MEGA65 er mer enn en retro-datamaskin, det er det 21. århundre realisering av C65 arv. Det er en komplett 8-bits datamaskin som kjører rundt 50x raskere enn en C64, samtidig som den er svært kompatibel. HD-utgang, SD-kortstøtte, Ethernet, utvidet minne og andre funksjoner øker moroa uten å ødelegge 8-bits følelsen. Vi gir bort designene gratis, noe som tar lang tid, innsats og penger å skape. Last ned nyeste Bitstream Mens det er mulig for alle å laste ned kildene til FPGA, tilbyr vi en tjeneste for å holde deg oppdatert med de nyeste kjernefiler og - info. Vi ber om en donasjon på minst EUR 5 for å hjelpe oss med å levere denne tjenesten og bidra til kontinuerlig utvikling. Et prosjekt som dette innebærer mye større kostnader enn dette, så større donasjoner blir verdsatt. Snakk med oss om spesiell anerkjennelse for betydelige donasjoner. Doner og bli registrert Passord for nedlastingen sendes til registrerte e-postadresser på hver oppdatering. Vi sender manuelt disse passordene, så vennligst gi oss noen dager til å gjøre det. Fantastisk blender og mikser Skrevet av: Kitchenman fra: Chicago il på Great alt i ett kjøkkenapparat. Gjør alt det sier det vil. Unntatt blande varme ting. Det slått av på meg noen ganger. Ikke sikker på om det var fordi kjøkkenet mitt var for varmt, eller hvis det var fordi potetene jeg satte i det var varmt stille. Uansett, det burde ikke skje gitt at boken sier at du kan blande suppe i den. Når potetene endelig kom ut. de var den smidigeste noensinne og ja, det kan virkelig piske en merangue, og til tross for ikke å ha tradisjonelle juicer deler, kan virkelig juice ting. Hvis du vil ha din juice mer butikk kjøpt, må du tømme massen selv tho, og legg litt vann til noen ting, som gulrotjuice. Plastet kan også være BPA-fri, men det riper lett når du bruker skurepartiet av en svamp. Jeg foreslår at du bruker myke ting for å rense det. Eller få best kjøper beskyttelse og fortsett å få en ny. 27 av 30 fant denne anmeldelsen nyttig. Utrolig maskin - beklager jeg kjøpte ikke før. Skrevet av: Meaty1 fra: NC på Jeg elsker bare min ninja. Jeg er alltid litt bekymret for å bruke mye penger på noe som hevder å være det store og har konstante infomercials. Men jeg må si at jeg ville ha betalt mer for dette. Min sønn lager frukt smoothies hver dag og bruker den personlige koppen som følger med den. Jeg har brukt prosessoren til omtrent alt, men min favoritt er å lage tomatsaus frisk fra tomater. Er knusker tomater bare perfekt. Jeg kjøpte det virkelig for bruk av deigbladet, jeg liker å lage pizza deig og kakedeig. Det fungerer fantastisk. Når du bruker denne blenderen til tropiske drinker, vil du kaste den gamle blenderen ut. I motsetning til andre maskiner har jeg det du unngår å bruke fordi det tar for lang tid å rengjøre og ikke verdt innsatsen. Ninjaet rydder opp veldig enkelt. Ingen sprekker eller sprekk som ting kan bli tatt opp i. Jeg må si at jeg aldri gjennomgår noe, men jeg følte meg virkelig at dette var noe å dele. 21 av 22 syntes denne anmeldelsen var nyttig. Great Blender Bedre kundeservice Skrevet av: repaso fra: on Denne blender fungerer bra. Det er veldig kraftig, det vil blande alt, det er allsidig og smoothies er så bra for deg. Vi kjøpte til og med en food processorcheese grater vedlegg (må kjøpe direkte fra ninja) og det fungerer kjempefint. Den eneste klagen er at det er veldig bråkete, til og med til galskap. Alle de andre sammenlignbare, dyre blanderne er ganske høye også. Det var et problem med bladbasen for de små blendbeholderne. Jeg ringte produsenten for å få en erstattende bladbase og de sendte meg en helt ny blender og et komplett sett med blenderbeholdere. De sendte meg også en returmerke for den gamle enheten og tilbehør. Når jeg mottok den nye enheten og satte den opp, fullt ut å vite at det fungerte bra, sendte jeg den gamle ryggen. Det er en av de beste garantiavkastningene til kundeservicer jeg noensinne har hatt med noe selskap. De eneste andre selskapene som har sammenlignbare garantiservice er Apple og Nintendo. 13 av 13 fant denne anmeldelsen nyttig. Utmerket Blender til prisen Skrevet av: Lalucha fra: Fort Wayne, IN på The Ninja System har blitt en av mine familys daglige redskaper. Jeg lager smoothies i single-serve koppene hver morgen for meg forsterker barna. Jeg bruker også disse koppene til å lage raske nøtter-smørbrød eller brødkrummer (fra croutoner). Opprydding er super lett hvis du gjør det rett etter bruk. Kruikbladet er lett fjernet, men litt vanskelig å rengjøre hvis du har noe tykt på det. Det var litt forvirrende da jeg først begynte å bli vant til hvordan dekslene virker fordi du må matche pilene og sikre lokket ned før maskinen selv starter - stor sikkerhetsfunksjon siden bladet ikke er trygt uten lokket. Det er flere stykker til dette systemet, og de er ganske klumpete og vanskelige å lagre. Jeg bryr meg ikke om det for mye, siden jeg fortsatt bruker maskinen daglig. Når det er sagt, anbefaler jeg det fortsatt til vennene mine, de har kjøpt det basert på min anbefaling og er fornøyd med det også. Alt i alt Jeg er veldig fornøyd med dette kjøpet, det er den beste maskinen jeg hadde råd til mens jeg jobber meg opp til en VitaMix 13 av 13 syntes denne anmeldelsen var nyttig. Gjør en gjennomsnittlig smoothie. Skrevet av: Firewomen85 fra: Manhattan, KS på Jeg elsker at den har 2 enkle skarpe kopper for enkel sminkefremstilling. Imidlertid brukte jeg blandeskålen til å male noen pretzels til en dessert, og de klarte beholderen som fra det jeg leste i vurderinger ikke ville skje så jeg er skuffet over det. Men andre da tror jeg det er et godt produkt. 16 av 17 syntes denne anmeldelsen var nyttig. NINJA FORBEDRET, REINVENTERT, REDEFINERT BLENDER Skrevet av: GREAT2BHERE fra: USA på Ninja-1200 Kitchen System har forbedret, gjenoppfunnet og omdefinert betydningen av blenderen. Vær oppmerksom på at denne vurderingen omtrent bare kan gjelde for deres oppdaterte 1500watt-modell, bare designet med i utgangspunktet færre vedlegg, og krever derfor litt mindre strømforbruk. På denne modellen er både fornuftig størrelse 40-ounce og 72-ounce-beholdere utstyrt med henholdsvis kompatible bladaggregater. Det genialt enkle konseptet med de ultrafaste, skarpe og konturerte flervingene er tydelig den faktiske grunnen til kapasiteten til å oppnå utrolig rask, grundig og effektiv hakking, pulverisering, blanding, blanding, etc. Enhver form for matvare fra, for For eksempel friske gulrøtter til isbiter, blir forandret og skapt til en væske eller annen form du måtte ønske, med bare å trykke på din hastighetsknapp. Ernæring kan forbedres med den enkle forberedelsen av en eller en kombinasjon av forskjellige sunne, ferske matvarer, ettersom de blir skapt til noen av mange tenkelig ønsket oppskrifter, for eksempel drikkevarer, shakes, supper, jevn kake eller kakedeig. Hvis du vil gjøre det, hjelper denne enheten med rask effektivitet for å hjelpe deg med å få det til å skje. Alt beholderinnhold fra bunn, midten og toppen vil bli styrt av multi-bladet. Plus, med den mer enn tilstrekkelig kraftige motoren, er den i stand til uovertruffen ytelse. Noen kan i utgangspunktet kastes av den sterke, høye motorrotasjonen og vibrasjonen, selv om du snart innser dette er bokstavelig talt fortelle deg at jobben blir gjort utrolig fort. Basen låses på en flat overflate for sikkerhet og hver beholder er ledsaget av et nøyaktig passivt, slitesterkt lokk for sikkerhet og renslighet, siden innholdet blir behandlet i utrolig tempo. Min familie og jeg, så vel som mange andre vi kjenner til, har slitt med den skuffende og frustrerende underlegenheten til de tidligere, gammeldags enhetene eller moderne blenders - inklusiv krav fra såkalte profesjonelle karaktermodeller. De ineffektive resultatene av disse modellene lar brukeren føle seg som om de mislyktes da produktkonsulentene hevder at forbrukeren ikke hadde det. Så, så dessverre, gir brukeren opp og returnerer til tilsynelatende praktisk, bearbeidet, lett tilberedt men usunn søppelmat. Den fantastiske effektiviteten av Ninjas-forbedringer vil i stedet få deg til å føle deg som en vinner og gir ernæringsmessige fordeler som får deg til å føle deg frisk. Tilgjengeligheten av Ninja Kitchen System-1200 ved Best Buy gir deg trygghet om å betale en rimelig pris, og mens rettferdig prising av utmerkede kvalitetsprodukter er en klar vurdering for meg, ernæringsmessige forbedringer av dette flotte produktet, og investerer i min egen families ernæring , hadde vært min primære overveielse. Du kan sannsynligvis spørre: Hvorfor, i denne verden, ville denne personen som vi ikke engang vet si så mange gode ting på denne produktanmeldelsen, og det er et veldig forståelig punkt. Mitt svar er rettferdig fordi flere mennesker trenger å vise god tro og dele kunnskap med hverandre av nyttige ting, og jeg kan bare håpe i det minste noen andre kan bli med meg i å spre gode Under alle omstendigheter kan vi absolutt likevel vare for oss selv, så bli med meg ved å kjøpe dette fantastiske produktet og begynne å leve en sunnere livsstil. 