Open Thread

Open Thread #368

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61 thoughts on “Open Thread #368

  1. Aaron,I remember your critique in the past regarding Dale Carnegie’s “How to win Friends and Influence People” book,about how the flaw with it is that it doesn’t tackle how to deal with difficult/adversarial people. and that there was originally supposed to be a chapter dedicated to precisely that topic. Once again,we see what happens when snowflakes do everything in their power to avoid “negativity”. We don’t learn to effectively deal with it.

    I’ve just been reminded of a book that might be able to fill in that hole…Rory Miller’s (whose old blog I linked here a few times already) “Concom” Conflict Communications book. Here’s a review of it on reddit:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/BettermentBookClub/comments/yw4xt2/rory_millers_conflict_communication_is_the_best/

    I read this a long ass time ago,and definitely need to freshen up on it again. The guy definitely knows what he’s talking about regarding the field of violence in general.

    That said,all this still presupposes the fundamental fact of not being in a position of weakness to whoever you are trying to deescalate/negotiate with however. There is still the need to have the capacity (and willingness if need be) to rock n roll and be “More Trouble Than You’re Worth”.

    http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/deescalation.htm

    http://nononsenseselfdefense.com/negotiation.htm

    In the field of non-violent confrontation,I suppose its being non-reliant/independent of the other party. You’ve talked before about handling a troublesome employee in this old post of yours:

    https://blog.aaronsleazy.com/index.php/2023/04/21/reflections-on-a-possibly-wasted-decade-spent-on-picking-up-women/

    You weren’t afraid to get confrontational with the guy like your other coworkers,and I think that was key. if you have time to get and read Rory’s Concom one of these days,I’d be definitely interested to hear your thoughts.

    Tbh,I’m finding that “soft-nexting” is once again,pretty damn effective at dealing with troublesome folks in my personal (non-professional) life. I’ve talked before about my uncle who started causing problems with me,to the point where we settled on the unspoken agreement of just not interacting with one another unless absolutely necessary.

    This was back when we had to live under the same roof. Circumstances have (for better or worse) changed and I’m no longer in that position,back to living back home with my father.

    A few days ago,I was on a family event where my uncle is part of it,its been at least 2 months since we last saw each other. I was honestly expecting our old dynamic of just politely tolerating one another,but we ended up having a cordial time interacting with one another,talking about shared interests. Its a surprise alright,but definitely a very welcome one.

    My relationship with my dad also seems somewhat better (I wouldn’t say its truly great though) after spending almost 2 years living elsewhere. I’m not that sorrowful about not having access to my previous gym anymore because I feel I’ve gotten the most I could from it. The rough sparring culture got me more used to hard contact than I ever have in the past. but its absolutely not how you’re going to want to train long term. Its a shame that a good chunk of the folks there don’t understand that fact.

    What I AM sorrowful about though is no longer having the ability to limit my exposure/interaction with my dad. (You can’t soft-next somebody you’re living with) I definitely feel that with time,our relationship with one another will creep back to where it used to be,even if now seems better.

    Maybe the lesson here is that some folks are great in LIMITED doses. People who are great/fun to talk to and hangout with from time to time,but will turn terrible if you have to constantly be around them. I won’t even consider it out of possibility that maybe I myself even fall into one of these types of people.

    At the very least though given how my other family members have talked about my uncle,I definitely know I’m NOT the problem in our dynamic. Every problem I experienced with him (including being threatened with violence.),other family members experienced too.

  2. Dispatches from Clown World

    How much propaganda can you cram into one woke event?

    “Miss USA crowned the third winner of the year Sunday, and the title went to U.S. Army Officer Alma Cooper from Michigan.

    The 22-year-old title holder has a Master’s degree in data science from Stanford University, according to CNN. …

    “As the daughter of a migrant worker, a proud Afro Latina woman and an officer of the United States Army, I am living the American dream,” she told judges during the Q&A session Sunday.”

    Female careerism is great, check.
    We need more foreign doctors and engineers, check.
    Everything but white bingo card, check (though they forgot to include LGBTQBBCNSDAPLOLOMGWTF and give her a hyphenated name, so they lose points there.)
    Join the army so we can send you to die for Ukraine or Israel, check.
    Also get ready for us to draft women, check.

