domain:farhakhalidi.substack.com?page=5
NunoSempere
3hr ago
Because I cluster the topics semi-manually, and sometimes either the script makes a mistake, or I do.
gattsuru
3hr ago
At least in vanilla, you're usually better served by exploring the outer islands directly instead of refighting the dragon -- a lot of the intent for multiple summonings is to handle multiplayer servers. That said, yeah, there's a lot of players that literally never do it, and another number that consider it where the game starts (since Elytra and Shulker boxes, both post-Ender Dragon, are incredibly useful for creative builders).
Modded can change that pretty aggressively, and it's common to lock 'end-game' or specialized crafting material specifically around the End Dragon's death (either as a direct drop, like old Tinker's Construct end dragon scales, or indirectly like Quark's Biotite). But then again modded will also have other end states, some just checkboxes (GTNH's final Stargate is literally useless by the time you can make it), and some more serious (completing Blightfall's last quest involves purifying the entire pregen map; you can still explore, but it's an entirely different style of play from what you were doing before).
bonsaii
3hr ago
Who wrote this and what languages does this person know? The inclusion of Korean speech in the bubble of Chinese language is already highly suspect. Both Japanese and Korean utilize roots from Classical Chinese, analogous to the use of Latin/Greek roots in most European languages, but they are structurally completely different and originated independently. The closest analogy in Europe would probably be something like Hungarian, which uses many of the same Latin/Greek roots as other European languages but has a totally different structure/origin. Including those languages in the bubble of "Latin" or "Greek" would tell me that person knows very little about European languages.
The language/dialect controversy is not that complicated. The distinction is artificial. There is some basis in mutual intelligibility, but this is clinal, so where to put cutoffs is subjective. The cutoffs are generally correlated but can differ between spoken and written language. Written Portuguese is generally more comprehensible to Spanish speakers than spoken Portuguese. Cantonese/Mandarin is just a more extreme version of this, but is only a difference in degree, not in kind. The "Chinese language" is essentially like creating an entity called the "Romance language", of which Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, etc. are "dialects". After all, they also use a shared writing system just with more variation.
China's a long history of fracturing looms heavily in their cultural heritage. The government has a vested interest in minimizing any potential source for internal regional conflict and reinforce the idea of a single, unified China. Having a single national "language" helps tremendously in this regard. Therefore, for largely cultural and political reasons, they push the idea of a "Chinese language", much like a someone who conquered the southern half of Europe might try to push the idea of a "Romance language" to promote unity.
Ronde van Spanje: Tumult, Unrest, and Vingegaard Wins
There is one road cycling event which exceeds all others in general notability, Tour de France. This post is not about it, but about its Spanish counterpart, alike in the rules, mechanics, participants.
The 2025 edition of the Tour of Spain has just ended on Sunday, and boy was it memorable. Not for the cycling, but for what spilled over the side of the road, onto the course. Namely: Pro-Palestine protests. The stated cause of these protestors was the participation of the team "Israel - Premier Tech" (IPT), which despite its name, is not owned by Israel, but by a Jewish Canadian. (Israel has not exactly disassociated itself from the team, its PM expressing support to the team for not buckling).
Stage 5 was a Team Time Trial, where instead of all cyclists starting together, each team starts separately at regular intervals. Perfect situation for those targeting some team. Protestors were aware of this, and attacked IPT, whose finishing time would later be reduced by 15 seconds.
In Stage 11, when cyclists were about half an hour from the finish, shortened by 3km, it also was declared it would have no winner.
IPT would change jerseys, replacing "Israel" on them with the Star of David.
Stage 16 was altered, when the race was already on, by reducing its length by 8km.
Stage 18 was an Individual Time Trial, where each cyclist starts separately at set intervals, again perfect if one targets a particular cyclist. Race organizers sensed the danger, and shortened the course from 27.2 km to 12.2 km, the day before the stage.
Stage 21, the final one, was set to end in several circuits around Madrid, but that part was cancelled. The stage would have no winner, nor would it count for the Spanish Yellow aka Red Jersey.
Safety concerns also prevented podium ceremony from taking place. An IPT rider, American Matthew Riccitello becoming the leader in the Youth (or White Jersey) classification in stage 20, thus entitled to participate in the ceremony, probably exacerbated the perceived security situation. (The teams would go on to conduct their own ceremony in some parking lot, with the production value of an amateur race.)
Currently the position of PM of Spain belongs to the Socialist Party, and in the conflict between making his country look competent and his support for Palestine, chose the latter. Explicitly supporting the disruptors, (following the Spanish FM's calls for IPT to abandon the race a bit over a week earlier). The opposition opposed, as did Israel's FM and PM of Denmark.
