Yeah I'm aware of the 3 week rule. My issue with that is I have to turn off my PC when I'm not on it, for fear of nefarious actors accessing my physical PC when I'm away, remotely of course. Which has happened numerous times.
I'm only ever on my PC a few days to a week per month.
It's a monopoly of attention and convenience in the same way that smart phones and social media overall.
Rest assured I enjoyed Steam in the decade plus after the launch. In throughout the years that followed, I found myself amassing games that I've yet to play. 2 bucks for a $50 game? It's too easy and convenient to resist! I feel I'm not respecting or more so showing less appreciation for games and those that make them. Most all of the physical disc games I've acquired in the past. I've played heavily. I can only think of one game I never installed / played. Most were full priced games, 40-60.
I've found that the convenience offered by Steam and other systems like it, have hidden costs, security and privacy amongst other things.
Chat logs are stored on the clients system? First I've heard of that. If that's true why the need to delete them off the client?
The reason this bugs me is that I've had people accessing my account when I'm not online. Which in the past 8 years, I've only been on 99% of the time.
I know this for many reasons, one of which is the 142 hours logged on No Man's Sky. I only played that game for 5 minutes.
Another reason, one day someone on my friends list messaged me. They said they were an old co worker of mine, a particularly nasty individual, someone who would never be playing any video games whatsoever. This person had detailed information about about me and used it to harass / scare me. When I was offline, someone logged in and added / accepted this person as a friend.
I blocked them and reported it to support. But never received any response. Not sure what they could do anyhow but I at least hoped for some kind of response. Perhaps the response came in when someone else was logged into my account?
No matter what I do to protect my account, they've always been able to get in.
My account is as old as Steam itself.
Seriously? Of course not. However there are subconscious / subliminal effects in all forms of entertainment, especially Television / movies. Tell a vision, (television) programming the human mind. TV channels (channeling; spells).
the US Department of Homeland Security is rapidly increasing its use of AI-based surveillance, including facial recognition and the monitoring of social media accounts, to keep tabs on immigrants, dissidents, journalists, legal observers and protesters
This is such total bullshit. You don't have to be ANY of these types of people to be in the tracked and monitored. These systems are built for cruelty. Being cruel to the most innocent among generates is the most powerful source of emotional pain.
AI is an automated narcissism machine built and managed by narcissists of the highest order. Anti social disorder, narcissistic personality disorder and sometimes borderline personality disorder types depending on the severity. Cluster B personality disorders. All of these share traits with narcissistic personality disorder, while the narcissist may not be violent whereas anti socials (psychopaths) tend to be violent. They're all proficent in weaponzing language (word trickery).
IMHO The mythical vampire is a metaphor for the narcissist. Instead of blood, narcissists thrive on the emotions of their victims, mainly negative emotions. This is their lifeblood, it is their supply.
Social media is the playground of the narcissist. -- Moira, Schitts Creek
Based on what I've read from self proclaimed narcissists online, they don't have to be near the victim to feed on the victim's emotions. Using words to inflict emotional pain is how they operate. Gas lighting, double speak, double think, selective memory, mixing truth with lies, compulsive lying, deflecting, and overall mirroring their truselves onto their victim. Apparently, whenever the narcissist inflicts suffering with their words, they experience pleasure. I've read it's sometimes a physical pleasure but generally mental pleasure.
To end this, you'd be hard pressed to find an online source for narcissistic abuse assistance. I've only ever discovered that someone who is a narcissistic abuse recovery "therapist" or "advocate" is a narcissist themselves. This is how they operate, in the shadows, in plain sight, always presenting themselves as a savior. Wolves in sheep's clothing.
You know what really pissed me off? Parks and Recs (TV show) portrayal of Libraries and librariens.
Viva Pinata is crazy fun!
I have a few issues with Steam. #1 all purchased games are tied to the account. There's some that supposedly you can extract it from Steam and play it offline. However it's not quite clear to me how to go about finding that out and how to do it for each game. There should be an icon and game sub menu option in the library for any game capable of extraction for offline play and more so play with out launching Steam.
#2 Support sucks. It's automated as hell far as I've experienced. Nobody human to speak with.
#3 it's a Monopoly.
#4 Privacy issues. Mainly, no access to full friends list chat logs. Surely Steam has full access. Why withhold it?
Uber corruption
They do a real solid job of sending aid to Isreal.
The two party system is entirely corrupt. Two sides of the same coin; two faced.
Win2000 was my favorite. I ran multiple beta ISOs up until it's official release. Thanks to Microsoft Partners uploading them to newsgroups.
Why would I assume they don't have access? Based on how every other large internet company operates, they are capable of using and storing your data for any purpose they want, for however long they want, and not declare it to their users. If questioned, they lie.
Perhaps I'm an anamoly in that I don't hold Valve in such high esteem as most do.