The cartel? Anything they can get their hands on really, with a strong preference for the top shelf gear of their opposing army. You can see this in videos of people accidentally encountering cartel members: There’s a lot of similarities with normal militaries, but with a few more grenade launchers and heavy machine guns than what one would normally expect.

As an example: I’m an OK machine gunner (or, at least, I used to be decades ago), and while my preferred machine gun (Rheinmetall MG3) is probably not top shelf anymore, I’ve trained more in tactics with that gun than some cartel member has with whatever fully decked out kit they were given. My job wasn’t intimidation. My job wasn’t cartel security. My job wasn’t keeping track of people straying into our territory. My job was to be the best machine gunner I could be with the hardware that was standardized for my role. And I spent almost all day every day training with that as a premise.

I am of course not saying that I’m better than cartel members but they have other responsibilities too, whereas my focus was on one thing only, and the reast of the squad practiced our roles together extensively.

To approach the subject from a different angle: Let’s say you have someone under you, employed to ha dle territorial security- You supply them with the best that your contacts can provide for whatever money you can spare. And in Mexico (which I assume is a reasonable location for your story), this would probably mean an HMG akin to what the US army would use; M249

Broad strokes: Coincidentally having read up on both, it’s kind of like pirates vs navy in the 1700s: They’re both capable forces, but one side is superior in material while the other is superior in training.

Doctrines on the cartel side will be pseudo-militaristic in that some may have had military training at some point. But the cartel haven’t had the chance to drill the fundamentals on a daily basis.

And going back to the pirate analogy: A pirate ship is specifically tailored towards piracy, and will easily outgun any naval vessel of the same size. But while pirates can fire a huge fucking salmon salvo (ducking autocorrect), the navy is able to unleash a (slightly) smaller salvo at a higher rate of fire.

What I’m gett8ng at is that an army, due to the nature of how armies operate, may have trouble equipping Private First Class Gonzales with the latest and greatest hardware. But Gonzales’ vocational is to use his pewpew shooter all day every day to the best of his ability, and will therefore be better trained.

Cobain money can buy you bling, but it won’t buy you man-hours dedicated to army drills and squad tactics.

Note to self: Get around to wiring my UPS onto my management network for monitoring and graceful shutdown of non-essential stuff.

I was pleasantly surprised at Mobile, AL, of all places. Probably wouldn’t want to live there, but it seemed better than the other US cities I’ve been to

In no particular order:

• Half Life
• Factorio
• Kerbal Space Program
• Quake
• Minecraft
• Rollercoaster Tycoon

Yes, that’s 6. Sue me.

Honorable mention: Baldur 3, Dwarf Fortress, Mario 3, Deus Ex, Day of the Tentacle

Noodling on one of my guitars

When I need to run something that I can’t or won’t run at home, I usually spin up a machine at Hetzner. Cheap, reliable, and setup is fast. The server auction can give you a pretty nice hardware stack at a low cost, and you can cancel at any time.

However, the cases were I use hosting providers are becoming fewer and fewer, as I’m in the final stages of rebuilding my “homelab” the way I want it. If only those UPS batteries could arrive soon…

My dad died in 2014. I still have his number saved. No, I don’t delete contacts very often.

Seconded, although Mark ruined the concept of the Metaverse. And that sex scene with a 15 year old might need some rewriting. I love the book for its storyline and world building, but certain developments of the past 20 years stains the book.

Speaking of Stephenson, I wonder if Cryptonomicon could work as a TV series. Filming the two time periods without them seeming completely disconnected would be challenging, though.

Agreed. The underdark portion of his life would make for and excellent TV adaption.

HOWEVER

I don’t trust the current climate of TV production to pull it off properly. In all likelihood, if produced today, it’d end up as a Netflix series (or similar series) where the streaming format would throw off pacing, and after completing a season of sticking to the story, any subsequent seasons would stray far away from Salvatores stories in an effort to have mass appeal.

I think it would have worked 15-20 years ago. Not before, as the CGI necessary wasn’t there yet. Not later because formulaic streamability would ruin it (along with Netflix-lighting, ugh).

Maybe it would work again at some point in the future once the current trend of algorithmic slop has gone away.

I have vague memories of playing Ivan “Ironman” Stewart’s Super Off Road (1990) as a kid.

My country of choice was solely based on liking one of the anthems, but sadly I do not remember which one. Was Australia or New Zealand am option? I feel like it was one of those.

EDIT: Upon doing some research (watching YouTube videos), I think it may have been New Zealand. Still not sure if that was available in my game, but that’s still my final answer. Australia is pretty cool too, so you aussies and kiwies can fight it out amongst yourselves - Knowing you, you already are anyway.

Anything made to be run from battery can work fine without one. Worst case scenario requires you to spoof some I²C communication to properly emulate a battery, but most devices and batteries are far dumber than that. DC is DC, and sometimes you just need to graft something on top for the other pins.

Source: My old laptops charging circuit failed, so I soldered the charger onto the battery pins instead. Then I replaced the actual battery with an Adafruit Itsybitsy 32u4 (because that what I happened to have available) that emulated the battery status of “Charging, nothing to see here, move along” and sent it via I²C

Same. https://sh.itjust.works/post/65657453

Except for the 12 quid part

I think it should be celebrated by 60 of today’s “nobles” going through the same. As much as Musk wants to go down in flames with Trump, having them go down i poo would be much more satisfying to the rest of us.

I’ll agree to number five if those of us who lack the natural ability to not be interrupted all the time get the opposite in return. While they post, the rest of us can speak.

3-4 days straight, every 5ish months.

I used to work 5 week shifts on a ship, and as an introvert, once I arrived back home my social battery was well beyond spent. Since I was offshore, people were used to my phone being “outside of reception”. But the truth was that once I arrived back home it was an important part of my self care ritual:

Upon arriving back home, I sent an SMS to my mom letting immediate family know that I was no longer on the other side of the planet, but back home and safe. I then turned my phone completely off and left it under my bed, and did whatever I felt like doing. After about three days I felt ready to interact with society again.

Also valid, I just think I personally would prefer giraffe

A giraffe. Because it’s a giraffe, I believe no further explanation should be necessary.

I don’t really have any complaints, I’m just not a very happy person

The DOJ get paid very handsomely for the feces feast they are hired to endure.