Vermin Supreme is a real person.

I'm lucky enough to have been financially able to buy a home. I had help making the down payment, but we've now got a 30 year mortgage. My monthly payments are less than what I was paying for rent, less than the average rent in the city by almost a third. I got this place with two above-average incomes, and had the good fortune to get it during the COVID housing and interest rate dip, and I still needed extra help.

If someone is stuck with renting, they're likely paying more than they would for a mortgage. They can't save up the money because they're already lagging behind, and the housing market isn't coming down in price, and wages absolutely aren't keeping pace. No one is saying a house would "lock them down," they're pointing out they can never afford it because they can't even come up with the money to show the bank they can save because they're already paying above the potential mortgage payments every month.

But you're saying they won't, not can't, so what should they do to come up with the money? Start selling kidneys? 78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and that same link shows 71% have less than $2000 in their savings. So where exactly are people supposed to shit out your hypothetical $30,000?

Is that an actual screenshot from the game?

I take it you're not familiar with famous lawyer Saul Goodman.

Archer: So you're telling me that the good old boys were drinking whisky and rye... (laughing) ...like mixed together?

Robert: Archer, please just...

Archer: I am concerned about the mental health of them good old boys. (gasps)

Robert: What?

Archer: Do you think their jobs were levee-based?

I've heard that and decided to look myself. According to their fundraising report for fiscal year 2021/22, they received $165.2m from 13m people. Removing "major gifts," $20.8m (only 18,000 people), it comes out to a bit over $11 per person. Additionally, they got $13.5m to their trust, the Wikimedia Endowment (average donation of $13.91/person). So definitely, most of their income comes from small donations.

As to whether they need it, according to their FY 21/22 financials statement, they're sitting on $198m in assets ($51m of which is cash), with an additional $52m they can't touch because they're long-term investments. However, their expenditures made up $154m. In total, they're reporting they netted $8m last year for additional assets, but assuming that everyone stopped donating, Wikipedia would probably die in a year, even with liquidation of short-term assets.

Treasure Planet has solar sails used as the energy source for propulsion for ships.

They didn't cancel it after the second season, it's even worse. They released the first half, announced the second half of the first season was coming and renewal for a second, then released the second half and canned the second season. We barely got a single season.

It's not a sex thing. It's actually a lot worse.

Apparently, at least for groceries, there's an estimated extra $700/year increase next year, with food costs slowing to 2.5-4.5% increases in general, but sticking at 5-7% for bread, vegetables, and meat. It's still going to cost an average 4-person family $16.3k a year for groceries, though (AKA just over half a full-time minimum-wage salary, prior to paying taxes).

Metro reported a 14% increase in profits for their last quarter compared to last year, and Loblaw's 11%. According to Google's earning statements of the last year, Metro has made 27.4% more profits in the last four quarters than they reported in 2020. Loblaws, on the other hand, is actually down 12%, though Google reports they had two really bad quarters this year, and posted a 40% increase in profits between FY 2022 and 2020. So yeah, nothing as egregious as the article, but they're still outpacing (year over year for the last quarter) both regular and grocery inflation.

I'm sure if I really wanted to, I could dig up the same financial information for Soebys, but I have no clue if Walmart and Costco would keep clean financials readily available for Canada.

I genuinely enjoyed Arkham Knight, but those mandatory Batmobile sections are easily the most miserable part of the game. If we had those for an entire game, it might not be too bad, but most of the time you just end up using it to get from point A to point B. If you can put up with being stuck for a bit on those sections, you might enjoy it.

Its big issue is that it has to follow up on Arkham City. It's not a bad game by any stretch, but it's following up to one of the best superhero games out there. If you're not invested in the story, there's no harm in dropping it. Play something you'll have fun with.

I can kind of understand the logic behind it, if you assume your door can't be affected by the probability of it, but the thing that still stumps me about this is how the probability for your door is "locked in."

You picked a door out of a set, and by opening any number of doors, the host has altered the set. The other door remaining went from being a 99/100 chance of having a goat behind it to being in a set of 98 knowns, and 2 unknowns. While the host can't choose it if it has a car, he also can't choose yours. You wind up with 2 identical doors and X number of open doors, with each door having a 50/50 chance given the re-evaluation.

I know this is supposed to be the wrong answer, but I can't see why it's wrong. If you have an explanation, I'd love to finally be able to understand this problem.

