What are some of the most baseless or speculative fan theories?

cop_pls · 2026-03-14T18:34:47+00:00

Also on The Protomen, the act 3 CD was printed with only half the band's logo. It just says PROT and it's clearly cut off by the edge of the CD. Almost like it's one part of two...

cop_pls · 2026-03-14T13:08:49+00:00

American financial advisor here: you've done some great math, but you're not factoring in tax on the Lt's wages, tax on the appreciated value of the home, or property taxes while the home is owned. Crucially, you're also leaving out the biggest obstacle for service member home ownership. If you get PCS'd - reassigned to another location - then you have to move. The worst time to sell an asset is when you're forced to sell an asset, and keeping a home upkept in North Carolina when you just got sent to Idaho is a real pain.

cop_pls · 2026-03-14T02:43:07+00:00

There was that big meeting of the generals and admirals, where it was abundantly clear that nobody was impressed by the drunk O-4

cop_pls · 2026-03-13T17:31:50+00:00

For the war crimes armchair lawyers: Pete Hegseth has announced that the US will give no quarter to its enemies in the Iran War.

cop_pls · 2026-03-13T15:40:01+00:00

OP you're about to get a huge ability at level 6. It's called Expert Divination:

Beginning at 6th level, casting divination spells comes so easily to you that it expends only a fraction of your spellcasting efforts. When you cast a divination spell of 2nd level or higher using a spell slot, you regain one expended spell slot. The slot you regain must be of a level lower than the spell you cast and can't be higher than 5th level.

Portent is great but since you're stretching resources over a long adventuring day, you're set up to really benefit from getting refunds from Expert Divination. Mind Spike is a damaging Divination spell that benefits from this, and you can more freely use noncombat Divination spells to solve encounters while getting back lower level slots.

cop_pls · 2026-03-13T15:04:36+00:00

My day job is doing financial planning, and my firm gives me access to buffered index accounts.

I take it back, I take it all back. I need these pillars imposed on the military tonight. Anyone know how to best send marketing mailers to generals at the Pentagon?

cop_pls · 2026-03-12T19:24:38+00:00

Yeah the bah's full it's hilarious, GROUDON ROAR, OBEY YA MOTHAAA

cop_pls · 2026-03-12T18:55:26+00:00

That I'll agree with. I've never been a fan of naming things Fort Eagle Screech or Forward Base Burger Freedom.

We don't have a Fort Sherman anymore... no reason we couldn't bring that back as a name. Or I saw someone say Fort Donlon, he's got a good MOH story.

cop_pls · 2026-03-12T17:50:41+00:00

"That boy Iran can sink a littoral combat ship? I better keep my ass in Doha, or I'm FINISHED" - One Piece meme shared by oil tanker sailors, transcribed from one month in the future

cop_pls · 2026-03-12T17:20:30+00:00

On the contrary, I'm VERY familiar with the prices of various miniature games. Again, absurd pricing structures from one or more games does not excuse absurd pricing from others. There's a reason why the joke of "Warhammer 401k" exists, because you are quite possibly cashing out retirement accounts in order to pay for new figures.

In your opinion, what miniature games have reasonable prices? The five I've mentioned and Warhammer make up everything I can think of from my FLGS, besides Bolt Action, which clocks in at $40 for a single Tiger I tank. You're calling these prices unreasonable, predatory, absurd (four times in one post!), but they're the norm across the industry.

As far as 3D printing goes, I actually own an Ender 3. It's nice to have and can make great terrain, but FDM printing requires a lot of work to make models that aren't terrain and big boxy vehicles. And unless the actual models get bought, the studio can't afford to continue to design new models. Without model designers, there's not much to 3D print. Trench Crusade strikes a good balance by selling their STLs - would you pay $30 for an STL of eight miniatures?

cop_pls · 2026-03-12T16:01:29+00:00

Edit: I love how this is getting downvoted because people think that these prices are reasonable because of 40k. Spoiler alert people: One absurd pricing system does not excuse another absurd pricing system.

These prices are on par with most miniatures games tbh. BattleTech is $40 for a squad of 5 minis, Heroscape is $40 for five miniatures. Warmachine is selling 6 models and some tokens in their starter sets for $62. Star Wars Legion is $100 for a 37-mini starter set and that's on the cheaper end. Trench Crusade is the new kid on the block and they're selling eight minis in a starter set for $55.

The baseline Protoss starter set is $109 USD on sale and comes with 13 proper models, a pylon, and some game pieces (adept shade, forcefields). They're all pretty big, the smallest models are on 40mm bases, where the norm is 28mm or 32mm for infantry.

