Yeeep.

Its some pretty crazy shit, that we literally know how to do... and just... don't.

Because stock market line go up is more important I guess?

Gotta pay for more missiles to blow up brown people?

But yeah, aerospikes are awesome because they're like the ... jack of all trades of effective thrust at different ambient air pressures/densities.

They're not the most efficient or powerful at any particular altititude band... but they're shockingly decent at a whole bunch of them, across the spectrum, because of their fundamental design.

So they're literally perfect for an SSTO, reusable concept. Definitely do a full inspection and maintenance cycle after every mission, they're kinda complicated... but, if you take care of one... it should just basically keep working for quite a long time.

The real answer is that love bombing is simply a behavior pattern that can be benign, or beneficial, or destructive.

A healthy way it might play out would be:

Initial infatuation ->

-> communication leads to deeper and more wholistic appreciation ->

-> moderation into a mutually comfortable new status quo.

But, the way tiktok understands the term is closer to 'anyone who is really nice to you and gives you a lot of attention, for no apparent reason, is potentially intentionally executed a fully consciously premeditated plan to manipulate you and then throw you away afterward.'

Can that happen?

Yep.

How can you tell the difference, before hand?

Uh, you basically can't, not right from step one anyway.

Death is not ultimately escapable.

You are not permanent; one day, you will go to sleep, and not wake up again.

... but you do have the power to influence the path you walk on the path toward death, the face you'll be wearing, the stories you'll be able to tell, when you finally arrive in the company of the reaper.

You can be secure in knowing that it is not possible to escape this fate... and in knowing that you lived not in an impossible attempt to avoid the unavoidable, but instead, that you chose to tread the path as you saw fit to.

The Greek Gods were said to be envious of us mortals, because our mortality meant that what we did with our one life... was important, and meaningful, in a way that nothing the Gods ever did, could be.

When you realize that nothing objectively 'matters', to 'the universe'... you are now free, to decide what matters to you, instead.

Presuming they're both ~19, I'm going with potentially <-> likely uh, all of the above, + completely terrified.

First loves are... pretty confusing.

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Untangles those bothersome hyperdimensional knots.

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It'll make your stomach turn, but in a good way.

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It is quite literally fantastic.

The... the thing is constantly leaking, when it is on the runway, prior to take off.

Because its cruise speed and altitude are such that the surface of it is so heated, that it expands the metal, and stops the leaking.

That is how fucking extreme this thing is.

Now if you want might vote for even more scifi than that?

Behold, the SSTO we could have been building for the last 20 years, if we'd just used the construction method for the fuel tanks that the engineers argued should be used, but couldn't be, because we needed to do all the experimental processes on a single craft, and if they didn't all work, Dick Cheney will cancel the program...

The VentureStar.

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

Yep, we built the scaled down mockup of this, the X-33.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_X-33

And the summary that I gave earlier is basically the tl:dr of it.

We could have been working on making these things to replace shuttle. A reusable, heavy lift, single stage to orbit craft.

But nope!

Nope, instead we get... what are at now, 13, 14 attempts by Elon Musk to even achieve actual orbit with his Starship? Still haven't managed that yet.

So now the ISS is slated to get deorbited, China will have the only major space station, and we will have a ... Kessler Syndrome generation program, in the expansion of StarLink into 'StarMind', those million orbital AI datacenters Musk has recently had CGI made for, and will never happen.

Nope, I'm not mad, definitely not mad, nope.

... destroyed in every way that is possible, and indeed, in some ways that are essentially impossible.

I believe that's his own description.

The also made one with ... a parasite, mini me version of itself.

https://www.museumofflight.org/Exhibits-and-Events/Aircraft/lockheed-m-21-blackbird

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_D-21

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_A-12#M-21

Two, actually.

They made two pairs of the M-21 and D-21.

And yes, that's D for Drone, in 1963.

A nearly hypersonic drone, launched from a Mach 3+ capable mothership, in 1963.

... Some kind of mod that replaces the HECU with ICE might be a not terrible idea.

Half Life 1 / Black Mesa Source is basically them being cocky and also massacred by a combination of transdimensional aliens and an extremely coffee deprived man working 24+ hours straight of overtime w/o pay.

Biden 28: Let him take a crack at it.

Biden 28: Not perfect, but also, he doesn't rape kids.

Biden 28: Because the entire country needs an intervention.

... see, you just lean in to the idea that we live in clown world.

Then, you have a clown fight.

A fool and his money are quick to part ways.

... I'm still adhering to 'Remember: No Preorders', from fucking 15 years ago now.

Everybody else just opts in to get financially hosed down and flatlined like random innocent Russian civillians in an airport.

Same question:

Why are funko pops?

Same answer.

I'd never thought of Barney as gay... but also... its not like he couldn't be.

Unlike with Gordon and Alyx... and a few other minor NPCs, who actually talk about or are talked about as if they would or could or should be a couple and/or resume baby making after the destruction of the supression field...

I don't think Barney ever actually has anything even mildly hinting at or suggesting his own sexuality, anywhere, in HL2 Ep1 or Ep2.

I think he at one point or another hints that Gordon and Alyx would make a good couple, but nobody like, does that in reference to him.

