GOG has managed to put out DRM free games though on a digital distribution platform. I can have my entire library backed up and it isn’t possible for them to nuke it in any way, as far as I know. It really isn’t a problem inherent to digital downloads, only the way some are trying to do it.
Valve gets away with it because you can get games for dirt cheap there.
I suspect if we were looking at the same image as above except buying Dead Space for $6 like you can on Steam, we’d be seeing a lot less pushback. Part of the excuse they had was physical media having a way bigger distribution cost compared to digital. They’re kind of trying to have their cake and eat it too, here.
And yeah, GOG is DRM free so that’s a pretty big difference.
I’m still a couch and controller gamer primarily, I just use a PC to do it lol. Honestly, with Steam, it’s really easy to just change Steam Big Picture mode as the default shell for Windows, so even if you don’t want to install SteamOS, you can still have the console experience of just turning the machine on and booting right into your games menu.
Dress codes for restaurants (jackets and ties required), dress codes for gas stations (no shirts, no shoes, no service)
Now this is goofy… comparing a private business telling you what you’re allowed to wear in their business versus a state mandating what you can or can’t wear? Come on, man…
dress codes for schools (uniforms)
We have all sorts of extra restricted rights for children. They don’t have a lot of rights most adults do in public schools. Free speech is greatly restricted… should the state then extend these restrictions to the wider public because it happens in public schools for children?
Calling this idea goofy when making a false equivalence that should be dispelled with a 101 level understanding of government is the soul of throwing stones from a glass house, dude.
There are definitely arguments for restricting this kind of thing, but this isn’t one of them, this is just silly.
On the bright side, if the AMOC shuts down, which early indications seem to say it might be, you’ll also have way colder winters in Europe to balance things out. I guess that should also get the eastern seaboard of the US hotter as well? So fun for everyone!
Spoken like an upper middle class person.
In fairness, it’s often false thrift to move to an area you need a car with the hopes of saving money on rent… that all ends up going into the car. I hear you as someone born into poverty in a car centric place that this often isn’t a choice, that’s fair, but all else being equal my experience that needing to maintain a car was a constant albatross around our neck as a family. Once I moved to an area with good transit and didn’t bother with a car, I could save way, way more money even considering higher rent…
Relax, amigo.
Look, I’m not sure if there’s a language barrier here, so I’ll try to rephrase this simply: if trains have fencing on either side, there are almost always man gates every so often so that a) the tracks can be accessed for maintenance and b) in case of an emergency ( like we’re discussing, ahem ) there is an exit to get people out and off of the tracks.
Is your expectation for emergency egress that sidewalks are required along the entire route in order to have emergency exits from a fenced area???
What you suggest is like letting people leave a plane and walk along the tarmac.
Buddy, this is exactly what sometimes happens. What do you think they do? Sometimes a plane just isn’t able to be fixed on the spot and you have to disembark on the spot. Shit happens.
What I want is to get from point A to point B safely.
Then why are you driving? That’s statistically way, way, way more likely to end in a fatality for you and it isn’t even very close.
Southern Europe cosplaying as western Europe for the purposes of feeling superior to eastern Europe is legitimately funny though, especially since I’m from a place where both would be considered barely functioning countries lol.
That being said, you seem to really be getting up in your feelings with this since we’re devolving to both unearned and mistargeted national pride, so I think now is probably a good time to block and move on :) . Been fun, amigo, but maybe get one of your countrymen to pass a J and loosen up a bit, eh?
Drive safe!
Walking through the woods is not what I would call “a better [train] experience”.
What are you actually wanting here? “They won’t let us off the train, we’re cooking in here” and then “Oh they let you off the train, what an awful experience”? Pick a lane here, guy. Being let off the train sounds a lot better to me than heat stroke… I’m still not sure what you really want in this scenario.
I’d still like to know when this actually happened? A breakdown, sure. But trying to keep people to stay on a clearly dangerous train? Hard to believe.
Do you not have mandatory gates every x km in Spain? We have plenty of sound barrier fencing, and all of them have gates a short distance apart exactly for safety reasons.
Glad to hear you had a good experience overall!
They will not open the door you dufus.
No need to be prickly :).
They will indeed do exactly this in my experience. We even had a sort of viral video of this happening here in Hungary… train broke down, they opened the doors and walked people through the nearby woods to the nearest village.
If Hungary is managing a better train experience than Spain… I would understand your frustration, the situation must be pretty damn dire there.
But again, I doubt this has happened at all… even aside from physical, can you cite a situation where conductors would not “let people off the train” when it was getting dangerously hot during a breakdown? It’s hard to believe that Hungary would handle this better…
You can get a fine for using emergency exit.
In a non emergency, of course.
they will not let you leave the train
?
Man, I’m surprised to hear that. International travel is infamously shit, that’s part of why so many Europeans fly. The trains themselves are fine, but there’s a mishmash of standards, electrical systems, booking systems, etc, and every country just wants to engage in protectionism and refuses to harmonize with others. Trying to book travel through multiple countries is usually seen as a bigger headache than it’s worth, not to mention more costly, than flying which is just backwards in terms of incentives.
Maybe if you’re getting one of the tourist Eurrail pass thingies it isn’t so bad, but for regular international use (aside from just going to one country over, so just one journey) Europe really needs to standardize its rail travel much, much more.
the AC stops working, the windows don’t open and it gets real hot real fast unless it’s some extreme situation they will not let you leave the train
That sounds to me like an extreme situation.
All trains have emergency releases on the door to allow manual opening. Practically, if it is actually getting hot to the point of danger, no conductor is going to physically stop you from leaving the train. More likely they’d be the ones to let people off.
I’d need to see a news story of this happening where they were trying to force people to stay on a dangerously hot train. This sounds like a made up scenario.
