I’ve been using a Steam Deck for almost a year damn near daily with maybe 1 OS crash that was largely due to a very unstable game. How is ArchLinux unstable, exactly?

This is the correct interpretation and the crux of the matter in Valve’s view. Why should they be forced to allow other retailers to sell Steam keys at whatever price they want, effectively taking money out of Valve’s pockets, when it’s Steam providing all of the actual services for said key to function?

This should not be confused with gray market key resellers, by the way (e.g. G2A, Kinguin, etc) . Those aren’t the same as retailers like Fanatical or GreenManGaming.

There was another case in 2021 that originated this complaint and some of these plaintiffs in the 2024 case actually broke off from that one to start this one. We’ll see what evidence they actually end up bringing to court to argue their case and how legitimate it is. All I know, is this will likely end up with Valve stopping third-parties from selling steam keys entirely.

They’re only doing this because of the class action being brought against them. It’s cheaper to let this go to court than to try and settle tens of thousands of individual arbitrations. In fact, there are plenty of companies now reversing course and realizing how badly forcing arbitration can backfire.

Edit: For those unaware: https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/video-game-giant-valve-hit-with-consumer-class-action-over-pricing-2024-08-12/

I guess the anecdotal evidence I’ve seen among all my peers and social networks contradicts those numbers, so we can agree to disagree. It’s easy to massage those stats, especially with the advent of bullshit jobs like “AI prompt engineer,” as an example.

Anyway, good luck to anyone that gets laid off. Shit sucks regardless, and that was really my main original point.

Oh for sure, it’s just that lots of folks want pure WFH so they can live wherever they want, especially since the cost of living near these companies tend to be stupid expensive. So while hybrid is better than nothing, it still greatly reduces flexibility in that regard.

I should clarify that I was referring to the US. And I have to also disagree it’s voracious for all tech workers, that’s why I said depending on your specialty within the IT field. Hell, there was just a post on the r/cybersecurity subreddit the other day with hundreds of comments agreeing that it’s not a great time right now in the US. It hasn’t just been FAANG companies laying off tech workers, it’s been all over:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilsayegh/2024/08/19/the-great-tech-reset-unpacking-the-layoff-surge-of-2024/

These are not isolated incidents. According to Layoffs.fyi, 384 tech companies have laid off more than 124,000 employees in 2024, adding to the 428,449 tech workers who lost their jobs in 2022 and 2023.

That’s over 500,000 tech workers in just under 3 years. A huge chunk of job postings for IT jobs are just ghost jobs, meaning they’re perpetually posted without actually ever intending to fill that slot. There are lots of reasons why companies do this, but that’s off topic and lots of articles already cover the topic, e.g. https://stackoverflow.blog/2024/07/15/the-ghost-jobs-haunting-your-career-search/

Anyway, hopefully this slump recovers soon.

Look at the big, brave man over here who killed an animal with a shotgun. So hard and difficult, I bet you could kill a grizzly bear with one arm and save the whole village if needed.

And for the record, I come from a family of farmers. My grandparents lived in bumfuck nowhere in the mountains of Appalachia, their house didn’t even have indoor plumbing until the mid-90s. I’ve gone hunting, I’m not a sheltered urbanite who thinks the police will magically solve everything. What I essentially said was, only a fucking sociopath humblebrags about slaughtering a dog that with a shovel because it entered his yard and the cops wouldn’t come deal with it. A shovel isn’t exactly a clean, quick death. Was the dog aggressive? Did it show any signs of aggression? Or could he have easily lured it away or into an enclosure until a shelter could take it (and yes, euthanasia is a far better death than having you head bashed in with a fucking shovel).

This is just Amazon’s way of cutting employees without having to pay severances/unemployment. Those workers looking for new 100% WFH jobs are in for a rude awakening. The market is not what it was a couple of years ago. Tons of companies have moved back to onsite or a hybrid model, requiring 1-2 days in office per week.

And if you’re in IT, good luck. Thousands of IT layoffs this year alone, so there’s a lot of competition in that field, depending on your specialty. My job forced us back to a 3 days in-office per week policy about a year ago, but we were getting a new director who promised more flexibility, so I decided to just passively look for jobs here and there versus really trying. I now wish I had focused more aggressively on looking. Ah well, 'least I still have a relatively reasonable job, which is more than many can say.

Anyway, good luck to them. Fuck these parasitic C Suites and fuck this corporate and governmental anti-WFH movement.

Thanks for the detailed response. Based on this and other replies, I’ll ensure to continue ignoring his videos if they ever pop up in my Recommended lists. I miss the golden age of YouTube (late 2000s/early 2010s) when awesome channels like CGP Grey, Rocket Jump, etc were able to thrive on the platform, versus nowadays where only the clickbaitiest channels flourish.

Oh for sure, I fully understand that there are tons of things/mechanics we take for granted every day that we don’t actually know how it/they work(s) at the most fundamental level. Static electricity just seemed like a pretty important one that I’d just assumed it was well and thoroughly researched/understood.

Anyway, completely agree with you that this breakthrough is great news and that there are some exciting practical applications that may emerge as a result, particularly the more that model is understood/completed.

I had no idea this was unknown, and it’s even crazier that the model for it is still not complete even after this breakthrough. More power to them, being able to fully understand triboelectricity and eventually fully controlling it will be great. Hopefully they’re able to crack the rest of the mystery soon.

Is there a reason people hate him? I don’t watch his videos and I’ve only caught clips here and there, but isn’t he mostly known for giving away money and helping people out? It’s entertainment exploitation, for sure, but I’m sure the people he’s helped out don’t care much. I’d rather someone making money off of giving away money than someone making money and being an asshole to everyone.

Genuine question, I don’t have any investment in defending him.

Will this actually work or will companies go off your billing address? I guess you could probably technically get a proxy address in California for billing. Regardless, this should just be a national law.

That’s when you call a shelter or something. Unless the dog was visibly aggressive right off the bat, resorting to beating it to death with a shovel seems a bit extreme as a course of action.

What does this mean?

Oh, trust me, everyone that support universal healthcare is very much aware that the US ranks quite poorly when it comes to preventable mortality rates in hospitals. The insurance and medical lobbies have used the bullshit wait times disinformation/propaganda for decades and those against universal healthcare love to bring that up as some sort of reliable defense.

The other thing they consistently use to defend the current system is it would raise taxes to overwhelmingly burdensome rates. They of course ignore the insane monthly premiums that families have to pay already, not to mention the amount of taxes we already pay for Medicaid/Medicare. We get to pay twice! What a benefit.

This is what my wife and other lady friends into fitness use while working out. I don’t think I’ve seen non-high waist leggings in workout settings for years, come to think of it.

I was super annoyed when they first took away the links. “Pages are more dependably available now,” is such a lazy excuse. Storing the cached content probably wasn’t even that expensive for them, as it didn’t retain anything beyond basic html and text. Their shitty AI-centric web search was likely the main reason for getting rid of it.

That poor movie was a travesty on multiple levels. Why Shyamalan was chosen to write/direct that movie, I care not to look up. My off the cuff theory was that he had kids obsessed with the animated show and he wanted to destroy something they loved after they accidentally broke his one and only Golden Globe award.

Name one outrage among conservatives in the US when a white person was cast for a role that was any other ethnicity in the source material. Sure, it happens on the Left, Netflix is especially accused of white washing (recent example: Three Body Problem). But, conservatives don’t give a shit when it happens the other way around.

Regardless, I truly couldn’t give a shit who gets cast for what regardless of source material. If the actor/actress is able to play the part well, I come for entertainment and couldn’t care less.