Author: David K.

Trump’s border czar: ‘If you’re in the country illegally, you got a problem’ – ABC News

According to Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan, every undocumented immigrant should worry they could be arrested at any time, even if they have no criminal record.

Source: Trump’s border czar: ‘If you’re in the country illegally, you got a problem’ – ABC News

That this administration has arrested and deported over 500 violent illegal aliens within days of assuming power isn’t really the story, is it? The real story is that law enforcement knew these guys existed, exactly where they were, that they were illegal, and that they had committed violent crimes, yet the previous administration did nothing about them. The Democrats were apparently happy to leave them in place, continuing to commit crimes and harass their communities. Not deporting them clearly wasn’t a problem with intelligence or manpower. Not using these resources to protect our citizens was a choice. It’s always been a choice. ABC is trying to report this new policy like it’s a scandal, but how is this divisive? Where is the grey area? How can any sane person not be in favor of this?

MacRumors: Apple News and Rumors

Justice John Roberts said that “Congress is fine with the expression,” but “not fine with a foreign adversary … gathering all this information about the 170 million people who use TikTok.”

Source: MacRumors: Apple News and Rumors

So you’re trying to tell me that gathering “all this information” is, in fact, dangerous to our republic and our freedoms, but it’s acceptable when every US company and the NSA all do it? Have I got that right? It is a realistic security problem, but it’s not an abridgment of the Fourth Amendment? Really? OK, just checking.

Today, in Mark of the Beast News

The Devil? (I kid, I kid.)

Larry Ellison is the CEO of Oracle, the 19th most valuable company in the world. They make a database. The FBI were Larry and Oracle’s first customer, and the FBI/CIA/NSA all use it for everything. So when Larry Ellison brags that AI is going to enforce “social credit”, it’s because he knows 1) the deep state is going to make another HUGE investment in his software, 2) he’s going to make even more money, and 3) investors stand to make even more money. And of course Business Insider — being a mouth piece for the deep state — makes this news.

Thank You, Vault Dwellers!

And what would a Summer be without grabbing a fishing pole and heading down to your favorite radioactive watering hole? No need to worry about finding out because fishing is coming to the wasteland this Summer and is angling to reel-in our esteemed adventurers, collectors and traveling trawlers alike.

It all starts at a mysterious location where players encounter a fisherman who has decided to set up camp and share their love for fishing to one and all… or so it seems. This strange merchant will sell our players everything they need to catch any of the slimy, scaled swimmers found in all bodies of water across Appalachia. Sharpen those hooks! We’ll be eating well!

Source: Thank You, Vault Dwellers!

Adding fishing to Fallout 76…

Noooooooooooo

Of all the awful things in ESO, fishing is the awfullest. Of course they would add it to Fallout 76.

CoPilot Having a Normal One

Sigh.

I mean, even if you can’t recall the ASCII characters for a hex value (like me), you should be able to realize that that 0x51 is one less than 0x52, so that the “R” and the “3” should be right next to each other. Whether the “R” should be a “4”, or the “3” should be a “Q”, you can see that this is just plain wrong at first glance. LLM’s can’t. I get it, of course. CoPilot interpreted the 0x51 in the second position as decimal instead of hex (as opposed to all the others), which does accurately translate to a “3”.

That’s the thing I find about CoPilot and ChatGPT so far: They have quick answers and suggestions for every line as I’m typing, and half of everything that looks right at first glance turns out to be wrong. I actually started to argue with CoPilot after fruitlessly trying to use it to track down a bug for a half hour. What I am doing with my life?

But sure, tell me how we’re all going to lose our jobs this year because of this technology.

Studio Director’s Letter: 2025 & Beyond – The Elder Scrolls Online

ZeniMax Online Studios’ Studio Director Matt Firor talks about another big year for The Elder Scrolls Online and some of the even bigger changes coming to the game in 2025 and beyond.

…

We need to seriously address Cyrodiil performance. Our (ambitious) goal is to return it to the concurrency levels we supported in 2014. So, we will be experimenting with a Cyrodiil campaign where all classes will have PvP-specific (and more performant) skills that replace the standard player skills with the expectation that we can support more players per campaign

Source: Studio Director’s Letter: 2025 & Beyond – The Elder Scrolls Online

Hmm… Well would you just look at that? Who could have identified that core problem? Oh! Me!

The biggest problem with the game seems to be the PVP part. PVE and PVP are completely different games, but they both use the same skills and gear, and both “halves” of the game suffer for it, despite the innumerable tweaks and hacks they try to use to help the situation. I don’t think there’s a future for this game without making a cleaner break between the two modes than currently exists.

Source:Fine, I’ll Make My Own Forums | The Mind of David Krider,

Combat in ESO is a mix of HUNDREDS of variables on your character, a lot of which are being intermixed with everyone you’re fighting WITH, and everything you’re fighting AGAINST. Calculated and resolved EVERY SECOND. Every set, every skill, and every mythic in the game is another thing to add into an equation that’s got to be THOUSANDS of conditions long, with scores of tiny little if-then corner-case scenarios.

Every new addition to the game has added another 3 zone sets, a couple more craftable sets, dungeon sets, trial sets, mythics, and now scribed skills with — as they brag — 8,000 different combinations of effects. It’s become a runaway problem as they try to squeeze more “monetization” out of the expansions. It’s no wonder PVP performance keeps getting worse.

It’s already bad enough in trials. You can see the game choke on everything that’s happening for 12 people at times. In Cyrodill, you might be talking about 50 people in a large battle, and it’s worse. They’ve got to make a significant separation between the two modes.

To be sure, it will make the current PVP lovers — who have mastered the dozens of things you need to stack and all the play style tricks you need to employ to make bombing or ball grouping work — insane with fury. The question is whether or not it will bring more casuals into the mix than sweats who quit.

The Middle East Problem

When the US invaded Iraq, I read about the history of how the US installed Saddam Hussein to control what was going on in that country, and ostensibly to be a foil to Iran. Then we went in and deposed him, took his gold, and — I’m sure — installed a bunch of sycophantic leaders to make sure we continued to get their oil for a good price. We also armed the brave Mujahideen — popularized in Rambo 3! — to fight against the Russian colonizers in Afghanistan… who went on to hold out against not only the Russians for 20 years, but also the US for another 20.

https://twitter.com/RealSpikeCohen/status/1352388882822795268

(Archived, in case of deletion.)

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if our military industrial complex just… stopped faffing about in the rest of the world. At least for a time, right? Since WW I, we’ve never stopped. I say we try it on for size, and see how it looks in the mirror.