u/M3ptt

This war of choice has been a monumental cock up in every way.

It has:
- Wiped out any moderates in Iran’s government and put fundamentalists in power who now hate the US even more.

- Shown that the US does not have sufficient stockpiles for a protracted air war.

- Iran’s nuclear facilities were not destroyed.

- Turned an international waterway into an extended part of Iran’s territorial waters.

- Driven up the cost of living globally.

But the one good thing it has done is show that our dependence on oil is not just an economic liability but a national security issue. This will push a lot more investment into green energy to protect global economies from shocks like this in the future.

I’m so glad I’ve set myself an end date of a 1000 day streak to move off Duolingo and learn Korean properly.

It sucks so badly now.

The stories are far too complex for the vocab you are learning and have words you haven’t seen before.

The flash cards are a mess. You are introduced to a word using one particle ending but the flash card uses a different one you have to guess.

It is wrong a lot more than it should be - my wife is Korean so she’s pointed it out a few times.

Only 13 days to go and I am done with this. I’ll use it for German but the Korean course is just awful.

I’m angrier about it now than I was 10 years ago.

It was obvious to both my friends and me what the consequences of Brexit would be, but none of our parents (16/17 at the time) believed us.

Now that the catastrophic consequences of Brexit are laid bare for everyone to see, it makes me even more angry that no one listened to us. We could have avoided this.

It makes me angry that grifters and charlatans like Farage are still popular. He is a lying, deceitful scumbag that peddled misinformation and lies to push for Brexit. We know that he lied, that he deceived the public for personal gain and yet people still support him.

The only plus to Brexit is that it basically saved the EU. The economic suicide that it was has forced all the other countries (notably Poland) from pushing for their own Brexit because they looked at the mess the UK has become and went ‘yeah, no thanks’.

This seems to be an American issue; unfettered capitalism.

My wife got into an accident in our car and the whole front left side of the car had to be rebuilt. I think the total cost of repair was around £15k. She paid just £200 in excess fees and the insurance covered the rest. We renewed with the same insurance the next year and the cost went down.

I’ve only ever done one AI interview and it was so dehumanising that I swore no matter how desperate I was for a job I would never do one ever again.

Proper late stage capitalism dystopian nonsense.

Generally yes - most pilots pull up when being engaged. Being slightly above means you are better positioned to engage them as they enter the turn. If it is a tight turn you can actually drop your speed and pull up, this will put them square in your sights. The slower you are the tighter you turn, so slowing down gives you a better turning radius.

If they drop low to below radar you want to stay a decent bit above then to track them better and avoid terrain collision.

Just seen your comment about the target being out of your FOV. Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean you can’t hit them or track them. This takes a lot of skill and experience but once you get a feel for your cannon’s velocity and drop you can pull so hard that they fall out of view but you can still shoot them. The same goes for tracking. Trust your intuition and learn to follow the afterburner trails if you lose sight of them. With a bit of experience you can chase a target for a good while after you lost sight of them.

I’ll address them separately:

1. Pull your nose higher /lower than you think. Your target is turning as well and so you need to adjust your position to account for their path changing. I would also hang back a little if you can and wait until they enter the turn. They are most exposed when turning and present the largest target area.

2. This is all about your approach. You want to eye your target well before you commit to the hunt. Approach high and wide. Come in at a steep angle right behind them and open fire as soon as they engage a target.

It looks increasingly like this war will only end when Russia inevitably runs out of money to fund it.

Putin seems to be making the dangerous and reckless gamble that he can end this war on his terms before the economy implodes. Pretty much the same bet that Germany made in WWI and WWII and look how those panned out.

That’s a little obvious.

The armed forces of both countries have atrophied since the 80s but the Argentinians have lost more capability than we have. A round two would be even more one-sided than last time.

I have been doing German for about 2 years ish. Admittedly I haven’t been as focused as I should have. I am at level 37 now. At this rate it will take me years to finish.

Before the course overhaul recently I was making good progress again but that stopped dead when I had to spend 3 units learning new words. I lost a lot of motivation because that was so dull and boring to do.

With the EU openly courting Canada with associate membership, the clock is ticking for us to rejoin on passable terms. If we continue waiting we will likely end up as an associate member and not a full member.

With the EU showing their willingness to explore expanding the Union beyond Europe it means that the benefits of re-joining are even more obvious. If Canada can join as an associate member you can bet that other countries will want in as well. It would strengthen their economic bargaining position in a world rapidly returning to great power competition and rule of force over rule of law.

note: associated membership is not something the EU has a legal mechanism for at the moment and requires legislation and ratification to enable.

Gaming for sure.

I don’t think it is out of reach for the average person but I think it is only a few years away from being so.

New games are £70+, a console is £600+ with a PS5 Pro being £800+

Games have gotten so expensive, come out so infrequently with it being years between releases, and the in-game economics are becoming increasingly toxic and predatory.

