In my experience, they work as engineers, engineers or engineers.

$100 today is about $40 in 1990. In those days games were made by a handful of people or even a single individual in one of two years of development. Chris Sawyer started work on the 1994 classic Transport Tycoon in 1992 and wrote the entire codebase in x86 Assembly. The price isn’t really that crazy considering the comparatively massive undertaking that is GTA6 development.

Having said that, it’s rare nowadays for any AAA game to release anywhere near its best state, so it tends to be worth it to wait even if money isn’t the concern.

There is a strong correlation between shitty health care and low life expectancy.

Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. Not a “nice” or “beautiful” tourist experience, obviously, but an extremely impressive one. I’m not a very emotional person, and have no personal link to the Holocaust, but one of the few times of my adult life I cried was when I visited the memorial site.

AAA games are significantly cheaper in real terms than they were in the 90s.

30 CAD in 1993 is about 58 CAD today, and those weren’t even the most expensive games in the flyer you saw then.

Especially console titles were expensive by modern standards, the main titles like Mario games retailed for something like 150 USD in 2026 dollars.

I have a contract that allows for up to 50% work from home. I use 0%. I live 10 minutes from work, so the commute isn’t significant (and it gives me a reason for some light exercise). It’s easier to work with colleagues if you’re talking face-to-face, and I like to mentally separate being in a working mindset and a relaxation mindset, which is more difficult if my home is a workplace.

Depending on where you intend to retire and your intended expenses during retirement, anywhere from 0 to billions.

PhD in physics. Worked in academia for a while after that, but getting permanent positions is hard so I sold out and am now chilling in an engineering job.

Avoiding branded products should get you a long way, it’s mostly those that are regularly discounted.

Well, the difference is not that big. Actually, I’d probably save money in the Netherlands since I spend about €100 per month buying lunches at work and I’d probably take my lunch from home if I’d live there again.

About €350 per month for two people. This is in Germany, where food is relatively affordable compared to other high-income European countries.

They generally are, in rich countries. In poorer countries with less developed infrastructure you can still commonly find them.

If you want to go to Europe, don’t apply for asylum. This has no chance of succeeding, even for people from war-torn countries with ongoing genocides it is difficult.

The easiest way is to apply for a study visa. There are many EU countries with very good education, very low requirements for admission, and very low (or even no) tuition fees, even for non-EU students. Once you have a degree, you are anchored and can find a job and get citizenship without too much difficulty.

The alternative is to apply for a job. In this case you need some marketable skill that is difficult to find among the locals.

The shortest average work week globally is found in the Netherlands, where it is 30 hours per week. There are also substantial daycare subsidies, a quarterly sum paid per child, and the highest minimum income guarantee in the world. The fertility rate, while not at South Korea levels, is 1.44, well below replacement level.

The definition of insanity: continuing to run your game company horribly and expecting different results.

I was walking through the canteen with some classmates. One of them stole a sugar cube intended for coffee from the canteen. A teacher, apparently feeling Biblical, punished the whole group with an hour of detention.

Is there any actual evidence that Science lacks money?

That more money would actually help scientists do more interesting stuff?

Yes, there is a pretty strong correlation between R&D spending and scientific output. Even so, spending is only in the low single digit percentages of the economy everywhere. Societies could easily decide to spend less on decadent luxury and more on science.

Right now, do scientists actually have money problems making it difficult to conduct ambitious research?

So science is a high-risk, high-reward numbers game. You try more things, hire more scientists, and more science will happen. Most research doesn’t lead anywhere, but the small fraction that does leads to things you could just never get without scientific research. Yes, there are many (such as yours truly) who could have continued to be scientists but take jobs in industry because positions as scientific researchers are extremely competitive and there is not enough money to hire all suitable candidates.

My story is similar to yours, though I just got a warning, not a ban.

The first warning was for “abusing the report function” after I reported a post defending Derek Chauvin. I stopped reporting to the admins after that, and over time grew increasingly uneasy with the direction of Reddit as a more and more fascist-friendly organization, and the willing and eager contribution of Reddit’s CEO to millions of Covid deaths left a sour taste (and a nasty cough).

I got the second warning about a week ago after I joked the US government should go into the White House and Melania’s lover’s residence to arrest them since Trump pardoned a drug dealer, by the same reasoning the US government used to abduct Maduro and his wife. This was “threatening violence.” That was the last straw, I quit Reddit after that.

It’s not even that I mind them erring on the side of caution, or in this case on the side of insanity, it’s the double standard that irks me the most. An obvious joke goes too far, but in certain subreddits (you know the ones) users can advocate ethnic cleansing, war crimes, etc. with reckless abandon.

Did I just time travel to 2015?

Most European leaders mildly criticized the invasion at best. Their response can best be summarized by this conversation between Karremans and Mladić when Serbian troops overran the UN enclave prior to the Srebrenica genocide:

KARREMANS: “I am a piano player. Don’t shoot the piano player.”

MLADIC: “You are a poor piano player.”