BANNED USER: boo outgroup
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No_one
Underemployed Slav. Likes playing Factorio.
User ID: 1042
Banned by: @Amadan
No_one
17d ago
Now you need to wade through a lot of stuff if you want an experience better than the standard GPT web UI.
Are you.. high? It takes like 5 minutes and one tutorial to get access to almost completely unfiltered Deepseek through openrouter.ai. You can hook that up to an interface of arbitrary complexity and knock yourself out. The tokens are very generous, took me like 6 hours to exhaust them for 24h.
And you don't have to pay a cent, although the newer deepseek might be rate-limited during high demand times, such as weekend.
No_one
17d ago
This isn't true. Attention sink traps with microtransactions are not the entire market.
Many game genres that were invented then were only perfected now.
E.g. 'Transport Fever' 1/2 is what Transport Tycoon devs would have made had they had modern tech and 10x the budget. It has (judging by the screens) all the fun, all the systems but even sligthly more complexity and of course, modern graphics.
Same for strategy games, RPGs.
No_one
17d ago
Genuine question - how do you tangibly improve on the Doom gameplay formula?
You build the levels yourself and you shoot up and loot levels of other people who aren't that good? That's a very tangible improvement and one of the reasons I sunk.. 7k hours into an PvP MMO FPS that was (also) about that.
I really want to play BG3 and
BG3 is, lore and writing wise kind of underwhelming. May I recommend WH40K: Rogue Trader? It's basically 'what if X-com had brain-meltingly complex builds and had an actual personality that wasn't bland corporate paint-by-the-numbers snoozefest. The graphics, especially the character graphics aren't nearly as nice, but that's not why we play tactical games, right?
No_one
17d ago
..did you lose a bet, or why are you subjecting yourself to this sort of writing?
No_one
17d ago
I'm once again recommending Walter Blaire, a very unknown, self-published writer who is, nevertheless, fairly skilled. It's ostensibly military SF, and there's fair amount of action and some SF but is really more about societies, organisational and individual psychology in the context of a somewhat believable and internally consistent setting of eternal war. Unlike in 40k, in this case the 'eternal war' is strictly local and something that needs be preserved at all costs. The saving grace is that the ..people who fight it are enjoying it greatly, having the time of their rather short lives and really don't mind dying, having been engineered and then evolved to fight. The people directing it and keeping it going, not so much, but their suffering is usually related to bureaucratic snafus, old age, observing their country going to the shitter, summary executions for incompetence or deaths in duels.
Here's my review of 'the Eternal Front'
And here I'm going to offer a short review of 'What the Thunder Said', a shorter book he published after 'The Eternal Front'. It's a short SF novel, with military themes and sort of coming of age/romance framing, I guess. Unlike the Front, which has .. at least four viewpoint characters and several story strands, this one is centered on a single person, and is a sort of a coming-of-age. No worries- it's not smut - it never gets further than violations of prescribed distance and some unresolved interspecies* sexual tension. I say 'interspecies' because technically and practically, while the Tachba military servitors Haphans are stuck with look human, albeit extremely chad-ly[1], they're psychologically quite different and definitely not interfertile. And, like the Adeptus Astartes whom they somewhat resemble, very much not horny either. I said 'slightly resemble' but if you go by it line by line, it does seem they're supposed to be a realistic take on supersoldiers. Not some archetypal, mythical badasses but what would be practical, possible and physiologically feasible. It's not long for a novel and very readable.
Anyway I'm shilling it because as I was reading through the slush pile of Kindle store, I was struck by the writing quality and feel the author deserves more exposure.
