gradenko_2000 posted:

anti-missile defenses are always going to be a boondoggle for as long as they're so unreliable that building more missiles will produce more hits than misses, and as long as they're so expensive that building more missiles is cheaper

Sharkie posted:

i want to talk about this, but also more about AI-guided lasers maybe.

but hasn't the rise to 2k deaths daily been pretty forseeable? it's hard to tell and tbh i'm not following it super closely every day

Inceltown posted:

Which burger is the best to gently caress?

Inceltown posted:

Which burger is the best to gently caress?

LITERALLY MY FETISH posted:

listen if all you can taste in a donut is raw sugar scraping down whatever is left of your enamel like sandpaper then it’s not a good donut

Krispy Kreme doesn’t even sell plain donuts. never trust a donut shop that doesn’t sell plain, because if they can’t make plain right then they can’t do anything else right

also I work right next door to a KK and they get all the specialist poo poo from a truck at 5 am so that poo poo was made 3 days before it even got to where you bought it

I will loving rip and tear over donuts so help me

Drunkboxer posted:

most people who complain about krispy kreme think that plain cake donuts are the default donut and not just a pale shade of actual donuts, which have always been fried sugar.

Inceltown posted:

Which burger is the best to gently caress?

poty posted:

boris is gonna be fine. hes 55 mortality in that age group with access to the best medical care is basically 0

LITERALLY MY FETISH posted:

plain donuts are the default

if you can’t make a plain donut taste good without lathering sugar all over it then you don’t belong in the donut business. there’s plenty of sugar in the things to do the job without glaze

cake donuts also suck

A HORNY SWEARENGEN posted:

"Listen, I'm an expert on fresh, soft donuts. The satellite distributor next to me peddles stale stuff and I have no idea what I'm talking about. Hang ten chaka brah. Cauliflower crust vegan pizza."

- some guy who deserves to have his state be on fire 24/7

Hell yeah, gnarly duderino. Next you can tell me about how North Dakota is the best state for fresh seafood. 🤙

Ardennes posted:

2k (and higher) was foreseeable. It is more that the statistics hung around above just a thousand across the weekend/Monday until there was a massive stock rally after everyone pretended "the light was at the end of the tunnel" then the next day we jump up to 2k dead. It is fishy as hell.

Drunkboxer posted:

“plain” donuts are cake donuts

LITERALLY MY FETISH posted:

I guarantee that wherever you live there is a better donut to be found than a Krispy Kreme

A HORNY SWEARENGEN posted:

"Listen, I'm an expert on fresh, soft donuts. The satellite distributor next to me peddles stale stuff and I have no idea what I'm talking about. Hang ten chaka brah. Cauliflower crust vegan pizza."

- some guy who deserves to have his state be on fire 24/7

Hell yeah, gnarly duderino. Next you can tell me about how North Dakota is the best state for fresh seafood. 🤙

Spoondick posted:

back when i drank heavily i would order a few jumbo jacks and tacos and put a taco in the jumbo jack to make a taco jack

Ardennes posted:

No one wants to talk about the fact that the daily death toll jumped to nearly 2k today out of nowhere, and that it looks like even the death statistics are complete nonsense now. When a similar thing in China (with explanation reasons why, the methodology changed) there was calls for blood.

It is always a dual standard.

Munin posted:

The US numbers are going to be a huge shitshow for ages due to all the people who died without visiting a hospital because they were undocumented or uninsured.

Like with Maria death toll in Puerto Rico the Trump administration will do its level best to ignore the casualties not included in the initial count and call the more accurate revised figures fake news etc. They will also do their level best to ensure no funding or resources will be made available at a federal level to gather that data.

It's going to take so long to work out the actual fallout from all this and because it won't be a simple clear narrative and the results will be available so long after the media narrative has been established people are going to draw so many false and bad conclusions which will get embedded into common wisdom.

twoday posted:

a brief history lesson:

after the Netherlands became independent, the Dutch Republic soon emerged from being a feudal possession of the Spanish to becoming a flourishing wealthy empire. Free from the system of monarchy which burdened the rest of the countries in Europe, the country soon became an oligarchy run by wealthy merchants who also ran the government, and went to work building a mighty fleet that they used to enable their imperialist expansion to every continent and all corners of the world, ruthlessly exploiting every resource they came across for the sake of accumulating wealth. Not only did they invent the stock market and the concept of the corporation, but they also seamlessly integrated corporate and government interests into a single ruthless machine, and also established a global trade network which arguably played a massive part in establishing the basis for the current world order of international capitalist trade. In doing so, they rapidly accumulated unfathomable amounts of wealth, and the profits of the East India Company alone dwarf all modern ones when adjusted for inflation, and made it the most profitable company in the history of the world:



And that's just ignoring the West India Company and all of the other business which played a role in the economy. For a number of decades in the 17th century the Dutch Republic was by any measure the wealthiest nation on earth, and much of this money was invested into the armed forces and military technology, resulting in one of the most formidable armies and navies on earth, which was then used to build an exploitative global empire that drained the earth of its natural resources in the name of capital, and led to deaths of hundreds of thousands of people who stood in the way of this process. There was a period where the Dutch were pretty much the only global superpower, and not only dominated the world financially and militarily, but also created lots of scientific developments and beautiful artwork. So what happened? Why don't the Dutch still rule the world?