Text based CLI browsers also seem to get around it often. I’ve used w3m to good effect, but there’s still a few that just won’t even talk to you without js enabled…
Eh, it depends. Faster bike traffic shouldn’t really be in such close proximity to pedestrians. On a lot of city streets, a fast bike is way closer to the speed of a car than to a pedestrian. City centers, especially non arterials, I’d say they should be in the street if there’s no path. I’m not particularly fast at just under 30kph and it’s rare for traffic to be much faster downtown here, especially non arterials I’m often passing them. I think that’s generally too fast to safely ride on a sidewalk, but a safe speed there would make cycling not very practical for me.
Which I can assure, unfortunately, no cycle paths is often the case in my part of eastern/central Europe
You were upset because you felt I was trying to position myself as wisened in order to be condescending. I’m pointing out that this wasn’t my intention, I was doing so to explain why I don’t do public debates regarding Marxism anymore, which you were arguing that I should probably be doing. You could not have understood that before I explained it, because you have no clue what my intentions are without me telling you, man… I’d suggest the inability to admit you didn’t know something as impossible to know as my personal reasons for not doing something is indicative of the bad faith this conversation has developed into, even if it didn’t start that way, so I think this is the end, bud.
I’d further suggest you really consider your own obstinate behavior in arguing for hours with someone about why they won’t argue with you before casting that particular stone.
Have a good one, but we just aren’t looking for the same kind of conversations, man. I’m not interested in the debate that you are.
Surely you can also see that, by positioning yourself as old and experienced, ie wiser, you are speaking condescendingly towards those you disagree with?
Do you not think you’re being a bit condescending yourself in suggesting people go read a guide written by you in order to have a discussion with you? I think you’re holding yourself and people who agree with you to a very different standard than those who disagree with you.
Regardless, my intent isn’t to really be condescending, but you’ve been pretty tenacious in asking why I won’t debate you… what else am I to do but explain why I’ve reached the position I have when you keep pressing and say that I should do a thing I’ve decided against doing as a rule?
You’ve already shown yourself to be fairly obstinate
Physician, heal thyself. You’ve pressed me for… what, half a dozen comments now? On literally nothing but saying I should debate you or others when I don’t care to and explained why. I think you’re quick to see qualities in others that you aren’t realizing you have yourself.
In other words, I focus on swaying onlookers
I’m very aware of that, that’s exactly what I’m uninterested in. I’ve moved past “debate” in the sense of a public disagreement and an attempt to sway people to my side… used to do that a lot, but I’m just over it at this point. I’m interested in real conversations and attempts to understand another person and another point of view, I explicitly do not like the kind of conversation that happens when people are trying to convince a third party. I think it lends itself to toxicity, condescension, basically the worst qualities that people associate with redditors, for good reason.
I also disagree
Okay. I disagree with your disagreement :). I think not offering any substantive rebuttal and simply saying “you don’t know theory, go read this” is definitely a cudgel to dismiss opinions a person doesn’t agree with without putting in any effort, and it’s obviously a performative thing for onlookers. If you disagree, I’m comfortable with that.
With respect, I’m just not interested in reading guides as again, whether people choose to believe so or not, I actually have studied this in an academic setting and am satisfied with that. I understand your passion, but Marxism, socialism, and leftism absolutely inform my politics, but they aren’t my entire life and I think too many people use them as a source of identity that ends up trying to conform to a label rather than incorporating ideas into well thought out positions. I say this as someone who probably strayed too close to that in my youth as a firebrand and just don’t see the point in my old age. It just leads to ulcers and infighting, IMO. I did extend the offer for private discussion if is really that important, but I really do find the tone that is struck very different when people are talking one on one versus, even subconsciously, trying to make points that win upvotes a la reddit. Take that initial reply I took issue with… would anyone really bother privately messaging this? “Hey, I’m not really going to elaborate, but I really disagree with you, go read this other thing”? I’ve never encountered such a thing and I think we can agree that would come across a bit… unhinged. But it’s par for the course with these kind of discussions in public forums and is uniquely bad in Marxist circles IMO.
Note that I’m not saying any of this is you, but I do think this might be true of the person who leveled it at me in the first place (which might be unfair, but I think is no more unfair of an assumption than those made about me).
Feelings noted, but I think that point can simply be taken back one more step: one shouldn’t make snappy, bad faith assumptions with no actual support aside from the weaponizing of a guide someone on the Internet has written as a cudgel to dismiss people they disagree with. I feel you’re being unfair in your application of who should and shouldn’t make an assertion based on who you happen to agree with. So we just don’t agree with each other’s position here, and that’s fine.
You don’t have to defend this assertion
But this is a counter to their assertion, which they would have to prove first, even in a formal setting. Which again, this is not. Are you bugging them to prove their assertion? Why or why not?
Block if you want to, but this seems like you want to have your cake and eat it too, raise your opinion on a subject and shield yourself from talking about it on a social media platform focusing on discussion.
I literally did not raise this topic, I responded to someone else who moved the topic to this and why I don’t agree with them. That comment, by the way, was a similar offhand opinion about why they think I’m wrong with nothing supporting it but their opinion. I don’t think countering it withe same minimal effort is out of place or on me. You’re free to disagree. The topic I was discussing is whether the tyranny of the majority can exist or not. That, I could understand wanting to prove, but I did indeed open with what I feel are solid examples thereof. I can think of non American examples though too if that’s the issue.
No, it’s worse. Currently, if anything were to happen to my data, I could redownload it freely. If anything happens to your data with physical media, like the disc getting scratched and damaged, lost, or stolen, you’re just SOL.
Sure, if GOG goes belly up that goes away, but that’s what you’re stuck with in physical media the second you walk out the door with the disc.