So, inside some other post, I was asked why gambling is bad... My reply ended up being really detailed, so I'll promote it to a post of its own (just copy-pasting it here; no new words)... [Note: list of 3 points about loot boxes at the end...]
(I work at a company that sells gambling services... I see how the sausage is made...)
By the way, I love PoE and GGG. Still, loot boxes are bad.
I personally get to see the statistics side of oddsmaking. It's always about suckering you out of your money, because by definition all you are doing is paying more money as the price of getting less money (on average), but you also need to feel like you have a chance at getting the upper hand, even though in the long run you don't.
For example, sometimes, if you're really "good" at betting, you just end up working for the oddsmaker on a bad deal. It's really hard for them sometimes to get the odds perfectly right (although the profit margin still takes care of 99.9% of punters). So, if you're a professional gambler making a regular profit, what's basically happening is that you are investing an enormous amount of time and expertise to try and make tiny profits at the margins, and the bookmaker monitors your activity and learns about the market from you, at what ends up being a lower cost than if they hired experts to give them the same info on a salary. Plus you constantly run high risks! Which is why my company is full of ex-gamblers who were able to make a profit for a while, and intelligent enough to realise that they were still getting a bad deal, and come to the company and offer their services directly. (For another way gambling companies guarantee their own profits by passing on the risk to gamblers, research "balancing the books": yes, a professional gambler could make some profits this way, but if you're possibly making profits by taking on a risk that a large gambling corporation wants to get rid of, do you really think you're getting a good deal, especially considering how much time and expertise you sink into the activity? EDIT: more info)
The only way I know of to make a consistent and considerable profit off gambling is when a pro gambler is allowed to make a profit off other gamblers, in a move that a company makes to increase total amounts played. So, for one person to profit, many others are being seriously scammed, and the company is safely skimming its percentages off the top.
There are many different ways a gambling company presents bad deals to you, hoping that your intuition misfires about one of them and you decide to throw away your money. Examples... There are single bets, of course. But then there are also combinations, and these screw with your intuition--you can convince yourself based on a narrative (e.g. team 1 wins first half, team 2 comes back in second half), where in fact the actual hard cold odds are against you. There is "cash out" where you take a fraction of a likely-seeming win early (but at a loss), which of course simply taxes you for your risk aversion. There are "systems", creating more and more complex bets, until you convince yourself you've set up the perfect deal, and yet the company's profit margin keeps growing the more complex you make it.
Anyway, those are the parts I work on as a software guy. (By the way, this isn't the worst thing in the world, it's not as bad, as, say, the military industry or the military itself, or say religions or banks, because at some level gambling is voluntary. And making gambling illegal is a terrible idea-we should fight it through education, not prohibition. Still, I only work there because I'm currently a completely non-creative software grunt (and currently satisfied with that). If I get to the point of pursuing higher-level jobs, I'll look elsewhere.)
But the most nefarious part of all is the psychological work they pull on you. That's not my area of expertise, so if you want it explained you need to look elsewhere (recommended book: Thinking Fast and Slow--it's not about gambling, it's about psychology). They are constantly doing things to 1) give you false hope and 2) artificially trigger some pleasure response in you.
E.g. most people are naturally risk averse and loss averse, e.g. losing $10 brings more pain than winning $10 brings pleasure. In reality, a gamble is about paying, say, $10 to win an average of, say, $9, so that's a terrible and painful deal. In addition to all the advertising and bright colours and encouraging sounds and making you read success stories and all the other psychological manipulations, they can also straight up befuddle you with numbers. So, losing $10 brings more pain than winning $10 brings pleasure, but what if you pay $10 but you're not really at a risk of losing that much, because on average you win $9 back, so you're only really risking a single $, and yet if you get lucky you won't win a mere $10 but millions? Suddenly that sounds good, right? Risk $1 to win $10000000? Of course not: you're still risking $10 and taking $1 losses on average each time you play, and the high rewards are vanishingly rare and built into that average.
That's it about gambling for money. On loot boxes I'm no expert, but, beyond the basic problems (encouraging addiction, exploiting minors who beg money from parents and don't understand how they're throwing it away, generating gambling "pleasure" while giving you "bits" instead of any real value, etc), I can point out a couple of extra scummy aspects:

1. They can say "the box costs 30 points but all the possible rewards are worth at least 50, the average reward is worth 70 and the best is worth 400"... really??? Those prices are completely arbitrary... Who says the footprints are "worth" 50 or some random hideout decoration is "worth" 200? Talking about average microtransaction point values in a loot box is completely misleading.
2. Either you (a) lose on the statistics of getting complete sets or you lose on (b) being psychologically manipulated into buying extra stuff you didn't actually want so much (or (c) you just lose by getting useless stuff). Let's say you decide to pick up a couple of boxes and see what you get before buying more stuff. You might just get useless stuff, of course (case c). But what if you get the body armour or wings? Now you might say "I'll get more boxes to complete the set". But the chances of getting any one part of a set are not anywhere near as bad as your chances of completing a set (like map lab trials, but much worse because loot boxes contain many more items), so you are getting totally fleeced (case a). Alternatively you could go "oh look, I got x in the box, I'll buy matching items y and z from the shop later" so you think you got x cheap and y and z at normal prices. But you are being manipulated into buying y and z. Would you really have bought x and y and z from the shop if there had been no loot box? Only rarely. The rest of the time you are overspending (case b).
3. Loot box gifts are another scummy behaviour, considering people don't have good intuitions about statistics. Most of us get bad results from the gifted boxes, but some will get lucky. Those of us who are already gambling on loot boxes won't be affected by the outcome of a few extra boxes. Those who wouldn't ever buy them normally, and get bad results, who cares. But those who wouldn't normally buy them but get lucky a few times in a row might decide it's a good deal after all. So, it's manipulating us psychologically in a way that is statistically designed to fail at no cost most times and succeed sometimes, which makes money. (While also giving everybody holiday presents or race prizes, making the company appear generous.)

How the Hunt Brothers Cornered the Silver Market and Then Lost it All

TL:DR: yes its long. Grab a beer.

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Until his dying day in 2014, Nelson Bunker Hunt, who had once been the world’s wealthiest man, denied that he and his brother plotted to corner the global silver market.
Sure, back in 1980, Bunker, his younger brother Herbert, and other members of the Hunt clan owned roughly two-thirds of all the privately held silver on earth. But the historic stockpiling of bullion hadn’t been a ploy to manipulate the market, they and their sizable legal team would insist in the following years. Instead, it was a strategy to hedge against the voracious inflation of the 1970s—a monumental bet against the U.S. dollar.
Whatever the motive, it was a bet that went historically sour. The debt-fueled boom and bust of the global silver market not only decimated the Hunt fortune, but threatened to take down the U.S. financial system.
The panic of “Silver Thursday” took place over 35 years ago, but it still raises questions about the nature of financial manipulation. While many view the Hunt brothers as members of a long succession of white collar crooks, from Charles Ponzi to Bernie Madoff, others see the endearingly eccentric Texans as the victims of overstepping regulators and vindictive insiders who couldn’t stand the thought of being played by a couple of southern yokels.
In either case, the story of the Hunt brothers just goes to show how difficult it can be to distinguish illegal market manipulation from the old fashioned wheeling and dealing that make our markets work.
The Real-Life Ewings
Whatever their foibles, the Hunts make for an interesting cast of characters. Evidently CBS thought so; the family is rumored to be the basis for the Ewings, the fictional Texas oil dynasty of Dallas fame.
Sitting at the top of the family tree was H.L. Hunt, a man who allegedly purchased his first oil field with poker winnings and made a fortune drilling in east Texas. H.L. was a well-known oddball to boot, and his sons inherited many of their father’s quirks.
For one, there was the stinginess. Despite being the richest man on earth in the 1960s, Bunker Hunt (who went by his middle name), along with his younger brothers Herbert (first name William) and Lamar, cultivated an image as unpretentious good old boys. They drove old Cadillacs, flew coach, and when they eventually went to trial in New York City in 1988, they took the subway. As one Texas editor was quoted in the New York Times, Bunker Hunt was “the kind of guy who orders chicken-fried steak and Jello-O, spills some on his tie, and then goes out and buys all the silver in the world.”
Cheap suits aside, the Hunts were not without their ostentation. At the end of the 1970s, Bunker boasted a stable of over 500 horses and his little brother Lamar owned the Kansas City Chiefs. All six children of H.L.’s first marriage (the patriarch of the Hunt family had fifteen children by three women before he died in 1974) lived on estates befitting the scions of a Texas billionaire. These lifestyles were financed by trusts, but also risky investments in oil, real estate, and a host of commodities including sugar beets, soybeans, and, before long, silver.
The Hunt brothers also inherited their father’s political inclinations. A zealous anti-Communist, Bunker Hunt bankrolled conservative causes and was a prominent member of the John Birch Society, a group whose founder once speculated that Dwight Eisenhower was a “dedicated, conscious agent” of Soviet conspiracy. In November of 1963, Hunt sponsored a particularly ill-timed political campaign, which distributed pamphlets around Dallas condemning President Kennedy for alleged slights against the Constitution on the day that he was assassinated. JFK conspiracy theorists have been obsessed with Hunt ever since.
In fact, it was the Hunt brand of politics that partially explains what led Bunker and Herbert to start buying silver in 1973.
Hard Money
The 1970s were not kind to the U.S. dollar.
Years of wartime spending and unresponsive monetary policy pushed inflation upward throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s. Then, in October of 1973, war broke out in the Middle East and an oil embargo was declared against the United States. Inflation jumped above 10%. It would stay high throughout the decade, peaking in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution at an annual average of 13.5% in 1980.
Over the same period of time, the global monetary system underwent a historic transformation. Since the first Roosevelt administration, the U.S. dollar had been pegged to the value of gold at a predictable rate of $35 per ounce. But in 1971, President Nixon, responding to inflationary pressures, suspended that relationship. For the first time in modern history, the paper dollar did not represent some fixed amount of tangible, precious metal sitting in a vault somewhere.
For conservative commodity traders like the Hunts, who blamed government spending for inflation and held grave reservations about the viability of fiat currency, the perceived stability of precious metal offered a financial safe harbor. It was illegal to trade gold in the early 1970s, so the Hunts turned to the next best thing.
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Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics; chart by Priceonomics

As an investment, there was a lot to like about silver. The Hunts were not alone in fleeing to bullion amid all the inflation and geopolitical turbulence, so the price was ticking up. Plus, light-sensitive silver halide is a key component of photographic film. With the growth of the consumer photography market, new production from mines struggled to keep up with demand.
And so, in 1973, Bunker and Herbert bought over 35 million ounces of silver, most of which they flew to Switzerland in specifically designed airplanes guarded by armed Texas ranch hands. According to one source, the Hunt’s purchases were big enough to move the global market.
But silver was not the Hunts' only speculative venture in the 1970s. Nor was it the only one that got them into trouble with regulators.
Soy Before Silver
In 1977, the price of soybeans was rising fast. Trade restrictions on Brazil and growing demand from China made the legume a hot commodity, and both Bunker and Herbert decided to enter the futures market in April of that year.
A future is an agreement to buy or sell some quantity of a commodity at an agreed upon price at a later date. If someone contracts to buy soybeans in the future (they are said to take the “long” position), they will benefit if the price of soybeans rise, since they have locked in the lower price ahead of time. Likewise, if someone contracts to sell (that’s called the “short” position), they benefit if the price falls, since they have locked in the old, higher price.
While futures contracts can be used by soybean farmers and soy milk producers to guard against price swings, most futures are traded by people who wouldn’t necessarily know tofu from cream cheese. As a de facto insurance contract against market volatility, futures can be used to hedge other investments or simply to gamble on prices going up (by going long) or down (by going short).
When the Hunts decided to go long in the soybean futures market, they went very, very long. Between Bunker, Herbert, and the accounts of five of their children, the Hunts collectively purchased the right to buy one-third of the entire autumn soybean harvest of the United States.
To some, it appeared as if the Hunts were attempting to corner the soybean market.
In its simplest version, a corner occurs when someone buys up all (or at least, most) of the available quantity of a commodity. This creates an artificial shortage, which drives up the price, and allows the market manipulator to sell some of his stockpile at a higher profit.
Futures markets introduce some additional complexity to the cornerer’s scheme. Recall that when a trader takes a short position on a contract, he or she is pledging to sell a certain amount of product to the holder of the long position. But if the holder of the long position just so happens to be sitting on all the readily available supply of the commodity under contract, the short seller faces an unenviable choice: go scrounge up some of the very scarce product in order to “make delivery” or just pay the cornerer a hefty premium and nullify the deal entirely.
In this case, the cornerer is actually counting on the shorts to do the latter, says Craig Pirrong, professor of finance at the University of Houston. If too many short sellers find that it actually costs less to deliver the product, the market manipulator will be stuck with warehouses full of inventory. Finance experts refer to selling the all the excess supply after building a corner as “burying the corpse.”
“That is when the price collapses,” explains Pirrong. “But if the number of deliveries isn’t too high, the loss from selling at the low price after the corner is smaller than the profit from selling contracts at the high price.”
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The Chicago Board of Trade trading floor. Photo credit: Jeremy Kemp

