Sandwiches for sale! Can’t afford it? No problem! 30% discount. I’ll just cut it and toss one of the halves in the trash for you.

That’s… actually surprisingly few. I thought it would be more common.

That makes perfect sense. I’m guessing people rarely drop out by choice. If you run into problems that prevent you from completing your degree, those problems probably aren’t going to disappear just because you drop out, so it’ll also affect your ability to work as well, and thus also your earning potential. As long as the prevalence of these issues is relatively small in the population, it’ll get drowned out by everyone else in the no uni groups.

That’s… literally pay to win? Paying real money to skip a grind is the definition of pay to win.

We seem to have different definitions of “win”. I consider winning to be the victory screen at the end of a game, not owning things in the game.

I don’t have to be a LOL pro to know that not every champion is balanced equally

They’re not, and it doesn’t matter. The matchmaking makes a much bigger difference than how well everything is balanced until you’re at the top. I’ve played lanes with bad matchups where I’ve stomped. I’ve played in good matchups where I’ve gotten stomped. Played the same champions on patches where win rates were low and when they were high, and it was the same deal. You can even see this when you watch pro players smurfing in low diamond. They play the most ridiculous builds and still win. The balancing makes so little difference for nearly all players.

There’s a certain irony to your earlier statement about players not wanting to pay for a game “they don’t know they’ll enjoy”, and then in the very next paragraph advocate for a format where players have to either grind countless hours in game or pay real money for each new champion.

If you don’t enjoy the game, why would you be grinding any hours or paying anything for new champions?

Free meant that you can introduce new people to the game without any kind of commitment. Few are going to be willing to dish out $30 for a game they don’t know they’ll enjoy, but there’s no barrier to a free game. It was trivial to even get non-gamers to try it out. A paid game is not cheaper if you don’t intend on playing more than once.

There’s also no pay to win. You pay for more options sooner, sure, but until you rank in the top 1% of players, any character will have an equal chance of winning.

Doesn’t sound too different from the parliamentary system we have in Canada, except we divide things much more finely than into 4 quadrants.

Basically, we’re divided into “ridings” that can be a small section of a city if you’re in a dense city or multiple towns where population is sparse. Each riding votes in someone as a member of Parliament (MP). The MPs then select someone to be the figurehead that represents us (i.e. the prime minister).

The issue is mainly coordination. One person acting is going to accomplish nothing while guaranteeing that this one person loses everything. Everyone needs to act at the same time. We need a leader to start a movement that everyone can get behind.

My partner’s on atomoxetine with a similar experience. It doesn’t magically make everything better the same way that stimulants seem to, but it’s a fairly big improvement without needing to worry about the effects waning.

We’re just talking about doing a diaper change. I don’t know how you can call that “stacking a caregiver hard”.

Higher protein content than the cow milk variant!

Raw, it’s a little spicy, similar to radishes. Boiled, it’s very sweet. It can take the place of carrots and turnips in soups.

The simplest preparation that’ll give you an idea of how the ingredients tastes on its own: cut into thin slices and boil in water with a bit of salt and msg (I personally like to use chicken stock).

The outer layer is very tough and fibrous, so make sure to get rid of that first. Depending on the quality of the bulb, you might also end up with one that’s fibrous throughout. Those are not pleasant to eat, and if you happen to get one of those, I assure you that it’s not a typical experience.

They’re spending that time doing diaper changes. They’re not attending to the other kids regardless.

I understand the concern, but I don’t think you’re asking the right question. I would consider goldfish to be sentient, but I’m not afraid of goldfishes. I don’t consider the giant robotic arms used in manufacturing to be sentient, yet I wouldn’t feel safe going anywhere near them while they’re powered on. What you should be concerned about is alignment, which is the term used to describe how closely the AI agent’s goals match up with that of humans. And also other humans, because even if the AI has the same goals, you still want to make sure that the humans they’re aligned with aren’t malevolent.

Is sentient AI a “goal” that any researchers are currently working toward?

It’s possible that someone out there is trying to do it, but in academic settings, if you even hint at sentience, you’re going to get laughed out of the room.

What’s the logic behind having plans for taking down an evil version of yourself? Who watches for that to carry out the plan when the time comes? What’s the plan if that person becomes evil and now has the means to combat non-evil Batman? Does he have a plan for that too? Because if so, evil Batman will also have it.

I use this minimal ffmpeg wrapper app for all my media encoding needs: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.silentlexx.ffmpeggui

I don’t know if the GUI has any support for audio, but you can just give it a plain ffmpeg command if needed.

I don’t see why they can’t be resold. As long as there’s a market for new AI hardware, there will continue to be a market for the older stuff. You don’t need the latest and greatest for development purposes, or things that scale horizontally.

It wasn’t that long ago that it was unfathomable for anything other than humans to be able to do this.

Whole star anise keeps for a while. I’ve had the same batch for about five years now and it’s still incredibly potent. So certainly, continue with learning how to use it, but don’t stress about going through all of it in a short period of time.

Dang, three whole stars in a cup. That’s some strong-ass tea. When I make broth, I usually go for half a star for the whole pot.

I guess it wasn’t clear what I was responding to. I edited my comment with the quote.