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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 9th, 2023

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  • COULD be a big deal, assuming a lot of “ifs” wind up coming to pass. Nebraska awards it’s electoral college votes on a piecemeal basis. Each of the 3 congressional districts gets 1 vote awarded to the winner of the popular vote in that district, and 2 “at-large” electoral votes are given to the overall winner of the statewide popular vote. This has only been relevant in two elections, 2008 and 2020, when the second district (which is basically just the Omaha metropolitan area) awarded 1 blue vote among a sea of red. Now, the state Republican party (no doubt assisted by national) did their damnedest to try and make things Winner Take All to prevent this situation from occurring again, but were unable to court the votes necessary in the legislature prior to time running out. In fact, all around town I see folks with signs in their yards with either a 🔵 to represent our district, or a silhouette of the state all in red, to represent the electoral voice of this district being silenced (probably not how they look at it, but my biases are what they are).

    I’m too far removed from electoral news to understand exactly how this all shakes out, but there is a possible path to it being decided by a singular electoral college votes, and the influx of 100,000 potential voters with a possible (I’m speculating, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable) blue bias in primarily CD-1 and CD-2 could help secure that vote.




  • I suppose I cling to the old adage that a bad game is bad forever, while a delayed game may some day be good. It’s less true today than when Miyamoto said it (No Man’s Sky being the commonly cited example of a game which was able to turn its radioactive launch into a fairly positive experience), but I still believe it’s more accurate than not. I’m picking on a straw man here, but I wonder how many of those “gamers” bemoaning Halo’s long absence also look down their noses at the yearly release mill of sports games. Far as I’m concerned, new games in a franchise should come when the creators feel they have something new to showcase. A new mechanic, new engine, a new plot, whatever. Obviously, the games industry at large is perfectly happy to ok boomer me, and I’m perfectly happy to keep mining through my backlog of games which manage to be fun without live updates.




  • Would the sensation be similar to being at high altitude without oxygen? There is a Smarter Every Day video from several years ago where the host conducts simple cognitive and motor function tests in a pressure chamber which simulates high altitude atmospheric conditions. Within a couple of minutes of being off oxygen, he’s suffering from hypoxia and is unable to either continue the tests, or to mask up, despite being told the he will die if he doesn’t secure oxygen. Admittedly, it’s incredibly chilling to see the guy rendered so helpless, but, from his perspective, it did not seem particularly traumatic. As I understand it, if he had not had his mask applied for him at that point, he would have lost consciousness and then died in his sleep shortly thereafter. All things considered, not the WORST way to go. Beats getting stuck in that compartment with a leak and eventually drowning.





  • 100%. I know that the jury is out, academically speaking, on the actual effectiveness of the bombs, but it makes intuitive sense to me that they at least contributed to the Japanese decision to surrender unconditionally.

    In fact, up until the bombs were dropped, Japan was working with the Soviet Union to act as mediators in peace talks, so Japan could get a better deal. Of course, while the USSR entertained the diplomatic overtures from Japan, they were actually planning on declaring war, as they had promised at Yalta. But, I think it still contributes to my point that a civilian population that has been targeted by a besieging force must believe their only options are unconditional surrender or utter destruction (which, incidentally, is exactly the verbiage the US presented Japan in the Potsdam Declaration 10 days before the first bomb was dropped). If there is a plausible third option available (or believed to be available), then that’s what will be pursued.


  • No, it was not my intention to suggest that. I’m sure the Germans threw everything they could afford into the Battle of Britain.

    Though, I am most definitely not an expert in the field and should be treated as I am, a dude on the internet lol.

    However, even Germany in early WW2 (arguably at the height of their power) was unable to throw enough explosives into London to make that switch flip in the civilian population from “we shall fight them on the beaches” to “okay, in light of recent events, we are reevaluating our ‘Never Surrender’ policy…”.

    In fact, I might even suggest that the scale of bombing necessary to make it a viable tactic was impossible at that time, as the nuclear bomb hadn’t yet been invented. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than me can fact check this assertion, but I think the only time intentionally targeting civilians has successfully cowed a belligerent was when the US nuked Japan. And even then, it took two.


  • Also, to add to the other poster’s point, in a medieval siege, the defenders have every reason to believe the attackers will happily let every man, woman, and child behind the walls die gruesome deaths to starvatiom or disease. That’s why, when it came down to the wire, cities would submit.

    In modern times, cultivating a believable military posture of, “Surrender, or we will personally execute every last motherfucking one of you” is politically dicey. Look at the news stories coming out of Gaza about supplies running low thanks to Israeli interference. Right, wrong , or indifferent, the international community (as well as your domestic community, if those that disagree with these sorts of tactics are allowed to make their voices heard) tends to look down their noses at targeting noncombatants populations. So, due to these complications (which were largely absent or less impactful from warfare in the time of Genghis Khan) wholesale slaughter of civilian life isn’t really openly used. In fact, guidelines like “proportionality” are invented which dictate the level of response you can give certain provocations and what not.

    So, if you’re a modern day commander being tasked with taking an urban center, the closest way to approximate a medieval siege would be to absolutely carpet bomb everything. Make it known that you will happily let every single person in Moscow die, if not send them to the afterlife yourself. While you’re bombing the suburbs, you’ll also need to encirce the whole city to prevent supplies from being delivered, since you can’t guarantee every bomb will hit it’s target and need starvation to provide additional assurance to the population that, if they maintain their current course, they are doomed.

    Unfortunately, the world isn’t going to allow that, and you know it, so you commit to the level of bombing deemed acceptable by the world at large. At best, you wind up in a situation like London during the Blitz. Your bombing runs are effective, in that they disrupt the daily life of citizenry, and cause some infrastructure damage and loss of life. However, you’re never going to be allowed to scale up to the point where your victims feel they have no way out but to submit. There’s enough plausible deniability that, even when a bomb hits close to home (literally or figuratively), the victim is more pissed at the bomber than their government.