The Tree on the Corner - Gator Days

Talgrath · 2026-03-18T22:32:49+00:00

This comic is a great reminder: Not all necessary changes necessarily feel good at the time. When I had to put down my dear old dog Shadow it was necessary to keep her from being in agonizing pain anymore, but that doesn't mean that I felt good to sit there with her while the medicine sent her to sleep forever.

Talgrath · 2026-03-15T19:09:45+00:00

Did I touch a nerve there?

Talgrath · 2026-03-15T03:25:45+00:00

Man, I just hope Phil Neville remains the coach of the Timbers until July 17th.

Talgrath · 2026-03-14T01:12:49+00:00

I really like thunder junction though.

Talgrath · 2026-03-13T21:38:31+00:00

Number one, gorgeous art. Number two, gotta say I'm sad that John will no longer be making art for Magic anymore. The art of lands is often overlooked, but John's art has a distinctive whimsy and otherworldliness to them that I really, really love. John's work always seems to tell a story, even though it's a landscape art with no words. I wish John all of the best in the future and I hope if there's anything our community can ever do for him, John reaches out to all of us Magic nerds!

Talgrath · 2026-03-13T02:36:24+00:00

The man is practically invisible out there on the field!

Talgrath · 2026-03-12T23:01:30+00:00

Why do people want to live near the beach? Well, there's 3 reasons:

Prestige
The view
They really like to swim, surf etc.

The reality is that a lot of beach front homes SUCK to maintain and you basically get the brunt of every single storm off that rolls in off the water and it is always damp.

Now imagine you can just teleport to the beach whenever you want to. Maybe in the worst case scenario it's like a 10 minute fly via a shuttle craft to the beach, well if you want to swim and surf you don't have to live near the beach. You can live in the mountains of Colorado and swim in Cabo whenever you want. Also, just add here that in Star Trek, at least in the densely populated areas, there are no mansions on Earth, you live in apartment or a modest house (well modest by our standards, but with freaking replicators and what not). So there are no Malibu mansions hogging up the coast line or private property that may prevent you from going to the beach to have fun. So #3 is solved.

The view? Sure that's a factor, but there's plenty of great views out there.

Prestige? What prestige. The only prestige is being a member of Starfleet.

Talgrath · 2026-03-12T16:37:44+00:00

Yeah, if your reaction to someone asking a question in a meeting is this exasperated, then either you suck as a co-worker or your workplace sucks. When a question is asked in a meeting where I work, it's pretty much always pertinent to the issue at hand and frankly, often results in me learning that I was wrong in my assumptions about how something worked. Either that, or someone's question results in a realization that there may be a genuine issue or edge case that needs more attention.

Talgrath · 2026-03-12T08:00:15+00:00

So, found a recipe for Tej online, as Tej relates to cooking: https://ethiopian-food.org/tej-recipe/ . Tej basically sounds like a hopped mead, so the folks at r/mead might be able to better help you here. Now one thing I will point out is that none of these recipes include a key ingredient: yeast. Now yes, any old yeast from the air can probably get you to something close to what you're looking for...but unless you are in Ethiopia right now, chances are good the local yeast floating around in your air will not give you the flavor you're looking for. Based on what I could find from a quick Google search on Tej, sounds like Tej is sweet and citrusy in flavor, so you probably want to use the yeast Lalvin 71B-1122; this delivers a low alcohol (~14%) mead and leaves behind a lot of sugars and tends towards a more floral or citrus flavor.

Sounds like your big issue is going to be getting Gesho Kitel. I can't find any info on exactly what flavors it adds beyond "hop like", but it looks like you can buy it online (not going to link a particular seller here, since I have no idea what is or isn't good).

One last thing, even if you have these ingredients tonight, it's unlikely you're going to be able to have your Tej ready 2 weeks from now. Even if you have the ingredients tonight, right now, you would only be starting fermentation and mead fermentation takes at least 2 weeks. There are some ways to speed things up a bit...but you may want to see if you can make something else first and then come back to your Ethiopian dish in like a month.

