jericho
10mo ago
While I played a bit of Minecraft early on, it was VERY early on, pre-nether.
During the summer of 2020 many of my friends and family, including those who hadn't played many video games in years, were stuck inside more for obvious reasons. So one of my friends spun up a Minecraft server for everyone to play on.
Between the new stuff added to the game in my long absence, the fresh world and people playing and building stuff at all hours (between furloughs, different shifts and different time zones) I was constantly discovering new things while playing and was often sharing that experience with people who I had not talked to as much as I'd have liked in recent years due to diverging paths in life.
Died down over time, once again for obvious reasons, but for a month or two it recaptured the feeling of playing games with friends back in elementary.
Didn't make up for all the stuff we couldn't do, but it definitely helped take the edge off.
jericho
1yr ago
My far-right friends see the Ukraine war as the Globohomo Lefitst Elite spitting in the eye of a Trad Warrior State.
FWIW, and I do realize in the US they are basically a rounding error compared to the progressive left, most of the far-left capital-C communists I've seen regard the Ukraine War as two capitalist imperialist powers duking it out.
jericho
1yr ago
Not to dox myself, but as someone who has lived in Florida (including but not only Tampa) for a good chunk of my life, I would lower the fed slightly, lower the leftist radicals a decent chunk and up the trolls and hateful idiots. Maybe like 40% / 25%/ 20% / 15%.
Unless the radicals are dedicated enough to LARPing that they also go out to bars dressed normally and talk about this stuff to really sell the act (though I guess those could also be feds trying to infiltrate? I just know a lot of drunk dudes at the bars here start getting into politics and the Jews do come up). I will add that I would not take it turning out that these folks were actually recent moves from New York or California as meaning they were actually disguised leftists. The people (well, young people, not retirees) who have moved to Florida from New York and California in past couple years seem both more outspoken in their politics and more right wing than the average pre-covid Floridian (once again, ruling out truly dedicated LARPing that extends to work and bars).
Guessing a lot of them are kind of "cutting loose" after being in cities where being vocally conservative was asking to be a pariah.
I know in the past people writing book reviews here have felt discouraged due to lack of direct engagement - I unfortunately don't have any commentary to offer except that this review has sold me on the book and I'm downloading it now.
Based on what you have written here, I would also like to recommend to you the book "Spies and Commissars: The Early Years of the Russian Revolution" - there are some very obvious echoes of the French Revolution in the Russian ones and the book's focus on the personal level helps play up the drama.
jericho
1yr ago
Same. I don't have a strong drive to make my parents proud, but I have a VERY strong drive to not make them ashamed. To @hydroacetylene's point, it certainly helps that most of the things that would make them ashamed would be bad things in and of themselves.
jericho
3mo ago
I think one could argue they would still be fetishes if the person has, say, 3 and they need at least 1 of the 3 at any given time but not necessarily all 3 at once.
Though if someone has 99 and they need just 1 at any time, it could surely just be rounded off to just not liking vanilla sex.
jericho
6mo ago
Really? I would be absolutely shocked to hear the writer sides more with Cleanthes than Philo.
Cleanthes allows too many major assertions by Philo to go unquestioned, and those that are pushed back against are only done after conceding ground.
That being said, I do genuinely believe the author is trying to fairly portray his more moderate opposition and does a better job than most at doing so.
jericho
6mo ago
For hard liquor, usually bourbon, usually Bulleit or Woodford Reserve. I've found $20-50 is my sweet spot for 750ml bottles of liquor.
For beer, usually a local lager, pilsner or wheat ale.
I tend to semi-binge drink- I will go weeks/months without having anything, then I'll get in the mood to buy a bottle, then have at 1-2 glass each week night, 2-3 each weekend night until it is gone.
If for whatever reason my pattern gets broken (I get sick or have plans that preclude drinking) I'll stop early and then pick it back up weeks/months later when I get the urge.
Honestly it is the same pattern I follow with games/books as well, like a very specific kind of addictive personality.
jericho
7mo ago
I have one family member who has steadfastly refused to change from a flip phone to a smartphone, but everyone I know who owns one keeps it with them whenever out and about.
Setting aside the question of whether it is or is not a poem for a moment, reading this really drove home to me how much my appreciation of works of art is context-driven.
My opinion of whether or not this writing was worthwhile was entirely wrapped up in how how old it was- you summarized some of the main thoughts as
Today we have dishwashers! And buy products that come from all over the world! And can easily afford them so what was exotic or scarce in the past is now something to be had everyday
And there's a big difference to me between someone putting down those thoughts during/shortly after the boom in modern household appliances and globalization versus last week. My opinion of the piece dropped precipitously when I found the date it was published.
That's not to say that art only has value if it is truly novel, but if you're doing something that has been done a million times before, you have a higher bar to clear and if you're trying something brand new you'll be cut more slack.
jericho
4mo ago
I honestly can't remember with certainty- I can say for sure that sometimes my eyes were open and sometimes they were closed and there were cases on both fronts where I did not "see" whatever happened to be plaguing me, but "knew" with clarity what it was and where it was. But I do not recall specifically closing or opening my eyes during an episode.
The number of times per year that I'm too ill to pull up a computer and work is maybe a couple days per year, but I've talked to other people that think it's completely unreasonable that a given company (with strictly non-physical work) only allows a couple weeks per year of sick time. We must be feeling quite different, right?
I think part of this might be, as you say, subjective differences regarding the experience of the same illness, but this could also be just a difference in immune systems/health in general.
