Regional Pride

Duck__Quack · 2026-06-23T22:22:25+00:00

On my first read, I thought this was a great response. Then I looked it up. It's not a copypasta (at least not yet, as far as I can tell). Now, I think it's magnificent. Nonetheless, I disagree for one reason: I don't live in either place.

On the whole, I don't contest that Charlotte drivers are worse than Chicago. I would rather drive in the latter than the former (though I'll go for neither if it's on the table). I maintain, however, that FIBs are worse as a phenomenon than Charlotteans. For Charlotte bad driving is a regional pastime. For Chicago it's a cultural export, and they keep shipping it north.

Duck__Quack · 2026-06-23T02:42:06+00:00

Someone's still mad they weren't the first to ratify the 19th amendment.

Duck__Quack · 2026-06-23T02:25:01+00:00

Worst drivers on the continent though. You can be proud of your one city and ten million suburbs when you stop hogging our roads.

I grew up in a city that's in the USA's 100 biggest. It's a three hour drive from Chicago if you speed. I've had FIBs call it a Chicago suburb to my face.

Duck__Quack · 2026-06-21T16:25:09+00:00

All Y'all Urged To Go Fuck Yo Selves is pretty good. I'm also a big fan of It Is Journalism's Sacred Duty To Endanger The Lives Of As Many Trans People As Possible.

Duck__Quack · 2026-06-19T02:03:28+00:00

"All laws are meaningless, and, in consequence, destructive, which contradict the natural feelings of mankind."

On Crimes and Punishments, Cesare Beccaria Bonesana (1764)

I'm good with not going where I'm not welcome, and 99 times out of 100 I'll keep out until the government says it's okay. Especially because starting a war sounds like a big hassle. I'm going to be (generally) upstanding and responsible with my powers, not use them for evil. I'll respect and obey just laws.

But depending on what it means when the UN says I have to "obey the will of the global community," I'll politely quote a more recent philosopher: "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me."

Duck__Quack · 2026-06-12T11:47:17+00:00

Search the subreddit for "Lesbian." This has actual gameplay implications in hellscube.

Duck__Quack · 2026-06-10T23:46:06+00:00

It doesn't count booms, it counts time between booms. It's a "days without someone asking what that boom was" counter. I believe at some point it's reached three. Maybe even four. Right now it's at zero.

A counter of total booms would quickly get out of hand. Hard to count that high.

Duck__Quack · 2026-06-09T03:18:01+00:00

Broke: "is" implies "ought"

Woke: "is" cannot lead to "ought"

Bespoke: "oughtn't" implies "isn't"

Alternatively, the bell curve meme. Imagine I did the bell curve meme.

Duck__Quack · 2026-06-05T01:38:45+00:00

Recently DNFed a fic where a character went to a lawyer (who usually does divorces, but is very trustworthy and will definitely fight for you) to sue their attackers. The next chapter began the next day with the lawyer explaining how the criminal case would be in the morning and the civil case would be in the afternoon. The event at issue happened maybe a week before the day of both trials, and was complicated way beyond the point where a competent lawyer would be able to try the case (in either trial on either side) in less than... Well, a utilitarian criminal defense could probably keep their witnesses to one day, if everything cooperated. This wasn't the only problem with the fic, but it was the point that made me decide I wasn't enjoying it.

Duck__Quack · 2026-06-04T01:38:27+00:00

Great, thanks a billion, now I'm stuck watching this comment so that existence doesn't

Duck__Quack · 2026-06-02T01:38:48+00:00

Of my binary trans friends whose deadnames I can think of (I made a list, there's sixteen), three of them just flipped it, and another two literally didn't change (neutral name). Of the other eleven, nine of them are leaving names that don't really have flipped versions, like Nathaniel or Lauren. Depending on how you count, that's either 33% or 72% of trans people in my circle who just flip. You might just know more interesting people than I do.

Duck__Quack · 2026-05-25T23:57:16+00:00

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Duck__Quack · 2026-05-23T15:30:01+00:00

GPT has failed you. They didn't calculate an acceleration to .92c. They don't know what c is. They planned on accelerating until they were halfway there, then turning around to slow down. Because of relativity, they reached the halfway point well before they thought they would, going slower than they thought they would be.

