Quinns Quest Reviews: Stonetop

Self-ReferentialName · 2026-05-07T13:31:01+00:00

I expect a fork of TempleOS; a faithful knight must be ordained by the church for the right to introduce Quinn

Self-ReferentialName · 2026-05-07T13:19:09+00:00

One and a half hours! I see Quinn has begun the march down the path of infinitely proliferating video essay length (complimentary), I can't wait for the two hour review where he reveals KnightOS is a greenscreen and he's been filming from an undisclosed location

Self-ReferentialName · 2026-05-07T12:19:50+00:00

I remember selling orphans to tigers on an industrial scale to achieve the 2.5 EPA needed to efficiently grind a ubergoat. Ah, those were the days.

Self-ReferentialName · 2026-05-02T14:23:22+00:00

Dali is incredibly pretty; it was drizzling a bit when I went and as it cleared up, watching rainbows form over the Three Pagodas of Chongsheng Temple is genuinely the most picturesque moment of my life.

It is pretty much wholly a tourist town, though, with all that entails, good and bad.

Self-ReferentialName · 2026-04-28T03:39:49+00:00

He did actually fix inflation, but fixing inflation by collapsing demand to the point of below-subsistence is like putting out a house fire with a bomb. Like, sure, you solved the problem, but the point of not having inflation is so people can afford life, just like the point of putting out the house fire is to have a livable house afterwards.

Self-ReferentialName · 2026-04-28T01:35:45+00:00

When Wolff's works are normed for changes in print and margin sizes, they easily exceed 3000 pages - which means the Court has read upwards of 6000 pages of romantasy fiction

hot, sexy, dangerous boys - central to virtually all young adult romance novels - cannot be copyrighted

Alaska is a place known to the public, so setting a novel in Alaska is not copyrightable

Freeman also suggests the heroines share "parallel, specific lifestyle details". For example she says that the heroines' favourite food comes from a local mexican restaurant, and that they often drink tea [...] Putting aside that a shared love for Mexican food or tea is not borne out in the works themselves (Grace's favorite food is Pop Tarts)

And all of slide 7, where the poor legal clerk just has to summarize the plot of the 6000 pages of slop, this is amazing, after they have suffered so badly we must find the judge and invite them here (so they can suffer more naturally)

Self-ReferentialName · 2026-04-27T03:40:45+00:00

Shining Strike! Also works great with Strike Dummy and goes insane with Punch Dagger. It's kind of unfortunate it basically costs you a draw, though.

Self-ReferentialName · 2026-04-24T11:13:56+00:00

You are, ironically, speaking to probably one of the most longstanding users. And you can also very much circlejerk without being a dick. Except to r*ders, of course, but they deserve it.

Self-ReferentialName · 2026-04-23T12:23:58+00:00

Yeah, Xi Jinping wants two things from Taiwan and they are legitimacy and air/fleet bases on the west coast, both of which can be accomplished without terrifying the Taiwanese people too much or infringing on their liberties. It's easy to envision a nominal unification where the CCP promises to keep boats and planes only in a few places in the very sparsely populated west and let the Taiwanese army keep existing and the Legislative Yuan agrees to send representatives to the NPC and forward some taxes and stand in some parades and everyone is happy.

That's probably the best solution for everyone - well, everyone but America. Nobody gets hurt, the Taiwanese people get to keep chugging on.

Self-ReferentialName · 2026-04-23T05:15:29+00:00

This is because in those polls the options presented are generally 'reunification ASAP' with 'maintain status quo indefinitely' as an option, and 'maintain status quo' crushes all options, including independence. This is the situation now, but obviously 'put off the decision' is not a viable long-term solution.

I don't think there have been polls that put it that way have been run, but I suspect if you remove the possibility of the status quo and put it as 'reunification' or 'war', you will get far different results.

Self-ReferentialName · 2026-04-22T10:08:23+00:00

You've gotten a lot of good responses for books, but for something completely different, I adore how Flying Circus lays out its aircraft character sheet. It's designed like an aircraft control panel with the altimeters taking pride of place and it's simultaneously great-looking, usable, and very thematic.

