The unemployment statistics are composed of rotating people. If someone is more then a year looking for a job and find none the problem is not the job demand but this person job searching skills. Not to mention autonomous labor is a thing: you can always work by yourself by using simple skills such as gardening, cooking or carpentering. Now if you're adult, don't know how to search for a job or don't have any economically useful skills then you fall in the category of people who aren't capable of working.
I see you've never heard of the term "overqualified" or the concept that businesses freely admit to not hiring people who have been out of work for 6 months. Or that businesses discriminate based on age, gender, or name. Or that hardly any businesses rely on reading resumes and cover letters anymore and instead rely on software algorithms to weed out applicants based on how many times they use the words that were in the posting (i.e. a human will never look at your resume). Or the fact that a good portion of hires are done with knowing someone within the organization rather than sending out a bunch of resumes. Or that gigs aren't a way for a sustainable income because it is a volatile way to make ends meet, plus it won't give you health insurance or get you to a doctor if you get injured on the job and need workers comp.
I had this discussion with my ex-fiance when I proposed to him. At the time I was making bank and he was at poverty level wages because the housing market was still shaky and he wasn't getting work. I looked into a making something similar to an Islamic prenup where he would get a certain amount of money if I initiated the divorce with a whole slew of conditions, and he still wouldn't agree to it.
I've known probably 5-10 lawyers during my life, including 4 that worked in family law, and all of them advised to have a prenup because a couple of them had to call the cops during their stint. Things get bad when dividing up assets.
I have a subscription to Emergency Management magazine and I was reading that Seattle had a problem with one guy sending in open records requests for all the footage from all the cops. They must not charge for it, because they were sending him abridged versions of the recordings and having a lot of problems compiling it into an easily accessible format. He still found something that caused an uproar even though they were screening everything and giving him a few hours at a time rather than all the encounters.
I file open records requests all the time and departments are going to have a huge problem if watchdog groups have the time and resources to pay for everything. They'll also need to make procedure about what to give out and what constitutes public use over compromising an investigation, if it involves minors, technology to blur faces to protect witnesses, etc.
Just a little info on the bureaucracy side of things that I found to be interesting...
I saw a t-shirt that says "Never apologize for your art." Don't apologize for your music choices. It's no big deal.
Now if you're an atheist and believe in ghosts and demons, that makes you a hypocrite, or you were raised a very good Catholic like I was.
There are plenty of non-religious people who believe in ghosts and demons for entirely non-religious reasons.
I've heard some interesting arguments that are somewhat based in science that have to do with alternate dimensions and string theory, but it's mostly conjecture from people on the metaphysical side of things rather than theoretical physicists.
My family was super Catholic and all of us later became atheists, and maybe it's because we're Mexican-American but virtually everyone in my family has a ghost or demon story. I think it's just a part of the culture. My ex's family was the same, none of them believed in God and several of his family members had PhDs in Mexico and had ghost stories. The PhD biochemist said the ghosts and demons were actually aliens.
There are 35,000 deaths attributed to car accidents in the US and I somehow miraculously ended up not being one of them. The DPS officer and tow truck driver said they did not see a car with that level of damage where the person survived. It has been my only car accident and it was nearly fatal. All four cars involved in the accident, including the asshat in the solid steel Ford 250 pickup truck who was glued to his cell phone while going 75mph, was totaled. For 5 months I couldn't drive to the city that I did most of my business in, but I decided to just overcome my fears and drive there to visit family. I nearly had a panic attack where I had the accident the first time I drove back. But I did it again and again and I'm fine with it now.
I find it odd that people mention Top Gun as a prime example of marketing to white males age 18-35 because it is possibly the most homoerotic mainstream action movie I've ever laid my eyes on. Something that would be more suitable would be something like The Terminator, Red Dawn (80s), or Die Hard...basically any movie bankrolled by the DOD. And a lot of action movies are bankrolled by the DOD, and I'm not quite sure that without these subsidies from the government they'd be as successful. Because it costs a lot of money to blow up a MiG fighter, and the audience they're aiming at wants explosions.
If we're going to nitpick irrelevancies, I should remind you that no actual MiGs were harmed in the production of Top Gun (or any other aviation movie I'm aware of). Firstly, because the aircraft "playing" MiGs were really Northrop F-5 Tigers; and secondly, because all explosion shots were of course accomplished with miniatures.
Also, the military didn't have anything to do with The Terminator or Die Hard, and I'm not even sure about Red Dawn.
