Get off my law! Since the semi-recent trend of games to "must online" for no viable reason I've played so much less. The race to the bottom of 12yo trolling, cheat/anti-cheat wars, and "micro-transactions" which are often anything but...has happily pushed me out of most modern gaming. There's a few titles with solo mode that can be acquired by 'ways' and remove the BS lock-outs.

Otherwise, I spent maybe 50 bucks for a handheld emulator similar in size to a gameboy...despite claims otherwise it DID come pre-loaded with 1000's of old school roms. I can save-scum the hard parts and enjoy the fun parts and play thru every game from my adolescence through adulthood. Oh, and not a single one of them even has an OPTION to pay for extra lives. 3 and bye bye to this kind of nonsense from WB and their ilk

But "F2P" do get played even if they suck...because there's no barrier for entry they can get people and then addict them to the endorphin-reward cycle.

In general, it's about creating an addicting gaming mechanic with either a power-imbalance or artificial scarcity (or both) that can be solved by clicking the pay-now button.

They're always eager to convert someone from F2P, but even if they can't...yes, they'll get enough currency, resources, or whatever else to be easy fodder for the whales. The whole concept is just the direct monetization of the social media/gambling/doom scrolling/etc. addiction that companies are not only engaging in but actively encouraging. "you can get this free in 2 weeks if you click every day or right now by clicking pay-99.99 just once!" p.s. here's a leaderboard to see who clicked the most times!

This is something pretty much anyone can test for themselves:

Try using the calculator a smartphone vs the number pad on your keyboard to enter a number series.
While looking, your accuracy and speed be clearly better on the keypad - the tactile interaction keeps your fingers aligned.
Without looking, the touch screen becomes practically unusable.

It's the same reason that apple walked back their touch bar. Same reason flat/touch/projected keyboards never caught on and laptops that fight to shave .1mm of height still retain physically moving, tactile keyboards.

Now add in all the complexities of driving ... so yah. I'm not a fan of the 'common sense' argument typically but in this case it fits.

Besides data already linked, looking at and poking a screen until you manage to tap just the right spot (from significantly off-center in most cases) is a much more difficult task than twisting the left hand knob below the row of row of buttons - all of which you can feel - to do some task while driving.

For a touch screen you not only have to look away from the road, but also re-focus your eyes on a close object to change. The other you can do with a glance at most, even in a car you aren't familiar with. It's similar to the idea behind steering wheel controls - not only can you keep your eyes on the road, but your hands too.

Studies and above aside, how accurately can you use a touch screen without looking vs. buttons you can reach by feel?

If 10 million people file binding arbitration cases, you'd both bankrupt the company over the binding arb fees and flood/crash the arbitration process. TBH this should happen all the time but people are lazy af.

I mean ... you also can't use windows if you don't accept the EULA.

You can't use a very, very many products straight out of the box without agreeing to some nonsense. Whether it's enforceable or not is another matter and one companies to their best to avoid judgments against. If any individual chased after this with seriousness, they're highly likely to just refund you and "settle without admitting wrongdoing" to avoid a judgement others could reference/leverage.

Welcome to the utter nonsense of litigation in the USA.

Also, you owe me a 10% service charge for reading this post. I'll add it to you bill!

Binding arb is among the worst SCOTUS decisions in the modern age (corporate 'personhood' still takes the cake IMO). It's allowed companies to essentially circumvent most laws around their products.

There was a fun 'test case' where hundreds, maybe thousands? or people tried to leverage binding arb. Since it costs the company non-trivial money for each case, but typically far less than trials/class action...the idea was to make the binding arb cost them millions even if they won every case. I'm not sure how that eventually turned out but i miss that kind of malicious compliance.

Tires are wear items, but not weekly replacement unless you're talking a commuter aircraft making multiple trips a day. From Air Canada:

Main–wheel tires have an average lifespan of 300 to 450 landings, while a nose wheel can withstand 200 to 350. (The nose wheel wears more when it pivots left and right to turn the airplane.) Depending on wear and tear, some tires might stay on much longer – up to 600 landings – while others will be replaced after 50

It could be an underlying design flaw (with a low occurrence rate or slow propagation) that's mitigated or exacerbated by certain other factors.

Look at the issues with MCAS issues on the 737 MAX. The system was inherently flawed but required specific circumstances to trigger and then failure of the crew to act properly in order to produce a crash. Had they actually done proper crew training those crashes probably would not have happened, and a quiet fix implemented some time down the road after a few roller coaster incidents. You can also unintentionally and unknowingly cover up a flaw due to some "useless" maintenance procedure. Someone learns to skip that procedure and nothing bad ever happens. Until one day equipment with a flaw comes through, skips that procedure, and fails catastrophically.

That said, I doubt they forgot to tighten the lug nuts and wear/fatigue parts are generally inspected so... I'm interested to see what the investigation results are.

If you're going all citation required, maybe Queers for Palestine can help.

You're literally saying that hiring people based on something *other than* their merit (skin color, gender, etc.) is more effective than hiring based on merit ... and then demanding evidence of that like it's some outlier opinion? Get real.

It's anecdotal, but I've seen this many, many times.

Companies put diversity at the top of their job posting before the requirements. Vendors lead their sales pitch with 'minority owned' not 'best in class'. I've been required to explain why someone I hired *wasn't* diverse (with no question of their competency). I've been denied a job because "we're looking for a more diverse candidate".

No. It is not. That's a red herring and, frankly, racist.

The problem is people do this on both sides. People are included because they're black but they're also excluded because they're black. Both are wrong and, as mom always said, two wrong's don't make a right.

something something 3 lefts though...

It does now. Whole jobs, departments, and even "industries" (ahem ESG) have been created around DEI.

Diversity can mean multiple viewpoints and inputs leading to a more complete (i.e. better) solution or product. It can also mean a niche viewpoint/need/requirement gets favored over one that would be beneficial to a much broader group. It's one of those things that is definitely helpful in the right context, but can also be harmful is the wrong context.

OTOH when you have a group of people with no connection to their customers you do get some ridiculous, and often hilarious, products. One fun example - nearly every woman's sneaker is actually based on the mold of a mans foot.

No, but the FDA can rule that your toothpaste doesn't follow the applicable laws and can no longer be sold. Look at crypto. Wild, wild west ... until it came to attention of various regulatory agencies and now there's lots of regulations.