MimicSquid's recent activity

  1. Comment on CGA-2026-08 🗡️🛡️❤️🔺 INSERT CARTRIDGE 🟢 The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past in ~games

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    And done! 248/249, 10:55:32 on the clock. That was fun, but I'll save other thoughts for the closing thread.

    And done! 248/249, 10:55:32 on the clock. That was fun, but I'll save other thoughts for the closing thread.

    2 votes

  2. Comment on CGA-2026-08 🗡️🛡️❤️🔺 INSERT CARTRIDGE 🟢 The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past in ~games

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    Looks like I had 2 of them; mirror for Dendrian and flippers for you.

    Looks like I had 2 of them; mirror for Dendrian and flippers for you.

    2 votes

  3. Comment on China's super-rich 'in shock' and hunting for cash as Beijing issues surprise tax on offshore trusts in ~society

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    Thank you. I appreciate the nuanced and detailed response.

    Thank you. I appreciate the nuanced and detailed response.

    2 votes

  4. Comment on China's super-rich 'in shock' and hunting for cash as Beijing issues surprise tax on offshore trusts in ~society

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    Ok. Fine. I will stop quoting a specific number. Setting that aside, do you feel that putting additional resources into auditing and taxing the very rich would be misplaced or unproductive?...

    Ok. Fine. I will stop quoting a specific number. Setting that aside, do you feel that putting additional resources into auditing and taxing the very rich would be misplaced or unproductive? Assuming there is the actual political will to update regulations, pass tax law, etc.

    4 votes

  5. Comment on China's super-rich 'in shock' and hunting for cash as Beijing issues surprise tax on offshore trusts in ~society

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    A small team per person. A set of four or five people whose entire job is to full time track the actions of a given very wealthy person and ensure they're not getting away with things. Maybe if...

    A small team per person. A set of four or five people whose entire job is to full time track the actions of a given very wealthy person and ensure they're not getting away with things. Maybe if necessary for the biggest fish you have 15 or 25 people. It's not simple, but more staffing aimed at watching the people with more money than God will go a long way. (The top 25 people on the Forbes richest people list have more money than the top estimate of the total value of the Catholic Church, of which 15 of them are Americans.)

    3 votes

  6. Comment on Antisemitism on campus is 'systemic' and going unaddressed, says new report in ~society

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    I'm glad we can agree that the mistreatment of Jews is wrong. The abuse suffered by college students for nothing more than being incidentally related to a country who claims to represent them...

    I'm glad we can agree that the mistreatment of Jews is wrong. The abuse suffered by college students for nothing more than being incidentally related to a country who claims to represent them while engaging in genocide is unjust. In that sentence, the "they" is the Israeli government and other Jewish groups that work to maintain other nation's positive relations with Israel and defend the interests of Jews in the various countries of the Diaspora.

    But the report makes clear that this isn't specifically a Canadian issue: The conclusion starts by saying:

    Since October 7, 2023, rates of antisemitism have surged around the world, shattering the sense of peace and security for Jewish communities globally. In Canada, university campuses have become a microcosm of a national crisis. Read alongside the widely documented global rise in anti-Jewish hate, including in Canada, the evidence presented here points to serious concerns about campus climate, student safety, and confidence in institutional response.

    So this report, while coming from Canada and based upon Canadian data, is itself trying to make a global statement. Beyond that, this isn't solely a Canadian issue. Israel claims to be the nation-state for all Jewish people, including possessing the obligation to act anywhere in the Jewish Diaspora to ensure the safety of the Jewish people and strengthen their affinity to Israel. With this stance, all Jews anywhere are connected to Israel, regardless of their thoughts or preferences. This leaves Jews in other nations in a position where even if their loyalties to their home country are absolute, Israel is publicly always there in the background working to strengthen their loyalty to Israel.

    In the quote above the report's conclusions do acknowledge that something changed after October 7, 2023, though they dance around stating what might have caused this rise in anti-Jewish sentiment and violence. The report does make a special point in footnote 15 of saying that no court has made a formal finding that Israel is committing a genocide, as if that resolves all questions on the matter. All in all, this isn't a whataboutzionisism hiding antisemitism, this is looking at the actual stated political philosophy of a nation paired with their actions and their claim to represent all Jews and seeing a rise in anti-Jewish sentiment and action.

    The actions taken against Canadian Jews as reported here are wrong and and unjust. They don't happen in a vacuum. It doesn't make the actions any better.