You can get past the black screen by deleting the config file in the game's appdata. After that, it'll launch, you'll apply settings, and you'll get stuck on the "Defrosting Helldiver" screen because you can't access a server, and be stuck with a black screen the next time you launch. I'm having so much fun.

Even with the added costs of owning the home and upkeep, it's only equivalent or just above rent, and that's with the condo association fees and insurance. Even while renting I was stuck paying for utilities. And I'm highly aware that the roof needs replacing, given that we've got to replace ours within 5 years.

But if your point is "owning a home is more expensive than renting when you factor in all extra costs," I want to again point out that most people are barely able to stay afloat. His point was that anyone can buy a house. Mine is that the money he thinks grows on trees literally does not exist for the majority of people.

Wait, does that actually happen? I thought that was just a message and no one came, no matter how long you wait.

Normally I'd expect to see this stuff on !curatedtumblr@sh.itjust.works

Boy, you're not going to be happy when you find out where they got the title from.

I assumed it was the same word for both, but apparently "loath" is the noun and "loathe" is the verb. So it would be you loathe or you are loath.

To preface this, I don't really like JRPGs. Especially turn-based ones. That doesn't mean I can't appreciate them, it's just that a lot of them have had, in the past, an emphasis on things like grinding over gameplay. This might not be true for more modern ones, but considering I largely avoid the genre, I don't know.

All that said, Sea of Stars does everything so right. I remember playing Persona 5 and having a blast, primarily because of the story and presentation, but Sea of Stars not only has that, but does everything it can to keep you immersed.

Combat is turn-based, but you have the opportunity to time button presses to attacks to do extra attacks. I know that sounds not amazing, but the combat system also requires attacks of specific types to stop an enemy from doing a special attack. Nail the timing, and you can interrupt an attack completely. Fail, and you either have to brace for it, or find another way around it (and early game, that's not an option most times). Likewise, timing the button press when getting hit blocks damage, and with an item early on, it also recovers MP. The game goes all in on rewarding you for actively playing instead of just sitting back and clicking through menus.

Plus, the traversal is just so great. Yeah, an isometric game has great traversal mechanics. It feels weird saying that, but it does. Almost every screen has multiple layers to move up and down, making it feel like a real world instead of just walking from point A to point B. Plus it encourages exploration of those layers for cooking ingredients and treasures, which are hidden away in secrets, but if you've played enough games you generally know where to look.

This is also going to sound kind of like more weird praise, but there's no bullshit with needing to find several keys spread across the world to go back to one location to get a chest. Everything you see can be obtained if you can figure out how to get to it, with literally one exception that I've found in the first right hours. The puzzles aren't that hard, and as long as you're thorough you can find everything.

Regarding the story, it's nothing groundbreaking, but it's presented so well that it's still entertaining. It's almost relentlessly positive, and even the darkest parts are handled in the manner of "we'll get through this" instead of "this is hopeless." It's good, but it's not the best I've played (though given everything else, I wouldn't be surprised if it improved later).

I have no idea if you've played, or even heard of, a GBA series called Golden Sun. It feels a lot like a spiritual successor to it. But the thing that keeps me playing is that not only is the gameplay fun and the story entertaining, but it seems to absolutely value your time. No grinding, you're capable of maintaining your party through good combat decisions, and limited backtracking. You're not there to play a game, you're there to experience a journey, and it keeps you moving forward. I love this game, but I feel safe saying that you could buy this on Steam, and figure out in the two-hour return window whether or not it's for you.

They're pretty much only in line with the people who like his humor, but SsethTzeentach has some funny ones.

Currently it's Electric Callboy, namely We've Got the Moves and Hypa Hypa.

The Fine Print was actually the first thing that came to mind for me. I guess if I had to choose a second, it'd be Doom Crossing: Eternal Horizons. Also, it's been a decade, but I still think about some of the propaganda videos put out by EVE Online, like Delve 2012.

Edit: You got me thinking, and I have no idea how I entirely forgot about ThePruld's Dark Souls videos. Just a few:

• Praise Till You're Hollow
• I'm Into the Abyss (turn on subtitles)
• Dark Souls moveset evolution
• Overview of the Dark Souls dragon forms

You can't be here!

I picked up Days Gone well after it released, and didn't have the bugs, and got well and truly invested in it. Mad Max wasn't a bad game by any stretch of the imagination, but Days Gone felt like it had more content in the world. I loved both, but probably Days Gone.