13 av 15 syntes denne anmeldelsen var nyttig. Stor blender for hver dagskjøkken Skrevet av: MattinOhio fra: Columbus, OH på jeg mottok dette som en feriegave, hovedsakelig for å lage morgen smoothies og protein shakes. Jeg var glad for å motta hele pakken som kan hjelpe med matbehandling, større skalablanding, osv. Jeg likte mest individuell størrelse blenderkoppen for single-serverer - jeg bruker det langt mest. Jeg ble sjokkert og imponert over den første dagen hvor raskt det gjorde min smoothie (det var nesten umiddelbart blandet. Jeg har funnet rekkefølgen av ingrediensene, definitivt forbedrer blandingshastighet og kvalitet. En flott gave 8 av 8 syntes denne anmeldelsen var nyttig. Død etter 1,5 år Skrevet av: ABrune fra: på Jeg kjøpte denne blenderen lokalt fordi jeg ikke hadde penger for en vitaminix. Vel, det var en stor feil. Den store blenderkruiken var aldri så stor det forlot alltid mine drinker grusomme selv etter å ha det på for minutter om gangen, pluss at det ville lekke gjennom pour tuten på toppen selv om jeg var under maksimal linje. Så jeg kjøpte i utgangspunktet en blender å bare bruke prosessoren og single servere kopper -... Nå prosessoren var ikke dårlig men jeg la merke til at det begynte å samle smuss på bunnen i nærheten av den delen som basen forbinder med, slik at den faktisk spinner og også i håndtaket. Begge kan ikke rengjøres fordi du trenger å skru av bunnen for å komme til smuss og da jeg gikk for å gå gjør det jeg la merke til hvor skruene er plasten var sprakk, noe som betyr at hvis jeg tok skruene ut, ville plasten smuldre og jeg ville ikke kunne få det sammen igjen, og det ville være ubrukelig. Og de enkle serveringskapene var til eneste måten jeg kunne lage smoothies og de var alltid vekk til små og ville også lekke. Men hovedsakelig min begrunnelse for den dårlige anmeldelsen er på grunn av hva som skjedde den andre natten. Jeg plugget min blender i og det tripped min stikkontakt, så jeg tilbakestilt stikkontakten og plugget den inn igjen, trykket strøm, ingenting skjedde lyset kom ikke på. Så jeg tilbakestille stikkontakten igjen samme ting ingenting skjedde, prøvde et annet uttak, ingenting skjedde. Forsøkt noe annet i stikkontakten for å sikre at det ikke var mine uttak og håndmikseren slått på. Veldig opprørt, jeg tok blenderen til et annet stikkontakt et annet sted i huset og fortsatt ikke ville komme på. Ive hadde bare denne blanderen i et og et halvt år, og det er allerede dødt. Ikke kast bort pengene dine på denne feilblanderen. 17 av 22 syntes denne anmeldelsen var nyttig. Kjærlighet min ninja Skrevet av: IslandNinja fra: Savannah Fortsett Jeg kjøpte dette slik at jeg kunne juice, men hold all masse og ha ingen søppel. Det er så lett og mashes alt til væske. Slår is for å snø det om noen sekunder. Jeg skreller noen ting, men hvis jeg kjøper økologisk, skyller jeg bare og kutter opp i store biter og puls. Det rydder opp lett hver gang, og jeg sanitiserer det ukentlig i oppvaskmaskinen. 6 av 6 fant denne anmeldelsen nyttig. Spectacular, All Purpose Blender Skrevet av: Gidious fra: Tucson, AZ på Dette er kanskje den største blenderen på jorden. Jeg har handlet for en blender som kan lage profesjonell kvalitet smoothies, samt noen andre klokker og fløyter. Ninja har overgått alle mine forventninger Denne maskinen har 1500 watt strøm, noe som er vel verdt prisen. Vi gjør alle mulige smoothie tenkelige, så vel som bruk de andre vedleggene til deig og salsa. Den andre fine funksjonen om denne blenderen er bladene som ligger på midtaksel av blenderen som synes å tillate ninja å gå utover. VitaMix hvem 6 av 6 fant denne anmeldelsen nyttig. Ryan Cooper ser på foreslåtte endringer i en Washington DC-plan for å gi betalt familieferie (bare i byen blir ikke opphisset). Det er ikke spesielt relevant for deg med mindre du jobber i DC, men det fungerer godt som et eksempel på hvorfor betyr testing og andre halvtiltak er faktisk verre og dyrere enn universelle programmer. Søk på helsevesen, høyskoleopplæring, etc. Klikk gjennom til Matt Bruenigs mer detaljert analyse også. Jeg vet at gag av denne tegneserien ikke skal være Tom DeFalco å tenke på seg selv, men det går hele vår forretningsmodell, men det er alt jeg kan se. Ved fnord12 21. februar 2017, kl. 18:13 Tegneseriekobling Tilbake i 2002 da jeg forsøkte å lage cheesey kjeks, men den veganske osten på det tidspunktet var så forferdelig at de kom ut mer som fishy kjeks, kunne jeg aldri ha forestilt meg en verden der blodige Breyers ville sette ut en vegansk iskrem Vår venn Original Bob tippet oss til de mirakuløse nyhetene at Ben Jerrys og Breyers begge solgte veganskris i faste supermarkeder. Så klart, vi så etter det på vår neste shoppingtur. Og også klart, vi måtte få begge merkene. Begge var overraskende gode. Vår nåværende favoritt er Coconut Bliss og er fortsatt etter å ha smakt disse to. Breyers smakte litt tynn, ikke veldig kremaktig, men ganske bra og mye bedre enn de så deilige forsøkene (både soya og kokosnøtt). Ben Jerrys var veldig bra, men jeg holdt en endelig dom til jeg smakte en vaniljebasert smak. Kaffe kan gjemme feil. Fnord12 ville ikke la meg få alle BJ-pintene, så det var litt tid før jeg prøvde en annen smak. Jeg vet ikke hvorfor han alltid prøver å holde meg nede. Nå vet du hva en virkelig forferdelig vegansk iskrem OMG er så ille. Jeg kan ikke beskrive hvor ille det er. Dens isete og verste enn smakløst. Det er en fryktelig ettersmak som treffer deg etter at du svelger. Ikke få dette. Vi burde ha visst at noe var galt fordi beholderen oppførte en hel mengde ting det var fri for, og det betyr bare at noen prøver å gjøre det sunt. Du kan ikke lage sunn iskrem DENS KREV SKAL SPREES DET OG SKYLLES Så, ja, ikke få dette. Dens iskrem tilsvarende fisk kjeks. Dette er bare en studie, slik at alle de vanlige forbeholdene gjelder, og det fokuserer spesielt på Manga, men konklusjonen ser ut til at tilgjengeligheten av tegneserier har en negativ innvirkning på det vanlige singelprosjektet, men øker faktisk handelskolleksjonssalg (i hvert fall i dette tilfellet, for serier som har blitt avviklet igjen, er det faktum at studien fokuserer på Manga introduserer variabler som ikke nødvendigvis gjelder for amerikanske superhelte tegneserier). Dette gir mening for meg og er faktisk ganske tydelig. Torrenten tillater folk å prøve bøker og bestemme hva de vil eie. (Personlig behøver jeg likevel å holde fysiske eksemplarer når jeg legger meg ned for å lese, og for mitt prosjekt foretrekker jeg enkeltproblemer til handler, men det er fint å ha digitale skanninger tilgjengelig for hurtigreferanse og skjermbilder. Men mine merkelige behov gjør meg til en forgjenger.) Ved fnord12 21. februar 2017, 10:22 Comics Link Nå uten noen motstander i kraft til å skylde på alt, får mange GOP-kongressmedlemmer en liten, forstyrrende inkling av det faktum at det folk faktisk ønsker med helsevesenet er noe enda mer omfattende og dyrere enn ObamaCare - men hvor få planer de har skissert, er det polære motsatt av det. Regissøren av Glengarry Glen Ross er 50 Shades regissøren. Hellig helvete, jeg har ikke fullt ut lest dette papiret av Lina Khan ennå, enda mindre fullstendig fordøyd det. Men det er noe der inne som jeg tror jeg kommer til å like, så jeg blogger det her, så jeg glemmer ikke det (og for å dele, ofc). Når jeg leser folk som bekymrer seg for at Amazon blir et monopol. Fordi jeg looooove Amazon. Jeg kan ikke tenke meg en enklere måte å kjøpe. alt, og id hater virkelig det hvis Amazon ble brutt opp og jeg måtte gå til flere nettsteder for å handle. Men selvfølgelig innser jeg også at konsentrert kraft er dårlig generelt. For Amazon betyr det at når det drev alle sine konkurrenter ute av drift, kan det til slutt øke prisene (til det punktet der det faktisk kan bli lønnsomt). Min løsning på dette har alltid vært å bare nasjonalisere den. men selvfølgelig er jeg en sosialistisk lønn. Så det er fint å se en Yale-akademiker, blant annet, å lage et lignende, men mindre ekstreme argument (som en av to mulige løsninger, den andre er anti-trust-handling). Tanken er å regulere Amazon som et offentligt verktøy: Selv om det i stor grad er ute av mote i dag, ble bruksreguleringene allment vedtatt tidlig på 1900-tallet, som en måte å regulere teknologien i industrialderen. Gitt at Amazon i økende grad tjener som en viktig infrastruktur på tvers av internettøkonomien, er det verdt å vurdere å bruke elementer av allmennyttighetsforskrifter. De vanligste retningslinjene for offentlig bruk er (1) at det stilles krav om ikke-diskriminering i pris og service, (2) fastsetter grenser for renteinnstilling, og (3) pålegger kapitalisering og investeringskrav. Av disse tre tradisjonelle retningslinjene vil ikke-diskriminering gjøre det mest fornuftige, mens renteinnstilling og investeringskrav vil være vanskeligere å implementere, og kanskje mindre tydeligvis adressere en fremragende mangel. En ikke-diskrimineringspolitikk som forbød Amazon fra å privilegere sine egne varer og fra å diskriminere blant produsenter og forbrukere, ville være betydelig. Gitt at mange av de mest bemerkelsesverdige konkurransedyktige bekymringene rundt Amazons forretningsstruktur stammer fra vertikal integrasjon og