Hillock

Kids being able to openly participate on porn sites would be a feast for pedophiles and groomers. We already have enough trouble with that on social media and dating sites/apps. And while in an ideal situation there just wouldn’t be bad people, sometimes we need to protect people from themselves because of others.

So while I am open for a discussion about lowering the age requirement, I still firmly believe a minimum age is required. But whether that’s 14, 16, or 18 I don’t know.

I am in favor of stricter age verification for certain content. Not only for porn but also dating apps, social media, online shops, etc. But the current methods of age verification are a privacy nightmare and go well beyond what is reasonable. Especially since companies can’t be trusted to not do bad stuff with that information.

What is necessary is a double anonymity age verification service. Ideally run by a company that by law is required to be very transparent. That way we don’t have to provide personal information to companies that have no actual need for it but can still reduce the amount of minors getting into places they shouldn’t be.

Yes, it won’t be perfect, yes there will always be bad actors, but it will still do more good than harm.

I personally am open for a discussion about reducing the minimum age to view porn. I don’t have strong feelings either way.

YouTube doesn’t have a say in this, it’s up to the copyright holder of each individual song. YouTube just detects if a song is copyrighted or not then gives the owner the option what to do. The three common ones are

• Disable the Video.
• Claim Monetization of it.
• Do nothing.

So whoever holds the rights to Phil Collins song is the one responsible for your video being disabled. While whoever holds the rights to the song Joe Schmo decided to go with option 2 or 3.

This process has mostly been automated. So it feels like YouTube is doing it but they are just following the orders of the copyright holder.

The system is a bit overzealous in some cases and even fair use gets flagged.That’s on YouTube. But to be fair, it’s very hard to have an automated system detect the difference between fair use and not. YouTube should just implement a better way to dispute false copyright claims.

Games developed by Paradox have been like this for decades and it’s fine. The player base is aware of it and buys the game with the expectation that it will take an additional 2 years and several dlcs for the game to be actually good. Everyone knew Victoria 3 won’t be good on release.

And crucially, the developers of Paradox are also aware of that and delivery a product that is still somewhat enjoyable on release. They know where to cut corners that will be fixed with dlcs and what needs to be focused on for release.

But when Paradox is just the publisher things don’t work out that well. Because the developers might not actually plan their game around that kind of thing. And when they are then forced to release early, their game is still a huge mess.

I am not really sure what you mean with their settlement. If you just mean the existence of Israel, then yes it's fine to support that. If you are talking about their actual settlement policies, then no. I don't think supporting a system of displacing people you deem "inferior" or "unwanted" to make room for "superior" people should be supported.

How to feel about the military response to the attacks is purely a personal choice. A fight against terrorists is never clean. And whether or not the amount of "collateral damages" is acceptable is up to you. I personally think that the attack by Hamas were extreme enough to warrent the response by the IDF. I don't think you can expect someone to just turn the other cheek in this scenario. But I totally understand people who say any amount of civilian casualties is too much.

In BG3 encumbrance is so pointless. The increased carry capacity and reduced armor weight make it a non-factor. The few times you actually reach it you just sort by weight and send some of the heavier stuff to camp. You can even do it during combat. So they should have just gotten rid of it. You are bringing all your resources at all times anyhow and the inventory manamgent is still terrible.

The current system is just a minor inconvenience because you will have to go to your camp when you reach a vendor and want to get rid of some of the extra stuff. I would much prefer it if they either stick to the base rules, with base weight values and encumbrance starting at 5x the strength value. Then one would have to make actual decisions on what to bring. But right now, even with 8 strength you never have any issues. Or they just get rid of it.

And that’s how I feel about encumbrance in general. Most games have such absurd high carry limits that the system doesn’t add anything and just becomes an inconvenience and annoyance.

They often sell an auto-install USB stick you just have to plug into your PC. So at least there is some effort put into it that still makes it “worth paying for”. And if you need to install it on multiple devices, it can save a lot of time if you don’t know how to do it yourself.

