Pinckney

Neat. It reminds me of the study that asked people to draw bicycles:

https://road.cc/content/blog/90885-science-cycology-can-you-...

The protocol on blinding laser weapons prohibits employing or distributing weapons designed to cause blindness. Is it possible that this weapon is actually intended to be used as a blinding weapon, and the claims about its incendiary capabilities are only to obscure the intended use?

Talking about demand exceeding supply is somewhat nonsensical without reference to a price.

What you're saying is "at the price my company is willing to pay, we're unable to find qualified candidates." That means you can either pay more to attract qualified candidates, or do without.

Alternatively, we can raise the supply curve, which has the affect of lowering wages, and might allow your company to attract talent without paying more.

I played this twice the other night and enjoyed it, which shocked me because I the Resistance. I'm not sure if there's actually something different about it, or if I just enjoy the novelty of it.

Citadels: A game of repeatedly drafting different secret roles while trying to puzzle out what your opponents have taken. I don't know how to describe it in a way that makes it sound exciting, except to say that it can be very tense and interactive. The box says 2-7 players, but I don't recommend it with more than three.

Codenames: A fun word association party game. The play area is a grid of 25 words, and two teams compete to identify their team's words based on clues from their "spymaster". It's a good game for large groups, and has lead to many amusing stories we still talk about months later.

Bohnanza is a classic trading game. You're trying to plant beans, and to do that best, you want to play multiple copies of the same bean card in a row. The hitch is that you must play cards in order, and you can't rearrange your hand. You need to trade with other players to wind up with a workable hand.

Sol: Last Days of a Star: This game has some really cool mechanics. Honestly I think it's probably the most exciting euro of the decade. You launch "sundivers" to build infrastructure and exploit the resources of the sun. But your infrastructure can be used by all the other players, who share with you some of its benefits. Your mothership from which your sundivers are launched is constantly moving. You need to carefully time your actions so your sundivers don't waste time flying across the map, or sit idle in the hold. And the game's clock is controlled by players. The deeper you move into the sun, the faster you bring about its destruction, and the end of the game.

Brass (Lancashire) is another mid-heavyweight euro with a cool shared infrastructure mechanic. You're all industrialists in the English midlands circa 1800. Your build factories and mines. What's cool is that these industries do nothing until you can find a market for them, and that market is often generated by the other players. You can build a coal mine, for example, knowing that everybody is soon going to need lots of coal for their railroads, or corner the market in ports and profit when other players go to ship their cotton. But it's also possible to misjudge demand, or be to late to market, and find that your developments are completely worthless.

High Frontier is my favorite simulation-type game. It's about industrializing the solar system. You can build all kinds of rockets (chemical, electric, nuclear, solar heated steam, solar sails, mass drivers...) to fly factory components out to asteroids, moons, or planets, possibly stopping to refuel along the way, if your rocket is equipped for that. The rocket equation is modeled, along with different efficiencies for different kinds of thrusters. The map is innovative in how it presents the trade-offs between delta-v and time for various missions. It's also gorgeous:

https://boardgamegeek.com/image/2585121/high-frontier-third-...

Site has auto-playing audio if you scroll to the end of the article.

This is called Cube, by the way. There are a ton of resources out there for building a good cube.

The first world war is a bad example. While the war was absolutely started by royalty, they did send their sons to the front to die along with commoners.

> Although the great majority of casualties in WW1 were from the working class, the social and political elite were hit disproportionately hard by WW1. Their sons provided the junior officers whose job it was to lead the way over the top and expose themselves to the greatest danger as an example to their men.

> Some 12% of the British army's ordinary soldiers were killed during the war, compared with 17% of its officers. Eton alone lost more than 1,000 former pupils - 20% of those who served. UK wartime Prime Minister Herbert Asquith lost a son, while future Prime Minister Andrew Bonar Law lost two. Anthony Eden lost two brothers, another brother of his was terribly wounded, and an uncle was captured.

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25776836

Also, Princes Oskar and Eitel Friedrich of Prussia both served in front-line combat roles and both were wounded.

Sam Melville?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Melville#Bombings

The IRA also phoned about many of their bombs. The Omagh bombing is mostly notable because their phone-call didn't accurately identify where the bomb would detonate, and so got people killed.

