"How Companies Finally Realized They Need to Invest in Reasonable HR Staffing Levels"

"Let's say a game developer chooses to not sell the game on Steam and use something else instead.It probably would not sell that great."

You mean like Fortnite, Genshin Impact, and Alan Wake 2? All unpopular and unsuccessful titles since they are not on Steam!

Steam is definitely an effective monopoly in some ways, but as others have said, it's partly because they were there first, but mostly because they are still better than all the others. Not even Microsoft with all their money can come up with a better product.

I've no idea why others can't seem to replicate the features of Steam that make them so much better. But I had my Steam Deck for years before I was finally able to hack the Epic and GOG onto it, and playing games there is still a worse experience, just like it is on my PC.

Social features and achievements are all much better on Steam still. And I trust Valve more than the others because of both the way they've run the business and because Valve doesn't act like they have nearly the vested interest in pushing their own games that Epic, MS, and CD Projekt do. This might merely be a perception problem, but it is what it is.

Crypto finally stopped ruining the GPU market for gamers (mostly) and AI comes along to screw things up for consumers.
Glad I got my current PC up to 64G of RAM last year, but it's still DDR4. Guess I won't be upgrading any time soon.

I might be too old to speak on this with much authority, but my experience with today's youth is that they don't really watch "TV", at least not nearly as much as I did as a kid, or even as much as I do now. So I don't think it's the combination of social media + TV, because for many kids phones and YouTube/TikTok have replaced TV.

I wonder if they account for reduced time actually reading books or studying. I mean, if someone spent all day working on the farm and never read a book I bet their reading and vocabulary skills would also suffer.

But is this a "cognitive" decline? Or just a lower skill level?

I've seen the AI videos from the very beginning to the newest nonsense, and they are still terrible compared to anything a human with a halfway decent understanding of cinematography, writing, or story-telling can produce. The rate of improvement seems scary I suppose, but there's a ceiling for now, just like with the other uses of AI.

The only YouTube creators in danger from AI are the untalented hacks that were creating "slop" long before GPT was a thing.

Of course there's clearly a market for that kind of garbage, so I'm not saying there will be no effect. But the effect won't necessarily be a net negative :)

My Samsung fridge (without a screen) can't even manage to not leak water from the filter into the deli tray.

I know, not really relevant, but there's so little to say about this, I just thought I'd share.

Computers have been able to beat 99% of the population at chess for quite a while.

Beating a bunch of college-level coders at coding isn't any more a sign of "general intelligence" than was my Amiga 500 being able to checkmate me 35 years ago.

Well that's the problem isn't it? Are they saying that anyone who isn't meeting the recommended specs can't complain about performance? If that's the case then why bother with "minimum specs"? Just say "required specs" and make them as high as you need to have a perfect experience.

It sounds like Gearbox are being assholes, but I am at arms length in this conversation, so I don't need to get into a protracted discussion about it. I've said my 2c.

I haven't played the game because looter shooters are for children. But a quick look at the minimum specs on Steam indicate that Gearbox must have lied when releasing it if this is an issue.

MINIMUM:
i7-9700 (released in 2019)
RTX 2070 (released in 2018)
16GB RAM (standard since at least 2018)

RECOMMENDED:
i7-12700 (released in 2022)
RTX 3080 (released in 2020)
32GB RAM (standard for gaming PCs since like 2022)

"minimum spec" for a game isn't supposed to mean "technically runs but no one will actually be willing to play it that way".

USB-A is ancient and can't be phased out fast enough IMO. Laptops aren't intended for you to plug a bunch of stuff in - if you're out of ports, buy a desktop or a dock.

Heard of Bluetooth? Works great for mice and keyboards. If you're gaming competitively on a laptop and need something more responsive than BT then you're in a very small minority and can't expect manufacturers to cater to you at this point.

Many monitors have USB hubs built-in now. Dell's hub monitor costs barely more than a regular one and has built in ethernet and various USB ports, all run over a single USB-C that also provides power to your laptop.

Phasing out a THIRTY year old tech isn't "premature". Do you also want a VGA port on your laptop?

I guess I can't be too mad at a white dude in his 70's not knowing better, but Barry is pretty smart. It's disappointing to see him choose Substack when he has the chance to start fresh and isn't fighting with having to move *off* of Substack to a less problematic service.

AI is just the latest excuse/cover story. CEO says "I need less heads" and finds an excuse that "enables" the cuts.

This is how AI is going to end up showing an ROI, but it will be short lived.

If it hasn't already started, how long before Srinivasan has a group of "chosen" top performers that also happen to all be his sexual partners?

I can't imagine our staff just "not showing up" on their anchor days. Maybe it's because most of them are hourly, or because they aren't slackers. But most of my team works a hybrid 3-in 2-out schedule, with "in office" days staggered to partly overlap, and everyone in the office on Wed for meetings and such.

When this started it was made very clear by management that if you didn't come in on your anchor day, you are out - sick or vacation, just like if you didn't come in on a regular work schedule.

That's all it took. No one has an incentive to try working remotely if the boss will simply mark your timecard as a day off anyway. They do give the option to "swap" an in/out on an individual basis for emergencies or important stuff, but it's rarely used.

For example - In some places you don't have to pay for healthcare or childcare and you get twice as much paid vacation and parental leave, but your taxes are higher.

The US is ranked 23rd in happiness, with most of Europe far ahead, while the US is 13th in cost of living, with only 3 European countries ahead of it.

There are lots of ways to define winning and losing, and this isn't one of them.