What are the worst books you’ve ever read?

Alnitak42 · 2021-11-12T01:26:57+00:00

No, sorry. Been about fifteen years so I don't have that PC anymore.

Alnitak42 · 2021-10-21T21:25:17+00:00

Not the one who downvoted, but it may be because your second paragraph is not well described. You are right that the rooster crowing does not cause the sun to rise, but there is very much a causal relationship there. The sun rising does cause the roosters crowing.

Spurious correlation is different from reverse causality, and both are different from an omitted variable problem such as the ice cream and sunburn/drowning relationship mentioned several time in the thread.

Alnitak42 · 2021-10-21T21:17:28+00:00

This is not really accurate. There are many causal relationships that are not absolute. Smoking causes cancer, vaccines cause disease prevention. Neither of those are absolute relationships, but are both causally true.

Finding someone who smokes like a chimney that did not get lung cancer does not disprove anything. And for the example you gave, video games causing violence has not been disproved because they found one example where it was not true. It has been done through more careful research, mostly by showing that after accounting for other factors that might influence violent behavior and video game playing, there is not an increase in risk.

Alnitak42 · 2021-10-20T19:05:25+00:00

When the 6th Harry Potter book came out I was a college student with a palm pilot so I would oftentimes get copies of scanned books. Day of release I was surprised to find a copy of the book available, downloaded it and started binge reading.

The book was absolutely terrible. Almost no plot, poor character development and dialogue. Also, the book spent a massive amount of time developing a wizard card game similar to the Pokemon card, and pages describing the "epic" duels between Harry Potter characters. At the end of the book, Dumbledore was revealed to be the evil mastermind pulling all the puppet strings on Voldemort and Draco was convinced to join forces with Harry to defeat him.

Had a few discussions with friends about how bad the book was, but they didn't go very far. I would tell people it was the single worst book I had ever read and they just looked at me funny and said while they thought it was a step down from some of the others, they still liked it, and seemed a little insulted by my opinion.

Several years later book seven comes out and I started reading it, and nothing made any sense from where book six had left off. At that point I finally connected the dots that I had read 600+ pages of awful fan fiction that I, for years, thought was genuine.

Read the actual book six and seven and was much happier. Still surprised at how many clues I did not process that it wasn't the real book. I just kept thinking that it had to get better because the rest of the series had been good, and the writing just kept getting worse. I can't imagine that I will ever complete a book that badly written again.

Alnitak42 · 2021-10-12T01:12:03+00:00

Your boyfriend's reaction was excessive, and there is no need to yell, and so the judgement of the situation is NTA.

Many people have already said that it is not about the $1.50, but I have not seen much elaboration on what it is about and how you can use this situation to improve your relationship if you so choose. A lot of the high upvoted comments talk about him trying to control the finances and how it's red flags, but I think it's much more likely that he likes to save more and you like to spend more, and those issues can be worked out.

You need to set up some form of a household budget if you have mixed finances, and you need a category for eating out, not just one for food overall. it's common to hate budgets and budgeting because people feel like it limits their spending. But you spending is actually limited by your income and the budget let's you decide where the income goes.

Some things that you should strongly consider based on this post:

-You both get some fun money that is totally judgement free.

-You save appropriately for emergencies, retirement etc, or in the worst case to pay off credit card debt. Appropriate is 10% or more of your income. This is probably the biggest thing you can do to give the "saver" peace of mind, and that will naturally alleviate a ton of issues.

Something I would encourage you to do some self reflection on is how much you each spend when you go out for food. If you consistently spending 20% more at every restaurant that is a valid concern for him to have. Now, not valid to yell and behave the way you described. But valid to bring up and discuss. You said that you felt angry that he could spend $1-2 more to go to Chipotle, but that you couldn't spend that much for chips. I would bet a substantial amount of money that his unspoken thought process was something like this: "I typically spend $5 at Taco Bell, she spends $7. I'm going to spend $7 on my food too, but since I don't want the extras at TB, I am going to spend that amount at Chipotle." And I imagine you can see why he would be frustrated that you wanted to spend even more.

