Random Thoughts.....What Are You Thinking?

In other words, they provided values in the society that online crypto gambling services can't. If values provided by a company can be translated into "ethics", then I personally see Amazon a better company to support and don't really agree with the "but they are all equally bad!" stance.

To be fair, I don't think all gambling services are value-less. I defended for gacha games a few times in the past, because in my eyes it increased story writer's values by 10x. People barely want to pay $5-$10 for a novel that they like, but they are willing to pay $500+ for a waifu in gacha games because they liked the story. This encourages writers write better stories which everyone can also enjoy.

Likewise I also support sports lottery because sports industry provided high paid jobs for slum kids who is good at football or baseball.

But exactly what does online gambling casino provides? It doesn't provide anything new or useful, just money being exchanged back and forth lol.

Or maybe I am missing something about online casinos. This streamer needs to provide a better argument than the "but they are equally bad" card.



Slavery is the ownership of a person as property. A job with bad pay and long work hours is not "slavery" if people can freely leave their jobs. Nobody stop them from finding a better job. If they choose to take the bad job, that means the job provided better option for them than every other option to begin with.

But we already know internet streamers like to exaggerate their opinion for clicks.

Yeah, slavery is only slavery if you document it and brand your human cattle. Just like bribery is only bribery if you yell out loud "I am bribing you."

You aren't a slave if you can choose to just starve to death instead. The choice is what makes it ok.

Ummm no, lol.

Except it was the sheer size and inability to compete in the first place that made it so somewhere like Amazon is the only employer who would hire them.

They can offer lower prices and more convenience because they pay their employees minimum wage, and import their product from a country that doesn't even have a minimum wage. A local mom-and-pop shop cannot compete with that volume, and thus shuts down. Their local sources now no longer have anyone to sell to, and thus shut down. The employees of those places have nowhere else to work except Amazon or Wal-Mart or whatever. And because those employees are now making less money, they can't afford to buy at a local store themselves, so they too are forced to buy from the big corporation who can sell at "Always Low Prices(tm)".

They provide a dopamine rush. Which is neither new or useful to the user but is beneficial as all **** to the casino.

"Freedom is the choice between working or starving."

Its the freely leave part that you assume is there. There are mega factories in China that have attached dormitories. The workers not only can't leave the job, they can't even leave the factory.

Would you care to hear about the "workshops" in Bangladesh where your clothing is sewn?

They definitely do not want to know "how the sausage is made" as it were.

Blissful ignorance so they never have to grapple with that.

This is why news of stuff like Microsoft buying A-B-K, Sony buying S-E, and Disney buying practically everything is all very scary to me. Bigger corporations get bigger, competition as both a customer and an employee are reduced, money cascades out of the economy, opportunities to start or maintain a business continue to shrink, more layers of management are added between the people in charge of the money and the people at the bottom.

Name of the Chinese cellphone factory that forbids workers to leave their job and factory??? (Covid lockdown doesn't count)

Because from the 2nd hand sources that I've heard, employees turn ocer rate for those low rank job is extremely high. Workers who wants a quick gig stay for weeks sometimes even days then they leave. Since those job has such a low requirement for a lot of people without education it's one way to get money.

If people aren't allowed to leave their jobs like you said then some if the people quit in 3 weeks stories wouldn't make sense.

Just having dormitories attached to the factory doesn't make it unethical.


Simply developing better services in the competition and make incompetent services shut down is not unethical. Winning the competition by bribing the government or stealing business secret is.


Paying minimum wage isn't against the law, paying below the minimum wage is.

If minimum wage is too low, blame the government for setting it too low lol.


If someone is starving without those jobs, the responsibility is on the government who made decisions on education system and wealth distribution. It is not a private company's responsibility to ensure every citizen have money.

In a country with corruption and bad wealth generation/distribution, even without those factories people will probably live in poverty and starve anyways. Since they already don't have a better choice. I fail to see why factories are the one to blame for this poverty problem.

Don't get me wrong, there are some practices that I don't support, such as cheating/stealing/breaking the law. but many of what's listed here doesn't sound like it's entering the territory of unethical, just usual "blame the evil corporation for every problem in our society!!!" movement like usual, which solves zero problem anyways.

