I see there is some pushback starting to accumulate against video game designers who are pushing 'loot boxes' in games to an ever-increasing degree.
This is basically where they make it an option to pay for a bunch of in-game equipment and make it so getting the same stuff without paying is prohibitively time-consuming or difficult.
The kicker is, the loot boxes are randomised, so you're not buying the thing you are after, you are buying a chance to win the thing you are after.
So you buy one, check if it has the goodies you want, get disappointed, buy another one, get disappointed. Now I've invested 50 quid and I still don't have the thing I wanted, what a waste of 50 unless I buy another one and maybe get it.
It's basically gambling/roulette with a strong play on the sunk cost fallacy targeted at children.
I see EA got maule during the week for making people pretty much have to pay to unlock Darth Vader in a Star Wars game they have already shelled out 70 quid for
State of console gaming
Anything I read about Destiny(one of the biggest online shooters ) sound utterly grim in that sense
I see EA got maule during the week for making people pretty much have to pay to unlock Darth Vader in a Star Wars game they have already shelled out 70 quid for
State of console gaming
Anything I read about Destiny(one of the biggest online shooters ) sound utterly grim in that sense
The pushback around that game in particular has gambling regulators in Belgium looking into this.
Update, November 22: Contrary to reports yesterday, the Belgian Gaming Commission has not declared loot boxes to be gambling.The Belgian Gaming Commission is yet to come to a conclusion on the matter of whether or not in-game loot boxes constitute gambling. A mistranslation of a statement
The obvious solution by the way is for the EU to force EA to charge more for each loot box so people addicted to gambling on them will be able to afford fewer of them.
Almost all of that is relevant to the gambling industry too, but you don't have similar views on that.
Thats not true, I have often argued the same thing here that the costs of harm caused should be borne by the industry. The only thing that differs is that there it is better to collect the taxes from the industry than directly from the end user
Cracking post hotspur. Funny I was only last night reading the chapter in 'Sapiens' about gossiping. Theory being that the development of language and in particular the act of gossiping is what gave Homo Sapiens the edge.
We drove out all other homo species they say.
Deffo a few Neanderthals around tho.
I hold silver in tit for tat, and I love you for that
Thats not true, I have often argued the same thing here that the costs of harm caused should be borne by the industry. The only thing that differs is that there it is better to collect the taxes from the industry than directly from the end user
Why's that out of interest? It was something I was thinking about lately that I never heard any good argument as to why gambling winnings are tax free.
It would be good to repeat the clarification that the minimum booze pricing isn't a tax, it's not going to add to government coffers, it's not going to go to funding hospital beds.
It is a mechanism for the transfer of wealth from mostly poor people to mostly super-profitable corporations.
It is also a mechanism for encouraging people to change the location of their drinking to places that disproportionately benefit the sub-section of the population that happen to be making the rule up.
It may also have some positive health implications as people who are already drinking less for other reasons continue to drink less and this measure gets the credit.
Thats not true, I have often argued the same thing here that the costs of harm caused should be borne by the industry. The only thing that differs is that there it is better to collect the taxes from the industry than directly from the end user
For one you want the users deterred from causing themselves harm, for the other you want no deterrent to the user. As a non drinking gambler I think your stance is pretty hypocritical.
Why's that out of interest? It was something I was thinking about lately that I never heard any good argument as to why gambling winnings are tax free.
When then Chancellor Gordon Brown removed the 9% tax on winnings in 2001(?) in the UK it was to stop the industry making a mass move abroad - it was believed that under EU law they wouldn't be able to a) stop people betting with Maltese/Gibraltar firms and b) couldn't apply profits tax to the accounts people held with these firms in EU countries where no tax applied, i.e., once you've paid the Maltese tax rate of Zero you couldn't be further taxed in the UK.
So in order to encourage the industry, the employment it provides and taxes it pays to stay in the UK they came up with a more favourable regime for everyone. A small tax is paid on stakes, swallowed by the industry rather than passed to the punter, no tax on winnings.
a) may have changed in the meantime as clearly France and Italy are now able to stop 'outside' firms operating in their countries but b) is probably still relevant.
Pompeii fantastic by the way, everything I imagined it to be but about 20 times bigger than it was in my head. Size of a couple of football pitches I thought, had no idea that you could walk the streets for 4 hours and have only touched a fraction of it. 70 hectares apparently.
Always seem slightly unlucky weatherwise with my ancient ruins, like the Roman forum a few years ago I got to Pompeii just in time for a two hour deluge that turned the streets into flowing rivers, good wet fun!