But you haven't addressed my real point, which is that targeting a specific demographic is a viable marketing strategy. Regardless of how homoerotic you found Top Gun, it was undeniably targeted at the male demographic and equally undeniably played very well in that demographic, because its subject matter and presentation (i.e. badasses in supersonic fighter jets) played directly to the particular interests of that demographic. It got dudebros excited to go see it. I don't think they were nearly as excited to go see The Lion King.
And you're arguing with me over something you agree with me, which is that a product needs to be quality to make money. Judge Dredd was a terrible movie aimed toward a male demographic and was a box office flop. For every blockbuster there's probably 10 terrible movies produced by major studios aiming to certain demographics.
Usually if a movie features real jets and it doesn't involve stock footage, it's bankrolled partially by the DOD. It is discussed in the documentary "Why We Fight." They lend weaponry but have pretty strict control over how the military is portrayed and in some cases blacklists certain parts of the movie. Some have expressed great dismay that the military has this amount of control over Hollywood movies, but it is what it is.
I'm sure you know that marketing is a little more complicated than that, and it's not always an effective strategy to aim at a general audience. Generalist products can easily become uninteresting to buyers looking for products tailored specifically for their interests. You mentioned The Lion King - a good family movie, but it probably didn't capture nearly as much of the while-male-18-to-35 dollar as, say, Top Gun. Or, hell, look at M:tG. Aimed squarely at gamer nerds. Making the game less nerdy and giving it more family appeal would be a disastrous marketing move for WotC - both in the short term, because they'd lose much of their existing audience, and in the long term, because M:tG is by design a "lifestyle" game and they're probably not going to get the same kind of devotion from a general market.
So no, I don't think there's anything financially or morally misguided about making a "guy movie" or a "girl movie" or a "kids' movie" or an "adult movie". It's great when a movie manages to capture many demographics, of course, but not every movie can or ought to do this, and that's just fine.
I find it odd that people mention Top Gun as a prime example of marketing to white males age 18-35 because it is possibly the most homoerotic mainstream action movie I've ever laid my eyes on. Something that would be more suitable would be something like The Terminator, Red Dawn (80s), or Die Hard...basically any movie bankrolled by the DOD. And a lot of action movies are bankrolled by the DOD, and I'm not quite sure that without these subsidies from the government they'd be as successful. Because it costs a lot of money to blow up a MiG fighter, and the audience they're aiming at wants explosions.
MTG is already family friendly enough. I think the product is 13+ but you'll still see kids at tournaments playing with their families. The definition of "family friendly" has changed a lot. I remember in the 90s "family friendly" was stuff like Full House or Step by Step, and now it is stuff that would be PG-13 by comparison. And MTG is roughly PG-13. You won't see kids at a Grand Prix, but they'll be at small tournaments. Perhaps my tournament is more diverse by comparison (and this is totally anecdata), but there's an assortment of females, POC, kids, and transwomen.
The point is that you have to make the product quality to make a profit if you're not expanding your audience. The Incredible Hulk (released in 2003ish I think) was an example of a movie that had a niche audience and was utter crap. The studio was so reluctant to release another Hulk movie because the 2003 movie was Schlockish in quality with terrible CGI. The opposite of this is My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, which manages to have an interesting assortment of demographics that it appeals to and has profitable product sales. My Little Pony NEVER had that type of fan base in the late 80s and early 90s. I haven't watched the show since I was a kid but SOMETHING about the new series is appealing enough to young adult males.
What is an even worse decision are the decisions that studios and corporations make when they are expecting to maintain key demographics when those demographics have grown older or different, but are still a fan base. Clarissa Explains It All is a good example of Nickelodeon deciding to cancel the show when the actress playing Clarissa grew "too old" for Nick audiences, but the show probably could have continued if the writing continued to be good and appeal to tweens as well as teens and adults.
2. so many of those little things above certain letters - like in deja vu or fiance. Is this a French thing?
Indeed it is. And in French the accent can go in either direction depending on the word.
I've noticed that in older texts I've read, the English language used a lot of umlauts for words that had double Os. So coordinate had an umlaut on the second O.
Also, I've been wondering about if elite (referring to the ruling classes) is used most properly as a singular word or if elite can be plural. In older texts they appear to use elite as plural with an accent on the last e. My ex once asked me to spell elite and I had to ask which era and language he was writing it in, because usage varies. He got annoyed and said "as in today, in English, in Texas."
