Tervell [he/him]
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Joined 4 years ago
Cake day: July 27th, 2020
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There’s a neat Russian game series, Space Rangers, which also hit some of those vibes for me.
STALKER early in its development had some marketing blurb about “the AI being able to beat the game without the player”, which is pretty dubious (it may have been sort of technically true at a very early stage when the game didn’t really have much of a story or missions, but it’s definitely not true for the finished product, which does have a more conventional narrative running through the game that you as the player are the driving force of), but in Space Rangers 2 this actually can nearly happen in the lower difficulty modes - you’re not playing as some chosen hero, you’re just a volunteer soldier in a big war, a war which goes on without you - star systems are captured and lost, the military organizes expeditions, technology advances over the course of the game with new weapons and ship models becoming available, and eventually, the AI can indeed whittle the enemy down to pretty much one or two final star systems. It was pretty nifty.
I really wish this whole “simulating deep systems that allow gameplay situations (and maybe even whole stories) to naturally emerge” approach (seen in these games, immersive sims, and I guess to some extent grand strategy games) was more popular, but it is pretty difficult and risky. It’s part of what makes Bethesda’s trajectory even more disappointing - at the time of Oblivion, they were actually exploring some of the same ideas of detailed AI routine simulation as STALKER (just tailored more towards “citizen” NPCs, ones who have homes and jobs and families, and thus routines revolving around that, while STALKER’s guys are more nomadic wanderers getting into hijinks)… but the Radiant AI system didn’t end up going anywhere, it was very jank but instead of trying to further develop it they’ve been progressively cutting it down more and more, and apparently in Starfield there’s not much of it left.
5·3 days agogotta shill for Patlabor 2 (the whole franchise is great, although I haven’t gotten around to watching the whole TV series yet, but the 2nd movie is the most explicitly political)
Patlabor 2: The “Just War/Unjust Peace” Scene (1993) (or with subs here)
We’re a rich country, and what is our wealth built on? The bloody corpses in all these wars… they’re the foundation of our peace.
Other countries, comfortably far away, pay the price for our prosperous peace. We’ve learned very well how to ignore their suffering.
1011·3 days agohttps://xcancel.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1858019192370507904
Wow, looks like Xi was extremely straightforward during his meeting with Biden, probably the most he’s ever officially been in a meeting with a US president.
According to the Chinese readout (https://www.guancha.cn/internation/2024_11_17_755645.shtml) here’s what he told Biden were the 7 “lessons of the past 4 years that need to be remembered”:
- "There must be correct strategic understanding. The ‘Thucydides Trap’ is not historical destiny, a ‘new Cold War’ cannot and should not be fought, containment of China is unwise, undesirable, and will not succeed."
- "Words must be trustworthy and actions must be fruitful. A person cannot stand without credibility. China always follows through on its words, but if the U.S. side always says one thing and does another, it is very detrimental to America’s image and damages mutual trust."
- "Treat each other as equals. In exchanges between two major countries like China and the United States, neither side can reshape the other according to their own wishes, nor can they suppress the other based on so-called ‘position of strength,’ let alone deprive the other of legitimate development rights to maintain their own leading position."
- “Red lines and bottom lines cannot be challenged. As two major countries, China and the United States inevitably have some contradictions and differences, but they cannot harm each other’s core interests, let alone engage in conflict and confrontation. The One China principle and the three China-US joint communiqués are the political foundation of bilateral relations and must be strictly observed. Taiwan issue, democracy and human rights, development path, and development rights are China’s four red lines, which cannot be challenged. These are the most important guardrails and safety nets for China-US relations.”
- “There should be more dialogue and cooperation. Under current circumstances, the common interests between China and the United States have not decreased but increased. Whether in areas of economy and trade, agriculture, drug control, law enforcement, public health, or in facing global challenges such as climate change and artificial intelligence, as well as international hotspot issues, China-US cooperation is needed. Both sides should extend the list of cooperation, make the cooperation cake bigger, and achieve win-win cooperation.”
- “Respond to people’s expectations. The development of China-US relations should always focus on the wellbeing of both peoples and gather the strength of both peoples. Both sides should build bridges for personnel exchanges and cultural communication, and also remove interference and obstacles, not artificially create a ‘chilling effect.’”
