I've used AI for scanning an essay's grammar and spelling, and it seems useful enough for that. I've also heard (but not tested) that some AIs are way better at translating texts than Google Translate, which seems cool too. Translation is normally expensive and time-consuming, especially for dead languages or highly technical writing, so AI might have a big impact on that field. It seems like it can also decipher cursive/old handwriting.

Nonetheless, it's interesting that despite huge increases in computing power, AI has failed to make a single major discovery. If you imagine a smart human being who had read every medical article and book in existence, you'd assume he would be thinking of new cures, antivenoms, and so on. To my knowledge, AI hasn't done anything even close to this in any field, which shows that it lacks something uniquely human -- maybe creativity or the ability to truly develop new information. It's best to understand generative AI, I think, as "image splicers" or "text splicers." These algorithms don't actually "draw" or "write," they just splice images or words together based on patterns, so it makes sense that it wouldn't make discoveries any more than a really powerful calculator could make discoveries. To quote Edward Feser, "a simulation of X is not the same as X, and. . . we should be especially aware of this when we are ourselves the makers of the simulation."

Would be fun to see a map that uses dynamic props in a way that affects gameplay, e.g doors opening or cover changing places depending on which team owns a point. Like pathways that are made specifically for pushing out of last or the attacking team on koth getting a little extra high ground or something, or even the point moving closer to the attacking team on koth. Would solve some of the difficulty with balancing that comes from having to make maps perfectly symmetrical.

Yeah this basically convinces me that he's cheating. The way he's aiming makes no sense at all: he's hard-tracking in teamfights and against counterstrafing players with little to no click-timing or flicking.

I can't think of a single player who aims like that. If you play scout and you've ever tried tracking and holding down mouse1 with the scattergun, you know how bad it is. It is literally not humanly possible to do what he's doing in most of these clips, and that's why no scout aims like that. This guy is 100% cheating and I would bet money on it.

Making pyro, spy, and sniper more generalist means that they wouldn't be pyro, spy and sniper anymore.

Making the weak classes significantly more viable than they are for 6s would require fundamentally reworking how they're designed: you'd either have to (A) make them bad imitations of the fragging classes in order to retain their specialist niche, or (B) weaken their specialist side in order to strengthen their generalist side, which is the same as removing them from the game. You can't keep what's good about a specialist while making it on par with the generalists at the same time; that's like having a scout that can airblast. At the same time, if you try to "balance" this by reducing a specialist's advantage, the class literally no longer exists. It's like saying, "Americans can become more successful by acting more like South Koreans." Well, we wouldn't really be Americans if we acted like South Koreans, would we?

The reason the generalists are good is because they are effective at both offense and defense, and at both long and close range (or midrange). Soldier's ability to bomb and scout's speed make them stronger at long range than they first seem. A class is a generalist if it's good at these four things, and a class is a specialist if it's relatively bad at one or more of these, but particularly good at one or more of them. Heavy, for example, is weak on offense, strong on defense, weak at long range, and strong at close range. Now, imagine what you'd have to do to make heavy a generalist: you'd either have to make him better at offense (faster, more mobile, harder to hit) or better at long range (increase damage significantly at range, faster). If you did this, it would look like you're playing heavy, but you'd actually be playing scout. You'd have to make heavy light, which violates his design.

One thing that TF2 gets (almost) perfect is how attacking and pushing is generally stronger than defending and holding. Many other games get this wrong, and the best games (e.g. basketball) get this right. The new config for 5cp was an additional improvement in this area. If defending (or not attacking) is stronger than attacking, the game grinds to a halt and becomes boring to play and watch. In addition, attacking (in any game) is generally regarded as being more complex and having a higher skill-ceiling compared to defending. This is why "camping" has a bad reputation in some games; it's why the best Counter-Strike IGLs set themselves apart with their T-side calling rather than their CT-side calling (e.g., Karrigan on T-side Mirage); it's why the phrase "the best defense is good offense" exists in military strategy and basketball; and it's why the famous military theorist Carl von Clausewitz said,

"What is the object of defence? To preserve. To preserve is easier than to acquire; from which follows at once that the means on both sides being supposed equal, the defensive is easier than the offensive... as the defensive has a negative object, that of preserving, and the offensive a positive object, that of conquering, and as the latter increases our own means of carrying on war, but the preserving does not, therefore in order to express ourselves distinctly, we must say, that the defensive form of war is in itself stronger than the offensive."

The reason most of the specialists (Heavy, Pyro, Engineer) have to be worse than the generalists, in terms of good game design, is because defending is in and of itself stronger than attacking. Defenders get to sit back and let the enemies walk into their crosshairs, they get to hide in safe places, they get to focus fire a single chokepoint, and so on. In order to balance this natural advantage that defense has, and because defending is more boring and less skill-oriented than attacking, you make the defending classes worse than the attacking classes. Counter-Strike does this by giving Ts the AK-47, and TF2 does this, in part, by making the defending classes worse than the attacking classes in various ways. It's just good game design.

