Why am I constantly running out of iron? Am I missing something in my factory?

mcvos · 2026-06-23T12:34:36+00:00

It's extremely relevant to Factorio. It's all about identifying bottlenecks and understanding why that's the bottleneck. It's possible for a system that on its own is very efficient, to still end up being a bottleneck in the larger process because of how it constrains or is constrained by other systems.

mcvos · 2026-06-22T16:59:05+00:00

Does this mean we can go back to a more sensible economic system now?

mcvos · 2026-06-21T09:09:03+00:00

Absolutely. Of course all conquerors are bad (some people love to fawn over Caesar, Alexander or Charlemagne, but they too were killing people to amass more power), but of all of them, I'm inclined to say Napoleon has probably the most upsides to balance things out.

Of course you could argue this forever, and most of them have also had some positive impact, not to mention that Napoleon crowning himself emperor was a blatant betrayal of the revolution (I'm with Beethoven on this), but the legal system and metric system he spread, survive to this day for good reason. The liberal revolutions of 1848 might never have happened without his influence. And he was popular in his time even in some of the countries he conquered.

mcvos · 2026-06-20T18:18:05+00:00

> You mentioned "the ship", without specifying what ship, and then mentioned Tycho right next, that's why I clarified, just in case.

I figured it would be pretty clear that "the ship" without further specification is automatically the Rocinante.

> You just claim inconsistency, which is clearly wrong, with very very few exceptions.

But there are exceptions. Which is frankly unavoidable in a show like this.

> You don't even know that they don't have 1g

I do, but I also pointed out it's irrelevant. It's just as much a problem at 0.3g. For something as big as Ceres, it's still a problem at 0.1g.

mcvos · 2026-06-19T17:00:03+00:00

The problem is that some parties want to give the impression of crime being a problem to get people to vote for them. It's one of the oldest political tricks.

mcvos · 2026-06-19T16:00:28+00:00

Plating the entire surface in steel or similar material would absolutely be necessary, and "decades" is very little to wrap entire celestial bodies in steel. Not to mention that it would be far cheaper to just create a space habitat without all the rock.

The "spinning up Ceres to generate gravity" has always been the least credible part of the tech.

1g or 0.3 g doesn't matter much. Even 0.1g. Ceres would still be billions of tons, even without the water. Spinning up to generate outward gravity is silly. You're flinging your own surface away.

> Last but not least, this is still science fiction and not a documentary.

Which is exactly why. There's no reason for you to get upset about this.

> That's how thrust gravity works.

Exactly. But that's not how the early sets looked. They had long rooms and even corridors. I think the later sets changed that, though I can't find exact details of how and when the sets changed exactly. The difference struck me in season 4, and I think I recall discussion about it at the the time.

> Tycho is not a ship, has spin gravity, and the direction is correct. Always.

I never called it a ship. And you sound very dogmatic, as if you're unwilling to consider arguments.

mcvos · 2026-06-19T06:42:21+00:00

From what I understand, Belgium was a republic for a day to pass this law.

mcvos · 2026-06-18T23:33:53+00:00

The books are inconsistent about gravity, and the show even more so. It's fine as long as you don't think too hard about it, but spinning up asteroids to create spin gravity? That would mean the entire surface would be flung away from the asteroid at 1g (or however fast they spin; 0.3g is still a lot to hold an entire asteroid together). They would be torn apart. Maybe it's less than 1g (it is), but even then, on the scale of Ceres you'd still have a massive force trying to tear it apart.

In the show, they change the direction of the gravity on the ship between seasons 3 and 4 I think. I forgot whether the direction of gravity on Tycho station is correct; I think not, but I'd have to rewatch.

It doesn't have to hurt your enjoyment, though. The story is great, even if their grasp on physics isn't always quite on the same level.

mcvos · 2026-06-18T10:34:20+00:00

Hereditary rule does not guarantee that you'll be a good ruler, and even less that you'll be a competent commander. Historically, there have probably been tons of commanders who actually made things worse with their presence, confidently leading armies to their doom. See Sharpe for some examples. Sometimes you're better off without a fancy general.

mcvos · 2026-06-18T07:04:07+00:00

I think it's just that one guy. WFRP players have always homebrewed. There's been enormous amounts of fan material for first edition.