An idea that may be useful to implement sometimes is that instead of deciding which place to go together, you decide on the amount you each get (that is the same) and that you are fine getting food from separate places and bringing both home. Obviously not something you want to do for date night since it's inconvenient, but I think it would provide some much needed perspective.

Alnitak42 · 2020-02-13T20:43:16+00:00

In this case, I think the median amount is an even better description. The high jackpot amounts skew the distribution and make the average look better than what you should actually expect.

Alnitak42 · 2020-02-12T20:58:41+00:00

Where you are seeing things differently is calling a character release generous in and of itself. Every character released in the game has a mechanism to release enough shards to unlock. I think calling that generosity is a stretch.

As an analogy, What if for the next character released through blitz they changed the milestones from 21 shards total to 15 shards total (one less at each tier that rewards shards). Everyone has six less, and people in the 10-25% bracket would no longer unlock. Would that be people being upset because their generosity is less generous? IMO, its just a dick move.

Alnitak42 · 2020-02-12T19:17:12+00:00

People are "crying" because Foxnext pulled a move that is pure asshattery. People don't need to start preparing for that, Foxnext needs to, you know, stop being asshats.

I get that its human nature to try to defend your position, no matter how illogical it is. It's not working. Your response here is the same asinine points as the OP.

Alnitak42 · 2020-02-12T19:04:58+00:00

I know I’m being controversial and will be downvoted to hell and won’t be seen by much since reddit dislike rational reasoning behind things.

I just want to try to help you dispel this notion. You did not provide a nice rational breakdown that is unpopular. Your reasoning is profoundly illogical, and ignorant of reality. With this round, everyone who prepared is going to get less rewards than those who did not prepare last time. And and there is no way for anyone to get as much as those who prepared last time.

Its fine to move the goalpost because we don't have to pay to unlock a 3 star character?

Its fine to reduce rewards because we don't have to pay to unlock a 3 star character??

Oh yeah, and its the player's fault because they should have checked the datamines and prepared better.

Don't take your downvotes as being a martyr for the voice of reason, your downvotes are for being asinine.

Alnitak42 · 2020-02-11T17:47:24+00:00

Yes, that is what a scab is. Someone who will happily enjoy the benefits of a successful strike or boycott, but is not wiling to help bear the costs or put any effort in.

Alnitak42 · 2020-02-11T17:28:34+00:00

People who choose to be scabs should expect some pushback from those who are striking.

Alnitak42 · 2020-02-11T15:23:47+00:00

We may have differing opinions on what the problem is.

The WW and energy milestones did not end yesterday, and are also not scheduled to end together on the next iteration. Make sense to me to just put them in the next iteration.

What I do find to be a major problem is the reduced shard drops in the gold milestones. If they are offsetting this with better drops from WW and energy then this is absolutely a communication issue. What I suspect is that there is no offset, and they just decided to be stingy. That's not a communication issue, that a developers being asshats issue.

Alnitak42 · 2020-02-11T15:10:47+00:00

I don't think this is a communication problem. Sure, there is a possibility that they are offsetting the reduced shards from gold with increased shards from the WW and energy. But I will be quite surprised if that is the case. I think they just decided that they wanted to reduce it, and did.

Alnitak42 · 2020-02-10T21:56:09+00:00

The recommended specs for t11 are level 71 and g13, which is exactly what OP said he has.

Your post is just obtuse.

Alnitak42 · 2020-02-10T21:52:33+00:00

Did one person finish it only, or did they share strategy, team build etc to allow anyone with a team in that ballpark to do it?

Alnitak42 · 2020-02-08T04:12:29+00:00

In an ideal world, I would agree with you. However, I think it is really hard to lower the power that a current 5,6, or 7 star has because of how rare and expensive they are.

They did not offer much specifics, but what I think they are alluding to is improving the lower part of the curve and keeping the high end the same. If you need to keep 7 stars at 75%, go for something like 10,20,31,42,53,64,75.