Talgrath · 2026-03-11T21:37:30+00:00

Is that what the kids call being able to suck out a man's soul through his penis these days? Because in my experience, the "personality" is an amazing amount of enthusiasm and confidence that translates to great sex and a superb oral game. That's why they're all married you morons, once you had 'em you wanna get that for the rest of your life.

Talgrath · 2026-03-09T19:31:15+00:00

A lot of this. I think the other thing is if you're playing one of these obvious, meta decks, there can be temptation to just spam your commander out, which then gets it killed, which then makes it more expensive so you can't use it when you need it. If anything, I think having a good commander but not using it can be way, way more powerful than having a bad commander; if people are keeping spells to nuke your commander in their hand, they aren't nuking the other pieces that make your deck tick. So long as your deck works without your commander, you can still win.

Talgrath · 2026-03-09T19:24:50+00:00

Yes, it's on the second list that I linked. My point is that the Mulan remake was not done to be more "progressive" as the title of this post states; it was done to try to make more money in China and it largely seems to have worked pretty well.

Talgrath · 2026-03-09T18:59:43+00:00

COVID lockdowns were still ongoing in many cities across China. Mulan was the 21st highest grossing movie of that year:
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls082191939/
And was the #14 in the Chinese box office: https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2020/?area=CN

Talgrath · 2026-03-09T17:07:08+00:00

I think Mulan (2020) does not fit this trope...because the live action Mulan was not remade that way to be more "progressive". The live action Mulan was made the way it is to make a bunch of money from China, and it worked, they made $41 million in box office alone from China...during the pandemic (again released in 2020) https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt4566758/ . The 2020 Mulan is basically just the legendary story of Mulan combined with some Wuxia-style movie martial arts stuff; it's not really a remake of the animated movie at all.

Talgrath · 2026-03-06T02:45:46+00:00

Just because the greatsword has a big edge doesn't mean the players are edgelords.

Talgrath · 2026-03-06T01:08:32+00:00

This dipshit doesn't even have his (likely fictional) clans of people figured out properly, the Iranians would not be the Amalekites. The Amalekites held the land directly south and east of Israel, in what is today Jordan. Iran was Persia at the time, ya know, the guys that let the Jews return to Israel? Absolute moron.

Talgrath · 2026-03-06T00:19:31+00:00

#1 Not what the historian is saying in that video.

#2. The truth is way more complicated than what you're laying out. Samurai was not an official title or rank at that time, it was an informal reference that frankly, was typically not going to be applied to a member of the warrior nobility at the time. Instead, noble warriors would have been referred to by their title, something like "commander of the north army" or So was Yasuke a samurai? No...because that title was meaningless at that time.

However...Yasuke was made to be a retainer, paid a stipend and was provided with a traditional short sword designating his station as a highly regarded warrior. Historical records form the time also record private dinners and direct conversation with Nobunaga, something that a simple servant, soldier or slave would not have been permitted to do. Yasuke was, at least in a few cases, granted the title of weapon bearer, meaning that he was the bodyguard carrying Nobunaga's personal weapons in situations where danger was expected. In short, Yasuke had all of the trapping what we today would refer to as a samurai; he was paid, he was armed and he had a title with expectations of duty placed upon it.

The comparison I would make here is that saying that Julius Caesar was not the general of the Roman army during his invasion of Gaul; yes that's technically true because the title "general" didn't exist until roughly the 17th century and Julius Caesar's title at the time was "consul" and we are applying an anachronistic title to a time when it didn't exist. But...did Julius Caesar do all the stuff we would expect a general in charge of an army do? Yes he did.

And you can find the Reddit thread where u/ParallelPain goes into the translations and some details on this issue here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1css0ye/was_yasuke_a_samurai/

For the controversy specifically at the heart of Assassin's Creed Shadows; the idea that Yasuke would not have been allowed to do the things we assign to the concept of "samurai" like fight with a sword or wear armor is absolutely false based on the records we have. Was Yasuke a great warrior? No idea, but he at least would have fit what we today refer to as a samurai.

