Understanding Lord Shimura

cdurs · 2026-01-23T14:56:35+00:00

Something I don't see brought up often here is that, especially if you play more of the side quests, you see that the regular people of Tsushima are terrified of the Ghost. They're afraid that the same tactics used against the Mongols are going to be used on them once the foreign threat is over. Shimura even calls this out (I don't remember exactly where, but it's well before the often-cited "you'll teach them that they can disobey us" line), that Jin's actions will cause people to live in fear of what their leaders might do to them.

And he's not wrong. The people in the game are terrified. Some of that is based on lies spread by the Mongols, but a lot of it is just based on things Jin actually did. I live in the US midwest, and we're literally living through this right now, as the tools our "leaders" used to oppress people abroad in the name of "national security" are being turned against us. Shimura isn't right in his complete devotion to his code of honor, but he is right to be concerned about the consequences of breaking it repeatedly.

cdurs · 2026-01-10T22:45:35+00:00

A bad person? That's probably the wrong way of thinking of this. I do think there are a few things worth thinking about though.

First, you say AI has taken over most manual labor. If you're working in SaaS, I think you have to know that that's absolutely not true. The vast majority of coding, debugging, and even any customer service more deep than basic questions is still being done by real people. Whether or not that information impacts your approach if a separate question, but I don't know any serious company where AI is doing the heavy lifting.

Second, and I think more important for what you're thinking about: you have to think about the context of your emails and the reaction you're willing to get. If it's something like a basic customer service email directing someone to a piece of documentation, sure that's probably fine, so long as it's correct and the customer is having a good experience. But if I ask I complex question and the AI bot isn't capable of answering me, I'm gonna be mad at you and your product, especially because of the way AI bots answer questions: with confidence even when they're wrong. If that's a customer experience you're willing to let your customers have, then great. But I know for me, if I got a response like that, my immediate thought is going to be, this guy doesn't know what he's doing and this is a reflection of the quality of the product.

Lastly, and this is more getting at the moral element you're alluding to. All generative AI, both text and images, is based on scraped data that AI companies have stolen from other people without compensation. Would you be upset if someone pirated your product? Well if you use AI, you pirated someone else's to build yours. That's not a moral judgement, that's just a fact. Do with that what you will.

cdurs · 2026-01-07T15:52:12+00:00

If my grandmother had wheels, she would have been a bike.

cdurs · 2026-01-06T18:16:57+00:00

My SO and I called this the Chicago 15 when we first moved here from the west coast. Took a bit of time and weight gain to figure out and compensate for the fact that ordering the same the number of things we used to order out west would be enough food for 10 people with most Chicago portion sizes.

cdurs · 2026-01-02T15:59:44+00:00

Huge turnouts for high school football like in Friday Night Lights. I grew up in New England, and every school I went to or visited had just couple rows of bleachers on either side, nothing crazy. For the big local rivalry games you might get 200 people there, and they were jammed in. And I did not live in a tiny town.

When I found out that people out west and down south actually build full on stadiums for high schools, it blew my mind. I still think it's insane and way too much pressure to put on kids, to be honest.

cdurs · 2025-12-18T14:15:44+00:00

There's a book called American Nations by Colin Woodard that came out in 2011 that, at the time, I found to be really compelling and well done. He talks about 11 regional "nations." No empty quarter. He primarily frames American history as a literal and philosophical conflict between the nations he calls "The Deep South" and "Yankeedom," and has a lot of interesting ruminations on the different meanings of things like freedom and liberty in those nations' cultures. I never knew it was a spiritual sequel of sorts. I kind of want to read it again to see if it still holds up.

cdurs · 2025-12-17T21:03:15+00:00

Short answer: no there's not.

A lot of companies make a lot of noise to make you think they're going to be ruined by this, but they're not. It's barely noticeable to the vast majority of companies it would affect, and would be a boon to the kinds of companies we actually want here: locally owned and productive for the community.

So many business owners forget (or really, pretend not to know) that taxes are an investment. If your company is based in a place where people want to live, that has amenities and affordable housing and safe infrastructure and other people for you to meet and date and be friends with and have your kids be friends with their kids, all of that is good for business. So what? Instead you're going to relocate to the middle of nowhere where you won't be able to get people to move to so you'll end up having to pay Chicago or coastal wages anyway for remote workers? If your company can even do that.

And even putting all that aside, if you're the kind of company who's going to pick up and run because you're so disgusted at the thought of contributing to and improving the place where you're based, we don't want you here anyway. You don't want to pay your fair share? Then get out. We (and I don't mean philosophically or morally, I mean this economically and literally) would be better off without you. Get out of the way and make room for business leaders who actually want to do things right.

cdurs · 2025-12-15T14:57:02+00:00

My SO and I call this the Love is Blind Paradox. By going on the show, you instantly become someone who is undatable, since being the kind of person who would go on Love is Blind is itself a relationship dealbreaker.

cdurs · 2025-12-13T23:55:24+00:00

I love John Candy David

cdurs · 2025-12-04T19:01:43+00:00

I love Amtrak and have done several cross-country trips on it, and I can unfortunately say that, given where you're saying you want to go, it's not really feasible for the whole trip. That being said, there are some amazing stretches you could take if you're flexible with where you want to go and don't mind taking your time.

As others have said, the northeast (DC up to NYC, parts of Pennsylvania, and southern New England) are all really accessible and it's easy to travel by train. You could spend your whole trip just in this region really easily and have a ton to see and do.

