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PaperclipPerfector  18d ago (text post)   2321 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 11, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Anyone know of a good way I can consolidate all of my Steam, GOG, Epic etc. games into one database? I occasionally run into this issue of picking up a game in a Steam sale only to discover I already own it on another platform.

I think Steam has a way to indicate that you own a game from another platform or source, and still just use the steam launcher for that program (but not acquire achievements).

Aerospace subthread.

Anyone want to speculate on the following:

  • Who will win the Navy Next Generation Air Dominance F/A-XX program award?
  • Why is the Navy NGAD program pronounced NJAD?
  • Who's idea was it to name both the Air Force and Navy programs NGAD, despite being separate programs?
  • Will the plane be designated F/A-45 to go with the F-47? Surely unrelated to any other 45th and 47th.

My guesses:

  • Northrop Grumman, It would be crazy to put all our eggs in the Boeing basket at this point.
  • My had cannon is that Air force doctrine is that GIF is pronounced with a hard g, while the Navy pronounces it with a j.
  • Seems like it might be vestigial from DARPA, apparently there was never a meeting where everyone sat down and agreed the situation was ridiculous.
  • I'll make a book at even odds for bets of any size of worthless, fake, imaginary, and untracked internet points.

Wait, what. US has 2 6th generation programs ongoing at the same time?

Yes, the first is called NGAD not to be confused with the second program called NGAD.

There is, as far as I know, a single 1st person real life video showing ejection from a military plane. Or probably any plane.

Impeccable direction, as you'd expect from Almighty himself. Looks like 15 seconds between stabilizer gone and pilot touching the ground.

This is it.

It's a must watch.

Of course the POV cam is Russian... We must close the dashcam video gap!

What's worth discussing is ..what happened to the plane? This was geolocated inside Russia, near Belgorod iirc. The plane's engine is on fire. The stabilizer is neatly cut. There are no power pylons around it seems. So why is it neatly cut? I mean, it seems like an anti-aircraft missile hit, but the neat stabilizer cut is very odd.

//spoiler tags don't seem to work for me anymore.

She has also done work on religion,[57] and has argued that Stalin was a god of science, and an incarnation both of the god Thoth and the Christian God.[58]

Thus spakes Wikipedia. When we follow link [58] we get to a fairly thoughtful essay - Why Stalin is a God that is, IMO. (well you should read it).

..

okay that is a combination of cultural commentary and military grade dry Soviet humor. I don't think she is actually wrong. Anyway.. I'll have to re-read it. But is she serious? I'm not sure.

Policy proposal: anything with an American Flag on it must be manufactured in the USA. American flag T shirts? Must be MiUSA. Buckets? MiUSA. NFL making those weird camo sweatshirts with the patch on it? MiUSA. Your beer can better have American beer in it if it has a flag on it.

Why am I wrong about this one? Seems like a slam dunk.

I'm not sure what's the point of it. I mean yeah, there probably may be some legal way to do it, but why? It won't change anything significantly, and the reason why manufacturing is moving out aren't because evil fatcats hate America. It's because it is cheaper, and the reason it is cheaper is because workforce overseas is cheaper due to lower living standards and absence of regulations. I see no major non-niche brands that advertise something like "yeah we cost twice the competition, but we are made in America so it's clear you should buy us!". I mean, there are brands where MiUSA is part of their marketing, but not many that make it the center and rely heavily on it, as far as I can see. Thus, I must conclude, the revealed preference of the US consumers, en masse, is to get cheaper goods, regardless of where they are made. I don't think putting or removing some flags is going to change that. You can say "fuck the weak consumers, the interests of the Nation demand we have domestic manufacturing", then you need something global and non-consensual like tariffs and import bans to take the choice away.

Plus, of course, enforcing this with the consumers largely not caring would be tough. You can't go for the consumers, since punishing consumers for displaying American symbols would get you eaten alive in the media. You can't go for the manufacturers (on case by case basis) because it'd be too costly and they are outside the country, and something like WTO would likely be reluctant to help you. And if you go for the middlemen, it'd be a perpetual game of whack-a-mole, which, given the experience with controlling other goods, you are going to lose.

1A will have something to say on the matter.

Same argument against as for every anti-trade policy: it raises prices. Goods that are efficient to make in the US already are, so you pay more under the new policy. Or more likely, they just don't put the flag on, so there's just less expression of American patriotism. Plus, there's already mandatory country-of-origin labeling on lots of products.

Or more likely, they just don't put the flag on, so there's just less expression of American patriotism.

Less expression of performative patriotism, insasmuch as it forces anyone who wants to add a flag would be forced to put their literal money where their mouth is.

I've always thought this. Should be the same all over the world, if I'm king of it.

This country self-fetishizes enough that we may single-handedly resurrect the textile industry.