- “Demonstrate great power responsibility. China and the United States should always consider the future and destiny of humanity, take responsibility for world peace, provide public goods for the world, and play a positive role in world unity, including engaging in positive interaction, avoiding mutual consumption, and not coercing other countries to take sides.”
Funnily, all this is summarized in the official US readout (https://china.usembassy-china.org.cn/readout-of-president-joe-bidens-meeting-with-president-xi-jinping-of-the-peoples-republic-of-china-3/) with this short sentence: “The two leaders reviewed the bilateral relationship over the past four years”. Talk about an understatement 😅. The language compared to the readout of the last Xi-Biden meeting in San Francisco one year ago is noticeably more forthright, especially on the U.S.'s lack of trustworthiness (“if the U.S. side always says one thing and does another…”). Looks like he’s getting very frustrated with U.S. duplicity… The 4 red lines he enumerates are also new (not new individually as they’ve each been mentioned before, but packaging them together as “four red lines” and explicitly labeling them as such in a president-level diplomatic readout is new)
…
With the red lines on “Democracy and human rights” and “Development path/system”, it looks like China is effectively telling the U.S. it will not humor them anymore in discussions about its internal system and so-called “human rights”, and that it will consider any U.S. initiative aimed at interfering with China’s internal affairs or otherwise shape China as hostile actions on the same level as Taiwan. This is also clear with Xi telling Biden that “neither side can reshape the other according to their own wishes”.
On development rights Xi states that “the Chinese people’s right to development cannot be deprived or ignored” and criticizes how “while all countries have national security needs, the concept shouldn’t be overgeneralized or used as an excuse for malicious restrictions and suppression”. He also said that “great power competition should not be the theme of the era; unity and cooperation are needed to overcome difficulties together. 'Decoupling and breaking chains” is not the solution; mutually beneficial cooperation is the path to common development. ‘Small yards with high fences’ is not befitting of great powers."
In other words, he’s telling Biden that he believes the U.S. is attempting to curtail China’s development in the guise of national security, but that this is “an excuse for malicious restrictions and suppression” and a red line as China has a fundamental right to develop as any other country. This is all, of course, also signaling to the upcoming Trump administration. The fact these are “red lines” means they’re non-negotiable regardless of who leads the US: he’s telling Trump too that attempts to “reshape” China or restrict its development will be viewed as hostile actions. And the emphasis on US “saying one thing and doing another” also puts the future administration on notice that China will judge the US by its actions rather than its diplomatic statements.
Conclusion: by framing these positions as “lessons learned” from the past four years, Xi is effectively closing the book on one approach to US-China relations - which he’s obviously very critical about - and very clearly signaling to Trump a change is badly needed, particularly around the “4 red lines” and matching words with actions. The language is very confident, telling the U.S. they need to “treat each other as equals” and that they have no “position of strength” anymore. The US readout on this, as usual for the Biden administration, is very illustrative of exactly what Xi is complaining about: a complete disregard for China’s stance on these issues and a refusal to engage with them, or even mention them at all. Not sure that “America first” Trump and the team of China hawks he put together will be much better…
Also, do the Ukrainians even have any ATACMS left at this point?
https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/ukrainian-army-used-nearly-all-atacms-missiles-1726014379.html
An anonymous US official told CNN that the US has supplied Ukraine with several hundred ATACMS missile systems and that Ukraine has used most of them. The official noted that the US has a limited stockpile of missile systems that can be provided to Ukraine without compromising its military readiness.
I wasn’t able to find another source in a cursory search, but have they even been doing any ATACMS strikes lately?
And even if they had the missiles, how many vehicles do they actually have left that could launch them, and what’s the chance of those vehicles getting close to the frontline (where they would need to be in order to actually meaningfully strike into Russian territory, the “long-range” here is very relative, these aren’t ICBMs) without getting taken out by the Russians (a whole bunch of artillery systems were lost in the Kursk offensive precisely because they had to be moved closer to the front in order to perform their strikes)
This whole thing seems symbolic, just the US going “feel free to use these weapons you don’t even have jack
”
3·5 days agoI think sometimes it’s done for legal reasons (rifles below a certain barrel length in the US are special and need some extra permits, but permanently attaching some kind of muzzle device counts as increasing the barrel length, and using a dummy suppressor specifically can get you the aesthetic of suppressed compact carbines like the AKS-74U or CQBR without the legal hurdles), but in this case it might not be that, since the M1 Carbine already has a sufficiently long barrel. The page I got it from states it might be a movie prop or display item.
