Where I live, everything that isn’t bagged at checkout needs to be stickered or they assume you stole it. If I buy something that doesn’t fit in a bag, it also needs to be stickered.
I try really hard to remember to put my bags in front of the door immediately after unbaggging everything. Then I usually grab the bags and bring them with me the next time I leave. The problem occurs if I ever need to temporarily use the bags for something else… then I get to add to my hoarde.
Always had to consider the source? Sure.
The problem is that, unlike in those decades before, there are little to no consequences for corruption. Each year has also seen a further abandoning of long term considerations in favor of maximizing profits for the next quarter. We also have things like vulture capitalism, where legal financial situations that don’t really make sense can still be extremely profitable as long as they are comfortable destroying an entire company and all of its workers…and they are. It just feels different these days.
Also, unlike in those decades before, the time it takes to produce content was along the same order of magnitude as time it takes to consume it. Today. A website with an entire “body of work” can be fabricated overnigh… or a legitimate source can have its entire staff of writers fired and replaced overnight with an LLM trained on their body of work, producing content with a convincing likeness, at least on the surface.
I just feel like there are so many bad actors and people acting in bad faith now…and they have to spend very little effort to do it and are unlikely to face consequences if they succeed.
Articles like this are what make me hate where we are as a society right now.
Are utilities trying to delay them or is the industry that makes these panels paying “news” sources to write articles to help ram the products through and bypass the standard approval process that makes sure they are safe? Maybe a bit of both.
Was this written by a human or an LLM? Is my distrust of everything I read a side effect of the corruption rampant in our system or is it the goal? Maybe a bit of both.
Edit: I see they are part of the NPR network, so maybe more believable and less likely to be slop.
When new video game stores were opening that charged much lower commissions than Valve, I decided that I would provide my game “Overgrowth” at a lower price to take advantage of the lower commission rates. I intended to write a blog post about the results.
But when I asked Valve about this plan, they replied that they would remove Overgrowth from Steam if I allowed it to be sold at a lower price anywhere, even from my own website without Steam keys and without Steam’s DRM. This would make it impossible for me, or any game developer, to determine whether or not Steam is earning their commission. I believe that other developers who charged lower prices on other stores have been contacted by Valve, telling them that their games will be removed from Steam if they did not raise their prices on competing stores.
https://www.wolfire.com/blog/2021/05/Regarding-the-Valve-class-action/
It seems it was not explicit in the agreement regarding non-key sales, but allegedly threatened and possibly enforced in practice.
The practice I’ve found the most concerning is the alleged “most-favored nation” clause/provision in the Steam Distribution Agreement. I haven’t been able to actually find the actual Steam Distribution Agreement anywhere, which itself is concerning. I just see it mentioned alongside an NDA that must be signed.
The MFN basically requires that Valve never be undercut in any way, whether or not the game is distributed elsewhere using a Steam Key or not.
No discount. No bonus content. No perks. Steam key or direct download from your own website without any involvement of Valve whatsoever - it doesn’t matter.
Edit: It seems it was not explicit in the agreement regarding non-key sales, but allegedly threatened and possibly enforced in practice.
When new video game stores were opening that charged much lower commissions than Valve, I decided that I would provide my game “Overgrowth” at a lower price to take advantage of the lower commission rates. I intended to write a blog post about the results.
But when I asked Valve about this plan, they replied that they would remove Overgrowth from Steam if I allowed it to be sold at a lower price anywhere, even from my own website without Steam keys and without Steam’s DRM. This would make it impossible for me, or any game developer, to determine whether or not Steam is earning their commission. I believe that other developers who charged lower prices on other stores have been contacted by Valve, telling them that their games will be removed from Steam if they did not raise their prices on competing stores.
https://www.wolfire.com/blog/2021/05/Regarding-the-Valve-class-action/
That was my shower thought this morning. Maybe some good will come of these circumstances in the form of optimization.
Several of the products are actively being “crowd funded”…
Granted I didn’t read the fine print, but that gives me the impression that they are more involved.
I suppose they could just be preorders and gauging interest to determine how many to order with their branding. It still makes me feel a bit unsure.
I was quite interested about a year ago, but seeing that they are now branching out to like 5 other “shift” products concerns me.