At some point it won’t be worth buying a console anymore because there is no guarantee that your favourite franchise or developer will release a game that generation.

It won’t die completely but it will change for sure.

I’m thinking of buying a few fuel cans and filling those up when I see a cheaper petrol station. Fuel prices are getting ridiculous. If it ever goes to over €3 a litre I will really struggle to afford fuel.

I’m thinking of buying a few Jerry cans and filling those up when I see a cheaper petrol station. Fuel prices are getting ridiculous. If it ever goes to over £2 a litre I will
Really struggle to afford fuel.

I loved China when I lived there for a few months. Amazing country and hospitable people.

My least favourite country I’ve visited is Monaco. So soulless and a horrible monument to the grotesqueness of capitalism - only purpose is for gambling and tax evasion.

I thought Switzerland, specifically Geneva, was dreadfully boring.

I had this in France recently on my honeymoon. People just don’t seem to understand basic beach etiquette.

When the beach is empty a 200m gap is the minimum (if the beach allows) distance. You spread out as much as possible so everyone can have their bubble of quiet and peace. You only fill in once it starts to pick up.

Another basic etiquette is that if you ask someone to take pictures of you, you must offer to take pictures of them in return. You match the level of effort they put in. A quick photo for a quick photo. If they take the time to make the picture look nice and give multiple options with different angles then you should do the same.

I had a boss when I worked in a bar that earnestly wanted us all to arrive an hour early and help out before clocking in. When he asked us why we didn’t do it when one of the security guards did I straight told him that I don’t get paid enough for that.

The Korean course is fine enough but it is not great. It doesn’t explain the particle system to you until you click ‘explain my answer’ and it never presents words without a particle attached so learning new words can be hard because you’ll learn it with one ending but then the flash card uses a different one. I have made progress but I had to put in a lot more effort than I did with German.

My Korean wife has also pointed out that the course is technically fine but it presents sentences in a way that no native Korean would write or speak.

I wouldn’t worry about it. I’m 26 and my wife is 32. Age doesn’t matter as much, what matters is how compatible you are and is your maturity and outlook on life are at the same level.

But I will say that one of the challenges you will face is imparting wisdom. I’ve lived a pretty full life so I thought I had things figured it so I didn’t always appreciate the wisdom my wife imparted on me. Try to remember that he hasn’t experienced as much life as you so be patient when he makes mistakes you saw coming. He will eventually learn from you and catch up but it won’t happen overnight.

Don’t pick up an unattended bag, you don’t know what is in it.

I was in Nice last week and someone left a bag behind on the tram. Everyone, rightfully so, treated it like a bomb until proven otherwise. You would rather be wrong that it is a bomb, than wrong that it is harmless and it explodes killing people.

I had a passing interest in this game. Didn’t preorder but did plan to pick it up in the next few weeks. But after looking at several reviews I’ll wait until it inevitably comes to the Game Catalogue on PS+ Extra.

I can live with the shallow combat and the meh story because Spider-man 2 had both of these in droves and I still enjoyed that for the most part. But I can’t forgive the egregious handholding and open contempt for the player’s intelligence.

I will pass on this for now.

As much as the rapid increase in minimum wage has helped to push up the low end of full time salaries, it has had a devastating effect on the part time / young persons market.

I am not defending business paying people too little to live on, there needs to be fair pay for people living independently.

I worked in hospitality for 10 years before I got a full time job. Over that decade I have seen wages go up and hours go down. In 2018 and 2019 it was in a sweet spot. I get as many hours as I wanted - doing 80+ hours a week at one point. When wages went up my hours dropped off a cliff and have never recovered. At the end of my time in the industry I could only get 1 shift a week to 1 shift every 2 weeks. I had to go on UC because I didn’t make enough to live anymore.

Full time pay needs to go up and drastically. We need to break through the 2008 ceiling and get the bottom end of full time salaries to over £30k a year, preferably nearer to £35k a year. But destroying the part time labour market is not an acceptable casualty of war.

Terrorist hunt on Siege before they reworked it. On the highest difficulty they had absolutely pixel perfect accuracy and situational awareness. They would rock your shit before you knew what happened.

This brings back some memories.

When the Desert Eagle dropped with this it was horrifically overpowered. Had phenomenal range. You basically didn’t need a primary weapon. Just run around with the Deagle and you were good to go.

You can bait torpedos pretty easily as they don’t have great fine movement control.

You need to wait until it gets very close and then when it is about 10m - 15m away you flick the boat around >90°s and the torpedo will miss.

The rotary cannon with the LMG is a nasty combo. You can fire the rotary gun until it overheats, switch to the LMG to keep firing and then switch back to the rotary gun after a few seconds. Rinse and repeat.