Saying one thing and then doing another in order to mislead.

Orban is in my opinion very good at gaslighting both the EU and his domestic supporters. He talks shit about the EU at every possible opportunity, but then when he shows up for Council meetings in Brussels, he’ll usually sign up for whatever he’s asked that month. Then he goes back to Hungary and immediately tells voters that he gave the EU leadership hell and that he got a great deal for Hungary. This is mostly my opinion, but I think everyone in the EU expects this conduct from Orban, and they just go along with it for the sake of progress.

His voters on the other hand genuinely think that he’s a national hero for standing up to the no good, despicable, very bad EU leftist bureaucrats who also just happen to subsidise their economy. I kind of admire his batshit approach to politics, but disagree with everything he says. Basically, he’s all bark and no bite. Just ignore whatever mad shit he’s spouting and assume he’s saying it for the benefit of his deranged supporters and won’t follow through on it.

He should probably stop trying to take Avdiivka then. At this rate, there’s only going to be 15% of his army left by the end of the winter.

Happy birthday Romania! An amazing culture and beautiful country.

100% a public transit enjoyer. I get annoyed with people in my city who complain endlessly about how shitty our bus service is. I’ve been getting the bus daily since childhood, and it used to be so much worse. 15 minute minimum wait, often it just wouldn’t show up, and expensive fares. Now it’s uncommon for me to wait for more than 5 minutes, the fares have reduced, and it’s reliable. The only issue is that the bus gets stuck in traffic because there are twice as many cars on the roads now compared to 25 years ago. So great job drivers, you’ve created a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Most of it comes from people who have next to no experience of using public transit, and will just latch onto any excuse not to use it, when in reality they’re snobs who don’t like to admit that they think getting the bus is below them. It’s not. I used to get the bus into college with one of my lecturers (RIP) who owned a fucking law firm, and it keeps people humble in my experience. I honestly think society would be healthier if people used public transit more.

Well from my perspective, 4k monitors came out about ten years ago, so it’s not ultra-high end. It’s actually quite old. I’ve been holding off on getting into 4k for so long, but the prices keep going up. The expectation was that prices are supposed to go down over time. Hence, I no longer feel like PC has the edge it used to.

I looked it up, and a 6700XT costs the same price as a PS5/Xbox in my country. Add onto that all of the extra components you’ll need to build a PC and it’s way in excess of what a console costs. Sorry, but the cost of entry for PC just doesn’t compare to consoles.

Look, you’re welcome to nitpick graphical fidelity, but I think current gen console games running on a 4k tv look excellent. They’re also a fraction of the price compared to PC hardware. That’s a better proposition compared to PC gaming these days for anyone looking to get into gaming. I get that that’s not a popular viewpoint among the PC crowd, but that’s why I posted it.

I’m talking about something which can achieve parity with the 4k graphics that console gamers expect nowadays. That’s not remotely affordable on PC, but it is for consoles.

I’ve stopped advocating for PC gaming after about 15 years of being a PC enthusiast. It’s just too expensive these days. I think the Steam Deck is a good entry point, but not everyone wants a handheld console. I can 100% respect anyone who looks at the price of a gaming PC and just picks up a Playstation/Xbox for $500 instead.

I finally finished Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, after nearly 300 hours. Holy fuck, there is so much video game in that god-damn video game. It just keeps going for so much longer than it needs to. Then on top of that they went and added several new features like raiding, and a roguelike game mode which I enjoyed.

It’s a mediocre game, but it’s a fun time if you’re like me and just enjoy exploring big maps, collecting items, upgrading gear, etc. I enjoyed the DLC, but I’m not planning on picking up Dawn of Ragnarök because the mythical storyline just doesn’t interest me.

When I’ve been playing for 5 hours and needed a piss for 3 hours.

XCOM 2012 is my favourite turn based stratedy game, I really like the Long War mod. Saving earth from an alien invasion is such a cool fantasy.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey because I love Greek history and mythology, so being able to explore that part of the world is really appealing to me.

Warhammer 40k Dawn of War. It’s just the best 40k game. I wish Relic would remaster it.

Sunless Sea. It’s one of my favourite visual novels, and it has RPG elements. The writing is hilarious, and weird. It’s like halfway between Charles Dickens and HP Lovecraft. Pilot a ship around a vast underground sea, fighting monsters and talking to Victorian wierdos.

Spelunky. I’ve been playing it for 10 years now, and completed it hundreds of times. I’d recommend it a lot.

STALKER Call of Pripyat. It’s an alternative history first-person shooter set in the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl power plant. It’s semi open world, and unlike any other game I’ve played for its story and atmosphere.

My entire D&D group. Thanks gang!

That’s my dream too, and why I’m actually sort of onboard with Musk’s vision for car metros. The issue is that I’m 100% sure they’d also want to expand surface level car infrastructure to facilitate that network.

My centrist compromise that I hope will take off in European cities over the next decade is that most two lane city streets will become one lane one way systems with protected bike lanes, pavements and trees taking the space that’s been freed up.

In other news, the director of the Luna-25 mission has also had a fatal encounter with gravity.

It could be 90% in favour of rejoining, but it wouldn’t make much of a difference. The EU would need to see strong, long term cross-party support in Westminster before they’d consider it. The EU know that otherwise the issue is just going to keep re-emerging in UK politics so long as the Tories are ideologically opposed to the EU. I think the best chance the UK has is if the modern Tory party stopped being relevant electorally, because their membership’s views aren’t likely to change, and everyone in the EU institutions hates them for the damage their governments have done over the last 7 years.

i like turtles

The comments on this post are such a joke. The name of the community is literally ‘fuck cars’ and people are getting bent out of shape because we’re posting about our dislike of cars.

The Witcher 3. I’d been following its development since the Witcher 2, and I loved the games and the books. After 5 years of waiting I knew that it wasn’t likely to live up to my expectations, so I prepared myself for disappointment.

Then it came out, and it was the best RPG I’d played. Some of the Novigrad story lines went on for too long, but that was my only issue with it. I’ve 100% it three times. Best €30 I ever spent. The DLC was somehow even better than the base game. I have no idea how CDPR managed it.