just remember even the patriot act started with good intentions, to get justice.

At the time that act was passed, many people pointed out that it would be abused.

you can't really build a perfect system, the goal would be to limit bad actors as much as possible.

Walking, bikes and scooters.

again, this is not europe. we don't ride bikes, and we certainly don't walk.

Yeah, that’s the root of a lot of problems in the US.

But pedestrian infrastructure is a very simple problem to solve, even in the US. Just look at how the market responds to public transit projects in the US —- developers trip over themselves to build projects in response to the induced demand.

Likewise they also responded to the reduced demand as a result of ripping out public transit infrastructure in the 20th century. Which is why doughnut-shaped cities are common in the US.

> buy a dying social network for 44bil

> merge it with a company created out of thin air for 20bil.

> have a third company buy it.

put it back on the market for 1.5 trillion.

Enchanced autopilot and self-driving do.

there are many times where I just do it myself and it thinks it did well.

I would advice them to get ready for what comes next, past experience says it will not be good.

yeah it feels like the sort of thing that will go sideways easily, I get the "optimistic" angle who doesn't love strong men being removed from power, but it seems more like a recipe for civil war that we're forced to be heavily involved in

will all of the military and paramilitary forces there suddenly become to compliant? will other nations try to turn it into a proxy war to drag the us down possibly as payback for Ukraine?

maybe everyone moves on I have no idea, I'd personally rather just not be involved

Whats the bad practices valve is doing in gambling?

Their games and systems tie into huge gambling operations on 3rd party sites

If you have 30mins for a video I recommend People Make Games' documentary on it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMmNy11Mn7g

Yeah, im sorry. Valve is the last company people should be focusing for this type of behavior. All the other AAA game companies use these mechanics to deliberate manipulate players. IMHO valve doesn't use predatory practices to keep this stuff going.

Just because they weren’t the first mover into predatory practices doesn’t mean they can’t say no to said practices. Each actor has agency to make their own operating and business decisions. Is Valve the worst of the lot? Absolutely not. But it was still their choice to implement.

What makes Valve special is that they were the first mover on those practices like lootboxes, gamepasses... but they never pushed it as far as the competition where it became predatory.

They have a track record of not engaging in these practices. It might be true that someday, we will get the wrong people in leadership positions at Valve that would entertain this behavior, but so far I don't think its going to happen. Valve has been time and time again, on the side of sane thinking around these topics. So IMHO your concern isn't really warranted as of yet.

How much of the video did you watch? I'm not aware of other game companies that enable 3rd party integrations into their item systems. This isn't just "lootboxes bad" - it's Valve profiting from actual gambling happening on external sites.

If you want to see how bad this really is, take a look at AAA games like call of duty where they dynamically alter in game loot mechanics to get people to purchase in game items.

Value is chump change in this department. They allow the practice of purchasing loot boxes and items but don't analyze and manipulate behaviors. Valve is the least bad actor in this department.

I watched half the video and found it pretty biased compared to whats happening in the industry right now.

I feel this argument of Valve deliberately profiting off of gambling not really the whole story. I certainly dont think that Valve designed there systems to encourage gambling. More like they wanted a way to bring in money to develop other areas of their platform so they can make it better, which they did. And in many cases are putting players first. Players developed bad behaviors around purchasing in-game and trading items and have chosen to indulge in the behavior. 3rd parties have rose up around a unhealthy need that IMHO is not Valves doing. And most importantly, since I was around when these systems went into place, allowing me to see what was happening, this kind of player behavior developed over time. I don't think Valve deliberately encouraged it.

The entire gaming industry is burning down before our eyes because of AAA greed and you guys are choosing to focus on the one company thats fighting against it. Im not getting it.

> call of duty where they dynamically alter in game loot mechanics to get people to purchase in game items.

[Citation needed]

> I certainly dont think that Valve designed there systems to encourage gambling

Cases are literally slot machines.

> [section about third-party websites] I don't think Valve deliberately encouraged it.

OK, but they continue to allow it (through poor enforcement of their own ToS), and it continues to generate them obscene amounts of money?

> you guys are choosing to focus on the one company thats fighting against it.

Yes, we should let the billion dollar company get away with shovelling gambling to children.

Also, frankly speaking, other AAAs are less predatory with gambling. Fortnite, CoD, and VALORANT to pick some examples, are all just simple purchases from a store. Yes, they have issues with FOMO, and bullying for not buying skins [0], but oh my god, it isn't allowing children to literally do sports gambling (and I should know, I've actively gambled on esports while underage via CS, and I know people that have lost $600+ while underage on CS gambling).

[0]: https://www.polygon.com/2019/5/7/18534431/fortnite-rare-defa...

this is just willingly turning a blind eye. it's not about the reputation or being a "good company", it's about the facts of what they do.