I never wear anything with an American flag on it, actually, same reason I take my hat off indoors: Dad raised me to do these things. He said things like hats or shirts and beach towels (which you literally lay out on the ground, step on, etc.) are inappropriate for the flag. He spent years as a scoutmaster so maybe that's where he got such ideas. Anyway he passed them on. This is only tangentially related to your post.

It's in the Flag Code. You're not supposed to wear the flag, let it touch the ground, carry things in it or use it for advertising. Scoutmasters are probably some of the few who tend to follow it.

I think that only concerns the flag itself - i.e. a rectangular piece of cloth with specific pattern, used for a specific purpose - not a depiction of the same pattern in different places. I.e. if I have a cup with the Statue of Liberty and American flag depicted, I don't think Flag Code applies to the cup.

As far as I can tell, the Flag Code doesn't limit itself to just physical pieces of rectangular cloth, or even the entire pattern. It mentions embroidery and printing as things that shouldn't be done to the flag, and given it was mostly written in 1923, I don't think the spirit of the Code would make exceptions for more modern manufacturing methods.

(i)The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever. It should not be embroidered on such articles as cushions or handkerchiefs and the like, printed or otherwise impressed on paper napkins or boxes or anything that is designed for temporary use and discard. Advertising signs should not be fastened to a staff or halyard from which the flag is flown. (j)No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform. However, a flag patch may be affixed to the uniform of military personnel, firemen, policemen, and members of patriotic organizations...

...Not that anyone really cares. And if we'd all strictly followed the Flag Code from the beginning, there would be way fewer US flags in everyone's lives and it wouldn't have the same cultural impact.

Video games

I've been playing Dune Spice Wars on PC. Its an enjoyable RTS. I initially passed on the game, because while RTSs were some of my first games (age of empires) they have evolved in ways that I'm not always a fan of (relying on micro and speed).

Dune has been a good "dad game" as I like to think of it. I can sit down and play a session for thirty minutes to an hour and not feel blueballed or teased. Pausing is fine in single player, and coming back to a saved game is not hard.

The factions have good flavor. The mechanics are straightforward.

Have you ever tried Ground Control? It's a little old, but I really liked it. Very story-heavy. Focus on formations and maneuvers with a small number of pre-deployed units.

I'm playing Drova right now, it's amazing. Gothic 1/2 but with a better story, a bigger world and a slightly more involved crafting system. Easy 9/10 recommendation.

I occasionally get recommended the Gothic games when I'm looking for a game that allows for overpowered and unlimited levelling. How is Drova in that regard?

The first 10 hours are brutal, you are a literal peasant running away from insects. The last 10 hours, you are close to the level of a god, almost impervious to damage and killing everything in 2-3seconds.

but with a better story

What? I mean it's pretty cool, but how is the story better?

The events in the Primeval Forest won me over. The gothic games don't have plot-twists anywhere near as cool.

True, I liked that part too (though I wouldn't call it a plot twist). OTOH, the ending was a bit underwhelming, and I couldn't quite get as invested in the factions as I was with Gothic.

I’ve been getting back into classic wow and terraria lately. Lots of nostalgia for me.

Terraria has to be one of the greatest games of all time.

Ever played They Are Billions?

Yes, enjoyed it

I hate 'micro' and 'speed'.

Where is the RTS where you give AI units rulesets and tactics depend on emergent behavior?

Mechabellum is the closest I've found. It is not RTS, but plenty of people say it fits the niche.

Zero-K was mentioned just a week ago, I think, which seems to put "less micro, smarter units" as its mission.

Decent, but I wonder why they did not simply add LOS and recon. That's a giant part of war and crucial.

Usually leave the genre and try turn based strategy, or grand strategy.

I think you'll probably still generally enjoy Dune Spice Wars. I run the game at double speed and then just constantly pause and unpause it. Some micro is necessary at the early parts of the game. Like when you want to save one of your 5 soldier units, and you have just that unit do a tactical retreat while everyone else stays. By the end of the game its more of the reverse where I'll might leave one guy behind to die while everyone else retreats, or more commonly everyone retreats at the same time if the combat doesn't look like it will go in my favor.

There is a bit of tactics changes for small units. They have an "armory" that provides different unit bonuses, or sometimes tradeoffs. The tactics and tradeoffs are pretty limited though.

Most important skill is planning out your territory expansion, and adapting those plans as needed when temporary status effects come into play.

Honestly, doesn't programming unit tactics sound appealing?

Grand strategy is very meh in my opinion. EU4 or HOI boil down to stacking predictable multipliers.

That's incredibly lame.

In the abstract, sort of.

But in practice I've seen what those games look like, and no it was not fun.

I think pillars of eternity had a super in depth programming system, just about any input could be a trigger for just about any action.

The reward for all your hard work is that you get to not play the game. or if you are like me and don't enjoy that combat part you can much more easily just turn down the difficulty.

