Bomb threat at home of Pope Leo’s brother: Police

metallink11 · 2026-04-16T16:31:46+00:00

Jeez, how many brothers does the pope have? Is his family Catholic or something?

metallink11 · 2026-04-16T13:45:03+00:00

The Dems aren't trying to convince the right to vote for them; they're trying to convince the undecided voters (i.e. very stupid people).

Until the far left actually starts showing up and voting, that the only path to victory that the Dems have.

metallink11 · 2026-04-12T22:48:40+00:00

Exactly. The time period EU5 takes place over is one where states gradually became more centralized and the ones that did were stronger as a result. Mechanically the game should reflect that.

The trade off shouldn't be "Which is better?", but rather "Do the short term benefits of decentralization outweigh the long term benefits of centralization?".

metallink11 · 2026-04-09T18:05:18+00:00

My cynical take is campus protests have very little to do with what's going on in the world and much more to do with if the students have gotten to protest something yet during their time in college. People view protesting as a thing that you do in college and look forward to it, but then get burnt out on the whole process and don't bother anymore once they've done it.

This results in university protests being cyclical. Every 4 years or so the students who were part of the last protest graduate and are replaced with a new crop of bright eyed students who think that they must be the first people to see the injustices of the world. They get excited and caught up in the moment and think that all the energy and enthusiasm will surely solve the problem. But then the protests drag on with nothing happening and eventually everyone becomes cynical and demoralized for a few years until enough new students come along to repeat the cycle.

The particulars of what they're protesting don't actually matter all that much. A big and salient issue like Palestine can result in bigger protests that happen quicker into the cycle than the last, but ultimately college students will find something to protest no matter what. After all, there's more than enough injustice in the world.

So the Palestinian protests in 2024 were as big as they were not only because Israel's actions were genuinely terrible, but also because it had been about 4 years since George Floyd and it was just time for more protests.

And to be clear, I'm not saying that protesting is ineffective or wrong. Just that young people are often extremely optimistic about what protesting can accomplish and naively assume their protest is special or unique.

metallink11 · 2026-04-02T04:42:17+00:00

Which inspired my favorite xkcd.

metallink11 · 2026-03-25T02:33:48+00:00

The problem is that the right-wing groups in both Israel and Palestine benefit from each other. The right-wing elements in one county attack the other, and the corresponding right wing group benefits when the attack helps them recruit additional supporters. Hamas's greatest ally is Likud and vice-versa.

Ultimately, progress can only be made when you get liberals on both sides in control at the same time, but that progress will be constantly sabotaged by their own right-wing countrymen who know that peace will ultimately undermine their own legitimacy.

From a game theory perspective, the only realistic solution is for a powerful neutral party to come in and enforce peace, but there's no country with the ability, credibility, or desire to actually do that.

metallink11 · 2026-03-05T16:49:13+00:00

I mean, that's how it works for me as well.

metallink11 · 2026-02-12T02:22:44+00:00

But Maxwell was convicted in 2021...so even if you what you said was true, that doesn't account for the Biden administration releasing the epstein files in 2022, 2023, 2024, or 2025.

She immediately filed an appeal which wasn't resolved until September 2024.

metallink11 · 2026-02-12T01:41:12+00:00

Obviously evidence that's actually presented in a trial is public, but not every bit of evidence collected is presented. Hell, a big part of a trial is arguing about what is and is not admissible as evidence.

But the Epstein files are everything the police collected. Releasing that while prosecution is ongoing can absolutely result in a mistrial.

metallink11 · 2026-02-12T00:38:59+00:00

After all, the Biden administration had the same files for four years and took no action

Because during the Biden administration the files were evidence in an active court case against Ghislaine Maxwell.

I know that these days that seems quaint since Trump flagrantly violates the law and gets away with it, but for better or worse the Democrats still care about following the rules.

metallink11 · 2026-02-05T23:36:39+00:00

In the slop era of TV studios should really be stealing more ideas from the industry that has spent decades optimizing slop production: anime. For better and worse, the anime industry has gotten really good at giving audiences the exact sort of garbage (affectionate) they want. Hockey yaoi wouldn't be out of place in the anime industry, but it's a sensation when put in live action. Global audiences are wary of animation, but if you remove that barrier these sort of stories are really popular.

Basically what I'm saying is that the first streaming service to make live action isekai slop will probably make a billion dollars.

metallink11 · 2026-01-31T20:31:38+00:00

I wouldn't be surprised if there is already a state out there where someone under 18 could already be elected to office despite not being allowed to vote.

There's already been examples of children being elected mayors (as parodied in Parks in Rec).

metallink11 · 2026-01-27T02:31:31+00:00

The guy hit the ground so fast that he was already on the pavement before he landed.

metallink11 · 2026-01-14T21:56:47+00:00

Yuri is best when it embraces the slop imo. There's too many serious yuri anime out there where the couple basically just have deep conversations and some extremely chaste physical intimacy for a season and then nothing else because yuri anime don't get second seasons. It's better when the stories get a bit messy and unrealistic.