Incidentally, the team at the center of this controversy on Sunday participated in a Canadian one-day-race, "Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal" under "IPT", instead of the full name. The race went smoothly, and was won by an American Brandon McNulty riding for the state-owned team "UAE Team Emirates - XRG".
Protestors having veto rights over sports participants, is something I oppose. It would be anti-pluralist. It would be like some manifestations cancel culture in being a variant of tortious interference. The audience wants to see the best riders, the best riders want to participate, but a politicized minority wants to come between them.
It reminds of some democrat-tinged critiques of the US political system, in that it has too many veto points, thus changes are hard to enact. It is, however, out of of all institutions the government, for which it makes the most moral sense to be veto-full as it is unique in wielding force against everyone. But such a veto-full system applied to all of society would be undesirable, as another person watching a cyclist riding for a team you do not like, does not make one coerced. This is why one should have less say in it.
EDIT: Cycling's governing body, UCI, has issued a statement. Most damning for Spain is the following paragraph:
We also regret the fact that the Spanish Prime Minister and his government have supported actions that could hinder the smooth running of a sporting competition and, in some cases, expressed their admiration for the demonstrators. This position is contradictory to the Olympic values of unity, mutual respect, and peace. It also calls into question Spain's ability to host major international sporting events, ensuring that they take place in safe conditions and in accordance with the principles of the Olympic Charter.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
4hr ago
Both sides of any conflict will have their aggressive, radical wings. To the degree each side keeps their radicals in check, violence can be avoided. But each time a real or perceived violent attack happens, it bolsters the radicals and weakens the moderates. There is no point running around looking for intellectual consistency, because groups are not homogenous and most people are hypocrites. To the degree the center-left allowed their radical wing to run wild, or fed their violent fantasies, the center right will have that much harder a time restraining theirs.
I'm constantly struggling over this both sides fig leaf people keep throwing out there for the sake of unity. This is only accomplished because they weigh January 6th against all the Floyd riots and all the Ferguson Riots, CHAZ/CHOP, the siege of the federal courthouse, attacks on the White House so bad they had to evacuate Trump during his first term, etc. It's a farcical comparison, but they keep making it. Even assuming Jan 6th was every bit as bad as they claim, they honestly believe it makes us equal? A single day of terrifying violence for legislators versus months and months of wondering if your town would burn down, or a mob would form outside your home, for years and years?
There is no unity, and there is no both sides. Nobody is afraid of the sorts of violence that erupts simultaneously in every city as when Democrats get restive. At most they are afraid someone might get it in their head to try to take a scalp of their own. But I'd be shocked if it succeeded. Remember it took the Left 2 attempts on Trump, a home invasion on Tucker Carlson's family, sending violent mobs after Supreme Court Justices, endless credible threats against Tim Pool and Nick Fuentes, before they finally got a kill. Charlie Kirk is just the 9/11 to the 1993 WTC bombing. They've been trying this whole time in a way the right hasn't.
They aren't even bombing transition clinics! Think about that. They consider violent extremism just saying "I don't think we should transition children". People used to blow shit up they didn't agree with. Thats how thoroughly they've framed the conversation, that your speech is considered violence on par with their actual violence. The only way the left could possibly get more violent is if their paramilitary troops (Antifa, BLM, etc) had actual military hardware instead of black masks and molotovs. Think about how much room the right has to get more violent before you start pulling "both sides" on me.
Jiro
4hr ago
I've seen the people on Discord.
The pendulum has maybe slowed a bit. It certainly hasn't reversed direction.
Also, it may look like the pendulum has reversed because people are being publically called out for supporting assassination, but that isn't the pendulum reversing. It never was acceptable to support assassination, it's just that supporting assassination was about the only case left where the right kept enough influence to object.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
4hr ago
“Procedural dungeon crawler.” Maybe squeeze in the word “permadeath” if you’re worried about people confusing it with procgen-as-compression like Elite.
I don’t think -like and -lite merit different terms. If adding a jump button or RPG stats doesn’t keep a game from being an FPS, adding metaprogression still leaves you with a PDC.
Mihow
Lipstick on a guitar
4hr ago
The birthday card makes clear that Trump’s relationship with Epstein involved underaged girls, and of course any such relationship was recorded by Epstein, and it’s most probable he was a Mossad or Israeli Military Intelligence asset.
Can you explain how ?
