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Comment Re:Sign Me Up! (Score 1) 35

Where can I pre-order this inevitable AAA-class game? In fact, let me purchase copies.

Oh my poor sweet summer consumer.

You don't "purchase" games any more, you don't get a "copy". You get a time limited license that expires when you stop paying the ever increasing monthly fees. That's on top of the $100 entry fee per game you get charged.

This is why publishers hate Steam so much, it's not that the 30% is onerous, it's feck all for handling the transaction and customer service components, what they hate is that Steam doesn't enforce a subscription model.

Comment Re: Here is the explaination: (Score 1) 112

In the UK elections are always held on Thursdays. I don't know why but it's true.

One thing to bear in mind about US elections is that voters are seldom there to vote for just one thing. As well as voting for POTUS they will be selecting senators, congressmen and voting on local ballot initiatives. In the UK it's very rare to have more than two ballots in one sitting.

Thanks,

I didn't know it was always a Thursday (in my defence I've only been here for two GEs). Australia is similar to the US where you'll be voting for both your local candidate as we do in the UK as well as for your states representatives in the senate (upper house) and occasionally any other issues that require a plebiscite (which is rather rare, plebiscites in Australia rarely result in a "yes" vote) The senate voting form can easily contain 60+ candidates and has become known as "the tablecloth" due to it's size.

Comment Re:Karl Marx would be proud (Score 2) 109

This is straight up socialism.

I'd argue it's far more fascism, the state isn't giving control of the company to the people (that's Marxism, for the people to own the means of production). Fascism is where the state and it's leaders become the beneficiaries.

A simple cow analogy:
Socialism: you have two cows, the government takes both and gives you some milk.
Fascism: you have two cows, the government takes both and sells you some milk.

Comment Re:fire is nice if it weren't for those nasty flam (Score 3, Interesting) 118

and for reasons that escape me there's a cult of personality around him.

he for sure masters the art of playing the media, getting and redirecting attention. probably why his public outbursts are so outlandish, contradicting and even nonsensical. i guess that tactic can only work for so long and at some point people will just stop registering. then again that invites reflection about why societies are so vulnerable to that kind of messaging, imo the way msm media has degenerated has a lot to do with it, infantilizing discussion and promoting polarization. this has been going on for a while.

The thing about cults of personality is that they tended to either have a dearth of personality or completely repulsive personalities. They get the cult by picking on the naive, vulnerable or just plain stupid.

David Koresh (Branch Davidians, A.K.A. Waco) was reported to be an utterly repulsive person. Didn't bathe, had terrible BO, unkempt, no interpersonal skills (I mean almost none, the average /.er would be positively suave in comparison) except he could pick the vulnerable people out of a room and get close to them.

It's the same with people like Trump, Farage, et al. they figured out that they can rile up the stupid people and then use that anger to get what they want. The people they get riled up over non-issues are too dumb to realise that they're the ones being manipulated, so much so they'll defend the manipulation, violently so in many cases rather than take simple and easy steps to stop being taken advantage of.

You are right of course, that the media played a huge role in this.

Comment Re:Here is the explaination: (Score 2) 112

Yes, but not voting only empowers the fanatics who do vote, and I think people would still get elected. Australia requires all eligible voters to vote. They do have the option to cast a blank ballot, but they do have to show up. There is a fine for failing to vote. At least that would require a majority of those you had even a small tendency one way or the other. I also would like to know, why election day (at least the ones with federal elections) are not automatic holidays in the US.

As a former Australian resident, I'd argue vehemlently against mandatory voting as all it does is force people to vote when they don't want to. It doesn't force people to pay attention to politics, it doesn't make people more aware of the world around them or the issues affecting them. If anything it makes it easier for bad politicians to get elected as they can pander to the easily manipulated who would otherwise not vote by scare mongering rather than campaigning on real issues. The US already has a huge issue with that.

