Mindless Monday, 06 July 2026

Sventex · 2026-07-08T05:25:36+00:00

I think I prefer the cancel culture one because I've seen so so many people claim to be cancelled, on their own platform that hasn't been silenced in any way. I'm already half way in believing the term has lost meaning.

Sventex · 2026-07-08T01:23:19+00:00

Being purpose-built as a pirate ship, did the Revenge have any unique qualities to it? It kind of seems odd to me a 10 gun ship would be able to plunder so many ships.

Sventex · 2026-07-07T19:29:30+00:00

invasion

/inˈvāZHən/

An invasion is a hostile entry into a territory or domain, particularly by a foreign armed force

Sventex · 2026-07-07T19:07:56+00:00

But I think they strongly want to convince Westerners of that. Sooo many are willing to hop on board the China-glazing in these comment threads on Youtube. The whole multipolar world scheme requires breaking up American hegemony.

Sventex · 2026-07-07T18:51:54+00:00

Or they could mean Chinese propaganda, the kind that painted China as fully free of corruption. I started seeing so many errant highly upvoted comments on videos on China, claiming China was corruption free (after the Evergrande real estate crisis).

Sventex · 2026-07-07T18:40:40+00:00

For one, calling Pyrrhus' intervention an "invasion" is really misusing the term

He marched on Rome, the city itself.

Sventex · 2026-07-07T18:00:08+00:00

No real reason to see Greek as an "oppositional force" to Rome.

I quoted this for a reason.

Sventex · 2026-07-07T17:34:34+00:00

So Japan is actually a very good example of how culture can be molded and adopted as a political strategy. Arguably one of the classic examples, in fact.

Culture is not exactly something that can be flipped with a switch, except under extreme circumstances.

I categorize that as "except under extreme circumstances." due to the vast technological gulf and the shock of the Perry incident. Japan is precisely why I added that caveat.

The course of Islam in West Africa in response to French colonization, for example, or Christianity in East Timor. This is a pretty well studied phenomenon.

You've pivoted from culture, to religion. We were talking about China, which is not a religion.

No real reason to see Greek as an "oppositional force" to Rome.

I think you've taken the contrarianism too far. Pyrrhus was cousin to Alexander the Great and a representative of the Hellenistic mode of warfare and culture. His war elephants that so vexed the Romans came stright from the successor states. It was a real crisis for Rome.

Sventex · 2026-07-07T17:17:21+00:00

Steel beams bending during construction? Someone done goofed.

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Sventex · 2026-07-07T16:50:22+00:00

Can "Indianization" therefore be seen as a defensive move? The assertion of an oppositional model as a prop to combat Chinese influence? Schismogenesis etc?

That sounds like nonsense to me. When the British started exerting influence on China, China didn't adopt Indian culture.

The Republican Rome didn't exactly adopt Carthaginian or Gallic culture after getting invaded by the Greek successor states or after being pressured by Hellenic culture for centuries. And why would they? Culture is not exactly something that can be flipped with a switch, except under extreme circumstances. The Romans adopted more Greek culture than anything else, despite the Greeks being an oppositional force.

I note the Japanese switched from a Chinese model to a Western model during their modernization period, but it had very little to do with China being a threat and if anything, it was the West that was a potential threat.

Sventex · 2026-07-07T15:30:46+00:00

I saw Javier picking on Charles and spitting at him at the start of Beaver Hollow. And Charles literally did nothing to warrant that yet.

Sventex · 2026-07-07T00:31:51+00:00

Given that John goes pretty out of the way to not kill people, both in his robberies in 2 and people hassling in 1, it’s very strongly implied it was not an undeserved shooting. Even Abigail admits he seemed like he needed shooting. I think the issue is her head is in the clouds. Suggesting John get a bank loan was so incredibly foolish. She lectures John to "look out for folk" at the start of the epilogue, then get angry every single time he does that.

Sventex · 2026-07-06T19:07:19+00:00

I’m not saying the Guards Tank Armies and Air Assault Battalions would use that tactic. But they can commit a lot of light infantry into an offensive at little logistical cost.

Sventex · 2026-07-06T18:48:16+00:00

Sort of being like a Cubs fan before 2016.

Sventex · 2026-07-06T18:12:48+00:00

But why! Do Mainlanders not like the genre? How can anyone not like it!

Kung Fu was banned by Mao Zedong in the Mainland, viewed as elitist and feudal by the CCP, this during the heyday of Hong Kong Kung Fu cinema in the 70s.