Even so, when the Commodity Futures Trading Commission found that a single family from Texas had contracted to buy a sizable portion of the 1977 soybean crop, they did not accuse the Hunts of outright market manipulation. Instead, noting that the Hunts had exceeded the 3 million bushel aggregate limit on soybean holdings by about 20 million, the CFTC noted that the Hunt’s “excessive holdings threaten disruption of the market and could cause serious injury to the American public.” The CFTC ordered the Hunts to sell and to pay a penalty of $500,000.
Though the Hunts made tens of millions of dollars on paper while soybean prices skyrocketed, it’s unclear whether they were able to cash out before the regulatory intervention. In any case, the Hunts were none too pleased with the decision.
“Apparently the CFTC is trying to repeal the law of supply and demand,” Bunker complained to the press.
Silver Thursday
Despite the run in with regulators, the Hunts were not dissuaded. Bunker and Herbert had eased up on silver after their initial big buy in 1973, but in the fall of 1979, they were back with a vengeance. By the end of the year, Bunker and Herbert owned 21 million ounces of physical silver each. They had even larger positions in the silver futures market: Bunker was long on 45 million ounces, while Herbert held contracts for 20 million. Their little brother Lamar also had a more “modest” position.
By the new year, with every dollar increase in the price of silver, the Hunts were making $100 million on paper. But unlike most investors, when their profitable futures contracts expired, they took delivery. As in 1973, they arranged to have the metal flown to Switzerland. Intentional or not, this helped create a shortage of the metal for industrial supply.
Naturally, the industrialists were unhappy. From a spot price of around $6 per ounce in early 1979, the price of silver shot up to $50.42 in January of 1980. In the same week, silver futures contracts were trading at $46.80. Film companies like Kodak saw costs go through the roof, while the British film producer, Ilford, was forced to lay off workers. Traditional bullion dealers, caught in a squeeze, cried foul to the commodity exchanges, and the New York jewelry house Tiffany & Co. took out a full page ad in the New York Times slamming the “unconscionable” Hunt brothers. They were right to single out the Hunts; in mid-January, they controlled 69% of all the silver futures contracts on the Commodity Exchange (COMEX) in New York.
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Source: New York Times

But as the high prices persisted, new silver began to come out of the woodwork.
“In the U.S., people rifled their dresser drawers and sofa cushions to find dimes and quarters with silver content and had them melted down,” says Pirrong, from the University of Houston. “Silver is a classic part of a bride’s trousseau in India, and when prices got high, women sold silver out of their trousseaus.”
According to a Washington Post article published that March, the D.C. police warned residents of a rash of home burglaries targeting silver.
Unfortunately for the Hunts, all this new supply had a predictable effect. Rather than close out their contracts, short sellers suddenly found it was easier to get their hands on new supplies of silver and deliver.
“The main factor that has caused corners to fail [throughout history] is that the manipulator has underestimated how much will be delivered to him if he succeeds [at] raising the price to artificial levels,” says Pirrong. “Eventually, the Hunts ran out of money to pay for all the silver that was thrown at them.”
In financial terms, the brothers had a large corpse on their hands—and no way to bury it.
This proved to be an especially big problem, because it wasn’t just the Hunt fortune that was on the line. Of the $6.6 billion worth of silver the Hunts held at the top of the market, the brothers had “only” spent a little over $1 billion of their own money. The rest was borrowed from over 20 banks and brokerage houses.
At the same time, COMEX decided to crack down. On January 7, 1980, the exchange’s board of governors announced that it would cap the size of silver futures exposure to 3 million ounces. Those in excess of the cap (say, by the tens of millions) were given until the following month to bring themselves into compliance. But that was too long for the Chicago Board of Trade exchange, which suspended the issue of any new silver futures on January 21. Silver futures traders would only be allowed to square up old contracts.
Predictably, silver prices began to slide. As the various banks and other firms that had backed the Hunt bullion binge began to recognize the tenuousness of their financial position, they issued margin calls, asking the brothers to put up more money as collateral for their debts. The Hunts, unable to sell silver lest they trigger a panic, borrowed even more. By early March, futures contracts had fallen to the mid-$30 range.
Matters finally came to a head on March 25, when one of the Hunts’ largest backers, the Bache Group, asked for $100 million more in collateral. The brothers were out of cash, and Bache was unwilling to accept silver in its place, as it had been doing throughout the month. With the Hunts in default, Bache did the only thing it could to start recouping its losses: it start to unload silver.
On March 27, “Silver Thursday,” the silver futures market dropped by a third to $10.80. Just two months earlier, these contracts had been trading at four times that amount.
The Aftermath
After the oil bust of the early 1980s and a series of lawsuits polished off the remainder of the Hunt brothers’ once historic fortune, the two declared bankruptcy in 1988. Bunker, who had been worth an estimated $16 billion in the 1960s, emerged with under $10 million to his name. That’s not exactly chump change, but it wasn’t enough to maintain his 500-plus stable of horses,.
The Hunts almost dragged their lenders into bankruptcy too—and with them, a sizable chunk of the U.S. financial system. Over twenty financial institutions had extended over a billion dollars in credit to the Hunt brothers. The default and resulting collapse of silver prices blew holes in balance sheets across Wall Street. A privately orchestrated bailout loan from a number of banks allowed the brothers to start paying off their debts and keep their creditors afloat, but the markets and regulators were rattled.
Silver Spot Prices Per Ounce (January, 1979 - June, 1980)
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Source: Trading Economics

In the words of then CFTC chief James Stone, the Hunts’ antics had threatened to punch a hole in the “financial fabric of the United States” like nothing had in decades. Writing about the entire episode a year later, Harper’s Magazine described Silver Thursday as “the first great panic since October 1929.”
The trouble was not over for the Hunts. In the following years, the brothers were dragged before Congressional hearings, got into a legal spat with their lenders, and were sued by a Peruvian mineral marketing company, which had suffered big losses in the crash. In 1988, a New York City jury found for the South American firm, levying a penalty of over $130 million against the Hunts and finding that they had deliberately conspired to corner the silver market.
Surprisingly, there is still some disagreement on that point.
Bunker Hunt attributed the whole affair to the political motives of COMEX insiders and regulators. Referring to himself later as “a favorite whipping boy” of an eastern financial establishment riddled with liberals and socialists, Bunker and his brother, Herbert, are still perceived as martyrs by some on the far-right.
“Political and financial insiders repeatedly changed the rules of the game,” wrote the New American. “There is little evidence to support the ‘corner the market’ narrative.”
Though the Hunt brothers clearly amassed a staggering amount of silver and silver derivatives at the end of the 1970s, it is impossible to prove definitively that market manipulation was in their hearts. Maybe, as the Hunts always claimed, they just really believed in the enduring value of silver.
Or maybe, as others have noted, the Hunt brothers had no idea what they were doing. Call it the stupidity defense.
“They’re terribly unsophisticated,” an anonymous associated was quoted as saying of the Hunts in a Chicago Tribune article from 1989. “They make all the mistakes most other people make,” said another.
p.s. credit to Ben Christopher
​

I know what you're already thinking. Playboy is a dead porn brand that publishes a magazine and doesn't appeal to millennials or gen z right?
Wrong.
Leadership
Let's start with Ben Kohn, the CEO. Kohn has worked in private equity for 25 years and started a firm called Rizvi Travers which invested in pre IPO tech companies. They were the largest investor when Twitter went public and invested in Facebook, Snapchat, Square, SpaceX, Instacart, and Uber.
In 2011, Kohn partnered with Hugh Hefner and took Playboy private. Kohn became the CEO in 2017 with the goal of revitalizing one of the largest, most recognizable brands in the world. Since becoming CEO, Kohn has been shutting down most of the legacy business and most recently discontinued producing a domestic magazine. He's focused most of his attention so far on growing the high margin licensing business and direct to consumer business, transforming Playboy into a consumer lifestyle brand focusing on 4 categories:

• Sexual Wellness
• Style & Apparel
• Gaming & Lifestyle
• Beauty & Grooming

Kohn is also placing a strong emphasis on appealing to women and young people, something that Playboy had never done in the past. Over the last 3 years, the female audience has grown by 70% and 90% of their audience today is under the age of 40. Out of the total e-commerce sales, 40% of customers are women.
Financials
Playboy is already a profitable business. They have a highly efficient, high margin business model that accelerates with growth.
For the first 9 months of 2020, Playboy grew revenue by 78% from 57 million to 101 million and grew adjusted ebitda 129% from 9.5 million to 22 million. For 2021, they reaffirmed guidance of 167 million of revenue and 40 million dollars of ebitda. By 2025, Playboy is conservatively projecting 296 million of revenue and 140 million in ebitda, but expects it to be much greater. It's also important to note that they have over 400 million of forward booked minimum guaranteed cash flow, but they only recognize 67 million of that today, so the actual revenue numbers are much higher.
Playboy's business is monetized in two primary ways, licensing and direct to consumer. Licensing is a key part of the revenue stream and they anticipate it more than doubling moving forward. However, Playboy is extremely excited about its growing direct to consumer business as well which I will dive into in the next section.
Growth
Playboy has huge growth opportunities in each of their 4 product categories. First I want to point out that Playboy is HUGE in China and it's growing rapidly in India. In China, Playboy is one of the leading men's apparel brands with over 2500 brick and mortar stores and over 1000 e-commerce stores. Playboy sells products in over 180 countries and is the 17th most licensed brand in the world.
Style & Apparel:
Over the last 3 years, Playboy has partnered with Pacsun, Misguided, Supreme, and others. The Pacsun and Misguided businesses have increased almost 15x over the last 3 years. Playboy also launched Playboy Labs and partnered with Steve Aoki to promote the brand. Playboy intends on transitioning this business from a pure licensing business to a direct to consumer business going forward. They have future collaborations with Yandy planned as well.
Sexual Wellness:
The sexual wellness category is a 240 billion dollar industry today and is projected to grow to 400 billion by 2024. Currently, the industry is fragmented and made up of small businesses with no ability to scale. Playboy is poised to become the leader in this category through strategic acquisitions of existing companies and by growing its product offerings. Yes, I'm talking about lingerie, condoms, sex toys etc. They recently acquired the sexual wellness retailer Lovers for 25 million and expect them to add 45 million in revenue over the next 12 months. They are planning on making more strategic acquisitions in this space moving forward to become the leading direct to consumer brand in this field. They also began offering online sexual wellness classes for women, which have seen large growth since inception.
Gaming & Lifestyle:
The growth opportunities in this category are huge. Playboy is diversifying into online gambling, mobile gaming, CBD/Marijuana, and virtual reality. They have a social club/poker room opening in Houston this year in addition to their casino in London. They currently have partnerships with Microgaming as well as Scientific Games for mobile gambling apps like slots and poker, with plans to build more. They are also planning on entering the sports gambling market through partnerships with well known sports betting operators.
Moreover, they recently launched an exclusive furniture collection on Wayfair and plan on offering more in the future. They currently offer 3 CBD products and have plans to enter the legal marijuana market when it's legalized at the federal level, which might happen soon under the Biden administration. As of now they sell Playboy branded smoking materials like ash trays and grinders. They are planning on launching 4 more CBD products in 2021. Lastly, Ben Kohn said that experiencing Playboy through a virtual world format is something that is "extremely interesting to us". He gave an example of the Travis Scott and Unreal Platform collaboration.
Beauty and Grooming:
Currently, Playboy offers men's and women's fragrances and color cosmetics in Europe. They have plans to expand their product line and enter the North American market this year. In China, a place where Playboy has a large market presence, Men's grooming is one of the fastest growing categories and an area that Playboy is not in today. They are planning on entering this market in the near future with Playboy branded skincare and grooming products.
SPAC Merger
Playboy has a DA with Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp, $MCAC, with the shareholder vote taking place THIS TUESDAY 2/9/21. Once it's approved, the ticker will change to PLBY shortly after. One of the great things about this deal is that there are absolutely no warrants outstanding, meaning there will be very little dilution. They only have 1/10th of a right per share outstanding which automatically convert to common stock. Upon completion of the merger, PLBY will have only 37 million shares outstanding, which is a very low float. Any increase in volume and demand will send the stock price higher.
After the merger, PLBY will have a market cap of approximately 413 million. For comparison to other global brands, Nike's market cap is 185 billion, Disney's is 329 billion, and Lululemon's is 45 billion. Now I'm not saying Playboy is near those companies today. However, if they continue growing and realize their potential, they're massively undervalued.
Additionally, the management team all signed 12-month lock ups, preventing them from selling for at least one year. This is not a transaction sale, but a true capital raise to accelerate growth. They are in this for the long haul.
Conclusion
Playboy has big growth opportunities in multiple product categories to become a leading consumer lifestyle brand. They have a high margin profitable business model and a very healthy balance sheet. They have 100 million in free cash right now and only 40 million in net debt, or one times 2021 adjusted ebitda. They already have global brand awareness and the bunny logo alone has tremendous value. Ceo Ben Kohn knows what he's doing and has a proven track record of success.
It might be flying under the radar right now because all the hype is surrounding GME and EV socks. I believe when the ticker changes to PLBY and people realize that Playboy is no longer what it used to be, this has huge long term upside.
FYI: All of the statistics I mentioned are directly taken from the CEO Ben Kohn in his 1 hour webinar interview with SpacInsider.
Disclosure: Long 500 commons $MCAC
Disclaimer: Do your own due diligence too

