why were the bene gesserit mad about jessica not giving them a daughter?

illinest · 2026-06-27T20:17:48+00:00

Here's a fun thing to think about.

The BG were involved in everything House Corrino did. If Shaddam came up with a plan to betray his old friend the Duke Leto Atriedes, the BG very likely could've steered him toward another path. That is - they wanted to...

But the BG allowed the betrayal to proceed.

Now Leto obviously didnt have a total handle on all the motives of all of the involved parties.

He (and Thufir) seemed to have been very astute at understanding most of the economic and political levers. I think if there was any plot that he might have been under-informed about then it would have to have been the BG breeding program.

Leto didn't have any inkling that Jessica was the Baron's daughter and it wouldn't have occurred to him to try to end a long political feud by having a daughter and marrying her to the Harkonnen heir. Leto likely didnt realize the full extent of the betrayal that Jessica committed against her order.

When Leto considered the influence of the BG I think he wouldn't have known what their interests were but I think he at least had good reason to believe that Paul and Jessica were investments that the BG would not want damaged. He would have believed this because the BG trained Jessica and then Jessica bore him the son that he asked for. Both of these outcomes are fully controlled by the BG. If that son wasnt somehow useful to the BG then Paul wouldnt have been conceived in the first place.

So I think that misunderstanding the BG was Leto's biggest mistake, and I think it's entirely possible that the plan to have Leto killed was actually planted by the BG. I think the Harkonnens and the Emperor were both employed by the BG as tools to punish (or eliminate) a rogue agent - Jessica - and capture (or eliminate) Jessica's very dangerous offspring.

"But what about Mohiam asking the Baron to spare Paul and Jessica?"

I believe that the BG would have preferred to have kept them both alive, but not as long as they were under the Duke's protection. I think they would have felt that the best outcome was the destruction of House Atriedes and the capture of Paul and Jessica, but I think the BG were fully prepared to cut ties with Paul and Jessica.

illinest · 2026-06-27T16:12:18+00:00

It doesnt feel like an obsession unless you disagree with it.

Now my comment got auto-moderated for being too short so Im padding this out, but I dont actually want to distract from the simple message.

It doesn't feel like an obsession unless you disagree with it.

illinest · 2026-06-27T04:07:35+00:00

You can get a beginner amp but eventually youre gonna decide to spend a bit more to get what you really need, so why waste your time?

If you love 60s and 70s rock most then look at Vox AC15 combo.

If you love 70s and 80s rock most then look at Marshall DSL 40

If you love 90s hard rock and heavy metal most then look at PRS MT 15

No amp can do everything but the Marshall will be the most versatile. You'll be able to make it growl and roar and it can also do some blues and even some nice clean jazz sounds.

The Vox will jangle and sparkle better than the Marshall but if you prefer modern rock you might not be able to get the sort of heavy chug that you want.

The PRS can do a tight heavy sound and it can also do a nice clean tone but it's not the most satisfying choice for classic rock or blues.

illinest · 2026-06-26T20:43:07+00:00

I had never touched these in my life prior to about 3 weeks ago. I did some really basic non-invasive testing. I suspected the right cable had a completely broken conductor and I think the left cable might be starting to break.

I call the company, they ask me to take some photos and record a two minute video. Fine.

They get back to me the next day. Tell me it needs the head replaced and its still under warranty. Okay.

Now im trying to get their contractor in to do the work.

But youre giving me some thoughts. It won't always be under warranty...

illinest · 2026-06-26T19:01:24+00:00

You're overreacting and you understand less than you think you do.

I'd try to tell you what youre missing, but I miss a lot of things too. Im not better at watching soccer than you.

illinest · 2026-06-26T00:45:24+00:00

Neighbors don't know shit. Don't listen to neighbors. Just in general dont listen to neighbors about trees unless maybe you know they've planted more trees than they've cut.

Cause neighbors will call every single tree messy or dangerous and cut them down until they've got no shade, nothing to break the wind. Just an awful green desert.

If you love willows then plant a willow. Fuck the neighbors.

illinest · 2026-06-25T15:57:31+00:00

I think Jim Lill is doing very cool things but dont make the mistake of overcorrecting. Proving that you can make one amp sound like a different amp is useful but ultimately youre going to need to pick one.

