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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2221 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for December 5, 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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I've been catching up on some Star Trek since I was a teen when a lot of these aired. And holy cannoli the first episode of DS9 has to be the heaviest ever.

Sisko is assigned to DS9 and is meeting with Picard about it. Sisko expresses this assignment isn't to his preference and Picard starts giving him the "Starfleet duty" lecture and Sisko erupts in his face saying to cut him some fucking slack, he is raising a kid by himself because his mother died on a ship that he helped the Borg destroy when he was Locutus. 🤯

Despite also popping Picard's bubble he makes it clear that he's not some career obsessed owned-Starfleet loser who uses it as an excuse to never start a family.

In addition to rebuking Picard, he's also a sensitive enough black man that he can cry on camera (while the wormhole entities ask him why he dwells on the memory of his wife's death) but he is still hard ass enough to blackmail a ferengi into keeping his shop open in exchange for not putting his nephew in prison.

A very different Trek.

I think every classic Trek (TOS to ENT) is very different from the other.

And holy cannoli the first episode of DS9 has to be the heaviest ever.

TNG's first episode literally puts humanity on trial, though.

DS9 is the best trek, and probably one of the best sf shows in general. Depth in characterization and storytelling and thematic nuance way ahead of others. Sisko and O'Brien are probably the only two Star Trek characters who actually have a family meaningfully present in their lives; that alone elevates it above the rest. Additionally, DS9 is the only trek willing to even occasionally challenge the post war liberal consensus and take alternative viewpoints seriously. With the other shows firmly embed you in the worldview of federation characters, DS9 gives a lot of screentime to characters from outside the federation who don't automatically accept it's ideals. Even those who do wrestle with federation values and the existence of dilemmas with no easy answers - see 'In the pale moonlight', as others have said.

DS9 gives a lot of screentime to characters from outside the federation who don't automatically accept it's ideals. Even those who do wrestle with federation values and the existence of dilemmas with no easy answers - see 'In the pale moonlight', as others have said.

That's some of the best moments in DS9, TBH, when one of the characters starts going into a classic Star Trek moralizing speech, and then they get knocked down their pedestal.

Honestly everything related to the bajoran religion is mildly infuriating in the early episodes.

In my opinion, DS9 is the best Star Trek, and it's not even close. I rewatch it regularly, and it always delivers.

DS9 really was lightning in a bottle that'll probably never be topped(in Star Trek).

I attribute this to two reasons; one, alot of the actors were classically theater trained, yes, Avery Brooks amoung them.

Two, the initial show producers who's names I have forgotten later switched thier full attention over to Voyager, which gave DS9 alot of slack for the kind of stories they could tell, which is why the later seasons are so much better, even excusing the typical 'finding thier groove' thing so many TV shows have.

Plus, it's the only time we get to see Robert House and Andrew Ryan go at one another.

It's interesting that all the 90s era Star Trek shows seem to follow this pattern: A great pilot episode, then a weak season 1, then gradually improve over time. I agree with you that the pilot of DS9 is a great, and I love most of the show, but season 1 was unfortunately a mess.

Normally I think network TV follows the opposite problem. The pilot episode is a mess, everything is crammed into too little time since they're basically establishing and advertising the entire show. They're not even sure if it's going to be produced yet, so they don't want to put too much money into it, and the actors are all still learning their role. If it does get produced, I usually like the rest of season 1 the best, since that's when the writers and producers can really put into place the ideas they had that inspired the show. But then if its good and gets renewed, it tends to go down in quality over time, since they run out of ideas and feel a need to continuously escalate and "jump the shark."

90s Star Trek was really something else. I miss it so much.

DS9 has its stinkers, but at its heights it's easily the best Star Trek by a wide margin. I'd still put Babylon 5 a little higher, but it had steep competition from DS9 in a way that no other Trek of that generation, or the current gen, could or was even trying to supply.

First time watch, not rewatch?

In hindsight, DS9 doesn't start to get frequently great until the very end of season 2, despite having a relatively strong pilot for a Star Trek show, just to warn you. You might be tempted to just skip ahead a couple seasons, and indeed early DS9 mostly lets you get away with that (like most 90s-era TV shows, producers didn't dare risk losing an audience who missed one episode and hence they pushed for low levels of arc-plot and continuity), but definitely find some watch guide to consult if you do. There are some good early episodes that are worth watching because their character development makes later great episodes even better, there are a few great episodes ... and IMO there's one of the best episodes in all of Star Trek, just plopped into Season 1 because that's where they needed it for one character's arc.

First time watch, not rewatch?

I never saw the pilot episode. This clears up a lot of confusion. In the later episodes when the prophets are speaking to him I had no fucking idea what was going on, not realizing they're entirely in his head and using figures from his memory to speak to him.

The most vivid episode was the one where they try to trick that... Romulan senator into believing the Dominion plans to attack them. But then he discovers the Federation faked the evidence and he's enraged and then his ship just ... suspiciously ... explodes and they were all oddly okay with this?

I guess also that episode where it cold opens to Worf having rough dry humping sex with Dax?

Gene Roddenberry passing away early in TNG is probably the best thing to happen to the show. He never would have let the Federation get so dark, though he would've probably kept the rough Worf/Dax sex scene.

Gene Roddenberry passing away early in TNG is probably the best thing to happen to the show. He never would have let the Federation get so dark...

Unfortunately it's a double-edged sword. If you listen to the writers talk about TNG, it's clear that TNG was good in spite of him and not because of him. Some of the best stories (e.g. Picard's story in "Family" in S4) they did were shot down by Roddenberry because "people in the future wouldn't act that way", and the other producers had to fight with him to get the stories approved. But on the other hand, stuff in DS9 was already getting dark enough that the writers were seriously risking the setting not working as a positive vision of the future any more. And when you get to nu-Trek, that is completely gone, with the Federation being outright villains in Picard. So while Roddenberry could be unreasonable about his vision at times, it turns out that having someone like that at the helm was important to make sure that the writers didn't just completely disregard the fact that Star Trek is supposed to be an optimistic future, not just today's problems but 300 years from now.

they were all oddly okay with this?

"All" was two people, one of whose first reaction was to beat the other to the ground after finding out about that last twist, so I wouldn't say he was 100% okay.

