I took a drive today. Around my old stomping grounds, streets I haven’t driven down in years if not decades. Past the hospital where I was born, past the high school I graduated from. Down the highway where my driver’s ed teacher when I was 15 kept bitching at me to lift my head off the headrest. I made sure to drive that stretch of road with my head on the headrest.

I drove past my great grandmother’s old house, where some of my earliest memories were formed. It’s been standing abandoned long enough that trees are growing through the porch now. Past the Yamaha dealership where I bought my first motorcycle, which is now a machine parts warehouse. Past the airport where I got my pilot’s license.

I stopped at the lake by my old college and walked the trail around it, stopping at some of the little fishing piers, benches to look at the lake and the woods. I stopped at the foot bridge over the creek that feeds the lake and just looked upstream and listened to the water babble over the tree roots.

The entire time I was out, my mind could only do two things: hum Auld Lang Syne and envision swimming straight out to sea.

On a related note, the above text felt like an answer to this question.

I always say the moon landings were faked dozens if not hundreds of times and only done for real a half dozen times.

Pilot here. You want to know how important weather data is for safe air travel?

It’s yes% important.

I voted. Most of the women in my family didn’t. Most of the women in my family are not and never have been registered to vote.
And this is the sound thundering through my soul for the last few days.

Apathy or exhaustion?

The Aubrey-Maturin series of novels can be a bit impenetrable, because you kind of have to arrive to the series already able to speak 18th century British technobabble. The movie Master and Commander: The Far Side Of The World is kind of a Greatest Hits compilation of the book series, much more accessible to a general audience and just an excellent film.

The one I remember being really weird was the PS3.

What do you think the election of 2028 was going to look like after Kamala’s term?

How many "possibly the last ever election"s were the Democrats planning to win in a row? There didn’t seem to be any intention to back away from that precipice.

Especially for emotional acting scenes. Sure use contacts for fight choreography so you don’t have to retouch every frame where he’s facing the camera but for the close ups?

OMG there’s an actual bird that looks that derpy? Holy shit. It looks like someone tried to bake an owl and it didn’t rise.

I think Last Action Hero is an overall good movie with some flaws.

It takes a little too long to get going, the bit at the front that mostly establishes that his life is kind of dull and he prefers to go to the movies drags a bit. They play the “BECAUSE THIS IS A MOVIE” note a little too often and Slater just outright doesn’t believe him for a little too long, he should have started to buy it before they go out into the real world. And the ending kind of just putters out? The bits where it’s a send-up of action flicks is really fun and it’s worth seeing for that, though I think True Lies is a better loving send-up of action flicks.

I think that’s a false premise. Third parties are virtually always losing propositions due to the structure of our elections. In a race of red versus blue, if an orange candidate enters the race and some of the red voters vote orange instead because orange more closely fits their preferences, then blue wins with 40% of the vote when 60% of the electorate wanted a warm color.

I’ll also point out that Obama campaigned on a message of hope and progress to two victories.

As far as I can tell, it’s not that people who would have otherwise voted for Kamala instead voted for Donald. It’s that people who would have otherwise voted for Kamala, including many of those who did vote for Biden, just stayed home. “We’ve got policy plans and whatever” yeah that would never make it to implementation through a gridlocked congress and a hostile supreme court.

I don’t support the right nor do I intend to vote Republican. I’m not sure if there’ll be another election, or if the next election held on this soil will be conducted under the same constitution. I don’t know if I’m going to finish this decade living on this continent.

I’ve voted for Democrats since I registered to vote ~20 years ago. Support for the Democrats among young white men has been waning and this is why. More and more of us have been made to feel unwelcome and unwanted and have just…gone elsewhere or stayed home, with the attitude that neither one of these groups is building a future I can live in so fuck it turn on the Xbox. That’s about where I’m at right now.

“The Left” is full of people who like to say words like equality and inclusion while really they’re dreaming of their turn to be the subjugators. Basically none of whom are in any kind of actual office; the Democrats are a center-right party who have been apathetic and accepting of everything the Republicans have done.

As for the people on The Left, the feminists and the queers and the “It’s not racist if it’s against white people,” I don’t have to kill you but I don’t have to save you. I didn’t lose this election for the Democrats; the people who heard “Hey let’s actually talk to young white men on their level and encourage them to vote for us” and said “I’ve got a better idea, let’s spit in their face and demand they vote for us anyway” are the ones who implemented their own defeat. Congratulations. You’re on your own.

See? I’m the enemy no matter what I do.

A lot of 2D games made their art that way; earlier I called Factorio “Age of Empires with a 3 pack a day habit” because AoE’s graphics are 2D sprites made from 3D graphics. I mean, think about it, would you rather draw the little villager walking frame by frame by hand in a pixel art editor in 8 or 16 different angles depending on if the model is symmetrical, or model and animate it in 3D and then frame capture it from several angles? Hell there’s probably tools to do the latter automatically. I bet Blender can just do that.

Throw that on the pile of “See what I mean?”

Being in the left means constantly fighting and being attacked by other leftists for being the wrong kind of leftist.

Yes, I’ve noticed the complete lack of civility, and thus a complete lack of teamwork, and thus an utter inability to accomplish goals. “The Left” doesn’t get shit done, so what’s the point of tolerating the infighting?

You come talk to me when you’ve figured out how to get along, work as a team, and are willing to court centrists into supporting you. And not a minute before. If you survive whatever’s next.

The Democrats offer nothing at all.

Awhile back I saw a political cartoon that said "Hey, can we get healthcare, living wages, housing and affordable groceries?

Republicans: No.

Democrats: No. Black Lives Matter.

Same shit, different lip service.

It is my understanding that Factorio’s art is 3D modeled and rigged, and then 2D animation frames are captured from that so the game doesn’t have to actually render 10,000 inserters every tick.

Factorio does look like Age of Empires with a 3 pack a day habit. And given pollution is a major mechanic in the game it’s on theme.

Mindustry meanwhile has the look of a game you’d find on one of those old 101 games on 1 CD! complilations you’d find back in the 90’s, and yet it runs…well like every other game that’s ever been packaged as a .deb.

I don’t really hitch horses with a game whose main gameplay loop involves keeping an eye on things that are off screen.