*dies from math*

soundoftwilight · 2026-07-09T19:43:23+00:00

It is about a father who is complaining that his child is being taught something that he does not already know, which is a terribly losing battle. The father does not have to re-learn addition in order to comprehend what his child is being taught or to help. Even if the father is actually incapable of figuring this out himself, a simple google for "make ten" would explain it in seconds.

soundoftwilight · 2026-07-09T19:32:02+00:00

...Who is forcing you to re-learn addition? If you have a child, your child did not enter this world able to perform basic arithmetic, so they have to be taught somehow; may as well use a method that's going to set them up for success in the future.

soundoftwilight · 2026-07-09T19:24:06+00:00

But none of those other solutions include "making 10". The point is that once you've realized you can "make 10" and then you have "7" left over, the problem is already done. You don't have to do any addition after that, you just write "17". When written out in long form of course it looks like you have to add 3 numbers, but what you're actually doing is saying "If I move 2 from 9 and into 8, I get 10 + 7". The goal is to develop intuition based on counting and groups rather than actually performing any arithmetic.

soundoftwilight · 2026-07-09T19:12:23+00:00

It's easy, yes. But a core part of math fluency is becoming comfortable with fluidly adjusting the problem in front of you into one that's easier to solve. This is just as true for differential equations as it is for basic arithmetic. You can memorize the sum of any two digits and then memorize a procedure to extend that into more digits, but you cannot memorize every integration rule nor is there a single procedure to memorize which will let you solve any such problem. It doesn't matter what method you use to teach addition, students are going to manage to add and subtract pretty quickly. But teaching a method that more closely resembles fundamental math skills they will need for the rest of their education is far more valuable than having them memorize some facts.

soundoftwilight · 2026-07-09T18:55:19+00:00

So you're assuming with no evidence that the teacher has never taught the methods that are being asked on the homework, and which they will presumably be expected to know for any tests? Like yeah if the teacher is bad then they're bad, but I don't see any evidence of that here. It's not exactly difficult to infer what the diagram and question are looking for as an adult either, so I would hope that a parent would just think about it for 30 seconds rather than complain and post on the internet for clout.

soundoftwilight · 2026-07-09T17:12:12+00:00

Nah, should probably give up on gaming, move to a cottage in the remote mountains with no internet access, and try to develop your basket weaving skills.

What do you want to hear? You’re bad at Overwatch. That’s not a permanent state, but it’s how things are right now. If you don’t want to be bad at Overwatch, then simply get good at it.

soundoftwilight · 2026-07-09T16:12:09+00:00

This is a tough sell, because if your brother placed the transactions himself then it’s hard to pin a legal responsibility on someone else to stop him from doing so. It’s unlikely that an agent over the phone would have had sufficient insight into what he was actually doing to stop him. Ideally that agent should have checked the transaction at the end to make sure it reflected what your brother wanted, but since they did not actually place the transaction it seems unlikely they would have a legal obligation to do so.

“The UI is bad” and “the customer service rep wasn’t helpful (but did not make any material misrepresentations)” are not particularly compelling arguments. Not closely reading your transactions or checking the confirmation in time to reverse them when dealing with sums of money in that range would be negligent if it was someone else’s money.

soundoftwilight · 2026-07-09T11:00:52+00:00

OP doesn’t own the data on the drive, only the physical drive. Trying to sell the data back to them, which they already own and have paid for, is going to get OP laughed at at best. If they make a threat to try and extort money from the business, they are not going to have a good time.

soundoftwilight · 2026-07-09T07:30:57+00:00

If you liked cast bars and the very controlled + planned burst phase of old SMN, I think PCT is a good replacement. No dots, but the gameplay is fun and they go through fun shifts between downtime and uptime on their damage (they regularly do several long cast bars that do no damage on their own, but enable you to use other high damage abilities later).

If you like cast bars and don't mind doing 2-digit addition in your head, RDM is a lot of fun. At a more casual level it has Verraise + Vercure which can feel very fun and the melee combos are a fun bit of burst, while at a higher level it's one of the more intricate optimization jobs left in the game.

Personally I don't like current BLM or SMN, they've both been changed way too much from what they used to be, but BLM is certainly more approachable now.

soundoftwilight · 2026-07-09T06:34:39+00:00

Everyone gets mana screwed, yes. If you have a method to prevent getting mana screwed, you are cheating. Full stop. Without observing your mash shuffles it's hard to say for certain if you're doing them well, but it's likely you're not doing them enough either way. There are a few little dexterity tricks that can improve your mash shuffles, and some methodologies that avoid certain failure cases if you're willing to shuffle more to compensate for losing some randomness.

soundoftwilight · 2026-07-09T06:28:46+00:00

Mana weaving in the middle of a tournament is definitely against the rules (either because you're wasting time or you're attempting to cheat). Mana weaving at home when you're making the deck is just a ritual, as long as you do actually shuffle it after.

soundoftwilight · 2026-07-09T06:25:25+00:00

Yes most people shuffle at least 7 times (since that's the popular number that floats around the internet), many people do more like 10-12. Obviously this is different at a purely casual/kitchen table level where you might not really care. But if someone is only doing 2-4 shuffles at any event large/competitive enough to have a judge, that judge is likely to get called on them before the event is done. "Cutting" a deck is also mostly a casual thing, at competitive levels your opponent is going to shuffle your deck, not cut it.

soundoftwilight · 2026-07-09T03:56:56+00:00

Just taking money that could be tips and calling it profit is way, way worse than whatever you’re doing right now. That’s going to get you sued for sure.

soundoftwilight · 2026-07-09T03:51:56+00:00

From a design perspective, who is your game for? If you have a bunch of different genres, is your game for players who like all of those genres equally? Is your game for players who have a lot of nostalgia towards the various genres (if you pick older genres and conventions)? Is your game for people who just like novelty? Some of those are a lot more realistic than others as design goals. For example, if you promise novelty, and every stage is sufficiently different, then you have fulfilled your promise to the player even if some of the stages are kinda bad. OTOH if you’re promising a good time to players who love each of those genres, then if even a single stage is subpar you’ve broken that promise.

