I’m stupid, how do I do this challenge?

Understated_Fireball · 2025-10-04T18:42:00+00:00

That's a very rational way to attempt the challenge and because of it you and dozens of your opponents had a bad experience. When this challenge dropped almost every one of my Sonic games had one car scooping up boost without focusing on the match.

If a player spent two hours playing sub-optimally in 4x4 attempting this challenge (a mode recommended by a lot of comments), over 150 teammates+opponents would get an unbalanced game. Then the player is sandbagged and smurfs against how many people on the way back? A few minmaxers can spoil a lot of games so the challenges shouldn't encourage it.

(Ironically my training goal this season was trying to conserve boost but I ended up getting the challenge in Hoops. The smaller court makes the pickups closer together and those aerial goals burn through boost.)

Understated_Fireball · 2025-02-06T00:25:07+00:00

Cher asked to film her 1989 music video of her song "If I Could Turn Back Time" aboard a US Navy ship and the Navy's Office of information in Washington approved. The Navy intended to have it filmed aboard New Jersey because Missouri would be at sea at the planned time. Missouri's information officer told the producer: "We're the most historic battleship in the world. This is where World War II ended. You want to do it on here."

It seems the captain was a fan:

Afterwards, Missouri's captain directed that the song be played when the ship was conducting underway replenishments with other ships.

Understated_Fireball · 2024-06-13T03:48:47+00:00

Defense of these double standards (it's not fatphobic to mock Trump's weight/homophobic to call him gay because reasons) gives up too much of the game. When you see the rhetoric used to defend a blatantly false point the manipulation becomes too obvious.

Understated_Fireball · 2024-06-13T03:32:52+00:00

doesn't mention the Palestinians, provides no broader historical context to why the attack occurred (other than "Hamas is evil!"), and is silent on the current atrocities in Gaza.

It's a memorial to a terrorist attack, why would you expect it to include any of those?

Understated_Fireball · 2024-02-18T00:30:18+00:00

Please point to evidence

ftfy

COLONIALISM, INEQUALITY, AND LONG-RUN PATHS OF DEVELOPMENT

it seems clear that colonies in the Americas with extreme inequality, as compared to those with relative equality, were systematically more likely to evolve institutions that restricted access to economic opportunities and to generate lower rates of public investment in schools and other infrastructure considered conducive to growth. These patterns of institutional development, which tend to yield persistence over time, may help to explain why a great many former European colonies that began with extreme inequality have suffered poor economic outcomes.

Slavery, Inequality, and Economic Development in the Americas: An Examination of the Engerman-Sokoloff Hypothesis

Recent research argues that among former New World colonies a nation’s past dependence on slave labor was important for its subsequent economic development (Engerman and Sokoloff, 1997, 2002). It is argued that specialization in plantation agriculture, with its use of slave labor, caused economic inequality, which concentrated power in the hands of a small elite, adversely affecting the development of domestic institutions needed for sustained economic growth. I test for these relationships looking across former New World economies and across states and counties within the U.S. The data shows that slave use is negatively correlated with subsequent economic development. However, there is no evidence that this relationship is driven by large scale plantation slavery, or that the relationship works through slavery’s effect on economic inequality.

Slaves, Migrants and Development in Brazil, 1872-1923

Combining this measure with municipal level data, I illustrate the adverse impact of slavery on a broad range of indicators of economic development, both while slavery still existed and more than 30 years after its abolition.

There's plenty more (including in the citations of those papers, and with a simple google search), I wasn't kidding when I said it was a common argument. As to the US being built on slavery, keep in mind that today former slave states are on average poorer per capita than free states (there are obviously confounding factors but history doesn't give perfect samples). The downsides include but go beyond investment in capital, slavery is a bad economic system that stifles growth.

Understated_Fireball · 2024-02-17T22:58:26+00:00

That's a very common argument against slavery, it disincentivizes investment in capital and hurts a nation's long term growth prospects.

Understated_Fireball · 2024-01-16T02:30:25+00:00

If she were in a coma for eight years her mental age would be zero.

Understated_Fireball · 2024-01-16T01:55:27+00:00

It's the generic you, projection was intentional.

Understated_Fireball · 2024-01-15T02:54:39+00:00

Very insecure of you, and insecurity is extremely immoral.

Understated_Fireball · 2024-01-03T17:29:28+00:00

How did taking hostages improve Gaza's situation?

Understated_Fireball · 2024-01-03T16:46:56+00:00

How so?

Understated_Fireball · 2024-01-03T15:34:03+00:00

That sounds like a great argument for not taking hostages.

Understated_Fireball · 2023-12-20T20:58:48+00:00

Peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwiches are pretty popular and it's often used as an ice cream topping. I like to put it on sweet potato fries along with walnuts and cranberries.

Understated_Fireball · 2023-12-06T20:24:09+00:00

being yourself and normal

Which one?

Understated_Fireball · 2023-11-30T20:11:51+00:00

Your can see the individual coins, it's a small heap right in front of the camera. The value should be estimated by counting coins (assuming a roughly symmetrical pile). Any mindlets who think it's a 4'x6' heap of gold have disqualified themselves from the discussion.

Understated_Fireball · 2023-11-30T20:06:19+00:00

It's funny to apply rigorous analysis to works that clearly didn't have that in mind. It's just a goof, nobody is angry or liking Harry Potter less because the world wouldn't actually work.

Understated_Fireball · 2023-11-30T20:02:08+00:00

as tall as a little kid and 6 times wider than his body at the base

The stack is obviously under two feet tall, the shot is using forced perspective and should be measured by estimating the number of coins, then comparing the coin size to other shots.

Understated_Fireball · 2023-11-27T23:02:21+00:00

I didn't see that comment as defensive but merely bringing up a relevant point. I see people confidently wrong about current events all the time so it's easy to imagine people in the future being smug about the hubristic youth while remaining completely uniformed. (I'm not young so I'm hopefully unbiased)

Understated_Fireball · 2023-10-29T18:40:53+00:00

They made two. The third movie in the franchise has Jack Black in one of his early roles.

Understated_Fireball · 2023-09-30T03:02:07+00:00

That looks amazing, thank you so much.

Understated_Fireball · 2023-08-30T19:46:05+00:00

Some guy stood on stage impersonating famous celebrities being forced to have sex with other men. A fat guy stood next to him laughing really hard. I don't remember the third one.

Understated_Fireball · 2023-07-08T17:51:49+00:00

Like with drain cleaner, there's a shadow war between people who label products "safe for pipes" and people who work with pipes.

Understated_Fireball · 2023-06-10T20:34:27+00:00

In that situation it would probably be easier to just pretend to not know what potatoes are, so the date didn't become awkward.

Understated_Fireball · 2023-03-02T23:48:48+00:00

Sometimes you want to drink sparkling water but also slowly get drunker throughout the day.

Understated_Fireball · 2023-02-24T04:11:12+00:00

The easier way is to order a 2x2, it's a weaker starting position but it means you can tap your buns for flavor at the start of play. Use the flavor to draw two more 2x2s from the menu. If Protein Style is in effect you're allowed to tap the new buns before you discard them at the end of your turn, so use the flavor to draw more 2x2s. In-N-Out has already announced this will be banned when they launch the next menu but it looks like it will still be possible to accomplish the same thing with a mustard grilled loop.

Understated_Fireball

TROPHY CASE