Lurker > streamofthesky

Jen0125 posted...

I didn't even get a moderation

https://i.imgur.com/SjFKG3o.png?fb

Sure, seems fine

KodyKeir posted...

Those individuals are ineligible for this program.

It's up to $125K and $250K for married filing jointly.
$125K is triple the median income.

https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2021/demo/p60-273.html

It's not the 1%, but it definitely extends well into the upper middle class, while giving nothing to those w/ no college who generally get paid the least.

Right. Giving the most vulnerable in society the funds to feed and house themselves reduces poverty and economic instability. Basic Income Guarantee

Which this handout does not do.

No

It's a terrible policy, it's beyond what the president's powers should be (should be an act of Congress to make a major funding decision), and will reward a lot of wealthy people (a huge majority of loan debt is held by the top 50% of incomes) and those that made poor decisions on the backs of the poor and the responsible.

And for all the "it'll stimulate the economy!" BS I've heard, I've yet to hear a good reason why a blanket $5000 or whatever stimulus to every American below a certain income threshold wouldn't do even better. Since at least that would go to all the trades people and low wage people that never even went to college.

https://www.businessinsider.com/avis-claim-woman-drove-23000-miles-three-days-charged-6000-2022-8

Link

WTF? And they refused to admit it was physically impossible and refund her until after the media got a hold of it....
Anyway, the article makes it sound like all the rental companies are ass holes.

Ozmose posted...

I agree for the most part, but there's a few problems with that.

Sadly the bankruptcy thing is there for a reason. That was started because a ton of law students kept taking out massive loans, then filing bankruptcy the second they got their degrees to purge their debt.

Well yeah. That's why any change has to be on future loans, the current ones were made on terms where students couldn't just do that. Like I said, it means large loans will never happen and will thus brute force the chain of events that leads to colleges reining in their costs.
I have thought more about it and perhaps a middle path to avoid completely drastic shifts would be best.
Here's my new proposal:
All future loans can be discharged in bankruptcy... 10 years after you receive the last payment (whether due to finishing school or dropping out) IF you've spent those 10 years making at least the minimum required income-based payments (Biden made it 5% now and before it was 10%, I think?). Obviously for any periods where your income was $0, your min. payment would also be $0.
If you failed to keep up on said payments at any point while you had income, then you must wait until you have 10 continuous years of making minimum payments (again, time spent making nothing would count).

I think that is a good compromise where people who legitimately are struggling post-college can shed their debt and not be burdened w/ it for life, while also giving the lenders some protection that students can't just take out a massive loan, get a degree, then be like, "thanks for the money, suckers!" and immediately shirk their responsibility.
It would still mean much tighter lending than before, but wouldn't destroy the system entirely, since almost no 18 year old has the collateral or income to justify a sizable loan and the banks need some sort of protection...

Kyuubi4269 posted...

Except all that would happen is colleges would be filled with wealthy idiots. There's more than enough wealthy people to not need loans at all, and the colleges give out full scholarships to students who they actually want using their facilities.

No, there's not, you're full of shit
Wealth is this country has always been concentrated in the hands of a few, and since Reaganomics it's been the most top-heavy since the gilded age.
Relying on just a handful of super rich kids is not going to fill up a college. They might be able to not change their lavish spending and still break even if they ramped prices up enough, but those prices would have to be obscenely higher than they are even now. Most of the student loan debt is held by the top 40% as it is now. So clearly, even among the best off, it's only a tiny handful that don't "need" loans.

Nope. This whole thing is a disgusting tax on the poor and the responsible.

What is needed is to make all future student loans dischargible in bankruptcy.
That in turn means banks won't be willing to loan out large sums.
That in turn means students won't have a bottomless pit of cash to spend.
That in turn means colleges actually have to slash their admin and facilities spending to make themselves affordable.

But we can't do that, the college industrial complex is too deep in Congress's pockets.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ex-obama-adviser-jason-furman-193958728.html

Xi Jinping is NOT going to be happy about this...