    Meanwhile it amuses me to watch boomercons simp for Israel (DEMS R THE REAL ANTISEMITES!) Today’s headline burbles, “You Won’t Believe How Israel Did It!” (i.e. killed Haniyeh).

    “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” is a good rule of thumb. It is not an iron law. Sometimes they both hate you.

    1. Those two pictures are good for studying the contrast between heavy make-ups and almost no make-ups.

      She is not ugly, but nothing to write home about

    1. LOL at Fleshlight and also LOL @ ‘‘Alpha Brain’

      As an aside, re the field of deception detection / emotional leaking/micro expressions etc (now bear with me)

      I did notice at 3:34 in the video when he starts talking about “black label” Alpha Brain ..he ducks his head down whilst he scratched above his left eyebrow quickly ,his eyebrows lift and he looks into the distance quickly also.

      Now I’m not saying I believe all that DD shit but….

      That’s good enough for me!

      I like this carney guy based on this video.
      I also love CoffeeZilla on YT. He does some great debunking of bullshit artists (his takedown of Napoleon Hill & his book ‘Think And Grow Rich ‘was fantastic … which is the basic text for all those fraudster YT guys)
      Not saying JR is in that club per se

      But “ Alpha Brain” is definitely a LOL

      I guess when there’s enough zeros on the $ figure .. everyone sells out in the end.

    2. I will add – I was in Vermont USA about 20 yrs ago when I worked for Big Blue as a engineer. ( visiting Microchip Fab HQ – amazing work trip)
      I distinctly remember watching TV at my hotel and seeing an insane amount of pharma ads. It was shocking,

      Like 1 ad every ten minutes between shows all day long,.
      Eg “ Do you suffer from slight morning depression? – there may be a pill that can help. it’s called XYZ from PharmaCorp”

      Pharma advertising in the US is off the hook.
      I spoke to a US eng there about it and he replied “ yeah that’s true … but compared to UK the difference is .. the pills work! “(cos they are way stronger).”

      I could never live there . Americans live in abject fear of getting sick and obsessed with their health insurance worried if it covers everything.
      If you don’t have expensive HI there you’re fucked.. Hospital bills are insane in the US.

      It really is like it’s depicted in Robocop (lol)

  3. Just think of how things have changed. 10 years ago, Roosh was a smarmy, smelly darkie whom feminists hated and they would rather jump in the sack with creepy old Hugo Schwyzer (trigger for AYGE GAP!!!)

    Now, these feminasties would probably jump at the chance for a chance with Roosh too prove how woke they are to AyeCuomo Va, er, Aye OK, um, I mean AOC….

    But now Roosh has angry beard and probably wants to be dominated by a feminist with a strap on while preaching his conversion to XTianity.

    Funny how the more things change the more they stay the same!

    1. That is a name I did not expect to hear again. According to his most recent blog, he is now trying his luck on YouTube. His first video has fewer views than his channel has subscribers. This normally only happens to channels that lost a lot of their popularity over time, and people forgetting to unsubscribe.

  4. Peak woman moment: Olympic competitor Luana Alonso got “kicked out of the Athletes Village after being accused of distracting other competitors with her skimpy clothing and socialising with other athletes”. In other words, she was dressing like a whore and chasing after dick:
    https://archive.ph/5ZIFr
    Supposedly, the Olympics are one giant fuck fest for competitors, so it must have taken quite an effort to get asked to leave.

    EDIT: Yes, she is hot:
    https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/alonso.jpg?quality=75&strip=all

    1. The WordPress spam filter is going crazy. It put the comment above, which was obviously written by myself, into the moderation queue. I have never had this happen before. The default assumption should be that the owner of a blog would not want to put his own comments in moderation. Presumably this is another example of the wonders of Indian software engineering.

    2. That’s hilarious that your own blog put you in moderation. Of course it’s how these midwits think. They know better than you how you should run your own computer, household, life, etc.

      Some genius sysadmin at my friend’s company decided to make it so he couldn’t run a VPN on his work laptop. After all, people who want to protect their privacy are clearly on the wrong side of history. He spent a few workdays learning how to run the VPN on his router instead, which the geniuses can’t do much about. At some point maybe they’ll learn to block known VPN IPs, at which point he’ll just set up his own on a virtual server.

