Johann

I suppose the better way to frame it is that encounters should provide you, the player, with tactical experience, and potentially rewards like items or whatever that give more of a lateral growth than vertical one.

Ah, but is it any better if random encounters get repetitive and boring? I think there are other ways to make them worth doing other than a growth system that is either meaningless (in FFVIII's case) or lead to the issues with experience points where you're either overpowered from overleveling, or too weak from not leveling enough.

Watching it in motion is really incredible. I haven't been able to watch or even listen to these testimonies much, and have had to settle for NPR recaps on the ride home. I was (not) surprised to hear a a Republican trying to gaslight the interviewer in a segment this morning while driving into work. Anyway. from what I'm hearing Fiona Hill is bringing the heat today, and something about Holmes pointing out some contradictions in Sondland's testimonies? Sounded like Sondland was trying to cover his own ass and he's in as deep as we'd all have guessed from the start.

Players who find it too easy can do self-imposed challenges, at least. There are a lot of ways to do this, perhaps the most straightforward of which would be to not use the card refining ability or grind out Draw. I really liked that the enemies scaled to level since I think experience points are dumb, as it usually means you're either too strong or too weak, and the only solution to those problems are to either run away from fights, or grind.

Just monetized channels. By the FTC's own language, a channel can use their viewer metrics as a defense against a claim against them, at least. For instance, if your channel's viewership is overwhelmingly adult aged, then you'd be ok. The problem was not so much showing adds to kids about stuff marketed to them, but more about gathering data on what kids watch for ad purposes, and autoplaying/suggesting videos from "appropriate" stuff into the extremely bizarre (Spiderman + pregnant Elsa videos) and generally content that isn't suitable for children (such as the infamous Logan Paul suicide video). The bottom line is that Youtube had a responsibility to make its platform a safe place for children, or put up the proper barriers to prevent children from accessing it and being exploited. A pretty tall order and they failed miserably, and Youtube is shifting the burden of compliance onto content creators.

I quit a few months ago because the game was too much of a time sink. The challenging content demanded more of my time if I wanted consistently good results, which was frustrating. The easy content meant grinding on auto-battle, which isn't fun either. Ultimately, I was putting time into making my units slightly better just so that they could even more slightly become better and not enjoying most of my fights. Events were mostly fun, but the time-sensitive nature meant I had to either devote more time, or miss out on the top ranks. At least the game is free, but there's no denying the predatory nature of it all makes it too easy to rationalize to yourself that each little concession (whether as time, money, or both) you give the game is worth it. Even if you're not spending money, it's still preying on your FOMO through daily rewards and weekly content like AR and Arena.

Is that a proposed solution? That'd be extremely shortsighted, yeesh. Hawaii's just too small to handle a large population, your environment just can't sustain it. Can only do so much when you're using a few tiny islands with a sole-source aquifer. AirBnB is causing problems globally, sadly. Are developers there doing that thing where they buy up housing and basically run them as unofficial hotels? Without some very precise legislation, I think the only other solution might be a major overhaul of public housing.

I guess what I meant to ask was, do you feel that there are Hawaii-specific issues being ignored that having more Senators would fix? Conversely, are there Hawaii-specific issues that you feel are being addressed only because you have equal representation in the Senate?

Well then, how well represented do you feel by your House members and Senators? Do you feel that other House members and Senators from other states are, to whatever degree, addressing issues that affect you (even if not exclusively)? Additionally, what do you think about statehood for island territories like Puerto Rico, Guam, etc which have similar issues but even less representation? No question that gerrymandering needs to end, anyone who says otherwise would be arguing in extremely bad faith. Ranked voting is long overdue and could help reshape the way we look at our current two-party system.

I just really wanted to use that gif! But yeah fuck imperialism. No country deserves that kind of treatment.

Yeah, you still missed the point: The method of selecting our leaders can be changed. The problems he pointed out are directly tied to how our governing bodies are selected. Comparing social democracy to mob rule is pretty absurd. One favors creating universal equality (which is vital for healthy democracy), and the other favors their own exclusive interests. I know this was your main intent, but you went pretty far off the rails. The trouble is that "backwater farmer states" vote against their own interests and everyone else has to suffer for it. Giving them an absurdly disproportionate amount of power in elections does nothing to help them, and instead sets them back further. The irony here is that their dilemma is much closer to your idea of ochlocracy.

You do know that most of the food we create is either exported or used in things that aren't going to feed people, right? The red state farmers aren't responsible for feeding the entire country, they're in agriculture just cuz it's profitable. Like maybe 10% of the corn we create is eaten as corn-- most of corn's food production is high-fructose corn syrup, which is not something you can survive on. Every state has some form of food production, coastal states have large fishing & aquaculture industries, for instance. Also farming in general is becoming less and less profitable/sustainable under Republican policies, like the tariffs with China. Red states constantly vote against their own interests while requiring federal funding to bail their industries out. That's one way to admit you don't understand why he said that. Power should not be delegated to states based on something as fluid as economic status. It should also not be as blatantly unbalanced as to give a person in one state 20 times the voting power of a person in another. There are major issues with voter disenfranchisement and gerrymandering in these red and swing states, which amplifies the imbalance of voting power. Using an antiquated system for elections allows these issues to persist.

