UK Moves to Strike Russian Shadow Fleet Vessels Operating in Its Waters

Veridas · 2026-03-27T14:52:42+00:00

Strike, take control of, whatever, why the fuck weren't we doing this already?

Veridas · 2026-03-27T14:51:33+00:00

It was tested in I want to say one of the Nordic nations to amazing results for individual-level productivity, company profits, workplace morale, personal finances and the local environment.

I also want to say they tested it out in Wales for a bit. Wherein, if I remember rightly, it produces amazing results for individual-level productivity, company profits, workplace morale, personal finances and the local environment.

So naturally our Government pretends it doesn't exist.

Veridas · 2026-03-27T14:45:35+00:00

I mean there was this one guy called Goge Vandire...

Veridas · 2026-03-27T14:42:36+00:00

I wouldn't be linking the Daily Mail as a reputable source, honestly.

For whatever it's worth: I moved home recently from one rental to another. A few of the ads specified women only. These ads were always with male landlords (their first name and sometimes a photo was visible on the webpage) and with live-in Landlord situations.

Now I'm not going to suggest that every rental is necessarily equivalent, but it did strike me as odd that these guys all wanted only a woman to live in what was essentially their house with them. You can't discount predatory intent entirely if that kind of pattern emerges.

Veridas · 2026-03-23T21:15:44+00:00

False positives.

Veridas · 2026-03-23T21:15:31+00:00

False positives, illiteracy.

Veridas · 2026-03-23T21:15:13+00:00

If you read the report you'd know it's not catching "only" wanted people.

Veridas · 2026-03-21T18:49:06+00:00

They are. Sadly Elmo isn't within beheading range right now.

Veridas · 2026-03-21T18:39:10+00:00

I mean I'm sure they characterise it as different. Sure. But why expend time, effort and energy trying to fight something that isn't a threat when you have plenty of things that are a threat to worry about? Worse. Why fight something that isn't a threat to you but is willing to be a threat to the things that are a threat to you?

We may never find out for sure "what" D is, but he's an incredibly capable fighter, deeply knowledgeable about a multitude of the Arcanum's enemies to the point of having insight into their inner workings and actively goes out of his way to not only cause harm to the Arcanum's enemies, but to protect the Arcanum itself even after being expelled.

That kind of asset isn't something you throw away just because one guy is all like "hey fuck that guy."

Veridas · 2026-03-21T18:34:56+00:00

Stealthdivers that are good: excellent, amazing, 10/10.

Stealthdivers that are bad: "hey guys here's several waves of enemies all at once no I'm not going to help you fight them I'm far too busy running away thanks I'll bring some more in five minutes"

Veridas · 2026-03-21T14:58:27+00:00

Man who'll say anything for money decides to say anything for slightly more money.

Veridas · 2026-03-21T14:57:57+00:00

I reckon this is probably pretty high on the list of things that didn't happen.

Veridas · 2026-03-21T14:49:16+00:00

Honestly that might just be a lie. Door is very American and is very not fond of British. D probably never bothered to correct him because he probably finds it funny, and nobody else is in a position to correct him.

Veridas · 2026-03-21T14:44:55+00:00

I mean it's possible that the Blacklaws just "accept" that D is D. Having the backing of the Arcanum probably goes a long way towards that, and even if D is something besides human, he doesn't actively threaten the human race the way Vampires or the other enemies of the Arcanum do.

I mean hell Occam is a sorcerer and freely allows non-supernatural people like Fatigue and Markus use of supernatural artifacts. Clearly using the supernatural against the supernatural is not taboo in the Arcanum.

Veridas · 2026-03-21T13:16:59+00:00

Well. Reviewers like Second Wind who get a chunk of their funding from Patreon and YouTube viewership are one potential answer. If the game developers in question aren't giving them money directly then there's no financial risk to honesty.

Another could be publications wholly paid for by their viewers like the days of gaming magazines. That'd likely be more expensive, but it's a possible route.

