askchapo keepcarrot • 1 week ago • 100%

Emails: permanent written record I can refer to later Can reply in my own time Low labour Low resource use Phone call: Times/dates mentioned will be forgotten often Active demand of time I don't pick up because that phone number looks weird but also my phone's vibrate function is weak High labour High data cost per information My shrink's office seems to want to keep billing information and past/present appointments secret. (This also seems to be worse in local industry, everything has to be a meeting instead of a two line email)

politics keepcarrot • 1 week ago • 100%

Not that it was good or there for good reasons, but it seems to happen quite rarely (say, shovelling weapons into Israel or whatever is not even tangentially on the ballot)

games keepcarrot • 2 weeks ago • 100%

A reply someone sent to me a while ago that annoyed me enough to respond. The vibe I got was: “Dune Spice Wars is just a palette swap of Northgard” with the implication that the devs are lazy and greedy for developing a game that is extremely similar to their previous game (asset flipping, I guess). I hadn’t played Northgard at the time, but did watch the trailer. Northgard was on sale recently, so I gave it a shot after having played a bunch of Spice Wars. Because this has bitten me in the ass a few times on hexbear, here’s a short list of things I’m not arguing in this post: Game Publishers aren’t using DLCs or low effort new games games as low labour sources of profit. Obviously, this is the case. Artist and programmer hours down, IP rent up is endemic to the games industry. The devs are “good”. I actually have no idea, I just think this particular charge was unwarranted. Dune: Spice Wars or Northgard are good. Idk, I’ve enjoyed at least one of them These are the two most different games, nay, nouns in human history. They are not. Idk why, but in my region of the world “completely different” gets used for “actually very similar, but legally distinct”. Comes up a lot in these sort of nitpicky nerd circles Devs are always right, publishers/critics are always wrong Here is a short list of ways in which the two games are similar: Same engine Same genre (so, trad RTS, selecting units, giving them orders, building up an economy to ensure a healthy supply of units to defeat opponents in a roughly similar situation to you) Region-based mechanics (building limits, buffs, privileged starting zone etc) Diplomacy mechanics Variety of victory conditions rather than hunting down every last power plant Having now played at least some of both, these games feel substantially more different than many other pairs of games from similar devs that don’t get targeted like this. The main differences I’ve found: What players spend a lot of their time doing. Northgard heavily preferences micromanaging of the core unit (peasants), whereas Dune feels more like a trad RTS with Northgard characteristics. Northgard feels more like a village building game that also happens to be an RTS. Personally, I find the removal of peasant micromanagement a substantial improvement and one of the more annoying aspects of Northgard (especially annoying because it takes up a lot of the game) Mechanics present in Northgard are tightened and simplified substantially in Dune. This makes sense as Dune comes after Northgard and the devs have had time to hone down what worked in Northgard. For instance, scurrying around with scouts and trade relationships in Northgard is now just a single interface in Dune where you can manage your relationships etc. This does make relationships with other factions in Dune a little bit simpler, it’s not necessarily “better”. Different resources. Obviously, the relationship with these and things you actually do can change with a button, but neither are just “Money” and “population”. They both have these, but Dune Spice Wars isn’t being accused of being a palette swap of Age of Empires or Act of Aggression. No permanent Alliances: My experience with Northgard’s diplomacy was everything generally felt more permanent, whereas Dune has much more ebb and flow (as well as a limited set of hostile actions you can perform on allies). There can also only be one winner per match (two minds about this personally, I like allying with my friends and stomping on the computer, but it does change the diplomacy part of the game a lot). Less factions, greater faction differentiation. Given Northgard’s bread and butter was making lots of small DLCs with minor player factions, I feel like making a different game with both less factions but more content per faction is important. Beyond those, there are a lot of smaller changes that it would be weird to go over. There’s a couple of mechanics that are sorta tacked on (e.g. the Landsraad council/influence stuff) that are different, but I hope you get the idea. I have played a lot of different RTSes and I would say that mechanically these two games are more different than C&C and Tiberian Sun, or C&C and Red Alert (two pairs from the pre-DLC times), Age of Empires and Age of Empires 2 (an example from another developer), Medal of Honour 1 and Call of Duty 1 (a pair of games from different developers with two different engines) etc. I don’t really know why this annoyed me so much that I had to make a post. It might be touching on an extreme anti-DLC reaction that seems to want every single game to be entirely new despite most studios not having the resources to hire a network engineer every time they want to make a new game. The idea that a group of artists might commission a game engine (big, expensive, requires network engineers etc) and then write stories in that game engine (small, cheap, within reach for a group of artists) and not starve is apparently obscene.

askchapo keepcarrot • 2 weeks ago • 100%

I get pretty frustrated when someone walks slower than me and keeps lurching back and forth so I can't overtake. Idk why, might miss bus maybe. I don't say or do anything, though sometimes I nip onto the road or between some tight terrain to overtake

chapotraphouse keepcarrot • 2 weeks ago • 97%

It always seems to get deployed as a "The West are the only *true* innovators" and ignored if its like... The Islamic golden age or whatever. Also like some Arabian merchant couldn't have seen a steam train and gone "Oh, that's a good idea", it required colonialism to get ideas like plumbing etc. all over the world. Bleh

videos keepcarrot • 4 weeks ago • 96%

I have not vetted the creator because I do not wish to go to twitter. Marxist examination of malthusianism, "anthropocene", and the development of capital. Rebuts the argument that this is a natural outcome of humans or "overbreeding" and more a specific productive system, and discusses why fossil fuels were uniquely over-exploited by early capitalists. Should have more views. Bleak tone

askchapo keepcarrot • 1 month ago • 100%

I live in an area where taking public transport to get food adds between 2 and 3 hours to get to the nearest shops. I avoid shopping on the weekend. There's a bulk food order that goes out on Friday or Saturday night but I can't imagine what I'll feel like eating on the following Monday, let alone Wednesday. Sometimes I'll do bulk food prep and by the time I've finished preparing the food I'm so disgusted by the idea of food (especially that food) that I don't eat it, which is also the case if I've eaten the same meal multiple times in a row. I apparently will just wait out the clock (food goes off) instead of eating food I don't want to. I don't like pasta (again, the main thing motivating me to eat pasta is the threat of someone yelling at me, hunger alone isn't enough). Uber eats and taking ubers to go shopping is expensive. The freezer is full because there's five people living entirely separate lives in the household. idk what I'm supposed to be doing. It's hard to eat at all even if I wasn't trying to be healthy, meat reduction etc. I recently got a full time job after about a decade of no employment, so I pretty much don't have energy on weekdays either.

