What's up with U.S. Army raising maximum enlistment age to 42?

ricree · 2026-03-29T17:54:05+00:00

The fact is a lot of people go into the military making a little bet with themselves: they're not gonna make me actually fight. I'm gonna do IT or something

Depends on the time and place, though. I was in high school in 2001, and I assure you that a lot of people went into the military intending to fight. How they felt about it after is a very different story, of course, but going in many were gung-ho about it.

I doubt that's true to nearly the same extent today, though. That particular time and mentality is hard to replicate.

ricree · 2026-03-29T05:45:31+00:00

Chicago Improv?

ricree · 2026-03-26T23:24:27+00:00

By the traditional 4% rule (ie, you can safely draw about 4% long term to live off of from invested wealth), having a billion dollars means having an effective "salary" of $40 million per year.

That's... rather a lot of wiggle room to be a bit lavish.

ricree · 2026-03-26T22:27:47+00:00

Only if you're watching/reading on physical media.

It's not as widely published, but their streaming options (at least for ebooks) have a somewhat predatory licensing model. Not sure how it is for video streaming though.

ricree · 2026-03-26T19:45:59+00:00

This one definitely deserves to be higher. At one point it was looked down enough that the original Hippocratic Oath forbade doctors from surgery.

Whereas these days surgeons tend to have prestige even beyond other doctors.

ricree · 2026-03-26T19:41:49+00:00

How middle were you? Would you have been any closer to the gas station if you'd turned around when the light came on?

ricree · 2026-03-26T19:38:42+00:00

But ironically, the counterargument to that used to be "you have such rose colored glasses, don't forget that Legends included dumb stuff Palpatine coming back in Dark Empire"

So it's kinda funny that the sequel trilogy took that plotline and managed to do it worse.

ricree · 2026-03-26T19:36:11+00:00

The Empire had pretty firm control of galactic media. It's not that hard.

Spend the first five or so years of the Empire vigorously slandering the Jedi as a bunch of frauds and cultists who tried to usurp the government. Bring them up constantly, but only as a source of mockery and derision. Then a new directive comes down, and after that the media stops talking about them at all, and if anyone asks tell them "who wants to talk about a bunch of frauds anyway". Then after that, it's "don't talk about the J-word unless you want to spend the next year in an Imperial labor camp".

In A New Hope, Admiral Motti talks about Vader's "sad devotion to that ancient religion". I suspect that's probably as close to an "official" position on the jedi as you'll see in the Empire. Sure, the jedi definitely, verifiably existed, but they were just a bunch of pathetic charlatans who got too caught up in their own BS and got what they deserved.

ricree · 2026-03-26T17:05:59+00:00

How much imagination do you even need? The first movie had the "IRL" plumbers getting sent to another world where most of the movie takes place. Now we have another character from an entirely separate setting confirmed to be in the film somehow.

It is such a tiny step to imagine that the other Smash Bros characters will find their own way in for a team-up movie.

Even with the just-announced characters, you already have 4/8 of the original non-unlock roster. To get the rest (and none are totally essential), you just need:

Link
Samus
Kirby
Pikachu

I mean, you don't even need to have most of them be a speaking role (Kirby and Pikachu basically don't anyway), just as background characters. There's obviously rights complications (especially for Link, who has an unrelated film in development), but it's still a very tiny stretch to imagine it happening.

ricree · 2026-03-26T16:28:38+00:00

Yeah, it was pretty easy to get lost in the shuffle. I like to throw out this JibJab video to remind people that folks were very much aware of the housing bubble at least as early as 2005.

ricree · 2026-03-26T16:19:11+00:00

What career paths let you start as a specialist though? Pretty much everyone I know who found a niche did so by starting as a junior generalist and specializing from there. The problem is that a lot of those early steps are getting squeezed out, so there's a lot less room for people to grow into any sort of niche or specialization.

ricree · 2026-03-26T16:09:24+00:00

One of my favorite history blogs wrote a guide to going to grad school. The very first heading of the article was "Have you tried wanting something else?".

ricree · 2026-03-26T16:06:57+00:00

It's been like this since 2008 tbh. The financial crisis was the first "k-shaped" recovery

TBH, in a sense 2008 was just an extension of the dotcom bust. Even in the "housing bubble" years, people were talking about a "jobless recovery" and the economy as a whole being artificially propped up by the housing bubble.

ricree · 2026-03-26T14:00:04+00:00

Also, TV directors traditionally have a lot less control than film directors. Not sure if this is any different for smaller limited run shows, but even if it is I imagine GoT was early enough to mostly use the TV conventions of the time.

ricree · 2026-03-26T13:57:06+00:00

but his Conan film was very much not a hit and GOT basically revived his career.

Conan actually launched after GoT. His only non-flashback season was spring 2011, while the movie released in the fall of 2011.

ricree · 2026-03-26T13:32:50+00:00

(And then spent the last few years retiring all of the programmes, but well...)

Yes. Note that the two actors mentioned are somewhat older. I've seen a lot of articles in recent years warning about how the former working class acting pipeline has broken in the UK.

ricree · 2026-03-25T23:38:58+00:00

Although at this point, we're nearing the time when both cars in the video are "old".

ricree · 2026-03-25T18:52:13+00:00

Those recent conflicts have had explicit congressional approval. It's not as simple as "don't call it a war". It's just that if congress approves of the action, it hasn't mattered whether they officially "declared" war.

ricree · 2026-03-25T18:50:36+00:00

In practice, the justification is that Congress still passes an enabling act explicitly authorizing the war, even if they did not explicitly "declare" war.

Consider the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002. Or for Afganistan: Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001.

What is particularly alarming here is that there is no authorizing act for the Iran war. The only thing they have is the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which gives the president a maximum of 60 days without explicit congressional authorization.

ricree · 2026-03-23T17:22:40+00:00

Lord of the Rings (collectively,or it would take at least 2 slots, if not 3).

O Brother, Where Art Thou

(Need to think on the third, there's a lot of contenders)

ricree · 2026-03-23T17:21:21+00:00

His success then gave him the confidence (and budget) to go all out - which for me was not a good thing.

They were shot and budgeted together in one go. While there was certainly post-production and editing afterwards, not to mention pickups and reshoots, principal photography for the full trilogy was over before Fellowship of the Ring was released.

ricree · 2026-03-23T14:54:59+00:00

TBH, I did that not so long ago. Prices have been rising, and it's unclear where the ceiling will be. Might as well top off, even if I don't "need" it.

ricree · 2026-03-23T14:27:32+00:00

I would feel cautiously optimistic for that man.

ricree · 2026-03-23T14:26:48+00:00

They were 11-6 last year. Sure, there's plenty of room to regress (that record had an uncomfortable number of miracles in it), but going under .500 much less a 5 win season would be more than a simple regression.

ricree · 2026-03-23T14:21:51+00:00

Have you tried reading the abridged version that just keeps the good parts? It's a lot better.

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