DehNutCase

He's also one of the most popular senators in terms of approval rating, but I think the very thing that makes him popular is the thing holding him back. My view on U.S. politics is that, of the parts you can influence (that is, ignoring the party based votes that would definitely go one way or the other regardless of all other factors), it's basically about money*, and his integrity means that he doesn't use things like super PACs to raise money for his campaigns. *For lobbying and ads and stuff. That's mostly about his presidential campaign, though, and as a senator it's more about getting other senators to agree, and I frankly don't see him getting other people on board with his egalitarian policies. I agree he's more influential than an average senator, but if politics is a jar of marbles then a 2x bigger white marble doesn't matter if it's the only white marble in a jar with 100 marbles, 99 of which is black. That is, it's not so much that he's less influential than other senators as the fact that other senators would need less influence to get their policies implemented. Maybe saying he doesn't have major influence was bad phrasing on my part, but I'm not sure how else to put "influential individual hampered by the fact that he's isolated".

In my view, the Founding Fathers specifically specified that violence is a part of American politics. The right to bear arms is so that citizens have the ability to rebel against the government if/when it becomes too corrupt to fufill the contract between the government and the governed. I have a suspicion that they knew it's suicide for unorganized citizens to fight a even semi-functional government with a military, though, so the right to bear arms---the ability to rebel violently---is closer to the right to die. It'll only work if the military of a corrupt government is composed of decent enough people not to slaughter the people who used this last resort. Mind, I don't have strong feelings about either party, mostly because both of them more or less align with my views. I'm basically a capitalist, in that I believe money should determine how much influence a person should have, and both parties more or less act this way. Someone like Bernie Sanders would be one of the rare exceptions, but there's basically no chance someone like him ever gets major influence in America. (It's easier and faster to move to, say, Scandinavia if you didn't want to live in a capitalist political system like America, in my view.)

The Charm is female only, by the way, so Male Riders have it really easy in the CQ.

The main thing I have to say about the CQ is that it's very unmannered to have an anti-Female component when Shikibu is the sole event Servant. (Fortunately one of the three damage dealers I brought was male.) Was a pretty fun fight overall, though.

Huh, that's interesting. Unlike last year you can get duplicates of valentines CE you already have. Saves me some busywork in using up the CEs I kept from last year, which is nice. Edit: Ah, no, it's not that you can get duplicates, it's that you can watch the scene. Which seems to eat up a chocolate exchange token without giving you a duplicate, it gave me a message saying I can't claim until I use up the CE I had, but even after using the CE I had for exp I didn't get a replacement. It just sits there in the shop saying 'not claimed' without a copy arriving in my mailbox or inventory. Maybe they'll deliver the replacement copy at the end of the event? *shrug* Double Edit: Turns out you need a lock on chocolate to collect unclaimed chocolates, gotta be careful to keep one lock on until the very end of event, I guess.

Kind of wish we had a week off to farm free quests so I can get some pages, but it looks like Valentines also has some page nodes so I guess that's alright.

Personally I think Miyu's pretty good in terms of gameplay, the main issue is that Merlin has almost the exact same niche. Except his Crit Buff is stronger and targetable and his defensive skill is for the whole team, so her lunch gets stolen from her and eaten in front of her face. There's also the issue where her NP's buff is on her, so unlike Merlin's NP which keeps healing other Servants even if he goes down you actually need to protect Miyu. That is, it's not so much that she's bad as there's another, older, and almost strictly better Servant already, so there's rarely a reason to use her unless you need to run a comp with 3 or more Merlin-like Servants for some reason. I ran into a situation in Nero Fest where I needed 3 Waver like servants---the Third slot was covered by Helena---to 3T a node, so it's not impossible, but I only needed to do that once in like... 3 years? Edit: Also, wow you finished fast. I only finished the story rn, haven't even completed all the missions to do the CQ yet. Double Edit: I just watched the enemy Ilya's NP do 0 damage to my Drake, wow that Atk Down debuff at the start is outrageous.

...I just averaged 1 Sapphire per roll looking for NP5 Miyu. (I have no bloody self control when it comes to rolling, apparently.) I guess I was technically getting a lot of Miyus, but I think my luck is officially EX rank today.

