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circuitfarmer

@circuitfarmer@lemmy.world

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circuitfarmer,
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Just like corporate donations are “speech”. Some Citizens United logic here.

circuitfarmer,
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This, and as far as I can tell, the only way to avoid being called a RINO is to completely eschew any kind of critical thinking and absolutely toe the party line regardless of how asinine or nonsensical.

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  • circuitfarmer,
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    +1 for Pop. I fully expected to distro hop but have had it on my main rig for over a year now. Surprisingly pleasant.

    circuitfarmer,
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    Mankind Divided is free right now btw

    It’s not free. The point is to get me to make an account on Epic and install their stupid launcher. That isn’t free and I’m tired of people claiming things are “free” when in fact they exist to get you to sign up for another service. It’s not free-as-in-air.

    circuitfarmer,
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    Chances are they have already gotten more than a cent from you – depending on what they do with your account data. Even just an email address has a price. That’s my only point, really. Just signing up gives them something.

    circuitfarmer,
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    They can. That’s literally what data brokers do.

    circuitfarmer,
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    But it wasn’t worthless to Epic, who potentially sold it, active address or not. It doesn’t really matter what happens with it further down the chain after that sale. The point is that simply signing up for an account, even with fake credentials, does give Epic something. Not a lot, but something.

    circuitfarmer,
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    A challenge that they themselves don’t understand and couldn’t undertake, but they’ll happily risk the livelihoods of others for their hunch

    circuitfarmer,
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    I legit never imagined I’d see another expansion for this game. I say expansion because we didn’t call the others DLC back then.

    circuitfarmer,
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    Oh, I mean the OG expansion “The Conquerors”. As far as I know that content is just included in the Definitive Edition now. But back in the day, it was the AOEII expansion.

    AFAIK all the other DLC came after the Definitive edition re-release. My original point is that I didn’t expect new expansions to what is ultimately a 90s game.

    circuitfarmer,
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    I mean, I dont think it’s controversial to say it is surprising that a game had an expansion in 2000 but and then only had any other after the HD re-release in 2013. 13 years is an eternity in gaming. That’s my only point; I dont think it has anything to do with keeping “up to date”.

    circuitfarmer,
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    Sure. I’ll be more clear next time. I think my original point still stands.

    circuitfarmer,
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    Just to add: the Steam Controller may have been a commercial flop, but I still maintain that it is one of the best controllers out there, in particular for playing strategy games from the couch (right pad > mouse). I still use mine regularly and have a couple backups. The price of the Steam Controllers now reflects that it’s technically a niche success.

    Edit: and the dual trackpad setup plus integrated configurator technically does live on for the Steam Deck

    circuitfarmer,
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    And not to mention: the original versions actually run fine to this day. Pure money grab and they made the product(s) worse to do it.

    Pornhub and other adult sites sue EU over landmark digital content law (www.aljazeera.com)

    Pornhub and two other adult sites are suing the European Union over a landmark digital content law, the Digital Services Act, which imposes age verification and other obligations on large platforms. The European Commission last year named Pornhub, Xvideos and Stripchat as a category of “very large online platform” under the...

    circuitfarmer,
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    The infrastructure to support such things are naturally anti-privacy. Ultimately it requires someone to simply ignore other info that would otherwise be accessible. There could be a unique governing body for that part which is chartered for only sharing appropriate info, but even then, it’s an ask for people to trust that body and that it wouldn’t leak.

    circuitfarmer,
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    The crypto involved can be furnished such that nothing but the issuing authority and the fact “18+” gets transmitted, no name, no id number, no nothing.

    This is a best-case-scenario implementation. I just think it is extremely likely that any approach actually implemented would not have the privacy of the user in mind.

    circuitfarmer,
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    The housing crisis won’t end until (among other things) corporations cannot freely own limitless numbers of single family homes. We will see perpetual renting because it’s effectively passive income for the corporations, and they have deeper pockets than 99.9% of individuals.

    As companies own more and more, but don’t sell, supply dwindles, and the bubble never bursts.

    circuitfarmer,
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    Unless the Electoral College magically goes away, this will be a rough election for a majority of Americans. Lots of long-standing issues are coming to a head with the realization that we’ve already been fascist for a while.

    circuitfarmer,
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    And I think every live service is a “no buy”.