badposting keepcarrot • 1 month ago • 100%

Best comic funny :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: ::: spoiler spoiler  :::

FreeCAD keepcarrot • 3 months ago • 100%

Hey, I've just finished my diploma of mech eng and them and my new workplace use largely solidworks. Solidworks might have the most annoying subscription service integration I've ever seen, but also I've clicked with its interface. Any guides or tips for switching over?

guns keepcarrot • 3 months ago • 100%

I've just finished my mech eng diploma and to keep up solidworks and drawing practice thought I'd dust off my silly "Bullpuppest Bullpup" idea. It's not really for ever actually making, but just exploring weird ideas based on some workshop experience and watching a lot of Forgotten Weapons and other gun disassembly. It's loosely based on the TBK-022PM, the F-2000, and some of those weapons that turn the bullet from the magazine to chambering. Awful complicated mechanics all around. Anyway, I was going to make it in 5.56x45 NATO as I'm in a NATO country and assumed that would be the easiest ammunition to get (as well as pre-cut M16 or AR-15 barrels or whatever, and I didn't want to fiddle with ballistics really). However, I've had a heck of a time finding the technical drawings for the round ([STANAG 4178](https://web.archive.org/web/20201112201249/https://s3-mittlag-prod.cmd.as/production/uploads/attachment/file/16294/556x45NATO.pdf))/chamber/magazine well dimensions to design around. (Yes, apparently it's not actually an accepted standard, but it would be nice to have *something* to work around) I've also noticed that a lot of the supplied technical drawings are very old scans of very old drawings, with almost unreadable dimensions (and are often incomplete). Every AK-47M drawing that I seem to find, something that I feel must have an abundance of drawings, seems to be a tiny grainy picture maybe with cursive Cyrillic written all over it or something. M16A1 etc seems to also. Also, a lot of drawings have one or two dimensions missing that would be trivial to measure and include in a 3D model. So I thought it would be a good practice project for me to take some of these old drawings and after much examination, interpretation, and discussion (and potentially measuring actual objects), reproduce the drawings in a very clear and readable format. The actual making of 3D models (especially if they are traditionally machined parts) does not take very long once dimensioned, and I can upload them here or where-ever. Solidworks is actually pretty intrusive with what details about your computer it includes in drawings/parts, so probably PDFs until I can work out how to scrub everything with the Admin tool SW has (if possible, hexeditors maybe). I'm also pretty open to just changing the ammunition/magazine standard etc. to whatever, even a made up one. Can't do any physical testing, but would work fine for a "fantasy" gun for like... idk, an imaginary modern soviet Industrial Concern. The US Army seems to want its funny high powered 277 Fury with the stainless case base (is that really the best way of doing things). It's also fine to roleplay as an engineer or end user with complaints and stuff around the design, but don't get too heated about it. This is mostly just a project to whet teeth on and get brain juices flowing. What do I want from gun nerds? Interpretation of technical drawings Measurements for real parts (e.g. I could not find the STANAG magazine feed lip dimensions or how far the catch is from the lips etc, some parts could be reverse engineered based on the size of the round). Access to lots of parts is impractical, so we'd basically guess and decide what the tolerances were based on other parts. Design suggestions/comments (mostly for fun, this is a very silly design) What does everyone get? Up to date, modern technical drawings with cut lists, welds, BOM, 3D modelled parts, tolerances (where possible) without having to squint at tiny pictures of scans and cursive cyrillic. I'm happy to do extra models/drawings for whatever "base gun" we're building off; models/drawings are pretty easy once details are finalised. Current Decisions: Ammo/magazine standard. Probably based on ease of getting drawings, dimensioning, or models, but if there's an interesting set of old drawings we can use that as a standard we can go with that. Can hypothetically invent dimensions (and primers are standardised and interference fit, so that part is already "designed"). Odd features I'm including because I'm a weirdo (the absurd design is partly the point): - Pulls ammunition from traditional AR sickle mag that runs almost parallel to the main length, turns the bullet 90°-ish, and shoves it into the chamber, thus maybe reducing the distance between the rear of the gun and the chamber. - Funny membrane that pushes air out of the barrel when cycling - Different funny membrane that has a filter (for dust) that allows air in but not out, and no water in - Forward ejector for spent rounds (but like... yet another way of doing it) - Different bullpup trigger/action By the end, I hope to have something of an absurd rube goldberg machine wrapped up in a modern (or whatever aesthetic) shell. But that might be a couple of years down the line. Notes: - Could crib measurements from video game models for some looser fits maybe. - I'm not above stealing other people's ideas, patented or not. But this is partly practice for me.

askchapo keepcarrot • 4 months ago • 100%

It does often seem to be correlated to reactionary conspiracy sentiments. There is the "non-white people could not have possibly stacked rocks this big!" thing I guess also flat earth?

askchapo keepcarrot • 4 months ago • 100%

My partner has a big butt and has asked to see it. I cannot find it. Several others have asked to see it also. It is manga, full of text, and the main character gets more unhinged and full of energy as the comic goes on. Random notes: boobs are hereditary or bought Butts are the product of labour.

chat keepcarrot • 5 months ago • 100%

Was around a guy who literally never said anything that wasn't making fun of someone, complaining about someone, or direct work stuff (we were pulling up star pickets). Just kinda toxic to be around. He seemed to enjoy himself though.

history keepcarrot • 6 months ago • 100%

I saw a conversation here where someone thought homophobia wasn't that bad in the 90s. I had someone else say they didn't remember any anti-Japanese racism in Australia in the 90s. I being on the receiving end of it would remember it pretty strongly, but to forget it entirely? Just really poor memory (History? I guess this is history subbear. Given how much people seem to misinterpret events happening now, what does that say about writing of events at the tim?)

