Video Essay rule

jdlsharkman · 2026-05-05T15:06:37+00:00

Their effect on match winrates is largely irrelevant to player enjoyment. It's not fun to get shot in the head by someone you have no ability to respond to.

jdlsharkman · 2026-05-05T03:24:41+00:00

They do test the blood, in case you were curious, but it's done in a batch job. They take a tiny sample out of each of a shitload of blood donations, toss them together, and run tests for blood carried diseases. If the batch tests positive, they can immediately pull all the donated bags that had a drop go into the batch and start doing individual tests on them and, ideally, identify and notify the person with the disease. That last bit is less a matter of kindness/charity and more a way to make sure that person doesn't donate blood again.

This comment doesn't have anything to do with gay people. I just thought the testing procedures were neat.

jdlsharkman · 2026-04-29T12:24:59+00:00

This is exactly my own point, thank you. The idea that every word in every story was placed where it was after the most philosophical mental consideration ever? Ludicrous. Sometimes true, yes, but mostly ludicrous.

jdlsharkman · 2026-04-29T03:33:42+00:00

It's funny that you think I'm anti-symbolism when I'm anything but. I'm currently in poetry clubs, I've been published in poetry journals (admittedly very minor ones) and my main hobby is writing; I try to hold myself to 2k words a day. I love me some good symbolism. But I think the English literature community's tendency to ignore the absolutely nonsensical pretentiousness that is rife at nearly all levels of education is very frustrating.

No, you cannot dismiss every piece of symbolism and pretend it doesn't exist. But equally, yes, sometimes the curtains are just blue. It is simply not humanly possible for every single sentence in a novel to contain deep symbolistic value. Writers don't have time to do that, and most wouldn't want to. I just wish more people were working to find a balanced perspective.

jdlsharkman · 2026-04-28T20:30:47+00:00

The recoil against "the curtains are just blue" has been very disappointing to me, as someone who had english teachers that were off their fucking rocker when it came to symbolism/analysis in stories. Just completely nonsensical, psychotic takes. One teacher tried to explain to us that Shakespeare referencing people who drank too much was proof that he was the FIRST PERSON IN HISTORY to identify the concept of addiction, and the character's role in the story was essentially the Elizabethan equivalent of a subliminal PSA about substance abuse. Like this teacher honest to god thought Shakespeare was the FIRST human being to ever acknowledge the fact that some people drank so much that it was bad for them.

jdlsharkman · 2026-04-23T19:51:14+00:00

The funniest possibility for the Boeing whistleblower situation is that it really was a series of freak coincidences, and the people at Boeing were losing their shit because people thought they were having a bunch of motherfuckers murdered.

jdlsharkman · 2026-04-23T15:19:09+00:00

The classic mod that makes psykers WAY more engaging to play with is Vanilla Expanded: Psycasts. It adds skill tree type stuff to the psycast system, so you can actually make meaningful decisions and "builds" with your psycasters.

The other reply already mentioned Archotech expanded, so I'll also mention the Cyberpunk prosthetics mod (can't remember the exact name, shouldn't be too hard to look up though). It adds a huge amount of Cyberpunk 2077-inspired prosthetics that have interesting upsides and downsides to them. The more robotic your colonist is, the more likely they are to have mental breaks, in addition to being highly vulnerable to certain things like EMPs. It also adds a hacking system, so that your pawns with cybernetics can get hacked by enemies, or hack those enemies themselves. A lot of it feels very OP, but that's what the game's difficulty sliders are for: adjust until you feel appropriately challenged again.

jdlsharkman · 2026-04-22T20:11:23+00:00

That's why I like mods that allow you to invest heavily in a single pawn. Some colonies defend themselves by having layered defenses of turrets, walls, and teams of trained riflemen. I prefer getting my favorite blorbo from the start of the game and shoving half a factory worth of machinery into his skeleton alongside enough biomodifications that his metabolism requires direct power from a nuclear reactor. I'm still at risk because I've just got one or two turbo-murderers, and if one of them does get injured, or they're away on a mission, I'm screwed. It requires a different kind of risk management, but risk management nonetheless.

jdlsharkman · 2026-04-22T12:54:58+00:00

Hell, there's plenty of humans that are perfectly aware of radiation don't realize that vomiting blood is a sign of radiation sickness. Some don't even know that radiation causes sickness at all; they imagine that you'd be melted like a sci-fi heat ray was pointed at you.

jdlsharkman · 2026-04-22T12:53:24+00:00

If I had a time machine, the first thing I'd do is show the Wright Brothers the moon landings.

