Is this loss?

That’s how you know what Freedom^TM tastes like!

Israel attacked Iran, because Iran launched a missile rocket volley at them, because Israel was attacking Iranian proxy forces in Lebanon (Hezbollah), because Hezbollah was firing rockets into north Israeli settlements, because Israel was decimating the Gaza Strip, because Hamas launched an attack last October, because Israel… because Hamas… because… because… because…

In the end, this ‘an eye for an eye’ will leave the world blind.

That’s deflation, and is actually really bad for society and the economy overall.

Honestly, more workers need to unionise and restore wages to where they should be (pegging back to rates in the 80s - 90s), minimum wage should be closer $25/hr.

If real wages continue to rise higher than CPI for blue/white collar workers, rather than the capital class - things would be a lot better overall.

W-Summon Knights of the Round; perfect time to go take a toilet break - except against maybe Ruby and Emerald weapons… 😅

Reading all of this makes me thankful me in my 20s was too lazy to get contacts (despite being too self-conscious for glasses), and me in my 30s was well-off enough to afford LASIK…

…yikes!

They really shouldn’t; simply because we can’t trust Israel to be a rational actor in the region and not perform a “pre-emptive” strike.

Voting is simply putting a word in for a candidate to fill in a subordinate role to your company’s HR department.

You won’t always get the one you pick, so it’s your responsibility to put forward the best candidate (primaries), vouch for them (voting), and keep them accountable to their KPIs (individual lobbying).

ETA: Remember, you’re basically looking to hire someone to look after you, your family, your friends and your community for the next n years; it also takes a lot longer to fix something, than it did to break it initially, and fixed things still wear the scars of the past.

He was discussing options where people oppose both ads and subscriptions as methods of payment for consumed media.

IMO YouTube Premium is the only subscription that I will probably never cancel as not only does it pay more to content creators than ad revenue does (per individual viewing), it directly financially supports the hundred-odd creators I enjoy (large and small).

If the cost is too high for you to justify, you can band together with friends to split the costs of a Family Plan and/or do as I do and VPN back to my home country where the cost is significantly less than it is where I live now!

…or it’s available on the service you subscribe to, but not in your region.

I just thought it was a speech impediment… 🤷🏻‍♂️

I doing think it was an one thing, but more-so a build-up over time - a death of a thousand cuts, if you will:

It was a cultural moment generally, just think back to all of those celebrity commercials (“I’m Mr. T and I’m a Night Elf Mohawk”). All cultural moments pass eventually.

The third expansion (Cataclysm) was quite weak to begin with; coupled with a lack of content in the tail-end of the second (Wrath of the Lich King), which itself was incredible - narratively wrapped up the story that began all the way back in Warcraft 3.

So a lot of people chose that time to bow out of the game, as it required a fair bit of time dedication and seemed like an appropriate time to do so - given the narrative pay-off.

Lastly, the introduction of a number of game tools to automate the group composition process meant that the impact of player reputation on servers was severely diminished. Before then, there players who were toxic (stealing items, intentionally killing the group, failing quests) were infamous on a server.

Once this tool was further opened up to allow for groups to form across multiple servers - the sense of community was shattered as you would have no way to know if the person from another server was good/bad etc. it stopped being about bringing in the individual player, and just getting a body in to fill a role.

As someone who was lucky enough to get to experience those first ~6 years; it truly was lightning in a bottle.

20 years on, I am still friends with a number of those I met in WOW - and an in contact with a few more beyond that!

Unfortunately, it does feel like that sense of community those early years fostered are long gone, save perhaps a blip when Classic first launched.

Who knows when the next game will come along, which will be able to foster such relationships.

If it’s within your budget, grab a Steam Deck and use it in docked Desktop mode. It’s a pretty great introduction into Linux IMO, especially due to the fact that Valve themselves are maintaining the OS, and since it’s running on a fixed hardware platform - most online solutions should be applicable to any problems you may encounter.

Worst case, you don’t like it you can always eBay it off to recoup most of your costs?

IMO: Pirate it guilt-free without a second thought. If you enjoy it, and deem it worthy of a rewatch - then buy the DVD/Blu-Ray.

Then rip a quality copy of it, and delete the previously downloaded one.

Random stab in the dark, but I could easily take this statement to be about Final Fantasy 7… 🤣

Even if it isn’t, it’s safe to accept that a lot of modern game tropes can have their origins traced back to 8/16/32 bit origins.

Basically what I’m trying to get at is that a lot of the time, the narrative was able to be seen as less cringey, and more cutting. Time has dulled the more sharp edges, or even moves public perceptions well beyond what was presented.

I imagine it would be a HIPAA violation for hospitals to release these details; you only hear about the ones that the individual families decide to make public by speaking to journalists…

…so it’s even worse/more common than you think.

Whelp, never comment again - because you aren’t going to be able to outdo yourself after this Masterpiece. 👌🏼

I was legitimately in my late 30s when I first realised this about myself too; the sheer amount of caffeine I can be on (upwards of 300mg pre-workout for an evening gym session), and be pretty much asleep before my head hits the pillow.

I have no idea the long-term impact this level of stimulants would have on my health (but I doubt it’s good), but it works!

My wife is extremely jealous of this, if she so much as looks at a bottle of Coke after 4pm she has trouble sleeping… 🤣

It’s not a stupid decision, but a stubborn one.

I’m 100% OK with that; Apple is heavy on design aesthetics. If a user doesn’t like that, they can just use their own preferred mouse - wired or otherwise.