defenestrations

Game of Thrones S3E8, because that’s all I blog about anymore Arya and The Hound. I’d...

Mon, 20 May 2013 09:12:12 -0400

Game of Thrones S3E8, because that’s all I blog about anymore

Arya and The Hound. I’d been hoping The Hound would change sides at some point, and while technically he’s only left Joffrey (and not joined the Starks or anyone else), his primary purpose right now is helping Arya reunite with Robb/Catelyn. I really like this development for both characters, but I think something’s going to go wrong.
Okay, everyone’s going on about how Daenerys “only” has 8000 Unsullied. But she also bought those that were in-training. Those wouldn’t be true Unsullied, but shouldn’t they at least count toward her army’s numbers?
The Second Sons mentioning siege weaponry. Also I noticed when rewatching previous episodes that, while there still hasn’t been any mention of siege weapons, they definitely have the capacity for them.
Ser Barristan’s “Gladly, you’re grace” is delivered in the most wonderfully scornful bit of acting ever.
Tyrion and Sansa’s wedding is something I thought they’d have planned for months ahead, and during that time something would happen, or someone would conspire and manage to get them out of it. I was surprised that they actually had to go through with it. I like both characters, and they both hate their circumstances. But I’m hoping Tyrion can protect Sansa.
Cersei vs Margaery. Cersei’s really taking the offensive, but I can’t tell if Margaery is taking a defensive stance or is about to outplay Cersei.
Joffrey is a better person with Margaery, but that’s not making him a better person in general.
Gendry’s situation. Eek. I don’t know what’ll become of that.
Olenna talking about the family tree. That’s amusing. Reminds me of the relationships in S6 of Doctor Who.
“I shall build a shrine to myself at the next brothel I visit.”
Tyrion’s outburst at Joffrey was amazing. That’s probably the furthest he’s pushed Joffrey.
The Second Sons joining Daenerys is a really good thing at first, but I’m worried about their loyalty. I don’t know of “Daenerys’s beauty” is enough to keep Dario fighting and journeying alongside her. But I really hope he does find a reason to stay loyal, because he and his forces would be a good addition.
I don’t like that Sam didn’t pick up the dagger before they ran off. Hopefully he has another, or is close to The Wall.

Game of Thrones thought The Realm is millions in debt to the Iron Bank of Braavos. What if the bank...

Sun, 19 May 2013 20:54:26 -0400

Game of Thrones thought

The Realm is millions in debt to the Iron Bank of Braavos. What if the bank decides to fund Daenerys or Robb to take King’s Landing?

romy7: Sex in Video Games [Ω]

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:21:36 -0400

romy7:

Sex in Video Games [Ω]

“To promote niceness. To make the world prettier. To share candy with everyone. To obfuscate...

Fri, 17 May 2013 14:17:59 -0400

“To promote niceness. To make the world prettier. To share candy with everyone. To obfuscate the true nature of the Milkman. To protect the Milkman at all costs. To eliminate all who threaten to reveal his secret objective.”

Game of Thrones armies I’m pretty sure GoT is going to continue its story blind to the actual...

Fri, 17 May 2013 09:14:00 -0400

Game of Thrones armies

I’m pretty sure GoT is going to continue its story blind to the actual tactical advantages each army has, but it’s still interesting to think about. This is most important with Daenerys, as she’s in the process of building up her forces, and it would make sense for her to prioritize fighters that would best counter the armies she’d face in Westeros.

Most of the Westeros armies seem very similar to medieval English/French forces, which makes sense. There’s a lot of leather and chainmail armor, a strong preference toward swords, and the richer families (knights, or anyone supplied by the Lannisters) have plate armor. There are also mounted troops (in the form of lancers). The armies of Westeros have archers, including longbowmen and crossbowmen, but I haven’t seen any indication that these are used en masse.

There has been no indication that any side employs siege weapons. Given, for example, the elevator at The Wall and the fact that they have crossbowmen, catapults and siege towers seem quite possible. But I don’t recall there being any mention of siege weapons, despite the use of castles by each family.

I’m not sure if the Dothraki get into pitched battles very often. They have a very large close-range mounted force. It seems like they mostly prey on weaker forces, and use their speed and numbers to quickly overwhelm the opposition. Because of this, they also probably do not put much effort into tactics. I’d assume that they would avoid attacking anyone strong enough to stand up to a huge unorganized cavalry attack.

