Bay 12 Games Forum

One thing I find incredibly useful is deconstructing (stone)crafts and masons workshops when you run out of nearby stones. (Yes, you can effectively disable the workshop, and deconstruction only gives you back the one stone anyway. You do you. And, of course, if you aren't using work orders yet, idle workshops don't matter at all.) Construct new shops wherever the stones are now rather than hauling stones halfway across your fort. You can even build them a dozen or so tiles apart and get significant improvement, depending on the mason's stats, believe it or not. It's a whole lot faster to carry a bunch of crafts to the depot than it is to carry a bunch of stones to somewhere near the depot, even with wheelbarrows.

Some of this depends on your personal goals. I don't bother with cloth/dye until at least fall, but the first food/booze gets planted early, day four at the absolute latest, as aquifer piercing does not require two dedicated miners, so one spends most of his time getting dirt layer stuff readied. I also recommend Panando's Cook/Herbalist route. Have the cook empty a few "free" barrels, brew up all the plumps you brought along, then herbalist a plant, brew, herbalist, brew, repeat until you need more barrels, cook a bit, repeat. One guy on those three tasks is a great plenty for a long time.

You don't HAVE to dig out dirt barracks or dirt dining hall right away. I generally do, because what else are the miners doing while everyone else is installing blocks in the aquifer? Once through have one miner dig out new dining and barracks (and individual rooms) a couple levels below the aquifer while the other rushes to the caverns (to get underground grazing) and lava sea (so I can make magma furnaces etc. near the surface), but again, you get to decide what mileposts you want for your fort. Once I have a proper (engraved) barracks/dining hall under the aquifer, dig out the dirt layer barracks and dining hall, convert them to pasture, and Bob's your uncle.

I looked up the court filings to see what the Presidential Records Act argument was all about, and the exception Trump's lawyers were talking about was that personal records are exempt.

(3) The term 'personal records' means all documentary
materials, or any reasonably segregable portion thereof, of a purely
private or nonpublic character which do not relate to or have
an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory.
or other official or ceremonial duties of the President. Such term
includes—
"(A) diaries, journals, or other personal notes serving as
the functional equivalent of a diary or journal which are not
prepared or utilized for, or circulated or communicated in the
course of, transacting Government business;
"(B) materials relating to private political associations,
and having no relation to or direct effect upon the carrying
out of constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial
duties of the President; and
"(C) materials relating exclusively to the President's own
election to the office of the Presidency; and materials directly
relating to the election of a particular individual or individuals to Federal, State, or local office, which have no relation to or direct effect upon the carrying out of constitutional,
statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the
President.

[EDIT]
If we are talking about an autographed cocktail napkin, it's hard to see how that has any direct effect upon the carrying out of constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President. If we are talking official documents, they are not unique, unless he scribbled something significant on them. Then I think there is a good argument it falls under the Act. So what did they have probable cause to think should have been included? I don't know, and neither do you. Most of the warrant, allegedly specifying what it is that they are planning to seize and why they believe it to be at that location, has been redacted.
[/EDIT]

Frumple, THOSE papers, yes, and obviously the Archivist couldn't care less how secure those were, while with these, a Secret Service detail is not sufficient. What's at issue is not those, but the papers that were not turned over to the Archivist, that Obama declared to be "personal records." Despite the hair on fire types who think Republicans are pure evil, I don't know of a single Republican who said, "Dude, are you sure those boxes are all personal records? Care if we take a look?"

What metaphor, Hector13? I'm not hectoring Pelosi because she is a liberal, but because by several accounts, she is a most, um, accomplished of traders. It's not illegal though because Congress exempted themselves from insider trading laws. It's still insider trading by the definition, just that they can't be charged with it. I don't know why you are so hyped about talking about something that probably every Congresscritter is doing and that's not even illegal.

But I'd be willing to make you a bet. I'll bet Paul Pelosi cannot keep up his 150% annual ROI going after his wife no longer has access to all that inside information she gets as a member of Congress. How sure are you his VC background is sufficient explanation? What stakes shall we set?

Equally so, your parroting of conservative talking head lines that the FBI is targeting conservatives while protecting liberals does throw your claim of being impartial onto shaky ground a little bit. If that is indeed the case, how are the Republicans still able to win elections when they have a federal agency trying to thwart them at every turn, and boosting their opponents?

Are you saying the FBI also bugged candidate Biden and President Biden? Did they hide Eric Trump's laptop? Is there anything remotely close? Did Hillary's server get a middle of the night raid? Remember, she didn't even have the fig leaf of having authority to declassify. Was there similar vitriol for her when her tech team destroyed the hard drives, first with BleachBit, then with hammers? How about an example or two?