badposting keepcarrot • 6 months ago • 100%

idk where to put this. Want to type. So periodically there comes a discussion about whether nationalism is good or bad or a tool that can be used, and certainly we can see a difference between, say, the white nationalism present in the USA or Germany, or the nationalism present in, um, Palestine, as a means of thought and motivating people to political action. I think part of the problem is Nationalism isn't clearly defined. Partly deliberately so; many national myths refer to their past as an eternal metaphysical history. Germany (well, Deutsch Volkishness) has always existed, at least to prior to when anything relevant mattered. But also Nationalism evolved from forced categorisation of what were very fluid social relations between rural communities and cities. And really, that's what I want to focus on. Nationalism evolved from these relations, but then spread outside of that context (to where rural feudal relations to cities wasn't the defining factor of power). And compared to aristocratic relations, nations have a lot more power. Just to head out some definitions: Aristocracy: The aristocracy is a class that derives its power from personal martial prowess. The root of the word comes from "chariot rider", but things like feudal and fief come from the "grain lord". If you were able to have enough personal strength (with your friends) and elite weapons etc. you can control the inflows and outflows of food to the granary. This is largely derived from agrarian relations, but you can see this in pastoral peoples too. There is an upper class, through access to food and leisure time, are more powerful warriors than the lower class, and thus can limit the horizons of the lower class's actualisation. In jest, I call this the politics of "Large Adult Sons", which stretches from prior to agrarian sedentary societies to very recently (liberalism, gunpowder, capitalist etc). Nationalism: Do not ask a nationalist this. They will have a shitty definition unless they are brutally and indifferently honest. The UN offers a shared culture, language, and territorial history definition that works ok but doesn't really explain any "why"s. It also doesn't explain why Bavarian nationalism is less valid than German nationalism (and many other such cases), even though it purports to mediate conflicts between nations. My own exploration of nationalism involves a bunch of different sources. First is where it comes from; the enriching of cities and the Merchant/Guild class during the enclosure of the commons. Second is Europe's diverse (as in... Not allied) polity allowing different cities to have different allegiances without too hard to enforce borders (rivers and mountains) while still having numerous wars, this is explored by Caspar Hirschi and Jared Diamond among others (to varying degrees of plausibility). Lastly is Europe's colonial period, which roughly coincides with the first "current" enclosure movement which has resulted in our current property pedigree (i.e. land owned in the UK in 1500 is valid now, compared to land owned in the same time period in Africa, the Americas, Asia, or Eastern Europe, and hypothetically could be sold for modern dollars). These combine as a part of property and labour relations that have been handed to us over 600 or so years. **Nationalism as a result of the Enclosure Movement and the Great Migration to Cities** So I've commented here before that prior to nationalism, there must have been great variation in rural areas. Not only this, but the population proportions between rural areas and urban areas was more in favour of rural (let's say rural areas are areas where agriculture is the primary industry and are largely self-sustaining were urban areas to collapse, not a great definition but good enough for now). If we look at the variation in accents in rural areas in the UK, it is massive. I hypothesise that this is the last relic of what was otherwise massive cultural variation in rural areas. These areas were illiterate so not much evidence exists. Some French author discussed this in the context of France and Paris. I will also say these areas weren't some shangri la of Queer identities or whatever, they were likely still very patriarchal, largely a combination of Christian and European Animist... As agricultural technology develops, the rural labouring class (peasantry) has much more idle time. They had more idle time than we do now to begin with, though there were some hard months of planting, weeding etc. Idle time is obviously not great for the Aristocracy, though I don't know if this is what motivated the first enclosures. What did happen with enclosures is that the peasantry slowly lost their ability to directly support themselves (especially after taxes). Thus, a portion of the peasantry began to migrate to the cities to find work, both to sustain themselves and to pay for their family's taxes and food. The city classes (Merchants, Artisans, other odds and ends) had a massive opportunity. This migration is the first forms of nationalism that we see in Europe, at least that we'd recognise. While some peasants were able to afford proper housing as they became the proletariat, most were stored in filthy barracks-like conditions, and were constantly bombarded with the dictates of the nascent Capitalist class. Obviously, you had to pay rent and buy bread, and getting money for that required working in factories. But you'd likely be renting from those same capitalists, buying bread from those same capitalists etc. The new partially formed class of Capitalists employed this new partially formed class of Proletarians (urban workers), and thus had immense power to dictate the culture of Proletarians. The Proletarians, even as their connection to their peasant families, sent their culture outwards to their families that they sent money to and brought in new labour from. Thus, nationalism gets seeded as the culture of the connection between major trading cities and the rural communities that they drew cheap labour from. Specifically, the local business class that is empowered by such a migration. Now, you might think to yourself, my country of Australia or the USA doesn't feel like that, historically. Or, perhaps, India (to take a non-settler colonial example). However, once Nationalism is formed, with its attendant demographics and agricultural/communication technologies, it is very powerful, and migrates itself to other communities. Certainly, once nationalism had established itself in the 18th and 19th century, every great power (whatever their organisation structure) would have noted that nations states could muster armies of hundreds of thousands while each Aristocratic lord would be lucky to have a few thousand peasants under his arms during a levy. This migration and development of Nationalism occured well before "nationalism" was codified. The word itself is a late 18th century invention, but the culture it developed happened for centuries before that. I'd also like to point out that sometimes this process was explicit, but a lot of the time it would be the natural consequence of the migration, power, and the relationship between urban and rural communities. After Nationalism is codified and understood to be a "thing", even though no one person necessarily knew where it came from or what it was, it's easy to model other societies off of it. It is also easy (relatively speaking) to control; the British used nationalist ideas to divide and conquer territories. It wasn't that there weren't conflicts between communities, up to the point of slavery and genocide depending on the century, but that the British could draw a line between Hootoos and Tootsies and instill the powerful members of their society with a certain vigour to defend their interests (those powerful members being what we'd today call "small business owners" generally) This also explains the divide between national and international capital. National capital, however much it wants to secure its position internationally, at the moment is tied to the local trading centers (aka cities). It is also a lot more numerous than international capital. While in a material sense, international capital holds more cards and can knee-cap national capital, culturally for a nation national capital ranges from a local fish and chips store owner to a farming conglomerate, and has much more capacity to define the culture of a nation. This rears its ugly head in fascism as capital as a whole gets threatened, but is constantly present in Capitalism. (probably hitting the character limit here)

