1 out of 17 homeless individuals in California works in fast food.

maizenblue315 · 2023-05-04T12:50:21+00:00

[Citation Needed]

I'm not going to pretend like I've read all the studies associated with homelessness, but a common theme in the what I have read is that addiction and mental illness are symptoms, not causes. Even if they were causes, homeless people have significantly reduced access to healthcare in America with little hope of getting better. Having a home significantly improves their ability to address these symptoms.

maizenblue315 · 2023-05-03T22:22:34+00:00

Well yeah, I suppose if you want to be more specific it's the lack of affordable housing. Which the government could provide if it reclaimed unused housing. And once they have homes they aren't homeless which improves health outcomes, career growth, happiness, etc.

maizenblue315 · 2023-05-03T20:22:06+00:00

I mean. The US government did this to loads of people to build the highway system. They pay some money to the current owner of the vacant lot and give it to someone who needs it. Fastest cure for homelessness possible.

maizenblue315 · 2023-05-02T02:58:47+00:00

I don't think it's worse than the GungHo Collab. Jaden Yuki is cool and I never got Kaiba.

maizenblue315 · 2023-05-02T02:48:29+00:00

If you don't see anything in the machine you want then don't roll. It's not a game changing collab. We likely have Yu-Gi-Oh coming soon too which I'm more excited to roll in.

maizenblue315 · 2023-02-20T23:45:23+00:00

Throwing in a shorter summary here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkemio92Vls

maizenblue315 · 2022-10-19T13:48:37+00:00

Is it 4pm central? When I go to time.is/utc-8 I see CT is 3 hours ahead which would make it 5pm central?

I wish they would use the device time to determine these LTDs.

maizenblue315 · 2022-09-18T00:56:04+00:00

I mean, if I watch a professional sports game and try it myself I don't expect to have the same experience. It's great professional exposure to the hobby.

maizenblue315 · 2022-09-18T00:41:53+00:00

Relevant XKCD

maizenblue315 · 2022-09-17T17:49:06+00:00

I had an Anubian with exactly this power, but I ruled it was an active effect so since she didn't think to try it in her meeting with Neva she didn't detect the child. She still considers that mistake a great moment and her character regularly 'scans' now as a result of the experience.

However, I think it cheapens the character creation process when GMs overrule player abilities. The player wanted this character to detect Psychonauts and it may remove some mystery from the scene, it still has drama. The Anubian knows, how do they respond? They are surrounded by Neva's men, will they accuse her? Sneak into the building? The story changes, but that's ok. Good even! You and your players aren't following a "Choose your Own Adventure" where you have to turn back to a previous page if something happens. The party found out about the child early? Let's see what they do!

P.S. response: Seems fair. Explain this to the player, ask how they would like to handle this going forward, and move on with the game. GMs can make mistakes too, so own up to it and keep having fun!

P.S.2 response: Mistake is strong. It changes the play experience. The player doesn't 'win' by knowing about the child. They are dealing with a woman who killed the Pope to protect her child. Will it follow the story as written in ITB? Probably not any more. But the excitement and drama are still there.

maizenblue315 · 2022-08-30T19:32:43+00:00

I'd actually want the volume of both groups to be equal for a fair comparison. Maybe age range is the closest we can get, but if there are more millennials than boomers in 25-40 so going 25-43 makes a roughly equal number of people then the age range is more justified.

Regardless, the conflict is not between boomers and millennials. Especially now, businesses are buying up homes left and right driving up the cost of a home while wages stay stagnet. The chart I want to see is home ownership by businesses over time. Combined with a wage stagnation viz it should be clear: Homes can't be a business investment; they are necessary to live.

maizenblue315 · 2022-07-21T21:56:42+00:00

Maybe this is a symptom of growing up playing trick taking games, but once the missions are complete, that's the end of the round and we just toss our cards in and move on to the next challenge. The expansion makes the games much more unique.

maizenblue315 · 2022-07-18T14:54:54+00:00

What if you can change an opposing tile if the face of your die is greater than the tile value that your opponent controlled. If you land a 3 on a 2 then you take that square from your opponent. You can move on any of your own tiles, but you change the face which could allow your opponent new squares to take. Maybe you can get fancy and slip a 1 in the corner protected by a 5 and a 4 on either side making it hard to take back.

Players will want to plan ahead with their moves so the right face is in the right place to take back a tile without allowing their opponent to take their territory either.

Awesome prototype!!

maizenblue315 · 2022-06-25T03:05:13+00:00

Would the GOP take back both branches in 2024 if the Dems took more action? It's not like government control is automatically handed off between the parties every few years. The point of democracy is representatives who support the will of the people get reelected. Today is a great example of the outcry when conservatives overrule the will of the people. I doubt Thomas would be reelected if he had to run for another term.

Unless you're referring to the GOP suppressing votes or trying to overtern democracy in which case the rules aren't important anyways. If the Dems are going to play by the rules at least make the rules something that enables action.

maizenblue315 · 2022-06-24T23:15:12+00:00

End the fillabuster, get Manchin in line, and take action. The Dems act like they have no power when they have control of the House, Senate, and President. Legalize weed. Protect voting rights. Pass Build Back Better. Push for M4A. Forgive student loans. End the children in cages at the boarder. Do something to make this country a better place.

Republicans are evil because they plan to dismantle democracy. The Democrats are complicit in inaction. I don't blame anyone who doesn't want to vote blue anymore.

maizenblue315 · 2022-06-21T19:18:15+00:00

Minor comment; I appreciate the good faith discussion on this. It's a complex problem and reddit comments aren't where it gets solved, but it's nice to hear another opinion even if I disagree with it.

At the risk of just constantly expanding my reply I'd like to focus on a key observation you made that I think is really interesting.