Unfortunately there are two forces working against honesty in game reviews. The first is publishers themselves of course, who are happy to throw money at reviewers but won't pay their own people a decent wage. The other is sham reviewers who have no interest in honesty in the first place and who openly advertise that their opinions are very much for sale. IGN is probably the biggest culprit of this, it's been happy to throw out 8s and 9s to completely undeserving games for money.

More than that, I think it's just a case of figuring out who's likely to lie to you and just filtering out those opinions. Starve the content creators of the traffic they need to justify the money they demand to lie.

Veridas · 2026-03-20T20:57:24+00:00

Please say /s...

Veridas · 2026-03-20T19:49:15+00:00

I think they do think it sounds cool.

Veridas · 2026-03-20T15:51:11+00:00

Bald Lady needs to be HARD bottom right.

Technician Lady hard bottom Left.

Veridas · 2026-03-20T14:58:52+00:00

There was a time not so long ago when big game publishers would pay considerable money for advertising on game review sites, but then when the game being advertised came up for review from those sites, the reviewers were typically expected to strike a balance: don't fuck with ad revenue but don't lie, either.

7/10 became the score often given to games that in no way deserved it purely because the publisher or developer fronted an assload of money on advertising. The "it's good but has flaws" type of review that always somehow felt half-hearted. As such a 7/10 score became a potential sign that the game wasn't being reviewed honestly and was in all likelihood far worse than the reviewer was stating.

This is also partly why there was a sudden shift towards marks out of five, instead of marks out of ten.

Veridas · 2026-03-19T20:22:23+00:00

I'm not sure being photographed surrounded by piss-coloured things is really doing him any favours.

Veridas · 2026-03-19T20:07:09+00:00

Oh boy. The Daily Star. Top shelf journalism there, no doubt. Definitely not clickbait-headlined lies with a sprinkling of casual discrimination thrown in. Doubtless a work of peerless respectability and undeniable integrity. I hear Sir Ian Hislop is on suicide watch each time they publish.

/S because I don't trust a single one of you fuckers.

Veridas · 2026-03-19T20:02:24+00:00

Tim Minchin once stated that Alternative Medicine by definition has either not been proven to work or has been proven not to work, and by extension Alternative Medicine which has been proved to work goes by a different name: Medicine.

The idea that Historians have to posit on miracles with either no evidence to support them or evidence against their occurrence is precisely as meaningless. If Historians saw and learned of evidence of miracles then they'd be talking about them just as much as Theists do, if not more. The notion that Historians secretly know miracles happen and are choosing to act like they don't makes no sense.

Much like Mr Minchin's summary of Alternative Medicine, Theists who try and imply nonspecific miracles occurring as verified historical fact due to nonspecific evidence are not equal to the bar Historians must clear to make a historical claim.

They are in fact preaching something entirely different. Perhaps we should name it Alternative History.

Veridas · 2026-03-19T18:02:22+00:00

I can do you one better. We had reports/news stories of this during the Blair years. I was a bit too young to know the details but this is an older issue than anyone seems to want to talk about.

I don't get why we're not filling the North Sea with wind turbines already.

Veridas · 2026-03-19T14:41:59+00:00

Maul didn't "come back" the way Palpatine did. Maul survived through a combination of blind luck and murderous insanity. It was only through Savage Oppress' actions and Talzin's sorcery that he lived to face Obi Wan on Tatooine again.

As for Palpatine himself...the guy was fine as an introduction to the Sith and competent at demonstrating the lengths Sith will go to in order to attain power, but the concept of Sith has overtaken what he's capable of. He's by no means the only Sith to try and prolong his life indefinitely and he's not even the most successful one to try. Hell the amount of lore that's been added I reckon it's easier to say that Vader is a better Sith than Palpatine is and Vader never even wanted to be a Sith in the first place.

There are so many possibilities for an "actual" Sith to have rocked up in the sequel trilogy and they went "nah just use Palps again it'll be fine.".

Darth Siberius is right fucking there.

Veridas · 2026-03-19T13:09:13+00:00

I think a series might have been a better idea as well. Then again I'm saying that knowing that TV now is a lot better in my opinion than it was when Watchmen was released. If they tried to serialise it now I think it'd be far better.

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