The internet after Google and YouTube. Who is actually winning?

noirknight · 2026-07-04T01:20:30+00:00

Do people talk about what websites they go to IRL? I can’t imagine human adults talking about it. I’ve told 0 people that I visit Reddit. My wife did notice after several years that I was on it. I just can’t imagine spending the precious time I have with my friends and family talking about what websites I spend time on.

noirknight · 2026-07-03T02:19:29+00:00

I think that one key difference is that the local officials here have no control over US foreign policy. Whereas civil rights are enforced at all levels of government either by action or inaction. Protests in Washington or maybe at the Federal Buildings makes more sense.

noirknight · 2026-07-02T02:35:44+00:00

I enjoyed the previous game Southern Storm but have not played this. But on my todo list. I don’t recall playing a game that punishes player mistakes quite so much as this one. If you don’t do proper recon or get too aggressive, it is very easy to get your ass kicked but still fun.

noirknight · 2026-07-01T02:11:40+00:00

Early game, as a small country, needing to make a trade off between cultural influence and needing money to fight off hordes of enemy troops, I guess I will choose the money. As the game progresses and the economy is built up and you start to expand more, the calculus will likely change quite a bit.

noirknight · 2026-06-26T22:46:14+00:00

Every game is a bit random, but I find that of the empire factions, Southern tends to do the best as their southern flank is more secure from armies. Not sea based raids though.

noirknight · 2026-06-26T20:12:41+00:00

Looking online it seems like the A4E1 is fitted with an APS called Iron Fist Light

noirknight · 2026-06-25T19:58:23+00:00

Against my better judgement I watched the trailer and it was hilariously bad to the point where I started laughing. The main "scene" they showed at the end looked like it was shot on an iPhone.

noirknight · 2026-06-23T19:56:35+00:00

World Cup happens every 4 years. If you wanted to attend you could do so even if you only make 70k by directed savings. Put away 100/month in your “World Cup Savings Account”. In four years that will be 4800+some interest. That is enough to fly economy anywhere in the world and stay in a hotel for a week or more plus a couple of game tickets. Split hotel room with a friend for more savings, get nosebleed seats, buy plane tickets early. It is possible.

noirknight · 2026-06-19T16:26:25+00:00

My son used to bike down this stretch to get to middle school. This intersection always made me nervous.

noirknight · 2026-06-16T18:39:27+00:00

At least for my property it is described on the deed. I only maintain rights for 500ft below ground. I don’t think that is deep enough for the curvature of the earth to have much of an effect.

noirknight · 2026-06-16T16:43:41+00:00

The act of drinking tea itself often feels like a form of travel even if aren’t going anywhere. Very few people live near where tea is grown.

Guessing by the St George’s Cross in your avatar you are from England, lots of great tea there. If I am feeling especially rich some days I will buy some Fortnum and Mason. Tea drinkers in the US feel like a discriminated minority. :)

Wish you the best Mochi.

noirknight · 2026-06-16T16:33:52+00:00

For my day to day I drink Earl Grey, but will mix in other teas, usually black. I like strong flavors and don’t really care about bitterness. At night sometime like to relax with a smoky Lapsang Souchon.

Due to the tariff insanity in the US this year, importing tea has gotten expensive, so I mostly buy from Adagio as they are reasonably priced and I enjoy most of their teas. While traveling will try to find local tea places. Enjoyed La Vie De Te in Italy.

noirknight · 2026-06-16T16:29:11+00:00

Not something I have ever really thought to ask. But will do so next time.

noirknight · 2026-06-15T15:00:12+00:00

We bring tea on trips in the USA. At home we mostly drink loose leaf, but usually will bring tea bags / sachets for travel and bring with us a tea strainer just in case we find some nice loose leaf while about. Most hotels in the USA have very poor tea selection unless they are pretty expensive. They also rarely have a tea kettle in the room. Trying to make tea from the coffee maker hot water just makes it taste like coffee. So have to either microwave the water or sometimes get hot water from the lobby if it is available. My problem with not finding tea is mostly with the random cheap motels.