Rick Scott criticizes Biden for vacationing in Delware whilst sailing around Italy on the yacht he bought with the billion dollars he stole from Medicare

(not the actual headline, but what it should be)

https://www.axios.com/2022/08/23/rick-scott-senate-republicans-vacation-italy

"A group of Starbucks employees were accused of kidnapping their manager after asking for a raise and new equipment, report says"

https://www.yahoo.com/news/group-starbucks-employees-were-accused-181750169.html

Metalsonic66 posted...

I miss cheat codes

Same

Free cheat codes got replaced by paid DLC

:(

MrMelodramatic posted...

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/17/millions-in-the-dark-about-whether-student-loan-payments-will-resume.html

"I don't know if the temporary pause is going to be extended again! I thought "temporary" meant "permanent", and yes, I went to college!"

All of the pandemic programs are ending. They even finally ended foreclosure and forbearance moratoriums.

We need to normalize business kilts.
But we haven't even normalized buisiness shorts, so that's a long way off.

Pants are a form of oppression.

Actually traveling, and not for work or to visit family?

2017, went to the Florida keys
And even then, we were going to a wedding in Florida and just decided to take a week before it to go to the keys before going to the wedding.

Count_Drachma posted...

Oh lawdy... apologism 101. The most visible threats came from one quarter and, as we very quickly learned, so did the attacker. While you could've argued it might have been over anything (which would be true), this is just an absurd statement that aged badly in hours.

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/who-is-hadi-matar-nj-man-suspected-in-salman-rushdie-attack/3822984/

Oh, look! it's exactly what we thought.

The suspect, 24-year-old Hadi Matar, was born in California, but recently moved to New Jersey, according to law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation. His last listed address was in Fairview, a Bergen County borough just across the Hudson River from Manhattan. FBI officials were seen going into the home of Matar Friday evening.
Sources said that Matar also had a fake New Jersey driver's license on him.

The 24-year-old was arrested on a felony charge of second-degree attempted murder for the attack on the acclaimed novelist as well as second-degree assault for an injury to the event's moderator, state police said Saturday. Matar was being held without bail in the Chautauqua County Jail and was expected to be arraigned later Saturday, Chautauqua County DA Jason Schmidt said.

"This is the very early stage of what will invariably be a protracted legal process," Schmidt said in a statement. "We will try to be as transparent as we can without compromising the case."

Spectator Kathleen Jones said the attacker was dressed in black, with a black mask.

How is this 2nd-degree? Sounds very premeditated to me.

State Police Maj. Eugene Staniszewski said the motive for the stabbing was unclear. A preliminary law enforcement review of Matar's social media accounts shows he is sympathetic to Shia extremism and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps causes, a law enforcement person with direct knowledge of the investigation told NBC News. There are no definitive links to the IRGC but the initial assessment indicates he is sympathetic to the Iranian government group, the official says.

Sounds like they do have a motive, but are unwilling to say it plainly.

Gentle reminder that Iran is a giant flaming piece of shit and has had a fatwa on Rushdie and anyone involved with him for decades. Their bounty's led to numerous people being murdered, as Zeus's article details.

adjl posted...

The US student loan system is pretty broken, mostly thanks to US university costs being insanely inflated, which in turn is mostly a consequence of university boards and executive suites wanting to gold-plate their yachts.

Biggest cost perpetrators besides overpaid people at the top (and the Athletics department typically pays more than even the university president) are the giant bloat of admin service jobs, and the insane amount of improvements and maintenance of the campus grounds and facilities. I blame the latter and some of the former on the students themselves. You don't NEED your place of higher learning to have brand new shiny marble buildings, a massive stadium, etc... None of that helps w/ learning. You (plural you, not you specifically) just pick those schools because the level of sheer opulence on display wows our lizard brains.

Making student loans nearly impossible to discharge in bankruptcy in turn led to banks being willing to loan out way more than they logically should be willing to, which in turn means students have more "money" to spend, which in turn rewards whichever colleges can spend the most to "wow" prospective students on tours. The first thing that needs to be done before anything else is even considered is to make all future loans going forward dischargeable in bankruptcy. That is the root cause of all of this. Then banks won't lend tons of money, students will have to actually consider cost in their selection, and universities will have to pare down their expenses to be able to compete.

https://twitter.com/Josiensor/status/1558230358134587395?t=f4BJp4dE3brYDnE1_BlWNQ&s=19

KodyKeir posted...

