I think HoI France needs to just change things up when humans play it - give it the more of its historic strength but then toggle Italy/EE more readily joining the Axis, nerf the USSR, etc. You want essentially an alt history where France survives 1940 but Germany can win elsewhere for ~5 years.

This is how the Winter War was won

so much money is spent on realism in games despite the fact only a minority of gamers go outside and see what real looks like

This is certainly a real problem and valuable graph, but I would add that an aging population is going to mean an aging housing stock - older/retired families "hold on" to their house much longer, and demand less new ones. Policy is primarily behind this, for sure, but the floor is higher now.

Something disorienting about getting older is seeing people 20+ years younger than you put out confident takes about a period of time that they didn’t live through but you did. I’m sure this only gets worse and worse.

Impromptu bibliography on Japan's rental bookstore industry, something I do not know very much about - will see if there is anything in here "worthy of the write-up" as it were...

Played Victoria 2 today to compare it to Vicky 3 (which I have been trying to learn) and it is amazing how it is a totally broken game BUT in ways that don't stop you from playing, you can do your thing, and so it is still somehow better than Vicky 3's agency-crushing military & politics systems.

Some of what people are frustrated about here is that we know on *some* (not all) of these "moderations" Reps are just lying. But if they are, they will be punished next cycle for it! I know as a Dem it seems crazy for voters to "believe" it at all, but voters are fickle and also stuck with a binary

I did find this election validating to my priors, but I was surprised at how highly cultural issues are rated in the data we are currently getting. I thought this election would be "70% inflation", but it is looking to be more like 50% (just illustrative). A harder hill for the Dems to climb imo

Been thinking of trying to casually post here more - am primarily a tumblr user due to no posting limits and long community, and twitter ofc self-sabotaged its own ability to have convos.

Always tough for me in that "cross-posting" isn't my instinct! But I will experiment with ways to make it work

Settling into the local bookstore cafe to give a shot at some manga starring round-faced, dirty-blonde, bangs-loving protagonists courtey of @glacierbaybooks.com; who definitely doesn't have a type!

Flashpoint was just released, very excited for that one^^

My most millennial trait is using old text emojis. Because I am sorry, but if you think🫤 is the same as :/ you are losing your grip on reality.
🤷 the same as ¯\_(ツ)_/¯???
Please seek help!

I have been on the "the Hibike Euphonium books just aren't that good" train for a long time so seeing Season 3 fix another of its errors and making things clearly better is very heartening. Obviously Kumiko should fail the audition, its the entire theme! She is moving on. More shows should be fixers

Definitely agree with all of this, and I would add a premise of "every single battle is an entirely new game with 18 bespoke rules and custom kits for the players" is, in the text of the light novel, something you can at least kind of grasp? While in an anime its impossible, so its all ass-pulls.

Gonna reblog good people when they join - io is one of my favourite artists, if you want anime depression-core art with some of the best color/blend choices around I definitely recommend them! And you can play their Khrushchevka-Gothic-Horror VN Flesh, Blood, & Concrete if you want to be real one!

I'll hot take that the 2003 TV adaptation's plot concept is actually better than Brotherhood's; Dante is a much better villain than Father, with more emotional heft and deeper ties to Hohenheim, and the dual-reality connection has a lot of potential. Its just executed much worse than Brotherhood.

I'm going to be leaving Japan like a week before the Lain/Haibane Pop Up store opens and now they are selling Lain boxers?? They made this store solely to mock me

I'll make a "hello" post because why not? I am Ash - an old guard internet-blogger type who likes discussing insufferable academic-nerdy stuff. My big hits include anime studies sociology-style, the economic history of "modernization", and policy-wonk debates. If those appeal happy to chat!