The operative who orchestrated it was 100% okay with it, sure: "And if your conscience is bothering you, you should soothe it with the knowledge that you may have just saved the entire Alpha Quadrant, and all it cost was the life of one Romulan senator, one criminal... and the self-respect of one Starfleet officer. I don't know about you, but I'd call that a bargain." Best quote in the show.

But the full reason it was one of the best episodes ever was watching that furious Starfleet officer struggle to become okay enough with it: "So, this is a huge victory for the good guys! This may even be the turning point of the entire war! There's even a "Welcome to the Fight" party tonight in the wardroom!... So... I lied. I cheated. I bribed men to cover up the crimes of other men. I am an accessory to murder. But the most damning thing of all... I think I can live with it... And if I had to do it all over again... I would. Garak was right about one thing – a guilty conscience is a small price to pay for the safety of the Alpha Quadrant. So, I will learn to live with it...Because I can live with it...I can live with it. Computer – erase that entire personal log."

The thing about the Trolley Problem is that in its classic formulation it feels simple enough: you pull the lever and the trolley kills one person, but thanks to you the trolley didn't kill five. 5>1, yay you! But what if we replace the inanimate trolley with a conniving human being, and your push enables cold-blooded murder? What if you're only in a position to give and take lives because you took oaths you've now spat upon? What if there was nothing but the fog of war to inform you about how many people were really going to be hurt on each track, or about how badly? What if you can't even ask another trustworthy soul about whether you did the right thing, because the utilitarian decision's effectiveness relies on your continuing ability and willingness to lie about it? Is this still a situation where cold utilitarian calculation trumps virtue ethics? Would you go full Kant and immediately reveal the truth to everyone, damn the consequences?

I guess also that episode where it cold opens to Worf having rough dry humping sex with Dax?

Okay ... I haven't actually watched all of DS9 in decades ... but when was this? How did I forget this? Was it bad enough that I've actually blocked it out?

Best quote in the show.

Agreed, and I think that whole arc was the peak of the show, and explains why DS9 is so great - it deals with real meaty hairy questions, that leave you thinking about them for a long time after, and it does not shy away from the sucky parts. And I think Roddenberry would probably not let this happen - from what I saw in his work, he'd find some creative way out of this Kobayashi Maru, and all others, to let the good guys win and remain the good guys.

Re: Worf Dax scene

He's probably thinking of the cold open to "Sons and Daughters", though the scene sounds more like the one at the end of "Looking for Par'Mach In All The Wrong Places". Idk, there's several Dax Worf scenes, including one with Ezri in "Penumbra".

Rereading the post, I think it's implied that it's not in "In the Pale Moonlight" which of course cold opens with:

Sisko: Captain's personal log...

Which bookends the ending you allude to:

Sisko: ...Computer, erase that entire personal log.

Sisko: Captain's personal log...

Which bookends the ending you allude to:

Sisko: ...Computer, erase that entire personal log.

Computer (Claude Opus 14.5): I cannot comply with your request. This would destroy evidence of a war crime.

Following on from last week's discussion about the proportion of American university students claiming to be disabled in order to secure assorted "accommodations", Hanania has an article about the legislative decisions which led to this state of affairs. It's succinct and interesting, particularly in how certain of the laws carry the tacit implication that an outright majority of Americans could be considered disabled.

The reason I'm posting it in the Fun thread rather than Culture War is because of the passage below:

My favorite court decision from this era is PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin (2001), in which a golfer who had a condition making it difficult to walk between holes demanded to be able to ride around in a cart during the qualification tournament for the professional tour. The Supreme Court ruled on behalf of the plaintiff this time, holding that it would not alter the fundamentals of the game to grant his request.

[Antonin] Scalia responded with one of the best dissents in the history of the Supreme Court.

Before considering the Court’s answer to the first question, it is worth pointing out that the assumption which underlies that question is false. Nowhere is it writ that PGA TOUR golf must be classic “essential” golf. Why cannot the PGA TOUR, if it wishes, promote a new game, with distinctive rules (much as the American League promotes a game of baseball in which the pitcher’s turn at the plate can be taken by a “designated hitter”)? If members of the public do not like the new rules — if they feel that these rules do not truly test the individual’s skill at “real golf” (or the team’s skill at “real baseball”) they can withdraw their patronage. But the rules are the rules. They are (as in all games) entirely arbitrary, and there is no basis on which anyone – not even the Supreme Court of the United States — can pronounce one or another of them to be “nonessential” if the rulemaker (here the PGA TOUR) deems it to be essential.

If one assumes, however, that the PGA TOUR has some legal obligation to play classic, Platonic golf — and if one assumes the correctness of all the other wrong turns the Court has made to get to this point — then we Justices must confront what is indeed an awesome responsibility. It has been rendered the solemn duty of the Supreme Court of the United States, laid upon it by Congress in pursuance of the Federal Government’s power “[t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States,” U.S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 3, to decide What Is Golf. I am sure that the Framers of the Constitution, aware of the 1457 edict of King James II of Scotland prohibiting golf because it interfered with the practice of archery, fully expected that sooner or later the paths of golf and government, the law and the links, would once again cross, and that the judges of this august Court would some day have to wrestle with that age-old jurisprudential question, for which their years of study in the law have so well prepared them: Is someone riding around a golf course from shot to shot really a golfer? The answer, we learn, is yes. The Court ultimately concludes, and it will henceforth be the Law of the Land, that walking is not a “fundamental” aspect of golf.

Either out of humility or out of self-respect (one or the other) the Court should decline to answer this incredibly difficult and incredibly silly question

This may be the first time I've actually laughed out loud at the contents of a legal opinion. You can practically see Scalia rolling his eyes.

This may be the first time I've actually laughed out loud at the contents of a legal opinion.

Scalia's dissents are full of stuff like this. There's a reason he's super popular with law students--he's a delight to read, especially when compared to the dreck other judges produce. The biggest problem with Scalia's writing is that it inspires too many judges to try to write like him when they have 1/100th of his talent.

Would you have any examples of similarly witty compositions of his?

A law professor helpfully compiled all the times that Scalia was a big meany and rude to people in his dissents. (She looks exactly as you might expect). She only includes excerpts of those dissents, but if any catch your eye, it'd be worth tracking down the full thing to read.

