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Werthead

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Everything posted by Werthead

  1. I think the show is solid, with some great high points and some absolutely diabolical low points ("Somehow, Makee returned," and the storyline with the couple's kid should have never been written or filmed). I think it evens out at okay. I do think them responding to complains that Master Chief doesn't have his helmet on enough in Season 1 by taking his armour away altogether for most of Season 2 is epic-level trolling of the video game fans on another level though. Art.
  2. Confirmation that the Russians were indeed repulsed from Berdychi last week, as they mounted a major armoured push again yesterday. They ran into heavy counter-fire from cluster munitions and drones, and Ukrainian armoured forces mopped up what was left. Belgorod hit again today by the partisan forces. The Russians are really missing the boat on counter-attacking them properly and driving them out of range of the city. Russia has blamed both Moldova and Ukraine for a drone attack on Transnistria which destroyed a helicopter. Analysis suggests the drone was added in post-production. Additional camera angles show no drone at all, and the helicopter appears to have been left at the airstrip in 2003 and has not moved since. Some shots show it looking quite delipidated before it spontaneously combusted. OSINT sources divided on this being an accident or a deliberate fake-out.
  3. I don't think so. Basically there's two schools of thought in the Conservative Parliamentary Party: those in mega-safe Tory seats who will (almost) certainly stay in post as an Opposition MP. Being an Opposition MP is actually great as you get all of the perks without having to actually deliver anything until the following election. Given the last eight years have been the most stressful in the Conservative Party's existence (at times seemingly, though unsuccessfully, existential), the idea of taking a time-out for these people is appealing. So this wing of the party, especially those in their 30s-50s, is thinking, "right, we'll lose the next election, let Starmer (probably) unsuccessfully try to fix the mess we've made, and we'll either get back in in 2029 or make a big clawback next time and can get ready for government in ten years." For the very large contingent of the party who are not in that rare position, many of whom only became MPs in 2019 and were hoping to ride the gravy train for a lot longer, that's much less appealing, as they'll have to go back to getting a day job. So that wing of the party is looking frantically around for a last minute Hail Mary to save them at the election. But even this contingent is divided between those who think they need a hardcore rightist who can win on culture war issues (despite that not being very successful ground for campaigning so far) or a moderate centrist who can bring all the disparate parts of the party back into alignment through a sensible, pragmatic approach (I think Mordaunt is more the favoured candidate of the latter). More seasoned observers basically agree it's all over, and the only thing that can save the Tories is a total collapse of Labour, Starmer being arrested unexpectedly, or some kind of mega-crisis at the last minute before the election that the Tories can successfully resolve (they may be hoping that Milei invades the Falklands, even if just a little bit, or if not they might be able to convince him to invade Brighton & Hove).
  4. The Slavyansk-on-Kuban refinery was hit by multiple drones overnight. There was no active air defense in the area. The Syzran refinery was reportedly still burning half a day after the attack. One of the main airports in Moscow (Domodedovo) was brought to a halt after Ukrainian drones targeted the runway. Belgorod was hit again this morning by artillery fire from Russian partisans, showing they are still fighting on Russian soil.
  5. It's been a while since I watched some films so decided to have a spree on Apple TV+. Greyhound was excellent, very dramatic and focused on this super small period of time with complete carnage and exhaustion. Very well done, even if the lightly unconvincing CGI is a shame (one yearns for the 1980s or 1990s when this would have been shot on real ships with model work), albeit much safer to work with. Tom Hanks gives an excellent performance. Tetris has a very pedestrian opening half-hour, to the point that I started to ponder turning it off, and then goes freaking nuts. The latter part turns into a Cold War corporate thriller with tons of political and corporate manoeuvrings, insane deal-making and a quite spectacular and never-gets-old smashing to pieces of the Maxwell corporate empire. Roger Allam as Robert Maxwell (under ludicrous makeup) is 100% solid gold. Could have started better, but well worth it in the end. The way they set up the hope for post-USSR Russia but hint it won't be as good as they think is presumably a post-2022 editorial shift. Also, for once genuinely impressed by the Moscow car chase given they didn't film a single frame of footage in Moscow. The greenscreen and CG seemed much less obvious than normal (unlike the military parade, which felt like a Red Alert 2 cutscene). After Masters of the Air, Manhunt and Tetris, Anthony Boyle has moved on my "actor to watch" list. He is excellent in three completely different roles (apparently he was in GoT for five seconds as a Bolton soldier, which I have no memory of).
