Ehh if you are on a reputable tracker that has scene releases it’s generally downloading a torrent, copying a crack into the game directory or running some crack software, and play. It’s not in the least bit difficult.

Realistically most people don’t care about things like automatic updates enough to justify spending money on it.

Many games are trivially easy to pirate and this has been the case for decades. It’s literally as easy as downloading it from Place B.

People still buy the games.

The fact of the matter is that people will happily pay for content if it is made available in a convenient and affordable way. Hell, many people will voluntarily pay artists for content that is available completely for free. That’s how patreon works, and there are self published authors approaching $1M/year in income due to readers choosing to support the author for their hard work.

People have no issue paying content creators.

Piracy rose to prominence in the 2000s because a few executives were funneling massive amounts of money into their pockets by the sale of CDs and cable services that were simultaneously expensive and inconvenient. The studios attacked pirates directly to little effect because you simply can’t stop the free dissemination of information among the public.

Piracy almost completely died when streaming made the alternatives affordable, user friendly and convenient. In a world where the proliferation of streaming services is making content just as expensive and inconvenient as in the old days of cable, it’s only natural that piracy will once again rise to prominence.

If they want to get paid, they simply need to stop fucking with the customer and offer a service people want to pay for.

Same. I like the whole engagement ring ritual but I’ll be damned if our marriage is going to hinge on my “proving my love” with some overpriced trinket that costs a couple months’ salary and loses 95% of its value when it leaves the store. If that’s what it takes for us to get married it’s not the type of relationship I want in my life.

Moissanite is by far a better buy. It has more fire for 1/100th the price than a natural diamond.

But I feel like the people saying clear stones like diamond and moissanite aren’t pretty have never seen a clear, well cut, multi karat, example in the sun. The rainbow colors and brilliance from a clear high refraction stone like a diamond is frankly insane. You can see the rainbow colors shooting off of it from like 100 yards away if the lighting is right. No colored stone has quite the same wow factor as a good diamond or moissanite in the right light. That’s why diamonds have historically been in such high demand.

Opal, Alexandrite, and many other stones are equally beautiful in their own way. But it’s weird to make that point by putting down clear stones that are absolutely spectacular.

I agree diamonds are dumb and overpriced when you can get a better result from moissanite or lab grown.

That said, I’m curious why you assume it’s a blood diamond? Conflict diamonds only account for ~5% of all diamonds in the trade. Russia and Canada combined account for >50% of all rough diamonds in the industry.

Do you not understand how ads work? It’s about making sure that IBM is the first company that comes to mind when you think about potential suppliers for an upcoming project.

It’s no different than ads for Coca Cola. You know what Coke tastes like. An ad isn’t going to materially influence whether you like it or not. However, it attempts to keep the name present in your mind so the first thing that pops into your head on a hot day is a nice cold Coke.

That’s why I dig up my lawn every year and bury it underground inside sealed plastic bags

I’m doing my part!

If you are considering two modes of transportation for a airplane-suitable trip, the per-trip stat is effectively irrelevant. If we consider a 1,000 mile trip and want to choose the safest manner of travel to the destination aircraft will statistically be the safest transportation method.

You don’t think that was implied when I said they vastly outperform human pilots?

There are numerous advantages to letting a flight computer do the piloting. Higher allowable G limits is one of them, albeit far from the most important.

You’re right on all counts here.

Computer algorithms (such as AI) can’t replace organic judgement-based decision making, but they vastly outperform humans when there is a well defined cost function to optimize against, such as, “hit this target in the minimum possible time”.

I think you can compare it to autonomous cars. They can drive from point to point while avoiding hazards along the way, but they still need the passenger to tell them where their destination is.

Have you guys not had the salty “cheese foam” you can get on boba? It’s like stabilized whipped cream.

This doesn’t sound bad at all.

Prices for an equivalent model car really haven’t changed much after adjusting for inflation.

Hondas aren’t the best example because they have steadily been moving more upmarket as a brand. However, in 1991 a base model civic cost an inflation adjusted $15,600. A 2023 base model civic costs $23,750.

Another example that comes to mind is the Mazda Miata since people often complain about how sports cars have gotten too expensive and it’s the archetypal affordable sports car. A 1991 Miata cost an inflation adjusted $35,600. A 2023 Miata starts at $28,000.

I dunno, when I was in high school there were a number of Ayn Rand essay contests with prize money.

I won’t say they’re good books but I did make good money from reading them.

I grew up in California

I’m not surprised about your experience though. I have also lived in the south and many of the southern states are still feeling the effects of decades of extensive lobbying on education by the Daughters of the Confederacy.

They DoC has historically pushed a narrative about slaves being happy and content overall, cared for by empathetic masters who valued their well-being. There are many monuments still standing glorifying the wartime deeds done by “loyal” and happy slaves. It’s really insidious.

I know there is regional variation on how the slave trade is taught, but when I was in school we had numerous, extended, and graphic discussions on the horrors of the slave trade starting from elementary school and extending into college.

For the average person, this is the answer.

Buying a high end large format inkjet is the answer for artists, photographers, and graphic designers who regularly need hard copies of their work. The average user who prints a couple times a year would be much better served with a b/w laserjet and the occasional trip to a print shop when something fancier is needed.

These sorts of jokes are every bit as tired as the “San Francisco is a mountain range of needles” jokes you get from the conservatives in Alabama

All they have to do is get an account and sit there seeding their own movies, then keep a log of the IP addresses of the people they connect to. That’s how most P2P enforcement is done.

Problem is that anyone with enough knowledge to get private torrent access also knows enough to use a seedbox or VPN. The whole business case for a VPN revolves around not giving out IP addresses so that’s generally a dead end for copyright holders.

This sort of post would be well loved over in /c/merica@lemmy.world