“I don’t want them to advertise,” Musk said at the New York Times DealBook Summit in New York. “If someone is going to blackmail me with advertising or money go fk yourself. Go. Fk. Yourself,” he said.
Some people think being wealthy proves that a person is smarter than everyone else or has some special skill that makes them more valuable to society. Then there’s the richest man in the world who thinks it’s a good idea to curse out his company’s primary source of revenue.
The secret is that you have to have emerald mining money without emerald mining parents if you get me.
My dream is to raise my kids middle class and surprise them when they graduate college with 5-figure (or if we’re dreaming, maybe 6-figure) lump sums to set them up for life. All the generational wealth without the spoiled attitude.
If Elon musk had been in your position, he wouldn’t have dropped out. I mean that in a negative way towards him, because obviously dropping out makes sense if you’re a normal human in that situation (my sister did the same for the same reason, and it fucked her too).
But musk is egotistical and wouldn’t give a fuck about his mom’s cancer if it stood in his way
Yeah I powered through and stayed in college while taking care of my mom for the same condition and it was an intense level of difficult where I’m extremely grateful that I was able to not need to financially support myself or her. I can’t imagine someone able to do all three things well, and I wasn’t the only one caring for my mom, I was just the one most able to drive her to things like doctors appointments
lol of course he thinks the companies are “blackmailing him” and not that the companies don’t want to advertise in the cesspool he has turned twitter into.
Even if you didn’t like twitter before, it’s much worse now than Elon has worked his magic. Why would companies want to pay money to have their brands side by side with nazi posts.
My wife is half Jamaican and half Iranian, she went to a school in a very working class part of a very ethnically diverse city in the UK, with most of the school having a familial origin in the middle east or India.
She was routinely bullied for being black and called the N word on a daily basis. She was made to feel like a troublemaker for reporting it to teachers and eventually snapped, her kickboxing lessons helped her break a boy’s nose with a kick to the face after years of abuse, and she got suspended for it while nobody ever faced any consequences for their racism.
People don’t want to punish wrongdoing, they want to keep things “simple” and not have to deal with anything they feel awkward about, so they ignore the repeated “small” incidents and only acted to punish the retaliation because it’s deemed disproportionate. Years of racism to the point of having no friends because people were scared of being seen to sympathise apparently isn’t as damaging as an afternoon in A+E and some minor discomfort for a week or so. Fuck that school and fuck this mentality.
This story seems like a worse version and we’re 20 years on. I’m sure it happens way more than we see in stories like these, they’re just swept under the rug and hope nobody calls them on it. Fuck this backwards ass world.
This is a great observation that explains so many ills with our society when the victim is punished. People collectively don’t care about justice. They only care about minimizing discomfort. Retaliation is only viewed as the original “source” of trouble making more trouble. I saw this same story play out for a coworker who was bullied by her male coworkers. The “guys” didn’t appreciate her around and made her life miserable, so of course she acted out. Thier boss tried to sympathize with her but ultimately didn’t protect her because she was one and they were many. Their boss started to view her as a pain in the ass because she would constantly report small injustices that on their own wouldn’t be considered harassment.
Senator Tuberville, currently stiffarming the army's leadership to create a queue for fascist drones to serve dictator trump in the Army on the premise that he's agains the Army's allowing abortions, is the senator from this state.
Doing great work there coach. No wonder you were elected.
He still wields incredible power, it's rough just to think about it for me. I honestly find it a lot harder to think about Musk than Trump, reason being that Musk actually has some smart people working under him.
I certainly gave him credit for longer than I should have. I’d say it stemmed mostly from a belief that scientific and technological progress will help solve a lot of large scale problems, and he seemed to be aligned with and guiding some of that progress.
Which ideas? Like electric cars are a pretty legitimately good alternative to ICE cars. Ofc investing into public transit would be better, but that’s a social problem, not a tech one. Reusable rocketry seems pretty legit. Starlink does seems like it’ll be a massively taxpayer subsidized money black hole, though.
I’d say most of the issues I have with the Elon are his social policies (anti-worker) and views.
I would've suggested a few years ago that people simply didn't know the monster behind his public facade, but that mask has long since broken.
At this point I can only guess it's a mix of right-wing facists and the "disgraced billionaires" of the world worshipping him in the hopes that they can "one day" be like him.
Glad people saw through the lies opponents were spewing. Ohio hasn’t had many blue victories, but I’m glad this was one.
Plus, recreational marijuana is passing as well. Sadly, that’s a statute and not amendment, so the dickheads in the legislature will probably fuck with it.
Ohio has had two blue victories this year alone! We aren’t a deep red state, we are simply gerrymandered all to hell. The map was even declared illegal in the courts, and our dear government kept using the illegal maps anyways!
If the Republicans can ignore the laws why don’t we just start ignoring their laws too. They want to shut down the government? Fucking ignore the crazy assholes. Simply refuse to lets a minority opinion dictate anything.
I wasn’t referring to my bullshit…I’m referring to their bullshit attempts to hold the country hostage…just ignore their theatrical bullshit and pay bills. These fucks only care about debt when it isn’t a Republican president, nothing they say at this point is valid and deserving of consideration.
Suddenly, climate change isn’t so much of an urgent issue? Nor abortion? Nor gay rights?
I’m not happy with what’s going on nor what Biden’s doing, but there’s too many people I care about who will get hurt if Trump wins. And I’m not so selfish as to keep my ideals pure.