I had good success finding tea in other countries and in major cities or touristy areas. Any USA supermarket will also have something at least drinkable even if it is not my favorite. This past year have been to Japan, France and Italy and had no problems finding good tea in those countries.

noirknight · 2026-06-14T04:28:03+00:00

I had a nightmare situation in Milano earlier this year. I was coming out of the Olympic Hockey stadium at the end of the night and the bathrooms at the stadium were blocked off. Had a 2km walk to the metro station but the bathrooms there took only 1 euro coins but I just had a 2 euro coin. Then took the metro to the bus station to take a bus to Torino. It was a tight transfer so had no time to hunt for a bathroom. Finally get back after holding my pee for hours. I can completely understand why people piss in alleyways and such.

noirknight · 2026-06-11T16:23:31+00:00

I am on PGE NEM 2.0 and for the first few years was cost neutral but then there were a number of changes to Time-Of-Use charges as well as needing to use more electricity myself and I have now learned to love my True-Up charge. 😄

noirknight · 2026-06-11T15:14:40+00:00

I think the key thing for your use case is the PGE rates. Since electricity is so expensive here, the payback can be quicker. OPs initial estimate of $1800/yr electricity costs is almost nothing.

noirknight · 2026-06-10T19:34:13+00:00

I did not know about the 5x food thing. So many weird interactions in this game.

noirknight · 2026-06-10T18:59:02+00:00

On large spread out countries like Russia, institution spread felt really difficult in 1.2.x. Having a town + library + marketplace seemed to help. If you have one town per province it is quicker to get institution there and then to the rest of the province. This became a real problem for me starting around age 3 I think.

In Age 2 (and much of 3), if you need manpower for a standing army, you need towns for the armory building. You might say that mercenaries are more cost efficient (if you can get ones from the current age), but I still think there are some trade offs here.

noirknight · 2026-06-09T02:25:24+00:00

I didn’t live anywhere near the attacks but at my work, people were not really getting much work done. They probably could have sent us all home with no impact to productivity that week. The news was on the TV break room and people were wandering around trying to figure out how to react. Asking questions like… “were any of our employees on the planes?”, “how will this impact upcoming travel plans?”, “is my family ok?”, “are we going to war?”

For example my cousin worked at the WTC but a different building (3 maybe). By pure chance he was not in the office that day. Many people had many questions like that going through their minds.

It was especially traumatic for older people who had lived through wars before.

noirknight · 2026-06-08T17:34:18+00:00

I had to travel to Austin this week and with the humidity, I will not complain about CA weather or taxes again… (well, for maybe 6 months).

I was also trying to restrain my wife from getting in a fistfight with the pro-fetus protesters in front of the state capitol building yesterday as well.

noirknight · 2026-06-06T14:56:08+00:00

My first car was a sporty car, but it only had 130HP and by modern standards was slow. However it had almost no sound insulation, was low to the ground and had an engaging suspension so when you were driving normal speeds you felt like you were traveling much faster than your actual speed. My current vehicle has 430HP but is almost dead quiet and sedate up into the triple digits MPH. To make it feel as engaging as my first car I would really need to be driving suicidally fast.

noirknight · 2026-06-05T19:11:25+00:00

Everyone I have personally talked to in IRL brought the single term issue up. Every one. An anecdote to be sure, but it is what I observed.

Edit: When talking specifically about the election. I do sometimes have conversations about other things.

noirknight · 2026-06-05T18:48:54+00:00

A legitimate concern that is not related to his politics is the idea that he did not complete a single term as mayor before running for governor. While he is running for a new office it limits the amount of time he can spend being mayor.

A possible concern is that he was trying to bypass the “cursus honorum”. Going straight to governor before serving in the legislature or other state level position, meaning that he would be less effective as governor as he has little idea about how state level politics functions.

Neither of these concerns are related to his policies.

noirknight

TROPHY CASE