Random News not worthy of own thread

[felter]

To be honest I haven't given his death too much thought, I'm more interested in the actual video and the mess that it all represents overall, rather than anything to do with Epstein. Like how for a security establishment in the so-called richest country in the world has only one of the 6 (I think it was) cameras actually working, or how the video itself is actually two separate videos spliced together, or the jump in the change of aspect to name a few when we were told that the video would clear everything up and showed no one entered Epstein cell, when you cannot even see the so-called cell door let alone if anyone entered or not, I originally thought that one of the two doors you do see in the video was Epstein cell, so I find it interesting that the cell in question is around a corner on the other side of the room with no view of the cell or even the access to the cell. I just kind of find this sort of stuff interesting, and I had no idea on just how much of a mess it was till I watched this said video where they put it all together. I do understand though how with the video being as bad as it is how it would look like something is amiss rather than it showing everything is legit. But to whether I think Epstein killed himself, I think it is 50/50 there is no evidence to show he did, but there is also no evidence to show he didn't, but that video most certainly does not help in any way, I think it just boosts the conspiracy view rather than dispelling it.

[notaterran]

Australian conservative feminist group [...]

Games they have targeted in the past but not yet managed to remove from Steam and other storefronts include the Cyberpunk game Detroid become Human and the GTA series of games. (If anyone is wondering why these games in particular, they both feature scenes taking part in strip clubs, a locality the group does not want to see depicted in any type of media.)

The next step for them would be to try to remove The Sopranos from streaming sites, after all that show has several scenes in strip clubs And how about Return of the Jedi? Who can forget Leia in her slave costume...

Those professional victims have a lot of work in front of them.

[clakclak]

Australian conservative feminist group [...]

Games they have targeted in the past but not yet managed to remove from Steam and other storefronts include the Cyberpunk game Detroid become Human and the GTA series of games. (If anyone is wondering why these games in particular, they both feature scenes taking part in strip clubs, a locality the group does not want to see depicted in any type of media.)

The next step for them would be to try to remove The Sopranos from streaming sites, after all that show has several scenes in strip clubs And how about Return of the Jedi? Who can forget Leia in her slave costume...

Those professional victims have a lot of work in front of them.

Despite all my criticism of them, I must admit they are incredibly effective for a relatively small group and they also achieved some things that I think most people can actually get behind. For example they got SoundCloud and Spotify to remove classes by rapist Andrew Tate on how to traffic woman into sexual slavery and got Chinese E-Commerce giant Temu to drop child like sized sex dolls. The issue isn’t necessarily that they want certain things to be banned, it is the lack of nuance.

[clakclak]

13 year old ends up in jail because her schools ai surveillance systems that monitors her communication with her classmates failed to take context into account.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/ai-school-su ... fce109724a

[chew-ie]

Wonderful. Just wonderful

[clakclak]

America really can’t catch a break. I do feel sorry for all Americans, apparently they now also have to suffer from breaking open an Eldritch portal:

US citizens warned 'do not touch' 'Frankenstein' rabbits growing black 'tentacles' as they flood parks

[fiksal]

poor rabbits


as for schools, I thought arming students and teachers would solve school shootings? now it'll be the AI instead?

what's AI's right regarding bearing arms?


glad my kid isn't in the US school system

[felter]

I don't know if you know the fiasco surrounding Kerbal Space Program 2, but the guys who now own the franchise have no idea how to read a room. Last Friday they released the news that they were taking early orders for a Kerbal plushie, and it has not gone down too good, so far their announcement has had over 2300 comments and not one single like. I would kind of feel sorry for them as they were not behind the original fiasco if it wasn't for the fact that they are still charging full price for KSP 2 and have avoided making any kind of comment or commitment to the early access adopters of the game, so basically they are just asking for it. Not just that the plushies are awful and don't look anything like a kerbal.

[fiksal]

what's the issue? they didn't deliver a product that was in early access?

[chew-ie]

Lost track of that game - but holy moly. Checked out the Steam shop page - and seems people have good reasons to be in a bad mood. No updates since 14 months, reviews are very negative...

So yeah, properly reading the room would mean make an update, try to get people engaged again and THEN sell .. plushies...

[matthewfarmery]

The game is very much dead,

Note: The last update made by the developers was over 14 months ago. The information and timeline described by the developers here may no longer be up to date.

The game was pulled from being developed, and also, another company has brought the rights to it. But that doesn't indicate if more development will do done. Because, without the source code, the game will have to be rewritten from scratch.

The game has been plague with issues since it entered EA, not surprised its a total failure. But its still being sold on steam, when it should be pulled. Especially considering the warning on the store page.

[felter]

The game should never have been in early access, Take Two spent a lot of money on the game and wanted some of that cash back, so they released it on early access and charged full price for it, they milked it for some time before sacking the developers stopping all work on the game while continuing to charge full price for an abandoned game while not telling any of their customers what was going on. There is a lot more to it, but that is the general gist of it all, they just screwed everyone over, and had no issues in doing so.

[chew-ie]

Sounds really awful

Take Two you say? *pulls out the little black book*

[felter]

Recently Qantas was fined a record A$90m for illegally firing their staff during covid, they also had to pay A$120m in compensation to those sacked employees, sounds pretty awesome and a rightful punishment, right, well the question has to be asked just how much did they make from illegally firing those staff members, that number comes in at around A$500m, so doing the maths their fines and payments came to A$210m we take that away from their savings of A$500m means they actually made a profit of A$290m, who says crime doesn't pay.

[Alan Phipps]

Probably not the case with such a large firm/employer, but another way to look at it is that if they hadn't taken the action they did and had retained idle staff on pay then they would have made a further A$500M loss during the already-damaging Covid business slump. That could *perhaps* have resulted in them going into administration such that all employees were out of a job. Unlikely in the case of a national airline, as I said, but just something maybe to consider from the aspect of their business continuity thinking.

I don't know how much the Australian government helped the airline or the retained and/or fired employees over that period.

[felter]

So are you saying it is okay to break the law if you're a large corporation that is going to lose a lot of money if you don't, what if everyone had done that, wouldn't it have created total chaos, shouldn't all business' be equal no matter their size.

[Alan Phipps]

Not at all. Just mentioning that their motivation *might* have been more business continuity based rather than pure corporate greed which the 'who says crime doesn't pay' comment implies. Covid was a time for very difficult decisions for many travel and transport industries, and they knew that they were always going to be found out and brought to book eventually for employment law breaches. It just happens that they are now in a better financial position to handle the fines and costs with some justice finally having being served.

Perhaps more telling than the fine and costs, would be whether any airline executives were individually warned for prosecution for their actions back then. I don't know.