Spzi

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Blown away by Estrid's Invocation (blue enchantment for 3 mana) [Commander 2018] in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago

Ahh, I knew that proc must have some neat potential! That’s incredible lol, definitely have to mess with it more.

I had the same thoughts when I first encountered it (and I think it was the only time I saw it). I guess that explains why it's so rare. The potential is not too obvious. And maybe I have to add, not too easily unlocked. At least my approach resulted in a rather complicated deck with many points of failure. But I guess when you run so many copy spells yourself, you know these situations when you draw only copy spells but nothing to copy :D

For that reason, I currently run only 3 Estrid and only 2 Wingbright. I had Mirrormade in for a while - thought it would be neat to copy opponent enchantments with it, to further replicate them with Estrid, even after Mirrormade has been removed. But after a while I realized I never had a good opportunity to use it.

It’s really really amusing with oddball cards like Haphazard Bombardment

Man, that sounds good! That's 7 mana, right? And you get one of those for free in each upkeep, distributing aim markers on everything ^^

I guess you need to be more careful with the expiration, since that is harder to predict here than with sagas.

Haphazard Bombardment is too far from my current approach, so I won't try myself. But if you do, I'd love to hear about it!

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Blown away by Estrid's Invocation (blue enchantment for 3 mana) [Commander 2018] (gatherer.wizards.com)
 

[[Estrid's Invocation]] enters as a copy of another enchantment you control. At your upkeep, you may re-enter it, allowing you to choose a different target.

Note that casting it without an eligible target will void the second part. It will just stay and sit there, not triggering on upkeep.

I tried to build a deck around this card with lots of non-legendary enchantments. And found out, Sagas are particularly interesting. The crazy interaction is that Estrid's re-enter triggers before Sagas tick up.

An example match start:

  • turn 2: [[Omen of the Sea]] (1U, flash, scry 2, then draw 1)
  • turn 3: [[Estrid's Invocation]] (2U), gaining another scry 2 + draw 1
  • turn 4: [[Binding the old Gods]] (2BG, destroy nonland), Estrid re-entered before on the Omen to get a 3rd scry2+d1
  • turn 5: Estrid re-enters as the Binding, which immediately lets you destroy a second nonland. Next but still in your upkeep, both Sagas tick up, letting you fetch two ~~basic~~ forests.
  • turn 6: Estrid re-enters as the Binding before it's saga counter can tick up, letting you destroy a 3rd nonland, and fetching a 3rd forest, before the original Binding finally expires.

If you managed to get a 2nd Estrid out by that point, you can have both Estrid Sagas copy each other infinitely, without ever expiring.

Also nice: [[Elspeth conquers Death]] (3WW, exile mana 3+) and [[The Eldest Reborn]] (4B, sac creature, discard, return creature/PW from any GY)

Other non-saga enchantments which I found useful:

  • [[Omen of the Hunt]] (2G, flash, fetch basic land)
  • [[Wingbright Thief]] (more on that later)
  • [[Smothering Tithe]] (3W, opponent chooses wether they have less mana or you gain more)
  • [[Revenge of Ravens]] (3B, drain 1 life for each creature attacking you)
  • and of course [[Triumphant Getaway]] (1UBR, flash, heist twice, drain 2 on casting heisted cards)

Some are useful because of their on-enter effects, some are useful to stack up a beneficial ability. A Smothering Tithe times 2 makes a significant difference in speed, no matter wether they choose to have less mana for themselves or give you more treasures.

[[Wingbright Thief]] (1WU, creature, on enter reveals opponents nonland hand cards, choose one which perpetually gains "opponent draws 1 and gains 3 life" when you cast this) ... is the only enchantment creature I found worthwhile (maybe aside from [[Overlord of the Hauntwoods]]). But it's a crazy good target for Estrid! Not only does it give you intel on their hand each round for free, you can also burden their most valuable spells with an advantage for you.