That is to say, I wouldn't be surprised if the gap there may be doubly influenced by your running- first in just being healthier and getting sick less/getting less sick and second by then being better at coping with whatever level of discomfort you get from that sickness.
Edit: There is also the noted vicious cycle for chronic illness (real or perceived) where feeling like shit makes you less likely to practice the habits which make you less likely to feel like shit, which then causes you to feel like shit even more/more often. Once again to some extent this applies mentally, but is also a very real thing physically.
I wouldn't have been born without Lord Trevelyan, that doesn't mean my options are to either hang myself or a portrait of him.
they film a scene where one visits his rabbi and the rabbi essentially says “it doesn’t really matter whether you believe, just follow the rules”. American progressivism cannot really conceive of such reasoning.
I remember reading some time ago about how for most pre-Christian religions the focus of the religion was on practice, not belief or love or anything internal. It didn't matter if you doubted Zeus's existence (although for the most part the existence of deities was taken for granted) or thought he was a right prick, what mattered was that you performed the right rituals on the right days with the right sacrifices and said the right words.
Edit: Thanks to Ilforte, proper term for this is Orthopraxy.
And while there was a break with that tradition already with Christians in general, Protestants in particular then took it even further with the whole "sola fide" thing.
I'm not wholly sold on secular progressivism being a new religion, but I am wholly sold on it being directly downstream of Christianity (particularly Protestant Christianity) and wearing its influences on its sleeve.
jericho
1yr ago
Good luck and Godspeed.
If anyone has suggestions for other things worth doing or being, or that satisfy that "check my phone while waiting in the line to pickup the kids" nudge that avoids my new no-nos, I'm all ears.
Lighter fiction would be my suggestion. Collections of genre short stories (lots of excellent options for sci-fi /weird fiction/horror) are good, but also most more generic fantasy or sci-fi would work. Gotrek and Felix for Warhammer Fantasy, Ciaphas Cain for 40k, Discworld series has worked for me, haven't read R.A. Salvatore's D&D stuff but I've heard it's the kind of thing you can pick up and put down as needed.
Basically just fiction that isn't literature and isn't aiming for realism. If you want to be extra careful, can exclude stuff published after a certain year, year chosen to preference.
Comics or manga could also work depending on preferences.
jericho
10mo ago
My concern is activists who want people, including kids, to be self-critical of their identity characteristics in a social, cultural and political fashion.
Self-deconstruction is inherently very unhealthy. It's not something that should be encouraged in any way, shape or form.
Would you mind expanding on this with examples of what you mean, especially any examples outside of trans stuff?
I think you're getting at something interesting here but I'm not fully understanding it.
jericho
4mo ago
Would it be possible for you to elaborate? Most of the guys I know who have been in such situations are only monogamous in so far as "having a sexual relationship with only one partner at a time" could be stretched to only mean "someone who does not partake in group sex."
jericho
10mo ago
FWIW, watched the movie not two weeks ago and while I remembered Chris Pine's wife was black it did not register the barbarian was latina.
jericho
6mo ago
Oh, I absolutely would be. Though I'm unsure how much of that is due to me being a lightweight (both literally and figuratively) and how much of that is just having a lower cutoff for what I consider to be "drunk."
jericho
6mo ago
Interesting - there seems to be some regional pricing going on with that one. Where I lived before, it was (and double-checking, still is) a full $20 pricier than Bulleit, but here it is only about $10 more. I'll have to check it out.
Please elaborate. It seems to be limited to only the expansion of using the most severe allowable punishment (so would also be the case if the punishment for both murder and child rape were life without parole, but would not apply if the punishment for child rape were death but the punishment for murder was torture then death) for things less than murder.
One of the reasons why ancient legal codes where execution was a common punishment allowed for various different methods of execution, allowed for punishments beyond execution (such as also killing one's family, seizing lands and titles) etc.
Edit: To carry on the Qin example, if the penalty for being late was death but the penalty for treason was death and seizure of all your family's assets, there would still be incentive to not commit treason.
jericho
1yr ago
Worth noting that out of the 4 legal states, Hawaii, Washington and Alaska also had a requirement of at least 30 days residency in state first. Only New York would have been a "road trip" option (though I suppose Hawaii was already ruled out of that regardless of the law).
It definitely feels like a reaction against the Starbucks "breakfast milkshake" rather than a genuine preference much of the time.
I've been pegged incorrectly as a coffee snob several times by co-workers due to my preference for black coffee, which I find humorous since I actually am neutral at best about its taste. I've just found it the best low calorie caffeine delivery system.
jericho
1yr ago
Matt Colville did a D&D video on dead empires and quoted this bit from Elrond.
Then Elendil the Tall and his mighty sons, Isildur and Anarion, became great lords; and the North-realm they made in Arnor, and the South-realm in Gondor above the mouths of Anduin. But Sauron of Mordor assailed them, and they made the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, and the hosts of Gil-galad and Elendil were mustered in Arnor.
Thereupon Elrond paused a while and sighed. 'I remember well the splendour of their banners,' he said. 'It recalled to me the glory of the Elder Days and the hosts of Beleriand, so many great princes and captains were assembled. And yet not so many, nor so fair, as when Thangorodrim was broken, and the Elves deemed that evil was ended for ever, and it was not so.
Which really drives home that the world we see is a shadow of a shadow of what it once was.
I cannot speak to the history of it and I'm sure these are used in some campaigns that explore more extreme stuff, but the tables I've heard of where these are used are on the opposite end.
That is to say, they have these cards in case a player is uncomfortable with situations that are pretty bog-standard for fantasy settings (fantasy racism, religion being portrayed either positively or negatively, sexism, classism, etc)
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