Lurker > adjl

It's absolutely immoral for a counsellor to start a relationship with somebody they're counselling, even if they're an adult. That's a professional relationship that inescapably creates a power imbalance between the counsellor and the client, and as such that professional relationship should be terminated well before starting anything romantic. When the client is a minor, even more so, and if he was laying the groundwork for a relationship while counselling her as a minor, that's 100% grooming.

Metalsonic66 posted...

I can't say I've ever used Saffron in baked goods

I used it in a chocolate bar once, emulating a bar that my girlfriend was given by a friend (from New Zealand, so not exactly one we could just got out and buy). I believe it was half a teaspoon in 8 oz of chocolate, plus a sprinkling of coarse sea salt and salted caramel bits that I made myself. I don't actually remember if I tried it, but she liked it well enough.

I can't speak to how BG3 compares to PoE, having played neither, but the older Baldur's Gate games routinely go on sale for a couple dollars on GoG, and the Divinity games are also similar and old enough to see deep sales. If you want to try out the genre, there are plenty of options to do so without dropping $70.

In any of those cases, if you're struggling with all of the skills/abilities, you can always look up build guides to help you get a grasp on them. You don't necessarily have to follow them ton the letter if you don't want to, but they will at least tell you what works and help give you the foundation to be able to figure out everything else.

I like that so many other companies are like "it's not fair you're making us look bad by making a good game and just leaving it at that instead of monetizing the crap out of it."

Lokarin posted...

c'mon... if you guys had a 3 day timeloop tell me you WOULDN'T try to have sex with the moon

Not with all those kids running around.

ConfusedTorchic posted...

WHO FACT CHECKS THE TIME

Nobody. There is no objective time. We just more or less universally agree on an arbitrary reference point to use and measure everything according to that.

sveksii posted...

Only if it's served with a nice glass of aromatic water mix.

https://twitter.com/PronouncedHare/status/1687364403379789824

This made me realize that I'm not actually sure what solution is left behind once the gas escapes, but it looks like the products of the reaction are salt, NaOH, and then the Chloramine gas. Do it in a sufficiently ventilated area and add a suitable quantity of HCl to that once the bubbling stopped, and you could actually drink the resultant mixture, though it'd be pretty salty.

Disclaimer: Do not actually do any of this. The theory is sound-ish, but it's really, really stupid.

I'm pretty sure the "not winning" that comes from sleeping with subordinates is generally worse than the "not winning" that comes from turning them down.

I_Abibde posted...

I know Osu! has not been in the topic title for years, at this point, but I wonder if there is anybody left who still plays?

Shark's topic about Bandori the other day got me thinking about hauling out my tablet and laughing at how bad I've gotten, but I haven't actually done so. It's been several years since I played now.

JOExHIGASHI posted...

Lol

Also this. Those aren't nutritionists or other professionals that can be expected to have useful insights into what you should eat. Those are pundits catering to an audience of fragile men who want somebody to tell them that tying masculinity to how much meat you eat is okay (among similar affirmations of some questionable ideas of what it means to be a man). When they promote an all-meat diet, it's not because it has nutritional merit, it's because that's what their audience wants to hear, giving them validation and money.

slacker03150 posted...

It doesn't sound like my mom wants to get lawyers involved as she thinks the company will handle everything.

That sounds like a very bad idea, unless they've already signed a compensation cheque that can be reasonably expected to cover all current and future costs of this incident.

I have been known to partake in some dastardly deeds from time to time.

KingDavid posted...

I'm trying to go carnivore because I want my depression and bipolar to be cured

Eliminating everything but meat from your diet won't do that. If anything, there's a solid chance it'll make them worse, because vitamin deficiencies tend to mess with energy levels.

KingDavid posted...

I want to go sugarfree.

You can do that without limiting yourself to meat. The amount of sugar you get from fruits and vegetables is fine, particularly where their fibre content prevents them from spiking your blood sugar. It's overwhelmingly added sugar that you need to worry about eliminating, and unless you add sugar to the things you cook, food made from scratch has no added sugar.

KingDavid posted...

I don't want to waste up to 2 hours a day eating food that I could eat in less than 5 minutes, which is generally the time it takes to eat junk and fast food.

You can generally do other things while eating if you're that worried about wasting time. Same with cooking, if you do something relatively passive. Even so, you should really reframe that way of thinking: Your time is not so valuable that spending an hour or two cooking and eating good food is a "waste." Make a point of enjoying the things you eat and taking pride in what you create. That's what sets it apart from junk/fast food in terms of the impact it has on your life, and moves you away from the mindset of seeking utilitarian instant gratification by relying on convenience food.

