CoX, dix, [chat]

Jacobkosh

@Elldren, @Dread Pirate Arbuthnot, @Pony, and anyone else - we should play later. Since notifications aren't working, I decided to make a thread. :P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtyDC_F1tVo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dxs1mBfV6Qc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg6HnqB1sWI

City of Heroes/Villains, aka CoX, is a pretty rad game that is now free! It is from 2004 but, unlike many things from 2004, is still around and kicking, and has been steadily getting better this whole time.

ronya

moniker wrote:

ronya wrote:

moniker what is your ideal national retirement fund system in a paragraph

Right now SS gives you, on average, about ~40% of your lifetime earnings with the rest split between private pensions/investments and personal savings. I'd like to see that ratchet up to around ~70-80% of your lifetime earnings and just get rid of the private pensions/investments through your work. Or, at least, the tax benefits of such.

Okay, more solidly:

Is this funded by an increase in contributions - uncapping contributions, perhaps? As a matter of marginal tax rates I don't think it is the best way to spend or tax.

Private business-specific pensions and investments should indeed not receive tax benefits but I would prefer a substitution toward privately-held funds (if necessary, managed by the state a la provident funds) rather than toward SS.

desc

whatever

Tav: where's the sake jesus bottle from?

Feral

Dementia precocks

Cinders

I feel like eating cake.

Drez

@Feral: Hahah, what was that? I thought Red Dwarf was a sci-fi series. I mean I guess that is? It seems lo-tech. Someone told me about it once but I didn't think it was a comedy.

Cinders

desc wrote:

whatever

Tav: where's the sake jesus bottle from?

Ramen.

Feral

Nexus: why what why?

ronya

Cinders wrote:

I feel like eating cake.

hahaha

Feral

Drez wrote:

@Feral: Hahah, what was that? I thought Red Dwarf was a sci-fi series. I mean I guess that is? It seems lo-tech. Someone told me about it once but I didn't think it was a comedy.

it was a BBC sci-fi comedy from the 80s

BBC productions were reaaaaalllllly low-budget back then.

The part of that joke that the clip doesn't reveal is that everybody's dead. Not just the people on the ship. Dave Lister is the last human in the universe.

Wash

We built this city

We built this city of he-roes

We built this city

We built this city of he-rooooo-oooooooes

dodo do dodo do dodo do dodo do

Mazzyx

I might give CoX another try. I played City of Villains to like level 14 and CoH to 10 something ages ago. Still my favourite costume generator ever.

ronya

high youth unemployment tends to result in interesting things

but never in the things which economics suggests reduces macroeconomically relevant unemployment, i.e., inflation

desc

Cinders wrote:

Ramen.

... ? Is that a shop name?

Mazzyx

Cinders wrote:

I feel like eating cake.

Needs more fancy wigs.

Tav

desc: I found it on a site that scrapes images from tumblr and sorts them by popularity...

LoserForHireX

Mazzyx wrote:

I might give CoX another try. I played City of Villains to like level 14 and CoH to 10 something ages ago. Still my favourite costume generator ever.

i've been thinking the same thing. I played city of villains for a bit and it was fun, but MMOs are inherently a team sport for me.

So when all my friends bounced i was like...boo

but if people are playing again, then maybe. I always liked my captain communism villain who could fly and beat the crap out of stuff

Captain Carrot

Free to play? Interesting. I might take a look at it again.

Caveman Paws

Feral wrote:

Drez wrote:

@Feral: Hahah, what was that? I thought Red Dwarf was a sci-fi series. I mean I guess that is? It seems lo-tech. Someone told me about it once but I didn't think it was a comedy.

it was a BBC sci-fi comedy from the 80s

BBC productions were reaaaaalllllly low-budget back then.

The part of that joke that the clip doesn't reveal is that everybody's dead. Not just the people on the ship. Dave Lister is the last human in the universe.

It's basically the best thing ever (as long as we are talking 80's British comedy series).

moniker

ronya wrote:

Cinders wrote:

I feel like eating cake.

hahaha

That window needs a giant monocle.

Tav

Cinders wrote:

I feel like eating cake.

wonderful.

Evil Multifarious

@Thanatos It wasn't really "severance," just a bit of extra cash as a gesture of goodwill from the boss (paying for the thanksgiving weekend on top of the rest, etc)

Now I have the pleasure of trying to find work. At least I stlil have a vague shot of getting a government job before the hiring policies get severely restricted next year. I will not enjoy it, because the government work culture here is atrocious, but I will quite possibly make twice as much as I was making before, if I get the same job.

ronya

moniker wrote:

Well, defined benefit plans are basically dead and given the costs associated with them I can't really blame anybody for it. Defined contribution plans tend to fail miserably at getting people to actually save the amounts that they need to, but even disregarding that the limitations of plans offered by HR means that most of the benefits that you might possibly accrue get eated away by managed fund fees and the fact that there are legions of stockholders who do not in any way really actively manage their portfolio puts a lot of the benefits of public companies (activist shareholders and oversight) on autopilot even more than they were before.

Plus, on top of all that stuff, having a good retirement is just sort of a universal desire by most people as evidenced by the almost universal availability of retirement benefits in every job that isn't part time/temporary. Given that, it seems to make more sense to truly universalize it and take the associated costs off of business' books/backs. Similar to how I feel towards health insurance. That way you have a more leveled playing field of competition between large incumbent firms and young turk upstarts in terms of attempting to attract talent since you're mostly just able to compete on issues of wages, time devotion, and some various amenities that aren't really transferable. (commute time, quality of your office's architecture, providing in house massage with happy endings, &c.) As it stands you can't really offer as good a retirement package or health insurance as a Fortune 100 company because you don't have the employee pool big enough to negotiate with Vanguard or Blue Cross and Blue Shield or whoever.