    3. She was probably banging some dude, or multiple dudes, whom other women were into, so that slut had to go. Clearly, this woman is far more attractive than the average female competitor, so if a bit of whining is enough to get her out, the other whores will resort to that.

    4. What? I haven’t been paying great attention to the Olympics, but she went slightly viral in the Latin American sphere for, of course, being hot and an Olympian. She didn’t have to win anything to become a legend in her own country, just look pretty for the camera and let the rest of the world notice her. Now though? What a fall from grace.

    5. Jaysus ..she is smoking hot 🥵 🔥
      Yes Athlete villages are a total fuck fest I’ve also heard. They’re all at it. Even the “Masters Games” (the oldies) every yr in a small town I used to live in.. the whole town would run out of condoms when it was on . No joke.
      They used to order in extra on the lead up and still run dry each year.

    6. Rage defnly’ threw one in her.
      Or she tried to get him to.
      Dunno how he could pass up that, either way.
      “While in Paris she posed with Mickey Mouse ears in front of the Magic Kingdom….

      (And later got railed by a bunch of sports dudes)”

    7. She is indeed very hot, Nadal probably is turned on by her. But her wide shoulders seem to be quite masculine. I guess that is the common built of swimmers.

    8. I’m not a big fan of abs on a woman personally. Small waist? YES indeed. Abdominal muscles not so much.

    9. Well, she can start an OnlyFans account…

      (Wouldn’t surprise me if other female athletes hoe themselves out there…)

  5. Some gaming updates: Last week I played through all three Street Fighter III games. The last one went so well that I managed to reach the final boss without losing a match, but then it took me a while to see the ending. Overall, I think that SF III is pretty good, but a bit too technical. Without parrying, this is a fairly challenging game, and parrying itself is quite a challenge in itself. The final boss is brutal, it’s the same guy in all three games. It may be sacrilegious, but SF III: 2nd Impact made a better impression on me than SF III: Third Strike, mainly because the game is a lot more focused, with a small and well-defined cast. I think that the excessive number of characters in fighting games, for which we can probably thank SNK’s King of Fighters series, made games worse, not better.

    Over the last few months I have been going through the Neo Geo library and I am baffled by how bad many of the games are. I was somewhat familiar with this system but only put a moderate amount of time into a fairly small number of games. The early games are comically bad. The first few entries of the Fatal Fury series do not hold up at all. Art of Fighting plays about as well as a second-rate ROM hack. King of Fighters, from ’97 onwards, is quite well-made, but I do not find the 3v3 format appealing. The first Metal Slug is also not a particularly good game.

    There are fairly few Neo Geo games I would recommend, i.e. Money Idol Exchanger, Magical Drop 2/3 (the SNES port of Magical Drop 2 has a better difficulty curve), Metal Slug 2/X/3, Shock Troopers 1/2, Last Blade 1/2, Garou, and Samurai Shodown 2/3/4. Even with these games, I am probably blinded by nostalgia. Well, all of these are either dead franchises or franchises with only marginal appeal. SNK as a company has clearly lost its way after the turn of the century. They are currently trying to revive the Fatal Fury series with a sequel to Garou. The original series ran from 1991 to 1999, and the suits at SNK had the glorious idea of putting out a sequel, 26 years after the release of Garou. This is mind-boggling. I am also reading that they have plans for a new Art of Fighting game, which is laughable.

    1. Mmm.. Metal Slug 1 to me is still a classic. It was the original and probably the best imo as it laid out all the tropes for the first time..the humour in the play and characters , the cool sprites and art design. the weapons (SHOTTGUNN!) and awesome baddies. And that Indiana jones-style soundtrack.
      I have all the fond memories of playing that one 2P in arcades with friends using up all our pocket money tryna finish it so I’m biased I guess to #1.

      I haven’t played whole series through but thought it seemed basically the same formula/ of gameplay & level design in 2,3,4 etc no? Maybe it’s too easy If you started on a later installment.

