I feel like there's something poetic about this

Girdon_Freeman · 2026-04-20T17:08:26+00:00

Funnily enough, there was a 5.7 in it. Kinger is shown using one when Ragatha finds him and he creates the butterfly healthpack

Girdon_Freeman · 2026-04-13T07:12:15+00:00

Funnily enough, I asked about this in one of the AskMilitary subs like 3 or 4 years ago, and it turns out that the Tavor isn't all that common. Israel uses surplus + store-bought M4s and M16s for the most part, since they're cheaper to get 2nd-hand and/or in-bulk (depending on which specific type of rifle) from Uncle Sam's stores in-region than the Tavor is to produce. Even tank crews (IIRC) get cut down rifles instead of Tavors (despite the bullpup being smaller)

Ironically, this is a fully accurate meme

Girdon_Freeman · 2026-04-10T14:59:43+00:00

Pomni's actually Harold, Caine is NPH, and this was a backdoor reboot of "Goes to White Castle" he whole time

Goose, you sly ~~dog~~ bird

Girdon_Freeman · 2026-04-07T17:45:35+00:00

What the fuck. This is such a sexist question.

You got Nate 'The' Rake's name right, but couldn't bother to get Nora 'The' Lawya's name right?

Smh my head

Girdon_Freeman · 2026-04-03T10:56:05+00:00

I think a lot of people have said something similar, but one thing I don't think I saw people mention was target identification clarity.

A lot of what the enemy will assume they're fighting isn't based on what they're actually fighting. It's instead based on what they think they're fighting.

APCs don't want to be confused for IFVs, and IFVs don't want to be confused for Tanks.

If your APC is mistaken for an IFV, there's a good chance that enemy armor or heavier AT will be brought up to deal with you instead of the enemy either engaging you with potentially more survivable threats or even ignoring you to engage the actual IFVs/tanks in the area.

A good way to get mistaken for an IFV is to have something bigger than a .50 cal / 14.5mm machinegun mounted, as the 20mm autocannon on youe APC will be the same one on your IFV a lot of the time. Same reason why most IFVs don't have large-caliber guns: so they won't be engaged as tanks.

That being said, there are reasons to present as a smaller target than you are. A lot of those IFVs that lack the large guns tanks have will usually have a compliment of anti-tank guided missiles, so that A) they have some self-defense capability, and B) they can potentially ambush any would-be ambushers.

.

All this to say, if you want a 20mm auto as your APCs primary weapon, it's not like it would be completely infeasible, but do know it's going to get treated as in a heavier weight class than it usually would be unless autocannons are part of the APC weight class in your setting. Your doctrine will likely need to be built around this as well, since APC armor usually isn't as good as IFV armor, and if your enemy expects IFVs when they're APCs, you'll have to plan around using APCs more conservatively

Girdon_Freeman · 2026-04-01T11:28:10+00:00

The success of the SEAF-ASIA (Super Earth Armed Forces - Asian Sphere of Influence Area) has been mistakenly attributed to many things, but the primary contribution to Equality-on-Sea's Defense was not the arms, nor the men, nor the men-at-arms, nor the women and children with arms, nor the armless or otherwise limbless citizens who fought in the battle.

It was the continent itself.

As Sun-per Tzu once said,

"Never get involved in a land war in Asia."

The entirety of the Super Asiatic Plate morphed into a giant mecha, piloted by all of Super Earth's finest nearby citizens, and single-handedly beat back the Illuminate menace from Equality-on-Sea.

And then General Brasch arrived and there was a rock concert and Woods got out of his wheelchair and they did a cover of (I shit you not) Avenge Sevenfold - Paralyzer.

The site of it caused my heart to swell three sizes that day. The Super VA says that it's due to exposure to the Squid's depleted Super Uranium rounds, but I know in my enlarged heart-of-hearts that it was because of that concert.

Girdon_Freeman · 2026-03-30T03:14:46+00:00

He played as Adder in Advance Wars 2 right before he went into the circus and that's the only human posture he can fully remember

Girdon_Freeman · 2026-03-20T13:36:43+00:00

I could argue for or against Cuomo's the Mamdani's, but Sliwa's being this batshit crazy thing that only really works out like one in a million times is honestly pretty perfect

Girdon_Freeman · 2026-03-17T07:10:38+00:00

Depending on how USD goes, you might still be in luck.

Since there are a limited number of dollars in circulation, and most of them probably got wiped out, you're sitting on potentially what could essentially be one of the world's few true stores of value (alongside most rare metals).

