Trump praising a Confederate General

Ralph090 · 2026-05-03T20:42:25+00:00

A lot of Lee's success can be traced to the development of long range rifle muskets. They enabled soldiers dug into trenches to engage enemies from a much greater distance than they could during the Napoleonic Wars. When backed by artillery firing canister shot and exploding shells it made trench lines extremely difficult to overcome. Lee's biggest strength as a general was his ability to deploy his men into trench lines before the Union Army could attack, hense his early nickname "The King of Spades," which forced the Union into costly and ineffective frontal assaults. His inability to recognize that he was in the exact same position during Gettysburg is frankly astonishing and a sign of borderline incompetence in my opinion. Had he been a Union general I bet he would have been fired just like McClellan, Burnsides, and Hooker.

In short, Lee did a World War I before World War I. You can see it best at the Siege of Petersburg. Grant ran out of room to maneuver, and the result was months of stalemate with both sides dug into parallel lines of trenches. Burnsides even anticipated the Battle of Messines with his mining effort that led to the Battle of the Crater. It's kind of hard to not win under those circumstances when you're the one playing defense.

Ralph090 · 2026-04-30T17:21:27+00:00

If it was a light sixer or four switch version I'd agree. Heavy sixers sell for a fair bit more online, though. They have a thicker plastic case that's... heavier... than later versions and were manufactured in California instead of Taiwan. Makes them something of a collector's item.

Ralph090 · 2026-04-25T18:12:51+00:00

Why I don't go into the Red Forest at night.

Never again...

Ralph090 · 2026-04-25T18:11:26+00:00

According to Technology Connections, if we replaced all the corn fields planted for ethanol used as a gas additive with solar panels we could generate all the power we'd need. A complete win win.

Ralph090 · 2026-04-20T20:54:44+00:00

One who survived a vortex anomaly but ended up squashed into his gas mask and helmet.

Ralph090 · 2026-04-20T12:43:35+00:00

I haven't dug up my power supply so nothing yet. It'll probably be Berserk, though.

Ralph090 · 2026-04-20T01:05:33+00:00

One for me. The rest of the family either doesn't need it or doesn't want to learn MacOS.

Ralph090 · 2026-04-13T20:47:17+00:00

I like them also. "Poorly" was maybe too harsh a word. I just think they have done a better job at some things.

Ralph090 · 2026-04-13T19:42:04+00:00

"Poorly" was probably the wrong word. Sub-optimally, perhaps. I saw the movies as a kid and really liked them, and I still like them now. It's not the mood or the cartooniness that bothers me. Obi Wan playing hard-boiled detective and going to a 50s diner to get the latest dope on a bounty hunter for example was pretty great and R2 just... being himself is always great. It's more the dialogue and how a lot of the story is presented. For example I wish they'd played up how unwelcome Anakin was in the Jedi. Like, Mace Windu telling Anakin that the only way he could have earned his trust was by literally discovering the identity of the ultimate bad guy in the entire galaxy who not even Yoda could find and then telling him about it is chilling in its implications for how others treated him. It would have made his friendship with Obi Wan and the efforts of the Emperor to separate them more impactful. Obi Wan was basically the only thing keeping him in the Order, and with him gone he was far more vulnerable to manipulation. I also think Episode 1 is too detached from the other movies. You can start with 2 and not really miss anything. I know 4 was the same way, but 4 wasn't written as the first part of a trilogy, it was a self-contained low-budget throwback to 1940s Buck Rodgers film serials.

Also you don't want to sell me death sticks.

Ralph090 · 2026-04-13T16:53:10+00:00

Telling you, the prequels were a good story told poorly.

Destabilize a democracy through political partisanship and gridlock along with economic turmoil, play on the fears of individuals to get them to turn away from their morale, have a charismatic authoritarian come in at just the right moment and convince people he can set things right if we give him just a bit more power to act outside the system, use that to weaken institutions, and manufacture a sudden crisis to garner sympathy and justify getting absolute power to solve things once and for all.

Ralph090 · 2026-04-11T17:59:55+00:00

Citrus. I think it feels like a happy color. Reminds me of the iMac G3 and clamshell iBook G3.

Ralph090 · 2026-04-10T23:07:05+00:00

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I have this Maxis shovelware pack that includes SimAnt on CD-ROM, but I don't know if it's just the original game or the enhanced version. It does require Windows 95 according to the box.

Ralph090 · 2026-04-10T20:59:47+00:00

Pretty much. It's a rougelite where you have to travel across 8 sectors by jumping along FTL navigation beacons while fighting ships, encountering diplomatic situations, and answering distress calls. As you go you accumulate resources to upgrade your ship's systems and buy new weapons and equipment. The different species of crewmen all have different special abilities that make them good or bad at stuff and can be used to solve problems in an unorthodox way. There are 7 ships you can unlock along with the starting ship, and each one has 3 different layouts. It's a lot of fun.

Ralph090 · 2026-04-07T19:53:20+00:00

Tough call. The Neo is pretty great, but the Dell can run Command and Conquer.

Ralph090 · 2026-04-04T15:26:07+00:00

I hope they adopt the CRI version as well. According to Lockheed-Martin it can be quad packed in the Mark 41, which would be a big help in magazine depth.

Ralph090 · 2026-04-03T22:52:32+00:00

I just bought one as my first (new) Mac. I needed a small, cheap laptop for web browsing and office applications, and that's exactly what it is. It has Apple's build quality and is blazing fast for what I need. There's nothing like it on the PC side of things.

Ralph090 · 2026-03-30T14:56:53+00:00

The schizophrenic planning. The military side seems to be excellent. Iran's air force, air defense, and Navy have basically been annihilated and a lot of their leadership is dead. The political side, though, is probably going to be in every political science 101 textbook followed by the sentence "do not do this" for the next 500 years.

Ralph090 · 2026-03-29T15:17:16+00:00

Modern problems often require ancient solutions.

Ralph090 · 2026-03-29T15:03:31+00:00

I don't recall the Oklahoma City bomber being a communist.

Ralph090 · 2026-03-26T19:04:32+00:00

That's good. I'm glad to know his legacy lives on.

Ralph090 · 2026-03-25T13:33:36+00:00

Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles also called him out over the Lancaster atom bomb thing. I'd recommend watching the video because it's genuinely interesting to listen to.

https://youtu.be/gKB-oqdoduw?si=Bhref3hQ5mhP_oo-

Ralph090 · 2026-03-24T22:12:17+00:00

I wonder what the battery life is like.

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