That’s what we call “pandering”

Put hundreds of them in a pretty boxes, form an LLC, get a few VCs to sign on, flip the switch, then charge a monthly fee to “open previously-inacessible service areas to cellular customers” and you’ll have a successful startup!

You’re thinking of a Ram.

Most right-wing redneck crazies can’t afford a CyberTruck and think electric cars are for communists anyway.

I work for municipal government in Texas and I’m not allowed to write down or take a picture of someone’s DL number or date of birth, which is a bitch when we’re trying to cite a contractor named Jose Gonzales for illegal construction.

Yeah. Valve runs the loot box system and the marketplace in which the winnings from those loot boxes are sold.

You pay Valve for a random chance at a rare item you can sell (with Valve taking a cut).

They want workers who can’t jumo to another company. If an H1B worker quits, they get deported.

It’s about indentured servitude.

Counter Strike is 100% a Valve-operated casino for kids.

That’s the exact point I’m trying to make.

Our government fails to take care of its citizens, so private institutions, including religious organizations, food banks, and more are relied upon to provide those services.

So when that kind church lady spends $200 and 40 hours making a custom quilt for a poor person, it’s viewed as a waste of resources when so many more important needs for that person aren’t being addressed.

Instead, the government should be providing those services, the kind old lady can just be kind with her gifts Instead of wasteful, and the churches can responsibly spend money inwardly to sustain themselves without doing a disservice to society.

I think churches should be treated no differently than any other non-profit organization. For most churches, that includes tax exemption.

But I also think churches should be audited more aggressively, and that the tax-exempt status be revoked when appropriate. I’ve only seen one church get its tax-exempt status revoked, and it was because the preacher told the congregation to vote for Obama. Strictly speaking, that was absolutely appropriate, but I’d like to have seen it applied equally to all the churches who openly back the other side.

Those ladies justifiably feel good for sharing their time and resources to help others. Fuck anyone who thinks kindness isn’t laudable.

The tragedy of it is that their kindness on its own isn’t enough because of greater societal issues that shouldn’t have to be addressed by private charities, including the church. The church shouldn’t have to be a food bank and disaster relief organization. It shouldn’t have to weigh the value of gifts based on how they’ll address the basic human needs of the community.

But in so much of the country, the church makes up the entirety of local social services. In small towns, you have a police department to handle crime and the church to handle everything else.

Membership is not the same as attendance, and it’s WAY less than the number of people giving financially.

I was a preacher at a 1200-member church that had weekly attendance around 150-200.

And based on the demographics of the area, we received less than 1% of the annual income for those who did attend regularly.

The thing about churches is that they don’t require payment of any kind, and kind people will dedicate time and effort in a very loving way that is inefficient, when what we really need is cash.

My go-to example is the quilting ladies who spend 40 hours each on handmade quilts using expensive materials to give to the poor. It’s extremely kind and their work is exquisite, but with the money spent making those quilts for 20 people, we could buy blankets, a couple weeks of food, and new clothing for 50 full families.

The thing about giving money, though, is that it feels impersonal to the person giving the gift. This is also why the poor should be taken care of through taxation. Taking care of people’s basic needs shouldn’t need to feel intimate and spiritual - it should be routine and boring.

My point is that SteamOS is similar to Android from a business perspective.

They’re making an OS for free that anyone can install, but they’re doing it to get people to buy software from Steam.

Yeah, you don’t have to use Steam as your software provider, but Android users don’t have to use the Play Store.

Guess where almost all apps are purchased on Android? Valve wants to be the Google of the mobile PC gaming world.

I actually typed Origin when I meant to type EGS, which charges 18% to Steam’s 30%.

They offer a free operating system anyone can use that’s name after their company and designed to play games sold through the included store for a 30% cut of sales.

What saints!

If Google did something similar, I bet everyone would say they’re a great company and not at all evil…

Gabe is a billionaire monopolist, not your friend.

I really don’t get the love for Valve. They charge double the fees of some other digital platforms, and people flip the fuck out when a developer is like "we’re releasing on origin because paying Valve would cost more money than the entire net profit of the game.

Peaceful protest should be seen as the opening bid. When it’s ignored or repressed, people escalate.

The fact that almost nobody is upset over a CEO’s assassination is terrifying to those in power. And that’s why they’re trying to fast-track a death-penalty case against him. If the momentum.of support for what he did continues, they won’t be safe ever.

At the reveal they were talking about using Apollo on it.

That worked out great…

Because he’s itching for vengeance against his enemies and is about to be in charge of the most powerful military and intelligence operations in the history of the world.

If Europe and the US refused to trade with anyone who trades with Russia, China would embargo Russia in about half a second.

ROG is model line of Asus, not a secondary brand. ROG is to Asus what F-series trucks are to Ford.