Pfft, Gauntlet: The Third Encounter was clearly the best Gauntlet. You could be a Valkyrie or Wizard, sure. But other options included Android, Punk Rocker, and Nerd.

<knowingly geeky response to comedy bit>
It's actually a really interesting game design question.

There are basically two approaches here: enemies are either fixed level or scale with the player.

Fixed level enemies mean it's possible to remove all challenge from a particular encounter by being waaaay OP for it. Scaling the enemy stats fix that issue, but you then miss out on the fun of going back through an area and roflstomping previously challenging foes.

Mark Brown of Writing on Games did a great video on this recently in relation to the design of Dark Souls


</knowingly geeky response to comedy bit>

"Red light encounter" could have meant a collision, but happily, it does not.

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I completely disagree with you about being inspired by her is like being inspired by Hitler. Hitler's philosophy was a complete sham on every level, and contradicts itself numerous times. Objectivism's foundation works well on many levels. Personal aspiration, bettering yourself, valuing logic and knowledge over emotions, those types of things are valuable to an extent.

Objectivism is ultra-logical in the end, very much the same as Social Darwinism. Fundamentally, those ideas have value in some situations and settings. A business for example, in the end, if an employee is not doing his or her job, it's not necessarily the business's job to figure out why unless it's within their self-interest to do so, and they shouldn't have to think that stuff through in every single instance. They should have the flexibility to fire someone in that instance without a second thought about the social ramifications.

It ultimately is a societal problem though that this employee be taken care of as a member of society, which is where Objectivism falls on its face, among other areas. Another one is Objectivism really has terrible implications in many aspects of parenting, to put it mildly.

I was personally inspired by Ayn Rand in high school quite honestly. She made me care about philosophy, about achieving the most I could achieve via hard work and self-determination, to learn how to critically think and use reason, to be OK to not conform necessarily to group think, etc. Just like every ideology, it's not perfect, and following it to a T just doesn't work, just like any other ideology and philosophy we may encounter and blend into our own as we age and grow. But it made me want to learn more, achieve more, and think more.

You can do a lot worse than that, IMO, you know, like Fascism. :-)

Maybe you should actually read the article before commenting on this?

Warning: it's a terribly written article that spends a lot of time on completely irrelevant details, also very NSFW, but to summarise (quoting from article):

When Ansari told her he was going to grab a condom within minutes of their first kiss, Grace voiced her hesitation explicitly. “I said something like, ‘Whoa, let’s relax for a sec, let’s chill.’”
...
She says Ansari began making a move on her that he repeated during their encounter. “The move he kept doing was taking his two fingers in a V-shape and putting them in my mouth, in my throat to wet his fingers, because the moment he’d stick his fingers in my throat he’d go straight for my vagina and try to finger me.” Grace called the move “the claw.”

Ansari also physically pulled her hand towards his penis multiple times throughout the night, from the time he first kissed her on the countertop onward. “He probably moved my hand to his dick five to seven times,” she said. “He really kept doing it after I moved it away.”

But the main thing was that he wouldn’t let her move away from him. She compared the path they cut across his apartment to a football play. “It was 30 minutes of me getting up and moving and him following and sticking his fingers down my throat again. It was really repetitive. It felt like a fucking game.”

Ansari wanted to have sex. She said she remembers him asking again and again, “Where do you want me to fuck you?” while she was still seated on the countertop. She says she found the question tough to answer because she says she didn’t want to fuck him at all.

End quoting.

I find it difficult to believe Ansari is "inexperienced". He's 34, famous, good-looking and funny. Hell, he wrote a damn book on the subject.

Now, even though I've lost count of the number of times I've said this, to be perfectly clear: I DO NOT THINK ANSARI IS GUILTY OF A CRIME.

But I also don't think that behaviour is acceptable. He acted like a total asshole.

But since we're talking about degrees of harm, you can still be an asshole and do actual harm without committing a crime.

Should his accuser have just left? Probably. Does that excuse his behaviour? Nope.

"It's exactly what he said, they're both unacceptable, and he's trying to define the spectrum. "
But the spectrum already exists. It's already enshrined in law for a start. I don't need Maher to lecture me about it.

"Yes, if some dude broke my leg, yes I would appreciate that they didn't murder me. "
Of course. You'd probably still report them to the police for assault though?

"Please admit, it's at least imprecise to have a one-size-fits-all justice system. "
I have. Several times.

"If and when people are being sentenced to death and/or extreme prison terms, yeah, let's talk about proportionate response."

