The point was, the only reason only two parties exist in this country has less to do with any mechanical reason why and more to do with the fact that a huge number of people, such as yourself, continue cementing into people's minds that any alternative choice is worthless. Effectively, by continuing to perpetuate this idea over and over again in peoples minds, you have effectively created a self fulfilling prophecy.

You are technically, right. A third option has little to no chance, but only because people, such as yourself, have continued to tell others that a third options had little to no chance.

The sad thing is you're technically correct only because it's people with a similar mindset to you on the matter that perpetuate this idea.

Just to be technical, here... Those past games, BG1 and BG2, utilized a very different ruleset (the ADND ruleset, if I recall correctly) to the ruleset BG3 utilized (5e). While they share a lineage, ADND and 5e are quite different.

To start with, you're right. Digital distribution in general is volatile for consumers. While I will say that Steam, at present, is leagues better in that you must download the game purchase in order to play it (meaning, you have a direct copy of the game on your hard drive, which will remain there even if the game is removed from the Steam store), it is not outside the realm of possibility that this could change in the future.

That said, publishers having their own launchers, I'm sorry to say, has absolutely nothing to do with their fears over "the valve guy" retiring (his name is Gabe Newell, by the way), and significantly more to do with making more money. These publishers figure if they can get you, the consumer, to buy their games directly from them, they can make 100%+ of the money, instead of having to pay Steam a percentage for any transaction. Due to the limited scope of these Publisher-run launchers, purchasing a game from them is even more volatile than purchasing from Steam (at least in the current climate), in such that if the Publisher suddenly finds their launcher is not bringing in customers (which, on average, compared to the draw of Steam at present, they generally don't) publishers could simply drop their launchers and the catalog of games you, the customer, may have purchased from that launcher would go with them... again, yes, this could happen if Steam went down, but presently, pound for pound, the publisher's launchers are far more likely to fall than Steam will.

Also... for any of these services (Steam or publisher launchers), you have to download the game locally in order to run them. The games are not streaming as most movie and music content is. As such, once you install a game, you could crack them to remove any DRM attached to them (barring any game that's strictly online), then, yeah, you can self-host/store these games yourself all you want. If you buy games from GOG they make this even easier for you.

This is what makes this technology anxiety inducing at best...

So, for yourself, you have no issues seeing the artificiality of the image due to your extensive exposure to and knowledge of photographic principles. This is fair... that said, I have read your earlier comment about the various issues with the photo as well as this one about light sources, and I keep going back to scrutinize those elements, and... for the life of me... I cannot pick out anything in the image that, to me, absolutely screams artificial.

I'm fairly sure most people who look at these verification photos would be in a similar boat to me. Unless there's something glaringly obvious (malformed hands, eyes in the wrong place, a sudden cthulhu-esk eldritch thing unnaturally prowling the background holding a stuffed teddy bear) I feel most people would accept an image like this at face value. Alternatively, you'll get those same people so paranoid about AI generated fakes they'll falsely flag a real image as fake because of one or two elements they can't see clearly or have never seen before.

And this is only the infancy of AI generated art. Every year it gets better. In a decade, unless there are some heavy limitations on how the AI is trained (of which, only public models would ever really have these limitations as private models would train be trained on whatever their developers saw fit... to shreds with what artists and copyright said), there would probably be no real way to tell a real image from a fake out apart at all... photographic principals and all.

Interesting times :D

I mean... The Enterprise is always doing questionable things with that deflector dish.

My head cannon says the Enterprise explored a wormhole to the Farscape universe, did a reverse gravaton beam on Moya, then immediately went back through the wormhole... And that's how Moya got pregnant.

Would also explain why all starships in the federation, after that point, were female (no dangly deflector)

Not so weird... A Knife I can understand. There are a number of uses for a knife beyond being an offensive or defensive weapon. I'm not a knife person, personally, but even I have a few to cut food, or open sealed boxes. I've seen knives used to cut bindings and they can even be used to craft art (whittling being an art form where the knife is the primary tool of choice)!

A gun? Outside of a legit, active warzone? A gun either says you're hunting, or your scared. That's it! I have all the respect for a hunter going into the forests to hunt game animals. I do love myself a burger and a steak... but in a public setting? What're you hunting? What utility is a gun in a public Walmart?

