Super weird it’s basically College Humor legally, but they’re doing a really good job.
Yeah, the transformation from College Humor to Dropout is honestly a masterclass in business (and marketing) management. I fully believe that it’s the kind of thing that college marketing majors will be writing papers on in the future.
Also, you can’t afford time off work to do anything actionable. And even if you could afford it by using accrued time off, the lack of worker protections means you’ll be unemployed as soon as you start doing anything too controversial.
It’s nice to say “just get into the streets” but the vast majority of Americans are one missed paycheck away from homelessness and food scarcity. The average American is basically living hand-to-mouth, (many are even putting groceries on credit) just to survive. Regime change sounds nice, but a revolt would take months or even years, and your kids will go hungry in a few days. The only Americans who really have the time and means to effect meaningful change are retired or rich enough to not need a job. And those two demographics overwhelmingly support the current regime, because they’re old and rich.
It can be difficult for Europeans to properly grasp just how dire the situation in America is. The average American would need to travel for at least three days just to reach the capitol. That’s a solid 3 days of driving, only stopping to eat and sleep. All while not being able to take time off of work. Saying “just go protest” is like telling someone in Madrid, Spain to travel to Warsaw, Poland just to protest against their “local” leadership.
“Oh but you can protest at the state level” I already hear some people typing. Great, my state capitol is 450 miles away. That’s not even an exaggeration, it takes a solid 8 hours of driving to reach my “local” capitol building. It’s not something the average person can just do on a whim, nor can they do it regularly. It’s not like the average person can just pop over to the capitol for a protest, then be back home in time for dinner.
Maybe go make some noise at the city level. But that’s not going to do anything at the national level (or even at the state level) because they’re far away and easy for the lawmakers to ignore.
Lastly, good luck revolting against the federal government. I’m sure the average gun-nut’s AR-15 will be extremely effective against drone strikes. Oh wait…
It’s because of the recent explosion in bot traffic. Bots are largely run on Linux, using basic desktop user agents. So when studies like this look at desktop traffic, they see a disproportionately high number of Linux desktop users. But in reality, the vast majority of those “users” are actually just bad bots and scrapers who aren’t properly flagging themselves as bots (because they know sites will block them for scraping content).
Piefed has a built-in blocklist that is controllled by the dev. db0 is on that hardcoded list, after the db0 admin called out the dev for something. So the answer to OP’s question is a resounding “yes, piefed is blocking them” but I think my instance is also on that list. So they won’t be able to see this comment.
Let me save you some trouble: It costs $20 to make an account.
HoS is a phenomenal piece of DLC that you’re supposed to play alongside the main story. It has a truly fantastic villain. BaW is a nice capstone for Geralt’s story, which takes place after the events of the main story.
I tend to fall into the “DLC is bad” camp, but both W3 expansions are perfect examples of how DLC can be good. I tend to dislike DLC because it tends to break (at least) one of the following criteria:
The base game is already complete, and doesn’t require the DLC for a full experience.
The DLC meshes neatly within the base game without feeling bolted onto the side.
The DLC adds genuinely interesting content to the game.
All three critera are what I would typically complain about with DLC, and Witcher 3’s DLC passes all three litmus tests. So any complaints I would have about them would essentially boil down to personal preference rather than objective reasons.
There is a running joke among the fanbase that the cat (Princess Donut) is actually the main character, and Carl is just along for the ride. There’s a reason Carl’s catchphrase quickly becomes “God damn it Donut!”
Donut essentially has an Enlightenment spell cast on her, which raises her from being a regular pet to being an actual sentient dungeon crawler. She gains the ability to speak, cast spells, etc… She gets a major stat buff to go along with this. However, she maintains the haughty prissy attitude that goes along with being an award winning show cat, so her being the defacto leader of the party ends up getting them into antics because of her behavior.
She does go through some pretty heavy stuff throughout the course of the series, but it’s mostly handled as if an intelligent (though naïve and impulsive) sentient character is dealing with them. She has a very solid character arc so far. There are some tough scenes throughout the series, because the dungeon is designed specifically to treat the crawlers inhumanely. But again, she’s sentient and fully capable of understanding (and planning/reacting appropriately) to what is happening around her.
Aside from that, there is also Prepotente, a goat who had the same Enlightenment thing happen to him. He isn’t introduced until several books into the series, (he is part of a different dungeon party, an entire flock of goats being led through the dungeon by his former goatherd) and he is treated like a crawler just like Donut is.
There is plenty of death and destruction, to be clear. It’s a game show designed to kill the contestants. Almost as if Squid Game were being run like a futuristic and very over-the-top Legends Of The Hidden Temple/Takeshi’s Castle. The vast majority of animal-related violence is things like NPC dungeon monsters.
Book 3 can be a bit of a slog if you get wrapped up in trying to decipher the Iron Tangle. The point is that the entire thing runs on vibes, not hard rules. The point is to confuse the reader right alongside the crawlers. But lots of readers ended up struggling as a result, because they wanted to figure out the specific rules of the floor. Anyone who claims to have figured out how it works has either missed a rule or made up some of their own.
Books 4 and 5 are where the series truly hits its stride. I’d say 7 is probably my favorite. 8 was probably the worst so far, mostly because it spends a lot of time setting up potential plot hooks for later. But that also leaves lots of potential room for growth with later books.
The series really hits its stride in book 4. No spoilers, but there is a distinct tone shift, and it’s when most readers say the series truly ascends from “great” to “amazing”. Also, calling it dumb fun is a pretty funny take. The entire series is a scathing rebuke of capitalism and conservatism, wrapped in a fart joke.