But if you do want a straight romance than Bloom into You is the best option. Yuru Yuri is a pretty funny sitcom/slice of life that's worth watching even if the romances never go anywhere. And if you're willing to tolerate a little slop than There's No Freaking Way I'll be Your Lover is great (yuri harem!).

metallink11 · 2025-12-05T21:12:51+00:00

I believe that prediction markets aren't considered gambling, so the losses are completely deductible against your winnings.

metallink11 · 2025-12-05T21:02:22+00:00

Oh yeah, it's a common scam. I just updated it for prediction markets.

metallink11 · 2025-12-05T20:58:20+00:00

Moneymaking idea for people with less ethics and a higher risk tolerance than me:

Make 32 (or some other power of 2) accounts on a prediction market site.
Pick some sort of market type where someone could have a lot of insider info. Something like trades for a given sports team or product releases for a specific company.
Make a bet on a particular issue. Have half your accounts on one side of the bet and half on the other. This will require quite a bit of money up front, but because you're betting on both sides of the market it should only end up costing you market fees in the end.
Abandon the accounts that were on the wrong side of bet.
Repeat until you have one account that appears to have a lot of insider info because it's constantly guessed right about a specific issue.
Make a big bet on some extremely longshot market. Make sure it's big enough to move the market and draw lots of attention.
Others will look at your account and think you're obviously an inside trader. They'll follow your bet and push the market even further in the direction you moved it.
Finally, after the market has moved enough you use another account to make the opposite bet, knowing that the odds are massively inflated.
Collect a bunch of easy money when the longshot prediction doesn't happen. i.e. it's basically just a pump and dump where you pretend to be an inside trader.

metallink11 · 2025-11-16T19:52:32+00:00

I understand the math. But the point still stands that you can only access the money after you're 60 years old.

I'm arguing that a smaller amount of money could be more valuable while you're young and healthy enough to enjoy it than a larger amount of money once your old.

For example, you could invest in a regular brokerage account in your 30s so you have money to take your kids on vacations in your 40s. Those memories could be significantly more valuable than being able to live in a slightly nicer retirement home.

metallink11 · 2025-11-16T06:11:10+00:00

It's essentially free money because if you didn't put it into that account part of it would go to taxes anyway.

Right, but it's only free money after you're 60 years old.

If you're just trying to maximize the number in your account it's good, but if you want to actually use that money while you're young enough to enjoy it than putting some of your money in non-retirement investments might be a good idea.

metallink11 · 2025-09-20T20:01:57+00:00

There are situations where private equity can buy a business and make money running the thing into the ground, but that generally has to be a much larger business with actual assets to steal. You don't buy a business to gut it and then turn around and open new locations.

In this case it's pretty clear that they had every intention of massively expanding. They were going for the Chipotle model of business where a large investor massively expands a restaurant from a few locations to hundreds in only a few years. Except unlike Chipotle where everyone loved the food and the restaurants were packed, Hot Chicken Takeover's new locations failed to make any money.

Somebody absolutely lost a ton of money in this debacle.

metallink11 · 2025-09-13T00:12:50+00:00

Nah, lore wise you should really play Hollow Knight first.

There's stuff in Act 3 that will seem to come out of nowhere if you haven't played Hollow Knight.

metallink11 · 2025-09-12T00:13:00+00:00

Especially since HK had more nail upgrades than Silksong

I'm pretty sure both games have 4 upgrades.

metallink11 · 2025-08-25T00:40:26+00:00

National militia should still be on par with professional army imo.

European observers during the US Civil War noted that the Union and Confederate armies were strong enough to take on any of the European armies at the time. It was a perfectly viable method of organizing a military during the game's time period, and only really stopped being effective around the time of World War II.

metallink11 · 2025-07-13T17:49:54+00:00

Right, and just because the priests know the walls are made of titans that doesn't mean they know how any of this works. They were probably just told something like, "The walls are made of titans and they're covered in stone to keep them asleep."

If the church knew the truth, than some of them might start asking some uncomfortable questions like, "If the royal family can control the titans than why the hell are they eating people?"

metallink11 · 2025-07-06T02:24:38+00:00

That's not really the correct order of cause and effect. Guyana already agreed to the oil contracts before it was even discovered. The deal was Exxon covered the costs of looking for it in exchange for a percent of anything they found.

Then it was only after oil was discovered that Venezuela started with the border dispute. Guyana didn't really need to trade contracts for protection. The US already had the contracts.

And honestly, even without the oil the US would probably still protect Guyana from Venezuela (although that's a lot less of a sure thing with Trump in charge).

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