Right, like the main character, who is a scientist, is just playing a videogame most of the time. And he literally sees a countdown timer that no one else sees but the urgency to save himself just doesn’t exist for some reason.

Yeah I read The Redemption of Time. It’s a little cringey at times and reads like fanfiction you might see on AO3 but I still think it was a fun read. I would certainly not consider it to be canon though.

Honestly I agree with a lot of your criticisms. The first book is mostly just setting up the story for the next two. I always forget the first book is mostly a murder mystery because the other two books lean in such a different direction.

The main character doesn’t really do anything for the story. It feels like the plot happens around the main character and nothing would’ve changed without them. Fortunately every book has a new main character and the one from the first book is never mentioned again. Personally I think the characters are much better written as the series goes on.

I am big fan of the series so I’m pretty biased when I recommend to try the second book, but if you have to force yourself to read a book then it’s probably just not for you.

Just finished up Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes and am starting up The Stranger by Albert Camus.

Three Body Problem is so good. I would highly recommend reading the 2 sequels when you finish. It only gets better after the first book!

That is verifiably wrong. Daryl Davies is a black man who has convinced dozens of members of the KKK to renounce their beliefs and their robes. You absolutely can convince people that their beliefs are wrong.

There are benefits of overhead lines. They are cheaper to install, maintain, and repair. Diagnosing problems are much easier as well. They’re certainly uglier and easier to damage but you don’t have to dig up the road to fix them.

Newer cities shouldn’t install overhead lines but to have old cities with overhead lines switch to underground ones is very expensive and takes a lot of time, something smaller cities likely don’t have the budget for.

One of my favorite things about this DLC is how they made the legendary bloatfly be one of the toughest enemies to kill. This bug has double the HP of the legendary deathclaw and can one shot you if you go in unprepared. I love this game so much.

True and I certainly don’t doubt that there are plenty of idiots at home who think that calling in a bomb threat to a school will accomplish something. But it’s also very easy to call in a bomb threat and for a politically charged situation like this, it would be a no brainer for a foreign state actor to take advantage of the situation. It costs them next to nothing and further fuels the political divide within.

If there’s dozens of bomb threats being made to the same schools, I would more surprised to find out that rival superpowers aren’t behind at least one or two.

If you read the article, they mention how some of the threats are coming from other countries. So while some of it may be dumbass racists thinking they’re achieving something, a good amount of it just comes down to foreign powers sowing discord and election interference. Calling in a bomb threat related to a politically divisive topic is a pretty low effort thing to do if you’re a rival superpower.

The writing is exceptionally well done as is everything else about the game. The story is nothing crazy but the dialogue and characters are where the writing really shines. If you’re a fan of the genre, this is definitely worth picking up especially since it’s only $20.

I’m not saying they shouldn’t be marketing at all. Just that marketing budgets for many AAA blockbusters have become so bloated, they can account for nearly half of the development cost. As someone with very little knowledge as to how games get made, it seems like some of that money could be better used

Marketing is a big money drain for a lot of games too. Cyberpunk 2077 and GTA V are two games with marketing budgets big enough to finance a dozen other games. I guess a new title like cyberpunk would need more marketing (still not $142 million worth of marketing) but GTA was already a well established franchise that probably didn’t need as much marketing as it had.

Even games like call of duty and assassins creed which have a core fan base that can expect a new game on a regular basis don’t need to market as much as they do.

To me, fallout is more about the setting and aesthetics than the story and the TV show captures those two points very well! It’s definitely very campy at times but I’ve found it to be a really enjoyable watch so far (just finished episode 5).

I really like how much of fallout is crammed into the show, from the brand names for foods to the vaults and monsters to the music. They really do make the setting the core aspect of the show, which was all they really had to do to make a good fallout show IMO.

The plot and many of the character’s decisions are probably the weakest points so far but it’s all stuff that easily overlooked.

Overall, very pleasantly surprised by how good the show is.

But they literally cannot moderate their platform. The amount of data that Facebook sees every minute would bankrupt any company if they had to actually hire enough people to go through all that content and determine which is fine and which isn’t. And that isn’t even taking into consideration the mental and emotional damage that a person will go through just seeing all the vile and despicable shit that gets posted. AI moderation isn’t advanced enough and the human moderation cost is so great that the giant social media companies will pretty much never be able to self moderate. Reddit was only able to moderate itself (to an extent) because they had an endless supply of free mods. Facebook doesn’t have that same luxury.

If you are too lazy to pickup your own food and need someone to deliver it to you, then yeah it is your job to pay those people. You expect someone to want to bring you food for free?

Yeah when I got it done, my doctor told me to consider this as permanent procedure even though it is possible to reverse it. They want you to make this decision without the idea that a reversal is quick and easy or even possible

I never said that if you pay them enough then they won’t take bribes. You could pay them a billion dollars a year and there’ll still be some corrupt bastards looking for bribes.

What I was saying was that if you don’t pay them anything, then it will be impossible for regular, working class people to ever become politicians.

Then the only people who can actually be congresspeople will be the ones who are already rich. Public service should pay enough that those who work in government shouldn’t need a second source of income to provide for their families. Paying politicians $10k a year will only incentivize them to accept bribes from lobbyist and corporations, leading to career politicians.

What are the dimensions of each plate?