Posts

MEFO Bills: Or how the Nazis created a Ponzi scheme to rearm Germany

 This little blog post is about a bit of economic history that tends to be glossed over in many history books, at least those without a strong economic focus. In fact, it's both ingenious and moronic in equal measure, but the Nazis made heavy use of it to rearm for what would be World War II and I wanted to cover it. First some background. After World War I, Germany was forbidden to rebuild their military beyond a pitiful level, mostly because the guys who won did not want Germany trying to go for round 2. Of course, the Nazis had every intention of going for round 2, but they needed to find a way to pay for the rearmament expenses without getting caught, and also do so without scaring away people because they were a terrible credit risk. It's really hard to do both because credit requires public records of your ability to pay back debts to act as a basis for your ability to get credit. At least, that's how it usually works. The Nazis thus had to get a ton of money by hook

I have decided to rehost some of my old mods, here is why

 Before I continue, please refer to this post, where I explain why I took my mods off Nexus Mods and why any further contributions there are permanently off the table as far as I'm concerned: https://gethn7.blogspot.com/2024/08/a-little-more-information-as-to-why-my.html With the above in mind, I have elected to restore some of my old Nexus work to Bethesda.net. Note, not all, because some were already there, and some I cannot be sure works now, and I wish to wait until I have time to do this. Bethesda.Net has not, to this date, given me the slightest hassle about what I post off their site that has to do with my personal worldviews, all they care about is game mods. I expect no trouble with them, unlike Nexus Mods, Bethesda just wants to make money and promote their games and I just want to make mods with the tools they graciously provide. I don't even make mods that touch on social or political topics, mostly just patches, gameplay alterations, and the rare model or texture m

Butterkäse and my observations

 This is going to be a short blog, but it's on a cheese I've long wanted to try and my sister again came in for the clutch and managed to find it for me. Without further ado, let's cover the first German cheese on my cheese-tasting journey, Butterkäse. Butterkäse ( pronounced as "boo-ter-kay-zuh" ) is a German semi-soft pasteurized cow milk cheese. Literally meaning "butter cheese" (because of its taste and texture being very butter-like) and "ladies cheese" (due to its very mild taste and appearance), this is a cheese of wide renown in Germany and Austria, and American cheesemongers in Wisconsin are also known to make their own. Here are some facts before I begin the taste testing. First off, this is a young cheese aged about a month at most with a high degree of milk fat. While it is made from the curd and the whey is drained off in the process, there is little attempt to drain any and all moisture from the curd, meaning the curd remains soft

Red and Piave Cheese, my taste testing

 I would like to dedicate my latest cheese-tasting blog to my sister, who was gracious enough to see about procuring the cheese I tested for this review from her local cheesemonger and sending some my way. This is not going to be an overly long post, as I only tasted two new varieties, but both are fairly unique and deserve some discussion. The first cheese I tasted was Westminister Rustic Red Cheddar. Red cheddar is a bit interesting in that its creation was the result of a happy accident. Specifically, it was originally created by the accidental mixture of Lactobacillus helveticus starter culture into what was meant to be a cheddar cheese. This starter culture is commonly used in Swiss and Emmental-style cheese, so the original cheesemaker was worried it would taste terrible. To their pleasant surprise, the final product tasted great. As the name suggests, it's distinctly dark orange-red in color. The texture is similar to cheddar but more crumbly like an Italian hard cheese. The

My personal game journalism vows and why I have them

 This is just a retrospective post on what I vowed to myself when I decided to become a regular games reviewer (and this applies to all other relevant media). This is NOT anything with official backing or sanction from my current employers at ChristCenteredGamer, this is just my personal code of honor, though to my knowledge none of it is in conflict with the expectations of my current employer. 1. The subject I'm reviewing must be the primary topic, and nothing else. These days, some of my more politically and socially partisan brethren in the games journalism business will typically derail a review about a game to complain about not enough people of some sort of minority group, how capitalism is evil incarnate, sexual identity and gender politics, and other things that are clearly more interesting to them. The game review part is practically a sidebar to what they actually want to talk about. Not me. I work as a volunteer, but even if I were paid, my first duty is to primarily di

Why I could not enjoy Starfield

 I have been a longtime Bethesda game fan. Their Elder Scrolls and Fallout games haven't been the greatest, and often are deeply flawed, but each had its own unique charm that Starfield lacked, which is the core of why I just could not enjoy it, so let's do a retrospective. Be advised, will contain spoilers. Arena was the first Elder Scrolls, and I'll admit, never really got into it. It was clearly a game that was more a tech demo experiment repurposed from a completely different game concept (it was to be generic arena fighter before it became an open-world RPG prototype), and it had some really cool ideas married to horrible balance, a game engine that was clunky even when it first released for DOS, and wasn't even a true open world game, the open world being more a series of looping randomized maps with some unique dungeons. That said, even then it had a few good ideas I hope to see fleshed out in a better game. Daggerfall was my first RPG love. Sure, it was even MOR

A little more information as to why my mods were deleted off Nexus Mods and I will no longer contribute there

 Today, I had to make the incredibly painful but necessary decision to cease, now and in the future, having anything to do with contributing to the website Nexus Mods. I have broken no rules there, I had no posted any comment in any fora there that was the slightest bit mean, cruel, inflammatory, or hateful. In fact, I made a point to avoid causing trouble there. Unfortunately, it seems certain people from there (whose names and identities I will not reveal out of respect for them) found my blog here, and took severe umbrage to a certain blog post I made and my comments, particularly my opinions on transgenderism and being nonbinary. This, to be exact: https://gethn7.blogspot.com/2021/06/i-was-recently-globally-banned-from.html The party in question contacted me via private message about their offense to what I wrote OFF the Nexus and revealed they considered it a personal attack (it was never intended as such, that was their choice). I told them yes, I wrote it, and would not recant m