Nobody's saying that you can't like Ms. Pac-Man or any other game. The point is that, overall, games should represent women better. But that doesn't mean that the people playing or making these games are misogynists or anything.
There is no reason to do this. If women already play games then there is no need for any change. If women don't play games then gaming just isn't for women.
Everytime a publisher/dev says "we are trying reach a broaader audience" it means that the game is going to suck. This doesn't just apply to games but to everything.
Do you remember how good that pg-13 robocop was? I wish I didn't.
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DA and Mass Effect reached a broader audience and they most definitely did not suck. I count them among the best games produced in the history of gaming. You can play as a gay, bisexual, or pansexual male or female. I know a lot of females that liked Mass Effect because they could play as a badass female character that didn't put up with nonsense. One of my transgender friends made a genderqueer Shepard. The levels of customization appeal to broad segments of all audiences.
Because a game doesn't exclusively pander to one segment of the population doesn't mean it's bad. The writing, the gameplay, and varied outcomes all count towards a game being good.
As for movies that appeal to broad segments of the audience, that's not a bad thing. The Lion King is an example of a movie that is great for people of all ages, genders, and ethnicities. Adults can appreciate the movie for a Disney take on a Shakespearean theme of revenge and justice. Children like it because it's easy to understand and has good music.
The goal of marketing is to get as many people to buy your product as possible at a price they are willing to pay and with you making a profit. If you say that you're only going to appeal to white males between the ages of 18-35, that's going to limit your market share. You can still make money or breakeven, but you're going to need a quality product to make up for exclusion.
You need to see a doctor ASAP and get on antibiotics
This line of thinking is why we have "super" bacteria. Sure getting on anti-biotics will probably make him feel better faster but it may not be necessary.
There's also antibiotics in our food and doctors literally prescribe the worst antibiotics for the most minor infections. I was prescribed oral and ear drop Cipro for a 6 month long ear infection. Cipro is used to treat anthrax! I didn't need Cipro, I needed allergy shots!
I'm coming from an asthmatic point of view where bronchitis can literally kill me or incapacitate me for a while. If I begin to suspect that I may have bronchitis I get to the doctor as soon as I can.
You need to see a doctor ASAP and get on antibiotics, but what I do for respiratory problems is get the hottest hot sauce and a bag of chips and just eat it constantly. It's an old Mexican remedy and some Mexican families have a special salsa for children's respiratory problems. Capsaicin acts as a bronchodilator and it will clear you out and cough up the mucus.
It did miracles for my asthma back when I visited a town that was basically toxic, but because bronchitis is a viral or bacterial problem I'm not sure how ghost pepper or habanero sauce will help cure anything. It will just open up your lungs.
Personally, I've been looking for a formula for lucid dreaming but I haven't been able to get a hold of the oils in the right mixture for about 14 years. It involves clary sage suspended in grapeseed oil and I don't know how to make this. I've tried so-called "dream potions" but they never worked as good as the one I got in a lucid dreaming kit, and one actually burned my skin.
Basically you apply them to the third-eye position and the smell induces vivid or lucid dreams. I was able to get lucid dreaming down to a science with this stuff but could use a little help sometimes.
I know there's a small niche market for this from the lucid dreaming forums I was on whilst a teen. Grapeseed oil is cheap and you can get it at the supermarket, but clary sage is not.
It always astonishes me how native speakers NEED to check pronunciation on stuff (you'll see Maro getting this asked all the time, most of the time getting it wrong or americanized) like if you didnt had rules for it like most other languages do.
The English language doesn't have a universal or key pronunciation guide like Spain has. (They have an institute set up by the King to preserve and maintain the Spanish language.) Oxford is considered an authority, but they're not the only authority in the English language. English is a language that spread so quickly across the globe that no matter where you are, there will be different pronunciations of things. Just within America there are different ways to pronounce things. I was in the Piedmont area of Virginia and I think they say something like "yernses" instead of "you all" (or where I'm from, "y'all"). I had so much trouble understanding them and we were speaking a language that we share in the same country.
And don't try to start an argument with an English major over whether "irregardless" is considered a real English word. I witnessed the fallout from this one. The non English major said it was so colloquial that it was a word and the English major vehemently disagreed.
I've heard people refer to American Indians as brown but historically they've been called red. Not quite sure why, my Alabama-Coushatta relatives are definitely olive colored and my Cherokee grandfather was very dark brown with jet black hair until the day he died. People say I'm brown but I'm more olive colored, part Cherokee, Swedish/German, and Mexican. So people don't know what I am. I've gotten Arab, Indian, Persian, Italian, Greek, Salvadorean, probably some more I haven't thought of.