technology keepcarrot • 6 months ago • 100%


guns keepcarrot • 7 months ago • 100%

(based on my further thoughts from someone's comment a while ago) Things get described as over-engineered, which definitely means _something_ but there doesn't seem to be good consensus on what. I think there are multiple definitions and context tends to be used to work it out. I think this comes up in military engineering a lot because: - the end-users of any product (say, the soldiers shooting the guns and driving the humvees) have much less say about the products they are using to the people procuring them, and are quite distant from said people. Often, it is cheaper to train soldiers to attempt to handle the weirdness of a product instead of replacing the product. - the production runs are a lot smaller - the iterative process for military equipment has a much longer cycle - the ability of a segment of the military to go with a different product (e.g. if you command a tank platoon, you can't decide that you're going to go with the Challenger 2 instead of the Abrams, let alone a T-90), which means there is less incentive to compete directly with rivals offering similar products. I realise that we're socialists here, but there is at least some motivation for Ford to offer a similar product to Toyota and that helps iteratively improve both products to some extent. Hence this post going in "guns". All these tanks, AA missiles, guns etc. don't have their designs pared down in the same way the Toyota Hilux has been (though one can see such long term iterative designs have some over-engineerings creep in) However, I've seen it used to describe bridges, small plastic gadgets, all sorts of things. So what are the different over-engineerings? Note that none of these really describe an overallocation of engineering time, or effort directly. There is such a thing as a bad engineer. **Over-engineering 1**: This product has very complex systems in it which are either unnecessarily hard to manufacture, hard to use, or hard to maintain. So, this definition is the one we think of when we think of German (or Swiss) Engineering. With military equipment, this is definitely true during the Nazi era, but things like the HK G11 or the Swiss PE-57's ejector. The late war Nazi tanks had some of these for specific components but also had other problems. I could imagine something like the F-35 also suffering from this. This can actually happen for a number of reasons. One can imagine management, without true understanding of the systems, makes a request (or demand) for a mechanical solution to a problem that has appeared in testing, usage, or even imagined. The problem may be simple to define, but quite complex to solve. The engineers may have been given enough time to solve a problem, but not enough time to iteratively pare down to make it easier to manufacture, use, or make it more reliable (this can happen with either new features or initial features). Engineers can do this to themselves if they get particularly excited about solving a particular problem and not much interest in iteratively testing and updating their solution, but historically a lot of these have come from management (up to and including literally Hitler). The design is feature complete but has had insufficient time allocated to testing a design (from production to actually hooning around in a park). **Over-engineering 2**: Feature Creep and related things So this one causes the first one a lot, but I think the nature of design in large organisations tends towards this. Features tend to be added but rarely taken away. Thus, you might wind up with a hatch that requires not much strength to open, easy to operate, thickly armoured, pretty cheap, and traps the crew if it's under 20 degrees and a little bit dusty. The energy to say "maybe we could just have a spring loaded hatch with a lock on the inside instead of this thing" has to maintain itself through multiple layers of bureaucracy, people without the authority to make the change and so on. And each person responsible for that communication has to maintain that energy until it gets to someone who does have that authority. And the connecting links may actually be pretty attached to a particular design. This results in products having lots of little clever mechanisms on it that may be better replaced with training or simpler devices that take a huge amount money to produce, are unreliable, have low endurance, and so on. I'm sure we could all think of a thousand examples. **Over-engineering 3**: Arbitrarily high safety factor. Again, this is likely the result of not enough engineering time allocated, so crude shorthands wind up being used. You don't know the minimum thickness of steel for a bridge to support a 10 tonne truck going over this particular ravine, but you do know that this ridiculously large amount thickness of steel with supporting trusses will hold up a 10 tonne truck and you kinda want to go home tonight. This can also result from using standardised parts; the gap between a part that will fail and the next part up might be quite large, so you wind up with an absurd amount of material holding what might otherwise be a light cheap thing together. In military tech, we often see up-armouring without any corresponding improvements to the chassis, suspension etc. even though it could hypothetically be done for pretty cheap (but not as cheap as not addressing it, up front), or even weight reductions in other parts of the vehicle. Anyway, those were the ones I have been mulling over.

games keepcarrot • 7 months ago • 100%

So, a while ago I was in a community theater and we put on plays that would break even largely. Our biggest costs were theater rent, followed by specialist hires (a worker with safety training that did our ropes and high powered electrical stuff). We charged pretty cheap tickets in the context of theater, which given the majority of our actors, costuming and props labour etc. was volunteer. It got me thinking about games. I realise there is an intense dislike of DLC, particularly AAA companies doing day 1 DLC, but even longer term DLC that could not have been made on the budget of the original game and released like a year later or whatever. The idea was having a platform for, say, RPG systems that's well coded, slick, bla bla bla, and comes with a few base stories, but after that the majority of development after that is done by something similar to the theater group but indie artists, writers etc. and you buy into a long form RPG (or, idk, subscribe on patreon or whatever). Every month (or whatever), some sub-team releases a new part of their adventure or a new system with a new adventure, and you can keep playing with what characters you had before (if that's what's happening). Things like the Adventurer's Guild (or whatever the D&D one is, where you register and play each adventure bit once alongside thousands of other players) are a thing, this would wind up be something similar but system agnostic and more tech oriented. IRL, every time a community theater wants to do a show, they don't rebuild the theater and stuff. It's not "wholly original". I'd also want the writers/artists to be more connected to their community, hypothetically. The system would have to have very non-coder friendly tools for writers to pull together systems and make maps and stuff. Dialogue trees may be a bridge too far.