My wishlist:

• Be able to strafe after being airblasted obviously
  
• More in-game crosshair options, including glowing crosshairs. Crosshairs in tf2 can be hard to "see" while playing because of a lack of crosshair depth, opacity options, and so on. clockwork mentioned something like this once.
  
• You should also be able to see what crosshairs and viewmodel settings other people are using when you're spectating them, that would be cool.
  
• Players should be able to ping locations on the map like in modern FPS games (CS, etc.). If that seems too chaotic, make only medic and spy able to do it and add a delay between pings.
  
• I think a minimap that only shows your teammates is worth testing. It would probably take some work to implement and might not fit for 6s, but not having to call exactly where you are every 2 seconds if you're behind the enemy team would be nice.
  
• You should be able to see your med's uber % whether or not you're being healed. There's already a way to do this but it's banned.
  
• A way to automatically record POV demos for league matches (or on specific servers) so that no one is able to forget to record would be nice.

Common-sense weapon and class changes I'd also like to see:

• Reduce the sniper rifle's ammo from 25 to 10 or 15 (small change but worth it IMO, 25 is way too much)
  
• The whip as a weapon would have a lot of positive implications for 6s (e.g., whip bombs through doorways) but it's currently broken because it allows you to get a heavy to mid with little downside. Just add a delay of 10s to the whip on player spawn like the gas passer and it would instantly become balanced enough for 6s.
  
• You could also balance the guillotine for 6s really easily by just increasing the delay or adding a charge meter (e.g., 150 damage)
  
• Spy should get a speed buff of 5% while cloaked to make it easier to roll out. You should also be able to fake reloading while disguised (e.g., by pressing the reload button while disguised). I think this is already possible but it requires turning off autoreload so nobody does it.

ha ha ha

Setting aside the fact that you draw furry porn, "if it's legal, it shouldn't be bannable" is a pretty strange argument. Cheating is legal and should be bannable because it hurts the competitive integrity of the league; being a pedophile or "zoophile" is also legal, but it should also be bannable because it hurts the social integrity of the league.

The question is not only whether a literal child has been harmed, but whether the integrity of the league is maintained, or whether the community is made better or worse by allowing this kind of behavior. Since bestiality and pedophilia are definitely wrong, and since they definitely make the league worse, they shouldn't be allowed. It's really that simple.

Scout: b4nny, cap, botmode
Soldier: kobe, soapy, laz
Demo: logan, habib, artist
Medic: lolguy, howard, dank

For the record, the dollar is "strong" compared to the yen right now. If anyone reading this has been considering taking a trip to Japan, now is a pretty good time to do it -- your money will stretch around 30% further than if you had visited in 2019. One of my professors was talking about this last semester.

When I saw the wall of text I thought it was going to be a nothingburger, but from what I understand it looks like there are actually some nurbanians down in AM. Who could have thought.

(18-20 July 2024)

Elo should be win/loss only and you should never lose elo for winning a pug.

Also, when you sort by elo on the add-up screen, it doesn't sort players by highest to lowest elo. Sorting by div also doesn't work.

Third-Worldism
noun
The tendency of affluent, tender-minded humanitarians from the First World to venerate the Third World and/or savagery in general.

Signs you might be a Third-Worldist:

• You believe that the Native American tribes were living in peace and harmony with each other and with nature prior to the arrival of Europeans.
  
• You believe that slavery is a uniquely Western phenomenon.
  
• You view international trade with skepticism or think that a nation "loses" when it trades with a richer country.
  
• You support or advocate for war.
  
• You have a poetic or "superhero movie" view of modern international relations, where some nations are the "good guys" and other nations are the "bad guys."
  
• You believe that the problems facing the Middle East and Africa today have more to do with colonization, multinational corporations, "imperialism," etc. than with the cultures, religions, and laws that currently prevail in the Middle East and Africa.
  
• You have never been to a Third World country.
  
• You refuse to talk about the problems of Islam or of African religions. You refuse to talk about or critique the cultures of Third World countries.
  
• You condemn immoral actions (e.g. murder, terrorism, theft) when they are committed by individuals from one country, but excuse or try to justify the same actions when committed by individuals from another country.
  
• You use political slogans or loaded terms like "liberation," "neoliberalism," "by any means necessary," "power to the people," etc.
  
• You do not look at or form opinions based on data when thinking about about international issues, instead relying on news articles, social media, pictures, and so on. You do not form opinions based on weighing benefits against costs.
  
  Notable Third-Worldists include Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Alexandre Dugin, various socialists & foreign-aid lobbyists, and so on.

I publicly challenge you to link any footage of the plane hitting the Pentagon on 9/11. If you do, I will happily recant my previous statement. Your claim that plane parts were found at the Pentagon is addressed in the documentary I cited. I also notice that you have ignored the complete absurdity that is the passport being found on the sidewalk far away from the crash site in NYC, Building 7 falling down for no reason, etc.