    If they don’t want to make money, they should do it and make whatever business goon suggesting it very happy (until that person looks at the balance sheet).

    circuitfarmer,
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    I want both the “iOS ecosystem” and Epic to fail, so I guess I just enjoy this new form of entertainment.

    circuitfarmer,
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    Exactly. Watching this all play out is strikingly similar to watching Trump get away with a mountain of stuff that would have put a poorer person in jail, and yet, no consequences.

    Are there any Windows-exclusive programs you use?

    I had to test/fix something at work and I set up a Windows VM because it was a bug specific to Windows users. Once I was done, I thought, “Maybe I should keep this VM for something.” but I couldn’t think of anything that wasn’t a game (which probably wouldn’t work well in a VM anyway) or some super specific enterprise...

    circuitfarmer,
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    I use Foobar2000 for music. It is feature packed and so customizable. It’s available as a snap using Wine (I think it’s the only snap I have installed, in fact).

    I really wish there were a Linux binary available but it has been Windows-only forever. The closest Linux player I’ve seen is Deadbeef, but Deadbeef’s library plugin does not work at all like Foobar’s (the later stays updated by monitoring the music folder and shows things by tags, not folder structure). Apparently the Deadbeef plugin is being updated to be more Foobar-like, but it isn’t there yet.

    circuitfarmer,
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    Oops, I just commented about Foobar2k before seeing this comment.

    Just want to mention that it does run on Linux as a Snap (though then you have to have a Snap installed, lol). I’m sure it runs fine with regular Wine too.

    circuitfarmer,
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    The media library is the ONE reason I haven’t switched to Deadbeef. Everything else seems close enough.

    Annoyingly, there is apparently an updated Medialib plugin for Deadbeef, but only on the Mac, since the dev is a Mac person.

    circuitfarmer,
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    As someone who has been remote for 8+ years, it’s extra disconcerting that now some companies are more in the office than they were even before covid. It’s totally about control as you said. I’m at least hoping that it eventually returns to where it was.

    circuitfarmer,
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    I think (at least in tech) we are seeing a brain drain where companies with strong RTO mandates can neither retain nor attract talent. Remote-first companies should be at a big advantage. Time will tell if it matters.

    circuitfarmer,
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    The original comment was pretty snarky so I see about as much snark as I’d expect, tbh.

    circuitfarmer, (edited )
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    I wanted to love this game. I love this style of game and I loved the first one. But CS:2 is sadly a clusterfuck, and the response from devs has been lackluster at best.

    Yeah, mod support would be nice. CS:1 had Steam Workshop support, which was great. CS:2 has nothing, because they want to completely control the mod ecosystem with a new tool. The excuse was to bring console modding to parity with PC, but that’s already bullshit since they admitted that even when the tool is released, some PC mods won’t work on console.

    More worrying is the base game. The mods would mostly be useful to fix weird decisions by the devs. From my standpoint, you CANNOT LOSE the game. Have a city in the red? You get free “government subsidies” to bring you into profitability. Even for a good city in the black, it’s like having millions of free dollars thrown at you. You can’t shut it off.

    Couple it all with a “simulation” that doesn’t seem to respond to user choices in any meaningful way, a UI that lacks a ton of shit the old game had, a lack of animated assets, etc etc… It’s a shit show.

    I’m sorry I bought it on good faith. I knew shit was gonna get wild when I pointed out what seemed to be a glaring bug on their forums (garbage trucks coming from surrounding cities to clear out my city’s garbage – FOR FREE), and was met with the dev tagging it “by design”. Oh boy. It’s a city painter, not a simulation.

    circuitfarmer,
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    This was a fun game on the Wii – the second one was maybe a bit better.

    circuitfarmer,
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    It might be true that you get more conservative after you e.g. own property, have a lot of money, or a bunch of other things that happened to boomers in their 30s.

    Now that those things are far less accessible, people aren’t moving conservative with nearly the same frequency. The fact that boomers did is a symptom of the easier time they had, but there’s nothing intrinsic about aging that should make one more conservative.

    circuitfarmer, (edited )
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    The whole damn system exists to place the burden of a living wage on the customer while the company paying peanuts can claim no wrongdoing. And the really sad part is: it has worked.

