Nord Stream Pipeline Explosion Was Orchestrated By Decorated Ukrainian Colonel: Report
https://ground.news/article/ukrainian-military-officer-coordinated-nord-stream-pipeline-attack_f2dc68

By The Washington Post via Bard AI to grab below article

A Ukrainian military officer coordinated the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline last month, according to U.S. intelligence officials. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the officer was working with a team of Ukrainian divers who carried out the attack.

The officials said that the attack was ordered by the Ukrainian government as a way to retaliate against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. They said that the attack was also intended to send a message to Russia that Ukraine is capable of striking at its critical infrastructure.

The attack on the Nord Stream pipeline was a major blow to Russia's energy sector. The pipeline carried natural gas from Russia to Germany and other European countries. The attack has caused a significant increase in the price of natural gas in Europe.

The Ukrainian government has denied any involvement in the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline. However, the U.S. intelligence officials say that they have "high confidence" that the Ukrainian military was involved in the attack.

The attack on the Nord Stream pipeline is the latest escalation in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The conflict has been going on for over eight months and has caused a humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.

Implications of the Attack

The attack on the Nord Stream pipeline has a number of implications for the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. First, it shows that Ukraine is willing to strike at Russia's critical infrastructure. This could lead to retaliation from Russia, which could further escalate the conflict.

Second, the attack has caused a significant increase in the price of natural gas in Europe. This could hurt the European economy and make it more difficult for Europe to support Ukraine.

Third, the attack has damaged the relationship between Russia and Germany. Germany was one of the main recipients of Russian natural gas through the Nord Stream pipeline. The attack could make Germany more likely to support sanctions against Russia and to provide military aid to Ukraine.

Conclusion

The attack on the Nord Stream pipeline is a significant development in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. It is a sign that the conflict is escalating and that it is becoming more difficult to resolve. It is also a sign that the conflict is having a significant impact on the global economy.

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The above article was published on November 11, 2023, according to the Washington Post website.

Please note that this article is based on a leaked intelligence report and has not been independently verified. The Ukrainian government has denied any involvement in the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline.

So dragons don't breathe fire but rather ... hot coals (or black dragon phlegm)? OK...

I didn't grow up on tabletop DnD, but rather on Wizardry, Eye of the Beholder, Ultima and later the BG/IWD/NWN series etc. on the PC ... this doesn't feel like any of those DnD PC games. Now now, I know a tabletop DnD game can feel vastly different depending on the DM and the players, it CAN be as silly as anything, please don't boooo me.

I mean, if I'm more charitable-minded I'd call this is more Discworld and The Bard's Tale than typical DnD.

But really, this, this feels like a lazy MCU formula movie put in a fantasy setting and call it DnD.

Depends on the circumstances I suppose.

https://arcaderage.co/2021/02/28/bards-get-down-and-dirty/

Your video, The Bard: Bards are kind of useless in combat., has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Asking @bobknight33 to engage in some form of cogent argument is as pointless as asking shit to smell nice. Ain't gonna happen.

He comes, he drops a few word bombs, if anyone questions him or attempts any form of intelligent argument he fades into the woodwork. Why? Because he knows if he engages, he loses, because he's got nothing. Just word bombs. To quote the Bard, he is "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

I know, I know, be nice to fellow sifters. @BobKnight will receive a full apology and retraction from me if and when he proves me wrong by presenting a cogent argument instead of his usual disingenuous crap.

The years after the crash but before the appearance of Nintendo were Golden Years for my brother and me. We were picking up cartridges for our Intellivision for a dollar a piece (or less) at retail stores and sometimes for free at local garage sales. I know our game library was over 50 games at one point, which as kids we never would have been able to afford if not for the crash.

We also switched to PC gaming. My dad received one of the very first laptops (with an LCD screen) from his job and I managed to get Bard's Tale up and running on it. Some of my friends went the Commodore 64 route.

So after the crash, we never stopped gaming, really, and just transitioned to the NES when it came out. But of course games became more expensive then. We gave up on owning anything but the most popular games (Mario, Zelda, etc.) and instead would swap games with classmates to try out other stuff. Mom and pop used games stores also popped up around that time and usually we could trade in an old game for a new one with an out-of-pocket expense at around $5, which was around my weekly allowance at the time and let me get a new game once a week.

