Malazan Empire: Mentalist - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

Wrapped up The Girl and the Stars

Gonna pick up the rest of the series when I'm visiting my parents for Easter.

Now it's time to tackle The Dark tower. I've previously read "Gunslinger" in French, but I have very vague recollections. And now I got the first 3 books on my shelf, for some quick reads.

Tried to replace the battery on my work laptop.

Unfortunately, 2 of the 5 screws that attach it are stuck. trying to force them just deformed the screw heads, so I can't remove the old battery.

I don't really wanna burden my bosses with the bill for a new laptop, especially seeing how electronic prices keep rising.
But this means that I'm basically stuck with a laptop that lasts less than an hour unplugged. Which is less than ideal.

Yeah, I'm not really buying the " if we had the 5 extra brigades, we would've pushed through the 20 km of solid trenches and fortifications" narrative. That's been going around since last eyar, I think- either the WSJ or the NYT did a big piece about the US command hub interacting with the UAF that stated the same thing, and pinned the blame on Syrsky for trying to get his share of the glory by leading a supportive attack on the Velyka Novosilka axis.

But honestly, we've seen the footage. A column tries to get through the minefiled, a helicopter takes out the lead vehicle that's doing the clearing, column's stuck, gets bombarded by more helicopters and artillery. Rinse, repeat.

While the orcs had air control in the S in the summer of 2023, with minefields 5-10 km deep, whether you threw in 40 or 100 armored vehicles, I seriously doubt you'd have gotten a "decisive breakthrough". The enemy spent 8 months (from the withdrawal from Kherson to the start of the UAF summer offensive building up and fortifying 4-layered trench lines. They weren't getting cracked as long as there was sufficient manpower there to hold them, unfortunately.

Some reports that UAF managed to grab a foothold in Plavni. If true, this means the forces trying to occupy Stepnohirsk are at a risk of being cut off, which would be a repeat of what happened in Kup'yans'k.

Z-heads are hinting that the TG block that's rumoured to be coming on April 1st is a prelude to the next mobilization, b/c UAF's focus on droning over 30k orcs a month (which is above their recruitment rate) is bearing fruit, meaning the overall numbers are starting to diminish, and without a steady increase in manpower holding their ground (to say nothing of advancing) is becoming more and more difficult.

Yeah, if they can push the orcs out of Stepnohirs'k and back S of the Yanchekrak in Kam'yans'ke, that'd be a feat.
The Geneva talks are over. As usual, everyone says "productive, but no details".

And the main message of all these pleas is still "please fix these things so we can properly kill Ukrainians and win the war"


Which is why all the people whining about how putler's underlings are "sabotaging the efforts of our valiant troops with their corruption and cronyism" won't ever be the allies of those seeking to end this. And it's dangerous to entertain such delusions and try to humanize them, until they are wiling to admit that their basic premise for the war has been monstrously wrong.