I’m sure they do, but I feel like even on r/datahoarders, I only ever see people talk about masses of HDDs, tape drives, or cloud storage.

Worst controller? Eh, I have controllers I don’t like. N64 controller. Original Xbox controller. Dreamcast controller. But are they the worst? Idk. Maybe I just didn’t have a whole lot of experience with any of those (didn’t own any of those consoles).

Maybe the Wiimote. Like I get the idea, but as a dedicated controller, meh. Same with the Switch Joycon; maybe even more so. I have a Pro controller because the Joycons just don’t cut it. When they’re attached to the Switch, they’re OK, but not as individual controllers.

And you know we’ll bitch and moan the whole way “Don’t you know what I am? I’m a goddamn American! I have rights!” a la Randy Marsh.

Maybe it’s my doomerism at play, but even one year house arrest I’d be OK with. Keep him in NY in his Trump Tower penthouse. Don’t let him go out to campaign.

Obviously jail would be better. I just don’t think fines alone are going to cut it. He’s not going to pay them.

You could also add toxic glue. It’s edible! Probably only once though.

This is now going to be added to some LLM-generated answer in the probably near future.

My parents were the ones who pointed me to the high seas. I was a kid (12-13yo) when Napster came out. Being the family geek, they told me to look into it since they heard about it on the news and wanted free music (early case of the Streissand Effect before it was termed as such). So I did. And we got free music. Even asked them to get me a CD burner for my birthday after that and they did.

As a kid on the earlier days of the Internet, I came across all sorts of ways to get free stuff. Games and Music at first, especially game cracks/warez. Then once torrents came on the scene, movies and shows.

I actually don’t pirate much anymore. Rarely pirate music since I’ve had Spotify for like 10+yrs now. Same with games since Steam and all the other digital storefronts have so many sales. I still pirate emulator ROMs once in a blue moon. Movies/shows would be where I pirate the most (though like once a month if that), even though I have Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu, and Crunchyroll. Even between those 4, I can’t find everything I want to watch.

But yeah, 99% of the time, I just don’t want to pay for things. The other 1% is that I can’t pay for something (mainly in the emulators/ROMs space). That’s all.

I don’t pirate very often anymore, but when I do, I use whatever computer I happen to be on. I just turn on a VPN and bind the torrenting client to the VPN only. This is how I’ve torrented for years, since the late 2000s. I’ve gotten a couple strikes from my ISP several years ago, but that was before I had a commercial VPN. Otherwise, I’ve no issues.

What are the potential security upsides of doing it on a VM/container or a dedicated machine? I can imagine some performance upsides, but that’s about it.

That’s a bot, right? That can’t be real.

I’ve met plenty of idiots. Some days, I’m probably one of them. But I don’t think I’ve ever come across someone who’s pro anti-piracy. Usually people are just neutral about it. Even the most law-abiding people I know, when I’ve told them I can download movies for free, are like “Oh, are you able to get this movie for me? Thanks!”

Earthbound was probably the first game I was ever really enamored with. Even today, it’s definitely one of my favorite games ever. And it’s probably the first JRPG I ever played, and it’s what started me down a long path of JRPGs.

My parents got me a subscription to Nintendo Power magazine, and I remember reading about the game there and wanting to play it. They didn’t buy it for me when it came out, but I did rent it from Blockbluster a few times. And they did eventually buy it for me for Christmas. It even came with the strategy guide!

Everything about the game was great. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but it was insanely accessible, even to a then 7-8yo kid like me. JRPGs tend to be darker and complex (though not always). But Earthbound still had complexity, but it wasn’t darker. Yes these kids were having to save the world from destruction, but the story was told in an upbeat, fun way. And it was just the right amount of complexity.

Earthbound is also probably the first game I ever beat. Certainly the first JRPG.

I did try the fan-translation of Mother 3. I didn’t end up finishing it. I got close, but it was far too depressing and different from EB. The game was beautifully done (as was the player-made strategy guide!), but I just couldn’t really get into the story and characters. Just wasn’t for me.