HereAndGone
4hr ago
Each family has a 'sacred fire' in its hearth, an ancestral flame passed on from father to eldest son, tended carefully lest it go out. When it does there are special rituals by which it might be reïgnited, which call upon one's forefathers to participate. Maintaining the flame is but one part of a man's duty to perpetuate the spirit of his male ancestors, as is having a son who might one day take up the mantle in turn. Women in this society leave off worshiping the fire of their father and are instead inducted into worship of the fire of their husband. In a symbolic sense the fire is the family, is the male line itself. (And when you read about ancient peoples' obsession with 'the hearth', you'll see now that it was much more to them than the place where they happened to cook their food.)
Except that it's the DAUGHTERS who are responsible for maintaining the hearth fire and rituals around it. The hearth is more than just "where we cook our food" but it is in the domestic sphere, the woman's sphere. It is Hestia, not Hephaestus, who is the god here.
Men may have rituals around wildfire/need-fires (see bonfire traditions) but that's separate and parallel. Even kindling the Easter Fire comes under this heading, not hearth fires.
If you're at the point where your sexism is rewriting history, I think this entire project works better as a draft for a fantasy novel. Or brush up on what rituals you are writing about so you know what they were, not what you want them to be.
pigeonburger
4hr ago
Enough happenings in one week for Billy Joel to make a new "We Didn't Start The Fire"
hydroacetylene
4hr ago
Lots of lower class Cherokees doing it in DFW.
jkf
4hr ago
Not sure where you're at, but historically I think this was specific to the Mohawk for some reason? Not sure if they're still at it, but they are famous for working on a lot of the original skyscrapers in NYC among other places.
roystgnr
4hr ago
Yeah, but even at that point (and definitely since 2016) the win state has been just another toy to play with. The area with the end boss is literally called "The End", but after the final victory text the game doesn't actually end, or even restart from scratch in a "New Game +" sort of mode; all persistent world and character changes remain. As of 2016, "winning" spawns a portal that makes it easier to reach new areas that are practically inaccessible otherwise, with monsters and treasures that don't exist elsewhere in the game. To make it easier to reach more of those new areas it's recommended that you re-summon the end boss and defeat it again to spawn more portals; wiki says you can get up to 20 of them.
One was FTM.
EDIT: Missed the context; no, that one wasn't from the last month.
yofuckreddit
4hr ago
Great catch. Holy shit what a week.
hydroacetylene
4hr ago
There seems to be a lot of native Americans doing skyscraper construction.
hydroacetylene
4hr ago
Adding to this- my uncle is in contact with the natives in Louisiana. There used to be a native (lower)middle class, who were indistinguishable from the local creole/cajun working class population except for some family stories. Since they opened the casino, any functional(lots of them are severe alcoholics but alcoholism is rampant in the area anyways) ones are among the local wealthy, and they mostly hire non-native workers- either local or imported from Mississippi- for the actual doing work at tribal businesses over their own less functional coethnics.
These Indians are shrewd businessmen whose customers often do not realize they are at an Indian casino; it has a French Louisiana theme and they run courtesy shuttles to Houston. They also love Trump and are in deep with the Louisiana Republican Party. It is highly probable that the ruling clique wins elections(chiefs and tribal councilmembers are elected, and almost certainly corrupt- although again, French Louisiana) through cash/kind handouts to the less fortunate among them. They are not readily distinguished from the surrounding population physically or by mannerism.
Welp, back from the penalty box/fishing trip and I've missed the whole shitshow last week.
So let's start there: How about that preference cascade?
We all had our whacks at guessing which point was peak woke. I feel uncontroversial in saying the past month has been the drop. A couple trans school shooter, the Charlotte train snuff film and the assassination of Kirk, all in a few weeks. A real perfect storm of narrative-puncturing events. Coupled with Trump in office, the economy not being too terrible (yet?), and the completion of the right-wing media sphere, I believe this is the the political realignment so long and so far incorrectly predicted.
First off, on the nature of the conflict: We are not at war, but the list of stages between now and then is getting very short indeed. Peaceful societies have to work up to civil wars. A generation of kids have to grow up with regular violence radicalizing them and turning into a reciprocal cycle. It must grow in scale, and eventually involve the tacit support of legitimate governments at the state and local level. And both sides have to build social, legal and financial structures to support their violent wings, even if they "disavow" some of the specific actions.
But these violent exchanges happen regularly and are regularly defused. The Days of Rage lead to Reagan, and we enter a new cycle. Reagan leads to the fall of the USSR, which leads to Clinton, which leads to Waco and Ruby Ridge which leads to Oklahoma City, and it was tamped down. 9/11 redirected the narrative and the direction.