For some spells, like untargeted discard, this outright renders it useless. Sure, you can cast it and make me discard a card, but before that happens, I get to draw one and gain 3 life. Similarly, red face damage can be neutralized by this.

For most other spells, the question becomes "how many stacks of Wingbright Thief can this card endure, before casting it becomes more beneficial to your opponent than to you?", which is quite an interesting game mechanic if you ask me. Both sides have to weigh options and estimate value.

Some spells remain useful regardless of how many stacks they have. When a [[Haze of Pollen]] (1G prevent all combat damage) would prevent you from dying, it's still worth casting, even if your opponent draws 10 cards and gains 30 life.

Another poweful aspect of Estrid's Invocation is the flexibility it provides. On each upkeep, you can re-spec your toolkit, choosing wether you want more creatures, more sagas, or more passive abilities this turn.

Sometimes I even use it on [[Utopia Sprawl]] (G, forest makes extra mana) to have 1 more mana this round of a missing color, or on [[Valgavoth's Lair]] (a hexproof land of any color) to have more mana next round, and to flee an expected nonland destroy.

The more I play with it (Magic Arena Historic), the more I wonder why I see it so rarely. Have you played with or against it already? What are your thoughts?

Moldova votes yes to joining EU by tiny margin in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago

Given how much noise exit parties, or generally anti EU sentiments can cause, I'd also prefer a higher bar. Be welcomed if you join, but please be sure about it.

Magic Arena: What do you hate most about it? in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

in any ranked modes, winning is the point, so I feel like there isn’t really any room to complain about fast and efficient decks in ranked play.

I slightly disagree. I mean, mostly you're obviously right; playing to win is foremost at home in ranked. But I think other legit points exist simultaneously.

I want interesting matches. I want the matchmaking to give me an opponent which is neither too hard nor too easy. That's my main reason for playing ranked historic.

I want to test the deck I built, see how it fares against mature decks. I play unranked to check if I got the basics right (like land composition), and ranked to find out how viable certain ideas actually are in the current meta.

But sure, it is perfectly fine to play ranked to win (lol), and I don't blame those who do. I just feel we can and should expect more challenge required and less luck. I lose so often with only having played 1 land, that's just ridiculous. My deck has answers to all these threats, but asking wether I have the fitting solution against an unknown opponent in my first 8 cards puts a lot more weight on luck than on skill.

There's another thought, not sure how to put it. Maybe it's less about the individual match and more about different strategies competing in a shared environment. From that perspective, it's perfectly fine to have deck A which wins versus B, but loses against C and D. Then, player skill sits at the judgement how much B we currently have, and what exactly A is. However, the current client heavily emphasizes looking at individual matches (that's where you see that big VICTORY / DEFEATED), and I think you need 3rd party tools to get any information how good you're doing against certain types of opponents.

Magic Arena: What do you hate most about it? in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

< cash spending >

Aw, that sounds horrible! I had no idea, I don't spend any money on this. WotC got enough from me back when I bought paper cards, and somehow I got along fine in Arena without money.

But I remember having a similar problem when we still played with paper cards. You're forced to keep spending to keep playing with your friends, or drop out at some point. For inhouse paper, at least we could "print" proxies.

Would be nice if they considered how much each player has spent on their current deck for the matchmaking. Like high spenders have to face other high spenders, and budget players are grouped with themselves.

Though of course, in both cases, the economic incentive for WotC is to create unfair situations.

< play patterns >

I don't know what words like Timeless, Standard or Pioneer mean, but yeah, seems we feel the same. Especially this sounds exactly like me: I like puzzles and board state and cards that do pretty much one thing, where through the combination of one-things you can create a complex game.

Take Glissa Sunslayer for example, a black/green creature for 3 mana with first strike and death touch (which alone makes it one of the best blockers imo), it has 3 additional abilities from which you can choose one on impact. Like, what, why? This would be totally playable without these extra abilities. FS DT in itself is an extremely powerful combo, and I think there is currently no other card which has that out of the box. It can even create nasty combos by repeatedly resetting Sagas. Binding of the old Gods for example, destroy one permanent each round for the sole cost of dealing player damage. Though strangely, I don't see it being played too often, so it seems to be fine.

