Paladin III/12

Continuing with my personal crusade in honour of twelve peers of Charlemagne, today we have on display 3rd of the 12 paladins I decided to create in Heroforge.

Since I started doing this, I came up with a set of rules every paladin I create must adhere to. These rules are:

1. Paladin must have a cross
2. Paladin must have a book
3. Paladin must have a sword, spear, mace or any other knightly weapon
4. No more than two items of the same armour set can be used on the same paladin
5. No armour piece can be used more than once across all 12 paladins
6. Weapons and shields can be duplicated across the 12 characters
7. Armour, weapons and shields used should strive toward realism
8. The models should be human in look and size
9. Paladin should wear a ring

Paladin II/12: My Heroforge rules

Since I decided to try and create 12 distinct paladin characters using Heroforge in order to honour the 12 Peers of Charlemagne, I came up with a set of rules.

The purpose of these rules is to create models that are varied and different enough from the stock armour sets available, while also making things a little more interesting for myself.

The rules are:

1. Paladin must have a cross
2. Paladin must have a book
3. Paladin must have a sword, spear, mace or any other knightly weapon
4. No more than two items of the same armour set can be used on the same paladin
5. No armour piece can be used twice or more across all 12 paladins
6. Weapons and shields can be duplicated across the 12 characters
7. Weapons and shields used should strive toward realism
8. The models should be human in look and size

Above is the image of the 2nd Paladin. You can find the 1st Paladin here.

Historically the symbols of knighthood were sword and spurs. While there is plenty of swords, we're rather limited in Heroforge with the amount of spurs available. There is only a pair attatched to the cowboy shoes. So with some ingenuity that would give us only one kinght with spurs.

Instead I chose to work with what is available. That means books. In modern fantasy setting it has become somewhat of a trope to equip a paladin with a codex at his belt. This might symbolise the book of laws, a Bible or a prayer book. It reinforces that paladin is not just an elite warrior of God, but also a missionary.

I chose cross in order to connect the three main elements of what for me a paladin represents. Ora et labora. The weapon paladin wields represents the work he does in the name of God. The book he holds represents his devotion to prayer, and the cross represents that without God, there is no meaning to either his prayer or to his work.

Deus lo vult!

Poland vs Big Tech: New laws to put a stop to Big tech censorship

Only a week ago, it was the EU Commission taking on the big tech companies with its Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act. Now Poland is joining the fight against the Big Tech. The offenders who censor their users by removing posts that are not against the law will have to face fines up to 2.2 million euros. Polish courts will be deciding what goes against the law:

Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro emphasized that “a social media user must have the feeling that their rights are protected. There cannot be censorship of expression. Freedom of speech and debate is the essence of democracy.”

An increasing number of posts are being removed by the social media companies and users are being met with bans or even account deletions. Usually, at that point, these users are at the mercy of social media platforms and have limited options.

While freedom of speech and expression are vital in democracies, social media is dominated by companies which can introduce their own guidelines. At the same time, these companies must respect the laws of the countries in which they operate.

Deputy justice Minister Sebastian Kaleta, who is overseeing the work on the laws, declared that the time has come for Poland to have regulations which protect against abuses from giant internet corporations, according to Polish news outlet Benchmark.pl.

He added that the new regulations will allow Poland to punish social media companies for violating the rights of users, which will be backed by the full power of the Polish judiciary. If companies are found to be violating a users' rights and refuse to obey a court's ruling, they could be fined up to €2.2 million.

In the case of a conflict between a social media site and the user, the new law dictates that a Polish court will decide whether a law had actually been broken which would have justified censorship.

Countries such as Germany and France have already enacted laws that impose multi-million dollar penalties on social networks that violate country's laws, and it looks like more and more European countries are willing to follow their example.

Now they want to make Beethoven black

We're living in our very own version of 1984. Instead of rewriting history to no end in order to make us believe there were always at war with Eastasia, and always at peace with Oceania, and then rewriting history once again because we were always at war with Oceania and at peace with Eastasia, we have SJWs blackwashing the entire history.

Given enough time, every single man of renown through history will be declared to have been black.

This time, its Ludwig van Beethoven. This year marks 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth. He is believed to be born on the 16th, and was baptized on the 17th of December 1770.

