Aw man, The Reality Dysfunction series would make for one hell of a freaky TV series.

"You call yourself a gamer? ChatGPT 1.0 could have made that shot. You know what? I'm turning this Xbox off. I'm doing you a favor. Go play with GI Joes."

Take away physical media and now consoles join what's already standard in the PC gaming market: you don't own anything anymore, you just have a license to play the game. Of course console manufacturers want to do the same thing. More money for them if they go digital download only and make people buy games again if the console is sold or given to someone else without the PlayStation account used to purchase the games.

They said they weren't ready to support macOS Sequoia yet and to wait to deploy until they were ready. This is because Apple often makes last minute changes from the last beta to general release and they need time to sort things out. Apologies, can't link to the source because it's behind a CrowdStrike login.

Finally a comment that actually has some sense. Not everything is a political conspiracy y'all.

IMO I think this goes back to the Xbox One. Microsoft really shot themselves in the foot with its release. It required you have the Kinect connected (requirement later removed), no Blu-ray playback (fixed with the Xbox One S), still wouldn't let you install your own storage media, and when they finally released the Xbox One X with had 4K gaming it was a year behind the PS4 Pro. Whereas with the PS4 you could install whatever 2.5" form factor hard drive or SSD you wanted, they didn't make any huge crazy changes, and carried the same great gaming experience forward without forcing changes.

When the PS5 and Xbox Series S/X came about, the hardware inside is now virtually identical, so there really wasn't a question about which was "better" anymore. It became about what the platforms had to offer, and IMO Sony did it right with the PS5. They produced a cool console with upgradeable NVMe storage, whereas Microsoft produced basically a SFF PC with vendor lock-in firmly in place. Xbox had already lost the loyalty of those who loved the Xbox 360 (myself included) so why try going back to their walled garden when most everything and a lot of great exclusives were on the PS5, and most everything else can be had on PC with very few Xbox exclusives?

I bought a PS4 Pro solely because enough games were exclusive that I didn't want to wait for hopefully eventual PC releases to come out. Never crossed my mind to get an Xbox One. Nowadays I still haven't bought a PS5 mainly (besides getting older and not spending as much time gaming heh) because I have enough on my PC to be going on with, and almost every game that I really want to make time to play will eventually be out for it. If I miss something, eh, I'll get a used PS5 later. Maybe.

I think it's just a matter of the computer downloading the updated files from CrowdStrike before it BSODs again. Then on the next reboot it works. Two of my VMs were affected; one of them recovered after a single reboot. The other one I went in and deleted the files.

.. the amount that people will pay just to get high.

Not necessarily. Remember when the FCC tried to mandate 24 hours of backup power for all cell sites and the carriers all pitched a fit and won? And continue to still argue against any regulation? They argue that their fleets of movable power generators and planning ahead for storm response is "good enough", and thankfully some tower site owners are taking it upon themselves to provide backup power solutions as well. But no, not all cell towers have backup batteries. Some do, and some have permanent generators, but some have nothing unless someone rolls up with a generator.

Dude let's look at some examples from just the good ol' United States of America.

• States are banning abortions after six weeks and/or when a fetal heartbeat is detected, because "since there's a heartbeat, there must be life!" There is no science to back this as a viable, conscious human being. The best science points to a fetus gaining consciousness once the thalamocortical structure is developed, which begins developing ~24 weeks, and said fetus theoretically gains consciousness around 30-35 weeks. A source: Scientific American. This is clearly a faith-based push to override science with religious belief. And yes, this is based on scientific theory and has yet to be proven. However I refuse to accept scientifically that just because a fetus has developed the bit of muscle that starts moving blood around that it's suddenly as alive as a living, breathing person. Apologies to those of you who believe otherwise, I respect your faith, feel free to not have abortions. Just don't try to make the choice for people who don't believe the same thing that you do.
• States were refusing to participate in mask mandates back when COVID was rampaging the country, for several reasons. Out of several reasons, IMO the biggest science-related one was "There's no way a person can breathe and get enough oxygen wearing one of those things," conveniently ignoring the medical personnel we've all seen and known for years who wear masks to prevent from infecting their vulnerable patients who can obviously breathe just fine. Obviously it helped prevent viral transmission, since cold and flu cases took a serious nosedive when mandates were in place. Oh and cases were higher in areas that eschewed mask mandates versus those who didn't. I don't feel like I need to provide sources for this one, since it's been widely reported and debated up and down the ass crack of this country for years now. I DO wonder if there were any attempts at reporting cases of folks suffering oxygen deprivation because they were wearing masks in public, though. I will admit I did not attempt to research that further.
• This being global, of course, the big one: global warming isn't real. Fuck you, it's absolutely real. It's absolutely measurable and quantifiable through humans' actions on this planet. We trashed the ozone layer, figured out it was largely CFCs, we fixed our shit with that and other ODSes, hole closed up. Last hole was in 2019, and was mostly driven by meteorological conditions. Source.

Everything defying obvious science is either political, financial, or religious. So yeah, there are definitely campaigns against it, and there are WAY more examples than my tired ass cares to dig up right now.

I'd be perfectly happy with this arrangement. Once I've paid for something I should be able to do what I want with it. If I'm not done paying for it, well, sucks to be me.

I rebuilt mine into a BoxyPixel case (the unhinged version). Added USB-C charging and a headphone jack, plus a sweet backlit IPS screen. Added filter capacitors to get rid of the audio buzzing, an amplified speaker circuit, and a new speaker. Frickin gorgeous and plays like a dream.

D'aww, I was hoping for Around the World.

Go see Ash in housewares, he'll get you a good soul saving deal.