I think the game would be more fun if the overall power level would be toned down a bit, but don't expect that to happen.

Fun fact, I just conceded to a Peddler before my 2nd turn. I tried my luck a dozen times or so against that deck, which rarely succeeded and was never enjoyable. Yeah, skip.

< brawl unplayable >

Yes, Nadu is shameless. Though it has little impact on my matches, I rarely see it. I suffer much more from Persist Reanimators, and Goblin Bombardment with Ajani. Or this silly deck which mills itself, with creatures automagically returning to the battlefield.

Baral ... can lead to hopeless situations, agreed. But I see Baral even less than Nadu. Could it be that counter decks came out of fashion, because aggro got too fast? Many players seem to play almost exclusively cards for 1 or max 2 mana.

Like I just lost after my first round to a Fireblade Charger with Sigarda's Aid and a Colossus Hammer. Arena asked me afterwards wether I had fun. Mhm. Next match: Scholar of the Lost Trove gets Persist in round 3. Cool. After that: Elves swinging lethal in round 3.

Can you elaborate on Rusko, Clockmaker? Admittedly, I've been playing 2 or 3 Ruskos for a year or more. Before, I liked using Underrealm Lich with this frog monster which lets you draw a card whenever a land is put into your graveyard. I like recycling decks and fear Ashiok, guess I'm loss averse.

Imagine managing a popular game where tons of your playerbase hates aspects of it so much that they just concede to take a loss when they see a set of cards you design to be fun. This is the opposite of fun to me, and again I think it non-trivially contributes to negative player mental health.

Well put, I agree. I heard something when learning about game design: A mechanic, which gives something in your game a new ability, should be fun for the player using it, and for the players trying to counter it. Like maybe your warrior can raise his shield to block attacks, bot others have their abilities to penetrate shields, hit your feet or whatever. We should not just make the warrior invulnerable, with no counterplay possible. It might be fun for one player, but you want both to enjoy your game.

Magic Arena: What do you hate most about it? in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

this mostly just seems like complaints about Magic itself

You're right, I strayed from the title. Arena is where I experience MTG, I guess that's how both got mashed together from my view.

What I still could have mentioned: Ropers, and generally unsportsmanlike behaviour. Like being a dick with emotes, being quick when you win but sluggish when you lose, abusing 'Your Go', spamming 'Good Game' when I still have or might draw a solution. I've also done all that, so I try not to judge too hard. Sometimes I think the whole experience is an exercise in emotion regulation.

decks that are too fast and decks that are too slow simultaneously

What I meant with fast: Decks which can kill in the first few rounds (regardless of how much time has passed

What I meant with slow: Players who physically take a long time to play (like roping on every step)

It can be both, which is the worst. Like a player scaling up his Scurry Oak in one of the first few turns to 100+ counters, while frequently taking breaks to clown around with emotes or whatever. I can't really leave my desk, but also don't want to surrender since I might draw a solution. Though this could be in 5 seconds or 10 minutes, who knows. Sometimes I feel this just isn't worth my nerves and surrender anyway, even with a solution in hand.

I heard about the slow wildcard economy, so I guess you're right. I have the opposite experience, but seen this point numerous times before; seems legit. I've been playing this game for many years (10?), sometimes almost all day. After some start phase, I could make whatever I needed from wildcards, without ever spending any real money. Currently, I have around 15 rare/mythic wildcards, which is a low count for me, since I just made another deck (with an accompanying post in this community). I guess it helps that I usually only play one deck, which rarely sees changes once it's settled. Only vaguely I remember grinding for missing cards, an adventure which I did occasionally miss since then.

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Magic Arena: What do you hate most about it? (lemm.ee)
 

This post is meant to help me (and you, be welcome) vent some frustration, as well as help this community grow.

To make it interesting, try to explain at least a little bit why something bothers you.