Well, all of this wheeling and dealing inevitably led to the Dutch becoming embroiled in numerous conflicts around the world with all of the other major powers of the day, and those decades of war (both cold and hot) drained a lot of resources and created a lot of enemies on the world stage. These wars were not only a financial burden on the nation, but also helped emphasize social divides which were already present, and generated a lot of problems in society. All of this came to a head in a single year which is now known as the 'Rampjaar' or "Disaster Year," when just about everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong. After years of conflict, the other major powers all grew to despise the Dutch Republic, and in 1672 the country was simultaneously attacked on all sides by an Alliance of the English, French, and Germans. At the same time there was a bitter civil war in the country between monarchists and Republicans which culminated in the head of state, who had ruled for almost 2 decades, and his brother who was the head of the navy (perhaps the most formidable military force on earth at that time) being dragged out into the streets, where they were lynched by a mob who ripped off their skin and ate their livers and other organs raw.



This mighty empire descended almost overnight into unimaginable chaos, with every element of society being ripped apart along its weakest seams. There is a phrase from this time which describes the state of the nation - "radeloos, redeloos, reddeloos," which translates into something like "without leadership, without reason, and without possibility of salvation." Though they were able to fight off the armies which threatened to wipe them off the map, the economy was hopelessly devastated and would remain so for centuries. A leadership crisis emerged, and for the next hundred years the country was ruled by the nephews and cousins of previous rulers, who had grown up fat and wealthy and had no idea how to govern what remained of the country. While the average citizen became horribly poor and hopeless, the ineffective leaders continued to live in mansions and eat off of silver plates, and they turned to increasingly nefarious tactics to prop up their economy. They magnified the slave trade a thousand fold, and started using increasingly brutal tactics to retain control over their colonies, which were taken away from them by their enemies one by one. They invested in pet projects and other tremendous wastes of money which did little to help the country or its economy. For instance, the remaining few Dutch of this period who still had some wealth spent a lot of it financing the rebels in America in the late 1700's, largely out of spite against their ancient enemies, the British. But it didn't help, of course. They were invaded by the French and Germans (and English and even Russian armies at some point), and the nation continued along its disastrous trajectory, leading to revolution, invasion, poverty, and death. Lots of death. Many such horrors. The reason why so many Dutch cities have charming 17th century buildings which attract tourists today is that they never recovered economically from the Disaster Year until relatively recently, and for hundreds of years there was little money around for new building projects, and everyone just had to continue living in the houses which were built way back when during "the Golden Age."

So what's the point of this story? There was once a global superpower which was wealthier than any other in history, with a massive and powerful army which it used to terrorize the world, as well as form much of the global capitalist economic system which surrounds us today. But then one day disaster struck and the chickens came home to roost, and it all fell apart overnight. Poof. That's all it takes. And there's a good chance that anyone who is reading this post didn't know any of this. That entire empire so thoroughly destroyed and forgotten (and good riddance), that now, 350 years later very few people in the world know that it ever happened.

The moral of the story is that no matter how wealthy, how powerful the empire which you inhabit is, it is ultimately nothing within the grand scheme of history. Your entire world can just collapse one day, and then a few hundred years later barely anyone alive will know anything about it. Everything which surrounds you and all that you know is ultimately just an insignificant blip on the radar of human progress that can and will be forgotten. All it takes is one strong shock which tears everything apart. And that's what we are witnessing happening in much of the Western world right now. So good luck to everyone with all of that.

gradenko_2000 posted:

Homeless Friend posted:

in n out always seemed overrated but it's also the only fast food joint I've ever seen that had lines that dominated the parking lots and even curled into the streets, mindblowing poo poo

Ardennes posted:

Also, it is really easy to just slap more decoys on a MIRV warhead (which is what the Russians did) which makes any attempt at missile defense a joke (if we could hit a ICBM anyway...which we can't).


2k (and higher) was foreseeable. It is more that the statistics hung around above just a thousand across the weekend/Monday until there was a massive stock rally after everyone pretended "the light was at the end of the tunnel" then the next day we jump up to 2k dead. It is fishy as hell.

Ardennes posted:

I wasn't that impressed by either the fries or the burger at Five Guys and I have lived in 2 states with them. I guess people like them because of the free peanuts?

Solarin posted:

they give you a disgusting amount of fries with an order, that's something.

dex_sda posted:

lol got to love an empire so thoroughly failed they're either incompetent or literally trying to go long on death, and both options are plausible

Steve Yun posted:

this is some mind blowingly evil poo poo

tens of thousands are going to die that didn’t need to

states and hospitals are going to get their money drained needlessly

Inceltown posted:

Which burger is the best to gently caress?

Inceltown posted:

Which burger is the best to gently caress?

90s Solo Cup posted:

a homemade burger is the most fuckable burger
prove me wrong

Ardennes posted:

Admittedly, there is a logic to the American Empire... there is nothing more important than wealth.

That said, I think the stats are completely cooked at this point and the fact that the positive rate per test is only climbing is proof positive of it. That said, the coronavirus doesn't really care and it is going to only keep spreading especially with pretty lax restrictions and people still going to work.

This is a long-term poo poo-show.

quote:

Yeah, five-guys gives you big portions (fries/burgers)...and honestly probably still over-charge for even what they give.

I would say one thing about In and Out fries (which normally come out pretty oily/burnt), you can actually customize them pretty heavily including cooking them less along cooked onions etc. (shrug)

That said, I agree, just learn the cook and you could easily come up with better. It really doesn't take that much to throw a burger together. To be honest, I got to say one thing about this crisis...I probably haven't eaten this well ever in terms of quality.

Charun posted:

Is CA thinking that they have 'spare' ventilators that they're sending away based on that IHME projection?
If so, lol