The reward for all your hard work is that you get to not play the game. or if you are like me and don't enjoy that combat part you can much more easily just turn down the difficulty.

What id you simply couldn't and had to use them?

There are programming RTSes out there. I found them unfun. Probably because I've been programming for a living for a long time, so it doesn't feel like a game, it feels like work to me. Your mileage may vary, thats just like my opinion man.

I mean this would be functional programming or some sort of combination of priorities etc.. not typical pin-headed BS you deal with normally..

Dune Spice Wars is an awesome game. I haven't played in a while, but I really enjoyed the time I put in. It captures the flavor of the Dune universe very well, and it unfolds at a pleasantly slow pace so that you don't have to constantly be clicking things to keep up with the AI.

I just figured out that the free tier of Geforce Now can run COD warzone. The return to Verdansk event is so incredibly nostalgic, I have many fond memories of this game during covid. A more serious FPS player might take issue with the low performance, but I don't mind. On the second lowest graphics preset I get around 40fps, the lower resolution only becomes an issue when sniping, but even then it's mostly manageable.

The gunplay/tactics feels great to me, there is a nice balance between high ttk and strategy. Half of my kills are coming from outflanking or anticipating what the enemy is going to do next, which feels like a big improvement over previous seasons where fights could be a dps stat check.

That's been on my wishlist forever. I liked that studio's previous game, Northgard, and I'm under the impression Dune: Spice Wars plays similarly to that. But I feel like I have more games than life left to play them in my libraries, so I'm trying to do a "I need to beat two games before I buy one" type rule.

Ya I enjoyed Northgard as well. The games are sort of mechanically similar, but it feels more like "influenced by Northgard" than "Northgard with different paint".

The main similarity is the territory and unit mechanic. But that's obvious from any videos.

What's not as obvious is that there are other areas where factions compete:

  1. The Landsaraad which is a political forum, where various random gameplay effects can be voted on. The gameplay effects can be large, and the politically powerful factions can basically operate at a permanent advantage.
  2. Espionage. There are agents than can be assigned to give resource bonuses, or sent as spies to other factions. At the highest levels you can assassinate enemy leaders to eliminate a faction.
  3. The spice market. This mechanic is a little straightforward "buy your way to victory".

I've also really enjoyed the campaign gameplay. Which consists of a string of skirmish missions, or sometimes special victory condition missions (like conduct an assassination, or befriend the fremen). Victory at the main objective and secondary objectives grants resource bonuses for future skirmish maps. By the end of the campaign I'm usually acquiring enough bonuses to make me almost unbeatable, and missions become more of time attack challenges. But I enjoy being the overpowered unstoppable team in RTSs and I've only been playing on medium difficulty.

What do we think of Severance? I only just started watching it because I figured it was normieslop, but I find the theme pretty intelligent. I love that all the ambient media and conversations in the show are tangential to the topic of memory. The show is thoughtfully made imo, but I’m only on episode 3.

The idea of your “laboring identity” being totally cut off from your holistic identity, and what that means for the You in workmode, is fascinating as a thought experiment in how humans construe motivation. If you were really in severance, in the show, of course you would have no motivation to work, because you don’t have the experience of reaping what you sowing, only the annoying sowing. It’s like the Homer Simpson quote, when he does something stupid for short term gratification he says “that’s a problem for future Homer”; he doesn’t know who future Homer is, and future Homer doesn’t know who past Homer is. If your identity between sowing and reaping, future and past is severed, morale / motivation suffers; the greater memory we have of joy when we work, the greater we are able to bear the annoyances of working.

So I find severance vs integration interesting because its at play in a lot of human dysfunction: delayed gratification, procrastination, low vs high time preference, work-life balance, counterfactual thinking about future events. Probably every human requires the practice of greater integration in order to increase their wellbeing, because we are imperfect forecasters and rememberers. You can even see how drug culture worsens quality of life, because so much joy is just not remembered.

It was on my 'maybe watch' list and then some stupid SJW highlighted some dance number from that show and now it's on my 'you better hold me at gunpoint to make me watch it' list.

Are you turned off simply because there is a scene with dancing in it, or that some "stupid SJW" shared it approvingly?

No, but the criticisms of the scene on an aesthetic level really hit home for me. It really does look like a mid market cell phone commercial.

And when annoying midwits effusively praise something so underwhelming, it’s basically impossible to unsee.

Vibe killed, so I’ll skip. I’ve got plenty of other stuff to watch when I have free time.

I'm fine with song and dancing but it can't be cringe. If it's cringe I avoid it - I hate cringe.

Parts of the show are intentionally cringe, as they are satirizing corporate America's choices, abuses, and aesthetic.

Part of the show is enjoying the severed characters rolling with corporate bullshit because they don't know any better and then later going...wait...this is so stupid.

