Bullethead

No need to play the series from the start (most of the pre-Oblivion ones won't run on today's hardware anyway) because there's really no solid connection between 1 game and the next. About the only thing the games have in common is: 1. All games always start with your character in prison for reasons unknown and not mattering a bit afterwards. Breaking out of jail serves as a tutorial. 2. All games are set in the same overall world and in chronological order, but separated by hundreds of miles and decades or centuries, so practically nothing carries over from 1 to the next except very general background info. In all the time in between, there have been the usual amount of wars and disasters so not even the political landscape is the same. For instance, Skyrim is set 200 years after Oblivion. Skyrim itself previous has just been a province name on the edge of maps, a place you couldn't go to and about which you knew only vague rumors. This was true even if your character was a Nord (the race from Skyrim), as if your family had moved away from there long ago. So the game will be virgin territory even to veterans of the series. If you've never played an Elder Scrolls game, you're in for a treat. When they say "open world", they mean it. There are outer limits to the province the game is set in, of course, but you can walk around for literally miles in all directions within it. Each game has a "main quest", solving whatever major periodic crisis threatens to destroy the whole world this time around, but you're under no obligation to even attempt it. Instead (or in addition), you can follow all sorts of other story lines, such as becoming the leader of one of the many game factions, not to mention zillions of 1-off side quests. And then there are DLC, mods, etc., with even more to do. And you can replay it over and over with different types of characters and always find something new to do.

Aye. Good thing I've already budgeted a new box shortly for P4 :)

Can't believe your nupe wingie didn't ram or even shoot you there :). Seeing how there's no answer yet on the 109, I'm gong to say you probably dodged the wreckage in front. However, blinded by the smoke and flames, you had no idea you had another Jerry on your tail, and thus didn't know to take evasive action so got a load of 20mm in the arse. Kinda makes me wonder if the German behind you didn't perhaps contribute to the rapid destruction of his buddy? BTW, aren't those Eastern Front paintjobs on the Germans?

Hit on 2 counts. First by his bullets, then by his plane. Wingmen always do that, the kill-stealin' bastids! There's another reason to fly a Fee. It's the only fighter in OFF I've not had this exact thing happen in, simply because my AI wingees can't fly it anywhere near as aggressively as me . BTW, who was the total noob in the FW scenario? Any FW driver who gets shot down by a spit under any circumstances must do 10 laps around the airfield with his parachute held over his head. Any FW driver who gets that low and that slow with Spits around is summarily executed as an example to the rest of the squadron

Nice toy. Thanks.

I'm looking forward to that Aviatik as a new challenge. It's going to require some experimentation to find ACM tactics that make effective use of its guns, both offensively and defensively. Very interesting arcs of fire there Do the guns slide on those tracks in the game as I presume they did in real life?

Look like they have the homestead under control :). What do you do with the lions once you've got them rounded up? I've always heard that "herding cats" is a metaphore for an impossible job, so I'm quite impressed you've got a dog that can do it . Well, they're remarkable critters, which is why they're the only dogs allowed under my roof . But I'm so practical-minded that my sole conception of beauty is something perfectly adapted to do its job. Thus, I side with the ISDS on how to define a Border collie, so the video rubbed me the wrong way by saying it all started with Auld Hemp. My whole point was to say that practically every dog alive along the Border in 1893 (and doubtless for at least several centuries previously) probably met the ISDS definition of Border collie, so that Auld Hemp was only special to those who want a pedigree on file. One of the things that points to the breed being much older than Auld Hemp is that a perfect run on the sheepdog trial is conducted in complete silence, with the shepherd just giving the occasional hand signal. Surely this is of benefit only to somebody trying to sneak off with somebody else's livestock. And if your gang of murderous rustlers (aka the typical Borderer clan) is making off with the livestock of an equally violent rival gang (as was always the case on the Border), you'd want a dog tactically smart enough do the job mostly on autopilot, freeing your henchmen to be ready to deal with any pursuit. In fact, I can't see how a Border raid could have been accomplished without sheepdogs as skilled as those we see today, so I figure Border dogs of the 1500s would have met the ISDS standard as well. This implies that the behavior's roots going back much deeper in time.

My father's father and all his uncles had been infantry in WW1 and their stories convinced my dad that he didn't want to do that himself. So, he had a choice. He could wait until he was 18 and get drafted, which almost certainly would have made him a rifleman, or volunteer for something else at 17. He chose the latter option and joined the navy to have more of a chance of fighting the Japanese, against whom he had more of a grudge (although he really didn't think the US should have been in the war anyway). As it happened, however, he'd just joined his ship (which was working up a new crew in the Caribbean prior to returning to action) when the nukes fell, so he never saw any action. Which is just as well. He was a radarman in a destroyer that was preparing to invade the Japanese home islands. Destroyers by then mostly functioned as distant radar warning ships for the carriers. The Japanese knew this so the 1st wave of their kamikaze attacks went for the destroyers, particularly targeting the bridge area and its radarmen. So I figure that without the nukes, I probably wouldn't have been born.

