It’s an Albany expression.

It’s not a dumb idea, it’s almost certainly what’s occurring, with the caveat that I don’t think they actually want to shut the government down. Whenever you hear about an impending government shutdown, it is always a game of political chicken, trying to find out who will cave first, while simultaneously trying to preemptively sell the public that it’s the other party’s fault. Look at the messaging from the white House and congressional majority leadership. It’s all “oooh the Democrats aren’t willing to pass our super clean funding bill to keep the government open, they are unserious and willing to hold the American people hostage in order to continue mutilating babies”. Meanwhile, Democrats state (accurately) that Republicans need Democrat votes to pass anything, therefore it is incumbent upon them to negotiate in good faith.

There’s nothing more antithetical to Trumpism than good faith negotiation and compromise, so he’s doing everything in his power to avoid that, lest it appear like he had to cave to Schumer, to include cancelling the meeting they had scheduled last week in favor of doing the meeting today, at the 11th hour, to further pressure the Dems into capitulating.

Now, it’s important to note that, for all of the political brinkmanship on display, shutting down the government is, historically, far more damaging for the majority party than the minority, though the public tends to take a dim view of everyone involved in this sort of situation. Therefore, Dems have reason to stand fast and Republicans have an incentive to make concessions. This is in addition to the fact that Schumer got a lot of flak for instructing Dems to fund the government back in the spring, so he’s also likely motivated to feign some backbone in this particular tete a tete.

I consider the occupation of certain cities to be mostly unrelated to the funding fight. In fact, it would have behooved Trump to not antagonize Dems leading up to this for the aforementioned reasons. With that being said, Trump doesn’t do things according to what makes political sense, and, to your point, I can see a scenario where Trump is the only person at the negotiation table today who is totally ambivalent about whether a deal is struck or not. A local (Republican) representative was quoted with a statement to the effect of, “I’m not sure if the Dems have considered the fact that the Presidency is granted additional powers in the event of a budget related shutdown, maybe they should think about that”.

So, you’ve got Dems at the table who are motivated to follow through with a shutdown unless they get certain carve outs. You’ve got congressional Reps at the table who are aware that the American public has historically always blamed the party in power when a shutdown occurs, and are thus motivated to make concessions, but quietly. And then you’ve got Trump et al, who gain additional emergency powers in the event of a shutdown, further diminishing the legitimacy of the other branches of government and increasing the consolidation of power within the executive branch. However, if the government doesn’t shut down, Trump will likely spin this as yet another example of his brilliant negotiating ability (see also the Gaza peace plan released this week), even if there’s a snowballs chance in hell that any concession appears in further funding bills the next time this occurs.

Idk if any of that holds any water in the face of evidence, but it’s compelling speculation.

Wrong! Or, at least, in Lincoln’s case, you’re both kind of correct. Lincoln had, at the insistence of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, at least one company of Union cavalry assigned to his protection. This was in addition to Ward Lamon, a personal friend of Lincoln’s from his lawyer days who took it upon himself to act as his bodyguard. Indeed, Lamon and Pinkerton clashed over the President’s security even before the war broke out. Pinkerton claimed an assassination plot was afoot in the lead up to Lincoln’s inauguration in early 1861. There is some debate over the validity of these claims, as Pinkerton’s intelligence gathering capabilities seem to have been greatly exaggerated. Regardless, the cabinet took these claims seriously enough to change Lincoln’s travel plans at the last minute, and he arrived in DC under the cover of night and with only Lamon present with him during the legs of the journey where Pinkerton claimed the most danger lie. Once inaugurated, and in the midst of the war, his protection became a military matter, which is when the cavalry companies stepped in. However, he routinely delighted in giving them the slip. In 1864, someone took a pot shot at him whilst riding through DC, and he was forced to take his protection more seriously. It was at this point that the DC police assembled a 4 man permanent bodyguard detail.

So, depending on when exactly you’re looking, Lincoln’s protection detail could have consisted of 2 companies of Union Army troops, Pinkertons, a self-appointed bodyguard cum lawyer pal, 4 police officers, a Freedman valet/bodyguard (William Henry Johnson), and a partridge in a pear tree.

That’s an incredibly evocative simile that ultimately still has me unsure of whether it’s good or bad.

3/10, do not recommend

Review complete, the next 19 minutes will be spent processing existential dread.

I didn’t even realize that there was another strike ongoing until yesterday, when I watched this Maggie Robertson (Vampire Dommy Mommy from RE8) interview. She even mentions that word wasn’t really out there about it at the time of the interview. Glad to hear it resolved enough that the union was willing to end the strike.