The whole series is a good example of how to turn a conservative into a social anarchist. Lonely white military bro with a harsh upbringing, who internalizes all of his feelings? And then suddenly being pushed into a scenario where you’re forced to be a badass hero asskicker? Yeah, Carl’s characterization was grown in a vat to be someone conservative men would imprint upon. He’s meant to be sympathetic to that demographic, so they can then sympathize with the person who is trying to burn the aliens’ entire end-stage capitalist system down and piss on the ashes. The ironic part is that many of those conservative readers end up on social media, arguing the Carl is actually conservative. Because they’re too wrapped up in identity politics to see that the individual actions have all been anything but conservative.
Err-… Uhh… I mean… God damn it Donut! Glurp Glurp! IWKYM.
Nah, I’ve been stabbed and shot. Getting shot was way worse.
I was stabbed while fighting some white supes who were trying to take over a bar. My buddy was working as a bouncer so we were there to hang out. It was winter so we all had big puffy coats on while we hung out at the front of the bar. He had some skinheads show up and try to get in. He started to bounce them, they pushed back, and suddenly they realized that everyone outside of the bar were his friends. We got into a tussle, and the six of us kicked the shit out of the five of them.
But afterwards, when the ambulances were parked outside, my buddy was like “hey uhh… You should go talk to the EMTs now.” I had a pocket knife sticking out of my shoulder, punched through my coat. I casually strolled over and was like “hey, is this… A problem?” Two of the EMTs immediately broke away from two of the skinheads to work on me instead. It sucked after, for sure. But at the time, I didn’t really feel it. My biggest concern in the moment was the fact that they cut my favorite coat to get it off of me. Having my arm in a sling was honestly the worst part about it, because it was on my good side. So I had to learn to do a lot of stuff with my bad hand, because my good arm was strapped to my torso.
Then I got shot (in the ass cheek, of all places) while being mugged outside of a music festival. I don’t even think he meant to shoot me; I think he was just an idiot. I remember the gun going off as my back was half-turned to him, (which is how he hit my ass cheek) then him cursing and taking off in the opposite direction. That one felt like a white-hot muscle cramp. Like the worst muscle cramp you’ve ever had, combined with a super over-exerted muscle burn like you just did a massive workout. Ever had a kidney stone? Sort of like that. Docs said I was lucky he didn’t hit my hip bone, because that would have been crippling at least, potentially even fatal. I still have a massive scar on my ass from where it tracked all the way across my ass.
Given, the adrenaline probably played a large part in why I didn’t feel the knife. But I had plenty of adrenaline while being mugged too, and I sure as shit felt that bullet. But yeah, insurance denying meds is definitely an issue. For my gunshot, they refused my pain meds. So I suffered through that entire recovery period with just ibuprofen, Tylenol, and weed. Ironically, they approved the meds for my stabbing without a second thought. And the stabbing hurt way less, even without any pain meds.
Yeah, pretty much. A large part of what made the face-pie so effective was simply the “we can still touch you” reminder. It’s a powerful message, because it reminds them that their bodyguards only need to fail once. It’s the old “you need to protect yourself every time, we only need to touch you once” thing. Which is why they’ve captured the courts and police, to deter attacks even when they aren’t under constant protection.
Similarly, I heard a kid call the Xbox 360 “vintage” the other day. I started to argue that it’s not that old. It only released in… (Checks release date)… 2005? Oh shit it’s over 20 years old. That’s the same as child-me considering the NES vintage when I was playing my PS1.
Pretty much every supermarket near me sells prepaid phones. And yes, they work exactly as you described. You buy minutes or data to add to your account, and then it sits in your account until you use it. Before the memory shortage price gouging BS, I could go get a burner phone for like $75 at my local Walmart or Target. No clue what they’d cost now, but they’re likely still pretty cheap as far as phones are concerned. The phones won’t have great hardware, but they’ll at least be able to run Android and can do all the things that modern smartphones can do… Albeit much slower than a flagship model.
As far as privacy goes, that will largely depend on your local laws. Drug dealers have historically used prepaid phones to avoid being tracked, (buy a phone card with cash, so you never have to use a debit or credit card to pay,) so governments started passing Know Your Customer laws that require the phone companies to verify and log your ID (tying it to your prepaid phone number, the same way a regular phone bill is tied to you) before they can sell to you. That way when the cops subpoena the phone company to see who owns a specific phone number, the company can actually tell them.
Believe it or not, there actually was an effort to block electric lighting. Because it was someone’s job to walk around the neighborhoods and light all of the streetlights. And “protect the jobs” has historically been a really awful argument against technology.
Yup. Being the largest minority doesn’t automatically make you the majority.
Unless you’re working with funny electoral college numbers, in which case ~34% apparently equals >50%.
I’ve joked about finding unopposed spots and running against them. Not because I want to win, but just because I want to force them to actually work for their spot.
It’s probably not the tech making the decision. It was probably the tech attempting to request one, (because they were out of/low on stock,) and being told by management to send it back as-is instead.
“Replacing that stick of RAM will cost more than the entire original purchase price of the laptop, so just say it’s faulty and let them figure it out. Never mind the fact that we sold them a laptop with faulty RAM.”
A tale as old as time hanging chads
Tight hip flexors can also cause back pain. There is a group of muscles that run from the inside of your hip joint to your spine. They’re called the iliopsoas muscles. They’re basically impossible to reach with regular massage, because they’re fully surrounded by your pelvis. And when those muscles are too tight, it causes lower back pain.
If you get lower back pain from sitting too long, or from laying on your back for too long, you may have tight iliopsoas muscles. There are technically ways to reach them for manual massage, but they’re not easy nor comfortable, (and they basically require a physician to do safely.)