To this day, he is considered as one of the greatest composers in human history. The last movement of his 9th Symphony, known as the Ode to Joy became the anthem of European Union. That part might be a blemish on the man's name, but they certainly did not consult with him about it.

Instead of honouring the memory of Beethoven with the music he gave us, the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels decided to start their own little jihad against historical accuracy.

Ludwig van Beethoven’s 250th birthday passed on Thursday, and the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels celebrated the iconic composer’s in truly modern fashion: by exhibiting artist Terry Adkins’ 2004 work ‘Synapse’ – a video depicting Beethoven’s frumpy visage morphing into that of a young black man with dreadlocks.

The video is part of Adkins’ ‘Black Beethoven’ series, and the transformation is supposed to reflect the artist’s “unwillingness to settle the debate on Beethoven’s race.”

The artist can shove it up his ass.

I have problems with changing the race of the fictional characters, when they adapt the book for a film or a TV series. I have problems when they decide to race swap actual historical person for the purposes of the new TV show. But this takes the cake, this is historical revisionism taking place before our very own eyes.

What's next? Mozart was a woman? Nikola Tesla Indian? Maybe Einstein was a trans?

Paladin I/12: Make Paladins Great Again

Even as a child I always loved stories about brave knights saving the princesses from the evil. Were it not for those children stories I probably would never cared much about reading books.

To this day, I love a good story about knights doing their thing: fighting evil, keeping faith, protecting the innocent, and helping those in need.

As I started playing videogames, Paladins were natural successors of the knight archetype.

And I believe there are not enough stories about Paladins these days. There are some, but they are few and far between. To remedy this, I decided to start creating new crusaders, knights and paladins in HeroForge.

To kick things off, I decided to create 12 Paladins in honor of the Twelve Peers. 

Who knows, maybe it inspires others to Make Paladins Great Again.

Here's the link to the Paladin in the above picture.

EU vs Big Tech: New rules, fines, and measures against tech giants in EU

EU Comission decided to put the foot down, and show Big Tech who runs the show. In a proposal of new rules for digital platforms that are meant to make Europe fit for the Digital Age, the European Commission prposed several Acts whose intended purpose is to better protect consumers and their fundamental rights online, as well as lead to fairer and more open digital market for everyone. In the name of European values. Nobody know what those are, but they do always sound nice.

Concretely, the Digital Markets Act will:

Apply only to major providers of the core platform services most prone to unfair practices, such as search engines, social networks or online intermediation services, which meet the objective legislative criteria to be designated as gatekeepers;

Define quantitative thresholds as a basis to identify presumed gatekeepers. The Commission will also have powers to designate companies as gatekeepers following a market investigation;

Prohibit a number of practices which are clearly unfair, such as blocking users from un-installing any pre-installed software or apps;

Require gatekeepers to proactively put in place certain measures, such as targeted measures allowing the software of third parties to properly function and interoperate with their own services;

Impose sanctions for non-compliance, which could include fines of up to 10% of the gatekeeper's worldwide turnover, to ensure the effectiveness of the new rules. For recurrent infringers, these sanctions may also involve the obligation to take structural measures, potentially extending to divestiture of certain businesses, where no other equally effective alternative measure is available to ensure compliance;

Allow the Commission to carry out targeted market investigations to assess whether new gatekeeper practices and services need to be added to these rules, in order to ensure that the new gatekeeper rules keep up with the fast pace of digital markets.

As Rappler puts it:

A source close to the EU commission said ten firms faced being designated as "gatekeepers" under the competition legislation and subjected to specific regulations to limit their power to dominate markets.

The firms that would be subject to stricter regulation are US titans Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and SnapChat, China's Alibaba and Bytedance, South Korea's Samsung and the Netherlands' Booking.com.

You can read the whole EU draft here.

I found this bit to be of interest:

Platforms that reach more than 10% of the EU's population (45 million users) are considered systemic in nature, and are subject not only to specific obligations to control their own risks, but also to a new oversight structure. This new accountability framework will be comprised of a board of national Digital Services Coordinators, with special powers for the Commission in supervising very large platforms including the ability to sanction them directly.

Just call it Dragon Age: Nobody

'Tis the season I guess. After the teaser trailer for the "Next Mass Effect", Bioware gave us a new teaser for Dragon Age 4. We've known about this game at least since 2018, when the first teaser trailer was announced showing absolutely nothing. This trailer is pretty much the same.