The only security footage I know of that shows the attack on the Pentagon is this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SL2PzzOiF8. As you can see, there's no plane in this footage. I'd be happy to see the footage you claim to know of.

I am against terrorism & murder. I am also against theft. It is a simple historical fact that Israeli settlers stole land from Palestinians; this is documented, and many Palestinians still have the deeds of ownership to the land that belongs to them. It is also a fact that the Israeli army is negligently bombing civilians, including women and children, and even targeting civilian centers (e.g., hospitals), as well as preventing humanitarian supplies & aid from entering the Gaza Strip. I'm not pro-Palestine or pro-Hamas, I'm anti-Israel.

It isn't "cheerleading Hamas" to point out (1) the proven record of Israeli land-theft against Palestinians and (2) the disproportionate & mass killing of Palestinian civilians in the current conflict.

Sure.

JFK is pretty clear cut. What I like to do when discussing these things is identify the strongest piece or couple of pieces of evidence and emphasize those.

With JFK, anyone can prove it was an inside job in literally 20 seconds. Here it is: After JFK was shot, it was widely reported that JFK's head moved forward after being shot. This would be consistent with Lee Harvey Oswald's position in a building behind JFK. The Zapruder film was seized after the assassination (by the FBI, of course) and hidden from the public.

When the film was finally released, however, you can see that JFK's head did not move forward when he was shot. His head was thrown backward, towards the seat of the car. This is literally physically impossible if it is true that JFK was shot from behind (where Oswald was). Remember: people shot from behind do not get thrown backwards, they get thrown forwards. I encourage you to look up the Zapruder film and watch it for yourself.

There are many other inconsistencies with the official JFK story, such as Lee Harvey Oswald's body double, the extremely convenient timing of the assassination (convenient for the CIA, of course), Oswald denying involvement in the attack and saying that he had been set up and being assassinated himself soon after, and so on. But the direction of JFK's head after being shot is so conclusive, and proves beyond any doubt that he was shot from the front (rather than from behind, where Oswald was), that it's really all you need to understand that it was an inside job.

I will also note that there are so many blatant inconsistencies and problems with the official JFK narrative that even many people who spend their time "debunking conspiracy theories" admit that there are serious problems with the official narrative. Same goes for Jeffrey Epstein, whose killing was so absurdly obvious that the same "debunkers" admit he didn't kill himself. This is also worth pointing out.

As for 9/11, the case is at least as strong as the JFK assassination. There are many angles to approach this from: A third building, Building 7, falling down for no reason on the day of the attack; the fact that WTCs 1 and 2 look exactly like controlled demolitions and fall uniformly; the fact that the owner of the WTCs took out an absurdly huge insurance plan shortly before the attack; the fact that melted steel was found at the crash site (yes, melted); and many more fascinating pieces of evidence. There are 3 pieces of evidence that are, in my view, the most convincing.

1. The "hijacked" planes flew wildly off course for over an hour without ever being intercepted by US military aircraft. This is so strange and is beyond any explanation. The US knew that the planes were flying low and wildly off course, knew they were headed towards major population centers, and did not send a single military aircraft to intercept them.
   
2. The passport of one of the supposed attackers was found blocks away from the crash site in NYC, unscathed, on the sidewalk, shortly after the attack. I am not making this up; this really happened and it was reported on the news. Tell me: how can a passport inside of one of the planes that hit the WTC not only (A) sustain no damage whatsoever from the attack, but also even more incredibly (B) end up blocks away from the crash site on the sidewalk on the day of the attack? How would you even explain that? The fact is, there is no explanation, and the passport was planted there because the US government knew in advance who the "attackers" were.
   
3. Finally, and most convincingly, there is not a single piece of footage of a plane hitting the Pentagon. None. Not a single second of footage. Does anyone else find this strange? Furthermore, there are pictures after the attack on the Pentagon, and no wing parts are on the ground. If a plane hit the Pentagon, its wings would have shattered upon contact. But not only are there no wing parts in any photos or videos following the attack, but there is literally 0 physical evidence that a plane actually hit the Pentagon. No videos, no white-painted metal plane parts, no anything. And you're telling me a random Arab is skilled enough to fly a passenger aircraft in a descending corkscrew towards the Pentagon without it ever being photographed or intercepted by US aircraft? Seriously?

That's the short case of 9/11. If you want more information on JFK and 9/11, I recommend the documentary 9/11: In Plane Sight (available for free online) and James Corbett's documentary Meet Lee Harvey Oswald, Sheep-Dipped Patsy (2013). James Corbett has also done a lot of work on 9/11.

If you want to be convinced that 9/11 was an inside job in 5 minutes, see this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCzy9i4tIHU

Also see this video: https://www.bitchute.com/video/wO5oJM8GjWA/