Most of Essos looks like smaller, spread-out and mostly-independent cities. The richer of the cities have walls, a defensive force, and sometimes allies. These walls likely protect them from both each other and the Dothraki. The Dothraki would be both unwilling and unable to effectively assault cities like Qarth, Yunkai or Astapor.

Which brings us to Daenerys. She’s acquired an army of very well-trained spearmen. The Unsullied would be great against a mounted charge (from the Dothraki or a Westeros force). They’re well-armored for Essos, and they have the advantage of shields, but I’m not sure how effective they’d be against an equal-sized Lannister force.

Her Unsullied are a very good center for her army. She also has Ser Barristan by her side, who is likely a decent tactician. I don’t know if her dragons are big enough to make a difference in a battle while fighting, but they’d definitely help with the morale.

What Daenerys doesn’t have, though, are archers, cavalry or swordsmen. This is something I noticed while “negotiating” with the Yunkai: the city is defended by swordsmen (and a few other types of fighters, most likely). Taking Yunkai and adding some of their forces to her own would help a lot with giving her army a little more variety/flexibility.

I’m really curious as to whether she could get more Dothraki on her side, to give herself some cavalry. I think they’d be really effective and useful, but I’m also worried about the cohesion of her army. This was mostly an issue when she was with Drogo, and it would actually be more similar to Baelish (“king of the ashes” quote) taking the throne than, say, Robb. Drogo wanted to give Daenerys the throne, but given the Dothraki style, all of Westeros would get ravaged in the process.

We’ve very clearly seen that Daenerys does not believe in that style of fighting, so I’m not sure if she could convince a Dothraki force (much less an entire Khalasar) to support her in her kind of war.

But the whole cohesion thing is something I’m worried about in general, because she is assembling a piecemeal force. Dragons, Unsullied, the remnants of her Khal, with Barristan and Mormont as advisers. Along with adding to her army, she needs to make sure her army doesn’t unravel.

You know what I really want to happen, though? I want Daenerys to conquer/unite Essos and just rule over that.

Took kind of a big risk with stocks today and may have to incur my first significant loss. I...

Thu, 16 May 2013 10:18:00 -0400

Took kind of a big risk with stocks today and may have to incur my first significant loss. I don’t have high hopes that I’ll break-even or profit for the day, I’m just hoping it’ll go back up and minimize my loss.

Oh the joys of day-trading.

EDIT: Also, I was debating between two stocks this morning. Let’s see if I went for the wrong one, or if both would’ve failed.

money I’ve been slightly obsessed with money lately, sort of with the end goal of being able...

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:03:28 -0400

money

I’ve been slightly obsessed with money lately, sort of with the end goal of being able (as soon as possible) not have to rely on a full-time or well-paying job. So it’s a lot of long-term stuff. It’s half based on having money, half based on reducing expenses.

~~Put extra money into a savings account to draw from in case of emergencies~~
~~Switch to putting extra money into an investment account until it has enough to begin getting a noticeable ROI~~
Switch to putting extra money into paying off student loans as early as possible
Buy a cheap house with a mortgage, which should let me live cheaper while letting me invest the money that would’ve gone towards buying the house in cash
Continue investing

I’ve been paying off my student loans slightly faster than scheduled (one is on-schedule, the other I’ve been paying off about three times faster than scheduled). I just got paid today, and just moved on to step 3, so I put my first huge chunk toward student loans.

Whee.

What if Hodor is like Annyong and he just speaks a different language where his “name”...

Tue, 14 May 2013 12:34:33 -0400

What if Hodor is like Annyong and he just speaks a different language where his “name” is actually “hello” in that language. So when people say “hodor” to him he’s just saying hello back.

Yep. “… the United States is one of only three...

Fri, 10 May 2013 11:22:23 -0400

Yep. “… the United States is one of only three countries in the world which have not ratified the Convention.”

Somebody linked to an article on Facebook. I read the comments, and they were good.

Thu, 09 May 2013 21:12:48 -0400

Somebody linked to an article on Facebook. I read the comments, and they were good.

Also on the subject of that “pursue your dreams” post, I really like this TED...

Thu, 09 May 2013 20:53:58 -0400

Also on the subject of that “pursue your dreams” post, I really like this TED Talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRVdiHu1VCc

kyary: would you like to buy some turnips

Thu, 09 May 2013 20:52:44 -0400

kyary:

would you like to buy some turnips

pkmnbreederbrianna: togamijail: socially-awkward-supervillian: ...

