How the heck will the software know to not allow editing documents after a certain day - did they just vibe code in a kill-switch into a recent update?

If so, could users roll back to an earlier version without this bullshit, or play with the local time settings to appear as though it’s before July 13?

If the answer is yes to either of these, it’s only a matter of time before someone figures out a way to patch out this bullshit. Which will work fine for personal users, but will likely fuck over SMEs that will likely be forced over to Office 365.

…and I actually prefer Excel over the Google/Libre/Apple alternatives, but seriously - fuck Microslop for this bullshit.

You’re right, we tend to distill value per dollar - but that’s a 2-dimensional equation: games can either be longer but more expensive - or shorter and cheaper.

As an extreme example, I have gotten so much value out of games like Minecraft and Vampire Survivors that my cost-per-hour played is in single-digit cents. Neither is pretty (graphically), and both were very cheap early-access titles when I bought them.

Comparatively, I can’t think of any recent AAA releases have had anywhere near the level of replayability of indie passion projects.

Bit of a tangent, but I personally think the gaming experience peaked in the PS3/X360 era - and the industry has been largely treading water ever since. Nothing that’s come out over the last two console generations couldn’t have been done on those earlier platforms (albeit with lower graphical fidelity).

How would you rank Max Payne 2 in that comparison? It was more fun (subjective), prettier (objective), but shorter (from memory).

It does, not sure if they will ship to the ol’ ex-convict colony 😅 - but I’ll definitely check it out.

Legitimately, SR4 was my introduction to the series and I absolutely adored the shit out of it.

If you haven’t checked it out yet - The Gat Out of Hell expansion had a very similar super-powered play-style.

This has been on my eBay Saved Searches for so long - it never had a local release here in Australia, so I’ll need to import from the UK.

Issue is, it’s not exactly cheap, doesn’t come up for listing very often, and often gets bought out pretty quickly.

It’s up there with Suikoden, Suikoden II, Klonoa: Door to Phantomile, Ghost in the Shell, Bishi Bashi Special, Un Jammer Lammy, and ofcourse Castlevania: Symphony of the Night as high-up on my PS1 collection hunt list.

Came to say the exact same thing; to top it all off - as a (currently) private company - Anthropic doesn’t need to publish gross/net operating profits. However, they did for the most recent quarter - highlighting their first ever quarterly profit - so up until now, they’ve been burning investors’ money hand-over-fist.

Lady G would probably prefer it the other way around, if DC rumours are to be believed.

Fewer guns leaves more room in the safe (& budget) for ammunition.

day cost of living*

I’m a little too young for the Commodore 64 - my introduction were a friend’s Amiga 500 and a hand-me-down Amiga 2000 - but these look awesome enough that I would buy it just to display it, if only my hobby budget wasn’t already ridiculously over-stretched this year!

Seconding @[email protected] here - if you have a smartphone that’s less than 5 years old, long-term I think it makes more sense to use that with a split/mount controller (something like an 8BitDo Ultimate or Razer Kishi V2).

AR glasses auto-applying your preferred FaceTune filters?

It’s weird that I’m actively rooting for China to do it’s thing and begin to rapidly pump out cheap memory modules in such high volumes that they are able to over-satiate demand and put a downward pressure on pricing.

Before anyone tries to accuse me of copium or some other affliction, I would like to remind you that this is EXACTLY China’s modus operandi for the past 20-something years.

Both Samsung & SK Hynix were just in the news for issuing their DRAM division staff annual bonuses of well over $300K USD from a 10-15% pool of operating profits. The margins are there for China to squeeze once their manufacturing capability catches up - and it’s catching up very quickly.

Watch that 8 hour workday quickly get moved first to 10 hours (capitalist argument being that it’s the new 1/3rd of the “day”), before ultimately consuming all additional 6 hours and having you work 14 hours straight like some feudal peasant serf.

That legitimately looks as bare-bones as possible in this day and age - and I’m all for it.

In terms of the cost difference - I would assume the source nation has a local subsidy that doesn’t apply to exports, in addition to the logistics, warehousing costs of shipping a vehicle overseas.

Personally, we’ve got our eyes on the BYD ATTO 2 as a local run-around for outer suburbia here in Australia. Even our shortest trips are 10-15 minutes each one way (and no public transport options), and most commutes are ~45 minutes.

The world is not America, there is no chance this would ever possibly happen.

The biggest issue with term limits is that it transfers agency away from elected officials, and empowers unelected staffers who will instead be the ones with all of the institutional knowledge on ‘how things are done’ - further entrenching the rot.

By instead having an age restriction, it still allows for popular politicians to remain within Congress and transfer experience to newer members, while also incentivising politicians to plan long-term and focus on bettering things for future generations, as they will ultimately be the ones responsible for looking after things. After all, “a society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they will never sit under.”

Start with an automatic retirement age; no one over the age of 65 (for example) can serve as an elected representative.

Honestly, the same should likely apply to voter eligibility - to be honest - but that’s a whole separate argument for another time.

To try and understand how/why adding additional seats to Congress would be a positive change (or really, ANY proposal) - take the most extreme ends of the spectrum:

With 1 single seat, 50.1% of voters would get 100% of the representation.

With 1 seat for every voter, 50.1% of voters would get 50.1% of the representation.

Obviously, not EVERY single person can be a congressman - so the goal should be to find the minimum number of representatives required to optimally represent the populace.