Of course... half the characters in the game could just also be bi or pan or who the hell knows.

Goddamnit... Laszlo would know the answer... rest his soul.

... Lets just hope Kleiner and Lamarr are just the nornal kind of owner-pet relationship...

He gets... rather creepy around Alyx, at least once.

I'm going with 'StarTrek Q-like entity that is only seen doing a rather poor job of wearing a human skin suit.'

EDIT:

oh my fuck i missed the joke.

... you got me, that's good lol

Its because most people have a childish understanding of complex issues that basically boils down to 'thing either bad or good', 'thing either perfect or evil'.

Fanboy/girlism applies to sociopolitical idologies too.

Its easier to perform purity testing to establish yourself as a morally/logically consistent person, its easier to criticize flaws...

... than it is to realize the fundamental strategy that has to be involved in achieving any kind of change from the world as it is, to the world as you'd prefer it to be.... than it is to think about broad patterns underlying decision making, as well as what those broad patterns could lead to, in a complex world with other actors who have other ideologies/behavior patterns.

You can argue that this kind of fast-food opinion/judgement formation is itself a personality aspect caused or exacerbated by the instant gratification of modern digital hypercapitalism.

Like, I don't think Valve or Gabe are perfect moral actors, I don't agree with literally everything they do or espouse.

::: spoiler An example of this:

Lootbox gambling is in fact bad, and that system needs to be at bare minimum, seriously reformed or reimagined. IMO, any game that a kid is capable of playing should not directly resemble the inconsistent reward structure of a slot machine, when real money can exist as either an input or output.

Of course ... if you applied that principle consistently, all gacha games should either be destroyed or massively reworked, which is literally half of the video game industry's revenue. I hold that position... if you criticize Valve on these lines, as I do... you should also hold the position that your gacha waifu pull is a moral abomination.

:::

But... on net? In the big picture? Nearly every other major or even notable actor in the space is morally atrocious in comparison to them, and many things that Valve does are effective counter pressures to those much more atrocious things.

Yeah that's a whole insane aspect of this to me:

So many people will have whatever set of values, and then also a 6 or greater figure salary... from one of the main causes of the problem.

Now in most instances it would be stupid to criticize a low income wage slave for Walmart or Starbucks for being a low income wage slave. You should do the opposite, sympathize with them, help them form a union, etc.

But the tech industry?

These people are much more likely to actually have the means to exit gracefully, downsize their life a bit, and not be a hypocrite.

'Just following orders' didn't work at Nuremberg, and it doesn't work for me either.

And, perhaps ironically... that's kinda part of the point.

Valve literally presents the Steam Machine as a possible gaming device for the open ecosystem they 'religiously' believe in.

But not the only possible gaming device.

The original idea of the Steam Machine, over a decade ago, wss that it would basically be a performance and component spec standard, basically just a known quantity of kinds of hardware that they could say 'Steam and most games on it will run on something that meets these standards!'

There actually were a number of pc builders that did their own attempt at making their own version of a 'Steam Machine'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Machine?wprov=rarw1

Valve is here, now, doing basically the same thing, they just... literally built their own benchmark as an exemplar device, and also now have an operating system to actually center the entire concept around.

I think they'd be greatly pleased if this new Steam Machine, version 2, actually spurred on other manufacturers to make their own... just like how Valve keeps working to make SteamOS work well on other handheld PCs, made by other manufacturers.

Well if they keep going with the GTA5/RDR2 framework, it would be Shark Cards/Gold, and a two tier in game currency system.

Give them real money, you get in game currency 1 or 2, some in game items cost currency 1, some cost ingame currency 2.

They set the 'exchange rates', as well as prices of special items, and they set the increment amounts you can buy ingame crncy 1 and 2 for, such that for ingame purchase combos they know are likely, well you have to spend a little bit more real world money and have some leftover ingame currency.

They basically wrote the book on using psychologically manipulative dark patterns in system structuring and UI design for this sort of stuff.

GTA Online is a ludicrous money printer in the way Steam is a money printer for Valve.

... But with Steam you're getting, you know, new games. With Rockstar, you're getting bling and overpowered vehicles snd weapons to troll people with.

Now... I don't think they'd extend the ingame currency to be something you could purchase for single player GTA6. That seems like it just be waay too much, even for them, it would make single player into as much of a pay 2 win joke as GTA5 Online is.

But I guess its not impossible?

Hah, yeah you're basically descibing my 20s.

Now, I'm an absurdist / cynical bastard, who just laughs as ... 90% of all the things I told people would happen, are currently happening, to society broadly, and themselves personally.

None of these people ever apologized for the mockery and social ostracization and gaslighting they did for the last 20 years... so fuck em!

That I was correct means nothing. That I caused them to experience the cognitive dissonance of their lack of actually thinking about things... is apparently the only thing that matters.

Which basically just means these people are selfish, egotistical, and lazy.

The good news is that I don't actually have to do anything about that. I can safely exist in my own way, at a bit of a distancd, while these idiots do their own survival of the fittest to each other.

I just had to get over the immense grief of fully realizing the extent to which I could do nothing about the incredible amount of unnecessary harm most normies gleefully do to themselves and others.

That is apparently just the human condition.