  • Noisy pets. I hate them.

I'm talking about the cackling goblin, the obnoxious horses, the dumb dogs, the intrusive mice and whatever repeatedly makes any sound.

I mean, it's a fun addition at first, but it gets old quickly. And whenever Someone gets some damage, or something else of minor importance happens, it gets commented by not more than 3 (?) sound reactions. I think I heard all of them a few thousand times by now. It's just annoying.

Sadly, the only way to mute them for good is to mute all opponent's text and image emotes, basically shutting off communication. Which has it's own merit, but it's a different thing. Why combine both in one control?

So sometimes I cruise on everything off to have more peace of mind. When I feel more open, I enable reactions again, but manually mute every opponent who has a pet which cannot behave. Sorry bros. If you want to be heard, make this useless thing shut up.

  • Decks which require you to react on dozens of triggers per round. Like 0-cost artifact spam, lifegain frenzy, foodcat sacrificers.

It's just so tedious. And some people seem to do it just for the fun of it, without any impact on the game.

Like when the Scurry Oak starts growing, I have a Ritual of Soot in Hand, but still want to use my remaining mana in their end step. I may have to click through hundreds of triggers just to wipe it all away whenever they feel they spammed enough.

  • One trick shows.

Talking about Dualcaster Mage, Minion of the Mighty, some decks around Colossal Hammer. I mean, it's nice you can make these decks which can kill you on round 2 or so (but fall apart instantly when they don't), just in principle. But in common play, it's just a boring waste of time. I know these decks exist, cool. I'm pretty sure you just copied it from someone else or the internet, wow. Okay, you won and the only thing good about it is that I don't have to shuffle physical cards afterwards. Now get lost.

  • Fast decks in general.

I'm aware they are necessary to keep the lategame horrors in check, but meh. Why do I put 60 cards together if I only get to see 10, and to play 2?

To me, it smells like bad game design that some strategies revolve around making your opponent unable to play (also looking at discard, counter and other locks). Again, in principle it is amazing that MTG has this flexibility and variety. But does it make for interesting and fun matches for both sides? I much prefer games which have some back and forth, not one steamrolling the other.

  • Uncreative decks.

Such wow, 4 copies of each elf/goblin/whatever, which everyone else plays too. Generic UR wizards, or Boros cats with Goblin Bombardment. Seen them a hundred times, mostly losing to them. I guess there's the crux; they are so strong you can hardly play anything else. Which ironically makes the aforementioned flexibility and variety of this originally amazing game self defeating, resulting in stale repetition.

  • Overpowered / too cheap cards

Did the reanimators really need an upgrade in the form of a 2-mana Persist? Or lifegain the Ocelot Pride? Both were already strong and popular before these were added. I also consider Sheoldred's Edict one such culprit. Just a few years ago, I (and many others) were playing Fleshbag Marauder, a creature which has "on enter: each player sacrifices a creature" or something. Now it's a 2-mana instant with more flexibility and precision. I think it just leads to a race to the bottom, where games are decided by whoever drew their winning solution first (we give you 3 turns to make that happen). Again, I very much like that something like this is possible, but it should not be so common that it displaces other strategies, which could make for more interesting and more fun games, for both sides.

This got longer than I anticipated. Feel free to add your own thoughts independent from mine, or cheese to my whine.

Glimpse the Impossible by Justine Jones in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Seen the card many times, but never appreciated the art. So thanks for highlighting it.

Would be hell to see it as a meter-wide sprayed street art in a punky hood, or a dark club. 🤘😈

I also hate whenever it comes up in matches. I hate when red players make any move. It kind of burns.

Having fun with a new deck, what do you think? in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Opponent played Ocelot Pride, which boosted my Doppelgang to the moon. Match ended in a draw, too many triggers to compute.

At this point, I could make infinite mana and infinite copies of any permanent on the battlefield, and create flash copies of any card in my graveyard, all at instant speed. Doppelgang on Nashi, Illusion Gadgeteer breaks the game.