I don't know why people refer to Latinos as "brown." Even Latinos refer to other Latinos as "brown." I think it has to do with minority status more than anything else. I have Latino relatives that look Swedish minus the tall height and there are black Latinos and Japanese Latinos. It excludes a whole bunch of Latinos to call them "brown."
I have a friend who is of the landed Dallas gentry and he thinks it's stupid that people use the term "white" to refer to people of European descent in the US. Dude is of mostly English descent and he said his ancestors that moved to Texas were horse thieves. He went to Spain for a foreign exchange program and they all commented on how dark he was. They actually called him African. The thing is, anyone who has been in the sun in Texas or Louisiana for a moderate amount of time isn't going to look white to some Europeans...
I see you've never heard of the term "overqualified" or the concept that businesses freely admit to not hiring people who have been out of work for 6 months. Or that businesses discriminate based on age, gender, or name. Or that hardly any businesses rely on reading resumes and cover letters anymore and instead rely on software algorithms to weed out applicants based on how many times they use the words that were in the posting (i.e. a human will never look at your resume). Or the fact that a good portion of hires are done with knowing someone within the organization rather than sending out a bunch of resumes. Or that gigs aren't a way for a sustainable income because it is a volatile way to make ends meet, plus it won't give you health insurance or get you to a doctor if you get injured on the job and need workers comp.
I've known probably 5-10 lawyers during my life, including 4 that worked in family law, and all of them advised to have a prenup because a couple of them had to call the cops during their stint. Things get bad when dividing up assets.
I file open records requests all the time and departments are going to have a huge problem if watchdog groups have the time and resources to pay for everything. They'll also need to make procedure about what to give out and what constitutes public use over compromising an investigation, if it involves minors, technology to blur faces to protect witnesses, etc.
Just a little info on the bureaucracy side of things that I found to be interesting...
I've heard some interesting arguments that are somewhat based in science that have to do with alternate dimensions and string theory, but it's mostly conjecture from people on the metaphysical side of things rather than theoretical physicists.
My family was super Catholic and all of us later became atheists, and maybe it's because we're Mexican-American but virtually everyone in my family has a ghost or demon story. I think it's just a part of the culture. My ex's family was the same, none of them believed in God and several of his family members had PhDs in Mexico and had ghost stories. The PhD biochemist said the ghosts and demons were actually aliens.
It will get better with time and practice.
And you're arguing with me over something you agree with me, which is that a product needs to be quality to make money. Judge Dredd was a terrible movie aimed toward a male demographic and was a box office flop. For every blockbuster there's probably 10 terrible movies produced by major studios aiming to certain demographics.
Usually if a movie features real jets and it doesn't involve stock footage, it's bankrolled partially by the DOD. It is discussed in the documentary "Why We Fight." They lend weaponry but have pretty strict control over how the military is portrayed and in some cases blacklists certain parts of the movie. Some have expressed great dismay that the military has this amount of control over Hollywood movies, but it is what it is.
I find it odd that people mention Top Gun as a prime example of marketing to white males age 18-35 because it is possibly the most homoerotic mainstream action movie I've ever laid my eyes on. Something that would be more suitable would be something like The Terminator, Red Dawn (80s), or Die Hard...basically any movie bankrolled by the DOD. And a lot of action movies are bankrolled by the DOD, and I'm not quite sure that without these subsidies from the government they'd be as successful. Because it costs a lot of money to blow up a MiG fighter, and the audience they're aiming at wants explosions.
MTG is already family friendly enough. I think the product is 13+ but you'll still see kids at tournaments playing with their families. The definition of "family friendly" has changed a lot. I remember in the 90s "family friendly" was stuff like Full House or Step by Step, and now it is stuff that would be PG-13 by comparison. And MTG is roughly PG-13. You won't see kids at a Grand Prix, but they'll be at small tournaments. Perhaps my tournament is more diverse by comparison (and this is totally anecdata), but there's an assortment of females, POC, kids, and transwomen.
The point is that you have to make the product quality to make a profit if you're not expanding your audience. The Incredible Hulk (released in 2003ish I think) was an example of a movie that had a niche audience and was utter crap. The studio was so reluctant to release another Hulk movie because the 2003 movie was Schlockish in quality with terrible CGI. The opposite of this is My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, which manages to have an interesting assortment of demographics that it appeals to and has profitable product sales. My Little Pony NEVER had that type of fan base in the late 80s and early 90s. I haven't watched the show since I was a kid but SOMETHING about the new series is appealing enough to young adult males.