Loved loved season 1. Season 2 was a mess. I'm willing to extend it some measure of grace because there was a long series of disruptions behind the scenes (writer's strike, actor's strike, power struggles). But if it continues in the way of season 2 I'm going to drop it quickly.

I simply can't wrap my head around the Hally character, mostly her origins. She is a daughter of a Lumon CEO and is portrayed in season 2 as very ruthless and calculating individual all in on their creepy cult business and secrets, so why is she there? Just to provide a PR face to their Severance project? Can't she fake it? And nobody(including herself) gives a shit about the suicide attempt? Like we are hiding that this project almost killed the daughter of CEO and everyone is cool with it.

The second season generally seems to be pretty aimless. People do stuff without any obvious motive, there's so much secrecy and mystery but I get the feeling that it's a kind of potemkin village of a plot where there's nothing actually behind any of those secrets.

Book subthread

(I hope nobody minds but until there's a script that automatically posts a book subthread I'm just gonna go and do it on every future friday thread)

Very short review of the Eisenhorn trilogy by Dan Abnett

Wanted some innocuous bedtime reading and was playing a WH40K game, so I decided to check out the related literature.

I'm aware that much of WH40K literature is a bit basic, so I checked somewhere - either the 40KLore reddit or I asked Deepseek about the 'best written' stuff and was told it's the Eisenhorn trilogy* by Dan Abnett so I started reading them in order.

They're sort of mystery/ procedurals following the career of the titular Inquisitor Eisenhorn- probably a decent introduction to WH40k to people unaware of the setting. It's nothing great, I'd say it's like.. 1 level above Clancy in writing quality, maybe a level under Iain M. Banks. Not regretting reading them at all, it's quite readable and fairly well written.

A pleasant ending is simply not a possibility, neither is retirement unless it's of the medical sort. The books sort of attempt to describe it but it doesn't succeed nearly as well as it should.

The mystery part isn't aided by it being a part of an established canon, though. Something like 'Declare' by Powers is a somewhat better book - I strongly recommend it, but partly because it's a genuine mystery and novelty - something not entirely possible in something like WH40 where t he supernatural is the same sort of problem as say, the mob or rats. Severe, serious and persistent problems but not actually mysterious much.

The best Warhammer books are Ciaphas Cain. Now Sandy Mitchell is just marginally better author than brandon sanderson*, but his books have no right being this much pulpy fun.

*For anyone doubting Brandon Sanderson is harder to read than Joyce I present you the part of Rhythm of War that is between the front and the back cover.

Review of Brigador by Southkraut.

The most chaotic amalgamation of ideology I have seen in the wild is someone named Abba Alabanza, who appears to combine reggae with tradwife homesteading, Christian fundamentalism, obesity awareness and critiques of black nationalism.

https://instagram.com/abba_alabanza

Kurzgesagt had last week a video about population collapse because of low fertility rate:

It has the charming title: "SOUTH KOREA IS OVER". All caps, which is not normal for kurzgesagt titles, so you know DOOM is coming.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ufmu1WD2TSk

It is a short video with 14 minutes but it explains at breakneck speed the topic succinctly and in depth. The depressing conclusion is that South Korea can't really do anything, the low fertility is an unstoppable freight train and it will hit (end) the country. Even if a wonder happens and the fertility will rise to replacement level next week, the country would still have massive problems in 30 years. And because this wonder is not happening … the country is over

I’m Korean, born and raised in this country, and after watching this video, I just sat in silence for a while. Not because it shocked me, but because it said out loud what so many of us already feel deep inside: that it’s too late. There’s no fixing this anymore.

It is barely comforting that the West (and other countries too) are heading in a similar direction. Maybe accelerationism is the solution here: The faster South Korea is imploding the sooner other countries will wake up and do something.

So... how do you not read total literal societal collapse as an indictment of feminism?

On surveys where you ask women what their desired number of ideal children are, the number is still pretty high, higher than needed to maintain replacement-level fertility, so I think blaming feminism may not be the right answer since if you could help women have the number of children they want, declining TFR won't be a problem.

So... how do you not read total literal societal collapse as an indictment of feminism?

Is TFR reduction inherent or unique to feminism? Muslim countries are also experiencing a secular trend of decreasing TFR.

Muslim countries are also far more feminist than, say, the UK was in 1900. Women participate in the economy.

The depressing conclusion is that South Korea can't really do anything,

That's untrue. Nothing is preventing a dictator from seizing control of the country and implementing necessary measures - such as discriminating in employment against young women, curbs on female education. Once status of younger women is no longer seen as higher than that of younger men, they're far more likely to marry.

Even if a wonder happens and the fertility will rise to replacement level next week, the country would still have massive problems in 30 years.

