Southkraut
Rise, ramble, rest, repeat.
All alliterations are accidental.
User ID: 83
Southkraut
Rise, ramble, rest, repeat.
18d ago
Good points. I think we need to differentiate between two groups:
- The tinkered-together video games of back when and the more creative indie games of today.
- The almost mass-produced AAA titles and derivative indie games of today.
The kind of mature industry that can churn out one Total War game per year, and a Modern Warfare every two years, and two Superhero games per year, and another Hero Shooter or Current-Thing-Clone so often they all just blend together...didn't exist in 2000. And didn't reach or cater to the same size and type of audience. Very very obviously the writing of the second group will be of a completely different nature than that of the first.
Southkraut
Rise, ramble, rest, repeat.
19d ago
I don't really give a damn about doxing, but I don't live in America, and I'm not enough of conversationalist or social networkers to make a good host for a German Mottizens meeting, so by force of geography I don't see it happen for me either way.
Southkraut
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19d ago
Overall I fully agree with the posters above that safety guidelines regarding the dangers of outdoor activity are fantastically wrong, but you too have a point. You can get an awful lot of skin cancer from the sun, though may take decades for it to show. How serious a problem it is varies from person to person; some can get away with a lifetime of sizzling, others will regret not covering up a little.
I compromise and wear a floppy hat. That's my safety right there.
I feel...differently about Germany.
I'd certainly describe myself as a patriot. A nationalist even. But it's the culture, the language, the actual physical country, the people and their ways, and the everyday architecture that I love. Not the institutions, the state, the monuments and symbols. But that may have an obvious historical explanations. For the Americans, those things were always theirs - a democracy from the get-go, by the people and for the people. Tacky as their symbols might be, they are theirs. But for us Germans, the state was never truly a democracy; the most we ever managed was to be handed whatever form of democracy our betters thought suitable for us, by the state and against the people. We accepted it, of course, having always been a people of loyal subjects. We are now loyal subjects of our democratic constitutional order, but it's by social convention and pragmatism, and not in our hearts. As a people, we remain subjects, and our relationship to the state is little different to that our ancestors had to the Reich, or to their local princes. Those on high decide, and we obey. So what does that make the monuments, the symbols and the institutions? Those are the emanations of the ruling class, or the ruling gestalt entity anyways. They aren't truly ours. The local church, alright, that at least is or was relevant to people's lives. The ruins of a castle, picturesque and one can picnic there. But the statue of some Prussian Junker or King? Some neoclassicist monument to the Kaiserreich? A memorial to holocaust victims? The halls of government? None of that is of us and for us, but is of the state and against us. We are to obey in actions, but our hearts are irrelevant. Our constitution, our institutions, our relationship to the military, all that are artificial post-war creations installed to dictate specific behaviors to us. It's not from us. It's not for us. It's to make us behave.
At the most one could say that our tricolor flag, the black-red-and-gold, is by and for us. But in truth it was by a small subset of the population, ideologically charged and by no means organic. It's still our flag, we rally around it for identification and for sports, so I suppose we have taken to it.
Still, it's my country and my people and my language and my culture and my land, and all those are the best in the world. Obviously.
Southkraut
Rise, ramble, rest, repeat.
21d ago
No. I need to ferry around lots of people and things; having less space in the car makes it borderline useless.
Besides, this is retarded. There are many very small cars to choose from, without any of the extra hassle and just as fuel-efficient as the end result of that hack-job. And if all you want is to drive around yourself, no passengers and no cargo, then you may as well get a motorcycle or one of those scooter-sized cars that barely have an enclosed cabin.
Southkraut
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30d ago
If my wife were stable, then a rural location near Ulm, with a view of the Alps (given decent weather). I have history with the place, friends there, there's work and activities, and once you get far enough away from the town proper, the landscape can be nice. But really, it's the distant mountains on a good day. Hundreds of kilometers of mountain range in plain view for anyone with good eyes. See https://www.swp.de/bilder/die-schoensten-sonnenauf-und-untergaenge-aus-ulm-und-neu-ulm-16130225.html .