Life sucks. If you don’t vote for Biden, more Palestinians will die than would otherwise. Is that fucked up? Yeah. Vote for him anyway. The world is cruel, and gives us cruel choices. All we can do is make the best of things.
lol “hilary definitely would have given us those things just keep voting blue its definitely going to happen” You guys are either funny ass jokers or sad manipulated losers
Well we definitely tried it your way and didn’t get any of that shit now did we?
Or how about, “even if she wouldn’t have given us those things, she definitely wouldn’t have given us the Dobbs court you stuck up privileged whitesplaining twat.”
You think a person commenting in a political thread is the issue? The issue is the people so disillusioned from the lack of representation that they have completely checked out. You’re part of the problem if you then blame them for their apathy instead of understanding why it’s there in the first place. You can’t address an issue if you fail to acknowledge the problem.
Whatever you are referring to, could be avoided if there was more people voting primaries and local elections. Twice as many people voted for Biden than for Sanders and Warren combined, and the combined number of votes was about 30 mil. In contrast, 80 mil voted dem in generals. 50 million people ignored primaries.
Do you wanna talk about super delegates and how they were “casting” their votes early in order to shape game theory voting? Is that how democracy is supposed to work in your mind?
No, I don’t really want to talk about it, because we were talking about how 50 million people just straight up didn’t show up. When two thirds of your voting base just have no idea how the system works and don’t do bare minimum to participate, all that stuff you’re talking about is irrelevant. If people participate, it gets way harder to do all the tricks. So, I guess, the simplest of the tricks is to convince everyone that the system doesn’t work and they should just sit at home since it’s rigged anyway.
None of that is set in stone, not even in constitution, it’s just a procedure they have. The number of delegates, the process itself, the way votes are counted can be changed at any point.
Obviously nobody will ever think of changing anything while most of the voters don’t give a shit about it. If the popular vote will be different from what delegates want to vote for, you will have a case. Last primaries, popular vote showed that Biden is twice more popular than all the other candidates combined, and all that stories about delegates doing whatever is irrelevant, since the result matches popular vote. And all your “well, they’re lying so I don’t play their games” shtick is irrelevant either. You did nothing and you’re all out of ideas.
You’re missing the point. Do you think a president with an R next to their name would be any less of a bloodthirsty moron? So now it’s not only “they’re bombing Palestine” but also all the other human rights violating shit that happens under a Republican president here at home.
Yes Biden should stop absolutely supporting the genocide, but threatening to replace him with literally the same plus LGBTQ+ discrimination, immigration fear mongering, more destruction of reproductive rights, etc. is certainly not a sane reaction.
And my rights are on the line right now too. What sort of privilege you on when a Palestinian American here in the US has to explain to you why the guy who thinks all Arabs should be deported should be voted against.
Nope, but there are people who will just not vote. I'm not saying it's right, but Biden's willingness to be accomplice to genocide is damaging many people's faith in the democratic process. Hopefully they vote for Bernie in the primaries instead of just being mad about it on the internet.
Source? Last video I watched he was giving the “I don’t see the point of a ceasefire” line.
Don’t confuse “humanitarian pause” with “ceasefire”, they’re completely different - “humanitarian pause” means a few hours/days off, and then starting it right back up.
He said he can't see a permanent ceasefire holding up with Hamas, not that he doesn't see the point of a ceasefire. He said this later:
“The immediate task right now is to end the bombing,” Sanders said Sunday, “to end the horrific humanitarian disaster, to build – go forward with the entire world for a two-tier, two-state solution to the crisis to give the Palestinian people hope.”
Honestly, I saw his most recent interview, he was supporting the continuation of hostilities (urging restraint and all that) until Hamas was removed. Then I watched the hour long Norman Finkelstein response to it, going over his premises in excruciating detail - www.indybay.org/newsitems/2023/11/…/18860126.php I don’t think your portrayal of his statements is accurate.
“The immediate task right now is to end the bombing,” Sanders said Sunday, “to end the horrific humanitarian disaster, to build – go forward with the entire world for a two-tier, two-state solution to the crisis to give the Palestinian people hope.”
“The Biden administration is trampling the rule of law, hurting borrowers, and abusing taxpayers to chase headlines,” Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx, chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said in a statement at the time.
I’m trying to understand this in good faith, which is probably a mistake. In what way could this possibly harm borrowers? I literally can’t see a way that you could even imply that.
Same reason mortgages can have “early payment penalties”.
Paying them off now is less money than if it takes a decade of interest.
Someone should remind the Republicans Jesus was cool with loans, but a Christian who charges interest goes straight to hell. It’s why back in the day most bankers were Jewish and why all the stereotypes about money came into being. Wealthy Christians wouldn’t loan without interest because they loved money more than helping others.
The more you learn about her the shittier she is. She’s just a truly shitty person. She definitely tells at Wal-Mart employees over shit they don’t control.
Loans aren’t meant to help people. They are meant to generate interest. People who invest in the lenders are technically going to lose money here. But it ain’t you and me investing in the profits of student loans. And if you are, you need a smarter portfolio that doesn’t rely on the world burning.
If you’re investing, your principal is not guaranteed. Every fucking broker has that written in bold font on their website.
I’m so fucking tired of investors privatizing their profits but socializing their losses. I shouldn’t have to pay some greedy asshole just because they overextended themselves.
We need to provide welfare to corporations and the investor class! We need to think about them and the children! They all clearly need help unlike those dirty, poors. The poors can pull themselves up by their bootstraps. /s
This is something that came to a head in the 2008 recession. Most people, left and right leaning, were not happy with the fact that banks got our tax money, and the homeowner got virtually nothing. This was one of the reasons Occupy Wall Street protests started, and it was one aspect of the Tea Party’s organization with there protest of the TARP Program. Though they were arguing for a different solution, less spending overall.
