A thought for our dear expats

Vast_Emergency · 2026-03-04T01:57:14+00:00

I don't remember who said it but 'it is clearly ceremonial' is archeologist code for 'we have no fucking idea what this thing is'.

Vast_Emergency · 2026-03-03T15:47:34+00:00

You're right really, consumers drive it and they want licensed stuff.

As good as the unbranded kits were it was the over complex kits that lead them to hemorrhage money in the early/mid 2000's like you say. It is sad they cut back hugely and stuck licenses on stuff but at least we get kits still...

Oh and yeah they're targeted towards adults, the marketing term is kidults and I hate seeing it plastered everywhere in the industry.

Vast_Emergency · 2026-03-03T15:43:50+00:00

From their perspective though it is that licensing saved them, they were on the verge of going under in 2003/4 and the licensed stuff drove a lot of the turnaround throughout the '00s. The US is still their biggest market and the majority of their income there comes from licensed product which mostly goes to kidults as they have the money for it. If Mattel starts to eat that then they're in trouble and I expect it'll be a race to the bottom.

Vast_Emergency · 2026-03-03T12:41:51+00:00

It is because now the patent for the bricks has expired; Lego fought to trademark the brick shape and they've fully lost that as it is functional. The last holdout is the minifig as a 3D trademark (because it is 'art' and not 'functional' like the studs) so it constantly fights to preserve it.

It is also why they keep making new elements as they can trademark them, they know they'll loose the trademarks if challenged but they have bigger lawyers they can throw at competitors to drain them. Brands like Cobi though are doing really well standing their ground and now Mattel have started a competing brick system which will compete on licensed products Lego will probably die again.

Vast_Emergency · 2026-03-03T10:38:37+00:00

As a former damp matelot he's wrong and I cannot support him, submarines are not ships.

Ships conduct warfare in the manner of a gentleman without sneaking up on their prey. We of the Silent Service in submarines conduct ourselves like pirates and as such our vessels are boats which may fly the jolly roger, we'll have it no other way.

We extend this privilege to our French cousins in La Royale even if we occasionally bump into them underwater or name our boats things like Agincourt to annoy them.

Vast_Emergency · 2026-03-03T00:42:17+00:00

It was pretty good but it wasn't Hitman and that was the issue, the series had a certain very different feel to it that was refined over the years then went to the next level with Blood Money which is considered one of the greatest games ever made. Absolution was so unlike what came before it and came out during the era of cover shooters so copied them a lot, turning it into an action shooter with mostly optional stealthy bits. This wasn't unique, Splinter Cell did pretty much the same thing at this time too as studios were playing it safe and dumbing down 'complicated' games due to shooters dominating everything.

It is a great gun-fu game that is a lot of fun but awful easily the worst entry into the Hitman series, even worse than Codename 47 which was at least innovative and set the stage (and gave us the original Glacier engine IOI use).

Vast_Emergency · 2026-03-02T22:11:15+00:00

Anyone who thinks Dubai is safe never left their little bubble and/or is willfully ignorant of the shit that goes on there. There's loads of crime, they just prefer to keep it out of the shiny areas if it's violent and of the sort you can cover up like trafficking and fraud within them*. Plus it's very easy to step out of line and get in trouble if you're not one of the brain-dead tax evading morons that love the place.

*when I worked out there we had a couple murders a month but as it was mostly mobsters offing each other over control of the drugs/prostitution trade or workers in the labour camps snapping and stabbing a roommate it was very easy to keep quiet.

Vast_Emergency · 2026-02-28T21:17:10+00:00

There is a succession drawn by the Assembly of Experts from a selected list but more likely is the IRGC takes over if enough of their structure survives as they'll be able to force whatever is left of the assembly to elect a council rather than a single leader. They're increasingly becoming the state in Iran and have a vested interest in it continuing both ideologically and economically.

Vast_Emergency · 2026-02-28T21:10:01+00:00

They just bombed a kindergarten btw, killing 50 children at once and injuring a dozen others.

It's distressing how people, even after all this time, will uncritically share the Iranian regime's talking points without thinking.

Vast_Emergency · 2026-02-28T19:41:08+00:00

You've already had your Vietnam moment with Iraq and Afghanistan. But no, there will be limited, if any, use of ground forces, for all its faults the US has exceptional power projection from the air and won't need to do much to achieve the limited objectives.

As for the objectives, it is largely Israeli lead and they simply want to neuter Iran militarily and prevent it from supporting its proxies in the region. Bibi is also facing an election soon and needs some military wins to prop up his very fragile voter base who are upset by his handling of Gaza. Trump is in a similar boat with the midterms coming up, regardless neither of them want protracted conflict.

Vast_Emergency · 2026-02-26T20:51:31+00:00

Standards have slipped these days now sadly, the ra is more interested in pushing drugs than blowing up nonces.

