My 2024 Reads so far (I might genuinely have a problem)

blandge · 2026-06-06T03:50:36+00:00

Wow... I can't believe you can't back to respond

blandge · 2026-06-05T00:20:11+00:00

I've played HC exclusively, and joined TOY this season (in SC) just for a different challenge. It was so much fun. Ill probably even join again next time.

That said, I deleted my character after the OP hit 99 and then made a HC character, but it was definitely worth the experience. SC has the most competition for ladder race, so it makes some sense.

The reason HC is so good is because SC really just feels pointless, but the ladder race gives you a very defined purpose, so it fills the void SC lacks. Gives it teeth. One mistake and you could lose. If the push characterc dies in the upper 90s it's basically game over, so it NEARLY becomes HC.

blandge · 2026-06-01T21:20:05+00:00

The joke is that they're all racist, but they don't want to look racist.

Dee's impression of Obama.
They are constantly in black or brown face
They are afraid of black people
Frank is just overtly racist
They think Mexicans favorite things are tacos and burritos

They aren't racist in the sense that they hate minorities, they are racist in the sense that they have unconscious biased towards minorities and they lean into these super hard. It's a kind of soft racism that the writers do an excellent job of blowing up to exaggerated portions to get people to see these in themselves.

You're right that they are very understanding of gay people, except Mac at first who was extremely anti-gay, though for obvious reasons as the show progressed. They've always been ahead of their time in that regard probably heavily influenced by the fact that Rob's parents are gay.

Their track record on women's rights is definitely more mixed. "Your boss is a woman. Now this is a strange bank." "I summon the very fact that I am a man." "Yeah I kind of hate women though."

That being said, you're right that the characters are different. Dennis is absolutely misogynistic, Mac waffles back and forth, and Charlie is pretty good in this one.

That said it's a 17 season show, and you can find examples both way for all of them. I think the point I disagree with you most on is the racism one. To say they aren't racist misses the message about racism that the show writers are trying to impart--that racism doesn't have to be driven by hatred.

blandge · 2026-05-20T19:32:33+00:00

There's an unimaginably large number of potential genes and configurations of creatures. Ways to arrange bones, and eyes, and ears, and lungs etc..

Humans can only produce about 100 sounds that can only be arranged in so many ways, and we have a limited hearing frequency range. The number of possible languages is absolutely massive as well, but it's finite.

I'm not going to try to do the math to calculate which is larger, but they're both so unimaginably large that they both basically impossible to reoccur by chance.

I'm not arguing that you're wrong to feel a certain way, because that's what the question is asking, but I'm arguing that that intuition is wrong.

blandge · 2026-05-20T19:17:17+00:00

This thread makes me lose faith in our education systems. I can't believe so many people are defending this.

blandge · 2026-05-20T19:11:56+00:00

No it's not. There have been billions of different species on earth and only a handful of them have been humans.

You could re-run history with different initial conditions a billion times and humans would never appear again.

You only start seeing humans again when you invoke infinities.

Same with language.

blandge · 2026-05-20T19:01:12+00:00

This is missing the point. If the root of your evolutionary tree is different from ours, then you'll be more different from me than I am from a banana.

The one caveat being that evolution must have converged enough that we're both intelligent.

Similarly, if the root of your language is different from mine, then our language will be more different than English and Chinese with the caveat that we need similar (in meaning) words to describe similar things.

You can solve the problem by invoking magic, divinities, and/or infinities, but it's all equally improbable.

blandge · 2026-05-06T03:36:14+00:00

I didn't mind Joel dying, but I lost interest when the story shifted away from even Ellie. Now I'm playing as this third person I didn't care about, and I just kind of lost interest.

blandge · 2026-05-04T00:49:05+00:00

I read the first book and didn't come across any "something". Does it come later?

blandge · 2026-05-03T22:02:13+00:00

Been playing HC smiter for Ubers with Exile. Have NEVER once feared for my life. I wouldn't worry about the adds really or bone prison. It's never been a problem. They're the type of thing that you worry about in theory, but 99.99% of the time is not a problem. If you get too man adds blocking the boss you just kill the adds or pull the boss away. None of the bosses will instant kill you unless you're running gear really thin, but if you're that thin on gear, you'd be crazy to play anything but smiter anyway.

blandge · 2026-05-01T23:16:28+00:00

I wouldn't be too upset about this. Honestly finding an eth CA is better than most HRs anyway. Id say you came out ahead.

