I like both of them myself, albeit Starfield more.

After having invaded, is Russia more powerful, secure, and wealthy or less so than it was prior to the invasion?

checks WP

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

Hermes’s epithet Argeïphontes (Ancient Greek: Ἀργειφόντης; Latin: Argicida), meaning “slayer of Argus”,[75][76] recalls the slaying of the hundred-eyed giant Argus Panoptes by the messenger god. Argus was watching over the heifer-nymph Io in the sanctuary of Queen Hera, herself in Argos. Hermes placed a charm on Argus’s eyes with the caduceus to cause the giant to sleep, after which he slew the giant with a harpe.[14]

They did.

Fallout 76, a multiplayer game, predates Starfield, a single-player game.

kagis

Hmm.

It sounds like the water shortage thing isn’t a recent issue on the island, but has been a long-standing problem stemming from a rapidly expanding population that’s just been exacerbated by the cyclone:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/19/climate/mayotte-water-crisis-drought-climate/index.html

The island is grappling with its worst drought since 1997. Its two water reservoirs have reached a “critical level of decline” – one is at 7% of capacity and the other at 6%, according to the most recent estimates, and they are on the verge of drying up.

It has led to drastic water cuts. Residents only have access to water for around 18 hours at a time every couple of days, according to a schedule published by the Prefecture, the local subdivision of the French government. Many say what little water they have is often contaminated and undrinkable.

I don’t think that shipping in bottled water is probably an economic long-term solution compared to doing desalination locally.

kagis

According to this, it looks like they’re building a desalination plant. If it keeps to schedule, it’s supposed to be operational in a year.

https://www.stereau.com/en/press-releases/stereau-to-supply-mayotte-with-10000-m3-of-drinking-water-a-day/

Stereau to supply Mayotte with 10,000 m3 of drinking water a day

The contract awarded to Stereau amounts to €36 million excluding tax. The project, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2025, will significantly improve the supply of drinking water on the island and reduce water shortages. The operation of the plant will be managed by Saur France for an initial period of three years, with the option to renew the contract for an additional two years, in one-year increments.

It sounds like a lot of the issue is that life in Mayotte, while maybe not fantastic compared to mainland France, is a hell of a lot more appealing than in a lot of nearby countries, so people from nearby poorer countries show up there, and the infrastructure hasn’t been built out quickly enough to keep pace with population growth.

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

The issue of illegal immigration became very important in local political life in the 2010s and 2020s which led France to organize Operation Wuambushu.

In 2019, with an annual population growth of 3.8%, half the current population was less than 17 years old. In addition, 48% of the population were foreign nationals. Most of the immigrants come from neighboring Island state of Comoros, many illegally. Despite being France’s poorest department, Mayotte is much richer than other neighboring East African countries and has developed French infrastructure and welfare system, making it a tempting destination for Comorans and other East Africans living in poverty in the region. The department faces enormous challenges.

According to an Institut national de la statistique et des etudes economiques (National Institute of Economic Statistics Studies of France - INSEE) report published in 2018, 84% of the population live under the poverty line according to French standards, compared to 16% in metropolitan France, 40% of dwellings are corrugated sheet metal shacks, 29% of households have no running water, and 34% of the inhabitants between the age of 15 and 64 do not have a job. These difficult living conditions mainly concern the large population of illegal migrants who crowd into shanty towns.

Lately he cought me in the office eating sweets and started to educate me how bad sugar is.

I mean, people do tend to eat more sugar than they probably should, but the main artificial sweetener that I see used in candies is xylitol, which is, unfortunately, also a laxative. Eat more than a few xylitol-sweetened candies at one sitting, and one’s in for diarrhea.

I assume that we don’t have an artificial sweetener in 2024 that both avoids having a laxative effect and has the appropriate properties to subsititute for sugar in candies. I’d be delighted if someone would manage to develop one, though.

What flesh?

I expect that they’re referencing this:

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

Cigarette smoking for weight loss is a weight control method whereby one consumes tobacco, often in the form of cigarettes, to decrease one’s appetite. The practice dates to early knowledge of nicotine as an appetite suppressant.

Tobacco smoking was associated with appetite suppression among Pre-Columbian indigenous Americans and Old World Europeans.[1] For decades, tobacco companies have employed these connections between slimness and smoking in their advertisements, mainly in brands and advertisements targeting women.

Other than bullets raining over new jersey,

The Air National Guard already had a go at it. I say let the Civil Air Patrol get a chance.