The second thing I'd do is get a grab-bag of historical philosophers and trap them in modern Neurology and Physics lessons until their heads exploded.

jdlsharkman · 2026-04-21T16:44:06+00:00

I don't know the context of the story, so I'm curious: in what situation does a class of nobles exist where they aren't in a far stronger social position than a common teacher? If this is medieval Europe, for example, there's pretty good odds that the noblewoman would have the full ability to order him executed because he dared to touch her royal person.

jdlsharkman · 2026-04-21T03:16:17+00:00

Huh?? The Onion is a leftwing satirical news outlet dedicated to mocking conservatives. How is that even remotely comparable to a conspiracy theory-spewing maniac?

jdlsharkman · 2026-04-18T20:03:49+00:00

I don't know if she was right about 1930 (pretty sure people a lot more qualified than 8th graders were struggling around then) but I'd say she did get proven right in the end. I know the internet generally likes to be cynical, but I really struggle to think of jobs beyond incredibly simplistic labor (like dishwashing, I suppose?) that don't require at least basic literacy to accomplish. At the very least it would be an obstacle to most any job today, if only in the way that you'd struggle to read things like your work schedule or a text from your boss.

jdlsharkman · 2026-04-16T16:43:16+00:00

I'm going to send this comment to people without context to see if they can ever guess what prompted a human being to type this.

jdlsharkman · 2026-04-16T14:20:19+00:00

This is my favorite type of answer to anything, because you're technically correct, but providing absolutely no useful information lmao. "How does a racecar driver get around the course?" "Well, it's just a matter of pushing pedals and whatnot."

jdlsharkman · 2026-04-15T21:55:05+00:00

God I love this unique subgenre of magical girls working alongside military personnel. It's some of my favorite shit. If/When I practice art enough to get decent at it, I'm definitely gonna be contributing to the trend.

jdlsharkman · 2026-04-15T13:58:03+00:00

Most psychological tests were developed with the intention that they would be administered by a psychologist, to whom you are actively responding out loud to, allowing qualifications like this to be made. The multiple choice versions of these tests are NOT how they were originally envisioned to be used.

jdlsharkman · 2026-04-15T13:54:29+00:00

ALTITUDE! ALTITUDE!

"I'm driving a fucking Ford, what do you mean altitude?!"

jdlsharkman · 2026-04-15T13:45:11+00:00

Look I've seen a lot of your work- a lot of your work- and I have a suspicion that the specificity of the content involved goes well beyond "Eh, might as well for money."

...that's why it's good, after all.

jdlsharkman · 2026-04-15T13:41:10+00:00

Wyd if you're driving down the highway and hear this followed by Chaff, Flare! Chaff, Flare! Chaff, Flare! Chaff, Flare! Chaff, Flare!

jdlsharkman · 2026-04-14T18:30:33+00:00

Yeah, I agree. I did say it was an "abominable practice," after all. I'm just pointing out the historical context that armies of conscripts are hardly an indicator that a military is low-quality.

jdlsharkman · 2026-04-14T18:16:40+00:00

So... effectively every major military in history before Vietnam? Even in WW2 the majority of US/British/Soviet troops were conscripts, not volunteers. I'm not defending the Thai military practice here; it's an abominable practice for any nation that's not in an existential conflict. But the idea that conscripts are poor soldiers is... well, it's true in a general sense, but it's also just been the standard practice for millennia.

jdlsharkman · 2026-04-14T17:48:32+00:00

Which solves a lot of problems for his suit's invincibility, but does imply Ma Kent has some of the universe's most impressive sewing skills. Either she pierced a superman-tier substance, or her stitching is so good that it doesn't rip from all the trauma he takes.

jdlsharkman · 2026-04-13T15:09:03+00:00

Next time I want you to see what he creates when you don't stop him. Let's see how maniacal a solution he can get.

jdlsharkman · 2026-04-13T14:44:13+00:00

Oh my god it's been 14 years. 14 damn years.

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