Vesuvius very worthwhile as well, nice little 30 minute walk up from where the bus leaves you, and an incredible sight to behold (both the crater and view) when you get to the top. Again my pre-conception of size shattered as the crater is just so much more vast than I thought.
Would totally recommend for anyone who has had them on their list but never got around to them, won't be disappointed imo.
Really not a fan of a lot of the shit I'm seeing about Ireland football.
It wasn't always a pleasant watch, in fact most games it was pretty woeful, but more often than not they pulled out the huge results. Getting 2nd in a group where you are 4th seed is absolutely fantastic!
The draw itself, I wanted Italy or Switzerland as I thought we were more suited to play their styles but even when we drew Denmark I knew we'd give it a right go. The game in Denmark they had a few decent chances but that was it, we kept them pretty quiet.
We brought them home and went up 1-0 early and they upped their game and we were no match. The second half we were appalling because Eriksen literally had 15 feet to touch and turn for most of it, but the 2 goals before the half ended us. The stadium was complete silence, there was zero chanting or 12th man to be had because there was so many shitty ass supporters who just show up for big games that had no fucking heart for the team.
Think I went to 9 games this campaign, and literally thousands walked out at 3-1 and it was embarrassing to hear the Danish sing 'you only sing when you're winning'.
After 12 games you don't even stay an extra 30 minutes to cheer on a team proud to play for their nation. Fuck yourselves you bunch of fair-weather supporters!
Congrats Keith – the below is hilarious, I read it twice, really, trust me you’ll love it, it really it is hilarious. Honestly.
Secular registrar type: Do you take Black Swan <insert name> here to be your lawfully wedded wife?
Kayroo : Lawfully?, hmm, now that is interesting. DO I take her lawfully the second I say it or the second I sign for it? Hmmm. If it’s not it should be. Like If I say I DO and then pop my pompoms
am I officially an unwedded corpse? I know the answer of course like most things, I just want to see if YOU know the answer.
Congrats Keith – the below is hilarious, I read it twice, really, trust me you’ll love it, it really it is hilarious. Honestly.
Secular registrar type: Do you take Black Swan <insert name> here to be your lawfully wedded wife?
Kayroo : Lawfully?, hmm, now that is interesting. DO I take her lawfully the second I say it or the second I sign for it? Hmmm. If it’s not it should be. Like If I say I DO and then pop my pompoms
am I officially an unwedded corpse? I know the answer of course like most things, I just want to see if YOU know the answer.
BRIDE : This is not in my programming
Congregation murmur : Did you bring food?
This is disturbingly close to the truth...
You are technically correct...the best kind of correct
World Record Holder for Long Distance Soul Reads: May 7th 2011
I am a fair weather fan of Irish soccer, rugby and most other sports. If the Irish team do not excite me or entertain me I bemoan this loss of time and money from my life. I applaud effort to a degree but I won’t sing silly songs to cheer up the boys especially not ole ole ole.(wtf) I’ll sing Ireland Ireland in a haunting voice if people would care to join in. However If they are being outplayed on the pitch and all is lost I suggest they sing to me otherwise I’m out of there. I won’t however boo an Irish team, that crosses the line . To the devout Irish fans I offer no apology other than I’m sorry for y/our loss.
When I first read Jack's post I Googled to see what demographic variables were involved in the breakdown of the results. Then I thought "Wtf am I doing? Someone whose comments I would probably walk out of earshot to avoid in real life is causing me to read and analyse the demographics of West Sydney districts????"
There was another fundamental problem which is highlighted by this conversation: What level of analysis is appropriate for making our conclusions about the world? If you take it at the highest possible level: gay marriage won the vote, then it would be reasonable to conclude that Australia is a great place and totally down with the gays. But then you break it down further, and note that 38% of the electorate voted against it, and 28% didn’t vote, so who knows what they think? But then you break it down even further, and note that people who live in certain areas were more likely to vote no, and this tells you even more about it. Essentially you can spend an infinite amount of time zooming in nfinitely, and it will give you more and more information. And there’s no good way to know when to stop, because some info might be lying there at some deeper level of analysis that might tell you something you didn’t know.
The thing is: most people start zooming in, reach the level of analysis that gives them the answer they were expecting, and stop zooming. And of course they do, we don’t have the time or energy to zoom in on everything all the time, and there's too many things anyway. So that’s another way in which people generally fuck up, which is actually caused by the fundamental nature of the universe.
"I can’t find anyone who agrees with what I write or think these days, so I guess I must be getting closer to the truth." - Hunter S. Thompson
On my way in to 3 * parent\teacher meetings. Funking nothing terrible at play but wouldn't be surprised.