      I think re Neo Geo it was more about the Wow-factor of the graphics back then. Afaik that detail of graphics hadn’t been seen before in arcades up to that point. There were some great visual tricks with movement in the background and foreground (name?) and the badguys flying “out” towards the player etc that was all new cool looking stuff. Challenging or clever gameplay was definitely secondary to Looks in most of them.

      For me revisiting retro games is often ends up being more about the music vs gameplay quality ..to trigger feelings and memories as certain themes are embedded and dormant in my brain since forever now.

      I’ll never forget the music for Konami’s ‘Crime Fighters’ for example. Again ,after spending so much time and money with my mate tryna finish it 👊 👊 the music makes it for me.

    2. I think that Metal Slug is heavily front-loaded, not nearly as badly as many modern games, but there is a significant drop in quality after the third stage. The last two stages are nothing but a slog. Metal Slug 2, on the other hand, has varied locales and does great environmental story-telling. The last stage is a grand finale. Metal Slug X is a refinement of Metal Slug 2 for some, and a step in the wrong direction for others. (I also prefer Metal Slug 2 over X). Metal Slug 3 is the graphically most impressive game in the series, with plenty of branching paths, but it is really long.

      I think your point about the “wow factor” is largely correct. Capcom produced better-looking games, whereas SNK heavily used gimmicks, e.g. sprite zooming and bloodied faces in Art of Fighting, blood fountains in Samurai Shodown, a ridiculous amount of characters in King of Fighters, etc. I looked at some of their franchises in more detail and walked away with the impression that they do not really seem to know what they are doing. For instance, Capcom iteratively refined Street Fighter II and Street Fighter Alpha and, presumably, also Street Fighter III (I have not played the various versions of that game to make any bold statements). In contrast, SNK sometimes radically changed the games in the same series, e.g. Samurai Shodown II vs. III and Art of Fighting 2 vs. 3. It boggles the mind.

      If you want to look at a really impressive Capcom game, check out Red Earth/Warzard:
      https://youtu.be/vuXorJp8C8c?t=47

      I was not familiar with Crime Fighter. Interestingly it came out in 1989, the same year Capcom released Final Fight. The visual gap between these two games is staggering.

    3. Oh, and the Japanese version of Crime Fighters seems to be making fun of gay men:

    4. Lmao, those Blue Oyster bar leg humping baddies are gold.
      You just can’t get away with that shit anymore ..unfortunately 🙁

      I mean forget GTA and the hookers .. in the 80s you could beat a whole big bunch of prostitutes to death .. .with a razor Whip! 😀 a La Hulk. (That’s funny re Hulk)

      The 80s were wild times.

      Aw man , ya gotta check out Crime Fighters the baddies and Bosses are great. Bosses are all takes on 80s Horror movie badguys Jason, Freddy etc..
      The baddie gang guys are all 80s stereotypes also.. the sleazy greasy wop with the flick knife hair comb, the Punks ( who you can kick in the balls and the sound fx goes “Ding!” ) the drug dealer/ paedophile with the dirty overcoat, there’s a black athlete guy like Ben Johnson who’s only move is to do a sprint straight at you. He’s a bastard.
      There’s punches, kicks, knees, flying knees . back kicks , weapons, Molotov cocktails (I think) etc etc.
      lots of humour also throughout. It was a blast in the arcades.

      Not sure if I played the sequel , I think so but different sprite size and feel.

      Another dead set solid gold arcade classic was Double Dragon. The original hooker whipping game haha. We preferred DD 2 with the new moves , the ‘combine harvester of death ‘ and a big bad guy in Level 2 whose only word/ reason to kill you was “ Shampoo” ! 👊

    5. Yeah that’s right about Metal Slug after level 3 .. hard to recall that in the arcade it’s was a case of “this game is crazy , Wtf is gonna come next ! Quick..whose got more coins?!

      Those SNK games all made everyone go “ woooahh” we used to just hang out,( smoke cigarettes out the window) and look at the flash “play screens / insert coin” loops sometimes cos we were broke. And watch others play.