Beyond that, though, you don't have to cook every day. Make large batches of recipes, then refrigerate or freeze leftovers as appropriate and reheat them as needed. You can easily get away with 1-2 hours a week of cooking that way, with each meal being a simple matter of taking a few minutes to reheat your food. Even if you're not a fan of leftovers, there are tons of dishes you can do that you can prepare ahead of time, store, then cook quickly and/or with little effort. Don't think of it strictly in terms of cooking a whole dish from scratch every meal.

A bit less, though I wasn't exactly eating out regularly beforehand. When I do eat out, though, I'd say the dine in:take-out ratio has decreased, though I already generally preferred take-out anyway.

KingDavid posted...

I wanna do a meat only diet.

That's a bad idea, unless you've been given some sort of medical reason to try it.

KingDavid posted...

It's just a chicken breast I got from Walmart that I put that I could on a stove. I just cook it on medium until it looks good. Sad thing is, it's super thick.

And that's why God invented knives. If you're cooking a thick piece of meat in a pan, you'll have cooked the outer parts to the point of being tough before you get the inner parts fully cooked. That's okay if you're dealing with something you can eat rare, like a steak, but that's not really an option with chicken. Cut it up into smaller pieces, and they'll both cook faster and cook more evenly.

KingDavid posted...

but keep in mind I'm looking to cook and eat chicken in less than 20 minutes.

That's not impossible, but it's generally a pretty tall order, especially if you're including prep time in that, and even more so if you aren't comfortable enough in the kitchen to be able to cook quickly. Is there a reason you're aiming for that?

LELuMADuRUSTLED posted...

Familiar enough to know that you can't assume that's what happened just because he and her had interactions before she was 18.

There's a pretty substantial difference between "had interactions" and "he was in a position of authority," and if they got married shortly after she graduated, there's a very high chance the relationship had some groundwork laid well before that point. That means there's ample reason to infer a power imbalance there.

Is it concrete proof of abuse? No. But then grooming rarely leaves concrete proof unless you're actually watching it happen. Is it heckin' creepy? Absolutely.

LELuMADuRUSTLED posted...

She would have very likely been 18 after graduating so I'm not sure what the problem is.

Are you unfamiliar with the concept of grooming?

rjsilverthorn posted...

Considering there is 3 cups of fruits and nuts, I'm not even sure there is enough 'muffin' to hold all of that in the first place. I'm less worried about it being a dry muffin and more that it would be a pile of damp granola in a muffin tin.

That too.

Yeah, any identity Twitter developed for itself (which would have been a product of organic interactions among users instead of actual sentience, but I'm sure everyone can figure out what I mean) is as Twitter. "X" has no identity and does not in any way reflect an organic evolution of the platform into something that needs a new name, it's just a name slapped on by somebody who thinks it sounds cool.

Gr8M8 posted...

Sure about that?

Pretty sure. There isn't a lot of fat, and because there aren't any emulsifying agents, you're going to lose a lot of the aqueous liquids as it bakes. Toss in having such a large volume of oats on top of the flour, then further adding a bunch of ingredients that are naturally quite dry (coconut, raisins, dates, dried figs), and I don't expect it to balance out very well. I could be mistaken, since I don't do a lot of vegan baking and the sheer volume of aqueous liquids might be enough to make up for it, but I would expect to at least need to soak the dried fruit beforehand to avoid giving up too much moisture, and a quarter cup of oil doesn't seem like it'll be enough to carry it.

Xenoblade X, though good luck getting a copy.

That's gonna be one dry muffin.

Agent_Demolish posted...

It's not about WHO is being sued and how much money they have.

Given that a sizable chunk of that money has come specifically from the lies he's told that have caused the families in question this unfathomable hardship, it kind of is. Dude made bank off of making those families suffer. Only seems fair that he, in turn, gives them bank.

trivialbeing posted...

sometimes I'm not sure if I'm a caffeine addict or just a sugar addict

It's easy enough to test that. Have juice instead of coffee and see how you feel.

Revelation34 posted...

They're not regular. They're hard to get.

Not really. At least, not any harder than any other Pokemon that you have to put a bit of effort into evolving.

captpackrat posted...

Coffee, like tea, is an infusion. To be a juice, you'd have to press or squeeze it.

This.

Sandalphon posted...

For me, you having a problem with someone proclaiming themselves a genius makes me think you don't function like a normal human being.

Pretty much without exception, if somebody makes an unqualified statement that they're a genius (that is, without acknowledging the actual implications or limitations of that genius-hood) that isn't a joke, they aren't going to do a very good job of recognizing when they're making a mistake, and there's a good chance that they won't accept that they have even when somebody else points it out. That's just basic cause and effect: if they had the humility to accept their mistakes, they wouldn't make unqualified claims of genius-hood.

There are many different kinds of pie, even in America.

FrozenBananas posted...

