I’d much rather play Fallout: Seattle, or Fallout: Minneapolis, or Fallout: Beijing (or Moscow or Lagos or Paris or Paris, Texas, or…) than a prettier rendition of 3 or New Vegas.

Except that for Americans specifically, relying on the embassy for support and evacuation when a regional crisis arises has been a safe bet for nearly 100 years.

Certainly in the post-WWII era, if you followed the advice of the state department on not traveling to really dangerous places, and didn’t do something to get yourself into trouble (like getting involved in crimes), the US would use considerable resources to ensure an American citizen’s safe passage home. In fact, the hostility to Iran has some basis in the fact that Iran took over the American embassy during the revolution in 1978 and held the personnel hostage, a pretty blatant rejection of standard diplomatic norms. From a legal standpoint that was effectively an invasion of the US because an embassy is sovereign territory.

So regardless of your wording, this represents a pretty basic shift away from previous norms, especially given that the crisis people are fleeing is entirely a creation of the US government.

Funny you mention HZD, I just fired it back up a couple weeks ago and completed the main story last weekend.

Ah yes, the “peace” of brutal authoritarianism and the grave.

The government may not be able to bail these companies out. The scale is even bigger than the housing crisis of 2008, and trust in the current administration is basically zero. I think the most we can hope for is the LLM companies (think OpenAI and Anthropic), and the companies whose services are effectively wrappers for LLMs, and probably Oracle (with its negative cash flow and astronomical debt) all go away. Amazon, Microsoft, and Google probably survive, with some high profile bloodletting, senior executives being purged by their boards. Apple has been the least bullish on AI, so they’re probably more or less safe and the biggest change will be new OS versions that don’t refer to Apple Intelligence. Facebook is structured in such a way that Zucc can’t be removed by the board, so who knows how that plays out.

Palantir and their ilk will likely get whatever they need to survive unless the midterms bring in a shockingly progressive group that cares about people’s privacy and removes funding for mass surveillance.

There’s at least still debate that the nukes significantly impacted the diplomatic process, unlike the firebombing of Tokyo which killed more people and didn’t move the needle on Japan’s commitment to the war at all.

The training data contains writing that downplays the negative impact of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, probably along with a healthy dose of writing from people like Douglas MacArthur and Curtis “Bombs Away” LeMay, evangelists of the tactical use of nuclear weapons and the belief that sufficient bombing would “break” the will of an enemy (despite zero examples of that happening until the use of nukes on Japan.)

Mulch the rich. They make better fertilizer than food.

If the Swiss government told this magazine about rejecting Palantir, it seems like Palantir should sue the Swiss government because they are the source of the narrative.

Woman: I keep getting catcalled on the street and it’s disturbing my sense of safety.

OpenStars: stop going outside, easy.

Knowing that these sites are bad and the algorithm is part of that doesn’t make “just don’t use those sites” a viable option when most or all of someone’s peers are also using them. That is part of the social media companies’ strategy, to make switching costs so high no one leaves.

Notably there have been almost zero data breaches of large banks, because their requirements for security are significantly higher than most other companies. My original comment was not about banks, they obviously need to retain a lot of customer data, and most of that is not exposed to the internet at all. I was talking about things like a pizza shop or an online retailer. There’s no need for Burger King or a webcomic artist I’m buying a print from to have a login or my email address for longer than it takes me to get my items.

Tax records don’t have to include the customer if it’s retail. If that was a requirement cash businesses would have massive problems, and the rule of keeping those records for seven years significantly predates our current model of credit for everything.

Beyond that, if I go to a restaurant they don’t have my name and address or any other information. Businesses need to keep records like “we bought x from y for $z,” and “we sold x to a for $b.”

And even further, the government could clarify that (if in some countries customer data was part of tax data) that the law was now to protect customer privacy and data.

The EU GDPR doesn’t go nearly far enough.

If I order online, my data only needs to be retained until I get my item. A electronic receipt can be sent via email.

Social networks should have human moderation, and not insist on retaining real-world data about users.

These things could be accomplished through regulation, and if enough countries (or US states) put those regulations in place it will eventually be more cost-effective for companies to implement the changes globally.

The thing they are tracking is primarily money. If people are playing games they already own and spending money on crypto chasing a big win, that speaks more to increased economic desperation than loss of interest in video games.

This is the kind of thing that makes me feel like punitive tattoos should be a thing. The first time this guy left a woman on the top of a mountain he should have gotten that tattooed on his forehead.

I’m curious if this gets other rightwing dipshits to turn on Trump when he inevitably does fuck-all about Tucker being arrested.

I would argue that while nudity at home should not be an issue, the nature of the film industry means that even if the nudity is presented in a naturalistic fashion, the fact it is on film makes it exploitative.

Imagine being 10-12 years old, naked, and surrounded by adults (mostly men,) some of whom are more or less ordering you around. I can’t imagine a way to make that anything other than deeply distressing for a child.

AGAIN.

If there was an award for understatement, you’d deserve one.

Okay, I admit it. I don’t have friends.