"AI" has been replacing these jobs for years. When's the last time you had to go to a travel agent, no you just use Google Flights and book direct like anyone else with half a brain. Same with vacuum cleaner salesmen.

Also I long for the day where Karens get sent to AI, anyone who has ever worked retail sees that as a utopian future.

It's the same reason they mindlessly hate unions. They sacrificed, gave everything, bled for the company, sucked every corporate knob, shoved their tongue up every managerial arse and there comes along someone who had the audacity to stand up for their rights and get everything that the corporate drone was arse licking for and then some. Worse yet, this "unionist" might even be *gasp* working class and earning more than them.

In order to reconcile their bad life choices they buy into the corporate propaganda that unions are evil, that's the ticket... they aren't actually getting what they want, good wages, good conditions and benefits, it's the union being evil... Bosses love it when people blame the union instead of them, hence they reinforce this narative constantly so that the brown-nosers never ever, not once, think of organising and standing up for themselves.

It might be good for Fidelity to read this classic tome.
Short version: Adding more people to a project doesn't speed things up.

It's not the only solution, but it's usually the correct one.

However I wouldn't count on it, as Winston Churchill once said "you can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they've tried everything else".

Don't assume it's a script, I mean that takes a modicum of skill where as a room full of Russians or Pakistanis are cheap and require no skill what so ever.

The one where you can watch a chubby, tanned bottle blond fuck thousands of average Americans.

Sony's going broke as well. They are both struggling to make money on their loss leader model these days as people are chafing under the "pay for everything" model they use. People are trying to find cheaper "Xbox/PS live "rape me"" subscriptions and buying fewer games (which publishers have to pay a fee to the console manufacturers to sell.

Nintendo is going to be the only one left because ultimately, Nintendo is the only one still making a console instead of a PC wannabe... as for the PC wannabes, they'll never be as good as a PC and are just as expensive (more so once you add on all your subscriptions for basic things).

Not that Nintendo is remotely benign these days either. I'll just stick to PC gaming.

Nononononono, this is one of those "one rule for me and another for thee" things. They still want their patents and copyrights enforced, especially against the little people.

Gaben isn't the only publisher who's said this, Brad Wardell of Stardock has also said something similar, pirates dont matter or pirates are just unserved customers.

Ultimately they're right, if someone is going to pirate then you ultimately cant stop them. All you can do is make a product that people want to pay for, something good enough that people think "I'll separate myself from my hard earned Dollars/Euros/Pounds/Zloty/insert currency of choice here".

In the end, by trying to stop pirates all you do is punish your own customers, those who actually paid money for your product.

How are Valve gatekeeping?

They don't control PC gaming, you can self publish your game if you like and there's absolutely nothing Valve can do to stop you (unlike on say, Apple, Xbox or Playstation). Valve is the 600 KG gorilla in PC gaming because they do good work and deliver promises, for their 30% they handle a lot of things for you, payment processing, currency exchange, customer service (OK, here is where they aren't particularly stellar), content distribution, security, so on and so forth.

If anything, Valve has been a bulwark against other companies like Epic, Microsoft and EA trying to become PC gaming gatekeepers.

Also, please do not sully the good name of Satan by comparing him to the likes of EA, Ubisoft and Microsoft.

It's not particularly difficult either. Most people haven't declared bankruptcy, been involved in financial crime or other rare event that will make you ineligible for credit. Given the number of challenger banks out there if the high street banks turn you down you've got options and options for days. Hell, a lot of the challenger banks are skirting the rules on credit to get new customers, Starling for one offers a line of credit (overdraft facility, effectively the same thing) on almost every account, default is £500 and can't be reduced to less than £50.

I'm going to wait for Meme Civ IV.

The subsequent ones will be terribad.

Only embers which land within 5 feet of the house are a danger. If that area is clear of flammable material the house is safe.

Standard US building codes now specify screening of vents under eaves. This prevents embers from entering and starting a fire. That's what my houses have.

Standard wildfire protection measures emphasize that you need to remove all burnable material within 5 feet (1.5 meters) of the house.
That's all you need to do.
If an ember lands in this zone, it will just burn out and not set the house on fire.