Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival, China
The Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival is one of the most famous winter festivals globally. Held annually in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, it features magnificent ice sculptures that attract visitors from all over the world. The festival showcases ice castles, snow sculptures, and illuminated structures, creating a magical winter wonderland. It typically starts in early January and lasts for about a month, offering activities like ice swimming and Siberian tiger watching.
Sapporo Snow Festival, Japan
The Sapporo Snow Festival is another renowned winter event held in Sapporo, Hokkaido. Known for its impressive snow sculptures, the festival draws millions of visitors each year. Artists create intricate designs ranging from famous landmarks to characters from popular culture. The festival usually takes place in February and includes various events such as concerts and food stalls offering local delicacies.
Quebec Winter Carnival, Canada
The Quebec Winter Carnival is the largest winter carnival in the world, celebrated in Quebec City. This festival is known for its vibrant parades, ice canoe races, and outdoor activities like snow slides and ice skating. The mascot, Bonhomme Carnaval, is a beloved figure who presides over the festivities. The carnival spans two weeks in late January to early February, providing a lively atmosphere with music, dance, and cultural displays.
Holmenkollen Ski Festival, Norway
The Holmenkollen Ski Festival in Oslo is a must-visit for ski enthusiasts. This festival is centered around ski jumping and cross-country skiing competitions, attracting top athletes worldwide. Spectators can enjoy the thrilling events while experiencing Norwegian hospitality and culture. The festival typically occurs in March and offers breathtaking views of the surrounding snowy landscapes.
Up Helly Aa Fire Festival, Scotland
Up Helly Aa is a unique fire festival held in Lerwick, Shetland Islands, celebrating Viking heritage. Participants dress in Viking costumes and parade through the streets, culminating in the burning of a Viking longship. The festival takes place on the last Tuesday of January and includes traditional music, dancing, and storytelling, making it a fascinating cultural experience.
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One thing to consider is that the winter wasn't a surprise to the Germans.
Many of their division, corps and army commanders were young soldiers in the Imperial Army in WW1. A large number had served for years on the Eastern front or had told "war stories" to their Western front compatriots. They absolutely knew it was rough.
The reason the winter was a problem was multifaceted
Therefore they did not plan on or equip for heavy winter combat, more of a "Romp" as they did in 1917 after the Revolution and a quick mop up of remaining Soviet forces.
As other commentators have mentioned, the Soviets were retreating into their own LOCs which of course has a force multiplying effect. The Germans were clearly near culmination even by their own reckoning by the time they closed in on Moscow.
The Far East factor. Once Japan declared war on the US, Stalin could gamble on pulling a large number of fully equipped, winterized divisions from the Far East command with far less concern for the Kwangtung Army rolling into Vladivostok.
Those units had a significant impact disproportionate to their numbers. The fact that they began appearing in strength as the Germans were culminating simply increased their value in counterattack.
One interesting hypothetical has always been if Japan had delayed against the US and instead attacked the USSR in late 41.
I'm sort of coming around to this these days too that its much overblown that the Wehrmacht "wasn't expecting the winter" at all. By August of 1941 Hitler himself was starting to advise his subordinates that they should expect fighting well into next year-which meant through the winter. Halder-the great pessimist-found Hitler's depression in midsummer to be confusing and still took until the Autumn to come around to the realization that the Soviet Union was not going to be defeated that year.
It's true that there was little in the way of a "Plan B" but the fallback expectation was that if nothing else-they had at least done so much damage and destroyed so much of the Red Army that there was no chance of the Russians being ready for an offensive that winter and thus the German Army's frontal "workload" would consist of just getting through the winter. This situation looked just like the Sitzkrieg in 1940 right? Just deactivate a certain number of Divisions "up to" whatever the Reichsbahn could handle and screen the frontline lightly enough to discourage attempts to cut the major rail lines and counter attack the serious (but localized) breakthroughs with Romanian/Hungarian/Italian reservists. The January offensive of course completely smashed that presupposition and forced the German Army into having to come out and give battle in what was actually the coldest and snowiest winter in Russia in over 40 years.
The Russians actually still failed by the way, the German Army was mostly able to avoid any serious losses in men and material and inflicted quite a lot of both on the Red Army. However, it rattled Hitler and OKW to see that the Red Army was not only unfinished but already prepared to turn the front around on them and start pushing. It was the shock of how quickly the Red Army recovered from Barbarossa that then led to the next summer's fateful decision to go-for-broke at Stalingrad.
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> The Soviets on the other hand, weren't advancing
The Soviets were advancing when temperatures were at their lowest in December and January. The cold was arguably a bigger issue for the Red Army than the German army. The Germans were the ones retreating, and they destroyed every piece of infrastructure that could provide shelter or warmth for the advancing Red Army. Rokossovsky also noted that the Soviets lacked the equipment to move off-road through the snow, so the Red Army was unable to use its superior manpower to envelop German positions and instead had to attack head-on.
