And with that, I make like John Galt and never see that uncle again.

Fuckin’ rad.

I was just a tiny bit too young to get into it properly, as my brother and I would turn off enemies and just explore the world in that game (I loved vents and secret door). Instead, I got heavily into its level maker.

I was 9. Lol

Wow. I see now why experts are saying that was written by Russia, at least in part. Especially the parts clearly steered by Russian propaganda like the Nazi thing. Also 50% to the US? That’s really, really stupid.

Nice, earlier this year I wanted to to likewise but with Professor Oak challenges, which is get every Pokemon as early in progression we possible. I did it on Blue but it was quite miserable grinding lvl 36 Blastoise fighting only lvl 6 stuff prior to the first badge.

Suffice to say I took a break after that, but I’ll hit Silver next. Fast forward on emulation was a godsend, as well as achievement tracking for keeping track of how many more I had to grab before the next badge (it got really weird because you can skip Lt Surge and just keep going without the HM lol)

NPR is definitely making out like a bandit, they were using the loss of funding in their fundraising lately so they kinda get two wins in a sense.

Odd thing to me is it never even changed their coverage much even after the cuts, they’ve always both-sides with guests since they’re the go-to with standing politicians, a little more than half being Republicans. The left leaning thing mostly just comes from facts having a liberal bias, as they say. Lol

I don’t think the question is what level math to end on, but rather how math is taught. I teach psych statistics at University and the average student does the math parts mostly fine (it’s just algebra) but their critical thinking and application of the math is usually what is sorely lacking regardless of their ending math course. And in the real world where we do everything with computers, the application is 99% what matters.

I’ve had people in middle age who dropped out in 6th grade in Mexico do better than fresh-from-US-high school calculus experienced students, and that’s not even taking into account this more recent COVID-survivors generation that feels like they skipped a year of education. It’s very… grim.

I agree we don’t know if they’re loss leaders yet. I will say that even if the hardware is priced at a loss, though, it’ll sell more Steam games. Ultimately I don’t know if it really matters.

Though yeah, people should get past headlines. Lol

Headphones won’t break your ears any worse than loud speakers do, and noise cancelling headphones are actually a solution to blocking loud noise (e.g. construction), or for people who get overstimulated.

In fact, since headphones can block out sound you might even be listening at a lower volume than if you were trying to drown out sound with speakers, assuming the headphones have any noise cancellation (even just muffled cups). Even just competing with ambient noise can cause us to raise volumes more than necessary.

I read the comments because of your comment and now I second this. Don’t read the comments on that video.

One of the worst US congress members shares a last name with me, but it’s also so common that it’s pretty diluted. It needs to be both infamous and uncommon, sharing a last name with millions of people ain’t that.

Then again, Epstein is kinda common and I can’t help giggle when I bring up a certain researcher with that last name and call her model the Epstein model.

This is such a weird timeline. Or maybe not, I guess I could also imagine Mr. Rogers doing what Ms. Rachel’s been doing.

Haha, your quote is almost the exact line I’ve read. HR email was literally saying how they should talk to them first and about them failing. Lol

I wish Nancy Pelosi only the best in private life, but let this be the final time we utter her name.

I can’t speak to Rockstar directly but I do know some game companies send anti-union propaganda emails regularly. To take the next step and fire people is entirely believable given when I’ve seen HR push out.

You basically described the economic concept of consumer surplus. When a product is entirely dependent on the price a consumer is willing to pay because the supply is infinite, the natural result is… this.

Except they shouldn’t be price discriminating; it’s easier and more effective to just offer tiered pricing structures (e.g. collectors editions) and eventual sales (e.g. 50% off after a year) to hit people at different places on the supposed consumer surplus curve. As you note, the undermines your confidence in the prices but you’re likely a little lower on the curve compared to the “must have on day one” crowd.

That said, the whole theory also explains why freemium is so attractive. When there’s no price minimum, the optimal price is 0 and you work your way up with features and perks (while also raising the price people are willing to pay by getting them hooked). It’s all nasty business, lol

Oh no, Trump’s gonna enact more tariffs in retribution isn’t he.

Mumble was… fine. My friends actually moved to Discord from Mumble for our MMO stuff but that was primarily because it was easier to invite randos to the chat. That quality makes it almost impossible to break away from atm.

I recall the latency being only a little worse than Discord, but I think that’s because a friend set up the server at his work as a side thing (he also hosted Minecraft and Terraria). It’s not too complex to setup, but your quality will depend a lot on the computer and network you’re running. At least, it did for us, back in the day.

We’ve thought about alternatives to Discord. Old names were Ventrilo and TeamSpeak but they’re just not very modern. Plus, now almost every chat app has voice, too. Just, for features, it’s hard to beat Discord at this… though I’m willing to read the other comments to get for ideas, too. Lol

If it makes you feel better, I’ve noticed a lot, lot more private security in the uber-rich neighborhood I have to pass to get to work.

They’re scared.

Well they need someone there; if you just exile people to hell without a plan you end up with Australia.

My dad got a gimmicky aurora beaming lamp thing and it’s kinda cool but if it was mine I 100% would set it up in my kitchen for this exact reason.