But this idea that the government is more than willing to throw money at large, “to big to fail”, businesses but are loathed to do the same for the individual was more universal than what is seen today.
Anecdotally I’ve talked with people that have much more conservative views on spending and government debt but the one place that seems to have an agreement is that the American people got screwed in 2008 - 2009. While there are many ideological things that divide people in America I believe that this feeling that the American government is more willing to help out large companies (legally, monetarily, and even militarily) than it is to it’s citizens is more ubiquitous than is played out in the major media outlets.
90% of student loans are owned by the federal government. They get the interest. Those are the only loans that are eligible for forgiveness. There’s no lenders losing anything.
Debt cancellation =/= taxpayer paying off the debt. It’s drawing a line under it, saying that the lenders have already profited their fair amount from the debt and cannot claim any more.
People claiming entitlement to ongoing profit is such bullshit.
I think she means it’s not fair to the borrowers whose loans are not forgiven, their tax dollars are being used in place of the money that would have gone to repay the loan while they get no benefit.
I know this isn’t your argument necessarily, it’s what she may have been saying, but it is a dumb argument. These forgiveness plans and Joe Biden’s plan to forgive significant debts, are not plans for the purpose of being handouts to the people who get the direct benefit. The purpose is to free up the American economy for young, educated workers, and their families, millions of whom are burdened by debt that will prevent them from ever owning a home or even of having children. And that is not good for our country. So you don’t have to have your debt forgiven under any of these plans in order to benefit from them. It is not good to have our best and brightest buried under six figures of debt right at the time they are starting their careers. It’s counterproductive. They definitely do not do this in China.
OK, arguments I can think of, which I could see being made with sincerity, and that could support the assertion that this is harming borrowers.
By continuing to promote the idea of student loan forgiveness, Biden is giving false hope to millions of borrowers who are waiting for their loans to go away when they should be focusing on paying them off as quickly as they can, or refinancing them to make them more manageable.
Student loan forgiveness doesn’t help future borrowers, who will be getting just as much debt.
Forgiving student loans and setting an expectation that loans will be forgiven takes away what little pressure exists on colleges to keep tuition down.
It costs money, which will contribute to the national debt and that hurts all of us, including borrowers.
.
That’s the best I can come up with. And obviously none of that compares to the harm of being economically crippled by student loans, and the relief that forgiveness would mean for borrowers.
And of course, absent from all this is any kind of alternative plan to address the issue. I can understand not wanting to forgive loans without also reforming the system to prevent this situation from happening again. But instead, all they’ve offered is a cap on how much students can borrow, and a bill that would force repayment plans to be on worse terms than the plan the Biden administration had already announced it was implementing.
The only GOP plan that I can recall that actually seemed like it was intended to help borrowers was Rubio’s proposal to eliminate interest on all student loans. So of course it was dead on arrival.
Just getting rid of the interest would be a huge relief. I don’t mind that I payed back what I borrowed. I do mind that I payed back almost 4 times what I borrowed.
That being said, higher education State Schools should be free. You wanna charge tuition and be a private college, and stop taking government subsidies.
So these arguments are not great, your first one relies on an assertion that you don’t back up
they should be focusing on paying them off
Why should that individual do anything? Is it more optimal? The situation we are in is lots of people can’t afford to do what they “should” do.
The other thing they don’t address is where this money goes. What benefits do the post secondary institutions reap from higher and higher tuition fees? Is there utility in continuing that access to funds or are caps on profit and spending overnight things that we should consider?
Never in history has a conservative entered any debate or conversation in good faith. Every word uttered by a conservative is deception or manipulation. Every word.
We should be teaching our children why we never believe the words of a conservative.
She probably thinks it’s teaching them bad habits. These borrowers will probably go on to do drugs and think that they don’t even need to pay their dealers.
The GOP believes that every person is a small child and that not paying your loans equates to a moral failure from which you will learn to never pay any debts ever again
Unless they’re business loans, in which case it’s a moral failure of society to not give you free money.
I really love that he thought he could tango with Disney.
Disney eats mega lawsuits for breakfast. I’m trying to think of a publicly traded company that would be worse to piss off in the courts. Maybe Amazon or Microsoft, based on capital, but like… Disney is fucking litigious
I saw a comment about Disney lawyers a while back. This guy said he used to date a girl whose father was a Disney lawyer. He described the father as extremely intelligent, driven and completely soulless.
I’ve been dealing with lawyers and court recently, they may be above average in terms of intelligence and drive but most wouldn’t be extremely above that average. I’ve had to explain fairly basic math, with easy numbers (fractions like 1/2 and 1/3 regarding pay structure), several times already. Ie
base = 100
bonus = 1/2 * base
total = base + bonus.
Still had to explain that bonus is 1/3 total not 1/2 total.
Lawyer intelligence is logic games and analytical reasoning more than math.
i.e.
During a period of six consecutive days (day 1 - day 6) each of exactly six restaurants will be inspected by the department of health. During this period, each of the restaurants will be inspected exactly once, one restaurant per day. The schedule for the inspections must follow these conditions:
A is inspected on either day 1 or day 6.
D is inspected on an earlier day than E is inspected. E is inspected on the day immediately before F is inspected. If B is inspected on day 3, then E is inspected on day 5.
If the inspections of B and C are scheduled, not necessarily in that order, for days as far apart as possible, which one of the following is a complete and accurate list of the restaurants that any one of which could be scheduled for inspection for day 1?