de resulterende interessekonfliktene, ville anvendelse av en ikke-diskrimineringsordning begrense konkurransekonkurranse. Matt Stoller har en tldr tweetstorm hvis papiret er for mye. ingen kan bli fengslet for manglende betaling av bøter uten å høre om at de hadde penger og bevisst nektet å betale, eller at ikke-betalingen ikke var de tiltalte feil og alternativer til fengsel var utilstrekkelige. Ikke bekymre deg, gutter. Alt mitt fussing om at demokratene trenger å endre har lønnet seg. The House Dems har dukket opp fra deres etterfølgende valgobservasjon med følgende konklusjon: Jeg tror at neste presidentens nominee burde være noen som døde en hjort eller på en annen måte demonstrerer til småby Amerika og landlige Amerika og jegere som de er kulturelt avstemt, California Rep. Brad Sherman sa. Og gutting av hjort er en vei å gå. Min: Jeg kan ikke tro at disse morfuckende moronene klarte å vellykke en primær mot oss. Ved fnord12 10. februar 2017, klokken 14:35 Musikklänk Jeg vet at jeg allerede er død i døden, men Glenn Greenwald skrev bare en artikkel som viser at Dems motstår ethvert forsøk på å lære noe. Faktisk har minoritetsleder Nancy Pelosi nektet at det er noen avdelinger i det hele tatt, og i tillegg hevder det at Dems ikke har et parti-ortodoksi. Reporteren presset på, og spurte om Pelosi fornektet virkelige divisjoner i sitt parti. Ja, det er det jeg sier, insisterte Pelosi. Et politisk parti må imøtekomme forskjeller, ellers er alle små og små politiske partier, og vi kunne møtes i dette rommet for resten av vår tid, sa hun og angav det lille hotellmøterommet hvor hun møtte journalister. Hun hevdet at i motsetning til republikanere, demokrater ikke har en fest ortodoksi. (Selvfølgelig, Pelosi sa også nylig kapitalister, og det er akkurat slik det er, noe som lyder som ortodoksi til meg.) Yahoo-nyhetsartikkelen jeg koblet til, har ikke hele sitatet fra Pelosi. Jeg måtte gå til høyre Daily Caller for det. Det fulle sitatet er faktisk ganske usammenhengende (det er utrolig for meg hvordan en leder av et nasjonalt parti kan være så ille å snakke), men det er interessant hvordan hun anerkjenner at republikanerne faktisk har en jævla beskjed som fungerer for dem under valg, men likevel tror at Dems ikke har en er en god ting. Hun noterer også stolt på at ingen der ute finansierer primære utfordringer til venstre. Hun tilskriver at til de rare eneste republikanerne har ideologi ting, men selvfølgelig er sannheten at finansieringen for demokratene bare er tilgjengelig for de som følger partiet ortodoksi. For hva det er verdt, forsøker justisdemokrater å forandre det. Matt Stoller har en lang skriving på Fed. bemerker at en god del av det fortsatt er kontrollert av folk ansatt av Alan Greenspan. Det er mye å behandle. Mitt første inntrykk er at man ser på hvor bult og kraftig det er samtidig som det er så motstandsdyktig mot forandring fra tjenestemenn at folk faktisk velger, jeg forstår hvor avskaffelsen av Fed-stemningen kommer fra. Ikke si at jeg er enig med det, og jeg forstår at Feds uavhengighet ble utformet som en funksjon, ikke en feil. Men når du ser på hvordan Obama-ansatt Janet Yellen hashad å kjempe med et innebygd byråkrati, skapt ikke av den personen hun byttet ut, men av fyren for ham, virker det opprørt. Oppdater . Ser ut som hovedfeltet i artikkelen, Scott Alvarez, går ned. og Yellen vil plukke erstatningen. Det er gode nyheter, men tar ikke vekk fra Stollers ideologiske dragpunkt. I en redaksjonell om Steve Bannon kunne Fareed Zakaria ikke motstå impulsen til å slå sammen også. På en merkelig måte er Bannons mørke, dystopiske syn på amerikansk historie nærmest den av Howard Zinn, en populær langt venstreforsker som en folks historie i USA er et fortell om de mange måtene som 99 prosent av amerikanerne ble knust av landets allmektige eliter. I ZinnBannon verdenssyn. Daglige mennesker er bare bønder manipulert av sine onde overherrer. På en merkelig måte. Jeg er lei meg for å gjøre dette, men dette er hva denne klassiske Dril-tweeten er for: Ikke la Peter den Store (mer som Peter den store Big Jerk, tilsynelatende) gi noen ideer til den velkjente skjegghateren i Det hvite hus om et skjegg skatt. Som du vet, var jeg begeistret for å først akseptere forslaget om å jobbe med True Blue Media fordi jeg tror på ikke-partiell ansvarlig journalistikk. Imidlertid endret omstendighetene til jobben senere, sa Sirota i en sendt melding. True Blue Media har ikke akkurat nå ressurser for den typen uavhengig, ikke-partisk journalistikk jeg vil fortsette å gjøre, og det er nødvendig for å utføre den ambisiøse redaksjonelle strategien som vi ble enige om. Derfor har jeg besluttet å skru ned jobben. Jeg ønsker David Brock det aller beste. Mangelen på et sentralt element i den demokratiske etableringen for å rekruttere Sirota - en anti-corporate outsider fra partys Sanders-vingen - peker på utfordringen Demokratiske givere og eliter står overfor i å kanalisere en bevegelse som i slutten av dagen har liten kjærlighet for dem. Denne Mother Jones-artikkelen viser hvordan demokrater behandler e-post fra Bernie Sanders-supportere som de er den neste gjenstanden som Indiana Jones skal søke etter. Som om de bare kunne få tilgang til listen, kunne de øke alle disse pengene. Tom Perez, fyren etableringen støtter slik at Bernies alliert Keith Ellison ikke vinne, er sitert og sier at han ønsker å lære fra Senator Sanders om hvordan han gjorde det. Det er ikke et fritt mysterium. Sannheten er at DNC sannsynligvis allerede har listen. Men folk ignorerer anke fra DNC fordi DNC har en søppelpost (som artikkelen peker på, deres merkelige og vedvarende dømt linje av meldinger har vært en stor vits blant venstrefløyen Dems for flere sykluser nå blir det veldig klart at frykt mongering om republikanere er ikke nok). Og selv om det etterlignet Bernies-budskap, vil folk ikke tro det kommer fra en gruppe som gjorde alt de kunne for å synke Bernie under det primære. Hvis de vil at Bernies rekordbruker små givere, må de virkelig bli Bernies-fest. Artikkelen sitater Bernie folk sier dette, og merkelig innrømmer at det er noen sannhet til det. Det er all sannheten. Det er ikke en hemmelig cache av mennesker skjult der ute som ville donere til DNC hvis bare noen kunne finne sine e-postadresser. Det er bare ikke hvordan det fungerer, og det burde være selvklart. Det er også rart hvordan artikkelen plasserer Perez og Ellison som å være i like steder. Vi (folkene på listen) vet at Bernies presser på Ellison. Situasjonen vil bli veldig annerledes hvis han vinner vs Perez. Hvis du vil at listen skal gjøre sin magi for deg, er det minimum som må skje at du lager Ellison-leder av DNC. Jeg ville bare takke Frederick Douglass for tiden å reise for å hindre Bowling Green Massacre. Jeg ønsket å anerkjenne de fantastiske protester som skjedde denne helga. Folkene som mobiliserte på lørdag kveld for å protestere mot det muslimske forbudet (og ja, det er et muslimsk forbud, Trump-forsvarere har bestridt begge ordene) er virkelig fantastisk. Jeg tror det er utrolig hvordan slike protester ble organisert på vanskelige steder (flyplasser) over hele landet. Jeg har sett det sa at OWS, BLM, og Bernie-bevegelsen har skapt infrastrukturstarter som gjør denne typen ting mulig, og jeg synes det er kjempebra også. Og kudos til ACLU og til taxi union for deres solidaritetsstreik. Jeg pleier ikke å bare gushing innlegg som dette, men jeg har ikke hatt noe å blogge siden Russlands innlegg. For folk med binærpartisperspektiv kan Russlands innlegg føles som et forsvar for Trump, og det er ikke tilfelle i det hele tatt. Jeg tenker bare på veien for å angripe Trump over paranoide konspirasjonsteorier når det er mange konkrete ting å dømme ham av. Det går ikke vekk, så her er to perspektiver. En fra Jacobin. som vurderer kilden, handler om hvordan du forventer (det er en visning jeg generelt enig med og det gjentar poeng jeg har blogget før), og en fra Newsweek som gjør det interessante tilfellet at demokratene vender tilbake til deres hawkiske Cold War-røtter. Problemet med sistnevnte syn, etter min mening (og dette er anerkjent i artikkelen), er at Sovjetunionen ikke eksisterer lenger, og Russland utelater seg ikke til å følge en kommunistisk ideologi. Smøring av venstreorienterte kritikere av Hillary Clintons fraksjon som Stooges of Putin virker bare latterlig for meg, jeg forstår ikke hvordan noen kan gjøre det med et rett ansikt. I tilknytning til alt dette er selvfølgelig Syria. Jeg leser dette i dag. Kan ikke garantere nøyaktigheten, men det var en interessant lesning. De var villige til å overse noen av de virkelig fryktelige tingene om kandidaten som ble valgt, fortalte hun meg fordi han sa mange andre ting om hva de følte. Spesielt sa ting Trump om handelstilbud som Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) og hvor forferdelig de er. Først overrasket det meg å lære dette. Jeg visste at Trump var selvfølgelig kritisk for handelstilbud. Men jeg har alltid tenkt på bønder som store fans av frihandel, siden USA eksporterer mye mat. Bønder snudde seg mot Jimmy Carter på grunn av sin embargo på Sovjetunionen, for