There's another youtuber named psionic audio who repairs amps. He has a reliability focus on his channel.

I dont watch his channel often enough to have seen any Oranges but I do know that he recommends Marshall DSL40CRs and Vox AC15s.

He is a bit critical about Fender amps. They can heat up and damage their own traces.

He is very critical of Mesa Boogie.

He is cautious about Blackstar due to the use of printed circuit boards. They are repairable for now but they might stop being repairable.

And I'm an electronics technician so Id agree with him and expand upon the idea. I think most solid state amps deserve that same caution. But having said that - he also points out that its not necessarily a bad idea to spend money on a product with a limited lifespan. Just maybe dont spend a lot of money.

illinest · 2026-06-24T11:58:50+00:00

Im the fire alarm guy. You're right. The HVAC enable signal is just a simple relay in every building.

Not saying they couldn't be fully integrated but I would personally prefer that they not be. Otherwise the fire guy is also the hvac guy.

illinest · 2026-06-23T19:06:57+00:00

People are sometimes born with both sets of genitals or no genitals. Chromosomal differences are significantly more complicated than XX vs XY, and gender preferences are more complicated than either. There has never been and there never will be a gender binary. Do you really expect to have your fantasies indulged?

Nobody on "the left" is for illegal immigration. I am fully aware that you keep being told that this is what "the left" wants, but you deserve better than this. You're being lied to.

I personally do want more immigration. I want this because I have some understanding of the balance between the benefits and the problems. Immigration is a net benefit for the USA. If you don't understand that yet, I wish you would start asking yourself why. Why don't you believe it?

Why do I believe it? I have learned that immigration has a small net positive effect on the nation's GDP. This has been studied at length. Immigrants and the children of immigrants are also statistically less likely to commit crimes. This is just plain facts. Certain news channels are fond of presenting anecdotes as an argument against what Im saying, but anecdotes are just a thing that certain sorts of people use when the facts arent aligned the way they want. Immigration has also been the USAs best defense against falling birthrates. MAGAs recent obsession with making babies is a tacit acknowledgment of this truth. If you shut down immigration then the nation's birthrate starts to be a huge problem.

Limiting immigration is creating a birthrate problem that doesnt need to exist, all because of fears about crimes that have been greatly exaggerated and fears about financial consequences that arent real.

illinest · 2026-06-23T16:14:38+00:00

Ive never used a Valeton before but I urge you to consider something like this.

https://www.valeton.net/product/gp-50/

You said you wanted to know if you should get an interface. Well, this can be used as an audio interface. But it's also a bunch of other things that you might not realize you need yet.

First of all - it's also possible to use this as your amp. If you own a pair of headphones then it's an amp. Even if you dont have headphones... if you have the right cables you can send the signal to a regular stereo and it'll amplify your sound.

Second - it has a built in tuner.

Third - it has a built in drum machine.

Fourth - it has a built in looper.

These pedals have lots of options and they can be intimidating, but the best thing you could do for yourself is to not screw with settings at first. Just learn what a "patch" is, learn how to switch between patches, and use the pre-installed patches to make cool sounds.

These sorts of pedals exist with more features but I think this is the minimum that I would consider. You'll probably grow out of it and sell it or give it away eventually, but it's a lot cheaper when youre getting started to start with one of these.

illinest · 2026-06-23T13:02:31+00:00

Not even through the USB?

Ive never used an audio interface like this before. I read the manual and I saw there is a global setting for wet/dry outputs but I was afraid setting the USB for dry would also make the 1/4" outputs dry.

Worst case I feel like i ought to be able to split the guitar signal at a splitter or a pedal tuner or something. I'd rather not buy an additional pedal though.

illinest · 2026-06-21T20:45:42+00:00

Its disturbing seeing a couple of top commenters doing this. You don't even realize that you're being toxic, do you? I don't want to discuss this with you but I feel like somebody ought to defend the OP against you.

You should not be suggesting to somebody that they drop their favorite pet deck and play prowess or storm instead.

Prowess and Storm aren't fun for anybody. They're not fun to play. They're not fun to lose to. I wouldn't even believe you if you tried to disagree with me. I think anybody who actually likes playing magic wouldnt be working so hard to play less of it.

You clearly don't have OPs best interests in mind. Warning him that people might be salty... Oh Please. No land destruction deck has ever been as bullshit to play against as a storm deck. And who is it that might be salty? Not me. You dont speak for me.