  6. Improbable, but they do seem to be having more success this time around then last. Last time they only managed a raid which lasted about 2 days and then had to flee. This has been going on for longer, and reportedly they have IFVs, MRLS and even helicopter support. They have also taken much larger numbers of prisoners and either killed or wounded a much larger number of opposition forces. They've also caused much more significant chaos over a larger area, apparently convincing thousands of civilians to flee the area despite government and military personnel trying to encourage them not to leave. In response, Russia is counter-attacking much heavier than before, using tanks, artillery and glide bombs, to what effect is unclear as the rebels do seem to be staying in the fight. It is unclear if the rebels are getting drone support. As of five hours ago, Belgorod itself, or at least its outlying areas, seem to have come under rebel long-range artillery fire so the situation still appears to be developing. Last time Russia had to divert significant forces into the area, but they had larger standing forces already there this time which seem to have been routed, and some reinforcements have already been defeated or at least fought to a standstill. All things being equal, the Russians should defeat this incursion but clearly at a higher cost than last time. It's mad it's still going on.
  7. Increasing alarm on Russian Telegram and even some media channels about the success of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil infrastructure. A number of facilities in and around the Samara region have been hit hard overnight, and Russian sources are saying they are hitting the distillation units. Everything else can be replaced pretty quickly, but if destroyed, these units can take months to replace (and are too expensive to have tons of spares sitting around). The success of the Ukrainian drone attacks is starting to seriously dent the production and output that the Russian economy relies on. Apparently there is also a current blame-shifting game going on with the oil oligarchs saying it is the responsibility of state defence to defend them, but the military is saying they have been refused permission to operate on the private property the oil facilities are built on, so there's fuck all they can do (the further out from the refinery, the greater the circle you have to defend, the less successful that defence will be). The head of the Russian Volunteer Corps has appeared with a number of prisoners taken in recent attacks. He has proposed a ceasefire so they can discuss the repatriation of POWs to Belgorod. "Dye-bombing" the Russian polling booths is now a widespread phenomenon. A green dye attack in Yekaterinburg and a red dye attack in Zelenogradsk, adding to the black dye attacks seen recently in several other locations. On more than one occasion a police officer patiently waited until the dye attack was completed before arresting the culprit in a very mild way.
  8. Pretty solid finale. Rosie was a fucking lunatic though. Flew 52 missions (twice a normal tour), he was shot down twice. They completely cut the first time out of the show on the presumed basis that viewers wouldn't believe it: he was knocked unconscious and the plane nose-dived into the ground. Insanely, he was pulled alive from the cockpit by the Free French and clandestinely flown over the Channel at night. The next time he woke up after the crash was in a hospital in Oxford, feeling very confused. He was assigned desk duty but pointblank refused to take it and returned to his old squadron. During the mission where he was shot down in the finale, one of the bombs he dropped probably directly hit the "People's Court" in Berlin, instantly killing Roland Freisler, one of the Third Reich's more notorious total shitheels. As the concluding card noted, he served as a prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials and interrogated Goring personally. I think it was a great show, better than The Pacific but not as great as Band of Brothers.
  9. I don't think anyone is cheering them on to fulfil their dubious objectives, just to cause Putin a bad headache and show that some Russians are willing to fight him. Even if not in the service of the angels.