The election fuckery of 2000, where it came down to 500 vote difference and a Supreme Court decision, should be more than enough reason for anyone to say fuck the EC

Also DC/Puerto Rico/Virgin Islands/etc statehood, which would grant Senate seats to parts of the US that currently have no representation. It's absurd that the entire Legislative branch is stymied by a fucking turtle thanks to voters in Kentucky, of all places.

Gaetz knows the rules, he's just playing it up for the true believers. His plan was to get arrested so there would be footage of him and his goons being "oppressed".

Basically yeah, it's a "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" approach. People repeating these talking points are either arguing in bad faith, or ignorant as to how the process works.

The Republicans are basically making a bad faith argument; attack/question the process, despite being very aware that the proceedings are well within the Constitution and House rules. As @Excellen Browning mentioned, this is vital to the checks and balances, which is why this stuff is laid out at the beginning of the Constitution. For what it's worth, note that GOP leaders are not defending Trump's actions, and only attacking House Dems and the inquiry. This is because backing Trump could potentially cost these Republicans their seats in 2020, as the constant flow of damning new testimony/evidence is what's driving public opinion in support of the inquiry. Attacking the process is the only way they can try to push back while also being free to throw Trump under the bus if that's necessary hold some key seats. Post-vote, their argument will now shift towards calling the whole thing illegitimate for not having been voted on from the start, or that the rules are, as @Shoblongoo pointed out, unfair. They'd probably fare better if they pushed for the articles of impeachment to come sooner than later, since a longer inquiry means more evidence for the trial, and that it would likely take place closer to the election.

So, with the recent update including Sans from Undertale, which was a highly requested (fully-fledged) character by many, and plenty of possibilities for remaining characters in the actual challenger packs, I wanna see what people think we'll get for Smash's silver medal, Mii costumes. I am personally of the expectation that any character who has/gets a Mii costume will not be introduced as a full DLC character later on, but who knows. Anyway, some guesses: Geno (Mario RPG) - Gunner: Hopefully with a makeover from his Smash Wii U costume and adding a song from Mario RPG like Beware the Forest's Mushrooms, this is one heavily requested character I don't expect to see as a newcomer proper (people who don't expect any DLC characters to emerge from existing Spirits may agree on that) Rathalos Armor Set and Hunter Armor Set (Monster Hunter) - Swordfighter: Another character (or rather, avatar) that people expect to see as a full newcomer. I don't think so, though, since I figure Sakurai considers the monsters themselves to be the true stars of the series, and Rathalos is already present. Mr. X (Resident Evil) - Brawler: I think RE representation is inevitable, in one form of another-- in particular, I'm confident (perhaps blindly) that at least one RE hero is assured. While I wouldn't doubt that, if the first 4 leads aren't all used, one of them would be a Mii costume (brawler or gunner), the enemy character Mr. X would also be a pretty popular pick, if just for having a trench coat and fedora that could be used in other setups fairly well. Solaire (Dark Souls) - Swordfighter: Dark Souls, like Monster Hunter, has loosely defined avatars for its player characters, but does have something of a mascot in Solaire, the friendly knight who regularly helps out in the notoriously challenging game. Notably, when the DS1 remaster was ported to Switch, a Solaire amiibo was made. While I don't think a DS character is in the cards for a newcomer, a Solaire costume would certainly fit the bill. Other "sure why not" costumes based on ATs and other in-game characters: Alucard (swordfighter) Lyn (swordfighter) Doc Louis (brawler) Guile (brawler) Jeff (gunner) Share some of your expectations/hopes or feel free to tell me that I'm the foolingest fool that ever fooled with an electrified fooling machine

Poops are not instant fertilizer, because 1) there are still some bacterial things still living in them and 2) they need to be broken down before anything plants want can be absorbed. Generally, best thing you can do is flush it or put it in an appropriate trash container. If you're somewhere far away enough from people, you could put it in the woods or bury it, but keep in mind that there are bacteria in there that are hazardous, so anything near any body of water, open drain, etc is a big no-no, or else it risks a potential coliform bloom (the source of E. coli).

Given how there are many revisions and translations of a book that old, is it really all that surprising that people (especially the authorities on the matter) choose to interpret it in a way that fits their agenda?

I agree in that the idea of Russia or China being the world's dominant superpower would be a horrible fate, but that said, the US regular gets involved in places it absolutely shouldn't. All three nations are effectively empires, with long histories of interfering in places for no reason other than their own profit.

My account is still there, so updating won't get rid of him. Also, he's been upgraded quite a bit since then!

TERFs don't deserve to call themselves feminists. Can't see how any sane person would put those ideas under the umbrella of feminism either.

Yeah, it was basically a "I guess I'll hold onto them if they ever add another one of my favorites as a GHB/TT unit" thing. The effort to collect them (specifically playing my best in AR daily) was one of the most burn-out inducing things I've experienced in any game.