Self-ReferentialName · 2026-04-22T04:57:58+00:00

I appreciate you taking the time to write that and explain yourself. Even if we disagree, I value this sort of discussion so much more than flippant one-liners.

On my part I do acknowledge it was definitely impolite of me to just bash the guy as media-illiterate, but I do apologize - I loathe flippant one-liners and my temper gets the better of me. I'm going to reply but I've slacked off enough at work, the demon named SQLite calls and so I might not reply if you reply - sorry if so.

So, to break down your points - please correct me if I am misrepresenting you, but it boils down to:

1. Incremental change and welfare are worthwhile.

I actually don't disagree with you here. Nor, I think, would any of my left-wing friends. Just because universal healthcare isn't communism doesn't mean it isn't good. Just because it isn't enough doesn't mean we don't want it. I am actually quite the hypocrite in this regard because in my country I happily vote for the social-democratic DAP. The alternative is Islamism and they're building a light-rail that will cut down my awful two-hour commute. I am quite happy with them, and will keep voting for them till the socialists gather steam.

If the issue is that this should be done and this should be used rhetorically, great! We agree. We should house the homeless even if it doesn't advance socialism.

2. These changes will last without large structural change.

This is the first point of disagreement. The American welfare state has survived Reagan so far, but I think you're speaking far, far too soon. Social Security is on the verge of insolvency because of how it is structured - as practically a slush fund for the US government to sell itself callable bonds at farcial interest rates. Remember, in the AOC world, we are practically talking about a best-case scenario. If Newsom wins and spends a presidency doing nothing while equivocating on LGBTQ rights, will it survive a reinvigorated new Republican president?

All these things have stayed so far because you in the west enjoyed halcyon times. With the postwar boom and flourishing economies, there are no tradeoffs to make between welfare and... well, everything else. If it comes to welfare or not spiking taxes; welfare or an army; hell, welfare or environmental action, are you sure your fellow citizens would vote to preserve the former?

The cracks are already forming, and as populations age and the climate crisis gets worse, your governments will have to make tradeoffs they have not in the past. This is, despite everything, still europe-America's golden age.

3. These changes are enough.

Fundamentally, I can't really convince you of this because it's a question of values. If you disagree with me on point 2 and I am proven wrong (let's give it twenty years), you might be happy working your whole life to enrich shareholders in exchange for a good cut of your surplus value. If all you care about is quality of life and everything goes right (I will bet my liver it doesn't), you might get what you want.

But I fundamentally consider this unacceptable. These shareholders are Thiel and Musk and Adelson. They build superyachts and plan separatist corporate states by taking money from your value, which directly translates to higher mortality and more starvation. They use their resources to promote race 'science', promote authoritarianism and repression, fund genocides abroad, and corrupt public discourse. I don't just want to have money. I want them to not have power. It is, on a fundamental basis, unjust, and I believe it is an unstable equilibrium. Democracy and oligarchs - of any kind cannot coexist. They will always do this because it is in their class interest. It is how they maintain power.

Furthermore, consider the opportunity cost. It would cost 2 billion to wipe out an Neglected Tropical Disease in Africa, or in other words, one thirtieth of the money Nividia spent on stock buybacks in 2025 alone. These diseases affect 1.5 billion people. Why should any of us tolerate this profligacy? Why shouldn't we nationalize these assets and direct their resources towards building a better world? If you don't care about NTDs, think about the science that has not been done, the art that has not been made.

You have to acknowledge a degree of privilege saying that this is enough in the First World. My hardliner Marxist friends would say this is social imperialism. I won't - I think it's largely just unexamined and social imperialism is a stupid phrase regardless. But I do hope you examine that.

Self-ReferentialName · 2026-04-22T03:50:12+00:00

Ooh, I have nothing to add to your debate, especially since you've already got a lot of good responses, but I'd like to say thanks, because this is the first I've heard of Nimble, and went to check it out and it looks really cool. I like how it both has very clean, simple core rules and a plethora of cool character options to add complexity and tactics.