A lot of this doom rhetoric just assumes things like democracy (olds controlling politics), welfare state (olds sucking up resources) or even high life expectancies (olds living long beyond retirement) will keep up. If even a fraction of the predicted problems hit these countries, world will change way beyond our current comprehension and most of these things likely will stop being problems in the currently predicted ways.

Unfortunately, change usually comes from violent revolt. Olds don't fight. Geriatric welfare is a democratic phenomenon.

SK is primed for revolution. Every man serves in the military. They had a (failed) emergency and subsequent (successful) impeachment last year. The leader before that was ejected in a anti-govt protests. So far, jobless men giving into a 'laying flat' depression rather than violent retaliation. Not sure how long that will last.

South Korea is a fascinating nation. A first world nation where everyone seems miserable. Strong contrast with India, where people live in literal filth, yet seem happy and content. What's the main source of this deep nihilism ?

Strong contrast with India, where people live in literal filth, yet seem happy and content.

Aren't like 60%+ of Indians desirous to emigrate out of their literal filth ?

Yes, but that's because they believe they can have their cake (their Indianess, communities ties) and eat it too (be in a clean & wealthy place).

I don't see why they can't. Nothing about the things valued in Indian culture and community ties is opposed to being in a clean and wealthy place.

Cleanness requires sacrifice.

Essentially, because being clean and wealthy requires a sort of compulsive perfectionism and if Indians generally had that then India would be different.

By contrast, look at Japan. They have a level of perfectionism and conformism that doesn’t necessarily make them happy, but Japan relies on its citizens having those qualities to run.

More comments

A lot of me thinks this is just reverse 'population bomb'-ism. I'd like to compare the certainty of those worried about underpopulation today with the opposite in the 70s. AI and robots are going to overturn so much, I don't think these negative bombs are particularly predictable for much.

For starters, with AI and robots people owning capital are not going to need labour, at all, to carry out the economic activities they require to live in style.

Asimov wrote about this, didn't he ?

Solaria. 3000 solarian people (who become physically ill in each other’s presence) and millions or billions of robots.

I just had a conversation with someone last week about this video. I wondered at the time why they were focusing on South Korea and not Japan. It does seem strange the video says it's unprecedented and only make the most passing mention that Japan is arguably ahead on the demographic curve.

From the population pyramids, seems like if you align babyboomlet generations, 2025 Korea is roughly at the same place as 2007 Japan. Perhaps the remarkable thing is Japan managed to stabilize the base of the pyramid for a few cohorts. Seems like now Korea is facing a demographic cliff while Japan is only facing a demographic decline. With 1.2% vs 1.6% of population in the most recent cohorts. Does anyone have some color on why Japans population decline slowed and Koreas did not? Is anyone more familiar with the cultures willing to confirm or deny my impression that the South Koreans seem to be more willing to embrace automation. Maybe that can help fend of declines in raw GDP for a few more years?

Any country that passes through this population bottleneck experiences immediate and intense natural selection for increased fertility, which means that those nations that started earlier (France in the case of Europe and Japan in the case of East Asia) will revert sooner to a more sustainable birthrate. There is also more variation within Japan itself than Korea, with minorities such as Okinawans bringing up the average fertility. Lastly, Japan has in recent years implemented a more liberal immigration policy, with large numbers of Vietnamese, Filipino, Chinese, Indonesian, etc. workers (or mail-order brides) moving in to maintain the integrity of the labor force and having more children than the natives.

I keep seeing this heritability of fertility argument repeated especially with respect to France but is there any real evidence for it at all?

France was demonstrably the first country in Europe to undergo the demographic transition and has a higher fertility rate today than its neighbors (I picked a source from before the recent migration wave to eliminate that confounder).

Yes I am aware of that but one country having a slightly higher rate of a single metric really doesn’t indicate an evolutionary process

What part of this fertility is white people? Which are the only relevant for me.

Most of it.

Does anyone have some color on why Japans population decline slowed and Koreas did not?

Japan is a larger nation, with more economic opportunity, and it industrialized at a time when industrialization wasn't quite so automated- the percentage of the population that process enriched was larger.

South Korea is small, has one major city, and it industrialized at a time when automation was already a relatively solved problem- the percentage of the population that process enriched was smaller.

Both nations, as well as all Western ones (importantly, the US is the least affected), are overpopulated to varying degrees relative to their level of economic opportunity- that's why TFR is below 2 there. It's not "the young aren't doing their duty", it's that the positions that the young would grow into no longer exist and their very existence has been, for a variety of reasons, simply priced out of the market (you can also see this effect in gender relations, where women instinctively expect men to make more than them- which means that the carrying capacity of society is not equal, and furthermore that men are in surplus).

When populations shrink, capital pays more for labor- that's why, historically, massive economic booms occur after significant die-offs. What you're seeing is a slower, gentler version of that process.

