µblog - archive for 2022-09

The hardest boss in Elden Ring? It must be the damn jumping puzzle to reach the Frenzied Flame. Died more times there than when fighting Malenia.

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Dude, where’s my jetpack?

I’m living in the SF world of my younger years - unfortunately, it’s the world of John Shirley’s A Song Called Youth. European war waged between the Soviets and a fundamentalist Christian PMC who are planning a biological genocide. US population oppressed by “CIA Domestic”.

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My first guess about who blew up the Nordstream pipelines in the Baltic would be Russian military hardliners who want to force Putin to go all in with a conflict with NATO.

However this Twitter thread seems to imply that Russia doesn’t really have this kind of sabotage capability in the Baltic:

https://twitter.com/CovertShores/status/1574750260743880710

Tankies on HN and Twitter are of course blaming the US for covertly destroying any hopes that Germany would reach an accord with Russia during a harsh winter (German elites are of course complicit). Naturally Russia being the real culprit works in this scenario too.

Update 2022-09-28: This is an interesting thread

https://twitter.com/EmmaMAshford/status/1575137413340561411?s=20

Update 2022-09-29: and here’s another one

https://twitter.com/henryfarrell/status/1575465137389150209?s=20

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After 2 years, 6 months and 15 days since the first reported death to Covid in Sweden we have finally(?) got it.

It’s not too bad for me but my wife says it’s the worst she’s ever felt and she’s famously uncomplaining.

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An account with the handle “@LoliWifeGroomer” helped spread false rumors about a coup in China:

https://twitter.com/atandra_ray/status/1573894063702810625?s=20

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Creating the Innocent Killer: Ender’s Game, Intention, and Morality

I’ve never read more than a few chapters of a Card novel and now I feel entirely justified.

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Someday aliens are going to land their saucers in a field somewhere in New Jersey and everything is going to go just fine right up until we try to explain our calendar to them

– @Foone 🧵

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Good Twitter thread about Admiral Thomas Cochrane, who inspired Patrick O’Brian’s Jack Aubrey.

https://twitter.com/RussInCheshire/status/1539934516478984192?s=20

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Finished Elden Ring.

I feel a bit empty.

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The police on Iceland (Lögreglan) reports they have arrested four people on suspicion of terrorism:

https://www.logreglan.is/haettuastandi-afstyrt/

It’s been slowly filtering out in international media, but no mention of it on HN yet, which tells me it’s Nazis.

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Hilary Mantel RIP

So sad to hear this.

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I’m seriously having more trouble with the damn Kindred of Rot in the lower levels of Elphael than I did with Malenia.

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Nerds be like “huh this software looks pretty meh… wait the developer got kicked out from another project for being a giant dick??? OMG this is my new fav soft!!!!”

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Put away Placidusax, Mogh and Hoarah Loux. My, my Mimic, and the Blasphemous Blade make a great team.

Also I might be a teeny bit overleveled.

Two bosses to go.

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Putin’s vision: 300,000 soldiers marching with gleaming bayonets to the front.

Reality: 300,000 plane tickets out of Russia.

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Feeling bad about not taking photos anymore.

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Missed the email from Steam telling me I could purchase the Steamdeck so it went to someone else. Lucky bastard.

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Min förutspåelse för en kommande regering: M bildar tillsammans med KD. SD släpper igenom den tillsammans med Liberalerna. Dom får avsevärda krav tillgodosedda - minskad asylmottagning mm., men kommer inte sitta i ansvarig ställning när Sverige drabbas av lågkonjunktur. Nästa val går dom framåt ännu mer för att “politikerna kan inte genomföra något”. Win-win för dom bruna.

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ETH goes PoS

(PoS means Proof of Stake, not Piece Of Shit. ETH has always been a POS but it’s now PoS too.)

I honestly didn’t think Ethereum would manage to move to Proof of Stake from Proof of Work. Kudos.

This won’t remove any of the internal problems of ETH and crapto in general, but it will in a big way remove the externality of massive energy waste. This is a net good.

Sadly this won’t be possible for Bitcoin. Only swift and merciless eradication will work there.

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Blessed Be Thy Nuclear Weapons: The Rise of Russian Nuclear Orthodoxy

Adamsky’s book covers two distinct but equally fascinating processes that have taken place in post-Soviet Russia: the church’s integration into the nuclear-military complex and the political system’s parallel quest to engineer a national idea, lend itself legitimacy, and rebuild the power of the state that crumbled when the Soviet Union collapsed. Russian Orthodoxy is thus a decidedly secular concept, a mechanical replacement part for the many bits of machinery – or in Russian parlance “political technology” – that broke during the nation’s failed attempt at democracy in the 1990s. The church, an institution with ambitions of its own, volunteered to participate in Russia’s time-honored tradition of restoring state power after collapse, and expanding it to dominate society. At its heart, Russian nuclear orthodoxy constitutes the collective belief that to preserve its Orthodox character, Russia must be a nuclear power, and to guarantee its nuclear status, Russia must be genuinely Orthodox.