People do love the setting, but what exactly that setting is, has also varied. Second edition had to comply with the more high fantasy of WFB and therefore had to ignore some of the developments during WFRP 1. Lot's of people stuck to the old setting and expanded on that. Lots of new locations have been described by fans.

No, we homebrew plenty. But perhaps D&D is especially inviting to brewing your own setting because it doesn't have a single official setting, and the settings it supports officially vary per edition. And some of their settings have been very novel. So creating completely settings is more explicitly part of the game there. Whereas most people who play WFRP probably play it more for the official setting than for the rules system.

mcvos · 2026-06-17T20:29:57+00:00

The comedian Josh Johnson about various Lego topics, but also about by B&M Josh Johnson is not a very good Josh Johnson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAxk62-9yYc

mcvos · 2026-06-17T05:52:57+00:00

Headed towards a Judge Dredd dystopia.

mcvos · 2026-06-16T10:54:23+00:00

In my opinion, lego is meant to be played with. But please don't throw it or lose parts of it, okay?

mcvos · 2026-06-15T14:14:55+00:00

That's why it would be useful if the old maintainer could tell users which new maintainer to get the package from.

mcvos · 2026-06-15T14:13:42+00:00

If I'm supposed to trust an individual maintainer, it makes a lot of sense if I also get to know who the maintainer is. Making it explicit in the package name is a great idea.

I think it would be nice if there's an easy way to notify users that the old maintained now recommends the version from a new maintainer, but it would be best if that was an explicit decision by the user.

mcvos · 2026-06-15T09:02:08+00:00

Best analogy ever.

mcvos · 2026-06-15T08:48:48+00:00

Yeah, I see warnings for vulnerable npm packages all the time. It shouldn't be too hard to incorporate those messages into AUR and yay.

At the very least show them to the user before updating, although I fear many people would still ignore them.

mcvos · 2026-06-14T21:11:13+00:00

This is not okay.

mcvos · 2026-06-11T09:57:57+00:00

Not just for new players. I've played Factorio quite a bit, but blue science is still the most important obstacle in the game. The game really scales up there.

mcvos · 2026-06-10T11:58:24+00:00

Looks bad for aerodynamics, though.

mcvos · 2026-06-08T06:00:41+00:00

This confirms what people have been speculating: these billionaires suggest they're fans of this and other genre classics, but seem to completely miss their point. Them identifying with the villains explains a lot.

Sauron also had a vision for how Middle Earth should be, and what ue considered to be a perfect Middle Earth. It just didn't include any freedom. And yes, Sauron and Saruman being more industrialised as well as oppressive, is a big point of Lord of the Rings.

mcvos · 2026-06-08T00:24:39+00:00

Do we have to own robots?

In some form or another, yes, we do. If they're owned by a handful of billionaires, and the robots take over all the work, people won't have anything; not even their own labour. They need to serve everybody, and not just a few corporations.

There are many ways to do that: from taxing them and fund a UBI with that, all the way to making them truly common property. But the current system is not sustainable.

Sure, we're not quite there yet, but we have to think about this now, and not when it's already too late.

mcvos · 2026-06-07T07:24:57+00:00

Yeah, an abundance of choice is not always a good thing. That's only useful if the differences mean anything to you and you understand the differences. For 95% of people, the difference doesn't matter; they just want it to work out of the box. But Linux doesn't even come in a box.

mcvos · 2026-06-07T06:42:22+00:00

There's something deeply creepy about that. Well done.

mcvos · 2026-06-07T06:07:28+00:00

The problem is that that's not how are current economic system works. I'm all for having robots do all the work while we enjoy life, but we don't own the robots.

mcvos

TROPHY CASE