The North Koreans are not capable of winning a war on South Korea and still remaining North Korea through domestic production alone- if they had enough domestic production to sustain a war they would have industrialized to the point the socioeconomic forces that hold the country together would be destroyed- too many people getting rich for the Kim regime to be able to delete.

China could do it, of course- just dump more materiel onto the NK army than they're able to carry- but then, apart from no longer being a base from which the United States could attack the Chinese mainland, what grand benefit would they get from reducing the country to rubble? Certainly not a trading partner, that's for sure, since NK has no industry and their people are poorer than China's own in the first place. It's not like Ukraine where the Russians can somewhat credibly claim they're making the territory safe for ethnic Russians; Koreans aren't Han Chinese and the two hate each other on that basis alone.

It's not "the young aren't doing their duty", it's that the positions that the young would grow into no longer exist and their very existence has been, for a variety of reasons, simply priced out of the market

If so, why there are large immigration streams and even many goverments subsidizing that immigration?

Is anyone more familiar with the cultures willing to confirm or deny my impression that the South Koreans seem to be more willing to embrace automation. Maybe that can help fend of declines in raw GDP for a few more years?

Ah yes, clearly the Korean culture will flourish with the 10 surviving Koreans atop an automated empire as opposed to millions of Koreans experiencing all the richness of the human condition in relative poverty. After all, the first question St Peter asks you is "What was your GDP?"

I guess one advantage that ROK has over Japan is the small chance of reabsorbing the DPRK. In a sort of German reunification absorption of the GDR into the FRG. This is all conditional on them managing to avoid total economic and social collapse for a few decades though.

Even if there are only 10 South Koreans left, maybe they can send the 20 million North Koreans to reeducation camps consisting of archival K-drama and K-pop to reincarnate the culture.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure if NK and SK ever unify, it won't be on SK's political or cultural terms.

After all, the first question St Peter asks you is "What was your GDP?"

Milton Friedman outcompeted St Peter in efficiency, by leveraging capitalist incentives, now like entering New Vegas you need to have proof of wealth. Turns out you CAN take it with you.

Is this Friday Fun?

No. It isn't. I think for some reason people hesitate to make standalone threads on the Motte. I honestly don't know why.

Learned behavior from the Reddit days when it was actively discouraged to not draw the ire of the site admins

If it's not culture war there's little chance I share many interests with you good people. There were incredibly lengthy threads about golfing, gunpowder packing, and trips to China. I'm sure if I liked reading as much as you fine folks maybe it would be worth checking out.

The fertility cliff is interesting to me, but I also think it qualifies as culture war.

I tend to go for low effort shitposting, which is forbidden for top level posts/standalone threads. I may not be a high quality poster but I follow the rules. o:)

Good chance nobody looks at it. Or at least higher bar for getting attention.

The mods are a lot harder on top-level posts than they are on replies. I get the impression that this is a considered policy on their part, but it does have side-effects

Kurzgesagt videos are fun, not sure about this specific one though.

If you hate Koreans, I suppose.

Court opinion:

  • During Jewish synagogue services, a "Torah reader" recites portions of the Torah to the congregation. Since year 1999, Efraim Marcus, a professionally-trained Torah reader, has served as the Torah reader for a synagogue in Harrison, New York.

  • Jews are forbidden from using cars or other means of transportation on the Sabbath, so they generally must live within walking distance of a synagogue. In 1999, Marcus lived outside Harrison, so he had to drive to Harrison before the Sabbath, stay overnight at the rabbi's house, and walk to the synagogue on the Sabbath. In 2005, after the birth of Marcus's first child, the synagogue rented an apartment one mile away and allowed Marcus to live there for free. In 2014, after the birth of Marcus's third child, Marcus determined that walking a mile to the synagogue on every Sabbath would be "implausible", so a congregation member bought a house 0.2 mile away and donated it to the synagogue, and the synagogue allowed Marcus to live in the house for free. The house is also used to hold events and to tutor students on Torah-related matters. Marcus also serves as a full-time assistant/substitute rabbi, though he is not "an ordained member of the clergy".

  • Under New York law, property used for a religious purpose is exempt from property tax. Is this house, used as a residence for the synagogue's Torah reader, eligible for this exemption? The municipality's tax assessor says no. The trial judge agrees, questioning whether the synagogue needs a Torah reader at all when it could just return to the pre-1999 practice of having a rotation of college students read the Torah at services.

  • The appeals panel reverses. This situation is quite distinguishable from a past case where a synagogue bought a house for the use of a part-time janitor. Marcus's ability to walk to the synagogue on the Sabbath obviously is an integral part of the synagogue's religious purpose, so a house that the synagogue allows him to use can be tax-exempt.

Windows windows insanity?

A coworker brought his laptop up to the conference room, but (in hindsight, I think) it was still remotely connected to his monitor in his office. Every application opened its window on the office monitor instead of the laptop screen, so we couldn't use it for anything. We tried to change the display settings to cancel that...but the settings window opened on the other monitor as well.

