Not sure if anyone is tracking the number of Russian intelligence officers who have been declared persona non grata recently, so I'll go ahead and start a thread. Colombia PNG'd two Russian officials earlier this month for recruiting agents in

The two Russian officers, Alexander Paristov and Alexander Belousov, reportedly worked for the SVR and GRU, respectively, and were interested in "Colombia’s energy industry and mineral commodities". 2/

Last week, Bulgaria PNG'd a Russian military attaché "seeking sensitive military information, including on the number of U.S. troops deployed in Bulgaria during military drills". He was the 6th Russian official expelled by Bulgaria since October 2019.

That attaché was "Colonel Vasiliy Sazanovich, who had allegedly been coordinating Russia’s military intelligence spy network in Bulgaria." (@alexrblackwell)

The Netherlands PNG'd two Russian officers, including an SVR officer, earlier this month who were seeking info "about artificial intelligence, semiconductors and nanotechnology. Many of these technologies have both civilian and military applications.”

The amazing thing about the era of filmmaking that ended with "Wonder Woman 1984" is that a script that dumb and joyless could get past dozens of people without anyone pumping the brakes before a firehose of funding was sprayed over the project.

The most entertaining thing about WW84 is the press tour where the filmmakers pretend to be creative geniuses who learned *so much* from the failings of the vastly superior original film, especially its climactic showdown.

"The studio forced us to wrap the first movie up with a loud, cartoony CGI smackdown!" they cried... then delivered a sequel that ends with an even more cartoony and pointless CGI smackdown, followed by half an hour of Wonder Woman explaining why cheating and selfishness are bad.

How do you come off a surprisingly popular, breezy, entertaining movie that began the turnaround for a flagging zillion-dollar franchise and decide the sequel should be a first-grade morality lesson with the logic of a Care Bears cartoon that's longer than a Tolkien film?

Presumably it's because everyone involved decided they had something Very Important to say about the hellish 80s Decade of Greed that would be Highly Relevant for modern audiences, even though many people involved in the production are too young to remember the 80s.

⚽️ THREAD

AL SADD 20-21 TEAM REPORT🇶🇦

At the time of writing Al Sadd are at the top of the Qatar Stars League with 7 points clear of Al Gharaya on 2nd

Key Assets-B.Bounedjah/CF, A.Afif/LW, Pedro/RB

Coach-Xavi Hernandez
⤵️

𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒/𝐒𝐘𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐌𝐒
= 4x3x3 fluid system which at times changes to 4x1x4x1 and 3x4x3.
= A 4x2x3x1 system

IN POSSESSION
= Al Sadd record an average of 62% possession in the 9 games played.
= 470 entrances into the opponent's half,

BUILDING UP
- Xavi likes to build up from the back with the +1 principle.
- When it is a 4x3x3, the DM drops to create a numerical advantage and look to progress the game.

Single Pivot and the Double Pivot against 2 pressing forwards
- More/Better passing angles+options for a single pivot
- The route to the double pivot can be cut by use of cover shadows and the the DM has to drop thereby wasting important seconds of the buildup phase.

Here's a thread on why 24 is the best number of frames per second for everything but sports and gaming. It has to do with a fundamentally broken default assumption about the motion picture medium. 👇

Many of us weren't home for the holidays to help loved ones turn off motion smoothing. SlippySmoothSparkleMotion+ is still on by default (even as @RianJohnson and others keep up the good fight). There's a debate about why motion smoothing is so offensive. I'm here to settle it.

Before we get to the answer... No, the "soap opera effect" isn't a result of historical conditioning. 24 frames per second isn't better because "that's just what we're used to in movies." It's not about some arbitrary association.

A few movies who shall not be named have come out in recent years at 48 frames per second. The crowd response was universal hatred, thank god, but Hollywood will probably keep trying... I mean, it seems like MORE frames per second should be BETTER, right? More REALISTIC... right?

This is the broken assumption that most people have about movies: That the reproduction quality is supposed to be like reality—that the closer it gets to reality, the better. Under this assumption, 120fps would be best, as it's close to the resolvable limit of our eyes/brains.