It's not inherently unethical, but it leads to massive problems as I described. The problem is that it's all technically fair play, so there's no way to make fair rules against it. But once a monopoly is established there's nothing that can really be done about it.

But even if the minimum wage were raised, the corporations would raise their prices to match. They have more power over both the economy and the law than the government in countries like Canada and the US, which is why a lot of them don't even bother raising the minimum wage. They lobby the governments and threaten inflation. "Give us this tax break now and forever or we'll lay off 3000 of your citizens"

Product development and product distribution channels are totally 2 different business categories. Amazon is a product distribution channel, in the gaming industry the equivalent would be Valve/Steam, or google store etc. In both cases once a company get most of the users it will be near impossible to join this market and compete. Since most of the sellers and buyers will gather on one single platform.

In words, if you want criticize this kind of practice, Valve should be your target lol. Other competitors like GoG and epic just don't get that much market share since valve got the most.

Product development however, is easier to compete, at least in the gaming industry this is the case. Literally anyone who can use Unity or Unreal can make a game, sell it and compete with MS/Sony's game. MS/Sony doesn't have drastically advantage over other indie games when people choose what to play. Sure, those big companies have higher budget but we all know big budget can't generate fun nor creativity in the gaming industry.

None of the games that I brought in past 5 years are made by MS or Sony. This is not like how I almost always use Steam or Amazon to buy my things.

So there is really nothing to worry about. MS or Sony isn't going to dominate gaming industry. At best one of them may dominate monthly subscription market with their big budget titles(Game pass is a product distribution platform), but I love game pass so who cares.

But marketing them against the bigger companies is always a lot harder. Cassette Beasts is 100x better than any recent Pokemon game, but chances are you've never even heard of it. And most times when a company does do well, they're poached or assimilated by someone much bigger.

That's all well and good until only one company's Game Pass is left standing, and without competition are free to jack their prices up to $60/mo or some crap.

My condolences. It's hard, but stand by him and he'll appreciate it, and it'll help him in the long run. Just the kind words and prayers would mean a lot. I went through a similar experience with a friend who lost 2 kids successively over the course of 5 years due to metabolic dieases. I was there when his first kid got diagnosed with it at the age of 2, essentially a death sentence. It was devastating. Then the nightmare repeated itself with his 2nd kid, who suffered for a longer period.
Now, he's blessed with healthy twins, and gives me way more credit than I deserve, just for standing by him, and helping him endure the ordeal. We just played RE4R yesterday. Life goes on.

The corporations aren't the one causing inflation. Fed QE during COVID added tons and tons of money into the market. So the price of everything went up.


I am pretty sure the minimum wage in Canada has increased in the past.

The corporations didn't "threaten inflation", inflation is real because US and FED QE added more money into the economy everytime US economy have a problem.

It's like a giant bubble that continue to grow over the years. And no one wants to solve this problem and lose votes.


Marketing cost money though, so it's not always that profitable even for big companies. If I remember correctly Ubisoft didn't do well recently. And MS definitely shut down tons of studios in the past.
Their xbox wasn't doing too well.

The console market share is less than 35% in the entire industry and MS/Sony doesn't even beat Nintendo within that share.

It's going to be a lonnnnng time until MS/Sony really dominate the gaming industry, probably never.

NYYC Team "American Magic" arrives in Barcelona



New York Yacht Club's Team "American Magic" has arrived in Barcelona. As The America's Cup will be decided there in October 2024, this will be their base of operations for the next 16 months, with pre-Cup Regattas in Vilanova, Jeddah, and Barcelona prior.

NYYC has both their AC40s already there, with their LEQ12 and AC75 "Patriot" having left Pensacola, FL last week.

-AC40s are the new boat to be used for the Youth and Women's America's Cup regattas starting in 2026, so these regattas will be a feature for that product (which private sailors can buy now! just an 8 month wait and $2million!)

-LEQ12 refers to modifications made to the larger boat as a "middleweight" between the AC40 and AC75, and stands for "Less than or EQual to 12metres". These are the primary testing platforms for the teams to experiment with new foils and sails mostly.