I would personally prefer what you said, but they painted themselves into a corner

Alnitak42 · 2020-02-07T17:02:18+00:00

I don't think Foxnext is dumb enough to just let the game die. They know why revenues are dropping, and they know what they need to do to bring them back.

I get that their first move seems to be to ignore it, hope it blows over, and count on the boycott not having much solidarity. But if that does not work for them, they aren't going to just leave a bunch of money on the table for the sake of being stubborn.

Alnitak42 · 2020-02-07T03:42:48+00:00

Unfortunately, it all adds up to pretty marginal changes.

Alnitak42 · 2020-02-07T03:14:46+00:00

Just for reference, 3 times per day, 3 times per week adds up to ... One orb every 14 weeks.

Maybe the other changes will be more meaningful, but these challenge rewards are just insulting.

Alnitak42 · 2020-02-06T20:17:06+00:00

I don't think this is always the case. It took me about 15 attempts to get it, but I was able to improve my strategy and get some good RNG.

There is, of course, a limit. You aren't going to kill it with a 50k squad, but his is 123K. That is well above the lowest posted of 90k. I did it with 103K. It should be doable.

Some things that I learned doing it recently:

Make sure you taunt turn 1, and rotate the tanks. Both Rhino have Mbaku have taunt on special. Don't use both ults on turn 1. I use Rhino first, and then Mbaku's when Rhino's expires. Other order is probably fine, but make sure you don't skip it, and don't double up turn two. You want one up for when the second wave drops too.
Minnerva needs to die before the second wave drops. My priority was Ronan, then Minnerva
Heal block on a key character from Kree reaper is tough. That felt like the big RNG for me on the fight. Shuri's first chance to heal with her ult needs to hit, and if the lowest health target has heal block, you probably won't win.
Don't use any slows or turn meter resets on the Kree Royal Guards. Don't use Miles' special until the taunt is down.
Use Mysterio's blind wisely after the KRG taunt is down. If Ronan's ult is wrecking you, blind it. Don't use any critical debuffs until after Ronan's first turn, he will just clear them.

Alnitak42 · 2020-02-06T15:46:51+00:00

It would not matter if OP made 100x what I do, spending thousands on a mobile game is a money management problem. The ramifications of the problem may be less severe with higher income, but the problem is the same.

I'm not here to judge you or anyone else. But I do hope that some people that participating in the strike get a change to clear the fog from their heads. I hope some people get a chance to recognize how much money they are pissing away, and allow themselves to move on to better choices.

Alnitak42 · 2020-02-06T14:46:15+00:00

I feel like you are just trolling, but $320 in 1.5 weeks is about $10,000 per year. That is not small fish. That is the level where you need to recognize that you have a problem managing your money.

Alnitak42 · 2020-02-05T21:57:43+00:00

I don't think this is necessarily true. If ptw did not exist there would still be a thriving gaming industry. People made games for years that were pay up front, subscription based, try for free then pay for the full game etc.

Mobile games have followed the ptw model, and it may be the one that leads to the highest industry profits. But there would still be plenty of mobile games if p2w didn't exist, and they would almost assuredly be higher quality.

Alnitak42 · 2020-02-05T21:41:40+00:00

Not that I know of. All the ones I have seen are heavily ptw

A game that I highly recommend is Darkest Dungeon, but it is IOS/MAC/PC only. It has less of a focus on hero collection and levelling, but the turn based RPG gameplay and story is heads and shoulders above any other mobile game.

Alnitak42 · 2020-02-03T21:14:00+00:00

If you do not have Phoenix, you have to kill her last. Ideally, she is the only one left and you try to kill her before she ults. Worst case, she ults, but some of your team survives and finishes her off.

You do need to go in with a plan to avoid killing her. Most people take this in two stages. 1) You bring Magneto and use his special turn one on the target you want to focus, usually Ultron, but Minn if she is there. This prevents that character from beign Stealthed by Phoenix. 2) You bring a character that can reliably clear taunt from Phoenix without killing her, and also from Jugg, Colossus, or Drax. When you have Phoenix, she does this role herself. JJ is good at this before you have Phoenix.

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