Hillock

YouTube doesn’t have a say in this, it’s up to the copyright holder of each individual song. YouTube just detects if a song is copyrighted or not then gives the owner the option what to do. The three common ones are

• Disable the Video.
• Claim Monetization of it.
• Do nothing.

So whoever holds the rights to Phil Collins song is the one responsible for your video being disabled. While whoever holds the rights to the song Joe Schmo decided to go with option 2 or 3.

This process has mostly been automated. So it feels like YouTube is doing it but they are just following the orders of the copyright holder.

The system is a bit overzealous in some cases and even fair use gets flagged.That’s on YouTube. But to be fair, it’s very hard to have an automated system detect the difference between fair use and not. YouTube should just implement a better way to dispute false copyright claims.

I am slightly annoyed that they didn’t use the Starfarers of Catan as the base for this game. Would have made more sense.

But I suppose Starfarers just isn’t as popular so that’s why I am only slightly annoyed.

Head over to the website of the company go to the about section and read about their values. They usually list something like teamwork, communication, working autonomously, speed, or quality. You pick 2-3 of these values and that’s what you talk about when they ask about yourself.

For the actual technical part it’s hard to prepare for. Most people don’t actually care about you being perfect but just want to see if you actually are familiar with what you said you are. So as long as you have an idea what you are talking about you will be fine.

Even if you don’t know the answer, just come up with something that could work. Don’t just say you don’t know. Explain your train of thought as to why your solution could work. And any other ideas you might have.

First take some time to actually define the lifestyle you want. It’s very easy in today’s world to get tunnel vision on your career. But once you have financial stability more money doesn’t necessarily make you happier. Trying to move up the career ladder could prevent you from enjoying life. That’s where the saying “money doesn’t make happy” comes from.

But if advancing is important to you there are still ways to achieve this. Consider moving abroad for a few years. Especially the middle east has ton of good job offers and since many people you will work with there aren’t English native speakers your pronunciation shouldn’t hold you back. UAE, Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain all have a very vibrant expat community. They are more likely to value your experience and offer you a higher position. Then after 2-3 years you can go back with a stronger CV.

Or you can consider picking up a remote job, move to a tropical island and enjoy a more relaxed life. That’s what I did (not as a programmer but still remote work). A salary that barely let’s you survive in the west let’s you have a very comfortable lifestyle. You only have to consider the visa issue but for most countries that means just leaving for 1-2 days every 90 days. And with the extra spare money taking short flights/vacations is easily doable.

Both option obviously depend a bit on your social life.

I only have very limited knowledge about programming. But I do know that some languages are fairly new. So you switching around isn’t necessarily bad. Just focus on something that’s fairly new and then you are on a level playing field.

And if you haven’t done so yet. Spend a few bucks on a professional CV writer. If your interview rate is so low there is a good chance your CV is bad. The job market is crazy at the moment and getting tons of rejections isn’t uncommon. But with 20 years of experience it shouldn’t be that bad.

In BG3 encumbrance is so pointless. The increased carry capacity and reduced armor weight make it a non-factor. The few times you actually reach it you just sort by weight and send some of the heavier stuff to camp. You can even do it during combat. So they should have just gotten rid of it. You are bringing all your resources at all times anyhow and the inventory manamgent is still terrible.

The current system is just a minor inconvenience because you will have to go to your camp when you reach a vendor and want to get rid of some of the extra stuff. I would much prefer it if they either stick to the base rules, with base weight values and encumbrance starting at 5x the strength value. Then one would have to make actual decisions on what to bring. But right now, even with 8 strength you never have any issues. Or they just get rid of it.

And that’s how I feel about encumbrance in general. Most games have such absurd high carry limits that the system doesn’t add anything and just becomes an inconvenience and annoyance.

They often sell an auto-install USB stick you just have to plug into your PC. So at least there is some effort put into it that still makes it “worth paying for”. And if you need to install it on multiple devices, it can save a lot of time if you don’t know how to do it yourself.

It’s not the standard, it’s just something that started to pop up in some university courses. Anything before that we usually are just graded 1-6/A-F. But even 15 years ago when I attended University there were a few courses that required a 70%+ for passing and what I have heared this has become more common. It’s basically to weed out people and reduce the number of students since university is usually free.

I blame the school grading system for it. 70% and below is already a failing grade in many courses. So by extension anything that gets rated 7 or below is asscoiated with failure.

I am not from the US, so I don’t know how long this grading system has been in use there but here in Central Eruope that’s a rather new thing. That’s why a 5/10 didn’t feel as bad 20 years ago while today a 7/10 feels worse.

MapTools is the only FOSS virtual table top software I am aware of. It has all the features one would need, extensive dice rolling commands, a shared map and tokens, it even has fog of war options. But out of the box it’s very barren. You can download user created libraries and frameworks. Since 5e is very popular there are tons of resources available. And only the host has to download and install them manually, connecting players will download them automatically when joining.

But don’t expect it to be as neat and tidy as the paid options. It gets the job done and you can do a ton of stuff with it but it isn’t anywhere nearly as intuitive as some of the other tools. Especially the host/gm will need to invest some serious time into the software.

