The idea of rail is that you have rail that goes near your home so you can access it by non-motorised means of transport. Erm.. you know, walking.

However conservatives did the opposite. Closing most of the local rail lines down (then privatised the rail companies). There's a reason so many streets in Britain are called "Beechings Close", it refers to the Beeching report which started the consolidation of rail lines.

That being said, I doubt this will get very far in the UK or Europe as we tend not to let techbros do whatever they want regardless of laws or consequences. Especially for the UK where most local streets have no centre line and parked cars on both sides. Autonomous cars seem to be failing on nice, wide, straight, well marked American roads, I'm already laughing at the idea of them getting stuck in the first pothole they encounter on your average British residential street.

Official response from Techbros:

lololololololololololololololol.... we'll pay you like we pay taxes.

Message ends.

Erm... you're half right...

It is a horribly overused marketing buzzword but it does have a meaning. AAA is a financial term more than a gaming one, it refers to lowest possible credit risk so when applied to projects tends to indicate the highest possible budget. In layman's terms, AAA games had a metric shitload (0.76 imperial fucktons) of money thrown at them. It isn't an indication of product quality, only project budget although marketers like to pretend that it somehow means that it means the game is a crack glazed hotcake and will sell like it... Which we've seen many AAA games fail to do in recent days.

Marketers have tried to introduce "AAAA" but no-one has listened except to make crass jokes like "fuck it, we're going straight to 9 A's" (and I do love a well crafted crass joke).

Quite, it won't be long before someone figures out how to fake it.

The answer to cheating has always been a moderated server with a decent mod. Cheating is a social problem rather than a technological one, so it requires a social solution.

Companies like EA, Take2, et al. won't care that this will be broken in short order as they don't really care about supporting a game beyond the time it takes to release the next iteration.

And it's too late.

My current gaming boxen is coming up to 5 years old, so I'm using Man Maths to justify building a new one early in the new year. With the new boxen I have two emphasis, 1. at least 4 M2 slots as that seems to be where cheap storage is going and 2. Linux compatibility. Most, if not all of my current steam Library is gold on Linux and/or Steam Deck. So that just leaves the games I have on GOG and my ancient non-steam games. Steams compatbility layer seems pretty good so that means my next gaming boxen is going to be configured for dual boot _with_ an emphasis on Linux.

Had you said this when I was building my last gaming boxen, I'd have called you mad (well actually wishful thinking).

VPNs, browser extensions and the fact the websites just don't care means that it's all a bit pointless.

Yep, this will just make more business flee the US as the political situation deteriorates.

However enough people still believe that people other than Americans will somehow be paying for this. During the last set of Tarrifs before TACO chickened out, we had American customers asking if we'd adsorb the 15% tariff and were surprised to here "LoL, no" in a stuffy British accent (we also have a Glaswegian who can produce something even more colourful). He didn't bother storming off in a huff as he knew the only other places to get these items were from the EU (specifically Belgium or Germany, amazingly enough things we export from the UK tend to be made in other developed economies) which were subject to even higher tariffs

BTW, the UK was subject to an additional 10% tariff, that was on top of the 5% duties that Americans already pay for this particular product.

If enough people resist, they'll change the laws to make resistance a crime.

The US is already in a police state as enough Americans have accepted concentration camps, illegal detention, illegal deportation, deployment of the national guard against protesters, et al. Nor the arrest warrants for political opponents in Texas. Hell, you've got enough people defending this shit.

It's a bit late for civil resistance as they'll just demonise you as agitators on television (which they control, having cancelled Colbert) and say that enforcement was justified. Denounce anyone against them for their lack of patriotism.

You're pretty much at the point where you're hoping for a military coup as that seems to be the most bloodless option. Maybe a cabal of military officers will decide the constitution is more important than following orders.

First they came for the illegals, but I did not speak out because I wasn't an illegal.
Then they came for the immigrants, but I did not speak out because I wasn't an immigrant.
Then they came for the Liberals, but I did not speak out because I wasn't a Liberal.
Then they came for the Democrats, but I did not speak out because I wasn't a democrat. Then they came for me and there was no-one left to speak out for me.

What will happen first is that things in the US will get expensive. Long before the shortages, shortages will be a result of people not being able to afford medication, food and fuel.

This will be good for the 1% in the short term but whilst wealth does not "trickle down", poverty certainly "trickles up". Ironic that the huge advantage early US industrialists had over Europeans is that they knew that they needed their workers to be able to afford to buy what they produced in order to make money.

And Britain has to avoid the same thing with Nigel Farage.

If we cant avoid that horrible frog-faced pitfall we, as a nation, deserve to die.

In naval parlance (at least British naval parlance) a boat is a vessel that can be carried by another larger vessel, a ship isn't. A boat can be carried by a ship, as most early subs were carried by ships the habit stuck and became tradition.

Same with DSV Alvin (famed for studying the Titanic wreck) the crew compartment is a sphere because it's the most stable structure to resist pressure. It's possible to use other shapes, but less efficient meaning more material required to build, more weight, et al. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSV_Alvin

The department of homeland security has long been known as the chief purveyor of insecurity.

Fear will keep the local systems in line, fear of this battle station.

Yarr, fixed that for ye.

Honestly, weather will take out far more drones than yahoos with shotguns... and yes, they do (clay) pigeon shooting in my part of England. Birdshot does not go that far.