[1]: honestly I feel like asking the writer if he had Gigachad in mind while writing it. quoting:
In all, he was unkempt, patchy, and dirty—though not outright filthy. It was more of an “end of a hard day in the field” level of dirtiness. Still, she felt a touch of disappointment, almost concern, that the empire was being represented like this to the enemy. When she couldn’t put it off any longer, she raised her eyes to his face. Jephia had tried to explain it to her once. The presence they could have. It couldn’t be adequately conveyed in second- and third-hand accounts. To truly separate the historical and clinical facts from the people themselves, Jephia told her, one had to personally meet the Polluted. The man’s eyes were slate gray, crinkled at the edges, and they returned her gaze unflinchingly. His eyes bored into hers. Somehow, Caulie didn’t find it rude—he was simply intensely interested, as if he’d never seen another human and never would again. She had the impression that he looked at everything this way—and that, despite their rocky first exchange, he was intelligent or at least perceptive. Little would escape those eyes. As for the rest of him . . . well. It was unfair. She was finally across from someone who was categorically her social inferior. The very fabric of civilization and empire gave her every advantage over him, and he still made her nervous and shy. Although Caulie was tall for a Haphan woman, he towered over her. At least six-foot-five, and that was while slouching. His general wear and wrinkles put him in his thirties, but these Tachba aged differently and he could have been younger. Really, thirty would be an anomaly, and not just because of the Tachba’s shorter lifespans—active soldiers of any race rarely reached that age on the eternal front. Old or not, his hair was an unkempt, glossy black where it escaped his forager cap, and he had several days of scruffy growth on his cheeks. In addition to the slab-like Tachba jaw, he had the broad forehead of an easterner from the Ed-homse mountains. The books described it as “frontal cranial bossing,” and it did look like some of the skulls in her lab, but there was nothing bulging about it in real life. His features were regular and attractive. Caulie never thought of her samples in terms of attraction, yet the word floated into her thoughts. It was the combination of his size, his lean body, and the angular features of his face. And those eyes. That was it. He didn’t look Polluted. He wasn’t moon-faced, soft-faced, or soft anything. He wasn’t blank, and nothing about his demeanor seemed to be waiting for her to ascribe features and traits to him. He wasn’t anything like the template she’d expected, and nothing like the blundering, wayward misfits from popular entertainment. She hadn’t even known she’d had any expectations until they weren’t met. Maybe that was why his simple, direct gaze was so disorienting.
No_one
17d ago
Hoe-based agriculture produces the least patriarchal societies,
Hoe-based societies are notoriously find only in places where heavy labor is not required for farming, and usually there are also good conditions. This results in men having the free time to engage in their favorite past-time - fighting to steal land and women from other men, and getting women to feed them, too. Men aren't pulling their weights because women can be free.
It's precisely one of the reasons why they are not really going anywhere and are never getting anywhere, and why the patriarchal, cattle-herding Tutsi, are, at the moment, invading a neighboring country 30x their size and winning.
less than most*, and we are the most successful civilisation by far.
Have, you, per chance, ever read any of these awfully boring 19th century novel written by women, mostly griping about marriage and so on ?
No_one
20d ago
All successful civilizations controlled female sexuality heavily, and used the promise of such as the carrot.
Because it is the best carrot out there.
No_one
20d ago
Yet this group largely escapes any criticism. Curious!
What woman is going to criticize high status, rich, attractive men? Maybe you're going to find one or two, but generally it's not going to happen.
No_one
21d ago
You do not want to reopen all the historical grievances over European borders.
Why not?
Europe is the hospice of nations. There's not a single country there today not ruled by senile boomers and their senile preferences for dying in front of the idiot box.
You could reopen every single historical grievance and absolutely nothing would happen.
No_one
21d ago
Ukraine in the '94 borders is an ahistorical construct. Much of the east was desert before Moscow's soldiers secured it and colonized it. Crimea was settled by slabé trading mortal enemies of Europe, and incorporated into Russia after a century of warfare.
Claiming Crimea and Novorussia has anything to do with the historical Ukraine is crazy. Both of these areas were transferred to Ukraine by Soviet politicians. These transfers directly lead to the Ukrainian civil war, as Russians in them had markedly different preferences compare to those in historical Ukraine lands.
No_one
21d ago
They weren't dropping dummy depth charges - they were dropping live ones, but refraining from dropping nuclear depth charges.
No_one
26d ago
Canada and Europe aren't his allies. These places are ruled by his enemies.
No_one
1mo ago
informed point of view (you are not)
US intelligence community is the same as any other intel community- a farce that pretends to be something more bc of a shroud of secrecy.
They have mystique and maybe some good people in technical departments, but overall it's a joke. US counterintelligence was completely pwned by Chinese in 1990s. The institutions have been rotting for decades.
