Fal's recent activity

  1. Comment on Which grand strategy are you? in ~misc

    Fal
    Link Parent
    What would a progressive grand strategy look like to you? IR is generally kind of a conservative (not in the US politics way, mostly) field, so I’m curious to hear about other alternatives

    What would a progressive grand strategy look like to you? IR is generally kind of a conservative (not in the US politics way, mostly) field, so I’m curious to hear about other alternatives

    2 votes

  2. Comment on Which grand strategy are you? in ~misc

    Fal
    Link Parent
    Definitely not the only strats, and you're right that it would be better if it wasn't so black and white (though to be fair, this quiz was designed as a fun introduction to a lecture)....

    I think this would be a more interesting quiz if it wasn't so black or white. If you could rank the answers and then get scored that way, with some other categories of strategies. That said, I don't know much about IR grand strategies, so maybe these are the only strats.

    Definitely not the only strats, and you're right that it would be better if it wasn't so black and white (though to be fair, this quiz was designed as a fun introduction to a lecture). Practically, the only people who strictly adhere to just one of the categories are likely going to be academics or single-issue debaters, not many policymakers are that ideologically principled. For instance, I got 5 selective engagement 4 liberal hegemony; much less adherent to selective engagement principles than my test result suggests.

    6 votes

  3. Comment on Which grand strategy are you? in ~misc

    Fal
    Link
    A personality quiz made by my international security TA for fun. Placed this in ~misc since the grand strategy branch of IR is pretty academic and theoretical, but maybe belongs in ~society. I got...

    A personality quiz made by my international security TA for fun. Placed this in ~misc since the grand strategy branch of IR is pretty academic and theoretical, but maybe belongs in ~society.

    I got selective/deep engagement

    9 votes

  5. Comment on Offbeat Fridays – The thread where offbeat headlines become front page news in ~news

  6. Comment on The Game Awards 2025 nominations in ~games

    Fal
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    By my count, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is nominated for an incredible 10 categories (although I am counting all 3 Clair Obscur nominations for Best Performance as 1). I'm guesing GOTY will be a...

    By my count, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is nominated for an incredible 10 categories (although I am counting all 3 Clair Obscur nominations for Best Performance as 1). I'm guesing GOTY will be a competition between Clair Obscur and Silksong.

    6 votes

  8. Comment on Hungary vs Ireland highlights | FIFA World Cup 26 qualifier in ~sports.football

    Fal
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    Absolutely insane finish to this game. Congrats to Troy Parrott for an incredible hat trick (as well as scoring 2 goals in Ireland's win over Portugal last week). Best of luck to Ireland in the...

    Absolutely insane finish to this game. Congrats to Troy Parrott for an incredible hat trick (as well as scoring 2 goals in Ireland's win over Portugal last week). Best of luck to Ireland in the playoffs

    2 votes

  10. Comment on Generational goalgetter Erling Haaland will get a crack at his first major tournament next summer, after leading Norway to the World Cup in ~sports.football

    Fal
    Link Parent
    No paywall for me

    No paywall for me

    3 votes

  11. Comment on Offbeat Fridays – The thread where offbeat headlines become front page news in ~news

    Fal
    Link
    Woman pleads guilty to lying about astronaut wife accessing bank account from Space Station

    Woman pleads guilty to lying about astronaut wife accessing bank account from Space Station

    A former Air Force intelligence officer has pleaded guilty to lying to a federal agent by falsely claiming that her estranged astronaut wife illegally accessed her bank account while aboard the International Space Station for six months, prosecutors in Houston, Texas, said Friday.

    The guilty plea by Summer Worden, 50, on Thursday comes more than five years after she was indicted in the space case for lying about actions by her wife, Anne McClain, a U.S. Army colonel, West Point graduate and Iraq war combat veteran, while they were in the midst of a divorce.

    Worden in July “alleged her estranged spouse had guessed the password and illegally accessed her bank account while the spouse was deployed to the International Space Station,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas said in a statement headlined “Far Out” on Friday.

    9 votes

  12. Comment on UC San Diego sees students’ math skills plummet in ~society

    Fal
    Link Parent
    Given that its 1 in 8 students at UCSD requiring remedial courses, this is possibly the answer. Also worth noting though that when you apply to the UCs submitting your SAT scores is optional, and...

    Is this a case of the SAT getting easier, or that lower 25% really cratering and struggling?

    Given that its 1 in 8 students at UCSD requiring remedial courses, this is possibly the answer.

    Also worth noting though that when you apply to the UCs submitting your SAT scores is optional, and I'd imagine if you got low scores you'd be less inclined to submit them, even though they don't impact admission.

    7 votes

  13. Comment on UC San Diego sees students’ math skills plummet in ~society

    Fal
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    Oh hey that's my university (and @ducc's as well I believe). This report isn't too common knowledge so far, unless you're active on the UCSD subreddit. For people who do know about it though, the...

    Oh hey that's my university (and @ducc's as well I believe). This report isn't too common knowledge so far, unless you're active on the UCSD subreddit. For people who do know about it though, the response is largely a mix of disappointment in the damage to the school's reputation, and calls for the UC system to start requiring SAT scores for applications again.

    6 votes

  15. Comment on How has AI positively impacted your life? in ~tech

    Fal
    Link Parent
    Anecdotally, its translation abilities seem to be pretty solid for the more straightforward and formal language in the documents I use, and since these models have scraped basically the entire...

    Anecdotally, its translation abilities seem to be pretty solid for the more straightforward and formal language in the documents I use, and since these models have scraped basically the entire internet (including CCP government websites, Xinhua, People's Daily, etc.) with some prodding it can create entire corpuses of 30+ relevant government documents or announcements that would be a pain to try to pull together by hand. Obviously double check everything because there is a dud in there once in a while, but its still a major time save.

    1 vote

  16. Comment on How has AI positively impacted your life? in ~tech

    Fal
    Link
    I'm a master's of international affairs student, with a focus on Chinese politics. Finding Chinese-language primary source documents (mostly Chinese-language news articles and government...

    I'm a master's of international affairs student, with a focus on Chinese politics. Finding Chinese-language primary source documents (mostly Chinese-language news articles and government documents) is so much easier now. In general, the research process is easier in many ways (as long as you aren't letting the AI guide the direction of your research).

    12 votes

  17. Comment on Is 67 just brain rot? in ~humanities.languages

    Fal
    Link Parent
    To be fair, E is from 2018 so maybe you missed it or forgot

    To be fair, E is from 2018 so maybe you missed it or forgot

    2 votes

  19. Comment on The European Union could admit new members by 2030, says its foreign policy chief in ~society

    Fal
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    The European Union could admit new members by 2030, its foreign policy chief has said, as officials praised reform efforts by frontrunners Montenegro and Albania, while criticising backsliding in Serbia and an even steeper democratic decline in Georgia.

    The verdicts came as the European Commission published its annual report cards on 10 countries that aspire to join the EU, after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 injected new momentum into a process that had long been moribund.

    “Russia’s full-scale invasion in Ukraine and the geopolitical shifts make the case for enlargement very clear cut,” Kaja Kallas told reporters. “It is a necessity if we want to be a stronger player on the world stage.”

    She added that “new countries joining the European Union by 2030 is a realistic goal” and said Montenegro was the most advanced in the accession process and a frontrunner for membership, alongside Albania.

    8 votes