That would still technically be a math problem. I’m not sure if it falls in combinatorics, statistics/probability, or scheduling, but I’ve had problems like this on math and cs exams.
There is no hierarchy of scientific knowledge. Most branches inform the others. If you don’t see that yet, I can only assume your scientific career is sophomoric at best.
I mean yes they all build off each other. However, the basis for all science is logic? You take logic and observation and you use math and other previously proved physics ideas to create concrete proofs, then use more logic and observation to prove your findings. Repeat forever.
However, I said computer science, which outside of the physical hardware it’s entirely just math and logic. Yes, when trying to get performance the logic you look at includes the hardware and all its design and limitations. However, it’s not needed for most people or even this conversation. It’s an included practice when talking about computer science and isn’t necessary to mention it.
Pure computer science is entirely about using the hardware given and making logical decisions utilizing math to move and generate data in efficient ways. Some intersection occurs here when trying to do say, realistic physics simulations, RNA folding simulation, molecular simulation, etc. Those do inform each other but mostly about how to reduce the math complexity while still generating accurate enough data.
For the person designing CPUs and all the support hardware, then physics influences their designs by a lot which is where the real intersections begin.
This argument is older than Socrates, I’m not hashing it out with you. If you don’t know what I mean, read a book or ask ChatGPT
Tl;Dr: you’re fuckin wrong, bro. You can know 100% of math and know nothing of Computer Science. You can know 100% of logic and not understanding electrical engineering. That is just how knowledge works. It is a lattice, not a pyramid. To assume otherwise is to be “a fool.”
You know, I’ve met a few people that I was told were lawyers before meeting them and I was surprised at how kind and empathetic they were. Then, as we would get to talking, inevitably it would come out and they’d say “Oh, I don’t practice anymore. That shits horrible.”
Every lawyer I’ve met that still practices is 100% dead inside and I’ve never felt like I could trust them. Maybe there are lawyers that break this mold, but I am going to baselessly assume they are only a few years from getting out because a good person can’t survive in that world.
I really don’t understand how people still hang on to defending EGS. It’s been shit since release, it’s still missing basic features years later, and it’s been found doing tons of shady shit.
I’m all for more competition in these spaces, because, you know, competition pushes the companies to one up each other and build compelling features. But EGS is just blatantly missing shit and is explicitly user-hostile by buying exclusivity to their vastly inferior platform. Steam hasn’t had to react at all because they’re still so far ahead, and Epic is just fucking trolling users by forcing them onto their platform without working cloud saves or even non-buggy installs.
The irony that they flag-wave “user choice” while doing this just totally baffles me.
You don't have to love them but they're still the closest thing to any competition at all. You can complain but they're most likely to improve if they're profitable, and it would definitely hurt end users if they shut down. I get the "buying exclusivity" complaint, but honestly it's fucking impossible to get a foothold, I would do the same thing if I were them.
You don’t have to love them but they’re still the closest thing to any competition at all.
That’s arguably true. But as I said above, the only reason competition is good is if it actually is a reasonable alternative and the companies and products they’re competing with have to make changes to keep customers, which in turn benefits customers of both platforms. Steam hasn’t had to do a thing to deal with EGS. It’s brought no benefits so it serves no purpose Because of this, GOG is better competition in many ways.
On the other hand, as I said above, it has brought many disadvantages and actively harmed customers with unclear game ratings, lack of things like cloud save, fragmentation in their game libraries, and legitimately broken games and wastes of money.
You can complain but they’re most likely to improve if they’re profitable, and it would definitely hurt end users if they shut down
How would this hurt customers? There wouldn’t be EGS exclusives. People would have consolidated purchases. Steam wouldn’t change. GOG wouldn’t change.
The only argument you could make is the lost purchases on EGS, which wouldn’t have existed if EGS hadn’t started in the first place. That’d be a loss EGS created. So it only furthers the point. EGS pretty much only harms customers.
I get the “buying exclusivity” complaint, but honestly it’s fucking impossible to get a foothold, I would do the same thing if I were them.
Okay, sure, the company is working in their own best interest. And? It still actively hurts the consumer. There is no value they are providing to the consumer. If there was an exchange in which the company provided some value in exchange for that detrimental action, it would be warranted.
But EGS offers literally nothing but problems to the consumers.
Instead of shelling out millions to shadily buy themselves into exclusivity, maybe they ought to have invested in their platform? I feel the state of the Epic Games Store reflects their view of gamers - mindless moneybags drooling for the latest releases, not as customers using a platform to play games. I don’t think we’d be better off with them in the game.
Launching a game in steam: click game shortcut on desktop, let steam check for updates, if there’s an update wait a minute for it to download and the game to launch
Oh then the experience is exactly the same with Epic, don’t see the problem then!
I was obviously talking about the experience if you start your game by opening the launcher itself, if you don’t then I don’t know why people care which launcher their game is on, the experience is the same everywhere.
Of all of those only the first one ever happened to me, they have cloud saves, never had an issue with mods… I think you’re mixing up the experience on release vs the experience today, native you should refrain from commenting if you haven’t used the product in a long time, you’re like someone saying “I don’t buy Japanese cars because I had one and it had shit power compared to my friend’s American car!” and that experience dates back to the 70s.
you should refrain from commenting if you haven’t used the product in a long time
What makes you think I haven’t used it? Sure, cloud saves were added recently ish. They still released and pushed for exclusivity without it, and also had their fair share of problems.