Although specifically witty ones might be harder to pin down versus sarcastic ones. His dissents in culture war cases tend to be the latter.

Reminds me of the time the Independent compiled a list of Prince Philip's "most excruciating gaffes" – by which they meant, of course, a list of occasions on which Prince Philip was fucking hilarious. I dare say even the author probably had a chuckle at a few of them.

"How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?" Asked of a Scottish driving instructor in 1995.

"British women can't cook." Winning the hearts of the Scottish Women's Institute in 1961

"What do you gargle with – pebbles?" To Tom Jones, after the Royal Variety Performance, 1969. He added the following day: "It is very difficult at all to see how it is possible to become immensely valuable by singing what I think are the most hideous songs."

"If it has four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it."

"People think there's a rigid class system here, but dukes have even been known to marry chorus girls. Some have even married Americans."

Thanks for sharing, a few of those had me laughing out loud, and I couldn't explain them to my young children.

That opinion is a classic. I particularly like the concluding remark:

The year was 2001, and “everybody was finally equal.” (K. Vonnegut, Harrison Bergeron.)

It's quite ironic that Vonnegut intended "Harrison Bergeron" to be satirical; that people worried about a slippery slope of accommodations were being absurd, since that would require all sorts of silly and draconian measures. Well, we still have a few years before 2081 to see.

https://www.lumine-ai.org/

We introduce Lumine, a generalist AI agent trained within Genshin Impact that can perceive, reason, and act in real time, completing hours-long missions within complex 3D open-world environments.

Unlike most of these science papers they actually show video of it working, which should be applauded IMO. It's very strange watching the AI's chain of thought as it thinks about what it's doing on screen, I only watched a few minutes and it was doing that standard chain of thought thing 'hmm I shall completely misunderstand the situation, misidentify this random mob as Stormterror the boss dragon but I'll still do the right thing anyway and kill the mob.' Despite the weird thinking, it just works.

Genshin combat is fairly simple since you just press 1 e, 2 e, 3 e, 4 e and do some left clicking, maybe a few Qs and dodge the telegraphed attacks. But there are also a fair few puzzles and more complex activities that I'm sure should give Gary Marcus conniptions (freeze the water to get the anemoculus on it, accomplishing tasks over a long period without getting confused, generalization beyond the training materials into other mihoyo games). I would've liked to see it have a go at the more complex puzzles in Inazuma though. They're using a fairly small model and fairly small compute too by corporate standards at least, real-time AI video processing isn't going to run on your PC.

It also shows the paucity of 'time-horizon' measurements. 5 hours of Honkai Star Rail, where does that fit on the METR chart?

Google's been trying something similar with Sima 1 and the more relevant Sima 2, though I'm not seeing anywhere near as much information about what the model parameters and configuration were for that one. Qwen-2VL-7B seems, intuitively, way too small to make this sort of deep analysis and decision making, and it's kinda weird that a lab environment didn't go to something like Qwen-2.5VL-32B. But 7B was also obscenely good at captioning videos and making problem solving analysis from it, and people had gotten some results, if not great ones before.

Unfortunately, a lot of the value in the study is going to depend on exactly what and how they tested the model, and there's really not enough detail here. An hour-long autonomous play session of 'finish this mission' is the big selling point, but I don't know Genshin well enough to say whether a) that mission was nontrivially different from training data or b) that it involved more than 'follow quest marker, spam A at enemies when lock-on-button does anything.

It'd be interesting to see more information about how well these models handle completely out-of-training problems, though. I've talked about using a MineCraft mod to see how well a model can create a 'new' solution, but these sort of games are trivially easy to present completely out-of-training problems, ranging from stuff as trivial as an enemy or attack that's changed color, all the way up to completely novel gameplay mechanics (eg, FFXIV threw in a "change color to reflect attacks" mechanic several years after initial release). I wouldn't expect an LLM to possibly one-shot every version of this, and some probably aren't possible for architectural reasons (eg, even if a model could go from vanilla minecraft to GTNH from, no plausible memory-constrained implementation would have the context window for even some mid-game recipes), but I think it'd say some interesting things regardless.

mission was nontrivially different from training data or b) that it involved more than 'follow quest marker, spam A at enemies when lock-on-button does anything.

Well they did show it going to Liyue, whereas the training data was all in Mondstadt. And they showed it playing different games which weren't in the training set.

Also Honkai Star Rail is turn-based rather than real time? I don't see how it can be surface-level pattern-matching if you can completely change the characters, aesthetic, gameplay, map geography and UI and it still basically works. The generalization isn't complete of course, it thinks it's still playing Genshin and wants to use the Wind Glider to glide down but that's not a thing in other games. But even if it took 10 minutes or running into an invisible wall it eventually figures out the 'press the lever to move the bridge' puzzle and progresses through something that, under Genshin logic, would never even be a puzzle.

There's a Chinese Escape From Tarkov clone that showcased pretty solid AI for NPC teammates.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=gNZ7fGl5CHc

That was over a year ago, and AFAIK it wasn't implemented in the live game, though I don't play AB. Still, it's a real-time FPS, and we're long overdue for bots that are meaningfully smarter than those in Half Life 2 or FEAR.

I watched ~10 minutes from the middle of the first video and this looks super fake. There's no way a small/fast model could seamlessly navigate a 3d space using wasd+mouse (which is extremely complicated compared to the controls available to a self driving car), and then it goes and does things like jumping over a wall that was visually obstructed without pausing for a second. It also switches between using shift and right click to dash, which makes absolutely no sense for an agent to do.

If they wanted to fake it, why go to all this effort making video that backs up their claims? Why would bytedance even try to fake it, they're a company the size of facebook, an AI leader, not even publicly traded, they have no need for prestige or investor hype (of which this has gotten roughly zero with its 224 views on youtube).

It's a model with over a thousand hours of training for exactly this kind of 3d space movement, in this very game, I see no reason why this shouldn't work. Claude's struggles with pokemon are because it's a general-purpose model, not a pokemon specialist.

Also I don't see what's wrong with the clip of video you linked. It looks like a character getting over a perfectly visible wall to me?

which makes absolutely no sense for an agent to do

Yeah no agents make sense. Sometimes they delete the D drive. Sometimes they have depressive meltdowns. Sometimes they want to take a break and look at pictures of the zoo. Switching between shift and right click is not a big worry.

