Seems conservatives only care about "not interfering" when their donors tell them to.

Had the republicans had the power back in the 90s, Microsoft would still be an abusive monopoly.

And none of that happens in reality.

This is a weird form of American exceptionalism where they've accepted that the US has become a terrible place but can't let go of the the 'Murika Uber Alles! philosophy.

So they create elaborate fantasies where other countries must somehow be worse despite all evidence to the contrary.

For the avoidance of doubt, I live in the UK, people aren't being arrested for "political residence", same as the EU. Journalists are not being arrested left, right and centre for speaking out.. Hell the only politico in Britain that is even trying to use the legal system against his critics is the Far-right farcical fascist fanny that pretends he's in favour of "freeze peach" but continually threatens to sue anyone who doesn't fawn over him, Nigel Farage.

13 yr olds are definitely not being strip searched. Had this happened in the UK, at the absolute worst, the Roz would have rocked up, realised this had just gotten out of hand and had a word with the child's parents. This "decisive action" free result is because we don't have regular school shootings, in fact most cops over here don't even carry firearms.

Given what is happening in the US, I'm far more free over here in the UK where people can be held to account for their actions. Freedom is not immunity from responsibility, it definitely isn't immunity from criticism.

Pretty much this.

Add this to the fact that it's more expensive than meat (as well as being worse for you than meat) during a time where the cost of meat was going up and is anyone surprised. The vegan fad is dying off as it was always going to so the companies who failed to make a product that was either better than meat or cheaper than meat are dying with it..

If you want to cut down on meat in your diet (and lets face it, most of us in developed countries would benefit from a bit less meat) then reduce the portion meat you're eating and replace it with vegetables, beans, legumes and fruits.

I do have some sympathy for my mate who's lactose intolerant, the increase in of non-dairy alternatives of recent years was a great boon to him.

+1 to this... loads of great meat free recipes out there. Not just ones where you're swapping meat for beans but loads of recipes that never had meat in them to begin with.

If you're trying to find a meat replacement you're really just trying to avoid admitting you want meat. Doubly so if you're trying to find a replacement for the worst kinds of meat (burgers, sausages, et al).

I get the strangest impression you're Australian, we've always had a "vegetarian" sausage roll, it was called a cheese and onion roll or a spinach and ricotta roll. No need to dress it up, just say what's in it unless what's in it isn't that good... bean curd with excessive amounts of salt and transfat roll? Over here in the UK there's been a huge fad about making "vegan" products without elaborating what's in it. If anything I thought Vegans being strict would be more discerning but nope, they'll happily swallow a Greggs pasty sans questions if it's got vegan in the name (for those unfamiliar with the UK, Greggs is like McDonalds but for low quality British pastries, would recommend Wenzels instead for a slice or sausage roll).

+1 to this. A dumb man knows everything, a smart man realises just how little he knows.

The thing is, he controls both Congress and the supreme court, which won't do dick against him.

Isn't this why the NRA insists you have to suffer all those school shootings? They're being awfully quiet now that a tyrannical government is actually in power. Maybe someone should send them a text or something.

I'm convinced most of their revenue comes from countries that are popular with outsourcing firms. People with limited skills seeking a higher paying job by claiming they can speak English. A western social media campaign won't affect that and their product is already so bad that they produce people with almost no understanding of the language.

The thing is, what it often does lead to are a lot of paying customers taking their business elsewhere.

Duolingo was crap long before it even farted out the idea of using AI for anything.

That being said I'm convinced most of their revenue must come from outsourcing countries with people who want to pretend they can speak English "Yes, I am fluent English" which means they've spent 300 odd days using duolingo which won't teach you jack about conversational English. It's particuarly telling when you encounter the ones that struggle with articles (the, a, et al), constantly conjugate verbs (I am thanking you) or misuse words that have similar meanings (watch/view/see, listen/hear). Years ago I tried to use it to improve my Spanish and it was no better than daily flash cards for learning vocabulary. In many other ways it was worse because it taught you the wrong way to use the language (I.E. complete misuse of ser/esta and por/para). I've been told it's not gotten better.