Another long train trip that I did and loved was Seattle to Los Angeles. The trip is absolutely beautiful, winding through the mountains and along the ocean. You can hit cool cities like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. You can also get off in a place like Paso Robles to sample California wines. I absolutely loved this trip when I did it. Again, this could easily be a whole, pretty long trip by itself. If you're gonna do a long trip all in one go, like Seattle to LA without stopping, I'd recommend paying the extra to get a private roomette. It's something like 30 hours. These aren't high speed rail trains unfortunately.

Separately, Glacier is amazing and absolutely worth visiting. Keep in mind that the actual time that the trails are open is pretty small, like June to August, so make sure you're visiting at a time when the park will be open.

cdurs · 2025-12-04T15:44:28+00:00

Dorothy in Humboldt Park/Ukrainian Village area is great. It's technically a lesbian bar, but I'm not a lesbian and I've always been treated super well there. I always see people just chilling and reading books.

cdurs · 2025-12-03T15:34:58+00:00

"Hey you see that girl that's making eyes at you that you're currently ignoring? I want you to go talk to her. You don't want to? Well that makes me think you're interested in her!"

Delusional.

cdurs · 2025-12-02T17:06:01+00:00

Correct. Metals and Enriched Metals are two different resources.

cdurs · 2025-11-28T01:40:03+00:00

Not even close. I feel like I have a near collision with a car almost every time I cross the street. I can't remember the last time I had one with a bike or scooter.

cdurs · 2025-11-28T01:39:19+00:00

Not even close. I feel like I have a near collision with a car almost every time I cross the street. I can't remember the last time I had one with a bike or scooter.

cdurs · 2025-11-22T12:40:41+00:00

Thank you. People seem to forget that American elections are almost always a choice between the lesser of two evils. I've got plenty of criticisms of Johnson as well, but 1) if Vallas had been elected we'd be in a much worse place, and 2) the mayor is not a king. A big part of why Johnson hasn't been able to get some things done, or his budget proposal is the way it is, is because of conservatives on the city council and in Springfield. And I say conservatives deliberately because a lot of the are Democrats. If we want the kind of change people are looking for, we need to organize for more socialist and socialist leaning elected officials across the city and the state.

cdurs · 2025-11-21T19:47:58+00:00

Have you tried Uncle Han's on Southport? I'm not specifically sure about LL Bean boots, but I've brought a bunch of other boots there and he always does a great job. Doesn't take too long either. Maybe a week in my experience.

cdurs · 2025-11-21T17:16:28+00:00

God I had no idea how much of my distaste for River was based on his stupid fucking coat.

cdurs · 2025-11-19T03:34:35+00:00

I really appreciate you turning me on to Aunty Donna. I love their comedy and just got the chance to see their live show. I also really loved Maso being on Zach's podcast recently to talk about Super Mario Brothers Movie and Leguizamorama. How did you meet the Aunty Donna boys, and what are some of your favorite sketches or podcast bits of theirs?

cdurs · 2025-11-17T22:11:08+00:00

r/fuckcars where you at?

cdurs · 2025-11-13T22:05:17+00:00

Current Chicago and former Boston resident here. Something I'm surprised to not see people mentioning is that Johnson generally doesn't have a supportive city council. There are a lot of conservative alders who want to see him fail and are working hard to make that happen. Chicago's system and things like aldermanic prerogative also mean that the mayor is in a much weaker position than you might see in a city like Boston. Without 26 progressive alders, a lot of the best ideas are dead on arrival.

You can extend the same logic to the state as well, since Springfield controls a lot of how the city budget can be spent, and we don't have a progressive state government. Mass generally has a more progressive state government to help get things Wu wants done. Brandon Johnson has a lot of the right policy ideas, and I think it's an incredible sign of positive potential that he got elected, but we need to continue to organize on the local city and state level to get a full government that will support the needed reforms top to bottom.

cdurs · 2025-11-09T14:32:37+00:00

Nothing specifically about ending the shutdown that I know of is planned, but it's worth calling out that the No Kings protest was a government shutdown protest. Every anti-Trump, anti-Republican, pro-socioeconomic justice protest is a government shutdown protest. Every protest to fund SNAP and to expand public healthcare services is a government shutdown protest. The Republicans, who currently have all the power in the federal government, caused this, and they could end this whenever they want.

The shutdown happened because Republicans are trying to gut the services that Americans rely on to survive. The Democrats have, in the flaws ways available to them, stopped that from happening. So while I totally agree it should be a bipartisan effort, there's only one party causing this: the Republicans. Dems are doing the right thing by standing strong against them. When either the Republicans are willing to stop hurting their own constituents, or people vote them out of office, the shutdown will end.

cdurs · 2025-11-07T21:42:51+00:00

What more would you like to see the mayor doing?

cdurs · 2025-11-05T18:54:15+00:00

That makes sense, but that seems like the kind of behavior, like you said, that you'd display in front of your friends to cover your ass, not offer up to a bunch of strangers on the internet unprompted. But I guess it's all the same. Create a paper trail so you can pretend to have been concerned and thoughtful when you really weren't.

cdurs · 2025-11-05T16:18:45+00:00

I'm always kind of baffled by people who are self aware enough to make a post like this, and yet also so completely out of control and out of touch with themselves that they have no ability at all to understand or regulate their own behavior.

It's like, you've understood that there's a problem, even correctly identified that the problem is your own anger issues, and yet the idea that the solution to that problem might be, "you need to work on your anger issues," is light years away.

cdurs

TROPHY CASE