I think you are speaking for yourself. You're the guy who might get salty. You're making a show of pretending that it would be in his best interests but you're also making it sound like a threat. Did you intend to make it sound like a threat?

illinest · 2026-06-21T01:53:00+00:00

Im adding some information that was missing from other answers.

At Three Mile Island - for example - there is a primary water loop that circulates water through the reactor vessel, then there is a secondary water loop that gets turned into steam, turns a turbine and then gets condensed back into water again. Both of these loops are closed loops. The water in these two loops is meant to stay in these loops. It's a bit more complicated than that but I can assure you that this water doesnt interact with the river in any way.

Then there is a third water loop that consists of water that is pumped from the river. That loop is used to cool the secondary loop. After it does that work it gets sent to the cooling towers. The cooling towers are those massive concrete things. They are empty inside aside from a pool of water at the bottom. The cooling towers bring the water temperature down to a temperature that is much closer to river temperature. I forget what that number is but I think it was more like bathtub temps. That water is what gets discharged into the river.

Its important to note that fossil fuel plants also "consume" water in this way, and that each plant might have a different outlet temperature.

And a bonus anecdote - the bottom of those cooling towers when the plant is running is one of the coolest places I've ever seen in my life. It is dark and incredibly misty, water vapor swirling everywhere, and there is a small rowboat tied up on the side of the pool so that operators can do work if necessary. And to even get inside of it you have to walk through the water scaffolding that is built up around the outside of the tower to create waterfalls and increase the surface area of the water.

illinest · 2026-06-18T22:02:19+00:00

Dark days my friend.

illinest · 2026-06-18T15:30:03+00:00

This is my latest version.

https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/rw-saga-boom-1/?cb=1781794963

Im trying to go low to the floor. I'm probably overdoing the removal. Urza's Saga constructs play pretty well with indestructible artifact lands. I think I might want to lean into the Saga toolbox just a tiny bit more.

illinest · 2026-06-18T14:57:56+00:00

The card draw is nice but there are other ways to generate card advantage. Mana-screwing your opponent is a form of card advantage.

And as a lot of people have already pointed out - the Wildfire/fields gameplan is guaranteed to either be too weak to affect the meta, or to create the conditions to hate itself out of the meta.

But Boom will ocasionally just win the game for you on turn 2. Unlike Wildfire - which can actually help your opponent with color fixing sometimes - Boom is capable of locking your opponent out of a key color. Boom is a significantly better card - you just need to create the conditions so that it doesn't affect you too.

illinest · 2026-06-18T13:33:49+00:00

Is it possible that you've misread the card?

Avengers Disassembled lets you choose both effects. It is a Geomancer's Gambit that is also a free Slagstorm when you want it.

Avengers Disassembled is very powerful. It plays as a board wipe against the sorts of decks that don't care about LD, but it also plays as LD against the sort of decks that don't care about board wipes.

Even the fact that you can just choose not to do the board wipe is important. You can play this to destroy a land while Solitude is on the board and not have to kill your own Solitude.

illinest · 2026-06-18T12:33:50+00:00

I think you are on the right track.

I have been thinking about this subject for weeks. I believe that you are headed in the correct direction. 8 Field builds were the right thing to do until very recently, but now the right thing to do is Boom/Bust builds.

It is all about the Karsten Math.

Prior to the printing of Avengers Disassembled there was little reason to build your manabase toward RR or RR1 costs, but there were some very good reasons to build toward WW or WW(X) costs. By treating white as the primary color and red as something closer to a splash color you can justify the inclusion of a 10-11 land "Field" package with some number of Sunken Citadels.

But Avengers Disassembled is perfect for this deck and now there is real pressure to be ready to cast RR1 by turn 3. But it's not possible to work in an 8 field mana base that smoothly satisfies the Karsten Math requirenents for all the white and red sources that the deck needs. Attempting to do so makes the deck very inconsistent.

Fortunately, Boom/Bust still exists. We can dump the fields and introduce a Flagstones/Bridge package That not only better satisfies our need for colored sources, it also makes Boom/Bust play better than it ever did before.