If the previous condition were met and if my income were better and/or its growth stronger, lake Constance, directly on the shore: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodensee. Not as broad a view of the mountains, but closer to actually go there and explore (in Austria and Switzerland, then), and being near a large body of water is nice. But the area is famously expensive the closer you get to the lake, so, money.
And if I hadn't fallen for the heartfelt patriotism meme, then I'd want to live near the ocean. Obviously lots to choose form here - but if I have to pick something I personally know, then the French Atlantic coast is beautiful, though the local inland geography and architecture do nothing for me. At least I speak the language. Mmmmaybe Japan? I've been there, it's beautiful, but I'm really not sure how isolating it would be to live there as a foreigner, unless you manage to slot yourself into an urban expat community. And frankly, I'm not good at networking.
If I am to just throw something out without ever having been there, then Portugal, just going by the map, looks good. Warm and with the Atlantic all over. But my wife would probably melt. Then again, with that constraint the Japanese summer would've killed her already.
And lastly, if I had no concern for standard of living or safety, then I might just want to spend my days in some ancient Carthaginian settlement on the North African Atlantic coast. Say, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essaouira, just living with history at my back and the stark, naked face of the Earth below me, and the Ocean gently wiping it all away.
Southkraut
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30d ago
commonalities between these locations
Geographic size.
Southkraut
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19d ago
Finally, buxom blondes tend to come with uncertain mass distribution curves.
Oh this, oh this.
No matter whether you like tits, ass or hips, with even a little age mass goes where it wills, and it obeys no rules but gravity.
Southkraut
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27d ago
overcomplicated shitty design that barely works in the first place (something the Germans have been historically, and are still to this day, guilty of)
I just want to confirm this. Every company I worked for so far was in the business of making overfitted and overengineered clockwork software that went over time and over budget and tended to fall apart at the seams when any changes were attempted.
Germans cannot do things like agile, modular, minimum viable product or cost-efficient, it seems.
I find myself questioning further why the FDP tolerates being in it's current coalition.
My read is that the leadership in general and Lindner in particular seem to have been burned by the "better not to rule at all than to rule badly" policy based on which they rejected forming the Jamaica coalition in the previous elections. And it is my impression that they have, in the past few years, run on a largely practical and non-ideological platform. As a member I receive the party newspaper, and it's full of equating liberalism with whatever the hell is currently expedient. Apparently liberalism is anything from feminism to subsidies, so long as the results are good enough. In other words, I think the FDP of the past few years just tried its damndest to be able to say "look, while the others are willing to ruin the country for the sake of ideology, we're just trying to keep everything working!". As a rabid ideologue, I'll accuse the party of having been far too reasonable and conciliatory throughout this term, because lo and behold, most voters do not appreciate reasonable, milquetoast and modestly productive policy. They either hate the FDP for being the enemy, or hate it for not waging the culture war.
Few are the Germans who just want a little less public debt, a little lower taxes, and a little less bureaucracy. And yet the party soldiers on, and tries to do what little good it can. It almost feels like it's out of some sense of civic duty, though cynicism won't allow the thought.
Southkraut
Rise, ramble, rest, repeat.
28d ago
I like to drink lots of coffee, and generally I can stomach it fairly well. When I notice that I'm overdoing it, I either cut back or water it down. Sometimes I cut it down to a single cup a day for a few weeks. Sometimes I quit entirely for a few months. If you notice health problems that might be related to coffee, quit coffee. At least for a while. It's just a drink, you can drink other things. And the withdrawal symptoms aren't that bad, in my experience - maybe a mild headache for a day or two; nothing modern medicine can't fix.
Decaf weirds me out. Just like non-alcoholic beer. It's wrong.
Southkraut
Rise, ramble, rest, repeat.
28d ago
Speaking of traffic, is there anything in the pipes that might get us more new blood?
Southkraut
Rise, ramble, rest, repeat.
1mo ago
Yes they fought, but their having fought no matter how much and how well doesn't save the Germany of today. We can trace our unmaking right back to them. Barbarossa, for all of his ineffectual campaigns and fruitless labors, left the Germanies roughly in the state he found them in. The Nazis took a struggling Germany and, for all the little glories they won, burned it right down to the ground and left the withered remains to the mercy of the victors. Certainly perfidious Albion had its schemes and probably quite a laugh at our fate, perhaps on can believe that Hitler himself would have preferred peace with them, but in the end they played Realpolitik and they did a hell of a lot better a job of not bringing their own countries to bloody ruin.