This little fellow warms and sweetens my bitter, cold heart!
("Beer Is My Fuel", to quote the bard-)

>> ^dannym3141:

>> ^Porksandwich:
I wouldn't have let him give me an account code or 10%. Because I guarantee those people were paying 150+ per account minimum. Back then it'd take you a month to hit max level and another month or two to get it geared. So you're looking at 50-60 box price + 10-15 per month x 3. So 80-105 just in pure cost for the account and add in time on top of that...people are going to want to be able to buy another account..so double it.
And I have no sympathy for someone who deals in areas where someone can flip a switch and you have no recourse in a court of law to even hope to defend yourself. TOS on electronic goods you don't control...you're just asking to get taken advantage of...even if he were the ones buying and selling accounts and controlled every aspect of it.
Hell with how ebay is now, you can have a legitimate product and still end up owing people money and being out your items....and you are SOL unless it's a big money item where the police might look into it.
I really hate gold and account sellers, they do more harm to games than you could even begin to guess at. Them "working around" the game system means that the flaws that keep people from actually playing and learning never get fixed because people skip around them with money....it's a cycle that never gets broken as long as account sales and gold sales are taking place. The games will never expand past it, because no one will admit to buying these things openly with fear of their account and stuff being taken away....so they look like happy customers.

Prices might be a bit high there, they don't buy these things from the biggest most costly store in america. You can buy digital copies of games, or you can even just ask a guy from <choose your loophole country> to buy you a bunch. If you want thousands, then you set up a nice little business deal with him. I only bought BF3 when i could find it electronically for 16 pounds; and thank god i did because it's another crappy EA money spinner that's only worth 15 pounds, any more would have been a ripoff.
Have you haven't considered the deals blizzard have done at least since lich king where you could sign up two new accounts, link them, and power level each other to max level in a matter of a few days. We got about 4 characters each to max level within a week and that was me and a friend doing it, mere amateurs.
Gear's a sticking point, but if someone wants GOOD gear, they'll pay good money because there's nothing for it but to sit through several resets to get all the gear you want.
In summary, i really don't have the patience to look up the prices. But the box prices can be smaller by quite a bit and you wouldn't even need to pay a month of subscription unless they wanted gear (and as i say, you'd charge loads more). I think for a virtually naked level 85 of any class, i'd be pleased to get 50 quid.
Once you start to charge any more, people are way more likely to say "... jeez dude i could do this for myself in a week" and fair point i say. But then again, i'm not a bastard - this could all be true and people might charge double that.
Edit:
I have taken into account exchange rate, don't worry. It adds up to cheaper i think.


He said in the video it was the first year of WoW...considering the pricing of blizz games holding value for multiple years..I doubt it was much lower than 50 bucks for the game. And the monthly only goes down if you pay in year lumps, so I think you'd charge for that if you had extra time on the account.

So, deals since Lich King don't matter...and first expansion to the game didn't come out until 2007. WoW was released in 2004. So end of first year would have made it 2005/2006. It was also slower to level pre-BC because there were less levels and the game was competing against EQ so it was a little rougher than it is now. And they are entirely different games, WoW when it was first released versus WoW now.

And only a year or two prior to WoW being released people were paying 5-10 grand for Everquest accounts. So 2-3 grand for a WoW account in it's first year is not absurd in the slightest considering it was half of the EQ prices in a new game that people were signing up to quite frequently. Was a guy in EQ who used to keep a group of 5 accounts subscribed so he could power level one single account to 50. Minimum he got for an account for the longest time was 1 grand, and he could do it in a couple weeks to a month with those 5 accounts buffing and what not to make sure to maximum XP by only grouping the minimum amount of people it needed to make a kill and use the rest to heal outside of group or pull outside of group. 1 grand account got you a minimal amount of money and any equipment he needed to level it, nothing fancy. The high level equipped guys went for 5 grand and up depending on the class, clerics/enchanters/warriors went for a lot. Druids went for the least because there was too many of them in the game, and the rest were somewhere in the middle. Bards were probably the most expensive due to the leveling penalties.

