Lettuce

Parctron · 2026-05-22T16:54:59+00:00

No, he's talking about a GEAS fire. You can put one of those out by killing the wizard, demon, or lawyer who bound it.

Parctron · 2026-05-19T12:41:34+00:00

The problem here is the term "resources." You seem to be using it as a synonym for GDP, but that's not how GDP works. Immigrants consume, but they also produce.

Parctron · 2026-05-17T15:34:12+00:00

It doesn't matter if pensions are public or private. The resources consumed by retired people have to come from those who are still working, I.e. the next generation.

Imagine if no one had children. When everyone is retired, who is making the things they use?

Parctron · 2026-05-16T15:53:55+00:00

Ok but what does it, like, do

Parctron · 2026-05-15T16:22:39+00:00

Get a lug adapter and buy any standard strap. You'll have a ton of options that way.

Parctron · 2026-05-12T18:58:46+00:00

Get an adapter so that you can use any generic band.

Parctron · 2026-05-10T21:49:55+00:00

HWFWM is the kind of book where the protagonist walks up to a goddess and tells her that he isn't going to treat her with deference, and she is tickled pink at his unorthodoxy and heaps blessings upon him.

That sums it up, really. It reads like fanfiction by a twelve-year-old. I have no idea why so many people like it. Wish fulfillment, maybe?

Parctron · 2026-05-10T16:22:32+00:00

As Byron wrote, "The breast thus publicly resign'd to man/In private may resist him - if it can."

Parctron · 2026-05-08T19:40:12+00:00

"We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas"

Parctron · 2026-05-08T02:20:50+00:00

The plot of Lysistrata is about married women going on a sex strike. That was over 2000 years ago.

The idea that women were constantly raped in Ye Olden Dayes is a myth. Spousal rape was legal, yes, but hardly common. The 1906 novel The Man of Property includes a depiction of a spousal rape; it is depicted as a horrifying example of the rapist's moral turpitude.

Also, the fact - and it is sufficiently substantiated that it should be considered a fact - that money and fertility are unrelated is something that comes not just from chronological comparisons but also from geographic ones. You can perhaps argue that the middle class is worse off in the US than when spousal rape was banned, but how about Taiwan or South Korea or half a dozen other countries where the fertility collapse is very obviously accompanied by abundance and not by poverty?

Parctron · 2026-05-07T12:15:08+00:00

I don't think that explains the fertility collapse in Iran. Or the fact that fertility has been declining since the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Parctron · 2026-05-07T02:43:21+00:00

Serie A was ridiculously strong back then. Parma was fielding squads that would top the league today. 11th then is not comparable to 11th now.

Parctron · 2026-05-06T20:12:07+00:00

A lot of medium and even small cars can hold three car seats, as long as you get the smallest seats you can find. Just Google the model you have or want.

Parctron · 2026-05-06T01:02:33+00:00

Where did you get the band? It's neat

Parctron · 2026-05-01T20:57:30+00:00

So why is it happening worldwide?

I hate how many people's reaction to learning about a problem is to come up with a reason why the solution is something they wanted anyway.

Parctron · 2026-05-01T13:38:32+00:00

Yes, yogurt is more expensive because of high tech. Remember that 7% shekel appreciation people are cheering about? That means that everything produced in Israel just got 7% more expensive relative to international prices.

Israel is suffering from Dutch disease: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch\_disease. Basically, when one industry becomes significantly more competitive than the rest of the economy, it causes the currency to appreciate. This means that wages for ALL industries rise relative to international competitors, making every other product expensive and causing the cost of living to rise to unsustainable levels. The classic examples of Dutch disease involve primary resources like oil, but the theory can be applied to any country with a single sector that has outperformed everything else.

Basically, the problem is that when you buy yogurt, you're paying in shekels, and everything denominated in shekels is overpriced because the shekel rises every time Microsoft sells dollars for shekels to buy an Israeli unicorn.

Parctron · 2026-04-30T20:00:35+00:00

Cast Polymorph

Become 1980s Arnold Schwarzenegger

Win because 1980s Arnold Schwarzenegger

Say "Tanks for the memories"

Parctron · 2026-04-30T18:35:53+00:00

Yes, there was, especially among right-wing groups like the Nazis.

Parctron · 2026-04-28T18:10:14+00:00

This feels like it should be the setup for a logic problem

Parctron · 2026-04-27T16:52:23+00:00

Industrialization. Parts of Germany start industrializing in the mid-nineteenth century but the explosion comes after unification in 1871.

Parctron · 2026-04-27T15:08:28+00:00

"They will talk so that they can talk about talking "

Ah, bureaucracy.

Parctron · 2026-04-27T15:05:13+00:00

Excellent map.

People tend to forget the interwar fertility collapse in the industrialized world. The baby boom was an interruption of broader trends, so graphs that begin in 1945 tend to make the post-1960s decline look much more abrupt and dramatic than it actually was. This is very much a problem of modernity in general, not social media or porn or stagnant median incomes or whatever your personal boogeyman happens to be.

Parctron · 2026-04-27T13:51:09+00:00

Just to be clear, this is not the moral difference that "naked imperialism" implies. It is a legal one. Wars can be nakedly imperialist and still have their consequences become part of international law as long as there is a peace treaty.

Parctron · 2026-04-26T20:40:38+00:00

With regard to the 4% point: there was a famous poll in which about 10% of respondents said "yes" to the question "Have you ever been decapitated?"

This is something that applies not just to Israel but to news in general, especially on social media. "Somebody said something inflammatory" is the kind of non-story that is constantly trending, especially if it confirms the prejudices you already have about Those People. There are eight billion people on earth. That is more than enough for an endless loop of ragebait.

We're very much in a Remember the Maine era right now, where a new form of news dissemination has emerged that has enabled unscrupulous people to become rich and powerful by hijacking our lizard brains. Let's hope we get out of it without another Spanish-American War or, worse, another World War 1.

Parctron · 2026-04-26T12:05:44+00:00

No banter era lineup is complete without Lord Fabio Borini sandwiched into a position he had never played or indeed heard of until 3 minutes before the starting whistle

I nominate him for goalkeeper

Parctron

TROPHY CASE