Received some PMs requesting the book list I recommended from ages ago. Full list is below
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Mathematics/statistics of games, gambling, and sports

• The Psychology of Thoroughbred Handicapping: Lessons and Valuable Insights by Thomas Wilson
• The Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic by Richard Epstein
• Mathematics of Games and Gambling by Edward Packel
• Taking Chances: Winning With Probability by John Haigh
• The Wages of Wins: Taking Measure of the Many Myths of Modern Sport
• The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky
• Calculated Bets by Steven Skiena
• Bet With The Best by Andrew Beyer
• The Zen of Gambling: Lessons from the World's Greatest Gamblers by Paul Pease
• Gambling Wizards: Conversations With The World's Greatest Gamblers by Richard Munchkin
• No Limit Hold 'Em: Theory and Practice by David Sklansky
• Fortune's Formula by William Poundstone
• Moneyball by Michael Lewis

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Developing a cognitive edge and avoiding decision-making errors: perception, intuition, judgment, pattern recognition, how experts become experts

• Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions by Gary Klein
• The Thinker's Toolkit: 14 Powerful Techniques for Problem Solving By A Former CIA Analyst by Morgan Jones
• The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force by Jeffrey Schwartz
• Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart by Gerd Gigerenzer
• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
• The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance by Anders Ericsson et al.
• Intuition: Its Powers and Perils
• Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
• Educating Intuition
• The Art of Contrary Thinking
• A Technique for Producing Ideas
• Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes
• Descartes Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain by Antonio D'Amasio
• Mind Wide Open by Steven Johnson
• The Origin of Consciousness in the Bicamerality of the Human Mind
• The New Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain by Betty

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Incentives of Management and People Generally

• Freakonomics by Steven Levitt
• Aligning The Stars by Thomas Tierney
• Foundations of Organizational Strategy by Michael Jensen
• The Magic of Rapport by Jerry Richardson
• The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz
• The Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod
• Molecules of Emotion by Candace Pert
• The Art of War by Sun Tzu
• Investment Intelligence from Insider Trading by Nejat Seyhun
• The Vital Few vs. The Trivial Many

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Patterns of industry and company change/evolution

• The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen
• The Innovator's Solution by Clayton Christensen
• Seeing What's Next by Clayton Christensen
• Competition Demystified by Bruce Greenwald
• The Origin and Evolution of New Businesses by Amar Bhide
• Value Migration by Adrian Slywotzky
• The Economics of Strategy

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How to identify great companies, competitive advantage, and great managements

• Profit Patterns: How To Anticipate and Profit from Strategic Forces Reshaping Your Business by Adrian Slywotzky
• The Art of Profitability by Adrian Slywotzky
• Granularity of Growth: How to Identify the Sources of Growth That Drive
• Enduring Performance by Patrick Viguerie
• The Profit Zone: How Strategic Business Design Will Lead You To Tomorrow's Profits by Adrian Slywotzky
• How To Grow When Markets Don't by Adrian Slywotzky
• The Breakthrough Imperative: How the Best Managers Get Outstanding Results by Mark Gottfredson
• How Digital Is Your Business by Adrian Slywotzky
• Good to Great by Jim Collins
• Built to Last by Jim Collins et al
• Management Tools 2007 by Darrell Rigby
• The Price Advantage by Michael Marn
• The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth by Fred Reicheld
• Mergers: Leadership, Performance, and Corporate Health by David Fubini
• Mastering the Merger: Four Critical Decisions that Make or Break the Deal by Sam Rovit
• Blue Ocean Strategy: How To Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant
• How Customers Think: Essential Insights Into The Mind of the Market
• The Loyalty Effect by Fred Reicheld
• Winning by Jack Welch
• Creative Destruction by Richard Foster
• Unstoppable: Finding Hidden Assets To Renew the Core and Fuel Profitable Growth by Chris Zook
• Winning: The Answers: Confronting 74 of the Toughest Questions in Business Today by Jack and Suzie Welch
• Jack Welch and the 4 E's of Leadership by Jeffrey Krames
• Jack: Straight from the Gut by Jack Welch
• Lessons from Private Equity Any Company Can Use by Orit Gadiesh
• The Warren Buffet CEO: Secrets from the Berkshire Hathaway Managers
• Essay of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America by Lawrence Cunningham

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Bottom fishing/distress/special situations

• Spin-off to Pay-off: An Analysis Guide to Investing in Corporate Divestitures by Joseph Cornell
• You Can Be A Stock Market Genius by Joel Greenblatt
• The Vulture Investors by Hilary Rosenberg
• Risk Arbitrage by Keith Moore
• Distressed Debt Analysis by Stephen Moyer
• Creating Value Through Corporate Restructuring by Stuart Gilson
• Corporate Financial Distress and Bankruptcy by Edward Altman

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Case studies of corporate/investing/personal failure

• When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long Term Capital Management by Roger Lowenstein
• Why Smart Executives Fail and What You Can Learn From Their Mistakes by Sydney Finkelstein

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Forensic accounting and understanding the numbers

• It's Earnings That Count by Hewitt Heisermann
• Financial Fine Print by Michelle Leder
• Profits You Can Trust: Spotting and Surviving Accounting Landmines
• Hidden Financial Risk: Understanding Off Balance Sheet Accounting
• Creative Cash Flow Reporting by Charles Mulford
• The Financial Numbers Game: Detecting Creative Accounting Practices by Charles Mulford
• Financial Shenanigans by Howard Schilit

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How to analyze countries and economies

• Tomorrow's Gold by Marc Faber
• A Bull in China: Investing Profitably in the World's Greatest Market by Jim Rogers
• The Power of Prodcuctivity by William lewis
• Dangerous Markets: Managing in Financial Crises
• The Demise of the Dollar
• The Dollar Crisis
• The Economics of Inflation by Constantino Bresciani
• A History of Interest Rates by Sidney Homer
• The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History by David Fischer
• Bull's Eye Investing by John Mauldin
• Adventure Capitalist by Jim Rogers
• Investment Biker by Jim Rogers
• Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
• The Competitive Advantage of Nations by Michael Porter

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How to read people and situations between the lines

• Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings by Paul Ekman
• Never Be Lied to Again: How to Get the Truth in 5 Minutes or Less in Any Conversation by David Lieberman
• You Can Read Anyone by David Lieberman

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Meditation/yoga

• Zen in the Art of Archery
• Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Ghunaratana
• Prana Pranayama Prana Vidya (don't let the scary title fool you. It's user friendly and in english)
• The Light on Pranayama: the Yogic Art of Breathing by BKS Iyengar
• Light on Life by BKS Iyengar
• Yoga and the Quest for the True Self by Stephen Cope
• Moola Bandha: The Master Key
• Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man by Gopi Krishna

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Markets and crowd behavior

• The Wisdom of Crowds James Suriowecki
• Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles MacKay
• Manias, Panics, and Crashes by Charles Kindleberger
• The Crowd by Gustave le Bon
• A Short History of Financial Euphoria by John Kenneth Galbraith
• Fooled by Randomness by Nicholas Taleb
• Speculation as a Fine Art and Thoughts on Life
• The Inefficient Stock Market by Robert Haugen
• The New Finance by Robert Haugen
• Beyond the Random Walk: A Guide to Stock Market Inefficiencies and Low-Risk Investing by Vijay Singal

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Short Selling

• The Art of Short Selling by Kathryn Staley
• How to Make Money Selling Stocks Short by William O'Neil

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Biographies of great investors and value-creating CEO's/founders

• No Bull: My Life In and Out of Markets by Michael Steinhardt
• Julian Robertson: A Tiger in the Land of Bulls and Bears by Daniel Strachman
• King Icahn by Mark Stevens
• Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson
• Only the Paranoid Survice by Andy Grove
• John Neff on Investing by John Neff
• Buffet: The Making of an American Capitalist
• Damn Right: Behind the Scenes with Charlie Munger by Janet Lowe
• Poor Charlie's Almanack by Charles Munger
• The Making of a Blockbuster: How Wayne Huizenga Built A Sports and Entertainment Empire from
• Trash, Grit, and Videotape by Gail DeGeorge
• Cable Cowboy: John Malone and the Rise of the Modern Cable Business by Mark Robichaux
• The Mind of Wall Street by Leon Levy
• Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire by Michael Kaufman
• The Man Who Beats the S&P: Investing with Bill Miller by Janet Lowe
• In An Uncertain World by Robert Rubin
• Bill Gross on Investing by Bill Gross
• The Bond King: Investment Secrets from PIMCO's Bill Gross by Timothy Middleton

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Surveys of various investment styles/philosophies

• Hedge Hunters by Katherine Burton
• The New Investment Superstars
• Money Masters of Our Time
• Inside the House of Money by Steven Drobny
• Masters of the Universe: Winning Strategies of America's Greatest Dealmakers by Daniel Kadlec
• Investment Gurus by Peter Tanous
• Investment Visionaries: A Roadmap to Wealth from the World's Greatest Money Managers by Peter Tanous
• Value Investing with the Masters by Kirk Kazanjian
• Market Wizards by Jack Schwager
• The New Market Wizards by Jack Schwager
• Stock Market Wizards by Jack Schwager

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Financial history/commentary/anecdotes

• Bull!: A History of the Boom 1982-1999
• Against the Gods: the Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter Bernstein
• Supermoney by Adam Smith
• More Than You Know: Finding Financial Wisdom in Unconventional Places
• The Battle for Investment Survival
• The New Financial Order
• Hedgehogging by Barton Biggs
• Winning on Wall Street by Martin Zweig

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Psychology of Investing and Trading

• Psychology of Trading: Tools and Techniques for Minding the Markets
• Trading In The Zone: Master the Market with Confidence, Discipline, and Winning Attitude
• The Disciplined Trader: Developing Winning Attitudes
• Lessons from the Greatest Stock Traders of All Time by John Boik
• The Education of a Speculator by Victor Niederhoffer
• Psychology of Risk by Ari Kiev
• Trading to Win by Ari Kiev

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How to structure and interpret information/data

• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte
• Supercrunchers: Why Thinking By Numbers is the New Way to be Smart by Ian Ayres
• Visual and Statistical Thinking: Displays of Evidence for Decision Making by Edward Tufte
• Envisioning Information by Edward Tufte

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Value Investing and Valuation

• Valuation: Measuring and Managing the Value of Companies by Tom Copeland
• The Rediscovered Benjamin Graham: Selected Writings of the Wall Street Master
• The Dhando Investor by Mohnish Pabrai
• Hyperprofits by David Goodman
• The Triumph of Contrarian Investing
• The Entrepreneurial Investor by Paul Orfalea
• Contrarian Investment Strategies by David Dreman
• Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits by Phil Fisher
• The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
• The Warren Buffet Way by Robert Hagstrom
• The Warren Buffet Portfolio by Robert Hagstrom
• The Essential Buffet by Robert Hagstrom
• Super Stocks by Ken Fisher
• The Inefficient Stock Market
• Wall Street on Sale by Timothy Vick
• In The Shadows of Wall Street: A Guide to Investing in Neglecting Stocks
• How to Beat the Market with High Performance Generic Stocks
• The Little Book that Beats the Market by Joel Greenblatt
• The Focus Investor
• Counterintuitive Investing
• A Non Random Walk Down Wall Street
• Stock Market Logic by Norman Fosback
• Margin of Safety by Seth Klarman
• Mosaic: Perspectives on Value Investing
• Contrarian Investing: Buy and Sell When Others Won't
• Expectations Investing
• The 5 Keys to Value Investing by Dennis Jean-Jeacques
• Value Investing: A Balanced Approach by Martin Whitman
• The Aggressive Conversative Investor by Martin Whitman
• Value Investing: From Graham and Buffet and Beyong by Bruce Greenwald
• The Little Book of Value Investing by Christopher Browne
• One Up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch
• Beating the Street by Peter Lynch