Will blame Catholic portion of gene pool obvs
Turns out that youngest child writes with left hand at home and right hand at school. Producing a rather surrealist amount of mirror image prose as a result.
Well, that's fucking wierd. Think I will pass this one over to Mrs DIII for further analysis.
"We are not Europeans. Those people on the continent are freaks."
There was another fundamental problem which is highlighted by this conversation: What level of analysis is appropriate for making our conclusions about the world?
I agree with your post. I also think that this is going to come more and more into stark relief over the coming years as computer programmes increasingly self learn and crunch massive data. We are limited in our capacities and so pragmatically stop and accept our level of analysis. We will have much more options in the near future.
Whether that will help us decide if it's okay to have a go at the Aborigines for being homophobic, or if it's still too soon to be "not racist" is less clear. We would have to input values for whether racism or homophobia is currently the worse cultural crime.
This may or may not be an original thought of my own.
All efforts were made to make this thought original but with the abundance of thoughts in the world the originality of this thought cannot be guaranteed.
The author is not liable for any issue arising from the platitudinous nature of this post.
There was another fundamental problem which is highlighted by this conversation: What level of analysis is appropriate for making our conclusions about the world? If you take it at the highest possible level: gay marriage won the vote, then it would be reasonable to conclude that Australia is a great place and totally down with the gays. But then you break it down further, and note that 38% of the electorate voted against it, and 28% didn’t vote, so who knows what they think? But then you break it down even further, and note that people who live in certain areas were more likely to vote no, and this tells you even more about it. Essentially you can spend an infinite amount of time zooming in nfinitely, and it will give you more and more information. And there’s no good way to know when to stop, because some info might be lying there at some deeper level of analysis that might tell you something you didn’t know.
The thing is: most people start zooming in, reach the level of analysis that gives them the answer they were expecting, and stop zooming. And of course they do, we don’t have the time or energy to zoom in on everything all the time, and there's too many things anyway. So that’s another way in which people generally fuck up, which is actually caused by the fundamental nature of the universe.
There was another fundamental problem which is highlighted by this conversation: What level of analysis is appropriate for making our conclusions about the world? If you take it at the highest possible level: gay marriage won the vote, then it would be reasonable to conclude that Australia is a great place and totally down with the gays. But then you break it down further, and note that 38% of the electorate voted against it, and 28% didn’t vote, so who knows what they think? But then you break it down even further, and note that people who live in certain areas were more likely to vote no, and this tells you even more about it. Essentially you can spend an infinite amount of time zooming in nfinitely, and it will give you more and more information. And there’s no good way to know when to stop, because some info might be lying there at some deeper level of analysis that might tell you something you didn’t know.
The thing is: most people start zooming in, reach the level of analysis that gives them the answer they were expecting, and stop zooming. And of course they do, we don’t have the time or energy to zoom in on everything all the time, and there's too many things anyway. So that’s another way in which people generally fuck up, which is actually caused by the fundamental nature of the universe.
This sounds like the kind of shit I say to clients these days. Except I use the word 'lens' in place of zoom.
It usually confuses them for long enough.
"We are not Europeans. Those people on the continent are freaks."
For one you want the users deterred from causing themselves harm, for the other you want no deterrent to the user. As a non drinking gambler I think your stance is pretty hypocritical.
No, thats not true, In an ideal world I'd heavily restrict advertising and promotions, push the age restriction to 21 and if it was possible link consumer spend to a % of income.
Why's that out of interest? It was something I was thinking about lately that I never heard any good argument as to why gambling winnings are tax free.
Very haard to enforce as its too easy to get around, its simpler to just tax the bejaysus out of the excess profits being taken by the operators - it'll still be the punter that pays.
Can't find a link to it but there was a very persuasive medical prof who was involved in the case on the radio this morning unashamedly accepting the argument that this was targeted while not directly at the poorest in society they will be affected but at those who consume the cheapest alcohol explaining that the facts simply are that that cohort are vastly overrepresented when the disastrous health outcomes are measured.
Meh no point in going around in circles, you are wrong. It is going to happen and I'm as certain as I can be of anything that no matter how successful it turns out to be in 5 years time the alcohol pushers who lost market share and their fellow travellers will turn up with new versions the same lies as they are peddling now.
The irony here is that it's the alcohol pushers that are pushing for this legislation.