eksempel, og gårdslivets lobbyister presser for alltid for å åpne opp handel med Cuba. Men i disse dager er ting annerledes. Måten Perry forteller historien, er familiens bønder nå i hånden av en håndfull enormt magtfulle internasjonale matvareforetak, og handelshandelen vår regjering har blitt enige om i flere tiår har bare bidratt til å styrke disse selskapene på deres bekostning. Så var det Obama selv. Ingen av oss byens folkeminner husker det i dag, men i 2008 ble Obama ansett som en frelser av visse forkrevne småbønder. I motsetning til nesten alle andre nasjonale politikere, virket Obama å få det igjen da han lovte å håndheve antitrustloven mot store matkonglomerater og å gjøre noe med bedriftens husdyroperasjoner. Han kjørte virkelig en kampanje som relaterte til jordbruk, husker Rhonda Perry. En del av plattformen, fortsetter hun, handlet om bedriftskraft og monopolene som disse selskapene har - det handlet om å sikre at det skulle være rettferdige og konkurransedyktige markeder. Ingen av disse tingene skjedde. Det som hevdet seg vedvarende da jeg snakket med denne gruppen, var en avsky mot den oppfattede moralske høyheten av liberaler. Flere enn ett medlem av klubben henviste seg til en av Hillary Clintons deplorables, for eksempel. Det var irritasjon av Ivy League-utdannede som følte seg berettiget til micromanage resten av landet. Mannen som fortalte meg det - en fyr som hadde på seg en US Army Retired cap - fortalte meg også at hvis du vil være en ubehagelig slob, har du rett til å være en. Dean Baker betyr bra. men dette leser mer som hvordan Mexico kan invitere et kup fra CIA til meg. Ive gjorde det poenget før at demokrater trenger en slags skygge regjeringsapparat på plass. Igjen, jeg taler ikke for å sette opp en slags Illuminati ting, det betyr bare at du driver en parallell mock regjering slik at det som en fest. Du fortsetter å bygge retningslinjer og reagere på gjeldende hendelser. Og det gir en kilde til byråkrater (brukt ikke-pejoratively) for å fylle mellomnivået posisjoner når du kommer tilbake i kraft. Jeg skjønner også, etter å ha sett denne Intercept-artikkelen om folk i EPA som er redd for å snakke med pressen. at det kunne gi et sikkerhetsnett for alle disse menneskene som er redd for å miste jobbene sine. Det ville gi dem et sted å fortsette å gjøre sitt arbeid og holde dem økonomisk stabile. Åpenbart vil finansiering være et stort problem, og ideen er ikke at den bare kunne ansette alle eller med full lønn. Men det slått meg i denne tiden av TheResistance at folk på steder som EPA er for redd for å snakke ut på grunn av frykten for å miste jobbene sine, og det er ingen støttestruktur fra demokratene for å hjelpe dem. Ikke å ta bort i det hele tatt fra at EPA-arbeidstakere er redd for å miste jobbene sine, tror jeg med god grunn, men i dag hadde New York Times dette: Longtime-ansatte hos tre av byråene - inkludert noen karriere miljøregulatorer som innrømmet at de fortsatt var bekymret for hva president Trump kunne gjøre på politiske spørsmål - sa at slike ordrer ikke var mye forskjellig fra de som ble levert av Obama-administrasjonen, da det skiftet politikk fra George W. Bushs avgangshvide hus. De kalte reaksjoner på agenturets notater overblown. Dette er ikke en ny Penny Arcade, men jeg tenker på det mye når jeg setter meg ned for å skrive noen skumle tegneserier. By fnord12 January 26, 2017, 10:04 AM Comics Link A conservative columnist that had been doing full-throated advocacy for repeal and replace of Obamacare before the election has now finally looked at the details and determined that its too complicated and the Republicans should just leave it alone . Hes getting reamed from all sides, understandably. I mean, i appreciate the honesty, but der. This is getting attention because it proves right (obviously its really just one random guy) liberal pundits whove been saying that Republicans dont really have a plan for the and replace part (beyond something something state lines). And it also proves that Obamacare (formerly Romneycare) really is as free market as you can get while still providing (vaguely) universal coverage. So really your choices are to abandon that principle (i. e. ditch the and replace part), which Trump has said hes not doing, or go to the left, starting with a Public Option or (better yet) Medicare For All. I didnt see these ads when i was a kid so i never got the opportunity to turn in my teacher. Not sure if my middle schools copies of Oregon Trails and Logo were legit. Key line: . the same camp that is championing establishment ideology is also claiming that any attacks on that ideology are a blow to Democratic unity. Plenty in there about our horrible Senator, Cory Booker, too. Michael Tracey has a write-up of Trumps nixing of the TPP and its pretty good, but i was hoping hed incorporate a related development that he highlighted on Twitter. Namely that after formally cancelling the TPP (or ending the US involvement with it, which is effectively the same thing), Trump met with the leaders of Hillary supporting unions. and the leaders walked away being very pleased with the meeting. As people note in the comments, this is potentially really dangerous to Democrats. The Democratic party relies heavily on the unions money and ground game. The Dems better get a message for them. Well, we were complaining that they were only eating the bushes over to the right, making them all skinny and sad-looking compared to the rest. So i guess we cant complain now. They still only target the middles of the bushes. Guess theres no point in straining your neck when theres plenty to eat at face level. Guess it wouldnt be wise to ask that our neighborhood get a sudden influx of giraffes. I always have to remind myself that its awesome that this beautiful wildlife just wanders around in our backyard. Because the initial reaction to seeing deer eating your bushes is, Fuckers Get da fug out of here. Hey, those bushes are the only thing keeping us from having to interact with our neighbors in the summer, so you cant blame us. Jan 14th: Bernie Sanderss claim that 36,000 people will die yearly if Obamacare is repealed is given four Pinocchios by the Washington Posts fact checker. To be fair, the latter is actually a rebuttal of the former, and kudos to the Post for publishing it. But how do you go from awarding something four Pinocchios (which is such a weird metric. Its been a while, but i dont remember Pinocchio cloning himself every time he lied.) to publishing an article saying that its true And the headline even uses the dangerous word will, which was what caused the original claim to get bumped from three to four Pinocchios. And its not like the Post has issued a correction or any caveats. Their fact check still remains on their website completely divorced from this article. Basically you can have any reality you want. Fact checkers should really be limited to verifying actual facts. They should leave policy analysis for policy analysts, and in that capacity they need to recognize that there are a lot of variables and possible interpretations. A lot of the caveats in the first article were just fine (e. g. a lot depends on exactly what the replace part of repeal and replace would be), but when you end with issuing Pinocchios or whatever, youre not just providing necessary context to readers. Youre actually giving them a false sense of certainty. Guys, a garbage can was on fire during the Trump protests. Luckily there were one or two reporters around to get a picture of it. Also i hear that someone punched a Nazi in the face. I have a photo of that: David Brock his gross. He found a loophole in campaign finance laws so that his Super-Pac could collude directly with Hillary Clinton, he attacked Bernie Sanders on specious, ridiculous grounds (the Podesta email hacks reveal that even other Hillary supporters thought they did more harm than good), and he even paid an army of trolls to attack Bernie supporters online. David Sirota, on the other hand, is a really good reporter with a lot of integrity. And is a firm progressive (e. g. was a Bernie supporter). I read him regularly. So this is a big surprise that im having trouble wrapping my head around. This is the line that makes me feel best about it: The move suggests that a shattered and divided Democratic Party establishment is looking to embrace the combative, progressive wing that backed Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic Primary. This line, second best: Sirota replaces Peter Daou. Daou was Brocks Salacious Crumb, so Sirota replacing him, if he retains his integrity, can only be a step up. Davos Elite Seeks Fixes to Defend the System From Populists. Theyre even considering conceding to a higher tax burden to pay for more social spending. Ryan Cooper has three related articles. One on why Obamacare sucks. One on why repealing it will nonetheless kill thousands of people. And a (devastating) case study of someone trying to navigate the current system . Ending MLK day with the strange but apparently necessary reminder that he was not a conservative . Ive been playing the Civilization series since Civ 1, and i think the first three games are among the greatest computer games. When Civ 4 came out, i gave it a quick try but it was at a busy time in my life and i couldnt handle all the changes and gave up without giving it a fair chance. Civ 5 got universally bad reviews so i skipped that as well. But over the past few years Min and i have occasionally fired up Civ 3 for some local multiplayer marathons. And sometimes wed run into little glitches or annoyances - most notably a problem with camera behavior in multiplayer - and whenever wed complain wed have to stop and remind ourselves that we were playing a game that was over 15 years old. So when Civ 6 was announced, we got excited. Surely all those little problems would be fixed, so it was time for us to take the time to learn the new game. And our winter break was the time to do it. System Requirements We ran into our first roadblock immediately. Our laptops are not gaming laptops. We have 20 gigs of RAM and processors that were the best available for the Thinkpad T450s at the time we bought them. Our computers can more than handle everything we normally do, including heavy multi-track audio recording. But they have integrated (i. e. not dedicated) video cards. And because of that, we didnt meet the minimum specs for Civ 6. Which is insane. Civ isnt a first person shooter where framerate and 3-D rendering should be important. Its a turn based, top down strategy game. Graphics-wise, i dont care if it looks like the Commodore 64. I can see taking advantage of better graphics capabilities if theyre available, but youd think theyd design it to degrade gracefully for people with regular laptops. A game like Civ has a different audience than, say, Doom, and its weird to exclude casual gamers with heavy video card requirements. The good news is that we have another computer attached to our television that we were considering upgrading, and this pushed us over the edge on that decision. So for now we wouldnt play multiplayer, but we could at least try the game together (and bicker about whether to build city improvements or troops). A side note: once we had the game, i did install it on my laptop to see how bad it was. The load times were prohibitive, but once the game finally loaded - and were talking several minutes - it seemed to run and look ok. I didnt keep playing to see if the time between turns got worse as the game went on and the AI had more to do. The game also comes with a Benchmark feature that seems to test your computer to see how well it can handle the game. But the feature took so long to run i assumed it was hanging and ended it. We also ran the Benchmark feature on the TV computer, and it turns out the results are incomprehensible to me anyway. min: OMG people do not know how to make graphs anymore. Label your axes, people And there should be a legend Griping about minor changes Now on to the game itself. We knew going in that there would be changes. I was skeptical about some of the major announced changes, but they seemed interesting and i was looking forward to seeing how theyd work. I also knew from my Civ 4 experience that a lot of smaller things would change. On this front, i know that i really ought to just accept it. Its a new game, i should expect that things will have changed. But in truth i find these little changes to be very frustrating. What i am talking about here is not new features or changes to gameplay, but changes to how elements that have always existed in the game work. For example, changing what the benefits of building a temple are, or what a great wonder like the Hanging Gardens does, or what you get after researching a new tech improvement like Writing or Mathematics. Just as examples, in Civ 3, Writing allows you to engage in diplomacy, and unlocks the new tech improvements Literature (which lets you build libraries), Philosophy, Code of Laws, and Map Making. In Civ 6, Writing lets you build libraries, and unlocks Currency (only). In Civ 3, Mathematics lets you build catapults and unlocks Construction and Currency. In Civ 6, Mathematics increases the speed of your naval units by one and is unlocked by Currency. Im not even saying that Civ 3 is right and Civ 6 is wrong. Just that the changes seem entirely arbitrary, and serve mainly to make sure that people coming in from previous versions have to learn everything from scratch. And the whole point of me choosing to play Civ 6 as opposed to, say, Age of Empires or any other random similar game, is that i have some familiarity with the system and like it. I dont want to learn a whole new game. The Civ name is what brought me here. To be fair, things have always changed between games, but in the past its always seemed to be in service of making the game more balanced or accommodating larger rule changes. For example, i accept that Temples no longer reduce unhappiness in cities, because a) managing citizen happiness no longer seems to be a factor at all in Civ 6 and because religion has become a major new aspect of the game. But i cant see why theyd flip around the attributes of Mathematics and Writing, etc. in what feels like a completely random way. Related to this is the fact that the country leaders have changed. This isnt super important since in my opinion the leaders should be eliminated or selected randomly anyway. But its just jarring for Pericles, not Alexander the Great, to now be the leader of the Greeks. Its even weirder for the Romans to not be included in the game at all. In part, the idea seems to be an attempt at adding diversity Gorgo, Queen of Sparta is also a choice for the Greek leader, for example. But not every country has a choice of male and female leaders. And i suspect that the real motivation here is the ability to sell expansion packs that include additional civilizations and leaders. I also want to acknowledge that were coming in from two versions behind, so maybe these changes felt more gradual to people that were keeping up. But imo that just pushes the source of the problem back. Firaxis should be very careful with every minor arbitrary change that they make if they dont want to alienate older loyal players. And if nothing else, it shows my state of mind (disoriented and cranky, which, granted, is nothing new) when it came time to evaluate the bigger changes. min: He was so cranky. But the new tech tree is pretty bad. It seems bloated with lots of useless tech that dont give you meaningful gains. After spending 10 turns researching something, you want to get something useful in return. Not some crappy policy card that gives you an unimpressive 1 to a Harbor Adjacency Bonus. Bwah. The Bigger Changes We knew going in that there were two major changes to Civ with this version: 1) the concept of districts and 2) the removal of the ability to stack military units. It turns out that there were some additional changes that i also consider major. Again, some of them may have been introduced in previous versions but they were new to us. Districts This was touted as the major change in the promotional material prior to the release of the game. The idea is that instead of your city occupying a single tile, you build your central city in that tile and then you can zone the surrounding tiles as districts in which buildings specific to that zone can be built. So instead of building a marketplace directly in your city, you first zone a commercial district and then you can build the marketplace, and later a stock exchange, etc. in that district. This concept isnt inherently logical. Every town in America has main street that can include a shop, a church, and a library. They didnt have to designate a commercial district, a Holy Site district, and a campus district in order to get those buildings. But i was open to the idea since it seemed like it would give Civ a little bit of a SimCity flavor to it. And youll notice ive been using the word zone, which is what you do in SimCity. But in Civ you actually have to build the district, and the districts are very expensivetime-intensive to build. So whereas in earlier games of Civ you could pump out a temple very quickly after creating your city, in Civ 6 it takes a long time to build the religious district, and only then can you build the temple (actually, first you build a shrine temples come later in the game, but im equating Civ 3 temples to Civ 6 shrines). The districts themselves provide a very minor benefit (see Great Leaders), but its now a major investment to build anything. When weighing the cost of building a marketplace versus, say, pumping out some troops, you now have to factor in the time it takes to build a commercial district. And on top of that, districts have specific terrain requirements. The campus district, for example, for some reason gets a bonus if its next to a mountain. And most districts cant be built on certain types of terrain at all. So even if your (core) city itself is on good terrain, you simply can not build a commercial district, and therefore a marketplace, if you are mostly in the