It's cheating since it's already been done, but Edgar Wright expanded Mint Royale - Blue Song into Baby Driver.

I want to second Graveyard Keeper. I'm 99% sure I didn't automate it as well as it intended, but it's a lot of fun. The removal of the hard sleeping hours of Stardew is the biggest plus of the game, aside from the setting.

At the moment, Sea of Stars, but I need to get back to Dave the Driver and finish up the Among Us DLC for Vampire Survivors. And also need to finish Unmetal. And then I've also got this metroidvania bundle I got from Humble Bundle to finish. And Beholder 2. Jesus, my home screen is one long waiting list, and I'm still just playing other stuff.

High-level overviews of a couple big scandals:

Sexual harassment/assault cases:

• One of California's government's departments brought forward a case in 2021 detailing that women had unequal pay, were sexually harassed, were subject to retaliation for reporting issues, and were also subject to discrimination if pregnant. Wikipedia article here.
• Lawsuit also detailed that "frat boy culture" was prevalent and there was no meaningful penalty for sexual discrimination.
• One woman had nude photos of herself shared, and as a result committed suicide during a company retreat.
• Multiple other agencies have pursued Blizzard over this. The SEC has had Blizzard pay out $35 million for not having a proper reporting structure, and made a $18 million settlement pool. The pool has been criticized for being far too small.
• Original lawsuit appears to still be continuing.

Hong Kong

• A player in a Hearthstone tournament said "Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution of our age!" He was immediately removed from the tournament, given a 1-year ban, and forfeited all winnings.

• Two stream casters also had their contact cancelled.

• Blizzard later stated that they would return the player's winnings, reduce the ban to six months, change the streamers' ban to six months, and would ban a team that supported the player's action for six months, stating his actions violated a contract term that "offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages [Blizzard’s] image."

• Blizzard has denied this has anything to do with their financial ties to Tencent.

• Wikipedia article about this

Diablo 4 expansion

• Bringing this up because of the question about Diablo 4 specifically: Blizzard apparently sent out a survey asking if $90 was an appropriate price point for the expansion, though that price point might have extra perks attached. For reference, the base game is $70.

The first two were lifted from the controversies section of Blizzard's Wikipedia page, and they have more information in the linked pages and articles in those pages. For more information, I'd suggest reading there.

Personally, the way the sexual harassment has been handled has stopped me from touching their games. They've shown no remorse aside from being caught, they've been accused of shredding evidence during the investigation, and instead of addressing the issues, were instead upset that they weren't approached privately before the public lawsuit. Instead of showing a willingness to reform, they appear to be entirely concerned with preventing financial damage.

Any idea how this is for single-player?

I could definitely see that. I heavily disagree with you on the self-titled album just being okay, but as for a creative peak, it kind of feels like they've been phoning it in after Nightmare. There's excellent songs on all the albums, but Nightmare was the last one where it felt that the majority of the tracks were ones where you really didn't want to skip.

In case you didn't know, that's actually a sequel to their other video The Stampede.

Wow, I entirely forgot that Devour existed until just now. It blew my teenage mind when I first heard it. I also forgot how much I hated that every single store seemed to be playing The Crow and the Butterfly when you walked in.

This definitely helped me look at it as a whole, and definitely started me down the right path of getting it. Thanks!

I think this might have been the answer that helped me the most. Most of all, it's that the Monty Hall problem isn't about you, it's almost entirely about the host's action of revealing doors.

There's a 98/99 chance he left that door because it's the car, or 1/99 because it's the goat (assuming the one left out of calculation is your door which he can't choose). Your original choice, whether or not you picked the car, is largely irrelevant. His actions can't affect your door because he can't choose it

You're not betting on a new set of 1/2, you're not even betting on the door itself having a new probability. You're betting on the act of the host revealing doors.

I never played horror games when I was a kid, but Dead Space and Amnesia: The Dark Descent were the two games that really solidified what I wanted out of a horror game. Having the ability to defend yourself instead of running is still something that makes or breaks a horror game for me.

The game didn't really appeal to me, but I want to say that the trailer music absolutely slaps.

It's not a very good game, but I laughed my ass off through the Deadpool game. The one that immediately comes to mind though is Bulletstorm. It definitely set the bar for high-brow, sophisticated humor.It's a shame that People Can Fly chose to go with Outriders, because I'd kill for Bulletstorm 2.