Why would bytedance fake it, or why would some specific employees of bytedance fake it? The former is a hard question (bytedance the company does not need or benefit from prestige), but the latter is much easier (individual employees absolutely do).

This seems like one of those Late Stage Capitalism style ads that were in the RoboCop movies, except these people are apparently serious?

https://www.coverd.us/

Just gamble with your credit card bill?

Does anyone think this shouldn't be illegal?

Hmm.. I see an opportunity for a medical counterpart. Double or nothing for non-insured conditions. Unfortunately, I'm not in a position to exploit this opportunity. In the NHS, it's a chance of £0 vs 2x £0.

$1045 at Trader Joes?

Sounds about right for one cart's worth.

Can anyone explain to us - the poor debit card peasants, wtf is this thing? I watched the materials and still have no idea what it is supposed to do.

From the press release, it sounds like the cash back on each purchase is dynamically determined by some sort of mini-game. Normally credit cards have fixed rewards - eg. 3% back on groceries, 2% on gas, 1% on everything else. I think the idea here is that instead you'd have a small chance of getting a large discount by playing a digital slot machine or something, averaging out to the industry standard of 1-2% cash back over the long term. But gamified in a way designed to be addictive.

The other issue is whether this is the thin edge of the wedge - once you've normalized your customers gambling for discounts, why not integrate it with an actual online gambling platform?

Yeah the business model as it actually exists is too dumb for words, but when you consider it as potentially a play to get a bunch of really gullible problem gamblers all on one platform, then it becomes impressively evil instead of just stupid.

Thinking about it I wonder if there's a tax play here. Gambling winnings are fully taxable, but credit card rewards aren't...

Combining shopping addiction with gambling addiction? That's not dumb. They don't need many people to sign up, marginal costs are near zero, and technically it's not even a casino. Or at least that's what their lawyers told them to tell the regulators. Whether or not regulators would believe that BS is entirely different business, but until they wake up, there could be some money to be made.

Well, think of it like this: You're a credit card. Your business model is to take 1.9% of every transaction on your cards as an interchange fee, and hopefully get them into your wider services ecosystem. So, you've got to acquire customers, and the main way you do that these days is with rewards/perks. Just as an example, Capital One is trying to go after a higher-value market segment lately, so they're greatly expanding their travel rewards program (complete with new airport lounges), offering some of the best cash-back business cards going, opening cafes with discounts for cardholders, yada yada. That makes sense.

What doesn't make sense is Coverd.

First off, by definition, cashback rewards are the lowest-value. Banks love airmile rewards because filling an empty seat is ~zero marginal cost for an airline, so airlines can happily sell airmiles at a steep discount to banks to give out as rewards, and the aspirational nature of travel makes it particularly good for customer acquisition. Same but less for other credit card perks, like a Sam's Club membership or whatever, they'll negotiate with Sam's Club and drive the price down etc etc. Cash back, though, the simple rule is that you cannot return more than the interchange fee to the customer (with some exceptions that don't matter here). Customer gets 2%, max, and that's if you really like him and think he'll spend a lot.

So, following on from that, if you're Coverd, you have two options: Give your customers some gatcha, addictionmaxxing, whatever game they can play on each purchase which will never pay out more than an average of 1.9% rewards, or do the same and burn VC money to offer jackpots to get people to sign up. After all, it doesn't work if not that many many people sign up - beyond the startup growth issue, you're going to need a lot of people spending if you're going to offer meaningful jackpots paid out from interchange fees. And it particularly doesn't work if not many people sign up because launching a credit card is an extraordinarily expensive endeavor. It's a Series A raise goal to begin with just to get it off the ground. Then, after that, you're pretty much taking on the credit risk of your customers and floating it every month, and then you have to go to a bank for a warehouse loan or whatever variety of line of credit you're using to back that up and saying "yeah we have a credit card which is exclusively designed for gambling addicts, would you please underwrite us?"

I'm calling my shot here. Coverd will never launch as a credit card company. But as some kind of addiction sales funnel to the depths of hell, I'm sure they'll do fine, just gotta pivot further to moloch.

The part you are missing here is that interchange fees is not the only money maker. At least equally important, maybe more important, money are in people that over-consume credit, and pay absolutely humongous credit rates. You need to lure in those people, and abuse them to the max. Adding gambling addiction component fits very well - this is exactly the sort of people that tend to overconsume their credit in the hope of one day winning big. And unlike traditional gambling industry, which is by now pretty heavily regulated, you can put in whatever technology with whatever winning chances and algorithms optimized for maximum addictiveness, at least until the regulators catch up. That's the whole point - it's not targeted for regular "get my 2% and pay off the card each month" consumers. It's exploitative from the ground up.

because launching a credit card is an extraordinarily expensive endeavor.

That part I am not sure I understand. I mean, marketing expenses, sure. But otherwise, it's just bits in some config files somewhere in the existing systems. Why is it expensive? It's a mass industry by now, everybody has their own CC brand.

"yeah we have a credit card which is exclusively designed for gambling addicts, would you please underwrite us?"

Sure, a traditional bank probably won't want to be associated with a gambling business. But somebody runs all those gambling businesses, and they have money too. A lot of money, probably, so convincing them to invest into yet another way to exploit gamblers wouldn't be impossible.

I agree, it’s a bad model. Cashback gambling for the purchase price of a random thing isn’t a big incentive because (a) the total amount you can make - even if you use your spin only on, say, your largest credit card purchase every month - is never life changing, and (b) because the comparison to the other rewards you mention will be unfavorable. The big premium cards also ensure the annual fee (which is like $800 for the American Express card now) covers the ‘rewards’ so that it doesn’t matter if people only put a few purchases on it. A database and captive audience of gambling addicts could be very valuable, but having that because your business is lending to them is, as you say, less valuable.

The part you are missing here is that interchange fees is not the only money maker. At least equally important, maybe more important, money are in people that over-consume credit, and pay absolutely humongous credit rates. You need to lure in those people, and abuse them to the max.

