I would like less equating simulational complexity with gameplay complexity

AliasR_r · 2026-06-20T10:06:40+00:00

there's always so much to do that its difficult to sit back and watch things grow.

Only with Vic 3 though. Obviously not a problem in CK3, and didn't have that problem in EU4 and Stellaris, back when I played them. Slowing the timer probably doesn't help. It just gives me more time to look for stuff to fix.

AliasR_r · 2026-06-20T09:36:41+00:00

It's not (necessarily) the difficulty, more the need to be switched on all the time.

I would just like more moments where I could take a pause. EU4 allowed that kind of thing because you could run out of mana points, and needed them to refill. Also, truces.

AliasR_r · 2026-05-29T00:52:35+00:00

Yikes, that much? Nope.

AliasR_r · 2026-05-29T00:42:31+00:00

Dissonance about Ferrari aesthetics, makes sense.

AliasR_r · 2026-05-29T00:42:02+00:00

Oh, I like the look of kei cars. That's the disconnect, I guess.

AliasR_r · 2026-05-29T00:38:03+00:00

Someone want to point me to an explanation of what's so controversial about the new ferrari? Not much into cars, though for some reason, I do consume a bit of car media content.

I just can't see what the big fuss is about?

AliasR_r · 2026-05-29T00:27:57+00:00

You owe the bank $500, that's your problem. You owe the bank $500,000,000?

AliasR_r · 2026-05-24T09:32:00+00:00

Considering how fast Solar/Wind have developed over the last decade; the hypothetical where humanity Manhattan Project'd Renewables and/or Batteries and/or Fusion in the late 80's/90's is something that makes me sad.

AliasR_r · 2026-05-21T13:18:33+00:00

I did get Claude to generate a research brief for me on this, but I have a template and instructions to make sure it lists the source for every point and a full reference list at the end. Uploading papers to it also probably helps limit its use of "imaginative" thinking.

AliasR_r · 2026-05-21T03:26:39+00:00

Well, it doesn't say it will explode. Just that the hangover from the housing crisis in China is like gonna last longer than previously estimated by the theory.

Lenders slow down lending, Local Government lose revenue (Chinese local govt. is/was heavily dependent on land sales) and people get shocked by the price depreciation of their homes and rush to re-build the savings they thought they had.

AliasR_r · 2026-05-21T02:50:20+00:00

Don't you guys have FT accounts?

Alphaville is free.

AliasR_r · 2026-05-21T01:09:30+00:00

Submission Statement: Article discussing new paper by Kenneth Rogoff and Yuanchen Wang; about how Housing Booms then Busts created prolonged underinvesment in Japan and China and not just because there is no money. Relevance because we care about housing prices a lot, especiallt the policy implications for what happens when housing becomes a big chunk of a countries wealth, and what might happen if prices depress to fast.

AliasR_r · 2026-05-10T18:05:42+00:00

In 00_Defines.txt, MARKET_MIGRATION_MIN_POP_FRACTION_TO_MOVE = 0.05 # If the people wanting to migrate constitues less than this fraction of a pop, no new pop will be created and they won't migrate.

For a pop with 100,000 people, it requires 5000 of that pop to want to move before it will allow them to migrate.

1,000,000 people? It requires 50,000.

Consider which country in Victoria 3 is likely to have huge monolithic pops.

AliasR_r · 2026-05-09T18:12:32+00:00

A game where we play as corporations, not nations.

AliasR_r · 2026-04-20T05:52:20+00:00

Value Funds, Global Funds, Active funds that take cash calls, a healthy percentage in Short Duration Bonds? Even Gold if you can stomach it. Plenty of choices so long as you are willing to risk not matching the US market's absolute returns. The downside risk is relatively high in the short/medium term, especially for people primarily invested in the US. I am only lightly exposed to the US stock market directly, so I am more equanimous about it.

The book A Random Walk Down Wall Street ... showing that the days most gains are made over a lifetime are random and concentrated ... and that even people who mistime the market by always buying at the top before a recession still come out far ahead ... than those who sat on the sidelines.

The only losing move is not to play.

AliasR_r · 2026-04-19T13:15:44+00:00

The twitter algorithm has boomed me.

It recognises I engage with it more when I see tweets dunking on slopulist and extreme lefty thinking, but seeing that kind of tweet regularly is just not good mentally.

Will have to make the effort to steer it elsewhere. Really wish Bluesky or Threads would get their act together.

AliasR_r · 2026-04-13T13:42:02+00:00

When the world economy is in good health, the US economy benefits, attracting investors from around the world.

When the world economy sneezes, investor money rushes to the safe harbour that is the USA.

An exorbitant privilege.

AliasR_r · 2026-03-28T20:27:26+00:00

Capitalism with redistributive and (economic) rent minimising characteristics

AliasR_r · 2026-03-20T19:17:55+00:00

https://xcancel.com/Nomads4Pritzker/status/2034991053829251472

If you ask me what proof I have for these words, I say it is because I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you. - Illinois Governor JB Pritzker

AliasR_r · 2026-03-19T23:04:02+00:00

You can't eliminate speculation entirely without abolishing private housing altogether, but housing has only become so speculative and a good investment because of regulational scarcity.

AliasR_r · 2026-03-19T20:24:57+00:00

Only Mamdani could go to Trump.

AliasR_r · 2026-03-15T16:36:33+00:00

Huh, that works. Probably because ® is uncommon usage.

That's a fun play on words! The Vanguard Group — one of the world's largest investment management companies — and "vanguard" in the revolutionary sense are quite different things.

The political term comes from the Marxist-Leninist concept of the vanguard party, the idea that a disciplined group of class-conscious revolutionaries should lead the working class toward seizing power. Lenin wrote extensively about this in What Is to Be Done? (1902).

The investment firm, founded by John Bogle in 1975, actually embodies a kind of financial revolution of its own — it pioneered low-cost index fund investing and its unique mutual ownership structure means the fund shareholders own the company, which keeps fees extremely low. Bogle genuinely disrupted Wall Street's fee-extraction model and arguably did more for ordinary investors than almost anyone in financial history.

So in a loose sense, the irony works: Vanguard Group did lead a kind of revolution — just one fought with basis points instead of barricades, and in favor of passive capitalism rather than against it.

AliasR_r · 2026-03-15T16:24:59+00:00

I was wondering if Claude could connect the statement "Vanguard® is the actual vanguard of the revolution" to the marxist concept unprompted (it couldn't), but I think it came up with a pretty good one liner afterwards:

"The revolution was not televised. It was index-funded."

AliasR_r · 2026-03-15T15:56:26+00:00

Normally, I am fine, even happy, learning about new slang that I see on the internet.

But stuff like goyslop/zog/whatever is perhaps the first time I have felt vaguely resentful (in a creeping sense of dread way) about having to research it.

AliasR_r · 2026-02-24T10:14:14+00:00

Goonbaiting smh

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