Hillock @ Hillock @kbin.social

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2 yr. ago

The size is exactly what matters. I think we can all agree that filling up a 5,000 gallon water tank with tap water from a vacation home isn't acceptable use.

So the only question is at what point becomes the use too much. A single car might seem harmless but what if it's a group of 4 all arriving with their own car, charging it at the home.

Clarifying what's acceptable and what isn't, is the right decision.

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.

Every country has lots of struggles. There are a few European cities I would consider close to perfect but when leaving said cities things can become more difficult in the same country. Vienna and Copenhagen might be my two favorites. Rent is still fairly affordable in both cities especially given the available salaries. Both have great public transportation, lots of green spaces, good access to education and healthcare, and a healthy entertainment sector. Both countries are doing fairly decent overall. Denmark is probably ahead of Austria because Austria has a bigger right-wing. So by extension I would say Denmark might be as close as it gets.

Obviously there will be a few smaller towns that are even better but they are too small to consider.

When talking about a whole country a lot of it comes down to personal ranking on what you consider important. When leaving central & northern Europe the relative income drops significantly in most other nations. Which would matter for some as it affects the possibility of traveling, while for other it doesn't.
Many of the pacific island nations have a surprisingly high standard of living despite poverty being an issue. But even if you don't care about money and would rank the relaxed living there over the working culture in Europe there is another issue that affects some. Abortion is illegal in most of them, it's usually allowed for medical reasons, especially if the life of the pregnant woman is in danger. But for some the lack of access to abortion would totally dismiss these countries from consideration while others prefer them for it.
Singapore could rank very high but the fact that there is the death penalty for drug related crimes is a huge red flag for many. But again, others even agree with it.

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.

The issue here is under the current regulations they can't catch up. They will be behind forever in their facilities and that's not good for the sport.

The cost cap in F1 is very new and still needs adjustments. Providing teams that fell behind in facilities a better option to catch up is needed.

The reason the current approach failed was because they were looking for a one-time exemption rather than a proper rule overhaul.

I assume we will see something similar to car development where teams that placed lower in the construction championship will have a higher budget for facilities available. But how exactly this should look like is difficult.

I am going to assume you have a cellar spider. Removing part of the web isn't going to directly harm them. They don't recycle their web so you aren't even removing nutrients from them.

The only way it's going to affect them is by reducing their chances of catching prey. Cellar spiders don't have a sticky web and rather rely on prey brushing up against their web, then rushing there and killing it with a bite. So you are reducing the area they are covering.

They also usually just gradually increase the size of their web. So it's unlikely it will try to rebuild everything you removed at once. Meaning it's not going to waste too much energy.

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.

No, not really. They are a few years too late with their conclusion. The topic of US military dependency came up a couple of years ago and the EU decided to take steps against it. And with the invasion of Ukraine, this is only taken more seriously and urgently. The article also doesn't bring up that many points. Only

The paper also compared Germany's previous unwillingness to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine unless the US agreed to provide its own M1 Abrams vehicles to the behaviour of "a scared child in a room full of strangers [who] felt alone if Uncle Sam was not holding its hand."

and

"encouraging European nations to ban Huawei sales in Europe"

Germany has been hesitant on taking a leading position in anything military due to history. And taking the step of becoming more involved in a war wasn't that simple. But again, they came around and acknowledged that they have to.
And trying to argue that restricting the sales of technology that most likely is used by the Chinese government to spy is a rather weird way of saying it's becoming a vassal of the US.

And then the article only goes on about how the word "Vassal" is triggering people. So I don't see the good points you are talking about.

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.

This really depends on your exact location. In most of the "western" world, it would be legal. But just because it's legal, doesn't mean it will go unpunished. You could still be arrested and then have some charges thrown at you trying to make one stick. Disturbing the peace would probably be one of the charges that could stick. And of course other things such as resisting arrest. Whether or not it goes that far would depend on why, where, and how you were out in your underwear and if someone has it out for you or not.

Businesses and even certain public places can obviously refuse you entry.

I don't think the difference is worth considering. The computers running for hours actually playing the game would be the same and that's the bulk of the energy consumption. The spike from downloading it or physical distribution is probably irrelevant in the big picture.

The main argument in favor of downloading is, it's easier to provide the necessary energy in a cleaner way. You just need electricity, and you could power everything using solar or other "clean" sources. While the production and distribution of the physical copies will have to be done by boat, car, and potentially even airplane. And I think we are still far away from electric shipping boats.

Can second Mechabellum. It's super fun, the right mix of casual but still competitive. The match duration makes it great for squeezing in a game or two. And I love how the game has weekly tournaments built in. They even have one for each timezone. The built-in competitiveness without having to register on external sites really reduces the entry barrier.

If you have a good internet connection you can just screen share the movie over any messaging app. The delay should be under a second and be in-sync with the audio delay. So no-one gets spoiled. You might receive the reaction of your friend a little late but it shouldn't matter too much.

Even federally legalizing cannabis could not be enough to solve the issue. International banking makes this complicated. Uruguay faces this issue, cannabis is already legalized but cash only because international banks would have to stop doing businesses with local banks otherwise. Germany is also facing this issue in it's attempt to legalize cannabis.

Now I would hope the USA is big enough of a market and has enough influence to simply change this. Especially since it's the United States Federal Reserve’s who prohibits cannabis-related operations. International provisions on money laundering would still be an issue.

But the risk is always that American banks fear losing access to certain international markets outweighs the potential earnings from dealing with cannabis operations. So again, even if they are allowed to deal with them, they might opt out of it.

Wouldn't a solution be to simply not have exclusive tire deals and rather give all teams access to both tires to switch and choose. I assume most cars would still mostly choose a single manufacturer because it's easier on the car development but at the very least teams can switch whenever one manufacturer gets way better.

In an ideal scenario teams could switch tires between races depending on what works better for them on each track. Heck, best case scenario we even have some driving Hard Pirellis and Medium Bridgestone tires in the same race.

Give every team for FP1 a set of each Hard, Medium, and Soft of Pirelli and Bridgestone, after FP1 the teams locks in the remaining tire choices for the weekend. FP2 is then about maximizing setup. Saturday is then qualifying followed by a Sprint race with reverse driver standing starting grid.

I have to admit I have no idea how feasible using two different tire manufacturers with the same car actually is. But considering how different the same tires are already track to track, I don't think it's entirely implausible.

That's a terrible solution to the problem. It will only work a short time on locals before they just ignore it. And in the mean time is a huge safety issue because drivers will focus on the lines and are more likely to miss pedestrians or even oncoming traffic.

The worst part about this is the already have a much better solution in the picture. Add more of these tree/plant boxes to the road. It will narrow down the road and force drivers to slow down.

It would still cause some issues with visibility but if you space the trees out enough and add some clearly marked pedestrian crossings that shouldn't be too much of an issue.

Reddit tried it some years ago and noticed that putting the results behind spoilers stifles discussion. So they reversed the rule.

I am also annoyed by it when I get spoiled but other sources are just as likely to spoil me. Newspaper feeds, YouTube, probably spoiled me more often than Reddit.

I agree that the insurance company has a right to regular inspections to spot potential risks and take action before something happens. But they should then come up with a solution rather than cancel the policy. If they told the homeowner to clean up the backyard or they will have to increase the policy/cancel it then that would be acceptable. But letting insurance companies cancel whenever they feel like it makes no sense and defeats the purpose. What's next? Flood insurance cancels your policy because heavy rain is expected?

But they definitely should have to schedule a time for the inspection. No one should be able to just film your backyard whenever they feel like it. There are tons of things one might do in their backyard they don't want others to film.