Of all of those only the first one ever happened to me
On the other hand, maybe you should refrain from commenting if you are only going to go off anecdotal evidence. There are plenty of people who have had serious problems with EGS. And their support is notoriously pathetic.
Epic starts an update before it has loaded the UI, slowing your computer to a crawl. The UI now takes ages to load because of the update running. You can’t stop the update, that requires the UI which they haven’t loaded…
...if all I wanted was a game launcher, Playnite and pirated .exes are 100% free. Steam at least has features that you are paying for, nobody is forking over $60 for games on Epic just for the privilege of using their shitty launcher unless they are an idiot (or they got a lot of cash to spare I guess).
You might also want to support the devs that bring you those games? But from what you’re saying I guess you pay for games just to make sure Valve gets money and you don’t care about the people actually making the games 👍
So let me pirate it and then donate to the devs or something. Or let me purchase it directly from them. Why should Epic get 10% for doing literally nothing? People like to focus on Epic vs Valve, but Steam could literally not exist at all and Epic would fail. They don't offer a product that is better than piracy. That's the bare minimum standard they need to achieve and they can't even do that. A pirated .exe + Playnite is an objectively better product than a $60 purchase on Epic, it's just the facts. Anyone that spends money on that store is a fool.
lmao so features in a store are all of a sudden important now? That's not what you said before, you said all EGS needed to do is launch the game. It's almost like... features in a gaming platform are important. Like I said. Now if only you could take this newfound realization and apply it to Steam vs EGS....
You can set up auto-updates and cloud saves pretty easily, hell there's even some crazy stuff like this for achievements (EGS social features are so barebones, who cares about achievements on there anyway?).
Multiplayer is a given, everyone knows you can't pirate multiplayer games with official servers. But if you were to play a multiplayer game, it sure as fuck wouldn't be on EGS unless there was forced cross platform because you know it will be dead. I notice when I play Risk of Rain 2 that there will be hundred of Steam lobbies while the cross-play Epic lobbies are completely empty. Epic players literally cannot play that game online. Money well spent for the three people that actually bought that game on EGS, I'm sure they are really thankful they could give Epic their 10% cut for doing nothing when they could have just gotten the game for free or on Steam and had a better experience.
Well, it seems they’re important to you so I’m pointing out the hypocrisy that’s all 🤷 You buy from Steam because of the features, say pirating is better than buying from Epic because of the lack of features, I point out the features they have that you don’t get from pirating and now you’re still being disingenuous, so that conversation can end.
lol you mean your hypocrisy? You said features don't matter. "All Epic needs to do is launch the game, that's good enough!" But now you are saying features do matter. Which is it? Taking this new stance to it's logical conclusion, Steam would obviously be the superior choice, would it not? Steam has more features than Epic, right?
Pirated games have features that Epic games don't by the way, namely the fact that you own the game and you are not limited by DRM. In my personal opinion that is worth way more than EGS achievements which are completely useless on a store with no social features anyway.
You: If that’s all I wanted (implying that you want more) I would just pirate the games because Epic doesn’t offer a product that’s better than pirating
Me: Well, Epic actually offers more than pirating games does if your care about that
You: Oh now you care about the extra features!
No, I’m trying to show you that their product meets your demands, that’s how arguments work.
Then there is zero reason for you to buy games from Epic. That is a function that can be performed for free. It's like paying for air or sunshine. What kind of idiot pays money for something they can get for free?
You just seem to be completely ignoring the fact that I've already addressed all the features you brought up and most of them are pretty useless or are available to pirated games anyway. Certainly they are not worth actually spending money on when GoG and Steam do all those things and much more. Even if you had cash to spare and you just wanted those features with minimal hassle, there is still zero reason to buy from Epic.
jfc I've never seen someone defend so vehemently a product not having features. Epic is a multibillion dollar corporation with apparently thousands of employees, they don't need you to bootlick for them.
I buy my games where they’re the cheapest and I buy them so the devs can continue making games, you’re pretty fucking dumb to waste money to have access to useless features!
I buy my games where they’re the cheapest and I buy them so the devs can continue making games
Oh man, I'm about to blow your mind then!
STEAM KEYS
Devs get more money since Valve doesn't get their 30% cut and they are cheaper than the Epic counterparts! It's a perfect solution!
What is the status of Epic's key program btw, is that something they don't have? Shocker.
you’re pretty fucking dumb to waste money to have access to useless features!
I literally use Steam Proton, Steam Input and my Steam Deck nearly every day, and SteamVR at least a couple times a month. All things Epic doesn't have. Gaming would be super annoying if I was actually forced to use EGS. Billion dollar company with thousands of employees, btw.
I literally use Steam Proton, Steam Input and my Steam Deck nearly every day, and SteamVR at least a couple times a month.
Oh wow, so you’re part of the absolutely miniscule minority of players who need those features, congrats, it doesn’t justify all the hate for the alternatives when the majority doesn’t need it. By the way… how do you use those features on GOG exactly? 🤔
Linux users, Steam Deck owners, VR players and those with Playstation or other non-standard controllers account for a fuckton of people. Easily in the millions to 10s of millions. If you don't want to take advantage of those features, that's your problem.
Linux: 1.82% (going down in August, includes Deck users)
VR headset owners: 1.92%
And there’s overlap.
Controllers aren’t part of the survey but there are other options to use a PlayStation controller on other platforms… I mean, you use GOG too, you said it yourself!
And by the way, no one believes for a sec that you send a single cent to devs whose games you pirate and no, pirating a game doesn’t legally make you an owner of said game.
I don't pirate games, I buy them from Steam or GoG like everyone else because I'm not an idiot. I have absolutely zero incentive to buy from a platform with no useful features.
