sburke

It varies. I work for a consulting company and travel has been a major part of doing business. Folks are adapting creatively but it still hinders ability to do business. I have traveled a lot in my role to the point of hitting 100k a couple years back. Last few years it has dropped off as we completed the overall infrastructure build, but last spring I did a couple trips to India, a few to NY etc. For the India trip I got an ANA flight with layover in Narita. I love ANA. Far superior to United business, but you pay for that. I hated Air France Business. Lufthansa is not bad, British Airways was bizarre. They had alternating front and back facing seats and you were in what felt like a horizontal phone booth. I did two 3 week trips visiting various countries in Africa about 4 years ago - hit Angola, Ethiopia, Kenya, Algeria, Nigeria, South Africa, Turkey & Dubai (layovers). You haven't experienced anything till you hit Lagos airport...… You'll beg for Heathrow and Kennedy. I have never experienced such blatant corruption. They don't think twice about asking for payoffs and bribes. As much as you think our service may be bad - we are spoiled. You just haven't tried the really really fun places Travel was interesting at first, but after a while it is just more of the same over and over living in a hotel that looks like any other hotel, spending time in cramped seating even if in business sitting for 8 to 12 hours straight isn't fun. My wife was able to travel for a bit with me and that made a huge difference. She'd find stuff during the weekday and on the weekend we would do a couple touristy things. With her not along I was never motivated enough. I'd walk around a bit but never see a whole lot. Middle East airlines are generally heavily subsidized off oil, don't expect the level of service there to last. Dubai is frantically trying to make itself an investment center to compete with NY and London, but if oil values decline, the desert is gonna reclaim all that space. Don't expect to see Airlines competing with service for a bit. They are going to be struggling to stay afloat as the return to anything approaching normal travel is gonna take months at least. The only upside for them is fuel may be cheaper for a while.

wow. This is so freakin cool. I'll have to adapt, but there is so much material here to work with....

absofrickinlutely

Historically Yemen has a lot. It has been a trade route since 5000 BCE. The Romans sent an army which was defeated in 25 BCE. However considering how bad the social/political/economic situation was/is I find it hard to understand what would provoke someone to take the risk. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemen

yeah CM email is sensitive to a number of factors in file naming. Best to create a really simple name for the game save that is recognizable but has no special characters, is short etc.

