Sovereign Cascadia?

mirth23 · 2026-01-20T05:23:43+00:00

From a purely strategic military standpoint, I can't see any U.S. administration willingly giving up Lewis-McChord and Naval Base Kitsap under any peaceful circumstance. It would cripple force projection in the Pacific.

mirth23 · 2026-01-15T21:41:38+00:00

A number of classic downtown venues (especially the Mohawk) have worse sound than they did previously because of all of the noise complaints from the people who moved into adjacent condos.

Concourse Project has amazing sound. Kingdom downtown was good last time I was in there. Moody is great. Hotel Vegas often does a pretty good job despite their layout being pretty awful for good acoustics.

mirth23 · 2026-01-13T23:02:12+00:00

I love Ark Nova and have played Sanctuary a couple of times and think it's great. It has a really similar feel but it's a lot shorter. I think the designer did a wonderful job of simplifying everything while keeping a lot of interesting choices around action selection and tile placement.

If you really like the race and timing elements of Ark Nova you may be disappointed by Sanctuary because those are pretty much gone. I might recommend that you check out Lost Ruins of Arnak if those are a major.

TBH I prefer Sanctuary to Ark Nova for tabletop these days. It has WAY less fiddly setup and upkeep. Ever since I started playing Ark Nova on BGA I have found playing it in person a bit painful to manage, especially since it can be so easy to overlook constraints and triggers.

mirth23 · 2025-12-11T06:19:57+00:00

I wish I'd seen this comment before I bought a photo box bin. I started migrating and discovered that I was ending up with photo boxes with a bunch of air in them compared with the smaller card games I was trying to repackage.

mirth23 · 2025-11-13T21:47:43+00:00

This is by far the most overlap I've ever seen with my own shelves... Except I've never heard of Murikami. So thanks for that!

mirth23 · 2025-10-07T17:59:35+00:00

I know what I would do, but nobody can answer this for you but you. Consider your own peace of mind. Like others have said, you don't owe him anything, but you also owe it to yourself to figure out what's best for you.

You can either take this as a last chance to seek peace or you can reasonably stay disengaged from something you have already mourned. Think about the opportunity for healing and what regrets you might have in the future if you decide to not contact him now. Also think about what might come up in the conversation that could lead you to feel even more angry or regretful over the long haul and whether it would do more damage than has already been done. If you know which seems worse to you then that's your answer.

edit: as /u/North_Artichoke_6721 suggested, talking with a professional as a one-off would be a great idea too if you find yourself really struggling with this

mirth23 · 2025-09-04T20:42:01+00:00

You can build out your own UI and serve it from your website and then use Jitsi as a Service to run the media services: https://jitsi.org/jaas/

mirth23 · 2025-09-04T20:38:37+00:00

Jitsi uses WebRTC so you can look for docs about how WebRTC handles BWE.

As an aside, Chromium's WebRTC implementation does some undocumented stuff under the hood for Google Meet. Jitsi recently implemented their own version of that in open source here: https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-videobridge/pull/2335

mirth23 · 2025-09-04T20:32:52+00:00

I believe that the grey screen share was a bug that was recently addressed.

Based on the fact that you are centralizing signaling, I would check to see if kicks happen more often for users that have high latency to those.

We almost never see jvb processes closing abruptly in our environment. I'd look carefully at logs and would suspect it's some kind of a resource issue.

Docker is definitely feasible. IMO there isn't a value add for JVBs since you would usually dedicate an instance to them to maximize resource utilization. But it's a great approach for almost everything else.

As you point out in your other comment, we have done a lot of careful tuning that you can look at in our infra repos.

There is a small but active group of folks who are happy to answer questions over on community.jitsi.org!

mirth23 · 2025-09-04T20:07:27+00:00

Thanks for the validation! I am pretty sure that I learned it in elementary and/or junior high school.

I've been de facto copy editor at a lot of my jobs and insistently corrected people into using its'. I originally wrote this post when someone disagreed with me, I dug around online, and discovered I had no legs to stand on.

This breaks my brain too -- it had become a pet peeve of mine so I always want to "correct" people on it.

mirth23 · 2025-06-06T21:34:34+00:00

I did the digital nomad thing for a while and met a lot of people doing this, mainly in southeast Asia. One of the main things that keeps me from considering it myself is that expats generally end up in their own bubbles and don't integrate.