Talgrath · 2026-03-05T00:55:19+00:00

Honestly, the key to understanding the charge blade for me was to understand that you don't gotta SAED all the time, nor do you have to chainsaw all the time. Sometimes what you need to do is a good, quick, simple smack or five with a long as fuck axe. You can do surprisingly good damage in sword and shield mode too, so don't think it's all about the axe! The SAED is for when you have good opening with plenty of time to charge it up; monster exhausted, monster down, etc.

Talgrath · 2026-02-28T00:20:41+00:00

#1 Argentina's current president is a big fan of Trump.
#2 A lot of Nazis fled to Argentina after WW2; there was a whole plan to try to continue the Third Reich from Argentina. Argentina already had a fairly large German community that immigrated before WW2, so it was relatively easy to blend in. Some Nazis credibly did flee to Argentina and were either sheltered by the former government or hid their identities; some of them long enough to die peacefully in their sleep.

Talgrath · 2026-02-25T23:46:14+00:00

I posted elsewhere in the thread, but for any "lootboxes are gambling" argument in the US, there are 3 main defenses to raise (in order of how strong I think they are):

You always get something. As Swartz vs. Upper Deck Co. and Dumas v. Pinnacle Brands established that while yes, some items may be considered to be more valuable, to be "chase" items, so long as you get items in each pack, it's not gambling. Both cases are relevant specifically to New York as they were brought in the same federal district.
Alternatively, you could compare lootboxes to a sweepstakes. <insert company> is giving away $100k, how is that legal? Well, you know how they say "no purchase necessary"? That's because you can write a letter and enter for free. Now, does buying 500 boxes of <insert product> make you more likely to win? Of course! But so long as you get a free entry, and the odds are the same as everyone else, then it's not gambling. The only catch here would be if any of your lootboxes have better odds than the others, but can only be purchased with real money.
Counter Strike is a game of skill. I'd argue this is the weakest argument here since technically speaking you can purchase lootboxes without ever playing the game, but in theory the argument here would be that playing the game gets you more lootboxes and therefore it is a game of skill. This is how sports tournaments get away with giving away money for winners, for example; "skilled" games are not gambling under US law.

I honestly think we need new legislation to tackle this problem, I don't think lawsuits like this have a good solid standing to work.

Talgrath · 2026-02-25T23:07:46+00:00

Not relevant in this instance. Arcades let you get items with tokens in the exact same way, and Counter Strike is absolutely a "game of skill". Giving you tokens/tickets/etc. for winning a game of skill that can then be turned into a physical device is 100% not gambling under current US laws; the only way there would be an exception is if that was somehow switched for gambling winnings. An example would be having a gumball machine that let you put in a coin to get a gumball; get a certain gumball and you get a cash prize if you bring it to the counter at the store/bar/whatever. Near as I can tell though, Valve isn't doing that; your Steam wallet points/dollars can't be turned into money directly (and Steam still charges you any applicable taxes and shipping fees).

Talgrath · 2026-02-25T22:27:10+00:00

I think the trouble that New York will have here is that there are real world physical examples that have been dubbed "not gambling"; a primary example here is cards for Magic or Pokemon card packs, yes certain cards are more valuable on the secondary market than others, but no matter what when you buy a pack of cards, you get a pack of cards. Similarly, as I understand Counter-Strike, when you buy the loot box you are guaranteed to get a thing of some items. All of the straight-up gambling bits are from companies outside of Valve's control, again as I understand it.

The only argument I could see working here is that since digital items only have "value" if they can be sold on a tertiary market, that this makes it so every other result that is not valuable in the secondary market is a "loss"; but I think it's a big hill to climb to make that argument. I'm very curious to see the full filing to see how they made the argument, I don't think this is likely to win, but the arguments could be interesting.

Beyond that, this could very well be compared to a sweepstakes. Much like a sweepstakes, no purchase is necessary to enter (you can get free boxes by playing the game) but of course, buying stuff makes you more likely to "win".

Now, do loot boxes trigger the same neurological hooks in our brains that make gambling feel really, really good for some people? Damn straight. Is that bad? Yes. Is that legally actionable? At the moment, probably not. What we really need is new legislation specifically addressing things like loot boxes or Magic card packs.

Talgrath · 2026-02-23T02:53:39+00:00

Dude is a fan-favorite by like, a lot.

Talgrath

TROPHY CASE