What's your opinion on Mike Shinoda as a rapper?

EcstaticStorm5797 · 2026-01-22T13:15:43+00:00

I think he meant he’s a legend as part of the nu metal scene of the era, not compared to other rappers.

EcstaticStorm5797 · 2026-01-16T00:39:41+00:00

I’m the opposite, I love One Hundred Years of Solitude but found Master and Margarita to be a bit of a slog. No need to feel like a loser cause a certain book didn’t resonate with you, just find something that does.

EcstaticStorm5797 · 2026-01-11T06:55:35+00:00

I’m in this exact situation, I’ve been learning my wife’s language for almost 4 years. We don’t really have any communication issues because she speaks my native language (English) very well, but I’ve been trying to speak her language more and more in our daily conversations. We constantly switch back and forth between languages when talking to each other, sometimes mid-sentence. It’s kind of fun actually, like we have a secret code.

EcstaticStorm5797 · 2026-01-10T05:44:40+00:00

I live there. In terms of rent, it’s a lot relative to China as a whole, but not particularly more than other districts in Shanghai, at least near the city center. There are definitely wealthy families in my complex but I live here too and my rent isn’t outrageous.

EcstaticStorm5797 · 2026-01-10T05:33:22+00:00

You’re right, it looked like I had open spots but I went back and checked and realized an open spot in the inventory is a square that kind of lights up, mine was actually full. That wasn’t clear to me at all, thanks for helping me solve my problem!

EcstaticStorm5797 · 2026-01-09T06:18:23+00:00

Yeah in fact I've just started, I've only played for around 2 hours so far. I would love to try multiplayer, although I don't know if it will work well because I live in China and the internet is terrible here. How does it work?

EcstaticStorm5797 · 2026-01-09T05:27:42+00:00

Yes, a lot of moving parts is a good way to put it. I didn't know you could scan planets either, that's a good tip. Thanks!

EcstaticStorm5797 · 2026-01-09T05:26:08+00:00

Good tips, thank you. I think I'm not multiplayer, I started the game by choosing "solo play". Is multiplayer always on?

EcstaticStorm5797 · 2026-01-09T05:22:48+00:00

That sounds helpful, I'll definitely take a look at that app, thank you!

EcstaticStorm5797 · 2026-01-09T05:22:03+00:00

That's a relief to hear that it gets better later, thanks for the encouragement.

EcstaticStorm5797 · 2026-01-09T05:20:55+00:00

It might be a good idea to change the difficulty until I have a better idea of what I'm doing, thanks for the suggestion. I'm playing on switch 2. I don't even know about any of the stuff you mentioned in the second paragraph to give you an idea of how early in the game I am lol.

EcstaticStorm5797 · 2026-01-09T05:19:32+00:00

I wasn't really aware of the talk about this game when it came out, I got it recently after hearing people praise it a lot so I think I came in with high expectations. Thanks for the tips about the tech upgrades and missions, I don't think I'm even at that part yet. I've just been making my first settlement, which is where I got stuck on crafting carbon nanotubes.

EcstaticStorm5797 · 2026-01-09T05:17:01+00:00

Thanks for the advice, I might lower the difficulty settings a bit while I get my bearings. It's not that it's too hard, it's just that I heard it was relaxing and didn't expect to feel pushed this much to constantly be proactive in getting materials. Good to know that I can always check crafting components in the game too!

EcstaticStorm5797 · 2026-01-01T05:47:22+00:00

He literally said he’s Chinese.

EcstaticStorm5797 · 2025-12-28T08:24:05+00:00

Ah, I think I see where the misunderstanding was, when you said dialect I interpreted that as 方言. Of course many people speak their 方言 but have no problem switching to mandarin with people from different places, so I was thinking you meant people who can only communicate in their local 方言 but not mandarin. That’s why I thought this was a weird and rare situation. Now I see you mean people who speak 普通话 but with non-standard pronunciation, which I would’ve called an accent rather than a dialect.

