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Thread: Chaos and the Anti-Thread

  1. #1411
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    Channeling your inner yoda?

    I have no streaming. I know for a fact that I would become a couch potato and watch far too much. And then my husband wouldn't be into it and then there would be tension and emotions and....

    It's probably not worth the $$$.

    I watched Game of Thrones on DVD. And I can watch them anytime as long as I have electricity and a functional machine. Good enough, eh?

    The street art and 'my skill' are wonderful and hilarious.

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  3. #1412
    Senior Member Emil El Zapato's Avatar
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    I've been waiting to get the final season of Game of Thrones for quite a while. I was using a firestick to hack a lot of stuff, but the connection sucked...
    “El revolucionario: te meteré la bota en el culo"

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    I was able to watch the final season before the DVD because I was out west and watched it on my Dad's TV. After I made sure he was safe in bed and asleep, I would watch an episode. It was like movie night because they were long, but for the first.

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    cool...
    “El revolucionario: te meteré la bota en el culo"

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    Do you live in the city, Aragorn? You ever get tired of living in Belgium...I was looking at a map today and you live in a great place as far as being close to a lot of European culture and history.
    “El revolucionario: te meteré la bota en el culo"

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    The chaos of fires...


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  13. #1417
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    Quote Originally posted by NotAPretender View Post
    I've been waiting to get the final season of Game of Thrones for quite a while. I was using a firestick to hack a lot of stuff, but the connection sucked...
    It's shit.

    Don't waste your time with it. They completely botched the final season, no doubt, because they wanted to end it quickly and move on to other projects,

    Witcher, on the other hand, is quite good.

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    Quote Originally posted by Dreamtimer View Post
    The chaos of fires...

    That map is highly misleading.

    55000 Square kilometres have burnt down so far, which is less than 1 percent of Australia's territory. There were no Bush fires to speak of in Queensland, Western Australia or the Northern Territory. Admittedly, this is still a huge blow because the areas that were worst hit are the greenest parts of Australia. However, much of the damage is ironically, due to the lack of controlled burnings, due to misguided land control policies.

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  17. #1419
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    Quote Originally posted by NotAPretender View Post
    Do you live in the city, Aragorn? You ever get tired of living in Belgium...I was looking at a map today and you live in a great place as far as being close to a lot of European culture and history.
    No, it's not a city. It's a town with several annexed villages and a borough, and part of this town is an industrialized zone, while most of the town center is made up of shops, cafés and diners. It's an overcommercialized town, with very busy traffic. And the mayor is a narcissist who thinks that this town sits at the center of the universe.

    There used to be a major shipyard here, which employed 1'300 people directly and some 2'000 more through contractors. They built ferry boats, cruise ships, oil tankers and container ships for the whole world. They had customers in the US, in Korea, in Japan, Russia, China, and so on. The shipyard went into what Americans call "chapter 11" somewhere in the early 1990s due to mismanagement, and then the regional government had to intervene in order to save those people's jobs, but it was to no avail. It went bankrupt either way a few years later, and the entire domain has in the meantime been sold and re-appropriated for housing, and more shops and industry.

    A large part of the population of this town is now comprised of Muslim immigrants ─ primarily Moroccan and Turkish ─ because those are cultures where people have lots of children, compared to only two children on average for the typical Belgian couple, and meanwhile the town has been accepting many more immigrants and African refugees. So it's a culturally very diverse place, but it's still not a city.

    I was born in this town ─ back when it still had a maternity ward, which has already no longer been the case since the early 1970s ─ but I was not raised here. I grew up in a small village about 10 km from here ─ ironically, that was a city in the middle ages, with an impressive castle (of which only one tower remains today) ─ which had its own shipyard, albeit only for building and repairing riverboats. That village too has changed a lot ever since then ─ apartment buildings everywhere, and a radical increase in the population ─ but it's still quite a different environment compared to this town here. I lived at that village until I was 17 years old, and then we moved to an adjacent village, which is one of the villages under the administration of the town where I live now.

    I moved out of the house at the age of 22, and as my girlfriend ─ later fiancée and then ex-fiancée ─ was originally from this town here, we settled here. To be honest, I don't like it here. I would rather move to the coast ─ to the place where we used to spend our summer vacations with the family ─ but that takes lots of money, and I don't have those resources anymore.

    At least here where I live now I'm still close enough to my brother ─ he lives about 8 km from here, in the same village as where we moved to when I was 17 ─ who is pretty much the only family member I've got left. Everyone else is either dead or has moved out of sight. We never were a tightly knitted family, or at least, not on account of those of us who are still alive. My mother's side of the family was very close and warm, and it was a large family too, because my grandmother had 10 siblings who virtually all had children ─ one of my maternal grandmother's brothers died in the trenches of World War I when he was still very young, and another one died in a fire ─ but my dad's side of the family was weird. Many intrigues there, and people not speaking to one another.

    Anyway, I digress.
    = DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =

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  19. #1420
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    Quote Originally posted by Aragorn View Post
    No, it's not a city. It's a town with several annexed villages and a borough, and part of this town is an industrialized zone, while most of the town center is made up of shops, cafés and diners. It's an overcommercialized town, with very busy traffic. And the mayor is a narcissist who thinks that this town sits at the center of the universe.