    12 votes

  7. Comment on China's super-rich 'in shock' and hunting for cash as Beijing issues surprise tax on offshore trusts in ~society

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    There are already laws on the books that would allow for significantly higher real taxes on billionaires if they were inspected and the laws enforced. As CptBluebear pointed out, the IRS has been...

    There are already laws on the books that would allow for significantly higher real taxes on billionaires if they were inspected and the laws enforced. As CptBluebear pointed out, the IRS has been hollowed out by the current administration as a secondary de facto way of giving tax reductions to billionaires.

    12 votes

  8. Comment on China's super-rich 'in shock' and hunting for cash as Beijing issues surprise tax on offshore trusts in ~society

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    Practically, if China says there's a new tax and goes to financial institutions and says "give me a cut of what this set of rich Chinese people hold.", Most places will agree. Really, if the will...

    Practically, if China says there's a new tax and goes to financial institutions and says "give me a cut of what this set of rich Chinese people hold.", Most places will agree.

    Really, if the will is there for the US to do something it's not hard to just assign each billionaire a small team of auditors and accountants within the tax bureau whose job it is to track absolutely everything. In a US context, you could have a team costing a couple million, and that would be peanuts as compared to the revenue from taxing that single billionaire's hidden trusts.

    18 votes

  9. Comment on Antisemitism on campus is 'systemic' and going unaddressed, says new report in ~society

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    Notably, this is a Canadian report about Canadian schools.

    Notably, this is a Canadian report about Canadian schools.

    6 votes

  10. Comment on Antisemitism on campus is 'systemic' and going unaddressed, says new report in ~society

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    Note that these are all answers to a student survey, not records from police, court, or legal proceedings. There's no reason to think that the reported actions didn't happen, but there's also no...

    Note that these are all answers to a student survey, not records from police, court, or legal proceedings. There's no reason to think that the reported actions didn't happen, but there's also no secondary documentation to point to back up the claims.

    10 votes

  11. Comment on Antisemitism on campus is 'systemic' and going unaddressed, says new report in ~society

    MimicSquid
    Link
    Before I get into my issues with the survey, let me be clear: hating some random college student because they share religious or ethnic similarities to the people in a country elsewhere in the...
    • Exemplary

    Before I get into my issues with the survey, let me be clear: hating some random college student because they share religious or ethnic similarities to the people in a country elsewhere in the world that is engaging in atrocities is wrong. It is literally prejudiced, and is itself an injustice that no one should suffer.

    That said, looking at the survey questions in Appendix E, I'm concerned that it conflates Jews, Judaism, Israel, and Zionism into a single measure. These are not the same things. The text of question 24 is:

    1. Thinking about your courses over the past 12 months, have you encountered any of the following in your classes?

    (Scale: Yes / No / Not sure)

    • Course content or classroom discussions that, in your view, portrayed Jews, Judaism, Israel, or Zionism in an antisemitic or biased way?
    • Course content or classroom discussions in which a professor or instructor brought up Jews, Judaism, Israel, or Zionism in a way that felt unrelated to the course topic or discussion?

    Given the current genocide being performed by Israel in occupied Palestine and the way that those actions can accurately be described as fulfilling the Zionist agenda of Jewish demographic majority, there's plenty of space for people to be saying things that seem biased against Israel and Zionism without being bigoted against Jews or Judaism. For them to be merged into a single question makes for a great headline of almost all Jewish students encountering such a thing, but it conceals what in particular was being spoken against. This is a classic strategy of Israel to attempt to conflate any criticism of its actions with the hatred of Jews that led to the Holocaust. For them, the descendants of people who survived ethnic cleansing, to then turn around and engage in the same sort of behavior is abhorrent. And this sort of blending of different kinds of actions and beliefs into a single thing called antisemitism so they can brand all of it as unreasonable hatred is as disgusting now as it has been over the decades they've been playing this game.

    And this is a problem for any attempt to actually resolve actual hatred for Jews or Judaism. It hides the scale of the actual problem, and makes it harder to eliminate the hatred when it conflates lots of different issues. I have no problem with Judaism or Jews. They may say I'm an antisemite for having a problem with the genocidal actions of Israel. I reject that, and reject their conflation of Jews, Judaism, Israel, and Zionism into a single philosophical unit. How do we stop the people who are actually hating and enacting violence against Jews or Judaism when Israel itself keeps trying to broaden the group to give themselves moral cover for atrocity?

