PorkrollPosadist

Dude's face looks like a UV wrap texture

The "Audit the Fed" libertarians must be vibrating.

Last time I installed Windows I literally had to drop out of the install wizard and run a bunch of terminal commands in order to perform the installation without a Microsoft account. They're stricter about that than even having a fucking license key.

There are zombie troglodites in the tavern right at the moment the game was saved lmao.

The file works.

New wildlife spotted:

In Galena, our luck came in the form of a very unfortunately timed kobold raid. As the kobolds were attempting to reach our door, the roc Adkìrar arrived. The two groups met and repelled one another without our military having been involved.

Well there goes our chance to dine on Roc eggs. Probably for the best though, those things are devastating.

Update: Looks like the Kobolds managed to actually kill it. Wild. I thought they were total push-overs, now I'm scared of those little guys. The dead roc's SKELETON weighs 3720 ~~kilograms~~ Urists. I wonder if we can carve bracelets out of it...

Our towering loris friend is accumulating the blood of assorted cavern fauna like a Katamari.

~~53.08 is recommended,~~ but I think the save has already been upgraded and downgraded at least once so it might not be a big deal. World generation was run on 53.06, so I assume this is the minimum. Any new creatures / items / reactions / etc introduced after 53.06 will be missing from the world regardless of the game version used, though I'm pretty sure modified gameplay mechanics like the mining speed changes will apply.

Update: Looks like 53.09 was published on Wednesday. ~~This version is probably fine too.~~ The current file was saved with 53.09 so I guess we should commit to it

Change Log for 53.09

Graphics updates

New procedural graphics for small experiments.
New animal portraits, and some new full body animal tiles.
Can pop up basic small animal sheets to view portraits and read descriptions for small animals.
Offering place, display furniture, and nest box show proper item materials when placed as buildings.
Uses proper list icons for creatures when choosing animals in embark or adventure setup.
Added further box highlighting for chosen/hero/ordinary selection in Classic.
Added error log for unrecognized tile graphics rectangle tokens.
Properly sized giant flying/gray squirrel list icons and corpses.
Fixed upright weapon trap display error.
Minimap properly updates on certain recenter commands.

General updates

Stopped mood dwarves from choosing inaccessible workshops and causing path cancellation lag.
Dwarves no longer try to store pile and tomb items which are located outside their burrows.
Dwarves no longer try to store carried objects outside of their burrows.
Stopped dwarves with no working grasps from trying to store owned objects and excess equipment.
Made armor appear again on many non-sieging units where it was missing.
Mothers seeking lost infants no longer respect burrows but do respect chains.
Mothers no longer seek ghostly babies.
If an egg hatches and the mother is assigned to a zone (e.g. pasture), the baby is now assigned to the zone.
Soldiers given an order while hauling will now drop their hauled job items instead of taking them along on duty.
Dwarves heading off to meetings will drop hauled items from cancelled jobs.
Dwarves are more likely to handle their hauled drink-related items after drinking.
Appropriate buildings now stop rain and snow.
Added indication during assignment of specific military items whether the item is already assigned elsewhere.
Animal traps can catch subterranean water creatures like cave lobsters again.
Cave lobsters can be processed in the fishery and their shell can be used for shell crafts.
Creatures that leave statue corpses now leave statues of themselves rather than of random creatures.
Prophets and other religious people with prophetic belief systems will no longer include incorrect beliefs in their greetings.
Stopped pedestals and display cases from being allowed to display themselves.
Made mussels and oysters stop appearing on land when animals root around near oceans.
Stopped a few illegal werebeast types from being created.
Added visual button to back out of art element creation and deletion.
Fixed conflicting hauling/hot keys keybindings. You may have to restore defaults or update it yourself if you have custom bindings.
Specified amount created in some job names.
Fixed some item description grammar.
Fixed broken child/baby strings in certain contexts like action reports.
Cleaned up procedural creature text a bit.
Fixed incorrect name for coral material.
Fixed improper text for mythical dream objects.
Giant and animal person variants of pool creatures will now appear in savage lakes. (New worlds)
Fixed a few typos with key binding text.