Screenshot

Why Copilot is Making Programmers Worse at Programming in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Hehe, good point.

people need to read more code, play around with it, break it and fix it to become better programmers.

I think AI bots can help with that. It's easier now to play around with code which you could not write by yourself, and quickly explore different approaches. And while you might shy away from asking your colleagues a noob question, ChatGPT will happily elaborate.

In the end, it's just one more tool in the box. We need to learn when and how to use it wisely.

"Finishing" the bridge over the Seim River near Karizh, Kursk region. in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What's up with the wiggeling, is the camera dangling from a balloon?

I guess if drones can fly into doors on moving targets, an observation drone should be able to hold relatively still.

[Hypothetical] What do you think about mana cost balanced by some stock market mechanism? in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

One obvious problem would be that some cards are good no matter the cost. I’m going to reanimate an Emrakul even if the card costs 40 mana. Manaless dredge will still be manaless.

Excellent point. Yeah, some things exist which are already kind of broken and could be exploited further. Maybe more generally, MTG uses CMC to balance cards, but also many other aspects (comes into play tapped, draw a card/gain life on enter, ...). So only changing mana cost affects the balancing of different cards differently.

Yes, Llanowar Elves. A silly result could be that people use equivalents (like Elvish Mystic) while the "original" is too expensive. But probably, all ramp cards would probably become more expensive as long as they do the job. Which makes ramp cards kind of pointless, as you point out.

Right, two good objections and a funny video. I like it, thanks.

[Hypothetical] What do you think about mana cost balanced by some stock market mechanism? in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

I don't see it yet, please help me out. Maybe it helps if you can find a specific example.

Can you describe a scenario how an asshole could game that system?

Generally I think MTG is probably the most capitalism-ruined game. It annoyed me much when starting to play as a teenager. Whenever a friend upgraded their deck, others were kind of forced to spend money as well. Because the rich guy had access to all the powerful cards (= relatively low mana cost for their effect / strong effect for their CMC). Isn't that exactly what a balancing approach would alleviate? Everyone has access to all cards, and all cards receive a CMC which matches how much players value it.

[Hypothetical] What do you think about mana cost balanced by some stock market mechanism? in c/[email protected]
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

You're right, this would be very unpractical for analogue play. I thought it has to be digital. But then another person in this post pointed out that Penny Dreadful is a thing, which seems to work with printed cards, although it has it's banlist change from season to season. Granted, checking what is banned/legal (and modifying your deck accordingly) is much simpler than checking each mana cost.

I'm not a fan of capitalism, it was just a metaphor to convey they mechanic. Now that I think closer about this, they even differ in that. I did not have "supply and demand" in mind, since the supply in a digital TCG is essentially infinite. It's more about rating cards based on their popularity, whereas popular items in capitalism can be dirt cheap (e.g. tap water). One of the other major differences is that in capitalism, people can reinvest their capital to gain more capital. I don't see how that could be a thing in 'my' idea. But the system would need some protection against deliberate manipulationg. Yet another person proposed a solution to this; only monitor tournament decks.

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[Hypothetical] What do you think about mana cost balanced by some stock market mechanism? (lemm.ee)
 

A shower thought which applies not specifically to MTG, as it would obviously be a different game.

What problem does this idea try to solve?

Balancing. It is hard to balance every card during design phase (or even impossible, as can be shown), which results in some overpowered cards which make the game less fair.

How?

Supply and demand. A card which is played often (by many players, in many games) has it's mana cost increased slightly. A card which is played rarely becomes cheaper.

Implications

This is probably not feasible with most mana costs sitting in the 1-digit-range. We can't make a 2-cost card "slightly" cheaper. So we would either need a mana system which works with decimals (e.g. 3.1415 CMC), or raise the integer system to a higher plateau (e.g. 314 CMC)

It's also only contemplable in digital versions, where a server can monitor every card drop, and adjust costs accordingly.

