It’s just this person from what I can tell.

That’s fine, and I’d probably say the same about yours.

My point in all of this is to say that changes should be gradual, and policy makers should adjust based on the results. The main issue w/ people like Brownbeck and Trump is they don’t do that, but instead go full steam ahead on whatever agenda they have planned. Rapid changes in any direction are generally bad in the short to medium term. I think we should steer the ship toward personal liberty, you may disagree, but hopefully we can agree that policy should be an iterative process where we take two steps forward and one step back based on the data.

I don’t think it is, it’s $500 w/ Mario Kart, $450 without, and if we compare to the Steam Deck at $400, it has:

• better screen resolution, faster refresh rate, and a larger screen (almost an inch bigger)
• is lighter, thinner, and overall smaller
• has better performance, at least in Cyberpunk 2, with generally better graphics
• plays Nintendo first-party games

The Steam Deck has been the handheld to beat. Some are faster, but no PC handheld is anywhere near the Steam Deck in terms of value (price for performance). The Switch 2 beats it in performance, and is a similar price, which is pretty awesome.

The games, however, are really expensive, but we’re talking about hardware value here.

It’s the same form factor but a lot better hardware.

EA

Yeah, don’t need to read further. I just avoid their crap on reflex.

And most of the time, it’s pretty palatable cancer too. It turns out most don’t bother uploading to FDroid if their app is truly bad.

That’s an odd thing to get hung up on. I buy more from Steam because the client is way nicer on Linux and they actually release interesting features for it. I could buy from GOG through Heroic, but they why should I expect them to properly support me on Linux when they don’t even bother to explicitly support Heroic (they do profit share, but that’s not quite the same), much less port Galaxy?

I personally don’t see piracy (i.e. boycotting) as a reasonable reaction here. It sounds more like you’re looking to justify piracy a deal looking for an excuse.

I’ll leave it there, but that’s my read here.

Do you really keep track of it? I have like 20-30 games installed, and they update in the background. I don’t have to think about it and just play whatever strikes my fancy.

I don’t play hundreds, but I do play dozens, and yeah, being able to just set 5 or so to download in the background when I’m running low is nice. I mostly play through single player games and uninstall when I’m done.

That said, I also really like how Factorio did it. I bought it directly from them way back in 2012 or something, then they gave me a Steam key, and I can still play the game today with all the updates more than 10 years later. They only made one DLC in the meantime, and that’s basically a new game, so I’m totally happy with that.

Heroic works pretty well.

Whether it’s good or not is irrelevant. The fact is that it exists as the recommended way to install games, and it’s not available for my platform even years after it was released. What does that say about me and my platform? If I have an issue with a game, will they help? If they’re unwilling to support their flagship launcher, why would they help with a game?

Steam works on my platform and has for over 10 years, and they’re constantly making improvements specific to my platform. GOG has DRM free games. Is that enough reason to prefer GOG over Steam? Most of my Steam games are DRM-free, so my answer is no.

I’ve used minigalaxy in the past as well. There are solutions, sure.

I’m more rankled by GOG not even giving a nod to Linux users and going out of their way to court Windows users. I understand the economics here, but I would very much appreciate something from them. When they had a user voice (not sure if they still do? A quick search didn’t find it), the top requested feature was Galaxy support for Linux, and we’ve gotten nothing from them, except I guess a deal w/ the creator of Heroic for a referral revenue share on game sales (similar to sales through streamer links and whatnot). That’s it. That feels like a bit of a slap in the face.

Eh, when someone says “private investigator,” I subconsciously assume there could be a group involved, and not one person. If I hire a tax preparer, there are probably multiple people involved (the person preparing the tax docs, the accountants auditing those docs, people auditing their software, etc).

If someone says “private investigators,” I assume they contacted multiple agencies, perhaps on multiple occasions.

I’m more like 90/10, because GOG still refuses to port their Galaxy client to Linux. At this point I don’t even really want to use it since Heroic is good enough, but it really sucks feeling like a second-class citizen, compared to Steam, which goes out of its way to provide a top tier experience on Linux. I’d even be fine with them adopting Heroic as an officially-supported client (provide links and whatnot on the website next to Galaxy), I just need some indication that they care.

Most games I own on Steam are DRM-free anyway, so I’d be supporting GOG more out of principle than anything.

