My understanding of the research is that a higher minimum wage can increase costs, but as a lesser proportion than the increase (edit; to the wage). Labor costs are only portion of expenses for any business, and workers making minimum wage only reflect a portion of the workforce. So, there’s not a zero effect, but I believe it’s usually less than fear mongering would suggest.

I haven’t read into this in at least five years, so happy to admit my own incorrectness if someone knows better.

These ratios hold pretty true with regards to competency in the workplace, too.

I think you’re way overestimating the consistency of independents in the US when it comes to Israel. See recent Gallup figures from February. It’s only in the last year that net sentiment seems to cut against support for Israel.

This seems to come up a bit. Disaffected voters recognize that neither dominant party represents them, see that others feel the same way, and then seemingly assume that the other disaffecteds share their opinion on x or y. If only the party would align with me on this topic, they’d bring over all the independents! It’s not that simple of an equation for many issues.

This isn’t to say Democrats to a good job at triangulating public will or building a coalition. They do not.

Thank you! It’s been super disheartening to see people get excited about Harry Potter all over again, just as it was to see friends buy the video game a few years back. Many people who want to ostensibly call themselves allies are more than happy to engage in Nostalgia over Solidarity.

I read the Harry Potter books as a child. I enjoyed them a normal amount. I think I dressed up as HP for Halloween one year. But then I grew older and I “graduated” to other fantasy, as I would generally expect someone to do.

Now when I think about Harry Potter, I always think of Ursula K Le Guin’s comments:

Q: Nicholas Lezard has written ‘Rowling can type, but Le Guin can write.’ What do you make of this comment in the light of the phenomenal success of the Potter books? I’d like to hear your opinion of JK Rowling’s writing style

UKL: I have no great opinion of it. When so many adult critics were carrying on about the “incredible originality” of the first Harry Potter book, I read it to find out what the fuss was about, and remained somewhat puzzled; it seemed a lively kid’s fantasy crossed with a “school novel”, good fare for its age group, but stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative, and ethically rather mean-spirited.

This is my hope for the bot-infested future, too. Acoustic tunes shared in the moment with your friends in person. A correction back towards the authenticity of real life in contrast to the curation of digital identity. I guess I’m optimistic in my pessimism.

It’s pretty fun. It’s Slay the Spire but with a lot of new stuff. New debuffs, new bosses, new cards, new characters. If enjoyed the first one, it’s worth picking up even now when it’s still in early access.

I hate to say it, but you need to talk to the people you’re interested in. There’s a variety of ways to do this. You could ask one on a date, and then mention polyamory when having the “what are you looking for” conversation. Or you could bring up polyamory casually and see how they feel about it, outside of a “dating you” context.

But, at the end of the day, you have to do the hard work of talking about your interests, feelings, and desires if you want to establish and maintain intimacy with someone. If I were friends with someone, I might choose the “bring poly stuff up” tactic to get a vibe check before proceeding. If these are more strangers, then I’d ask if they wanted to grab lunch or coffee sometime and use that to break the ice.

Edit: you can use Feeld, too, if you want. I think it has a larger proportion of poly folks than any other app I’m aware of. I met one of my partners there.

It’s a rule that a president or acting president can’t pick any SCOTUS judges in the last year of their term, or the year before that, or either of the preceding two years.

I don’t know that couching this as many cases of personal moral failure and irresponsibility is productive when so many are affected. It’s like when conservatives discuss poverty - certainly, many among the affected group could make better choices, but shouldn’t we be motivated to understand what led to their failure from a systematic perspective?

I don’t think I necessarily like Harry, but I sure as fuck empathize with him. Playing him as someone seeking redemption or trying to put his life back together (and SO OFTEN failing) was incredibly meaningful. You put it very well.

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Echoing that I’ve been running VNV and it works remarkably well on my hardware.

I’m with you on both.

For RDR2 in particular, I found it so irksome how on-rails the missions were while the rest of the game was so free form. If you’re going to make me follow in the footsteps you planned exactly, don’t tease me with freedom between your set piece sequences. Ride-shoot-ride is also not super interesting to me.

I’ve come to believe that the Rockstar formula just doesn’t work for me after GTA4.

I tend to agree. We’ve seen a movement back to -

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more insidious advertising practices. They render the Internet useless in the same ways that incessant pop ups did in the early 2000s.

That reply really put me off. I don’t think appearance based insults are the way. I don’t like that this one in particular sideswipes butch lesbians. Those are my friends.

I appreciate that everyone wants to see MTG get her comeuppance, but eh. I think there is plenty to attack her on that doesn’t come with collateral damage.

I’ve been enjoying Nordic Souls as a Wabbajack pack. It’s got gameplay adjustments that do change the difficulty curve but is closer to the base game in difficulty than many of the other prominent mod packs. It also has a smaller footprint (~100GB maybe?) as compared to some others. Skyrim feels more modern and fresh, for sure.

I downloaded it on a whim after I used Wabbajack/Nexus Premium for some Fallout New Vegas modding (went with Viva NV). I wanted to get full value from that premium sub lol.

Edit: I will say that I don’t think Nordic Souls includes Legacy of the Dragonborn, so I’d look into that and choose another pack if desired.

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Adding to #2, I recently read this article: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/spoiler-alert-spoilers-make-you-enjoy-stories-more

You served in an organized military force with institutional backing, without implied threats to your family based on your conduct. That’s a very different proposition than the choice facing American resistors now, isn’t it?

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