It’s not the standard, it’s just something that started to pop up in some university courses. Anything before that we usually are just graded 1-6/A-F. But even 15 years ago when I attended University there were a few courses that required a 70%+ for passing and what I have heared this has become more common. It’s basically to weed out people and reduce the number of students since university is usually free.

I blame the school grading system for it. 70% and below is already a failing grade in many courses. So by extension anything that gets rated 7 or below is asscoiated with failure.

I am not from the US, so I don’t know how long this grading system has been in use there but here in Central Eruope that’s a rather new thing. That’s why a 5/10 didn’t feel as bad 20 years ago while today a 7/10 feels worse.

Firefox loss in market share is more complicated. It’s mostly due to growth in areas Firefox never had a foothold. Mainly the mobile browser and the Asian market (which mostly is mobile on top of it). On the desktop front in US and especially Europe the situation isn’t nearly as dire as the global stats imply.

Firefox Android recently implemented extension support, so perhaps we will see some increased use there. But the majority of mobile users simply don’t care and considering how interlocked Google and Android is, there is little hope for a third party browser gaining a foothold.

Brave had a lot of controversies and that’s because their aggressive marketing strategy is so expensive. That’s why they did shady stuff like hijacking links and insering their own affiliate codes. Something I don’t want Mozilla doing with Firefox. Also Brave uses Chromium and the future of Chromium seems bleek. If it actually starts disabling support for adblock extensions then Brave has no future at all.

Mozilla can’t compete against Google. Any attempts of growing their marketshare by advertising is going to fail. Google will just outspend them. Then Mozilla will either go bankrupt or have to recoup their investment by jumping on the data collection train. I much prefer they stay sensible with their business modell and focus on being sustainable. Firefox will naturally grow as people start caring more and more about their online-privacy.

Same with any kind of new innovations or projects. I don’t want to outright discourage them but I much prefer their current pace of doing things slow and safely. Because if we lose Firefox due to Mozilla taking some kind of gamble the alternative browsers remaing don’t really seem appealing.

Overall the legal system isn’t nearly as expensive as people think it is. Most cases can be dealt with for a few hundred dollars or less. Especially small court claims sometimes even prohibits the use of lawyers, so the only cost ist your time + getting a few documents.

But as the complexity of the case increases so does the price. And that’s because you pay for a lot of time of people with specialized knowledge. But that’s true for every profession.

These cases are what people usually talk about. These are the cases that get media attention. No one talks about the small court claims between Bob and John that took 30 minutes.

Kids are afraid of being alone in the dark. The monster under the bed or in the closet is just how they communicate their fear.

I had a room similar to what you suggested. No big closets and an elevated bed. But I still got scared sometimes. And the only things that helped were being in a well lit room and or not being alone.

Why not just leave a small amount of money so they can buy it themselves? It would solve all issues. From allergies, spoiling, and attracting insects or stray dogs.

Because you run into the issue that most healthy things that don’t spoil are rather hard. And many homeless people have issues with their teeth and can’t eat that. So you either leave something less healthy, like sealed soft bread or you ignore food safety rules.

Which isn’t as big of a deal in Asia. Even affluent people ignore it. Foods to look out for would be anything with a lot of soy sauce or vinegar. They tend to last a bit longer. And while it sounds stereotypical, anything with rice will be appreciated.

Leaving fruits could also work.

Republicans know their voter base is slowly dying out. Younger generations tend to vote more and more Democratic. To counter this decline in voter base the Republicans have to increase the number of younger generations that would become Republican voters.

A lot of women who opt for an abortion do so because they aren’t ready for a baby. If they suddenly are forced to give birth, they are very likely to be stuck in the lower middle class. Their children are unlikely to go to college. And then the Republicans blame immigrants and other minorities for their struggles. Luring them to vote Republican.

After abortion ban we will see restrictions on birth control, to further increase the number of children born. Next will be restrictions on divorces, forcing families into the lifestyle Republicans want or further increasing the amount of lower middle class people. Who, due to having a child, can’t start fighting the system and instead are glad to hold a job. So it’s a win-win situation for Republicans.

