In germany in the 18th/19th century there was the extreme duelling form of “übers Sacktuch schießen” where both duellists stood very close (both gripping the same cloth) and were shooting at the same time with pistols, but only one was loaded. Since the distance was so close, missing was impossible and only random chance decided the winner/survivor.

I can see the allure because it implies that every conflict could become life-threatening, therefore everybody should weigh their words carefully.

In reality though it would emphasize the weight of trained duellists higher than those with well-informed convictions. If you cannot speak the truth because well-paid professional duellists could suppress you anytime by threat of duel (or shame of declining it).

There is a good reason why pretty much every modern civilization stopped this practise: Too much was needlessly lost (see Hamilton, Fermat, many students in the 18th century Europe…).

“Little brother is watching you!”

Each Flock camera contains 2 GB of RAM and reportedly at least 1 gram of gold. Recycling them is important…

I would have liked an affordable midrange device (like Pixel 4a) with the option of graphene os preinstalled. That would unlock it as a device recommendation for my family members: Everything still works, and the device is good enough for all expected workloads. And with a growing user base comes mainstream relevance for graphene os.

Avant-garde nerds hacking their phones with custom roms may clear the path, but the normies can bring the necessary financial volume.

Conservatives (Germany ca. 1933): Hitler will only throw the enemies of the German people in jail, so I’m safe. Gestapo, some time later at their door: Hallo. Conservatives: Oh no, who could have seen this coming?

Moral of the story: The leopard bites every face.

Since polymarket (& friends) is now somehow legal gambling (due to its political connections), one could bet against the event of flock cameras suddenly failing, and then somehow lose that bet due to unforeseen incidents…

The community allows for the accumulation of wealth by providing services, security and labor. Therefore the community is entitled to a portion of the accumulated wealth in form of taxation.

No man is an island, and nobody becomes a billionaire from their own labor. Community matters.

But there is still a management bonus for this quarter - right?

“Rapid dominance attempts to affect the will, perception, and understanding of the adversary to fight or respond to our strategic policy ends through imposing a regime of Shock and Awe” (Ullman & Wade, 1996)

One could argue that “shock & awe” is a military strategy to specifically terrorize the enemy force, for example a military opponent. This would blur the line above (terrorism vs military) as it intends to affect the opponents minds with fear of the attacking group and thus coerce them away from their goal.

This strategy is one performed by an organized military that is (theoretically) bound by the rules of warfare (like the Geneva Convention) and unlawful acts can be prosecuted by either their own military law system or an international court (like the Hague). Non-state actors (insurgents, terrorist groups) on the other hand are not beholden to any law. To me, this is another relevant distinction: Is the act itself one of terror or military necessity? And is the actor a governmental organization beholden to the law?

I tolerate both steam and heroic. I can see how a launcher is useful for centralized library management (updates and reinstallation), but I also see how it is a lot of concentrated attention and potential adspace / datamining tool.

I tolerate steam because they have good features & an okay track record, and heroic because I want to receive the free epic games but do not want to give them real estate on my pc.

Resell to the next data center project, Re-steal it from there afterwards. Infinite money pump glitch!

Yes, when employed properly it can be a helpful tool. But when it’s given all the house keys and unlimited leeway, it will burn down your house (and your budget) because it cannot make reasonable choices. It’s not sentient (yet), despite all the promises from AI evangelists.

Steam on pc shows that gamers can be okay with not having physical media - as long as they trust the vendor that the thing they pay for actually means a persistent access to the game.

Unfortunately this move also gives much more power to the vendor. Once he decides to withdraw access to the player, the ownership of the paid-for thing becomes useless (until a lawsuit were to be filed and won).

Physical media without mandatory internet servers (like in pre-internet consoles) means true ownership - after buying a game, the vendor has no longer any control.

The key point to me is not directly the difference between physical disk or cloud download, but between truly offline versus online-required games (or goods in general).