I am sensing more of an objection to the relative immobility induced by company-specific retirement contributions rather than a preference for SS per se here...

Jacobkosh

let the 1% eat dicks

LoserForHireX

moniker wrote:

ronya wrote:

Cinders wrote:

I feel like eating cake.

hahaha

That window needs a giant monocle.

That window is obviously a better class of person than me and I should let it make my decisions for me.

desc

Tav wrote:

desc: I found it on a site that scrapes images from tumblr and sorts them by popularity...

curses. just showed a friend and he really wants it now.

thanks.

Drez

Feral wrote:

Drez wrote:

@Feral: Hahah, what was that? I thought Red Dwarf was a sci-fi series. I mean I guess that is? It seems lo-tech. Someone told me about it once but I didn't think it was a comedy.

it was a BBC sci-fi comedy from the 80s

BBC productions were reaaaaalllllly low-budget back then.

The part of that joke that the clip doesn't reveal is that everybody's dead. Not just the people on the ship. Dave Lister is the last human in the universe.

Ahh lol.

Thanatos

Evil Multifarious wrote:

@Thanatos It wasn't really "severance," just a bit of extra cash as a gesture of goodwill from the boss (paying for the thanksgiving weekend on top of the rest, etc)

Now I have the pleasure of trying to find work. At least I stlil have a vague shot of getting a government job before the hiring policies get severely restricted next year. I will not enjoy it, because the government work culture here is atrocious, but I will quite possibly make twice as much as I was making before, if I get the same job.

Where are you? Australia?

Regina Fong

Caveman Paws wrote:

Feral wrote:

Drez wrote:

@Feral: Hahah, what was that? I thought Red Dwarf was a sci-fi series. I mean I guess that is? It seems lo-tech. Someone told me about it once but I didn't think it was a comedy.

it was a BBC sci-fi comedy from the 80s

BBC productions were reaaaaalllllly low-budget back then.

The part of that joke that the clip doesn't reveal is that everybody's dead. Not just the people on the ship. Dave Lister is the last human in the universe.

It's basically the best thing ever (as long as we are talking 80's British comedy series).

Glossing over the fact that "everybody's dead" because it's just been that long of a time, not because there was any sort of special calamity.

Caveman Paws

Tav wrote:

Cinders wrote:

I feel like eating cake.

wonderful.

I'm sure it's just the janitors having a little fun. No one would be dumb enough to taunt a horde of poor people...

bloodyroarxx

Jacob I want to play CoX but I dont want to have to buy it again what does a free account get me?

Thanatos

Jacobkosh wrote:

let the 1% eat dicks

Seriously.

I think I have a great idea to jumpstart at least one industry in this country: the guillotine industry...

Let's party like it's 1789.

LoserForHireX

Thanatos wrote:

Jacobkosh wrote:

let the 1% eat dicks

Seriously.

I think I have a great idea to jumpstart at least one industry in this country: the guillotine industry...

Let's party like it's 1789.

Only if i get to be Napoleon

Evil Multifarious

Thanatos wrote:

Evil Multifarious wrote:

@Thanatos It wasn't really "severance," just a bit of extra cash as a gesture of goodwill from the boss (paying for the thanksgiving weekend on top of the rest, etc)

Now I have the pleasure of trying to find work. At least I stlil have a vague shot of getting a government job before the hiring policies get severely restricted next year. I will not enjoy it, because the government work culture here is atrocious, but I will quite possibly make twice as much as I was making before, if I get the same job.

Where are you? Australia?

Ottawa, Canada, where everyone is a grey-clad government worker complaining about the government

Cinders

Caveman Paws wrote:

Tav wrote:

Cinders wrote:

I feel like eating cake.

wonderful.

I'm sure it's just the janitors having a little fun. No one would be dumb enough to taunt a horde of poor people...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PiXDTK_CBY

Thanatos

bloodyroarxx wrote:

Jacob I want to play CoX but I dont want to have to buy it again what does a free account get me?

A couple of character slots (you can use it to unlock old characters or create new ones), you can make and/or use any class except controller and mastermind, and you get access to most of the game (not the Going Rogue stuff, though).

You also get a bunch of stuff based on how long you've subscribed, historically (more character slots, bonus powers, etc.).

Regina Fong

A French Revolution style purge would do wonders for this country. Contrary to what the Randians would like to believe, the ultra-rich aren't superpowered beings with super ideas and super enlightenment and the world won't collapse without them. Freeing up all their hoarded wealth would be a huge economic boost.

Tav

bloodyroarxx

Thanatos wrote:

bloodyroarxx wrote:

Jacob I want to play CoX but I dont want to have to buy it again what does a free account get me?

A couple of character slots (you can use it to unlock old characters or create new ones), you can make and/or use any class except controller and mastermind, and you get access to most of the game (not the Going Rogue stuff, though).

You also get a bunch of stuff based on how long you've subscribed, historically (more character slots, bonus powers, etc.).

Maybe ill go with free then at least I can play it at work on the gfs Mac

Cinders

Is that chicken nuggets and waffles?

Captain Carrot

Cinders wrote:

Caveman Paws wrote:

Tav wrote:

Cinders wrote:

I feel like eating cake.

wonderful.

I'm sure it's just the janitors having a little fun. No one would be dumb enough to taunt a horde of poor people...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PiXDTK_CBY

Supposedly that was actually a wedding reception.