  10. Ukraine hit the Pervyy Zavod refinery outside Kaluga, setting part of the complex ablaze. The Russian Volunteer Corps has engaged Chechen forces in Kozinka, Belgorod (on Russian soil). Apparently they took them by surprise and killed 20 Chechens. RVC forces have apparently fired multi-rocket batteries at Russian forces around Grayvoron and Belgorod, although there have been some reports of civilian casualties, which they have to keep a lid on. Meanwhile, in Russia: Apparently this has happened at several polling stations. ETA: Russian glide bombs are now hitting Russian forces in Russia. Looks like an attempt to unseat the rebels from Kozinka.
  11. Britain and France have already offered to buy Taurus to backfill their stocks of Storm Shadow and SCALP, and then they can be free to send their remaining stocks of Storm Shadow and SCALP (the same missile, but still) to Ukraine. This is no escalation - Storm Shadow/SCALP has been used in Ukraine for a long time now - and Taurus will not be used against Russia. And if Britain and France said fuck it later on, it's not Germany's fault. Why Scholz has not taken this deal is unclear, as it's not achieved anything other than pissed off two of its three most important allies.
  12. Portugal has signed onto the Czech shell procurement plan, despite it already being fully funded. This is probably because the Czechs overshot their initial target of 800,000 shells, reportedly with actually closer to 1.1 million located through various third countries. Portugal and other nations signing on means this higher figure of shells can be delivered to Ukraine quickly. Some indications that the first block of 300,000 shells might already be in Ukraine or almost so, with 500,000 more to follow in the next few weeks and then another 200,000-300,000 shortly afterwards.
  13. There's a half-hour interview with French television, although he did backtrack from some of the more hardcore interpretations of what he said. He initially said that Russia is an enemy of France, but then backtracked that to say that it is an adversary, but the Russian people are not the enemy. He is also hopeful of negotiating a peace with "the president of Russia, whomever that is." He indicates that he no longer trusts Putin even remotely. "If Russia were to win, life for the French would change. We would no longer have security in Europe. Who can seriously believe that Putin, who has respected no limits, would stop there?" He also stated that France's nuclear capability gives it security from Russian threats. The French force in Romania is apparently a pre-announcement report, so not 100% confirmed but it seems well-supported. We'll see if that happens. ETA: Macron and Tusk are travelling to Berlin tomorrow and will hold a "Weimar Triangle Summit" with Scholz. It is possible that Tusk will issue similar statements on behalf of Poland and they will together seek to convince Scholz to join their coalition or, at the very least, step up more than he has been (Taurus is a likely discussion point there). Interesting there has been no discussion with the UK so far, given there is a serious probability that the UK would also join a more robust European coalition.
  14. Macron is deploying a significant French military force to Romania. He has said there is "no need" for this force to enter Ukraine but he will not rule out doing so in response to "Russian escalation." The current scuttlebutt is that if deployed onto Ukrainian soil, this force would effectively take over military operations around Odesa, freeing up several large Ukrainian formations to reinforce the front line. However, French advisors, trainers and engineers are likely to enter Ukraine first, to train and assist Ukrainian forces on the ground, rather than engage in direct combat operations. Apparently the phrase "deliberate tripwire" has been doing the rounds, referencing deploying French forces and if these are attacked, this will result in the deployment of combat troops. Ergo, Russia will be encouraged not to attack them. An alternative reading is that this force will only take action if Russian forces initiate military action in Moldova, as that will be a sign of the conflict spreading to another country, in which case France (and possibly Romania) will respond by reinforcing Moldova. France is not spelling out exactly what its plans are as part of its doctrine of strategic ambiguity. "There are no red lines for France." Fucking hell. Simultaneously, reports of gridlock as Russian civilians flee the settlements between the border and Grayvoron towards Belgorod, as Russian partisan forces vow to liberate the area and destroy large Russian forces. General consensus is that this is a psyops designed to distract from the elections rather than a committed push towards Belgorod. Although these partisan forces seem significantly larger than last year's, it's still unlikely they have the strength to retain territory long enough to reinforce. ETA: Some reports now that the partisans are using helicopters for rapid deployment, which seems pretty ridiculous inside Russian territory. That might support reports that Russia redeployed air defences from "secure" border areas to replace the S-300 and 400 complexes destroyed in Crimea.