Which will requires to download the game beforehand so what’s the difference between downloading and installing right away vs downloading to install later? You can still launch the games without logging in.
It’s not 2006 anymore, high speed storage is cheap.
That's a terribly wasteful way of thinking, why can't we just download something once and have access to it forever? Steam allows local network installs and GoG has installers, what's Epic excuse? Don't forget, billion dollar company with 1000s of employees :)
My point is that no matter which option, the data is on your computer, it’s no more wasteful to download and install right away vs download the installer and store that data to install it offline later. Heck, you’ll need more space with the second option as it requires the installer AND the installed game to be stored.
But they are great for indie developers. They’ve done a lot to serve the indie community by buying their games and distributing them as a free game. It gets indie studios out of the hole and into the public eye.
EGS itself is a graveyard for indie games, game discovery is complete shit and they have no plans on improving it..
When it introduced Steam Direct, Valve prioritized the development of Steam features that helped users discover games they might be interested in, such as the Discovery Queue. The Epic Games Store will continue to get interface updates, but as a matter of principle, Allison says that Epic will not track user behavior and use it to algorithmically recommend games. Epic has said in the past that it's more interested in supporting the game discovery that already happens outside of stores, such as on Twitch and YouTube.
Steam has great features to advertise indie games such as dedicated events and such so a lot of indie hits have come from it, like Valheim, Fall Guys, Among Us, Terraria, Stardew Valley, Rimworld, Factorio, The Forest, etc.
It may have been great, but not in a sustainable way.
For Epic those exclusive contracts were part of their advertising budget.
I honestly wonder how many indie games that started as an epic exclusive are still around today because of that exclusivity deal or if they only survived because eventually the exclusivity expire and they were able to list on other platforms
Leave your reviews wherever you want and check your reviews wherever you want, there’s tons of websites to do so, you don’t need to leave your reviews where you own the game.
Fucking hell, what you guys want is for Steam to have an absolute monopoly over everything related to PC video games! Here’s hoping no one ever takes the helm off Valve and makes decisions you disagree with because we’ll be stuck without any alternatives if it were only for you guys!
How old is Gaben? 60? He’s obese and has been for ages? Yeah bud, I don’t want to be a bringer of bad news but I wouldn’t expect him to be in control for the next 15 years!
You literally can’t leave a review on steam unless you purchase the product. So your solution for me is to rebuy a game I already own just to leave a review? You don’t even know what you’re talking about. Enjoy your devil’s advocacy because that’s all it is.
So your solution for a massively profitable company that’s laying off employees, is to instead of implementing a feature the user’s request, just shirk the paying customers desires and leave it up to some third party website? What if I don’t want a review of the game in general, what if I want a performance review of the game as it runs through that specific launcher? I don’t believe that you believe that review sections in stores aren’t useful. I think you’re just being a contrarian. And I think it’s very strange You’re going to bat so hard for a company that doesn’t give two shits about you, but have fun with all your disagreeing with everyone I’m sure you’re getting quite the high.
You mentioned having product reviews as a “basic feature” they should be working on instead of laying off employees, I’m pointing out how ridiculous it is to consider that a necessary feature and how ridiculous it is that you’re complaining that you can’t leave reviews on Steam unless you own the game there when there are plenty of other places where you can leave your reviews.
I’m only disagreeing with people who have idiotic arguments against a product I consider perfectly acceptable.
Somewhat related, but not really: I hear that Gen Z (in general) are worse at tech support issues than the past couple generations. The theory is that Gen Z grew up with tech that, for the most part, “just works”. Troubleshooting issues isn’t as common, and isn’t as necessary of a skill.
especially with mobile phones now, look at iPhone for example, it’s so user friendly that if you try to do anything remotely advance you need to jump through hoops to do it. I had a sales person try to tell me that the iPhone was expandable because it had cloud storage capability, they didn’t know what a Micro SD card was and that it used to be able to go in all the flagship phones. Pretty disappointing
Mostly it’s that everything on phones/tablets/touch screens is an app. You don’t pick where to install it. You don’t need to look up save files.
Some of them are getting to college without ever needing to go through a file directory, so they don’t necessarily even have the basics to troubleshoot.
Same thing happened with cars: boomers used to troubleshoot a lot of car issues themselves, and then somewhere along the line cars got good enough that people stopped learning how to do their own maintenance and now most people don’t even change their own oil.
As technology matures, inevitably users stop worrying about self repair and just hire professionals to do it for them.
GenX will forever be the best “jack of all trades” in tech. Someone once said we “straddled the digital divide”, and that will never happen again. At least not until something as radical as the Industrial Revolution or Information Age comes around.
We had to figure shit out. No internet, nothing, make it happen or it don’t work, and you don’t get to play.
Gen Z frustrate the hell out of me sometimes. “Um, my laptop is doing something funny, I need a new one.”
The Davis School District initially removed the Bible from school libraries after a review determined it did include “vulgar” content. But the school board unanimously reversed its decision after a review by an appeal committee determined the text has " significant, serious value for minors which outweighs the violent or vulgar content it contains," the AP reported.
Now to challenge the “significant, serious” value. Truth before law is based on facts, right?
Source of what? Drunk driving? That would probably be the individual, who knowing that the only mode of transportation for the night is to drive themselves and still decided to drink and then drive. Is that specific enough for you or are you still struggling with the concept?
Much FEWER people driving drunk, though, which is the point. Just because the solution doesn’t take the problem from 100 to 0 doesn’t mean that taking it to 20 or whatever isn’t beneficial.