-AC75 are the official class of boat to be used in the 2020, 2024, and 2028 Cups. These are the full blown thing, capable of massive speeds with minimal winds and with a larger crew than both the AC40 (which can technically be sailed solo, but is crewed with 4-6 depending on event) or the LEQ12 (crew of 6-8).

*Pic above shows Alinghi Red Bull, the Swiss Team, and "Magic", the American Team's 1st AC40 in some funsies out on the bay.

another interesting note- the AC40s and AC75s this time around have the option to use "pedal grinders" vs arm powered traditional grinders. This to many classic sailors is a huge cheatmode, but vastly increases the power of the boat.

All boats will be subject to tolls and inspections. Resistance is futile. This is our ocean.

that wasn't even the worst damage done on The Ocean Race. The crash between 11th Hour Racing and Team Guyot at The Hague....that was news.

So 16 is just as good as I was hoping for. Not gonna say ***cause spoilers but I am not even a little disappointed.

A friend of mine who is more committed to XVI than I am, summed it up like this...


"XVI is game of the year if it's considered in the action genre. Instant bargain bin if considered as an RPG."


I'm only disappointed because I wanted an RPG. Still very good for what it is.

i was so agansist FF16 not after the demo tho started playing 2 days ago a bit now am i think half way with ramuh magic

Missed the quoted posts here yesterday. I think this is not quite correct even though I agree with some of the problem that you listed can exist in some country.

Whenever someone make a purchase at stores like McDonald the money probably goes to:

1. Employee's salary. Then employees will use that money and purchase their own things, which recirculates back to economy.

"Management" counts as employee if they hold zero shares.

Things like advertisement probably count as employee's salary too.

2. Rent, then the landlord will use that money and buy their own things, which recirculates back to economy.

3. Other equipment and suppliers, then it may or may not recirculates back to economy depending on the location.

4. Tax, then the government can use the tax on welfare and such. In my country our government use our tax money on welfare and price fix gas and electricity and keep the inflation low, which counts as money recirculates back to economy.

5. Then whatever that's remained goes back to shareholders, that's when money leaves the economy if shareholders are foreigners.

So not all the money leaves economy like you said, only a portion of it.

If a country has absolutely nothing to offer in global economy then they'll likely suffer because their money leaves the country faster than they gain it. On the other hand countries that has something valuable to offer(like export/labour) will gain money back to the economy. So it is not always a simple 1 way trip like you said, it depends.

In my country mega corp are the one exporting goods and paying majority of the tax, then our government use the tax on welfare and price fix gas and electricity so everyone(not just mega corps) benefits. That is also why government supports mega corps, so they can get money from tax, then they can use that money on welfare and win votes, everyone wins in the end. In the most ideal scenario, wealth generation has equal weight as wealth distribution. You can't eliminate poverty without a way to generate wealth.

Having a functional democracy government and educated, rational voters who participates is absolutely crucial in this process. Many of countries suffered from economy crisis has a very flawed government system and/or useless government officials. If people suffers from poverty, 90% of the reason is because their government officials are corrupted or dumb or both. You should be blaming the government for that. Just spamming "Amazon is evil!!!!!" Over and over on the internet solves zero economic problem unfortunately.

Edit: Just googled Tim Horton's market share, it's like 5.8% of total industry revenue lol.

https://www.ibisworld.com/us/company/tim-hortons-inc/425174/

This isn't anywhere close to monopoly, holy ***at all the doom and gloom from social media articles....

I guess this PDL is the proper stat to stack for MNKs WS, given most of then are multi hits but without clear advantage from crit hit/dmg and WSD.

The only thing is the huge gap to fill till the attack cap.

But that said, PDL really does nothing below PDIF cap? Now with prime horn out here, should be easy to test: under attack cap, check difference with assuran fists, with and without song.

Not that I am aware of. Attack is attack, pdl is pdl, they are different stats afaik. Never heard of anything that pdl functions as 2 stats at once.

Edit:
https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Damage_Limit%2B

"This does not increase the value of your pDIF, but simply increases the potential cap available to you."

FFXVI is a bit cutscene heavy right out the gate, but the presentation has been phenomenal, and I look forward to playing it more when I get off work today.

