Hell yeah I love being the "here's some cool music" uncle. Gotta carry on those traditions.
This emoji always makes me laugh because I think of bat boy from those tabloid magazines from the 90s or early 2000s
Ain't that the truth. There's like an ascending ladder of pejoratives if you call out the dems. Useful idiot ->Trump supporter -> Russian bot -> Russian agent -> whatever the next brain worm is called. Probably about China.
Asking for a habitable biosphere and to stop a genocide makes you a Russky robot didn't you know that?
It's funny how often the Osprey crashes and everyone goes 
It's a double helicopter. Of course its gonna crash more.
Liberals sitting in the Dr Strangelove war room debating how many and which minority groups they can afford to lose in order to "win."
You'll see more of that as the crises of capitalism intensify and become more frequent. You'll see more reformist takes as they scramble to address the unaddressable pitfalls of late capitalism in order to prevent revolutionary responses from naturally emerging.
He deserves to be eternally dunked on for his "a billion Americans would be a good thing" take. Every day is a day where he should be made fun of.
"If we appeal to moderates and conservatives we have an excuse not to change anything, jack"
There's two wolves inside Trump. One is an inveterate racist scumbag. The other is up it's own ass with egomania. Both have hypertension.
If they put the essay after the ingredients and ratios I got no problem. If I have to scroll through shit to find out if it's 1/2 or 1/3 teaspoon cream of tartar while the the clock is ticking and I'm dealing with hot shit coming out of the oven I'm gonna get my feathers ruffled. So I guess I do agree with you, sometimes it can be pleasant to read that stuff. Dammit why do you gotta be all reasonable about this stuff.
The candle lit on both ends burns twice as bright but half as long 
He debated Jordan Peterson and made him look like a clown but half of that was Peterson making an ass out of himself googling shit mid debate. The Finkelstein/Destiny debate had that same thing happen but it's funnier and better because Finkelstein is really knowledgeable about the subject, is a complete debate monster, and he kept getting Mr. Divorcelli's name wrong until it turned into a meme.
As the Ghost of Kiev keep those teenagers and their talking dog away from me
It's the same thing as trying to read a recipe and it starts with an essay about "I first tasted this dish while on vacation in Tuscany with my husband Bob and our dog Scoochie (luv you Scoochie! here's a picture of Scoochie sniffing an acorn.) We stayed at this lovely bed and breakfast and waking every morning to the sights and smells of the Italian countryside. Now, you can use any raisins but the preferred type are called Mariocastellani Pizzaluigi and are only grown in the Fettuccine Valley of the Rigatoni province. They taste like apples and peaches on a breezy afternoon when there's a hint of rain on the horizon while an old man named Alfredo Formaggio chain smokes and watches futbol (we call it soccer!) on a wood panel television set. In the afternoon Scoochie took a giant shit in my ass and I died of dogshitanosis. Bob joined the navy and had a bunch of gay sex. So for starters you'll need three cups of unenriched oat flour..."
Bonus if we clone 80s Arnold Schwarzenegger to pop off cheesy one-liners every time one of them gets owned by the roided up enforcers.
We're talking like a whole liter of whiskey. Drunk enough to have visions. Drunk enough to have that weird kinda clarity. I'm embarrassed and ashamed. But at the same time I'm glad I did it. I thought maybe I'd die, and I was cool with that, but I didn't. I guess I'm just a tough bastard like that. Sorry if my posts were kinda weird I was drunker than a French lord on bastille day. I really do love this community. There is a kindness here that I don't find anywhere else. That's the reason I feel safe admitting I've been drunk for like 30 hours. So I'm hydrating and taking b vitamins and also an allergy med cuz I know my body is gonna try to cough out this poison and I'll choke on the phlegm. Not my first rodeo.
I'm normally a metal guy but I fell in love with this album. The drumming is amazing. I've wanted to share this for a while now.
Revolution is not when you exchange one group of landlords for a different set. It is a total upending of systems. That is the true meaning. Soc dems and reformists think we can just change the window dressing and call it systemic. "If the new lord is better than the old lord we can return to the happiness of feudalism." What a terrible thing to believe.
We must reclaim this term. These terms belong to the people not a bunch of centuries dead slaveholding jackasses in powdered wigs who didn't change a goddamn thing.
Just something I've been thinking about lately.
Maybe you could tell. Maybe you couldn't. But I've been drunk since the 29th. I need to do better and I'm sorry. This is the only place I trust to confess. I need to get better. I need to be better. People rely on me and I'm letting them down.
I'm letting everyone down. Myself included. I hope I didn't say anything fucked up. Gosh I am so frustrated with myself. I want to be better but then the bottle calls my name. It says "hey tomorrow is tomorrow so let's get drunk today."
Lies lies all the pretty lies.
It's 3am and I have a job interview in 5 hours. I woke up some time before 2am.
Why, brain? Why do you do this?
