TitaniumButterfly
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User ID: 2854
TitaniumButterfly
5hr ago
It's funny because I have seen references to it for years but was finally only nagged into finding out what it is once this place spontaneously generated a ton of discourse about it.
Going to jump in with what I want to see discussed:
Police and political leaders in Northern Ireland call for calm after Belfast knife attack.
What we know is that a MENA immigrant has attacked a native in the street, gouged out his eyes, and was attempting to behead him when stopped by passers-by.
Details beyond that seem shaky. I've seen the attacker described as Somali, though Sudanese is more consistent. I've seen the victim described as a man in his 40s, though 15-year old boy is also popular. And I've seen that the victim's life was saved, but also that he's perished in the hospital.
What's certain is that the major concern of the people in charge is, of course, that this is liable to upset the native population.
Perhaps that's more understandable than usual because of where it happened. Belfast! A storied town. Across twitter I see various historically-enemy paramilitary sympathizers calling to set aside their differences and unite against the common enemy; that it doesn't matter who controls Northern Ireland unless there's any such place left to save.
Last I heard, all major transport routes into and out of the city have been shut down, businesses are forced to close at 17:30, and curfews have been established. The place seems to be gearing up for major rioting.
Is it just me or have the straws been landing more heavily, lately, on the camel's back?
And, provided that the historically-armed underground belligerent factions of the area haven't withered into insignificance; provided that they do get serious about uniting and using force; might they serve as a template, or at least an inspiration, for other places?
I believe Kulak once predicted that the flashpoint for organized European resistance would happen in Northern Ireland.
TitaniumButterfly
6hr ago
Am I the only person in the world who wasn't familiar with the song "Mr. Brightside"? Just looked it up and I'd believe I might have heard it once or twice in the past, but maybe not. It's musically chaotic and the lyrics are completely unintelligible to me.
TitaniumButterfly
1d ago
There's at least a few of us.
TitaniumButterfly
5d ago
A friend of mine once told a friend of his, a cop, that what the cop interpreted as respect was in fact mainly just fear. Seemed to blow his mind, he said.
Can't say this doesn't match my experience.
I was once accosted for almost three hours (though not technically detained) by a couple of cops who'd decided I was doing something wrong, though they weren't sure what exactly, and seemed to think that if they just badgered me enough they'd figure it out. Long story and I don't want to get into the details but eventually I figured out a way to make them lose interest and leave. In the meantime it was just dominance display after dominance display.
TitaniumButterfly
5d ago
This is my parents. It's been very stressful to us all every time I've tried to suggest to them that the US is no longer majority white Christians.
TitaniumButterfly
5d ago
From a purely practical standpoint, while not ideal, that rubric would get much better results than the current one.
TitaniumButterfly
6d ago
I don't know how Britain allocates its immigration quotas, but the obvious main difference would be that the US has been selecting for ability to qualify for H1-Bs and Britain has not.
TitaniumButterfly
6d ago
Why bother? Anyone who can't contain their urge to use a term like 'sky man' is outing themselves as too obnoxious to worry about. If it were marginally easier to do so I'd probably just hide all comments with such strings.
My barely-informed understanding is that the United States has mostly been getting higher-caste Indians for a long time via H1-Bs and so on, whereas Britain has been getting random Pakistanis and Punjabis. Canada started with higher-caste Indians and recently has been flooded with more miscellaneous ones.
TitaniumButterfly
6d ago
I don't really think so. Failing spectacular catastrophe, 'poverty' isn't really a problem any more, at least when it comes to nutrition, access to healthcare, education, and so on. Quite the opposite, really.
Bad mothers, yeah. But would you rather have some unpleasantries in life -- which often result in growth, anyway -- or not live at all?
The world will never be what children deserve and this attitude is prone to running away with those who hold it.
TitaniumButterfly
7d ago
Diamond Age is my favorite but nothing really compares to the Baroque Cycle.
TitaniumButterfly
7d ago
I'd swear I read every top-level in most threads, and especially the CW thread, and yet every time one of these comes out it's the first time I'm seeing at least a third of them.
TitaniumButterfly
8d ago
Two main reasons.
The obvious one is that with ultimogeniture you get longer reigns, since your heir is younger when you die. Since a lot of the game is re-consolidating after succession, this helps a lot.
But the more interesting and admittedly gamey angle is that with primogeniture you're more or less stuck with your first child as your heir, which is quite the roll of the dice, whereas with ultimogeniture you can just keep having kids until you get a good one, then stop. So not only is your next ruler going to have a long reign but he's also going to be a strong attractive genius. Or something in that direction, at least.
Main downside is that if you die early or keep having kids well into old age, he'll have to deal with a regent and, possibly, jealous older brothers, but in practice this isn't too hard to manage and is well worth the hassle.