Lost his license and going to lose his LOLSuit all in the same day.
Didn’t he lose his electricity this week too?
Yes sir, according to to John a storm
Joe Walsh, John’s writing buddy on one of John’s songs wrote a little song that contained the words, “I lost my license, now I don’t drive”
🎤 Life's been bad to John, so far🎶
Be on the lookout for the salvage Benz with a plastic bag dangling out the trunk
Why is everyone so hard on the Duke, it is only a character he plays….right?
Dey cawmpromized my bank account when I, ya know, stopped putting money in it.
Hi everyone,
I’m currently investing through DEGIRO and I hold IS3Q (World Quality) and IS3R (World Momentum). I originally went for these factor ETFs mainly because of their past performance compared to the broad market. Of course, I know past performance doesn’t equal future performance.
Lately, however, I’ve noticed that these factors have actually been underperforming compared to the broad IWDA (MSCI World). That’s making me wonder if it would be smarter (and simpler) to just stick with IWDA instead of trying to tilt towards factors.
So I’m curious: why would someone choose the factor ETFs (Quality or Momentum) over IWDA, or the other way around? What are the main reasons behind your choice?
Would love to hear your thoughts and experiences!
I'm no expert with these factor indexes and ETFs, but the parameters that dictate whether a share gets screened or not is largely arbitrary and more likely than not based on ensuring the backdating makes the screened index / ETF outperform the base index.
I could make my own index / ETF based on the colour of company logos. Some colours must be more successful than others. Hey presto, I've beaten the index.
The only upside is that all the active parts of the index / ETF have been preloaded into the fee so the funds should be pretty cheap.
That makes sense, and indeed it feels like these "newer" factor ETFs are positioned in a way that they hold shares that have been doing well over the past 10 years, which is pretty easy to do considering that almost everything went up during that period. Would you suggest just sticking with the major benchmark?
Either developed world or all world equities are a good starting point if you have ten years to play with.
Dang, random spike already over?
Who's the hottest male sim? Comment below who is the HOTTEST male sim here! A post per world, then each male from each world will compete against each other. World 5: Barnacle Bay.
Moe Pesce even if he ends up a dog whenever I play in Barnacle Bay.
Chase Cruz
Chase Cruz
it has to be Chase Cruz
moe pesce
Who's the hottest male sim? Comment below who is the HOTTEST male sim here! A post per world, then each male from each world will compete against each other. World 2: Al Simhara
Youssef Nagi my beloved
Most of the time my sim would have an affair with him.
Mine is having one now omg 🤣
Youssef Nagi is such a gem! He also has great traits! Is a natural cook, smart, likes the arts and fish. I trafficked him and used him as a baby machine for my Sim.
imo Youssef is a serious contender for the finale as well. I discovered him during my current legacy challenge and he's so damn fine!
Why does he look so real??
You know how often a female sim of mine will come home from Al Simhara with an extra "souvenir" courtesy of Yousef? 👶
Seconded. One of my sims married him and had 3 of the most gorgeous kids.
FARID!!!!
Agreed, Fahad is pretty
World Eater (5): You have [World Champion]s, you eve[n] have [World Disaster]s, but you are the f[i]rst [World Eater] to walk the nine realms of Ygg[d]rasil. By combining wit[h] the W**[o]rld Item [Any World Item], you have now consumed an entire world. You have become the disciple of [$*r^*%j], and he teaches you to sense the worlds of Y[g]gdrasil, givin[g]** you the passive skill [Realm Sense], allowing you to sense the p**[r]**esence of other World Items close to you and any players or guilds that may have them. For being the first to discover this class, you also have the benefit of not losing it, even if you are killed and dropped down to level 5. This also means you can’t drop [Any World Item]; other world items and items can still be dropped when you die, though.
Through maxing out [World Eater], you have unlocked the Super Tier Spell, [Void of Creation]. This is an AOE spell with a wide range; the danger comes from the fact that it changes its affinity to match that which the opponents most weak to, doing the maximum damage possible. Not even world items will protect against this because of [World Eater]'s innate connection to [Any World Item]. Be warned, you will run out of Mana after using this spell, no matter how much you had before, as well as a whole levels worth of Exp every time you use it, therefore dropping you down to level 99.
Cool, the potential is there. Weird cryptic stuff as well? Only...
The premise entirely defies the nature of the "World" class. Things with the world class fundamentally have to cancel each other out for even though Yggdrasil was extremely unbalanced, there were limits.
If something existed to defy the innate nature of world class items, World enemies would be meaningless and players with world items, depending on the abilities of the WCI, would be able to one shot world bosses. You cannot have something apply universally EXCEPT for one niche class.
