Hotspur

Worth pointing out that those gov budget tables use the number in thousands so what you’re looking at is millions and millions being slashed at NOAA. All while weather is getting visibly more insane year to year. This is one that I’ve never been able to fully understand—I know they’re trying to erase climate change as a concept, but all of the other important function that is getting destroyed… I guess they figured no way to talk about bad storms and heat domes without mentioning climate change, so just shut it all down except what you need for military operation and private jets and such…

For real. I look back on that and think like, how is it possible, but when you’re young, everything you see and hear mostly supports this basic premise. You have to be out in the world a while before your own observations and interactions start to lead to questions about received info.

I thought of another one: about a decade back I would describe my general opinion about China was pretty bog-standard media take of the time: sorta backwards country with “human rights abuses,” poor and authoritarian, but good manufacturing and food. Chinese “people” didn’t really factor as a thing in my mind, just kind of a mass of indistinct humanity. Mostly I just didn’t directly think about it much.

I got the opportunity to go to Beijing and environs for about two weeks, and, of course, I discover the depth of western propaganda messaging that I had been slurping up. It felt like going to the future. Not all of it was my specific cup of tea, but it was not poor, it was far higher tech than the US, and you could just tell that there was a more community than individual culture. Mass transit was fantastic, brand new high speed rail that made a formerly 14-hr trip to xian 2.5, with more snaking out in every direction or under development. Domestic smartphones selling for more than iPhones. Public bathrooms. Everyone grows vegetables everywhere and the food is so much better than Americanized Chinese cuisine usually is.

Anyhow I could go on and on, it was a really memorable experience, but being there, interacting with Chinese people (guess what? Turns out they’re people like everyone else? Who knew?) just completely blew my old impression out of the water. It made me wish there was more ways for people of different cultures to interact and exchange, because that human connection really defuses a lot of the bullshit tricks that get played on us. I enjoyed seeing that TikTok exodus to the Chinese app last year for this reason.

I’m sure I’ve got many bad ones, but a couple that come to mind—arguing to my parents while in college that drones were a good thing because they resulted in less casualties.

Also in college, mostly because I was surrounded by neocons-in-training, I occasionally flirted with the idea that the Israel/palestine conflict was a both-sides mess, and that Israel was our important democratic ally on the Middle East. But even then something always subconsciously rubbed, and pretty quick after leaving that world (as the neocons quirky liberal hawk friend) it became logically impossible to square that stuff anymore.

Or maybe the bigger picture was just that I still bought the idea that the US were the good guys and that we were stabilizing the world and spreading democracy… woooof.

I tend to be forgiving to myself on these because I was basically a young idiot, and that’s how it goes. I also feel that all of these stories people are sharing are exactly the point—we learn from our past mistakes and slowly improve our sense of the world, etc. it’s problematic if you aren’t aware of it, or cannot acknowledge it and adjust your thinking, but most growth doesn’t happen perfectly or cleanly, and being kind to yourself, and open to changing your mind are important qualities.

I enjoy the post OP, and also the other commenters’ stories.

That is the substack/blog post I saw about it earlier, that attempts to thread the needle on how it would be possible/what they theorize is going on.

On the one hand, it sounds plausible at first blush. And there are some very weird incestuous connections between the tech parties theoretically “involved”.

But on the other hand: the evidence/ detail in that post still feels light to me. The fact that the writer off-handedly mentions Trump and Musk as decades long Russian operatives immediately makes me recoil based on its adjacency to Russia gate hysteria.

Beyond that, If this were true, it would be a fairly large conspiracy with lots of moving parts—multiple companies and people working in concert over years towards a singular goal. An act that if outed, could result in treason charges and significant jail time across the board. My general sense is that the more complicated and large a conspiracy is, the less likely it is to be true, since each moving part adds to the risk of exposure, etc.

So anyway, there are some spooky things in the timeline, and some of Trumps and Musks comments from back then have always seemed weird to me, but I’m erring on the side of this needing a lot more corroboration before I take it seriously.

I heard on a podcast, so no idea if credible, that one of the fastest selling items online right now are ICE patches.

I’m surprised shit like this hasn’t happened yet with people dressed as ICE, since you get to wear balaclavas and don’t need to have warrants or any kind of explanation for any action you take.

Let’s be clear though—two destroyers ain’t waging war with Iran. They’re most likely moving these closer so that, once again, if/when Iran retaliates for this unprovoked attack by Israel, they can help shield Israel from incoming missiles and drones.

For sure, and alternatively, if you a person who does crimes, particularly if you do crimes with friends while armed, you should clearly just get balaclavas, plate carriers and an ICE Velcro patch, since no one is allowed to resist you or ask your identity.

“But Officer! There aren’t any immigrants working in this bank, I’d know, because I’m the manager!”

“Uh huh, I’ll believe it when I see it, and I bet your woke ass is hiding them in the vault: open it right now and return to your office if you don’t want an all expenses paid trip to El Salvador, one way. If you don’t find that motivating, I also have flashbangs, if you catch my meaning”

The movement is bad. I like your description of UE5 asset flip. But since the movement isn’t really important (except for the mostly optional plat forming—why the hell did that include platforming, so weird) it didn’t really turn me off. I found the physical environment design to be a little weird and repetitive—it works well at the overland scale but feels kinda vague and goofy when you’re in an instance.

But I found the story intriguing, and honestly, the combat just hooked me. The combo of the turn based format with some reactive skill elements was appealing, and it continued to be interesting because of the vast array of pictos/luminas. I also thought the Act pacing was strange, after act 2 it feels like they kinda ran out of steam and you just wander around grinding up to kill optional world bosses.

Anyhow I enjoyed it, but it doesn’t seem crazy to me that if you weren’t that into turn based combat to begin with, you didn’t click with the game.

This should be tagged for a year-end best-of retrospective post. An excellent specimen of the form.

I think you might be looking at the trigger for the gtrnade launcher, if You’re talking about that second loop below the normal trigger.

I mean the guys already making this joke himself right? So you’re just laughing along with him. Unless you made the T-shirt text for the meme, and even still, he’d probably chuckle at it if that were the case.