I dunno, the wii mote was super awkward for some of the parts. Like when youre walking and balancing on top of a ball or whatever, and you had to aim the wiimote in a weird direction

sure, its more of a wii / motion control problem but Galaxy was built around that. Its still one of my favorite games though

That's not really a matter of aging poorly, though. That's just garden-variety wonky controls. Aging poorly more commonly refers to control problems that are a consequence of developers not really knowing how to make the control scheme work because there isn't enough precedent for them to draw on (SM64's camera being a prime example of this). If they just had an idea that didn't work out, that's just a mistake.

FrozenBananas posted...

its aged well enough but I dont think it will age as well as 2D platformers

By and large, by the end of the N64/PS1 era, developers had a good enough handle on camera controls that I wouldn't say aging is really a problem for 3D platformers (outside of graphics, which isn't really specific to 3D platformers). SMG's controls don't really qualify as "dated," so I wouldn't say it's going to have any difficulty aging.

ConfusedTorchic posted...

despite it only coming into being when ho-oh burned down that tower which was not hundreds of years in the past

Clearly, removing it from the past created some kind of time paradox that removed it from existence until Ho-oh recreated it by burning down the tower.

Longcat is long.

Yesterday was the last day of your history.

Ah, fair.

You always have your whole life ahead of you. What's less certain is how much more life you have.

argonautweakend posted...

Hopefully he doesn't come back

You don't have to hope. Unless he's got a good excuse for dipping out, you can just fire him and move on.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The key is to marry a neurotic clean freak and let them do it.

The downside, of course, is being married to a neurotic clean freak.

Not gonna lie, this is the sole reason my place is as clean as it is (though without the marriage part). Every week, it's a full clean of the bathroom, kitchen (including taking the burners apart and cleaning them), floors (vacuum and mop), all linens, and every surface, with a mid-week vacuum and a nightly kitchen wipedown. She's 100% got some manner of OCD or related disorder that's gone undiagnosed/untreated, and it gets bothersome sometimes, but it does keep the place tidy.

A few years that will be drawn out further by other landlords leeching away money that would otherwise have gone into savings, and by that point prices will have been driven up by other investors trying to either hold onto properties for speculation purposes or rent them out for easy profit. It's not exactly a system that's designed to be easy to get out of.

Zareth posted...

Pong isn't, and has never been, timeless
It was obsolete the second the next video game came out

Indeed. It was novel, and that's about the extent of its value. Pretty much everything released since is more entertaining.

GranTurismo posted...

so none of you believe that stuff would be cheaper under trump? but, a lot of people believe that right?

People have a tendency to assume that the president controls more than he actually does. Stuff's more expensive, Biden's in office, therefore it must be at least partially due to Biden and getting somebody else in might help. Never mind that it was the Democrats that tried to pass a bill to stop oil price gouging (one of the immediate causes of this inflation, thanks to the downstream effects gas prices have on everything) and the Republicans that unanimously voted against it, it must be Biden's fault that stuff is expensive.

How likely is it that people will presume Trump will fix that problem, enough to ignore everything else that's wrong with him? Hard to say.

slacker03150 posted...

Why did Paolo teach her to sing if the plan was to embarass her?

Dude literally heard her sing and do a good job and still thought his plan of "she won't be able to sing" would work. He wasn't exactly the brightest fish in the shed.

This is where my brain went upon reading the title because my girlfriend recently rewatched the movie. I can't say I actually expected it to go here, though.

I am inclined to agree that saying "the guy" instead of "a guy" carries the implication that the movie was primarily funded by a child trafficker, as opposed to funded in small part by one. This would be why the movie's director wanted to clarify that point, since it reflects much more poorly to have the movie primarily funded by a child trafficker than to have a child trafficker spend $5 to get his name in the credits. Exactly how much our opinion should be coloured by this news depends on just what the magnitude of his contribution was, but we don't (and probably can't) know that, so... *shrug*.

Dikitain posted...

3D platformers always seem slow and boring to me.

I feel like that's kind of inevitable. If you consider a difficult 2D platformer that requires fast-paced, pixel-perfect execution, directly translating that same speed and demand for precision into 3D means you've got that same difficulty plus the need to control a camera and deal with an extra dimension of precise aiming, which is obviously much, much more difficult than the 2D equivalent. That means that in order to have comparable difficulty, the speed and precision have to be toned down to leave room for the other challenges, which inherently makes them less exciting and makes developing the skills needed to handle that kind of overall difficulty less enjoyable and satisfying. That, in turn, tends to drive developers to focus less on making 3D platformers about executing difficult platforming and more about exploring and solving puzzles that can be made more interesting in a complex 3D environment than they could in a 2D stage.

That's mostly why I don't really consider them to be the same genre, at least not to an extent that directly comparing them is reasonable. The most basic concept is all that really unites them. The core design philosophies that build on that concept are quite different from each other, resulting in very distinct experiences.

Count_Drachma posted...