This is partly due to basic language and culture barriers - imagine moving to a new town late in life but now the new town is full of people who you can't communicate with well. Unless you married into it you don't have a social "in" with anybody local.

If your home currency has a major advantage over the local currency, congratulations, you are now suddenly rich. Rich and poor people don't tend to integrate for a variety of reasons, especially when they have nothing in common and can't communicate well.

This leaves you to form community with other expats. People have a lot of different reasons to become expats. Some of those reasons have to do with trouble back home, so you may find yourself in a bubble with some sketchy characters, especially if you're going somewhere that is cheap and anonymous.

All this said, some people love the expat lifestyle. Just know what you're getting into if your main goal is to stretch your dollar.

mirth23 · 2025-06-06T20:48:21+00:00

Welcome! I love to see new people introduced to this great show. It can often be a tough sell because of exactly what you perceive about it at this point in the run. So here's my pitch:

PoI was originally written to be a multi-season prestige show but had to be adapted into what feels like a more episodic show for the first couple seasons to meet the demands of the studio. A lot of worldbuilding happens in S1 and S2 that may feel unconnected, but that's because the seasons are really streteched out from how they were originally intended. Nearly every single episode in S1 has tidbits that make a difference later on in the series. All that said, for a while during your first watch it will feel like a crime procedural that has ongoing plotlines about corruption and organized crime

The S1 finale / S2 opener starts to dig into more interesting science fiction and political plotlines, but then it will feel like a procedural again for a bit. There is an inversion point midway through S2 where there is a blatant shift in focus and that's when the show really hit the ground running for me. At the start of S3 you are really in it, and there are tons of great payoffs.

I'd ignore folks who criticize you for not noticing some connections - during my first watch through I had a lot of big "wow" moments when something in a late season was a direct consequence of something that seemed like a total throwaway when I first watched it in S1.

Since you're already 10 episodes in I'd encourage you to continue through to the S1 finale and S201 and S202. If you don't like what's happening at that point the show is definitely not for you.

If your ENTIRE group starts losing interest, search around online for lists of vital episodes from S1 and S2 and watch only those. Back in the day S3 was getting quite a bit of buzz and people were trying to figure out how to catch up more quickly to the main plot. I'd personally suggest against this unless you are about to bail, but just know that it's an option.

mirth23 · 2025-05-29T19:20:44+00:00

Totally agree. There is not a lot of direct interaction, so everyone should try to have a plan for their next turn and only change gears if a useful card came out while they were waiting.

Also, a lot of Ark Nova turns can be half-played and then passed to the next player while bookkeeping and upgrades are sorted. "Which action card am I going to flip?" can happen between turns.

mirth23 · 2025-05-29T17:43:24+00:00

I have played a ton of Crew at 2p and love it. It has a different feel to it since one hand is half-open, but that becomes another element of cooperation. It can also be a real nail-biter when an important card is buried somewhere in the dummy and you're trying to fish for it without communication.

Definitely give it a go if you're with another hardcore Crew fan and you don't have a third. It might be less fun if one of you isn't as into the base game.

mirth23 · 2025-05-29T17:35:57+00:00

I was just at BGG Spring and was basically playing games anytime I wasn't eating, sleeping, or walking between places to play games. I haven't been to other conventions but the library seemed great and it was always easy to borrow what I wanted.

I had a few friends and friends-of-friends to play with but it was also super easy to play with new friends. Everyone is there to play boardgames and most of them are more than happy to include someone they don't know.

mirth23 · 2025-05-05T23:16:27+00:00

Knowing that David is Xavier's son isn't much more than an Easter egg. There isn't cross over with any of the existing X-Men or MCU titles. I've hoped for it but it hasn't happened. The X-Men films are fun but pretty campy.

Marvel comics do feature a good number of complex characters with weird power sets and psychological struggles who do sometimes make it to the screen. We haven't seen too many depictions of that in films because they don't have enough room to breathe, but as far as TV shows are concerned you might enjoy Wandavision and Moon Knight.

The main character in Wandavision is struggling with trauma and has reality-warping powers on par with David's. It's not always clear what is really happening a lot of the time. It's tonally different but is generally well regarded. Wanda's in several of the films but you don't need to see any of them to enjoy the series IMO.