We ended up restarting it.

Next time, use "Alt + Tab" to select the offending window, then use "Windows Button + Arrow Keys" to reposition it even across screens.

Or maybe :

⊞ Win + P

Should pop up a menu on every screen to select projector settings.

Is there a collated list of all of these shortcuts somewhere?

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/keyboard-shortcuts-in-windows-dcc61a57-8ff0-cffe-9796-cb9706c75eec

Thanks!

I have two monitors here, and my alt-tab selection only shows up on my primary monitor. The taskbar does show up so you can select one application or the other regardless.Windows+arrow keys does work to reposition windows, so I'll have to remember that.

One of the more challenging parts of it was diagnosing the issue in the first place. It looked like every application simply refused to launch despite being "open".

One of the more challenging parts of it was diagnosing the issue in the first place. It looked like every application simply refused to launch despite being "open".

Right-click on the taskbar, go to Taskbar Settings, and activate the option to show taskbar buttons on all taskbars (rather than only on the taskbar where the window is). Then you will able to tell when you're missing a window.

This is a very short review of the book Brigador Killers: Pilgrim, sequel to the novel Brigador, which in turn is based to the setting and plot of the video game of the same name.

Kindle version of the book: https://www.amazon.com/Brigador-Killers-Pilgrim-Bradley-Buckmaster-ebook/dp/B0F199RDCY

free Audiobook version and prequel: https://youtube.com/@stellarjockeysofficial/playlists

Anything below is spoilers.

In the first book, which occupies the same place and timeframe as the game, Ana Mirante was an NCO in a loyalist military unit during a coup against the leadership of her home country of Solo Nobre. Said coup was orchestrated by an off-world Concern, and carried out by a combination of imported spacefaring mercenaries, ad-hoc contractors drawn from local military personnel turned traitor, and a sizable fifth column, all referred to as Brigadors. Mirante lost most of her subordinates in the events of the first book, which was in no way shy about seeing members of the protagonists’ party dying suddenly and gruesomely. The first book does not make the outcome of the coup attempt clear, though Mirante and her superior officer fuflfill their mission and survive to the end of the story.

The second book reveals that the coup was successful in toppling the old leadership, but unsuccessful in destroying the loyalists wholesale. The situation in Solo Nobre is unclear, but it seems the Concern succeeded in installing a government of their choosing. The loyalists are thus turned into guerillas, commanded by Mirante’s superior, and Mirante herself is sent to the Concern homeworld of Mar Nosso, along with a small crew of veterans, in parallel with other cells, and supported by fixers who know the terrain. The new mission is to kill as many Brigadors as possible, who have congregated on Mar Nosso to be feted by the Concern as liberators of Solo Nobre. Our protagonists are, in effect, terrorists with an extremely limited shelf-life aiming to cause as much damage as possible before being found out and inevitably destroyed.

And they’re good at it. There’s some competence porn here, with the team starting out under-equipped and barely-informed, and working hard and efficiently to gather information, prepare their attacks, eliminate their targets with generous collateral damage, and repeat the cycle. They recklessly take large risks because of how under-informed they are, suffer for it, and come out on top only because of their skill, dedication and overwhelming brutality. They obtain better armaments to keep pace with the rapidly escalacting security responses against them. While their first target was an alcoholic washout, they eventually graduate to capturing a superhuman mercenary princess whom they plan to gain further information from.

As the casualties mount - police, civilian, brigador and security contractor alike, though none of the protagonists suffer deaths sudden or otherwise as the previous book led me to expect - the differing personalities of the team members shine through. One has second thoughts, growing disgusted by the carnage, thinking himself no better than the Brigadors they chase. One doubles down on his hatred for the Mar Nossans, justiying his atrocities by accusing them all of being silent accomplices of the Concern. One just goes through the motions, decades of having done worse in Solo Nobre making this just another regular workday. Their fixer quits, unable to cope with the magnitude of violence committed by the team. Mirante herself may have doubts, but considering herself responsible for the team’s morale, does not allow herself to show it. The amount of gallows humor on display rises continuously. Intellectually, they all know they don’t have long to live.

Then they figure out that the Concern only let them get away with their activities because they were, in effect, tying off loose ends by eliminating Brigadors, and they are doing their enemies’ bidding. To up the stakes, they formulate a plan on the spot to torture the princess to death, record the process and send the recording to her father, in order to trigger an invasion of the planet in retaliation, which would cause all numbers of political problems for the mercenaries and the Concern. And then they do just that. And with a minimum of patience and common sense, her father nullifies all this by finding a loophole to send a small death squad through without causing any political trouble.

