BruceVC

@Guard Dog You did it again, you successfully invoked the " summon Gromnir " spell ..Im always envious of your mastery of the arcane arts I am fairly proficient in the spell and I always have my wards prepared but I just dont have your success rate ...but I am practicing and each week I make progress

Elerond Im very disappointed with your PM going to a club during this pandemic, what are you guys going to do about her recalcitrant behavior ...is she going to get arrested? She is hot but I dont think beauty should be an excuse to flout virus regulations ?

Buy it now, in life you must " strike while the iron is hot " 50 % is a good discount and buy it on GOG because its good to support GOG as well because Steam is so large and competition is a good thing

Great post Kanie and it summarizes my point earlier, I can understand Wormies concern about " innovation" but sometimes this type of expectation is not practical, realistic and nebulous But that doesnt mean we shouldnt expect and demand exciting and entertaining games

Oh by the way, excellent website Investopedia especially if you looking for reasonably simple explanations around all financial and economic topics

Good question and yes inflation is caused by several factors but SA inflation has been more or less consistent for the last 10 years between 4-5 %. I consider high inflation to be one of the worst economic realities for any country which is why most Central Banks\Reserve Banks\Federal Reserve have " inflation targeting " as one of their primary mandates. We dont negotiate our increases as they set on inflation and you work towards your end of year bonus or commission target as your main incentive. But lets say you want to negotiate a better raise than inflation then you need to justify your revenue stream with your boss and what you bring in which is hard to do in certain jobs where you cant calculate your personal contribution like someone working in a factory, these types of workers dont have a target for example But as a consultant I can calculate my hourly billing and I know exactly what I contribute and what customers I work on and how we benefit from yearly software renewals and projects because of the work I do. And this matters because back in the day in JHB, 2 years ago, where I was well paid I worked at several banks and because I specialize in financial software the companies I worked for recognised these important customers and kept people like me happy So to answer your questions, yes its done yearly in listed companies and you right you cant predict inflation exactly so your increase is normally 4-5% depending on current SA inflation because the core objective with most salary increases is your salary increase should be enough to assume you dont lose money due to inflation But everyone works towards a bonus assuming the company makes its yearly target. I hope this makes sense?

Yes that is unfair because of inflation costs, in SA your increase is based on inflation so your increase should be equal to that at least

Then I have an issue with their complaints because they were paid to work those long hours and this is not as egregious as some may think

I hear you and I think their is some validity to the view " their is very little innovation " but on the other hand you know the old adage " if its not broken, why fix it " In other words we have had so many excellent and varied games over the last 10-15 years its hard to think of something truly revolutionary that we have not seen before so you could argue " very few things can be innovative under the current circumstances of technological advancement " I know the article mentions Disco as revolutionary but I found it fun with excellent writing but I didn't even finish it because the non-fantasy setting bored me

I didnt realize the games were connected, I have been reading all the lore in the game I can find so I am familiar with the history in Infinite so far but certain things I am learning as the game progresses but yes I realize now playing the earlier games would have been beneficial to understand the game world And thanks for the advice because I may just do that if I play the DLC but we have some excellent new games coming next year like Elden Ring and Dying Light 2 and of course my most anticipated game once fully released BG 3

Interesting story, I wonder if they were paid overtime for the 80 hour week? Because then they were remunerated for the effort but if not then the company is being unreasonable offering them only a 3% increase after all that work ?

Okay, thanks for clarifying But there is one difference between the latest main variants. With Delta the majority of hospitalizations globally were unvaccinated up to 90-95 %. We are seeing 25%, more or less, of vaccinated people in hospital but its not for severe conditions requiring a ventilator but rather just oxygen which is not as serious So I would say that is unexpected. But as usual its early days and data may be updated and change

https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/its-been-a-great-year-for-rpgs-if-you-hate-and-fear-the-new/ Here is an interesting read from the reputable PCGamer, I agree with most of it even if it is a little negative about the fact many games released in 2021 are re-released or remastered

This is the ideal time for a house party, maybe arrange a techno or deep house DJ and charge people $20 entry fee? You know what they say " when the cat is away, the mouse will play "

And well done for being aware of this potential risk, you never know when supernatural beings can influence our pets Rather err on the side of caution

Im 10 hours into Bioshock Infinite and its thoroughly entertaining, its the first Bioshock game I have ever played I like the overall combat mechanics and spawning element when you die. I also like the combat strategies and different weapons you can use And finally I love the lore and narrative, its nice seeing an interesting game world based on the positive aspects of Colonialism....we only hear negative things

Why you using such big words, speak normal English Im glad you said preliminary data because its far to early to make statements of fact about the new variant, for example how can anyone say things like " drops to 25 % after 3 months " when Omicron hasnt been tested for 3 months because it hasnt been around that long? But what we seeing in SA at the moment and its based on the constant sick people who have Omicron so its as accurate as it can be based on that metric is A booster is recommended for much better protection. But 2 shots still offers protection The majority of people, 75 %, hospitalized are still the unvaccinated The symptoms even for the unvaccinated are less severe The virus is more transmissible But I am remiss to make any real statements until we see more data and actual evidence