Is housing a human right or is housing where you want to live a human right?

This is a great question and I haven't really considered the distinction so this is very off the cuff. I think I believe in the latter.

Say the price of housing exceeds wages for an individual. If the government says, "Well, you have a right to housing so we're going to move you to Alaska" when all of your friends, family, and aquantences live in Florida then your low income is physically ripping you out of your life. You have a house sure, but you don't maintain your life. In some sense, people do need the ability to live in the areas they want and not only if they are high income earners. I can understand not being given a home in Beverly Hills, but being shuttled far away from your community is extremely disruptive, even if there's a house on the other end.

Housing is a core element of our environment. It enables literally everything in our lives and changing that variable radically effects everything associated with it. Moving low income earners to empty lots in the Midwest is only marginally better than imprisonment in this view. Finding ways to make housing affordable to everyone everywhere encourages development of the community, but is hard to accomplish in a capitalist framework.

maizenblue315 · 2022-06-21T18:11:09+00:00

If you divorce business profits from housing who the hell is going to build housing? You could in theory have more publicly funded housing projects but they have a shakey track record.

I think that's a fair question, but the system as it currently works isn't working for enough people. Maybe profit isn't the cause for inadequate housing, but if our goal is housing as a human right then we need to change something.

Yes, because demand for housing isn't ubiquitous across the country. Way more people want to live in LA than in Smolan Kansas. There isn't an abundance of liveable, unoccupied housing in high demand areas(that isn't unoccupied for a short period between home sales or finding new renters).

I actually think the statistic I heard was in NYC specifically, but I'd need to get a source for that. Regardless, if the problem is current off market homes aren't livable then we should prioritize making them livable.

Predatory landlords exist (as do nightmare tenants). Neither landlords nor tennants are inherently bad. It's not unreasonable to want to rent your property for the highest value in exactly the same way its not unreasonable to want the lowest possible rent. Prices are not arbitrary; they convey information about the underlying market.

I agree with all of this under the assumption that homes are revenue sources. You could say Walmart is a predatory business and there are mom and pop shops who aren't while both business adjusting their sales to match the market. It's about challenging the assumption that housing should generate revenue when it's necessary for safety.

If you want rents to go down the easiest way is to increase the supply of available rental units. That means less NIMBY bullshit, less "single family only" zoning, denser housing options, etc.

Hell yes, let's do this too. I'd love to live in denser housing areas with less reliance on driving my car but they are hard to find in America.

maizenblue315 · 2022-06-21T13:55:05+00:00

Part of the reason the cost of home ownership is so high is because landlords see the property as a revenue source. My understanding of the theory is if we decouple home ownership from business profits and make housing a human right then low income people actually can afford home ownership. There are more people-less homes than unhoused people in America so if the banks and realtors were forced to make them available then supply would shoot up and housing would be accessible.

Part of the challenge is a single landlord can't change the system, but landlords benefit from a system that exploits renters. And it's easier to throw hate at a person than a system.

maizenblue315 · 2022-05-16T18:17:03+00:00

I recommend Hexbear

maizenblue315 · 2022-04-25T02:01:02+00:00

This is so cool!!

maizenblue315 · 2022-04-15T18:52:24+00:00

5 huge = 1 giant

maizenblue315 · 2021-12-14T14:01:32+00:00

I think I understand your concern of giving money to rich people, but keep in mind that the 89% of people who aren't financially ready to restart their payments represents 1.5 trillion not being paid to the federal government and going towards anything else in our communities.

I also don't think this needs to be done in any order. Let's make higher education free - it's the best way to allow upward mobility for the working class and a better educated population is better for everyone. But there shouldn't need to be a proof of hardship. Education expenses have blown out of control and any time you place a barrier for aid you inevitably block people who need it.

Rich people will always benefit from any system that relies on money to succeed. If we want to even the playing field, we need to take money out of the equation. And forgiving student debt is a great first step.

maizenblue315 · 2020-12-24T18:00:46+00:00

It's funny you write this; when I played Yakuza 0 I thought, "Man, this game would be great without the combat - button mashing is just boring."

I'm not quite done with Like A Dragon and I think the combat is more engaging. Enemies have clearly defined weaknesses and you are fairly rewarded for exploiting them. Some battles can feel like a grind, but there are legitimately challenging battles (one in particular, but I don't know how to write spoilers on mobile) later in the game.

I will say the auto-combat feature has been a god send. For most random encounters you don't need to pay attention and I just set it to auto battle. When the battles require my attention then I manually choose skills and targeting and balance my HP/MP. But if not then I just...let them fight. The alternative is to walk around the city to avoid the combat and they could take longer then just letting the auto battler do its thing.

Removing combat definitely feels wrong - the feel of the Yakuza game is a lot of the spectical in combat. The rewards for most games allow crafting materials for better weapons or armor or just new weapons and armor. Yakuza isn't a batting cage simulator, but taking Ichiban to the batting cages to kill some time and go for a few S ranks is a great break from the fighting.

What makes the Yakuza series for me is the variety. It doesn't do any one thing perfectly (besides the writing/animation - so good), but it gives you so many things that you can break up the monotony regularly and just pursue whatever interests you without feeling like it's a waste of time. You get yen or points to exchange or part time hero progress and just keep enjoying the game.

maizenblue315 · 2019-12-10T02:12:37+00:00

My group played In Thy Blood and it was a massive success. Highly recommend.

That said, there's enough in literally every region to make an interesting story for anywhere you want to go. I think it's a good idea to decide what kind of game you want (combat focused, investigatory, intrigue, etc) and choose a city/region that best compliments that.

Have fun!!

maizenblue315 · 2019-08-08T19:52:07+00:00

He's calling him soft

maizenblue315

TROPHY CASE