Again, if the government is missing ANY documents which it is supposed to have, you have them, and are asked to return them it is a crime to say no.

That's the classic begging the question fallacy. You are assuming the government has a right to those documents, which Trump and his lawyers disagree with. Traditionally, that would be handled in a court, where the two arguments are made and the stronger argument prevails. When was that process replaced by whatever Max™ says goes?

Also given how the orange turd had his status revoked, he couldn't even legally have classified docs,

Again, begging the question. I get that you are too emotionally invested in this to think rationally, but the whole question hinges on whether or not something in his possession was declassified as of Jan 20, 2020, because, as you note, he no longer had authority to declassify after (p)Resident Biden was sworn in.[/quote]

You're absolutely wrong about the idea that it has to be classified docs to prosecute, check your facts yo, the fact that they could always be declassified and that there could be any doubt guarantees they would not bring that case, while there are laws including ones I linked which do not depend on classification but simply the fact that the government said "hey, we think you have these, can you give them back" and the dumbfuck said "no, I don't have them" then they got a warrant and found them and HE SAID "GIVE THEM BACK THOSE ARE MINE" and tried to get them back while clearly establishing that he had intent to prevent the government from obtaining them which is absolutely illegal and incredibly stupid.

I'm reasonably sure that is almost completely in error. The matter before the court was whether this was personal property and not subject to NARA or property of the US Government and was. You've gone way behind the Queen of Hearts' "Sentence first—verdict afterwards."

Not even the government can legally say, "Gibmedat" without establishing in a court of law that it is theirs. Well, until we go full Banana Republic.

Yeah the FBI announcing two weeks before the 2016 election they were re-opening the investigation into Clinton’s e-mail server was clearly meant to enhance her chances of being elected.

In my search for Pelosi’s stock picks I also discovered that investors are doing what other folks in government are doing, but I imagine you forgot to mention that, rather than because it doesn’t fit into your narrative that only the Libs are corrupt.

Sort of. That was about Weiner's laptop which also held classified emails Huma Abedin should not have had. There was overlap, sure, but that's because Abedin was Hillary's deputy and traveling chief of staff.

Yeah, I figured you wouldn't read a damn thing I posted "because it doesn’t fit into your narrative". You genuinely did not notice that the links I gave were for the entire Congress, Republicans and Democrats?

Quote from: Thorfinn on January 25, 2023, 04:14:33 pm

Have you been sleep-walking through the last several years?

What are you even talking about, here? There's been exactly four other FBI actions of note against presidents or former presidents in living memory -- Nixon (duh), Regan (iran contra), Clinton (whitewater, mostly), and Bush (Plame). The only one of those that had "no fucking reason" was maybe clinton. The FBI doesn't have a history of messing with presidents for shits and giggles.

Oh, I was talking about the clear bias the FBI and most of the IC has been using to advance one political side.

But if we are talking presidents specifically, no one can deny that the FBI knowingly lied to the FISA court in order to spy on surveil both candidate Trump and President Trump. No one can deny they sat on the Hunter laptop, and even claimed it was Russian disinformation when it's now documented they knew it was Hunter's, and that what information they had checked turned out not to have anything to do with Russia.

Almost nothing I ever saw should have been classified in the first place. I'm firmly convinced that most of the stuff in the folders was there so you didn't have to also bring in a folder of declassified stuff and piece together the connections between them, then separate them into the correct folders at the end. That's why I strongly suspect this whole thing is over nothing. If it were really important pieces of paper, it would have been investigated, at least on the sly. More than likely, if it was anything at all, it was not state secret, but maybe some trade secrets or something someone could act on as a hot stock tip. See Nancy Pelosi's amazing stock picking.

I think it's just a political distraction. Not that it could not result in convictions. Ham sandwich, again.

The SCIF is relatively new, at least to me -- back in the '80s, they just brought a folder into a conference room and watched you go through it.

Because [gougers] are a moral blight in this world...

Why do you think this? The moral principle, I mean.

Pretty much every time the power goes out in the summer, there are some people who go around and buy all the ice available. Sure, part of it goes to keeping the food cold, but a lot of it just gets put in dishpans to keep some room cooler than it otherwise would be, or dumped in a kiddie pool in the back yard to keep the beer on ice. Quite a bit of it melts on the back porch, never having been put to any use at all, but, hey, at a buck a bag, why not? If you needed it, you had it. On the other hand, the guy who needed a small cooler full to keep his medication cold but got to the store too late is just screwed.

