In these days of tiktoks and instagrams and stuff, it’s nice to know that some things can still make a splash on good old fashioned radio waves

A website isn’t a person. A critic is a person. Maybe you have some trust that a website hires the “right” critics but this gets brought up every time the AV Club hired new critics. Dowd went through a ringer it felt like, and for what? Once people stop losing their “omg change” marbles, you establish a relationship…

the phrase should be “money doesn’t guarantee happiness” because there is a floor at which a certain amount of money (for a quality of life) is largely necessary for happiness, but there is no ceiling at which point you’re certain to be happy because of the things it can give you

You appear to be under the impression that Apple is ending worldwide manufacturing of digital audio players somehow. That would be impressive. Apple no longer wants to be in the space, likely because it’s not profitable enough to justify anymore.

Or ... The Way of Earth, Wind & Fire where
*checks notes* Pandora is saved by the power of funk.

Why won’t you let me like making fun of people who like Avatar, huh?

Not all puns are inherently awful. That’s actually a clever pun in my book. But the pun is already in Goldin’s listing.

Consumerism! It’s the one class every American was born to ace!

Agree. However, in many jurisdictions, one of the stipulations for collecting winnings is you’re not allowed to remain anonymous, because advertising past winners is one of the most effective selling tools they have.

bs comment astroturf alert (“KeithFromCanada” aka some morally bankrupt footsoldier for the cause is just pasting this same comment in multiple threads)

People who come into large amounts of money suddenly - particularly lotto winners - have spent X years dreaming of winning money so they can spend it. That’s the dream lotteries sell, that’s the customer they attract. If you already have money, you probably have a better chance of understanding what to do with it, but…

Also gambling addicts always start off gambling “what they afford” and then turn to other peoples’ money when they cannot. It’s very rarely purely self-destructive.

The public -> private door isn’t such a big deal. Private -> public is a little more problematic. But the private -> public -> private revolving door at the senior levels is a real issue.

I think things have gotten out of hand when developers should be expected to be concerned about the feelings of “the speedrunning community”. A “community” that in part seems to depend on software behavior the game developers didn’t intend to begin with, let alone sign up to commit to having to consider when making…

He’d better be! I’m getting tired of spraying vinegar at cloud seeding contrails all day!

Absolutely fair. I was being (unfairly, judging by the trailer) glib.

Whew, I’m glad somebody is finally getting around to validating and nurturing Americans’ distrust in institutional governance.

Actually what I said is there’s no perfectly fine people on either side, in so far as human behavior is a gradient good to bad, and in the very next line I said some people are very much worse than others, thus obliterating his accusation that I’m trying to draw some kind of equivalence.

I didn’t say that. Don’t worry, statistically speaking, most people end up outgrowing their early 20s.

There’s no such thing as “good guys” and “bad guys”. A society with open season on “bad guys” would devolve into everyone punching everyone in about 5 minutes flat. Some people might deserve to get punched more than others, but everybody on the planet deserves to get punched according to somebody else. Nobody is pure,…