Actually, no... it's telling you that it thinks it's not a legal copy. The company doesn't actually know. It's not like they sit down and write out by hand every key that is created. Those keys are generated by some algorithm. The company can identify if an algorithm was compromised (either the generation method identified or a significant portion of keys from said algorithm being used without them having been generated by the company), or they surmise that a chunk of codes, that had been previously generated for distribution, were nabbed when a number of them start to get activated without the company seeing a corresponding increase in sales. They more than likely do not have an exact list of which codes were stolen, just an assumption.

Here's an example for ya... Company gives Legit LTD a set of codes to sell. Unfortunately, the thieves seal hack into Legit LTD's systems and are able to copy a chunk of those codes. Legit LTD does not realize the breach for a day, or a week, and sells those codes to customers. At the same time, the thieves setup a seeming legit web store and started selling their ill gotten codes on that site. Two different customers are looking for Company's software. One buys a code from Legit LTD. The other buys from thieves seemingly legit store. Just so happens that both stores sold the same code. Now two people have a copy of the same code. Both customers, in this case, believed they were buying a legit code. Both believe their code is valid. Before either can activate those codes, however, Legit LTD realizes they've been hacked and tell Company. Company, not knowing exactly which codes were stolen, decides to invalidate the batch... but there are legit customers in the wild that have codes from that batch and there's no way for Company to tell who bought from who. BOTH customers, at this point, go to activate their code and both are told they're running a pirated code. Neither of them really pirated, however. The thief did, but the thief isn't the run using the code.

As such, no... Company and Legit LTD would find it very difficult, if not impossible, to determine who bought legitimately. Most companies, when this happens, would say, fuck'em and let both customers suffer. This company chooses to tell them they're running suspected pirated codes (though, they don't know for sure), and, regardless, neither customer would be pirating because both believe they purchased legit codes all above board.

Welcome to software, my friend. :D

That's the key, though... KNOWINGLY stolen! If you purchased an item but where unaware that it was stolen, there's no legal issue and, unless there's something that can link that item back to it's original owner... I guess it's yours then.

As far as the digital key is concerned, this is even more nebulous. Sure, their database or software thinks the key is stolen, but that's just a binary bit somewhere which could, by accident or by a bug in the software, be in error. If, as a purchaser, you were unaware that the dealer from which you purchased said key was selling keys illegally, they is the same as buying a stolen TV from the flea market. Unless you knew, you did nothing wrong. As for the software telling you it's stolen... again, that's only what the software things. It could be wrong.

Additionally, purchasing suspect keys is even more legal as there's no intrinsic value to the key itself. It's just a string of numbers and symbols. Keep it, it's yours. Have fun. Play hangman. The company who owns the software for which that key was intended... didn't loose anything. They still have their software. If the key worked? Well, if the key worked, that means the company and/or software doesn't think the key stolen or otherwise illegitimate (which, can also be an error on the companies part).

In this case, the company says, in essence, "We think this key is stolen, but we cannot prove you did the stealing. We're not going to belabor the issue. Keep on, and let your conscience guide you"

Sounds like that may rankle your sense of right and wrong, but, them's the fact. You have never seen someone arrested for purchasing a software key, nor have you seen anyone arrested for purchasing a physical product they believed to be legit even when it wasn't.

I am not a lawyer, but... This does not prove you're pirating the software. It's informing the customer (who, as far as they may be aware, obtained the key in a totally legit manner) that the company thinks the key to be a pirated key (of which, it might not actually be, but, rather identified as such by the company or software in error). It is definitely designed to illicit some form of guilt if you did in-fact pirate the software (which is between you and your conscience), but it is not proof that you pirated it. That said, I totally back what this company is doing!

As if any of that is more complicated than running your off the shelf Windows computer... at about the same cost... because, ultimately, they're the same thing... an operating system, running one or more storage drives, plugged into a network. If that is too complex to wrap one's mind around... well... shrugs

If you have a computer, and it's on the internet, you have NAS... Network Attached Storage... your computer is on the network, and it has storage, then it's network attached storage. Everything else is just software controlling it all. FFS

Sorry, no. This is not accurate either. According to Unity's own FAQ regarding the subject... Which you can look at right here...

Do installs of the same game by the same user across multiple devices count as different installs? We treat different devices as different installs. We don’t want to track identity across different devices.