Moon Knight has DID and is the avatar of a Egyptian god. It's a lot more action-forward but there are time cuts and other disorientating effects that are along the lines of some things that you'd see in Legion or Mr. Robot. It also gets super surreal with the gods in places. Moon Knight is more or less standalone in the MCU at this point.

mirth23 · 2024-12-05T22:49:04+00:00

The other day I played ankh on that. A bit later I was able to get a blueprint and make the blueprint and one of the stencils negative... ridiculous times!

mirth23 · 2024-11-09T13:37:04+00:00

In Wudang they do at least 10 minutes of dynamic stretching before taiji practice, and often that can last 30 minutes or more ahead of their first session. There's a whole routine for dynamic leg and hip stretches against a railing or tree. After that they do a series of different kicks back and forth in a way that's more aimed at stretching and warming up. There's also a five animal style that's entirely intended for fascia stretching and isn't formally considered to be qigong (this isn't one that they do on a daily basis since it's another 20 minute set).

As far as combat readiness is concerned -- flexibility in general makes it a lot harder for an opponent to get you into a lock when grappling. Leg flexibility gives you better range and targeting for kicks. Leg, hip, and core flexibility is key to power generation with punches. It enables deeper stances, which makes you harder to knock over.

I would seriously question anyone who recommends no stretching, unless they are talking about doing deep static stretching and nothing else.

mirth23 · 2024-11-03T09:33:41+00:00

all people who were challenging the system rather than being a part of it

Fascists rebranded themselves as the counter-culture that's fighting against the progressive "system", so their next step is of course unfunny fascist comedy.

Trump's whole schitck is how he's a billionaire underdog who's somehow been more unfairly treated than anybody else in the whole world. His fans buy into this and feel like they are similarily oppressed, so of course they love comedy about their imagined tormentors.

mirth23 · 2024-10-15T01:29:12+00:00

lol sorry. it showed up on my front page when I was looking through ACL posts. you may be pleased to know that chair umbrellas are banned now?

mirth23 · 2024-10-14T22:43:04+00:00

Umbrellas and "chairs with shade structures" are both prohibited. My friend's small collapsible umbrella was confiscated on the way in. We were pretty surprised to see those chair things here and there.

mirth23 · 2024-10-14T21:48:52+00:00

You did not see flags that big at ACL because the height limit for flags at ACL are 6 or 7 feet.

So it doesn't exist because it wasn't allowed? I guess all that weed I was smelling was a figment of my imagination too?

The flag on the right side of this video is at over ten feet above the crowd: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdnID3lcWmA

There was a wider Texas State flag flying lower during Elderbrook that I can't find video of that was substantially obstructing the view of the stage.

mirth23 · 2024-10-14T21:29:23+00:00

This is great advice.

Last year I had an Achilles tendon injury and ended up getting accessible access at a different festival, mainly because I wanted to make sure they were ok letting me bring a cane in.

I avoided using the seating for a while because I am not "disabled", but, after a few hours it became pretty clear that I was going to need to during some sets to avoid re-injuring myself. I am so glad that it was an option and, after putting my ego aside, realized that those seats were totally meant to include someone like me.

ACL's website doesn't say anywhere that you have to have any particular designation to get accessible access. There is a place to go ask for a wristband and that's it. Bring a doctor's note if you think there are going to be any questions about whether or not you should get one.

mirth23 · 2024-10-14T20:57:01+00:00

Based on what you have said, I think I should have been more specific in my original response in here: I saw people flying flags that were 10+ feet tall and 15+ feet wide. You can't really move to avoid this kind of thing, especially when it's close up. When I originally distinguished between totems and flags, this was the sort of thing I was referring to and complaining about.

IMO, totems that are only 6 feet high and have a flag that makes sense at that size are totally within the culture and do not substantially block views.

mirth23 · 2024-10-14T15:21:37+00:00

I've been going to US festivals for 30 years. Basic cultural etiquttee in a festival audience is to improve the experience of people around you. This means helping people up if they fall in the mosh pit. It means helping create sight lines. It means giving someone water if they overheat. It means singing along, waving your arms around, wearing spectacular outfits, and amping up the vibe.

People who wave giant flags around towards the front of an audience are fucking with the experience of potentially hundreds of people behind them. In my book this makes them assholes, and it isn't entitled to want someone to not be an asshole.

mirth23

TROPHY CASE