Large corporations rarely innovate and try new things. Most innovation comes from smaller players with limited market share taking risks.

Large companies buy out smaller ones who create cash cows from taking large risks. The large company then milks the cash cows until they are completely dead.

The consolidation of studios to a few megacorporations has led to this inevitable end. The solution is simple: break them up. If we have 30 or so similar sized studios competing, we will get better movies/TV again.

I see some shiney white targets remaining.

I did a little assassin creed run this summer. Started with Unity and went to Odyssey.

Unity by far has the best story-line. The game mechanics are also more focused on being an assassin, not a brawler. Sneak and stab, drop smoke and disappear when you get in trouble.

Syndicate - they changed the focus to more brawling. However the mechanics were pretty bad and the storyline was predictable and stupid to say the least. You can still play the assasin for most of it if you want.

Origins - They went all out into brawling with this one. Complicated all of the controls. Easiest way to make it through the game is as an archer. The story lines are dull and some are just plain weird. The offer you tons of different options in gear but only a few are worth keeping. Not much chance to actually assainate anyone. Lots of weird half baked stuff like the naval warfare in the story line but nowhere else.

Odyssey - it’s basically the same as origins. They spent more time fleshing out the mechanics. Added in a ton of options but you only use a few. Added in a ton more brawling combat and very little assassination. In many instances trying to play as an assassin is just not possible. The combat is often broken. Beating the bosses is all the same. Spam arrows while dodging until they weaken, get a hit in and run away- repeat. Save often because the game crashes regularly.

Yes I played all the way through and beat the main quests and side quest on all of them.

Windows did a few vital things that Apple failed miserably on in the 90’s.

Mac dropped support for legacy software and hardware on every new OS in the 90’s. Microsoft maintained backwards capability. It was a major reason windows was more resource intensive and had more bugs. It was a smart move because windows OS was able to handle more software and hardware than Macs. This is the top reason why windows demolished Mac in sales.

Microsoft’s business model allowed greater range of pricepoints. Most users in business or at home do not need the capabilities of the lowest priced Mac model. You don’t need much to check e-mail, browse the web, and do some basic word processing. Apple did not service this largest section of the market at all.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Saint-Malo

Guessing it was one of the defenses that was hit by close range artillery fire.

Nobody knows the exact number as they hide their wealth using all sorts of shady methods. We do know they had more than 100 billion in just one investment account. They also own over 1 million acres of agricultural land, and large amounts of commercial real estate. Tracking all the business entities they own around the world is also difficult as they commonly use shell companies and other methods to hide their ownership.

Any estimate you find is just a guess.

It also allows for much longer distance attacks. With a spotter and repeater thy can hit targets at the far edge of the FPV drones flight time.

The distance also explains why you sometimes see them “waste” a drone on an already destroyed target. They are too far out to recover the drone so they make sure the enemy can’t use them.

I have been attempting to use Linux for 20 years now. It has found its niche used for me over the years. For example when my kids were toddlers they had a old machine that defaulted to PBSkids. Before that I used it to run a gaming server.

Currently I have a old laptop that I dual boot with win 10 and whatever Linux distro I feel like trying at the moment.

The win 10 on the laptop barely meets the minimum hardware requirements and takes 10 minutes to load.

I have tried a few different distros and always had a few issues with the setup. All sorts of different ones - screen orientation, WiFi connection, printer hell, keyboard layout etc. Takes me days to fix the bugs or give up.

Mint takes 2 minutes to load and so far is working seamlessly. It’s apt manager is the easiest I have used in a Linux distro. It found my network printer automatically. It runs smoother than windows 7 did on my laptop.

With Microsoft ending win 10 for the shitty win 11, I imagine many people are looking for alternatives. If Mint continues to work to make setup and usage easy, it will gain market share rapidly. It’s not all the way there yet, but it’s a hell of a lot better than before.

The smaller restaurants kept their prices tracking actual inflation to maintain their customer base. Lately they have been enjoying increased business because of the nationals screwups.

The local Greek place $65.

The best taco truck in town is $55.

For $75 I can get my local family owned Thai place with leftovers for the next day.

DQ, McD, Subway, KFC, all run between $60-75.

For $70 I can even get my family chipotle and enjoy the guaranteed food poisoning a few hours later.

Just how fast and far have they gotten those drones to move?

Taking down 3 helicopters in that short amount of time indicates they have something new.

Makes more sense if it’s going hunting for Russian drones.

If they get far enough into Russian territory:

Cut off supply routes to the front.

Flank Russian fortified defensive positions.

It was never a serious threat.

Putin using a nuke = Russia is absolutely destroyed and his power is at an end. It’s not a question. It’s the one line that all the other nuclear powers agree on. Using them has exactly one outcome for Russia and it is not pretty.

Putin only cares about holding onto power and his own self-aggrandizement. Unless he is completely backed into a corner and risks losing his control, he is highly unlikely to ever use a nuclear weapon. It’s the same thing with North Korea.

Threatening to use it to scare other people in a power play = Hell yeah, Putin is in 100% on board.

Money.

How would icing cause the plane to stall like that? Shifting the center of gravity towards the tail?