Johann

Oh yeah base game spirits for sure, especially if you figure spirits exist as a way to pay tribute, so to speak, for characters not in the game, and thus were not planned to be added. Spirits and Mii fighters added after whenever they decided on Fighter Pass 2 are probably not gonna happen if you consider those things as that same sort of tribute. Trouble is, we don't know when they decided on those spirits/costumes or Fighter Pass 2 itself, so we can't determine any kind of cutoff I guess.

Considering people are constantly struggling to find/afford housing, how is it not already absolutely necessary? Markets don't encourage efficiency, they encourage individuals turning a personal profit regardless of the impacts on others. It's a total failure. This isn't a matter of making all housing outright free, it's reigning in the market and having the government address its own failures in housing. Fuck their value. It comes at the expense of the poor. Fuck those homeowners. In most cases, they're private companies charging rent and doing little to nothing to maintain the buildings, not individuals or families buying nest eggs. Then you know nothing about it. Every single food-insecure person is a failure of the market and the government. In 2018, 37.2 million people lived in food-insecure households in the US. That's more than 10% of the population. It doesn't mean jack shit to say "well, at least it's not as bad as healthcare" and ignore the very real immediate problems and what's causing them. You know, one of the perks of having a fiat currency is that when we need money for essential things, we get it. People's lives are ruined because housing is not affordable and the damage it does outweighs the cost of a program that resolves it. Saying it's too expensive is an argument used to push for more private control, which is why we have a problem in the first place. Ah right, I forgot about your delusion over the Russians being a direct military threat that we need expensive weaponry to deal with, instead of the cyber threat that we need to be shifting our resources towards. Dude, we've been in a housing crisis for-fucking-ever. Like just google "housing crisis" and look at anything. It's only going to get even worse because of COVID's effect on most people's ability to afford anything.

It's paid for by increasing taxes on the wealthy and better appropriating government money. For one thing, the cost of operating welfare and unemployment offices, etc is eliminated since those services aren't necessary. Testing it makes sense, but it's mostly a matter of understanding how it affects behavior. Well, with UBI or something similar, the companies wouldn't be paying interns directly, but through heftier corporate taxes. Without UBI, it should fall on companies to pay. They're getting labor in exchange for little to nothing in return. They're hiring interns because they need their work, not because they can't afford to pay them. The alternative is to go without, or hire someone like a temp to do those jobs, at which point they're still paying. Gordon Ramsay became rich and famous for having a brand and being a TV personality. Cooking alone does not make you that wealthy. Fair market price is bullshit because the market is inherently bullshit. The price of housing is significantly higher than it needs to be. The biggest issue with gentrification is that it displaces renters. You need to be looking at the externalities instead of reducing it to only the buyer/seller relationship. Citing specific examples that might not be exploitative is besides the point when it's about the entire market being overwhelmingly exploitative, while also wasting food and not feeding everybody. You don't just tax the wealthy, you tax major corporations. You cut the ridiculously hyper-inflated defense budget. You profit by investing in the people. The only meaningful difference between "luxury" and "affordable" housing is the rent. Luxury is just a marketing term. Relying on the private sector to handle housing is the reason we have a housing crisis. All of these issues are rooted in leaving it up to the market without enough regulation. If you want an extremely deep dive into public housing from a civil engineer, check out this (very lengthy) video:

Dream scenario is the Splatoon treatment, where you get 4 female and 4 male alts, each with a unique armor set. I was a little concerned when Byleth was shown off cuz their moveset is very MH-like, but then there are still like a dozen other unique weapons a Hunter could use, like Switch Axe or Gun Lance. MHW is the formula going forward for sure, it's the best selling game in the series by a landslide. I imagine they didn't bring it to Switch due to graphical issues and that Switch is designed to support portable and local area play in ways PS4 or PC can't.

A year ago I would've said Resident Evil, but after they added the spirits for them and considering that it's possible they don't want something that features extra grotesque creatures, I think it's out. I think it'll be Monster Hunter. It's one of Capcom's biggest franchises and curiously lacks anything beyond Rathalos and his Ancestral Steppe "stage", while also having more than enough material to create a character. The aesthetic and personality of the MH series is a natural fit for Smash, too. Some have speculated a new MH game on Switch is likely, perhaps as a tie-in reveal.