In this world, there are people like the first guy. Whatever the policy, it has to deal with the problems these guys cause. Some stores try limits, which sort of work, but then the same guy just makes trips through each checkout line with 2 bags at a time, and more than once I've seen people with far more than the limits with the clerk giving him a nasty look, but making the sale anyway. At, say, $5 a bag, he's more likely to think, "Do I really need more ice? A bunch of it just melted last time." And the guy with the critical need is much happier to pay $5 than to not have any at all.

Whenever you ponder an idea, the important question is, "Compared to what?"

[EDIT]
This applies in spades to the policy of extortionate fines for gouging. When the potential fine is greater than the annual profit, and even if it's not true, a single disgruntled person filing a claim can impose lawyer costs well over your monthly profit, the smart move is to simply remain closed after a disaster.
[/EDIT]

In this scenario you are comparing the person engaging in dangerous behaviour (a gouger exploiting people in times of crisis) with a person being endangered by reckless behaviour (a child about to be hit by a careless driver). This is funny

I was trying to compare gouger to speeder, the people being "exploited" with the kid getting splatted.

By the way, there's an easy way to keep from being exploited by gougers. Just don't buy from them. But don't even attempt doing the same with the taxing authorities. If you want to know who the real exploiters are, ask yourself, "To whom can I say, 'No'".

Quote from: Thorfinn on January 24, 2023, 02:01:35 pm

If the latter, that's where you had the foresight to set aside a little extra for your neighbor, trusting that if the roles were reversed, he would do the same for you.

If you don't think humans are ingenious enough to devise ways of storing food in ways that are safe from most disaster conditions, you need an explanation for why humans didn't die out hundreds of thousands, millions of years ago. Maybe we've just become terminally stupid?

See:

Quote from: Loud Whispers on January 24, 2023, 10:32:16 am

Access to refrigeration, storage space, the ability to procure such items in sufficient quantity at a price within their means e.t.c. all contribute to this. Even in developed countries, even when there are no times of crisis, you can see this effect on everyday spending. It is trivial for wealthier individuals to purchase bulk items & transport them, whereas items which are sold in smaller units all cost higher per gram or per litre. As a result it is cheaper for wealthier shoppers to buy higher quality ingredients in bulk than it is for poorer persons to buy lower quality ingredients in smaller units. This disparity grows when you consider how many more facilities for storage and cooking are available for wealthier persons than their poorer counterparts. Poverty is self-reinforcing. If you have more market power you can reject bad deals; for poorer persons, they have to take what they can get. This is where price gouging becomes especially evil, in that you severely reward those who have more market power and completely fuck over those without it.

Out of all possible solutions to this; whether it be through education, social values, religion, disaster relief stockpiles, support networks, community outreach, reserve forces e.t.c. why would you pick the only one that creates a perverse incentive for the creation of a parasite class of merchants of misery who actively get people killed in times of crisis and actively make things worse for those who have the will to prepare, but lack the means. The stick of a price gouger is pitiable compared to the stick of the disaster which enables them; but you're giving a carrot to predatory behaviour, and you will get predators if you allow it

I get the feeling you are coming from a lesser developed country. I have no personal experience there. But I have lots of personal experience in the States. If anything, it's become far easier now for those of lesser means to stock up. You have to look at prices, but often Amazon has durable food less expensive than at the big box, and they bring it right to your door. Every year, Bezos gives away Prime to poor people, so they have access to better delivery terms than I do, though honestly, it's not that hard to end up with $25 in your cart so you get free shipping. There's a regional supermarket chain with prices really close to WalMart that delivers a $50 order for free. I use that all the time rather than dealing with the hassle of shopping, though I tip the delivery person generously. And in return, they make sure my order has no damaged packages before they deliver it.

If you live somewhere that options like this do not exist, where there are no sales except gougers, I feel sorry for you, though I can't really empathize as I have no frame of reference.

For Pete's sake, Lord Shonus, I'm not sure. That's what I've been trying to tell you.

The reason I can't provide links is so far as I can tell, those pages no longer exist. (The NYT article I linked to above appears not to exist in their own page's search. I only found it because I could narrow down where I got the link to one of a half-dozen aggregators, and found a deep link there.) At least some of the articles that I think are pointing to those pages are 404. None of the search engines provides any help at all. Seems the smart money is on that they were eliminated under the rubric of mis/disinformation.

When Winston Smith is busy memory-holing everything, it's a little tough to tell if we've always been at war with EastAsia or not. But based on my own recollection and Twitter Files, I'm pretty sure there's been a lot of memory-holing going on.