    Edit: and there are many, many businesses that wouldn’t be in business if they actually had to pay competitive wages on their own. The invisible hand can fix nothing if tipping culture says to throw more and more arbitrary amounts of money at people to subsidize their wages yourself. At some point (I’d argue we’re past it already), the band-aid needs to get ripped off. Only then will we see self-correction. The almost immediate loss of many businesses will likely trigger other actions. It’s already a no-win scenario.

    circuitfarmer,
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    Yes, but one way is on the company first and one isn’t. Would prices go up if these places were paying living wages? Most likely. Many businesses would be insolvent because their business model was simply never designed to pay a living wage to employees. Others could remain solvent, but probably not if they continue to take so much off the top at higher positions.

    And that’s exactly it: the market never self-corrects if we throw arbitrary money in excess of listed prices to solve was is ultimately an issue of business solvency and ethics. There is no economic theory that would support such an idea in any industry, but here we are.

    The sheer number of businesses out of the space might even drive down rents. That’s the kind of thing I mean by “other actions”. But things cannot continue as they are.

    None of this is even to mention the sheer number of people in the service industry who are also on government assistance programs. They have to be – none of the blame is on them. But my tax dollars go to that, plus I am expected to pay extra to subsidize their wages with tips. I effectively subsidize them twice while someone reaps the rewards on their yacht. All I’m saying is the yacht people should be taking the risks first. That’s part of being a business owner.

    circuitfarmer,
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    I’m not sure what isn’t getting across here.

    Customers subsidize wages with tipping. The amount is ultimately arbitrary and allows business owners to avoid costs.

    The actual cost of the wages is not arbitrary and should be put up by the business first.

    circuitfarmer,
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    Great argument.

    circuitfarmer,
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    What advantage does this hold versus the company paying a living wage in the first place?

    circuitfarmer,
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    Show me on the doll where the free market hurt you.

    circuitfarmer,
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    Let’s see what Lemmy thinks.

    circuitfarmer,
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    You could simply learn to cook instead of whining about tipping.

    Well I guess the whole restaurant industry doesn’t need to exist then.

    Reductio ad absurdum.

    circuitfarmer,
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    Apparently LUnix was originally designed for the Commodore 64 and Commodore 128. I didn’t know such a thing existed for 6502-based systems.

    Sounds like it’s time for me to raid the closet. The Commodore 128 is a strange beast (considering the Z80 coprocessor that effectively does nothing, unless you boot CP/M) but playing with a tiny Unix-like OS on it seems like a fun project.

    circuitfarmer,
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    At a time when AAA often sucks so much, it sounds really out of touch to say your overpriced game is “quadruple-A”.

    Xfinity “10G” energy

    circuitfarmer,
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    If only there were some regulatory body the government had that could set things right!..right?

    circuitfarmer,
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    I encountered the mother of all captchas the other day: it had me picking a three-dimensional room diagram among six of them, matching it to a 2d top-down view of the room. It was way more time consuming than a typical captcha, and I had to do the same task five or six times.

    I think we’ll see harder and harder captchas as AI models get better and better. Eventually it won’t be a realistic option since it just costs humans time and the convenience of whatever service they’re trying to use.

    circuitfarmer,
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    Maybe this is overly simplistic, but I’m a couch gamer, and text based games on the TV with a wireless keyboard work great. Relax on the couch and otherwise it’s just like you’re physically at the terminal.

    I know few people have a PC on the living room TV, but there are ways to stream it over there – e.g. with a Steam Link.

    circuitfarmer,
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    Love it. I wish there had been a single car in the game. Not one that you can buy, not a bunch of models. But one person in Saint Denis or Blackwater that happens to have a car. You could jack one car in the whole game.

    Taking it on crazy trips across the map would be like a whole little minigame. Plus a nice nod to the GTA roots.

    circuitfarmer,
    @circuitfarmer@lemmy.world avatar

    Windward is pretty fun and under the radar.

    Sid Meier’s “Pirates!” is old as hell but still a great game.

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