As for a national holiday, that's a uniquely American problem that is of it's own making by allowing political parties to interfere in nuts and bolts of running an election. I've voted in Australia and the UK, it's never taken particularly long, 30 mins max in Australia and you're in and out in 10 mins in the UK. Australia runs it's elections on a Saturday and polling stations are open until 6 PM, the UK runs their elections on weekdays but the polling stations are open from 7 AM until 10 PM. Despite recent attempts by the Conservatives to use American style disenfranchisement (it didn't help them) voting takes minutes in the UK. The US needs to look at what is creating the lines and eliminate it rather than make it a day off... however I suspect many American politicians know what is creating difficulty in voting because they fully support it as they hope it means people won't be able to vote for their rivals.

I used to work for an American company where everyone got 4 hours "National Voting Time Off" and it was asked after the election why no-one in the UK took it. They were surprised to learn that voting over here is so quick that most of us did it outside of work hours (including using part of our lunch break).

Comment Re:What happened to the MetaVerse? (Score 2) 71

Seriously why are investors so quick to forget about Zuckerberg's all-in bet on the Metaverse? He spent billions on it, and I believe it was part of the reason for the whole renaming/restructuring of FaceBook as Meta.

I guess it's the same with Musk and his endless promises, and now even Apple with their iPhone 16 debacle. It's like markets just reward making huge claims, not delivering, and then declaring that 'oh but don't worry about that previous mistake - i've found an even bigger next big thing'. Capitalism needs discipline in the form of a market beat down when you get things wrong. Without this it just rewards stupidity. At a minimum there may be much more talented entrepreneurs getting starved of capital because whatever idea a FAANG gets sucks up all the money.

Investors are stupid and easy to manipulate. Particularly when it comes to leaders, add to that the fact that it's near impossible for a small investor lead movement to unseat a board or executives as they themselves will hold significant quantities of the shares, in particular voting shares. The whole point of stock buy-backs was to consolidate power back in the hands of the few who support the board and C-levels. Ergo, the current management becomes more or less unaccountable. See Boeing, QANTAS, Intel and those are just the first three I can think of off the top of my head.

Yet another reason why the obsession around the stock market is doing more harm to economic stability and health than good.

Comment Re:Sounds like an exercise in CYA (Score 0) 50

It was only after Myanmar's military closed up the call centers when SpaceX decided it was "unlicensed" for that country. They knew damn well what those call centers were doing and they did nothing until now. What's the matter Elmo, did some shit splatter you?

Yep, so long as there is no penalty in western countries for providing these services to scam centres, they'll continue to do it.

Comment Re:This is like SF (Score 1) 133

It was not.

Basically the self-professed right wing "party of law and order" decided to slash the budget for the police and justice system.

Also don't forget that the MET are also useless dickbags who would rather mass arrest grannies holding signs because it's easy than arrest criminals that actually matter. No, they aren't obliged to, other police forces have chosen not to. Every experience from the MET has been neutral, mediocre or just plain bad. I've actually seen Simpsons level shit play out before my eyes in real time.

But the main fault lies with the right wing Tory party.

I don't disagree with your points and it shows the UK is still a free and fair country that we're permitted to criticise our politicians and police without an unidentifiable cosplay agent arresting us for being immigrants (although some people would love that to happen with the complete lack of self awareness that a police state will also be turned against them) but I digress.

I think a large part of the problem is that the UK has become such a safe environment that people are no longer or no longer feel the need to take basic self preservation measures. A lot of the phone theft can be stopped by simply not walking around with your head buried in your phone. The attraction of petty crime is that it's easy (far easier than getting a minimum wage job) and people seem to insist on making it even easier than it used to be. I'm not victim blaming, definitely don't support that kind of thing but people really need to start being a bit more responsible, a bit more aware of the risks and dangers around them. Just a few prudent steps to safeguard yourself and your property like paying attention to what you're doing and what's around you.