      Speaking of arcades it was funny to recall when some “ King Of Kong” older dude would come in
      .. wearing his fingerless gloves (lol) the crowd would grow silent etc and gather round to watch him clock a game 1CC.
      It was very social those old arcade / pool halls. Miss that.
      Modern “ Timezone” arcades I don’t like with their cards and credits and $3 a pop to play and flash but shit-play games with too much going on.
      Most joystick games were 10 pence a go back in my day except for the big console/racing/gun games.
      So daily you could try 5-10 games easy and 2P up all the time. Man we used to hang on those. “ continue..?” countdowns such a smart for the game makers to use that idea. Games were so well designed to chew coins.

    6. Those rotating joystick games were cool when released also
      Midnight Resistance, Heavy Barrel, Caliber 50 etc

      There is one game I could never find in MAME.
      It looked like’ Xaind Sleena’ but the character was red/pink from memory and better graphics. I dunno if it was any good ,but it just annoyed me I could never find it from searches high and low for it online.
      Shinobi 1 & 2 was another ripper and super popular.

    7. Mr shampoo at 7:14 mins and he appears at the end also..

      https://youtu.be/f9V0iLedLv0?si=azoZaiYNxXCDpZMT

      This player is making this look way too easy haha
      He must have difficulty dialled down somehow.
      DD 2 made the player sweat cos u could fall of the edge of the levels to your instant death .. or get caught on a conveyor belt to the ‘black hole’, also to ur demise.
      I remember those twin bother ninjas being absolute bastards to beat. They would “ ha-dat!” all over ur ass. And big boss machine-gun guy would go crazy shooting rounds at ya.
      The final purple ghost was also a real cunt. Haha.

      DD 2 had the best player moves and most satisfying hit sounds of all the fighting games.
      Plus u could pull down bad guys and knee in the face repeatedly (cool) and then stretch that move out as long as u like to make them really suffer.

      Plus.. it had the original ‘Hurricane Kick’ before Ken and Ryu in street fighter 2 .. !! I had forgotten that 😎 super cool. Wicked move.
      Ha-Di-Jat-Burr-Jet ! 🦶 😆

    1. This is more a case of Reddit being Reddit, arguably the worst leftist cesspit on the Internet. Society as a whole seems to be slowly moving away from the left, though.

    1. Do you wish to move somewhere else one day, GL&S?

      The biggest reason I have seriously entertained the thought of residency in the US is because there are at LEAST (there are definitely more worthwhile organizations,but I’m talking who are likely my ideal options) 3 folks whom I really,REALLY want to train with long term in the Martial arts. 2 of them are serious advocates for more intelligent and long-term sustainable training in the combat sports world,the 1 other is an instructor of a very rare and genuine Traditional/Classical Martial art that I am very interested in.

      Assuming if (and that’s a big IF) I am able to move to the US though,I probably can’t train with them all (Unless I somehow become a billionaire..oh,will the stars ever align for me one day? haha!),so I’ve got to make my choices. The most important thing to me though is having a passion that I can do for the long term that benefits me all around in life.

      I have found that ordinary/typical exercise (physical exertion just for the sole purpose of working out a sweat) just doesn’t work for me. I hate it way too much. But TRAINING (working out towards a purpose that has meaning to me,with health being a major side benefit.) works wonderfully for me. I guess that’s why weight training is something I can find myself getting consistent with,but not jogging. Yet,I still need to do something for my cardio. I guess you could say that me becoming keen on the Martial arts is both a blessing and a curse at the same time,haha.

      I’ve mentioned there is another specific someone in Belgium or The Netherlands. He was the original guy whom I wanted to move to train with. That is probably a better place to move to for residency than the US in terms of worker/employee rights. Language would be the biggest issue/barrier though. The instructor is not an issue as he speaks English,but it’ll surely be an obstacle everywhere else if I want to live there.

      Either way though,I’m sure either will be better than staying here for me. We have some of the worst worker/employee rights on the planet in all honesty. What you guys make per hour,we make per DAY. (And that’s not even talking about those who have to work for below minimum wage out of desperation.) and then our elites wonder why so many pinoys want to fly to other countries for work (if not flee there altogether) or are unmotivated to find employment. *sigh* -_-

    1. He “gave” them Jerusalem ?

      I like how he splits things into “ Good “ and “ Bad” .. to appeal to the dumbest person watching.