Thu, 09 May 2013 20:52:32 -0400

pkmnbreederbrianna:

togamijail:

socially-awkward-supervillian:

Fun fact: Cheetahs only attack pray that runs

REALLY FUN FACT for big cats cheetahs are fucking docile as shit

my grandfather ran a cheetah sanctuary in south africa and he’d just lie with them and sleep among them and they’d rub against him and chirp at him they’re big fucking babies

Another Fun Fact: Cheetah’s are incredibly nervous animals. One of the (many) reason’s they’re going extinct is that cheetah’s are so sensitive and nervous, some of them are literally too nervous to breed. Other’s will breed, but stress themselves out so much, they’ll loose their cubs.

So zoo’s with breeding program’s had to figure out how to make Cheetah’s comfortable enough to first of all, get laid and secondly - not spazz themselves into miscarrying.

So what’d they do?
They gave the cheetah’s their very own Service Dogs!

The dogs make them feel safe, protected and secure!

faewithoutconsequence: oldblueeyes: Alan Watts: What if money...

Thu, 09 May 2013 20:52:15 -0400

faewithoutconsequence:

oldblueeyes:

Alan Watts: What if money was no object? (x)

BUT MONEY IS AN OBJECT

This post needs a few counterpoints.

Lots of things you might love doing take money. Buying a horse takes money, buying real estate to start a business on requires money, going to school requires money. It sucks, but that’s the way things are.

There are very few dreams in life that people can just drop everything, quit their job, quit their school and pursue. A lot of times, working a job you don’t care so much about enables you to pursue your dream. Maybe you want to start a riding school, you can either take out a loan (and be in-debted to a bank), take investments (an unlikely business to receive investments), or work another job for a while and save up money to start the thing yourself.

Or maybe your dream is to start a family, live till you’re 90 years old and get to play with your great grandchildren. I bet there are people out there that think a long life full of these sorts of pleasures is more fulfilling than a shorter, more “thrilling” life.

I’m not saying the post is bad, it’s just… It stops short of a broader message, and in doing so advocates a more specific message. What it should say is, figure out where you want your life to go, figure out how to get there, and start working toward it. It kind of gets that at the end, with the “what do I desire?” question, but the entirety of the post is spent bashing the idea of a boring office job, without mentioning that maybe a job like that is going to help you move on to something you really like, or otherwise enables you to pursue your actual desires.

While commercial and personal borrowers are currently enjoying historically low interest-rates on...

Thu, 09 May 2013 20:19:10 -0400

While commercial and personal borrowers are currently enjoying historically low interest-rates on loans, and big banks are able to obtain loans at less than one percent interest, student borrowers have had to fight against lawmakers looking to raise interest rates on federally subsidized student loans. With the rates on Stafford loans set to bounce back to 6.8% from 3.4% on July 1, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren has introduced legislation that would actually lower that rate for one year to only .75%.

This is the same rate at which big banks are able to borrow money from the Federal Reserve, so Sen. Warren wants to know why banks get preferential treatment to America’s students.

-The Consumerist

Conservative friends are posting politically on facebook. This isn’t going well.

Mon, 06 May 2013 10:41:21 -0400

Conservative friends are posting politically on facebook. This isn’t going well.

"The laws of my fist are about to compel your teeth."

Mon, 06 May 2013 08:43:52 -0400

“The laws of my fist are about to compel your teeth.”

- Game of Thrones

Just a recap for those that haven’t been paying attention the past few years: Antigua used to...

Fri, 03 May 2013 10:34:00 -0400

Just a recap for those that haven’t been paying attention the past few years: Antigua used to make a lot of money running online gambling sites. The US decided to make it illegal to gamble online, so Antigua lost all its US customers and suffered economically because of that. Antigua brought this to the attention of the WTO, who sided with Antigua. The US repeatedly ignored the WTO’s ruling, because we’re America so we can ignore when we step on other countries. Antigua has been looking for a way to retaliate / be compensated for their losses, and the WTO agreed with them that they could ignore US copyrights to recoup a certain amount of money.

So right now Antigua is working on making a website which would legally infringe on copyrights held by US companies.

I’m having a weird thing where a sad/depressing song is reminding me of some good/happy...

Fri, 03 May 2013 09:18:56 -0400

I’m having a weird thing where a sad/depressing song is reminding me of some good/happy memories. Obviously it makes more sense for a song’s emotions to connect to memories with similar emotions, but does this happen to anyone else, where the song and the memories seem conflicting?

northchef: It’s first of may people.

Wed, 01 May 2013 06:21:36 -0400

northchef:

It’s first of may people.