WSB doesn't, but the thing is the long side knows the short side's screwed. Like, the other side is staring down bankruptcy, so let's try and sell our shares for 90% stake is probably the thought process. The reason the long side institutions didn't buy today is because they benefit from retail driving the price up while they also slowly pick up stock. WSB likes to buy options, which is a little similar to taking out huge %interest loans to buy stock in terms of the effect they have. I have, for example, ~1,500 delta in my account, which moves like holding 1.5 thousand shares, but in exchange for not needing to cough up, say, 200 * 1500 = $300,000 for the shares---which is a lot even for a guy playing around with hundreds of thousands of dollars (not a millionaire, sorry)---I just pay something like $30,000 in effective interest every day, except it's called Theta. Retail buying call options (taking out loans to simulate buying stock) and long institutions preventing stuff like short ladders from other institutions while doing their own manipulation (a lot of after hours gains and losses are just institutions messing with the share price, after hours have jack all for volume) combined is what's driving the stock. I assumed that the longs and shorts would cut a deal during one of the weekends where the longs settle for a gigantic stake in the shorts, but it's looking like the shorts went all in rather than just accepting their gigantic loss. Edit: If you want more info please PM me or start a new thread, this isn't really politics at this point. Double Edit: This Reddit post has some possible details of how the brokers went into sell only mode: https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l7fw0x/i_used_to_work_merrill_heres_what_likely_happened/ But my perspective is that there's no difference from stupidity and malice, both stupid and malicious people can hurt you either now and in the future, but pretending to be stupid would, for some reason, let you off on lawsuits occasionally. To put it another way, by deliberately not communicating the brokers picked a side, even if by inaction, but this way they'll have an excuse for court. Exactly how I would play it if I had picked a side but didn't want to be legally liable. Either the brokerages were stupid enough to lose all customer trust or they had very good incentives not to communicate, but this way they both achieve the desired result and get an ready excuse to cover their ass is my view.

Oh their losses are in the billions at this point (and if they actually try to unwind the proper way where they're forced to liquidate and buy at any price it might even be in the 10s or 100s of Billions). They would've needed to get out around $4 if they wanted to get out for only millions. This might seem weird since $400 is only 100x $4, not 1000x, but the thing is once things get this high the more stock you by the more the price goes up. Trying to unwind stupid amounts of shorted shares (We're talking 10s of millions of shares sold short here) is expensive as hell unless you mange to short a company into bankruptcy, in which case you're off the hook for those shares. Which is why they got into this position. And it's basically risk free because once you're this deep in the hole you'll bring down other people with you when you go under, hence why even the brokerages are helping shorts out. Because if a hedge fund goes insolvent and can't pay for shares then the clearing house is on the hook, and if the clearing house also goes insolvent then it's the brokerage on the hook. Shorting companies like this has extremely good risk/reward since the upside is you get literally free money for the shares you sold short but never have to buy back (since the company went bankrupt), and the downside is what we see right now---you threaten to bring down other people with you so you won't even be punished financially, at least not to the true infinite risk extent shorting is supposed to be. ...Unless you mess up badly enough that you run out of money, in which case you'll get prosecuted since you don't have money anymore. If Capitalism works the way it's supposed to, nobody in the hedge funds should be punished yet. (I mean in a serious way, not the wrist slap level million dollar fines way.) They managed to get other players on board before they went bankrupt. In my view, they should repeat this play (disable buys, short ladder so the stock dumps) tomorrow since they haven't unwound enough of their shorts yet.

I should mention that the idea WSB is moving GME isn't actually true. A billion is a thousand millions, WSB has a few millionaires but all of them added together might not make an entire billion. It's mostly just hedge funds with 10s of Billions fighting other hedge funds with 10s of Billions. The media likes to portray WSB as being behind it because it makes for a better story. Regarding the politics of the GME thing. My view is that in capitalism you only matter as much as the money you have, so if the hedge funds which are short GME lose this bet then they should get punished, but if they manipulate the market enough and get out without getting forced into bankruptcy or whatever then they shouldn't be. They served themselves on a platter, though, GME rocketed up because other hedge funds went long, so it'll be interesting to see how they try to get out. I have a feeling the big drop this morning with the combined efforts of disabling buys & a short ladder* is because they would have been forced to liquidate (locking in their billions of dollars of losses) if GME stayed above 400 for long. * The stock dropped 50% with around 2 million shares of volume, which is an obvious joke to anyone with volume data.

I officially have no self control when it comes to rolling on banners. R.I.P. saint quartz stash. (Wallet-kun is going to get shanked so hard when King Protea drops.) Kind of want to MLB Sapphire, since it's basically the best NP generation% CE in the game, but between Kaleidoscope and Prisma Cosmos it doesn't really have much of a role.