Link to the interview, if you’re curious. She’s very funny.

Your final sentence provided me an audible guffaw.

Does anyone recall what wound up becoming of the RTX tech demo which applied Ray traced lighting to Morrowind? The old axiom holds true, any mention of Morrowind results in at least one person reinstalling it, and it appears im the guy this time.

Interesting! Based on the headline I thought this was maybe like a 2d version of The Guild games, but this appears to learn closer to something like Recettear, maybe?

And a hundred thousand tons of crude oil.

You are thinking of a different vampire game. Vampire Survivors has no elements of metroidvania in its design that I can think of.

It sounds like they had moved to a more restrictive system. It’s been a long time since I played KF2, so my memory could be suspect, but I recall your “character” being not much more impactful than a weapon skin.

The meat and potatoes was actually what class you picked, which perks you selected from that class (you got a new choice every 5 levels or so), and then what weapons you rolled with. This will be hypothetical because I don’t actually know the particulars, but I think it’s generally illustrative of KF2’s progression design:

Load in, select Demolitionist class, get a +1%/level damage bonus with explosives and incendiaries as my class trait. Hit level 5. Choose between doubling the AOE of my Molotov cocktails or being able to carry two extra frag grenade. And so on. Any “character” could be any class, and could freely tailor perk choices to their liking.

Don Bacon represents one of the most purple districts in the US, according to polls. He is continuing the proud Nebraska tradition, spearheaded by Ben Sasse, of making occasional headlines separating himself from the MAGA movement to appeal to “centrist” voters, while also doing nothing of consequence with his votes or committee placements to actually hinder the agenda he is “calling out” here.

Also, personally, interacting with Don is like sticking your hands in old dish water and rooting around for bit. But that’s neither here nor there.

This feels like a response to a question I don’t know enough to ask. What’s the context?

This isn’t a direct answer to your question per se, but if this a topic that interests you, I can’t recommend The Right Stuff enough. I’ve not seen the film from the 80s, though by all accounts it’s pretty good, but the book is an excellent overview of the early days of space exploration, when the exact sort of questions that you ask here were being bandied about by the fledgling, pre-Apollo program NASA.

The focus of the book is on the first wave of astronauts who, as someone else mentioned, were pulled primarily from combat aviation backgrounds. I recall several passages which detailed their reactions to the sorts of psychological testing that they were undergoing, usually complete with humorous anecdotes.

That’s because OPs article is citing the second annual Teens and Screens report from the UCLA Center for Scholars and Storytellers. Your NPR article from 2023 is citing the first annual Teens and Screens report.

It’s a holdover from the early days of Rainbow Six would be my guess. You had like a dozen or so operatives with mild differentiations in stats and traits. Each guy had a “service record” of sorts, which gave a little more context for what was, in essence, the games’ lives system. If I remember right, some of these names were either pulled from or incorporated into the Tom Clancy Universe of novels and adaptations. It was a practically free way to inject some story and character into games that were pretty light on those details otherwise.

Of course, modern Rainbow Six has no need for these things, but inertia is a bitch, and you can be sure some grognards would piss and moan about a “feature” being removed if they stopped including these details.

To be fair, if I were asked, “crashing or non-crashing?”, on my way through the terminal, I would also prefer non-crashing.

I think it might be helpful to really drill into what you want vs what you’re experiencing. You state you have a desire to grow socially, but your attempts to do so have left you feeling symptoms of burnout.

More information about what you feel is expected of you, socially, at work, and what the specific triggers for your negative emotional reactions are would be useful to identify strategies to ameliorate those responses.

Doing some real specious armchair psychoanalysis here, but you’re statement that you do not want to be somewhere where you might be recognized indicates to me, specious armchair psychologist extraordinare, that you perhaps have some self-esteem issues which are going to be a significant impediment to socializing in any context, let alone work. I’m casting aspersions from within my glass house here, but in the worst troughs of my depression, I rationalize self-isolation as a protective measure so that I don’t have to converse with anyone about my life, since I’m not proud of anything I’ve done in those moments. It’s only when I get myself back into a headspace where I have things in my life that I’m excited about and want to share with people that socialization begins to look attractive again. If any of that rings true with you, you might recalibrate your focus from trying to force yourself to enjoy your professional social life and instead focus on the thing that’s actually holding you back from making that a reality.

Good luck, and I hope you find a solution.