My biggest complaint right now is that I can't no life it, because my vacation doesn't start until next Wednesday (I seriously thought my physical copy was going to show up late, guess I get clowned no matter what I expect/want lmao).

The feedback that Ive heard from the gaming community is pretty polarized so far. Some people feel it's too simplified as a rpg or dmc type action game. I guess this is another case like ff14 that people either love it or hate it because of the design direction lol.

I still have plans to play it eventually, but I gonna finish my long backlog with 12+ rpg games first...;/

It's just DMC 7 or 8 or whatever number that shits on now, with summons.

That's cool for a DMC game, dogshit for an FF game.

So many things being mislabled lately. Blackmirrors were terrible black mirrors but good if they were twilight zones. Resident evil series was dogshit RE but would've been fine under a different name. Remasters being called remakes.

I heard some dmc players complained about it for not being "hardcore" enough for them, although I personally can't comment if what they said is true or biased. Maybe whoever played both can share some thoughts?

But we already know Yoshi-P is good at simplifying game mechanics and focus on core experience from ff14 1.x -> 2.0 development, so such design direction really isn't that surprising to me. It feels like Yoshi-P's style in every way.

This is why I was saying before that they probably shouldn't have called it a Final Fantasy game. Or they shouldn't have done the grey area of "Action-RPG" and just doubled-down on the Action part of it. The simple facts that it's given a name associated with RPGs and being sold as an RPG, but then barely resembles one is probably confusing to people's expectations.

I even saw an article from TheGamer that talks about how the industry desperately needs to redefine what an RPG is, or even get rid of that name altogether.
"It’s fine that Final Fantasy 16 doesn’t have deep RPG mechanics, and I think those complaining that it’s not a real Final Fantasy game are silly. But I also think calling it an RPG is both misleading and inconsistent. If Final Fantasy 16 is an RPG, so are a lot of other games that we don’t typically consider RPGs."

I've seen a lot of people suggesting that we go back to the term "Adventure" to better describe what people have in mind when thinking about the term "RPG". According to Wikipedia: An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story, driven by exploration and/or puzzle-solving. That sounds to me like it would far better describe not only the last few numbered Final Fantasy games, but even stuff like The Legend of Zelda, which I've also heard described as an RPG in the past. People just kind of associate whatever they want to the genre lol

We did this before literally everything is an rpg. The category is nonsensical. It needs to be changed.

Literally everything is an adventure as well. Literally everything is action. Literally everything requires strategy. Literally every game is about surviving.

None of these words mean anything. The only ones that still work are "Sports" "fps" and "tactical" (even though tactics is a synonym for strategy, it means tiled combat) And even that is blurred with games where you move set amounts but not specifically on tiles.

I am under the impression that if an action game has stats to determine character performance, and if those stats can be increased with level/equipment then it is arpg.

For example in rpg community always recognise Ys series as arpg.
Here is a list of equipments available in Ys1:
https://isu.fandom.com/wiki/Ys_I:_Ancient_Ys_Vanished_~_Omen/Equipment_%26_Items

You get like 5 swords that increase str. 5 shields and armor that increase defense, some rings with special effects. Those stats will affect your damage/damage taken when you get hit or hit the enemy.

This system is simple, no skill trees nor "builds", and the game's difficulty mostly come from player skill requirements after they reach the required level for damage. But the community always call Ys arpg.

Using the same standard Id say yes, any action game with stats, progression and equipment = arpg. A game doesn't need diablo 2 level of complexity on builds and equipment to be an arpg.



Adventure games normally have no progression system. Like Monkey Island or Myst.

They aren't attacking all the sailboats, just a few, the majority they either swim along with and leave alone or there are no sightings. They are targeting specific boats for reasons that haven't been discovered yet.

Some think it's bottom paint color, possibly depth instruments, motors running vs sailing, rudder shape, keel shape, or some other factor. There is a site tracking some of the interactions and many have reported they were left alone, others said their rudders were destroyed. A few said the Orcas played with the rudder then swam off, others said they just rammed it and disappeared in under a minute. Some were destroyed, others weren't. Some reported they watched the boat until the motor came on, then they went for the rudder and left.

There is no consistency, but it's not all boats, they are picking certain ones and leaving the rest alone for some reason.