Wonder why they decided to drop Prisma Codes on Wednesday instead of Saturday or Monday. Today's MLK day so I would've been able to stay up for the midnight release if it had been on Monday, but I won't be doing that before a workday. I kind of like how Miyu and Anderson's kits complement each other between Anderson healing off Miyu's self damage and Miyu getting Anderson the NP gauage he needs to hit 100% even with a level 9 skill while also fixing his buff chance issues, but practically speaking Merlin and Tamamo eats Miyu's lunch. (And being compared to Tamamo isn't exactly a good scene for a support.) If it wasn't for the fact that 4* Rate Ups only have 1.5% I migh've seriously tried for her anyway, though, but 1.5% isn't that much better than the odds of getting an SSR. And that's assuming you roll on Miyu only days. If it's a double 4* rate up then the odds drop to 1.2% each and you're basically rolling for an SSR.

Yeah the 'you have to spend at least 4 days on this no matter what' mechanic is pretty annoying. (Also I wish it's more obvious which buildings unlocked more free quests, I think it's always the bottom 3, but you'd have to check on a wiki or something to learn that.) On the plus side, it does also mean you get the best nodes like 3 days in rather than them being time locked, so that's nice. The NY2020 banners dropping the same CEs as the event is also pretty neat. Edit: CQ was fun, in retrospect I should've brought some AoE servants, or at least more Buster Cards (Buster Lead is the same modifier as Card Type Mod when it comes to damage).

I used to play it a fair amount, sometimes with friends, but the huge ass loading times especially when we desynch or it randomly crashes meant that even though I do like the gameplay, I don't play it as much anymore. Mostly moved on to Paradox stuff. Most Paradox games don't play like Civ since starting positions aren't 'fair' due to the games being historical, but Stellaris plays a lot like Civ in space. The difficulty setting on Stellaris is more granular than Civ, though. In Deity I think all AI gets 2 free settlers & a bunch of tech, but in Stellaris that kind of starting advantage is only for Advanced AI Starts.

Spent a lot more than I planned on Beni & Nero's banner, but I did pick up a bunch of CEs and another copy of Caster Nero*, so I'm pretty content with the results. Not sure if I'll end up rolling on Hokusai's banner at this point between my lower quartz stockpile and the fact that literally everything kills Beserkers. ...The fact that the NY banner is the last banner for Nero and Hokusai is pretty annoying. *Slightly tempted to NP5 her, even, but I don't feel like shanking wallet-kun at the moment. I'll probably end up giving the anti-stun Command Code to Rider Ishtar, since I do use her occasionally for caster maps when I'm running a 4* damage dealer due to cost constraints. Not sure if I'll give her White Vessel (the remove 1 debuff) code as well, since that one is a bit more general purpose & I don't use her that often---she gets the anti-stun one since I don't really use anyone else that stuns themselves.

A bit strange that we get two 50% NP Battery Sabers almost back to back after having a drought of them since the start of the game. Muramasa's kit is pretty pushed in general, and it's even more concerning because the 5* saber pool (in my view) is pretty weak overall, so there's a bunch of randoms hanging around the 6-7 range and there's this one weird guy that's 9.5 or something. As much as I like triple Buster decks, the fact that Castoria exists means that Arts is just in a better place than Buster at the moment, so Ibuki* kind of got shafted. Maybe they'll release a support caster that lets Buster servants farm, which would have the added bonus of, presumably, making people like Artoria who get a bit of refund from their Buster NPs pretty crazy. *She's still stellar compared to the 5* Saber pool sans Muramasa, but that doesn't actually say anything. Edit: Got Da Vinci in the GSSR. Pretty much an exactly in the middle of the road roll for me. Don't need her for gameplay and don't care about her either way characterwise. But it's not a bad roll, so I'll take it. Does end the 3 GSSR streak of me getting more or less the exact Servant I was looking for though.

Kind of want to roll a bit for NP2 Hokusai, but her banner gives 2020 CEs rather than 2021 CEs, so I can't use them for the NY event.* But it's the last campaign for her if I don't count GSSRs. *That said, her Banner's last so even if it was 2021 CEs I still wouldn't get to use them for most of the event. I'll probably toss a 10-roll and maybe some loose tickets at the Beni-enma banner. On the other hand, the only people I care about on the NY banner is for getting NP2+ so I'm not sure if I'll be rolling on them. Nice thing about new years is getting to stay up as late as I want since it's a holiday. (I mean, I occasionally do that even if I have work, but I like to get 10+ hours of sleep or else I feel like shit the entire day.)