    There used to be a major shipyard here, which employed 1'300 people directly and some 2'000 more through contractors. They built ferry boats, cruise ships, oil tankers and container ships for the whole world. They had customers in the US, in Korea, in Japan, Russia, China, and so on. The shipyard went into what Americans call "chapter 11" somewhere in the early 1990s due to mismanagement, and then the regional government had to intervene in order to save those people's jobs, but it was to no avail. It went bankrupt either way a few years later, and the entire domain has in the meantime been sold and re-appropriated for housing, and more shops and industry.

    A large part of the population of this town is now comprised of Muslim immigrants ─ primarily Moroccan and Turkish ─ because those are cultures where people have lots of children, compared to only two children on average for the typical Belgian couple, and meanwhile the town has been accepting many more immigrants and African refugees. So it's a culturally very diverse place, but it's still not a city.

    I was born in this town ─ back when it still had a maternity ward, which has already no longer been the case since the early 1970s ─ but I was not raised here. I grew up in a small village about 10 km from here ─ ironically, that was a city in the middle ages, with an impressive castle (of which only one tower remains today) ─ which had its own shipyard, albeit only for building and repairing riverboats. That village too has changed a lot ever since then ─ apartment buildings everywhere, and a radical increase in the population ─ but it's still quite a different environment compared to this town here. I lived at that village until I was 17 years old, and then we moved to an adjacent village, which is one of the villages under the administration of the town where I live now.

    I moved out of the house at the age of 22, and as my girlfriend ─ later fiancée and then ex-fiancée ─ was originally from this town here, we settled here. To be honest, I don't like it here. I would rather move to the coast ─ to the place where we used to spend our summer vacations with the family ─ but that takes lots of money, and I don't have those resources anymore.

    At least here where I live now I'm still close enough to my brother ─ he lives about 8 km from here, in the same village as where we moved to when I was 17 ─ who is pretty much the only family member I've got left. Everyone else is either dead or has moved out of sight. We never were a tightly knitted family, or at least, not on account of those of us who are still alive. My mother's side of the family was very close and warm, and it was a large family too, because my grandmother had 10 siblings who virtually all had children ─ one of my maternal grandmother's brothers died in the trenches of World War I when he was still very young, and another one died in a fire ─ but my dad's side of the family was weird. Many intrigues there, and people not speaking to one another.

    Anyway, I digress.
    Fun little fact:

    In pre-war Hungary, upper-middle class families used to spend their summer vacations on the Belgian seaside. It sounds unlikely, but I've read it in several biographies, novels and accounts of the time. I cannot for the life of me figure out why though. Belgium has one of the shortest coastlines in Europe and is well-known for its cool, windy and rainy weather. The Yugoslavian and Italian coasts were a lot closer to Hungary and I daresay they had sunnier and warmer conditions. Maybe there were political reasons behind it. Nevertheless, I thought it was worth mentioning.

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  21. #1421
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    Thanks, Chris. I didn't really intend it to be accurate, rather just to touch on the subject with an image. We'd be freaking out if we had so many fires.

    Max Igan spoke a great deal about water diversion in one video I watched. I don't know how much that is related to the fires.

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  23. #1422
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    just families, Aragorn...my adopted dad lived within a single km of his parents and they never spoke for 15 years. Seems my bio family is the same...authoritarians shouldn't be allowed to have children...
    “El revolucionario: te meteré la bota en el culo"

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  25. #1423
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    Quote Originally posted by Dreamtimer View Post
    Thanks, Chris. I didn't really intend it to be accurate, rather just to touch on the subject with an image. We'd be freaking out if we had so many fires.

    Max Igan spoke a great deal about water diversion in one video I watched. I don't know how much that is related to the fires.
    Oh, it absolutely is.

    From what I understand, precipitation has been fairly normal lately, though admittedly, temperatures are significantly higher that the historical average.

    The big issue in Australia seems to be water and land management.

    Groundwater and deep underground reservoirs are being depleted, mostly by industry and mining. Coal mining in particular uses up a lot of water. They also grow cotton now, which is incredibly water intensive. The water management issues are broadly similar to what Texas has to deal with right now.

    Depleting groundwater means that the ground and therefore the vegetation is dryer than usual, hence more bushfires.

    The other issue, land management is a big one. Before the British arrived, Aboriginals managed the land through controlled burnings, done periodically. This was to avoid large, uncontrollable bushfires, like the ones we're seeing now. Unfortunately, this was banned by the British and lack of controlled burnings lead to the build-up of combustible fuel for bushfires, making them far worse, when they do eventually occur. Perhaps that will change now.

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  27. #1424
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    Quote Originally posted by NotAPretender View Post
    just families, Aragorn...my adopted dad lived within a single km of his parents and they never spoke for 15 years.
    Well, that was also the case for my dad and his parents, but it was their choice to abandon him, after he had to bail them out because of the antics of his youngest brother. It's a convoluted story, and all those involved have in the meantime passed away.
    = DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =

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  29. #1425
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    I enjoyed the final season of GOT. In particular, the end of Littlefinger's climb up the ladder. The setup at Winterfell where he falls victim to his own machinations is fantastic.

    Sansa's finish is great as well. She ends up just where she should be and I think Sophie did a stellar job transforming from her innocent character at the start of the series to the leader she became at the end.

    I also liked how the red priestess turned out to be just as used by her god of light as anyone, and we see behind the scenes what she really is/was.

    John Snow did what he had to do and he was lucky he didn't get eaten or burned.

    The resolution of leadership in King's Landing was contrived and not my favorite part.

    I think Arya is my favorite character. She spars with Brienne of Tarth — great scene — and is there when the Night King reaches Winterfell.

    I'm trying not to spoil...

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