At least where I’m at, I think it’s more dangerous to drive the speed limit on the highway than to go 10 over, just because of other drivers. Driving the speed limit makes many other drivers lose their goddamn minds and drive insanely unsafely just to get around me. It’s wild the things people will do just to get to their destination a minute or two faster.

Fun fact: It’s actually possible for two countries to both be authoritarian!

The Houston police department have not released the identity of the boy or the occupant of the home, but said a middle-aged man has been arrested and several weapons were later recovered from the home.

It happened on Sunday; that’s all the consequences that have happened thusfar. There will likely be a trial, but the justice system moves a lot more slowly than it would have to for there to be anything more than that yet.

Spreadsheet Architect, Powerpoint Guru, Wordsmith

It’s all ‘pasta’ in my house. Including the spaghetti.

If they didn’t want to over hype or give false hope on development for the game, maybe they shouldn’t have hyped the game off the back of their first game more than 6 years too early, idiotic choice imo.

Hey, just in case you’re unaware, they kickstarted the original Hollow Knight, and one of the stretch goals (which was met) was a second playable character (Hornet) as a DLC that backers would get for free. While they were making that DLC, the scope just expanded to the point of it being an entire standalone game (Silksong). They had to communicate to backers that they were forestalling the promised DLC in favor of a sequel; the cat would have been out of the bag then whether they wanted it to be or not. Better for them to announce the sequel publicly at the same time, rather than have it leak via their Kickstarter update.

I often catch myself using Downloads to store a very suspicious quantity of files.

Even if there weren’t a million examples of prior art, the fact that patents on game mechanics are even allowed is just awful for the industry as a whole, and we as players should absolutely rail against this. Every game borrows from other games’ ideas and mechanics - I’d bet money that there hasn’t been a single fully “original” game in 20+ years. If companies are allowed to patent every little mechanic (even ones they didn’t come up with), the industry as a whole will just become impossible to operate in.

Essentially nobody is complaining about the quality of care available here. The problem is that only the rich can really afford it. Most people will avoid going to the doctor if at all possible, just because they can’t absorb the cost even if they’re just told to take an Aspirin and sleep it off. Long-term care for anything serious is just impossible to recover from financially for most people - it literally bankrupts entire families. With how hard it is to move up a prosperity bracket, that’s a devastating blow that is often felt for generations.

I think your view might be slightly skewed because you have free care available, and can go to the US or Mexico for better options if you can afford it. Here, if we can’t afford it, we have nothing, or we assume tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

Many, if not most, of us are jealous of other countries, though. Really, this is only a hard truth for the MAGA crowd, and even that is (I think) largely the fault of the nationalist propaganda that’s been shoveled at us since we were kids.

As an American, I agree with you, though - the US is in no way a ‘strong democracy’, or much of a democracy at all. It may once have been, but it certainly hasn’t been the case for a long time.

Halo Infinite: Post-season 5, battle passes are now free during their introductory season, but cost $5 to unlock afterward

Marvel Rivals: Battle passes will not expire if you bought the $10 Luxury pass during the season

These are not FOMO-less. Marvel Rivals sounds like the worst of the three in that regard. The ‘old’ method incentivized you to skip buying a battle pass if you weren’t going to finish it (because you’d lose rewards); MR’s system gives you a FOMO CTA to make that purchase to stop you from losing rewards.

Compare this to, say, Dead By Daylight, where there’s “seasons” with unlockable rewards, you can get them for free, and you can keep unlocking them after the season ends.

You’re thinking of the Winter Solstice, which was on Dec. 21!

Every time I hear conspiracy theories about reptilians secretly pulling the strings, I wish so fucking bad that it was true. I’d take that in a heartbeat.

There’s also a wide range of player skill levels to consider. If you aim to make a game not be frustrating for most players, it’s going to be boring for a large percentage of the best players. If you aim to make a game challenging for the best players, it’s going to be unapproachable for most. Different difficulty tiers of the same fight helps to address that but still alienates players if they find even the lower difficulties too challenging. It’s a delicate dance.

I swear this has the opposite effect. In more than one instance, I’ve told someone I’m ace and it’s made them more persistent, like they’re thinking ‘Oh, I can fix that.’ No, I assure you, you can’t. Please stop. :(

Well, this all but guarantees that we’ll see more ridiculously high priced consoles in the future, too. Good going, folks!

I wonder if ‘Stegosaurus’ is also porn…

We just need to treat it like the Biblical story of the plagues in Egypt. We’re now at the stage where we ask nicely for systemic improvements. When they decline, another, more severe ‘plague’ befalls them, and we repeat the process.

If there’s anywhere he could just be himself without the suit…

I think this is really situational. In a store, I’d say you should pay the list price, but it’s more nuanced with other types of businesses. As an example, what if your friend is a contractor, but they’re a bit more expensive than a competitor, and you need work done?

If you hire the competitor, it creates an awkward situation, but you don’t want to pay more. The conversation can easily go:

• “I need someone to do this job.”
• “I’m a contractor, I can do it.”
• “Money’s a little tight right now, and you’re a bit more expensive than your competitor.”
• “We’re friends, I’ll do it for their rate.”

You haven’t asked you friend to give a discount, nor did you ask them to do it for free. You both did each other a favor - you got the work done at the cheaper rate, and your friend got the business that might have gone to their competitor. If the friend doesn’t want to give the discount, they have an easy out: “Oh, no problem! [Competitor] does good work.” On a similar token, they don’t feel like you went around them.