An Associated Press reporter witnessed a man storm the stage at the Chautauqua Institution and begin punching or stabbing Rushdie as he was being introduced. The 75-year-old author was pushed or fell to the floor, and the man was restrained.
Rushdie was quickly surrounded by a small group of people who held up his legs, presumably to send more blood to his chest.
His condition was not immediately known.

Uh...which one was it? Should've been an easy thing to figure out after the attack, unless the attacker has bladed fists or something.
Hopefully just punched and he survives. Sounds like it was stabbed, though...

It's NY, so the attacker will probably be given bail...

I'm not getting into a self-driving car until it's mandated that ALL cars are.
No algorithm will ever account for the stupid shit a human driver may do, and I'm not gonna be stuck in a death trap when some yahoo swerves into my lane or something. I want full control for emergency maneuvers just in case.

Lokarin posted...

Plus there's the ancient Greek Isekais like The Odyssey

I suppose pretty much any trip to the underworld is an isekai. Though those were usually just side stories in a larger narrative, like Heracles going there just to fulfill one of his tasks.

Yes, of course it is.
Also note, isekai works both ways. If someone from another world comes to ours, it's also an isekai, just a lot more rarely done. I see some people call those "reverse isekai", but it really is the same genre. Whole concept is someone going to an alien world. People just don't usually think that our world could be the alien one, but it's all a matter of the protagonist's perspective.

Zareth posted...

Mark Twain wrote the first Isekai

I'd argue the first known isekai are stories like Urashima Taro, Oisin, Revati, etc... (both where they go to, and the mortal world they then return to that has drastically changed since they left)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urashima_Tar%C5%8D#See_also

It's actually kind of unnerving how many different ancient cultures had stories that involved time dilation from visiting godly/fey realms, a concept that humanity otherwise didn't really contextualize until Einstein.

adjl posted...

That's not a huge deal. The affinity boost from quests is handy, but there are like 500 quests in the game, so failing to min/max 5-10 of them isn't going to cripple you in the long run. However diligent you are about rotating party members to maximize affinity gain from quests, you're still going to end up grinding some if you want to max everyone out, and the best way to do that opens up around level 85-90.

You also don't really need to max out everyone's affinity. You should max it out for the party you're using, since it's massively helpful for chain attacks, but that happens pretty naturally just by playing the game with the same party, and otherwise it's only really useful for gem crafting (you won't need to min/max until you're into postgame stuff).

A lot of the "pick a side" skirmishes on the field have a choice between affinity for a colony or nopon silver coins.
I have no clue how hard it is to max affinity w/ each colony (I know you can spam the same collectopedia quest over and over, but those give tiny affinity for the amount of materials), so I always choose the affinity side. It'd be nice to know if that's wise or not, b/c the nopon coins aren't that common, either...
(also doesn't help that all the early ones where it's xp and gold vs. nopon coins I chose the former.... didn't realize at the time that gold was useless and bonus xp was a trap)

I took off yesterday through Monday just to have a long weekend for playing it

Plot's been unimpressive thus far, but combat and exploration I end up just losing track of time, lol

I love how when it's a female teacher, the news goes out of its way to cover for her.
It's not reported as "pedophile" and what is blatantly grape is labeled an "inappropriate relationship".

3 years! 3 fucking years it went on!

Jen0125 posted...

And they're letting her defer sentence because she just had a baby.

Guarantee that her being a literal child grapist will have no impact at all on the custody of her baby (article mentioned she's divorced), too.

Didn't even know there was a Bastard! remake....

Given how many other anime netflix has butchered, I'm very skeptical they did right by a series that's so... "not politically correct"....