"The sentence for these crimes is different and that's correct."

"If Aziz Ansari ends up sharing a cell with Harvey Weinstein, I will 100% stand up and say "hang the fuck on, those two are NOT equivalent". "

"Believe it or not, I've been in a sexual encounter where I've been forced to ..."
What happened to you wasn't rape, agreed, but it wasn't far off. If the roles were reversed and you had sneakily taken off a condom, in some jurisdictions that WOULD be rape.

"I don't think it's crazy to not want her to lose her job, and not want to file criminal charges against her, --- and this is key --- because even though something happened that was non consensual, I don't consider what happened rape, and I would NEVER equate what happened to me to what happened to all of Weinstein's victims because they fall on opposite ends of the spectrum.

Neither one was okay, and one is worse than the other."

Why does it matter that it wasn't rape? It was still a violation of trust and one that could have had lifelong consequences for you.

If she did that to you, who's to say she won't do it again to someone else?

Again, I go back to the assault metaphor. Even if an assailant doesn't murder you, they're still a violent aggressor and a potential danger to others.

Or even at a lower degree still, if someone treats you badly or swindles you, are you not entitled to warn others?

If what happened to you happened to me, I would warn anyone I knew about that kind of behaviour.

No, making the argument that one is not as bad as the other isn't the same as making excuses. It's exactly what he said, they're both unacceptable, and he's trying to define the spectrum.

I have a touch more time, so let me go back to your first example.
Yes, if some dude broke my leg, yes I would appreciate that they didn't murder me.

Obviously, I don't want either thing to happen, but justice is about assigning degrees of a spectrum to an infinite number of variables of what is decidedly wrong. Please admit, it's at least imprecise to have a one-size-fits-all justice system.

I won't repeat the examples already given that should have laid bare the problems equating what should be corrected gingerly vs using a heavy hand, but I want to reiterate that they ring true for me.

NSFW warning:

I've had bad dates where I've been made to feel awkward. Believe it or not, I've been in a sexual encounter where I've been forced to hmmm... finish... inside a girl when I didn't want to. We had been together a short time and she was ENAMORED with me, and I felt 'meh' about her. (don't put your dick in crazy)

Long story short, I'm strict about using birth control so I'm not making kids when I don't want to. Although, in the heat of the moment, I'm not above a tried and true pulling out for lack of a better option. This had been the plan going into the sexual encounter, but when I let out a warning about a climax, instead of helping me push her off, she pushed her hands against my shoulders and clamped her thighs onto me. I objected "wait!!! no!!!" but not being a fucking Buddhist monk with complete control over every muscle in my body, well, you can imagine where it went from there.


Shortly thereafter, she started asking me what I thought about this or that baby name and it became clearer what she was really after. (yes really)

I waited for confirmation that she wasn't pregnant and we broke up immediately after, because of that and a general disinterest that I had towards her as a person.

That was when I was ehh? 19? idk, somewhere around there. More than 10 years ago at least.

But I digress, did what she did feel a little 'rape-y' to me? I said no, It was something we talked about beforehand, setting up parameters, etc. but it ended up just being a bad experience. Because of that bad experience I never really talked to her again. She does some kind of work in 3d printing now last I checked.

I don't think it's crazy to not want her to lose her job, and not want to file criminal charges against her, --- and this is key --- because even though something happened that was non consensual, I don't consider what happened rape, and I would NEVER equate what happened to me to what happened to all of Weinstein's victims because they fall on opposite ends of the spectrum.

Neither one was okay, and one is worse than the other.

I think her point is that not only is it ok for women to speak about rape and assault, but also about other elements of sexual relationships that are both non-criminal and crucial. I don't know about you, but I've (1) never been rapey or weird; (2) had lots of great sex with lots of great people; and (3) more often than not navigated sexual behavior through non-verbal cues. In fact, many of the best sexual encounters I've had progressed solely upon non-verbal cues. So if for nothing more than the magic of sex (and if course there is more), I support women discussing men who can't read a vibe. BUT forchristsakejustdontputhisdickinyourmouththen.

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This is a flat out weird situation. The service animal cannot leave and there is always a good chance you would encounter one out in public.

The allergy shot probably wouldn't be an epi pen. That is for dire emergencies and if she had that she would be carrying it. It is most likely some other kind of injectable antihistamine. My wife and I have mild allergies and carry pills for when we travel.

On the other hand, I understand her panic as she is being separated from her father who is having surgery. That would sure a hell make me not think clearly.

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