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Jean-Luc Godard RIP

To be honest I was surprised he was still alive.

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Få se om Liberalerna säljer sig för 30 silverpenningar, eller om SD lyckas förhandla ner dom till 25 och etniskt segregerade friskolor.

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At least we’re not the UK. Small mercies…

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Jag är inget fan av MP men om dom åker ut så vinner dom brunblå. Om du förtidsröstat och “ångrar” dig så kan du lägga en röst i vallokalen på söndag istället för din förtidsröst.

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Finally got around to updating this stuff:

https://gerikson.com/blog/alt/corona2020/Corona-19000.html

Data is from FHM.

The reason I haven’t updated it before is that I’m no longer reminded of the death toll via media.

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Negativt för vem?

Från SVT: ”För många hushåll är det ett förtvivlat läge”

Och många prognosmakare tror att priserna på bostäder kommer att fortsätta falla. Senast i raden är mäklarfirman Erik Olssons bostadsindex som visar att visningsbesökarna inte varit så negativa vad gäller prisutvecklingen sedan 2011. Hela 67 procent av de tillfrågade i den undersökningen räknar med att priserna går ner under det kommande året.

(min fetstil)

Visningsbesökare är övervägande köpare. För säljare och mäklare är fallande priser negativt men för en köpare är det ju positivt - man får mer bostad för pengarna och chansen att man får ut mer pengar när man säljer ökar om man inte köper en bostad nära en pris-topp.

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Now would be a good time for EU power companies to pause delivery to crypto mining companies. They probably can’t pay their bills anyay.

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Queen Bess 2 RIP

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King Charles III.

I guess they’re going for the Star Trek scheme where the odd-numbered ones are terrible.

(Today is Star Trek day, by the way.)

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How to solve Europe’s energy crisis: force Bitcoin miners to pay BTC for electricity, sell those immediately, crashing the price and forcing the miners to stop mining. 2 birds with 1 stone.

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Got my 4th booster shot (Pfizer). Only the people working with the vaccination were masked, no-one else was. Also much less space between people. Quite a contrast from the last one.

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Hur snart efter valet kommer SD att kräva slut på sanktioner mot Putins regim för att “rädda elpriset”?

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CF boots KF

(for future readers: CF = Cloudflare, a DDoS protection and CDN provider, and KF = Kiwifarms, a forum dedicated to crowdsourced doxxing and harrassing people they enjoy harrassing)

Yesterday I went to bed sad that KF was still up, and today I woke up to find that Cloudflare had booted them. The world is a slightly better place.

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More on CF/Kiwifarms

This is not a “free speech” issue. None of the members of KF have had their right to speech infringed by the legal authorities. The site owner (formerly operating under the company name of “Final Solutions LLC”) made the bet that hosting the worst people on the internet was financially sustainable. They used CF to achieve that goal. Other people used their right to expression to tell CF they were doing the wrong thing. CF finally agreed and KF is free to find another CDN provider on the open market.

“Free speech” doesn’t mean cheap speech. If you’re saying something most people don’t want to hear, don’t expect it to be cheap and easy to say it.

Update 2022-09-05: KF moved to a new DDoS-protection provider (in Russia), which has now also booted them. Hilariously the owner is complaining Russia is not a “free country”. Also referencing “the Cathedral”, alt-right speak for everything that opposes them.

https://twitter.com/GossiTheDog/status/1566746606396997635

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L har reklamaffischer (vid Gullmars) om hur viktigt det är att ha bra betyg. Illustreras av ett betyg från gymnasiet med femmor, fyror osv. Vi har inte haft sådana betyg på åratal. Vet L det?

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Är SD Putins bandhundar?

Inte så att dom får rubler direkt i fickan från Kreml, men före Putins katastrofala invasion spelade dom helt klart på samma planhalva. EU-skepticism, allmän misstro mot demokratiska värderingar och split i svenska sammhället hjälpte Rysslands inflytande indirekt.

Men det är ledningen som gör detta. Sympatisörerna är nog mer misstrogna mot “ryssen”, och sedan ryska soldater gått lös på ukrainska civila är det lätt att föreställa sig hur dess kära ömtåliga kvinnfolk skulle behandlas om Ryssland anföll. NATO-anslutningen kunde därför inte motstås utan att trovärdigt anklagas för att motverka Sveriges intressen.

Om SD vinner inflytande så kommer dom mycket snart ifrågasätta varför svenska pensionärer ska frysa för Ukrainas skull. Men SD är inte längre en direktledning från Kreml till riksdagen. Detta är dock enbart Putins fel.

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Lite imponerande ändå att SD kan kombinera främlingsfientlighet och homofobi, genom att insinuera att HBTQ-flyktingar “fejkar” för att få asyl. Ett tag ville ju fascisterna verka HBTQ-vänliga genom att hävda att islam är anti-gay men nu kan man slå 2 flugor i en smäll genom att ta av masken helt.

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