It’s possible that this isn’t enabled by default in Europe. I know that Microsoft has some things disabled in Europe in order to comply with local law and moving stuff to OneDrive without asking sounds like it might conflict with the GDPR.

On the upside, they’d be an amazing fighter. On the downside, I’d give them about five minutes before they go completely nuts and do something very, very stupid. In any case, I’d prefer to be as far from whichever planet we’re doing this on as possible.

Either that or a Goliath Scorpion on way too much necrosia.

Yeah, it’s similar for a BattleMech with a torso-mounted cockpit; it can barely keep fighting when decapitated because one of three sensors is in the torso with the rest remaining in the head. If the third sensor also gets hit, however, they’re so blind that they can barely stumble off the battlefield. You can kinda tell that both Mobile Suit Gundam and BattleTech try to make their tech somewhat sensible.

We even see some of the same tropes. For instance, both mobile suits and BattleMechs tend to fight at close ranges, Gundam justifying it with fusion reactors emitting Minovsky particles and BattleTech with mechs emitting a horrible amount of ECM and RF interference. Both franchises have neurointegrative technologies that tend to be unhealthy for the pilot, although Gundam’s is a lot more powerful on the battlefield.

A major difference would be that mobile suits are much more, well, mobile than BattleMechs (especially since they can often fly) while many BattleMechs can tank hits that would blow a mobile suit to pieces. (Okay, BT does have flying mechs, but they’re horribly impractical mech-airplane hybrids straight out of Macross.) I suppose that makes sense; one franchise focuses on cinematic battles while the other focuses on big stompy robots blowing each other to pieces.

Heck, I’ve seen a battle turn because someone took a step backwards down a hill (using the optional rule that allows that with a PSR), failed their piloting skill roll, tripped over their own feet, and managed to fall on the cockpit, instantly crushing the pilot. In an otherwise pristine Supernova.

Y’know, superior Clan MechWarriors and such.

BattleTech explores this to a degree. While obviously mechs in the game have heads in order to look cool (and because headshots are a game mechanic), they do have in-world reasons for them as well.

Basically, since internal space and heat are major issues for BT mechs, providing a comfortably roomy environment at a human-survivable temperature is much easier in a part that juts out of the body than crammed in right next to the reactor. As a result, torso-mounted cockpits tend to be cramped and subject to heat issues. To make matters worse, nobody could get ejector seats to work with them so they’re less survivable in case the mech gets blown to pieces.

All of which is really unfortunate as everyone in the setting is aware that any major hit to the least-armored part of the unit is likely to result in a mission kill. The trade-offs of torso-mounted cockpits make them uncommon, however.

(Note: Visually, there are mechs with no apparent head in BT. Mechanically, a head is always present even if the cockpit is in the torso. That head might just be a section of the torso with a window in it but mechanically it’s there.)

Yeah, but cults of personality tend not to inherit very well. There’s a chance that MAGA will fracture after he’s gone, which would at least render them less effective. Right now a solid third of the country would happily hand the country over to Russia if he asked them.

It pretty much depends on timing.

If the USA decided to launch surprise strikes from their more important bases, they could inflict serious damage that the EU couldn’t how to inflict on the USA. Even a swift counterstrike wouldn’t bring back the crippled infrastructure.

On the other hand, if the USA keep alienating the EU, they might get asked to leave before they could even properly prepare for such strikes. That’d be a major strategic blunder but the current administration isn’t exactly known for its masterful planning.

Either way, I just hope that Trump leaves office in one way or another before we get a real test of whether the doctrine of mutually assured destruction stands up to a senile psychopath with a cult following.

It very much depends on the base.

For instance, Ramstein AFB is a whole different story from the nearby Germersheim DLA distribution center. The former is a formidable threat to central and western Europe. The latter could be taken over by a particularly enthusiastic riot police unit (but probably won’t because there’s nothing of interest there).