Also, “having some proper punishment won’t hurt you” is ridiculously wrong, based on the US having one of if not THE most punitive “justice” system and amongst the highest rates of crime of all western countries.
Prevention and restorative justice works MUCH better at decreasing crime than revenge-based punishment.
The highest incarceration and punishment rate in the world. If you went by the statistics, Americans are, “apparently,” 4.3 times more likely to be criminals than Chinese citizens, and it just gets worse from there, as every other country in the world has even fewer people incarcerated per 100,000 people.
Airplanes don’t have mechanical connections to their control surfaces anymore. They use triple or quadruple redundant fly by wire systems. But they’re that safe because of the FAA, not just out of the goodness of their heart. We need car regulation bodies to be closer to the FAA in stringency.
IMO the biggest difference between standards in flying and driving is the training and requirements toward operators. Imagine having a DUI being a strong indicator that you’ll never drive again, or basic driver training taking 50 driven hours, in addition to stringent theoretical tests.
Or people needing to check their cars for safe operation every time they start it, and omitting it being a crime.
Or a significant percentage of the population being just medically disqualified from driving, especially over 60 years of age.
I’ve always been strongly of the opinion that driving is a privilege, not a right and you have to prove you can properly handle the vehicle to strict standards. These vehicles kill and injure so many people every year because of awful driving and awareness.
Now public transit on the other hand, should be a right.
I imagine firemen/EMS/Cops are going to get annoyed with all the motorized door handles and just start breaking windows when ever they’re responding to something.
It’s no different than a steering wheel and brakes. It doesn’t matter if there’s some advanced electronics augmenting (or even controlling) those systems: there need to be a bomb-proof mechanical linkage as a backup.
Tesla doesn’t use steer by wire, but some other car company do. It’s actually really nice for having a high steering ratio at low speeds and a low one at high speeds to be more precise.
Plus breaks have been brake by wire for years now without mechanical connection.
Brake by wire isn’t really very common afaik. Mercedes had EBC at some point but stopped using that system. It also had the downside that the SBC unit had to be replaced every so often to guarantee a working brake system.
Ford, General Motors, and most other manufacturers use the same general design, with the exception of Honda, who designed a notably different design.
Brake-by-wire is used in most common hybrid and electric vehicles produced since 1998 including all Toyota, Ford, and General Motors Electric and hybrid models.
The three main types of brake-by-wire systems are: … electro-hydraulic brakes (EHB) which can be implemented alongside legacy hydraulic brakes and as of 2020 have found small-scale usage in the automotive industry; and electro-mechanical brakes (EMB) that use no hydraulic fluid, which as of 2020 have yet to be successfully introduced in production vehicles.
The question now is what the other quote was talking about, seems a bit unclear to me. I omitted the electronic parking brake in the quote.
EDIT: As of now I could find references to a total of 6 car models implementing brake-by-wire, two of which are already discontinued: Toyota Prius, Lexus RX 400h, Mercedes E and SL(both discontinued), Alfa Romeo Giulia and the Chevrolet C8 Corvette.
Again, considering the current amount of models on the market, that’s far from common
The Chevy Volt, for instance, has brake-by-wire, but I don’t think they advertise it as such. Most regenerative braking systems require brake by wire to function effectively, because you need to use the regen at higher speeds and physical brake at lower speeds, but only want the user to have one brake pedal.
“Brake by wire” doesn’t mean there isn’t a mechanical linkage, just that the “primary” means of transmitting brake pressure is electrical.
Between safety regulations, liability, the the potential for a PR disaster there isn’t a single road legal car for sale (yet) that doesn’t have a backup hydraulic or other mechanical system – the brakes must work if there’s a catastrophic electrical failure.
I can’t find which, but some vehicles seem to not have mechanical backup.
EHBs can be implemented by-wire, without legacy hydraulic systems and mechanical connections. In such a case, fail-operational redundancy is implemented, allowing the vehicle to brake even if some of the brake systems fail.[1]
EHBs are fairly common, but they don’t preclude the use of a backup master cylinder system. A pure EHB has been a “goal” for a long time since eliminating the master cylinder and linkages would simplify design and manufacturing cost. So far nobody has been able to convince regulators or their legal team they can sell a car without one, though.
Pure electrical throttles have been the standard for a while now.
Goddamit my whole life i thought by wire meant like physical tensile wires, that the power was transmitted through tension in the wires. Never realized theyre talking about electronic systems where the information is transmitted electronically.
Tesla’s retract the door handle for better aerodynamics. So you can’t open it mechanically from the outside without the handle to hold. I don’t know how the inside works. Plus they don’t have mechanical keys, so the lock is already electronically controlled.
Maybe instead of engineering stupidly complex electronic door handles they could just, I don’t know, design a simple mechanical door handle that is also aerodynamic? These gimmick “features” automakers keep insisting on add pointless mechanical complexity, pointless areas of failure that are expensive to repair, and aren’t even something many consumers care about, or in many cases are overly complex hassles they actively don’t want.
I’d be interested to see how much actual power savings you get from a more aerodynamic door handle anyway, but it seems that this could be handled by a simple locking flip down cover over a recessed handle if the savings is actually non-negligible.
A flip down cover may be an option, but I’d worry about ice build up. How do you make sure you can always open the cover? If you add a mechanical assist, your back to your original problem.
I think it’s likely the vibe and aesthetics though that caused Tesla to go with their super sleek ones over some sort of cover.
You add drag any time there’s a divit in the panels. There’s lots of vortexes and disruption that happens just because of how your hand is shaped and where it needs to go.