Originally posted by Hitchhiker's Guide To...View Post
Its a big picture perspective that maybe traders lose track of in their daily focus on minutae. Maybe your overall thoughts about nanny statism are right (I don't think they are, a lot of people need to be looked after in a lot of ways and the state is normally the best way of doing that), but whether cheap alcohol should be allowed to have external costs to society without this being somehow reflected in the price, is a weird rock to proclaim this from.
I don't get your fervent defence of this bill.
It doesn't raise taxes to reflect your externality.
It's aimed specifically at a small number of underprivileged people.
It's raising the price on an inelastic product.
It uses the wrong metric for success (according to you it's aimed at binge drinking, but according to the draft they're measuring overall consumption)
The people that grind it out to buy cheap booze are going to find the money from somewhere else, so likely this just causes unintended consequences.
All the while Irish consumption has fallen massively over the last few years.
A lot of recent drops in alcohol consumption are due to mobile phones and social media.dont have any stats or facts to back this up but it’s The truth
Probably part of the reason why young people are having less sex too.
It's actually disturbing watching Instagram boyfriends taking photos. Couples would rather spend 30 mins taking photos of the tourist activity rather actually doing it.
Probably part of the reason why young people are having less sex too.
It's actually disturbing watching Instagram boyfriends taking photos. Couples would rather spend 30 mins taking photos of the tourist activity rather actually doing it.
This shit drives me crazy. spent a few days in Paris recently and really enjoyed stolling along the Seine taking it all in, the number of people who just stood there taking and retaking fucking selfies would make ya wonder.
This shit drives me crazy. spent a few days in Paris recently and really enjoyed stolling along the Seine taking it all in, the number of people who just stood there taking and retaking fucking selfies would make ya wonder.
Originally posted by Hitchhiker's Guide To...View Post
sad to think that our Lil Peep condolences fell by the wayside in between all the drinking talk. Listened to one of his songs, seemed very decent. Don't really get that whole xanax culture. Although was given some benzos a while back and they are fucking amazing.
I’d say GAA heads must be grinding their teeth watching Ireland’s greatest sporting moment.90s tonight and Bonner’s penalty save romping home as did houghton for the 80s (both correctly)
00’s will be more interesting hopefully Michelle Smith in there for the lols
This shit drives me crazy. spent a few days in Paris recently and really enjoyed stolling along the Seine taking it all in, the number of people who just stood there taking and retaking fucking selfies would make ya wonder.
You could get annoyed by that anywhere, no river required.
I hold silver in tit for tat, and I love you for that
Why aren't you out campaigning for braziers, rubbish bins, shelters and other facilities that would make the lives of bush drinkers better
I find it hard to tell whether you are trolling yourself by accident at times or if you're working on some sort of 4D chess self-parody as an art form.
Either way these sorts of posts are typically an indication that you have gotten out of your element and are looking to set yourself up for some sort of 'I woz only winding ye up' post with the sunglasses smiley because you think you might need it later on.
Not long out of a school meeting re confirmation , mental health , healthy eating among other stuff.
Principle a cool dude said confirmation is not mandatory and is between a child and their parents . so came home had a chat . she was due to get confirmation in Feb.
we had chat and decided we are going to celebrate an Atheist day , shes not going ahead with it. Heading off shopping and a dinner while the rest pray, Bouncy disco castle still goes ahead . and heres to her going foward in her adult life knowing em there is no God!
Told her best thing in life be positive , be nice and religion is a load of shite! She agreed .
I love the way she just doesnt give a shite about what others do . Her own person and hope she always stays that way.
Not long out of a school meeting re confirmation , mental health , healthy eating among other stuff.
Principle a cool dude said confirmation is not mandatory and is between a child and their parents . so came home had a chat . she was due to get confirmation in Feb.
we had chat and decided we are going to celebrate an Atheist day , shes not going ahead with it. Heading off shopping and a dinner while the rest pray, Bouncy disco castle still goes ahead . and heres to her going foward in her adult life knowing em there is no God!
Told her best thing in life be positive , be nice and religion is a load of shite! She agreed .
I love the way she just doesnt give a shite about what others do . Her own person and hope she always stays that way.
no more religion in this house!
Jasus, that's quite a jump from pretending to believe in Santa
Ireland’s greatest sporting moment from tonight worth watching for the salty reactions of Ruby Walsh and ROG to Italia 90 shootout win beating Sonia o Sullivan. He’s a bitter man ROG
Very haard to enforce as its too easy to get around, its simpler to just tax the bejaysus out of the excess profits being taken by the operators - it'll still be the punter that pays.
Why is it very hard to enforce? Why can't the bookmaker can't just withhold 40% of the winnings on behalf of the revenue.
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