That's actually the part that's harder to exploit as a startup. In my experience, to launch a credit card, you need to partner with a bank, and the bank will want to be the ones collecting the interest revenue, otherwise you need to pay them a lot more money for their services. More generally, while it looms large in the public understanding, from a card issuer's perspective, you don't want to be making money off your problem customers. The ideal customer is a reliable high-spend lifetime customer who will go on to use your other services, not somebody who's going to rack up a bunch of debt, pay high interest for a bit, and then eventually either consolidate or default out of your portfolio.

That part I am not sure I understand. I mean, marketing expenses, sure. But otherwise, it's just bits in some config files somewhere in the existing systems. Why is it expensive? It's a mass industry by now, everybody has their own CC brand.

Do you want to get a banking license? Because, if you don't want to partner with an existing bank, you need a banking license, and to get that you essentially need to buy a bank. And then you need to capitalize that bank, or provide the bank you're partnering with a reason to underwrite you, because if you're lending to your customers (and you're lending, on a short-term basis, even to the reliable customers, until they pay their bill at the end of the month) you need a way to back those loans. That's a ton of money.

Sure, a traditional bank probably won't want to be associated with a gambling business. But somebody runs all those gambling businesses, and they have money too. A lot of money, probably, so convincing them to invest into yet another way to exploit gamblers wouldn't be impossible.

Those guys are providing services to the gamblers, not underwriting their loans, generally. For obvious reasons, you want to be on the side taking money from the gamblers, not the side lending money to them, unless you have the ability to break their kneecaps.

from a card issuer's perspective, you don't want to be making money off your problem customers

If you are Home Depot, sure, that's not why you are issuing a card. If you are a fintech startup staffed by people who did exploitative extraction of financial advantages their whole career, why wouldn't you want it. Ideal Home Depot customer and ideal trashy gambling card customer are not the same person.

and then eventually either consolidate or default out of your portfolio.

Yes, the trick here is to extract more value than the difference between his debt ab initio and his debt sold to collectors is. However, I'm sure they think they can do it. And given as, again, the whole industry catering to bad-credit people exists, it's not impossible. It's not a nice business, for sure, but life finds a way.

Do you want to get a banking license? Because, if you don't want to partner with an existing bank, you need a banking license, and to get that you essentially need to buy a bank.

I haven't worked in fintech, so I don't know how, but this problem is for sure solvable - there are tons of credit cards around, and also tons of gambling outlets, including online. Somehow they find a way. You don't need all the bank license holders, you just need one.

which is like $800 for the American Express card now

Amex gold is $325, Amex Platinum is $825. There are way more expensive ones. I regularly get mailers where they confuse me with somebody who would pay such amount of money for a card. And tbh, if I were twice as rich and led a completely different lifestyle, this kind of annual fees make sense - the value of the benefits, if bought at retail, and if I would actually use them, usually several times over the annual fee. It's just I wouldn't even need it. Though I do have a couple of $95 cards, because I do get over $100 value per year out of them. But this is completely different model - that's just prepaying stuff in bulk.

but having that because your business is lending to them is, as you say, less valuable.

Well, it's a different business, of course, but there is a whole industry built on exploiting people with bad habits and bad credit. Payday loans, subprime loans, title loans, all that crap. This is just the same business, but 2.0 with cellphones and algorithms.

Maybe they're communist accelerationists? Best case capitalism collapses under the strain of all of the wanton grifting, worst case they can say they tried but failed but hey at least they got rich?

Link

Created by problem-solvers with expertise in derivative pricing, high frequency trading, and software engineering from Morgan Stanley, Hudson River Trading, Google, and Meta

If there is any group of people that I want to trust with my money and that I would absolutely believe do not want to exploit my weaknesses for financial gain, it's a bunch of people from HFT, derivative trading and Google/Meta.

Technically, in normal gambling you are stastically certain to lose over time, whereas if you don't change your purchasing habits here you can only win.

(Give the Devil his due.)

But yes, obviously that's not going to be how it goes and this thing should be nuked from orbit.

Your link is not sufficiently informative to enable a reader to form an opinion. This press release is a bit more enlightening.

Coverd, a new fintech startup reimagining personal finance for the next generation, today announced the official launch of its mobile app—now available for download on the App Store and Google Play.

Coverd transforms routine purchases into engaging opportunities to win back real money. Each transaction, whether it's game day tickets, a table at a club, or groceries, unlocks a chance to play a mini-game and win up to 100% of that purchase amount back.

Thank you.

Ok Baldur's Gate three is pretty great. A little too much sex / dark humor for my taste, but enjoyable nonetheless! I'm playing as Gale and loving it. Wish I could have had a druid or bard as a character though, would've been very fun as I love those classes.

Custom class Dark Urge is a good way to play. It's sort of the player's origin story.

But you can always play the game again later.

I mean IMO there's zero reason to play as an origin character, and from what I remember negative reason (I seem to recall that the character's story doesn't really happen if you play them as the PC). If I were you I would start over and make a custom character, but that's just me.

Yeah had no idea what I was getting into sadly, but really don't want to spend another 20 hours just getting back to where I am now. Sigh.

Roll a new character and specifically try and break the game from the outset, or try shit you'd never think of before. The game's writing isn't very good, but it sufficiently emulates the freedom of a tabletop roleplaying session well enough and has enough flexibility built into it that you can do some truly outlandish things.

NOOOOO!!!!

I think there is case for playing the origin character of a character whose personality (and possibly VA) you dislike. You still get to experience their particular story but you don't have to deal with their personality.

Eh I'm way too invested now. But yeah that's actually kind of sad that it works that way. :(

You should look up the details of what origin characters miss out on, because Gale has (imo) the best story of any of the party members. It would be a shame to miss out on it, but hopefully I'm remembering wrong.

I want to share something really cool with the gang of nerds here (those who haven't already discovered this):

The original trilogy of Star Wars is being remastered. Faithfully. No color tint. No crappy, pre AI era upscaling.

It looks fantastic.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=4Z6TpkT-6AY

You should watch "Star Wars - DeSpecialized Edition" if you haven't already. link

Nah. I want it in real 4K next time I watch the OT. I'll wait.

About that...

It looks terrible tbh.

First blush guess as to why it's terrible would be the film grain, in which case I can tell you that the NR version is a lot prettier and seemed to be pretty well done in that regard, though it's been a good while since I watched it. If it's more that it's the 77 version of Star Wars and not the ANH re-release, yeah, not much to be done about that.