Just saw this other article about the UK arresting two alleged spies for China. Wonder if the German and UK investigations were a joint op. And if we’ll soon hear about other countries arrests of others for working with Chinese intelligence.

FYI on the rules:

Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.

Not removing the post, but just for next time, please.

The DNC has been later in August in the past, according to this page on wikipedia. Same goes for the RNC.

But I don’t know if Ohio’s law has always been this way or if it’s newer. Either way, it sounds like in the past that various states have had provisions for this scenario, knowing that this could and did happen. So if I had to guess, the issue is that, like many things in our political system, we relied on traditions and cooperation to maintain the system. And of course, Republicans for the last 8yrs (longer than that, really) no longer want to do that. They’d rather see it all burn down in the name of DJT.

They should also pressure producers/sellers on their market to do the same. I have a box of cat water fountain filter things. Comes in like packs of 8 in a cardboard/paperboard box. That’s good, easily recyclable. Except the filters are individually plastic wrapped, for no discernable reason.

Mainly playing Rimworld, FF7 Rebirth, and a little bit of the Ace Attorney Apollo Justice Trilogy. Also finished the visual Coffee Talk last night.

There’s a chance it could still happen. I live in Kansas City and voted No. While spending public money on a private endeavor was certainly a big issue, I think a lot of people were more POed with the way the teams and county/city went about this. There were almost no concrete plans on remaining sources of funding, potential traffic/parking/public transit issues, if the affected businesses in the proposed district would even sell off their land and properties, and more. Plus the fact that the selected location seemingly appeared out of nowhere. For months, there were two other locations – one of which is literally almost entirely parking lots and empty space – that were being talked about. And of course the implicit threats of leaving if the vote failed. There was also the rushed vote. There’s no reason this had to be voted on this instant. This could’ve wait until the November election. People rightfully saw this was a bad way to go about this.

I think if the teams and city/county go back to the drawing board, change the location, come up with more concrete plans, lessen the amount of public money going in (like maybe not have a 40yr tax), get the teams to agree to stay the whole term – the teams weren’t even guaranteed to stay the whole term of the tax – and just in general make it more appealing to people (the Chiefs were going to use their cut of the money to improve/build out more premium suites that average people will never see/use), people might be willing to vote for it. It’d still be a close call, but I could see people saying Yes if everything lined up.

Another option is for the teams to go across the state line to Kansas. Which I’d have no problem with that. If Kansans want to pay, let them. It’s their money, not mine at that point.

I think pirating educational materials is less morally bad than pirating entertainment.

College textbooks, for example, are insanely expensive. I once paid like $300 for a single chemistry book. I never made that mistake again. Not because I pirated; I just started buying used or past editions. It’s not like chemistry for a 100 level class is cutting edge stuff. It’s the same ideas and knowledge we’ve had for decades or a hundred or hundreds of years. It’s all public knowledge at this point.

But you may need the book to do readings and assignments. So if you can’t afford the book, even used or past editions, then it makes sense to turn to piracy. I would sometimes grab the library reference copy of a textbook and just go crazy with a copy machine. That might technically still be piracy.

Entertainment, on the other hand, isn’t really required at all. So to me, that’s worse.

That all said, 99% of the stuff I’ve pirated is entertainment. My immorality is only bounded by the size of my SSDs!

I know some airports have similar Amazon convenience stores. But they’re not staffless; there’s still at least one person at the exit. Sometimes even another person at the entrance. Yeah it’s quick for me since I’m not waiting in a line or being rung up (though I rarely see people in them compared to the traditional convenience stores), but is the company really saving money? Not that I really care if they are or not, but seems pointless if they still have to staff the stores.

Eh, the tech-illiterate come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors.

Final Fantasy XIII had Sazh Katzroy. He’s not the main character (that’d be Lightning), but he is an important playable character right from the get-go. He has his own storylines as well.

Same. Beehaw is my main, but I also have a Kbin account (which I know is technically different), and then a LW account, which I almost never sign into.

Even my Mastodon account is separate. It’s fine this way. I don’t need everything on one account. With a password manager, it’s not like I have to remember passwords anyway.