I for one blame the misinformation machine, the radicalizing echo chambers, and the reactionary and inflamatory nature of social media that the internet has propogated over the last couple decades.

There are alternatives that are arguably better.
You can play the exact same puzzles as on the NYT site without giving them your traffic. There are archives of their puzzles that you can play for free. If you like connections, go to https://www.connectionsunlimited.org/. For wordles, go to https://wordlearchive.com/. Just Google for archived versions of your favorite games.

Then there’s also other publications that have puzzle games live this. For example, as I like the mini crosswords, there’s a student publication, The Observer, that has these mini crosswords too: https://fordhamobserver.com/category/fun-and-games/daily-mini-crossword/.

Supporting the tech workers at NYT doesn’t mean you have to give up your daily game addiction

You are suggesting that the pandas looked badass and that this Dracthyr looks goofy. I’m not a WoW player, but it really sounds to me like you just have a very strong, but subjective ideal about what is “badass” and what is “goofy”. You are treating that ideal as objective, but I promise you that others have a different opinion.

Also it’s a game that let’s you roleplay fantasy races and factions with a bunch of other nerds around the world (using the term “nerds” lovingly here). Why is it unusual that some things in that style of game gets a bit silly sometimes?

Also may help to have improved blower (fan replacement/more focused outlet)

It’s kind of hard to have an incredibly varied and versatile powerset in a video game, simply becuase you have a limited set of inputs. So you would normally have a small set of powers that each serve a purpose. But then doing that and still representing 4 elements means each only gets very limited options.

Thinking about it, I can see two ways to make bending feel powerful, versatile and give a good representation to all elements. 1) maybe the best solution would be to have customizable load outs with various bending powers, and let you switch between those load outs on the fly so you can coordinate a few power sets that work well together but swap them when other sets are more useful to the situation. 2) An interesting idea would be to use situational awareness to execute moves without specific user inputs differentiating the exact power used. For example, you could have a single boost button that uses a different element depending on if the player is on land, water, in the air or dodging (fire rocket!). And you could have a close/melee attack and ranged attack for each element that you can specify, but the exact effect/attack it creates can vary depending on the environment and enemy type of the target. Let it feel a little bit like the character is making decisions, not just you, like Batman in combat in the Arkham games. And of course, there would be a charge up to a special attack that uses the Avatar state and all 4 elements at once.

I think the faces should be reversed. If you don’t know, spook 'em’s. If you do know, no spook 'em’s.

I didn’t sign a release!

Would be funnier if only scalpers bought it and couldn’t unload them.

There is a kernal of validity to your point, but let’s not pretend like those things are at all the same. The difference between copyright violation for personal use and copyright violation for commercialization is many orders of magnitude.

Or my favorite class, artificer. :/

”… bypass the usual bureaucratic nonsense"

Immigration laws? Quotas? Checking that they’re not importing the “criminals, drug traffickers, human traffickers and people from insane asylum from those shithole countries”?

“like language tests”

“Speak 'Merican!” “Why should I press 1 for English!?”

“or history exams,”

“They come over here and don’t even integrate to our culture, our laws and our history. They want to bring their own culture here and replace us”

I know it never stops, but even still this level of hypocritical entitlement still amazes me. Either way, can’t wait for these Leopard Ate My Face posts.

Well there were plenty who thought she might be trans when the game came out (she’s not, she’s just swoll). Bigots hated her initially because of that.

Then there were people that hated the character viscerally because of what she does in the game

The game makes you feel the rage and intense desire for revenge and then smacks you across the face for it. The message is clear. Hate begets hate, revenge propogates revenge. The only way to find peace, both within and without, is to break the cycle. And delivers this message in a very visceral way. The game forces empathy and compassion on you whether you like it or not. And many people did not like that. Many people were absolutely furious that they were expected to step into the shoes of someone that they hate, to examine and question their own hatred, and to sort out the complicated feelings they have over someone that they condemned to death for their crimes also being a friend, a lover and a savior to other people. They could not or would not process those feelings as the game designers intended, and so they doubled down on their hatred of Abby AND of Naughty Dog/Neil Druckmann for expecting them to.

Then there were plenty that were just happy to hate a game featuring predominantly female characters, a trans character, and with a pro-compassion message.

TLOU2 was a peace of art, as was TLOU1. And the message, while not subtle, is masterfully executed on and makes you truly examine your own impulses and hatred. I love these games.

The actor that played Joffrey is a wonderful, sweet young man, and a really great actor. I’ve watched him in interviews and he seems so nice and even a little bit shy about the attention. And I still can’t see his face and not want to wring his neck. I know intellectually that he is a completely separate and even great person. But my lizard brain still still triggers the “kill it with fire” response to seeing him. Obviously I know better than to listen to my lizard brain, but there are plenty of people who absolutely cannot control their’s. Honestly, in a weird way, it’s a complement to his acting ability.

My favorite one to dunk on is Mido, you rude self-important ass.

Saria is probably the one I like most as a person though.

Thank you. I came to say something similar. Wage theft is already a big legal problem that doesn’t get enough attention or action to fix it. Don’t intentionally mix it with a separate ethical issue making the legal issue even less likely to be addressed. They are similar, even related, issues. But they are not the same, nor will they be addressed the same. Don’t conflate them.

This is what parmesan shredded from the block looks like. Not the grated canned stuff packed with cellulose.

Most have more. Like 3 guys just learned it as a prank last year for the first time in generations, which kind of threw off the curve. Every other COBOL programmer is technically old enough to retire, but they are contractually required to continue working until the heat death of the universe.

When a piece of software does a very limited set of tasks that cannot be meaningfully improved, and when minor mistakes can equate to millions in cash or even lives lost or ruined, the name of the game is maintain, maintain, maintain. It ain’t broke, leave it the hell alone, because updating, upgrading or porting your system will inevitably lead to some sort of mistake.

Supply and demand.

COBOL programmers have some of the highest salaries of any other languages specialized programmers, but I don’t know if that is due to rarity of COBOL programmers, the fact that those jobs are all government or financial institution employed, or because the average experience for them is 58 years?