• 1 Post
  • 58 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: October 25th, 2023
  • BlackAura@lemmy.worldtoBooks@lemmy.ml•Recommendations for some easy to read 'feel good' fiction books?
    1·
    14 days ago

    If you’re open to sci-fi:

    Nathan Lowell - Smuggler Series (3 books, starting with milk run) or Trader Series (first 6 books, starting with quarter share)

    Smuggler has more… Intrigue and whatnot. Trader is pretty straightforward and “feel good”, iirc.

    I would say read both series to those points before going further with the Seeker Series and later books. I forget where in the series but at some point the characters cross paths so having read both series before then helps it all fit together.

  • BlackAura@lemmy.worldtoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.world•Public money is spent to benefit the rich more then the poorEnglish
    1·
    2 months ago

    Pretty sure assassin roughly means person who you hire to kill people.

    The difference is effectively one of motive and contract.

    If I’m personally wronged by the victim and I personally plan to kill them myself, that’s first degree murder.

    If I don’t leave the house intending to kill someone, but end up in a fight or situation where I end up intending to cause harm to someone (even if it’s protecting myself), and end up killing someone, that’s generally second degree murder.

    Now if I’m wronged by someone, plan to have them killed, but don’t want to do it myself, so I set up a contract with a hit man and pay money to have a target killed. That’s assassination.

  • BlackAura@lemmy.worldtoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.world•What was cancelled or discontinued that you wish wasn't or that they brought it back?
    7·
    2 months ago

    Canadian here. Chocolate company Laura Secord made a chocolate bar called the Royale. Or Mint Royale? Something like that. Basically a “solid” mint milk chocolate bar that would just melt in your mouth. Those things were fantastic.

    When I was 16 (now late 30s for reference) they sold off the chocolate bar to Nestlé Canada. Who immediately changed the recipe to use, I assume, cheaper chocolate. Maybe cheaper everything. It was never the same and after a year or two they just disappeared, never to be seen again.

    My first experience with enshittification I guess.

  • BlackAura@lemmy.worldtoGames@sh.itjust.works•Borderlands 3 and The Elder Scrolls Online director says AAA game studios are playing it safe since "you have people who get nervous because big money is involved"English
    3·
    2 months ago

    If the studio is already rather large and retains a number of employees then you’re either asking for them to divide into small teams and produce a bunch of projects in parallel (none of which will potentially sell well or be able to maintain the momentum the studio has with previous AAA title releases), or you’re essentially asking them to downsize into a smaller studio, laying off 80-90% of their workforce, to produce non-AAA titles again.

    Those smaller projects now have smaller marketing budgets (1/10th each). Smaller marketing budget generally means less sales, unless something goes viral (0.1% of the time or less, so really you need 1000 projects not just 10). Not to mention price point is going to be at $20 or maybe $30.

    Internally on each game you’ll need people to take up the roles of like art director, or whoever decides the look and feel of the art for the game. With AAA titles you used to have one of those (I assume), but now one person has to look after 10 projects, or other people have to step up (one for each project) to do that job. Should they get paid more? Now your smaller projects are costing more money.

    It’s sort of like saying 9 women can make a baby in 1 month. We know that’s impossible. AAA studios are not structured around creating 10 smaller projects.