So, again, if I install the game on 3 different devices, Unity considers that 3 installs. If I build a new computer later, then reinstall the game there, it'll count as a new install. The scary thing is... what if someone hates you as a developer? They now only need to buy your game once, then setup a script to roll VMs and install your game on VMs (each VM counts as a seperate device), and you, as the developer, will be hit with the new install cost each time.

Additionally...

Does the Unity Runtime Fee apply to pirated copies of games? We are happy to work with any developer who has been the victim of piracy so that they are not unfairly hurt by unwanted installs.

The issue here is... the developer would already have been charged the fee for a "pirated" install, because, how is a developer supposed to even know their game was pirated in the first place. Here, the developer may already be financially hit for a pirated game and now has to spend time and resources with Unity to convince them that some percentage of installs are pirated installs. Earlier in their FAQ, Unity claims they do not have a "phone home" when a Unity game is run, so, how are they determining installs in the first place? "Aggregate data"... or, another words, "trust us".

First of all if you're a poor (and possibly solo) developer who could only spring for the lowest tier you're being charged the highest rate per install. That rate is 20 cents... per install... not per purchase... per install. If I buy the game once and install it on my desktop machine, my laptop, and my steam deck, the developer has to pay 60 cents. one of those computers breaks down and I need to reinstall the game, that's an additional 20 cents every time. I have a young nephew who thinks nothing of installing a game to play for a day or two then uninstalling it to make room for another only to reinstall that first game again later. He does this with a lot of games... almost all of which are Unity games (I know, because he wants me to play these games with him quite often, so I see that logo pop up). Come January 1st, every time he installs that game, BOOM, developer owes 20 cents. My nephew isn't special and, if he's uninstalling and reinstalling games like that you can bet there's 1000s of other kids doing the same! Hell, you don't even have to be a kid. I might play a game for a few months, uninstall it, then reinstall it years later. That's another thing... this 20 cents is perpetual! As a developer, what happens when you're done with your game? You do have the time or energy to maintain the game anymore? This pricing model doesn't care. You abandoned your game 5 years ago? Don't care, 100 people installed your game, you owe us $20!

My issue with typescript... and, correct me if I'm wrong... is it doesn't exist without Javascript. Typescript needs to be compiled down into Javascript to be run. It has no stand alone interpreter (that I'm aware of) and definitely not one baked into web browsers or NodeJS (or adjacent) tools. In essence, Typescript is jank sitting on top of and trying to fix Javascript's uber jank, simultaneously fracturing the webdev space while not offering itself as a true competitive and independent language for said space.

That's my amateur two cents for what it's worth.

I believe that AMD has flipped the script on this in recent years. From what I recall, AMD has been actively releasing a large amount (if not all) of their drivers as open source for integration into the Mesa driver (which I think is the same driver than handles Intel graphics as well). Arguably speaking AMD GPUs work more out-of-the-box now than NVidia do.

That said, I switched to an AMD card about a year ago as an upgrade from an Nvidia. My Nvidia never gave me issues, it was just getting a little long in the tooth (gtx 1050 ti upgraded to a RT 6600)

Even excluding the cosmetics, this DLC includes the soundtrack. I haven't purchased it myself (yet), but I'd imagine that a soundtrack to a game with over 200 hours of cinematic would be rather extensive (again, I have not seen it, so I don't know). Even if it's only 30 to 40 minutes of music, at $10, that's at least on par with the cost of most albums anywhere else. I feel it's got to be more than only 30ish minutes of music, though, so, for the album alone the price seems legit.

Any respectable teacher will recognize what the students are doing and support it regardless of any added hassle. As a matter of fact, the teachers supporting the students can use this in support by showing the immense waste of time the R-Small-Government bureaucracy is causing, resulting in less time available to actually teach. A proper protest must disrupt.

As someone in tech who also has a friend that works for UPS, this is amazing for them! Anything that can improve their lives is a win. UPS people who incredibly hard (regardless of how much shit I give my friend when UPS does something silly with my deliveries)

Regardless of whether the job is classified as a "skilled" job or not (and who's definition of "skilled" you choose to accept or not)... the work and time your employee puts into the labor is as important to your business as any work you may be doing. Without their labor your business is meaningless. That labor deserves, at minimum, the employee's ability to be able to live (food, shelter, medical, transportation, and some degree of entertainment). If, as a business owner, you cannot value your employees time and labor in your business with appropriate compensation to allow them to live, then you do not deserve your business.