Earth & Beyond is a Sci-Fi MMORPG created by Westwood Studios in the early 2000s. It was one of the last games created by Westwood (creators of Command & Conquer, NOX, Red Alert) with the game in development when Westwood was acquired by Electronic Arts. The game was shut down in 2003 but a loyal fanbase remained and through hard work an emulator was created. That emulator is available at www.Net-7.org. Since the emulator got off the ground the devs have added 3 new classes to the game and even new missions, items, and sectors of space to explore.
Everything is free and runs on donations from the community. It's a small community but tight-knit. New Player guides to help you install the game and get started are available on the website. When in-game feel free to ask for help or advice. People are pretty friendly and new players are always a welcome sight.
Simply register on Net-7 and download the original game (files on N7 site) along with the Net-7 client. Run Net-7 and log into the game with your credentials. The Net-7 site is your account hub and through it you can transfer items between your avatars, create new accounts linked to your original account, and access handy game resources like the item database and the wiki. Bookmark it if you intend to stick around.
Since the game is quite old the requirements are very low compared to a modern game in terms of resources and disk space. It will run on a potato. The game does NOT have space flight physics. There are no Zero-Gravity dogfights. You will not need a joystick. You can do everything with just a mouse but a few keyboard shortcuts can help.
Gameplay is quite simple but some of the quests (Missions) can be complex and you will need to read what the NPCs tell you in order to figure it out. The game doesn't hold your hand as much as modern MMOs tend to do. Again, consult the new player guides to help you get started. They will explain how the game works in greater detail than this little blurb. Experience is earned in 3 categories: Combat, Exploration, and Trade. You earn them by doing tasks related to each. Kill shit for Combat XP, explore new areas of space (or help someone else find them) for Explore XP, and trade items (to players or to NPCs) for Trade XP. Each category goes from 0-50 with an Overall Level of 150 being the max. The game can be a bit grindy but there are tricks to improve the speed at which you gain experience. However, its a great game to play while listening to podcasts or whatever it is you also like to do in the background.
Certain upgrades such as shields or reactor tier depend on your Overall Level while others depend on specific types of experience level such as Combat for weapon upgrades, Trade for manufacturing skills, and Exploration for mineral refining. Find yourself in tough combat situations? Level up your trade and exploration, boost your Overall Level until you can install better shields or even unlock a new weapon mount for your ship, and return to blast your enemies with your upgraded spaceship. Tired of fighting? Find a nice quiet asteroid field and prospect for minerals and gasses used to create components.
The game rewards you with bonuses for grouping with other players from increased critical hit chance to durability. The game was meant to be played with other people. While it is possible to do most things by yourself some of the more serious "solo" players do so with multiple alt accounts and play them simultaneously so as to maximize their bonuses and XP earned.
Most items in the game can be analyzed and built by player avatars. In fact, players can make items of superior quality to those available from looting enemies or buying them from vendors. This includes ammo!
The game still has some bugs, most notably while using warp gates to go from sector to sector or entering and leaving starbases, it's rare but it happens. It can be a pain but the easiest fix is to force quit the client and restart. Can't be helped. They had to build the emulator from scratch and they did a damn good job all things considered.
There are 3 races to choose from: The Progen from Mars, the Terrans from... well, Terra (Earth), and the Jenquai from Jupiter.
Progen ships have the toughest hulls, the strongest shields, and can mount the highest number of weapons. They favor projectile cannons which consume ammo and have a medium range and you must face your targets to fire upon them. The fastest way out of a tough situation is to face your enemies head-on and blast your way through them.
Terran ships have the largest cargo bays, the fastest engines, and favor missile weapons which consume ammo and have long range and can fire in any direction. Think of an archer or ranger playstyle. Enemies you cannot take head-on you can outrun and kite from a safe distance lobbing missiles over your shoulder as you stay out of range.
Jenquai ships have weak defensive capabilities but make up for it with stealth. Jenquai ships are the only ones that can cloak. They also do massive burst damage with their beam weapons which have the shortest range but do not require ammunition. Think of it like a "ninja" or "rogue" playstyle. Uncloaking, dumping damage, and cloaking again before the enemy can hit you back.
Each race has 3 classes. 1 fighter, 1 trader, and 1 explorer, for a total of 9 options:
Fighters are the toughest for their races and boast the most weapon slots. All 3 fighter classes can manufacture weapons and ammo, which is especially important for Progen and Terran as the superior ammo translates to extra damage. Ammo of different types can be used. Some do all the damage at once (explosive, impact) or do damage over time (chemical, plasma). Some weapons even do EMP damage that drains enemy reactors although most players do not bother with EMP weapons as the NPCs aren't really that susceptible to having low reactor energy.
Traders occupy a mixed role in combat and can repair friendly hulls or boost their shields (think of a medic or healer) as well as boasting the most varied manufacturing skills in the game. Terran traders, in particular, can build components that can only otherwise be found by looting or dismantling other items. This becomes quite important for end game as certain elite weapons require ammunition that isn't available in starbases and must be manufactured by players.
Explorers are the weakest in combat but have other skills to help them out that become available as you level up. In addition they have the best scanners and are the only classes that can mine asteroids and refine the raw materials. Unique among explorers, the Jenquai Explorer, has a wormhole skill that enables them to transport themselves (and party members!) across the galaxy.