Agreed. A lot of communication is non-verbal. Me saying something loudly could be due to other sounds in the environment, frustration/anger, or urgency. Distinguishing between those could include facial expressions, gestures with my hands/arms, or any number of non-verbal clues. Many autistic people have difficulty picking up on those cues, and machines are at best similar to the most extreme end of autism, so they tend to make rules like “elevated volume means frustration/anger” when that could very much not be the case.

Verbal communication is designed for human interactions, whether in long-form (conversations) or short-form (issuing commands), and they rely on a lot from the human experience. Human to computer interactions should focus on those strengths, not try to imitate human interaction, because it will always fail at some point. If I get driving instructions from my phone, I want it to be terse (turn right on Hudson Boulevard), whereas if my SO is giving me directions, I’m happy with something more long-form (at that light, turn right), because my SO knows how to communicate unambiguously to me whereas my phone does not.

So yeah, I’ll probably always hate voice-activation, because it’s just not how I prefer to communicate w/ a computer.

Right. And surely all libertarians will always agree about which parts of the government need to be reduced.

Of course. 😀

As I said, it’s a big tent, so you have everyone from far left anarchists (libertarian socialism/communism) to far right anarchists (anarchocapitalism and similar), as well as a bunch of centrists who want largely the same structure as today, but with a bit more restrictions on what the government can do to private citizens w/o a warrant and what associations people can make. Most seem to want less taxes and government spending overall, but as you imply, they would likely make different cuts.

One recent example:

From the article:

If you’ve ever encountered a freshly minted Ayn Rand enthusiast, you know what I mean.

Ayn Rand hated libertarians, and her followers (Objectivists) are likewise generally disliked by libertarians. Many libertarians find value in her works, but not necessarily as a complete solution, but as a direction. The underlying principles are completely different, with Ayn Rand and Objectivists generally believing that selfishness is best, while libertarianism’s foundational belief is a ban on the initiation of force (generally, but there are a lot of variations, like those who put private property first). Under objectivism, littering would only be bad if someone owned the property you littered on, whereas under libertarianism, littering is bad because it’s a form of force against others in the area (they have to see and/or clean up that trash).

That said, I think it’s important to note that something like this will attract the crazies. Most people won’t uproot their lives to go join some philosophical/political movement, they’ll just try to improve things where they are. So you’re going to get the more extreme ends of the libertarian spectrum that would be interested in moving there, especially those who can easily move on a whim (i.e. lots of money and/or no family attachments). This is going to attract those who want all the benefits of liberty without any of the consequences.

Ideally, shifts are gradual, so we can gauge whether things are getting better or worse, and the shift should be in the direction of more liberty. As people get accustomed to the additional responsibilities of increased liberty, we can continue making changes. People have gotten used to delegating their responsibilities to governments, and that mindset needs to change back to one where people are more aware of their impact on the world.

Sam Brownbeck’s adminstration in Kansas

Not a libertarian.

Tax cuts should only happen if spending cuts create a surplus. Brownbeck put the cart before the horse, and ended up needing to cut important spending to fuel the tax cuts, whereas the right way to do it is to make cuts on non-essential spending and cut taxes due to budget surplus. Most libertarians (outside those that believe starving the government of tax dollars is the way to go) will tell you we need a balanced budget first, tax cuts second.

The right way to do it IMO is closer to the way Utah is doing it (again, not libertarian, but probably closer than Brownbeck). I use this example because that’s where I live, so I know it better than most other states. Basically, Utah has a balanced budget clause in the constitution that requires the state legislature to pass a balanced budget. As such, we generally don’t have budget deficits, and when there’s a surplus, the legislature cuts taxes (income tax has dropped 0.5% over the past 10 years or so, in 0.05% and 0.1% increments; state sales tax has been 4-5% for 50 years). We also limit income taxes to education expenses, and since people generally don’t like high sales taxes (used for most other expenses), it puts downward pressure on spending.

If Utah was run by a libertarian, here are the shifts I’d expect to see:

• make transportation self-sufficient, by increasing vehicle registration taxes, adding toll roads, etc
• push to move more students to charter schools, since they seem to cost less and perform well (source from Sutherland Institute, a conservative think-tank in SLC, Utah, so be careful of bias)
• look into ways to reduce social service spending
• reduce criminal justice spending by legalizing/decriminalizing non-violent crimes (i.e. crimes w/o a victim), such as drug possession

If that yields enough spending reduction, then cut taxes. My personal preference is to eliminate the tax on groceries as it’s completely regressive (currently 3%, which is a bit under half the local sales tax, which is about 7.5% after city and county taxes are included), encourage counties to shift sales taxes to property taxes (again, more progressive), and increase the taxpayer credit (phases out as income increases, and kind of works like a tiered tax system).