You can find it here https://www.rptools.net/toolbox/maptool/ since it’s free just take a look if it’s “good enough” for you.

Gaming laptops aren’t a scam, they fill a niche. For people like me they are the best option available. I travel frequently and then stay there for usually a few months before having to travel again. So a desktop doesn’t work for me at all. I need a decent computer for work. Most business laptop that fill my needs are also on the heavier side. The ones that are portable usually have integraded gpu’s, which just doesn’t work for me. So the step from business laptop that fills my needs to gaming laptop is minimal.

All of the drawbacks of a gaming laptop are barely affecting me. And while this seems like an edgecase, there are a lot more people who have needs that a gaming laptop fulfills and can’t be met by other devices.

I can recommend the Acer Nitro 5 series. Have it for a few years now. The main drawbacks are

Portability - You will run into this issue a lot with gaming laptops. But the Nitro series is probably one the lower end when it comes to portability. Especially if you go with the 17 inch screen. It’s heavy and big.

Speakers - the newest series apparently upgraded them, but the one I have has terrible built in speakers. I use a headset anyhow while playing. So doesn’t concern me. But it just can’t be used to watch movies together in bed.

Fan noise - It can get very noisy, especially during gaming session. If you are using a headset, you aren’t noticing it. But it can be distracting to others in the room.

Batter life - It’s just bad, even if you aren’t gaming. But again, while playing you are usually plugged in anyway.

Overall none of the big issues affect me. But could be a dealbreaker for others.

The big pros:

Available in 17 inch - which was a must for me.

Decent cooling - Just make sure you get a 2021 or later model.

Easy to upgrade internal storage & ram - you can put 2 additional SSDs inside. And even upgrading the ram is super easy. This also means they aren’t charging absurd amounts for upgrading the stock variant from 256gb to 512 or even 1tb.

Performance for the price - It’s not a end of the line model but for the price you will get decent performance.

I haven’t played a Paladin yet, so I am not sure how the mechanic is implemented. But the oathbreaker subclass exist in BG3 and you can’t choose it on character creation. So there is some way of becoming one.

I don’t think it matters nearly as much as the article makes it sound. Especially since multiclassing is super viable in 5E and BG3 removed all kinds of requirements for multiclassing and even allows you to respec. Meaning even multiclass combos that struggle if played out at level 1 can just be recreated later. And that means you can recreate the toolkit of a Bard fairly easily and focus more on the aspect you actually enjoy.

I think any class with ritual casting is going to feel very rewarding in your first playthrough, assuming you don’t forget to utilize it. So you have Bard, Cleric, Druid, and Wizard, and Arcane Trickster and Eldritch Knight. But even any class with just cantrips are already going to give you a lot you might not be used to from other RPGs.

The only class I wouldn’t recommend for the first playthrough might be Paladin. The oath just limits your choices in certain situations. And while you could break your oath and become an “Oathbreaker”, I personally don’t feel this is the best for the first time playing. I think being able to explore all options available without having to consider your oaths makes for a better first-time-playing experience. But Paladin is on the list for my second round.

Edit: I forgot that BG3 made changes to Arcane Trickster and Eldritch Knight, they can both also ritual cast. In general, there are a lot of changes made that make the game way more open and allows you things to make it fun.

Yes it’s possible. Their version of Google Drive (Pan Baidu) is basically a paradise for piracy. But it’s a bit of a pain in the ass for foreigners to get access. And obviously everything is in Chinese.

China doesn’t care about foreign held copyright. So anything that isn’t owned by a Chinese company is fair game. As long as it isn’t considered banned material of course.

Can second Mechabellum. It’s super fun, the right mix of casual but still competitive. The match duration makes it great for squeezing in a game or two. And I love how the game has weekly tournaments built in. They even have one for each timezone. The built-in competitiveness without having to register on external sites really reduces the entry barrier.

If you have a good internet connection you can just screen share the movie over any messaging app. The delay should be under a second and be in-sync with the audio delay. So no-one gets spoiled. You might receive the reaction of your friend a little late but it shouldn’t matter too much.

Freelancer just got everything right. First and foremost are the controls. Combat is just so much fun because of it. It might not be the most strategic combat system, it might not be the most realistic, but boy is it fun. It’s responsive and immersive, the weapons feel great to shoot and sound amazing. The only other game that came close was Aquanox in this regard.

It’s not trying to be too much, most of the game is rather simple but to the point. The UI gives you all the information you need but doesn’t overload you.

The progression was spot on. You spent enough time in each area to get familiar with it but you moved on before it had a chance to get boring. Same with your ship progression. You got new ships at a decent rate. The mix between free exploration time and furthering the story was right. The spacing between points of interest was just right, big enough that you could feel the vastness of space but not too wide to spend endless time traveling. Especially the difference between traveling amongst established lines and going “offroad” was right.

Freelancer just focused on what is important and delivered on it. There are a few areas it could have been more. Especially faction diplomacy and economy is an area that in a game released today would feel too shallow. But it didn’t matter for Freelancer because it delivered where it matters and that was a fun space shooter game.