I absolutely hate always online DRM in single player games, so I get it. Personally, I’ll avoid games that use it. I was a huge fan of the Hitman series but haven’t played any of the new ones because of always online, live service, season pass, model they decided to go with. It’s a deal breaker for me, but I understand it isn’t for everyone else. I told my friends I wouldn’t be playing Helldivers 2 with them because of its use of kernel level anti-cheat and they just gave me a weird look.

I’ll choose to support games that are developed in consumer friendly ways, but I also accept that not everyone sees it as a big deal. If a company decides they need kernel level anti-cheat, then that’s on them. They won’t get my money, but I’m not about to start a petition to legally ban the use of kernel level anti-cheat and call anyone who won’t sign it an industry shill and bootlicker.

Want to stop games you buy from being killed? Don’t buy games that can be. Does this mean you’ll be sitting out while all your friends have fun playing the latest hit game? Probably. Does it mean 10 years later when the game no longer works you can smugly tell them “heh, looks like you guys got scammed.” Also yes. Just don’t be surprised that they think you’re weird.

From the initiative:

This initiative calls to require publishers that sell or license videogames to consumers in the European Union (or related features and assets sold for videogames they operate) to leave said videogames in a functional (playable) state.

Specifically, the initiative seeks to prevent the remote disabling of videogames by the publishers, before providing reasonable means to continue functioning of said videogames without the involvement from the side of the publisher.

The initiative does not seek to acquire ownership of said videogames, associated intellectual rights or monetization rights, neither does it expect the publisher to provide resources for the said videogame once they discontinue it while leaving it in a reasonably functional (playable) state.

This is all that the initiative states on the matter. How it would actually work in practice is anyone’s guess because the wording is so vague. Supporters seem to be under the impression that companies have a “server.exe” file they purposefully don’t provide players because they’re evil and hate you. They could also be contracting out matchmaking services to a third party and don’t actually do it in-house. Software development is complex and building something that will be used by 100,000 people simultaneously isn’t easy.

There’s a reason comedic videos like Microservices, where an engineer explains why it’s impossible to show the user it is their birthday based on an overly complex network of microservices, and Fireship’s overengineering a website exist. Big software is known to be difficult to maintain and update. Huge multiplayer games aren’t any different. It’s likely there isn’t actually a “reasonable” way for them to continue to work. Supporters are hopeful this initiative would cause the industry to change how game software is developed, but that hope gets real close to outright naivety.

These are the vests we have: TechNiche CoolPax. They’re okay. I find the ice packs melt quickly and freeze slowly but they’re good for temporary relief. My company initially bought these to be worn under hot PPE like hazmat suits, but even just having a bunch of ice packs in a freezer you can take out on the floor to hold onto could work.

You’re not alone! I worked 12 hours in 37°C (99°F), 47% humidity yesterday. However, we get essentially unlimited breaks in an air conditioned break room, have cooling vests filled with ice packs we can wear on the floor, and are supplied with sports drinks and feeezies. Your work can’t really make the world less hot, but they can work with you to avoid development of heat related illnesses!

While I agree, the price difference between “maple syrup” (maple flavoured corn syrup) and maple syrup is way more than $5. A bottle of genuine maple syrup is $20+.

My understanding is that “China” is special because they’re a founding member of the UN and have special powers due to that. After the civil war, neither Taiwan or China wanted to lose that power, so neither side wanted to be recognized as anything other than “China”. I’ve heard that the younger generation in Taiwan are more open to being recognized as Taiwan but China has kind of made that impossible now by threatening any country that doesn’t respect the “one China” policy.

In computer class I searched “gay porn” on my friends computer when while he was gone. The teacher saw me do it and sent me to the principal’s office where I got in trouble for being gay. When I got home my parents were also upset. Apparently the principal called them to tell them I was gay! I was really confused as to why being gay seemed to be the issue and not searching for porn on a school computer and that’s how I learned about homophobia!

How could they not have English food like pizza, curry, or kebabs??

While it wasn’t unintended, the Atari 2600 only had 39 bits of memory to draw 160x192 graphics to the screen. It accomplished that task using the fact that CRT screens displayed images by rapidly moving a beam of light across the screen. Knowing the beam could only be in one spot at any time, the Atari system held just enough space in memory to draw 20 pixels. As the beam moved across the screen, the system updated the colour of the next pixels immediately before they needed to be drawn in a method that became known as Racing the beam.

It was built that way because having enough memory to draw the entire screen at once would have made the Atari 2600 prohibitively expensive for consumers.

Half as Interesting has a video about low flow toilets. When the US passed the 1992 regulation limiting the amount of water a toilet could use, manufacturers rushed to meet the regulation and their designs were terrible. That’s mostly because the quality tests they had to pass were also out of date. Testing standards eventually updated and by 2003 low flow toilets were flushing better than old models with a fraction of the water. More recent models flush even better.

So OP’s complaint about low flow toilets hasn’t been true for 22 years.

A guy at my work got promoted to manager and celebrated by tattooing the company logo onto his chest. Pretty much everyone had to hold back laughing when he showed it off.

I don’t think much would change. Prosecutors already weed out sympathetic jurors during selection and a non-sympathetic jury wouldn’t nullify even if they knew they could.

I’ve only ever seen his tweets and people quoting him in articles but watching him speak for 7 minutes is eye opening. I cannot follow a single thing he says. It’s just a non-stop stream of consciousness rambling with an occasional “hail hilter” and “I sucked my cousin’s dick”.

Trump has claimed a few times that, in order for cars to be approved for import in Japan, they must be able to withstand an impact from a bowling ball without denting. It’s not a real thing. When the White House press secretary was asked why Trump made up such a weird lie, she said it was “obviously a joke”.

She was likely against the somewhat liberal views of Pope Francis, like how Christians should be kind to gay people and refugees.

I feel like there’s always been a culture of boys and young men who didn’t respect women, there’s just never been podcasters actively promoting it.

The internet allows idiots to broadcast their message worldwide and social media promotes the most controversial stuff in order to drive engagement and, more recently, to promote a culture war that keeps the populus divided.

The French word for apple is pomme.
The German word for apple is Apfel.

The French word for Germany is Allemagne.
The German word for Germany is Deutschland.

Asking why all languages don’t call Germany “Deutschland” is the same as asking why all languages don’t call apples “Apfel”.

Even within the same language, pronunciation changes by regional accent. Which region has the correct accent and which regions are kids taught to pronounce things incorrectly? Languages also change over time. The grammatical rules of English now aren’t the same as they were 100 years ago. Is English more correct now or less correct?

Language is more like music than it is math.

Likely this. Gift cards are popular purchases when using stolen credit card details. The online order makes it easier since there’s no physical card/chip needing to be replicated.

Innocent until proven guilty. Nobody should be in jail without a conviction.