What is an even worse decision are the decisions that studios and corporations make when they are expecting to maintain key demographics when those demographics have grown older or different, but are still a fan base. Clarissa Explains It All is a good example of Nickelodeon deciding to cancel the show when the actress playing Clarissa grew "too old" for Nick audiences, but the show probably could have continued if the writing continued to be good and appeal to tweens as well as teens and adults.
Indeed it is. And in French the accent can go in either direction depending on the word.
I've noticed that in older texts I've read, the English language used a lot of umlauts for words that had double Os. So coordinate had an umlaut on the second O.
Also, I've been wondering about if elite (referring to the ruling classes) is used most properly as a singular word or if elite can be plural. In older texts they appear to use elite as plural with an accent on the last e. My ex once asked me to spell elite and I had to ask which era and language he was writing it in, because usage varies. He got annoyed and said "as in today, in English, in Texas."
DA and Mass Effect reached a broader audience and they most definitely did not suck. I count them among the best games produced in the history of gaming. You can play as a gay, bisexual, or pansexual male or female. I know a lot of females that liked Mass Effect because they could play as a badass female character that didn't put up with nonsense. One of my transgender friends made a genderqueer Shepard. The levels of customization appeal to broad segments of all audiences.
Because a game doesn't exclusively pander to one segment of the population doesn't mean it's bad. The writing, the gameplay, and varied outcomes all count towards a game being good.
As for movies that appeal to broad segments of the audience, that's not a bad thing. The Lion King is an example of a movie that is great for people of all ages, genders, and ethnicities. Adults can appreciate the movie for a Disney take on a Shakespearean theme of revenge and justice. Children like it because it's easy to understand and has good music.
The goal of marketing is to get as many people to buy your product as possible at a price they are willing to pay and with you making a profit. If you say that you're only going to appeal to white males between the ages of 18-35, that's going to limit your market share. You can still make money or breakeven, but you're going to need a quality product to make up for exclusion.
There's also antibiotics in our food and doctors literally prescribe the worst antibiotics for the most minor infections. I was prescribed oral and ear drop Cipro for a 6 month long ear infection. Cipro is used to treat anthrax! I didn't need Cipro, I needed allergy shots!
I'm coming from an asthmatic point of view where bronchitis can literally kill me or incapacitate me for a while. If I begin to suspect that I may have bronchitis I get to the doctor as soon as I can.
It did miracles for my asthma back when I visited a town that was basically toxic, but because bronchitis is a viral or bacterial problem I'm not sure how ghost pepper or habanero sauce will help cure anything. It will just open up your lungs.
Basically you apply them to the third-eye position and the smell induces vivid or lucid dreams. I was able to get lucid dreaming down to a science with this stuff but could use a little help sometimes.
I know there's a small niche market for this from the lucid dreaming forums I was on whilst a teen. Grapeseed oil is cheap and you can get it at the supermarket, but clary sage is not.
The English language doesn't have a universal or key pronunciation guide like Spain has. (They have an institute set up by the King to preserve and maintain the Spanish language.) Oxford is considered an authority, but they're not the only authority in the English language. English is a language that spread so quickly across the globe that no matter where you are, there will be different pronunciations of things. Just within America there are different ways to pronounce things. I was in the Piedmont area of Virginia and I think they say something like "yernses" instead of "you all" (or where I'm from, "y'all"). I had so much trouble understanding them and we were speaking a language that we share in the same country.
And don't try to start an argument with an English major over whether "irregardless" is considered a real English word. I witnessed the fallout from this one. The non English major said it was so colloquial that it was a word and the English major vehemently disagreed.
I don't know why people refer to Latinos as "brown." Even Latinos refer to other Latinos as "brown." I think it has to do with minority status more than anything else. I have Latino relatives that look Swedish minus the tall height and there are black Latinos and Japanese Latinos. It excludes a whole bunch of Latinos to call them "brown."
I have a friend who is of the landed Dallas gentry and he thinks it's stupid that people use the term "white" to refer to people of European descent in the US. Dude is of mostly English descent and he said his ancestors that moved to Texas were horse thieves. He went to Spain for a foreign exchange program and they all commented on how dark he was. They actually called him African. The thing is, anyone who has been in the sun in Texas or Louisiana for a moderate amount of time isn't going to look white to some Europeans...