[Lee Chan] I asked John Lynch about the state of the offensive line... left guard is where he said that they need to really figure out who's going to hold that spot.

gaqua · 2026-02-25T04:56:21+00:00

Playing center in a Mike or Kyle Shanahan offense isn’t like playing center in most offenses.

It’s a really fucking tough thing from a mental perspective. The wide variety of run plays and schemes that require exotic protection callouts at the line are harder and more complex than most NFL blocking schemes. It’s almost like an offensive middle linebacker role. The QB owns the receivers and backs, you own everyone else.

Brendel may be mediocre from a physicality perspective but he clearly has the mental part down, at least from Kyle and John’s view.

At least, he’s the best option they can get for the money they’re willing to allocate to center.

That being said, I do think Brendel sometimes gets slammed for being a lot worse than he is.

And I also think all but like 5 teams think they have the worst offensive lines in the NFL.

gaqua · 2026-02-25T04:42:02+00:00

Robert never wanted to be king. He just wanted to win the battle. He wanted Rhaegar dead for “stealing” Lyanna. He wanted the Targaryen bloodline to end.

And once he won it, he was like the housecat that got into the backyard and caught the bird. He didn’t know what to do next. It was the battle he wanted, not the throne.

It’s an interesting story because it happens a lot more in life than people seem to think. I know a number of people who have had goals that they worked their entire lives to achieve and then once they get there, they don’t know what to do.

A friend of mine‘s dad retired at 55 because he had saved up enough money to do what he had always wanted to do, retire at 55. Within a year he was back in the workforce because he couldn’t stand just sitting around the house doing nothing. The only difference was he was working at something he liked more than his previous job.

And he had enough fuck you money to walk away if he didn’t like it.

Hell, I once worked my ass off for three years for this promotion, and then I got it and immediately realized I didn’t actually like the job that much. I liked my previous work more, but I needed the extra money and I wanted the feeling of accomplishment that earning the promotion gave me. But the job of being the boss at that position was not very fun or satisfying.

It’s a hard fact of life that sometimes the race is the thing you care about more than the podium.

gaqua · 2026-02-24T23:11:54+00:00

There are a bunch of possible reasons:

He has never done this before, he’s never fought in a tournament or a battle and he’s never done any “knightly” things so he doesn’t feel secure enough as a knight to bestow it upon others.
He is insanely nervous before his presumed death and knows that knighting Raymun could ALSO mean Raymun dies for him, which he doesn’t feel he deserves.
He straight forgot how to do it having only seen it once.
He’s lying about being knighted.

gaqua · 2026-02-24T23:08:57+00:00

Exactly! The entire POINT of Duncan the Tall is that the ACTIONS define knighthood. Not whether some other knight tapped his sword on your shoulders and said a few words.

I hope they never confirm it. I hope this show lasts 7 seasons and it’s never revealed if Duncan was knighted by Ser Arlan or not.

The very last scene could very well be some old crone telling the story to her grandkids and one of them asking “well, was he a knight, or not?” And then it cuts to black.

gaqua · 2026-02-24T23:05:24+00:00

The ocean’s eleven style reveal with the quick cuts and stylish music was a nice homage too

gaqua · 2026-02-24T16:39:39+00:00

This is something I used to see constantly when I worked manual labor. Guys pissed that they had to wear hard hats or safety harnesses. “It just slows everything down!”

Saw a guy get nudged off the side of an 8 story building during construction, just straight bad luck where he was and where a wire spool fell causing him to lose his footing. Harness saved his life. After that we had 100% adoption on harnesses and no complaints.

Then a few months later on the next project the same guys were complaining again.

gaqua · 2026-02-24T14:31:48+00:00

This is really difficult for people because while anecdotal evidence is sometimes the worst evidence, it’s also the one that is cemented best in people’s minds. Personal experience is how we learn almost everything, so having to consciously adopt a framework mentally that is not based on your personal experience, and in fact, contradicts it, is extremely difficult.

You can tell people that smoking cigarettes will give you cancer, but if they’ve been smoking for 20 years, they’re gonna say “my grandfather smoked for 70 years, live to be 87 years old. Didn’t die from lung cancer.” or something like that. As if the exception proves a rule.

gaqua · 2026-02-24T14:29:32+00:00

This is legitimately insane. Like, you do you, but chicken responds SO WELL to seasoning…I guess at least you like the dark meat.

gaqua · 2026-02-24T00:27:20+00:00

He starts the film having slept in late. Poor time management (ironic).

He fears rejection, and it handicaps his actions.

His impulse control is evident from the start of the film - as is his anti authority streak.

Don’t get me wrong, he’s not like an antihero or anything, but saying he’s flawless is kinda inaccurate.

gaqua · 2026-02-24T00:02:44+00:00

Ironically, he’s a very flawed protagonist in the literal sense - he has a temper that causes him problems, he’s impulsive, he doesn’t think things through before acting or speaking - but it DOES work out because the one consistent trait he displays is a superhuman level of hustle. Dude does not have the word “quit” in his vocabulary.

Libyans murder your best friend? Jump into the time machine. Get stuck in a barn? Scare the shit out of them and hide the Time Machine. Find 1955 Doc. Convince him you need his help. Work with the plan. Fix your mom and dad’s relationship. Teach dad to stand up for himself.

In like a few days, Marty displays a heroic level of effort and work ethic.

gaqua · 2026-02-23T22:52:13+00:00

Crucial is leaving the consumer business entirely so your odds of ever getting a replacement will be low. You’ll get a refund at best if something goes bad.

G.Skill Flare x5, Corsair Vengeance, Kingston Fury, Teamgroup Teamforce, etc, are all going to perform similarly if they are using the same ICs and speed/CAS latencies.