chapotraphouse keepcarrot • 7 months ago • 100%

Just got this email from one of the event ticketing place some of my friends use

politics keepcarrot • 8 months ago • 100%

I've seen it pop up in quite a few threads, sometimes in jest (or sort of in-jest), but I think it comes up enough to talk about seriously, both from an individual behaviour standpoint and a broader activism/socialism/whatever standpoint. This is also coming from someone that sees themselves as very extroverted (but also autistic and socially anxious, so pretty poor at getting my social needs met), so maybe this whole idea is way off base. There's two narratives here for discussion in this thread: - I struggle with pushing myself to be social, and I am afraid this makes me a poor activist. At some point or another advocating for socialism will rely on socialists to talk to non-socialists in spaces and circumstances that are not comfortable. - Socialism, on some level, involves a society with more time and space to socialise. What will this look like for a severe introvert? Will there be room for a person to buy a plot of land in the hills and live separate from society forever? Will I have to go to Commissar DanceClass's Dance Class? And two sentiments that should be discussed with those narratives re: other people: - Introvert, socially anxious, autistic etc. There are people they get along with and comfortable social situations, but for a variety of reasons need a break regularly - "I just hate people" This whole post was a thought I had when reading the second people-hater. My initial thought was that this was an internal pathologisation of people based on the society we live in. If the only people you encounter day to day are ladder climbing suburbanites whose main interests are competitively assessing lawn heights and promotions, you're probably going to "hate people". However, this may not be the case for all people who claim this of themselves. Maybe they hate other people on the road, people in queues for groceries etc. I just find it hard to believe that someone who genuinely hates all people would hop on to a forum (an entirely social activity) and spend any amount of time there. Nonetheless, it probably happens. But, I figured that the topic had enough range and nuance to turn into its own thread instead of responding directly, and saw someone else post the introvert activism thing. One of the things I thought of was the social battery and how it's often expended on work and commuting. If your main social energy is spent at work/commuting, I feel like it's very possible that one might come away with a dim view of any social activity (incl. organising) and your ability to participate in it, especially if you'd largely done it since school (another cutthroat highly hierarchical social setting). (how is commuting social? You're in a constant negotiation with other drivers to avoid bumping your 2 ton $20k machines into each other, with a wide variety of levels of aggression, empathy, engagement etc. It's not words, but there is a communication there that can be very draining)

Soviet keepcarrot • 9 months ago • 100%


games keepcarrot • 10 months ago • 100%

(Um, I don't know why your post triggered me into writing this pitch for a wishlist game. Maybe the minecraft with guns bit? idk, I got excited) (repost, as this is enough crap for its on top level post) I have this pitch for a builder game where you're a military procurement/engineering firm. The LoD would be about what Stormworks has (25cm blocks, or maybe 20 or 10 cm), you spend time fiddling around with air fuel ratios and RADAR etc. You'd be able to fiddle with various war nerd numbers on vehicles you create, but there wouldn't be much for you to do with the vehicles directly. Instead, you teach bots how to use the vehicle (some sort of waypointing system, some vehicle tests like turning, acceleration etc etc). After that, your vehicle and usage data is compiled and a little war goes on in the background. Hypothetically, this war would be happening on another screen or you could refer to it. Because the vehicle is compiled into this RTS mode and not run as a physics simulation (or at least, would be run as a very cut down simulation), that section would be quite light. Possibly multiple layers to examine (strategic, operational, tactical). Your vehicles would have logistical strain (e.g. fuel, maintenance/wear, damage from fire etc). You'd probably want to define a few other variables on how its used (e.g. This is a TANK, GENERAL PURPOSE, SWARM or something). I don't think it would be possible for an AI to account for all ways people would design vehicles and use-cases, but the basic classes are pretty standard nowadays, and people could request things that feel plausible to the dev. A few reasons for doing it this way: - Having it so that the vehicle is tested by itself on multiple predictable scenarios means the physics simulation (e.g. denting, beams bending etc) can be more detailed, and allows for more complicated vehicles. - Once its "compiled" so that the bots can use it, it will run quite light (this is sort of explored in From The Depths, but not to its fullest extent). This couldn't take into account everything possible, but hopefully the bots would use things intelligently (e.g. using cover, grouping tanks, screening etc) You'd watch combat and take notes on what works well and what does, and work on new designs as the war gets under way. Your new designs that you produce and test would percolate through the logistics system and slowly start appearing on the front. There'd also be a little thing where you could define your squads that the AI uses in the war (e.g. 12 dudes, 1 command, 2 fireteams, each fireteam has a LAW and 5 assault rifles, command has 1 commander and 2 machine guns etc), with some reference to real world stuff. This would obviously be important for transport vehicles and logistics. There'd be a mode where you'd have to do it "in real time" (i.e. no pausing for designing), a more freeform creative mode where you can design and save freely without worrying about wars and launch battles with your vehicle instantly, and a thing where you could compile all of your designs into a faction. Presumably, the game would ship with a few real world referenced factions, people could mod in their own ones. And people could also mod in maps that the AI will fight wars on, and opponent factions (of varying degrees of fairness). Tutorial mode, build a truck that carries a squad. It's an electric truck so you don't have to program a gearbox. It's probably a bit beyond me as a coder (maybe, idk, the primary time I was trying to learn coding was when I had pretty severe depression), but maybe as a fresh godot project if applicable? I think it would absolutely kill amongst a certain sort of war nerd. Um, comments, I guess. Obviously extremely ambitious on my end, it will probably be another half-started project in my collection :(

games keepcarrot • 11 months ago • 100%

 One of the first cards is planting corn. 