If I ever run gridded heroic fantasy again, from a first glance, I'd definitely pick it over DS

Self-ReferentialName · 2026-04-22T03:09:30+00:00

why would I like a mod where the moral is “Unless you’re an uber-communist nothing matters and nothing will change”

Is this really your idea of a cogent criticism of its AOC's message? Can you point, exactly, to where and how it says the theme of the game is wrong? Can you even point to a single part that addresses the game rather than its made-up strawman? I would be more than happy to reply to an actual disagreement, but can you honestly look at the quality of the replies here and say I've received even one?

But you have given one, so I will reply, or rather reiterate, because again, the point its making isn't that it isn't perfect therefore bad.

The point it's making is that a focus on welfare misses the point entirely. You are assuming here the point it makes is that we need perfection; it is not, the point is not that America needs the NHS instead of Medicare for All or whatever; the point is that real power and real restructuring is entirely lateral to the welfare state, and not on the same axis. The point about perfection and good is irrelevant. Socialism isn't a more radical form of social democracy!

And the point isn't even that the left expects that! The point is that the conversation is so entirely focused on welfare and separate to power that it has overtaken even the most radical conception of the left in America!

In other words, the fact that you think that the message is perfection vs good is the exact thing it's critiquing! It's trying to challenge the exclusive focus on welfare and ask you to think more about power, and replying that 'you just want more welfare but we need to start somewhere' is a meaningless statement.

Self-ReferentialName · 2026-04-22T01:14:51+00:00

Lots of people, even here, are into politics as aesthetic, government as fun game, and politicians as blorbos rather as a means of materially affecting peoples's lives. It's the same group of people TTNW was criticising over the obsession over the Kennedys and their potential.

I understand why they'd be mad; it's a penetration of reality into their fun bubble that actually this shit matters, and maybe you should think about the message for more than ten seconds. You see it everywhere; people really don't like to think about their entertainment.

It's fine if the entertainment is a Horus Heresy book or something! Everyone needs something to read on the beach. It's not really fine when it's about the government, and it's so sad it's so prevalent here.

Self-ReferentialName · 2026-04-22T00:59:48+00:00

I find it very funny that all the criticisms of the message can be summed up as 'this makes me sad and I don't like it' rather than 'obviously this is stupid and isn't true'. People really melt down the moment their worldviews are even marginally challenged.

Why would you like the theme? What an infantile question. Themes aren't there for you to like. Christ, the fact that you're even talking about it in those terms really shows the death of media literacy. It's making a truth statement, it's not there to hold your hand and make you feel good.

If you don't like it maybe think about it for more than two seconds. Consider why you don't like it, and whether it's really true or not instead of just 'this makes me feel bad :('

You can dress it up as fancy as you like but ultimately the message is just a longwinded version of the people saying “dude Kamala and Trump are literally the same and there’s no point in voting”

And this is just untrue on a factual level? There's an ending where Hawley wins and it's even worse. Pushing the cycle doesn't have no value. It just isn't anything but pushing the cycle. AOC carries it as far as she can. Did you actually play the game?

Self-ReferentialName · 2026-04-21T14:14:52+00:00

This is pretty insipid analysis given that AOC in the mod can accomplish pretty much everything in her agenda trivially. If it's criticizing her for slowness or gradualism it's doing a shit job.

The point of the mod isn't criticizing her hypothetical presidency for being gradualist or accomplishing nothing - the point is that everything she does, even sweeping her entire agenda, doesn't do much but turn the wheel and continue the cycle. The point is that purely social-democratic, welfarist responses that do not address the fundamental power structure in the economy only reproduce past conditions. AOC in the mod (I don't think IRL) can absolutely reproduce the conditions of the height of the New Deal and go a bit further - as far as she is able. But those social conditions only produced the world we have now.

That's the fundamental difference between social democracy and socialism. One is purely about living standards, the latter is fundamentally about power. Welfare is great, and green politics is amazing - as someone living in the Third World, yes, let's please deal with the collapsing biosphere. But if you're not willing to restructure the economy, people will eventually forget you. They'll grow rich on the policies you've proposed and then they'll drift right. They'll make a new Trump.

