I absolutely know how you feel. I'll typically go 6 to 12 months at a time without playing because of that. I then strategically find a window between patches where most of my favorite mods are all up to date. It typically takes a solid 4 hours of work to fix up my modlist, and I then play obsessively for several weeks. Despite these huge breaks, I'm at almost 3500 hours in the game, though I've been playing since release.
My second fave game is Rimworld, and I follow a similar pattern there, though modding for that game seems much more resilient in the face of certain updates. Plus, Ludeon isn't DLC-crazy like Paradox.
I can see them surviving in the wild in Vancouver, but here in MB it regularly gets to -30 to -40 for several months in the winter. I'm not sure they'd like that too much.
That said, maybe your dad's house is a supermarket. Does he have lots of food in it?
Something I sometimes do for a more relaxed game is lower the number of empires from default for map size, and bump up the number of pre-FTL so some of them will later turn into empires. I usually also turn up the number of advanced empires.
You end up with a few superpowers, a few insignificant empires who are pawns in their games, and a little more early-game breathing room.
To be honest, I also generally peak at the map in observe mode to ensure I have a fun/interesting start position. I play with like 200 mods, usually create several of my own rival empires, and generally play it as a story generator rather than a game to "win."
I guess I have to say Stellaris because it's my favorite game in general. It also runs as good or better under the native Linux version than it ever did on Windows, so points there.
Good to know. Nevertheless, I hope to never be in a situation where I get to find out. I'm guessing they're suuuuper rare here. I checked the iNaturalist app and there were no observed sightings of either type mentioned in that article.
There's probably just a colony in the back of a supermarket somewhere.
Well, crap. Now I'm going to be irrationally afraid of a run-in with an illusive grape-riding Black Widow.
I did know about foreign spiders hitching a ride on produce. I just didn't know that these dudes could take root in our cold wasteland. Nonetheless, thanks for the link!
I was going to make a joke about this costing $6000/hit, then I read this:
Activists have urged Gilead to ensure that people in countries where low- and middle-incomes predominate can get access to lenacapavir. The company has long faced criticism over the price of its HIV medicines. Descovy usage carries a list price of $26,000 a year.
So based on their current HIV medicine, my joke answer was less than half of what it'll likely actually cost (as you need two hits a year).
Yeah. I used to watch a lot of horror/thrillers and most left me underwhelmed. As such, I had low expectations for M3GAN but it left me pleasantly surprised. Definitely campy, but that's obviously what it was going for.
Now I'm thinking I might have to watch it again this weekend.
I was pleasantly surprised with M3GAN, so I'm looking forward to this. It's got a different writer/director whose work I'm not familiar with, but looking at her IMDB it seems like a good fit for her.
But if all dogs are as big as dinosaurs, then Clifford is no longer special. He's no longer Clifford the Big Red Dog. He's then just Clifford the Normal Sized Red Dog. I just don't think he'd be as big of a deal in that universe.
I guess he's still got the red thing going for him?
I can't read any of the text, but the one on the left has the vibe of something that would get someone investigated for posting on the War Thunder forums to win an argument.
I'd go as far as to argue that running a nation has almost nothing in common with running a business.
A business literally exists to make a profit for its shareholders. The owners can try to do good things like pay high wages or give back to their community, but at the end of the day their goal is to make more money than they spend.
A government, on the other hand, should exist to protect and provide opportunities for its citizens to thrive. Generating a profit is largely at odds with that goal. People should have the same access to opportunities regardless of where in the country they live, and that's going to sometimes mean that functions of the government are never profitable.
That should be seen as okay, but people have been brainwashed to think that taxes are inherently bad, and that businesses are somehow naturally more efficient. I can say, as someone who has worked in business all his life, that that last bit is particularly a giant crock of shit. Businesses are no more naturally streamlined than any other organization. Hell, I'm currently personally leading a task force at my work to try to reduce all the egregious inefficiencies I've uncovered when trying to figure out why we're not making nearly as much money as we should be.
The point is, providing government services doesn't need to be "efficient". If you can make that happen and save the taxpayers money, that's great and you should do it. If that means letting any member of your society slip through the cracks, then efficiency be damned. The government shouldn't be in the business of making money.
And, no, privatizing "inefficient" government services is never the answer. All you're doing there is introducing new inefficiencies - the need for the business entity to make a profit, and the corners they'll inevitably cut to make that happen.
Anyway, I hope I don't come across as jumping on your comment. It sounds like I agree with you - just wanted to tack on this wall of thoughts.
Rust and Bust.