If you want my "Schelling point" for when we are actually staring down the barrel of civil war, it's that you will be able to make six figures enlisting to fight for one side or the other. The reader can judge whether that's fair and exactly where our politics are in relation, but that's how I see it.
So we're not there yet, let's talk about the filthy politics of it all!
I lived through one of these preference cascades before, on 9/11. I didn't have the context for it at the time, but I do have some perspective now. The pendulum will not be kind to either side here. The Right spent the moral capital they gained by the destruction of the twin towers on two wildly expensive wars that destabilized large parts of the Middle East and fucked up our foreign policy for two decades.....so far.
The left spent the moral capital they gained from the right doing all that plus the religious ecstasy of the First Black President on ...well, you know.
I have no faith the Right will be any "better" this time around, because politics is people and people are assholes. Especially in large groups, especially when ingroup/outgroup dynamics are making them crazy. Moral certainty is a hell of a drug. A lot of social and legal norms have been thrown into the bonfire of Donnie Jay. The tech boom has entered the Monopoly phase, and neither our politics nor our society seems to be responding well to the adjustments needed.
Both sides of any conflict will have their aggressive, radical wings. To the degree each side keeps their radicals in check, violence can be avoided. But each time a real or perceived violent attack happens, it bolsters the radicals and weakens the moderates. There is no point running around looking for intellectual consistency, because groups are not homogenous and most people are hypocrites. To the degree the center-left allowed their radical wing to run wild, or fed their violent fantasies, the center right will have that much harder a time restraining theirs.
My takeaway from this whole process, spanning the thirty years of my political consciousness, is that no ideology can resist reality forever, and being in power, in control of the narrative, drives people to resist reality. Whether that's the "democratic aspirations" of third world, seventh century revanchists or the definition of "woman".
The pendulum swings, and the only time you can slow it down is when it is on your side. If you're on the right, look at the people on the left who have spoken out at various stages of these past two decades. Remember those names. They tried, too little and too late for sure, but even so and generally at some cost.
For those on the left, look at those on the right who are holding their convictions, who are calling for peaceful (even if hypocritical/oppressive) responses, rather than in kind, with blood, this week.
If you all can't feel closer to them than you do to your own violent wing, give the radicals a call. It'll cost you six figures per man, and a lot more than that before it's over.
HereAndGone
4hr ago
I saw this before the Kirk assassination and thought it would be great fodder for discussion about the problems the Democratic party have right now with both their potential candidate choice, and are they pinning too much of their hopes on a blue wave in the mid-term elections.
Now, it's something that is so trivial by comparison that it's entertainment. Coconut Queen or Gruesome for Newsom? Who cares when blood is literally flowing?
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
4hr ago
Yeah, I probably shouldn't have asked. That the teacher thought this was a good idea is testimony to the capture of the institutions.
HereAndGone
4hr ago
I think it is the gayness in part, but mostly that Pete is so white. Whitebread. I mean, I'm white, and looking at Pete and his husband I go "Damn, those boys are white".
He got dragged for not being gay enough/the right sort of gay, so yeah. Dorky white guy with unfortunate name that leads itself to sixth grader jokes.
I'd argue that Korean and Chinese are more separate languages than Italian and French.
Chinese is a tonal language and Korean is not, and they have different writing systems.
Italian and French have nothing that divides them to this extent, either in spoken or written language.
As for Chinese and Cantonese I have no idea, I'm not terribly familiar with them even if I've studied some Mandarin. My general rule though is that languages are separate if they aren't mutually intelligible.
I genuinely don't understand why your coworker put spoken Korean and spoken Chinese in the same bubble, they're mutually unintelligible and come from different language families, even if they used the same writing system for a long period. This on its own makes the rest of your coworkers claims suspect to me.
Take the Nordic languages: Swedish and Norwegian are clearly the same language as they are easily mutually intelligble both in written and spoken form. With Danish it's a bit murkier but seeing as the written form is clearly mutually intelligble with both Norwegian and Swedish, as well as large amounts of the local dialects, even if it can be a bit difficult, I would still put it as being the same language but at the outer edge.
Icelandic on the other hand is its own language seeing as both written but especially spoken Icelandic is not really mutually intelligble with the other Nordic languages.
Broadening things to the Germanic languages it's easy to see that German is separate from the Nordic languages. It uses mostly different words and even has different grammatical structure, it's clearly a separate language even if there are overlaps and a common history.
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