nickwitha_k (he/him)

SHARP thinkers.

I agree with you, to an extent. I would say it’s a lot more complicated than that with World of Warcraft, which is an MMO, and does not revolve on gambling except in the aspect of random number generated loot.

The way that the drops are is literally the same approach as a slot machine but with more steps to take up your time with boring shit and require more of your life to be dedicated to it so that there is less risk of you getting distracted by things like hobbies or games with finite stories with quality writing. A one-armed bandit might snag a handful of whales that spend all of their time feeding the machine. The Wrath of the Lich Bandit gets a much larger percentage of its users in front of it for a larger amount of their time, increasing the ratio of addicts/whales caught. Add in expansions, real money auctions, etc and you’ve got something much more fucked up than anything on a Vegas casino floor.

I’m on an extended hiatus from riding motorcycles, after getting sideswiped on the highway by an SUV. My minimal injuries and likely survival, I owe to my gear.

My criteria for selection started with looking at available standards for protective gear. In the case of motorcycle PPE, the EU generally has the best safety requirements, so, I’d generally select gear certified to the highest CE standards. My gear pieces were:

• HJC modular helmet (performed very well in independent studies). This saved my face, which I used as part of an unconventional breaking technique.
• Revit ADV-style jacket with CE level 2 armor inserts at joints and spine. This resulted in my only apparent external injury being a small abrasion on my arm, treated with ointment and a bandaid.
• Dainese short cuff gloves with CE Categoy II EN 13594 Level 2 rating (highest standard at the time). These literally saved my life. The steel sliders allowed me to halt my tumble and steer myself away from traffic.
• Motoport kevlar mesh overpants. Armor was upgraded as much as possible, exceeding CE standards and including coccyx protection.
• TCX Infinity boots rated at the highest CE standards at the time. These were heavily worn and near replacement. They did do their job well, resulting in only a sprain or hairline fracture of my ankle (suspect the latter with how much it bugs me these days). If I had been able to replace them with a new pair, my ankle may have been better protected.

Things that I think would have helped more:

• New boots
• Abdomen protection/armor (my worst injury was a minor hemorrhage of an adrenal gland from hitting my handlebars but needed no medical intervention).

For your case, I would recommend looking into dirt bike or ADV PPE. The sort of protection that you’re looking for should be somewhat similar. An extra bonus is that you can likely wear body armor under your normal horseback gear (might need to size up). The technological advancements for impact armor this century are just amazing.

(with lasers): “How about now?”

I’ve been on an SNRI for a bit now, specifically a synthetic metabolite variant. Surprisingly, for me, it has both an emotional feeling and a perceived physical sensation.

For the emotional, it’s kinda like wearing a climbing harness with a trustworthy belayer. Sure, sometimes life throws a bit of a curveball, causing me to lose my emotional purchase but, most of the time, it keeps me from falling into depressive thinking patterns. More recently I had some pretty rough stuff happen in my life, to put it lightly, that took me to to some pretty places but, I my little chemical belayer caught me before I went splat on the rocks and helped me to get out of the funk.

For the perceived sensation, it’s a bit hard to describe. At times throughout the day, I feel a sensation that is kinda like a tingling on the inside of my skull. It’s a bit weird but much better than brain zaps.

I think it would look something like “If I Was President” by Wyclef Jean. None of the world powers would suffer an anarchist to be in a position to make actual changes towards equity.