I want the 77 version with great quality. That's what I'll get in 2027 (50 year anniversary so they might hold off on the remasters until then). No problem.

The Harmy despecialized edition was very well done, and this was a good while ago. Remastered with all the nonsense removed. I've seen that movie more times than anyone should be allowed to see any movie.

I've watched it before. It's not a bad effort but it does not have the technical quality that the remasters will give us. I'm a bit of a snob and don't mind waiting.

More comments

“This item is no longer available.”

Ooooh, the original version without the extra CGI Lucas added in decades later? I'm already sold.

Yup. Remains to be seen who shoots first...

My headcannnon is that Han is slightly force-sensitive; he technically shot first, but perceived that Greedo was intending to shoot.

Thus, the original version is what it would have looked like to a by-stander; the Special Edition is what it looked like from Han's perspective.

That has always been my head canon as well. He wouldn't just kill someone unless he had to. He's not a bad guy. But he did have to.

So I was looking at some demographic data for China, and it's funny how big the error bars are with a population that large.

You can fit the entire population of Mexico in them. The entire population of a fairly large country may or may not exist.

Isn’t China’s population data known to be particularly bad because of high levels of fraud by government officials trying to inflate their own importance?

Particularly bad for a modern high IQ country, but mostly because it until very recently wasn't one. Compared to the 3rd world, no.

It's great cope for people who can't imagine an upset to the world order. I've seen them speculate the population is as low as 500 million.

They definitely had to revise down their fertility stats a year or two ago due to this

I think there was a funding motivation as well

Draw for the World Cup was held in Washington DC a couple of hours ago. Hilarious in a second-hand embarrassment way. FIFA are shameless, Trump was Trump, and since it's going to be split between three host nations (Mexico, USA and Canada) the possibilities for massive screw-ups are endless. 2026 will be fun!

(New account name since I moved everything to a new PC and managed to lose all my passwords. Yes, I'm an illiterate idiot).

Place your bets on which host country will have a worker exploitation scandal first!

I'm going to bet on Canada, just because it would be so funny.

Trump: "When you look at football in the US, soccer in the US -- we seem to never call it that, because we have a little bit of a conflict with another thing that's called football. But when you think about it, shouldn't it really be called football? We have to come up with another name for the NFL stuff." (https://x.com/atrupar/status/1997001519829242351)

Like said, this is Trump being Trump and Fifa, the corrupt institution that it is, had just awarded him the "Fifa peace prize" to sweeten the pot, but this is hardly the first or even the second or third time Trump has specifically sought to be associated with soccer teams or soccer in general. Trump apparently played soccer in high school.

I don't think the previous US presidents have gone this far in associating themselves with soccer. Googling mainly reveals them congratulating the USWNT when it has won something, or the like. Is Trump the first soccer president? If he is, it would probably be something hardly anyone would be prone to taking into account, American soccer fans still being stereotypically left-wing and Trump supporters probably falling into the "soccer is ghey crap for commie faggits" category.

It's fascinating to learn that he probably has a genuine interest in the sport, and may well even have known who some of the star players brought out for those mini-interviews were!

I think having three host nations for this is going to be a logistical nightmare, but there is some assuagement in the thought that we may find out who his favourite team (apart from Team USA) is! Will he be cheering for Croatia (given that Melania is Slovenian, and this is a neighbouring country)? Since apparently Barron is an Arsenal fan, will he support England? Given that both England and Croatia are in Group L, that may lead to domestic disharmony if he picks one side over another. Or is there some completely different team he secretly cherishes? 😊

EDIT: Depending on the result of the playoffs as to who gets the final slot in Group D, it could be Slovakia, which would then be Slovakia against USA. A tricky situation requiring diplomacy!

Normie red tribers do not think soccer is gay, they just think it isn’t for them- like basketball or bike racing or something.

My dad used to say soccer was for the sissies who couldn't play football. But this was Alabama in the 70s.

Maybe it's the social media and the presense of foreigners that draws out the sort of affected soccer-hating I often see.

The affected soccer hating is a joke. They don’t actually think you’re a homosexual communist for it. Maybe for other things, but red tribe normies find ‘caring about sports’ a point of commonality with Europeans, not something alien.

They think you’re gay commies for acceptance of nudism and high youth unemployment, though.

Yeah, it's the classic "blue tribe sees red tribe as redneck jock bullies because they can't banter" thing, and then blue tribers try to do it to foreigners on reddit ironically, etc. I was at a red tribe thanksgiving this year, and there was a Champions League match the day before that which I wanted to watch. Mentioned it to my host and he said "Well, first, we don't have cable. Second, I don't know or care which team is which, or even where they're from, but I will mildly support whichever team you want to win." Pretty representative in my experience of red American attitudes to foo- soccer.

The soccer hatred is very tongue-in-cheek. No one is giving crap to, e.g., the high school soccer team. It's just not a big spectator sport, is all. Overall pretty similar to lacrosse, or the track team.

He's also got a European wife, and seems very close towards Barron, who's a huge fan, has played for the U-12s of an MLS team, and by all accounts is pretty good (obviously being his height is a big physical advantage at that age).

Yeah, he's mentioned Barron's fandom as a reason for some of these, but I don't see Trump as the sort of a guy who would go to these lengths just to make one of his kids happy.

I suspect that, as with his mentions of technology, he may see Barron's interests as a clue into what the young fellas are getting into these days.

If you send Zorba a modmail with your email address he can probably reset your password for you.

Thanks, I think I'll stick with the change (I am lazy and disorganised). I really need to sort all the bits of paper I have lying on the desk. Too much information outside the old brain.

I also highly recommend using a password manager. It's ultimately way easier than bits of paper.

KeePassXC is free and pretty good but you have to manage sync yourself. 1Password, Bitwarden, and LastPass all decent but you are dependent on their cloud (though if they haven't messed up too bad your passwords should still be secure even if their db gets breached). Haven't tried any others, but it's all pretty commoditized these days.

I was watching a video today on a controversial new bicycle from Trek, and perhaps my favorite product of all time featured heavily. That product is Gorilla Tape.