Sure he did. The selection of Auld Hemp as THE ORIGINAL BORDER COLLIE was purely arbitrary. Up until the mid-late 1800s, there weren't really any or many "breeds" of dogs as we think of them today, with names like pug, poodle, Irish setter, or Border collie, because the idea of keeping a dog for a "pet" hadn't really caught on except among a few rich people. Dogs were livestock, retained for some practical (usually economic) purpose. Thus, they were named for the jobs they did: sheepdogs, wolfhounds, bulldogs, ratters, etc. Nobody really cared what they looked like so long as they could do the job they were hired for, just as the color of a cow has no bearing on its ability to convert the minimum amount of pasture into the maximum amount of milk and meat. In the particular case of the Border, for centuries if not millennia people had been using dogs to move sheep (legally or illegally). So there was a large population of dogs originally from elsewhere that had been continuously mixed together all this time to produce excellent herders. Nobody cared what they looked like any more than any other working dog. Thus, while the demands of the job set the general size, shape, and other gross anatomical features, these dogs retained tremendous variety (as they still do) in unimportant detail features like hair length and color, eye color, and facial characteristics. What the shepherds cared about was herding behavior. These dogs were the local sheepdogs. It just so happened that in 1893, one pup named Auld Hemp was, by pure chance, dealt a particular set of unimportant detail features that were quite pleasing to the eye. But he was, in reality, exactly the same, genetically, as all his neighbors, and indistinguishable behaviorally. However, he was born at a time when the then-new business of breeding dogs purely for looks and hanging made-up names on them, for sale as pets, was booming. So Telfer cashed in on this. IOW, what the Kennel Club recognizes as a "Border Collie", based on looks, is purely a product of marketing. I'm sure there were other dogs just down the road that looked pretty similar to Auld Hemp, but were robbed of similar fame by having less-entrepreneurial owners. The unique skeletal features of Border collies didn't happen overnight in 1893. They are a feature of all of those Border sheepdogs, evolved over countless generations for the specific purpose of herding sheep. These days, there are 2 "standards" of the "Border collie" breed. There's the new and contrived "Auld Hemp" standard used by the Kennel Club, which is based on appearance. Then there's the "real" standard used by the International Sheepdog Society, which is based solely on behavior. The ISDS standard is newer than the KC standard, but is actually just a codification of the real standard that Auld Hemp himself was bred to: the ability to herd sheep in a particular manner. It was created as a reaction to the fear that the looks-breeders would destroy the working qualities of the dogs. Bottom line is, the ISDS standard includes Auld Hemp and all his contemporaries, and all their descendants, so long as they can do the job. The KC standard focuses only on the descendants of Auld Hemp and only cares about how much they resemble him. Yup, she's pretty smart, which is a result not only of her genes but also the constant training she's received from her real owner, my cat, who is even smarter. The cat (Gus, full name Hurricane Gustav) raised the dog (Speckles) from a pup to be his partner in crime, mostly as muscle but also as a ready scapegoat. Even with the run of 130 acres, they get into all sorts of trouble around the house. Because they're both black and white, I call them "Heckle and Jeckle" after the troublesome cartoon magpies of my youth. Probably the only reason I haven't made a set of bookends out of them yet is because they're so amusing to watch. When not involved in some sort of devilment, they wrestle constantly. Gus is thereby the strongest cat I've ever met, capable of tackling the much bigger dog. Here's a pic of them trying to look innocent.

No reason to call yourself a coward. The vast majority of people viewed as heroes were just ordinary folks who found themselves, usually involuntarily, in do-or-die situations and managed to do, often by pure luck, and all the while scared to death. I've never met a man with a high gong who didn't say was just the guy whose name got jotted down somehow, and that everybody in his unit or even area of operations did no less than he but got no credit. Damn, that's a worthy ancestor if ever there was one.

I have one of these mutts myself, but I have to disagree with the claims made in this video. The "Border Collie" is the only recognized breed that has absolutely zero defined physical traits. It's totally based on behavior. Either it is an able accomplice in the midnight moving other people's sheep from 1 side of the Border to the other and thus qualifies as being a Border Collie, no matter what it looks like, or it's not prone to rustling, in which case it isn't a Border Collie, even if it looks just like Lassie. The breed of course dates back to the 1500s, when stealing sheep was the main business on both sides of the Border. Such raids, covering dozens of miles a day, are why true (as in behaviorally defined) Border Collies HAVE to run many miles per day or go insane. That's what they were bred to do. So maybe "Auld Hemp" was the 1st one recognized as the progenetor of the breed, but "breeds" as such were only really recognized in the mid-late 1800s anyway. Prior to that, there'd just been dogs with job-related names, and if they could do the job, they were of that type. Sheepdogs, wolfhounds, bulldogs, boarhounds, ratters, etc. So there were "Border Collies" long before Auld Hemp. My dog has never seen a sheep in her life but can tell that deer are members of the same family, and does her best to rustle them for me. She can give deer a 50m head start and catch them in 100m. Deer, unfortunately, haven't been bred to listen to sheepdogs, so are practically impossible for her to herd, but she tries her best :). Smart critters, too. Out of the box they know tactical hand signals, the mere concept of which most dogs will never recognize in their lives, plus they're born able to understand English, Gaelic, and Scots with equal fluency (at least when referring to tactical, sheep-rustling activities). Latin, French, and Cajun commands don't faze them at all. Just to see how thievish my dog is, I've also learned the some of the same phrases in the non-Indo-European languages Hebrew and Choctaw, and the dog responded equally well on 1st hearing them.