    61 votes

  12. Comment on Antisemitism on campus is 'systemic' and going unaddressed, says new report in ~society

    MimicSquid
    Link
    Since the article fails to take the basic step of linking to the actual report, you can find it here.

    Since the article fails to take the basic step of linking to the actual report, you can find it here.

    20 votes

  13. Comment on CGA-2026-08 🗡️🛡️❤️🔺 INSERT CARTRIDGE 🟢 The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past in ~games

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    Progression Discussion Thank you for the hammer, gloves, and hookshot, they've been very helpful. It looks like my flippers are in your Ganon's Tower, so I'm likely to stay blocked on that for a bit.
    Progression Discussion Thank you for the hammer, gloves, and hookshot, they've been very helpful. It looks like my flippers are in your Ganon's Tower, so I'm likely to stay blocked on that for a bit.
    2 votes

  14. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    I found the samurai dude to be a bit of a glass cannon, but if you can pair it with anything that rewards based on distance traveled it becomes a lot more effective. Especially paired with the...

    I found the samurai dude to be a bit of a glass cannon, but if you can pair it with anything that rewards based on distance traveled it becomes a lot more effective. Especially paired with the cowboy dude who will lasso them out of their distant fights so they can get some healing, they'll be zipping all over the level, stacking up those buffs like mad.

    1 vote

  15. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    If you like being a detective, did you ever try Shadows of Doubt? It's procedurally generated, but you get a whole city to be a detective in, with all sorts of sneaking and sleuthing to do.

    If you like being a detective, did you ever try Shadows of Doubt? It's procedurally generated, but you get a whole city to be a detective in, with all sorts of sneaking and sleuthing to do.

    3 votes

  16. Comment on CGA-2026-08 🗡️🛡️❤️🔺 INSERT CARTRIDGE 🟢 The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past in ~games

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    Progression Discussion I've finished the desert and eastern palaces, making my way through the darkness without a lamp and uneaten by a grue. The tablet in the eastern palace said that the lamp...
    Progression Discussion I've finished the desert and eastern palaces, making my way through the darkness without a lamp and uneaten by a grue. The tablet in the eastern palace said that the lamp was in Dendrian's game by a bat-like man, so I may be waiting for that until they have found the magic powder. The major blocker is the mirror. Hopefully that turns up soon.
    2 votes

  17. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    PZ is so good, in part because the sandbox is the real game and the custom game mode is the real game. The innumerable ways you can (and are encouraged) to tweak the experience makes for such...

    PZ is so good, in part because the sandbox is the real game and the custom game mode is the real game. The innumerable ways you can (and are encouraged) to tweak the experience makes for such broad and robust gameplay.

    1 vote

  18. Comment on CGA-2026-08 🗡️🛡️❤️🔺 INSERT CARTRIDGE 🟢 The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past in ~games

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    Upon shutting everything down and trying again, it all seems to be working and the flood of items has gone out.

    Upon shutting everything down and trying again, it all seems to be working and the flood of items has gone out.

    2 votes

  19. Comment on CGA-2026-08 🗡️🛡️❤️🔺 INSERT CARTRIDGE 🟢 The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past in ~games

    MimicSquid
    Link Parent
    Wow, I feel like I've gotten a very lucky start, or the settings are being kind; The first items I kept were bow, shield, 300 rupees (to buy bombs in town), fire rod, 1/2 magic. Swords? Who needs...

    Wow, I feel like I've gotten a very lucky start, or the settings are being kind; The first items I kept were bow, shield, 300 rupees (to buy bombs in town), fire rod, 1/2 magic. Swords? Who needs them?

    2 votes

  20. Comment on Minecraft is helping kids redesign their cities – in fifty-five countries, the popular video game has been used to engage children in the process of urban design in ~design

    MimicSquid
    Link
    It's very cool to give people a way to be involved with urban design, especially experiencing the actual tradeoffs of space and movement that you can really feel when you're building and moving...

    It's very cool to give people a way to be involved with urban design, especially experiencing the actual tradeoffs of space and movement that you can really feel when you're building and moving through the space. It does seem they're moving away from using Minecraft as the singular game used to help people explore urban design options, since Microsoft decided it didn't want to help fund this program anymore. But still, good on them for supporting it for a decade.

    4 votes