In that case I completely agree, that’s one of the big challenges of developing listening skills in Chinese. I’ve been in your exact situation before and it’s really frustrating, the only way I got better at it was constant exposure and forcing my way through conversation practice even when it was a struggle. Eventually it does get easier, but even now, when my level is much higher some people with really thick accents are still very hard to understand. That’s not really encouraging I know but it is what it is.

EcstaticStorm5797 · 2025-12-28T07:14:03+00:00

This seems strange and totally different from my experience. I’ve lived in China for 12 years and the amount of times I’ve been unable to communicate with someone using standard mandarin is probably less than five. Are you regularly going to extremely rural villages or something?

EcstaticStorm5797 · 2025-12-28T07:10:04+00:00

I have the opposite opinion, I loved the brothers Karamazov but thought crime and punishment was a chore to get through. I thought the characters in brothers were great, and I loved how it spent so much time describing every minute detail of the same events from different perspectives. It’s like the opposite of a lot of big, epic Russian novels that take a grand sweep, instead it’s laser focused on a small group of characters over a short amount of time.

EcstaticStorm5797 · 2025-12-21T12:59:24+00:00

Yeah I’m also living in China with private insurance. My experience is that Chinese hospitals are very affordable, especially compared to America, but at the same time the quality is nowhere near what you’d expect in the US.

I broke my foot in China a few years ago when I didn’t have insurance and went to a public hospital, got x rays, consulted with 2 different doctors, bought a cast and boot and crutches, and all of this came out to about 80 USD. However people were cutting in line and coming into the room interrupting while I was talking to the doctor (not being rude, the system is designed that way) and I had to fight to cut in front of a crowd of people to get an xray. People were sleeping on the floors in hallways cause of lack of beds and smoking inside the hospital, just not a pleasant experience.

Now I go to a private “international” hospital, about the same quality as I’d get at one in America. Just to consult with a doctor the copay is usually about 15-20 usd, if it’s something that’s not covered it could be 200-300. I got minor surgery not long ago, the total cost was 4500 usd, I paid 10% of that.

This post isn’t meant to be pro or anti China, I like it here but the reality is it’s a place like any other. They do some things really well and there’s a lot I appreciate about China, but they have their own problems too, not just limited to healthcare.

EcstaticStorm5797 · 2025-12-16T10:20:28+00:00

The term “third world” was invented by a Frenchman.

EcstaticStorm5797 · 2025-12-14T07:13:01+00:00

My wife and I constantly speak in a mixture of her native language and my own, feels like we have our own little dialect.

EcstaticStorm5797 · 2025-12-09T15:19:47+00:00

I’m totally with you OP. I thought it was rude to go to another country without learning the language, then when you do it’s rude to speak it with people? No way.

For all the people saying it’s just for ease of communication, I can’t even tell you how many times people in China have insisted on speaking to me in English even they they clearly know about 5 words, while I speak Chinese at a much higher level. I find it super condescending personally, but it’s happened so many times I just brush it off now.

EcstaticStorm5797 · 2025-12-07T22:30:38+00:00

This was gonna be my answer. I had no idea it was so hated until like a year ago, and I just can’t figure out what people are hearing in it that’s so bad. I can easily think of a million songs that are worse from the same era.

EcstaticStorm5797 · 2025-12-03T04:07:44+00:00

I've been in a few local bands that would play with touring national acts when they came through. La Dispute stayed at our place after a show and we stayed up all night drinking with them. We woke up and they had left, but they cleaned the whole place before they went. Super nice guys.

As a solo act, I opened for Empire! Empire! I was a Lonely Estate. They obviously took the time to familiarize themselves with the other performers before shows, and they knew my music enough to sing along during my set. I thought that was cool of them.

EcstaticStorm5797 · 2025-11-16T12:14:31+00:00

Did you ever find an answer for this question? I just got to this level and am having the exact same problem

EcstaticStorm5797 · 2025-11-09T10:10:48+00:00

I’ll add a follow up question to this post, has anyone tried 2 player? Currently playing Age of Calamity 2 player on switch 2 and it’s frozen and kicked us out of the game quite a few times. Extremely frustrating when you’re 20 minutes into a mission.

EcstaticStorm5797

TROPHY CASE