We had to wager our houses to get the initial loans during startup. Loans are almost finished.

If I’m frugal, about a year. But I own a small business and this would only occur if my business is bankrupt. In which case debtors might chase my personal assets.

Strategy favourite: EU4, before mission trees were added (too railroaded now). Yes computer game. It’s asymmetric, meaning you can choose to start in stronger or weaker positions.

Honourable mention: Go, chess, or other games with one page rules and emergent complexity.

Strategy bleh: any of the modern points based board games that take longer to read the manual than play the game. Catan is the only one I tolerate here, as it has enough people that know the rules that you don’t need to reread it for everyone’s benefit every time. If the game needs a GM to handle the rules, you cannot know enough about the rules to form a strategy while only playing it rarely.

Chance: Cribbage, in two player version. Well, admittedly you can still outplay the other player. But to outplay them, you need a fast and intuitive grasp of statistics. Selecting the cards for the crib is the biggest strategic advantage here, and it’s more of a weighted odds thing.

Chance bleh: Blackjack. You have no way to affect the outcome. There is a right way to play (over a large enough number of hands), and that is it.

Hybrid: soft spot for Texas Hold 'em. It’s a good hybrid of chance, strategy, and straight up social skills. No other game seems to rely as much on reading people, and you can do this right or wrong in dramatic fashion.

Lastly: D&D is the best of everything. The rules are long, but the DM looks after details (or you can wing it and no is grabbing the book to check). It has the reach of Catan, meaning you aren’t learning new rules at every table. There are social elements, chance elements, tactical elements.

The government has a monopoly on force. That force should be weilded by the fairest and most impartial people possible. Police, investigation agencies, etc., should be as free from bias as possible.

Now, you have multiple ways to get to that point, and people have different opinions on the purest way to achieve this. But, electing them doesn’t seem to be the way. Tyranny of the majority is too strong. And appointment by elected officials is equally problematic. So how then does a system establish that is not subject to abuse by those with power?

I would argue that the best system for appointing law enforcement seems to be via a benevolent dictator or monarch or their representatives. And it only works for their lifetime, unless the inertia of the benevolent institution can be sustained. Well, it’s a crapshoot but stable at least for the lifetime of the monarch or similar.

I’d also entertain citizen lotteries for these sorts of positions. But that’s a crapshoot on shorter timeframes.

One of my favourite stylistic thing about Japanese film (and anime on occasion) is their obsession with power lines.

Old Galaxy Note 9 which is likely replaced next week by a much fancier Sony. One of the last pictures the device will take.

No. Entirely harmless unless you are made out of dill, parsley, or carrots. If you are, seek help. They will eat you! Om nom nom.

We caught mama laying some additional eggs later in the day.

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Munch munch munch

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/01/22/like-the-spartans-in-thermopylae-a-dozen-ukrainian-commandos-battled-scores-of-north-koreans-for-eight-long-hours-in-kursk/

https://www.forcesnews.com/ukraine/british-commandos-helped-generals-leave-ukraine-start-war-investigation-finds

You have a confirmation bias.

If the music is good, yes :)

Old Galaxy Note9 which I’m probably replacing with a much nicer Sony this week. :)

In Winnipeg, we have a variety of rye bread that is white, light, and fluffy. In the rest of Canada, it is sold as “Winnipeg-style Rye”, but in Winnipeg it’s just “Rye”. It’s seriously the best.

For jam, we’ve got a single grape plant in the backyard that produces about 15L of grape jelly every year. An insane amount for a single plant. Not 100% sure on its variety (maybe Valiant) since it was already 30 years old when we bought the house. But fucking awesome.

For peanut butter, we actually tend to use “Nature’s Nuts Nut and Seed Butter” – which is some mix of: almonds, cashews, chia seeds, hazelnuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, and Brazil nuts. Made in Canada, but obviously a bunch of these things don’t grow in our climate ;)

Edit: just realized this conversation is on lemm.ee which is shutting down. Sadness. Looks like a similar community will spin back up on lemmy.world

Corporate journalism is digging (no pun intended) its own grave in many cases.

A feedback cycle where no one wants to pay for content, so advertisers are needed to fund their staff, which means clicks and engagement become the metric of success. But, the solution is either publicly funded news (largely unpopular), or regulating the open internet (more unpopular). So, yeah, the death of corporate journalism is coming.

Cheers!

Also, nice work on keeping the community interesting as it grows, without it simply becoming your blog :)

Wouldn’t put more than like 5V DC on it, but you could use it to put power to some low power USB toys.

I wrote for Ars for a brief period, on Linux topics. This was prior to the digg exodus. As a writer, I got a set rate for each page of content, with an expected average word count per page. I’d get a bonus anytime my story hit the front page of digg, slashdot, or similar aggregater. It happened a few times.

But that bonus incentive meant I was encouraged to specifically write stories that would resonate with those audiences. It wasn’t fraud or a scam – it was free market economic pressure. But the effect was the same – I was tailoring my content to maximize aggregator exposure.

I began to submit my own stories to Slashdot and similar, because a minute of my time could pay me $100 or whatever.

I am not sure that reddit is biased towards these publications as much as they are likely intentionally gaming the algorithms, and encouraging their writers to do the same – write content you know will hit the frontpage. I don’t think it is wrong necessarily, but it certainly isn’t organic.

That said, Ars generally has very high quality content due to some very good reporters. Eric Berger comes to mind. So it could be both effects: quality and gaming the system.

If you hold your nose really close to the screen, you can pretend to smell it. It’s part of the new jpeg metadata.

Oh right! I’m looking at you “prairie snowdrift” – your white blossoms are not cute enough! Just look at “gumball goodie” over here…