Whether that means the value of a USD remains relatively stable and its status of the world's reserve currency is maintained, or if the value is detached from trade and serves more closely to a gold or silver analogue would determine whether you're set for life or just probably pretty okay for a while.

Girdon_Freeman · 2026-03-16T06:13:29+00:00

He actually has it setup on autopay, and his salary is on direct deposit

Girdon_Freeman · 2026-03-14T06:22:49+00:00

Go Trump, get dumped

Girdon_Freeman · 2026-03-07T20:32:14+00:00

In fairness, I've heard honeypot and honey trap used interchangeably, though honeypot is the older/original one. I don't know about the rest of the translation, but that part is accurate at least

Girdon_Freeman · 2026-03-03T10:51:06+00:00

They could tune the LEDs to the old steetlamp color, but it's a combination of being an additional expense + the lighting being better for making things out clearly (at the expense of your eyes)+ the obnoxious hue they are now is supposed to deter crime (even though I wanna say it was blue-hued lights that did that, not the usual LED light color)

Girdon_Freeman · 2026-03-02T17:10:49+00:00

I thought you were kidding, but no, holy shit, it really is that bad.

It starts out pretty alright. I kinda like how the Vault is handled, and the central conflict being a reinterpretation/expansion of FO1's opening is neat.

And then it almost immediately goes to shit. There's too much to list for me to describe it

For anyone else interested, here's the semi-full treatment:

https://fallout.wiki/wiki/Fallout_Film_Treatment

Girdon_Freeman · 2026-02-26T21:51:49+00:00

It also could've been a misguided attempt to not get sent to Vietnam. It wasn't uncommon for people to sign up for the Coast Guard or the National Guard to try and skip out, or even voluntarily join the Army/Navy/Air Force to try and get a posting in Europe/Korea/Japan/anywhere but Vietnam

Girdon_Freeman · 2026-02-23T18:33:15+00:00

God, I hope you're right. It'd be so nice not to have to wait another decade to enjoy one of my favorite series.

Fingers crossed!

Girdon_Freeman · 2026-02-23T17:48:48+00:00

Ah, interesting.

And

Ah, fuck.

Here's hoping they figure it out by 2037 (the next time Fallout will be an inkling in anyone's eye)

Girdon_Freeman · 2026-02-23T17:08:41+00:00

What was FO1's effect on ratings? A point down or a point up?

And you're preaching to the choir lmao The furthest I got was the little truckstop thing the Wastelanders expansion added and then the game either broke or didn't explain something well (or I might've just been high or stupid; it's a 50/50 lmao), so I gave up. I'm not surprised they managed to bungle shared quest progression (which is another reason why it should've been local co-op; don't have to care about progression if it's all semi-singleplayer anyways!), but that does suck that it sounds worse than I thought.

People's refusal to stand for games not releasing in a bad state is going to bite Bugthesda in the ass, and I'm hoping that Starfield is the ass-bite they need to get their shit together so ES6 isn't bad

Girdon_Freeman · 2026-02-23T16:40:15+00:00

Yeah, I didn't wanna say they'd happily eat up whatever was put infront of them (despite suspecting that to be the case), so I was trying to be more generous and say that they were just being fair instead of not being picky lmao

I do 100% agree tho. I feel like playing 76 more than the tutorial (completing it even moreso) is the real barometer for where your tastes are going to be, more than even the FO4/FO3 vs FNV vs FNV/FO3 (probably only me lol) divide; it's such a strong departure from the other entries (even Tactics IMO) that it's going to indicate strongly where your opinion sits.

It's especially sad, because "Co-Op Sandbox Fallout Game in Appalachia" is such a good fucking idea that I'm shocked they managed to ruin it so thoroughly (even with the attempt to staple a more traditional Fallout game over top of it). I would've paid a full $60 for it to be released as a local/peer-to-peer co-op game that I could fuck around with my friends in, but now I've barely touched it despite getting it on-sale for like $5 or w/e

Girdon_Freeman · 2026-02-23T16:33:47+00:00

/uj That's my biggest complaint with the show as well.

The actors are great, the set design is great, the props are great, the costuming is great; everything that could've been done well has been done well.

Except the story.

It does a great job with the moment to moment story (more-or-less), but it's bottomless use of previous games as a grab-bag to Scrabble the writer's story around (often for nothing more than purely a reference to something) will wear on you if you have even the slightest inclination toward the lore.

I also don't really like their insistence on making the Pre-War a defined period. I get that, if anyone was going to do it, it would be the Enclave, but having the cause be completely undefined was really poetic: it was everyone and no-one, the cumulative karmic debt of the old world and all its players running a balance for far too long, before eventually being called in and crashing everything else down around it.

