Quote from: Ian on July 19, 2018, 09:20:29 AM

• Hacking emails and computer networks of the DNC, liberal/democrat institutions and high profile members of the Democratic party / Clinton team by using infiltration, malware and phishing to publish private and classified information.
• Social media manipulation, propaganda and fake news through millions of dollars put into fraudulent bank accounts and forged identity documents, troll farms, profiling and targeted misleading advertisements, bots and other means to  limit the information seen by thousands of people to very slanted and misleading segments promoting Trump and trashing Clinton (for example, getting hashtags like #clintonforjail trending on twitter accompanied with fake information).
• Hacked voter registration databases in strategic states, infiltrated computers of members of electoral boards, got into the voting systems of nearly 40 states to record information and (probably unsuccessfully) attempt to alter voter data, breached a company providing the voter registration services to send out malware to election administrators...

And then there's some other stuff leading up to the election like Russians being behind popular (but fake) BLM or ANTIFA groups to organize protests and spread false information to bait out counter-protests and start violence, or being involved in several other groups with political ties (it's just been revealed that a long rumored Russian spy has established close ties to the NRA to influence lawmakers and lobby groups), or other national intelligence services picking up on plans of the Russians (the Dutch intelligence services for example caught Russian hacker groups undermining computer networks in US political institutions).

As far as we know, there's no "smoking gun" of Russians faking votes or directly altering results. It was just a lengthy, sustained and very well resourced (millions of dollars and heaps of people) campaign to sow discord, mislead masses of voters and turn the public opinion against Clinton and in favor of Trump through propaganda while also infiltrating networks, systems and groups directly involved in the electoral process. Russia wanted Trump elected because he's impulsive, transparent and easily manipulated. Trump is weak and he's making the USA the exact same. He's a full blown narcissist who sympathizes with authoritarian regimes, questions the rule of law and attacks the free press. Him being elected has divided the US (Russia's main opponent) more than ever before while destabilizing and weakening its global standing. Trump has been picking fights with American allies, named Europe as a literal "foe", started trade wars with dozens of countries, abandoned treaties and agreements, undermined the workings of organizations like the UN and NATO...

Russia has been absolutely killing it at the international stage. Brexit and Trump are exactly what it wanted.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/world/europe/trump-intelligence-russian-election-meddling-.html

Pretty good overview of the recent Trump insanity.

"Two weeks before his inauguration, Donald J. Trump was shown highly classified intelligence indicating that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had personally ordered complex cyberattacks to sway the 2016 American election.

The evidence included texts and emails from Russian military officers and information gleaned from a top-secret source close to Mr. Putin, who had described to the C.I.A. how the Kremlin decided to execute its campaign of hacking and disinformation.

Mr. Trump sounded grudgingly convinced, according to several people who attended the intelligence briefing. But ever since, Mr. Trump has tried to cloud the very clear findings that he received on Jan. 6, 2017, which his own intelligence leaders have unanimously endorsed."

The amount of mental gymnastics or just downright stupidity people must have to still support this man is just crazy.

but i have my credit card number remembered already...

This.

I can't believe Ian is going to become Mickey Mouse.

Ian is my favorite Disney princess of them all.

Quote from: Flee on July 13, 2018, 06:44:53 AM

Quote from: Dietrich Six on July 13, 2018, 06:20:01 AM

Tfw I've been celebrating all along

Dietrich no, not you too

Dabbing on them haters

Just Yolo that bae.

Alright which one of you furries was this.

"Donald Trump has once again torn up standard etiquette for diplomacy by turning up, not with flowers or a bottle of wine – but a verbal grenade. As he was setting off for his first visit to the UK as American president, he told the Sun that he advised Theresa May “how to do” Brexit but “she didn’t listen to me”.

He also warned that a soft Brexit will probably kill any hope of a separate US-UK trade deal, which was supposed to be a centrepiece of Friday’s talks at Chequers. And to add insult to injury, he suggested that May’s nemesis, Boris Johnson, would “make a great prime minister”."

Special and lasting relationship alright.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/12/donald-trump-sun-interview-theresa-may-brexit-criticism

There's plenty of reasons people tend to dislike Chaos.

- The boss fight design doesn't really fit with the general combat gameplay of the game. Instead of dodging, counter-attacking, managing stamina and whittling down the boss' HP, you just have to hit 3 targets once. The fight is more platforming than anything else in the game and doesn't work too well with the kinda crappy jumping mechanics.

- The attacks are pretty dumb and there's only a small number of them that it endlessly repeats. The fire is very RNG and if you get caught in a bad place with a bad pattern, it's an unavoidable insta-kill. The swings are pretty dumb as well since even if you manage a perfect roll and avoid all damage, its hitbox can still push you and move your character in the depths.

- If you die, the walk back to the boss is one of the longer and more tedious ones in the game (you mentioned this yourself with the Titanite Demon in your path or, if you take a different route, the lava with the dragons and flaming statues).

