I used to do the same, but I lost a lot of confidence in GOG after they retroactively restricted their cloud saves to 200 MB.

My hundred-hour Witcher 3 save is exactly the kind of thing I want backed up, but that’s no longer possible. And the very low limit they set, and the urgency with which they started deleting the very data they were expected to keep safe, reeks of a desperation to save money that makes me hesitant to invest more in their ecosystem.

I really want them to succeed though, and I think they have the right idea with Galaxy. Even Epic giving me games for free doesn’t make me actually use their client or store.

But somehow the obvious idea of forming a consortium to develop open standards and implementations for game clients, doesn’t seem like something that will ever happen.

I think the key was that Steam wasn’t created to make money, but to solve problems they themselves had, like “How do we get new versions of Counter Strike out to all these players?”

Then as Valve wasn’t the only company having these problems, the solution could easily be sold to others.

If the other companies really wanted to crack Steam’s near-monopoly, the solution would be to tackle the problems associated with not having all your games on Steam. Work together on a open-source launcher supporting all stores, similar to GOG Galaxy. First make something useful that tackles an unsolved problem, then you can make money off it when it becomes successful.

Instead they go in just trying to make a buck, and end up just being worse versions of Steam.

That ended up being a bit of a rant, but I’m frustrated at their shortsighted market strategies :p

It’s at the level where, after spending hours there, I feel like it has to be a conspiracy to waste your time. Because there is no way there could organically be that many posts about a topic without there being any useful or correct information.

Seems suspicious. There probably is such an option hidden somewhere. Because whenever you get a clear answer there, it’s invariably wrong.

Why are there so many emigrants from Islamic countries? Most of them are even Muslims, but still they can’t live safely in their home country?

If you genuinely don’t know, you should abstain from having opinions until you gain a basic understanding of what is going on in the world.

The world is experiencing an unfathomable and worsening refugee crisis with 122 million people currently forced to flee their homes [1]. This is mostly due to overlapping long brutal wars. Refugees seeking shelter in the EU are mostly fleeing from Syria, Ukraine, Afganistan or Iraq. Most of these countries are majority muslim so that’s what most refugees will be.

As for why they can’t live safely in their home country, it’s because it’s a war zone, and has been for many years.

The rioters in Sweden were not “extreme muslims”. They were not particularly devout, but simply angry young men riled up by what they perceived as a racist state-sanctioned attack on their culture and heritage.

Many parties worked to escalate this issue, from far-right assholes looking to sow hate between religious groups, state actors trying to weaken Sweden internally and diplomatically, islamic countries trying to unify their people with a common enemy, as well as religious extremists seeking more influence. That’s why it gained so much attention, and generated so much outrage and violence.

1. https://www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics

Plenty of people were hurt by the Koran burnings!

Hundreds have been injured in riots directly caused by the these provocateurs, and completely innocent people have been killed by terrorists because of them. 1)

It has also resulted in freedom of speech restrictions, a more polarized society, and less constructive dialogue about Islam.

Wrapping the Koran in bacon and setting it on fire was never meaningful criticism of religion, it was meant to incite violence. And it did!

1. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/two-swedes-shot-dead-brussels-police-2023-10-16/

Even if the actions really do nothing, they get people active and organized, so that they can take more effective actions later on.

I honestly think a lot of this criticism is people’s internalized rationalization for why they themselves don’t take action.

Who? Who is selling you out? Ocasio Cortez? Really?

Even before Trump, the US illegally deported lots of citizens by accident. Because practical legal protections against deportation were shit even back then.

So they don’t even have to make it legal. Just impossible to practically fight illegal deportation.

A source https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Hundreds-of-citizens-end-up-in-deportation-11719324.php

That’s what all the coffee and wine is for!

Is this how people can claim that Arch is stable, they just redefine breaking to exclude anything that might actually happen?

Debian in particular is rock solid, even Debian Unstable has been very reliable for me if you want a rolling release with newer packages.

But I’ve also had very few problems with Ubuntu. My mother has used it for ten years at this point and will happily apply any dist upgrade she’s presented with, and rarely does she need support.

A pro tip is to check out the alternative desktop environments. A lot of people rightly hate Ubuntu’s awful default DE, but it’s not a core part of the distro, there are other complete desktop “flavours” available in the repositories and installers that will give you them from the start at https://ubuntu.com/desktop/flavours

(Switching an installed system from one DE to another is in principle as easy as uninstalling one desktop meta-package and installing another, but you got to make sure you get the right packages, or you might run into annoying conflicts, so I would not recommend it for a newbie)

What do those NGOs have to say about Julian Assange or Steven Donziger

“RSF defends Assange because of his contributions to journalism” https://rsf.org/en/rsf-dispels-common-misconceptions-case-against-julian-assange

“CPJ welcomes reports that Assange will be released in plea deal” https://cpj.org/2024/06/cpj-welcomes-reports-that-assange-will-be-released-in-plea-deal/

“USA must drop charges against Julian Assange” https://www.amnesty.org/en/petition/julian-assange-usa-justice/

“Biden Should Pardon Steven Donziger” https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/01/biden-should-pardon-steven-donziger-before-leaving-office/

I’m getting the distinct impression you have no idea wtf you are talking about

the stories that come out first tend to be most biased

I honestly think the concept of news is actually harmful, because it’s about reporting what happened, not about making the audience understand the subject. It puts a premium on getting the report out as quickly as possible, and favours the most shocking events and interpretations that draw people’s attention.

Ultimately most news are “empty calories” of information that mostly give an illusion of knowledge. “Explosion in Herptown, dozens wounded” does not meaningfully increase your understanding of the world, it mostly just makes you scared. It will take weeks until the cause and consequences of the explosion can be fully understood, and a lot of research to put that into perspective.

If you do not know the extent of pressure asserted on Chinese media that is willful ignorance.

Of course “our media” (whatever you mean by that) is the only media that can report on it as Chinese media is heavily censored.

If you want to know the extent the information easy to find.

Here’s some of what Reporters Without Borders have to say

“The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the world’s largest prison for journalists, and its regime conducts a campaign of repression against journalism and the right to information worldwide.”

“The Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party sends a detailed notice to all media every day that includes editorial guidelines and censored topics.”

“Independent journalists and bloggers who dare to report “sensitive” information are often placed under surveillance, harassed, detained, and, in some cases, tortured.”

Source: https://rsf.org/en/country/china

This is from The Committee to Protect Journalists

“China has long ranked as one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists. Censorship makes the exact number of journalists jailed there notoriously difficult to determine, but Beijing’s media crackdown has widened in recent years”

Source: https://cpj.org/reports/2024/01/2023-prison-census-jailed-journalist-numbers-near-record-high-israel-imprisonments-spike/

Here’s Amnesty International

“Chinese authorities continued to severely curtail rights to freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly, including through the abusive application of laws often under the pretext of preserving national security.”

Source: https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/asia-and-the-pacific/east-asia/china/report-china/

This is just untrue. There is plenty of legal press in the US of any persuasion, from anarchist to fascist.

The major US news outlets are in bed with capitalists because that’s where the money is, but there are lots of smaller outlets with other views. In China all news outlets kowtow to the government because anything else is illegal.

AFAIK often on Chinese services you’ll get an error like “your message could not be delivered”. Posts managing to discuss forbidden topics might be removed without warning, or just be silently hidden so they don’t reach new people.

The goal is not so much to prevent anyone from ever talking shit about the government, but to make those conversations difficult and to stop them from reaching a wide audience.

Last I looked at it the support for that claim looked shaky. Can’t we just use plant-based natural reds? No need to grind bugs when you can grind beets.