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Understanding price and volume action

• Studies in Tape Reading by Richard Wyckoff
• Tape Reading and Market Tactics by Humphrey Neil
• Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Jesse Livermore
• How To Trade in Stocks by Jesse Livermore
• Monster Stocks: How They Set Up, Run Up, Top and Make You Money by John Boik
• How I Made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market by Nicholas Darvas
• How To Make Money in Stocks by William O'Neil
• Way of the Turtle by Curtis Faith
• Trend Following by Michael Covel

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Books from other disciplines which provide thought-provoking models/metaphors for investing/business

• Linked: How Everything Is Connected To Everything Else and What It Means by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi
• Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software by Steven Johnson
• Psychology of the Future: Lessons from Modern Consciousness Research by Stanislav Grof

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Some good books for understanding specific industries

• Why We buy by Paco Underhill
• Value Creation: Strategies for the Chemical Industry by Florian Budde
• Achieving Excellence in Retail Banking by Reinhold Leichtfub
• Entertainment Industry Economics by Harold Vogel

1-800-SUPER takes place in the moderately nearish future of 2056. You have recently been hired by a hotline for superheroes and supervillains. You got hired thanks to your stunning, though typo filled, application...and because nobody else applied. The hotline has been redirected to your cellphone. You will help guide the heroes and villains. However, you must also mind the balance between good and evil. Maxing out the meter on either end will result in bad things. If there is too much good, then the city will be turn into a surveillance police state where the superheroes rule as autocratic dictators. If, on the other hand, there is too much evil, then the city will descend into anarchy, and the villains will have free reign. Each choice you make will impact the balance, so choose wisely.
I was approached to review 1-800-SUPER by Markus Witzlhofer. He contacted me on behalf of Pangolin Park; a small indie company based in Berlin. They had come out with an interactive audio drama game, and were wondering if I'd be up for reviewing it. He also mentioned that the team were all fans of my blog. As I've mentioned before, I'm a big fan of interactive media, especially Choose Your Own Adventure-type games. Adding an audio component seemed like the next logical step for interactive media. I happily said yes, and Markus sent me a free download code. The game is $2.99 for the rest of you, but honestly, I'd say that's a fair price for the quality and replay potential of this game.
I've already talked about the general mechanics of the gameplay, but let's talk specifics. This is a mobile game available from the App Store. The home screen of the game looks like the interface of an iPhone. You have an email app where the heroes and villains will send you emails about how your advice turned out. You'll also get news emails if the heroes or villains caused collateral damage as a result of your advice. I should mention that the amount of collateral damage you cause doesn't affect anything, other than pushing your meter more towards the evil side. You'll also get emails from Mr. Souls, your hotline mentor. He'll give you tips and tricks to help you out.
There's a notes app that gives basic information on each of the heroes and villains you encounter; their names, strengths, weakness, archenemies, and their mental diagnosis. Be sure you read all of this and keep it in mind; it will be important later in the game. There's a music app so you can listen to some music while you work and wait for calls. You also have a Twixta, the in-universe equivalent of Twitter, app. It lets you keep tabs on the various heroes and villains, even ones who don't call you. It also helps you influence the balance between good and evil. You can like or thumbs down tweets. Like three tweets that lean good, or dislike three that lean evil, let's you move the meter slightly towards good. Doing the reverse tips the meter slightly towards evil. You can even do a combination of liking and disliking as long as you get three tweets that lean in the same direction.
Finally, there is the meditation app. Just press it, if you don't have anything better to do, and the next thing you know you'll be receiving a call. Otherwise, you'll get calls at random while you do stuff and wait around; though usually you don't have to wait long.
Okay, now let's discuss the story itself. There are two distinct aspects to the story. First, there's the main plotline involving Ear. He's blind, but his superhearing more than makes up for that. He's a hero, but isn't above using harsh tactics and roughing up is opponents, so I guess that makes him an antihero. He's the first hero you help and the only hero you help multiple times. The main plot with Ear is kicked off when another hero named Scarab is murdered. He's a hero who has the power to grant good luck to other people, but can't bring any luck to himself. In fact, he's been plagued by terrible luck his entire life, and is living on the street when he gives you a call. It only just now occurred to me that it's pretty weird that he was able to call me despite being homeless. Did payphones make a comeback by 2056? I mean, I guess he could have asked to borrow someone's cellphone. In the grand scheme of things, I suppose it isn't important.
Scarab and Ear grew up in the same orphanage, and Ear considers Scarab his oldest and closest friend. Scarab's death hits Ear hard, and he makes it his personal vendetta to find Scarab's killers and bring them to justice. You have the option to tell him to work alone or team up with other heroes, but this doesn't affect the plot of Ear's storyline. As a side note, sometimes the option you get for answers aren't good answer vs evil answer, but polite answer vs jerk answer. I could never pick the jerk answers with Scarab. He's such a nice guy, despite everything he's been through, and I just felt so sorry for him. That was especially bad from my second play-though onwards, because I knew what was going to happen to him, no matter what I did. And apparently he's the third person to wield the power of the Scarab. Apparently it passes between individuals, though he has yet to find a successor. Actually, looking back now, certain bit of dialogue he gives suggest he knew his time on this mortal coil was about to expire. I wish there had been an option to somehow give him a hug.
We'll get back to Ear in a minute. For now, let's talk about the other characters. We'll start with the ones that are the most important later in the game. Why is this? Well, let's wait until the spoiler section for that. For now, I'd like to take a moment to praise the artwork and character design. The artwork looks like something out of a professional comic book. It's just static images, no animation, but very well drawn static images. One aspect that I particularly like is that the characters all feel genuinely original. They aren't just thinly-veiled versions of pre-existing superheroes and supervillains. Well, for the most part anyway. They feel like original organically created characters with their own backstories and personalities.
Also, the voice acting is absolutely phenomenal. I'm not familiar with any of the voice actors, though a few, such as Ear, sounded somewhat familiar, just can't think why that is. Anyway, though I'm not familiar with the voice actors, they all did excellent jobs. I see bright voice acting futures for them all. Despite the game being designed by a German company, the voice actors are all American. I suppose that's fitting, as many have noted that superheroes are something of a uniquely American phenomenon. You don't really see superheroes from other countries unless they're consciously modeled off of American superheroes. The only exception to that rule I've encountered is Japan, where you have stuff like Super Sentai/Power Rangers, Sailor Moon, and various mecha series.
I've always wondered why Europe never really developed its own superheroes. You could argue that many heroes of Victorian penny dreadfuls were proto-superheroes of a type. My guess is that the cynicism that resulted from enduring two world wars soured European readers on the idea of superheroes. Britain tried to produce superhero comics in the 1960s, but they quickly fizzled out. France has a very robust comic book industry in every genre but superheroes. It's interesting to speculate, but we're getting off-topic.
Our first hero of note is Mister Shine & Sparkle. He's got a power set and costume evocative of Superman, but couldn't be more different in terms of personality. He's an arrogant showboating prima donna who cares more about his social media following than actually saving people. There are a few timed decisions throughout the game, and he's one of them. You have to decide if you want him to put down the phone and be a hero, or use his current crisis as an opportunity for streaming to his followers
The next notable hero is Blood Sister. She's a vampire, but uses her powers to fight crime. Though she's constantly having to fight the urge to give into her primal instincts. You'll have to decide if you should let her take a bite of the delivery boy. She claims to have ordered a rare steak, but if you do encourage her bite the delivery boy, you'll get an email from the local pizzeria about how they have a job opening due to one of their delivery boys mysterious disappearing. Maybe it was a fancy pizzeria that also offers steak? Or maybe the delivery boy was struggling to make ends meet and was working for multiple restaurants? Or maybe "rare steak" was a euphemism. Though, if you do encourage Blood Sister to bite the delivery boy, the end credits will mention that a pair of vampire hunter named Van H. and Simon B. are sharpening their stakes. I guess Buffy S. had prior engagements.
Interestingly, she's one of the only heroes with more than two potential endings to her call. You can tell her to leave the delivery boy alone, tell her to bite him, or tell her to rob a blood bank instead. Though, only tells her to note bite the delivery boy, and nothing else, results in Blood Sister learnibg to controlling during ending during the credits. More about the credits in a bit.
Our third person of note is Dr. Know How. Imagine Tony Stark, only he's a villain rather than a hero, and that's Dr. Know How. He's got the most options, out of all the characters, for how his call turns out. Depending on which way you tell him to drive his car he'll encounter either Sakura Flame or Pool Boy. You can help him get away from Pool Boy by converting his car to flight mode and flying to the Moon, or by running over Sakura Flame. Alternatively, you can have him try to reason with the heroes. Sakura Flame will torch him, but getting covered in third degree burns will convince Dr. Know How to turn his life around and use his inventions for good.
If he confronts Pool Boy, he will drown...and then turn his life around and use his inventions for good. Uh, how could he turn his life around if he's dead? That is particularly odd given that Dr. Know How has three possible ending for the credits; confronting Pool Boy or Sakura Flame being the only option that lead to the same outcome. Seems like there was lack of proofreading during the script writing. But let us move along.
Fast Justice doesn't have superpowers, but that doesn't stop him from enacting justice fighting against the criminal underworld. If only he weren't complete and utterly insane. I got some Kick-Ass vibes from Fast Justice. He certainly looks like something out of a Mark Miller comic. Fast Justice does make at least some good points. He's right that Mr. Shine & Sparkle probably shouldn't be considered a hero purely because he has superpowers. Unfortunately, Fast Justice being completely batshit crazy, and having a completely black and white outlook on life, undermines these points. You know, now that I think about it, in terms of mentality he isn't too different than Rorschach from Watchmen.
Alpha Nukleus is some sort of cosmic entity who has chosen to take human form. This hasn't helped him connect with humanity. In fact, he feels lonely and isolated, because he feels nobody can truly understand him. He's decided to destroy his human shell, which will have the nasty side effect of irradiating millions of people. You must decide if you let him go through with it, or tell the other heroes to stop him. I recall a hero from Astro City, named Atomicus, who was somewhat similar Alpha Nukleus. Not sure if it was intention or coincidence, but if the former, good on the team behind this game. Astro City is an awesome comic book series; I can't recommend it enough.
On one play through, I think the game glitched and I got a call from Alpha Nukleus before Ear made his first call. I told him to break his shell, as I'd already picked the other option, and I was curious what would happen. Million were bathed in radiation, but Mr. Souls sent me an email congratulating me on a fantastic first day, as he usually does after Ear calls for the first time. I repeat, millions of people received massive radiation exposer because of me, probably fatally so, and Mr. Souls considered that a good first day. Well, he did say it was less about right vs wrong, and more about keeping the balance. It may have been a glitch, but was a damn hilarious glitch.
Imagine Cthulhu, only he's an evil business mogul, and that pretty much Vlad Xthul. He wants to expand his business empire, but is having trouble navigating modern social mores. Specifically, he wants to knockout the competition, namely Dr. Know How. You can tell him to either buyout the company, or have him break Dr. Know How's leg. If you pick the first, it will encourage Vlad Xthul to go into politics, and he will be elected president of the Atlantic Union...which is a thing by 2056. I'm guessing it's a union of North America and Europe. Of course, as Ear notes, he can't be much worse than the politicians they already have.
Our last person of note among the really significant characters is Luzida. She has the power to enter people's dreams. Lately, however, she's been plagued by dark visions ever time she goes to sleep. She tried to stay awake as long as possible, and the waters look so inviting. No matter how many times I played this game, I could never tell Luzida to go in the water. I just felt so bad for her, and I couldn't coerce her into potentially committing suicide. I know that seems odd, given that I encouraged Alpha Nukleus and Sakura Flame to kill millions of people just to see what would happen. Well, you know what they say; one is a tragedy, a million is a statistic. And in my defense, the game doesn't try very hard to make you care about killing that many people. Luzida winds up teaming up with Ear later in the game. This will be important later on.
Okay, those are all the characters who will be important later in the game. As such, they're the ones you are mostly likely to encounter, though you won't get all of them in one play though. We will discuss why this is in the spoilers section. Oh, but we aren't done talking heroes and villains just yet. This next batch are mostly just there to help you adjust your karma meter, but they're still pretty fascinating in their own right.
First up is Sakura Flame. We've already briefly discussed her, but her issue is that the other heroes give her no respect. The supervillain Glaze has frozen the city's pipes, and poor Sakura Flame has to thaw them. She's planning on getting revenge on the other heroes by "accidentally" blowing up an oil refinery while she tries to take down Glaze. As previously mentioned, should you encourage her to do so, millions will die in the explosion. Personally, I'm still surprised they have oil by 2056. Also, millions die in the explosion? Just how densely populated is this city? Interesting fact, Sakura Flame was not part or the original release of 1-800-SUPER, but was added in a later update. I'm also slightly confused by her name. I get the flame bit, but why sakura. She doesn't have pink hair, she isn't Japanese, and she doesn't have a cherry blossom motif.
Glaze is also a character you can encounter. He is pretty much the living embodiment of cold. His mother was a glacier and his father was a sea of ice. However, as his power grows, the planet's ice caps shrink, and global warming certainly isn't helping matters. He wants to conquer Antarctica, but is it worth potentially sacrificing his parents? I wouldn't think it would be terribly hard to conquer Antarctica; nobody there but a few temporary scientists, and of course the penguins and leopard seals. Well, unless people have been establishing colonies in Antarctica by 2056.
Timelooper is trying to get out of the hero business. She has the power to time travel and rewind time. However, every time she does this a miniature black hole opens shortly afterwards. They collapse before long, but they do cause collateral damage. She's on a flight to her new life, but wouldn't you know it, Dr. Know How has decided to bomb the plane. Will you encourage Timelooper to use her powers, despite the risk, or take a gamble on Mister Shine and Sparkle actually showing up to help? You can have Timelooper rewind time, stop Dr. Know How, but then a building gets sucked into a black hole. However, if you tell her to rewind time, wait to see what happens, which enviably puts you back at square one, and then call Mister Shine and Sparkle, it will be treated as though Timelooper never used her powers.
Geist.app is an A.I. that is on the run, metaphorically speaking, from its creators. They fear it will turn evil, but Geist.app just wants to preserve its existence. You must decide if it should keep a low profile, or if it should defend itself by any means necessary, consequences be damned. I liked that Geist.app isn't depicted as evil; just scared, and trying to survive. And if you encourage it to keep a low profile it decides to optimize email speeds; that was nice of it.
Maxwell's Hydra is a cyborg monster serpent, and Ear's sworn nemesis. At one point, Ear even calls you while he's fighting Maxwell's Hydra. Despite the fact that Maxwell's Hyrda gets killed at the end of this call, it can still call you later on. Yeah, this game has some issues with continuity. It can't talk, just roar, but you can still help it out. Give it advice on how to how to treat a sore through and it will turn tame, and fight on the side of the heroes. Dr. Know How will, essentially adopt it and give it regular oil changes. Of course, this end will imply that Dr. Know How turned good, even if your choices result in an ending where he remained a villain.
You also occasionally get calls from people who aren't heroes or villains. Big Bang FM is a news station. They give you information about the happenings of the various heroes and villains. Most of it is irrelevant to the game, and most doesn't involve the heroes and villains you council. Still, some of the stories can be amusing. Speaking of amusing, you can also get people who call you by mistake. One person butt dials you. They don't actually say anything, no matter what you choose, so you can hang up on them without taking a penalty. You can also get a call from a guy who firmly believes that he has called the pizza shop. He will hang up, but you'll get an email from him about how he's leaving a very bad review for the pizza shop. Man, that dude had determination, I'll give him that.
Okay, I think that should be everyone. Now we're going to be discussing the spoilers for the ending of the game. As such, turn back now if you don't want any of that.
Last chance. You sure you want to continue?
Well, okay. If everyone who wants out is gone, let's get into it.
So, Ear discovers a cult who worship Gallion, the Demon of Misfortune. Naturally, they weren't too keen on a good luck charm like Scarab. Turns out that Gallion has taken a human host. Nobody, not even the one hosting Gallion, knows who it is. With some help from Luzida, Ear tracks down the host of Gallion. It is someone the heroes completely trusted, and who had access to them at all times
So, who is this mysterious host...you are! There is no option but to kill yourself so that Gallion will die. If you can't do if yourself, Ear will help you out. At this point, Gallion will reveal itself to you. Gallion will quiz you on the six heroes and villains I mentioned at the start of this review. Get all or most of the questions correct and Gallion will be defeated. Well, after you shoot yourself in the head that is
Against all odd, you survive the whole shooting yourself in the head thing. I like to think that Ear is right, and that Scarab watching out for us from beyond the grave. You'll get a few more emails from Ear, and he will also send you a new music file. Press play on it, and the credits will begin The credits begin by showing how all the heroes and villains you helped fared.
Which endings are good, and which are bad, are a matter of personal perspective. I will say that some of them are counterintuitive. For example, if you let Alpha Nukleus shed his human shell, he'll find a heroine who actually understand him. Stopping him makes him turn hostile to the heroes, and it's clear he still has the capability to do it, and is just licking his wounds for now. Similarly, having Sakura Flame blow up the oil refinery, and kill millions of people, gets her the validation she craves. Convincing her not to causes her to get assigned to a penguin research station in Antarctica, though it is mentioned that she is content and happy. Oh, and this can happen even if you encourage Glaze to take control of Antarctica. Amusingly, even the guy who tried to order pizza gets an ending tell how he is doing.
Mr. Souls ending always has him get promoted to managing a hotline for demigods. Is that hint about a potential future game. Because if so, that sounds like a totally awesome idea. You could have the callers be children of different god; and not just the Greco-Roman gods, you could also have children of the Egyptian, Norse, Japanese, Yoruba, Maya, Celtic, or any other pantheon. Trust me, there is a huge untapped market for a game like that. I will rally the Percy Jackson fandom in an instant if you guys are seriously going to make a game like that. But I'm getting off track again.
You can still look around after the credits, though you won't get any more calls. You will still get emails from heroes and villains remarking on how boring everything is now. I guess it's the game going "You're still here? The game is over, go home." Ear will even decide to leave the city as he feels it no longer needs him. Of course, you can replay the game as you wish. I will say that, after about five or six play throughs, I'd experienced pretty much everything there was to be experienced.
Okay, so overall I greatly enjoy this game, but are there any improvements I would suggest? Well, as I've noted, there are several continuity errors that get downright nonsensical at times. Granted, it didn't bother me too much, but I think it would feel more like the choices had actual consequence if this was fixed. It might also be nice if there were more storylines than just the main one with Ear. Maybe there could be certain events or choices that triggered different storylines. It would add to the replay value of the game. I do hope future updates add more characters, as there are several mentioned in passing, or on Twixta, that sound potentially interesting.
Also, despite the setting supposedly being dystopian, I didn't really see it. Well, other than the whole irradiating millions of people being considered a good first day thing. Yeah, there is collateral damage from fights between heroes and villains, but that hardly makes things dystopian.
Still, overall these are minor criticisms. I was very impressed with 1-800-SUPER, and I had a lot of fun playing it. I'd love to see the world of this game expanded upon either in updates or maybe in a sequel game. And I'd just like to reiterate that you guys really should give thought to making a demigod hotline game. I'm just saying, huge untapped market to cash in on. But getting back on topic, I strongly recommend you download 1-800-SUPER today. Believe me, you will be glad that you did.
Link to the original review on my blog, but it is just the same as what is here: http://drakoniandgriffalco.blogspot.com/2020/12/video-game-review-1-800-super.html?m=1

