MystikIncarnate

I think that's a positive. Americans, in the absence of law enforcement, will fight to defend themselves and their property (and vicariously, the property of others).

Stopping thievery, is, unto itself, a just cause.

I live in Canada, there's surprisingly little pickpocketing here too, and we don't have the same gun/weapon laws.

Like the Americans, we'll straight up beat you to a pulp if you try some shit, and we're very sorry about that.... You motherfucker.

Long live gaben.

Honestly, I'm worried for what might happen if steam ever becomes dependent on how happy shareholders are with the amount of money they can squeeze from their users.

A lot of things on steam are not cheap, but the platform itself is really really good.

Keep it up chaps.

Listen. Apple has a vested interest in you buying a new device. They "fix" your phone, it'll be.... What? Maybe $100? .... They sell you a phone and it's like 10x that.

Most people have so little fucks to give and so little free time to fuck around and find out, that they just shrug and go with it. Apple knows this. If they "can't" (won't) fix it, then it must not be able to be fixed anymore; the thoughts of a typical normie Apple user with more money than sense (or shits to give).

This is why Apple is a trillion dollar company. They treat their customers like ATMs. Just keep beating that horse until it stops making money.

If everyone simply replaced the batteries on their phones, not using Apple's service (even when they're willing to do the work), then they probably wouldn't be worth a trillion dollars.

Since there's enough NPCs out there giving them money to replace perfectly good devices with dead batteries, it will never change.

When you "trade in" your perfectly working phone for a new one, Apple suddenly absolutely can replace the battery, and they do, and then they sell your "unfixable" phone to the next schmuck, and make even more money.

I feel like this shit is so obvious that anyone who buys into the line "can't be fixed" from Apple (or any other vendor), is insane, or mentally incapable of making rational decisions.

I fully accept that if I send my phone for service from the first party (in my case, Google), and they say it "can't" be done, that's not a hard no to fixing my stuff; that's them refusing to serve me. I need to go somewhere else because I've been abandoned by the very people I put my trust into when I bought a device.

Crime against humanity, and a crime against the planet.

This is always the case. Whenever you deal with any educational institution, they don't want you to give them the right answer ever. They want you to give them the answer that they told you that you should give; whether it's right or wrong

There's always the exceptions, but they're rare, and getting more rare.

The vast majority of works are owned by a few major corporations, even smaller, more indie games often get published through a major studio, which then retains a good amount of the profit. Almost all media, TV and movies, is owned by one of a handful of companies. Music is largely the same.

It goes the same way for so many other things too. It's not just games and media.

There are always going to be exceptions but on the whole, it's vastly more likely/common that the people profiting from something is a large, faceless organization, which only answers to their shareholders.

Yeah, why the fuck not?

Obviously, something made in a specialized vehicle manufacturing plant will be better/more durable/whatever, but given the option between downloading a car vs spending a year's salary to buy one.... I'd rather download one.

Unless my wages get better (which they are not) or cars get cheaper (which they won't), I'll continue to have this opinion.

There's a nontrivial number of cars that cost more than a house did in the 80's and 90's. So it's entirely possible for someone to spend the same dollar value on their home, when purchasing it in the 90's, as they do 25 years later, buying a house in the 2020's.

Stupid.

The only damage that exists from piracy is to the copyright holders profits.....

Since the copyright holder is usually a corporation that is owned by shareholders, the majority of which are richer than all of us combined, ask me if I give a shit and I will show you my field of shits to give, and you will see that it is barren.

Eat the rich. Or Luigi them... I don't care.

Jokes on you. They just dilute the royalty payment among all the artists you've streamed, so Spotify's cut isn't really bring affected.

Fun right?

None of us did.

I didn't get a say in whether or not to be born. I'm just here now and I have to deal with all of this shit.

It's not AI.

There's one big tell that I don't think AI is advanced enough to replicate.

Op took this picture though a window that had multiple panes of glass. So there's an echo of the image from the secondary reflections between the panes of glass.

I also can't spot and of the debris in the shot blending into itself. Everything seems to be complete objects.

But that reflection? I've never seen AI do anything like that.

In case anyone doesn't quite see what's going on here, the image is taken from inside (lights seem to be off from where the camera is), through thermal glass into a concrete window space, which is common for places that have basements so the window can serve as an emergency exit (even if you need to break it to get out)...

Looks like there's some kind of evergreen tree not far from where the window is, given the debris in the photo.

Great shot OP.