Promethiel

Those amounts aren’t USD yeah, probably habit when writing down money. The 170k and 360k figures are the WoW virtual currency aka “gold”.

There is a floor to WoW token’s gold value from what I recall (it’s been years since I interacted with Blizzard and WoW) but no ceiling.

Dunno how hard it curbed bots/unsanctioned gold sellers/fascist scum grassroots campaigns (no, really, look into Stephen Bannon and WoW gold it’s so fucking stupid) but!

Blizzard absolutely realized and then moved to take all the money that was being left on the table from 3rd party virtual currency sales, and they apply every measure and analytical tool to maximize that profit because of course.

This mount’s release is literally them inflating the price of the virtual currency ahead of real life earnings calls, because it absolutely will sell and give them the revenue infusion that the WoW token’s rise in value is meant to provide for as long as they want until it’s time to pump the numbers again with another mount/high sought store item.

A very similar variant in form and function to this mount was once available in-game and trade able with a rarity tuned that it ended up being sold for the WoW Token equivalent of ~$500 at the prices at the time, as there was no store version or similar option elsewhere.

It’s no accident that when the price of the WoW Token is at its lowest, here comes a slightly updated and dolled up version of that same highly sought mount version.

WoW is where real economics, car ownership culture, hoarding, and dopamine treadmills collide and Blizzard doesn’t just know this but have it charted on 5 year plans.

Not all.

Carriers tend to have internal hangar spaces, repair/loadout spaces, machining capability, assisted takeoff/landing systems on the flight deck, etc.

To “carry” the aircraft and expect them to perform their roles, the carrier has to be a mobile light airfield and not just a deck to land and take off from.

Edit: Not to say they can’t sail or don’t with any of them on the flight deck of course, but that’s maintaining a certain level of readiness that has some posturing inherent. I guess that’s true for all military readiness doctrines.

While your point that sometimes people just have AI image associated traits is very salient, I worry you might not be considering the lengths these things will be used and why online discourse (in my worried opinion) is utterly fucked: The past ain’t safe either.

For now we still have archive.org but without a third party/external source validating that old content…you can’t be sure it’s actually old content.

It’s trivial to get LLMs to get image gen prompts done to “spice up those old news posts” at best (without remembering to tag the article edited/updated or bypassing that flag entirely)…and utterly fuck the very foundation of shared and accepted past reality not just presently but to anyone using the internet itself to look through the lens of the past at worst.

Holy fuck. That is beyond the pale, and I’m sorry you had to go through that. Chills thinking how wrong that could go.

The sword. A literal sword of Damocles, above “tHe MaLiCiOuS eNtITy”. Is that what you need to hear to feel you’ve won? The divine rights of kings and the paradox of tolerance to meet the same end, there’s a solution to your Gordian Knot.

Now hit me with the defeatist game theory take against the groups that already would take everything.

I think I can relate, somewhat. It’s not easy, constantly being rational in the face of evil depravity. A just mind seeking a clean pattern of cause and effect can’t be blamed when it starts asking “where is the sword of the innocent”, and I personally get how that morphs to “Ok, will somebody give me the sword?”.

I’m there myself today, on other news. Beware the thoughts, however. There’s a difference between wanting to wield a sword to protect and one to punish; one is swift and necessary, the other opens the window to festering and becoming the abyss.

I wouldn’t weep at a swift and ignominious end now, and I certainly would personally swing down that figurative blade and go to sleep soundly but never with the idea the monster could be made to comprehend if I taint myself to the same level of depravity, best remain a monster-lite. Because even that course of action I’d take is not without its own brand of reprehensible in the just world I’d rather live in.

Man woman TV Camera Person, his arms wide.

Unironically yes. All of that comes at less expense to humankind, too. Even accounting for you.

You’re missing the vital forest you started on by getting stuck defining trees it looks like, but I get it.

Minorities are treated by a separate physical rubric by law enforcement and even the court of public opinion. The biases abound, yes. And those absolutely involve secondary physical characteristics, of which biologically speaking are…things that exist. Like skin color is one.

I get what you’re saying and while I don’t know why other folks are uncomfortable with that, but if I clocked things right, your original point (paraphrased below) is damn right imo:

Whether a 16 year old child is American Samoan, Black, Hispanic, or White, they are still a child, however large or mature the specific kid’s genetics may have rolled them to appear. Further, it is fucked up for cops to default to feeling more threatened by the bigger/more developed ones, to have more bombastic reactions, as does tend to happen.

This is reality for minorities; my large colored ass doesn’t get away with certain behaviors even as the affronted party, unfairly as it is.

I wonder if any of the sycophants remaining to stare at the dangling keys to power like mesmerized toddlers would even retain the presence and ability to scheme.

That’s one long cultivated and pruned garden of shitbaggery with a history of rich men whose abilities extend to amassing stolen wealth and an inability to handle windows. How many Kingmakers could possibly remain?

The whole house of cards may fall after time’s dues are paid and Putin finally runs out of track to run away from his pedestrian mortality.

Not willing to entertain bets on whether that will be the time of changes or more “and then it got worse” though.

The solution seems simple. AG Bailey and Judge Hickle both need to be seen engaging in [illegal action they are innocent of] by a sane Missouri Justice System officer and an arrest warrant issued for them.

Only death row inmates…it’s not just that it’s beyond the pale but it’s so stupid while it’s at it I can’t summon words.

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You can’t read. Those are facts and written in a passive voice. Condoning the behavior reads something like: “The state of Israel has sown seeds of ill will nurtured by lies and here comes harvest time” or “Yeah fuckers, get dunked on world stage” or something similar and in-between.

People are supposed to include the fact that the pencil can go through because (layman terminology abuse ahead) of the “shape” the space-time topology is presenting (or I guess being induced to present as, if Sci-fi hypothetical) before you get to the explanation of the pencil as craft/observer and how the hole is how that shortened path through the wormhole appears from frames of reference not the pencil.

I like the bagel idea but then you have to hold it all horizontal while explaining so they don’t see the hole too early and you’re then just left intently staring at your audience across a bagel held at eye height like a slowly hungering loon. Or so I’ve heard.

Your comment, but without irony or sarcastic pretention. What exactly do you think semantics are?

There actually is an asterisk and most of us can see. Does this happen in your life often?

The fuck?

These totally normal human beings you sound like you deify…are you their psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist, counselor? Short of those professions or a former tutor who happened to treat all three…

Well, interesting thing to devote anecdotal brain power to, I’ll tell you that.

You’re like a rogue, misunderstood Guru on a journey of ‘I know leave me alone, I was describing the meta-woes of seeming to carry a dearth of knowledge, not the lack itself’.

Just pointing out from a passing ship; yeah, I see the semantic headaches and agree it’s a silly maritime tradition.

Pedals…Holy shit, yes, foot buttons. Wow. This is not sarcasm, I forgot pedals are just foot input, not limited to a specific purpose like music making or whatever. I don’t need more hand buttons I need pedals.