desert (and have used up the good terrain on other things)(and in addition to districts, aqueducts also take up external tiles, and so do Great Wonders). There are also population requirements if your city is of size 1-3 you can only build 2 districts. If its size 4-6, you can only build 3 districts. So you basically cant have a barracks, a temple, a marketplace, and a library until your city has grown quite a bit. And your city basically just sprawls out in all directions. Youre not really building Manhattans youre building Jacksonville, Florida. This is theoretically by design, the idea being that cities will now have to specialize instead of every city building every improvement. Kind of like how Detroit (in its day) was an industrial powerhouse but never became the financial capital that New York was (and vice versa). But ofc Detroit did indeed have some marketplaces and New York did have some factories. And Civ 3 managed to approximate all of that fairly well without making it explicit. Ive had plenty of cities that, thanks to their locations, had better production andor commercial power than others. But i was still able to marginally improve the abilities of other cities by building factories, marketplaces, etc.. An additional complication is that within districts you have more choices. The one that sticks out is that after building an Encampment district, you can either build a barracks or a stable. Barracks makes your ground troops better, whereas a stable improves your cavalry. So its not even that you have to devote a city to specialize in building troops. You will actually need two such cities if you intend to have a mix of units. min: because, apparently, you cant possibly have both a barracks and a stable in your encampment. either my horses have a place to sleep or my soldiers do but not both this makes sense how I was open to this idea and i still think the concept could be interesting. I think the biggest blocker is the cost of the districts. I think in the future Firaxis should consider going with more of the SimCity zoning concept, but i think an even better idea is to come up with a way for districts to grow organically. For example, if i continue to emphasis commercial improvements, it may naturally occur that i get a commercial district, and based on terrain and population restrictions that may therefore cause me to forgo getting an industrial district in that city. So i like the idea, but in practice it was backwards and prohibitive. War The other thing that we knew going in was that you couldnt stack military units any more. In older Civ games, you could build a hundred tank units, put them all on a single tile, and roll them up to an enemy city. In response, the other player would load that city up with a hundred defensive units. To me it wasnt a major fault of the previous versions, but i can see how some people might have thought it was unwieldy. And it definitely forced you into an arms race mentality, where you felt the need to constantly build troops. In Civ 6, you can only have one unit per tile (for the most part). So (since the tiles are hexagons) the most units that can attack a city at once are 6. And an interesting development is that the cities themselves have an inherent defense, so even if there is no unit in the city, it can still defend itself like a unit would (having a unit in the city does bolster the defense, ofc). The citys defense can be improved with city walls and similar. The city can even bombard nearby enemy troops, so it can fight back, not just defend. The attackers can build siege towers and battering rams and other such supplemental units to circumvent or destroy the walls. I like the idea a lot. For one thing, you no longer feel the need to stack multiple troops in each of your cities (although a garrison can still provide other benefits). And the battles are therefore shorter and more intense. You do eventually get to research tech that allows you to stack two units (and later more) into an army but we found two stacked units to be significantly less effective than two individual units (and that seems to be the general internet consensus). I think Firaxis should have just stuck to its guns here and kept it at one unit per tile. min: What is the point of stacking my units if theyre going to be worse than 2 separate units Why even make that an option Who would want to do that Now instead of 2 units that can each attack once per turn and each do 40 points of damage, i have 1 unit that goes once in a turn and does mebbe 50 points of damage. Do you see the problem here Are you following me Can you do basic arithmetic Ignoring the armies, i think this was a good change, entirely in the plus column. Workers Heres the first change that we came across that we werent expecting. In older versions of Civ, you can build workers, and they can mine the hills, irrigate the grasslands, clear swamplands, and build roads. Doing each action takes a number of turns depending on the action and the terrain, but workers last forever and by the end of the game you tend to accumulate a lot of them. Which is good because eventually theyll be needed to build railroads and clear pollution. But they can be hard to manage because you have to order them around one by one. You can automate them, but the automation (as of Civ 3) was rudimentary. You can tell them to go around and clear swamplands but then thats all theyll do, and theyll do it (basically) randomly. You can tell them to build roads (or later railroads) but, again, it would be random (i, e. just in random squares around your cities but not necessarily between cities), or you can order them to build a road or railroad from city A to city B. The problem was when you have 20 workers and you want them all to do like a big intercontinental railroad project youd either have to tell 20 workers one by one to build a railroad from city A to city E and hope theyd hit B-D as they went, or youd have to direct them from A to B to C, etc. again, one by one. And if you wanted workers to embark on some new project, you have to catch them while they were in between tasks while on automation. If some worker was set to build mines and you now wanted workers to build railroads because that tech became available, you could either interrupt the worker in the middle of building the mine (and lose all that effort) or keep an eye on him every round until he was finished and then take him out of automation. Keeping track of that for 20 (or more) workers was impossible. So what i would have liked to have seen is the ability to manage workers at a macro level. Set percentages for workers that are doing irrigation vs. mining, or whatever. Have a worker queue so that you could change orders but only after they finished their current jobs. Give orders like build roads between all cities to 10 workers at once. Firaxis clearly saw that managing workers was a problem, but they solved it in a very different way. First, workers now only have a certain number of charges. Three by default, can be expanded a bit based on tech and policies. Second, they dont build roads anymore. So a worker can irrigate a grassland and build two mines, and then hes gone and you have to build another one (and they arent super cheap). There is no automation anymore (obviously, with only 3 charges, you wouldnt want the computer deciding what to do). As for roads, they are built by traders, which is a truly bizarre decision. Managing trade routes in this game is a nightmare that deserves its own section (but this review is already too long), but the idea that you get roads by sending traders to a city is weird in and of itself. I didnt know that Marco Polo pooped out a road behind him when he traveled to China. And if i just want roads between my own cities, i have to send traders to each city There is no indication of which of your cities have had traders sent to them already when youre on the trade route selection screen. Its impossible to manage. A later upgrade to the worker unit allows them to build roads, but then you are back to the problem of charges. I dont know why charges were applied to workers but not to military units. The same logic that says a worker can only build three things before becoming exhausted should apply to how many times a soldier can fight, too. Not that i want that, but the selective application of this concept raises questions. This does solve the problem of managing a large group of automated workers, but in the same way that strangling your children in the third grade would solve the problem of paying for their college. min: They stop being cute around age 5 anyway. Religion I cant say too much about this because it kind of caught us by surprise. But apparently religion is very important in Civ 6 Early in the game we passed on the decision to build shrines, thanks to the cost of first building a Holy Site and the fact that (as noted above) shrines no longer affect citizen happiness. The description said something about 2 Faith points per round and the ability to build missionaries and that all sounded