u/chatterwrack

After several playthroughs, something just occurred to me that somehow makes this story even more heartbreaking: Ellie and Abby never really know each other’s stories.

Ellie figures out that Abby is a Firefly and assumes Joel was killed because he destroyed their chance at a cure. She never learns that the surgeon Joel killed was Abby’s father.

And Abby never really understands what Joel was to Ellie, that he was a father figure to her, or the complicated place their relationship was in when he died.

We get to know both sides intimately, but they never do. They spend the entire game destroying each other over grief that the other person can’t fully understand.

I’ve played this game several times and somehow never really stopped to think about that before (I’m sure y’all are smarter than me lol). It makes the whole thing feel even sadder.

Have you guys heard this? I found an old episode of This American Life—episode 666, so naturally the whole thing is Satan-themed.

The first act is about a preacher who got swept up in the Satanic Panic of the ’80s, became obsessed with Satanism and heavy metal, and somehow ended up touring with Slayer for a week because he thought they might actually need him to perform an exorcism. 😂

I’m falling asleep to a podcast, as I do every night, and from the twilight of the half-heard voices as I drift, Slayer punches through! I’m like, WTF is Altar of Sacrice doing on public radio? Lol. It’s a great story. It starts around the 8:50 mark, although it takes a couple minutes to get to the Slayer part.

I’m now at the point of the game where I comfortably fight Bastions, Bombardiers, Leapers, and Rocketeers, but I have not tried a Queen or Matriarch yet. I feel like I’ll do something utterly stupid.

What is your basic tactic to fight these and how should a beginner approach it?q This is basically that last thing left for me to do in the game, but I keep hesitating. Thanks guys!

TLDR: The tax credit used to reward automakers for using US-friendly battery supply chains instead of Chinese ones. After congressional Republicans eliminated the credit, that incentive disappeared, making cheap Chinese LFP batteries the obvious choice for low-cost EVs—ironically strengthening China’s battery industry while hurting US EV sales.

“Slate wasn’t initially focused on LFP batteries, the website InsideEVs noted last week. The reason was simple: In 2022, Congress passed a sweeping climate law that created a tax credit of up to $7,500 for buyers of new EVs. To qualify for the full credit, manufacturers had to use batteries assembled in the US, and, eventually, made using materials from the US and its allies. Critically, the new rules discouraged the inclusion of materials from Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China, all dubbed “foreign entities of concern.”
Manufacturers focused on affordability planned to build vehicles with those restrictions in mind, including Slate.

Those rules made it problematic to use LFP batteries. US scientists discovered the materials’ battery applications back in the 1960s. But more than a decade ago, Western and Asian battery-makers shifted their focus to other, more energy-dense chemistries. Chinese manufacturers, though, decided they were willing to exchange LFP chemistry’s range issues for its promise to lower costs and improve stability.

“Since then, Chinese EV giants including BYD and CATL have built up a robust supply chain around the chemistry, producing not only LFP cathodes, but also the capacity to mine, process, and manufacture everything else that goes into the batteries. Today, 97.8 percent of LFP cathode production takes place in China, according to figures from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a London research firm. (Nearly 85 percent of all cathode production happens in China, too.)
US automakers began to show interest in the technology even after the tax credit was first announced. Ford, for example, said it would partner with CATL to manufacture LFP batteries in the US, but the American automaker still had to weigh the cost and performance of the batteries with their tax-credit eligibility.
Then the rules changed, and automakers’ calculus got less complicated. Last summer, the GOP-led Congress fulfilled a long-standing Trump campaign promise to “end the electric vehicle mandate” by killing the tax credit. The move set EVs back in the US. Research firm BloombergNEF predicted earlier this month that US sales will fall by 19 percent this year because of the policy change, and the decisions automakers afterwards made to reduce their EV ”

Excerpt From
“How Trump helped China make America’s cheapest EV”
Aarian Marshall
WIRED
https://apple.news/AoQSjZMf-ToWy4VTGfjvCbw
This material may be protected by copyright.

Celeste and the other first-wavers must've observed the activity and have marked a site off the coast. Unclear if the rats originate there or have setup a make-shift flotilla for regrouping. Our forebears sacrificed everything to pass on the intel. Stay vigilant on the western side!

https://preview.redd.it/whqddg6pwh5h1.png?width=2158&format=png&auto=webp&s=790f9942740c8888b4daaa4213fcd1bac2748b73

I don’t know how this one escaped my radar because there’s three seasons already but this documentary is incredible on many levels.

It’s technically about big-wave surfing, but it’s really about obsession, aging, fear, ego, and people throwing themselves into conditions that look genuinely apocalyptic.

It follows surfers chasing impossible waves at Nazaré, Portugal, where the ocean looks less like water and more like a collapsing skyscraper. Half the time it feels inspirational and the other half it feels like watching people negotiate with death in real time.

The character studies pull you into an almost parasocial relationship with these people and leave them rattling around in your head long after the episodes end.

Even if you don’t care about surfing, the cinematography alone is unreal. And Phillip Glass did the score. *How did they get Philip Glass?!*