That can't happen

It's more like "Your purchased game is no longer yours to play, because we said so". Meh. If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing. And in the old days, DRM might prevent you from playing a legitimate copy because of some hardware issue, the game's copy protection might make you jump through al manner of hoops before it would even start, maybe you lost the required dongle, or whatever. Good reasons to pirate, because it would give you a far better experience. Games have gotten a lot better, but this move sounds like a step in the wrong direction, even if it is more about online cheating than piracy.

Same shit with DVDs and Blu-rays. No format shifting, ads that can't be skipped, random HDCP errors that force me to keep power cycling all devices in my media chain until it somehow starts working again. Here too, the pirated product is better. It's not that I don't want to pay for stuff, I'd love to pay in order to have companies make more enjoyable content. But as a paying customer I don't want to be treated worse than the pirates!

And it's becoming a matter of principle as well. Morally I used to feel compelled to pay, perhaps buying a Blu-ray and only then getting a pirated file (or ripping the disc when possible). But these days? Game companies still have my sympathy, but movie companies have perverted the social contract of Copyright so far beyond its original intent, that I do not feel a single shred of obligation anymore to keep my end of it.

Ì did not "go there", I described what I think will happen if we do nothing and just let the current system evolve naturally. Plenty of ideas for other systems, from a full blown planned economy, to the current system with a UBI, different ways to levy taxes to pay for that, and so on. And like you, I am pessimistic about it happening. But not because people cannot fathom another system, or even that people wouldn't be able to agree on a system. The problem is that one way or the other, the "haves" are going to have to give something up, and not just the super rich, but the upper middle class as well. That makes it very unlikely to happen.

Not sure why this is marked "troll"... it's a fair question. The main ways we have to distribute wealth is through labour, and return on venture capital. If labour is no longer a viable method because a large majority of people won't be wanted for work anymore, and we keep the system as is, then you end up with a massive welfare system that is inevitably going to collapse, while people living off return on investments will continue to do well until economic collapse follows, with no middle class to prop it up.

I've worked with consultants in a large international corporation, and almost all of them appeared to have been brought in for the second reason: to provide justification for decisions already made. But the real reason was almost always something else (though similar): they needed to sell their decision to upper management. A manager might have come up with a project beneficial to the business, but needed sign-off and sponsorship from those higher up in the chain. So he'd get a consultant to pitch the project to upper management; putting problems, solutions, impact and risks in terms that they'd understand.

And most of those consultants were good, very good... Though it does say something about your company if your middle management needs help in communicating with upper management, and if upper management is incapable of understanding the needs and want of the departments they are managing, without a specially crafted shiny slide deck.

As for the few consultants who were brought in to research and advise, some of what they produced was really valuable. If you get a good firm, you get a consultant who will activate their network in the consulting firm and/or academia, so it's never just 1 expert you're relying on.

Can one CEO, jock or movie star actually make that much of a difference? Maybe... and with the jocks it is actually measurable to a degree. So it will be with these employees.

Trump wasn't the first... The EU lowered the de minimis threshold ages ago. On a lot of imports we have to pay duty now... and worse: the shipment will languish for weeks in some warehouse, and then the carrier will charge €50 for "customs fees".

Here, that heart rate monitor is replaced by a small disposable device the size of a 1x2 LEGO brick, which you tape to your index finger before you go to bed. It connects to your phone via Bluetooth and sends the data to a clinic. I suspected sleep apnea some time ago and had the test done. Turned out I had a mild case, no medical necessity for it to be treated, but the doctor said national health care would pay for either a CPAP or MAD, if I wanted one. I opted for the latter.

Technology has made some strides there as well... Didn't have to bite down on those decidedly unpleasant metal molds filled with nasty gum. The dentist moved a small wand around in my mouth which created a 3d scan on the fly. Took 3 minutes, results mailed directly to the manufacturer, and the MAD arrived a week later.

Oh yes, some governments love the idea of censorship-by-proxy: instead of issuing unpopular laws against free speech or free commerce, they come up with rules to make companies responsible for countering money laundering, human trafficking, or what have you. Rules with vague criteria but very stiff penalties, in order to scare companies into erring on the side of caution.

But in this case, it is quite that simple. Banks and payment processors should be declared to be a Common Carrier, especially since their services should be considered essential, these days. Which means they cannot deny service to anyone, unless there is a clear indication that they are running afoul of the law.

That's a bit like being on a cruise where the breakfast buffet offers only eggs prepared a 1000 different ways, and you're telling someone who is allergic to eggs "if you can't find something good, maybe lower your standards". For the record: I do like eggs.

A tiny handful? The problem is that they pretty much dominated the Blockbuster niche for the past decade or two. The kind of movie many of us turn to for a few hours of dumb escapism: usually with a simple but solid plot, some explosions and eye candy, uncomplicated characters, but big ticket actors and good production values. For those of us who enjoy that sort of thing, but dislike the premise of superheroes, it has been woefully slim pickings the past years.

At least the damn thing apologized. That's pretty impressive. Though not quite what we want from AI.

It's not like it's the first time either. Here they caught a lady taking a wee behind a parked car. They did blur her face though...

I'm doing SwiftUI app development and upgraded one of my test devices to iOS 26 beta 4 this morning.

I don't see anything different, but I assume something different is happening under the hood.

...laura

It's doable, if he gets a couple of Chinese engineers to help. Designing and building factories is an art in itself, one we've largely lost in the West. But in China, they know how to set up an automated factory, producing goods to the right tolerances, and applying automated QA. They do that pretty much every day.