I can't escape the feeling that the execs at EA burned their fingers experimenting with Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem, and are trying to steer back to what worked.

While I find that commendable it was brought to my attention that the people that made Mass Effect and Dragon Age IPs great in the first place are no longer with Bioware. Following the convergence of Blizzard, I know I can expect as much leftist agenda pushed in the game as humanly possible. To be honest, DA games had that problem since DA: Origins.

With that in mind, I don't have my hopes up.

Still, I did like DA:O, and DA:O - Awakening. I even enjoyed Dragon Age II for all its many flaws. But DA: Inquisition, while at times enjoyable was the first DA game I never finished. The writers managed to sour the story for me.

In the first game you were a Grey Warden trying to save a kingdom of Ferelden before the Blight, and in 2nd you were a human noble playing the politics in a city state. In the third game you led the Inquisition against who knows what. The 4th game promises you'll be a nobody.

"It's time for a new hero. No magic hand. No ancient prophecy. The kind of person they'll never see coming ... This is your story."

I have my doubts about the levels of freedom implied here.

And, what's with those "next", "next", "next"? Is it still so far from release that the game doesn't even have a name?

Just call it: Dragon Age: Nobody

Also, Varric is back.

Meme of the day

 

The "Next" Mass Effect: I guess Shepard is back after all

Recently a news broke out that a remastered version of the original Mass Effect trilogy is in the works. ME1, ME2 and ME3 would all come in a neat new single package called Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, and include all the promo material, and DLCs for the three games.

That was all well and nice, and it did give me at least a sliver of hope that Bioware might decide and actually rework the ending of ME3, so that it gives at least a modicum of satisfaction beyond the colour of final explosion.

Still it didn't seem like that was all. And now we know why. Today they published a new "Official Teaser Trailer" for the "Next Mass Effect". 

In the trailer we can see Liara climbing a mountain and discovering a piece of armour with markings of N7 on it, an elite unit Commander Shepard was a part of.

This could mean all sorts of things. For starters maybe they come to their senses, and decide to bring Shepard back from the dead, like they did at the start of ME2. But in any case, it seems Bioware is abandoning it's Andromeda dream and focusing on what made their space opera/military sci-fi franchise great in the first place. At least I hope they do.

In light of that, a remaster of a more than a decade old game series makes sense. By giving it a fresh new coat of paint it provides an opportunity for the new generation of gamers to dive in, and experience it for themselves before the new game is released. A way to build up interest after the disaster that was ME: Andromeda, and even more so unrelated Anthem.

Prisoners of Darkness (Galaxy's Edge #6) by Jason Anspach & Nick Cole

 I returned to the main storyline of Nick Cole's and Jason Anspach's military sci-fi book series called Galaxy's Edge after a little over two years. And it was as if I never left.

Prisoners of Darkness, book number 6 in the main series picks up the story immediately after the end of Sword of the Legion.

Since there will be potential spoilers, consider yourself properly warned.

The recurring theme of the series about "Points" being omens of ruin brought upon the Legion by the House of Reason takes the center stage in PoD. Cole & Anspach are not here to reinvent the wheel, but instead to provide entertainment for their readers.

The book is a breeze to read through, while the story continues to expand. The new and ominous threats that were in the previous books only myths, legends and rumours don't take the center stage, but they do make their presence known.

If in the past the theme was that maybe parts of the Republic were corrupt, but the rest was either ignorant or stupid, this time around it is shown that there really is no saving the Republic, neither from the enemy, nor from itself. It's just too corrupt, too stupid, and too ignorant all at the same time.

The newly formed Empire on the other hand has its own set of problems, but we only get to see a glimmer of those.

Still the story focuses on Major Owens who was designated fall guy for successfully thwarting the Empire, and thus sent to a prison planet, where he discovers he's not the only Legionnaire to be sentenced to forced labor just because he did things right. What is more, the Republic he spent his life fighting for, is actually working with the slavers, and the prison planet is the prime location for all those whom Republic deems undesirable for one reason or another - wrongthink included.

On the other hand we have members of Victory Squad who are determined to save their wrongly convicted superior officer from hell even if it means going against the Republic. Even if it means working side by side with smugglers, pirates, and slavers.