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

The strafing of the Little Egg Harbor Intermediate School was an incident in Little Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, United States, in 2004, when a military aircraft on a training mission unintentionally discharged 27 cannon rounds while attempting to operate an aircraft mounted laser.

On Thursday, November 4, 2004, at around 9pm, an F-16 Fighting Falcon jet from the 113th Wing of the District of Columbia Air National Guard, based at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on a training mission at the Warren Grove Bombing Range was climbing upward at 8,000 feet (2,400 m). The lead pilot was on a training ride in pursuit of an upgrade to instructor pilot. A recent software change in the F-16 allowed the externally mounted targeting pod to stabilize on a spot on the earth when the avionics were in Air to Ground Mode, Strafe Sub-Mode. The pilot intended to fire a laser at a strafe target located on the range. The laser and gun share the same trigger. The pilot pulled the trigger, firing not only the laser but also the internal M61 Vulcan cannon, discharging 27 rounds of 20 mm (0.79 in) ammunition which struck the ground, eight striking the school’s roof and the rest hitting the parking lot and the side of the building.

A good reason to try to avoid being deeply dependent on a product that a single company controls that’s hard to transition away from. Even if you’re happy with that company, someone else might manage to get control of them.

The council also said that in the past other decorations like Santa hats and wreaths have been added but that this was different.

“While we don’t condone the wreaths… and Santa hats, let’s stay away from adhesives, graffiti and all things that can damage the art” it said on it’s social post.

It sounds like what they don’t want is adhesive on the thing, which I’d say is probably a legit ask.

https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/sei_29455926-d11d.jpg

Lucky Strike cigarettes

Your Throat Protection – against irritation – against cough.

This also has entertaining videogame shooter potential. Low-altitude aerial gun combat sounds like unexplored territory.

So, we have been informing and will continue to inform the Armenian sponsors — conditionally speaking, the Soros people in Washington —

“Soros people”? Azerbaijan?

kagis

Hmmm.

https://eurasianet.org/there-is-a-specter-haunting-azerbaijan-the-specter-of-george-soros

There is a Specter Haunting Azerbaijan, the Specter of George Soros

Bradley Jardine Sep 11, 2017

In response to a recent string of corruption allegations and international criticism, Azerbaijan’s authorities have identified a scapegoat: billionaire philanthropist George Soros.

Last week, investigative reporting by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) revealed a secret $2.9 billion slush fund linked to Azerbaijan’s ruling family. The fund was reportedly used from 2012 to 2014 as a means of bribing European politicians for political leverage.

The investigation has sparked severe backlash from Azerbaijan’s authorities, and they are blaming a traditional enemy – an ill-defined “Armenian lobby” – along with a relatively new bugaboo, Soros.

In a remarkable statement from the press service of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev, Soros is alleged to have worked in collusion with Armenian activists to smear Baku’s government:

We know that it is George Soros and his henchmen – who have an international reputation of cheaters, tricksters, frauds and liars in relation to Azerbaijan and its leadership – that are behind the campaign. The Armenian lobby, which acts in concert with him, carries out a dirty campaign against the President of Azerbaijan and his family.

failed state

Not really specific to this story, but people massively overuse the term “failed state”. A failed state isn’t a state with some issue or a poor executive, authoritarian government, or the like. It’s the kind of situation you might see around, say, a civil war where the government no longer really operates and nobody’s in control any more. You likely have local warlords with limited local control of bits of territory. Something like Haiti might be a present-day example.

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

A failed state is a state that has lost its ability to fulfill fundamental security and development functions, lacking effective control over its territory and borders. Common characteristics of a failed state include a government incapable of tax collection, law enforcement, security assurance, territorial control, political or civil office staffing, and infrastructure maintenance. When this happens, widespread corruption and criminality, the intervention of state and non-state actors, the appearance of refugees and the involuntary movement of populations, sharp economic decline, and military intervention from both within and outside the state are much more likely to occur.

GOP idiots

Speaking specifically about Rand Paul, I’m pretty sure that Rand Paul has an MD, worked as a specialist doctor of some sort prior to entering the Senate, as I remember reading from his first race.

checks Wikipedia

Yeah, he’s an ophthalmologist, an eye surgeon.

Says he went to Duke.

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

Duke University School of Medicine is recognised as one of the best medical schools in the United States and the world. It is currently ranked #3 in the country, according to U.S. News & World Report’s rankings for best research medical schools in 2022.[15] Several Duke programs are ranked as some of the highest in the country. Top-ten nationally ranked programs for 2022 include surgery (ranked #2), anesthesia (ranked #4), internal medicine (ranked #5), radiology (ranked #6), pediatrics (ranked #7), obstetrics/gynecology (ranked #8), and psychiatry (ranked #10).[16] Historically, the Duke University School of Medicine consistently ranks in the top ten medical schools in the United States.[17]

Admission to the school’s medical degree program is highly competitive, with more than 7,500 applicants for approximately 115 openings each year.[18]

I doubt that he’s an idiot.