Also, everyone knows the no-abortion rule doesn’t apply to them and only to “others” because their abortion had “reasons” that are “different” from others.

And of course there is the big fear of “white people are being bred out”. The fear of white people becoming a minority is very ingrained in Republicans. But the current economic system also relies on a constant increasing population. With birthrates decling the system starts to fail. So the only options are, increase birth rates, allow more immigrants, or change the economic system. Only one option aligns with Republicans.

Gaming laptops aren’t a scam, they fill a niche. For people like me they are the best option available. I travel frequently and then stay there for usually a few months before having to travel again. So a desktop doesn’t work for me at all. I need a decent computer for work. Most business laptop that fill my needs are also on the heavier side. The ones that are portable usually have integraded gpu’s, which just doesn’t work for me. So the step from business laptop that fills my needs to gaming laptop is minimal.

All of the drawbacks of a gaming laptop are barely affecting me. And while this seems like an edgecase, there are a lot more people who have needs that a gaming laptop fulfills and can’t be met by other devices.

I can recommend the Acer Nitro 5 series. Have it for a few years now. The main drawbacks are

Portability - You will run into this issue a lot with gaming laptops. But the Nitro series is probably one the lower end when it comes to portability. Especially if you go with the 17 inch screen. It’s heavy and big.

Speakers - the newest series apparently upgraded them, but the one I have has terrible built in speakers. I use a headset anyhow while playing. So doesn’t concern me. But it just can’t be used to watch movies together in bed.

Fan noise - It can get very noisy, especially during gaming session. If you are using a headset, you aren’t noticing it. But it can be distracting to others in the room.

Batter life - It’s just bad, even if you aren’t gaming. But again, while playing you are usually plugged in anyway.

Overall none of the big issues affect me. But could be a dealbreaker for others.

The big pros:

Available in 17 inch - which was a must for me.

Decent cooling - Just make sure you get a 2021 or later model.

Easy to upgrade internal storage & ram - you can put 2 additional SSDs inside. And even upgrading the ram is super easy. This also means they aren’t charging absurd amounts for upgrading the stock variant from 256gb to 512 or even 1tb.

Performance for the price - It’s not a end of the line model but for the price you will get decent performance.

I haven’t played a Paladin yet, so I am not sure how the mechanic is implemented. But the oathbreaker subclass exist in BG3 and you can’t choose it on character creation. So there is some way of becoming one.

I don’t think it matters nearly as much as the article makes it sound. Especially since multiclassing is super viable in 5E and BG3 removed all kinds of requirements for multiclassing and even allows you to respec. Meaning even multiclass combos that struggle if played out at level 1 can just be recreated later. And that means you can recreate the toolkit of a Bard fairly easily and focus more on the aspect you actually enjoy.

I think any class with ritual casting is going to feel very rewarding in your first playthrough, assuming you don’t forget to utilize it. So you have Bard, Cleric, Druid, and Wizard, and Arcane Trickster and Eldritch Knight. But even any class with just cantrips are already going to give you a lot you might not be used to from other RPGs.

The only class I wouldn’t recommend for the first playthrough might be Paladin. The oath just limits your choices in certain situations. And while you could break your oath and become an “Oathbreaker”, I personally don’t feel this is the best for the first time playing. I think being able to explore all options available without having to consider your oaths makes for a better first-time-playing experience. But Paladin is on the list for my second round.

Edit: I forgot that BG3 made changes to Arcane Trickster and Eldritch Knight, they can both also ritual cast. In general, there are a lot of changes made that make the game way more open and allows you things to make it fun.

Yes it’s possible. Their version of Google Drive (Pan Baidu) is basically a paradise for piracy. But it’s a bit of a pain in the ass for foreigners to get access. And obviously everything is in Chinese.

China doesn’t care about foreign held copyright. So anything that isn’t owned by a Chinese company is fair game. As long as it isn’t considered banned material of course.