skiw

> There is no concept of range. If you put a school down in a city, children from all over the city will go there to get educated.

AFAIR, public services in Skylines do indeed have range. It is indicated by green shading on the city roads. For example:

https://www.gameplayinside.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/ci...

This image shows the range that the medical facilities have in the city. The purple buildings are hospitals/clinics, and the green shading on the roads indicates the reach that those buildings have. Not sure where you got the above fact, unless I am misunderstanding something.

My immediate family and my dad's side of the family have both taken to doing a "secret santa" style exchange, which I appreciate. It's mostly about saving money because the family has grown quite large with in-laws, but I've come to enjoy the experience: everybody takes turns and gets to really appreciate a smaller amount of overall gifts. It helps that my side of the family is done with kids!

My own in-laws still have younger kids, and they also do fall into the mindset of giving lots of lower-quality gifts instead of less higher-quality gifts. I feel like if the kids get less gifts, even if better, they might complain, but I think they could grown accustomed to it.

> Anyone with no skill can do random things with random items and call it art.

Others have mentioned this, but I think the key here is that the "skill" you are referring to is what art theorists would call "craft." There is a degree of technical skill that goes into a work of art (e.g. sculpting realistic bodies in marble or being able to draw consistent shapes or human anatomy, etc), but theorists would say that the truth of the art is about what emotions and ideas it expresses in the viewer. In this way, since contemporary art often eschews craft, it can (in one sense of the term), be considered the most pure kind of art.

> How can you judge a category of art for which there are no rules?

Keeping the above in mind, art isn't about rules or judgement, but about the personal message it sends to the viewer. Because, after all, what are the "rules" you are ascribing to The David? Realism? If so, then what would you say about impressionist works by, say, Claude Monet?

I say this also as a humble engineer (even if I come off as standoffish, which I hope I'm not), who happened to take a few art theory courses at school, which by no means makes me an expert: so this is just my own experience and perspective.

The most powerful experience I've had with a work of art was with one of Mark Rothko's paintings. Sure, you can look at it as a plain wall of one or two colors in a plain square shape, but when I really got a good look at it for a prolonged period of time, I began to get lost in the colors and appreciated the nuances of the brushstrokes (it also helped that I had read John Logan's play "Red," which is a psychological profile about Rothko's method, which I recommend highly)

All of this to say that, yes, anyone with no skill can do random things with random items and call it art. Because the skill, the things, and the items are not the true characteristics of what art is. I don't think that "Fountain" should necessarily be marked as a masterpiece or objectively hailed as brilliant or anything, but I think to label it as "not art" misses the point (the point that it's trying to make a statement about art as a whole). Art is not about skill/craft, but about communication between the artist and viewer.

That's my perspective on it at least!

As many others have said, podcasts are definitely necessary over text when doing things you can't read during (driving, exercising, etc.)

Additionally, I enjoy podcasts for the personalities. This varies with the podcast, as some podcasts consist of generally the same content as something like a blog post, with a generic narrator reading from a script. However, most popular podcasts are popular not just for the content, but the conversations between the personalities.

e.g. I can read Bill Simmons' sports columns (which have their own merits) and get much of the same content, but I can't laugh along with him and one of his pals or a pro athlete tossing out an impromptu joke in one of his columns: only on his podcast.

Question: What does everybody think this might mean for the Crystal City VA area (i.e. the DMV)? The article said they plan to continue on as planned.

Does anybody think that Amazon pulling out of NYC will make their impact on the DMV greater or would it probably be the same as if they had HQ2's both places?

> I think you really just don't care that much about using spotify

I think anybody that can say they "care a lot" about using Spotify pays for a subscription.

I agree, and I think maybe music has different places in different people's lives.

Personally, I pay for Spotify and use it constantly to listen to everything from game and movie soundtracks (and covers), rock and metal bands, EDM, indie, pop, and more obscure instrumental music.

I understand if you mostly listen to a few bands from the era you grew up in, or don't listen to music too often at all, it might make more sense to keep a paid music collection and use Spotify less frequently (and justify using the free version), but if I paid for all of the music I listen to individually, it would easily rack up to something like 10 times (or more) the amount my yearly Spotify does. IMO, if you aren't a "power user," use a different streaming service or buy your music individually.

Radio doesn't play music I like, doesn't let me choose the song I want, doesn't let me pay for a subscription to remove adverts, doesn't let me use playlists, doesn't let me play part of a song or rewind a song or skip a song. I understand the appeal of something like live radio, but it definitely doesn't fall into the category of replacement for a music library or streaming.