Comment Of course (Score 4, Insightful) 82
Something which makes it easier and more convenient for people to file taxes cannot be tolerated.
Whatever it takes, you will pay. That is their goal.
Something which makes it easier and more convenient for people to file taxes cannot be tolerated.
Whatever it takes, you will pay. That is their goal.
Naw. Somehow, this will be Obama or Hillary's fault.
Won't happen, at least not with my books.
There is a reason writing the last one took two years. Many of its passages have very carefully considered wordings. Intentional ambiguities. Alliterations. Words chosen because the other term for the same thing is too similar to another thing that occurs in the same paragraph. Names picked with intention, by the sound of them (harsher or softer, for example).
I've used AI extensively in many fields. Including translations. It's pretty good for normal texts like newspaper articles or Wikipedia or something. But for a book, where the emotional impact of things matter, where you can't just substitute one words for a synonym and get the same effect - no, I don't think so.
This is one area where even I with a general positive attitude to AI want a human translator with whom I can discuss these things and where I can get a feeling of "did she understand this part of the book and why it's described this way?".
If they want to win, the people need to see and experience the true impact of the laws passed by the Republicans.
That has been happening. More importantly, people need to see that Democrats are willing to stand up and fight rather than just rolling over for every nasty thing the Republicans are doing.
The Democrats are just terrible at strategy. Really, really bad.
In the sense that the elder Democratic Party leadership kept trying to play by the rules while the Republicans proved they are dishonest sociopathic fucks incapable of fair and honest behavior, you are correct. What we are seeing right now is that the younger Democratic leadership are taking charge and not playing along with Republican dishonesty any more. And again, part of the Democratic Party regaining support is proving by action that they are willing to fight.
Add to that, government shutdowns are just stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. The laws have already been passed, and now we just have to write the check to pay for what was already done. And trying to use it as a tool to force Republicans - many of whom would be happy if the government were shutdown forever - to negotiate? Not going to work.
Democrats negotiated and the party consensus is that Schumer "caved" last March during the prior budget negotiations. And what happened right after March? Republicans promptly RENEGED ON THE AGREEMENTS anyways, first canceling many promised policy votes and then using "rescission" to remove approved funding from various programs. The Republicans proved that they cannot be trusted.
So now the Democrats are actually fighting. And they're making it clear that this time, they're not just going to cave. And the proof that it's actually working? Look at Tuesday's election results.
EVERY open governor's race went Democrat, and not only that, all three beat the polling predictions by a pretty big margin.
California voted to redistrict and say "Fuck Texas" by an almost 2/3 majority.
Pennsylvania retained all 3 Democratic supreme court members by double-digit margins.
Dear Retarded MAGA Fuckwit and Likely Pedophile:
Why aren't the victims naming the people who victimized them? Because they are scared for their safety since many of the offenders are in powerful positions, like Treasonous Pedophilic Sack of Criminal Shit Donald Judas Trump.
Oh, and BTW, was Epstein accused of pedophilia? The official charges were: sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors. Read that again and again until you understand it, you Dishonest Fucking Lying Pedophile.
It needs just one. This is why Ku Klux Klan Member Mike Johnson is holding the House out of session and refusing to seat Adelita Grijalva (for over 40 days now!) despite her election being fully certified. She will be signature #218.
Keep in mind that when there were GOP members available (Jimmy Patronis and Randy Fine) after special elections he RUSHED to get them sworn in even before the full vote counting had finished.
Klan Member Mike Johnson needs to be removed from office and prosecuted for all of his corruption.
It goes Way beyond parasocial into the realm of madness.
GOP/"MAGA" is a cult. A white-supremacist, bigoted, horrific, dangerous cult.
They think that if they just idolize their "glorious leader" hard enough, somehow all their misogynistic, racist, bigoted wishes will come true. Remember what they were saying the last time Trump and his America-hating GOP flunkies shut the government down: "He's not hurting the people he's supposed to be hurting."
They literally voted for him in hopes of harming others. Every member of the dangerous MAGA cult is a malevolent sociopath.
An ILLEGAL monopoly (in the USA) requires a person/organization to use anti-competitive measures to attain and/or retain monopolistic control over an industry. This can include predatory pricing, predatory mergers, intentionally driving competitors out of business, and the refusal to deal in normal circumstances.
Steam is a LEGAL monopoly that gained its market share by getting in early and being consistently foresightful, considerate of their customers' needs, and competitive in the industry.
So why is an article at all? Because of the distribution fees. You pay two ways to distribute a game on Steam. First, you pay a one-time $100, but you get that back after $1,000 in sales. Second, You pay a 30% commission on all sales, but that drops to 25% after you bring in $10 million and 20% after $50 million.
Is that unfair? Probably not. Consider how much it would cost to print a bunch of CDs/DVDs, boxes, get stores to carry your game, etc. And if you don't want to do that (no one does), compare it to the cost to distribute your game elsewhere and what features that system has (or more likely, doesn't have).
GOG, Microsoft, XBox, Playstation, Nintendo, has no one-time fee, but has a similar revenue share at 30%.
EPIC Games has a $100 listing fee but has the lowest revenue share I could find at 12%.
So Steam is comparably priced, has a MASSIVE marketshare, isn't attempting to absorb smaller competitors, and they provide a great, stable product.
So is there a problem?
Using TSO is like kicking a dead whale down the beach. -- S.C. Johnson