JCPhoenix, jcphoenix@beehaw.org

Once in a blue moon, SCOTUS these days gets it right. Which is good!

A shame we don’t have more blue moons.

Most US markets are effectively duopolies or “triopolies” at most. But even then, that’s really stretching it. Because while two or three ISPs cover a city or metro, the neighborhood one lives in really determines the carrier. This part of town might only get cable from Comcast. While another part of town only gets it from Cox. That’s really simplifying it, as maybe a consumer also has (slower) bonded DSL in their area, plus there’s also home 5G and now Starlink. Fiber (either FTTC or FTTH) has made good headway, but it’s still not ubiquitous. Your house or apartment building might have fiber; the one next door doesn’t.

So there’s a teensy bit of competition. But not really.

Cellular service has seen some of that competition on being honest with fees, but that’s because of MVNOs. But traditional non-wireless ISPs really don’t have that competition.

100%, but I think some of us are like “Why are you self-censoring? This isn’t TikTok!” Let’s not use seggs* and PDF files.

*Unless we’re talking about sexy eggs for some reason. Sorry, “seggzy eggs."

Mostly FFXIV. I decided to try a new class: Rogue/Ninja. Kinda impromptu, but I needed way to sneak by some baddies in the new-ish “Occult Crescent” field exploration zone. And Ninja has an ability to slowly stealth walk, going undetected by mobs.

And Oh. My. God. I’d forgotten how awful it is to level a class from 0 to 50. I haven’t done this since I did my initial class as Thaumaturge/Black Mage. Which would’ve been like 3-4yrs ago? I have other classes – technically, Jobs – to max level (Lvl 100), but those classes all start at higher levels. FFXIV is weird like that; classes from expacs 3.0 and up start at higher levels. Like Machinist at Lvl 30, Red Mage (which is my main) at Lvl 50, and one of the most recent classes, Pictomancer, at Lvl 80. I was also playing those classes/job while going through the game’s Main Story Quest, so I didn’t “notice” the grind. I was just playing the MSQ, the game, normally.

As such, I’ve really not tried to quickly grind from Lvl 1 before. And the game doesn’t help. No access to dungeons and trials until Lvl 15. And overall a very limited selection until Lvl 50. No AoE attacks until somewhere in mid-30s! Barely any attacks in the kit, until Lvl 30 (when the Ninja job opens up).

For EXP, had to grind out leves, dungeons, FATEs, and random quests. I’m not against grinding, it’s just a boring-ass grind.

Anyway, I got to Lvl 50 yesterday, so now things should start get less boring. Lvl 50 on its own opens up like 30+ instances of various kinds. And there are tons more opportunities from there til Lvl 100. My goal is to get to 100 within the next two weeks. Could probably do it this week, but I don’t wanna go that hard.

I need to find me an accountant!

Gee, where I have heard that one before?