I didn't make it. We made it.

guns keepcarrot • 1 year ago • 100%

And the ridiculous hull down position:  Just bouncing ideas around based on the rumours and speculation on the T14, but also pulled some influence from post-war French vehicles. Features: The recoil/loading space behind the gun, the gun, and the "mantle" all move as one. This allows for very extreme gun depression (and elevation), though gun pitch is slowed as a result. This was an odd turret design from France. Because I wanted a secondary commander turret, the rear part of the turret remains with the turret ring so that the commander's view isn't wobbling about. Commander turret on a little elevator. At its highest, it gives the commander a full 360 degree view a meter higher than normal. The auto-loader runs vertically through the turret. This means that the turret can be extremely narrow, pretty much the width of two slabs of armour and the gun. The autoloader can also handle extreme gun depression and elevation. The concessions made does reduce loading speed compared to other designs though. The narrow turret reduces the width of the heaviest armour section (the front of the turret), significantly reducing weight. Roomy in crew compartment. Just because of the positioning of seats and the shape of the cavity between the treads and the turret, there is a bunch of extra space. It's slowly being filled with stuff. The commander can directly see the screens of the driver and gunner and can tap them on the shoulder to yell at them. Bads: To service the autoloader and load ammunition, someone has to be outside the tank. Could not think of a way to armour the separation between the magazine and crew without massively increasing size. There is a camera inside the magazine and will be manual controls for the gunner to try to unstick ammunition. Poor hatch open ability. You are very reliant on equipment. The driver and gunner have some ability to open hatches and ride head out, but the commander doesn't due to the turret's bulk preventing them from having a top hatch. Ammunition cook off is pretty catastrophic, but crew survivable. Ammunition armour and various cook off measures are not perfect, but are there. Things I'd do differently given Stormwork's minimum working dimensions of 250 mm blocks and other game things: The tank would probably be smaller, especially in height. The top and bottom of the tank probably does not need 250 mm of composites each, and the turret ring doesn't need to be half a meter. I might also make the crew lie down more. Have not figured out how to make a good looking working ADS. It's pretty cramped in there. I could do a lot more with the electronics. The 250 mm connectors mean you can't have that many inputs and outputs. The engine would probably be extremely different. I'm hitting about 50 km/h usually and can probably get more out of the engine atm, but it's two T-17 diesel engines. Not sure about the power to weight advantages of turbines, but unfortunately the turbines in game are enormous. The logistical advantage makes more sense to me. Turret got a bit too cramped for the coaxial, but it would be there as well. The engine deck would be openable. Is hard to do in Stormworks. I'd probably do some sort of fabric seal for when the gun is at extreme depression or elevation? Maybe telescoping sheets? idk, something like that.

askchapo keepcarrot • 1 year ago • 100%

I just had an odd interaction. Someone called me a liar (online, heavens to betsy), so I gave a very low energy "grey" response. They escalated and seemed to get angry at that. I kept giving just very short "eh" responses and their responses rapidly got more extreme and unhinged. I don't think I even really defended myself or anything. I realise I've had this a few times. Just people weirdly escalating to exterminating all leftists or threatening genocide after what were very normal responses on my part. Maybe my responses weren't that normal? The hell was going on? Did they think they were winning something?

I have pretty much never haggled in my life and every service worker I've interacted with has no authority to adjust prices. (Actually when it comes to art commissions I seem to severely undersell to end the interaction as quickly as possible) Honestly seems nightmarish and I feel like I would get charged $50 for a box of cereal regularly. I already feel like I get charged more for things because I hate shopping around for a quote (usually go with the first person I call because I hate rejecting someone after I've asked them for a quote)

I said I would describe a magic system in a daily megathread and forgot (well, lost all confidence in the idea). But maybe a thread would be better for this conversation. I also don't wish to step on anyone's actual beliefs, though practitioners can comment if they have any ideas. A couple of easy examples: - Harry Potter: In this, magic is largely inherited by individuals, though it can be randomly brought in and removed from bloodlines. It does seem to give some level of fatigue when used, but honestly not that much. It does create a caste of "superior" humans by birth, humans who could never be poor and can arbitrarily exact violence on lesser beings. Even their emotions are more powerful than ordinary humans. The books don't really touch on this and our PoV character is almost a "rightful king", inheritor of vast wealth and magical artifacts. - Star Wars: This magic is loosely based on buddhism, though the magic itself seems to be more related to living beings (e.g. a river doesn't necessarily have karmic value unless that's what the episode of The Clone Wars is about). Nonetheless, if you squint, you can still see some of the language of "the fundamental interconnectedness of all things". It does, however, seem to have a severe hereditary component. Sometimes, you are just a poo person. In my head canon, the Dark Side is the extreme expression of self, at some point even considering one's own emotions as separate to one's self, and the light side is an acceptance of being a part of the universe. However, I feel like "grey jedi" is more popular amongst the fandom. idk. For some reason, being either very connected or very disconnected from the universe gives you phenomenal magic powers to enact your will, as long as you were born with the power. Suggest your own short description and maybe an analysis. I have posted about my magic system before, designed for a little dieselpunk British occupation of the Ottoman Empire, where various explorers are doing biblical archaeology. The players (this was for an RPG) are working for a British industrialist/oil guy who wants to find the tree of life and live forever. Over the course of their adventure, they find various echoes of magic that used to exist in the world but is slowly withering away. The history of magic, they find, reflects their current situation where capital is slowly strangling the world and every bit of will and life from it. Notes on my magic: - Magic comes from people and relationships between people. - What it specifically does for most people is nebulous. Probably something like making your hearth a little warmer or a sense of which soil is more fertile? Or maybe something relational? Haven't thought about it much. - Magic by the ruling class is stolen. They are born with their own, just like everyone else. However, through exploitation, violence, and trickery, they steal other people's magic (or souls). This gives them a lot more power to do mythological acts, live forever, and pass their stolen magic to their children. - To pass magic on to one's children, you have to have some yourself, so it can be nurtured and grow. However, once it has been stolen, this no longer happens. The world's population now is entirely populated by such descendants. The ancient gods that the players encounter refer to the players (and all modern people) as "hollow ones". In the gods eyes, modern people are useless for their goals of achieving immortality. - This is also an analogy of how many ancient cities are barely habitable now, as the over-farming has increased the salt in the land to the point where the cities collapsed. As once fertile land was over-exploited, so have people. - The gods, having exhausted their populations of magical energy, eventually turn on each other in a scramble to stay alive and in power. This allows the common people to drive them out, causing some of the large migrations of antiquity as the gods and their lackeys flee in one direction or another. - This history is eventually forgotten over thousands of years, but is still present in the surviving gods themselves sleeping to conserve energy, transforming themselves into stone or bronze statues or whatever, and some artifacts they've imbued with power and given to their lackeys. - The last most active god is Yahweh, who ate his wife Asherah as they fled south into modern Arabia. I'm not sure if I want magic to return to the world at the end of the story, or the British benefactor to find the tree of life withered and broken. If it does return, it should be able to spread (somewhat thinly) throughout the world through non-exploitative relationships. It is also very soul-like, but seems unnecessary for life as we know it.