If you’re speaking more-generally about people who may or may not be supporting Musk having a House role…shrugs don’t know who they are, so can’t know much about 'em.

In Europe, researchers recently expressed alarm after discovering a related hornet, the southern giant hornet, in northern Spain.

Some other Asian hornet also established itself in Europe in the past decade.

https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/12/18/asian-hornet-everything-you-need-to-know-about-europes-invasion

According to Darrouzet, the species used to spread 60–80 km annually in France. He claims that, although control campaigns have slowed this pace, the hornet is still making leaps and bounds, sometimes due to human transport.

‘That’s probably how they crossed the Pyrenees into Spain, ended up in England and recently in Hungary. We must have transported it,’ Darrouzet said.

Is it too late to get rid of Asian hornets?

There are places where Asian hornet populations have successfully disappeared, such as Mallorca in 2020. But according to Darrouzet, ‘the hornet’s playground is now too large in Europe’ and the prospects for eradication are virtually nil.

‘If we are effective, we can reduce the population to a socially acceptable level and limit its impact on agriculture, beekeeping, human health and biodiversity,’ says the researcher, who is working on a new trapping system.

goes looking for name

That was apparently Vespa velutina.

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

Looks like it just showed up in the US too:

In August 2023, the Georgia Department of Agriculture, in coordination with the United States Department of Agriculture Plant & Animal Health Inspection Service and the University of Georgia, confirmed the presence of a yellow-legged hornet near Savannah, Ga. This is the first time a live specimen of this species has been detected in the United States.[19] This was followed by the first report of the species from South Carolina in November 2023, and the discovery of nests in 2024.[20][21]

US ambassadorships to friendly countries are often doled out as political favors rather than to career diplomats, often to people who have raised a lot of money for a candidate’s campaign.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_finance_in_the_United_States#Bundling

One consequence of the limitation upon personal contributions from any one individual is that campaigns seek out “bundlers”—people who can gather contributions from many individuals in an organization or community and present the sum to the campaign. Campaigns often recognize these bundlers with honorary titles and, in some cases, exclusive events featuring the candidate.

Although bundling existed in various forms since the enactment of the FECA, bundling became organized in a more structured way in the 2000s, spearheaded by the “Bush Pioneers” for George W. Bush’s 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns. During the 2008 campaign the six leading primary candidates (three Democratic, three Republican) listed a total of nearly two thousand bundlers.[61]

There has been extensive criticism that US presidents have rewarded bundlers with political appointment, most notably ambassador positions where nominees have no qualifications for appointment.[62][63][64]

If you look at spots like ambassador to China or Russia or something, though, those will go to people with a diplomatic background.

I imagine that some people have firearms in their bunker.

Sure, in aggregate, across all homeowners, they pay out less then they take in. But that doesn’t make it a scam. They can pay out more for a specific homeowner than they take in.

On average, you will be worse off if you buy insurance than if you don’t. The odds are against the buyer with insurance.

However, if you have a utility function that isn’t linear in the amount of money you have, it can be advantageous to get insurance. Say you don’t care that much about having the small amount of extra money you’d have if you avoided insurance, but you care very, very much about losing the value of your house at one go. Insurance will mitigate that risk.

If you have enough reasonably-liquid assets that you can afford to just replace your house with cash, you might want to not get insurance. But even in that case, you’d need to hold assets in a liquid form, which places constraints on those assets. Let’s say that the average number of houses that burns down in a state per year is 100. You could have every homeowner ensure that they have enough liquid assets to replace their house. But it’d be cheaper to have an insurer hold, say, 500 times the cost of a house in liquid assets. They couldn’t cover the situation where all the houses burn down, and this is why insurers typically don’t offer coverage for correlated risk scenarios, where all houses might be impacted, as in war. But for things like fires, it’d be extraordinarily unlikely for more than five times the normal amount to burn down, so having an insurer involved relaxes constraints on how assets are held and how much need to be held.

NPR Planet Money did a bit on correlated risk in homeowner’s insurance a while back.

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/349650496

https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Silver-City,-NM_rb/

There are a lot of houses in Silver City, New Mexico that are a lot cheaper than the one owned by the guy in the article. My guess is that his is probably pretty ritzy for the area.