Plenty of terrorist groups have recognized that killing innocent bystanders isn't good PR.

That will substantially increase the cost of power lines. Is PG&E allowed to decide that running expensive lines through rough, fire-prone terrain isn't worth the cost, and to simply stop distributing power to cities like Paradise?

Right, you would definitely want some oxygen candles if you were trying to hunker down and ride out a fire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_oxygen_generator

See also: You and the Atomic Bomb

http://orwell.ru/library/articles/ABomb/english/e_abomb

I suspect the parent was referring to mopeds like this $1k 50cc RTX. I see plenty of Vespas, but I don't think I've ever seen this style of moped in the US:

https://www.redfoxpowersports.com/50cc-upgrade-rtx-scooter-m...

AFAIK, the Soviet tax only applied to people who obtained higher education in the USSR. Essentially the Soviet government didn't want to pay tuition for people who were simply going to leave for higher pay abroad.

I don't have an issue with the Soviet tax, or with the progressive portion of the US exit tax, but a requiring a head-tax on would-be emigres is unacceptable IMHO.

It's not about wanting, it's about having an economic motive. Cities like La Cinconada and Norilsk are doing fine, because they have industry.

Amazon TOS:

> Any dispute or claim relating in any way to your use of any Amazon Service, or to any products or services sold or distributed by Amazon or through Amazon.com will be resolved by binding arbitration, rather than in court

> We each agree that any dispute resolution proceedings will be conducted only on an individual basis and not in a class, consolidated or representative action. If for any reason a claim proceeds in court rather than in arbitration we each waive any right to a jury trial.

Isn't that why we have scihub?

Why isn't the shockwave a DD? It's has a bore diameter greater than 0.5", and it's not a shotgun (because it's not designed to be fired from the shoulder).

Just to add to your comment, the earliest usage of "Zip gun" the OED lists is 1950. The earliest usage of "zip" as a slur is listed in 1968 (and this usage presumably originated during the Vietnam war).

Because high-status people drink, while smoking is mostly a habit of low-status people.

This is likely to be struck down, as it conflicts with the FAA

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/...

DUKWs performed well enough to stay in US inventory into the Korean war, and France didn't retire theirs until the 80's. Gen Eisenhower called them "one of the most valuable pieces of equipment produced by the United States during the war."

As a counterpoint, Canada (and presumably the US too) has seen a dramatic decrease in unintentional injury mortality among children over the last 70 years.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28026710

Forgotten Weapons and InRangeTV, both for firearms stuff.

Card packs are also obviously gambling.

I won 14 times, back in high school when I had way too much free time. Once with every class, plus an illiterate barbarian.

One of the big thing is knowing enough to recognize when you're in danger, before you're in danger. Stuff like "That q is too tough for me to take right now", or "I'd be screwed if that n steals X", or "I don't have poison resistance yet, so I better not fight those o at range," or "It's dangerous to be in the mines with this AC and no source of light." This comes with experience.

Another big part of it is understanding the sequencing, and how to build an ascension kit. Do you want to try to get to minetown early to grab a magic lamp? When is it safe to go to mines end, and do you need magic resistance to do it? What's the earliest you can take on a unicorn?

There are lots of other tricks (identifying wands, potions, etc), clearing the big room safely, finding the portals on the elemental planes, stealing from shops, what gives resistances, maximizing wishes, etc.

Ultimately, Nethack got boring for me because the late game is too long, and doesn't differ much between different classes. Ascension kits tend to be very similar (GDSM + silver shield or SDSM + CoMR?). I really liked what Derek Ray did with Sporkhack, and I never managed to win that, although I died on astral a couple times.

IMHO, the logic is that catching people in the act (of burglary, robbery, etc) is difficult, and convicting them if they're not caught red handed can be difficult. Catching and convicting people for drug possession is relatively easy.

Since we think certain people are up to no good anyway, drug laws let us put them away, without actually having to prove the bad things they've probably done. It's essentially an end run around "proof beyond a reasonable doubt."

Laws criminalizing concealed weapons follow a similar logic.

Huh, it never would have occurred to me to see that as inappropriate. If my coworkers are sick, I want them using tissues rather than spreading their germs around.

Tissues cost what, $0.01 each anyway?

Surely this is gambling, at least.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/MTG-Magic-Repack-BLACK-LOTUS-booste...