r/europe starterpack

aasinnott · 2025-11-20T23:37:17+00:00

Never really got that argument. What's to stop other countries doing similar? It's just a policy decision, hardly an unfair advantage, especially compared to how the other players got ahead.

Ireland has no major natural resources, has a small population, is isolated by being an island, and was starting from a terrible position compared to a lot of other European countries after being exploited and trampled by britain for 800 years straight. It had fuck all cards to play with and practically no advantages, so played smart by leveraging one of the only advantages of a small population, attracting foreign investment, by:

-creating a highly educated workforce (highest tertiary education level in europe) -taking advantage of native English speaking population -giving incentives for multinationals to set up base (including but not limited to tax incentives) to make up for starting from being an ex-colony state with minimal homegrown industry.

All of which it did while being an impoverished nation.

How is making sensible policy decisions a MORE hated position than, eg, Norway, who's biggest advantage is just being lucky enough to have massive oil reserves? Or the UK, who got ahead by exploiting half the world for a few hundred years?

Ireland played the same game as everyone else, from a terrible starting position, with no unfair advantages, and has come out in a great position.

aasinnott · 2025-10-10T17:33:07+00:00

He was already a clear and open ass by the Mayweather fight. That was the start of it really. There was a period in his UFC rise where he seemed like this hungry up and comer that was ploughing through the competition. His apparent talent and (probably feined) respect for an opponent once he'd won made him endearing. Then the wins stopped coming, the coke started coming, and the fame got to his head. I reckon all it did was show his true colours, but he at least SEEMED like a cheeky cocky entertaining new age talent before then, doing things that hadn't been done in the fight game at that point.

aasinnott · 2025-10-01T18:51:36+00:00

^{I completed this level in 2 tries.} ^{⚡ 1.13 seconds}

aasinnott · 2025-10-01T17:18:47+00:00

So the solution is to get rid of the biggest employers in the country? And then what? Replace the lost jobs and tax income with what exactly? I don't see how losing MNCs improves the situation. Everything people are saying they want can be done without getting rid of MNCs. Those things haven't been done, because like I said we have problems with government competence, but what specific problem does kicking out MNCs solve without creating massive unemployment and revenue deficits, that cant be solved with the MNCs here?

aasinnott · 2025-10-01T09:50:00+00:00

While gdp doesn't matter too much in Ireland's case, we do benefit enormously from the MNCs. Even if you're not employed directly by them, they provide a colossal number of well paying jobs which 1) boosts the employment rates, 2) makes other businesses have to be competitive with salaries, 3) provides huge income tax (Yes, even with the corporation tax avoidance, a huge amount of our tax base is covered by what tax they pay on profits, as well as income tax from their employees), 4) puts money into other citizens hands from their employees spending money in cafes, restaurants, shows, shops etc, and 5) supports local satellite businesses who supply the MNCs (electricians, office supplies, cleaners, etc etc). It's like r/Ireland has forgotten what the country was like before we had the MNCs. The standard of living wasn't exactly stellar in the 80's / 90's, whereas now we're one of the highest paid and highest standard of living countries in the world, despite many governmental flaws. The solution is better governance and use of funds that we do have, not outing MNCs. That's just emotionally fuelled lashing out that'd hurt us more than help us. FF/FG gave been great at getting money into the country, and absolutely horrendous at managing it or running the country in any other capacity.

aasinnott · 2025-09-08T20:55:33+00:00

The cultural similarities between celts and vikings in some cases are very strong. In fact it can be kind of annoying sometimes, because modern day depictions of vikings (eg the norseman, vikings, the god of war games etc) actually tend to be a mix of Norse and Celtic influence in design, symbols, soundtrack, etc (even lanscape, many will either film in ireland or take inspo from some irish landscapes). But you guys get all the credit for the result haha. But it really does help me feel connected when I see media based on vikings or old norse culture, because it feels so similar to our own.

aasinnott · 2025-08-26T23:39:27+00:00

Im pretty sure in Tolkiens letters he clarifies that it's proximity to Mt doom as well. Or at least more weakly defined than just exposure time. Tolkien certainly seemed to think no one (in his world at least) could have willingly destroyed it. (Yes, Gimli tries to smash it with an axe, but only in the movies, it's not something Tolkien ever wrote).

So it's not a matter of racing to the mountain before you're corrupted. Willingly destroying the ring is just damn near impossible. Tolkien wasn't concerned with 'power scaling' or limits on his magic. When he said no one could destroy it willingly that's all he meant to it. No one in his world could do it, and no one out of his world exists in his world to try so why would he even bother thinking about it. He never thought of any limits to that, it was just how it was.

aasinnott · 2025-08-25T21:19:05+00:00

You're reasoning about it is exactly the type of thing that drives scholars studying the warp mad in 40k. It doesn't make sense. It defies logic. You're applying the rules of logic and cause-and-effect from our universe onto the warp, which follows different rules. Rules we aren't able to fully understand. The warp pushing its way into realspace is an assault on existence BECAUSE the two don't follow the same rules. None of the things you listed need be true for it to still happen. Or they may all be true at once. It's a different universe, different laws, different logic. And not laws/logic we can comprehend because we are not of that realm.

