https://github.com/derrod/legendary is the open unofficial client, I think it’s what Heroic Launcher uses under the hood

There was no Epstein, only files about him, no there aren’t, and if we had any tapes, don’t you think we’d show you, except there are tapes, except they don’t show stuff

You don’t need the client to connect the games, I just do it via browser. And you don’t need it to launch the games either.

Apart from all this, I think they do lose money on the store, and are subsidizing it with Fortnite money. But I could be wrong.

You’re not really dependent on EGS just because of the free games; neither in the sense of drugs nor as in you build an infrastructure on it, like with other software. Let’s say you’re a student and get Microsoft products for free. You wrote applications for Windows, you create office documents. Later, Microsoft charges for new versions (since you’re no longer a student). Now you have the choice: keep using unsupported software which is a security risk; pay up; or migrate everything you have created over the years, which will take a long time. You have become dependent on the vendor.

With games, who gives a damn? It’s not like Little Nightmares 2 replaced Little Nightmares. I just keep that version. They’re completely different things. No more free games with EGS? Okay, now what? I’ll just keep using what I have. There is no lock-in effect. This is all just a promotion for their shop like a free ride voucher for a theme park where they hope you spend money on other stuff as well. Or basically any loss-leader anywhere, just that it’s not sold under price, but actually given away for free.

There’s a good reason the free games are so far down on their website, they want you to scroll all the way down and look at their stuff so that you maybe buy something. Which is fine by me, I actually even bought something there once (shouldn’t have, game was way below expectations, but that’s on me).

So yeah they’re not giving stuff out because they’re good. But it’s also not nefarious. Just really lazy and I guess more expensive in the long run.

Context from the article: they’re not against the tax, they’re against the tax going to the EU as opposed to going to the member states.

Imagine having Fortnite money and all you can deliver is the EGS. Yeah free games are cool I guess but it’s like the laziest approach regarding actually engineering and developing a solution

Same is true for games on Steam if the developer decides not to use Steam integration (some features like achievements are ok I think). For example Noita doesn’t need Steam running, you can just copy the folder to another machine AFAIK

also there are Steam emulators

Please note that the first paragraph in the screenshot does not refer to Trump. It’s still a Leopard eats my face moment, but not sure to the affordable housing stuff.

It’s just unfortunate that this BS is the way society is forced to realize that agriculture is built on exploitation, this isn’t meant to be a “both sides” moment but neither Reps nor Dems ever really cared about this. It was just always hypocritical to hate on the undocumented while relying on them

However, we all know that this administration will find the worst and inhumane way to deal with the situation.

Agreed. But he’s also an abrasive know-it-all. A modicum of social skills and respect goes a long way towards making others accept your pet projects.

This isn’t what I get when reading bug reports he interacts in. Yeah, sometimes he asks if something can’t be done another way – but he seems also very open to new ideas. I rather think that this opinion of him is very selective, there are cases where he comes off as smug, but I never got the impression this is the majority of cases.

I wasn’t talking about the protocol, I was talking about the implementation: PulseAudio is a crashy, unstable POS. I can’t count the number of hours this turd made me waste, until PipeWire came along.

PipeWire for audio couldn’t exist nowadays without PulseAudio though, in fact it was originally created as “PulseAudio for Video”; Pulse exposed a lot of bugs in the lower levels of the Linux audio stack. And I do agree that PipeWire is better than PulseAudio. But it’s important to see it in the context of the time it was created in, and Linux audio back then was certainly different. OSS was actually something a significant amount of people used…

Prohibition and the war on drugs sure worked out well when they were implemented. Surely this time …

This isn’t about making it legal, but about requiring age verification. To bring it closer to your example: stores shouldn’t check your she when buying booze, selling to everyone because if minors don’t get it there, they’ll get moonshine somewhere else, which is worse.

Kettles aren’t black, they’re metallic, and when the pot calls the kettle black, it only sees its own reflection. But both Musk and Trump are turds. No need for reflection

There are probably cases where turning off Secure Boot is fine. If you make that decision for yourself and are aware of the implications, go ahead. My remark wasn’t against users turning it off, but rather against the advice of “just turn it off lol”

This is true, unfortunately some Linux users have been conditioned to “just turn off Secure Boot” without understanding what this actually means and entails.

This is an issue with these half-baked security solutions.

Don’t get me wrong: the setup protects against some very common threats (i.e. device gets stolen). But they’re unsuited for evil maid attacks.

Secure Boot isn’t flawless, but it can improve system security if used correctly; unfortunately, most distributions don’t go all the way as demonstrated here. I guess this can be solved via UKIs, but anything built on the users machine like an initramfs can’t be signed properly if no user TPM keys are enrolled and available during generation.

The issue I have with all this is that these distributions don’t really tell you that the security they provide is ultimately limited. Personally, I have custom TPM keys, the initramfs is signed, I unlock via TPM PIN and the emergency mode is disabled. Also UEFI needs to be password protected so that an attached can’t modify your booting parameters, though this couldn’t be done undetected because it’d break TPM supported boot.

My point was not only that aspect, but also about the fact that input and output of the task is information. And while information itself can be a “product” or be provided as a service, in most cases, it’s not.

But anyhow, I feel like I’m overexplaining myself over a term I said wasn’t good.

Think that’s called NATing

With administrative, I meant that IT is a about information flow - defining rules how data is consumed, transformed and ultimately output. These by definition of a classic business I’d see as administrative.

I agree the wording isn’t good, and I didn’t mean it as in “anyone working in IT is just performing administrative tasks”, but rather that the field of IT is traditionally more of an enabler of other businesses.

The mechanic is usually the actual worker - you run a repair shop - but his spare parts management is an administrative task, and nowadays usually implemented by an IT solution.

At least in some cases, it might just be wholesome advice. The fact that you have “a job” and a whole different persona from that and they’re two separate things that sometimes intertwine probably brings you closer to us in administrative tasks (in the end, IT is by definition always something administrative rather than actually productive) than me as in an IT guy with an influencer. Because ultimately, your actual identity is your job, and by conclusion, your whole life is performative, which sounds REALLY exhausting

I mean if you’re going for the piracy route, you never used streaming services or bought physical media anyways and the whole discussion is moot.