A big drawback is that your deck's costs can change over night (or even between consecutive games), forcing players to edit their decks more frequently. A partial solution could be a notification system, and/or scheduling the recalculations to a slower frequency, like once per week or once per month.

A big advantage is that we now have an impartial Big Brother watching the balancing. Humans can err, crowds and echo chambers even more so. When people complain about an imbalanced card, is their cause justified or is it just a small but loud minority? Monitoring the cold hard data seems like a better way, and automated problem solving likewise.

What are your thoughts on this idea? Do you know another TCG which applies something similar?

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Having fun with a new deck, what do you think? (lemm.ee)
 

The deck (60 cards, Historic) is based around the 'perpetually' keyword. It also involves [[Rusko, Clockmaker]], because I simply love that guy.

Here's an overview of the most important general cards:

  • [[Three Steps Ahead]] as a counterspell and to make copies of creatures or [[Midnight Clock]].
  • [[Test of Talents]] to thin the forest.
  • [[Saw It Coming]] because it stays when [[Midnight Clock]] cycles.
  • [[Sheoldred's Assimilator]] to recast own spells, to exile or steal cards.
  • [[Sheoldred's Edict]], because it's too good.
  • [[Tear Asunder]], same reason.
  • [[Ritual of Soot]], because why do so many people play with soot? :(
  • [[The End]] is there still forest?
  • [[Casualties of War]] to reduce biodiversity.
  • [[Druid Class]] for life and ramp. Also a sweet target to make copies.
  • [[Glarb, Calamity's Augur]] ramp and "draw", plus emergency deathtouch blocker.
  • [[Primeval Titan]] for ramp, also helps fetch enhanced lands from [[Vigorous Farming]] which were shuffled.
  • [[Doppelgang]] because we need a sink for our 50 mana.

And here are the perpetual stars:

  • [[Antique Collector]] as a cheap drop for round 2, or to enhance creatures. Note, casting it twice does nothing extra.
  • [[Absorb Energy]], another counterspell. Though I feel this is one of the weakest here.
  • [[Smogbelcher Chariot]] because giving creatures lifelink, deathtouch and menace perpetually is pretty sweet! Love to use it on [[Hall of Giants]] or [[Primeval Titan]].
  • [[Vigorous Farming]] this is a tough one. It needs some time, but boy can the rewards pile up! Today I had a single land producing 12 mana. Also a nice clone target.
  • [[Nashi, Illusion Gadgeteer]] you need to have a nice creature or sorcery in grave, then Nashi conjures a copy to your hand and gives that copy flash! When using Doppelgang on Nashi, you can conjure a copy of DG back to your hand, lol.
  • [[Blooming Cactusfolk]] we do have plenty of mana, now we need cheaper spells. It's nice to copy the cactus, and to have spells with X cost.
  • [[Discover the Formula]] for the lulz.

The idea is to play defensively, build up manabase and reduce cost on spells, enhance spells with flash and creatures with extra abilities. Worst enemy is having things exiled. [[Farewell]] or [[Ugin, Spirit Dragon]] are the absolute worst to encounter.

I think the synergy between Rusko and 'perpetually' is pretty nice. Enhance stuff, drop it in grave, draw it again to enhance it further.

It's a bit sad players have only 20 health. This setup starts to shine when the game is already over.

I was happy to find a working deck (currently around 85% ladder) which uses Glarb and Nashi. Haven't seen them played by anyone else yet. Same for [[Vigorous Farming]] and [[Blooming Cactusfolk]], underrated cards imo.

So, what are your thoughts? Have you played something similar? Have we met online? What would you change?

56
When people say two things "cannot be compared", they had to compare them to come to this conclusion. Are 'dissimilar' or 'unequal' better words? (lemm.ee)
 

What they actually mean is rather "these two things are very dissimilar", or "these two things are unequal".

I guess in most situations "cannot be compared" could be replaced by "cannot be equated", with less lingual inaccuracy and still the same message conveyed.