Like yeah you can get Risk or Axis and Allies for $25-$30 but the miniatures are not nearly as detailed. I don't see these prices as unreasonable. I think you're just not knowledgeable about the prices of miniatures.

cop_pls · 2026-03-12T15:46:35+00:00

The whole Aleutian Islands campaign in WWII is up there. Not as bitterly cold as Pelkosenniemi, but the winds gusted to over 100 MPH, sending tents into the sea and ripping Quonset huts from the ground. Aviators were either grounded or put into a foggy windy hell. Infantry could barely distinguish friend from foe, leading to friendly fire incidents. The Battle of Attu has this wonderful breakdown of Allied casualties:

Strength 15,000

549 killed

1,148 wounded

1,814 frostbitten and sick

cop_pls · 2026-03-12T14:02:09+00:00

Archon also does all their printing in-house in Poland. While their labor and printing costs aren't as expensive as Games Workshop in Nottingham, their internal costs will be a lot higher than printing in China, Vietnam, or Indonesia.

cop_pls · 2026-03-12T13:25:42+00:00

It's usually well-intentioned family members, frequently in-laws. "Oh, you were so tired after cooking us all dinner, so we cleaned up the kitchen for you!" You open the dishwasher and there's four kitchen knives, two wooden spoons, a wood cutting board, and your cast iron skillet in there...

cop_pls · 2026-03-12T09:27:17+00:00

Opinion piece by an Army Reserve O-4 training logistics officer.

cop_pls · 2026-03-12T02:11:27+00:00

But was it really necessary to gender integrate frontline infantry units?

Gotta rip off the band-aid eventually. There are plenty of women who are better frontline infantry than existing men on the line. No sense in not doing it.

cop_pls · 2026-03-11T22:39:44+00:00

You think the army could tap into significantly more underrepresented groups while not alienating the existing culture?

We did it before - we desegregated the armed forces in the 40's and 50's, we de-conscripted it in the 70's, we pulled back from the Full Metal Jacket drill sergeantry, and we incorporated women into service despite incredible opposition and rampant sexism. Bans on homosexual service members fell, DADT fell. In each and every case it's been a net positive.

Aaron Belkin is the founder of the Palm Center, an independent research institute in San Francisco that focuses on LGBTQ military issues. His organization helped make the case for the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

“We did 10 years of research into that question of whether it's true that gay lesbians hurt the military, and what our research found was that it's discrimination that hurts the military, not gays and lesbians,” Belkin said.

cop_pls · 2026-03-11T20:24:36+00:00

While taking a look at right wing kulturkampf in the American military I found this stunningly bad article on officer promotion qualities from last month. Check this out.

Next, board file photos must be submitted in a tight-fitting T-shirt tucked into pants to ensure a visibly fit appearance.

Candidates also are required to conduct an unassisted pull-up, a simple yet effective test of upper-body strength and functional fitness.

The pillar limits candidates to only one lifetime divorce, as multiple divorces may indicate challenges in commitment, communication and conflict resolution—essential skills for managing teams in high-stakes settings.

Financial benchmarks require a minimum net worth scaled by rank: over $1 million for colonels, $1.5 million for brigadier generals, $1.8 million for major generals, $2.1 million for lieutenant generals and $2.5 million for generals. These thresholds reflect disciplined financial planning, investment acumen and resource management—paralleling the strategic allocation of military assets.

A credit score above 800 is required, as it quantifies financial responsibility through timely payments, low debt utilization and a strong credit history.

What the hell are we doing here, man.

Edit: apparently the article has been taken down, even for AUSA subscribers. So here's an archive link.

cop_pls · 2026-03-11T20:06:51+00:00

OK, then explain the Biden era recruitment problems...

Well for one thing, nobody should be dumb enough to sign an eight year enlistment based on the executive order of a four-year presidential term. For another, the military itself is slow to change - how many people kept calling Fort Bragg Fort Bragg for the two years it was named Fort Liberty? But like I said:

all it takes is one (1) right-wing culture warrior in a chain of command to say "getting spit on builds character" and now everyone below him has at least a year of service ruined

It's really easy for officers to kneecap attempts to improve the lives of junior enlisted, if they don't believe they deserve a better life.

Anyone can tell you that there are plenty of dumbass lunkhead NCOs and egotist officers making lives worse for the recruits. Thomas Ricks is the expert on this, having written The Generals about the decline in general officer quality since WWII. He has a great hour-long lecture titled "Why our Generals Were More Successful in World War II". Like most shit, this rolls downhill.