Kanie that is why you must ONLY rely on the globally famous "BruceVC reviews " for deciding on where to spend your money

Ive just started on Bioshock: Infinite, so far very interesting and an interesting narrative

The parents played a part, no doubt and the mother is not very concerned about potential violent tendencies from her son. What did she say " Im not not angry....next time just dont get caught " ... But the son is still more responsible, he committed the heinous deed and acted on his own hatred and dysfunction. He needs to face the harsher sentence

Nah, egregious human rights abuses by the CCP is very similar to Apartheid system so its perfectly understandable .... this diplomatic boycott is not very meaningful but understandable

I just finished Operencia after 80 hours, it was a good gaming experience and scores a solid 65\100 on the globally respected " BruceVC game score system" I didnt defeat the end boss, it was too unbalanced and it took too long but the rest of the game is fun. Similar to Bard Tale 4 with less puzzles and less combat strategy so its challenging in combat which is great. It also has some nice skills like finding treasure and the mechanical rooster

This post is similar to what some people in SA and mostly our politicians, some scientists, tourism sector and even some from the WHO are saying and basically many South Africans feel we have been unfairly treated by the response to SA scientists announcing a new variant had been detected and then the reality of travel bans This view is not an example of hyperbole or some repeated false narrative. Its unusual in the sense it has some facts but it is selective and ignores other factors that contributed towards the current situation and its important that you know these other considerations and how we should reflect on this type of virus outcome And this debate is not about our normal ideological debates like is the EU a good union or where you suggested more citizens died in Iraq than Syria ....those debates dont matter to most of the world and everyone on this forum but this virus is a global reality and these types of events matter to the real lessons we learn and equally importantly how we learn what doesn't help when addressing the virus and how it spreads And I like to believe all of us want this virus over and our lives to return to normal so the overall veracity of global issues need to be understood by sometimes a different framing of the facts. And also I can understand in your personal view it would be easy to just believe what you heard and now have posted because anyone who lives in a country that hasn't been ravaged by the virus wont really understand what its damage and consequence means so hopefully my post explains what is the real concern in a country like SA and I wish I did agree with the general point you making but I cant because it could hurt SA in the future because we are not accepting the real message from this variant and that applies to citizens in all countries Firstly almost all countries in the world have adopted vaccines as the best solution overall to end this pandemic and it is the best approach if you think of the reduced deaths, hospitalizations and how its the unvaccinated that primarily cause these things and for me its the variants that matter the most All countries have one thing they fear the most, a variant that somehow escapes our vaccines and after Delta it has been demonstrated how dangerous a variant can be. And most data says that if you can achieve 60-65% vaccination its unlikely you will see a variant. And that has been true in any country, like the UK and parts of the EU, where you see new infections but not a variant Now back to SA, we only achieved 30 % vaccination and we have ample vaccines and mechanisms to deploy them yet most citizens simply refused to take vaccines which has created a massive issue for SA because we are at risk of a variant with that vaccine outcome ...and the 30 % outcome has been like that for 2 months. Government and other spokespeople have reiterated how vaccines are safe and important but they have failed to be direct and start planning real vaccine mandatory steps because as a country we cant ever " get life back to normal " if we keep getting variants and then waves So the real problem is what we already all know, you must achieve 65% vaccination or you can see variants and that is what our focus as a country should be. Then you mentioned this variant was detected first in the EU, Netherlands I think. But that is not what is the real issue when it comes to how we react, SA detected actively several new people with the variant because our new infections were increasing. The new variant has been detected in SA with most new infections so the reality is irrefutable, SA has a new variant and until we know about how it affects the vaccine efficacy no country should just allow SA citizens to fly in until all countries understand this new variant The banning of flights from SA has also been explained thats its temporary and not designed to somehow stop the variant so its not unscientific at all as quaratines do help with stopping viruses but this is just about slowing down the virus spread And finally every government in the world has one primary goal, what do we do to ensure our citizens have the most protection possible from this virus but allowing life to return to normal SA has done somethings right like endorsing vaccines and telling people to take them but the virus continues to spread in SA and one of the SA flights grounded in the Netherlands revealed that 61 passengers out of 600 had the virus....so that means in SA people are happily prepared to travel with no consideration of them having the virus or a variant So the reality is SA must change our overall vaccination rate or we will continue to see waves and variants but its not the fault of the EU to implement this travel ban because SA has to address its own shortfalls with the virus first

I cooked delicious chicken livers with onion for my breakfast along with bacon and eggs and toast Livers just make everything ....better

Its okay, these things happen to the best of us. What poison you using, sometimes updating what you currently have works wonders