The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. It’s a Debbie Downer of a song, it lasts forever, and it gets really repetitive.

ABBA’s “Fernando” pops up in my head randomly all the time. Styx’s “Half-Penny, Two-Penny” has a phrase that leaps to mind quite often when reading news. “Justice for money, what can you say? We all know it’s the American Way.” and also “Justice for money, how much more can I pay? We all know it’s the American Way.” And when that leaps to mind the rest of the song follows. Forever (or so it seems)…

As a child I had a problem pronouncing “chocolate” so I called it “drawer”.

This makes more sense to people who know German since that’s what I was using at the time.

I want to get some of the local magpies to start eating out of my hand by summer time.

I was nearly frantic trying to find my glasses once. I enlisted the aid of SO (who complied, but was smirking for reasons that would soon become obvious). While I was digging around in places it could have fallen, I mentioned that it would be so much easier if I could actually see clearly while doing this.

Then I had a brainstorm. I took my glasses out of my blouse’s front pocket and put them on so I could see more clearly if my glasses had fallen behind the desk…

You’re conflating two different things:

1. Getting games printed in China.
2. Chinese counterfeit game publication.

#1 is not going to stop happening anytime soon. I saw this in a recent trip to Canada where I wanted to get some jigsaw puzzles with native art on them for friends. There were 500-piece sets manufactured in, I think, Seattle that were three times the price of 1000-piece sets manufactured in China. Yet buying one of each and taking a look at the contents there was little difference in the pieces. (The American-made one was a fraction of a millimetre thicker, but for that the cutting looked more accurate in the Chinese one. The pieces just fit better.)

#2 can be stopped, but would take intrusive border checks that most American businesses would absolutely not stand for.

Could do with learning some more card games. I love that you can play so much without having to buy anything new with them.

This, however, is anathema to an industry which is why you get card games that are thinly papered-over traditional playing card games with relabelled cards and slightly-altered rules. (Think Uno: the commercial wrapper around Crazy Eights.)

There are hundreds—or even thousands—of traditional games out there, playable with simple, ubiquitous playing pieces (like poker decks, small coloured stones/markers/whatever, and simply drawn boards on paper). So if the industry collapses you can keep playing new(-to-you) games for the rest of your life without running out.

I used to, but it’s not really a thing here.

Today started as a Heilung day and ended with Burning Witches. I’ll probably fall asleep to the former.

Way back in prehistory I played Car Wars when it first came out. (You know, before it became an unwieldy, badly-organized mess that rivalled even Star Fleet Battles for being impossible for normal folk to play.)

We missed one very key rule. The “damage” rating for weapons was a number of d6 to roll for damage. We played it as individual points.

Needless to say even the shortest auto duels were horrifically and painfully long to play out.

The number drops a bit when the polls are done in secrecy. Still far higher than any western government, mind.

To clarify for any pseudo intellectual who happens to be reading:

“<X> is true for <reason> you utter idiot” is not an example of the ad hominem fallacy.

“<X> is true because you’re an utter idiot” is an example of the ad hominem fallacy.

Glad to be of service.

Have you considered taking a communications course so you don’t sound like a pretentious, obfuscating jackass?

Eschew gratuitous obfuscation. (See what I mean?)

In AI alone, we lead the world.

*Deep Seek has entered the chat.*

Would this be the military that could only reach a standstill in Korea? That lost in Vietnam? That lost in Afghanistan? That ran away scared from Mogadishu? That “won” in Iraq by generating the world’s largest collection of terrorists until the blowback lost you two large towers and a smaller one?

That military?

At work? My go-to activity is to get the Hell out of the toilet as quickly as possible.

I hate squat toilets, see.

From above:

A large portion of Americans only have 2 brain cells and they’re both busy fighting for 3rd place.

And here we have a case in point: an American who can’t read history.

I’ve been listening to Tanya Tagaq’s Retribution album this morning. She’s by far the best Inuk-punk performer in the world, no exceptions. (I say this with confidence because she’s the only Inuk-punk performer in the world. 🤭)

Simon Whistler is a presenter and it often shows. He’s pretty entertaining, and he has the look of a scholar which gives him some gravitas and credibility when he talks, but he isn’t particularly knowledgeable of anything (including topics he’s already covered in one channel when presenting the same topic on another).

So of course he thinks ChatGPT is smart.

In general there is no “neutral” source of information. At all. Yes, including Wikipedia with its “NPOV” policy. (It even says that there’s no such thing in its own policies, so I’m not exactly saying anything new here.) Most of the sources you cite as “neutral” will actually be sources that agree, broadly, with your own cultural assumptions that you are likely not even aware of, not to mention actively questioning.

That being said, since there is no such thing as a neutral source of information, you can still have good sources of information. Wikipedia is one such. Is it perfect? No. Because nothing is. But it is good enough for most general knowledge. It gets a bit dicey as a source when you leave the realm of western assumptions, or if you enter into the realm of contentious politics. But for most things it’s just fine as a quick resource to get information from. It’s a decent encyclopedia whose ease of access isn’t matched by anybody else.

Reddit is not, however. Because reddit has no disciplined approach to information-gathering and -sharing. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia (with all the strengths and flaws that form takes on). Reddit is a lot of people talking loudly in a gigantic garden party from Hell. Over by the roses you have a bunch of people loudly expounding on the virtues of the Nazi party. Over by the fountain you’ve got another group loudly expounding on how vile and gross the Nazis were casting glares in the direction of the roses. In the maze park you’ve got a bunch of people meandering around and laughing while they babble inanities. Out in the driveway you’ve got a bunch of Morris dancers practising their craft. It may be fun if you like that kind of thing, but it is absolutely not a source of reliable information unless you do so much fact checking that you might as well skip the reddit step and go straight to getting the facts from the places you’re using to check.

ChatGPT, to continue using strained analogies, is that weird uncle in your family. He’s personable, bright, cheerful, and seems to know a lot of stuff. But he’s a bit off and off-putting somehow, and that’s because behind the scenes, when nobody’s looking, he’s taking a lot of hallucinogens. He does know a lot. A whole lot. But he also makes shit up from the weird distortions the drugs in his system impose on his perceptions. As a result you never know when he’s telling the truth or when he’s made a whole fantasy world to answer your question.

My personal experience with ChatGPT came from asking it about a singer I admire. She’s not a really big name and not a lot of people write about her. I wanted to find more of her work and thought ChatGPT could at least give me a list of albums featuring her. And it did! It gave me a dozen albums to look for. Only … none of them existed. Not a single one. ChatGPT made up a whole discography for this singer instead of saying “sorry, I don’t know”. And when I went looking for them and found they didn’t exist, I told it this and it did its “sorry, I made a mistake, here’s the right list” thing … and that list contained half of the old list that I’d already pointed out didn’t exist and half new entries that, you guessed it!, also didn’t exist.

And the problem is that ChatGPT is just as certain when hallucinating as it is when telling things that are true. It is PARTICULARLY unsuited to be a source of information.