I queued up a Weird Al song on Spotify, and afterwards it played another Weird Al song, then a Neil Cicierega song.

If I was Neil I'd consider that a great honor.

I imagine when Weird Al retires, he's gonna have an official ceremony where he hands over a mystic sword to Neil Cicierega.

You'd think it'd be an accordion, but no, weird al just likes giving people swords.

Also THAT'S NOT HELPING, SWYPE

Fun fact about weird al and swords: he is one of only two people who has a working lightsaber.

He was given it by George Lucas after he wrote his Episode 1 song... Prior to seeing the movie.

(that's true, in fact. The part about writing it before seeing the movie, I mean)

Everyone’s expecting housing market to crash in spring 2021, but it won’t. Here’s why... 1/11

The whole hype is around struggling economy, people losing jobs, several sectors like travel, retail, hospitality, commercial real estate etc being affected. 2/11

But how much has the economy been affected in % terms? 5%? 10%? Don’t see any economic indicators publish more than that. On the higher side let’s say 15% of the economy has been affected. 3/11

So 85% of the economy is still intact and they don’t spend on travel, hospitality etc. One man’s loss has been another’s gain. 4/11

Households that aren’t affected have more free money to spend. And they’re spending it on sectors that we can see are rising, like real estate. 5/11

Last week the @DOJ_EOIR quietly updated its list of "Myths vs. Fact." I haven't factchecked the new one, but it's much longer and at first glance appears to even more misleading than the previous one.

Also, EOIR uploaded the new one at the same URL as the prior one, which effectively removes the prior one from the internet. I've saved a copy of the old one here:

The first one, which McHenry seems to have unilaterally issued in May 2019, was met with confusion and disbelief by others in the agency, including the union representing immigration judges. They have since been decertified, so

A FOIA request for any email messages to the ACIJs (who manage the nation's immigration judges) giving guidance about the "Myths vs Fact" document turned up nothing.

Retired Immigration Judges and former BIA members also spoke out in May, 2019 about how wildly inaccurate the document was.

1) Urgent: the $2,000 stimulus check bill & veto override effort on the defense bill

The House of Representatives meets today in a rare session between Christmas and New Year’s. Two things on the docket today.

2) A bill to authorize $2,000 direct payment checks, in accordance with the President’s push last week and an override attempt of the annual defense bill.

We don’t expect any action in the House until the late afternoon and no votes before 5 pm et.

3) First up, the House debates the bill to provide $2,000 direct payment checks. The House will treat this bill as a “suspension” measure. That means they can rush it to the floor. But the trade off is a 2/3 vote for passage.

4) Note that many Republicans opposed such a plan for direct payments. Fox is told by a member of the GOP leadership that the House will likely get the 2/3 vote necessary for passage.

5) Watch to see how many Republicans, who were against additional direct payments, will now support the President on this issue.

Also in the queue is a vote to override the President’s veto of the annual defense bill. That will entail a debate and then a vote.

Ssrians wants to know if CBI has been
recorded Sandeep Singh statement then what conclusion cane out ?

#UnveilSSRMurderTruth

If SSR death is suicide then why there are three prime agencies working on this case or involved ?

#UnveilSSRMurderTruth

why there were lots of financial sabotage in Sushant account ?

#UnveilSSRMurderTruth

How it was suicide when forensic evidence points against it ?

#UnveilSSRMurderTruth

How the fan fromwhich SSR supposedly hung himlself wasn't damaged by his weight ?

#UnveilSSRMurderTruth

These spin doctors masquerading as journalist’s mission in life seems to be the peddling of falsehoods to eulogize the corrupt political elite.

To look at his claims, let’s see what Murtaza Bhutto’s daughter Fatima Bhutto says about who actually killed her father:

Thread:

/1

“Mummy was in the kitchen cooking & I went into my parents’ bedroom & sat with Zulfi as he watched TV on the bed.. We were speaking when I heard the gunfire. It was a single shot & it sounded very close. I moved the phone from my ear & waited to see if Zulfi had heard it..”

/2

“..The sound was still ringing in my ears when several seconds later, the echo of the first shot was interrupted by a barrage of bullets. They were coming from right outside the window; I could hear the shooting as if the guns were firing over our heads..”

