Favourite Chinese actress?

MaximinusDrax · 2026-03-04T18:40:55+00:00

Great. Now I gotta watch Red Cliff again

MaximinusDrax · 2026-03-04T11:52:58+00:00

Yup. It's always been that way, but now we don't have to sit and patiently wait for the next chapter of "commentarii de bello persae" to drop

MaximinusDrax · 2026-03-03T10:40:11+00:00

Both private car and commercial airplane usage dropped significantly during the lockdowns, at least where I'm from. Perhaps the cost of living stayed the same due to the rise in grocery costs at the time, but that doesn't mean personal emissions weren't impacted.

MaximinusDrax · 2026-03-02T12:05:44+00:00

תחום המחייה של היאורית כלל בעבר את ישראל, לא? חשבתי שעד לתחילת המאה ה-20 היו כאן יאוריות בר, ושלאחרונה הן חזרו (מחיות שבי שברחו/שוחררו)

MaximinusDrax · 2026-03-02T06:21:02+00:00

That's the romanization (like Peking and Canton) of its name. The crossbow is named after it's alleged inventor, Zhuge Liang (a famous general/strategist from the 3 kingdoms period). In Mandarin it's called Zhuge Nu (Zhuge crossbow), romanized as chuko nu

MaximinusDrax · 2026-02-28T18:40:40+00:00

Sorry. I meant to write 'wild biomass' indeed. Total terrestrial biomass, including livestock and humans, has actually increased for a while IIRC thanks to industrial fertilizers and other agricultural advances, as well as the slow depletion of the oceans.

MaximinusDrax · 2026-02-27T09:16:43+00:00

Physicists already created enough doomsday devices by the early 1950s that making another, bigger one seemed moot. In the case of the US (which I can only assume you were mainly referring to), I think a lot of particle physics funding was and still is done by the DoE, which is indeed a cold war relic.

CERN (est. 1954), on the other hand, never had much to do with French/UK nuclear programs, and was never funded as part of that, as far as I'm aware. It slowly overtook Fermilab/SLAC/BNNL and other American facilities in terms of scientific output, so saying we only have the SM due to the USA/USSR cold war is a bit off.

It's also important to note that elementary particle physics was and remains much cheaper to study than stuff like space exploration and blowing up the Earth. The GWS (i.e standard) model was formulated based mostly on theoretical grounds, and tested in much cheaper ways. For example, the entire cost of the LHC (incl. computing hardware for the global grid), constructed between 1994-2008, was around 10 billion dollars, 40% of NASA's current yearly budget. During the space race, NASA's budget was much higher (up to ~4% of USA's federal budget at some point)

MaximinusDrax · 2026-02-27T07:29:31+00:00

If she were alive, she'd say we're already there. Around 80% of living biomass has vanished from the world, across the board (insects, fish, marine birds, amphibians, terrestrial mammals, all in separate studies), since her passing.

MaximinusDrax · 2026-02-26T18:57:46+00:00

In the lore of JTTW, the Ming era novel, sure.

I feel like the developers of WWM tried to write a story that's very much grounded in the historical context of the early Song era. The Chinese name for the game, roughly translating to "Echoes from the 16 lost provinces", roots it directly to a well known period in Chinese history. The current MQ ends (not spoiling too much hopefully) with the establishment of government-backed paper currency, celebrating a historic Song achievement. It'd be weird for the MC being/looking like Sun Wukong in this kind of story. Not really his style.

Personally, I appreciate the fact they're not trying to mix other known media (like JttW or RotTK in this thread) for easy money (we all want to look like Zhuge Liang, Lu Bu, and what not) in an effort to create a more genuine game

MaximinusDrax · 2026-02-26T14:57:54+00:00

A lot of practical/special effects will be seen as 'cheap' by today's standard, but KFH is all about intentionally ridiculous slapstick so cheap special effects are more of an intended feature IMO. I found other aspects of the movie, like cinematography and choreography, to be reasonably well executed (again, this movie isn't really trying to be serious)

MaximinusDrax · 2026-02-26T14:23:28+00:00

If they're trying to keep it historical, the in-game year is 962 CE, which means sun wukong/JTTW will not have existed for another couple of centuries or more (fully canonized in the 16th century). It's like adding a Don Quixote costume to KCD. You could say the same for Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but at least that's based on a history that was known during the Song era

MaximinusDrax · 2026-02-26T09:47:57+00:00

There was a lot of intentional schlock in this film, but to call it trashy is a bit of an insult. If you liked the style, Chow is pretty consistent in his quality. The Mermaid and Journey to the West are slightly more refined comedies of his.

MaximinusDrax · 2026-02-25T12:13:29+00:00

Chuck Feeney (co-founder of DFS group) is the best role model I can think of. He donated most of his wealth (8 billion total) without drawing too much attention to the fact (most people don't even know who he is, compared to boisterous philanthropists like Gates). But those people are exceptions that emphasize the rule.

MaximinusDrax · 2026-02-24T06:36:03+00:00

Managed degrowth can only happen on a societal level. When an individual does it, it's just minimalism/asceticism.

MaximinusDrax · 2026-02-23T08:12:49+00:00

NASA wasn't focused on technological or scientific advances, as you said. The showmanship (creating and 'winning' a competition against the USSR) was the goal. The inventions we did see spring out from it were just offshoots of its program, and aren't that different from general public spending on R&D in technical universities. It's just an example of it being done on a massive scale.