askchapo keepcarrot • 1 year ago • 100%

Thought Cuban (or maybe vietnamese) gun ownership was a lot higher than it was by "guns per capita". Vaguely remember somewhere here that it's quite high but locked up in community armouries in case of invasion rather than individually held on to.

technology keepcarrot • 1 year ago • 100%

idek if 7zip is better than winrar anymore assuming both are being updated constantly, but like... My memory is that pretty much every tech oriented person on windows uses 7zip.

Also having a button at the end of the currently loaded posts to load more posts, especially on mobile. I wind up scrolling all the way to the bottom to start loading more posts and then reading stuff backwards. idk, I feel like the automated shuffling things around was a bit overboard.

askchapo keepcarrot • 2 years ago • 100%

They don't seem very radical.

chat keepcarrot • 2 years ago • 100%

ACAB and all that. We assume that the number of violent crimes would go down with everyone's basic needs met, though presumably some will still happen. Obviously, a huge number of crimes will disappear since the majority of our legal systems discuss private property stuff. Nonetheless, you'll still have the odd murder, marital spat, cases of abuse, various relics of the old pre-revolutionary culture, saboteurs. I've seen on here arguments about what to do with serial killers, which are a tiny minority of criminals but probably should be addressed at some point (maybe?). I think I want this to be a bouncing off point for a bunch of different discussions, so you can be as wide or narrow as possible. How does a legislature interact with a judiciary system (if there is one?)? What does the day in the life of a law enforcement person look like? What is a specific law and punishment? I want it to be semi-serious, don't think of yourself married to any opinion here, just spitballing what you think it might look like or should look like.

games keepcarrot • 2 years ago • 100%

News thread IFV project, made in stormworks. Not wholly functional, but enough so that it's going to look the same regardless. Role: Transport, Medevac, amphibious, anti-air, anti-drone, fire support Features/design choices: - Fast on both land and calm waters. This vehicle is more on the "truck" end of IFV rather than "tank". The vehicle spends most of its time ferrying troops around. Can stop small-arms, light munitions, and shrapnel, with armour focused on the crew/passenger compartment. - Twin 40-mm autocannons, loaded with fragmentation rounds. Can be loaded with AP rounds, but is primarily there for knocking missiles, planes, and drones out. Obviously infantry are going to be threatened by two autocannons as well. - Side doors. This means that troops can dismount if the vehicle is moving in a column and parks end-to-end. The doors open up, giving cover to evacuating troops. There is a small window for troops to look out of before trying to disembark. This can be a safety issue if hydraulics fail. - 8 Wheel design is substantially cheaper, faster on roads, and is mildly bouyant. This does mean that the vehicle's cross-country performance suffers, especially in thick mud and other extreme adverse conditions. As a general purpose vehicle to improve infantry's mobility in most conditions, the 8 wheel design was chosen over tracks. It also allows the bulge in the middle, increasing transport capacity. - 2-frequency RADAR tracking. The vehicle can track aerial targets, and the turret can lock on to a specific target. The gunner can then trim the RADAR output to lead appropriately. I'd code something here, but I'm lazy. - Turret actually poorly armoured. This helps with balance in water. The primary purpose of this vehicle is to transport them. All the ammunition for the turret is separated by armour, meaning that if the ammo cooks off the passengers and crew are safe. Locating the bulk of the ammo in the turret means there is enough additional space to include light medical facilities. - Exhaust is dumped behind the rear wheels, which spreads out the exhaust and makes it harder to lock on to with heat-seeker weapons. Tac notes: - This is designed to be used as part of a general mechanisation program, not specifically for specialist troops. The idea is to have so many light-air defence systems in a battle space that opposing aircraft, drones, and cruise/tactical missiles will be unable to operate. - In a pinch, the twin 40s can rip up urban fortifications. However, this is not their primary role. Certainly they shouldn't be used as a preliminary bombardment tool, rather one used for emergencies or particularly good targets. - Remember that side doors need about an extra meter of clearance to open, so tight streets should be avoided especially for dismounting. - This vehicle wound up being fairly short. While this makes the vehicle harder to detect, the presence of drones makes this less important. However, lower height makes the vehicle more stable in hilly terrain or in the water. It also means cover against direct-fire weapons (esp. HEAT missiles, which can be tripped by brick walls etc) is easier to find. - Doctrinally, this is a truck with armour, amphibious capability, and firepower. However, it is likely to be able to defeat most other transport vehicles other than heavy IFVs. A single one of these is capable of extremely disrupting supply lines. Room for future features: - Drone launching platforms can be mounted on the front-side slanted armour, with opening hatches like the rear ammunition storage bins. - There is enough space in the vehicle for a small command centre. - Missiles could be mounted on the turret pretty easily. Small AA missiles or ATGMs. - Multiple outlets for exhaust could be used for different situations. For instance, an exhaust outlet underneath the hull to reduce detection chances, and an exhaust above the hull for amphibious operations. - More electronic warfare options. Things I had to work around because the game only has 25 cm blocks - The turret would be a lot flatter IRL. The combination of having to have 25 cm blocks for armour and 25 cm blocks for mechanics means the whole thing is a lot taller. The same goes for all the camera systems. - I'd probably fit more med-beds in the crew compartment. While they're not in use, troops can dump bags and stuff on them (and just have more leg room). - With a lot of the space savings from having a maximum of 50 mm RHA instead of 250 mm, I'd probably include a commanders section. Thoughts: - So, one of the reasons the Bradley IFV is so big while only transporting 4-ish soldiers is that their turret basket extends the whole height of the vehicle, creating a big space in the middle which I assume is for ammunition storage or a gunner. Obviously, if it's moving around, passengers can't sit there. - Yes, it looks sort of like a stryker or BTR. How many different shapes could an IFV/APC possibly have? - The Germans claim the Puma (I think) can stop 125 mm rounds from the front, which sounds optimistic. I didn't bother with that capability. Anyway, this was a fun exercise.

