godot

Bummer.

I’ve been reading manga for a long time. I started with print and moved online to deeper cuts. A lot of those series are still not officially translated. I’ve been consuming fan translations, official digital translations, and print manga since.

No one should be surprised this happened to MangaDex. It was too convenient and too well known. A lot of the stuff that was removed is niche, but a lot it isn’t. I get why license holders don’t want Spy x Family and Blue Lock available for free on a massive website that tons of people know about.

However, I will not suddenly be pouring money into translators’ pockets. I’m going to read a lot less manga. To me MangaDex was even more useful as a hub than it was for being free. Excellent usability, good library function, okay searchability, great responsiveness, and no shitty app. No, Viz, I’m not going to download your shitty app.

It’s not 2002 with amazing fan forums. Reddit is a bot cesspool (with a shitty app). I don’t have peers who consume manga anymore. Without something like MangaDex I won’t know what to try or buy and I’ll be out of the habit of starting new manga. The money I was spending on manga related stuff, largely at cons, sometimes a lot of money, is going to drop a lot. I hope fifty more free downloads of the shitty app were worth it.

I feel very sad.

We’ll see if something else decent pops up. MangaDex had a good run. And this forum is actually not negligible; I’ve started several manga because I saw them here.

Why would China be desperate?

China offers the cheapest high spec manufacturing in the world. If the US doesn’t buy that manufacturing, that leaves the rest of the world. Of course China wants American money, but it’s not going to devastate their economy in the short term. It’s a reasonable cost for providing China with so many opportunities, which they are aggressively pursuing, to cultivate deep seated international power.

The prevalence of Chinese manufacturing actually is a national problem for the US. While China has its pick of buyers, the US is stuck with one seller. The US should have been working for twenty years with India, Pakistan, Brazil, Indonesia, Vietnam, and maybe even some counties in Africa to create access to alternatives. It didn’t.

Weaning the US off Chinese manufacturing would take decades of elegant economic policy and diplomacy featuring several countries. China knows this is where it actually has power over the US.

To a long term hockey fan this is funny on several levels. I don’t even know if the shirt is sincere or a joke. It gives me incredible joy that I’m not sure.

That is pure gold, an onion of hockey jokes with layers so stupid it’s impossible to explain succinctly.

One beer a day is pretty tight considering the circumstances.

The last few games were awesome. The Super Metroid race was hard to follow, but the runners were a lot of fun together and the finale was incredible.

I like a lot of what GDQ has become.

No. I think it’s for the reasons outlined or suggested in the link I included: increased cost of healthy ingredients, decreased accessibility to the same, people struggling to find time to eat well in the increasingly fast paced world, etc.

My mentioning my personal preference is mostly a concession to nuggets of truth in the 4chan post. It’s also true; there is nothing common about how I would prefer to consume quality food.

Between 1975 and 2016, the prevalence of obesity in Europe rose 138%, with a 21% rise between 2006 and 2016. The prevalence of overweight rose by 51% between 1975 and 2016, and by 8% between 2006 and 2016. It is expected that by 2030, over half of Europe will live with obesity – up to 89% in some countries. No Member State is on track to reach the target of halting the rise in obesity by 2025.

https://www.eufic.org/en/healthy-living/article/europes-obesity-statistics-figures-trends-rates-by-country

The proliferation of unhealthy eating is a big problem for most of Europe, too. They’re on the same path as the US for mostly the same reasons, just a few steps back.

That said, if I’m going to be fat, I’d rather it be because of schnitzel the size of a dinner plate or cacio e pepe over a Monster Burger.

A family in that sort of situation has considered many options. Willing the house to the brother is the easiest, the poster and their mother have reasons for opting against it. They are likely good reasons; in the broader sense, willing property to someone who cannot care for it can in many scenarios be a bad idea.

It’s dangerous to assume the brother would be safe from predation if he owned his home; the poster could do a lot worse than just not paying the bills. This person apparently lacks the ability to pay taxes and ensure proper maintenance. Even just to help with that, the poster will need access to their brother’s banking and tax info. If the brother is compliant it would not be difficult for someone to take advantage of that situation.

Alternately, using their legal ownership of the home the brother could potentially shut the poster out and might actively sabotage efforts to maintain and pay for the home. In that case the property could suffer substantial damage, become dangerous/uninhabitable, or even be lost despite the poster’s efforts. Many people have destructive tendencies.

The more certain way to protect the house for the brother would be to place it in a trust, but that’s not a panacea. Setting up an ironclad trust to prevent selling the house is great until the brother can’t get up the stairs, or the whole family decides to move to Canada, or the brother goes into assisted living, or the property value skyrockets. A trust will also have tax implications and potential costs that need to be considered.

I assume and hope the mother has been advised by a decent estate lawyer on their options. There are scenarios where willing a house to a sibling is the best course of action. I wish the poster luck and hope they’ll act in the interest of their brother for their entire lives.

The type of dice used can meaningfully impact this. The chance of a 2 or 12 rolling 2d6 is 1/36, the chance rolling 1d8+1d4 is 1/32. The chance of rolling 7 on 2d6, the most common result, is 1/6. The chance of rolling a 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 on a 1d8+1d4, all equally likely, is 1/8 each.

Unlike you I can’t begin to remember the elegant way to find this. I also assume Randall would have it at least close to right.

Tools are a good idea. Probably should follow your lead on that…

I’m mostly looking at whether I would have made any medium sized purchases in the next two yearsl. I might buy some little things in bulk, too, but if there’s any one time purchase where the price is going to jump $200, $300, $500, it’s time to make a decision.

For me that mostly means furniture. I already bought a pair of commodity IKEA bookshelves I’d been considering buying vs building. I might still build replacements, but I would still use what I just bought and domestic lumber won’t be directly subject to a tariff. I’m looking at buying a papasan chair and a mattress as well, probably in the next week or two.

I’ve also considered electronics, but there’s nothing I would buy in the next two years short of some PC components that I’m sure I’ll want. I bought a Quest 3 a while back and it’s been a great purchase.

I did go back through some of my online buying this year to see what I used. I’ll probably buy a few pairs of work shoes and some good soap.