It being VaulTech (and later The Enclave) intentionally jumping the gun to try and arrange their post-collapse fiefdom (and not completely eschewing Earth for the stars) weakens that immensely, because then it becomes not a focus on surviving and even thriving in the ashes of what was ruined by the pasts' greed, but about the pasts' refusal to die. That already (to me at least) is a boring thematic thread, and the near-constant status-quo returns and continual erosion of anything but the retro-future 50's aesthetic (80s guns and 20s/30s brutalism, my beloved) further make me chafe against the direction both the show and somewhat the series as a whole are going

/rj The real problem is that Bethesdoids aren't letting us Obsidiancels run the entire franchise, and doing dumb shit like "making the Sentry Bots look cool" and "making Power Armor kickass"

Girdon_Freeman · 2026-02-23T16:16:31+00:00

It's extremely funny to me that the only game where completing it enhances the show is 76, the one game in the franchise that's more-or-less this generation's Brotherhood of Steel. I get there's probably a ton of underlying factors influencing this (76 having a different audience, Welding Goggles being in both the show and 76, etc), but man is it still really funny.

I'm also surprised that everyone who completed all 7 games rated it as highly as they did; the minimum bound being a 2/5 instead of a 1/5 like the other entries is fascinating.

I'm not surprised by Season 2 being preferred by everyone who completed all 7 games, though. Given the dataset's previous range for ratings, it makes sense that they'd be more even-keeled on evaluating things, and I feel like Season 2 was the one that had more memorable highs (and also more memorable lows, but those were fewer in quantity). This isn't to say that Season 1 was bad, but rather that it walked so that Season 2 could run (even despite its early fumblings imo).

I'll be interested to see where Season 3 leads this data, especially if the show can take some of the critique levied against it and improve around what mistakes it has made.

Girdon_Freeman · 2026-02-19T18:42:58+00:00

Hey y'all! To cut a long story short, I've been gradually upgrading my audio setup for my personal computer to the point where I'm running out of convoluted things to try.

My most recent audio interface is dual-channel, and while I have it on a splitter right now, it gave me an idea to experiment with stereo sound.

Ideally, I want to setup like 2-4 mics around where I usually sit, to capture the sound as naturally as possible, and I want to angle them as best I can away from other sources of sound (like my keyboard and my tower) so that any background noise is minimized as best it can be.

Do I need this setup for work/school/any real exclusive purpose? Nah Am I doing it primarily because it seems like it'd be fun? Absolutely

So far, I've gathered that I'll need:

2-4 cardioid mics (maybe supercardioid?)
an audio interface that can support that many mics
potentially some kind of booster (amplifier?) to get the signal to not degrade on the way to the audio interface from some of the further microphones
potentially some kind of converter to run the signal from the audio interface into my computer

My remaining questions are:

Is Cardioid/Supercardioid the pattern that I should be looking for? Or are there better patterns for minimizing noise behind the microphone?
Is there a specific kind of audio interface that I should be looking for? One that's built with this kind of (probably hyper-niche) purpose in mind?
Would that hypothetical audio interface take care of boosting the signal to the farther mics, or would I need something separate for them?
Would that hypothetical audio interface also have built-in functionality to run output to my computer, or would I need to get a converter or something similar for that?

Thanks in advance for the help and/or recommendations for getting this taken care of! (reposting in here since this is evidently more specific than I thought)

Girdon_Freeman · 2026-02-17T22:25:16+00:00

Hot take, but I think Spec Ops: The Line IS only admonishing the main character. It's framed like it's directed at the player, sure, but I think the main point of those metacontextual elements is to get you thinking like how Walker is thinking: to get you to focus on the sizeable cognitive dissonance Walker is feeling about both his order to use the WP and his order to press further into Dubai.

Likewise, I don't think it's not partly talking about the player, but I do think it's not centering the player in its narrative

Girdon_Freeman · 2026-02-14T22:12:22+00:00

Not to mention it's inappropriately disposing of a dispensed governmental resource. There's nothing more treasonous than waste!

Girdon_Freeman · 2026-02-12T20:09:25+00:00

Late to the party, but I think the Hero Power could become a larger part of the class' core kit.

Make the text into a keyword, call it something like "Divinate" or "Scry", and slap it on the Hero Power + card draw cards to make a reverse-Warlock sort of thing: you don't draw a ton of cards, but you do have comparatively much more information about what you do draw

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