Nobody has ever lost the plot more than a Star Wars fan arguing realism. It’s like watching a Road Runner cartoon with Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

The trees clogged the land, the water, and when one inevitably got struck by lightning, continent wide forest fires were common.

IIRC, it’s these trees, not dinosaur bones that became most of the oil/gas deposits.

It’s worth noting that when it comes to a species wrecking the environment, causing mass extinction, changing the climate, or spoiling the atmosphere, humans are not the first and we’re not the worst.

If you invented something unique your first problem is going to be describing it to yourself. You’ll need new nomenclature. The second problem is describing the unique thing to someone else.

One could argue that anything that can be nailed down by language cannot be unique because the metaphors and phrases to describe it preexisted.

I’d rather be on the Ukrainian front than any place accurately represented by Blood Meridian.

The part that stuck with me was how Minderbinder was a patriot. He didn’t see any conflict between profiteering and being a loyal American. Even when that meant plain treason.

Contrast this with Harry Truman. A lawmaker who made his name investigating “war profiteering”. Truman became a Senator because he had the backing of the notoriously corrupt Missouri political machine headed by the boss Pendergast. Truman was nicknamed “the Senator from Pendergast”.

Truman himself wasn’t corrupt. But he was a poor businessman, and maybe that makes him the least American of all.

Russel’s paradox is so wild. Set theory was supposed to unify mathematics and logic into a single coherent system and Russel was like actually, no.

Corrupt systems cannot be changed from within. By their nature they select against honest agents.

Just as a quick example it’s common for police to pad their overtime. Now suppose Officer Honest always turns in an accurate timesheet. Officer Honest never makes arrests for bullshit. On paper, Officer Honest is lazy and unproductive compared to their dishonest peers.

Average IQ cannot increase or decrease. The test is calibrated so that 100 is always the average. It’s for this reason and many others that comparing historical testing data is difficult.

In the revised version of his book “The mismeasure of man” (about biodeterminism and measurement) Gould was asked why he didn’t draw the obvious comparison between IQ and phrenology. His answer was that such a comparison would be unfair… to phrenology. The methods of phrenology were bunk, but it’s theory (that different regions of the brain were responsible for different functions) was sound. IQ fails both in methodology and theory.

When I finished reading Blood Meridian I said WTF, turned to the first page and read it again.

Like almost any marginalized group, atheists get caricatured by their most vocal members.

I probably would have become atheist a decade sooner if I hadn’t associated it with the logocentric, Western chauvinist, and plain old bigots who first represented atheism to me.

There are plenty of us who aren’t obsessed with religious debates; we don’t hate religious people; and our cultural, political, and philosophical ideas are not frozen in 18^th Century Europe.

This is Spinal Tap (1984)

when the courts operate on the basis of “innocent until proven guilty”.

This is a slogan, a hypothetical that applies to a spherical defendant in a vacuum. In over 90% of all US criminal convictions, the prosecution has no burden of proof.

The time isn’t exact. I don’t know why it drifts, they should be able to use the GPS signal, but I have two devices, one with an alarm, and another with a notification that goes off at the same time. They’re never more than a second apart, but which one goes off first changes.

Everything I know about Linux I learned troubleshooting a problem. And I still feel like I don’t know shit about the OS. After so long with Windows, Linux feels like living in a country where you don’t speak the language; everything is harder than it needs to be.

If the day comes where games are as easy on Linux as they are on Windows, I’ll give desktop Linux another shot.

This said, I’ve self-hosted on a Debian box for years.

The largest OS for spyware and monopoly shenanigans is Google’s android ecosystem and that’s Linux based.

Honestly I don’t understand all the Windows hate. Sure it made since back in 2001, but smartphones outshitify anything Windows ever did. The proof of it is that Redmond has been trying to phonify Windows since version 8 so they could be more shitty.

People see shooters and murderers and how they get infamous and gain notoriety. Since that’s the most available outcome from an outside perspective, they assume it’s the motive.

This is why some people think that refusing to name shooters is somehow denial or punishment; a way to fight back.

The motive doesn’t matter. I mean is there a good reason?

It used to be funny to open up a thread on /r/AskHistorians and see all the comments removed and the thread locked. In that sub, even true information was forbidden if it came from a dilettante.

That turret has room for a loader, an auto-loader, or ammunition, pick one. Doesn’t matter if you fall over after one shot if you’ve only one shot modernproblems.jpg

Lore is not story. Sekiro is the best From Soft game. Sekiro’s second half doesn’t fall apart or disappoint. The puzzle boss is acceptable. The combat actually feels like Seven Samurai and Star Wars: a flurry of blocks and parrys, culminating in a coup de grace.

Chipping hit points with a light sabre or a battle axe is dumb as shit and it’s been normal so long we don’t notice.

God forbid a Star Wars movie be interesting or play with fan expectation. Trying to please the Star Wars fandom is like a battered woman trying to make sure that dinner is ready and hot when he gets home.