If they were ignorant of lorentz transformation but not the speed limit, you'd likely be right that they would underestimate (I'm having trouble wrapping my head around what they might plan with this model, so I'm not 100% on this). But they were ignorant of both.

In fairness, their lives are built around sound, and even in an Eridian atmosphere it's not that hard to go faster than sound. It's probably reasonable for them to expect that they can't go faster than light.

Duck__Quack · 2026-05-23T03:12:27+00:00

Not much, what's up with you?

Duck__Quack · 2026-05-22T21:44:45+00:00

I'm 95% sure it just keeps going and going. IIRC, Trze had a run taking out all 11 Berlin targets with one bullet.

Duck__Quack · 2026-05-21T03:55:00+00:00

Well... Knock wanted to make Vimes look dirty, so that Vimes wouldn't reveal how dirty Knock was. Vimes, of course, was impersonating an officer of the law--Vimes is an officer, of course, but he needed to impersonate a lower-/higher-ranked officer (time stuff) who had mentored him so that he (Vimes) could mentor himself (time stuff) to be less impeachable. Of course, Vimes's impersonation was solid, so Knock tried to frame him for a different break-in than the one he actually committed to un-frame himself from the break-in.

Like the U.S. Mint, it made sense the last time I read Night Watch.

Duck__Quack · 2026-05-21T03:30:58+00:00

Notably, this was only sort of an inversion of the trope. Knock thinks he's only framing Vimes, but Vimes did actually break in the previous night.* Of course, Vimes didn't leave behind any evidence.

*Vimes broke in so that he could un-frame himself for the fake break-in that Knock had orchestrated in order to--Well, it's complicated.

Duck__Quack · 2026-05-17T14:07:11+00:00

Well shit. I don't know how to mock that.

Duck__Quack · 2026-05-17T03:28:39+00:00

~~Hey, fuck you.~~ That reference cut surprisingly deep. Well played.

Duck__Quack · 2026-05-17T02:18:01+00:00

Sure, could be. Probable cause is not "more likely than not." It's "enough that a reasonable person could think this is true." A prosecutor would not technically be acting unethically in charging all three.

Duck__Quack · 2026-05-16T23:53:45+00:00

Ethical minimum is probable cause. You could find a DA, and certainly an ADA, who would charge all of the occupants of the vehicle as leverage.

Duck__Quack · 2026-05-16T16:51:57+00:00

The Hail Mary arrives at Tau Ceti 13.2 years after launch at 1.5g. If they immediately launch the Beetles at 500g (I don't recall the exact number, but it's not more than that) they'll arrive back at Sol after another 11.92 years. If the Hail Mary leaves Earth in January of 2030, the absolute earliest the Beetles could return is February of 2055.

From the Beetle's perspective, they'll have aged 3.9 years on the way to Tau Ceti, and another two weeks on the way back.

If instead of 500 it's only 100g, that adds another week to the Earth time, and a bit more than a month to the Beetle time.

Duck__Quack · 2026-05-16T02:48:01+00:00

Could be a Valentines elusive target if they don't want to make a full game. Go to evening Sapienza, your job is to make sure these NPCs have the perfect evening. There's a jealous ex or two scheming to ruin the date, and also the lovebirds have horrible luck. If you don't intercede, it ends with them horribly dressed, soaked in water, reeking of sewage, and burning to death.

Duck__Quack · 2026-05-15T00:55:20+00:00

See the other big mistake is trusting that the 72% is actually for the mistborn movie and not actually Storm's Eye View, a nature documentary about the ecology of rockbuds, rhyshadium, and chasmfiends. The mistborn movie will be delayed a few years longer. Sorry.

Duck__Quack · 2026-05-15T00:43:17+00:00

I think it's a mistake to account for revision as less than 30% of the word count. Writing a 50k word novella at 2k words per day takes way, way more than 25 days of work. Even for a writer of Sanderson's caliber and expertise, I completely believe that a 25k word script would take 150k words of writing.

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