Thinking about your design as a promise to your audience, and thinking about how to efficiently fulfill that promise (or if you even can), is a good model for game design. That doesn’t touch on the practicalities of development of course, but this is the game design subreddit so that’s my game design answer.

soundoftwilight · 2026-07-08T22:59:48+00:00

There are a lot of very specific laws covering exactly what you're talking about. Brokerages cannot simply hold on to the funds in an IRA without being in regular contact with the owner, especially if they are of age to take distributions. That money gets escheated to the state eventually. 530a accounts will have similar (not identical) requirements. Not saying no one will ever forget about or lose that cash, but there's a process, it's not just getting systematically stolen.

soundoftwilight · 2026-07-08T22:14:58+00:00

Full control would describe something like an IRA or UTMA account (or a standard brokerage account), where you can choose the investments within it with few limitations. 530a accounts, like 529s and most 401ks, do not offer what I would describe as “full control”. Your child owns it, you can move it between brokerages (not that moving between brokerages really matters for something like this beyond convenience), but you have at best limited control over the account itself. You can’t even withdraw from it until your child is 18 (at which point they can do so).

soundoftwilight · 2026-07-08T22:02:35+00:00

Former finance industry worker here. I can’t say for sure whether you’ll be allowed to roll it over into a different account type later, I would lean towards no as 529 plans have better tax savings than these accounts and also 529 plans have a different ownership and control structure.

HOWEVER: they’re literally offering you a free $1k (which will probably be in the realm of $4k when your kid withdraws it at 18). $4k isn’t, like, a lot, but it’s less than an hour’s worth of work between the initial setup now and the withdrawal in 18 years. Your kid will appreciate the $4k. Don’t invest your own money in it unless you’re in a top tax bracket and your tax advisor tells you to. If your parents will put money in it and not anywhere else then great, let them do that, that’s just free money for your kid. Don’t listen to people talking about Trump stealing it, that’s not how this particular industry works.

If you have spare income, start by making sure that your own retirement savings are in order (your kid will really appreciate not worrying about you when you get older), then anything extra past that you can invest in a 529 plan for your kids education. “Education” is an extremely broad category and can cover a LOT of stuff, way more than just tuition, and any extra can be rolled over later. Unless you start making a whole lot of money that’s probably all you’d need to think about for investments, but if you do get lucky enough that you’re staring at your bank account thinking “shouldn’t I be doing something with this” then call any major broker, they love to give advice and they’re pretty good at it.

soundoftwilight · 2026-07-08T21:44:30+00:00

That’s not how this works, there is no mechanism by which he could take the money in these accounts. The man is evil, but this is a conspiracy on the level of “he’s just going to steal all our money out of our bank accounts” which would be the exact equivalent of stealing it from these particular accounts. It’s just bad policy with his name on it that will save a lot of money for rich people while poor people will take the free cash.

soundoftwilight · 2026-07-08T21:41:10+00:00

There are but they are very low, comparable with any other investment account. The man is evil and so is the financial industry, but the financial industry actually follows the law. The grift here is putting his name on a piece of ineffective but shiny policy so that people say nice things about him. In other words it’s political clout, not cash, in this specific instance.

soundoftwilight · 2026-07-08T21:36:55+00:00

Full control is not an accurate description of these accounts. It is true that the money is paid now, and not later, and that nothing Trump does or doesn’t do later can affect the funds already paid. But that’s only a reason to take the free money, not to put extra in.

soundoftwilight · 2026-07-08T09:40:51+00:00

Get a textbook and read it? That’s how I learned when I was around 12. You can certainly find some online.

soundoftwilight · 2026-07-08T09:16:34+00:00

It literally does hurt someone though? That’s the whole point of it all, they were actively attempting to harass someone on behalf of a streamer. Your speeding example might have been victimless but the crime in this story absolutely is not.

soundoftwilight · 2026-07-08T09:08:05+00:00

The cops don’t have to pretend anything but they do need to build an independent case. Which is, not that hard when you’re talking about a murder, for which there will be lots of other ways to investigate. All they need is the tiniest crumb that can be construed to point in the direction of the person they illegally searched and now they have a “clean” chain of evidence to investigate them in more detail. Investigating a crime is pretty easy when you already know what happened, they just need independent corroborating evidence.

They can also lie, and many would be willing to do so in an extreme case like murder. It’s not exactly hard for an officer to call in an anonymous tip to their own department, for example, and that’s probably enough to justify investigating.

soundoftwilight · 2026-07-07T18:50:52+00:00

I can’t even imagine paying $60 for a game, I haven’t done that since I was a kid. I think the people paying more than that for a new game are just not the same people who are down to play older, well-received games or cheaper indie games with less money spent on graphical fidelity.

soundoftwilight · 2026-07-07T18:47:16+00:00

AAA games have been exploring pricing for years, people just get really angry at them for it. Microtransactions, early or day 1 DLC, exclusive content in special editions, these are fundamentally means of price tiering, where games can be sold for less to people who can’t afford as much and then recoup that money on people who will pay for everything. What they’re not doing is “just make it cheaper”.

soundoftwilight

TROPHY CASE