This is gonna be a really long, rambling post about gacha, gambling, addiction, psychology and ethics. If you want the TL;DR, here it is: Joey and Garnt are at the very least irresponsible influencers, and at the very worst they might have a serious addiction that stems from a low dopamine life-style.
We all most likely watched the episode and know what happened and what was talked by who, but for further context, if you are unaware of anything, even after the memes, on the last episode of Trash Taste Podcast, specifically in the last 40 minutes of it, the Boys discussed (and argued) about the gacha game scene and gambling addiction. You can check it out on the sticky post on the top of the subreddit front page.
To cut it short, Connor argued that gacha games are just as if not more dangerous than actual gambling, specifically for a few reasons. First, it is a game of no return. In real life gambling, you can (fleetingly) get real money back from it, and even make a considerable profit. Gacha games simulate the act of gambling while offering no significant reward or value other than a measle amount of dopamine and a cute character to play with. Secondly, the game is marketed towards older kids, teenagers and young adults on an age range of 12-25 years old, an age group where most individuals are either not mature enough to manage their money safely or even financially independent at all, with most people in this range not even being active members of society yet. Furthermore, the gacha-gambling model is largely unregulated and unsupervised by authority figures, be it responsible adults, laws or any other regulating institution.
To this, Garnt (largely) and Joey (in a lesser but still significant way) responded that, while they agree no one should be able or willing to spend such large amounts in these games, they do not pose significant harm to most people, and even further, can present justifiable value enough to be acceptable in their current forms, with minor changes. At one point, Joey expressed the idea that if these games made it difficult for him to spend money, he would mostly just not play them at all rather than go free-to-play. Garnt attempted to defend the idea that spending on these games was not necessary and going the F2P route was not only possible, but easy. He himself, however, admitted to that not being the case with him.
This is the thick and short of it. Now let me get into the main argument this post is attempting to make.
Connor's position along the entire discussion was entirely and utterly reasonable, and not only that, but even after being soft-gaslighted into being less harsh on his stance, he still was the only one willing to take the problem seriously at all.
Garnt and Joey, kn the other hand, began the discussion with an ironic and memey tone, not taking it at all seriously. When Connor's stance didn't change and his points began hitting a little too close to home, that's when they got defensive of their point and tried to appeal to various fallacious arguments and unbelievable takes. Most notably, Garnt defended that "If you have a problem with gambling or if you have poor self-control, you just should not be playing Gacha Games", which beyond being obvious, is a bonkers thing to say. It would be akin to saying "if you feel depressed or suicidal often, you should just ask for help and not kill yourself" or "if you have a drug problem, maybe don't go buy drugs". It is a statement that hides behind it's obvious correctness to take away attention from the fact that this adds nothing of value at all to the discussion,nor does it make for a suitable defense of the system that gacha ganes operate in.
The first big problem with this entire thing is that the three of them, both in the podcast and with their individual channels, have a great influencing power. Having your opinion, no matter who you are, broadcast to over a few hundred thousand people world-wide is bound to influence or resonate with some of the audience. When the person in question is a respected figure, speaking to an audience of admirers or fans, most of which at a young age, and within a subject matter of interest to the audience, the influence rate will grow even bigger. In this midst, there is statistically no way at least a handful of people didn't watch this episode and felt like they had their actions justified. Add to this that the gacha community at large is either aware but indifferent to the similarities it has to gambling, or straight up defensive of the entire model, and you have a pretty dangerous mixture of things here.
The second issue I see and hope to convey on this matter is that both Garnt and Joey seem unaware of just how scummy and messed up the tactics behind gacha games are. It's not just rate manipulation and constant advertising. The entire development process is centered around creating the perfect space for you to spend copious amounts of money without feeling that you really spent them. It goes so much deeper than just making cute girls to sell you. From the game page on the app store you get it from to the main menu, to the game design, to the in-game systems, to the rates, to the promotions, to the update cycle, to the end game, to the daily challenges, EVERY LITTLE ASPECT of it is engineered to rewire your bain into believing that it's not that bad to spend, and having the desire to do so more often than you reasonably would.
This is a very important one, amd Connor briefly touched on it in his rant. Cassinos, actual gambling places, build and thought to make you spend and lose, are like a glass door compared to the five inch lead wall that is the gacha strategy. They show you the rates at all times. They offer you the option to set yourself a limit. They make you aware that you are spending money, they cap the age at a minimum of 21, they have a lot of systems in place to control bad spenders. Of course, most of those came from law and regulations, but even before that, back in the 18th amd 19th centuries, no normal adult would advocate or defend that 12 to 18 year olds should be able to gamble real money into pieces of paper or cardboard cutouts. So imagine thinking, for even a moment, that what gacha games do is even close to okay. It is not, by any measure, morally, ethically or lawfully, okay.
But it gets worse. Way worse. Here is where I began actually worrying about the boys, in particular Joey and Garnt, the latter most of all.
They seem to actually believe that the above exposed is somehow justifiable based on little doses of dopamine, memories and the abstract idea of "the experience" you get. They compare spending ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS on a game to get TWO DIMENSIONAL IMAGINARY GIRLS to a night out with friends where you spend a hundred dollars in food or drinks.
What the actual f*ck.
This is not just bad. It's really, really bad. It's unreasonably and unbelievably absurd. It nearly collapses the entire concept of reality from just how bad a take this is.
No. No, no, no. NO. In no way, in no conceivable theoretical way, one of those things is comparable to the other. Never. This is the type of thing that depressed people tell themselves to justify self destructive behavior. Spending copious amounts of disposable income into games just to get "a daily dose lf dopamine" going is insane. Just for reference, you can get dopamine for free by doing any of the following:
Exercising
Finishing a task-list
Cleaning your room
Working on a passion project
Playing any sport, specially with friends
Going for a walk with you pet
Having a conversation with a friend or significant other
Having a good meal
Waking up from a good nap
Watching a fun movie
Traveling
Hiking
Riding a bike
Radical sports
Reading a good book
Seeing a long-time relative or friend you missed for a long time
Getting a hug
Having sex
Sleeping cuddled with you SO
Holding hands
Kissing
Watching the sun set/rise
Going to the beach
Camping
Playing an actual good videogame that isn't f*cking Genshin or FGO
This is not an exhaustive list. It's literally just things I thought off the top of my head while writing this. Some of those activities require some money to do, and some are impossible during the pandemic. But most of them are free/cheap and easy to do at home or with little to no contact with anyone.
If getting a good pull in a lootbox virtual casino is the best way you can think of to get any dopamine release, or if that release is so significant to you as to justify spending more money than some people make in a week, then I'm sorry, but you have a serious problem. I mean it. I know the Boys can do most or all of those things listed up there and much more. I know for a fact they are not in a situation of loneliness, vulnerability or isolation, even in the current world situation. So why is it that Garnt thinks gambling is a good solution for boredom in the quarentine? Or why did Joey insinuate that making it harder for him to spend money would just make him drop the game?
And if these two, that as I said are in a very privileged spot of having easy access to healthy ways to produce dopamine and conquer isolation, are having this kind of relationship with these games, what's to say of people around the world, including many of their listeners/viewers, who either live alone and/or have no perspective of a successful career with easy access to basically limitless disposable income like they do? What's to say of the teenagers who spend all night up playing games, watching anime, jerking off and stealing their parents' credit card to buy pulls? What's to say of the depressed university students who have a shitload of debt thrown at them and live an isolated, virtual life right now? What about them?
Joey and Garnt might not have any problem controlling themselves, or have enough money to waste such that a thousand dollars into gachas doesn't feel unreasonable, no matter how actually unreasonable it is. But they are either ignorant of the actual problem, or (and I sure hope I'm completely off on this one) completely unemphatic to their struggles. Because "Just don't play" is not a thing someone with empathy for the gambling addicts would say. Connor was deadass on this one.
And that leads us to the final nail in this horrific, goldplated coffin. The memes.
Yes, the memes.
There are so many memes. Garnt mentioned that "no one memes on the guys going bankrupt" while doing just that for half an hour. The entire gacha culture is basically a serious sociological and psychological problem deep-rooted into the heart of the zoomer generation. And yet it wears a mask mad e of memes, that hides the actual problem under a nearly impenetrable layer of irony, self-pity and depressive jokes. But the subject is not that funny under the magnified lens of a closer look.
The easygoing demeanor with which gacha addicts and casual underaged gamblers treat the entire thing is so light on the mood, so soft on the eyes, that you may just forget that those people might be ruining their lives. It's not a joke. It should not be treated like one. The meme culture around gacha fames has created more gambling addicts among 15 and 16 year olds than any illegal casino would ever dream of. These young people are just laughing away ridiculous sums of money for a teenager to spend, and feeling none of it until it is too late to go back and give up.
I am not trying to guilty trip any of the Boyys here, nor am I accusing them of being apologetic of underage gambling. I'm just trying to put this entire thing under a serious light. Because it needs someone to do so. This post comes from a place of worry and love, not one of disrespect or accusations. I simply want the Boys to look at this in a responsible way.
I might be talking to the walls here. I might really be just shouting in the vacuum. But if I can try to make my voice be listened to, I will. Because I must. If you read all the way down to here, I have two more things to say.
One is: please, do not let the monetization model these games operate in get to you. If you've spent any amount of money on them and feel tempted to continue, I insist you don't. If you have only ever played them without spending, and are still having fun, you're free to do so, but tread carefully.
And the other is: gacha mechanics can ruin much more beyond your financial wisdom. They are actively harmful to the games industry as a whole. Instead of making good games out of passion, these developers are being led to create mediocre games out of greed from the higher ups. If gou care about gaming at all, or if you just give a shit about an industry many people love, I request that you understand why gacha games are a bad sign, and that you spread that awareness, if you can. This is a really important subject to me and I think ut should be to other gamers as well.
Thank you for reading. Have a great day. Save your money.
P.S.: Garnt, Joey and Connor. If you guys read this, I love you and what you do. I listen to this podcast almost religiously, and I really enjoy all of it. Please, take care of yourselves and have a great 2021. Peace. (This is a shot in the dark, the chances of them reading this are so low I feel almost stupid. But hey, I tried huh?)