For what it is worth I have a side project depicting a US intervention in Yemen circa 2012. I chose then as I could pinpoint a US MEU in the area at that time and because events in Yemen were such close to that period to consider the action as plausible. These are some of my notes. I have several maps for it mostly reusing some existing CMSF maps with one new one depicting Sanaa airfield (1.5 x 3km) and adjoining neighborhoods as the airfield will necessarily be critical for the 173rd and there are few major airfield maps in CM. 2012 Spring The Yemeni Gov't has collapsed with a sectarian war involving multiple foreign agents and local militias. In addition a combined crisis of drought and food shortages has created a humanitarian crisis. The international outcry and potential shooting war between Iran and Syria forces US intervention. The 173rd is tasked with dropping in to Sana'a to stabilize the situation while the 26th MEU is dispatched from the coast of Somalia to land at Al Hudayah and begin a humanitarian relief effort. (Battle of Sana'a from May to November 2011 is historical backdrop for the intervention.) The 24th MEU with the 1/2nd BLT was on station in the area spring 2012 which was just after Benghazi. 24th MEU consisted of Iwo Jima, New York and Gunston Hall. In February 2012 a missile believe supplied by Iran to Hezbollah operatives is launched from Houthi territory striking downtown Riyadh The total absence of central government during this transitional process engendered the escalation of the several clashes on-going in the country, like the armed conflict between the Houthis rebels of Ansar Allah militia and the al-Islah forces, as well as the al-Qaeda insurgency. Contemporary Yemen "Sana'a risks becoming the first capital in the world to run out of a viable water supply as Yemen's streams and natural aquifers run dry," says The Guardian. Saudi-led air strike on Sana'a, 12 June 2015: Saudi Arabia is operating without a UN mandate Ali Abdullah Saleh became Yemen's first directly elected president in the 1999 presidential election, winning 96.2 per cent of the vote. The only other candidate, Najeeb Qahtan Al-Sha'abi, was the son of Qahtan Muhammad al-Shaabi, a former president of South Yemen. Though a member of Saleh's General People's Congress (GPC) party, Najeeb ran as an independent. In October 2000, 17 U.S. personnel died after a suicide attack on the U.S. naval vessel USS Cole in Aden, which was subsequently blamed on al-Qaeda. After the September 11 attacks on the United States, President Saleh assured U.S. President George W. Bush that Yemen was a partner in his War on Terror. In 2001, violence surrounded a referendum, which apparently supported extending Saleh's rule and powers. The Shia insurgency in Yemen began in June 2004 when dissident cleric Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, head of the Zaidi Shia sect, launched an uprising against the Yemeni government. The Yemeni government alleged that the Houthis were seeking to overthrow it and to implement Shi'ite religious law. The rebels counter that they are "defending their community against discrimination" and government aggression. In 2005, at least 36 people were killed in clashes across the country between police and protesters over rising fuel prices. In the 2006 presidential election, held on 20 September, Saleh won with 77.2% of the vote. His main rival, Faisal bin Shamlan, received 21.8%. Saleh was sworn in for another term on 27 September. A suicide bomber killed eight Spanish tourists and two Yemenis in the province of Marib in July 2007. A series of bomb attacks occurred on police, official, diplomatic, foreign business, and tourism targets in 2008. Car bombings outside the U.S. embassy in Sana'a killed 18 people, including six of the assailants in September 2008. In 2008, an opposition rally in Sana'a demanding electoral reform was met with police gunfire. Al Qaeda In January 2009, the Saudi Arabian and Yemeni al-Qaeda branches merged to form Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is based in Yemen, and many of its members were Saudi nationals who had been released from Guantanamo Bay.[236] Saleh released 176 al-Qaeda suspects on condition of good behaviour, but terrorist activities continued. The Yemeni army launched a fresh offensive against the Shia insurgents in 2009, assisted by Saudi forces. Tens of thousands of people were displaced by the fighting. A new ceasefire was agreed upon in February 2010. However, by the end of the year, Yemen claimed that 3,000 soldiers had been killed in renewed fighting. The Shia rebels accused Saudi Arabia of providing support to salafi groups to suppress Zaidism in Yemen. Some news reports have suggested that, on orders from U.S. President Barack Obama, U.S. warplanes fired cruise missiles at what officials in Washington claimed were Al Qaeda training camps in the provinces of Sana'a and Abyan on 17 December 2009. Instead of hitting Al-Qaeda operatives, it hit a village, killing 55 civilians. Officials in Yemen said that the attacks claimed the lives of more than 60 civilians, 28 of them children. Another airstrike was carried out on 24 December.

sounds like you are missing some files. Put in ticket with the helpdesk they'll need to know your version and will then look at what BRZ files you have.

Just a matter of assigning Bil’s next victim.

LOL social distancing isn't self isolation, but hey you may be healthier doing that. Watching too much of the news can be quite depressing. My plan this weekend- open a nice bottle of wine and re-sort the garage better. No TV

Not really, that whole theory was debunked a while ago by … wait for it...… science.

Yeah I was doing a map for market garden using The gamers Screaming Eagles for an op layer scenario generator. The map is centered on Veghel. There is of course an elevated rail line and I have not really been able to get either the RR or the roads to my satisfaction much less the town itself. And that map is flat. Start doing elevation stuff and I’d rip out what little hair I have left.

it isn't a question of making all available in different angles. It would mean creating new buildings for the angles. The editor doesn't rotate them... though one wishes it could. It isn't an issue top "fix" so much as a request for additional content and buildings are a particular pain to do as I understand it. This is part of the pain of map making. You need to think about orientation before doing your map. Not just a matter of buildings but also to avoid zig zag roads. Part of the reason I am not really into trying to do historical locations. It is fun to try, but also inherently frustrating. Major rationale of why I am doing Sadr city for SF2- the place is a bunch of perfect grids. My pet peeve is railroads. I'd really love being able to do a more gradual curve.

I prefer this one

on a lighter note, don't forget to wear your mask. Mask by Steven Burke, on Flickr

Like nominate a Supreme Court justice? Oh yeah small problem eh? Perhaps a course in the separation of powers and what the limitations were for previous presidents who didn’t have Total Authority like our current Emperor.

Not sure I get the infatuation with the crane, but hey whatever floats your boat.

Heh I have been working on a Sadr city map for what feels like forever and it is a much simpler project then most. The dang place is about as grid oriented as one could hope for. Why do it? For the same reason I created a Cassino map- I wanted a better visual perspective on it. I'll release it eventually but may never actually use myself. Trying to do one for Warsaw with the same attempt at accuracy that LLF did for Ramadi I wouldn't even want to contemplate.