  15. In BSG: Deadlock I reached the second additional story DLC, Resurrection. Quite impressed by this one. It definitely rolls back the XCOM meta layer, which was starting to get a bit wearisome after the main game and the first two DLC (which can add up to around a 60-hour playthrough between them). Resurrection switches the strategic map away from the entire Cyrannus star system to just the area around Galactica, and now the map is located in Galactica's CIC (as in the same as the TV show) and you can walk right around it! That's pretty cool. You still have side-missions but now it's all much more tightly focused, and there's a rhythm of main mission-side mission with the option to throw in a few more side missions if you want. Some of the storytelling remains weird but entertaining.
  16. I wonder if it's a budget consideration: doing stuff in the planes is very expensive, doing stuff on one set in the camp for three episodes (and I suspect reuse of some of the airbase sets, redressed) is a lot cheaper. Clearly the show isn't cheap, but I'm not getting the sense it had anything like the money spent on The Pacific or even, in its day, Band of Brothers.
  17. Ryazan Refinery, the third-largest in Russia, took a pounding in the early hours. It's been hit so bad it's apparently lost 70% of its processing capacity. How long for remains to be seen, but the damage appears substantial. Novoshakhtinskiy Refinery near Rostov also took some hits, though not as bad. It will be shut down for two days whilst repair inspections take place. The Russian Volunteer Corps has said it plans to halt attacks on Kharkiv and Sumy Oblasts in Ukraine by targeting military bases inside cities in Belgorod and Kursk Oblasts, and has advised civilians evacuate certain areas.
  18. Yup, pretty large-scale offensive by the Russian paramilitary forces in Belgorod and Kursk regions, accompanied by large drone attacks. Some border villages taken, others contested. Likely trying to be an embarrassment during the elections, so expect more of this over the week. An IL-76 and Su-27 reportedly shot down, although the 76 sounds like it might have been a genuine accident (some footage of an engine literally falling off). Lukoil oil depot in Kstovo, a fuel depot in Oryol destroyed. An oil facility near Moscow attacked but the drone was reportedly shot down. Another TOS-1A thermobaric missile system destroyed. I think we're coming up on 60% of Russia's entire pre-war reserves of that platform having been eliminated (although "several" new ones have been commissioned since 2022). Kursk is a 3-hour drive from Kharkiv (under normal circumstances, might take longer now), so not really. Kursk Oblast directly borders Ukraine's Kharkiv region.
  19. Yes, but which one is a really big question. FF15 and 16 are the newest, but they're also more action games lacking some of the classic FF gameplay. But you might find 1-9 a bit too old-fashioned. 10 and 12 are in the middle and sort of bridge the classic gameplay with the modern, but they're not the best games in the series from a story or character POV. FF7 Remake is solid enough. I was literally talking to someone about Anachronox. One of the most overlooked games of all time, fantastic story and characters, really funny, and I remain convinced to this day that BioWare "borrowed" a lot of Anachronoxs ideas for Knights of the Old Republic. The similarity in feel, setting and sometimes plot is a bit eyebrow-raising.
  20. I worked out the recorder cannot handle 4K, so I set it to "half resolution" and then it recorded fine.
  21. Given the prominence of Ncuti Gatwa in the trailers and the title sequence, it's bananas he shows up in a small role in the penultimate episode of the series. It's remained pretty strong although it started to suffer from Pacific vibes in splitting up to follow different characters in different areas. It hasn't got the single Band of Brothers group going on. Obviously the history doesn't allow them to do that, and they do try to keep focus on the crew from the first episode by moving between the airbase (with Croz, who no longer flies) and the PoW camp, but it has dissipated the pacing a bit. Still, technically impressive and some of the character work is pretty good. Way more of showing life in wartime Germany and occupied territories than I thought they'd go for. Frog-marching the US prisoners through a city just bombed by their comrades to show the impact on the ground was also an interesting move.
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