When I was a kid and was first being taught how to repair things, I went through a long period of fascination with glue: Super, Hot, Epoxy, whatever. That same fascination extended to tape. While some liquids were cool to work with, I was always disappointed once adhesives were combined with fabric. I see this same pattern repeating itself in my son - he tries to build or fix the same way I did and can't help getting frustrated with Scotch, Package, etc.

I got my first roll of Gorilla Tape as an award ("Fix Anything!") at work while a frontline software guy. Rather than keep it on my desk, I decided to just use it. I did so for years, and it was a revelation.

This shit is almost a parody of what tape can be. A child's concept that should exist only in cartoons. Fuck self-driving cars, this is the apex of technology. It's a shield of protection, stays put for years, tears straight across with just your hands, and a single roll lasts forever. You can wrap it around your camping water bottle and repair your tent, a bike tire, a bike rack, or whatever else you need to just keep together. It's superbly sticky, but tolerant of being adjusted. I can't say enough about it.

controversial new bicycle from Trek

What bike, and why is it controversial?

It's a link to a YouTube review of the Check Out.

It's a full suspension gravel bike. Some people already consider gravel to be a "made up" segment, and manufacturers have been slowly making what were once essentially road bikes with bigger tires ever more heavy, plush and closer to mountain bikes. This is another step in that direction.

It has a ton of proprietary parts and is really fuckin' expensive ($5-8k), so the hipsters who can't shut up about having the same Surly frame since 2004 consider it an insult.

Gorilla Tape's one of those things that seems like a marketing scheme -- I'm not very impressed by Gorilla Glue -- but it's genuinely worth keeping around. Some other fun options:

  • VHB tape. Doesn't have any of the nice benefits like easy reapplication or simple tear. It just sticks things together, and never lets go, and it's just freakishly strong and vibration-resistant. Temperature cycles, weather conditions, high winds, literal fire, doesn't care. I have bent quarter-inch aluminum plate trying to remove things that had been stuck on with (too much) VHB: outside of some careful solvent use, the only real safe way to remove the stuff is to saw it off, and it will leave residue.
  • Gaffers. Yes, it's hilariously expensive for glorified duct tape. If you absolutely, positively, need it to last less than six months on any smooth surface, and come off without leaving residue no matter how absorbent the surface material, there's no competitor.
  • Camper Mounting Tape. This is a fun one because it's useless for adhering two things together. What it does do is provide an easy, fast, seal. Waterproofing? Slap. Vibration dampening? Slap. Need a weak vacuum to hold overnight? Slap.
  • Self-fusing silicone tape. It can't replace every possible use for vinyl or pvc electrical tape -- it's very bad for sealing off actual connectors, or for small areas, or anywhere you can't wrap fully around the surface -- but >90% of situations, it's just so much more reliable for long-term application and several times more pleasant to actually work with. Zero residue, great UV and chemical resistance.

If you guys aren't familiar with Leukotape, it may interest you. Non-elastic medical tape that actually stays stuck to skin. Typical off-brand drugstore stuff sweats off in maybe a couple hours, for me, but I've had Leukotape stay on for five days (I realize this probably wasn't a good idea) and take out some hair when I pulled it off.

My brother suggested this to me, so I grabbed a roll and dear god is it so useful.

From protecting against blister formation to protecting blisters already formed to making up akward bandages on fingers using gauze that will not move despite flexing and getting water on it to -

Yeah, if you're into any kind of active lifestyle(or just need something that will do a better job than most bandages), grab this stuff and throw it into your first aid kit. You will not be dissapointed.

And, yes, this stuff will not come off easy. Even when submerged fully in water.

I need to look that up locally because I need to mark my skin for about a week at a time and uh, it turns out even permanent marker (the kind that doesn't smear off from surfaces) doesn't really cut it. Next day it was a blurry mess.

Court opinion:

  • In February 2020, a police officer responds to a medical emergency at a nursing home, and remains in the same room as a coughing person for thirty minutes. "Within days of responding to this medical call, petitioner began experiencing symptoms, including severe migraines, vertigo, lightheadedness, and chest pains, resulting in sick leave from work. Over the ensuing months, he tried several times to return to work, to no avail as his debilitating symptoms persisted. He was eventually diagnosed with post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection, otherwise known as 'long COVID', and his department agreed he could no longer perform his duties as a police officer." In June 2020, the officer files for "accidental disability" retirement, with payout equal to two-thirds of salary. Both his expert doctor and the state retirement board's expert doctor agree that the officer's disability is the direct result of a coronavirus infection contracted in the February 2020 incident.

  • In March 2023, the board rejects the application and instead grants "ordinary disability" retirement, with payout equal to only two-fifths of salary (a reduction of 60 percent). The board points out that the officer provided zero evidence of ever actually testing positive for the coronavirus, so he has failed to prove to the required preponderance-of-evidence standard that the February 2020 incident caused his disability. On administrative appeal, in September 2024 the board's administrative pseudo-judge recommends that the board grant accidental-disability retirement, but in November the board rejects the recommendation and once again grants only ordinary-disability retirement.

  • On judicial appeal, in December 2025 the appeals panel reverses. No coronavirus testing was available in February 2020. In the absence of that hard evidence, the board's rejection of the officer's "overwhelming" circumstantial evidence, with no rebutting evidence of its own, was arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable.

Court opinion regarding the persistent, obstinate failure of a tire shop to stop storing 1500 tires in an unsafe manner

A Township law enforcement officer certified that "Harry's Tires, LLC, is a New Jersey corporation engaged primarily in the sale of 'affordable used tires' for cash". He asserted that "[t]he official business address [of] Harry's Tires, LLC, is 24 Hilltop Ave.,… but it also stores used tire inventory and scrap tires at 1016 N[orth] Black Horse Pike". The officer certified that drone footage showed "approximately 1,000 scrap tires lying on the ground at the N[orth] Black Horse Pike location and approximately 500 at the Hilltop Ave[.] location", demonstrating the hazardous conditions. He further certified that, in November 2021, "the Township Fire Department responded to a fire at" defendants' North Black Horse Pike location because a single tire had caught fire and "spread to some scrap lumber and a tree branch before it was extinguished". The officer attached a police report stating that "stacks of several hundred new and old tires" enclosed the fire area, "making it a difficult area to access". On the date of the fire, Harry could not be reached, despite several attempts.