I think it is @Jaws

duh yeah, fake news. I'll fix

What the fk are you talking about? Obama led the effort that bailed out the country and kept the panic of 2008 from sending the country into a depression. And Biden was there as his VP. The ship was sinking when he took over and he turned it around and for most of his presidency the economy was on a rise - which Trump likes to try and take credit for. Granted yeah he was a lot more middle of the road than those who voted for him would have liked, but look what he had to deal with. A hostile GOP that was determined to make sure he couldn't do anything including blocking a Supreme Court nomination for an entire f'n year! The country can only wish now that the ACA was enacted as originally conceived. Even the neutered version is still our best option to make sure people have healthcare now. Perhaps. I think NY took too long to make the call to lock down completely. They waffled and they are paying the price. On the other hand their leadership has been there, taking the heat, making the effort to develop a coordinated response, doing briefings that are intelligent and informative and not a "ratings hype". Cuomo has stepped up into the job. The objective of the numbers above wasn't to paint a red vs blue picture, but rather the relative impact on lock down. California has managed to flatten the curve. Many of the states I noted and the ones you noted are not. They are dealing with a major spike and I think you will see other states follow that, I know they are suggesting the total deaths is now expected in the 60,000 range versus 100k or more. I think they are getting ahead of themselves. Even for CA we have a tough call to make about when to loosen restrictions - could we just be delaying a spike to come? If the Prz had made a declaration earlier it would have been beneficial for states like LA and Florida where many folks are taking their lead from Trump. He says it is all a fake thing and the 15 infected will soon turn to nothing and they will not take any steps to protect themselves. If he'd said early what his own staff had reported in January and followed CA's lead many of his followers would have treated this differently. His childish refusal to even meet with Pelosi to develop the bill is classic. This is a moment when our leadership needed to be united. I'll give Mnuchin some credit here even if I dislike the man for doing the right thing.

My issue with Bernie is he plays fast and loose with numbers. He sounds good, then you start parsing the actual data and it becomes smoke and mirrors. Not to make the comparison too close to Trump but the demagogue approach isn't any better from the left than from the right. Regarding Biden- Hey Ivanka did a shot of herself at the Family hotel in Baku - funded by laundered money from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and in partnership with a guy it is illegal to do business with by US law. We are so far past the trivial potential line of corruption that you noted it isn't even funny. It's like saying hey Biden's son just stole a gumball from the corner grocery store while the current Prez is beating up and stealing from Seniors in assisted living facilities. Biden would not be my first choice. Maybe not my second or third. But I'd vote for a dog turd over the orange pumpkin in the WH now. Trump is in way over his head. He's a lousy businessman and a con artist. That I might even be able to live with if he would just shut up and let professionals do their job, but he somehow believes he is an expert on everything. The result, f'd up decision after f'd up decision and he just blames some one else all the time if things go wrong. A true leader stands up and says, my call. I'll follow the advice of the professional but at the end of the day if things go wrong I own it. Trump has no moral compass at all, no empathy and is an ego centric hopelessly flawed individual The really sad thing is his own base is a good portion of the most vulnerable segment of society for the virus and his performance and behavior is putting their lives at risk. Whatever one has to say about California and our sometimes crazy rules, look at what our numbers are doing. We shocked the nation with the Bay area locking down on March 16th and the state on March 19th. NY waited until March 21st. Many Red states kept debating it and waited on Trump to make a decision as our national leader which he still has yet to do. He'll blame the governors for not declaring fast enough if it does get really bad and take credit for not declaring if it ends up not being as severe as projected. That isn't leadership. Biden for whatever faults he has would have made the call and taken the heat. Trump is a coward. Numbers as of this morning State First case Infected Deaths Calif 1/25 21,374 598 Louisiana 3/9 20,014 806 Florida 3/1 18,494 438 Texas 3/4 12,561 254 Georgia 3/2 12,159 428 New York 3/1 170,512 8,627

unless of course that person shows they haven't the slightest f'n clue what they are doing and are way out of their depth to even console their population and calm them. Then maybe the idea of keeping them around becomes clearly a bad idea for most of the population plus the additional amount needed to overcome GOP voter suppression.

not quite. Weight loss isn't an issue yet unfortunately and hair loss started a bit before 50

it means they are going to burn you in effigy tonight.

yeah that is gonna be bad. Mortality rates escalate badly for those with health conditions. Take a look at the numbers for Louisiana compared to NY etc.