Jo, ich glaube es reicht den meisten mit der Reiche.

The amount of pure fiction being spread as fact surrounding this conflict is quite staggering. What you replied to is a comparatively harmless (if common) example of it.

They are CURRENTLY nothing alike.

Yes, and currently Russia is attacking a fellow democracy and threatening us with the same thing.

While Germany is definitely not heading the right way, the worst case scenario you are describing is not guaranteed and should not prohibit anyone from defending what we have now. It makes no sense.

Yup. Bought one of the first Steam Decks. Been having a great time with it so far, but I already had to repair it once (SSD overheated - thankfully a part that’s not proprietary). It will not last forever and the battery is likely going to be the next part that breaks. I am not looking forward to playing battery lottery on Aliexpress.

What do we learn from this? Valve isn’t our friend either. I never thought they were, I’m simply already caught in their ecosystem and bought the best PC handheld there was when it came out (and it still is, in my opinion, even though there are faster alternatives), but the company does enjoy a lot of leeway to the point of worship by some due to other firms in the gaming space being considerably worse.

It might very well be that the reasons for this are out of their hands, similar to the AI-bubble-fueled price hikes for RAM, but especially since they so gleefully advertised the repairiability of this device when it came out, silently ending the supply of spare parts is most certainly not a good look. It would have certainly softened the blow had they announced it and provided a reasonable explanation - and it would also cast a much smaller, if still considerable, shadow on the already troubled Steam Machine.

It’s quite a baffling mistake, to be honest, for two reasons:

First of all, did they not take into account that people would notice, which immediately turns it into a much bigger story due to the attempted secrecy? You get ahead of bad news as a company, always, instead of letting it happen. Secondly, the LCD Deck was sold worldwide until at least the end of the year and is still available from Steam in some regions. Did they seriously not stock enough parts, did they plan so poorly, were their contracts so terribly drafted that the supply of spares has already stopped? I get that they are a tiny player in the hardware space, which means they do not have the negotiating power of someone like Sony, but still, this is not a good look.

Are you seriously trying to hypernormalize the likes of Russia?

Germany is a democracy with widening economic inequality. Russia is a brutal, expansionist dictatorship run by a Mafia boss. They are nothing alike and you know that.

Because the one that is trying to conquer us is infinitely worse.

These are not your run of the mill leftists. They are the kind that even tankies would consider extreme. There are people out there who reject any kind of industrialized society and want to bring it all down (even to the point of humanity’s extinction), so naturally they want to damage large infrastructure like railways.

Cool, but doesn’t help with serious exploits. I’d even argue that most of this is little more than security theater in this day and age, relics from an age when users dialed into computers at universities and other large organizations through physical terminals.

Ach Quark, die ist bei Kids und jungen Erwachsenen deutlich schlechter als bei Boomern. Smartphone-Generation, aufgewachsen mit Geräten, Apps und Diensten, die allesamt auf den kleinsten gemeinsamen Nenner zugeschnitten sind. Jegliche Reibung, die Technik früher mit sich brachte, fehlt, was bedeutet dass diese Menschen nie gelernt haben, Fehler zu beheben oder einfachste Dinge zu konfigurieren. Ein Verständnis auch nur einfachster technischer Grundprinzipien fehlt völlig.

Die können natürlich nichts dafür, sind nur in eine Welt rein geboren, in der Tech-Konzerne auf der Suche nach ewigem Wachstum sich gezwungen sahen, jeden einzelnen Menschen zu erreichen und daher alles so simpel wie möglich gestalten. Gleichzeitig sind ihre Eltern zu doof, ihnen etwas beizubringen oder die Nutzung angemessen zu steuern.

Linux isn’t inherently safer. It’s only less of a risk to run pirated games on it, because fewer people are using it.

https://www.howtogeek.com/no-linux-is-not-more-secure/

Aber echt. Polizeigewalt ist bereits ein großes Problem in Frankreich und solche Gesetze werden das garantiert nur noch verschlimmern.

No idea why, but I kind of want a DOOM mod about liberating Stardew Valley from a demon infestation now.

There was also a background check involved, which I forgot to mention. But overall, it’s very much the former and not even close to something like the latter.

Not even that these days. The good jobs are for people with connections. Those who made it through based on merit are more likely to end up as office drones that can be let go if the CEO wants a higher quarterly bonus to spend on gold trim for his third yacht.

I was hired during the pandemic and it was quite an interesting experience to get there. They had an online assessment center, several hours (with breaks) of all sorts of quizzes, questions and tasks, mostly intelligence and memory-related, combined with math, general knowledge, language proficiency and a section on personality and personal preferences, with a relatively limited focus on IT questions at the end that felt tacked on for the job. There was no surveillance during it - no webcam requirements or anything. They just sent me a link and I could complete this timed test at a point in time of my choosing, in one go. Since it wasn’t very difficult at all and there was more than enough time, I had no issues with this one.

Before the interview, I was handed a 20 minute condensed version of largely the same type of questions to be completed in person (very small room, alone, under supervision, to eliminate any possibility of cheating), which I completed in no time, and finally an extensive interview (IIRC about 45 minutes) in front of what I can only describe as a tribunal of eight more or less relevant people sitting in a half-circle in front of a chair for the interviewee (at a distance due to COVID), most of which would just silently judge me with their eyes and take down notes as two to three of them switched between interrogating, I mean, interviewing me. They were actually very friendly, but it did feel quite intense. I was extremely nervous in the beginning, even stuttered a little, but as the interview went on, my nerves calmed down. None of the questions were surprising nor upsetting, but due to my initial nervousness, I still felt like I had failed.

Anyway, after they had hired me (I received a call about two weeks later), they later told me that they had done this twice with about 100 applicants each, just to hire a single person. In retrospect, I can’t believe I successfully made it through all of this. I was very well prepared for the interview and had previously spent a lot of effort (several weeks worth) on the application itself, tailoring it to the job and the organization, but still.

If you have the amount of resources this large org has, I think this is a very thorough way of doing things. The simple method of repeating a portion of the test in person (with different questions, but the same kind as online) eliminates cheaters and can be done by an org of virtually any size. The lengthy interview in front of a diverse group I’m not so sure about though. With shy and nervous applicants (as well as those on the spectrum), this can be very overwhelming, but since they all have to find a consensus in the end, discrimination and personal preferences influencing the hiring decision are less likely to happen.

Yes, on their hardware and through their store fronts, but I meant their own streaming services (other than games streaming).

Gar nicht. Das kommt nicht in deren Filterblase an.

Microsoft axed their video and music streaming a while ago. I doubt they’ll try and revive it.

Don’t worry, with cloud, I mean, blockchain, I mean, AI, it’ll all be possible.

How, you ask? - How dare you doubt our glorious vision for the future!