I'm continually shocked by how often I learn of some structural systemic issue, pull the thread to see where it started and- oh, surprise, it was once again Reagan.

I actually looked into this, part of the explanation is that in the 80s, Sweden entered a public/private partnership to subsidize the purchase of home computers, which otherwise would have been prohibitively expensive. This helped create a relatively wide local consumer base for software entertainment as well as have a jump start on computer literacy and software development.

Gas-filler. There's a couple states in the US where you aren't allowed to pump your own gas, someone else has to do it for you, and you're expected to then tip them.

The job is essentially getting me to pay to be inconvenienced. I'd prefer to pay to let me pump my own gas.

Stealing is a strong word considering it gives credit in the bottom right

https://xkcd.com/927/

Esperanto

Interesting, interesting, so by that logic it's fundamentally impossible for a country to have inadequate rail service and all rails are of equal quality? I'll be sure to let everyone know they can cut all funding because none of it matters.

I get the sentiment, but don't really agree. Humans' inputs are also from what already exists, and music is generally inspired from other music which is why "genres" even exist. AI's not there yet, but the statement "real creativity comes solely from humans" Needs Citation. Humans are a bunch of chemical reactions and firing synapses, nothing out of the realm of the possible for a computer.

I've seen so many "this new battery technology" articles over the past decade, I can't bring myself to care until it enters production.

Yeah, who's gonna say "Oh, I'm not blocking ads on YouTube, better take the time to make sure I see ads everywhere else as well."

I think a reason that Valve has been able to be consumer friendly for so long is that they aren't public and not beholden to shareholders.

Absolutely makes sense for most planets to be rather barren.

This idea is something I've heard a lot about Starfield and is why I don't think I'll pick it up, at least until a big sale. To me, it seems like they made a fair number of design decisions around what "makes sense" rather than what's fun.

Cyberpunk 2077. I was pretty skeptical of it before it came out (didn't really feel like it was doing anything unique), but it was such a big release I picked it up to have an opinion on it.

Don't think I'm gonna do the same for Starfield, though, that's just a pass