In America, yes.

Seve(rule)nce

There are just some people out there who despite having every moral reason to do so, can’t get themselves to kill another person. I don’t necessarily think those people should be shamed. Especially because they are trying to defend their home and it may have taken getting to the front lines before they realized that they just aren’t capable of doing it

It’s definitely unclear in BG3 but in actual D&D ceremorphosis kills the host and the mind flayer is formed from their body/mind/memories. So in Wyll’s case volunteering for transformation would be a bad idea because he would immediately go to Avernus to serve Mizora forever whereas if he lives he still has time to escape his pact. BG3 says that mind flayers don’t have a soul but the ones touched by the astral tadpoles do seem to retain their personalities. My interpretation is that BG3 ceremorphosis destroys the soul which is the only “true” death in D&D, so becoming a mind flayer guarantees you will never have an afterlife, which is a pretty big deal

Anyway, best choice imo is Karlach. She’s dead regardless, it’s not clear where her soul is going, and this way she becomes a selfless hero and continues some form of existence

M. Night Shyamalan’s viral marketing for Trap is getting really weird

Conversely the worst is when that happens and a bad boss blind screws your run

It’s hard to offer strong heuristics for Balatro because you could theoretically build up to a point where you’ve got a crazy high multiplier but if your chips are low it doesn’t matter.

For example let’s say you’ve got a face card 4 of a kind build going with: Pareidolia, Zany, Smiley, Trio, and Family jokers. These give you (respectively) all cards are face cards, +12 mult for 3 of a kind, +20 mult for each hand (all cards are face cards), x3 mult, x4 mult for a total of 384 multiplier! On base 4 of a kind this is

60x([7+12+20]x3x4)=28,080

However if you were to drop smiley face (+5 mult per face) for scary face (+30 chips per face card) which by almost every heuristic is a bad decision your score becomes:

(60+120)x([7+12]x3x4)=41,040

Which is a way bigger score!

So while people can offer general advice like stack high chips on plasma, always go for total score multipliers, etc. sometimes you just have to evaluate your specific build and figure out the best play

Finally outside of decks like abandoned and checkered which are specifically made to get certain hands, there isn’t a “best” hand to go for. The highest possible scores I’ve seen all come from high card builds but most normal players won’t get those. I’ve won two of a kind runs, flush 5 runs, straight runs, flush runs. You just have to evaluate your deck and tarot cards to see your options

Generally some good advice is that Balatro is a math game first and foremost so you want to focus on things that raise your score the quickest. So adding chips is ok, adding multiplier is better, and multiplying your total is the best.

For example let’s say you are playing straights and you have a 10-6 with level 3 straights. So you’d have:

10+9+8+7+6=40

(40+90)x10=1300

So let’s compare how jokers impact that score:

Devious joker: +100 chips if you have a straight

(40+90+100)x10=2300

Crazy joker: +12 mult if you have a straight

(40+90)x(10+12)=2860

The order: x3 mult if you have a straight

(40+90)x(10x3)=3900

You can see those are very big differences! It’s also helpful to pay attention to the order of your cards. Generally Balatro cards are scored left to right. The most important thing is to take any card that multiplies any part of your score on the right so you can add as much to the score as possible, then you multiply that number

So in short: multiplier jokers are best, additive multiplier jokers are good, additive chip jokers are ok, and pay attention to the order of your jokers/played cards

For plasma specifically I’d focus on high additive chip jokers. While that’s normally bad advice, consider how crazy good a card with +50 mult on it would be. Now consider that a +100 chip joker is effectively a +50 chip/+50 mult (I know that’s not technically true but I’m illustrating a point). Also eventually you do hit a point of diminishing returns because plasma prevents you from having a super high multiplier or chips, so like every build, total score multipliers are the best

I prefer Sci-fi background noise so Surviving Mars is my favorite. Mass Effect is ok but I find it gets a little too cinematic and bombastic at times. FTL and Into The Breach, or really anything by Ben Prunty is good too

It was so good I immediately went to his page and started watching his most viewed videos. This guy rocks

Well when I purchased my car he hadn’t done that, so it didn’t factor into my decision. To your second point. That’s literally what they just did, I mentioned that in my comment. A bunch of auto manufacturers are switching their primary port, that’s another way of fucking your charging network. However, to my benefit, they’ll probably be picking up some of Tesla’s slack on NACS charging stations. Finally, worst case scenario it’s not like Tesla disappears off the face of the earth. If Elon fucks it all to hell they’ll break the company into pieces, sell the various pieces to other auto manufacturers and life will move on

As someone who bought one recently (past yearish) there’s several things:

1. The charger network: Superchargers are so much more plentiful than the alternatives, and there’s still not a great central charging app. I have 3 different ones installed on my phone and honestly most of them suck besides Tesla’s. Non-tesla chargers are basically just at apartments, businesses, and malls. Very few of which actually help me

2. Autopilot: when used within reason it’s a great feature. I use it in clear weather conditions for highway driving which probably covers 75% of my total time driving. In the optimal environment it feels much safer than a human and the (admittedly biased) data seems to back that up. Also having it commute for you in stop and go traffic is a huge game changer

3. Tesla is an all electric car company. I don’t necessarily trust other big auto companies to continue supporting electric, and to keep supporting specific electric models. We’ve already seen major auto manufacturers drop a charging standard (which is probably better for Americans) but what’s to stop them from doing it again? What stops them from stopping support for a specific model and running out of parts for it? I don’t expect an all electric car company with 5 models to do that

4. Yes, Elon is a massive piece of shit. You know who else is? Every auto exec. The only difference is that they’re quiet and effective. Those old money fucks have done so much more harm to our planet because they know how to influence politics effectively. Something something, ethical consumption, something, something, capitalism

Overall I got a mid-price electric car with a decent set of features. I’m relatively happy with my purchase while understanding the clear limitations of it

Gale’s “bad” ending is actually the best ending in the game.

Who cares that he doesn’t get character growth, he disappointed a cat and an old man, HE’S A GOD! Seriously, nothing else matters. So what if Ao is going to make him earn his spot on the pantheon? He’s immortal, he has literally forever to do it. Sure professor Gale is fun and more chill, but he’s still mortal. In six months Gale does what Vlaakith has been attempting for centuries. I don’t know how you can be disappointed in someone for successfully becoming a god

A Wells Fargo spokesperson told Bloomberg that the company “holds employees to the highest standards and does not tolerate unethical behavior.”

I mean the jokes write themselves

Maybe I’m clutching my pearls here, but I don’t want my president to “joke” about my life. Also this “joke” is in pretty poor spirit if 20+ people needed medical attention and he’s not going to help them at all

In the early days of Rift there was a mage build that used a bunch of attacks to target what the tank was targeting and would build your crit chance to 85%+ and then crit heal the tank for their entire bar. The tanks absolutely hated it, but it was the most fun healing I’ve done across 10+ MMOs, MOBAs, and arena shooters

I have no mouth and I must (rule)

This is a classic for a reason. We make everything as inhospitable for bikers as we can and when they work around it somehow they’re the bad guys

Yeah it is. This was on my second playthrough and I was doing a cheesy tavern brawler monk so I could have solo’d the fight (which is also why I had thrown the spear). It only took us 10 minutes to reset