50 dollars were console games. On PC you'd often find the same game at 30 dollars (disk) or 20 dollars (steam) on release. The difference was due to console makers taking a standard fee cut from every sale.

The first AAA games back then to be released at 40 and 50 dollars on PC were COD MW1 and BF3, which set the trend for all other games since then. This was pure profit for the publishers, since there was no cut for console makers on PC. And before you say it, no, the Steam cut back then wasn't even comparable (much less since it was a % cut and not a standard fee). In fact Steam hiked their cut because of the price hike triggered by EA and Activision, which is what then made EA pull their games off Steam and create Origin.

You’re like the third person in 24 hours that is unable to back up any of their assertions with sources.

Are you saying I'm a liberal? Or are you saying the other person is a liberal? It's late, been a long day, and I'm kinda high right now.

I'm not saying "trust me bro". I'm saying go ahead and use google on your own time. I'm not interested in convincing you. I stated my opinion and explained it. If you want to do something with that go ahead. If not, then I simply don't care. I don't know how I can say this more plainly.

I've seen how you engaged the other person who gave you the link to the video. I can tell how entrenched you are in your beliefs that you will nitpick your way out of anything. I've also noticed how you will not back up your own claims with "sources". Because you aren't actually interested in "sources". You are simply using that as a lazy excuse to avoid having a normal discussion with someone, like a normal person would.

Maybe not at the personal user-end, but most corporations and other organizations are completely reliant on MS365 and/or Windows. Especially, in the education and finance sectors, Microsoft has taken over. COVID lockdowns made things worse as everybody switched to using Teams for corporate communication.

Edit: it might seem really silly that corporations went that heavy into Teams or Office, when there's free alternatives like Discord and LibreOffice respectively, that have the exact same functionalities and are arguably more reliable. The reason is MS products offer a lot of tools to surveil employees

Yes and all of these sources also speak out about observing Ukrainian war crimes, which are far better documented by these very organizations. Russian war crimes are not proven and nearly all accusations come from Ukraine, UK and US, which are not impartial to say the least.

Yet the collective West is infatuated by "Russian war crimes". In fact, whenever an organization tries to showcase Ukrainian war crimes (see Amnesty International for example) Western audience are quick to attack them.

Let's just review one of the Russian "war crimes" as an example: https://thegrayzone.com/2023/03/31/iccs-putin-arrest-state-dept-report/

At any rate, the point here is if you care about war crimes, then you should care about ALL war crimes. Not just the ones that are convenient to care about.

If it's made up, prove me wrong.

Do you have any proof for those accusations, or are you just assuming they are true because it's convenient to believe so?

Because we know what the West has done. It's all recorded. Lindsay Graham going to Azov Battalion fighters and telling them "this is the year of offence". Boris Johnson telling Zelensky to abandon peace talks or "the West won't protect him". Adam Shiff standing in Congress and saying "we need to fight Russia over there, so we don't have to fight them over here". Angela Merkel admitting that the Minsk Accords were simply a ploy for time to arm Ukraine to fight Russia. NATO insisting on inviting Ukraine in and stationing nuclear-capable missiles less than 1000 km from Moscow. A coup in Kiev organized by Americans, as admitted by several Ukrainians who took part in it. And 14000 dead Ukrainians after 8 years of continuous shelling by Nazis, specifically targeting civilians. But of course those dead weren't killed by Russian forces, so it's easy to ignore them.

Any more double standards you want me to break down for you, you fucking hypocrite armchair warmonger?

And you appear to be an idiot. Downvote, block and move on.

Do you guys even read your own links? From your article:

In the first half of the year, wind and solar farms produced more electricity (560 billion kWh) combined than the country's hydroelectric dams (450 billion kWh) for the first time.

China's energy transition is real and is proceeding rapidly.

But coal-fired generation and production is still likely to increase for at least the next several years because of the country's inherited reliance on coal-fired units and the need to meet rapid load growth.

And nowhere in there does it say that they are mining/importing/using record levels of coal. It's saying they haven't shut down coal power as much as they would like because of a protracted drought. I am assuming you are not an idiot and understand that droughts are not controlled by the government.

Your article goes out of its way to point out that the high coal usage is NOT a result of Chinese state policy (unlike Europeans, such as Germany recently, and the US, which use fossil fuels over renewable resources as a matter of policy).

Thank you :)

Sure, but then so is Hitler by that standard. They just used leftist iconography on the surface for propaganda purposes, and did not commit their crimes in the name of any sort of left-wing ideology. Pol Pot in particular was supported by the US military and intelligence mechanisms (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_United_States_support_for_the_Khmer_Rouge), and is fair to assume that his movement was used as a psy-op to hurt the communist cause in Cambodia and Vietnam.

The 2.5% is a number they pulled out of their ass. The real number is close to 10-15% (these are not new munitions, they were manufactured in the 80s and the numbers come from tests back then).

Even if 2.5% is true, each bomb carries around 200 bomblets. So for every bomb used, 5 bomblets will remain unexploded until someone stumbles upon it. The bomblets are also small, spherical and usually painted bright green or yellow. Kids who found them before, and survived, reported they thought they were tennis balls and used them to play.

Furthermore, there's a law in the US that prohibits exporting cluster munitions with more than 1% dud rate. Of course, Biden has said they'll just bypass that law. Meaning this is illegal both internationally and nationally for the US.

Finally, the US is saying that Ukrainians assured them they would not use them "irresponsibly". However 14000 Donbass, Donyetsk and Crimea residents would tend to disagree if they were still alive today.

(edit: and even if the Ukrainians try to use them "responsibly, these munitions are highly innacurate by nature and Ukraine does not have and will not have the logistical capacity to clear out duds/