Xenoblade X ends on a sort of "more adventures with Elma to come" sort of thing. I don't think either Rex or Elma are super likely for Smash DLC at this point, but it's within the realm of possibility that another Xenoblade game is announced with Elma as the lead.

Do you not see the problem in either choice? If you apply a threshold for disabilities, you're going to under-support many people. If you do it case by case, you're dedicating a massive amount of resources towards trying to make sure you don't overcompensate people-- it's a wash. The idea isn't to make it so nobody has to work, it's to make it so there's a universal safety net since a conditional one screws over a ton of people and costs even more to operate. Nothing guarantees a job though. And if you can't survive because you need a job to get essentials like food and housing, then you're 100% at the mercy of employers and the markets. Providing better support/relief/payment for interns and students is in the best interest of companies because it expands the hiring pool and gets better educated, diverse, and happier workers. The only way anyone is getting a healthy work-leisure balance is if their income is good and expenses aren't ridiculous. People work overtime because that's not the case. The only way the government can help with that is to either regulate housing and pay/benefits, or give out free things. That's literally it. What markets do you think are fine? You should consider government subsidies in your response. One of the biggest issues with the housing market is that developers deliberately build expensive housing for the sale price. Luxury homes are built because they have the highest ROI, which is great for the seller (and potentially for the buyer), but it fucks over anyone else given the impacts that has on communities (like gentrification). That's the reason there's a supply issue; developers are doing what's best for them individually, at the expense of everyone else. Commodifying a basic survival need like housing is the reason the market is so fucked. Funny you mentioned agriculture because it's subsidized like crazy, which is why we have issues with growing too much of specific crops, arbitrarily importing and exporting some crops for a slight mark-up, tons of food waste, and environmental degradation. Except it's not fair and square. It's straight up exploitation. You need food and a home, you don't get to choose not to pay for them. Nobody gets rich off of them without serious exploitation. The government doesn't need to break even by collecting rent. It's not a business. It exists to support the people. Providing housing for those who need it should be one of the top things it does. It pays for this stuff with progressive taxation on the wealthy. Charging rent is effectively taxing people for being poor, which defeats the whole point. Even before COVID, colleges all across the country have been closing down or at least having drastic drops in enrollment. Even community college isn't free, and you can't ignore the opportunity cost of the time you spend learning compared to working. You're not really paying attention to the problem here-- people can't afford to be going to school or training.

Yeah, I get that. I'm not an expert on the restaurant industry though so I dunno if I should speak much about it. I'd agree with your assessment that it's not that restaurants are inherently bad, but that the restaurant industry is inherently exploitative as a consequence of the free market.

Ok, off to a good start Again, the problem is "how to do you define that?" What's a "minor disability" and who's going to hire them? For instance, if a person has, let's say, a permanent limp that makes it possible for them to still do most things, albeit slower than most and they can't continue for long stretches of time, are they gonna get support, and if not, what kinds of work are they going to struggle to get? There are so many kinds of disabilities, limitations, etc and a system that draws a line at what deserves support and what doesn't effectively has to address all of them or else it's going to fail many people. Why shouldn't private companies pay interns? Experience and training don't even ensure a job/paycheck once you've finished, and if people can't afford spend time to train or go to school (not even counting the cost of education itself), then it's not really an option. The thing is, companies are always looking for ways to get around paying their workers and giving them support. This is why, for instance, Uber is fighting to keep their workers designated as contractors and not employees. The only people who end up being effectively taxed by this are landlords (who are making money by simply owning something and charging considerable rates for it) and food corporations (who are exploiting farmers and ranchers everywhere). Ah, but if you give them out freely, even universally, you don't have to worry about people not getting the support due to bungled paperwork, or if a person has a sudden emergency and needs that support immediately. Additionally, it allows people to pursue different careers (like say, entrepreneurship) if they aren't dependent on an employer to get by. It's also worth mentioning that the stress of job insecurity (and this food/housing insecurity) takes a toll on people. Most people have been conditioned to believe that everyone 1) should be working as much as they can and 2) need to earn their share. But how many jobs out there are superfluous, exploitative, or the result of an out of control market? And why should anyone have to be employed to get anything essential for basic survival in a world where we throw out a large portion of our food? Most landlord/tenant relationships are super exploitative though. Rent is costs far more than it should, and eviction for not being able to afford it is fucked up. The housing market is a disaster because it's a loosely regulated market for a basic human need, and so people can "choose" to either pay most of their income, or go homeless. Nobody should be getting rich from the housing market.