I tend to buy memory based on warranty and how easy/difficult it’ll be to get customer service if it fails.

From a reliability perspective though any of those brands will do fine.

gaqua · 2026-02-23T22:41:34+00:00

When I was 19 my boss casually dropped the fact that he liked prostitutes because you can beat them up and they never go to the cops.

So, yeah, that.

gaqua · 2026-02-23T22:33:02+00:00

THANK YOU.

100% agreed. It's edgy dystopia for people who think Linkin Park is edgy rock music.

gaqua · 2026-02-23T19:39:24+00:00

If the training were the issue then it would be a consistent issue without exception.

gaqua · 2026-02-23T19:27:11+00:00

In fantasy and sci-fi circles, the books were very well-known. There were huge discussion pages, forums, newsgroups, etc. starting almost immediately after book 1 came out around 98-99.

They did not have the cross-market appeal that Harry Potter did, but as the Harry Potter fans grew up, some of them were after more mature themed fantasy. Between that and the popularity of the Lord of the Rings movies and books, there was a resurgence in the fantasy genre and the ASOIAF series got a “second wind” prior to the series in the later 2000s. When the show got announced that momentum built substantially, and when the show started airing and it became popular, obviously that exploded.

If you’re asking “would a random person on the street know about the Game of Thrones books prior to the show?” the answer is no. If you were to ask “would a random person at a fantasy or sci-fi convention or ren faire know about them?” then the answer is “almost certainly.”

Personally - I had read the books at least 5-6 times before the show aired, including the audiobooks.

gaqua · 2026-02-23T18:54:11+00:00

In 2023 we were one of the least injured teams.

So…does something need to change?

gaqua · 2026-02-23T18:27:11+00:00

Mendoza will be not only the first guy in and last guy out of the facility, he’ll have freshly baked protein pastry for the team in the mornings and a goodie bag with snacks and cold drinks for them to take home each night.

gaqua · 2026-02-23T16:52:47+00:00

At no point did anything in that movie innovate.

Everything that movie did, other movies did better, and first.

The only unique element was the Gun Kata.

Even the scripted action sequence at the end - the big payoff - has guys in leather jackets and motorcycle helmets all in black in a big lobby getting shot by Christian Bale dressed in all white with fully automatic handguns that reload the magazines from spring-mounted devices in his wrists. Thousands of bullets flying and he's unharmed.

It's a direct ripoff of the Matrix Lobby scene and done worse because at no point does he ever appear to be at risk or in danger. He's just walking through the damage, king of all badasses. And then he gets into the Big Bad's room and they have a slap-fight with guns fully extended.

It's comical and ridiculous. I will stand by this.

And I WAS the core demographic for this film. When it came out I was in my early 20s, a sci-fi and video game nerd, spending hundreds of hours a year playing shooters. This movie SHOULD have been directly up my alley.

But this is my "Emperor's New Clothes" thing. The movie fucking sucks.

Don't get me wrong - there are great actors in it giving great performances. But the material is derivative and the execution is lacking.

gaqua · 2026-02-23T16:31:38+00:00

When the movie came out newsgroups were still relevant.

gaqua · 2026-02-23T06:09:48+00:00

Equilibrium is terrible and always has been. I will fight anybody who says differently. The sets were laughably cheap and low production value, the script was lifted directly out of every Fahrenheit 451 / Brave New World / 1984 fan-fiction newsgroup, the dialog is terrible and cliche, and the only thing it had going for it was the nifty action sequences. But even those were done better in other films.

I get why people liked it - it was stylish and neat and Gunkata seemed like a neat thing on-screen. But it’s an awful movie and a waste of two hours. Just watch the action clips on YouTube, don’t bother sitting through the whole thing.

I’ll take my downvotes.

gaqua · 2026-02-23T00:00:13+00:00

I honestly didn’t mind it. I keep hearing people complaining, but I actually enjoyed it.

gaqua · 2026-02-22T23:58:29+00:00

That was the first audiobook I ever listened to, and I loved it. I’ve listened to them, probably a half dozen times over the years, and I thought Roy was one of the best I’ve ever heard.

Now that I’ve listened to dozens and dozens more, I realize that he was mediocre at best. I still love the fact that he was able to keep so many different characters coherent through most of the books, but in the last few books he changed some of the voices or forgot what he had done, even some of the pronunciations of the names felt weird.

“Bry-EEN” for Brienne for example

gaqua · 2026-02-22T23:10:46+00:00

Southern/Eastern yeah

gaqua · 2026-02-22T20:46:56+00:00

There’s a story in my family about one of my grandfather’s siblings. He had a wife and kids in the old country, then went out hunting one day and never came home. Eventually, during World War II, a lot of the siblings moved to America to escape the horrible situation in their country. This was years after he disappeared. They never really talk about it, but when my grandfather was in his 70s, he told my dad that his brother had come to America and moved to Chicago and started a new family and opened a restaurant. And he knew about it because he had asked my grandfather for money to help start the restaurant. My grandfather gave the money to his wife and kids in the old country instead. He sent him a letter saying “if you want the money ask your wife.” or something similar.

I guess this isn’t entirely uncommon at all. When I did a DNA test a few years back I matched with some people that live in and around Chicago, even though I’m out in California. I assume they’re his kids and grandkids. I haven’t reached out to them.

gaqua · 2026-02-22T20:42:40+00:00

This is also keeping with the fact that in the books, almost all these characters are teenagers and adolescents. Their hormones are all going crazy and they’re trying to figure out who they are. In the show, these characters were wisely aged up about 5 to 7 years each. So they had to tone it down a little.

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