This was Biden wanting to repair the relationship with Germany, after it has significantly deteriorated under Trump.
  And you don't have to worry, sanctions are now back on for Nord Stream 2. Assuming you were worried.

Ah, you mean the pipeline that was years away from completion, and years away from actually being able to affect fuel prices worldwide. It was 8% complete when cancelled. Never mind that it was too small to affect prices meaningfully; it would have increased global oil production by less than 1%.

Yes, great idea. Let's be ignorant and blame cancellation of Keystone XL for increased fuel prices.

Trump is not a politician. He is a business man. And not a very good one at that either.

Honestly, he's better suited to sales. Which perfectly marries up with his make-up-facts style, obsession with appearance, and ability to hoodwink millions of Americans.

I'm happy for you. But why post this? Comes across as gloating.

Yeah, I agree. Crypto currency, while it does have some inherent value as a method to bypass government regulation for many around the world, has been propped up by greed. Greed stoked by many of these scam ads.

And yet, Australia is still a better place to live than most places. Certainly for people that are at high risk of being affected by COVID. Because the government there knows that in a pandemic, citizens need to act together with one purpose. If another pandemic hits the world, which country would you prefer to live in?

  The Australian government even has an organisation that is trying to prevent their citizens from being scammed. Seems like they're trying to do right for their people.

Also spam and ransomware attacks. I've blocked a number of Russian based public IPs due to this. Only a small percentage overall, but whenever I see SASL polling from Russian sources, I'm in the habit of putting a block on the whole network it comes from.

For the British Pound to drop to zero, you would need a situation where all goods and services provided by the UK to have zero demand from overseas clients. it's these clients that determine the value of a fiat currency, because they have to pay for these goods and services with that fiat currency. So it's possible for the Pound to drop to zero, but it's extremely unlikely. The lower the Pound drops, the more demand there will be for the UK's goods and services, pushing the fiat currency value back up again.

With cryptocurrency, the value is determined by demand again. Currently, it seems that most demand is generated by the idea that the currency will increase in value. Value increases, generating more demand because of perceived investment opportunity, which in turn increases value. This can also work the opposite way. Withdrawal of investment from cryptocurrency will plunge the value, which may lead to further withdrawals, as people panic sell due to fearing losing all their money.

You see a similar effect with the stock market. Though stock prices are supported by the inherent value of the companies themselves. With cryptocurrency, there is no inherent value in it. It could quite easily plunge to zero with no demand. Only then will we see a whole bunch of articles appear, talking about why cryptocurrency was such a bad investment idea. People love analysing things in retrospect.

I really wish Sony _would_ release first-party replacement panels. Then perhaps most people wouldn't need to rely on third parties like Dbrand to have a console that garishly contrasts with every other device in their home media space.

It's obvious they can do it. I mean, they can't use an excuse like microchip shortage to explain lack of supply.

It's not like Sony have taken away the ability to purchase games on these platforms. You just have to add funds to your account via the website or a gift card. This is not "nearly unusable".

Now if they were taking away the PS3/Vita store entirely, like was threatened a few months back, then anger perfectly understood. This article, though, just smells of false outrage.

True, there is a premium on the price of console games. Though if you're happy to wait, the price goes down considerably with time. You'd be surprised with how competitive console game prices eventually are. Especially physical copies.

Optimisation will always be better on a console. Always. It's inherent in the fact that there is one hardware specification. Plus, with custom hardware on new gen consoles designed to speed up IO specifically for gaming purposes, something that is not available on the PC platform, the console has further advantages. Middleware and engines offloading optimisation from the developer? That is not optimisation. That is development convenience.

With respect to cheating, I have no idea what you're talking about when you say "vested interests". Seems like a non-sequitur. Cheaters can't run their own hacks on a game console. As soon as they mod it, they cannot use the console online.

True, PCs have exclusives as well. Also true, RTS and FPS games are better with a keyboard/mouse. Interestingly, there are some games on console that support keyboard/mouse. Moreso with Xbox than Playstation, but they do exist on both platforms. PC is definitely superior here. Though you are talking down the standard console controller; they are actually quite good.

Another advantage of PCs: they will almost always have more RAM to run code and store game assets.

That new graphics card you just bought for your PC gaming rig, it costs the same amount or even more than a whole game console.
Console games have a fixed hardware target, so developers have more ability to optimise code.
With new generation consoles, developers can now create code specifically taking advantage of PCIE4 SSD speeds.
No need to worry about driver versions, OS updates that crash your PC, online opponents that cheat with hacks.
There are games on a console that just aren't available for PC. Some really excellent games.

Rationale for relationships? Hah, nice one! I don't know anyone that has gone into a relationship based on rationale. It is emotion that is the primary driver of the need for a relationship. Which is all good. Emotions gives life some colour. Life is more interesting with it.

  Some rational justifications (in this day and age, or even historically) for a relationship could be: support to reach life goals more easily, emotional support, making use of legal advantages given to those in a relationship, help quiet the parents when they nag about you getting married. Hey, it's still a rational reason.

Well, if you're going to make a competition out of it, we all lose.

Nothing wrong with gaming, as long as (like everything), it isn't taken to excess. When it impacts on your well-being, and the well-being of others around you, you've gone too far. You need to be able to tear yourself away. if you can't, you have a problem.

That site was not about dealing with gaming partners, but about dealing with extreme gaming addiction. Which is not hilarious, and is absolutely a problem. Any addiction is a problem.

  Though I do agree. If you have to resort to withholding affection, it's a huge red flag that the relationship is completely dysfunctional, and possibly beyond repair. If there's no inclination from your partner to talk or try to resolve things, it's best to withdraw from the relationship entirely. That's tough though, especially when you have a lot invested into it. It's easy to say there's plenty of fish in the sea, but they're not your fish.

You must know the wrong women. Most left leaning women I know of actually participate in their partner's gaming activity, and those that don't are at least tolerant of the hobby. At the same time, a relationship is work, and needs work. Neither side can neglect it, otherwise it will perish.

And thus we have a solution to over-population. Sure as hell more subtle than China's one-child policy, granted they've now abandoned that.

Sometimes a game is just a game. Freud said that, didn't he? ;)

This economist opinion piece comes across as written by an economist who got his arse smacked in the Gamestop hijinks. Culture-weakening / regulation-weakening, sheesh, talk about hysteria. Will art exhibits still have the same influence? Yeah, they likely will. Will new books generate attention and discussion? Almost certainly.

Gaming is a new culture on the rise. And like other new cultures (rock'n'roll: the devil's music, comics: juvenile deliquency), it will attract fear-mongering from conservatives.

I am perfectly fine with games involving manipulating real-world money being regulated. Gambling being a prime example.

Probably a little too subtle there, my friend.

Yes, by having the non-vaccinated eliminate themselves by incorrectly dosing on questionable treatments, we do reach herd immunity a little more quickly.

Fear the time of The Coming of the Great Yellow Homer.