/3

“..I carried him, skinny 6year old Zulfi, into the dressing room, a small windowless corridor. I slammed the door shut and went over to the bathroom door.. We waited for a few seconds. It had stopped. I told Zulfi to wait for me; I was going to check where our mother was..”

/4

“..As I st ood up, Mummy burst into the bedroom screaming. ‘We’re here!’ I yelled and she threw open the door to the dressing room instantly pulling me into her arms and pulling Zulfi up off the floor.‘ Let’s go to the drawing room, ’Mummy said, breathing quickly..”

/5

$ZIL ecosystem has grown rapidly in the last few quarters and at least some of it can be attributed to the cascading network effect of seed node staking. A thread on observations, thoughts and ideas on taking it to the next-level (bundled together with some tangible numbers).

👇

1/ Staking has so far locked around USD 400 million of $ZIL. In fact, the underlying incentive design has converted passive community members into daily active network users. And the numbers do speak. Since its launch, the daily txn volume on the network has increased by ~40%.

2/ The most immediate network effect of staking came in the form of $gZIL -- an ecosystem-wide governance token issued alongside staking rewards. $gZIL itself has driven a quarter million on-chain transactions (in the form of token transfers).

3/ The next impact of staking was on ZILSwap -- a DEX. $gZIL + $ZIL pool is the largest on ZILSwap. The $gZIL + $ZIL pool alone has over half a million in liquidity. $gZIL has also been the most traded asset on ZILSwap cumulatively reaching over USD 4.4 million since its launch.

4/ I believe that staking has potential for further cascading effect. Take the staking contract for example, we are looking at USD 400 million of $ZIL locked in there. This trapped liquidity is begging for another application to make use of it.

CBI We have trust on you
Plz do something soon

Unveil Truth of SSR murder mystery ??
#UnveilSSRMurderTruth

🔸Broken leg
🔸Broken belt
🔸Height between Fan & bed
🔸Green cloth's strength
🔸Ligature marks
🔸Body marks
🔸Needle marks
🔸One eye close
🔸Paralyzed body
🔸Hard drives stolen
🔸Dairy missing
🔸Two ambulances
🔸Key Missing
How many Evidences you must CBI

#UnveilSSRMurderTruth

Sushant is not getting justice because he was a son of COMMON MAN not of a politician or a high profile industrialist.

#UnveilSSRMurderTruth

Chats reveal Sushant was drugged (poisoned) slowly and slowly.
Who was doing it and why?
WHY THEY HATED HIM SO MUCH?

#UnveilSSRMurderTruth

● Door lock mystery
● Bed height mystery
● 50 sims mystery
● 8 hard disk mystery
● 2 Ambulance mystery
● 2 dead bodies mystery
Drug accused are getting bail.
Why Why why ???
when this Mystery will be solve CBI ??
#UnveilSSRMurderTruth

And as it's the Feast Day of the Holy Innocents, celebrating Toughness on Crime, Lorranawdah & Zero Tolerance for Minglin' among the Judean Under-Fives from Jolly Old King Herod, it's time to announce the results of the #DrawPritiPatel CHALLENGE!!!

And first off apologies for the delay in announcing this. As you know, negotiations between the judges went right up to the wire, & the amount of swarfega we'll need to get the blood off that ceiling is nobody's business. Worse, the hand-slashed fish head bearing the results...

...was sat in the back of a refrigerated hearse in a layby outside Ashford while Matt Hancock rang round his mates to find someone to award the contract chaffeuring contract, £300m in used fivers no questions arsked got me? And then, of course, ripped to his tits on babycham &...

...sherbert dabs KGB Sleeper agent & Pantomime Prime Minister "Boris" Johnson sat on the results all over Christmas while he secretly flew by flying monkey to deepest Siberia as they dynamited the permafrost to create the grave for George Blake, the tears freezing on his...

...mottled cheek as "Boris" bade farewell to his old mentor and control. Anyway, let's crack on. And one thing the panel of experts agreed was that you lot really really don't like @pritipatel. Some might even describe your depictions of her as... well... bullying. Not I though..