Hiding it behind being something extremely exclusive only makes it that much more unfair and unrealistic. Again, we know Yggdrasil was unbalanced to a decent extent but we also know not all wishes with wish granting WCI's were granted thereby matter-of-fact-ing that there are limits to the nature of "World" classification.
It's neat idea, really, but I think it should be a thing where when you get it, you are able to locate the WCI's but are essentially forced to consume the WCI's. It relates more to where the source of power comes from for the class. Idk what benefits/debuffs one would gain by consuming WCI's but I think it should ultimately end in the player becoming a World Enemy.
consuming world items is what can happen when the class transfers to the new world
the letters have a meaning too, it's not too complicated, if you want to try and put them together to find the patron behind the class, or I can tell you if you want
lets just say it explains why it breaks the mold with other world classes, but also brings more questions, questions I am more than willing to answer
World Fucker.
At full level the Class holder Gains Supreme Skill, World Fucking, You can have Sex with Worlds and Even Impregnate them and have a Half World.
"isn't it obvious Morty, I fucked a planet!"
I would imagine there is a World Class that is "compatible" with each role or base job.
Monk - World Spirit
Bard - World Poet
not likely, since their supposed to be rare, and giving each class one lessons that, but possible none the less
I believe world disaster is for mages in general, and simply makes their spells more destructive, while world champion is fighter exclusive
Yeah there would be a lot of overlap.
In WN, something called "World Guardian" did get mentioned.
the wiki can't make up it's mind on weather World Guardian is just another name for World Champion or it's own class, it's annoying
Rogue/Assassin: World Slayer
Ultimate ability is a blink-type attack where the user blips in and out of existence to approach and disengage, while attacking in between. The shorter and more fragile the weapon, the more damage. The teleportation is relatively short ranged but cannot be stopped or punished directly. The attack also bypasses any immunity and cannot be avoided through any means other than moving out of the way, only interrupted.
I like this
kinda similar to a class I made called true phantom, that gave a skill called phantom step, and intangibility as long as it's in effect
Ultra Trail Mont Blanc
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Top comment wins, each race can only appear once
Tour De France
Marathon du Medoc (wine marathon) outside Bordeaux. It might fit Fun and Festive better but if you get an entry you won't forget it.
What are some of the best winter events in European parks, I’ve heard good things about winteraum and the one at Efteling but what else is there?
Europa Park is lovely, it's my favorite season to visit. Artisan christmas market, ice skating, bobsled, Europe's largest mobile ferris wheel, mapped projection show on Eurosat and 3000 christmas tress lining the paths.
Neat, guess I did europes largest mobile Ferris wheel without realising it
From my experience, here are some other theme parks, which are worth visiting during the winter: Toverland Walibi Holland Movie Park Germany Europa Park Plopsaland de Panne, but the weather can be rough around this time period, such as strong wind,which can cause many attractions to be closed for the majority of the day. I haven't visited it during winter yet, but Walibi Belgium is also worth a shot. Efteling is nice, but it doesn't have that much winter based theming as other parks I've mentioned
Wintertraum at Phantasialand!
We went to energylandia’s Christmas event in late November a couple of years back. Almost no queues for anything at all, place was very Christmassy, really affordable, Krakow is a great city to visit.
Europa Park is incredible at Christmas - decorations everywhere, certain areas of the park are transformed entirely, lots of special entertainment, food, shopping and activities.
How is ride availability? Is everything still open (apart from water rides I guess)?
I can't speak for all weather conditions but when we visited that was the case. I imagine if it's snowing and/or below freezing some things may temporarily close.
The only ride that is definitely closed is Atlantica Supersplash because the Ferris Wheel is built over the basin. Everything else, including the remaining water rides, is open iirc, allowing the temperatures of course. Required temperatures for rollercoasters to be open is like +3°C and they get considerably faster during the day as they warm up.
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Snow machine in Hakuba
Is it actually good? Full of Aussies? Those two things maybe aren't mutually exclusive, but reviews I've read of last year's event all say it sucked and was also overpriced.
Edit: OP you weren't clear if you meant events taking place during the winter or events taking place in some snow resort town/mountain. GMO Sonic (Jan 17-18} for example apparently has Afrojack, Steve Aoki, Swedish House Mafia, Tiesto etc apparently coming but that's in Chiba where there's definitely no snow.
top winter festivals around the world
Here are some top winter festivals around the world:
Harbin Ice and Snow Festival (China):
Sapporo Snow Festival (Japan):
Quebec Winter Carnival (Canada):
Fête de la Saint-Sylvestre (France):
Winter Wonderland (UK):
Nuremberg Christkindlesmarkt (Germany):
Up Helly Aa (Scotland):
Takeaways:
Recommendation: If you enjoy winter sports and stunning ice art, the Harbin Ice and Snow Festival is a must-see. For a more festive atmosphere with holiday markets, the Quebec Winter Carnival is a fantastic choice.
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