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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 19th, 2023

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  • So, thing is, photos don’t prove anything about the relative movement of the aircraft, and people are notoriously bad about judging such things from the ground.

    Now let’s apply Occam’s razor, it’s 1990, what secret diamond shaped objects might have been flying along side a RAF harrier? Perhaps, say, an F-117 night hawk from the USAF doing joint training? A highly secretive aircraft that only flew its first combat sortie in 1989 and wouldn’t be widely publicized till the 1991 gulf war. An aircraft that likely would have been flying along side the RAF in the case of a hot war with the Soviet Union, and thus would have had reasons to have joint exercises with a harrier.



  • I can’t imagine they’d release a new chassis unless it was something radically different to their existing form factors, and even then, it would have to be a fairly big market sector, since they’re not really big enough to target anything niche.

    Replacing an existing chassis would require that they continue developing and releasing new upgrades for the existing chassis in addition to the new one, or make all the internal parts interchangeable with one of the existing chassis, both options seems like an R&D nightmare for such a relatively small company. If they just dropped upgrading the existing chassis… well… that would kind of be counter to their ethos.





  • For them to be prosecuted as a monopoly, or be considered one legally, it would have to be shown that they achieved or maintain their dominant market position by preventing or undermining competition. Say by having a bunch of exclusivity deals to keep big name titles only on their storefront, or by buying out any competitor that gained traction.

    Monopoly isn’t about being the biggest seller in a market, it’s about being the biggest player in the market by undermining competition and restricting commerce.

    Edit: want to clarify there is a distinction between the legal meaning of monopoly (see the Sherman anti trust act and other subsequent laws and rulings) and the colloquial usage (Only seller in the market). Steam is nether.


  • It’s not an efficiency drive, it’s an eliminate programs that they don’t like or don’t care about drive, efficiency is just a dog whistle in this context.

    They want to free up budget and positions for the sake of paying off people they need the support of. Budget for “special projects” and budget for tax cuts so wealthy people not in on the con don’t complain to much.

    It has the side benefit of making it easier to subjugate federal workers, instill terror with in them so they will just play along for fear of being fired.

    From their perspective it seems like an efficient strategy to get what they want, but they’re being a bit myopic about what is important and don’t realize how many problems they are causing that can now directly be blamed on them come the next election cycle.









  • It’s a question of longer development time with smaller teams, or short timelines with big teams. A small team working on content in series is more cohesive, but, requires a longer timeline. A big team can do a lot in a short time by making content in parallel, but this necessitates that content be siloed to prevent needing constant revision. A few long quest lines with lots of outcomes, or a bunch independent quests with simple outcomes.

    A small team working longer will cost the same as a big team working shorter (generally speaking). But the priority is short timelines, for the sake of chasing trends and packing the latest greatest tech in. This same kind of priority also leads to spectacular failures of long timeline games, like “black flag” or “duke nukem forever “. The issue there is not the long timeline, but the constant changes in priority to chase trends.



  • part of the change that needs to be made is to start incorporating organizations and groups that have actual local presence in to the planning structure, and stop relying on consultant groups who have little to no direct connections to people on the ground. Groups that do something in communities and are active beyond just the election cycle, something along the lines of food banks, unions, and non profits that do actual material good for people, not just write white papers.

    They have much more trust, and much better understanding of what the needs and concerns are, rather than people who’s main source of information on issues is opinion pieces in nationally published “news”.