EDIT: Hmm, saw the opening on youtube. Pretty good, still prefer Monochrome no Trouble or I'm in Trouble (the much tamer English version), but I liked it. Maybe they...didn't fuck this one up, like Dragon's Dogma, Death Note, Cowboy Bebop, etc...?

Jen0125 posted...

The Southeastern states take the most welfare dollars while railing the most against social welfare programs lol. It's crazy how people can bite the hand that feeds them and then complain.

It's projection, the Gaslight-Obstruct-Project party's specialty. Accuse the other side of exactly what you're doing or your own moral failings to try and distract away from people calling you out on it. If you accuse them first, then they say the same about you, they're just "parroting" your talking point, logic and proof be damned.
It's infuriating, but unfortunately it seems to work on a lot of people and the news media lets them get away with it.

Pretty stupid, fetuses aren't babies.
It's a blatant Trojan Horse to get the left to accept it and implicitly agree that fetuses are human life once they have a heart beat (and thus aborting them is murder), but apparently a small bribe is all it takes for many of them to give up their rights.

My favorite ice cream (in general, not just B&J) is a limited edition called "One Love". It's banana ice cream (same as the chunky monkey), chocolate peace signs, and swirls of graham cracker and caramel

Sadly I don't know if it'll ever come back. I kinda wish they'd add walnuts to it and just replace chunky monkey w/ it as a permanent flavor.

Obviously my 2nd fave is Chunky Monkey...

I mean, they're a sovereign country whether China thinks so or not, and she can go where she wants.

That being said, the morally right thing and the sensible thing are often not the same... We're trying to isolate Russia, and part of that is keeping China from helping more overtly, like military aid. It's just not a good time to be pissing them off, and what is the gain from her going exactly?

Voted 4th option, because if Democrats are good at anything, it's being spineless. She'll fold at the last second. Which in this case, is probably for the best.

VampireCoyote posted...

that can be accomplished by not impregnating someone

Cool abstinence-only stance you got there

There SHOULD be a right to a "legal abortion" for a man who doesn't want to be a father to renounce all rights and responsibilities to fatherhood, alongside medical abortions for women who don't want to be mothers.
No one should be forced to be a parent against their will.

This dumb fuck has a stupid reasoning (if anything, having the 18 years of child support yanked away will make women MORE likely to seek an abortion), but I like the outcome...
Sort of like when Republicans threatened to pare back the outrageously long copyright laws that Disney lobbied for as retaliation for Disney promoting LGBT rights.
Like...I get it...totally right thing / wrong reason... but...just shut up and let them inadvertently pass a good law....

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

I misunderstood what the series is about then. I thought you were expected to know that going into it from the previous Xeno games.

Well, I never played prior Xeno- games and they were huge plot twists for me, and are held until literally end of game reveals, so I'm pretty sure they're intended to be surprises/twists.
Xenoblade is also one of my favorite series of all time and I like watching Let's Play'ers reacting to the major plot twists, and they have all in my experience also not expected the aforementioned twists. Of course, none of them had played -gears or -saga, either.

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

Xenoblade Chronicles is in a weird spot for me. The premise of each of the games is exactly what I look for. But the most interest part for me is the concept that ties the games together with XenoGears and XenoSaga. From what I understand there's a scientist doing something that divided him and makes him several Gods in different universes (or something like that). The problem is I don't see myself playing the games to see how much of that gets explained.

Okay... though I'm not even sure how accurate it is.

Well, if you truly don't care about being spoiled on XC1 and XC2 (don't read if you ever plan to play them)...

You kind of inadvertently, albeit very broadly, described the major end-game plot-twists of both games, lol
XC1: You find out the god you defeated to save the world was actually originally a scientist and mortal
XC2: You find out your world is what remains of the earth after the above-mentioned scientist opened a portal to another dimension, creating the world of XC1 and taking half of his body with it.

T0ffee posted...

That's basically impossible if you're the type to finish all the sidequests in an area and find all the locations, while also enjoying the combat.

The ability to lower your levels in XC1DE was a great solution to this.

They didn't bring it back for XC3?