      He should use crayons.
      This is “Good” .. but that is “Bad”.. ok? You got that ‘Merica? “Fuck yeah!”

    2. This is prime evidence that Trump absolutely sucks. No different than Bush, McCain, Romney etc. Same ole same ole shit from the Republican Party.

      Why in four years did he not fulfill his promises on the immigration crisis? Because he plays golf with their employer, that’s why. . I’m amazed that people believe in him so much.

    3. This is well old but I just saw it yesterday made me lol .
      https://x.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1766821279410073951

      Joe Biden ought to have never addressed the other sides issue of his age. Especially in that debate. And why the f.. didn’t his team double-drop his Alzheimer meds to get him through it ffs? Great he called out Trump for his sex scandal and convictions ..but terrible debating performance at that level. I couldn’t quite believe it. Wtf. It was like 2 schoolboys on a playground “ I can play golf better than you buddy!” ..” you have the morals of an Alley-cat! “
      Surreal.
      I could imagine his team all facepalming during his performance 🤦🏻‍♂️ 🤦🏻‍♂️ 🤦🏻‍♂️ .
      .”ohhhhh shitt ..we are so done”

    4. Indeed I do, Cheeky. And I’m sick of nothing ever changing in this country. Except the size of the illegal immigrant population and the size of the elites’ wallets.

    5. @GL&S- West coast or East?
      Yeah man I visited twice (Vermont & Cali/Vegas/SF) and have lot of relatives there in California. it is an interesting country. Was great to visit but would not like to live there, if I ever go back, next trip would be Nashville for the music scene 👍

    6. San Diego. Yeah go to Nashville. This state is DONE. Dumbest people you’ll ever meet

    7. Whoops,looks like my response got displaced again. (That’s what I get for typing in a rush I suppose,lol)

      Would you wager that the average American is dumber than many average folk of many other countries?

      I personally would find difficulty pitting the average American against the average Pinoy though. Both can be pretty fucking stupid.

      I recall my mom watching and praising some religious anti-science video while we were on vacation. This is just one of the many (MANY) reasons I don’t like socializing with her. I have a feeling both you and Aaron can relate.

    8. @GL&S- yeah man, that’s the impression I get, my relatives returned to UK For hols I’ve the yrs. We’d tease them re the accent
      “We live in cali-forrrnnnyaaa” and the dumb stuff they’d say.
      (They also never shut up about medical /health insurance costs) I think they may live in Oceanside 🤔

      This was quite funny also I thought re the accent etc
      https://youtu.be/dCer2e0t8r8?si=j9GDjIyntrUtlwCf

      Man, I just looked up SD on the map.. I didn’t realise Tijuana is so close! 😳 it’s like a stones throw wow.

      So why don’t u get out of there and go to SF or I dunno .. Vegas? Vegas was cool, go there become a Pimp. That’s my dream.. Pimpin Ho’s in Vegas. Haha.

    9. @Maou – I don’t think you can quantify an “average American “. It’s so big and varied there. it’s have to be an ‘average by state’ or something. Or some kind of segmentation north /south /east /west…

      I could say the average Australian tho. There’s only 22million pop here and a whole lotta nothing in from the 5 coastal cities.

    10. @Maou: You’d have to be more specific about your mom’s comments. Remember that there is Science and there is “Science!”, the variety that sells you dozens of genders and that man-made global warming is settled research and you’re forbidden to question it.

  6. Black Myth: Wukong will be released in about one week. The final trailer looks pretty good, but the music is not to my liking at all:

    1. The trailer is really visually stunning, though in addition to the music Idk how I would feel playing as the fabled Monkey King. Also, maybe it’s just me but the art style sort of seems to lack any sort of unique characteristic or something. I can’t quite put my finger on it. However, at first glance the combat looks pretty engaging and the animations are nice and fluid.

    2. I agree that the protagonist is not “cool”. There is quite a difference between Ryu Hayabusa from Ninja Gaiden and the Monkey King. Well, the game is going to be released for PC, so it will probably only be a matter of time until someone puts out a mod that replaces the main character with the hot chick from Stellar Blade or some anime slut. I would not mind seeing any of the busty chicks from Zenless Zone Zero in it.

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