People have been predicting that since the 90's. The liberalisation of China, democratising from the ground up (first in local government, then state, finally federal) piece by piece. Unrest and turmoil, all that stuff. It still hasn't happened.

One thing China is good at, it's heading off dissent at the pass. I doubt we're going to see another Tiananmen Square (I believe the locals refer to it by it's date rather than location, 4 July Incident or some such) because they've learned that it's easier and more effective to not let things get to that stage.

And if we do see China surpass the US, it will not be because of anything happening in China, rather that the US falls on it's own sword by electing a dictator who is only interested in lining their own pockets and occasionally, that of their billionaire chums.

The idea of rail is that you have rail that goes near your home so you can access it by non-motorised means of transport. Erm.. you know, walking.

However conservatives did the opposite. Closing most of the local rail lines down (then privatised the rail companies). There's a reason so many streets in Britain are called "Beechings Close", it refers to the Beeching report which started the consolidation of rail lines.

That being said, I doubt this will get very far in the UK or Europe as we tend not to let techbros do whatever they want regardless of laws or consequences. Especially for the UK where most local streets have no centre line and parked cars on both sides. Autonomous cars seem to be failing on nice, wide, straight, well marked American roads, I'm already laughing at the idea of them getting stuck in the first pothole they encounter on your average British residential street.

Official response from Techbros:

lololololololololololololololol.... we'll pay you like we pay taxes.

Message ends.

Erm... you're half right...

It is a horribly overused marketing buzzword but it does have a meaning. AAA is a financial term more than a gaming one, it refers to lowest possible credit risk so when applied to projects tends to indicate the highest possible budget. In layman's terms, AAA games had a metric shitload (0.76 imperial fucktons) of money thrown at them. It isn't an indication of product quality, only project budget although marketers like to pretend that it somehow means that it means the game is a crack glazed hotcake and will sell like it... Which we've seen many AAA games fail to do in recent days.

Marketers have tried to introduce "AAAA" but no-one has listened except to make crass jokes like "fuck it, we're going straight to 9 A's" (and I do love a well crafted crass joke).

Quite, it won't be long before someone figures out how to fake it.

The answer to cheating has always been a moderated server with a decent mod. Cheating is a social problem rather than a technological one, so it requires a social solution.

Companies like EA, Take2, et al. won't care that this will be broken in short order as they don't really care about supporting a game beyond the time it takes to release the next iteration.

And it's too late.

My current gaming boxen is coming up to 5 years old, so I'm using Man Maths to justify building a new one early in the new year. With the new boxen I have two emphasis, 1. at least 4 M2 slots as that seems to be where cheap storage is going and 2. Linux compatibility. Most, if not all of my current steam Library is gold on Linux and/or Steam Deck. So that just leaves the games I have on GOG and my ancient non-steam games. Steams compatbility layer seems pretty good so that means my next gaming boxen is going to be configured for dual boot _with_ an emphasis on Linux.

Had you said this when I was building my last gaming boxen, I'd have called you mad (well actually wishful thinking).

VPNs, browser extensions and the fact the websites just don't care means that it's all a bit pointless.

Yep, this will just make more business flee the US as the political situation deteriorates.

However enough people still believe that people other than Americans will somehow be paying for this. During the last set of Tarrifs before TACO chickened out, we had American customers asking if we'd adsorb the 15% tariff and were surprised to here "LoL, no" in a stuffy British accent (we also have a Glaswegian who can produce something even more colourful). He didn't bother storming off in a huff as he knew the only other places to get these items were from the EU (specifically Belgium or Germany, amazingly enough things we export from the UK tend to be made in other developed economies) which were subject to even higher tariffs

BTW, the UK was subject to an additional 10% tariff, that was on top of the 5% duties that Americans already pay for this particular product.