I empathize with some of the thinking, but I don’t necessarily agree with it. To keep it simple, imagine how many different world powers are working to sabotage openly Socialist and Communist governments. What kinds of tools and resources might these world powers have at their disposal? I can’t imagine being part of a disfavored leftist government and not becoming haggard and paranoid beyond reason.
The vanguard is not a different group. The vanguard is the part of the group that ends up doing something first.
It’s not separate from the group, and it’s often not even distinguished from the group in any way aside from the fact that it was motivated enough to act first.
I’m not at all a fan of being recorded in public but all of your examples…
These are situations in which the camera in the glasses is technically being accessed, which in software means something is analyzing the feed from the camera. If it is generating any output anywhere, even just visually for the user, it is recording in my mind. It may not be storing video, but it might face match and store a list of every recognized face it saw on the subway. There is no way for the OS to reasonably know what the feed is being used for unless it has exclusive control over the camera feed… and I sure as fuck aren’t going to trust the smart glasses manufacturer to be honest about what it is doing with the camera feed…
So basically, if the camera is in use at all, an indicator light should be on.
banks are going to be assessing you for whether you’re likely to pay back the loans they provide
Actually, this is not quite accurate. It’s more accurately a score that summarizes how much the banks would want to lend you money. It is designed to make sure you are profitable not just in your ability to simply pay back a loan, but also to make them money.
And, statistically, it’s also systemically racist.
I’m a leftist, not strictly a Democrat. I’m not happy with Democrats, but R’s and D’s are not the same. You are just taking any opportunity to stir shit up like some kind of paid troll.
Kindly fuck off.
Thanks
So it’s the finger wagging that’s uncomfortable?
Edit: Because it apparently isn’t obvious to you, my point is that the only thing you are accusing Democrats of doing that isn’t already being done by Republicans is acknowledging a shred of shame and insinuating that politicians shouldn’t be doing those things.
Every time I’ve been desperate enough to use AI (ChatGPT, Gemini) for a semi-difficult question, it has failed me miserably.
It’s hallucinated libraries.
It’s hallucinated commands.
I tried to have it write me a complex formula to evaluate a date value. I noticed one of the conditions I needed to be covered was not, and brought up a date that would evaluate incorrectly. It basically “explained” step by step that the formula worked for my example date but used a different year for the one step where the flaw was. Like it gaslighting me.
Just last week I searched Google about a product owned by Google, Gemini interjected and gave me a detailed list of the product’s features, including the feature I was searching for so it caught my eye. The reference link was to a forum post where someone asked if it had that feature and then someone responded that it did not have that feature.
It’s just… not reliable.
Such confidence in your assumptions! That must be why you confidently turn to accusations and attempt to instigate instead of addressing my point and demonstrating that you have the capacity for empathy.
…Or are you just trying to drive a wedge between leftists because you are trying to divide us to further the christo-fascist agenda?
Either way, I’ve made my point and you are counterproductive. If you want to stop the right, I recommend you stop fighting others on the left and get to work.
I can empathize with people who had to choose between 1) supporting and empowering politicians of their own party guilty of defending, enabling, and supporting genocide or 2) using the only power they have, their vote, to communicate their disapproval for genocidal members of their own party at the risk to enabling christo-fascists who are absolutely going to defend, enable, and support the same genocide even more blatantly. It’s an insane situation - one that the fucking party leadership should have recognized.
What you are saying to these people is “What the fuck is wrong with you? It’s SO OBVIOUS! I don’t care how much it bothers you, you need to give the fucking war criminals more bullets to slaughter innocent children because, if you don’t, even worse war criminals are going to slaughter even more innocent children. How fucking hard is it to just hold your nose and murder innocent children? Now it’s your fault that even more children are dead and the fascists are in charge.”
So rather than embrace those who just want to stop any innocent children from being murdered you are wasting your time telling people who played this fucked up political game wrong to pound sand and get lost because you played it right.
No. Get over it and work together to fix this shit. You are just dividing the left when it actually has a chance to come together and do something.
LoL. I didn’t realize the fallout of disagreeing with TrickDacy was so severe. I’m sorry America!
For real though, I’m condemning anyone who unloads on these people, particularly if they were trying to pressure the Democrats to stop supporting genocide. Not because I think staying home was the right move, but because we need to fucking move on and deal with the situation we have now.
You mean AGI? Yeah, no. I don’t believe you.