Same with the shoplifting problem, a lot of it can be stymied by the shops themselves but they don't want to as it will reduce the sale of impulse items as security measures, especially passive ones, will occupy the space that is most ideal for displaying impulse items. So they'll complain but until the problem gets bad enough for them to make some changes to store layouts (I.E. checkouts by the exits, like back in the 80s and 90s) it's all just "won't someone please think of the profits".

Comment Re:This is like SF (Score 1) 133

so this should be fixed ricky ticky, no?

The Tories slashed spending, and eviscerated investment at a time of record low interest rates, shat on the economy with Brexit, then did it again with Truss then made a bunch of unfunded legislation as their last "fuck you" act in parliament before losing the election. It's going to take decades to fix a mess that was decades in the making. It might not really be fixable. Not all Tory messes are.

Not that Starmer is up to fixing it, but that's another problem entirely. He's still better than Badenoch or Farage. Low praise.

The problem is, there are still some people who didn't think Brexit and the Tories kicked the UK in the bollocks hard enough and want Farage to do it again and again.

Whilst the Tories needed to go, Starmer is a lame duck and Labour really needs to up their game. It is funny watching Starmer have a fit whenever Andy Burnham pokes his head out of Manchester.

Comment Re:Too specific (Score 2) 93

This is really only suitable to large package delivery, so you either land one of the handful of fleet contracts or you're shot.

A small percentage of Americans could barely get used to cab over vans, but those ultra-utilitarian box vans aren't going to sell as work vans or even small independents delivery.

Ford has made an electric version of their Transit van, this is a GM problem rather than an America problem. Just about every van manufacturer in Europe now offers an electric version of their van product.

Comment Re:OK, that's it, the End Times are Upon Us. (Score 1) 95

Peak stupidity is allowing, let alone supporting private companies to have control over your health care.

Still....better than having the Federal bureaucracy in charge of it....

Ugh....can you imagine health centers ala DMV?

*shudder*

Imagine being able to get the medical care you need without having to worry about it bankrupting you.

You don't worry at all.

That's life in every other western country. Also dealing with the DVLA (DMV here in the UK) is a breeze. It's all done online, in my 10 years here I haven't had to visit a DVLA office for anything and previous to that in Australia, the last time I visited a DOT office was the day I got my license. Everything else could be done by post or online.

Maybe the US needs to start electing adults to fix things. Although you may no longer have that option.

Comment Re:Stranger danger isn't the problem (Score 1) 40

We have decades and decades of studies on this. Children are going to be assaulted and taken advantage of by people they know who are in positions of power.

Most commonly this is going to be priests or pastors. The reason why isn't terribly difficult to understand. You've got some people who already have a screw loose so they join the priesthood to be celibate and then they're stuck in compromising positions with children.

What I haven't quite figured out is why every single organized religion goes out of their way to hide the pedophiles when they find them instead of just giving them over to the police. They all do it (except for the ones like the episcopals that don't care if their preachers are gay or married or gay married). But I don't get why.

But whatever the case going after Roblox isn't going to save any children. It is however going to be great for somebody's political career.

Floriduh has problems, house prices are dropping (and no-ones buying), inflation is going up, cost of living, thus far trying to blame it all on migrants, blacks, gays, women, muslims and jews hasn't magically fixed everything so now they're going after the old stalwart, video games to keep the real problems out of the headlines.

Comment Re:OK, that's it, the End Times are Upon Us. (Score 1) 95

"This is Peak Stupidity."

No, peak stupidity will be requiring it or your health insurance will go up 30%.

Incidentally, my old employer did exactly this. Required annual blood tests or your rates went up. They used the data to promote the "health" of their work force, not for your benefit. What a piece of shit company they were. National Instruments for those interested.

Peak stupidity is allowing, let alone supporting private companies to have control over your health care.

Requiring your shit to be analysed to see what they can charge you more for is so far over the peak you're in another country. I can see it happening though.

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