Unless you subscribe to some school of thought that completely denies the significance of consequence, I find no way to absolve the people who had complete authority over the country from complete responsibility for its destruction. Whatever our enemies might have done, however justified any given aspect of German military campaigning was, given that kind of authority those kinds of results speak for themselves.
And so as to not neglect the Unhinged Gangsters bit - I stand by that. Something like the Night of the Long Knives is decidedly ungerman.
Southkraut
Rise, ramble, rest, repeat.
26d ago
If you speak French and have a remote job it could be interesting.
I do and I do, actually. Not sure whether my contract allows remote work from outside Germany though. But then again, I'm not married to this particular job. I am unfortunately married to a woman who falls apart at temperatures above 15°C, whereas I begin to feel comfortable at 25°C and more. I don't think Morocco is a realistic option, sadly.
Southkraut
Rise, ramble, rest, repeat.
1mo ago
No submission statement, but I decided to be tolerant and read it anyways. Two paragraphs in I still don't know what you're driving at, so I stopped reading.
Southkraut
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1mo ago
rate limited by downvotes
Please explain.
Southkraut
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28d ago
Why not drink water?
Southkraut
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2mo ago
(that's bracketed (g (r a)), not ((g r) a), mind you ;) )
You included a bracket smiley in your bracketed explanation of the bracketing.
My hat is off to you.
Southkraut
Rise, ramble, rest, repeat.
3mo ago
AFAIK the usual story is either "women grossly overestimate their market value" or "women underestimate how destructive a signal divorce initiation is, initiate to create pressure on the husband, and the outraged men escalate by actually going through with it".
I have no idea whether there's any truth to either of those.
Southkraut
Rise, ramble, rest, repeat.
1mo ago
HEMA armchair analysis:
The swords themselves seem comparable to a Langmesser (long knife), which is a renaissance weapon for which we actually have some primary sources. Sadly I have almost no experience with it. That said, the ones we see on screen are clearly blunt practice or rather stage weapons; steel wasters.
Now, for the fencing, Curly Blackhead takes a perfectly valid two-handed Pflug guard there...only that his sword is about half the length it should be for it to make sense, and even then he's starting out within arm's reach of Mary Sue. And then we get some overcommited thrust, wild swings - all one-handed of course, which makes more sense for such a short sword - and in between a lot of stepping back to start over instead. I'd say it's credible under the assumption that this is the very first time that guy ever picked up a sword.
As for everything that comes later, eh. No point in pretending it makes sense. Every man in that scene is a bumbling idiot who stops cold as soon as she parries, they wind-up for a half a minute each but strike without any force and are effortlessly deflected, nobody follows up with anything after first contact, and they seem to stumble and forget what they're doing all the time.
As for a bunch of newbies getting to fight an experienced fencer - it's fun with a slightly elevated risk of injury, and worthless for actual practice.
Southkraut
Rise, ramble, rest, repeat.
5mo ago
I've been obliged to watch a lot of corporate training videos lately, and so far there's been an unbroken string of white people and especially white men representing negative examples while their exotic associates and of course especially exotic women represent the correct way of doing things.
I think in all those hours of material I watched, the only white man presented without a negative angle was a presenter.
Anecdote, anecdote, feel free to ignore.
Southkraut
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1mo ago
Nice, a submission statement. Even if it is just part of the text itself.
As for the story itself - "surprising nobody". Still, thanks for running the numbers.
Southkraut
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4mo ago
Thanks, I'll let my daughter know that we had to accelerate the degradation of her homeland in order to prove a point.
Southkraut
Rise, ramble, rest, repeat.
5mo ago
Oh, that's rich. The problem isn't culture or absolute poverty but wealth inequality? Let them in, they're harmless...but then they become criminals because the natives are wealthier than them?
Why do you want to continue to live at all? Whatever your answer to that is, it probably works better when you're not getting dragged down by half a ton of flab.
Also, what's wrong with diet and exercise? Eat half, move double, problem solved.
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