Creatures that leave statue corpses now leave statues of themselves rather than of random creatures.

Folks. We need to catch ourselves a Bronze Colossus.

Pings

Players: @Moonworm@hexbear.net, @Doubledee@hexbear.net, @gay_king_prince_charles@hexbear.net, @booty@hexbear.net, @context@hexbear.net, @Oreb@hexbear.net, @Infamousblt@hexbear.net

Mods: @jack@hexbear.net, @RiotDoll@hexbear.net

Going to start posting these threads a little bit later (like now-ish, around 4:30 Eastern Time) so I don't have to do it at work. Also, matapacos.dog is going down for maintenance this weekend, so the files mirrored there will be temporarily unavailable.

It looks like Booty is finishing up his turn. He posted an update a couple hours ago:

Beardrenched update: It is the 12th of Timber, 205. A barfight began on the 11th of Timber, about 15 minutes ago. The game is running at 1FPS. The fortress has a population of 221 because I accidentally admitted an entire band of humans I think.

Finally something fun has happened. :)

I had a brawl like this happen once. With the Audible Alerts mod, it played that ticking noise maybe a thousand times continuously over the course of several seconds. I think 30 people died in my case. FPS should recover after the fighting dies down. Had a similar slowdown in a recent fort when 20 troglodytes escaped on their way to the magma pit and started fighting with the military in front of a necromancer.

NYCMesh is a good example to follow: https://www.nycmesh.net/

I mean, I'm sitting here watching a video of a guy wearing a "navy seals" beanie talking about how important it is to have a warrant before you kick down someone's door and kill them and nodding along.

Meanwhile, Governor Tim Walz orders the National Guard to prepare for unrest: https://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/MNGOV/2026/01/08/file_attachments/3515363/Executive%20Order%2026-01.pdf

(it is a remarkably well phrased order, but does ultimately boil down to "we need more troops to be ready to shut this down")

Jessie Ventura, former Minnesota governor and WWF wrestler returns: https://x.com/Breaking911/status/2009390030783910157

From the liberal perspective, continuity and redemption of the institutions synonymous with progress. The chaos of direct action, people taking things like self defense into their own hands, only frustrates this process.

Two people shot by border control agents in Portland: https://katu.com/news/local/ice-shoots-two-people-in-portlandoregon / https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-federal-agents-shot-two-people-portland-abc-affiliate-reports-2026-01-08/

(first URL says ICE, but apparently this was CBP for any pedants out there)

The rank and file has heeded the message. Their impunity will be defended by the full might of the administration and aligned media.

Along these lines, the administration will probably collaborate with the Republican caucus to do a "compromise" bill with the Democrats, only to exercise an unprecedented line-item veto power passing just the shit they want.

If the Midterms happen, it's going to be a bloodbath, and a LOT of new Democratic Warriors are going to enter Congress, carrying the righteous indignation of the voters.

I've seen this one before. In 2016-2018, the entire party, media, and generally any member of the public who could be described as vaguely progressive was in complete hysteria about the end of democracy. A massive national soul-searching was undertaken (within the boundaries of Liberalism). A massive pondering of "how did we get here?" Setting the absolute fixation on Russia aside, ideas of an epistemological crisis driven by disinformation campaigns on social media weren't unfounded. It also raised deep questions about the health and wellbeing of democracy in the US. There were so many problems to tackle, from felony disenfranchisement, to voter roll purges, to gerrymandering, media consolidation, the asphyxiating torrent of corporate campaign finance. All of these things contribute to creating the perfect storm which is our shambolic electoral system. For a moment, it seemed like people (like, powerful people) were beginning to realize we had let this shit slip too far, and that deep reforms were necessary to save the republic.

I was THERE. I was a true believer. A patriotic liberal who had come to realize what a smart thing Obama did. Taking a trust-fall into the arms of the institutions, rather than expediently circumventing them to side-step the oncoming disaster. I trusted the system. I felt a personal responsibility to contribute. I went to demonstrations, contributed to electoral campaigns, and spent nearly every waking hour trying to spread the gospel on social media. I had people on r/Politics asking me to run for Congress.