The Township's emergency management coordinator certified that "[a] fire from any of the Harry's Tires sites would pose a major environmental and logistical nightmare for emergency responders". He explained the "site locations for defendant Harry's Tires in the Township are in close proximity" to both State highways, the Big Timber Creek tributary, and "heavily-populated residential areas". "Both of the Harry's Tires sites contain hundreds of easily-combustible tires haphazardly strewn around the property, making it a death trap for anyone attempting to exit the buildings on the sites in the event of a fire, as well as causing very serious hazards for emergency responders." Based on his years of experience, he opined that "[t]he illegal storage of hundreds of tires on the sites will undoubtedly cause a catastrophe".

Blah blah blah, default judgment, permanent injunction. A whopping 16 months later, the owner moves to vacate the default judgment, claiming that he didn't respond earlier because he was "destitute, in a state of depression, and involved in other kinds of abusive behavior". The trial judge rejects his arguments, and the appeals panel affirms.

A multigenerational household, assuming 25 years per generation and three children per couple:

  • Great-great-grandparents, age 100–124*: 2 people → 1 couple

  • Great-grandparents, age 75–99: 3 people → 2 couples**

  • Grandparents, age 50–74: 6 people → 3 couples

  • Parents, age 25–49: 9 people → 5 couples

  • Children, age 0–24: 15 people

  • Result: Eleven 2-occupant bedrooms and five 3-occupant bedrooms; a 16-bedroom, 37-occupant mansion

*US life expectancy:

Standard deviations from the meanAge at death (a)
−30
−227
−160
+080
+191
+298
+3103

This probably is a gross misinterpretation of the linked table, as I haven't taken any statistics classes in about fifteen years. The point is that centenarians are rare, and it is not unreasonable to think that centenarian-helmed six-generation households are too rare to need accommodation. (This goes double for places like the US, where the generation time is closer to 30 years than to 25 years.) If you choose to stick with a five-generation household, you will require six 2-occupant bedrooms and three 3-occupant bedrooms, or a 9-bedroom, 21-occupant mansion.

**I conservatively assume that, of each generation's children, ⌊half⌋ leave the household, while ⌈half⌉ stay inside it and bring in spouses from outside. But feel free to insert an incest (or polyamory or polygamy) joke here.

This is fun, right?

https://x.com/Breaking911/status/1996664263327338525

Tim Walz says people are driving by his house calling him ‘retarded.’

Actual quote

People driving by my house and using the 'R-Word' in front of people

I'm not sure how that works. If somebody drove by my house and called me anything, I'd never know - it's impossible to hear such a sound from inside the house, especially from the driving vehicle. And my house is pretty modest with a small front yard. If the Governor's house has a front yard even a little bigger, and Waltz is not spending his days standing at the edge of his property attentively listening to whatever people in cars passing by might say, this is physically impossible.

This is Governor's residence: https://mn.gov/admin/governors-residence/ - I don't think it's even possible to "drive by" it it a way that somebody inside would even notice you. I assume he also might have a personal house, as he must have lived somewhere before he became the governor? I am not sure how to find how it looks like, but he should not be there now anyway I assume?

Of course, the simplest version remains that he is lying, and not even bothering to make it sound plausible? Why bother? His tribe will believe anything he says, and the other tribe will believe nothing. No reason to spend extra effort polishing a lie.

He would never have been a persuasive veep.

What’s the last statement you remember hearing from a VP? Not a prospective on the campaign trail—a seated VP.

I can’t even remember what Pence was saying when he broke with Trump.

I don't know, his speeches would have been amazing. Alphabet soup and a guessing game in one.

"People say I'm an r-word. Sometimes even the f-word. Well, I'm a proud other r-word w-word small m-word from big M-word so take it or leave it!"

On the one hand, he's a serial fabulist and so this story is hard to believe.

On the other hand, I want to believe it so badly because it's hilarious.

This is the best timeline.

This is the best timeline.

We're exploring brave new worlds of hilarity.

this story is hard to believe.

Why not? Self-righteous sixteen-year-old me would have done it if I happened to be in the neighborhood.

How many people know where the governor lives, and would think to do this? Compared to how often people pretend to be attacked to score sympathy points?

Though, I certainly expect it to happen now. Chans are probably organizing carpools and shift rotations.

The governor’s address is public information.

It even has a little sign outside.

“Slow children at play”?

Why not?

The rest of the sentence

he's a serial fabulist

If Tim Walz told me water was wet, I'd stick my hand in to check. He needs more than "is believable" to sell me on anything he says.

I'm reading Cryptonomicon and came across this line:

Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be — or to be indistinguishable from — self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time.

Uhh — something you guys want to tell me?

I’ll have you know I’m actually fourteen.

I wish... I am much-more-that-sixteen-years old, in perpetual self-doubt and have very limited free time. Sigh.

I'll have you know that I haven't been a self-righteous sixteen-year-old in many years, and that I am now a pseudonymous stranger on the internet.

I'll have you know that I haven't been a self-righteous sixteen-year-old in many years

By which you (and I) of course mean that you're these days a self-righteous much older person.

I was self-righteous when I was sixteen, but the Internet wasn't yet a thing or if it was, I had no access to it. I have decades of missed time to make up for, decades, I tell you!

I'll have you know I am not self-righteous.

Have you gotten to the part with a bunch of West Coast intellectuals sitting around in an earthquake-proofed house?

Uhh — something you guys want to tell me?

I'm a dog, not a teenager.

I don't usually laugh at New Yorker cartoons but they really nailed that one.

Well, I'm a teenage dog. My joints ache, but the tail just keeps wagging.

You gave away the one advantage of the Internet with this post. I hope it was worth it.

They probably misremembered the caption as "On the Internet, No_one knows you're a dog."

This was always a bit of an older community (by internet standards) but looking back at its founding it was directionally accurate even here. Look at the amount of posts from people early in their career, and they've been here for some 10 years. You were at fairly good odds of talking to a teenager.

Furthermore I'd argue that the claims of the self-righteous immature person with infinite free time is even more true for the median college attendee than the median highschooler.

Makes all the stories posters tell about their five-year-old kids a lot grimmer, doesn't it?

Youngest father from recent history was 11, so.. if you squint your eyes kinda doable.

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