All in all, Prisoners of Darkness provides entertaining read for anyone looking to get their dose of military sci-fi. What it does lack in comparison to the previous instalments, is the ability to play on the reader's heart strings. The moments are still there, but they are few and far between.

I give it 4/5.

So Cyberpunk 2077 is finally out

 After who knows how many delays, and close to a decade in development (hell), Cyberpunk 2077 is finally out.

And as it was expected, the game is far from polished, and failing to live up to the expectations.

Considering the (over)hype surrounding the game ever since it became known Keanu Reeves is attached to the project, this doesn't surprise me.

What surprises me, are the people in this day and age still expecting for game to actually be complete and playable on release.

I understand this used to be, maybe even a decade ago, the industry standard. But nowadays, expecting to get a finished game on release is a fools dream. And the gamers themselves are the ones to blame, at least in part, because they are the ones willing to continually preorder overpriced half-baked games.

We all know the game is not finished nor polished at the release date. There are patches, fixes, and who know how many other things that need to get sorted out before a newly released game gets to the stage of being playable.

I'm not defending Cyberpunk 2077 here. I am one of those people who would really like to play the game, but I'm willing to wait mandatory two years minimum for all its most and major problems to get fixed and sorted out.

The only thing you miss out by waiting that much longer is frustrations at launch, higher price, plethora of bugs, and abundance of glitches. Is it really worth it to buy a game at launch if you're just a regular gamer, and not some sort of entertainer who's earning his living by playing the game when it comes out?

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows ...

 

I always liked playing around in various character creation screens in videogames. Making my character just right, just the way I want it.

Since I've discovered HeroForge, I've been toying around creating various characters from my tabletop games, books, and other media. The tool was primarily designed for people who want to have a 3D print of their own characters in their tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons. Since then they added a number of features allowing the creation of all sorts of characters.

Here's my take on The Shadow. The man, the myth, the pulp legend himself. Or as Razörfist would describe him: 

"Retribution personified, vengeance made flesh, the prince of the pulps, sire of the superheroes, receptacle of more pale imitation than a Michael Jackson's impersonators convention. By whatever name, employing whatever descriptor the inimitable Shadow has weathered nearly a full century of fiscal fiscal turpetudes, publisher buyouts, plagiarism and licensing SNAFUs. He survived the death of radio, he weatherd the comic book crash. He persists in the age of piracy, and above it all, he continues to have relevant stories to tell and adventures to imbibe in all the way into 2016."

 

"The weed of crime bears bitter fruit. Crime does not pay...The Shadow knows!"

Meme of the day

 

Adolf Hitler wins election in Namibia

 

2020 is truly a gift that keeps on giving. 

A politician named after Adolf Hitler has won a seat at a Namibian election - but says he has no plans for world domination. 

Adolf Hitler Uunona was elected with 85 per cent of the vote in the former German colony, which is still home to a small German-speaking community and where a number of streets, places and people still bear German names. 

After winning the seat on the ticket of the ruling SWAPO party - which has ruled Namibia since independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990 - the politician told Bild that he had 'nothing to do with' Nazi ideology. 

'My father named me after this man. He probably didn't understand what Adolf Hitler stood for,' his namesake said. 

'As a child I saw it as a totally normal name. Only as a teenager did I understand that this man wanted to conquer the whole world.' 

I love the fact he refuses to change his name, because his wife calls him Adolf.

SWAPO stands for South West Africa People's Organization. According to Infogalactic, it's ideology can be summed as "African nationalism" and "Social Democracy". Wikipedia on other hand insists SWAPO's ideology since 2017 is "Socialism with Namibian characteristics" or "Socialism". National, social, national social, national socialism ... For some reason it makes me think of National Socialist German Workers' Party.

We live in interesting times, but they are without a doubt peak comedy.

Meme of the day

 

A literal Manchurian candidate

When the story about Hunter Biden and his China ties broke out, I imagined it was something akin to the whole affair in Ukraine. Junior gets a cozy job, Ukraine, thanks to Creepy Joe gets millions of American taxpayer dollars, and that's that. You know, your regular quid pro quo.

I thought that with China it would be just China buying off Hunter and drowning him in money in order to curry favour with Joe Biden. In worst case China would have some dirt on Biden in order to blackmail Joe. As I followed the whole ordeal about voter fraud from the start, there was occasional mention of China, but everything else seemed at the time more substantial.