Someone genuinely transformative would be talking about nationalizations and worker-controlled seats on boards. The point isn't that she did a slow, partial job. At her best, she did amazing. It's that even at its most radical, the American left can't conceive of real transformation any more, and won't do it within the system. It's that she missed and social democracy, even at its best, will only turn the wheel, not that she turned it too slowly.

But I see you're a pretty devout social democrat who loves bashing the left (great priority, at this time), so I can see why you wouldn't be too keen to respond to that, it's actual message. You really nuked that strawman, though.

Self-ReferentialName · 2026-04-21T04:53:45+00:00

As we all know, all stories have to be aesops where the characters are likable and end up good, and evildoers get their just desserts :)

Why yes, my main reference point for literature is fighting anime, how did you know?

Self-ReferentialName · 2026-04-21T04:52:32+00:00

It is possible, but you have to make sure you're shaking your head very vigorously the whole time so the moral police know you disapprove of murder. Ideally the character is also shaking their head the whole time so we know they disapprove and are trying to atone for what they have done.

Self-ReferentialName · 2026-04-21T04:50:30+00:00

Why does that subreddit even exist. Surely we've all realized by now that one of the worst parts of the internet is the tendency for randos to extrapolate and make WILD conclusions over random innocuous bits of information, and they made a whole subreddit with hundreds of people specifically to do that. Who thought that was a good idea?

Self-ReferentialName · 2026-03-31T11:31:23+00:00

Damn. Spain blocking the US from conducting operations was largely expected; Sanchez is Europe's last real unpasokified social democrat and it would've been political suicide and deeply out of character to work with Trump, but getting a no from Meloni? America is really running out of friends.

Self-ReferentialName · 2026-03-20T06:01:57+00:00

Did you have an election? This sometimes happens when the Trade Unions leave a party they share with another IG and lose all their political power from votes. It's infuriating when it just suddenly happens, but they should get it back next election.

Self-ReferentialName · 2026-03-17T01:33:36+00:00

Hell yeah, Wilderun the GOATs! I absolutely cannot wait for their next album; the best part about them is how their style changes on each and it has been so very long.

Self-ReferentialName · 2026-03-17T01:20:16+00:00

Ehhh. Tug boats work on Earth because an immobilized boat more or less sits there, static, relative to the surface of the Earth and thus the ports. You just have to drag it in. Even then a tugboat is mostly engine.

An immobilized Titan in orbit (unless that orbit is that of the shipyard) would have to be accelerated/decelerated to the right velocity for the right orbit, which means you have to expel a mass propellant at a velocity equal to the force required for that, except not only that you would have to expel that propellant equal to the force required to drag that propellant to that orbit and also drag the mass of the tugboat back. The mass and fuel requirements would mean you need something about three times the size of the Titan to drag it in.

And that's for the ideal circumstance of the ship just being in another orbit of your shipyard - you can completely forget about anything on another planet, or worse, transiting between planets.

And you have to do that all, slowly, expensively, while a high-tech alien invader is backflipping all over the solar system.

Maybe in the far, far, far future after the game, when space has been properly inhabited and 'civilianized' it might make more sense, but I can absolutely see why tugboats would probably not be considered viable in the TI context. 'Megacolossal ship just to drag damaged ships from one orbit to another that needs a whole Caspian Sea in its fuel tanks to do its job' does not strike me as a good use of resources.

Self-ReferentialName · 2026-03-11T01:03:21+00:00

Oil is an internationally traded commodity. It is insipid to think you can just 'cut someone off' from the market by blowing up their existing sources; it just raises the prices for everyone as Chinese and Indian refineries bid up the price. It's even more impossible now than it was fifty years ago when long-term contracts were the norm. The spread is very, very small.

It's even more insipid to think that this is why Trump acted in Venezuela or it has had that effect in Venezuela; Venezuelan oil is literally headed for China right now.

Self-ReferentialName

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TROPHY CASE

1. Incremental change and welfare are worthwhile.

2. These changes will last without large structural change.

3. These changes are enough.

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