There might be a better way to do it, but the other car companies haven’t done anything yet that I’ve seen to drastically reduce the drag from the handles.
Customers want range and saving money. If it does that without extra hassle, it makes sense. But that’s still up in the air. Especially with Tesla’s anti right to repair making things more difficult all around.
It’s also completely possible to make entirely mechanical non-electronic flush car door handles. They’re less of a shiny gimmick than the electronic ones, and less convenient than many standard handle types, but are entirely possible to do. You could also hypothetically do a version that is both electronic and manually operable with the same components, entirely negating the stupidity of an electronic door opener with an entirely separate mechanical backup, provided you are willing to sacrifice frameless windows.
I doubt that door handle contribites anything measurable to the aerodynamics of the car. The truth is that musk thinks it looks cool regardless of how annoying it is if anything goes wrong.
I found a 12% figure. Aerodynamics are a primary driver of range, which is a major ev selling point. A 12% drag decrease is huge, because you can carry less battery which means you can have a smaller motor, lighter frame, leading to even more range. So it would be very important if that is true.
The retractable door handle design allows radical aerodynamic designing for the side body panel. Retractable door handles are invisible handles that contribute by about 12% to reduce the drag coefficient of vehicles. Retractable door handles eliminate the issue of airflow bulge creation, air flow turbulence generation, and air flow pressure conservation. The decreased drag coefficient will also contribute to increasing the fuel efficiency of vehicles as there will be low drag generation resisting the movement of vehicles through the airflow. Amey Vikram, a lead analyst at Technavio for automotive components research
You can still have protrutionless handles without making them electronically retractable. Just have a spring-loaded metal flap that you push in with your hand
You’ll still get the icing issues, where you need to be able to get in even with a thick layer of ice over the handle. But that does sound like a really good solution otherwise.
That’s just what Google came up with, sorry. I don’t have time to research more right now. I do know a rear view mirror on an f350 has more drag than an entire Tesla, so aerodynamics are not always intuitive.
i agree. and this isnt just a tesla thing. plenty of other manufacturers are going this route, tesla might be the worst though especially the 3/y rear seat release. when the i8 was released i watched a video on youtube where a salesman and a tech were showing the car off. the tech mentioned that in training they kept breaking the emergency release inside the car. if a tech cant get out in training then how the fuck is anyone supposed to use it in a real emergency?
Absolutely. If your car is on fire, you shouldn’t be digging around looking for a latch, you should be pulling that handle and exiting in seconds. This design is going to kill people.
Free school meals should be a given since our taxes should go to what our elected officials have so thoughtfully decided where to apply them. What no one rarely brings up let alone tries to solve is the disgusting and unsafe food that the local, state and fed officials decide to make available. There’s too much politics in cafeteria food. They should focus there budget in getting healthy food not the cheapest, uncles cousins or corporate friend contract.
Aramark and Chartwells are two of the biggest companies, they are custom designing menus to fit the minimum requirements as cheaply as possible. They are getting food in the same tier as bargain frozen dinners or prison.
I would wager you have never been to Switzerland, or if you have, you never left the tourist traps to interact with the ‘real Swiss’.
I only lived there one year, but I can tell you right now, they are not ‘doing perfectly fine.’
Their pretty tourism industry hides some of the ugliest racism, faux-nationalism in the form of cantonal squabbling, sexism, anti-lgbt+, and a general dislike of anyone who does not conform exactly to their specific ways of living. Fuck Switzerland.
Nah, I mean representative democracy. Trusting someone else to work in your best interests never works. The only one who has your best interests in mind is you, if that.
People rarely have their own best interests in mind. People are short-sighted, undereducated, impulsive, prone to groupthink, and overestimate their ability and control.
The vast majority (262 out of 351) of Massachusetts municipalities are direct democracy. A further 31 are near enough that it’s not hard to be elected if you run (my precinct has empty rep. slots every year).
Also in contrast to the rest of the US, there are no unincorporated areas (“county land”) in Massachusetts. Counties aren’t a useful demarcation here. Everything is a Town or a city.
I think what is missing is control over the representatives. When you elect someone, you give them your power, you should be able to take it back when they abuse it.
In a representative democracy, transparency and control are key and when this is not enforced, people tend to think the system is broken and does not work. It would work if that is fixed
The latest is that Musk, who clearly never knows when to shut the fuck up, called Zuck a coward when Zuck essentially offered Musk an “out” by saying to move on.
Hate both these fucks, but Zuck would destroy Elon. Time and again Zuck is giving Elon a way out of this and time and again Elon finds a way to look like an even bigger loser.
Getting beat by Zuck is going to push Elon past “deluded rich douchebag” to full-on Bond villain, I fear.
I’m gonna be honest, I have a small level of respect for Zuck. As long as I ignore the fact that Facebook has pioneered destroying online privacy that is …
Despite being one of the richest men on the planet, and running one of the largest tech companies on the planet, he has actually been a good father/husband from what I understand. Also, he knows when to shut the fuck up and let his PR people tell him what to say.
Musk is insufferable. Arrogant, know-it-all, blabbering asshole. Reading through his Twitter is cringe, just in the last week he’s retweeted like 5+ COVID conspiracy or “anti-woke” things.
I don’t follow Zuck in the slightest bit but if he just shuts the fuck up and simply enjoy his billions of dollars that still makes him better than Elon. The single worst thing about Musk is that he came onto the scene acting like he was a friend of the Left and environmentalists and stuff like that, when he clearly was just using them.
news
Top
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.