TitaniumButterfly
8d ago
I do have a lot of advice here generally (ultimogeniture is much better) but in my analysis our colleague seems to have inherited a more or less intractable problem. Should have thought of this generations ago.
In any case his position can probably be improved by invading Brittany, and provided he hasn't pissed the Jews off recently they should be good for a loan.
TitaniumButterfly
8d ago
My high school had about 500 seniors but about half of them didn't graduate -- I barely did, on such thin margins that it literally came down to my grade on my math final -- so I guess our graduating class was also 250ish? Not sure how that works. There seems to be an assumption implicit in the term that pretty much everyone will graduate.
Sometimes I try to imagine what it would be like to show up to a reunion. Can't imagine many do. Not even sure they happen.
Yeah, long-time business owner here. Incorporated; people working for me
I sell a service rather than a product, and loved it at first, but over time it's just become business. The reality is that customers can't tell their asses from holes in the ground and they're lucky that I have personal reasons (like integrity) to be honest. I've observed very little correlation between how good we are versus how appreciated we are. Probably my most important skill is expectation management and making sure that the client is happy regardless of the actual facts on the ground. Success can be ignored and failure overlooked, and they often are.
Originally it was all a lot more personal but as I've transitioned to serving bigger clients everything is shrouded in opaque layers of management. Corporations have their own logic and there's not much connection between winning that game and loving what I do. It's much more about organization, discipline, and persistence; as well as grit to keep moving even when big deals go down in flames for no apparent reason, which happens a lot. Things are much harder post-covid. It's like everything got tighter and meaner and less competent.
And don't get me started on the subject of insurance. Easily half my time goes to managing the ins and outs and documentation and back and forth etc. And that's before we talk about how many kinds there are and how much I'm paying.
I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a soul-sucking grind but I do it for my family. Without them I'd probably be living out of a van by the ocean. I dream sometimes about the murals I'd paint on the sides.
TitaniumButterfly
9d ago
I campaigned for him in 2008 and my parents laughed at me because the stuff he was saying was outside the Overton window. I'd say I had the last laugh but actually they're comfortably retired while inflation ravages every aspect of my finances.
TitaniumButterfly
10d ago
I've written one novel, about 100k words, with only two major characters and even within that I got about 85% of the way done and then took twice as long to finish it, because connecting everything seamlessly is very hard work and intractable dilemmas pop up everywhere. Can't imagine doing a whole series.
TitaniumButterfly
10d ago
Lovable, furry old Grover Cleveland, yeah.
TitaniumButterfly
10d ago
I'd suggest Nixon rather than Trump. Not only is he properly deceased
Habesne corpus? I expect that he shall return in time, or at least his jarréd head, propelled along by the headless Body of Agnew, when his people need him most.
Come, Lord Nixon, come.
My wife suggests we have a bill containing a montage of some of the more obscure Presidents -- Tyler, Taylor, Polk, etc.
"Yeah don't worry if you haven't heard of him; he's one of them montage presidents."
She also thought we should put some women on
Strongly against, on principle.
When I have time for gaming (lol) I'm currently prone to hitting either Manor Lords or Factorio, in which I'm just now getting Gleba up and running after spending like 80 hours getting Vulcanus just so. 216 simultaneous rockets launching every time the cargo ship comes in is such a rush! Fulgora was first and that decision has paid off enormously. Anyway I put off Gleba for a long time because it sounded like a pain in the ass, and I mean to some degree it is and that's just the nature of the game, but actually I think it's my favorite of the three. I find it pretty and laid-back, and I like the ag vibe and weird self-sustaining supply chains. Only downside is that the surface can be a bit difficult visually.
In a hotel on a work trip tonight and was just trying to decide which of those two to play. I think sometimes about how my analogues a generation ago would have been turning on pay-per-view porn. But actually I think I'm gonna watch a couple-few hours of Legend of Galactic Heroes. It's that kind of night.
I was once exploring a new (to us) state park with my wife, just hiking around at random. Asked the ranger at the entry booth where we could go that wouldn't be too bad for ticks. He recommended the 'Bobcat Trail', so we did that.
When we encountered a second ranger later and related the story he laughed and said "Well, that wasn't nice." And yeah, I don't think I've ever seen so many ticks per linear foot of trail before or since. Not by half, or maybe even a tenth.
Anyway @erwgv3g34 I haven't seen I Am Legend but suspect it is that kind of recommendation.
I like quite a few of the Killers' songs and have listened to them a lot which is what makes this even crazier to me. Although now that I've looked into Mr. Brightside I find it an unpleasant enough experience that I'd probably have just screened it out if it came up in the wild.
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