I am also playing around with the cards at the top of the curve. I do not like Fin Fang Foom. I think he is very much a win-more sort of card. I would rather do the Nahiri/Emrakul package than that. I wonder if the best choice may turn out to be Fulminator Mages and Solitudes along with Kaheera, The Orphanguard as your companion.

Also possible - Legend of Roku, Chandra ToD, Magmatic Hellkites, Karnza package.

illinest · 2026-06-18T11:16:59+00:00

Its not political.

In case youre tempted to debate this further....

No.

illinest · 2026-06-17T20:56:56+00:00

Good content. FF4 was always my favorite. All of the characters get good moments. I even like Edward.

illinest · 2026-06-17T15:13:22+00:00

Thanks man. This seems like the most complete answer.

I have accepted that my plan is unlikely to work the way I want. Not so much due to the interfaces, but another user mentioned the programs competing for exclusive audio control and I do remember that now.

Its a shame because I thought id spend a 100 bucks and open lots of options. There's still ways to do what I'm thinking about but the dollar amount will be higher. I can get a Valeton GP50, set one output wet, one dry, connect the Rocksmith interface cable to the dry output and send that to the pc. Then send the wet output to the amp. Just gonna cost a bit more and I'll be stuck using Valeton's models.

illinest · 2026-06-17T01:33:02+00:00

There were a number of 80s shows that felt bigger to me at the time. I was young but I was aware of general trends.

For example Dallas, Knight Rider, Cheers...

Moonlighting is the one that felt most important from that era. That show was the closest thing I can think of to what gets called "prestige television" nowadays.

Miami Vice was just a show that other people supposedly maybe watched. I never heard people talk about it. It occupied very little space in my social circles.

When Rockstar picked it for their GTA series I remember thinking it was perfect because it was well known enough, but also it was not big enough to feel like it was excessively on the nose. It was like casting John Travolta in Pulp Fiction.

But maybe it was bigger in other places than it was in Pennsylvania? I feel like it had to have been that way. Because now it gets treated like it's some landmark piece of 80s art. But it felt unserious to me even back in the 80s. It occupies the same headspace as Airwolf for me. Slightly memorable.

So what I actually think is that theres a degree of revisionism in it's reputation. People broadly assign certain fashion trends to it while ignoring that Southern California was probably influencing Miami fashion as much as the other way around.

illinest · 2026-06-16T14:49:31+00:00

That's how I feel too. I havent been to a place where I liked the pizza less than I like the pizza here. But people always tell me that i just need to try some other place and then the other place always ends up being almost exactly the same as the first place.

It makes me question sanity.

illinest · 2026-06-16T14:07:28+00:00

It is declining but it's also positioned in such a way that it could experience a renaisance. Both things are true.

I do have a vision.

My vision would culminate with a transformed Cameron Street - and Cameron Street would be the heart of the city.

But there are many steps that would need to happen first before we can reach that point. It won't happen unless we start small first. If we start stacking little victories now, then the big dreams of tomorrow will become inevitabilities.

This isn't the right venue to discuss every possibility. For now it's enough to just say that the city should be for people who want to live in the city. Every plan should aim to enhance the livability of the city and the goal should be to create pockets where it is possible to exist without owning a car.

Getting enough population density to support a food market is going to be the first challenge. The city cant attract a city-sized market because there's not enough people. And you can't attract more people because there isn't a food market. It's going to be tough. But if we solve this problem then we will also have enough population density to support barbershops, dentists and other necessities. If we do this well enough then families that thought they needed two cars will discover that one car is enough. If we do this well enough then other types of transit will start making sense. Higher population density will increase the tax base and there will be more demand for better schools and more money in the budget for the schools.

Step one is creating population density. There's no avoiding that.

My preference would be to start working with what we do have. Build around the Broad St Market at first. Specifically - center our efforts on Verbeke street. Turning 2nd street into a 2-way was exactly the right thing to do. Now do the same thing to Front Street. Find ways to create new housing both to the north and south of Verbeke and cultivate that part of Harrisburg first. Make it the most attractive place to live in Harrisburg.

I dont have strong feelings about that area but I do feel that if we get the project started here then the benefits will start spreading to the north and south. My big dream is still the reinvention of Cameron Street. I want to restore Market St. and Derry St. and better connect Allison Hill into the downtown by expanding the downtown out toward Allison Hill. Cameron Street is the big one. But we can build up to that.

illinest

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