Go to an MVNO, and you can get unlimited data for $25 or so.

Ys Origin is one of my favorite games. :)

Lair of the Clockwork God

I will probably also try Hogwarts Legacy next week when my kids get out of school for Thanksgiving.

I’m also going to try Fire Emblem: Engage on Switch, it’s been a while since I played a Fire Emblem game.

Yup, I actually refuse to allow them to play any games with MTX, at least for now (they’re still young). So Fortnite et al are outright banned in my house because I don’t want them getting used to that environment just yet. We’ll probably get there, but they’re haven’t yet learned how to manage money properly and defer gratification, and I don’t think the consequences of MTX are steep enough to properly teach that lesson. And this isn’t just for them, I ban myself as well, and I’d like to ban my wife, but she gets to make her own choices since she’s an adult.

I totally give them money they can spend on other things, and my older kid has absolutely learned that spending it all at once is a poor choice, but they’re still too impulsive for me to let them loose on predatory games.

As a parent, who is completely conscious of everything going on around social media and technology, you will absolutely need to step in

Oh absolutely. My point is that supervision should be as low-touch as possible. Let kids screw up when the stakes are low so they don’t screw up later when the stakes are higher.

As a kid, I got into things I shouldn’t have online, mostly because we only had dialup so I would wait until everyone was in bed to use the computer so I didn’t disrupt phone calls coming in. I ended up getting caught, had a productive talk, and learned what to avoid. That was really effective for me, and the lack of firm guardrails got me interested in learning to computers worked, so I taught myself basic webdev as a teen, which launched me into a software dev role.

If we had strict rules preventing computer use, yes, I probably wouldn’t have gotten into things I shouldn’t, but I also wouldn’t have had the freedom to teach myself software dev and probably wouldn’t have gotten interested in it.

you WILL have to be the parent who sets boundaries on the stimuli their brain craves but has a negative impact on their overall health

Oh, and I certainly do, but I use a carrot and stick approach rather than a “guardrails” approach. I tell them what the rules are, but put nothing in place to prevent them from breaking the rules, and when they do (and they will), I’ll completely remove access for a time after a discussion about why the rules exist. For example:

• video games - we have a system where the kids “earn” playtime (we do it by reading books), and if they go beyond their allotted playtime (we have a max of 2hrs/day), they completely lose the privilege (I take the console away)
• bedtime - we got them watches w/ games on them and told them they couldn’t use them at night; we caught them using them at night, but let them continue and when they were late getting up, we pointed at the watch as the issue and took it away for a while; now they don’t stay up nearly as late w/ their watches
• coming home on time - kid wanted to go to the park alone, so we told them when to be back; they came back late, so I took away their bicycle (that’s how they got there) for a while saying I don’t trust them to come back on time; now they come back on time, and they can ride their bicycle pretty much wherever they want (we have boundaries)

That’s how I was raised, and I found it incredibly effective. I almost never had things taken away as well, because once they showed they were willing to, I tended to listen and follow the rules.

You don’t instill healthy eating into a child by giving them unlimited money and telling them to make their own decisions.

Sure, but you also don’t instill healthy eating habits by not letting them make poor choices either. Let kids fail and fail hard (i.e. don’t catch them), but be there to help them back up.

For example, let them eat as much Halloween candy as they want for one day, and then when they inevitably get a stomach ache, they’ll learn why moderation is important. Likewise with money, if they waste it all on something stupid and don’t have enough for what they really want, they’ll learn the value of delayed gratification.

The more natural and immediate the consequence, the more effective it is at teaching them self-discipline.

Obviously, protect them from the worst harms (e.g. we don’t let our kids play w/ knives or fire), but let them try and fail while the stakes are low.

That’s completely fair. IMO, engaged parent > parental controls > absentee parent.

Their anti-cheat

Honestly, this seams a bit unfair. My understanding is that VAC is free or very inexpensive and pretty decent, while other options are potentially better for some cases and more expensive. Valve making a reasonable anti-cheat available is a good thing IMO.

So it existing is a good thing, it just may be the wrong fit for a given game (e.g. more popular games probably need a more intense anti-cheat).

If a game isn’t detecting cheaters well enough, blame the game, not the anti-cheat system it uses.

Strong disagree on parental controls. As a parent, if I don’t trust my kids, they won’t get a device. Period. If I trust them, they will get a device without any limitations. Period.

I really don’t see the point in parental controls, all it does is encourage kids to learn how to get around parental controls. Instead of that, teach kids what it takes to earn your trust and go that route.

I’m a parent, and here are my only controls:

• Switch - passcode because my 4yo kept playing games when not allowed; I told the older kids the code, and will probably remove it soon
• my computers passwords - when my kids are allowed to play games or whatever, I’ll unlock it and tell them what they can and can’t use it for, with zero controls other than the underlying threat of losing privileges entirely if they misuse it
• tablet - each has a passcode, but the kids don’t use them much (only on trips)
• TV - again, 4yo kept watching when not allowed, and the older kids watched as well (but only when the 4yo did it), so they all lost access; will probably remove this soon

We do no internet filters, no enforced time limits (they have their own timers though), and no locks on specific programs. Either I trust them with everything or nothing. They know what they’re allowed to use, and they know the consequences.

