Even though McConnell isn’t older, I’d argue he’s a bigger issue because of the power he wields.

That is a valid point about the “Looking like you’re playing by the rules but not really”. It sucks that this isn’t the case though, since this is the first democrat representative for this district in 40 years.

I’m assuming that “big pile of cash” is their emergency fund - Spencer implies as much when he says that it serves as an impediment to buying them out.

It’s not happening for Game Pass right now. If Microsoft hoovered up Nintendo and all the other companies, leaving Game Pass with little competition, they’d flip in an instant. Then you’d have not only Nintendo games for an overpriced subscription, you’d have Nintendo and everything else Microsoft bought for an overpriced subscription, where Microsoft can do whatever they want because only they have the rights to those games.

I’m not arguing Nintendo’s subscription services doesn’t suck ass, I’m arguing that Microsoft would do the same thing if they got their mits on Nintendo’s catalog, except potentially worse because they have more ‘exclusive content’ to lock-away in their garden and they can force their BS into Windows.

Only for Democrats, unfortunately.

It’s an unpopular opinion and even I don’t know how I feel about it, but I almost feel like democrats should run until they get voted out same as Republicans. Because of her being a good person, this seat is now back in contention and the democrats don’t have the incumbent advantage they should. Until everyone is forced to play by the rules, one side playing by the rules and the other not just means that the side that flaunts the rules will win.

The ActiBlizz merger needs to be shot down and Microsoft Games needs to be forced to split off from Microsoft. This tactic of “Make all the money in one sector, then use that unlimited money to invade another sector, force small businesses out by operating at a loss, and then enshittifying the entire sector to a state worse than it was originally” has to stop - across all sectors.

If you can’t survive in your own sector on your own merits without money from Daddy Corpo, you deserve to die.

I also hate that Spencer talks like “sitting on a big pile of cash” instead of gambling it on the market is fucking stupid. Classic “NOW NOW NOW” American capitalism.

Why wouldn’t it happen for Game Pass? It’s happened for every new service. Start them with a great deal to undermine all competition because you can eat the cost and they can’t. When the competition dies, slowly start enshittifying it, until it’s as bad or worse than the original. Arguably Microsoft is already starting that process by killing off the $1 demo.

Microsoft isn’t going to pass up free money, and if anything this email conversation confirms that they’re drooling, waiting for the “fuck them over the barrel” stage.

Are they also going to alter their stance that Planned Parenthood and a children’s hospital aren’t charity?

Yeah, but there’s lots of people who might play the game that aren’t going to shell out for a PS5 for it.

Jordan Peterson as in “Being transgender is satanic ritual abuse” and “Transgenderism is a social contagion” Jordan Peterson?

Are you arguing in good faith or are you just a troll?

Are the Ecosia results up to date? They used to be great, but awhile ago they changed something and it’s been hot garbage since. I still use them because trees, but I usually search with Ecosia, don’t see what I want, and then have to use another search engine.

Yeah, more or less.

So…what are you supposed to take at this point? Because you’re not supposed to take the “nighttime” branded decongestants long term, and phenylephrine was recommended as an alternative to that.

What the hell does “mostly” mean? “It’s just a little screwing you over”

It makes me kind of sad to see so many people happy that the accent is going away. It’s good to have diversity, and the thought of my “native” accent becoming extinct makes me sad. I don’t want bad people to have a claim to an entire accent and culture, especially since the death of the accent won’t do anything about the bad takes. There’s a lot that good about southern culture - taking things slow, being laid-back in a world that wants you to run around like a chicken with your head cut off, and forming tight communities with the people around you. I just wish there was a way to reclaim that without feeling afraid that people would assume I support the bad parts, too.

Why would you use an accent when it actively gets you associated with idiots / racists / conservatives?

There’s a lot of people who have been hurt by Southern culture, so naturally they reject that accent. A lot of decent people reject the accent because they don’t want people to assume they’re one of those Southerners. There’s also the aspect that you end up talking to people outside your region a lot more often than in the old days, so you learn to switch it off because people outside your region might not understand you well.

All y’all is broader, but I’m not sure how to characterize it. Like if you’re talking to someone who is part of a team, saying y’all could ambiguously refer to the whole team, but all y’all unambiguously refers to the whole team.

The general consensus I’ve heard is that Unreal is better for 3D, Unity for 2D, but this knowledge was from 2020-ish.

Ah, the classic “Beat a ho, then run her a bath” technique. You do something absolutely heinous, then you either walk part of it back or give some minor carrot that doesn’t matter to make people feel better. People feel like they forced change or got a deal, so they accept the horrible thing you did.

I’d add, though, that the ballooning of responsibilities over time is not unique to staff. Faculty have been increasingly pressured to take on more students, inflate cohorts and class sizes, bring in more dollars in a more competitive funding landscape, etc.

That’s fair, and I don’t want to see faculty cut either - you all do a shit-ton of work that I can’t even imagine trying to do. Fortunately our institution has class size limits and has stood firm on that for at least 30 years, but the rest is definitely still applicable here.

In the same meeting today where I met our new Associate Dean who is filling a newly-created position to chop in half another associate Dean’s duties, we were told there’s a reorganization and one of us has to “volunteer” to take on slew of new admin duties.

Ew, asking faculty to take on admin duties is really wrong - I’m sorry that happened.

How many staff could be hired if the “extra fat” from her salary were directly rerouted to staff compensation?

None, because we already had to promote internally because we couldn’t get someone externally due to pay / benefit reasons. We already can’t get anyone to take the positions we have, even at the current pay rate. I don’t know if that’s because our pay rates are already low, but decreasing them further would probably make it literally impossible to hire. We gave up on getting an Advancement VP, we’re 3 months with no bites on a VP of admissions and 3 months with no fin. aid director.

Maybe we’re smaller than average, but we only really have three levels of staff, and they all have different responsibilities that can’t really be put together. You have regular workers who do front lines jobs, department managers / associate VPs who manage the budget, staffing, and day-to-day management of each department, and then you have the VP level, which represents a collection of offices to the Board of Trustees and works on large scale initiatives across multi-departments. Do you all have more layers?

I wonder if a theocratic state built on a tyrannical religion almost isn’t worse, though…

I’ve not played Tactics Ogre yet, but that’s one of the next games on my list. I was going to start with Let Us Cling Together.