Nope
Apparently like XC2, it's locked to NG+
Granted, XC DE's system could be abused to power level so maybe they wanted to prevent that. But it's not hard to gain levels in XC in general and especially XC3, so that seems unnecessary to protect against.
(also guess I should stop going for 400% bonus XP overkills on chain attacks, lol)

Revelation34 posted...

This makes the game sound terrible to me

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/357204-xenoblade-chronicles-3/80113084

There's level 40+ dudes in literally the starting area.
Xenoblade games always have high level mobs in various places.
It's a minor inconvenience, it sounds like.
But yeah, I guess don't get overleveled. I just used the camp to get to 20 so I could get the new unlocks, but I guess going ahead I'll be very careful about using it. Honestly, the enemies being so damn aggressive when I just want to explore and pick up shinies is the bigger issue w/ this overleveled situation. I miss how earlier games had indicators on whether enemies were aggressive and whether it was sight/sound/ether. Or XC2's DLC and XC1 DE that just let you turn off enemy aggression besides uniques/bosses entirely...

Uh, you should probably spoiler most of post 44 or delete it and re-post if you can't edit anymore...
And by probably, I mean definitely.

@SKARDAVNELNATE

The story is the worst part of Torna though, lol
(other than having all likable well voice-acted characters unlike the main game)

It has the gameplay that XC2 main game should've had. And the areas are much better laid out for exploration than most of XC2's.

And even though I own XCX, I'd love a port/remaster (still looks fine, so doesn't really need the latter).
Needs volume controls, new battle and NLA themes, ability to add NPCs from a console once you've unlocked them for use, tiny text fix, and other stuff like that.

rjsilverthorn posted...

It isn't like the services got permanently banned, they had their services suspended because they were late in filing permits with the country and the government happens to be super strict with missing filing deadlines. They also apply the same rules to domestic businesses, so they aren't specifically targeting foreign companies.

"The decision came after the government imposed strict compliances on the permit application in the country. If the platforms do not abide, they will be blocked right away.

Regardless of whether the service provider is a local or foreign company, the Indonesian government will not have a second thought if they fail to comply with the requirements."

Again, heavily depends on what is required to "comply" with these new permits

According to Gizguide, Indonesia has decided to suspend multiple digital service providers in the country because of some issues regarding their permits. Because of this, Indonesian gamers won't be able to access their game libraries anymore as a result.

The decision came after the government imposed strict compliances on the permit application in the country. If the platforms do not abide, they will be blocked right away.

Regardless of whether the service provider is a local or foreign company, the Indonesian government will not have a second thought if they fail to comply with the requirements.

So, what are these "requirements", then?

I mean, it really depends on what you're willing to do to be there.
But I wouldn't, so I voted no.

Well... if it was certain very specific favorite artists of mine who either don't tour the U.S. at all or never tour at all period, yet now suddenly there was a once in a lifetime concert coming here... then possibly.

Closest I came to this conundrum thus far was a chance to see Within Temptation several years ago. But it was a Weds. night, 2 hour drive each way, in some sort of mosh pit venue w/ standing room only, and I had to work the next day, and I was like... "I like them....but not that much."

Both have some buttons and a collar. That's enough to make it business casual.

First saw the topic and thought it said "shorts". Got excited that people were finally allowing shorts as business casual. Oh well.... Not like it's been a new record heat wave every year or anything...

Seemed pretty good overall, admittedly I haven't researching his presidency a lot...
Navigated us thru some tense nuclear standoffs that could've led to the end of humanity, got the space race kicked off which led to all kinds of discoveries and achievements, seemed pretty popular....
I don't consider him one of the best presidents, but definitely in the top 50%. Which isn't a tough bar to clear, considering how many shit bag presidents we've had.

Zareth posted...

"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" is like the most conservative shit ever though lmao

Making selflessness and service a conservative attribute isn't the "own" on conservatives you think it is.

Damn it, today was crappy enough, now I find out permanent DST is hitting a roadblock?

:(

One of the few good things Congress actually was managing to pass, so of course...

Start meeting got punted to this week, but at least my permit's finally approved.
I just want to get started on the house so I can get out of here ASAP

EchoBaz posted...