Seeing that mandarin US Navy recruiting video and being told it's probably real by veterans, US government is yellow-peril occupied government no matter how much Trump is going to bloviate.
No_one
1mo ago
"We already leak, so what's the harm in helping adversaries create a more complete organizational map of IC employees."
Entire OPM database of personal data on secret clearances was stolen not just once but allegedly twice. Your CIA network in China got pwned because people thought what fools sand people can fool the dastardly orientals. Dozens of dead, allegedly.
So your 'IC' community is probably the laughing stock of the world and at this point, can hardly look any worse. Oh yeah, and didn't some set of NSA hacking tools got leaked too ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management_data_breach#Data_theft
And god knows what was stolen, hacked and then hushed up.
Way too late to worry about your 'IC employees'. That's like Europe worrying about their competitiveness or economic dynamism. About twenty years too late, more like 30 at this point.
No_one
1mo ago
(does a top executive have time to read all those replies?)
You can have AI evaluate them, no problem. They're actually pretty sharp now!
No_one
1mo ago
I'll quote Forbes:
ByBeth Kindig, Contributor. Free stock tips and stock research newsletter at https://io-fund.com
Follow Author Nov 14, 2024, 05:29pm EST
Save Article
Comment 0 Big Tech’s AI spending continues to accelerate at a blistering pace, with the four giants well on track to spend upwards of a quarter trillion dollars predominantly towards AI infrastructure next year.
Though there have recently been concerns about the durability of this AI spending from Big Tech and others downstream, these fears have been assuaged, with management teams stepping out to highlight AI revenue streams approaching and surpassing $10 billion with demand still outpacing capacity.
No_one
1mo ago
A sufficiently powerful oncovirus probably wouldn't kill everyone, but are you really confident you'd be one of the 1-10% who wouldn't get a fatal cancer? I don't think we could even treat all those cancers even if we really geared up for it.
My own odds are pretty good, almost no one in my family ever had cancer and I barely get sick from normal viruses but playing viral russian roulette isn't on my to-do list.
No_one
1mo ago
there's many, many people who think like Ziz
I meant people who believe human life is inherently evil and should be eradicated. Hell, there is a fair amount of people who believe all life should end.
No_one
1mo ago
It would only be unhelpful if it didn't go far enough.
..are you trolling?
Morgenthau plan leaking led to the war taking a month more according to front line commanders.
The plan itself would have ensured a pro-Soviet revolt in Western Germany.
It was a remarkably idiotic idea, impractical, odious and worst of all a public policy.
No_one
1mo ago
budge upwards despite dumping trillions into AI
a) We didn't.
b) it takes time to integrate new tech into business and to figure out how to best use it. Reasoner models are what, 3 months old now?
But I also wouldn't be surprised if life in 2030 is much the same as it is in 2025.
You'll be a little lucky if you're even alive. Pacific War 2: Electric Boogaloo and it's possible thermonuclear complications aside, there's many, many people who think like Ziz, there doesn't seem to be a good way of preventing jailbreaks reliably and making very deadly pathogens that kill in a delayed manner is not hard if you don't care about your own survival that much. And in any case, It looks like for a ~500k$ people will be able to run their own OS AGI in isolation, meaning moderately rich efilist lunatics could run their own shitty biolabs with help and spend as much time figuring out jailbreaks as needed, with no risk of snitching.
No_one
1mo ago
Because all countries are of course interchangeable. Say, having Monaco have a single North Korean base is entirely the same as if Spanish left-wing insanity took a turn and they adopted Juche as state ideology.
This is all so stupid and so tiresome.
No_one
1mo ago
No, it's not. It's merely taking advantage of the Irish tax dodge. It's a US company, now pretty global. They have a pretty bad reputation in IT I believe. Scummy practices.
You can keep players hooked, not addicted and entertained. And paying. War Thunder knows how to do that.
Also: Doom (2016) is pretty much an almost perfect single-player version of the 'boomer shooter'. I liked it very much, in terms of combat it favorably compares to Unreal Tournament ('99, 2003 and 2004, all of which I completed several times).
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