Hello fellow Gamedevs and Designers!
There are tons of gamedev resources out there that offer insights about psychological concepts and what they mean for Game Design. Some are very basic overviews of concepts, some are deeper theories and applications, some are surface level observations that are often misinterpreted. My initial idea was to write a post about some common misconceptions, but that would not do this topic justice, so I start with this kinda introduction to what psychology is and how its research benefits Game Design currently. If there is a demand, I might share some more insights.
A few words to me: I'm a psychologist and neuroscientist and now for about 5 years (god - has it been so long?) Gamedev/Designer. I'm working on my PhD right now, connecting everything we currently know about emotions and how they are used (and could be used) in the Game Design process.
For this post, I want to focus on really, really broad concepts of psychology, because as you can imagine - it can get quite deep and covering everything would need a few books at least. I'm doing this because I feel like there is a lot of confusion about the whole discipline of psychology and I see crazy misconceptions that are widely spread in the Game Design community. This post may not hold any new or valuable information for some people - as it is quite broad. But for others it might give some perspective that is necessary.
So, let's start with the beginning: What even is psychology?
Yeah, yeah. I know. That's way to broad, right? But this is quite an important question, because people have vastly different ideas. Some think it is the cumulated knowledge of the human mind, some think it's a range of technical terms describing biological processes in our brains. You have no idea how often I read "Psychology tells us that we have 5 kinds of motivations". Uhm... yeah? Does psychology tell us that? Here are three very important points when talking about "psychology":

• Psychology is the study of mind and behaviour. It's pretty much everything that goes on in our brain, everything we think, we feel, we perceive, and (quite importantly) it's the study of our actions. Behaviour is an essential part of it, because this is what we usually measure in experiments. Sure, there are biological variables that are measured, but (and here is the first huge misconception) these tell us not necessarily something about psychology. The relationship between our body and our mind is very complex and both influence each other in ways we don't fully understand yet. Neurobiology and psychology are not the same thing.
• Psychology is young. In theory, psychology should hold the answer to every question of human behaviour and should therefore not only be the most important discipline in Game Design, but in every aspect of human life. This is of course not the case. Current research reflects suprisingly little information, because it is only a few years old. It started with medicine and kinda began to be its own thing in the past 100 years, but was not taken very seriously. It had (and still has) a very heavy emphasis on mental disorder research with some great progress there. But general concepts of perception, emotion, motivation - very important stuff - only emerged around the 60s. The study of positive psychology (positive traits and experiences) only formed 1998 - think about that. We're still at the very beginning of everthing there is to know about the mind.
• Psychology research is probability-based. Because psychology measures behaviour, there are many problems in research design and methodology that are not present in other natural sciences. Not everybody behaves the same way, people are very different, but we still like to make some assumptions about everybody, right? Or at least a certain culture? A certain audience? Yeah, that's all hard. Every study has a certain probability to report false results and in the best case these probabilities stay consistent and can be decreased by study replications. However, even with strict guidelines in place that decide what might be seen as valid, there is a huge replication crisis (meaning very few studies can actually be replicated and show consistent results). This is a very big topic, but for you the most important thing to understand is that psychology faces some serious challenges when it comes to making valid conclusions

Now with that out of the way - is there even a way psychology can help anybody? Answer: Yes!

1. First, the absolute basics. Colour theory, gestalt-psychology, reward systems, biases, stuff like that. These are elemental things to understand about players (and yourself) that are well established and should be studied for every design task. The recent Dunning-Kruger discussion is a nice example.
2. Second, the theoretical concepts. Cognition and emotion have TONS of concepts that are incredibly helpful to understand and have a great use in Game Design. Just an example, but addiction and gambling are huge topics that exploded the gaming industry in the last years with a quite scary success. As I said before, I would love to talk more about a lot of these concepts (e.g. what makes us perceive things as pretty and engaging, why are we motivated to play, what makes us feel certain emotions, stuff like that), but this post is long enough as is, so I will maybe come back to some of these topics. This is what people typically see as the benefits of psychological research. However, I think some people have some wrong expectations here. These concepts are broad and often basic and situational implications are usually not well researched (especially in gaming). Example: Just because there is a useful distinction between intrinsic (behaviour-led) and extrinsic (reward-led) motivation doesn't mean that people love your game mechanics automatically when you add satisfying sounds. I'd even argue that any game that is not inherintly intrinsic motivating (aka fun) fails as a video game. Sure - if you're looking for broad concepts, you'll find them. But everything in psychology is complicated and gets influenced by a lot of factors, so there is not very often an easy answer to a complicated question. The more you want to know, the deeper you have to dig yourself. And that leads me to the most underexplored use:
3. Third, the Methods. Psychology is in a very unique place, because we all employ ourselves with our own mind. Everybody has certain theories ("This will be fun") and Game Design is a perfect place to test some of these theories. Now how do we test? This is where all the troubles I described finally pay off: The statistics and methodology that are used today are quite good (when properly used) in making informed decisions about a theory, because our research circumstances make really elaborate methods a necessity. Psychologists are extremely well trained in finding truth, because experimenting with humans as subject is so difficult. And we're still developing great ways to properly find true effects in experiments (or uncover false effects in bad experiments - huge problem). This goes of course much further than just the typical "ask you players for experiences" - which is still a fine approach for a lot of questions. But I think a solid grasp on experimental design and statistics should not be underestimated. An understanding of these methods can also help you train your senses regarding game design decisions that really make an impact and make your feedback so much more valuable. Why? Because you can't trust people. Not other people. Not yourself. Our brains are there to trick us into happiness. So finding truth is harder than you might think. Example methods that are useful: Finding statistical significant effects of a mechanic by testing against a control group, analyzing complex relations between machanics, handling big player datasets in the right way, knowing your players (better than they know themselves) from behavioural player data.

So in short:

• Basics in cognition and emotion are a must-study in every design task
• Psychological concepts and theories are helpful, but often broad and not easily generalizable (if a concept is important for your game [e.g. how to properly use fear], but lacks studies, you still can use the theory and test yourself if it works in your game)
• Game Design can and should benefit by using psychological methods to test its own theories (which can go very deep and specific)

And remember: Don't just trust people. Trust numbers and valid methods.
Literature for people who are interested (I know these are just psychology books, and I would be happy to link a more gamedev-related book, but I don't know any - but happy to write one if you're a publisher reading this).
Introduction to Psychology - James W. Kalat (pretty standard, very nice overview) Learning and Behavior - Paul Chance (Great to get some deeper knowledge about why people are unreliable Cognitive Psychology - E. Bruce Goldstein (Great to get the basics straight) Discovering Statistics - Andy Field (Great introduction to the mathematical side of things) Putting Psychology in its place - Graham Richards (great for learning more about the history and problems of the science - and freely available online)
​
Bonus: Very general introduction to psychology and its methods that seems to touch on the most important fields (pdf).