I think that she's cute too, but I don't think it's a big deal that you won't see this form in video games.

It is a big deal. Plenty of people want this, but a loud vocal minority gets it censored or removed.
Meanwhile, the male characters are fit and buff, often to a level only possible with life-shortening steroid use, and the same people say that's ok b/c it's "male power fantasy" somehow.

The problem is that if she looks like this, it tends to attract a lot of very terrible people who don't want women to be gamers.

WTF? Stop strawmanning the vast majority of gamers who are fine or prefer attractive female characters in their games.

Ozmose posted...

Why are you the way that you are?

From 5 years ago:

https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/22/europe/british-schoolboys-skirt-protest-heatwave/index.html

Isca Academy head teacher Aimee Mitchell released a hot weather statement in response to the uproar.

We recognize that the last few days have been exceptionally hot and we are doing our utmost to enable both students and staff to remain as comfortable as possible through the following adjustments, Mitchell said.

She added, Shorts are not currently part of our uniform for boys and I would not want to make any changes without consulting both students and their families.

UK never fucking learns
"Sensible policy to deal with inevitable heat waves? Nah, it'll be fine."

Entity13 posted...

Whereas so much of the first game was, "Are there machines? If yes, waste time on the one ability so everyone else can do basically anything, or your face gets pounded by the mobs because neither tank can take aggro. If no, do basically anything else." So, so much of the game. Oh wait, High Entia? You have a second ability to use at the start now.

You can topple them or use Enchant. Either works, obviously the latter is much easier. it requires all of...having Shulk in your party... Which it literally isn't even possible to have enough characters to exclude him until Dunban joins (with an anti-mechon weapon), and literally right at the point where you spend spend like the next 10 hours not encountering a single mechon enemy unless you go back to prior areas. And by the time it does matter again, you have Melia and Riki, who both have Ether arts that work just fine on mechon.

When I could finally pick up weapons that hit mechanical entities just fine, but were weaker than one or two rounds of weapons I'd already been using by that point, I put the game down and told myself I'd come back to it. Still haven't.

Dude, having the highest attack really doesn't matter. I pick 3 slot gem weapons over stronger ones all the time. Using anti-mechon weapons, which are widely available by the time they're a frequent enemy, isn't much different. They're better despite the lower damage number.

Your complaints about XC1 just seem like super-stretching, desperate to find something to complain about... AI-controlled Shulk will put up Enchant, no problem.

OhhhJa posted...

I may do that but I also hate skipping ahead. Maybe I should hold off and play 2 first. But that may take me 6 months at my current rate of gaming lol

XC2 is a very long, grindy game.
You can speed things up a lot if you do research on its actually very basic but dressed up as super complex combat system. But it's still very long, and for most of the game the plot is bad.

XC2 combat in a nutshell:

• Every blade has an element (color)
• A "blade combo" is painting by color in specific arbitrarily chosen sequences (see chart below; one of many things Torna fixed, btw)
• You put an orb of the last color from a blade combo on the enemy; it can only have one orb of each color (so make sure you have all 8 colors amongst your eventual 9 blade slots)
• Once a bunch of orbs are up, chain attack
• Need to break at least one orb each "round" of chain attack to get another round. Orbs are targeted randomly (there's an equip item to target damaged ones instead) and take 3 hits. Except... if the opposing color orb is up (like fire/water), it will be auto-targeted and do 2 damage.

Orb color flowcharts (seriously, just keep it up on a screen while playing): imgur.com/a/HO3oT

That's it. That's the entire XC2 combat system for 90% of the game (first 10% you won't have all of the combat system "unlocked"). People call it deeper than XC1's, but I found it extremely hollow. Characters and blades/weapon types don't matter, just colors. Everyone effectively plays the same. While as in XC1, every character plays differently and there's a bunch of tactics to build around.

(oh, and if you "overkill" enemies w/ chain attacks in XC2, you get massive XP boosts for all the extra damage dealt, which can be used to "power level", so..yet again, you basically want every single major fight to go the same way: load up orbs, enter very long chain attack, the end)