Piece of advice for character building: Take the weapon skill into consideration when making your character(s). The highest weapons in the game as tier 9, and weapons that aren't ideal for your race (ie: beams on a Terran) can only skill up to tier 8. If you want to pew pew with lasers play a Jenquai.
Also make sure you have enough skill points to upgrade your reactors and shields as soon as you get the level requirement. Wasting your points on things like leveling both Build Engines and Build Weapons and not having enough to upgrade your primary skills can leave your ship in a bad spot. The game website has a character planner to help you out.
All that aside, give it a shot if it sounds interesting to you. It's not "hard Sci-Fi" and is more like a mix of Star Trek and Star Wars. There is a lot of backstory but its not really necessary to understand to jump in. If you find yourself enjoying it be sure to read the new player guide.
Also, if you would like help from me please PM me so we can meet up ingame. I can help you get started by building you some starter weapons, giving you some cash, or even giving you a ride back home if you end up lost in deep space. I have 3 maybe 4 days left before I need to hit the work grindstone really hard so now is an ideal time for me to be available at odd hours to help you out so please don't be a stranger if you decide to play. We can exchange avatar names via the Hexbear DMs.
Extra notes: I highly recommend playing the game in windowed mode. The game does not like being minimized so if you want to open a web browser to look up game info or play some tunes via youtube or whatever be sure to run it in windowed mode.
The game is fucking loud for whatever reason. First thing you'll probably want to do after making a character is turn down the sound effects and music. Seriously. So fucking loud.
Lastly, starting a guild. If enough people show interest and like playing we could start a guild. I was thinking of calling it Six Sided Bears or something like that so we could keep all our commie spam to ourselves. Hope to see you around the space lanes, comrades.
He no longer wants to take a bite out of crime. He went woke and joined antifa. The west has fallen. This is what Biden's America has taken from you.
I lived to spite that motherfucker. Now what the hell am I gonna do now. Outlive Dubya? Feels kinda hollow ngl.
Break glass in case you need to feel a little bit of those tankie feels
I know I'm a bit late to the party so forgive me if anyone has already brought this up. This is the observation that always bothered me the most. I watched tower 2 get hit on live TV. The news anchors were going nuts describing the events like something out of Orson Welles' infamous radio play edition of War of the Worlds. They tried to keep a somber and serious tone but there was an excitement in their voices as they vividly described fire, smoke, and chaos.
Do you remember that brief moment when the media called it the "World Trade Center Attack?" The abbreviation 'WTC' started to take over. You were assumed to already know what it stood for by that time. Get with the program.
Then that, too, started to change. It stopped being about where it happened. It started being about when it happened.
"On this day, September the Eleventh," intones Dan Rather.
September the Eleventh. All the anchors picked it up. It was like every single one of these media ghouls was trying to ape the infamous FDR speech about Pearl Harbor. They'd found juicier meat than some silly radio play about Martians. I was one of those insufferable WWII teens at the time so I heard that little dog whistle. "A day that will live in infamy" was right on the tips of their tongues. They all wanted to say it even though they knew it was corny. But they all wanted to have that moment.
The day wasn't over yet they were memorializing it. It already had an anniversary. September Eleventh.
Eventually it was just 9/11. "Nine-eleven." It was like some advertising hobgoblin had noticed that if you put a 1 next to a 1 it looked like the WTC towers. 9/11. They had long since dropped the 2001 part. Who cares what year it is. You're already supposed to know that part. We already told you. It was 9/11.
Music from The Shining starts to get louder. The twin towers meet in the bathroom of the Overlook Hotel. They start to argue over who the Caretaker is.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
I like to keep it positive when it comes to other people. But I can be very hard on myself. I don't know why I do it. I guess I'm depressed. Normally I use humor as a coping mechanism but that's not really working right now.
I haven't really been posting here much lately. I just couldn't get the energy to log on or even have an idea worth sharing. But I do really like this place and I want to share some positive energy because I'm tired of feeling destructive. So, hey, you reading this, I like you. You are valuable. You are worth something to yourself and others. I guess this is kind of an "imposition" because I'm asking you to be happy when I'm not. But it will make me happy to know you are okay. I care about you all. I'm just feeling down and the only thing I ever had that picked me up was other people. I can't do it on my own, despite my stubborness insisting I can. I guess that's why I was always inclined towards socialism; I knew I couldn't go it alone and caring for other people was the only way I could legitimately care about myself. "Rational self interest" and all that jazz.
So, hey, if you're going through something, or you know somebody going through something, you can reply in this thread or DM me. I'm not a licensed therapist or anything like that but maybe it would help if you just typed out a few words, as I am doing right now. Helps keep the thoughts in order.
The internet is the worst place ever created but it's places like Hexbear that somewhat redeem this whole sorry enterprise. I have seen so much care and kindness here. Y'all give me hope. I'm kinda ranting but I just wanted you to know that after 3 years this was the only place I could go to where I could tell my dumb jokes and indulge in serious conversation about theory and politics without bad faith. It's nice! And it's refreshing. Keep doing what you're doing.
!af-heart --