The Trump regime enjoyed total impunity for two terribly long years. At last the Democrats had retaken the house. Now was the time for investigations, transparency, accountability, reform, impeachment. They poured water on that REALLY quick. Delayed for demured for nearly a year before finally impeaching Trump over some extremely contrived bullshit, rather than the fucking across-the-board fraud and corruption.

With the incoming administration in 2020, it was time to fix all of these holes. To do something, ANYTHING about the onslaught of corporate money in elections, the ubiquitous corruption, gerrymandering (2020 was a Census year, after all), ALL the fucking bullshit they use to turn our elections into a fucking joke. It was also a time of acute revolutionary crisis, with the George Floyd Uprising fighting back in steadfast resistance to the impunity of the police state.

The time was ripe for long overdue reforms. What we got instead was a shriveled warm body who was run for the explicit purpose of preventing that from happening. The Biden administration spent another four long years doing everything in its power to sharpen every implement of state violence, reforming absolutely nothing of substance, only to hand the keys right back over to Trump.

This year a number of new Democrats will be elected as freshmen representatives. Some of them might even be GOOD, but the incumbents aren't going anywhere. They are the ones who control the party, control the committee assignments. They are the ones who will choose the leadership, and their decision will be driven by the same calculus that it always has been.

Jeffries and Schmuckie aren't likely to survive the leadership vote, and the next leaders will have to be willing to stand up to MAGA. This is what the people, and the incoming Congressional Warriors, are going to demand.

What gives you this impression? Congressional leadership is not a popular election. It is one of the first orders of business after swearing in a new Congress, when public pressure on the caucus is at its lowest. Schumer might leave just because he's ancient and bad for the brand, but we're not getting a radical. We're getting somebody who can maintain the status quo, but do the messaging better.

This is how the 90s Republicans spawned the Tea Party, which took over the party, then morphed into MAGA, and took over. The Dems are at the stage of creating their own Tea Party (Progressives) that can take control of the Democratic Party, and reconfigure it to reflect the true values of the Democratic VOTERS.

Again, do you live under a rock? What do you think the Sanders campaigns in 2016 and 2020 were? They were EXACTLY this. They fucking crushed it. It turns out the bourgeoisie finds social democracy to be utterly repulsive, while they couldn't care less about the personal power-play of a couple oil tycoons who want to "run America like a business."

If Democrats manage to gain power again, they'd better hold people accountable, or we will hold them accountable.

We've already run though the cycle of expecting the Democrats to hold people accountable, and then trying to hold the Democrats themselves accountable. There is NO accountability.

And weak citizens like you, trying to convince people that it's already over,

Ok. How many hours have you spent standing in Lafayette Square shouting at the White House in the pouring rain? How many times have you packed a tent and a sleeping bag and skipped going to party with your friends because something must be done, even though you know that something will change absolutely nothing. How many nights have you spent sleeping on the cold city concrete to maintain an encampment? I vote. I go to demonstrations. I used to write my representatives too, but I know my representatives well enough to know I am better off writing to my allies. I've been doing "my civic duty" for nearly two decades now. Long enough to know this is not going to cut it.

It IS over buddy, but don't worry. It is not the end of the world. This sclerotic republic must die, so something new and beautiful can be born from the ashes.

While there's a reasonable chance the Democrats take the White House on the sole issue of wanting to slow the chaos, the party has no constituency at all anymore, aside from people who consider reading the bourgeois press to "keep informed" a matter of civic duty.

The way the overt fascism and criminality is ramping up almost guarantees another attempt at an auto-coup, but like somebody commented recently, the US lacks an influential, organized, menacing left, leaving the regime with full impunity on one hand, but no convincing enemy to scapegoat on the other. The regime is going to be exceptionally unpopular (and that's saying A LOT) come 2028, despite their enthusiastic fascist base. It will come down to a matter of force (generally, how the officer corps feels about things).

Dawg what fucking world do you live on? Have you seen the Democratic leadership? Schumer was chumming it up with Rubio YESTERDAY. They are not going to hold anyone accountable.

People have hung fliers in the laundry room here selling bulk detergent.