Was kinda more like a Voting Gauntlet, but anyway she's the most popular character in Japan, I believe. Like even if you had never seen or heard of her before, I dunno how anyone could be confused about this by her reveal trailer alone. It's not even ambiguous or subtle, she's working in a traditional ramen place and has a Chinese dragon for an arm.

I honestly just look at the starting enemies and go "oh, let's see, there's a blue guy, I'll get one of my greens" and so on. Usually I gradually tweak the team around (maybe swap a unit or a skill) til it works. Sometimes it's just a matter of crossing a certain stat threshold to kill a specific enemy, or finding a counter to one particular foe that gives me the most trouble. As far as units I've built go, I built them cuz I think they're cool, and I give them whatever works for their stats/unique skills. No preference either way as to what phase they excel at, to me that feels like saying "my favorite tool in my shed is the hammer" when you gotta use whatever the job calls for.

A few problems with relying on wages: What about people who can't work, for whatever reason? How do you define the criteria or metric that determines where the cutoff is for, say, how impaired a person has to be for them to get government support? What about people unable to get work because of market conditions? If they need to train for another line of work, how are they supposed to support themselves while they train? What about issues involving exploitative markets? For example, you might be getting a livable wage, but you're relying on overtime and you're not getting any benefits. You are also almost certainly getting ripped off if you're a renter. Housing and food are prime examples of basic human rights that, despite how much of both we have (or can potentially have), there are a considerable number of people without/struggling to get one or both. Those are probably the most immediate things that a government should be providing or in some way ensuring to their people. The failure to provide these things for people is because we're relying on wages and markets to handle them.

Who said anything about cancelling FDR? It's not about applying a binary metric of whether they did overall more good or bad, or how their racism compared to others of their time. It's about not giving into hero worship and using their good deeds to dismiss criticisms, which stifle discussions about any ensuing problems from their legacy. It's about the impacts of their actions, especially any impacts that linger to this day. The presidency the highest office in the nation and should be subjected to the highest level of scrutiny. It's not hard to be inspired by the genuine successes of someone like FDR, while at the same time condemning whatever dumb fuckery they did. Columbus was a straight up monster though, nothing about him is worth celebrating.

Ehh, let's not forget what FDR did to Japanese Americans though. It's a shame that even our best presidents have terrible actions/decisions as part of their history, but the important thing is to learn about that fuckery and if/how the impacts persist, in order to resolve them.

Popper died before the internet took off. Rational arguments and public opinion are not keeping white supremacists in check on Twitter and Facebook. You might not trust those companies to handle these issues, and that's fair since they're downright untrustworthy for a lot of reasons. However, you have to pick between three ways to stop intolerant speech and the organization of hate groups: The company moderates its platform and removes racist shitheads The government tries to regulate the platform in some way People boycott/move to an alternative in such numbers that effectively kills the platform's influence Of these, the first is the simplest and most realistic.

Hey, whaddya know, I didn't even have to find the jpeg, it was still in my attachments from the last few times I had to post this

Nah dude, restricting your tools is a meaningful challenge, the problem is strictly the time limit to have them beaten by. If these fights were permanently available (like Blessed Gardens) or at least on a weekly rotation (like old GHBs), you wouldn't be upset because sooner or later, you would end up with units that would work.

People complain that the game's PVE content isn't challenging enough, then complain that they can't beat the new thing. Only issue I think is that the Limited Hero Battles aren't around long enough, and ideally they should be permanently available. Much of the game's biggest issues revolve around preying on people's FOMO, whether that's not getting a high enough score, not summoning the hero you want, or making you want to collect every last reward, regardless of how badly you actually want them or how boring they can be to get. This isn't any different. At least they're challenging, when far too much content is better off auto-battle'd.