I'm choosing not to place the blame on them as I don't see it as something they can control. And I trust Valve to do the right thing over most any large game studio out there. The history of reputation and actions matter. I think you want to to try and skew the narrative based on you own particular bias. The situation is much bigger than what you are making it out to be.

> I think you want to to try and skew the narrative based on you own particular bias.

This is exactly what you are doing.

> The history of reputation and actions matter.

The history of actions matter, yes. The history of actions on the gambling topic has been very consistent thus far from Valve.

What do you mean they can’t control it? They could stop gambling tomorrow by disabling trading and disabling case openings. Valve already appear to be preparing for the latter to happen via regulation with the “Armory” feature in CS, which follows Fortnite & other major AAA titles.

(Oh, talking about Valve electing to engage in scummy behaviour, the “X-ray” feature is a classic example of them deliberately subverting regulation against loot boxes.)

If you want to bring up the “let the free market be the free market” angle, I’d at least be amenable to it.

But pretending as if they’re innocent passengers, and that they have no idea what is going on it ludicrous. Don’t baby a billion dollar company.

(I have skin the game too. If Valve blocked trading, I’d lose $400 worth of value in my skins. I’d still rather not support gambling, especially the type that is so incredibly unregulated.)

Loot box style underage gambling in their live service games - TF2 hats, counterstrike skins, "trading cards", etc etc

Lootboxes comes to mind.

since Anthropic is one of the only companies using the Bun Runtime, not just the bundler like most do, they want to make sure the runtime stays the focus. This is good for both companies and us tbh since they wont switch focus to whats popular at the moment

That doesn't matter when all your neighbors have one, and the one in front of you has theirs pointed directly at your house.

Dogwood bushes and Rose of Sharon grow rather quickly and make a nice "green screen". They lose some of their coverage in the winter, though, so you way want to mix in a row of evergreens for good measure.

Chamaecyparis lawsoniana 'Columnaris'. Grows quite fast, at the rate of 8 in to 1 ft per year and stays green in the winter. We have a regulation regarding fence height. Whoever wants a higher fence uses this tree, it can grow up to 40 feet.

I can't get past this comment without noting how invasive and aggressive spreading rose of sharon is, I'm constantly pulling out new growth due to my neighbor's plant. What a headache.

So you decided it's ok to be part of the problem because others are too?

There is no solution to that as far as I can tell, and it really stinks.

Legislation would help. As one example, a neighbor pointing their Ring at your property without your consent is entirely illegal in Germany.

And thankfully this will run afoul of the First Amendment in the United States.

I think in the US it’s more like “everything you can see through the window is public”, which is also an extreme.

Indeed. In Germany, it's generally legal to see in people's windows, legal for them to do whatever they want in their windows (you can't file a complaint someone is naked in their apartment with the curtains open - they will just tell you not to look if you don't want to see it) and illegal to record in other people's windows.

Illegal recording is a pretty good rule actually. Almost every party I've been to has a rule against filming dance floors, although in German law it's only illegal to publish a recording "of" a person. The flip side to illegal recording is that it's effectively legal to do silly things without worrying it'll haunt you forever, and that's pretty cool. Note the relatively relaxed attitude to things like public nudity (which is only legal in certain places as I understand it, but still). Almost every Berlin party I've ever been to has a rule against filming.

I do not think it's a good rule because it means you can't set up any sort of security camera that can see off your property. No dashcams to accurately point the blame for the accident. And unless you have a very high mounting point you can't even point them at your own property because they'll catch other things.

That's correct. Security cameras that see off your property are illegal and you WILL go to prison for having one. Why do you think you need one?

I think there's an exception for dashcams. Might still be illegal to publish recordings. Not sure.

You can put shutters on a camera so it can't see off your property.

Also you have to tell people they're entering a video surveilled area before they enter that area. Or else you go to prison.

Shutters don't work unless you have a very high vantage point. Consider the most forgiving camera I have--pointing west from not very far from the east edge of my property, it's angled such that the top of the frame is horizontal and the edge of the frame is parallel to the house. The maximum range I would realistically want to see a face is about halfway across my property from the location of the camera. Put a shutter to cut off the neighbor and I also cut off the head of someone approaching my front door. To make it work the camera would need to be at least 12' in the air--which would mean fastening it to air.

Fancier cameras can have filters on the motion sensor (which I wish I had--mine wasted too much recording time on the wind moving a tree), but you can't exclude the area.

Everything you can see through a window *from public property*. Or from other people's private property with their permission. If they have to enter your property to see it they need a warrant.

"thankfully" you can record your neighbors without their permission or knowing? You kinda sound like a creep, hopefully you're already known to the cops as a pervert.

"He's a pervert, but he's our kind of pervert"

lasers?

Even better: an infrared laser.