OFF: Abandon all Hope, Ye who Enter Here OFF: Hell's Birdcage OFF: Bloody Hell! (aka BH )

I'm tempted to get some and have it sitting on my desk, for the benefit of my subordinates

OFF: Where Angels Fear to Tread

Nah, I prefer using it to BTW, along the way, I picked up a band of traveling minstrels. Should we keep 'em around or send them on their way?

NOTE TO ALL: We'll have to adjust our compasses a bit in the morning due to the slighly increased eccentricity in the Earth's rotation caused by my poor ol' mother spinning even faster in her grave, now that I'm in the BOC BTW, I took the liberty of assuming this was guest night. I hope that's OK. See, I'd just made my weekly charitable donation to the local convent of St. Flagellina of Lesbos when I pranged my crate on the garden wall while trying to take off. Damn gusty crosswinds, you know. Fortunately, the dear sisters pulled me from the wreckage, nursed me back to health, and offered me a ride home. After we'd finished with that , I suggested that as I was en route to the BOC, they might want to tag along, in case any of the other worthy members wanted to make donations . So they loaded up their lorry with booze and brought me here. I figure that covers my tab

Holy crap, Lou! Fantabulous

Well of course, the Normans weren't thick on the ground so they ran the place through the existing Saxon bureaucracy, modified to their Frenchified tastes. So obviously there was an "England" before Guillhomme came along. But I'm not so sure the pre-Norman version of England would have had nearly as much impact on the rest of the world as the post-Norman version. Of course, by the time England really got into its global stride, it was mostly under Scottish and Irish management

Or OFF: Pro patria mori, which cuts more to the heart of the matter. Or perhaps OFF: Dona eis requiem For some reason, I want to hit myself in the face with a board about now OFF: Morituri te salutant OFF: Oderint dum metuant

Back around AD 2000, there was this question about who was the most significant person of the previous millennium. Guillhomme le Batard didn't even make the list, which I found utterly amazing. He made England and England made the modern world (as much as I hate to admit it). There was simply no more significant person in the last 1000 years in Western History.

What is this BOC and how do you get in it? It's something that seems to have popped up while I was drunk in the corner.

That's a function of Workshop settings: AI gun range. Problem is, there's only 1 option for AI gun range, although there are separate accuracy options for front and rear AI guns. In reality IMHO, most bomber/recon gunners were long range/low accuracy, but you don't the enemy scouts shooting at that range. Because you meet more scouts (given the current shortage of 2-seaters), you should set the range to what you think is best for them, then make up for that with the 2-seater accuracy setting. Stoppages weren't any easier for observers to deal with than pilots. Stoppages fall into 3 categories: failure to load, failure to fire, and failure to extract. Each type can be caused either by the gun or the ammunition. Failure to Load Generally this is an ammo problem. Manually working the action is your best bet here, to get the bad round or kink in the belt out of the way. If that doesn't work, then it's probably because something broken in the gun or a piece of a bent round stuck in the chamber. You can't fix that while flying. Might be caused by overheating of the gun, and might go away if you let it cool down. Failure to Fire This is usually a gun problem; something in the gun broke. As such, it will never fire again until the broken part is replaced. Less often, it's a dud round, and working the action will fix that. Failure to Extract This is very bad. Either the extracting hook broke or the case separated and the extractor pulled the head off, leaving the tube in the chamber. Neither is fixable in the air. So at the bottom line, if your "immediate action" (manually cycling the action) doesn't work, you're usually out of luck, regardless of what type of gun you've got. MGs, especially those that fire long bursts and get hot, break frequently. Springs, firing pins, all the small moving parts involved in moving ammo through the chamber, etc. Such breakage caused most of the stoppages, then and since. BTW, a German 2-seater rear gun, the Parabellum, was a modified Maxim.

I once knew a guy who owned a Tiger Moth. One day, while working on the upper wing cables, he dropped his crescent wrench, which fell through the canvas of the lower wing between ribs. He fixed the holes by gluing down patches and painted pictures of the wrench on them, in conscious immitation of the custom of painting the insignia of the shooter of the bullet that made the hole.