2·7 days agoone day you’re going to grow up and you’re going to change the world
I’m 27 years old
yes, it has a side magazine (which was the style at the time
), although it’s at a bit of an angle, slightly diagonal
Fan Wennan does basically this but for socialist realism
(I had one more I wanted to post but it seems like I hit some kind of rate-limit and it’s not expiring after a few minutes of waiting, so I’ll just link it: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/g8qe0x)
a few by John Martin:
Belshazzar’s Feast, c. 1821
John Martin, Pandemonium, 1841
Satan Presiding at the Infernal Council, c. 1823–1827
20·10 days agoyeah, Dresden goes to the CPC and Munich and its environs (most of Southern Bavaria, really) goes to the KMT, for… some reason
honestly, he should have gone full hog and given them neighboring regions so the resumed Chinese Civil War can be fought on German territory
HoI4 peace conference ass map
I like that there’s both a Chinese Nationalist and Chinese Communist zone, truly
by the magazine, but it’d definitely be very awkward - you can’t really wrap your hand around that, I guess you’d need to basically have your thumb sort of resting along the side, which probably isn’t going to be very comfortable, especially with the weird angle your hand would have to be sitting in
(on this C96 Mauser that grip is used to avoid having the hammer smack right into the webbing of your hand, which is occasionally a problem on some pistols, but particularly on the Mauser with the stock attached)
accidentally subscribing to Ancient Egyptian beliefs about the heart
The heart was regarded in Ancient Egypt as the organic motor of the body and also the seat of intelligence, an important religious and spiritual symbol. It was considered as one of the eight parts of human body. Counter to other organs it had to be kept carefully intact in the mummy to ensure its eternal life. In Ancient Egypt, the concept of heart included three constituents: heart-haty, heart-ib, and the spiritual seat of intelligence, emotion and memory.
(why yes, I did watch a ton of the Tutenstein cartoon as a kid, how could you tell?
)
I feel like unfortunately a lot of no-fappers are coming at this from a “I need to stop jacking off so I can get laid” angle, so it still comes back to sex, they love talking about how it made them more confident when talking to women.
It would certainly be nice if there were communities that actually did this though. We unironically need to have secular monastic orders, say what you will about organized religion as an institution but monks and nuns were a great idea.
they actually already came up with one, “are you still… master of your domain”
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13·13 days agowhere does “funny fake quote” go if not in /c/memes?
It’s not long enough to be a /c/copypasta, it’s not /c/fakenews, it’s not either of the tanks, I guess it could go in /c/chapotraphouse?
extremely overpriced mid
well, it’s an accurate reflection of American manufacturing
to be fair, this one is apparently a fake quote
but it’s convincing because it’s
Definitely, games that try this do need to abandon traditional narratives to some extent, which is a big ask for a typical publisher - and unfortunately, the complexity of such systems also puts them out of the reach of indie games which can otherwise afford to be more experimental (although Rain World is supposed to have some pretty amazing AI simulation too) - these kind of projects really have to be AA games, big enough to manage the complexity, but small enough to be allowed to actually do it instead of flattening everything in pursuit of more market share. And the AA side of the industry has unfortunately massively declined.
Space Rangers’ main narrative isn’t really much more than “liberate all star systems and defeat the big boss commanding the enemy” - there’s a bit of detail about the war itself, but it’s mostly revealed in big text boxes, which is moreso lore than narrative I guess. However, it’s still got plenty of stories, thanks to the baffling(ly amazing) decision to just stick like a 100 mini-text-adventure games in as side quests. Get caught by the cops for your piratical crimes and sent to jail? Oh boy, we’ve got a whole text adventure of you having to manage your relations with the prisoners and the guards, choosing who to snitch on, getting into, uh, trained cockroach races (?), ratting out the horrible prison conditions to journalists, and much more! There’s also presidential elections, cooking competitions, just a whole ton of random stuff, I have no idea what they were thinking but it turned out pretty great.
Grand strategy games like Crusader Kings also utilize such dynamic systems to great effect while forsaking typical narrative, but they’re their own niche (and while Paradox does make cool stuff, they do also nickel-and-dime people for like 100 different DLCs per game…)