I was wrong. Geller Report mentioned the whole affair a week ago. It said:

The Carlyle Group is the biggest shareholder of Dominion. Staple Street Capital owned by David Mark Rubenstein who si also the founder of The Carlyle Group, the shareholder of the company behind Dominion. The Carlyle Group was founded in 1987 as an investment banking boutique, and has wide business relation with Chinese companies under Jiang Zemin family control. Dominion is controlled by CCP company.

This is not just China trying to bribe its way to the very echelon of American leadership. This is China making dead sure that its candidate wins the election.

And as it turns out, the Communists have a lot of money riding on Biden.

SEC filings: The parent company of Dominion Voting Systems received $400 million from an Investment Bank in Switzerland that is 75% owned by the Chinese government.

"UBS Securities is a Swiss investment bank which owns 24.99% of UBS Securities Co LTD, a Chinese Investment Bank. The remaining 75% of UBS Securities CO LTD is owned by the Chinese government,” states the report.

I thought having a foreign company counting votes was a bad thing unto itself. The new revelations show it to be a nuclear option of rigged elections.

Dominion takes the cake. In less than a monh the public discovered that Dominion's tentacles reach from China, to Venezuela, to George Soros, the UN, and most likely at least CIA. All working together against America, its people, and trying to bring down its president.

This is the best film ever in the making.

Show contempt for transgenders in private in Norway, and you go to jail

"A poll in Germany found only 18 percent of Germans feel free to express their views in public. Notably, over 31 percent of Germans did not even feel free expressing themselves in private among friends. Just 17 percent felt free to express themselves on the Internet and 35 percent said that freedom to speak is confined to the smallest of private circles," writes Zero Hedge.

Through the free and liberal Europe this has become more of a norm than exception. Stasi might have made every 63rd German an informant, but on today's Germany, Stasi has nothing. During the Cold War there were clear lines in the Communist regimes, a list of topics you knew were verboten. The things you did not discuss at all. The things your father or grandfather might only tell you half drunk in half-riddles. And you knew to keep it to yourself even if you did not understand any of it.

These days it's much worse. The powers that be tell you, you live in a free country, that you are free to state what you think. They insist on you telling them what you think, until you do. Then it becomes problematic. And then you have to face consequences for the things you thought you could say.

It reminds me of a story by Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek. He once said that a liberal or progressive father is far worse than a strict totalitarian father. He gave an example. A strict, totalitarian father will order you, to go visit your grandmother even if you don't like her. There won't be any debate about it. He won't care how you feel about it, but that you do it. A liberal father on the other hand will play on your conscience. "Go visit your grandmother, you know how much she loves you." A liberal father is trying to guilt trip you into doing something. What is more, says Žižek, it's no enough that you do it, you have to like it as well.

East Germans could live in fear that one of their closest friends, or even one of their family members could be a Stasi informant. But they at least know which subject not to broach. These days, any topic is forbidden topic, but all of the topics must be discussed. It's like baiting you into confession. To admit that you are guilty of some imagined offence against someone somewhere.

Is it any surprise then to learn that even the lawmakers in Norway are afraid to put the expansion of penal code that condemns people found guilty of "hate speech" against transgenders to a fine or up to a year in jail for PRIVATE REMARKS, and a maximum of three years in jail for public comments up to a vote? According to Reuters the Norway's lawmakers lowered their heads, and approved the abominable law without even a whimper.

To make things absolutely clear, according to Wikipedia: "Norway prohibits hate speech, and defines it as publicly making statements that threaten or show contempt towards someone or that incite hatred, persecution or contempt for someone due to their skin colour, ethnic origin, homosexual orientation, religion or philosophy of life." The new expansion includes transgenders. But what is a complete lunacy, the laws gave the authorities power to prosecute an individual for showing contempt towards someone in public.

Now if you in Norways show contempt towards transgenders in private, you can end up in jail. This is thoughtcrime! It's illegal to have a certain feeling about a certain topic in Norway. It is modern day 1984!

But if you ask the elites in Brussels, it is Hungary who has troubles with the rule of law, because they want to enshrine the protection of a normal family in constitution. I'm sure, that if you say somehing like that in Norway, that's hate speech.

Meme of the day