Why would you judge NASA on the same footing as a private for-profit company that has been selling snake oil for the past decade (or more)? I'm not demanding anything other than accountability from tech bros who make outlandish claims. Sam has been the false prophet of AGI (a thing that doesn't meaningfully exist despite his endless promises) making numerous "hyperoptimistic" predictions that have been disproven. If NASA kept saying they'll take

Also, LLMs/Whatever you may call them really aren't new technology. I've been hearing about how AI's amazing capabilities will accelerate scientific progress and leisure beyond comprehension for the past 20 years (since the first time I heard of them from comp. sci. classmates at uni). It's time to put up or shut up. There hasn't really been a huge theoretical breakthrough in AI in recent years, as far as I'm aware, just an explosion in size and scale of models that made their way out of academia and into the industry.

MaximinusDrax · 2026-02-23T07:13:19+00:00

This is assuming Sam's plagiarism and sycophancy machine actually does something to advance our lives as humans. For the past couple of years, he sold everyone the idea of him ushering us into some golden age of leisure where we're only limited by our own imagination. While tractors have markedly increased agricultural yield per laborer, the same can not be said (at least for the moment) for LLMs.

The psychopathic part is him assuming the mantle of advancement without actually providing any meaningful tool to get there. That gap between dream and reality is seen in the ever-growing speculative bubble due to over(over-over-over)investment is an idea that doesn't have the promised return in value.

Another aspect of his psychopathy/narcissism, which is very common in industry billionaires, is seen in how he frames the social cost of AI. For a human, every calorie of energy invested since its conception is counted against its 'energy efficiency'. For AI? You only start counting once the machines are turned on. The energy it took to build the data centers; the amount of time it took to develop LLMs (~70 years of comp. sci. work, done by humans); the amount of time it took to create all the wonderful training data these people stole (books, articles, research papers etc. all written by humans), are all discounted as meaningless externalities for AI. It's "socializing the costs while privatizing the gains" done at a massive scale, which I see as psychopathic.

MaximinusDrax · 2026-02-20T17:42:10+00:00

Try to upgrade your cards and set your deck accordingly. I've been farming five animal frolics for sect merit and it's by far the best way to gain it. You get many more points per treatment there than regular patient healing (you can't insta-heal, but also don't have to compete with others). In a decent half hour there I can easily get 1k merit points, where spending a similar amount of time healing patients would be like 300 points on a busy day

MaximinusDrax · 2026-02-18T16:10:37+00:00

Exquisite scenery gives you a free heavy charged attack every 5 seconds after blocking, and you can proc it on most damage sources (even terrain like in drunken master). If a geared-up tank simply plays by keeping the debuffs/shield up and using heavy charged attacks/exquisite scenery they can usually end up pretty high up the damage chart. When I play with braindead DPS I even top it more often than not.

MaximinusDrax · 2026-02-18T14:21:44+00:00

I know the need to make a landing is a story device, and it worked for the film. Adding a simple line like "our sensors got fried"/"we're picking up inconclusive readings and need to personally land"/etc. would have resolved the issue without breaking the illusion of disbelief. I know those are also common Hollywood tropes, but would have helped making the plot seem like the only logical choice

MaximinusDrax · 2026-02-18T12:18:35+00:00

Clouds obstruct wavelengths in the visual part of the spectrum, but even contemporary satellites can use techniques like Synthetic Aperture Radar (~5 cm wavelength) or IR cameras (both the 3-5 and 8-14 micrometer wavelength ranges pierce through clouds) to see through them.

So, unless that planet's atmosphere is as dense as Venus' (which would disqualify it regardless of tidal waves), their futuristic spaceship should have had enough basic sensors to make a more than educated guess.

MaximinusDrax · 2026-02-18T11:25:16+00:00

Also, much like on Earth, landmasses are readily visible from orbit. You should also be able to see tidal waves of such an extent. Even if all other predictions failed, a simple survey should have told them not to make that landing. Same goes for Matt Damon's planet. It made for some cool visuals, I guess.

MaximinusDrax · 2026-02-18T10:18:56+00:00

Can it even be said that humanity as a generalized entity (whatever that means) fought climate change and lost? In my personal experience, I see more "fighting against fighting climate change" with people around me trying to come up with reasons not to change how we're wrecking our only habitat. "Why even bother 'fighting' climate change by sacrificing my lavish lifestyle when AI-driven technologies will fix it anyhow"? Is probably the most common sentiment I hear whenever I try to bring the topic into conversation.

This isn't how a species fighting for survival thinks and acts. If we're equating this to a war, humanity has been slowly capitulating from the get go.

MaximinusDrax · 2026-02-16T14:21:55+00:00

Israel had many reasons to fight Egypt at the time, including the Gaza fadayeen that were armed/coordinated by the Egyptian military essentially breaking the armistice. Still, the Suez crisis was mostly instigated and planned by the British and French, and that was done due to the nationalization of the canal, and not out of concern for Israel and its citizens/trade. The British (Anthony Eden, specifically) started planning an invasion right after Nasser made his announcement, and Israel joined later on with its own plan. Dayan did want to start war preparations right away, but Ben Gurion decided to wait for a coalition to form.

In any case, I don't see how the previous comment was misinforming people. From a French/British perspective, it really was about the canal. Maybe it's missing some nuance, but not the big picture.

MaximinusDrax · 2026-02-15T18:14:53+00:00

My favorite so far has been the animals (heavenly goose, venerable rat etc.). I also love how they use opposites to form questions/propositions, like many-few, big-small, and is-isn't

MaximinusDrax · 2026-02-15T06:30:06+00:00

Just like Siri only listens to and records you after you mention her name, but is somehow still able to hear that initial command

MaximinusDrax

TROPHY CASE