As for the week stuff.....you couldn't do that in WoW pre BC and doubtful you could have did it in BC before they added bonuses to referrals and re-signups...well not without a lot of extra accounts maximizing time. Which would just make pumping out accounts even more expensive since you've have to count all the other subscription prices into your pricing.

>> ^packo:

>> ^shuac:
>> ^Payback:
Kill the fake echo. Would have been 70.4x better without it.

Actually it's called reverb and I think it's used well here. Mayhaps a touch too wet but overall well done.
Best of all, though, this chick doesn't have her glommy, skeevy boyfriend clapping, playing drums, and injecting his tired, formulaic bullshit in the song. Yes, Pomplamoose, I'm looking at you.

I like some of Pomplamoose


I did too, until about the third or fourth video of clapping, quick-cutting, and kooky chord progressions taught me all I needed to know about the 'Moose.

Every Bard song needs to end with "... and his penis."

>> ^shuac:

>> ^Payback:
Kill the fake echo. Would have been 70.4x better without it.

Actually it's called reverb and I think it's used well here. Mayhaps a touch too wet but overall well done.
Best of all, though, this chick doesn't have her glommy, skeevy boyfriend clapping, playing drums, and injecting his tired, formulaic bullshit in the song. Yes, Pomplamoose, I'm looking at you.


I like some of Pomplamoose

>> ^Payback:

Kill the fake echo. Would have been 70.4x better without it.


Actually it's called reverb and I think it's used well here. Mayhaps a touch too wet but overall well done.

Best of all, though, this chick doesn't have her glommy, skeevy boyfriend clapping, playing drums, and injecting his tired, formulaic bullshit in the song. Yes, Pomplamoose, I'm looking at you.

everquest was a total time sink and while there were aspects that could become tedious depending on which class you chose (looking for group,xp grinding,pp farming),i feel this was counter balanced by how grouping and forming alliances was intrinsically part of the game.
you couldnt do anything worth a crap by yourself.
that kept the douche/dick ratio super low.
i remember a 35 bard who kept training us in HHK when we were lowly lvl 20's.turns out he was training all the lower level zones.i still remember his name "bartlbee".he never made it to lvl 40 because people remembered him and refused to group with him or assist him in any way.

in everquest you NEEDED other people to progress in content,so being a dick just meant you were not going to have access to higher tier gear and zones.(remember farming keys for raids?)

i started playing EQ just after luclin came out and it took me over a year to cap at lvl 70.i played WOW for 6 months and have 3 lvl 85's (hunter,shammie and a ret pally).the only challenge WOW offers for me at high end content is PVP and that game is infested with douchebags and dickweeds.
why?
because you can solo all the way to 85 and dont really need anyone and when its time to go for the epic 85 gear just have good dps and your good.

so yeah.
i miss the sense of accomplishment when you grinded xp for 2 days to ding a level.i miss that sense of apprehension running through a zone that may have mobs that can one shot you,because there was a real sense of anxiety if you died you lost not only time to find a rez,or run back to corpse,but an asston of hard earned xp.
or being able to help a friend who once helped you as the scout for his thurgadin giant war (awesome quest btw).

in everquest you formed alliances and relationships,because you had to if you wanted to get the good gear.everquest took patience.

i still remember a pally i leveled my ranger with.i had found the giant stronghold KAEL and was excited to show him,so he followed me to this city in the side of a mountain (forgot the zone),but i had failed to remember that there was a huuuge cliff and he followed me right over the edge.we both fell to our deaths and he took a screenshot of our dead bodies cuddling (it appeared that way).
to our chagrin there was an entire raid group that saw the whole thing and from that point on,any toon that jumped off a cliff was called 'pullin a shak and ames".

what other game can give you that kind of notoriety?

good times my friends...good times.

I am extremely flattered, as I have never thought so.
Thank you SO much hpqp, you're 50 bucks worth of waffles!!
In reply to this comment by hpqp:
"poetic sheep justice." You, ma'am, are a true bard. I salute your efficient wit.

"poetic sheep justice." You, ma'am, are a true bard. I salute your efficient wit.