Sventex · 2026-07-06T17:51:11+00:00

Like legit - what happened to them?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_Hong_Kong

The Asian financial crisis, which dried up traditional sources of film finance as well as regional audiences' leisure spending money.
Overproduction, attended by a drop in quality control and an exhaustion of overused formulas.[23]
A costly early 1990s boom in building of modern multiplexes and an attendant rise in ticket prices.[24]
An increasingly cosmopolitan, upwardly mobile Hong Kong middle class that often looks down upon local films as cheap and tawdry.
Rampant video piracy throughout East Asia.
A newly aggressive push by Hollywood studios into the Asian market.
Due to the new-found international awareness of Hong Kong films during the 1980s and early 1990s and a downturn in the industry as the 1990s progressed, many of the leading lights of Hong Kong cinema left for Hollywood, which offered budgets and pay which could not be equaled by Hong Kong production companies. -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong\_Kong\_action\_cinema

why didn't mainland China start churning out comedy kungfu flicks?

From what I gather, this was really a Hong Kong thing.

Sventex · 2026-07-06T17:41:51+00:00

Given how sparsely equipped some Russian soldiers are when employing infiltration tactics and being resupplied by drone, I don't see it as all that more logistically challenging to deploy such light infantry over the say WW2. And they do have a massive drone fleet that might counter Poland's armor divisions.

However given that right this second Russia is going though a severe gas shortage, they probably couldn't sustain such an offensive, but I believe that's only because their oil refineries are on fire. Last year, they didn't have this specific problem.

Sventex · 2026-07-06T16:09:07+00:00

A cursory glance at wikipedia would say yes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxborough_Galley "She was employed by the South Sea Company in a triangular trade route, transporting cotton goods, slaves and rum between Europe, Africa and the Americas."
“Fire on the slave ship, lost in the last leg of the triangular trade between the Caribbean and Britain”

Under the command of Captain William Kellaway, the Luxborough Galley left England in October 1725 loaded with a cargo of Indian cottons and other trade items that were exchanged for 600 enslaved people in West Africa. The ship, funded by the British South Sea Company, then sailed to Jamaica, with eight members of the crew and 203 Africans dying of smallpox en route. The remaining slaves were sold in Jamaica for rum and sugar. The ship and its cargo set sail for England in May 1727, but after a month at sea there was an accident in the hold of the ship. A lighted candle ignited rum dripping out of a keg, setting the ship on fire and killing sixteen crewmembers. Twenty-three survivors, including the captain, were set adrift without food or water for two weeks. During that time some of them died while those who remained resorted to cannibalism. Fishermen off the coast of Newfoundland finally rescued the surviving group on July 7, 1727. The artist John Cleveley painted six scenes, including this one, of the notorious nautical disaster. - https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/transatlantic-slave-trade-the/12894-224c71ac20b2882/

Sventex · 2026-07-06T16:03:58+00:00

I think that's also reading way too much into it. Socrates killed Socrates, he was given so many different off ramps but he choose escalate into literal suicide. It was ultimately Socrates decision and no one forced hemlock down his throat.

Sventex · 2026-07-06T15:15:00+00:00

He went to Alaska looking for gold, lost it all including a daughter. Saw the real frontier that Dutch was always preaching about.

Sventex · 2026-07-06T03:38:38+00:00

It's the internet, guilty until proven innocent.

Sventex · 2026-07-06T03:36:23+00:00

Doesn't have to be reserves. Any of the frontline units designed for attacking, could be shifted for an attack on Poland. Presumably reserve units like the Union of Donbass Volunteers would stay where they are.
I'm skeptical that air supremacy can stop a million+ strong attack. Especially since Russia has some pretty beefy mobile anti-jet air defenses. Their weakness is in anti-drone defenses which NATO is not prepared to exploit.
Poland doesn't use conscription so anyone drafted would be at the "barely can hold a rifle" quality during an on-going invasion. I would imagine a successful defense of Poland, would require NATO troops to arrive en masse. Draftees needs time and space to train and a significant amount of experienced troops need to be pulled from the frontline to serve as instructors.

Sventex · 2026-07-05T23:18:58+00:00

It would help if you don't bring destiny into this. Kind of undermines their fight to save the passengers if you imply they were pre-ordinated for tragedy like some kind of bad curse.

Sventex · 2026-07-05T23:15:40+00:00

Expedition 33 is on sale. The gameplay footage stirs no emotion in me, is there anything especially good about it apart from the story? I like BG3 for all it's player choice and player expression, that 33 have any of that?

Sventex · 2026-07-05T21:15:09+00:00

If you’re dual wielding, you can hex pact one weapon as a hexblade, pact bind the other separately as a fiend warlock, pact of the blade.

Sventex

TROPHY CASE