Is that the same Charlie Stross that writes the James-bond-meets-Cthulhu-IT-worker books?

Unless we get a blow-out for either candidate that cannot be challenged, which does not seem likely based on the polls and battle lines, even if we have a Biden-esque victory for Harris, I’m fairly unsure of what will happen next. I personally doubt full on Civil War like in the Garland movie, or the actual civil war, but I would expect all kinds of shitty legal tricks, possible Supreme Court involvement and of course, stochastic and targeted violence, particularly towards immigrants and minorities. In other words, win or lose, I think the US may be in for a bad time. Hopefully I’m working in my assumptions here and it is somewhat more boring.

To better answer your question though, assuming things don’t completely fall apart: the two sides already don’t mix much, which is part of the problem in the first place. We’ll get more govt inaction due to gridlocked congress, probably more defense spending and some states, in the absence of federal legislating, will continue to take a larger role as they have been doing already in the recent era.

So basically more of the same, on a not-great trend line. Something has to give at some point, it’s hard to imagine how you could put the genie back in the bottle now, particularly with overall conditions in the world due to late-stage capitalism and climate change constricting each year.

Yeah I was thinking he obviously needs to start responding with chat gpt. Maybe they could just have the two phones use audio mode and have the argument for them instead. Reminds me of that old Star Trek episode where instead of war, belligerent nations just ran a computer simulation of the war and then each side humanely euthanized that many people.

I find it interesting that the loaned DPRK are operating ballistic missile platforms. Makes me wonder if part of the intention is to skill up some of the army units with combat launching exp, which is not the happiest thought, since NK has a continental US capable truck-launched ICBM since 2017.

Of course the plan doesn’t work if they all get killed by Ukrainian drone attacks, but NK has never been too precious about their rank and file anyway.

It kinda works both ways—in order to make 4 player coop functional, you’d require so many tyranids on screen that it would be unplayable, both hardware and for the players brain.

I know fanboys would scream if the marines were squishier, but what’s always confused me is that despite the legendary invincibility of space marines, in tabletop they still feel moderately squishy. Sure not like tyranids and orcs and such, but not like super human either. I suppose terminator squads with custom gear might feel closer to that mark.

All relative I guess.

It reminds me of an interview I saw with Alan Richardson (?), the guy playing reacher on the Amazon series. It was in support of the new season, but basically the conversation revolved around how exhausting it was to maintain the required physique for the role, and how it meant he couldn’t do some of the things he normally enjoyed—he was too heavy to run without impact injury, and flexibility and reach was an issue.

I’d imagine transitioning between these physiques can probably be challenging and taxing on the body as well.

Everything about this screams fake. It also all sounds like a horrible idea. They’re basically discussing traumatizing inmates at 10x speed. Given that a lot of criminals come from a background of trauma, I’d wonder here if you’d be doing more harm than good. There’s claims in this article that are absurd, without some form of clarification. What the hell is a “creative scientist” as a title—I’m not familiar with that discipline. Also, let’s uhh say am that all this was real, and possible. This tech would be a net evil in the world. If you can use it to brainwash inmates into cringing when they think about doing crime, you can also use it to torture dissenters into conformists. Given that the tech is already aimed at an element of the state security apparatus, there’s like no chance this wouldn’t get used for much worse purposes. I think they’re also misunderstanding how prison is used in many places. In NA, prison does not seem to be about rehabilitation, but just punishment and getting free labor.

That means the he probably took a shit on the desk. It’s standard playbook with all them—you accuse the opposition of doing the freaky shit you’re actually doing.

But to be fair, it’s very likely both of them wear diapers, so there could have been an accident, eh?

Well, it looks like my 3D fix voodoo cards from the 90’s… so seems ok

It’s almost worse than actually just laying off x% of a workforce—you stress everyone out and force them to contemplate leaving, some amount do (achieving the ulterior motive) and the rest who didn’t leave now have increased workload and are also immiserated by being forced to commute to a stupid cube farm some portion of the week. It’s like they found a way to make layoffs affect everyone more than they already did in the past.

Taking their partner for granted and letting communication get lazy. Yes you’re friends and partners, but it can be easy to forget the emotionality and connection in the routine bustle of life.

This is a garbage website/source, but adds some more context:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/decades-old-nuclear-coffin-on-pacific-island-cracks-under-climate-stress/ar-AA1mOoN9

Apparently a big concrete dome where loads of radioactive shit from old tests has cracked due to weather/climate related wear and tear.