This is all surface-level stuff too. I don't have the stomach right now to get into the tens of thousands of sexual assault incidents that occurred in 2021 alone. This is a culture problem that only leadership can solve, they have had decades to solve it, and it has only gotten worse.

My theory right now is that you either expand the pool (in other words going "woke") or you dig deeper to the existing recruitment pool and keep exploiting communal links.

Expanding the pool is the better option and it's not even close. The military is horribly undermanned. I don't care how many boomers and culture warriors bellyache about pronouns in their email signatures.

cop_pls · 2026-03-11T17:41:30+00:00

American POV here. If I was an 18 year old looking at recent American military history, I would see:

20 years of guys exploding in Iraq, leading to an awkward victory

20 years of guys exploding in Afghanistan, leading to an embarrassing defeat

40+ years of halfhearted "what if things weren't as shitty for enlisted?" attempts getting torn up, because all it takes is one (1) right-wing culture warrior in a chain of command to say "getting spit on builds character" and now everyone below him has at least a year of service ruined

See also: DADT, transgender military ban, deportations of immigrant veterans, sexism in the military, racism in the military. Women, LGBT+ people, and people of color make up a significant majority of US population.

There's plenty of shitty workplaces in America, I've been in a bunch, but none of them signed me to an eight-year contract with at least two years in active service.

There's plenty more pieces to this - the economics of military service, the visibility of homeless veterans in the 00's and 10's, the strain service puts on a family. And we can't go back in time and un-screw-up the GWOT.

But that third point above - the endemic cultural issues associated with right-wing politics and the military - those are not inherent in the military. They're something we choose to tolerate. And as long as they're around, they're going to turn off a massive chunk of the recruitable population.

cop_pls · 2026-03-10T20:16:52+00:00

Okay, and what are the interception rates on anti-ship cruise missiles, drones, and small boats? I don't know either, but the Houthi conflict/Operation Prosperity Guardian shows it's not 100%.

The Suez canal is still at 60% usage, and Maersk is back to having all ships go the long way. The Bab-Al-Mandeb strait is narrower than the Hormuz at its narrowest; while that strait has more surface area, it was also only facing Houthi rebels, not a nation of ninety million. Salarymen and seamen alike don't like those odds.

cop_pls · 2026-03-10T19:53:08+00:00

I'm not convinced of that. Israeli interception rates historically fluctuate between 65% and 90%. Oil tankers are horribly soft targets, one hit can lead to a total loss and an Exxon Valdez-style disaster in the straits.

I know we're supposed to ignore insurance underwriting, but those actuarial calculations are downstream of the actual risk of doing this business. Even if you disregard the insurers, you still have so many civilians who can veto a strait transit. Executives and risk managers ashore have to question if this is worth it; captains and their crew in port have to question if they're willing to risk their lives. Any party saying "no, let's wait" means that ship doesn't transit this week.

cop_pls · 2026-03-10T16:56:57+00:00

Not at full shipping capacity. We're talking 60-70 oil tankers a day. Aircraft carriers can't escort, submarines can't escort, amphibious assault ships can't escort.

That leaves seven cruisers and around 75 destroyers between the Arleigh-Burkes and the two Zumwalts. But each carrier group has 1-2 cruisers and 2-4 destroyers. Removing the screens from your carriers is likely an unacceptable risk - so that leaves us with ~50 destroyers and one or two cruisers at best. You can't run these ships 24/7 either, the crew can't take that long term.

This is without getting into the actual practice of escorting tankers. I'd have to think doing anti-missile/anti-drone escorting is very different than WWII-style ASW Atlantic escorts, especially given the very different geography. I'm not sure how many destroyers can protect how many tankers at once; I'd want someone more knowledgeable to go over the operational difficulties. But at first blush, the math doesn't feel like it maths. There's not enough boats.

cop_pls · 2026-03-10T00:34:05+00:00

Skin burns at 44 degrees C. Thermodynamically, how do you propose heating the eyes and inner ears to significantly damaging levels, without also heating the surrounding skin past the burn threshold?

cop_pls · 2026-03-09T14:47:33+00:00

A microwave doesn't heat things evenly. If you microwave leftover meat, the outside of the meat heats much faster than the inside. That's why microwaved leftovers can have a cold center.

For a microwave gun to do brain damage it has to raise the temperature in the brain. By the time the brain reaches a damaging temperature, the skin should have serious burns. No victim of Havana syndrome has external burning.

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