like something we werent interested in. But then later we saw Indian Hindu missionaries coming into our cities and converting our citizens and pretty soon India was well on its way to a Religious Victory. So we then looked into this missionary stuff and it turns out that you have to build your own missionaries to fight off enemy missionaries and this is all done without any kind of declaration of war (having a city converted to an enemy religion can be a casus belli for war later in that game, although we never saw that option). So ok, fine, well build some shrines and stuff. Except it turns out that in order to form your own religion, you have to attract one of four Great Prophets that exist in the game, and there are more than four civilizations in the game and by the time we figured all this out all the Prophets had been recruited and we simply could not form a religion and therefore had no way of defending ourselves from these missionaries. min: goddamned missionaries wheres my Atheist Prophet why couldnt i defend against missionaries with science So we simply attacked India militarily (hey, we were playing as Norse vikings) min: also der. you send missionaries, we send infantry. If it werent for other factors, i would say that we should play another game now that we understand the religious aspect and give it a fair shake min: no no religion shudder god talk gives me the heebie jeebies. Im a little uncomfortable with religion being so prominent in the game - i have a friend who for a while refused to build temples, etc. at all because he didnt want to drug his people with the opiate of the masses - but of course religion has been an important part of the history of civilization so i understand it being in the game. For what its worth, we tortured ourselves by playing through the tutorial before starting a real game, and the tutorial made no mention of all this religious stuff, so i dont accept 100 of the blame for missing how important religion was. Government It was with Civ 6s government system that i realized how dumbed down the game has gotten. I was initially pretty excited because i saw that in addition to government, there was now a sub-concept called Policies. I imagined being able to select policies like Universal Health Care where maybe your population growth and happiness increased but so did your expenses. Or maybe going back a level and being able to choose policies like Democratic Socialism vs. Capitalism as Policies within the Democracy government with appropriate benefits and penalties for each. Turns out i was way overthinking it. In Civ 1-3, there were only a few forms of government, and each one came with its own plusses and negatives. For example, Democracy increased economic growth but citizens became war weary much faster. Whereas in Communism production was spread out equally among all of your cities (itself a positive and negative). Im oversimplifying and there were multiple benefits and detriments to each government type, which made weighing the differences between them a lot of fun and also fairly consequential. In Civ 6 there are twice as many governments, some of them very granular (e. g. Merchant Republic), but the choice doesnt feel very important. Each government type provides what feels like a minor bonus, and no negatives. Each government type allows for a different mix of policy slots. For example, Merchant Republic gives a bonus of 2 Trade Routes and 15 discount on gold purchases, and allows one military policy, two economic policies, one diplomatic policy, and two wildcard policies (which can be filled with any of the other types or a special fourth type). For comparison, Monarchys bonus is 2 housing in any city with medieval walls and 20 bonus influence points and has three military policies, one economic policy, one diplomatic policy, and one wildcard. Without getting into all the details of the game, i assure you that the bonuses of either government types are not game changers. And the policies are even less significant. A typical Military policy is Logistics: 1 Movement if starting turn in friendly territory. Thats basically garbage, so whether you get 3 of those or 1 in comparison to your number of economic policies (Skyscrapers: 15 production toward Industrial era and later wonders) is meaningless. And you get new policies constantly based on the tech you research, so just about every other round we sat and agonized over these inconsequential choices. It eventually occurred to me that these policies - which are shaped like cards that you drag into your deck - are based on games like Magic: The Gathering or Munchkin. Youre not really setting policies, youre just picking which (minor) bonuses you want. So this was really disappointing. Not only did Policies turn out to be a dud, but the basic concept of Governments has been watered down to the point where it doesnt really matter. Great Leaders This is a new concept that feels almost redundant to Great Wonders, but i guess it adds a new facet to the game. The idea is that when you build districts and other improvements, you generate a certain number of Great Leader points each round. There are Great Generals, Great Scientists, Great Artists, etc. Building an encampment earns you Great General points every round, building a campus earns you Great Scientist points, etc. And the idea is that you are competing against the other civs to buy these Great Leaders. You want to earn your 1,000 points to buy, say, Charles Darwin before the Indians do. Which of course sounds just like real life. Theres something very circular about it, too. You build campuses and libraries and the like to earn Darwin, but the main function of those buildings is to improve your scientific output. But the bonus for earning Darwin is also a boost to your scientific output. So its a rich get richer sort of thing. In that sense, its different than a Great Wonder where (in Civ 3 at least) you might build the Great Library because you are falling behind the other civilizations in science and the Library brings you back up to parity. So the Great Wonders are (potentially) a way to catch up, whereas the Great Leaders reinforce the things you were already good at. Thats not a terrible idea, but, again, the Leaders turn out to not be all that important. Since old habits die hard, i made a point of building an encampment and a barracks in most of our cities, and therefore we recruited a lot of Great Generals, and they basically just provided minor, non-noticeable bonuses to our troops. min: you could also buy them with any Faith points youve accumulated. why is there so much religion in my Civ game. Spies and Traders Spies and Traders arent related, but we had the same complaints about both. Both spies and traders require major amounts of micromanagement. In Civ 3, once you got the Espionage tech, you could plant a spy in an enemy civilization. That automatically got you some intel on the civilization. The spy could then perform one of a few missions (see enemy troop locations, steal technology, sabotage production in a city), at a cost of money and at a risk of getting caught. In Civ 6, you first have to build a spy. Then you have to send the spy to a specific enemy city, and then wait for the spy to travel there. Then you have to tell the spy what to do (and actions are limited by whats in the city). Then you have to wait several rounds for them to do it. Then after a few rounds the spy is done and you have to give them a new job. It took forever and provided very little (we learned such important things as this Greek city is building a granary). I noted the weird road building aspect of traders above, but you also have to manage the routes for each trader that you build, and after they complete a route you have to choose a new route and weigh the very minor rewards of that route. And theres a weird limitation (that we never quite understood) to what cities you can reach. You can trade between your own cities or with other civilizations cities, if you can reach them. So every few rounds youre dealing with a trade screen and after staring at it for a while wed just pick something at random and it never felt like it mattered. I have a vague recollection that you could build traders or convoys in Civ 2, but i liked the way it worked in Civ 3, where you just negotiated with other countries to trade resources. Actually, that aspect is in this game as well so i dont know why we also needed to build and manage traders. min: i think it was so that we could get frustrated by more pop-ups blocking the board. Gameplay This is where it all really fell apart. I know that im cranky, i try to be patient and force myself to stay open to changes and keep playing. But some of the more basic elements of the game were a complete fail, making it not worth trying to get used to the changes. Camera This was the main reason we decided we needed to upgrade our Civ. In Civ 3 single player, the camera is pretty good about keeping focus on the right things. If youre in the middle of a fight with 6 troops attacking a city, the camera knows