We need to stop thinking that we have some kind of hidden knowledge that the people who failed at this before didn’t have, and if we could just try it one more time, it will work this time bro I swear.

I partially agree. However, I don’t think we should assume all laws and regulations are worth keeping, but don’t just rip them out all at once.

Changes should be gradual. One thing I’d like to see government do more of is fund research, specifically around which laws and regulations are actually needed, and which we can cut. Government’s main jobs should be:

• military and police to keep people safe, and courts for when that doesn’t happen (and we need to end Qualified Immunity)
• fund research to direct policy, with a focus on minimizing harm for regular people - we should have a constitutionally protected right to privacy, and any policies from the government must respect that (I think the US 4th, 5th, 6th, 9th, and 10th amendments should be sufficient, but that’s apparently not the case given the TSA, NSA, state abortion laws, etc)
• provide a safety net such that everyone has enough to survive (i.e. nobody should be below the poverty line); ideally this payout is $0 if society is doing a good enough job taking care of everyone, but we don’t live in an ideal world

Beyond that, governments should largely stay out of private affairs, and only step in when a wrong needs to be corrected. If a car company, for example, causes someone to die by a defective safety feature or something, they should pay a massive fine (not just to the family, but to everyone else who bought their defective product, and the government for any expenses in prosecuting them) and their leadership should be tried in court for criminal negligence. Companies would have an incentive to have their vehicles tested and insured by a private org, which would shield that company from any financial penalties, and that company would also have an incentive to make sure those products are safe to reduce chance of needing a payout.

Governments are often reactive to these sorts of issues, and we need a system that is proactive to prevent problems from happening in the first place. If an innovative design provides the same guarantees, it should be allowed, provided they find a company willing to insure them, even if it doesn’t work the same as other products on the market. If a company must put up $X (enough to cover the worst case scenario of a lawsuit) either directly in a trust or via an insurance company before selling anything on the market, you should get a lot fewer products that are fast-and-loose with the rules. To be effective, the penalties need to be massive and include the potential for jail time if there is any evidence of negligence.

as I’ve described above

But you haven’t described it. At least not in a way that proves that it would require a substantial change.

Here’s a video that talks about the manual latch release. Basically, each door has a cable that runs through the interior to manually release the door latch in case the battery fails or something. It bypasses the electronic-controlled locking system and goes straight to the latch.

I’m saying that adding a lock to the exterior wouldn’t require a massive design change, it just needs to interact with the existing cable mechanism (or add a separate cable) to release the latch.

That’s largely how other cars do it, except they have a physical lock there as well, which controls whether the exterior (or interior, depending on the child safety pin) handle connects to the latch. The difference w/ a Tesla is mostly that there is no physical lock, only an electronic lock, but the latch release system is similar enough that they could add it without massive changes to the rest of the door design. If they wanted to retrofit existing cars, they’d probably need to drill a hole to add the locking system, and then add a cable to the interior of the door. For future cars, they could change how the door handle is designed and probably leave the rest of the door design the same by adding some mechanical system and cable to the handle and nearby area of the door. I haven’t torn apart a Tesla door, but I highly doubt there’s anything special going on there (and I did see a teardown of a Cybertruck door and there was plenty of space to add mechanisms there).

That’s how it should be, and that’s awesome that Germany does that!

Even if they solve the regional dialect problem, there’s still the problem of people being really imprecise with natural language.

For example, I may ask, “what is the weather like?” I could mean:

• today’s weather in my current location (most likely)
• if traveling, today or tomorrow’s weather in my destination
• weather projection for the next week or so (local or destination)
• current weather outside (i.e. heading outside)

An internet search would be “weather <location> <time>”. That’s it. Typing that takes a few seconds, whereas voice control requires processing the message (a couple seconds usually) and probably an iteration or two to get what you want. Even if you get it right the first time, it’s still as long or longer than just typing a query.

Even if voice activation is perfect, I’d still prefer a text interface.

The lock is what prevents the latch from unlatching without some authentication mechanism present. Whether it’s a software lock or a physical lock is irrelevant.

And you can absolutely do the same on the exterior: add a physical lock that interacts with the latch. That’s basically how every other car works. Basically, there’s a motor to release the latch for electronic locks, and the key and handle intact with the latch directly. There’s no reason Tesla cars couldn’t satisfy that interaction. They could even have the handle pull charge a small microcontroller that scans the key card if they really don’t want a purely mechanical lock for some reason.