games keepcarrot • 2 years ago • 100%

Some random thoughts, because my brain is like that. - Someone please suggest a name. - This wargame is designed to sorta simulate what we're seeing in Ukraine atm, and what a future war might look like. A single game of GAME_NAME represents a few weeks and should take most of a day. While there are some experiments wrt game systems, it's also supposed to represent something. - The system is hex-based. One of my friends got an enormous printer from a warehouse sale so we want to use that for stuff. Using hexes also gets rid of a lot of time wasted on minor adjustments in range and inter-player arguments, while not having the weirdness associated with squares. Also you can do scatter with d6s. - Each day there are two day turns and one night turn. During night turns, firepower and detection ranges are reduced. - I'm using count-up systems for a few things. This is one of those game design experiments. Think, like, Super Smash Brothers damage system. The simplest one is probably Fatigue. Units have levels of fatigue, which they can gain to do special actions (e.g. ignore suppression). All attacks roll against Fatigue. e.g. An infantry platoon has 5 Strength and 1 Firepower, let's say has 4 Fatigue. That means it rolls 5 d6, and each 4 or more counts as a success (6s count as 2 successes). As the unit does things and takes casualties, it gets worse and worse. Fatigue can be alleviated by supply units. - I'm trying to track as many things on the miniature as possible. Attrition, Fatigue, and EM emissions are pips placed around the edge of the base. In the centre is the unit type (infantry, artillery, tank). This is a hypothetical assuming I can be bothered cracking out the pin vice and 3D printer. - If you align with "The West", certain high profile victories can net you "Advanced Support", a supply of higher tech weapons and equipment. This isn't solely the purview of The West, but they have more points of it. Advanced weapons have high damage output, but have low endurance and high EM emissions. - If you align with more heavy industrial nations, you get more legacy vehicles and artillery. Anything with an engine, heavy cannons etc. Once again, not entirely the purview of heavy industrial nations, The West has them too. These have decent damage output and endurance. - Grabbing towns with aligned importance (I guess the example is playing Russia and taking a Russian aligned city) gets you more manpower. Manpower is low damage, but cheap and has very high endurance. Use this for controlling large portions of the battlefield. - How alignment works I haven't really figured out. Maybe something with cards and a hand. - Aircraft aren't really represented on the board, they're just support powers you bring in. AA creates bubbles of either denial or forces the enemy to sacrifice their air support card after use. idk. Helicopters allow you to plonk down troops a distance from the enemy. - EM emissions (RADAR, drone control/video feed, smart-weapons etc) gain you EM pips, which can be used by opponents to activate other abilities. The most basic common interaction is an infantry platoon uses drones to scout out a nearby forest. They reveal some enemies, but also gain some EM pips. An enemy uses an EM kit to reveal the first unit with a bonus to detection range depending on the EM pips gained. Those same EM pips can be used to launch a medium tactical strike with a bonus number of dice equal to those EM pips. The OG unit loses its EM pips at the start of its next activation. - The vast majority of a unit's variation in toughness comes from terrain around it. Toughness is directly the number of successes an enemy needs to get to cause a point of attrition. Cover, distance, and smoke add to toughness. - Using my wonky initiative system. Units close to enemies go first. Works well enough and promotes aggression. Given how entrenching, cover, and retreating work, this is good. Don't want two armies just sitting there. - Haven't really thought much about deployment systems. Trying to get basic unit interactions out of the way first. - Roads make go fast. Forests and marshes make go slow. - There is a basic unit detection system. At the start of the game, all units are hidden. Both players can see the Fatigue and EM emissions of hidden units because it would be too annoying to manage that separate to the model. Hidden units can't be attacked, and can be spotted by getting close to an opponent, or certain drones or army support abilities. Units can't re-hide. Also, using weapons reveals you.

askchapo keepcarrot • 2 years ago • 100%

So, in my circles of friends, I am the most terminally online person. I remember being a soc-demmy kinda person (who called themselves socialist) when I joined r/cth when it hit 69,420 members. Now here I am with opinions like "Stalin and the USSR weren't so bad" and "The tanks rolling into Hungary in 1956 were correct, actually". I feel like the community here on hexbear has kinda shifted in the same way. That said, we've steered clear of the patsoc menace, who aesthetically venerate AES while following the most regressive social/nationalist opinions of what they think of as the working class. This has somewhat put me at odds with a lot of my RL friends, who are anarchists or trots of varying degrees. I'm generally not down with getting into spats with said RL friends, so I keep a lot of my opinions to myself. This is especially onerous with opinions about the Ukraine war. How did I end up here? How did we..? I remember back on r/cth the line "This is enough to turn me into a tankie", or some such thing, as though being a tankie was just socialism + willingness to use violence to achieve it. I can remember online anarchists posting fairly high profile Ls that I think split actual anarchists and left-liberals who just liked to call themselves anarchists (and now online anarchists who really like NATO? idk). But those events had a lot of people shy away from the anarchist label and kinda mull about their own beliefs. The main ones off the top of my head were CHAZ, Vaush audience watchers, and the anti-work breakdown. Certainly, I remember r/cth being a lot more awash with anarchist rhetoric and population (claimed or otherwise) than hexbear currently is. **I don't want this to be a sectarian rant session, but more a reflection of political journeys from r/cth's medicare for all socdem position to the current vibes of hexbear, both personal and pontifications of why this shift occurred.** This isn't the be-all and end-all of my thoughts of my own political evolution. I'll comment some more as I think of them (in between cleaning for rent inspection)

podcasts keepcarrot • 2 years ago • 0%

Aw, dang it