Buck Hardcastle
Bio
Served in the Peace Corps in Ukraine, 2005-07.
Viscount of Hyrkania and private cartographer to the house of Beifong.
Stories (86/0)
To deny Ukraine aid is to deny the humanity of Ukrainians
Professor of political science at Northeastern University and author of Rules for Rebels: The Science of Victory in Militant History, Max Abrahm wrote a piece for The Atlantic entitled I Teach International Relations. I Think We’re Making a Mistake in Ukraine. He argues for not arming Ukraine. His points are more coherent than the cranks who would rather support Russia, but are ultimately just as flawed.
By Buck Hardcastle20 days ago in The Swamp
What do ya'll think defense budgets are for?
There's been increasing indignation about how much money is being sent to Ukraine. Part of the issue is that all the aid ends up getting announced twice: once when a funding bill passes congress and then again when each portion of that funding is actually sent, which can be spread out over many installments. This exacerbates American's long standing misconceptions about how much foreign aid we actually give. "Opinion polls consistently report that Americans believe foreign aid is about 25% of the federal budget, when it is actually less than 1%."
By Buck Hardcastle23 days ago in The Swamp
This ice water hack is causing people to shed money, I mean pounds!
I've been getting YouTube ads constantly lately telling me how people having been losing weight with this incredible hack of drinking ice water before bed. It annoyed me immensely because it was very obviously a scam, but I didn't understand how it was a scam. Money is being spent on these YouTube ads, there must be an expectation of a return on investment, but how were they going to make money off just telling people to drink ice water? Eventually I just had to click on the ad.
By Buck Hardcastle2 months ago in Longevity
6 Movies About Late Stage Capitalism
There are two wolves inside me, one wants to write about late stage capitalism and the other doesn't want to write a single sentence about Elon Musk, the poster child of late stage capitalism. The way forward is to write about movies.
By Buck Hardcastle3 months ago in Geeks
Alien Cat Girls; A Serious Story About
The light boom was one of Helmi's earliest memories. She had been outside and seen it with her own eyes. Her family had been coming home from a dinner out. As they were walking into their home the sky changed from night to a kind of eerie twilight. There was a new star in the sky suddenly except it was far bigger than any star, but not as big as the sun. Helmi stared at it in awe, later it would be hard to accept that this astounding event had lasted only three seconds. Her mother had not been awed, she had been terrified. She'd grabbed Helmi and rushed to the basement, expecting the end of the world to follow shortly. Many other people had the same reaction. When the sun came up the next morning and the world kept turning unfazed, people emerged from their shelter and started trying to figure out what had happened. Various theories emerged, that it had been a supernova was one most people accepted. A distant oddity that didn't really affect their life. Never mind that the science behind that idea didn't really hold--most people couldn't understand why it didn't. Another theory was that it was somehow China, except for in China which blamed America. We wouldn't know it was a light boom until seven years later.
By Buck Hardcastle4 months ago in Fiction
FINALLY a Gift Guide for GUYS!
Every holiday season comes and goes and I'm left wondering, why doesn't someone make a gift guide for guys? Don't shoppers need to be clued in where to find cool masculine tchotchkes? Well I'm done waiting, I took the initiative and made the first ever gift guide just for GUYS!
By Buck Hardcastle4 months ago in Geeks
The Strange Zombie Existence of Pan Am
Pan Am was once the de facto American flag airline. Where as other countries had state owned airlines--known as flag airlines--running international routes, America did not. We had Pan Am. It was both the biggest and know for it's luxury, including comely stewardess.
By Buck Hardcastle4 months ago in Journal
The most minor events can be news if they happen at Hooters
There was recently drama at a Hooters restaurant in Plano, Texas. A group of boys came in to try to sell chocolate bars and were escorted out by a manager. In response three adults came in and assaulted the manager.
By Buck Hardcastle4 months ago in Geeks
"Fat raindrops began sizzling on Shrek's hot knob"
In 2001 there was a lot of buzz about Shrek. When I saw it in theaters I wasn't that impressed. It wasn't terrible, I just didn't think it lived up to the hype. Well the years start coming and they don't stop coming, and now here I am in 2022 and it still seems like there's a lot of buzz about how great Shrek is. Particularly in the form of Shrek memes.
By Buck Hardcastle5 months ago in Geeks
Cowards all the way down
Tucker Carlson is a rambling nincompoop and bootlicker to dictators. He recently did another bad take on the war in Ukraine. He explained that Ukraine had no hope of winning (lie) that Russia was just too big, with a "relatively huge economy" (lie) and that there would have been peace between Ukraine and Russia already except that USA had vetoed a peace deal back in April--this is such bullshit it's hard to know where to begin.
By Buck Hardcastle6 months ago in The Swamp
A Review of Four AI Art Generators
Artificial Intelligence generated art is a hot new tech right now. It is despised by many artists. Well I'd love to personally commission some artists to create things for me, but I don't have the budget for that. It's been awhile since I've done an article on Red Sonja, my favorite comic book character, I decided to see what images I could make of her. The AI art that I hear about most is Midjourney A.I., and I could get good results with that, but that one costs money and again, no budget here. So here are some results from four AI art websites with free options.
By Buck Hardcastle6 months ago in Geeks
Glory to Ukraine
Grifters who are supposedly policy geniuses (and ones who are obviously not) advised Ukraine to try to negotiate or just outright surrender when Russia invaded. Ukrainians did not take this advice because they understood they were in an existential battle for their very existence as a people. There was no point negotiating with Russia because Russia is a bad faith actor who could not be trusted.
By Buck Hardcastle6 months ago in The Swamp
