afaik pro players either borrow their cards from stores, or are running stores in order to have access to the cards.
Almost none of them would be able to play the game at their level while also paying for their working tools. But, somehow, they are shown as examples to players without these connections...
If I can give an advice to anyone willing to play somewhat competitive magic without mortgaging their house, play block pauper magic.
The difference is in GoW battles between armies destroy the armies. Nobody would play M:TG if every time you lost a land it went into a shredder. Now imagine your Power 7 are set on fire before you eyes when you lose instead. GoW is designed to consume resources which can only be replaced by unrealistic wait times (days, weeks) or purchased for cash.
At least for the ycombinator crowd, the lesson learned should be how to design such a game assuming your morals allow it. I briefly considered writing a parody that openly abused you for spending money in game. BROADCAST: "Hey everyone, this idiot just spent $10 on some bits on a server in California!" But yeah I would feel bad even making money from that game, and it seemed like a lot of work for something that would probably net $35.
Much more than a decade, I'd wager! Ante stopped being standard quite a long time ago. Personally I stopped playing in 1997 and ante had already ceased to be a common practice in my area several years before that, from what I remember.
Just googled it and the last card to even have an ante-impacting ability was printed in 1996. Seems it stuck around as an optional rule but wasn't common in my experience, probably because tournaments always skipped it.
That is only true for constructed (I've known people who made a living out of playing 8-4 drafts on mtgo). And even for constructed, it is only pay to win up to a point where everyone has access to all the cards (by either buying or borrowing), which is where most competitive constructed players are.
Last I checked, pro gaming was always a mix of constructed and draft/sealed, which meant you couldn't reach top level without practicing both extensively.
A full edition set costing in the thousands, and there being 3-4 sets per year, the price to compete is fairly high.
If you don't aspire to be a pro player and just want to have fun, you can compete in limited only. I have friends who do that. I myself chose phantom sealed deck tournaments on mtgo, which, provided you don't suck, are basically free.
Only in constructed formats (where you build a deck out of your entire collection). In limited formats (which are hugely popular), you and people you play against build decks out of a common pool of cards. There is an entry fee and there are awards for finishing in top spots. So, in the long run, if your win rate is high enough, you can play for free or even make money, but if you suck, you're going to spend a lot.
In order to get to the cash prizes, you have to train a lot, and the price of training is high enough that you have got to resell cards to profit (although online versions made it easier to acquire draft/sealed xp).
That's one of the points of code reviews - as you get feedback on how you should improve tests in your commits, over time you learn what "well-tested" means.
In the modern world, all large battles are fought out behind desks.
A researcher who gives up a $200k job at a large IT company (e.g. Google or Facebook) for a measly paid job at a university to work on a project with eventual high societal impact IS a hero.
These are not battles. These are just people/companies having careers and making money. Even the researcher is usually forgoing the well paid job to do the research because the research is interesting to him - he's just trading off one for of payoff (money) for another (job satisfaction). Meanwhile, there's no payoff in volunteering to go to a war with a high chance of getting killed or maimed.
Re: battles. There are still real battles in the world (Ukraine, Syria) where there's plenty of heroes.
To sum up, I'd say that it's a blessing that a lot of the world is so peaceful now that the meaning of the word 'hero' is getting washed down to literally 'people doing their (maybe slighly unpleasant) jobs'.
My father put 30 years into the US Navy. He recently passed away. At his funeral, a Marine Corps Colonel got up and thanked him for his service, and called him a hero. However, it was not for his service to the Navy. It was for his whistleblowing activity at the Veterans Administration, where he worked as a full time civilian. He was never put in physical harm, but his whistleblowing put his career at risk. There were unfair retaliatory actions taken against him and the stress of what he was doing took a toll on his life.
I think you're right that most people that work in a contractual fashion with a money payoff should not be considered heroes, but it's also not true that only people who go to war should be considered heroes. Rosa Parks (and the less famous women who did the same thing and preceded her), for example, are certainly heroes.
