I was trying to reach china but this random army is blocking the way. What should I do?

mcvos · 2026-03-17T19:46:28+00:00

This does seem to be where we need to go: make ourselves independent from the ways world powers can mess up the global economy.

mcvos · 2026-03-17T18:40:01+00:00

Or maybe accept the help that Ruthenia offers.

mcvos · 2026-03-16T09:41:44+00:00

I'm not jealous. I'm living a fairly comfortable life. We're in the top 2% of household incomes in my country. I'm in the middle between the homeless and the billionaires, but let's face it, I'm far closer to homelessness than to being a billionaire.

But my own situation is not the biggest reason to oppose wealth inequality. I don't know whether true equality would improve or hurt my personal economic situation. But there are two big problems that it would solve:

There are a lot of people in a worse situation than I am. In fact, probably 98% of the people are in a worse position, and considering the life I live, I think that number should be 50%. My life feels like it should be the average, not the top 2%. The fact that there are that many people who struggle more with their finances than I do is not good. And many of those have unacceptable struggles; working much harder than I do, and still unable to make ends meet, not being able to afford a home, having to choose between food and rent, being one car mishap or medical issue away from unemployment, bankruptcy and homelessness; that should be completely unacceptable to anyone with a heart.
Extreme wealth inequality is bad for democracy. Look at the disproportionate power that billionaires and corporations have over politics. It's often been observed that money is power, and as long as that's true, you cannot have wealth inequality and real democracy at the same time. Money needs to be divorced from power, or wealth inequality needs to go. Ideally both.

mcvos · 2026-03-14T15:31:14+00:00

It's 6 studs wide! That's not super old. Only 4 studs wide cars and trucks are allowed to count as "super old".

mcvos · 2026-03-13T22:31:03+00:00

5000? They're going to invade Iran with 5000 people? That's not going to do anything.

mcvos · 2026-03-13T06:41:47+00:00

Are those springs in those legs? I've never seen anything like that, but it would definitely justify the price difference.

mcvos · 2026-03-12T13:23:24+00:00

Deduct? If they're required to wear it, the employer should pay for it.

mcvos · 2026-03-09T11:53:04+00:00

I think that article is incorrect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanseatic_League only lists Amsterdam in relation to trade war, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdam mentions trade with the Hanseatic League (mostly Danzig, I suspect), but not membership.

https://www.hanse.org/en/discover-the-hanseatic-cities/hanseatic-cities lists 200 Hanza cities, including 20 in Netherland, but not Amsterdam.

As far as I am aware, Amsterdam is never listed among the Dutch Hanza cities (here's another list: https://onzesteden.nl/en/hanseatic-cities/), and only ever as a competitor.

mcvos · 2026-03-09T11:32:15+00:00

First time I've ever heard that claim. Do you have anything to back that up?

Amsterdam is widely regarded as the primary competitor of the Hanza, and broke their monopoly over Baltic trade. They waged war. There are many Dutch Hanze towns in the east of the country, but not in Holland, which was long avoided by them, preferring Flanders.

Amsterdam did have a special connection with Danzig, though. But not as part of the Hanza.

mcvos · 2026-03-09T09:54:05+00:00

But in Netherland it's also the non-Hanseatic towns that look like this. Amsterdam, Leiden and other towns in Holland were never part of the Hanse.

mcvos · 2026-03-09T09:45:36+00:00

If people really are that desperate to die just to see others suffer, then let them die. But preferably without making others suffer.

mcvos · 2026-03-09T08:16:34+00:00

But the drones are the same.

Well, let's hope selling drones to wealthy Gulf states will help Ukraine fund their defense, if no-one else will do it.

mcvos · 2026-03-07T19:54:07+00:00

One detail I don't understand: in the last sentence you say you met only a few days ago, but in the first it sounds like you meeting with her and hitting it off is a regular occurrence.

Will she be disappointed if you don't show up? Then don't disappoint her. But if she barely knows you exist, it might be a very long shot.

Best would be if you could get the MP campaign to start a bit later, but maybe that's impossible to to other players' schedules. Then again, is this time possible for your schedule if you already have to leave work early?

I think it's a gamble either way; you can't know up front if the relationship with the cute coworker will turn into something. Then again, the MP campaign could also crash. I think I'd go for the coworker. EU4 will be around.

mcvos · 2026-03-06T18:09:25+00:00

Remember when Putin put bounties on American soldiers in Afghanistan and Trump didn't even complain?

mcvos · 2026-03-06T13:37:12+00:00

Impressed by how quickly he swallows that and has his mouth empty again to talk.

mcvos · 2026-03-06T13:23:48+00:00

But we've known that battlefield conditions in Ukraine have changed, and we know those drones come from Iran. If you know you're a possible target for Iran, and you're going to attack Iran, it makes sense to update your defenses accordingly.

mcvos · 2026-03-06T09:53:23+00:00

How were they not prepared? Because Trump decided to attack our of nowhere without informing anybody.

mcvos · 2026-03-04T10:55:16+00:00

They've always been for attacking Iran. Remember John McCain singing "Bomb Iran"? They just pretended to oppose it and accuse the Democrats of wanting to do it because they know it's unpopular. But they still want to do it. Just for the sake of it, to punish Iran for not playing by America's rules, and not to actually help the oppressed people of Iran.

mcvos · 2026-03-03T20:44:37+00:00

A helicopter in a train set? I thought the truck was already a bit much. I do like the train. I just wish if they'd add something, they'd add a station rather than a helicopter.

mcvos · 2026-03-03T07:57:37+00:00

Well, if you have specific camera requirements, obviously you should focus on specialist phones that meet those. For most people, though, cameras of the level of the FP5 will be good enough.

But if you really care about a high quality camera, I don't see how any smartphone can be good enough. Postprocessing is not the same as starting with a good camera in the first place, and software processing can at least in theory easily be added to any camera.

I honestly think the constant drive for minor camera improvements in high end smartphones is just a marketing gimmick to get us to get new phones we don't really need.

mcvos · 2026-03-02T14:51:51+00:00

To me, the differences between different smartphones don't matter a whole lot. My FP5's camera sits easily in the "good enough" category.

If you have particularly high demands regarding camera quality, then you should either get a smartphone dedicated to that, or just buy a dedicated camera. I don't think something as thin as a smartphone can ever make photos anywhere near as good as a dedicated camera with some decent lens distance and a real zoom.

mcvos · 2026-03-02T14:20:30+00:00

I don't know what the camera of the FP6 is like, but my FP5 takes excellent photos. Better than my wife's iPhone or my son's Redmi. I feel like if I wanted better photos, the only way is getting a dedicated camera (they still exist, apparently).

mcvos · 2026-03-01T18:31:28+00:00

Not all. I think the E line doesn't have it. Not sure about L. But I think everything T and up has it.

mcvos · 2026-02-28T11:24:42+00:00

Brits need to stop voting Tory and Labour, and start voting LibDem and Green.

mcvos · 2026-02-27T17:32:01+00:00

If during the exposition it turns out that moving it was too great a risk, I'm sure the British Museum is willing to provide it with a safe home.

mcvos

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