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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: August 18th, 2023

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  • The problem is that congress doesn’t do anything quickly (unless it’s giving themselves a raise). That’s the whole reason delegation was needed, because they’re so slow to actually pass specific laws. Previously, the rule was that any ambiguity in the law could be interpreted as needed by the relevant agency. That way the law can be “companies need to ensure a certain level of safety for workers” and OSHA with their panel of experts can figure out the details of what precautions are needed where. Even if a rubber stamp is all that would be needed, they have a huge backlog of regulations to get through and a lot of companies that will fight tooth and nail to save a bit of money on safety equipment. If the SCOTUS takes such a case and rules against OSHA’s authority, you best believe there will be blood on their hands.



  • This is my rub with Clarence in general. On paper I agree with a very hardline reading of the constitution cause what else is it there for. We’re far too allergic to making constitutional amendments and laws and have built up a house of cards that gets toppled every time the administration changes.

    However, practically speaking, there’s too many actual lives depending on supreme court decisions and delegated regulations to wait for congress to do something about it (if they aren’t stalled outright by lobbying and party opposition). If the overturning of such decisions is meant to light a fire under the ass of the legislative branch, it operates much too slowly to protect the vulnerable people who suffer in the interim. Delegation is the only reason we have a (relatively) safe and clean place to live.



  • This is exactly the feeling I had when I played Assassin’s Creed and picked up a flag that said “1/100”. That happened multiple times, since there are 400 flags in the game. And what do you get? Absolutely nothing but an achievement.

    I hold Mario Odyssey up as a shining example of how to make large optional objectives fun. You don’t really get much of a reward for getting all 999 moons, but at least the vast majority of them have fun puzzles to solve so that it’s actually rewarding to collect them. Contrast this with, say, Korok seeds.








  • The issue is, though you may make a distinction between “I’m using this slur as an insult and not against its targeted oppressed minority”, bigots make no such distinction. Hearing others use the slur and normalize it emboldens these bigots to use it against vulnerable minorities, backing up to “I didn’t mean it that way” when they get called out. The word’s legacy also tangles with a fair bit of racism, as children of minority races were often labeled “mentally retarded” for poor English skills or just so they could be shuffled out of class after school segregation was ended. It’s just a word, yes, but one with a lot of ugly history in the US at the very least.

    Plus, the dislike of the word really isn’t new, it just has more support these days. We have lots of other words to choose from, what’s the harm in avoiding this one?


  • I think the rub here is that most developers aren’t developing/publishing their own software, but honing their skills on writing proprietary code while also putting food on the table. To that end, a permissively licensed library is better because the company will actually use it and the developer will gain experience with it that they can then use outside of the proprietary environment to contribute to FOSS projects (some of which may well use GPL). If a GPL end user product gets popular enough, it will eventually be able to use all of that gained experience to compete with the propriety alternatives, so I do think the two can work in tandem.



  • I think we generally agree, but I worry that a new platform couldn’t do more than GoG+Lutris already do. Perhaps, though, it could be done with a reputable foundation.

    And the lawsuit is more or less what I was radio referring to with Steam’s price rules. I would definitely be on board with striking the requirement for publishers to offer the same price on all platforms at the same time.

    On that note, though, I wouldn’t take the whole case at face value, as I think parts of it are pretty frivolous (unless they prove that Steam is actually actively stifling competition and, you know, not just a decent platform that entered the space first.) I also think it’s silly to point out Epic’s lower commission rate since they’ve been giving out free games like candy and actually making third party games exclusive to their platform in a very clear attempt to compete with Stream. There’s absolutely no guarantee that they won’t raise their commission once they have a foothold in the market (though I do concede that their licensing terms for Unreal Engine have remained fairly reasonable).


  • On the one hand, yeah it’s absolutely important not to idolize any company, because they have no sense of loyalty or generosity. Telling yourself otherwise is a guaranteed path to disappointment.

    On the other hand, of all the shit sandwiches we’ve been served, Steam is one of the fresher ones. Though they developed Proton for their own benefit, it’s pretty undeniable that it has made gaming on Linux way more viable than it has ever been, and it’s open source. I mean no shade to FOSS solutions like Lutris, but having paid developers work on a project full-time certainly has its advantages.

    I do think that the concerns about Steam’s pricing rules are valid, as are gripes with its DRM for first party games. But, overall, they’ve brought a lot of convenience to PC gaming that is hard to find elsewhere in the gaming world.