To come to the conclusion that two things are very dissimilar, very unequal, one necessarily has to compare them. So it's rather odd to come up with "cannot be compared" after just literally comparing them.

For example, bikes and cars. We compare them by looking at each's details, and finding any dissimilarities. They have a different amount of wheels. Different propulsion methods. Different price, and so on.

When this list becomes very long, or some details have a major meaning which should not be equated, people say they cannot be compared.

An example with a major meaning difference: Some people say factory farming of animals and the Holocaust are very similar, or something alike. Others disagree, presumably because they feel wether it's humans or animals being treated, the motives or whatnot make a difference big enough that the two should not be ~~compared~~ equated.

Can you follow my thoughts? Are 'dissimilar' or 'unequal' better terms? I'd be especially interested in arguments in favor of 'compared'.

-1
The Causes of the War between Hamas and Israel (William Spaniel) [20:37] (www.youtube.com)
 

Piped: https://piped.video/watch?v=zMxHU34IgyY

On October 7, 2023, Hamas initiated an offensive against Israel in a manner unseen for a half century. This video goes deep into the broader source of the conflict. Unlike traditional explanations, it highlights bargaining frictions as a key cause. It is not sufficient to simply point to the substantive issues in dispute between Hamas and Israel. As long as war is costly, both sides should prefer avoiding a war in principle. Thus, we must explain the conflict using bargaining frictions: first strike advantages, long-term shifts in the balance of power, uncertainty over the outcome of war, or leader biases.

Hope you like some lines on maps, because there is going to be a heavy dose of them today!

  • 0:00 Hamas and Israel at War
  • 2:25 The Substantive Conflict
  • 5:53 War's Inefficiency Puzzle
  • 10:37 First Strike Advantages and Preemptive War
  • 13:04 Power Shifts, Preventive War, and Saudi Arabia
  • 16:13 Information Problems and Turbulent Israeli Politics
  • 17:36 Leader Benefits and Violence as Advertisement
  • 19:02 Which One Caused the War?
  • 20:40 Can You Get KFC in Gaza?
-2
Inside the HAMAS Operations Order from Operation Al-Aqsa Flood (Ryan McBeth) [21:10] (ryanmcbeth.substack.com)
 

YouTube Cut:

Based on documents and "pocket litter" recovered from HAMAS casualties, it appears that Operation Al-Aqsa Flood was well in planning for over a year and had the assistance of Iran.

4
Work. (The History of Working Hours, by Historia Civilis) [Video, 33:15] (www.youtube.com)
 

https://piped.video/watch?v=hvk_XylEmLo

Sources: Juliet B. Schor, "The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure"

David Rooney, "About Time: A History of Civilization in Twelve Clocks" E. P. Thompson, "Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism" | https://www.jstor.org/stable/649749 James E. Thorold Rogers, "Six Centuries of Work and Wages: The History of English Labour" | https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/rogers/sixcenturies.pdf George Woodcock, "The Tyranny of the Clock," Published in "War Commentary - For Anarchism" in March, 1944

GDP per capita in England, 1740 to 1840, via Our World in Data | https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-in-the-uk-since-1270 Nominal wages, consumer prices, and real wages in the UK, United Kingdom, 1750 to 1840, via Our World in Data | https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nominal-wages-consumer-prices-and-real-wages-in-the-uk-since-1750

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has resolved one of your map notes – how to do it yourself? (s3.metapixl.com)
 

Running around with StreetComplete, the app sometimes tells me to leave a note instead, which I do. Short time later, I receive an email that another person has resolved my note. That's nice, but wouldn't it be better to do it all on my own?

I think I need a more powerful Editor for that, and installed Vespucci. Now I'm scared to break things. What are the next steps, how to proceed?

1
Something changed about XP Boosts. Now, how can you tell which lesson activates a boost? (duoplanet.com)
 

Before, completing the last lesson of a group (e.g. completing 5 of 5) activated a 15 minute boost. Which allowed me stop doing lessons at 4/5 and do practice instead. Later that day, I could complete lesson 5 to get a boost for a new session.

