rjshae

NASA's Webb telescope is now in full focus, ready for instrument commissioning

All of the bases in DNA and RNA have now been found in meteorites Which pretty much suggests that life can form anywhere that the conditions are right. Now if we could just find some elsewhere...

After playing turn-based games for a while, I'd forgotten how uninspiring FPS combat can be. Ah well. At least the character interactions in this game are interesting.

Even taking into account enemy surprise, starting combat completely surrounded and in contact with the enemy is kind of a brain fart design decision. At least to me. It nearly eliminates most most tactics and makes the battle less interesting. I'd rather be facing more enemies with some gaps for maneuver.

New modeling shows that 'shielding' strategies instead of lockdowns would have led to tens of thousands more deaths I remember speculation about this approach early in the pandemic, so this is an interesting finding. It's all computer modelling, of course, but still a plausible outcome.

I'm not so sure that racism isn't a factor in certain immigration situations, but I do think it's more of an exacerbating factor that is easily conflated.

Welcome to our world. -- The USA 😁

Some of the OM encounters can be brutal, but I'm okay with that. Even with a good survival skill though, we ended up surprised far too often for my taste.

Yes, there's a lot of conflation of issues happening there, to some degree because racism is a trigger issue for the left in the US. However, if you look back at the history of the US, strong anti-immigration sentiment was, in may cases, caused by cultural differences, such as occurred with white Irish and Italian immigrants. People usually prefer their own culture and tend to be intolerant of outsiders who behave differently.

There does appear to be a link between immigration and the growth of right-wing populism in Europe and the US. I doubt this is going away any time soon. Migration and the rise of populism: how closely related are they?

Been there, done that. 🙄

As in the US, it sounds like many people turned up just to vote against the other guy. Another strike against plurality voting. Not that the victorious parties care.

I started playing The Outer Worlds, having picked it up on sale. It's been decent fun thus far; the commercialism message is completely over the top though, much as 50's-style conservatism was in the Fallout series. It's not a setting I can take seriously, which is a drawback for me. Still, it has its moments.

Just for some perspective here, the estimated number of casualties at the Battle of Waterloo was ~67,000.

How many fake media authors does it take to screw in a light bulb? Three. One to screw it in and a second to confuse the issue.

I've grown so weary of final boss battles that I've decided I'm going to do them all on easy mode so I can get through them faster.

Yes I expected that the issues would be associated with story problems, because math by itself is essentially neutral on cultural matters. Calling math 'racist' is misleading.

Yes there's no doubt that some kids can be bullies and they mistreat people who are slightly different. Does instruction by teachers make any difference in that regard? I think there will always be bullies of one sort or another, and they will still often focus on isolated outsiders.

Yes it seems to be something along those lines. The Trumpies like to accuse the left leaning (and even moderates like me) of virtue signalling, so perhaps this is a counterpoint? A type of value signalling by the right.

I'm not sure I quite understand the significance of this so-called "don't say gay" bill. Is it mostly symbolic? I mean 8 year old kids probably won't understand the issue anyway.

I don't see much benefit in grabbing this region as a bulwark against NATO. Speculatively it does provide some agricultural land, natural resources, and direct access to the Crimea. Perhaps Putin also views this aggrandizement as a potential jumping off point for further incursions? A step by step takeover. Are Ukraine's vast natural resources a real reason behind Russia's invasion?

Tell Putin that the expansion of NATO is about to Finnish...