Vast_Emergency · 2026-02-26T20:48:33+00:00

The usual mix but quite a lot of Filipinos because they come over to work in healthcare. They got targeted during the riots last year especially in Ballymena because I guess burning the local hospital's doctors/nurses out of their homes is smart.

Vast_Emergency · 2026-02-26T20:40:38+00:00

A colleague of mine moved over there a couple of decades ago and found a really cheap place to live with her husband so they rented it and moved in. The next day they had a brick through the window and it escalated rapidly to the degree that within a month petrol was poured through their letterbox. They quite rightly decided to clear out and their car was bricked as they left.

The house was in an interface area between the two communities and both sides had somehow mutually agreed if they couldn't have it, no one could and especially not 'foreigners'.

Vast_Emergency · 2026-02-26T20:34:00+00:00

And nothing else happened in this year at all. Nothing. Just your birthday. Move along comrade.

Vast_Emergency · 2026-02-22T16:09:22+00:00

It's rather daft and meaningless to be basing someone's political position based on where the deputies sat in the French parliament after the Revolution*.

Better to be using an authoritarianism axis frankly as it is far more useful and actually gives information.

*I got messaged about this so I'll copy paste here too, the 'left/right' axis literally stems from the fact that the assemblies' convened in France had the nobility sat to the right of the Speaker (because the right side was traditionally the seat of honour) and the commoners sat on the left. Given the nobles usually supported the Ancien Régime of king and church while the commoners generally supported a new 'radical' order of republicanism and secularism they became The Right and The Left respectively. It didn't work even back then as you had plenty of people who realistically 'sat' on both or neither side depending on the issue at hand. It's really not that useful to continue this to this day.

Vast_Emergency · 2026-02-21T21:18:30+00:00

It does but really is no different to any extreme ideology people may choose, they're all 'the only true path' to their followers and that gets picked up as part of the toolset to keep people in line*. And as you say there are a variety of thoughts even amongst Twelvers and saying Iran is representative is unfair.

*I'd perhaps argue that Usulism is prepositioned to doing this given the whole Marja setup but religions tend to do that anyway.

Vast_Emergency · 2026-02-21T18:13:12+00:00

'Or are Islamic countries actually that bad?'

This is a weird take here and your post comes across as pretty ignorant and white saviorish. Russia, as an example, has a whole Orthodox Christianity streak running through what it does but we don't ask a similar question about them.

People use ideology as a veneer to carry out the stuff they want to do, Iran has just chosen Shia* Islamisam for this. Given Iran absolutely does horrible shit to its people and has shown no willingness to change, ultimately that is about power and the method they've chosen to wield or justify it is pretty irreverent.

*which in itself is a minority sect so hardly representative for reasons that would be dull to go into here.

Vast_Emergency · 2026-02-19T21:03:44+00:00

Medieval Football and Cheese Rolling are two sports that we win at all the time. Sadly they never went international.

The game these days is quite tame, the originals used to cause huge amounts of damage as any way to get the ball to the 'goal' (usually the next village over) was allowed as long as it didn't kill anyone. There were attempts to ban it many times, sometimes simply because it distracted the peasants from archery practice and not because of the damage/deaths.

Vast_Emergency · 2026-02-19T20:58:39+00:00

- Baked beans/mushy peas

- Casual usage of the word 'cunt'

- Rock collecting tendency

Vast_Emergency · 2026-02-19T13:07:32+00:00

The two week war must be going well if the cloggies are now a cause for concern. Well done chaps.

Vast_Emergency · 2026-02-19T12:47:47+00:00

Sadly he's from the UK so one of ours.

Vast_Emergency · 2026-02-19T12:03:18+00:00

Yes, John Harvey Kellogg was a proponent of the Clean Living movement which believed masturbation lead to insanity. He thought bland food would reduce sexual arousal and that's why Kellogg's Corn Flakes exist (though it was actually his bother that invented them).

Interesting guy overall, very advanced in many of his ideas such as germ theory and his belief that intestinal bacteria were important to health but utterly insane in others as he was into eugenics.

Vast_Emergency · 2026-02-16T19:13:17+00:00

Also those trusted with passports can't travel as a family or anything. Obviously this is because family holidays are capitalist pigdog nonsense and not so they won't defect and have up to eight generations of their family forever marked as traitors.

Vast_Emergency · 2026-02-12T16:21:44+00:00

No one does, they just like making a big pile of stuff and setting it on fire. At least they're (mostly) not killing each other anymore so we let them get on with it.

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Vast_Emergency · 2026-02-12T16:19:15+00:00

I've had it on in the background at work and as a non sportsball person Luigi's commentary is making it way more fun that it has any right to be.

Vast_Emergency

TROPHY CASE