Now, these activation steps seem to be randomly scattered across lessons. Sometimes it's lesson 2, sometimes 5. Never the last one.

Did anyone else notice this? Any idea why? How do you deal with it?

It leads me to learn longer than I actually wanted (because I accidentally trigger boosts), or leads to me 'wasting' boosts, both of which feels bad.

26
Unity tutorial creator Brackeys highlights systemic issues with public company, promotes Godot (programming.dev)
 

https://www.youtube.com/@Brackeys/about

Text version, thanks to @[email protected]:

Image Text

BRACKEYS

Hello everyone!

It’s been a while. I hope you are all well.

Unity has recently taken some actions to change their pricing policy that I - like most of the community - do not condone in any way.

I have been using Unity for more than 10 years and the product has been very important to me. However, Unity is a public company. Unfortunately that means that it has to serve shareholder interests. Sometimes those interests align with what is best for the developers and sometimes they do not. While this has been the case for a while, these recent developments have made it increasingly clear.

Unity has pulled back on the first version of their new pricing policy and made some changes to make it less harmful to small studios, but it is important to remember that the realities of a public company are not going to change.

Luckily, there are other ways of structuring the development of software. Instead of a company owning and controlling software with a private code base, software can be open source (with a public code base that anyone can contribute to) and publicly owned. Blender - a stable 3D modelling software in the game dev community - is free and open source. In fact some of the largest and most advanced software in the world is built on top of open source technology like Linux.

The purpose of this post is not to denounce Unity because of a misstep, to criticise any of its employees or to tell anyone to “jump ship”. Instead I want to highlight the systematic issue of organizing large software projects under a public company and to let you know that there are alternatives.

I believe that the way to a stronger and more healthy game dev community is through software created by the community for the community. Software that is open source, democratically owned and community funded.

Many of you have been asking for us to produce new tutorial series on alternative engines such as Godot, which is currently the most advanced open source and community funded game engine. I don’t know yet if this is something that we can realise and when.

I can only say that I have started learning Godot.

Best of luck to all of you with your games, no matter what engine they might be built on!

Sincerely,

Asbjern Thirslund - Brackeys

100
Unity tutorial creator Brackeys highlights systemic issues with public company, promotes Godot (programming.dev)
 

https://www.youtube.com/@Brackeys/about

Text version, thanks to @[email protected]:

Image Text

BRACKEYS

Hello everyone!

It’s been a while. I hope you are all well.

Unity has recently taken some actions to change their pricing policy that I - like most of the community - do not condone in any way.

I have been using Unity for more than 10 years and the product has been very important to me. However, Unity is a public company. Unfortunately that means that it has to serve shareholder interests. Sometimes those interests align with what is best for the developers and sometimes they do not. While this has been the case for a while, these recent developments have made it increasingly clear.

Unity has pulled back on the first version of their new pricing policy and made some changes to make it less harmful to small studios, but it is important to remember that the realities of a public company are not going to change.

Luckily, there are other ways of structuring the development of software. Instead of a company owning and controlling software with a private code base, software can be open source (with a public code base that anyone can contribute to) and publicly owned. Blender - a stable 3D modelling software in the game dev community - is free and open source. In fact some of the largest and most advanced software in the world is built on top of open source technology like Linux.

The purpose of this post is not to denounce Unity because of a misstep, to criticise any of its employees or to tell anyone to “jump ship”. Instead I want to highlight the systematic issue of organizing large software projects under a public company and to let you know that there are alternatives.

I believe that the way to a stronger and more healthy game dev community is through software created by the community for the community. Software that is open source, democratically owned and community funded.

Many of you have been asking for us to produce new tutorial series on alternative engines such as Godot, which is currently the most advanced open source and community funded game engine. I don’t know yet if this is something that we can realise and when.

I can only say that I have started learning Godot.

Best of luck to all of you with your games, no matter what engine they might be built on!

Sincerely,

Asbjern Thirslund - Brackeys

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