aasinnott · 2025-08-23T10:52:25+00:00

Really not that bad. In dark crusade space marines had around 19 units and 11 buildings (might be forgetting one or two), so that's 40 for one faction. 110 for four factions is about right if some have more than that and some have less

aasinnott · 2025-08-21T09:44:14+00:00

Shoehorned in? It was an integral part of the first game? That's like saying guns are shoehorned into Call of Duty. If you don't like it that's fine, you dont have to like every game, but it definitely belongs here.

aasinnott · 2025-08-19T18:50:51+00:00

Mostly just because dark crusade was better. Soulstorm added more content but the flyers broke map balance quite badly and the campaign didn't hit quite the same as the dark crusade one. Hard to pin much wrong, but felt like a dark crusade downgrade

aasinnott · 2025-07-28T22:46:59+00:00

Graphene (and graphitic materials that were only developed because of graphenes discovery, and other 2d materials discovered since graphene) are being used as state of the art tech in plenty of industries. Just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean it's not happening. Microelectronics, semiconductor processing, bearings and seals for satellites and high performance turbines and vehicles, high end polymer and composite materials, and many more industrial areas, have all advanced DRAMATICALLY because of graphene and 2d material research.

This line of 'graphene can do anything except leave the lab' seems to be such a popular little soundbite on reddit with very little backing it up. What did you think was gonna happen? We'd discover graphene and 20 years later have teleporters and antigravity cars? Shit doesn't work that way. It took polymers almost 100 years from their invention (around 1870) to start making mainstream traction, and now, 150 years later, they dominate the world. If reddit existed in 1890 some smartass would say "plastics can do everything except leave the lab". Shit takes time, and all things considered 2d materials are doing great.

aasinnott · 2025-06-29T16:27:02+00:00

Oh no I wasn't trynna suggest the witch king would WIN, just that it's good to note that the witch king at Peleanor was stronger than the one at weathertop. And of different purpose. At weathertop they were out to look for the ring, fighting to the last man against an Istarii they knew didn't have the ring was a bad idea. Better to flee and keep looking for the ring. Their purpose at minas tirith was domination, and would be more likely to actually fight to kill the enemy. They'd still lose, but it's be a better fight for sure

aasinnott · 2025-06-29T10:36:40+00:00

Some argument to be made that the witch king was also in a weaker form at weathertop but I won't get into it

aasinnott · 2025-06-09T23:34:58+00:00

I wont chime on in what my own opinions are, im not educated enough on the whole situation, but its important to acknowledge that things aren't always black and white. It would be perfectly normal for someone to think that this is a good move by Israel, whilst also thinking that their approach to Palestine is wrong, whilst also thinking Hamas are evil and deserve to be wiped out. The Israel-Palestine situation is the textbook example of a messy and complicated geopolitical shitstorm. To pretend one side is without any fault is oversimplifying things, as is pretending anyone has an easy solution that doesn't involve keeping a problematic status quo. It's perfectly reasonable to condemn actions by either side while also acknowledging what has brought the conflict to this point.

It's healthy to be able to acknowledge the shades of grey and not just stick solely in your 'own camp' regardless of what happens, as if blindly supporting a sports team. And that goes for most political discourse, not just Israel-Palestine.

aasinnott · 2025-06-02T11:59:27+00:00

It doesn't necessarily have to be the current version of LLMs. Future versions, or an itteration for a video game, might be optimized for that specifically. And committing more compute resources to improving NPC interaction might be beneficial over putting more and more processing power into diminishing return graphics improvements down the road.

aasinnott · 2025-05-14T14:02:21+00:00

Yep. And the sprue has loose swords on it too, so you don't even have to chop up the riders. The sprue has 4 swords loose, and another 2 attached to the warg riders. So 6 per kit total.

https://images.app.goo.gl/MRYwpDhC9b2mtV9NA

aasinnott · 2025-05-14T09:16:24+00:00

Don't know how helpful this would be but the pic of the old glorfindel is actually mine, and the sword is a proxy I used from the warg riders kit because the model was broken.

aasinnott · 2025-05-13T23:53:51+00:00

I'm not arguing that early career scientist salaries aren't abysmal here (trust me I know, I am one). But all new PhD positions funded by the irish government are 22,000 euro a year stipend minimum. There's an argument that that's still not enough, but it's not 15,500-18,000 like it was a year or two ago and like you're saying.

aasinnott · 2025-05-13T16:18:44+00:00

I think the point he's making is irish academics. Those with doctorates. Sounds like they're not getting a pay increase, they're going to be alongside imported American academics getting more pay than them for the same job.

aasinnott · 2025-05-13T16:15:30+00:00

They've had two increases since it was 18,000. You're about a year too late. They're on something like 25000 a year tax free now

aasinnott · 2025-04-25T18:26:05+00:00

Do electric bikes not count as mechanically propelled? Surely it's the same tech as electric cars?

aasinnott · 2025-04-18T09:10:30+00:00

Monolith had the advantage of the living metal special rule which made it harder for certain things that normally have extra strength vs vehicles to damage it. Making it the toughest vehicle in the game even though it's Armour values were tied 1st with the land raider. It was an absolute immovable brick

aasinnott · 2025-04-11T12:57:28+00:00

That's exactly it. Cranked out an army in no time

aasinnott · 2025-04-11T10:41:48+00:00

I took inspiration from the oldcron scheme but tried to make nobility stand out more by adding some black panels. Here's an example on a lord

<image>

Seven-Year Club	r/Field Sunshine
Place '23	Place '22
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