tal

Based on the screenshot someone else posted, they do have some kind of payment/currency system of their own, Steam Wallet.

I guess you could buy a physical Steam gift card in a store via any mechanism the store accepts, including cash, and then transfer it to that.

"In early July 2025, PayPal notified Valve that their acquiring bank for payment transactions in certain currencies was immediately terminating the processing of any transactions related to Steam. This affects Steam purchases using PayPal in currencies other than EUR, CAD, GBP, JPY, AUD and USD," the message states.

"We hope to offer PayPal as an option for these currencies in the future but the timeline is uncertain.

There are currency conversion services all over the world that manage to do this. How hard can it possibly be to partner with an existing service to do the conversion as part of a transaction?

EDIT: I guess it's possible to do the conversion yourself and have a bank account in one of those currencies to use to do PayPal, so the practical impact is probably limited, but still. PayPal's whole point is to facilitate moving funds from Point A to Point B. You've got one job here, guys.

considers

So, I think that there's a valid point here that the state has an interest in facilitating child-rearing, and that that's an externality. The hotel can cause harm if people rely on hotels and child-free hotels price out child-permitting hotels.

Hmm.

I can think of a lot of problems.

If a hotel or other service wants to only provide adult access, I can imagine a whole lot of loopholes. That is, I don't think that France is going to disallow keeping children away from random thing that social norms don't want children to have, like alcohol (well, okay, this is France, so the bar might be somewhat lower). I mean, have hotel, have attached strip joint, whatever it takes; there are going to be some things that I imagine that France is going to permit as grounds for excluding children. It seems hard to make a blanket prohibition that would stop all this.

On the other hand, it also seems like in many situations, it'd be possible to let people who do want to be be away from children to have that as an option without creating issues for other users.

Maybe it'd be possible to have a best-effort attempt by hotels to simply place people and people without children together? I mean, that might get one most of the way there.

Also...is this presently causing actual problems? I mean, maybe the market will supply what the consumer wants. Hotels and apartments that don't allow cats and/or dogs are a thing (well, in the US, and I assume France), and it doesn't seem like that's created fundamental issues.

kagis

It sounds like there are hotels here in California that prohibit kids and hotels that provide babysitting as a service to guests. It seems like the market has provided in that case.

Maybe first see if this is definitely an issue, and if so, do some kind of targeted mandate? Like, I totally appreciate that maybe a hotel might be the only place in a remote area, and if it's adults-only, that creates problems, because it's the only option...and if it soaks up all the adults-only customers, that might prevent an adults-and-kids service from entering the market. But...I can also imagine that it might just not come up, because hotels in that kind of situation don't want to sacrifice customers with kids.

Depends drastically on the game. I don't think that it's possible to give a single answer.

In general, I prefer Western RPG-style games over Japanese RPG-style games, and WRPGs tend to let you craft the main character, unlike JRPGs. And those kind of inhabit the same space. So I guess if you put me in a gun-to-the-head choice between the two, I'd prefer to create the main character myself. I also don't try to create my real-life self in games.

But, I mean...if I'm playing a Metroid-franchise game, I want to play Samus Aran. I don't want to play me, and I don't want to play some sort of character that I craft from scratch.

It'd have an effect, but not a large one

that's why one uses median, rather than mean.

It's debt regardless of whether or not one pays interest. Debt isn't linked to interest. Just means that you have an obligation to pay money to someone.

EDIT: Though in fairness, if one never actually uses a credit card at all, then one never takes out debt, so I suppose it's probably better to say "if one has a credit card that one uses".

EDIT2: Though all this is not to diminish your point that not carrying credit card debt from month to month is generally a pretty good rule to live by.

I mean, it depends on what you mean by that. Anyone who has a credit card is going to have debt, just by virtue of needing to pay the bill.

But if you mean "most Americans have a negative net worth"

taking into account assets and debts

most Americans have a positive net worth.

https://www.kiplinger.com/retirement/average-net-worth-by-age-how-do-you-measure-up

The median net worth of all Americans in 2022 was $192,900.

Because Trump tailors a lot of things he does and says to appeal to them.

I enjoyed it, but I thought that I was going to get more Bethesda RPG and less Grand Theft Auto going in from all the comparisons I'd heard.

I also felt that while the production values were very high, they got limited gameplay out of the asset creation that they did. Like, for any given piece of city, Grand Theft Auto had a lot more time playing over it than did Cyberpunk 2077. There were huge chunks of meticulously-created map that I maybe saw once in the distance while driving past, if that.

I suspect that this isn't the first time. Probably escorts were also used for the occasional visits during the Cold War.

I wouldn't. Like, there are things that were in the past that I liked that aren't always around now. But I think that overall, things tend to get better as time moves on.

Critics say Vectus Global’s presence – including snipers – will undermine Haiti’s police and UN security force

I didn't think that we were willing to do another intervention.

reads article

Ah, it's not a US intervention, just the Haitian government hiring them.

“One key measure of success for me will be when you can drive from Port-au-Prince to [the northern city of] Cap-Haïtien in a thin-skinned [non-armoured] vehicle and not be stopped by gangs,” Prince, who said he had struck a 10-year deal with Haiti’s government, told the news agency.

shrugs

I mean, I dunno if it's a good idea or not, but the status quo hasn't been working very well.

EDIT: Also, not to ding Prince's statement there, because it's legitimately gotten pretty horrific, but damn, "managing to drive between the two cities in something other than an armored vehicle

note that he's not even saying unarmed, just unarmored

without being held up by gangs" is a pretty low bar for success. I guess the government doesn't get to pick the starting point, but...

They also had airlines stop serving Haiti a while back, because there were too many people on the ground shooting up the aircraft as they were approaching, and I suspect that getting air transport functioning again is also probably going to be important.

kagis

It sounds like there's a Haitian-based airline, Sunrise Airways, that just agreed to restart flights as long as the government would agree to subsidize their insurance:

https://haitiantimes.com/2025/06/06/haiti-domestic-flight-resumption-port-au-prince/

Haiti’s domestic flights resume, sparking hope, skepticism and criticism

Flights restart operations starting June 12 between Port-au-Prince and provincial cities as U.S. commercial flight ban remains in effect until September

PORT-AU-PRINCE — Haiti will resume service of domestic flights at Toussaint Louverture International Airport on June 12, reconnecting Port-au-Prince with provincial cities including Cap-Haïtien, Jacmel, Les Cayes and Jérémie. The move comes as the country remains under a U.S. commercial flight ban.

The resumption is being touted as the first major effort to reinvigorate domestic aviation since security issues shuttered Haiti’s airports earlier this year. In February 2024, flights were suspended for nearly three months after escalating violence forced airspace closures. On November 11, 2024, U.S.-based carriers like JetBlue Airways, American Airlines and Spirit Airlines halted operations when their aircraft came under gunfire near Port-au-Prince airport. Since then, no international commercial flights have returned to the capital.

The agreement signed on June 5, 2025, between government authorities and Sunrise Airways outlines the technical and insurance-related costs tied to the airline’s planned resumption of service between Port-au-Prince and three provincial capitals. As part of the deal, the Haitian government committed to subsidizing up to $11 million in insurance guarantees for the company’s domestic operations. The decision has sparked sharp criticism, particularly from economists, who argue that such funds would be more effectively used to combat insecurity and invest in national socioeconomic development.