probably run with that idea). The (nearly) meticulous plan just goes ahead with every one of the mercs (all of whom came aboard on the very same rather cramped helicopter flight), and even the brains of the outfit (Jones, if not the technical subordinate who might well be too tech-focused) and on-site man Busey (who has already embraced the idea of everyone knowing that she's there, by doing his drag-bait-switch performance prior to going to the cabin) seem to have no care about whether there's any further need for her, never mind notice that she's not yet even moved.

They do discover her (temporarily, though she is rescued almost immediately) and one of the two people who might even have approached her agent and signed her contract (I get the impression that CM's character would have arranged all that, or at least be there as TLJ's fake persona sealed the deal) ends up forgetting about her right up to the moment he gets severe (and definitely ironic) lead-poisoning.


Now, I'm not saying this is a "good job fixing it, villain" situation. Without her brought along, I'm not sure how it would have gone for the hero... He wouldn't have to drag her around (as she carries his spare equipment) once she refuses to pie low in the locker, so maybe he would have just picked off more of the mooks that little bit quicker (not needing to double-back after getting the satellite phone set up, either), and he would still have had the opportunity to accumulate the rest of his siege-breaking assistants (though she was instrumental, by that point, of shaming the most reluctant member into actually doing something). Obviously, after attacking the sub she was extremely important, but that was a plot-point that many prior divergences (for want of her presence) could have so easily avoided. He could have managed to take out Colm, along the way, or the one lookout who had even seen him in the water in order to prompt Colm to be genre-savvy enough to anticipate his likely next point of appearance. If he hadn't had just ground his way through to the Big Bad encounter well before the sub sub-plot/plan ever became realised.

But, for a very thorough (and well prepared with contingencies) mission profile by the besiegers seems to have just totally failed to factor her in, beyond the period of subterfuge. They may not have been totally prepared to handle a cook with "additional skills" running loose (or even not, as I'm sure he'd have somehow slipped away before being fo'c'sled, had the grievances exhibited by the XO not arranged his unique opportunities to remain uncaught by the main trap), but they definitely did know/could predict that the woman they brought to the party was there. Somewhere. Even if overly drowsy (which wouldn't help her chances of being somehow the fly in their ointment, anyway).


Can you tell that I've thought this, once or twice before? A reasonable film (of its time), and one of the S.S. films that I'm not reluctant to rewatch, but this character is shoehorned in without much logic (even movie-logic) for a significant part of her place in the story...


[1] And book-ending the film by giving Casey a contribed dialogue reason to suddenly kiss Jordan as quickly as if she'd been a Spanish footballer!

I recall people noticing that if you kept clicking on youtube's recommended videos, you would constantly end up at far-right channels. Not sure if they changed this since but if you guys want to personally test this, you could either destroy your own algorithm or make a new account to test, and just keep selecting recommended videos (I think you need to watch 15 seconds for the website to register you as having "watched" the video).

Personal experience is that I get 'recommendations' that I inevitably[1] mark to Watch Later, then splurge on them, when I get time.

Pretty much everything I get at the moment is Space/Rockets related. I used to get a lot of military firepower/"fighter-jet porn", for who knows what reason but pretty much all space news/etc right now.

One of the commentators is both a big "here's what SpaceX is doing now" person and has a very right-wing attitude to them (not a big part of their spiel, but often "sponsored by Acme Survivalist Supplies", and I wouldn't be surprised to see the guy in a Proud Boys baseball hat and body-armour, unlike some of the nerdier guys (or 'graphical avatar in a SpaceX spacesuit'). But that's as far as it's going, right now.


[1] Mostly. Sometimes the Watch Later option doesn't respond, and I have to just let the drop-down notification expire/get replaced with a new suggestion in due course.

Typical, one of my favourite "pasta parcels" meals is unfulfilling. Not because it isn't as tasty as it should be (I don't know if it is or not, yet, as it's currently cooking), but because there are 41 parcels. It's always 41 or 43, every time. I mean, primes, etc, but... You'd think the tetracontadiaphile like me could catch a break, once in a while. Reversion to the mean, rather than reversion across the mean, because the mechanism that they use to give a packet as near as possible to  ...checks... 300g of product ought to land on the between-number occasionally...

Pre-post edit: Well, a change of luck, though not very beneficially so. As I was draining the water I got shocked by a small splash of hotness, flinched, and ended up with a number of the parcels in the sink. Not really recoverable under the 5-second-rule (and they are still too hot/coated in boiling liquid, which delayed my ability to even rescue them for offering them to the birds - I needed to find some handy utensil first), so... Well, I'm bulking up my reduced meal with a bit more cheese than I had actually planned, which can't be bad. But using a splash or fwo less olive oil, and I'm not entirely sure my pepper-dosing is at all consistent, any which way, so your guess is as good as mine. But at the very least I can take scant numerical comfort from having discarded nine parcels. Which leaves it as a nice snd satisfying 'round number'. One that is a decent runner-up, given that the originally hoped for target is definitely not gonna happen this time round, under the circumstances.