> Rosa Parks (and the less famous women who did the same thing and preceded her), for example, are certainly heroes.
Not every activist or revolutionist is violent. Sticking to known examples: Gandhi is another excellent non violent example. Sticking to politics, Nelson Mandela. Mark Felt, also a whistleblower. More recent examples are William Binney, Edward Snowden, Julian Assange. These are my examples, of people I consider heroes. History will decide who the public's heroes were.
These people go against authority, often get ignored or bullied in return, including loved ones and relatives. Like the poster from Fargo, "What If You're Right And They're Wrong". It indeed takes great courage and often sacrifice to go against the tide.
That support employee who's ignoring his protocol and is risking a sneer (or worse) from his boss, the one telling you truth while he's now allowed? He's performing one heroic deed. If its a pattern, we can speak of a hero.
What motivates this crusade to own the word "hero"?
Also, IMO military service is a lot more gray area than black and white when viewed in cultural and societal context. I've known several active and veteran members of a few branches of the US military, and while I commend their skills, I don't think many of them would describe everything the US asks them to do as "heroic". A sizable fraction of the current world mess is the fault of the governments currently fighting it.
But all of this is barely relevant to a discussion about what might be termed everyday heroism.
If you listen to the podcast, I think that "someone who puts [them]self in harm's way for the benefit of others" very precisely describes what these customer support employees are doing.
"In harms way"? Doesn't that seem rather ... barbarian. It seems to reinforce "Only those that die gloriously in battle shall sit with the Gods in Valhalla."
I did not used to hear the word "sacrifice" a lot. I hear it a lot now. I don't like it as a standard of behavior and wish it would stop.
I though it was a short way to make a clear point. Let me write a longer version then:
Is it barbaric? Maybe, but, whether we like it or not, the world has a defnite component of barbarism to it. There are wars going on as we speak, and there are threats of much bigger wars constantly hanging in the air.
It not impossible to eliminate physical danger out of our lives and to dismiss it (because one does not witness it first-hand at the moment) is not very mature. I'm not even mentioning the natural calamities, fires, car crashes etc., where there's room for heroism as well.
We mostly live with less barbarism and physical danger than any cohort of humans who have ever lived. Obviously, the people in Aleppo drew the short straw there.
I'd just prefer to see no sacrifice of any kind, especially on my account.
There's a ton more variety in the US tech jobs. If you want to work in an interesting niche, such as computer vision, rendering, self-driving cars etc., I think US is the place to be. Not only there are many more positions, but they also pay decently (whereas in Europe if you want to do interesting stuff, you'll be making a third of what your Hadoop friends make).
Perhaps, though the only computer vision specialist I know personally works in Japan and is well paid, and the only rendering specialist I know (codes custom plugins and leads VFX teams on major global films like LOTR) is Australian, based in Australia, but frequently relocates on a project basis. You are right that continental Europe generally pays poorly, however this is not necessarily the case for highly specialist niche jobs and is offset by other benefits (eg. medical services are cheap or free, superior education for children is ~free, government social commitments to retirees/sick/young have real value, etc.). You can also live in mainland Europe and work remotely on a global gig... you don't get it if you don't ask!
I think parent commented is saying whatever aspect you're into you're likely to find renowned experts in the US, not that they are only in the US. It's a big country with a diversified industry, so by nature you'll find lots of opportunity. That does not mean you can't have experts elsewhere. You can find experts at something you only find in Russia or only India, but overall they are less diversified.
That said, work where you feel is best for you, given your capabilities.
A decision to start your adult life with borrowing large amount of money and spending it on studying an esoteric subject would be considered extremely irresponsible in most societies ( assuming the person does not have any assets or marketable skills to fall back on).
In my experience, the more expensive brands are no more reliable. Cotton t-shirt is a cotton t-shirt, there isn't much you can make to make it more durable. You could use a thicker fabric, but then it would not be the same t-shirt. The only option available that comes to my mind is using more resilient dyes.
using a higher thread count and better stitching has a significant effect on the durability of a t-shirt. But those aspects are only weakly correlated to price.