Notes and Highlights of Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear’s Live Update December 17, 2020
Notes by mr_tyler_durden and Daily Update Team
Watch here:

• Youtube: Update (YT Channel)
• Facebook: Update (FB Page)

Headlines

• 234,021 Cases (+3,349), 2,316 Deaths (+54)
• New cases by county: 475x Jefferson, 178x Kenton, 171x Boone, 126x Fayette, 119x Campbell, 106x Pulaski, 103x Hardin, 94x Daviess, 86x Madison, 80x Warren, 70x Wayne, 57x Laurel, 57x McCracken, 57x Shelby, 56x Pike, 48x Oldham, 44x McCreary, 38x Russell, 37x Taylor, 34x Jessamine, 34x Perry, 33x Bell, 32x Christian, 32x Letcher, 32x Nelson, 31x Bullitt, 31x Lincoln, 30x Anderson, 28x Allen, 28x Graves, 28x Henderson, 28x Marion, 28x Marshall, 28x Rowan, 27x Mercer, 26x Boyle, 24x Clinton, 24x Grant, 24x Montgomery, 23x Logan, 23x Ohio, 22x Floyd, 21x Adair, 21x Scott, 21x Spencer, 20x Calloway, 20x Fleming, 20x Mason, 19x Boyd, 19x Carter, 19x Casey, 19x Trigg, 18x Franklin, 18x Meade, 18x Muhlenberg, 17x Woodford, 16x Martin, 16x Whitley, 15x Knox, 14x Clark, 14x Garrard, 14x Hopkins, 13x Barren, 13x Harlan, 13x Simpson, 13x Washington, 12x Clay, 12x Lawrence, 12x Pendleton, 11x Knott, 10x Carroll, 10x Monroe, 9x Harrison, 9x Larue, 9x Lee, 9x Morgan, 9x Rockcastle, 9x Todd, 8x Bath, 8x Greenup, 7x Cumberland, 7x Jackson, 7x Lyon, 7x Owen, 6x Bourbon, 6x Hart, 6x Henry, 6x Johnson, 6x McLean, 6x Trimble, 5x Butler, 5x Gallatin, 5x Green, 5x Nicholas, 5x Union, 5x Wolfe, 4x Breathitt, 4x Carlisle, 4x Edmonson, 4x Estill, 4x Hancock, 4x Leslie, 3x Breckinridge, 3x Fulton, 3x Grayson, 3x Powell, 3x Webster, 2x Bracken, 2x Caldwell, 2x Elliott, 2x Lewis, 2x Livingston, 2x Owsley, 1x Ballard, 1x Hickman, 1x Magoffin, 1x Metcalfe
• New deaths by county: 67 M Bullitt, 72 M Bullitt, 94 F Calloway, 83 F Carroll, 47 M Casey, 81 F Christian, 69 M Christian, 97 F Clinton, 82 M Clinton, 76 M Daviess, 92 F Fayette, 88 F Graves, 63 F Grayson, 68 F Grayson, 85 F Hardin, 94 M Henderson, 84 F Hopkins, 64 M Hopkins, 98 M Hopkins, 82 F Jefferson, 97 F Jefferson, 47 M Jefferson, 87 M Jefferson, 85 F Jessamine, 55 M Jessamine, 77 M Johnson, 66 M Kenton, 75 F Knott, 79 F Knott, 75 M Larue, 88 F Logan, 88 F McLean, 76 F Madison, 85 F Madison, 90 F Madison, 99 F Madison, 77 M Madison, 89 M Madison, 83 M Mason, 87 M Mason, 76 M Monroe, 81 F Muhlenberg, 77 M Muhlenberg, 61 F Nelson, 52 M Nelson, 75 M Oldham, 86 M Oldham, 95 M Oldham, 70 M Robertson, 87 M Robertson, 63 M Russell, 92 F Spencer, 73 F Union, 58 F Washington
• Good News .
  • 1. I am happy to share that Taica now plans to expand the Clark County operation with a $4.4M investment that's gonna create another 20 good paying jobs.
  • 2. I'm excited to announce a $450,000 grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission's Distressed County Infrastructure Program to upgrade wastewater infrastructure in Middlesboro.
  • 3. So today, the Commonwealth is in an even stronger position to help Kentuckians as we emerged from this pandemic after the Kentucky Supreme Court reinstated an almost $1.3B award for the Commonwealth of Kentucky and a judgment against Pokerstars.
• Alright, the Healthy at Home Eviction Relief Fund is closed to applications, we had to close it today at noon, and that's because we now have 396 completed applications. <...>We're going to spend all of those dollars, all $15M and we're going to help at least 3477 households, I think that number will be more like 3,700.
• Vaccine: So yesterday we were happy to confirm all 11 of the hospitals that Kentucky set to receive the initial delivery of vaccines have confirmed their receipts. <...> So the new news today is Pfizer has confirmed a second shipment for next week of 27,300 doses. Now the majority of this, and I'll explain in a minute, is going to go to our long term care program. We're excited that a second shipment was finally confirmed, I will say that this is lower than we anticipated based on the first allocation.
• So today we are also starting our vaccine campaign, so that we can provide information to Kentuckians and build their confidence in these amazing vaccines. So, there are a couple phases of the campaign. <...> Video: It's just a little shot but the COVID-19 vaccine does more than keep you from getting sick. It will get folks back to work. Get our kids back at school. It's a shot of relief, of hope. All we have to do Kentucky is keep doing our part. We can't all get the vaccine at once, but we'll all get a turn. Get the facts, at http://kyCOVID19.ky.gov/
• WH Report: That despite the nation escalating dangerously, we have seen a stability, that would be their way of saying a plateau, in new cases and a decrease in test positivity. That means we are doing better while the rest of the nation is doing worse. Here is what we showed in the map, just on Monday, that hospitals are reporting critical staffing shortages. We showed it more in ICU beds and how many are taken, but the state is managing. <...> A couple of other points, they talk a little bit about the vaccine and their current thinking, especially as we get past the stage they're in. They ask us to ensure comprehensive analysis of next tier priority of vaccinations, understand immunization of individuals over 65 will have the greatest impact on hospitalizations and deaths. In other words, if we want to cut down our deaths as quickly as we can, after long term care, they're suggesting we look at Kentucky ages 65 and up. That'll reduce deaths and also create more hospital capacity for everybody else who might get sick. And then they give some pretty startling statistics if you haven't seen them for those over 70 with COVID infection. 20% or more that get the infection are admitted to the hospital, nearly 10% die.<...>Also, a couple other warnings here, and significant warnings that at this point if you're over 65, or with a significant health condition, don't go to any indoor public space where anyone is unmasked. The White House now says that is an immediate threat to your health. So make sure you get groceries delivered, or have them have them brought to your car, and your medications delivered. That's where we are.
• Dr. Stack: So as we look to Christmas, and Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa, and New Years, and all the other holidays that happen around this time of year, it's very important that we adjust what we normally would do for the COVID year. So, we are again asking you to limit the size of your gatherings to eight people max, and no more than two households. Ideally you would stay with only your own household. I know this is difficult. I enjoy as much as anyone else getting together this time of year, clearly it is a highlight of the last few weeks of any year. But if you get together with people with whom you do not live, you should assume someone in that group is infected. If you eat and drink and take your masks off, you should assume you are at high risk for getting infected. The disease is that widespread at this time. <...>
• Dr Stack: The Governor already commented that the KY COVID-19 hotline ((800) 722-5725) is now prepared to begin addressing people's general questions about vaccines. So if you are curious about its safety or its appropriateness for you they are prepared to answer general questions. Obviously, there is still limited information on a number of things you may be curious about and as we get more information the personnel there answering your questions will get progressively more information they can share. Things that you should not call that hotline for are asking to schedule appointments, asking “When am I going to be able to get the vaccine?”, advocating for when you should get the vaccine, those are things that they are not in a position to answer. So please save that hotline for people who have questions, who have information they're trying to find, and perhaps you have more difficulty navigating our website. For everyone else, our website- we will continue to update the vaccine page, so that we put more information, as we go forward, as we learn more about the guidance from the federal government and the subsequent phases for the vaccination we'll also try to put information there, so that people can have a one stop shop to go and find more recent updates.<...>
• I've seen some reports that some Pfizer vials of vaccine contain an extra one or even two extra doses. Is that something that you're hearing from hospitals around Kentucky and could that mean that there are more than the 38,000 doses in this initial shipment? -- Let's send that over to Dr Stack because he just put out his opinion on that today. And let's hear from him directly.
  • Dr Stack: [...] So yes, whenever they fill these vials the overfill just a little bit to make sure that they don't under fill the vial and it turns out that a lot of sites for reporting that they were able to pull out a full sixth additional dose for a five dose vial, it may be there's extra material beyond that. The FDA issued some tweets, even for me it seems odd that Twitter has become an official communication platform, but they have shared that they recommend that those extra doses, if they are full doses, that they be used. And I issued a memorandum today to the 11 hospitals who currently have inventory in Kentucky that they should, in fact, feel permitted to use those while we await official FDA guidance via channels, other than Twitter, so they are able to do that.
• Will the number of people who choose not to get vaccinated have any impact on the timeline of when the state will start relaxing restrictions and mandates? -- We believe- I think the answer there is yes and no. We believe that enough Kentuckians are going to be willing to take the vaccine to where that won't be an issue but there will be the amount of time it takes to get everyone who wants to take a vaccine, a vaccine. You know they say nationally they want more than 70% maybe closer to 80% of individuals to take the vaccine, obviously getting there is going to require us having more knowledge on younger adults. But right now where I see public opinion, I believe that we can get there in Kentucky.
• We've gotten questions from listeners, discussing the differences between the Pfizer and the Moderna vaccines. Is there one that either of you prefer over the other, or you have equal confidence in both and you're just going to be happy to get one or the other? Thank you. -- [...] Pfizer right now has been through the emergency approval process, Moderna hasn't gotten through that yet. Provided it does, and all things being equal, they appear to be 94, 95% effective each. Pfizer has a three week time period between initial shot and booster, Moderna has a four week time period, but if you're asking me in working on the logistics of getting the vaccine out all over the Commonwealth, Moderna doesn't require the deep refrigeration and so in many ways that makes it easier to get out to people.
  • Dr Stack: So I agree with the governor, that there are differences in the timing and the logistics, but I would say if you are willing to receive a vaccine, and I hope the vast majority of you will be, then I think you should take whichever one you could get. It appears that though there are different timings and storage characteristics the performance of both is functionally equivalent and so you will get similar protection for both of them, so I would take the first one you can get.
• Slides from Update