There’s a bunch of bases that would pose a real threat and would be prime targets for immediate missile strikes. There’s a bunch that can be dealt with by having traffic cops close off the entrance. There’s a bunch in between. It’s very much a mixed bag.

It typically doesn’t. Most countries don’t care about where your ancestors came from. Being fluent in the local language and culture will generally give you a leg up if you already qualify for immigration so I hope your family kept those alive (and not Americanized versions like Irish-Americans wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day). But your ancestry is usually completely irrelevant.

Those genetic test results absolutely don’t mean anything. If you’re culturally American with an American passport, you’re American and that’s it.

Steam tends to have massive issues with permissions for games on NTFS partitions. You might’ve run into that.

Even ignoring the police officers, aren’t there clear rules for what to do when traffic lights are turned off?

In Germany, an inactive traffic light means that traffic control reverts to any present traffic signs (stop/yield/priority road). If none are present, the default rules for entering an intersection apply (which in Germany are to yield to any traffic coming from your right).

All of those rules already must be implemented for autonomous driving so why the hell couldn’t they implement a hierarchy?

At the time people welcomed it; Trident really was terrible. However, since then Gecko’s marketshare has fallen into the single digits on account of Mozilla’s terrible governance. WebKit isn’t exactly a big alternative, either (and is often regarded as the new Trident in terms of web standard adherence). Opera used to have Presto but nope, that’s also Chromium now.

That means we’re now stuck in a situation where an advertising company controls how the web works for 75% of all users. And they’re happily abusing that power.

I’m rooting for Servo and Ladybird as new entrants into the market but both are small projects trying to challenge a multi-billion dollar industry titan who wants the web to be as complex as possible so that only they and their token competitors can exist.

We might actually have been better off with Microsoft trying to keep Trident relevant.

For another ring was made and this one was made of gold and fetched almost 700 bucks at the pawn shop.

It’s about PMMA sheeting (aka plexiglass), right?

Where I live fall is basically a completely random mix of anything between +15 °C and dry weather (but the ground is still wet from yesterday) and rain at +1 °C, with nights being anything between +10 and -5.

Winter is basically two months of damp +2°C days followed by a February with actual snow that nobody is really happy about because it happens at the worst time possible.

Spring is nice. Then summer rolls around with temps between 30 and 40 °C because of climate change. It’s still better than fall and winter.

I don’t know if they get a share or if they get a flat payment for every device that has crap preinstalled. Either way, not doing it would reduce profits and therefore go against the interest of the shareholders who would then have grounds to the CEO for failing to do their job.

I’m very much unhappy with how that works but it’s a consequence of how publicly traded companies work. Companies that make it their legally binding goal to maximize shareholder gains attract more investors, have more money, and are thus more effective in increasing their market share. Over time they outcompete their rivals until the market is dominated by maximally profitable companies.

At that point, shit-free products are only available if there is a clear indication that they will generate more profit than shitty products. And the handful of major players will happily collude to make sure only shitty products enter the market, increasing profits for everyone. Welcome to cartelville, population: the three companies that make up 95% of the world market.

It might but most devices only use HDMI. DP is pretty much only used by PCs.

Maybe the GPMI consortium decides to make their standard open; that might help. But I don’t see DP catching up to HDMI; HDMI is too entrenched.

Would be great but the manufacturer would be at a disadvantage because that bundled bullshit effectively subsidizes the device. So you’d have to either raise prices or accept a lower profit margin.

Due to the high barrier of entry (e.g. because of patents) it’s unlikely that a privately owned company can make a big market entry, especially across countries. And a public company will be forced by the shareholders to maximize profit so either you bundle crapware or they fire you as CEO.

Of course if you look outside the TV market such devices already exist. High-quality digital signage devices can easily be had – for about three times the price of an equivalently-sized TV.

They’ve been refusing open HDMI 2.1 since 2017. I don’t think that being afraid of Linux becoming the dominant gaming platform plays a role here; it’s more likely that they’re afraid people might find new ways to get at protected content.