DdCno1

Which in turn creates a job market that gives employers maximum power.

They don't actually care if it makes employees more productive. What matters is that they can pretend it does and use this as a pretext to demand more work from them.

Are you this abrasive in the real world as well or just online?

Boycotts are by definition non-violent. You can't just use an outdated definition or make up your own if you want people to understand what you're trying to communicate. Just say riot, uprising or revolt instead.

Why would RAM manufacturers or large tech companies that have both stopped caring about consumers as customers be bothered by a boycott done by said consumers? Are you not seeing the problem here?

Consumers do not have the leverage they once had anymore. Last year, 70% of RAM went to AI. This year, it's likely even more and who knows how few crumbs they are leaving for us to lick up from the kitchen floor in 2027.

Perfectly understandable. Putting Linux on any kind of OEM device can be a bit of a hassle. I've had the best experience with PCs I built myself, not things with custom components, weird drivers and locked down nonsense.

Have you considered installing Steam OS?

Barely anyone remembers Sony shipping rootkits on their music CDs as well.

Wenn die Russen kompetent wären, dann wären sie gar nicht erst in die Ukraine einmarschiert.

The real issue with this game is just how off-putting and abrasive writing and characters are (including and especially the astonishingly unbearable protagonist). I think I played it soon after release on Game Pass and despite the impressive visuals and art style, it felt deeply unpleasant as an experience because of this, to the point that it actually upset me. It tries to replicate the "shiny Utopian paradise that actually isn't" shtick of Bioshock Infinite, but it feels like a pale imitation that mistakes production values for actually saying anything valuable. With better writers, it could have perhaps been the Russian equivalent to that masterpiece, deconstructing founding myths and sham ideals of the Soviet Union just like Inifinite so eloquently did with American exceptionalism, but it falls way short of that.

Despite the imaginative Soviet utopia of Atomic Heart collapsing even more spectacularly and embarrassingly than the real one, the devs do not have anything meaningful to say about either of these universes, being deathly afraid of appearing too political and critical of the Russian past in Putin's Russia - but by being this "pretend-apolitical", they are of course making a very loud and obvious political statement, one that is not a good look for them or the country this game originates from at a time when said country is trying to brutally subjugate a smaller neighbor.

It doesn't help that in terms of gameplay and pacing, Atomic Heart is merely average at best. There's a stark contrast between how it looks in carefully edited gameplay footage vs. how it feels to actually play, but I would be more than willing to tolerate such shortcomings if writing and world building (beneath the admittedly gorgeous veneer) had been any better.

No, it's not that simple.

Of course they can shoot down Western planes in a war. The question is how consistently and how many losses they would suffer in return. At the moment, everything looks like the Chinese air force is extremely poorly trained and, obviously, very inexperienced from top to bottom, which puts them at a significant disadvantage, even if we assumed - which I don't think is likely - that their equipment is competitive with the West. There's a reason they are trying to bribe experienced Western pilots to get some infusion of institutional knowledge.