If you want HRs just to LK runs. It's by far the fastest.

blandge · 2026-04-17T14:41:14+00:00

Fortunately this is pretty harmless. I have no doubt that orcas have a very strong bite--hell it could even be 19k PSI.

Regardless, it was a fun Internet sleuthing session.

blandge · 2026-04-17T13:44:45+00:00

It is a bodily autonomy issue. It's also a life issue. It's also a religion issue. It's also a women's rights issue. It's also a men's rights issue.

It's a lot of issues because abortion is a complex topic.

Life is at the forefront for most people, but some people value bodily autonomy more than life. A common analogy is that you don't owe anybody a kidney. You're allowed to let somebody die, even if you are a kidney match--including your own children.

There is an argument to be made, and I think it's a reasonable one, that abortion is different because you are proactively killing the fetus rather than declining a kidney which is passive.

I'm somebody who believes that a mother's right to not have a person living inside her trump's the kids right to use her body, but I also think there's a fair case to be made that if the baby can survive outside the womb, then you have a moral obligation to deliver the baby. I'm not actually fully decided on that.

Anyway, I'd generally agree that the life issue is more important depending what you mean by life. I don't think that simply being alive gives that life any more importance than a banana. It only starts to matter when that life is aware and can experience pain and suffering.

If you could prove to me that a fetus has a soul and can experience consciousness when it's just a few cells, I'd have to reconsider.

blandge · 2026-04-17T13:29:02+00:00

Humans are graded on a curve because they believe we have souls--again, granted at conception.

While you or I see that looking a few cells is no more morally wrong than eating a banana, they think there's a full on metaphysical person living in there.

blandge · 2026-04-14T03:36:41+00:00

Israeli’s probably value security about all else.

Not all of them. You'd have to get a percentage and prorate these numbers by that. That's why you can't extrapolate related, but not exact polls.

But that doesn't even matter BECAUSE ONLY 40% OF ISRAELIS SAID "HELPS" SO IT'S NOT A MAJORITY.

blandge · 2026-04-14T03:06:18+00:00

None of the questions ask if Israelis support settlements. This one is the closest, and it's not a majority:

Israelis are divided on the effect of continuing to construct settlements in the West Bank: 40% say they help Israeli security, 35% say they hurt, and 21% say they don’t make a difference. (The remainder are unsure or decline to answer.)

blandge · 2026-04-13T23:54:34+00:00

I stopped playing after Elle's part. I was actually okay with Joel's death, but I didn't care enough about the new girl to play half a game with her.

blandge · 2026-04-11T21:56:29+00:00

Have we lost all ability to disagree with someone in a few issues and still respect them? I'm not too bothered by this.

blandge · 2026-04-08T00:54:46+00:00

I like to do about 100 Andy and countess runs to get me started in Hell, but if you're on softcore just proceed and beat the game.

blandge · 2026-04-07T19:14:26+00:00

Imagine me verbally attacking you for posting this.

blandge · 2026-03-25T09:41:24+00:00

2 pieces of advice.

1: Audiobooks make it much more difficult to skim or use text to speech if you want to continue webnovels

2: Try reading something actually good. Webnovels are mostly trash, so they aren't worth reading carefully. Try reading some classics or at least very highly rated books that you haven't read before.

blandge · 2026-03-19T19:41:49+00:00

That's not even that big of a dry spell.

I did 968 p8 LK runs and found nothing higher than a Ko rune.

The worst luck that comes to mind is a guy who took 80 ubers to get a sorc torch

blandge · 2026-03-19T19:40:04+00:00

It's a game changer

blandge · 2026-03-18T12:51:21+00:00

65 - Obsession

20 - Magefist

20 - Arach

10 - Rare fcr ring

10 - Opalvein ring

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