to stay on troop 2 after troop 1 attacks, instead of suddenly panning to troop 7 standing at some random place somewhere else. And if youre being attacked by an enemy civilization on its turn, the camera shows you that. Great I mean, honestly, its something youd never even think needed to be mentioned. But in Civ 3 multiplayer, the camera did everything wrong, basically the opposite of whats described above. But, ok, Civ 3 is an old game and multiplayer was probably a bit of an afterthought. We should play Civ 6. Well, we cant play Civ 6 multiplayer because of the hardware issue. But i would have never imagined that playing Civ 6 in single player mode would have all the same camera problems as Civ 3 multiplayer. But it does Its constantly panning away from the area that ive dragged the camera over to. The only way you know that youre being attacked between your turns is because of little notifications that come up on the sidebar. This is like basic stuff, but its a disaster. Virtually unplayable because that alone. Tooltips Then theres the tooltips. Good god. In Civ 3, if you wanted to know the details of the terrain (e. g. how good is it for production, commerce, etc.), you could right click on it and get a little info. In Civ 6, wherever you put your mouse cursor, and annoying box pops up to tell you about the tile, no matter what you are trying to do. min: i blame Mac users with their stupid 1-button mouse. they were jealous of our right-clicking abilities. There is a tooltip delay option in the settings, but the maximum time is 2 seconds, which is barely anything. So there is just constantly a tooltip floating around, blocking your view. On top of that, the tooltips only tell you about the terrain info, which is useful information when you are first settling a new city and thats about it. In Civ 3 you could right click on a unit to learn the fighting capabilities of that unit, right click on a city to get options, etc. The tooltips even have a higher z-index than other important information, so for example those notifications i mentioned earlier about how you might have been attacked between rounds can get covered up because the game thinks its more important to tell you about the productivity of the soil underneath the message. Different tooltips do appear on the city product screen, where they mainly serve to obscure the other items on the list when youre trying to decide what to build next. UI The tooltips are a big part of it, but generally speaking the UI is a lot messier and more difficult to navigate. A lot of effort was clearly spent to make the board look better (hence the graphics card requirements), but they therefore chose to eliminate a lot of the menu screens and do everything on the main board or with a few reports. There is no military advisor view, for example, and you cant get a list of all your cities and what they are working on. Basically a ton of screens have been eliminated or replaced with less useful pop-ups that are overly rendered and hard to look at. Ive seen that a lot of people dislike the more bright and cartoony look and feel of the board itself. Im not sure if the cartoony part is the problem, exactly, but its just kind of hard to tell what is background and what is important, since its all rendered the same way. Is that my boat over there or just an image indicating that ive enabled a fishing improvement AI In definite proof that i am a crank, ive seen very little of the above complaints in other reviews of the game. However, complaints about the AI are common, and i agree with them. One of the benefits of this game is that the AI is more upfront about what they are upset at you about. But they are still not very logical. We had Gorgo constantly popping up to yell at us because we were running away from barbarians instead of fighting them, when in reality the barbarians were running away from us and we just couldnt catch up. Theres a new option in the game to raise an objection when a civilization plops down a city in the middle of what is clearly your territory, which is good. But in our game India created a city right in the middle of three of our cities, nowhere near their other cities, and when we complained about it Gandhi (Gandhi) told us to fuck off. And this was on a low difficulty level. In general, the other countries pop up constantly and are belligerent for inexplicable reasons. And then theres the weirdness of having a little animated movie with the leader saying their line, and then loading another screen where their words are repeated and you only have the option of clicking OK. Either give me a chance to respond, or dont show me the same thing twice. Other Stuff We actually have a lot more complaints: The city interior view has been replaced with some pop-up menus that suck. No city production queue. Another problem in Civ 3 that we were hoping would get fixed around escorting civilian units actually got worse. Sean Bean did not need to read a random quote to us every time we researched a new tech. Why on earth would you pay a celebrity to do that The Civilopedia seems greatly diminished from previous versions. min: the Civilopedia, once a great resource, is the most useless piece of crap in Civ 6. theres hardly any info on the actual thing the entry is supposed to be about followed by a 3 paragraph thesis on the history of the thing. i dont care about the history of cavalry units i want to know what i can do with a cavalry unit in this game, what i need to get one, and what it can upgrade to. instead, we get what basically amounts to Cavalry are military units. 0o What we liked Ok, to end on a positive note: The idea that there are little city states that you can either try to conquer or you can compete with other civilizations to influence and become their suzerain was fun. Sea travel was always a pain in earlier versions of Civ. In this version, once you have a level of sea travel tech, your land units automatically can become sea units when they go into a water square. So you dont have to wait rounds to build a transport ship in order to travel across a body of water. As noted above, escorting units is still a problem, but being able to walk directly into the water is cool. min: he turned into a boat the horse turned into a boat. The fact that you can cite a casus belli when declaring war, which reduces or eliminates your warmongering penalty depending on the type, is nice. This is the sort of minor tweaking and updating that i wished Firaxis had focused on instead of the major sweeping changes. I guess my overall thesis is that Civ 3 was great and just needed a few fixes and instead we got a very changed and kind of unfinished game. Jezebel has a response from Booker on why he voted against the drug amendment: I support the importation of prescription drugs as a key part of a strategy to help control the skyrocketing cost of medications. Any plan to allow the importation of prescription medications should also include consumer protections that ensure foreign drugs meet American safety standards. I opposed an amendment put forward last night that didnt meet this test. The rising cost of medications is a life-and-death issue for millions of Americans, which is why I also voted for amendments last night that bring drug prices down and protect Medicares prescription drug benefit. Im committed to finding solutions that allow for prescription drug importation with adequate safety standards. Suuuuure. Id be really concerned about importing drugs from that third world hellhole, Canada. Without looking anything up, i will guarantee that Canadas safety standards are much higher than ours, so Bookers position is bullshit. And of course the point of this bill isnt to actually do it, but to highlight how ridiculous it is that the same drugs that are sold here in the US are sold in Canada at a fraction of the cost. But ill remember Bookers explanation the next time a real progressive is lectured about making the perfect the enemy of the good. Cory Booker was one of 13 Democrats who just voted against the Sanders-Klobuchar amendment to import drugs from Canada. Heres Bernies (pre-vote) video on the subject (Facebook warning, but i was able to watch it without an account just click not now). The vote was 46-52 and would have passed if it wasnt for these 13 Democrats. (To be sure, might not have passed in the House, but as Sanders notes in the video, Trump is in favor of doing something about drug prices, and there were some surprise Republican votes in the Senate, like Ted Cruz). Booker also recently endorsed the Goldman-Sachs candidate for governor of New Jersey, Phil Murphy, over Assemblyman John Wisniewski (a Bernie supporter in the primaries). Anyone who remembers Corzine knows we dont need another Goldman-Sachs exec for a governor. Our other horrible senator, Robert Menendez also voted against the amendment and endorsed Murphy. But ill be surprised if his corrupt ass makes it all the way to his 2018 primary, whereas Booker is expected to run for president in 2020. Just like i dreamed of.
No comments:
Post a Comment