Incidentally, growing a thick beard, buzzing off your hair, and wearing sunglasses provide greater anonymity (and thus less accountability) than a surgical mask does. These are common among militant types and mercenary groups like Blackwater, and as such, Afghani people associate those features with violence and abuse.

For what it's worth, a lot of the "stereotypical" gay behavior (deliberate lisping and other affectations) has long history in being a way for gay people to let other gay people know they were gay, particularly in times/places when it was even more dangerous to be out and most straight people didn't know any better. A lot of this being in the spotlight of parts of gay culture today isn't about trying to reinforce a stereotype, but rather to show that being gay isn't something that people should be ashamed about, while also extending a giant middle finger to anyone who thinks gay people need to be silenced. It's a difficult balance since you're surely not the only gay person who feels like you might not fit in, but gay communities are more varied than you might have experienced, and hopefully you will be able to find even more places where you can be yourself without fear or discomfort.

I like that this doesn't use Arena scoring, but I don't like the limited number of tries. Still, it's not too hard if you look at the map for a second and realize you can skip over most of the non-thief enemies. Nice little mode that doesn't take up much time, which is great.

My Brunnya build is a bit different and you might find it worth considering due to being generally a lower investment: Pretend she has Astra blessing, of course-- I swap them out whenever I don't have a good unit to lead in a given season. Also, Fury 3 works just fine too. Compared to @Vicious Sal's build: In Astra season with one Altina, her Atk easily reaches 75 without buffs (a more modest build without dragonflowers or Fury 4 still hits 73) which is enough to one shot many units, especially when Res Smoke kicks in. She can take out Seliphs no problem, due to hitting hard enough to take his HP to 1 in a single hit. Likewise, Lif and most other reds tend to die in a single hit. Fury does hurt her a little against Thrasir, but most teams also have Duma so it's fairly difficult to get around Killing Intent regardless. WoM is much easier to use though, and Brazen seals will kick in very quickly. Having boosted stats helps her absorb chills and shrines, too. Vantage helps against ranged units like Legendary Alm and Kronya, who are too frail to withstand one hit. Brunnya's crazy Res makes Hardy Bearing Ophelias a non-issue, too. Many teams are built around ranged damage, so she can often be positioned to clear out multiple opponents, sometimes even entire teams. Brazen Atk/Def seal helps in case she does have to take a hit. With a Def buff (like Def Tactic) and Naga on the team, she easily reaches above 50 Def, allowing her to take hits from some melees (notably reds) and more Res oriented units like Picnic Flora. I think something like Lull Atk/Res would be worth considering too, but it's pretty hard to come by and it's pretty rare that she runs into issues that her stats and Vantage can't handle. Either way, I don't think Null Follow-Up is all that great for her when Lif is totally outmatched by her, Duma is often out of reach and an easy target, and it only affects Thrasir's B skill Desperation effect (which Brunnya is usually too fast to worry about).

Not just that, but really the GOP's been attacking Hillary for decades and doing whatever possible to kill any goodwill or faith the public might have in her. Even in the early 90's it was clear that she was a strong contender for first female president. ------------------------------------- In other news, further instances of Trump embracing fascist rhetoric and symbolism: This ad is sponsored by both Trump and Pence and are in their official FB pages. For those that don't know, the inverted triangle was used in the badges for prisoners in Nazi concentration camps, with the color identifying prisoners. The red inverted triangle in particular referred to political opponents, particularly antifascists who directly opposed the Nazi party.

Part of what makes it stand out is that Akihiro's artwork, and Soeda Ippei's for that matter, is significantly more realistically proportioned than most artists. That, combined with the textured effect of using pencils and brushes (or pencil and brush styled tools digitally) makes their work look less anime and more like classical art. Incidentally, Akihiro did art for Castlevania: Dracula X (the SNES port of Rondo of Blood) It's not quite the same style seen in Heroes, particularly the simpler textures, but it is rather proportional.

This is the best art in the game.