And as our protagonists aim to take their final shot at a high-ranking Concern executive, it becomes a race of one death squad hunting another, the locals variously jeering at them as the terrorists they are or dying in droves, team members slowly getting picked off by the superior mercenaries, doubts creeping in as to what their final attack will even accomplish, and when they finally reach and kill their target, still having no idea what exactly if anything they accomplished, the last two members of the team are unceremoniously blown to pieces by their pursuers catching up to them.

The end.

That’s it.

I loved it. There’s nothing intellectual about it. It takes its premise and drives it to its logical conclusion. Tropes, expectations, expectations of subversions, all ignored. Excellently written, a very smooth read, no punches pulled. Maybe it’s performatively cynical or shallow nihilist gore porn, maybe I’m dumb for even reading it, but man I enjoyed it and still think of it and I recommend it heartily.

Just one caveat, as someone recently asked - I’m not sure how much anyone can get out of it without having read the first book (which was also good, though thematically different) and never having played the game they’re based on. I can’t speak to it.

I did not think very hard about this review. I do not think it’s going to be very valuable to anyone. Mostly I just wanted to try and get the book I read last week out of my system. Normally I do that by reading reviews and discussions, but it’s too unknown and there’s nothing to read about it. So now you had to suffer through this instead.

Wait, Brigador the relatively lofi top down mech game? They have novels? As in plural?

I was not expecting this at all. I knew Brigador had a pretty good reputation during the long dark between Mechwarrior 4 and HBS Battletech came out, and I dabbled in it lightly. I didn't know they were exploring full on multimedia world building in the same vein as Battletech as well.

On a scale of "Sheltered Virgin" to "SF Pride Parade" how pozzed would you say the world building is? Cause that's been a problem with more recent Battletech works since they shitcanned Blaine Lee Pardoe, and Pardoe's new series Land&Sea really lacks the dynamism the world of Battletech brought to the table, though it does have the stompy robot action.

Brigador is, if anything, a little edgy to the right. Overall it's a cynical, fairly realistic and well-realized slightly-hard sci-fi setting. I believe this used to be called "gritty". So not pozzed at all, I'm happy to report. It's the anti-battletech.

The devs are somewhere between apolitical and right wing (though they do try to hide their power level). The writer of the books is a full-on anglo nationalist. It's a franchise that prospered by keeping people in the dark about its creators' poltics, and most of the fanbase is, funnily enough, very woke.

The devs love their pet universe and do excellent worldbuilding work with it, and the writer is respectful of it and does, in my opinion, a very good job. Perhaps more craftsmanlike than literary genius, but he makes it work.

Did you know that were you to put a WW2 battleship on tank treads under its deck area, the ground pressure would be lower than that of an M1 Abrams tank ?

Now, if we ignore some pesky soil mechanics..

If it were a 'realistic' setting you'd be commanding superheavy tanks, not mechs.

Believe it or not, if you put an aircraft carrier on large treads the ground pressure wouldn't be much worse than a T-72. With sufficiently large power plants even very heavy tanks are possible, especially if the setting doesn't have power lines.

Maybe I should make the game myself dammit. Actually, why not.

In Brigador, there are three categories of vehicle:

  1. Mech: Anything with legs.
  2. Tank: Anything with wheels.
  3. Agrav: Anything that flies.

And indeed the heaviest can be found in the tank category, where you find mobile fortresses and entire artillery batteries crammed into single vehicles the size of city blocks, armed with various very large weapons including GAU-30s and naval artillery. It's perhaps not quite battleships on treads, but let's call it frigates and we're in the right ballpark.

Isn't that the ground-based homeworld game that came out a while back? The one they sandwiched into what could have been a cool desert planet salvage setting. Then again, knowing what the studio did with homeworld 3 it probably wouldn't have been...

Deserts of Kharak? Yeah. They got the aesthetics down pat, but the gameplay was uninspired and the story was outright trash.

And then came Homeworld 3. Oh man. Oh man. I didn't think it possible, but that was easily the worst game I ever saw.

Hmm. Never played it. Kinda wish someone made Homeworld but right.

Wait, really? I heard a five minute summary of the story and instantly assumed they were trotskyists, what with the whole "lenin betrayed the people's revolution" plot

Currently listening to the audiobook. It sounds like they're pulling a David Drake and writing from the perspective of the details of ideology being largely irrelevant. It's a perspective I personally endorse, so I'm happy to have more of it. I'm still in the first couple chapters, but so far it seems excellent.

I'd say they pass the ideological turing test. Don't take everything they write as a manifesto of their own beliefs.

Unless you actually found a manifesto and that was in there.

Fascinating, and encouraging. I might have to take a harder look at the Brigador games and these novels.

Brigador games

Now, there might be two novels, but so far there is only the one Brigador game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/274500/Brigador_UpArmored_Edition/?curator_clanid=5608422

A sequel is in the works, and its setting parallels that of the second novel just like the first did with the original game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/903930/Brigador_Killers/

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