Veraxus

Hi-Fi Rush

Pure joy and happiness from start to finish.

Not if I’m not using any Google products. There are now excellent (even superior) alternatives to everything Google offers save YouTube.

…are they going to apply this rule to Nintendo or Sony…

They absolutely should. Closed ecosystems should be illegal. They are literally an intentional form of unethical, predatory trust.

I’m in California, where it is legally required for them to provide an online cancellation if that’s how you signed up.

They have a cancellation link, but if you click it, it takes you to a fake error page.

Oh, did GM just step in it this time. Being stupid and removing important features is one thing, but straight-up defamation like this is another.

Google and Apple’s lawyers must be salivating a river right now.

I really like Orion, which is based on WebKit… but it’s Mac only. 😢

Remember, Firefox is great and has no dependency on upstream Google code.

Use Firefox.

Persona 5 Royal

You are thinking of beef. The Rich are full of bacteria and parasites and should be thoroughly cooked before consuming.

If only I could get wifi to work on a linux partition, it would be the perfect linux machine.

That doesn’t work with AI for a variety of technical and practical reasons.

Two people could, completely coincidentally, generate something that is so similar that it looks the same at a glance… even with dramatically different prompts on dramatically different models.

No, the output of an AI is fundamentally “coincidental” and should not be subject to copyright. Human intent and authorship MUST be a significant factor. An artist can still use AI in their workflow, but their direct involvement and manipulation must be meaningfully “transformative” for copyright to apply in a fair and equitable way.

Agreed. I believe in a strong public domain and militantly protected fair use; AFAIC, all unaltered AI output should be considered public domain. Direct human authorship (or “substantially transformative” modification) is the benchmark for where copyright should apply.

Because they realize that a huge number of their customers are small indies, and they want to be able to squeeze them - the majority of their customer base - not just the minority of big companies (who are also the most likely to fight back legally).

Just look at how their scheme squeezes smaller, poorer developers way more than big ones. If Unity went by points like, say Epic does with Unreal, they could shake down the big developers… but wouldn’t get much out of the indies.

Makes good business sense

I would never call such horrifically predatory tactics “good business sense.” It’s abuse of market position and should draw the ire of antitrust regulators, as well as make their product a major business risk for any new projects.

Let’s not forget that Unity recently merged with a malware company, so borderline-illegal predation is their entire business strategy.

Good news for you: It’s not very good. At least not the first 5 hours, which are painfully boring and full of jank.

I played for a few hours last night and, so far, I feel exactly the same. I’m going to try to barrel through the main narrative for a bit, which is supposed to “open up” the game a lot more - but the game systems and UI themselves are a major part of what is killing it for me. That, and the fact that the game so far seems to be little more than a mediocre FPS.

It’s called a PC. All consoles are based on them. Develop for PC first… problem solved.

Steam Deck’s secret sauce is the software. Steam Deck’s software isn’t all OSS yet (it’s NOT the same as the publicly available SteamOS), so the alternatives are all running on Windows which… is not good (especially for a handheld).

Honestly, just get a Steam Deck. The “power” differences are just not meaningful at that form factor right now.

It’s a small percentage (10% on avg), but those who do spend, tend to be repeat spenders.

That article completely misses the forrest for the trees.

It’s a complete game. It was created with vision, passion, love, and complete creative freedom. It has a great story and interesting characters. It provides lots of player agency. It is unflinchingly candid, mature, and uncensored. Your choices, actions, and inaction ACTUALLY MATTERS. There is no DRM. There are no live service strings. You can play alone and/or with friends. There are no strangers or PvP to ruin your game. And yes, there are also no micro-transactions.

The lesson that BG3 offers isn’t just one thing… it’s a LOT of things. But the best way to sum it up is: it’s a great game and it treats players/customers with respect.