Funny but the only game I own on Steam is the Doom/Doom2 full collection. It is 50 years old, gets new maps daily from many different dev's. I play on the free UZDoom engine which is as good as most today. I play the original BG and BG2 quite often, they are old as well. Beyond BG3 I've not found too many compelling new games. I use Steam for Demo's and to see what is new. I buy on GoG and Itch.

if you don't have an offline installer you didn't "buy" a game you leased it for an indeterminate period. I've been on steam for a long time, but I don't support a platform with money if I can't play my game at my cabin with no net. Granted Steam has some offline ability but it is flaky and doesn't work for all titles.

By your logic Gaming owes itself to MicroSloth and we should all support that crap. The only thing Valve gives back is that which is required by the various licenses, and they have made a good living off OSS.
All this aside I still love and play HL often.

other countries such as ? easy to quote nothing...

Lord no. The system needs reworking. The LEO's (law enforcement officers) should submit the request and justification to a third party, just like search warrants, who should then provide the data. This kind of tool needs centralized authority and security. But humans are crap, so even with watchers some will abuse the system.

I'd mod you up if I hadn't posted already. A simple check and balance system would make Flock a great resource and stop the abuses. I don't like the idea of being tracked everywhere but if you had just cause, the ability to do a city or state wide search for a vehicle by plate number is amazing and could save lives.

There are in excess of 800k Police/Sheriff/Highway Patrol officers in the US. 50 doing bad things or even 500 is a very tiny percentage. Look at other professions and plot the sizable percentage that go rogue. I wonder what the % of CEO/CIO that commit fraud and embezzle is. Cops that go bad SHOULD be nailed to the wall, but quit painting everyone the same color as the crooks.
On another note Flock is a great tool provided it is strongly regulated. What they are doing today is crap. You need a writ or a warrant to get info on anyone...

FT or Field Training is 12 months AFTER a 14-18 week boot camp academy. You can be let go for any reason during your FT. That seems like a fairly robust training and guidance period. What other countries are you referring to ? All police in the world operate with "qualified immunity" not would not be possible to do the job without i.t

It is a nice thought but nothing more than that. Not even enough for a bad cup of coffee each.

"We know that people uniquely trust Google Earth" Anyone who trusts ANYTHING Gurgle puts out is foolish. Everything Gurgle does is for profit.

Google's feature don't discourage people from using Reddit. Reddit's shitty UI keep me from using it. I WAS an OldReddit viewer but they did away with that option as well. News site like USA Today are such an ad laden crap fests that it is no wonder people use any option to NOT have to view it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending Gurgle, they suck and we all know it, but they are a convenient scapegoat. I get 2 papers at my house, the local Yuma Sun which is like a High School paper, and the SF Chronicle. Reporting is not what it used to be, both are opinionated crap most of the time. The best stuff for facts is always AP.

Just wait a bit and there will be a glut of smart phones available as everyone under the age of 16 gets booted of social media and the net in general.

wow the world you live in seems sooo um exciting

The people that made things got tired of the BS and moved on. The people that TALK about making things are going as strong as ever...

I've been at fark since Drew was begging for beer. It's a hole these days sadly echoing echoing echoing...

"They were one of the early zealot converts and, well, it didn't work out very well for them long term." ---------This very much

Their cell phones will rot a generation, but they've got an AI horror bot to really screw up the kids. Will it help them with their suicide note ? or will it help plan the mostly justified revenge killings of the school council ? How about instead of the billion dollar AI bot we pay the teacher a few bucks and hire 2 of the mom's as class aids ? I liked Woz, mainly because he kept his fat ass out of the media and didn't make stupid grandstanding gestures.