169 boxes and .991B QP. I'll either farm a few more boxes (skilling up some random Servants I'll probably never use to burn QP) or get back to Aurora Steel farming depending on my mood later. Hopefully the New Year GSSR gets me a new Servant so I can actually spend some of these QP. Not a fan of a 43 Servant GSSR Banner, assuming it's like JAPs, but whatever. On the plus side, there's no one I absolutely detest on that banner, so even the worst roll should give me someone I'd tolerate. (Not sure what I'll end up doing if I end up with a NP5 duplicate---might just level and ascend them anyway.)

Well, turns out I do have a 3 turn comp with all drop CEs. Problem is it relies on RNG (works about half the time, I think), needs plugsuit, and I can't automate it. Only have 20 Golden Apples left, though, so I think I'll just manually farm the rest of the event. Pity the Nox recorder doesn't work (it records a black screen), because OBS makes the game run a lot choppier. Even the initial loading time went from ~30s to 42s. Link that skips loading time.

I've actually been MLBing the drop CEs really early and filling the empty spaces with bond CEs. I knew QP wasn't an issue and I was burning gold exp cards from the 10th box or so, so the lottery itself was more like a bonus on top of the excellent drops from the nodes themselves, the decent amount of master & mystic code exp, and bond points. Pity the lottery node has the best exp but only mediocre material drops. Feathers and Claws are decent, but I think I'm going to farm the Giant's Ring node until I have a stash of 100. The skeleton node is great, but a stash of 200 is enough to keep on hand. I used a fair amount to make sure every 4* has at least 6/6/6 skills barring the other version of Mecha Liz, but now that I'm done with that I don't have any pressing need for materials. Other than Aurora Steel, that is, but I'll work on that after the lottery's over. I've been considering using a master exp CE, but I think the gains from getting more APs from apples earlier isn't going to make up for the lost bond points of not running bond point CEs. (Haven't done any hard math, mind, so it's just my gut feeling.)

Kind of tempted to go farm the bone node rather than using up all my apples on the lottery node. If I swap to plugsuit or hogwarts I only need a single non-drop CE to farm, but I'm too lazy to do that. I think I have a 0 CE automation comp in my box if I run Plugsuit, Arash, and Nito, but plugsuit is level 10 and I don't care about the lottery that much. About halfway done with my apple stash* (used all my silvers and 1/3 of my gold), but I'm not sure I want to use everything up. Pretty sure I'm getting dangerously close to max QP already. *Wasn't a very big stash, mind, started with a bit more than 100 of each.

...Okay, so the CQ has a debuff that says 'unremovable.' Except you can remove it. *shrug* It also felt a bit undertuned, but that's neither here nor there. Would've been a bit harder if the debuff was actually unremovable like it says, but because of the timing of when they apply it the debuff would only be an issue if you didn't know it was coming.

Kind of funny that I didn't notice until I started automating that Arash is on the bonus servant list. (When I'm not automating the 100% damage, 50% bond Servants take up all of my free slots, so I don't even look at him.) But wow things are easy when you can get Arash to 100% NP with his NP Battery & Bradamante's with a 50% CE + Arash gets 50% damage buff for free. I still lose 2 CE slots, but I get to use my 2 free Servant slots on 4*s, meaning I can run 50% bond Servants rather than 20% bond. (Besides, I might lose 2 CE slots, but I only lose 1 CE. Because I haven't had a single CE drop yet. FML.)

...I have no idea why I treated the tag team match that needed a Lucha Belt to enter like a CQ. Because it wasn't a CQ---I mean, you probably can't go in with total jokers, but a support Bradamante can probably solo it even without a CE. Probably should've checked the recommended level before I went in with the Atlas Code. R.I.P. Mystic Code exp, Atlas was level 10. I guess it was better safe than sorry, since it did cost a Lucha Belt to enter, but I'm planning to farm a decent amount since my QP reserves are completely empty, meaning the Lucha Belt wasn't that big of a deal. Pity about all the gold embers I'll end up burning, but that can't be helped. Edit: Oh, and the rare prism shop restocked, so I bought a Lantern and used it on Arash. Pretty useful more or less right away since I need Aurora Steel---Arash is part of my automated farming comp for that---and the event maps don't have any. (Okay the wiki says the 5 Lucha Belt free quest has it as a rare drop, but I'm not big brained enough to farm Aurora Steel that way.) Going to really have to start thinking about burning some of the duplicate 4*s that I don't care enough about to NP5 for rare prisms in a few months.