“Why hasn’t anyone designed a building like this before?”

“Oh.”

I guess China is no stranger to the high inflation more risk-averse economic environment.

Took me a year and 150 applications and 10 interviews to find the job that I wanted. I wouldn’t want to wish the stress of job seeking on anyone.

You make a decent point, but the disconnect between people paying for content and the money going to the people who contributed effort to it is getting wider and wider.

Popular shows that people subscribed for get axed after 1 season or moved to another service. All the work people did for Warner Brothers’ Batgirl gets thrown in the trash so that WB can get a tax write-off, before any movie watcher can even give a cent to them in support.

The point is big studios make so much year after year that pirating their stuff doesn’t make a dent in whether the people they hire get paid accordingly.

Many scene groups actually purchased the games and cracked them, I’ve read NFOs that say “buy the game, we did too”.

People recording in movie theatres have to either sneak into the theatre or buy a ticket themselves.

Someone scanning a book to post online had to have bought it or borrowed it.

Yes some games are cracks of illegitimate obtained leaked copies or other unscrupulous methods.

I have played pirated games in the past but my Steam library has thousands of dollars worth of games I bought, many of which I wouldn’t have if I weren’t interested in these type of games to begin had pirating games not been possible.

Sure, the opportunity cost from piracy’s “lost sales” to the publisher/licensor is non-zero. But how many sales that would have happened varies greatly on the perceived value vs. price of the product, and how available it is. If it’s not in stores anymore and can only be bought from scalpers on eBay, the publisher cough Nintendo cough doesn’t see that money anyway vs. pirating it.

Some countries have a blank media fee on writable casettes, discs and hard drives that are paid to music and movie studios for this purpose.

Caltrain and Metrolink (California, USA regional trains) have the right idea. Low income Americans by and large carry EBT cards. They give a 50% discount on tickets when scanned. Of course this could be technologically easily made free but it’s a start and the remaining challeges are financial and political.

I did an EU Rail pass trip (same as Interrail but for people outside EU), because I love taking the train. Visited 9 countries in 3 weeks, spending 120 hours of my trip on a train or transferring. I had a lot of fun.

Every train system is a little different, fare structure is a bit different here and there. In Germany it’s easy to get around without paying extra, in France you’ll have to pay extra often. Italy it’s a small fee but you have to pay it for every reservation.

You can get used to sleeping on a train, and if you’re young enough then some NightJet 3 seater coach cabins aren’t too bad. But be careful of overdoing it; at the end of the 3 weeks I was so tired I took the wrong train from København, Denmark and ended up in Nykøbing Falster at 2AM.

Wherever you go, be mindful that cost of staying varies wildly too, especially if you’re coming from Romania. Switzerland was expensive as hell for a young and broke traveler like me.

Including the plane ticket, rail ticket and reservation fees, hostel fees, food, beer and a couple souvenirs, I spent 4000 CAD over the 3 weeks, which works out to 200 CAD a day. This was in late spring 2022.

Be aware of the weather of where you’re visiting, this is true of any international trip but if you will be travelling far across various European climates it’s extra important to remember.

There’s hardly a better time to do it, than off the back of the massive contract wins the unions fought for and successfully attained.

Wishing you a speedy recovery.

Last weekend I built a new PC which I collected parts over 6 months when I could afford them, and today I replaced all my burnt out light bulbs! My room is a lot brighter now!

That’s a neat fact!

I don’t know how likely it is (seems unlikely as it was coordinated until Monday), but if they can maintain strikes through to Christmas, then it would have a major effect. People ordering a week before will not get it in time.

Best the Ontario conservative government could do was to open up protected Greenbelt land so his developer buddies could make a quick buck without actually developing anything. Sorry.

That’s a great mindset to have. Life kicks everyone in the ass at certain points, but the will to continue forward has to come from you.

I raise my glass of milk to you and your new life.

As far as I understand the US political process, the President is allowed to do virtually anything so long as it doesn’t step on the states’ toes, but Congress has to pass funding and anything done by Executive Order can be done but can’t stick beyond his or her tenure.

On vacation from work for a few days… really needed it (if you can see my IP you’d know where at).

Over and over it seems that Trump and his lawyers’ strategy is just to continuously add to the list of crimes so that clerks and the judge have to keep on writing them down until Trump dies of old age or hamberder liver (or heaven forbid he pardons himself)

Spicy take but I like it.

We have the tools even without nukes to raze land to the ground. Using a nuke might have the added bonus of “solve” climate change by making it a permanent nuclear winter.

A goddamn big ol’ lie that is. The U.S. would not be afraid to push the envelope against most other countries. The U.S. military is capable enough to singlehandedly wipe out all of Israel and Palestine more than 10 times over in conventional warfare if it were so desired. Not that this is desirable, and it would cost many lives of the innocent and young, but I’m just speaking that this power and capability can’t really be hidden by pretending you can’t do anything about it.

If there was any value as a world of nations we could get out of such exorbitant expenses, it would be to establish peace and stop the fighting on both sides, by various means and escalating degrees of force if they really were compelled to. And even if we leave threatening or flexing military might out of the question, the U.S. has so many strings they can attach to how they support Israel with funding and arms, is it not obvious to this administration?

Where the heck is the notion that the U.S. government’s hands are tied coming from?

Yeah. You got this!