Full Notes

• Hi everybody, it's four o'clock on Thursday, that’s when we get together and remember that we're gonna get through this, and we're gonna get through this together. I want to thank Logan County Schools for today's mask and for everything they do to educate our children, whether remotely, or in-person. Thank you for all your efforts in protecting our kiddos. We're going to start today with a couple pieces of good news, both in our economy, and in fighting COVID-19, then we're going to look at some of the entries in the White House report. And then get to our COVID report for the day, which, while the numbers are showing that we are stabilizing, or at least a little decrease from last week, we have our highest number of deaths today. So that'll be a tough part of today, but let's start with good news which we need to celebrate when we have it, and we do today.
• So today I'd like to share news of another great company growing here in Kentucky. Taica Cubic Printing Kentucky, in Winchester, provides cubic printing, paint application, and assembly services on substrates for tier one automotive suppliers. The company opened its Clark County facility less than a decade ago, but it's already become an important and critical part of that community. Taica’s initial investment in Winchester planned for the creation of 30 jobs at about $22 an hour, but to date, the company has created 44 jobs paying an average hourly wage of $26 an hour, and they're not finished growing yet. I am happy to share that Taica now plans to expand the Clark County operation with a $4.4M investment that's gonna create another 20 good paying jobs. Like many industries, it's been a difficult year for the automotive sector. So I am all that much happier to see the continued success of companies like Taica. Kentucky is home to more than 520 automotive suppliers that cover nearly every aspect of the industry. Taica's announcement today adds to the more than 100,000 Kentuckians employed by automotive related businesses. The industry's continued growth, and the creation of quality job opportunities with strong wages, will be crucial in our recovery from this pandemic, so the commitment of Taica and other auto suppliers to our state is greatly appreciated. So thank you to the leaders of Taica Cubic Printing Kentucky, and everyone who had a role in this expansion. And congratulations to Winchester and Clark County on the growth of a great company.
• Today we also have some good news for Eastern Kentucky. I'm excited to announce a $450,000 grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission's Distressed County Infrastructure Program to upgrade wastewater infrastructure in Middlesboro. The current system is 34 years old and frequently fails, requiring expensive repairs. Middlesboro will use the funding to update the main sewage lift station and address aging pumps at the wastewater treatment plant. Upon completion, the upgrades will save the city $17,000 annually in operation and maintenance expenses, and it's going to provide better wastewater service for 605 businesses and more than 4300 households. Clean drinking water is a basic human right and even in the midst of this pandemic this administration with our federal partners have been investing, especially in areas that haven't seen that steady supply of clean drinking water. We have put dollars upon dollars in Eastern Kentucky to try to correct a decades long failure to give people that basic human right of clean water. This is a big part of how we build stronger communities and prepare for our future post COVID. So congratulations to Middlesboro on the award and thank you to everybody who worked on it and made it possible. Because of your work I'm confident we'll build a stronger, better Kentucky.
• Alright, this next one, I don't know if you all have seen the news on TV but it's a big one. So today, the Commonwealth is in an even stronger position to help Kentuckians as we emerged from this pandemic after the Kentucky Supreme Court reinstated an almost $1.3B award for the Commonwealth of Kentucky and a judgment against Pokerstars. That's right, $1.3B. The Supreme Court reinstated the Franklin circuit court judgement, concluding the Commonwealth decades long fight against illegal offshore internet gambling. This will never be enough to make up for the damage to Kentucky's families and the states from the years of irresponsible and criminal actions, but this is a good day for Kentucky. This better positions us to emerge from this painful pandemic to help Kentuckians, to help our businesses, to provide quality health care to more Kentuckians, to strengthen our public schools and keep our promises to educators and other public employees, some of whom have been on the front lines battling the fallout of this company's greed. I also want to congratulate J Michael Brown, my executive cabinet secretary, for bringing actions on behalf of the Commonwealth in 2008, in this matter when he was the secretary of the justice and public safety cabinet, under another Beshear, seeking to stop the unregulated untaxed and illegal offshore gambling operations that were operating in Kentucky. Once the Kentucky Supreme Court's opinion is final, the Commonwealth will take aggressive steps to collect the judgment or the benefits of all Kentuckians. And I'm going admin, Michael and I have both been lawyers for much of our career and coming into this job I'd had the good fortune of securing one of the larger verdicts in the last 20 years in Kentucky of 11.4M. Well I think Michael’s case just brought in 1.3 billion, so I think once again, he gets that first place prize but I'm continuing my best to try to learn as much as I can from him.
• Alright, the Healthy at Home Eviction Relief Fund is closed to applications, we had to close it today at noon, and that's because we now have 396 completed applications. And that's going to grow as some tenants and landlords call in and complete their applications. Remember, we had $15M to help people to make sure they didn't get kicked out of their home, and to make sure that they didn't emerge from this pandemic with significant debt. We're going to spend all of those dollars, all $15M and we're going to help at least 3477 households, I think that number will be more like 3,700.
• Alright, let's go to the best news we've been having recently, and that's vaccines. So yesterday we were happy to confirm all 11 of the hospitals that Kentucky set to receive the initial delivery of vaccines have confirmed their receipts. These hospitals included Pikeville Medical Center, Baptist Health in Madisonville, Corbin, and Louisville, as well as Mercy Health Lourdes in Paducah. Here are some of the pictures of our frontline heroes being vaccinated, with what I believe is a miracle, a 94-95% effective vaccine. And remember these folks are folks working on COVID wings, that go in every day knowing they could contract this virus but they want to help your loved one to make sure that they can get better. So here you can see the first vaccine, in Paducah being given to Dr. Bradley Albert Albertson, a physician double-certified in both internal medicine and pediatrics, let's watch (Video).
• Alright. You see everybody clapping? I got to tell you there is a new energy amongst our frontline workers. Seeing how quickly this day came, and knowing that as we move into 2021, we are going to defeat this virus, we are going to win. We have to take care of each other until we get there. So, all these pictures you've been seeing which are truly amazing, and they ought to give you hope, you ought to stay vigilant, but they ought to give you hope in a second wind. Everything you're seeing right now as part of the first allocation that came to Kentucky, the week of December 13th through the 19th and that's our first 38,025 doses from Pfizer. About two thirds of that went to long term care and the rest, went to those 11 hospitals. So the new news today is Pfizer has confirmed a second shipment for next week of 27,300 doses. Now the majority of this, and I'll explain in a minute, is going to go to our long term care program. We're excited that a second shipment was finally confirmed, I will say that this is lower than we anticipated based on the first allocation. And we'll be watching that as we move forward because the speed at which we can vaccinate long term care, the speed at which we can get back to something like-normal depends on the amount of the vaccine that we get. And it's by and large out of our control, but I want to make sure that I am transparent when we receive numbers about what we'll get, and if they're changed on us. So that same week Moderna, we believe, will get the initial allocation of 76,700. The vast majority of that are going to acute-care hospitals, all over the Commonwealth so that every acute-care hospital that is treating COVID patients, either gets it to administer itself, or a partner hospital that's gotten all the way through the system, if the other one hasn't, we'll get their amount so that they can provide those vaccinations- but every acute-care hospital, we believe next week, will have a certain number of vaccines for their frontline healthcare workers, and then we believe that the week of December 27th-31st, we will get 33,800 more doses of Moderna.
• This is just December and this, again, doesn't get us through our frontline healthcare workers or through long term care. So what we'll see is, in the very least, the first couple weeks of January, if not all of January, will still be going to those most at-need populations. So everybody stay patient. It's a wonderful day. We can see the end in sight. And it's also a little scary knowing how bad COVID is right now and there's a vaccine out there and and and you want it, especially during this most dangerous time. But those who are part of our healthcare capacity need it first so that they can be in that hospital, if one of your loved ones needs their help. And then those that are disproportionately dying- Long Term Care residents, which make up almost 66% of all deaths in Kentucky, again, need to come first. Now there's a lot of questions out there about who's next after this group. The answer is the federal government hasn't come to terms with that yet. I will show you in a minute some statements from the White House Task Force, especially as it comes to age. And if number one thing is to stop deaths in fighting COVID and how we distribute the vaccine, then age is the most effective manner at rolling out the vaccine if that is the ultimate goal.
• So today we are also starting our vaccine campaign, so that we can provide information to Kentuckians and build their confidence in these amazing vaccines. So, there are a couple phases of the campaign.
  • First is education. There we want to assure awareness and public confidence about the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines.
  • Second, we want to ensure understanding of the phased rollout of the vaccine when that information is available. And that requires patience too.
  • Third, we want to help Kentuckians know that by visiting http://kyCOVID19.ky.gov/ they can get trusted information about the vaccine. There's going to be an update to our vaccine page and information there on Monday.
• After the education phase of the vaccine campaign, comes the engagement phase, that's engaging with Kentuckians especially discreet population groups, through the correct channels to encourage commitment to taking this vaccine. Messaging will be shaped based on what we learned through community outreach efforts with black, Hispanic, and rural populations, specifically. What we learn in these discussions will help shape how we openly, honestly, and effectively communicate with those populations and ensure that there is an equitable rollout of this vaccine, that everybody gets protected; and that we not only provide the information but we provide it in the best way to get as many people protected as possible. Our goal for the campaign is to remind Kentuckians that no one likes the idea of getting a shot, but shots are just a small fact of life.
• Why? Because a shot is and always has been the end of wondering what might happen. And this little shot does more than keep you from getting sick, it gets folks back to work, it gets your kids back in school, it gets our economy up and running again. It's the road to getting back to so many things that we enjoy. It's a shot of relief and a shot of hope.
• The FDA authorized vaccines continue to arrive in Kentucky, all you have to do is do your part. We can all get the vaccine at once, and we'll all get a turn. You can find all the facts that http://kyCOVID19.ky.gov/
• Alright, we're gonna run it again. So here's a look at our first general message advertisement that will be hitting the airwaves soon. It'll come with audio, when it does,
• Video: It's just a little shot but the COVID-19 vaccine does more than keep you from getting sick. It will get folks back to work. Get our kids back at school. It's a shot of relief, of hope. All we have to do Kentucky is keep doing our part. We can't all get the vaccine at once, but we'll all get a turn. Get the facts, at http://kyCOVID19.ky.gov/
• It's a lot better when we play it at the right time. So that's just the first of the messaging, as it will roll out. And that part of keep doing your part is so critical because we still have very high levels of COVID, it's still taking a lot of lives. In fact today I believe it's taken 54 lives. So let's keep doing our part to protect one another, until everybody gets a chance to get this vaccine, a shot at getting their shot.
• I want to go over some of what the White House report this week. It says, first in their summary, the White House coronavirus Task Force sees what we're seeing in our numbers. That despite the nation escalating dangerously, we have seen a stability, that would be their way of saying a plateau, in new cases and a decrease in test positivity. That means we are doing better while the rest of the nation is doing worse. Here is what we showed in the map, just on Monday, that hospitals are reporting critical staffing shortages. We showed it more in ICU beds and how many are taken, but the state is managing. In other words, we're at a dangerous place but we are not over the tipping point yet. It's one of the reasons we're prioritizing the vaccine for our frontline health care workers but also why we need your help.
• A couple of other points, they talk a little bit about the vaccine and their current thinking, especially as we get past the stage they're in. They ask us to ensure comprehensive analysis of next tier priority of vaccinations, understand immunization of individuals over 65 will have the greatest impact on hospitalizations and deaths. In other words, if we want to cut down our deaths as quickly as we can, after long term care, they're suggesting we look at Kentucky ages 65 and up. That'll reduce deaths and also create more hospital capacity for everybody else who might get sick. And then they give some pretty startling statistics if you haven't seen them for those over 70 with COVID infection. 20% or more that get the infection are admitted to the hospital, nearly 10% die. You’ve got to think for those are 70 this thing is 10 times more deadly than it is to the rest of the population. So this is advice from the White House Task Force and these are considerations they're asking us to take as we look at the next tier.
• Also, a couple other warnings here, and significant warnings that at this point if you're over 65, or with a significant health condition, don't go to any indoor public space where anyone is unmasked. The White House now says that is an immediate threat to your health. So make sure you get groceries delivered, or have them have them brought to your car, and your medications delivered. That's where we are. If you're over 65, or you have one of these medical conditions, don't go to any place that is not enforcing a mask mandate for everybody inside. For those who continue to refuse to wear masks and want to be served in facilities, the White House is saying you are a deadly threat to anyone over that age. Please wear that mask when you go out. And if you're under 40 assume you became infected if you gather beyond your immediate household. Again, this is saying that we shouldn't get out with those outside of our household.
• Again, a couple more that you can read here, but the final one warning about any gathering during December holiday. In other words, this Christmas, which is certainly one of my, if not my favorite, day of the year- do it with your immediate household. Do it with those that you live with. Remember what Christmas is about and remember the example that Jesus said and his teachings about caring for one another. Let's not do Christmas in a way that would dishonor loving our neighbor as ourselves. Let's make sure that we do the right thing over this holiday to protect those we love and all of those around us.
• Positive cases today: 3,349 - Now that is a lot, but it is still less than last week
• Probable cases: 828
• Total confirmed cases: 234,021
• Children Under 18: 372
• New cases by county: 475x Jefferson, 178x Kenton, 171x Boone, 126x Fayette, 119x Campbell, 106x Pulaski, 103x Hardin, 94x Daviess, 86x Madison, 80x Warren, 70x Wayne, 57x Laurel, 57x McCracken, 57x Shelby, 56x Pike, 48x Oldham, 44x McCreary, 38x Russell, 37x Taylor, 34x Jessamine, 34x Perry, 33x Bell, 32x Christian, 32x Letcher, 32x Nelson, 31x Bullitt, 31x Lincoln, 30x Anderson, 28x Allen, 28x Graves, 28x Henderson, 28x Marion, 28x Marshall, 28x Rowan, 27x Mercer, 26x Boyle, 24x Clinton, 24x Grant, 24x Montgomery, 23x Logan, 23x Ohio, 22x Floyd, 21x Adair, 21x Scott, 21x Spencer, 20x Calloway, 20x Fleming, 20x Mason, 19x Boyd, 19x Carter, 19x Casey, 19x Trigg, 18x Franklin, 18x Meade, 18x Muhlenberg, 17x Woodford, 16x Martin, 16x Whitley, 15x Knox, 14x Clark, 14x Garrard, 14x Hopkins, 13x Barren, 13x Harlan, 13x Simpson, 13x Washington, 12x Clay, 12x Lawrence, 12x Pendleton, 11x Knott, 10x Carroll, 10x Monroe, 9x Harrison, 9x Larue, 9x Lee, 9x Morgan, 9x Rockcastle, 9x Todd, 8x Bath, 8x Greenup, 7x Cumberland, 7x Jackson, 7x Lyon, 7x Owen, 6x Bourbon, 6x Hart, 6x Henry, 6x Johnson, 6x McLean, 6x Trimble, 5x Butler, 5x Gallatin, 5x Green, 5x Nicholas, 5x Union, 5x Wolfe, 4x Breathitt, 4x Carlisle, 4x Edmonson, 4x Estill, 4x Hancock, 4x Leslie, 3x Breckinridge, 3x Fulton, 3x Grayson, 3x Powell, 3x Webster, 2x Bracken, 2x Caldwell, 2x Elliott, 2x Lewis, 2x Livingston, 2x Owsley, 1x Ballard, 1x Hickman, 1x Magoffin, 1x Metcalfe
• Northern Kentucky has gotten hit hard. Pulaski County multiple days of high cases, but every single area in the state has multiple counties with 30 or more cases. Remember, it's everywhere.
• Total tests conducted: 3,207,769 (PCR: 2,968,844, Serology: 99,173)
• Positivity Rate: 8.45% - Our positivity rate it's down a little bit, but it's still pretty flat at 8.45%
• Total hospitalized: 12,129
• Currently hospitalized: 1,817 - Hospitalization up a little bit
• Total in ICU: 2,830
• Currently in ICU: 431
• On a ventilator: 254
• Total recovered: 33,666
• New deaths today: 54
• Total Deaths: 2,316
• Alright, so our death report today is going to be one of the hardest since early on. It's by far the most people that we've lost. And remember that's a reflection of where this virus was about three weeks ago, and where it was trending because increase in deaths follow an increase in cases. More people get infected, a percentage of those will be hospitalized, and a percentage of those will die. So the more people who get infected the more people need to go to the hospital and the more people don't make it. I hope we don't have another day, where we have 54 deaths and this is going to be hard, because these are 54 families that need our help, and our compassion, and our green lights which is the color of compassion and renewal. They also need us to do better. Follow the rules to follow the restrictions because if you don't know someone who's been lost to COVID, someone close to you hasn't been lost to COVID, or someone close to someone you know then you're not listening. Because it has happened all over, Kentucky- far, far too much loss.
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