- Doing it in phases that don't reset might be useful but it's not very fun or satisfactory. Run in, go to one orb, die because getting all the way over to the other side is a pain. Run back, start in the default position, run to the other orb and die again. Run back a third time and then just run straight forward to drop on the branch and finish it. It's a pretty dumb and disappointing fight like that, but it's something that'll almost always happen because of how random the whole thing is. Good luck making it all the way to the left side, then all the way to the middle again, then to the right side, then back to the middle and then down the final drop straight ahead in one go. It's possible but unlikely and having to do it in parts to make progress is kinda dumb. It's kind of like doing the Elite 4 or a Gym master in Pokemon and not having his fainted pokemon respawn if you die.

- There's no real pressure to it. Most boss fights are really intense and often last quite a while. But with Chaos? Not only can you just stand still and be perfectly safe in a large portion of the arena without any fear of being attacked or targeted, but dying doesn't really matter since you can still make progress and never lose anything. If you're down to Super Smough/Ornstein, the final of the Four Kings or getting down to the final part of the Gwyn fight, things feel like they matter. You're down to your last few estus or might even have to use humanities to heal and you know that if you take another hit or two and die, you'll have to do it all again from the start. There's constant pressure and it's just intense. But in the Chaos fight, you can just stand back and take a breather in many of the safe spots and if you die, hey, what does it even matter? You already got one orb done so progress was made. If you die, you'll even end up in a more favorable position than the one you're in now since you'll restart in the center position and with full resources. There's never any urgency or close fights and even if you die over and over again, the only thing you have to do is run straight at the next orb, hope you get lucky, swing at it once and congratulations, you've made progress or killed the boss.

There's more but those are the main gripes people have. Especially for a Lord Soul, it's just an underwhelming and pretty dumb fight.

If France wins and we don't tie this 1-1 then I'm at least hoping for a 2-0. These games where both teams are pretty equal and then it's decided by 1 point are never fun no matter what side you're on.

Quote from: Flee on July 10, 2018, 06:46:15 AM

Quote from: Fedorekd on July 10, 2018, 05:35:46 AM

OH NO NO NO

Nigel "fuck the EU but let me continue making a 6 digit salary as a member of the European parliament and also don't take away my personal EU pension for the family so that I can move abroad when Brexit goes wrong" Farage? Amazing some people still support people like that.

I love that he went to Ireland to promote "Irexit", and we told him to fuck off.

Truly delusional.

It's appalling. Farage has been all over Europe and the world to fan the flames, promote fake news, sow distrust and deepen divides. Meanwhile it's revealed that Farage is under investigation because of links with Russia during the Referendum campaign and that he's made close to a million dollars in the last 4 years for doing what he does. It's disgusting to see how these people benefit so much from manipulating the public into this stuff while they've got one hand rummaging for money in their pockets and another ready to shove the people under the bus. I can't even wrap my head around how some support this when Farage messes with millions of innocent people and then insist he keeps his $100k EU pension in the future and when he might move abroad because otherwise it would "harm his family".

Fucking hell. Populism is the biggest cancer modern politics and society as a whole face.

OH NO NO NO

Nigel "fuck the EU but let me continue making a 6 digit salary as a member of the European parliament and also don't take away my personal EU pension for the family so that I can move abroad when Brexit goes wrong" Farage? Amazing some people still support people like that.

Exactly the kind of thread an EU shill would make, watch your step globalist cuck shill

What I meant to say was that the EU made all the world's frogs gay and needs to be destroyed. Brexit is really going very well. Keep it up!

Quote from: Flee on July 09, 2018, 01:40:32 PM

Quote from: Fedorekd on July 09, 2018, 01:40:00 PM

JUST FUCK MY COUNTRY UP FAM

At least it's coming home man.

it'll probably get stopped at the border

That is if Croatia and/or Belgium/France don't get to it first.

In the past few days, most of it in just 24 hours:

>Boris Johnson, the UK Foreign Secretary, resigns over Brexit and states concerns that the UK is headed "for the status of a colony".

>David Davis, the UK Minister for Brexit, resigns as the country is shaping up to "hand control" over to the EU regarding much of the economy and other areas.

>Steve Baker, the no.2 responsible for Brexit, has resigned as he feels his department is being blindsided and the UK is put in a weak negotiating position.

>British Finance Investments dropped 26% in a year while France and Germany soared.

>Latest revealed version of Brexit plan would not allow flexible deviation from EU rules to set up new service/trade agreements with the US.

Marvelous. A political decision rivaled in insanity and folly only by Trump's election is going swimmingly.

STRONG AND STABLE, or something.

But clearly European teams are far superior.

Props to the EU for its absolute dominance this Cup. No matter what happens next, the world champion and ranks 2 through 4 will all be from within the Union.