Nah, put a traffic cone on 'em.

Why not?

Bummer, I missed the sale. Now it’s infinitely more expensive at $0.99, $1.99 if you get the orange box bundle.

Jk, I’ve had the game for years. If you haven’t played it, $0.99 is well worth the price of admission.

Yup. Government owned land with very few restrictions on use. They generally have turnoffs here and there for recreational shooting, usually against a rock wall or something. People will pull off, set up targets and have a blast.

Nice, that first one is right next to a bank too. So if you show up to rob the place, but forgot your ammo, then you’re set!

You can also just vandalize the vending machine and steal the ammo, which would probably be a lot easier than hacking it, or even vandalizing a gun store.

Yup, in my state (Utah), there’s no required legal process to carry a firearm concealed, and you can buy a firearm w/o any required checks from a private seller (not ammo though), but you need to prove your age to access porn. That seems a little… odd.

How about this: scan your state issued ID. My license has a barcode, and bars already scan it, so it’s a solved problem, no AI needed. The process should essentially be:

1. scan license
2. snap picture of face
3. send to police for lookup - needed to verify you’re not a felon or whatever, there’s more to it than just age verification
4. accept or reject transaction

The only AI that needs to exist would be at the local precinct, and used for related ID verification checks.

Or how about this, instead of all this BS, put the vending machine in the store and have a clerk check your ID like they normally would.

Ammo should never be an impulse buy, and I say this as a strong proponent of the 2A.

As a big proponent of the 2A and generally in favor of less restrictions, I also don’t see the point. Here are the times I’d need ammo:

• at the range - just call someone over and they’ll deliver it to you
• before going hunting - I’m heading to the hunting store anyway, I’ll just pick some up there
• a trip to BLM land to go shooting - pull from stash and refresh it w/ an online order
• when picking up a new gun - gun stores tend to have ammo

Vending machines tend to be in more urban environments, and if I’m there, I either already have ammo (if I’m carrying concealed) or I’m not carrying a firearm anyway. In the rare situation where I’m carrying a firearm w/o ammo (why?), I’m not going to stop and load my gun in public, so why go to the vending machine?

I don’t see any good reason for this to exist. Either order online or pick up along w/ other stuff at the gun store. A vending machine is going to be out of whatever caliber I want anyway and they’ll probably get restocked rarely, so even a mild convenience would likely end up being an inconvenience. So even if it was safe, it’s not solving any problems.

As someone w/ young kids, I definitely don’t want to make access to ammo easier for casual gun owners. Gun enthusiasts already know where to get ammo, this is just going to be a target for bored kids.

Not quite, but vending.com has vending machines. I think they run a few thousand each, so they’re not exactly cheap…

it takes upwards of 20 years to build a reactor. Even if that gets expedited through modern technologies, we’re still talking something like 15 years until they come online, and you’re still paying all the upfront costs throughout that time

From some reading, it seems a lot of that is bureaucracy (non-safety related), construction delays, and lawsuits. I wouldn’t be surprised if we could get that down to 10 years average with a concerted effort, assuming we can build multiple in parallel.

Whereas solar can go from concept to grid in 2 years, and batteries aren’t much worse.

Sure, on a small-ish scale. A nuclear plant will put out way more electricity than a typical solar project will. So while the time to getting value from it will be a lot shorter w/ solar, they tend to chip away at existing infrastructure instead of completely replacing plants.

The desert has the benefit that solar can be really well calculated

Oh yeah, solar is incredibly effective here, the main problem is storage. Hydro isn’t really a thing since our dams are intended to keep water for summer use, and they refill when we’d want to be generating power. Warm water also isn’t feasible at scale, and promising technologies still aren’t proven. I’m especially interested in hydrogen storage, since it could be really useful for long-haul trucking (we’re a pretty big hub for that) in addition to storage for winter generation.

I was interested in EVs being used for overnight power storage (basically recharge during the day while at work), but it seems like that hasn’t materialized.

centralized heating that provides for a whole city block

I don’t think we’d need to go that far, putting in buried heat exchangers on new construction isn’t that expensive, and I’d expect coordinating billing and whatnot would be more annoying than it’s worth (need an HOA, and HOAs can really suck).

The better option, IMO, is to create mixed-use zoning near transit hubs, which would encourage use of mass transit and allow for those economies of scale you’re talking about without annoying planned communities w/ HOAs (i.e. business below you could pay your heating/cooling bill). Maybe that’s what you were getting at, my point is that it doesn’t make as much sense for residential areas IMO, but it could make sense for mixed zoning areas.

I do want to point out that I’m not obsessed w/ nuclear or anything, I just think it’s a good option to replace existing base-load plants running on coal and natural gas.