This is kind of a shit metaphor because if we extend it to how piracy actually works it highlights how stupid DRM is in the first place. A lock on your house has to be picked by each individual robber, unless they all show up on the same day. A cracked game would be like if only one person has to pick the lock on your house, but they don’t actually take anything they just make a perfect copy of your house without the draconian 12 step lock you installed and gives copies to whoever wants one. If you never noticed all the people sharing magical copies of your house with each other you would never know you lost anything, because you didn’t. Only your blind greed was injured by the thought that those people might have been willing to pay to use your house if only it had been locked down against those damn house copiers. On your next house you make the locks even more invasive and complex, to the point they block half the driveway or make the oven and bathroom unusable. Then that same one person spends an extra half day to pick it and makes a copy but without the crazy lock so they actually get a better house than you’re selling. Whether people like it or not, digital media has always been on the honor system, and always will be. DRM just punishes people for doing the honorable thing and paying.

Fire is a natural and necessary part of many ecosystemsm. It keeps parasitic insect populations down, stuff like ticks and chiggers, and some plant species rely on fire to prepare the soil for seeds and even is required for some plants to release their seeds. In dry ecosystems like the western USA it also consumes old dead plant material, reducing the fuel available for future fires and reducing fire severity overall. Many foresters and fire fighters advocate for increasing prescribed burns, essentially forest fires that we light on purpose in cooler and wetter times of the year to consume the fuel without risking a catastrophic fire that is difficult to control. I just think that’s neat.

If you accept for a moment that an all powerful god exists and created everything, then that means they made us this way on purpose, knowing we would be horny kinky degenerates. If there is a god, they’re the biggest pervert of all.

Long ago the four nations lived in harmony. But everything changed when the business nation attacked. Only the regulations could stop them, but when the world needed them most, they vanished.

They didn’t have zero experience. There were two full rocket designs that were built and flown before rocket 3, hence why it was called rocket 3. It also achieved orbit successfully two times, which only a limited number of companies have ever achieved.

The first offer wasn’t rejected, they didn’t have the money on hand at the time. Between the first offer and the second they got investor funding together and the cash on hand dwindled, so the second offer was with cash to cover the offer and some to cover running the business between acceptance and closing. After the second offer the board released a statement saying it’s this or liquidate the company, so they went with this because it’s the best outcome for everyone with the current state of things.

Memory unsafe languages will always have value in applications where speed and performance mean anything. Embedded programming and video games are the obvious examples, but pretty much any application taken far enough will eventually demand the performance benefits of memory unsafe languages. Some even require writing assembly directly. Contrary to common dogma, the compiler isn’t always best.

Only if it’s plugged in while you’re opening it… Remember kids, always unplug appliances before you disassemble them.

I’m guessing they do, but it does also reduce the life of the concrete. Modern concrete structures would be impossible without rebar, so that makes it a good trade, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a trade.

Laughs in yo ho.

It doesn’t feel like there’s any real alternative to Google search. Most of the privacy based search websites are really just Google or Bing on the backend. The only other index is Yandex the Russian one, which, yeah. I’m happy to be proven wrong, but the internet search space is approaching peak enshittification, and it doesn’t look like anyone is stepping up to meaningfully change anything. No private companies seem willing to actually square up with Google, considering the investment it would take. Honestly I don’t see things getting better anytime soon. This is just another symptom of the erosion of the social contract in the US and the rampant greed that’s driving it. Nothing we can do can’t be enshittified by bad actors in this environment. Not to be too US centric, most of the big tech companies are based here so our garbage culture fucks over everyone.

Thanks. I made it myself.

Google is literally an ISP. They provide my internet service.

You can’t feel gravity. What we feel really is acceleration, the acceleration of the earth pushing us up against gravity.

If it did all those assholes would look for somewhere else to go. They might come here…

“It wasn’t the smoking that killed me, just the consequences of the smoking.”

This is like a chain smoker looking you dead in the eye and saying “You can’t die from smoking. Look at me, I smoke 10 packs a day and it ain’t killed me yet!”

The future is now old man.

https://enterprise.arcgis.com/en/portal/latest/install/linux/welcome-to-the-portal-for-arcgis-installation-guide.htm

Looks like the other three aren’t natively supported though.

Necessity is the mother of invention. One day somebody was just that hungry, a cassava plant was available, experimentation ensues, bam staple crop. It’s not that huge of a leap though. Most societies have some kind of root or tuber food, and once you’ve got the idea that roots and tubers can be food it’s not a huge stretch to go looking for others. Pretty much all of them have to be cooked at least to be edible and palatable.

I’ve found the free one can sometimes answer tip of my tongue questions but yeah anything even remotely obscure it will just lie and say that doesn’t exist, especially if you stray a little too close to the puritanical guard rails. One time I was going down a rabbit hole researching human sex organ variations and it flat out told me the people in South America who grow a penis at 12 don’t exist until I found the name guevedoces on my own, and wouldn’t you know it then it knew what I was talking about.