The best method would probably be anti-price-gouging laws (set to around MSRP, where it couldn't be more than 5-10% higher on actively-produced product), which would let the government crack down on the marketplaces to make it harder for scalpers to resell.

Seeing as the government can't even manage to pass anti-price gouging laws for essentials like food and gas, though, I don't think we should hold our breath for Playstations and Taylor Swift tickets. Forcibly capping markup like that can also be a bit problematic in cases where markups are typically very high (even cheap clothing, for example, is often marked up 10-fold or more), and while such high default markups can easily be argued to be a bad thing overall, they're so entrenched in the current state of the economy that pulling the rug out from under them would create a substantial mess.

Oh hey, that works too. Silly me, taking your claim at face value instead of taking the time to verify it. I should know better.

Though it is worth noting that even if no formal policies exist to disfavour single men, I expect they do still get discriminated against more subjectively, due to the aforementioned gender norms/expectations/stereotypes. The prevailing attitude is that it's a lot weirder for a man to just want to be a parent independently of having a relationship than for a woman to do so (see: nobody really thinks twice about single women getting donor sperm), as evidenced by this particular claim, and that can be expected to bias people's assessments of single male applicants.

They're radically different experiences, I find. 3D puts more focus on exploration and understanding how levels fit together to work your way through them, 2D puts more focus on moment-to-moment platforming action and precision. Some of them kind of blur the line, like Mario pre-Odyssey was evolving closer and closer to being the same sort of game as a 2D platformer but in 3D (peaking with 3D World), but by and large that's the main difference between them. Generally, I would say I like 3D platformers better, but that's a definite apples to oranges comparison and if I'm in the mood for a 2D platformer, a 3D one isn't going to scratch that itch no matter how good it is.

Yellow posted...

Kirby, Yoshi... but tbh being 3D didn't save Kirby from being for 5 year olds.

To be fair, Kirby's always been designed to be accessible. From day 1 of the series, it was meant to be a platformer that anyone can enjoy, and it hasn't really strayed from that core mandate. I don't think that's a bad thing, and Forgotten Land was an absolute blast even if it wasn't the most difficult.

Should show up to protests with a big ol' bucket of mortar and just bukkake the whole pallet with it to make sure they all stick together and can't be used for nefarious misdeeds.

Judgmenl posted...

It's been 90s for almost the entirety of 2023 so far and neither the site nor the wikipedia page have been updated.
You got my hopes up.

"Fully erect" didn't tip you off?

Yellow posted...

We do it with adoption. Aka we don't just hand off kids to single men. Ever.

Yep, and that's a bad thing. Child custody matters across the board strongly tend toward "taking care of children is for women, so no children for the men" outside of really extreme cases (like the mother having been documented to be physically and/or sexually abusive, though even then it can still be a crapshoot and there have been many cases where a divorce ends up with children being given to an abusive mother instead of an innocent father). Part of that is abuse statistics (particularly where, unlike child care, it's quite hard to follow up with a kid post-adoption to catch abuse and intervene early), but part of it's also established attitudes about gender roles, which turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy in that men that are raised being told that child care is for women tend to be less interested in developing those skills. The idea that a man just wants to be a father without going through the full motions of starting a family is pretty foreign to many people because of that norm, so whenever a man does express that wish, people assume he's just looking for a new plaything (especially where any single men who do just legitimately want to adopt a kid know that's how they're going to be perceived and choose to avoid the whole ordeal altogether instead of trying to prove their legitimacy).

Is that right? I dunno. Like I said, adoption is particularly tricky because once you hand the kid over, you relinquish pretty much all control over the situation. You can do background checks and other screening to reduce the risk, but at the end of the day, you're still taking a major gamble that whoever the kid goes to is going to be safe, and I can't necessarily fault them for bringing statistics into the mix to help avoiding higher-risk demographics. On the flip side, though, that means discriminating against a whole lot of people that would be perfectly fine parents, and the end result of that optimization is to hand off a whole lot of kids to upper-middle class straight white married couples of the optimal religion at the expense of everyone else whose statistics don't look quite as good, and that's not really a good thing (especially given how many children up for adoption are going to be of different racial/cultural/religious backgrounds, meaning that adoption preference turns into a form of genocide).

Adoption is a case where I think I'm okay with the status quo based on current statistical realities, but recognize that those statistics represent not something that's fundamentally inherent to men (as your "we are the predators" nonsense tried to claim), but the prevalence of gender norms that need to be corrected elsewhere, such as encouraging more men to go into ECE or trying to correct the bias against men in divorce custody battles (specifically in cases where the norm of "women are the caregivers" is the overwhelming basis for the judgement instead of a credible risk of abuse; that norm just needs to go away). As that cultural shift happens, the risks of letting single men adopt children will decrease, and the adoption system can start to get on board with that shift. It's not great, but I think it's the best available option because there really aren't any others.