Perhaps they nicknamed him “the giant” for his trouble tho

A nice story. I just find it a bit odd that the article says nothing about what became of “Andrew”, the summer intern, whether Valve paid him an appropriate bonus or offered him a job later on.

Some more info: The Bandai Pair Match was a one or two player matching game (basically like Concentration). It was used as a prop in Star Trek: The Next Generation (frequently seen in Ten-Forward of the Enterprise):

More Pics, a ROM and even the manual are available at the Handheld Games Museum - check it out.

Not in the robro revolution tho

It’s probably just a simple HTML tel link that is supposed to open a phone app so that you don’t need to dial. But macOS and iOS opens these links with FaceTime if that is configured as your standard “phone” app. So it’s not the website that opens an app with camera permission, it’s the OS.

This can be quite annoying for web developers because HTML alone cannot prevent FaceTime from being opened instead of a normal phone app, as the OS dictates what happens when a tel link is clicked. This can easily give the impression that the camera is being accessed illegitimately, even if this is not actually intended. That’s probably the case here. I can’t imagine anyone expecting their customers to book a table in a restaurant via video call - that would be stupid on many levels.

I’m always impressed by how little understanding businesses have for basic online stuff, even when it’s very important to their business.

Weil die CDU und besonders die CSU sich dazu entschlossen haben, dem rassistischen Gewäsch der AfD nicht entschieden entgegenzutreten, sondern stattdessen ihrerseits auf rassistische Parolen zu setzen. Damit haben sie offene Ausländerfeindlichkeit wieder solonfähig gemacht, da diese Parteien ja angeblich die Mitte der Gesellschaft, mithin die “bürgerliche Vernunft” vertreten (sic). Auch die anderen etablierten Parteien haben tatkräftig mitgeholfen, indem sie das Narrativ der AfD aus wahlstrategischen Gründen ebenfalls aufgegriffen und so die völlig falsche Vorstellung, die Migrationspolitik sei das zentrale Problem Deutschlands, in der öffentlichen Debatte zementiert haben. So hat sich der Diskurs derart verändert, dass es überhaupt nicht mehr um Sachfragen und die zugehörigen Lösungsansätze geht, etwa um Maßnahmen, die dem Umstand Rechnung tragen, dass die deutsche Wirtschaft schon aufgrund des demografischen Wandels dringend Arbeitskräfte aus dem Ausland braucht. Stattdessen geht es nur noch darum, das absolut kontraproduktive Narrativ von den “schädlichen Ausländern” besonders populistisch zu bedienen - je nach Partei eben auch wieder mit Aussagen, die von Goebbels stammen könnten. Damit sind wir auch in Deutschland in einen Teufelskreis aus irrationaler Angstmacherei, sachlich falschen Schuldzuweisungen und ausländerfeindlicher Hetze geraten, der mit der Realität nichts zu tun hat, sondern unsere eigentlichen Probleme im Gegenteil hinter populistisch ausschlachtbaren Luftschlössern versteckt. Kurzum: Die meisten der etablierten Parteien haben sich von der blödsinnigen, jedoch leider sehr erfolgreichen Propaganda-Strategie der AfD derart beeindrucken lassen, dass sie selbst darauf gesetzt haben, anstatt sie zu bekämpfen und geschlossen als das zu entlarven, was sie tatsächlich ist - hasserfüllter Unsinn, der von der Inhaltsleere und Kurzsichtigkeit der AfD-Politik ablenken soll; ebenso von der Tatsache, dass die AfD eine neoliberale Wirtschaftspolitik verfolgt, die keineswegs im Interesse “der kleinen Leute” ist. In diesem Sinne ist die Situation inzwischen ganz ähnlich wie die in den USA, was auch kaum verwunderlich ist, wenn man bedenkt, dass die Strategie der MAGA-Bewegung seit langem die Blaupause für den Ansatz der AfD ist. Es ist ein Elend, aus dem wir nur herauskommen können, wenn wir wieder zu einem rationalen politischen Diskurs zurückfinden.

Neither do I, because the US citizens elected Trump, who will both betray our friends in Ukraine and withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. These are just two of his future misdeeds, which are completely foreseeable. Thank you dear allies from the US, you are really very helpful.

Are you also relying on Europe to get its shit together when it comes to climate change? I think you still don’t understand how fucked the world is because US citizens did not get their shit together and voted for Trump.

Yes, that’s why we’re doomed if we don’t manage to cooperate instead of competing. Especially with the election of Trump as US president, I unfortunately think that’s completely hopeless. So…

Europe is increasingly losing influence in the global economy, which is why I do not think that the euro is a likely candidate for an alternative reserve currency. If at all, it is more likely to be a dispute between the US and China or an eastern bloc imo. Or perhaps a system that is more decentralized and no longer requires a central trading currency in the sence of a national currency. Either way, I think an attack by the USA on Europe is out of the question - for many reasons, but if only because the US benefits from NATO and France is also a nuclear power.

What I mean is unbridled self-enrichment, corruption, greed, hubris and hedonism (in the negative, not the philosophical sense) of the elites of a given empire, which often had a certain share in the decline of formerly effective administrative and economic structures, legal systems etc. The excessive abuse of power by the powerful for selfish purposes. For a long time the ancient Romans were very aware of the creeping danger that came with considerable power in the hands of just a few. For example the expression “memento mori” (remember that you will die) likely comes from this context: The Romans used to say that to generals when they returned from a successful campaign as to remind them that they are not almighty gods but just mortals like everyone else. The late Roman elite however seems to have forgotten this as they became more greedy and selfish instead of being somewhat humble servants of their empire - they became decadent. But yes, if anything, that was of course just one factor among many in the decline of former empires. My point is just that even today, the excessive greed of a few very powerful people threatens not only their own power base, but even the survival of humanity as a whole. I simply think that we need to change fundamentally and urgently if we want to mitigate the foreseeable consequences of climate change to some extent - Trump is not going to do that at all.

Yes, most empires have perished because of their decadence. This is certainly also a danger for the USA, especially under Trump. If it comes to that, we can only hope that the US will not drag us all into the abyss with them. They will certainly use all means at their disposal to maintain the status quo - even with nuclear weapons, which the Romans, for example, did not have. I hope it goes well. In any case, the world would be better off if we did not continue to destroy our common habitat with our eyes open because of the excessive neoliberalism of the US.

If the dollar were no longer the international reserve currency, the US would be in serious economic trouble, if not bankrupt. However, I don’t think that will happen because the US will probably not shy away from preventing it by force with its gigantic military machine. I don’t think that’s very far fetched, considering what happened to Iraq after Saddam announced in 2000 that he would sell oil in euros instead of dollars. It is of course difficult to prove that this was actually the reason for the US invasion of Iraq - but weapons of mass destruction, the alleged existence of which was put forward as a reason for the war by the US, were in any case demonstrably non-existent.

Life as a shorty shouldn’t be so rough.

I don’t really want to accept it, but you’re probably right.

I think they don’t want to and there is probably nothing much a ordinary citizen can do to make them. Probably best to start from scratch.

I’m from Germany and here, too, the fascists are unfortunately on the rise again - despite our terrible past. I realize, of course, that you can’t talk sense to them because they simply ignore arguments and cling uncritically to the lies of their leaders. Nevertheless, I think the situation in the USA is somewhat different, because Trump was already president in pretty much everyone’s lifetime and has only made policy for the super-rich; he has also been convicted of fraud several times and has also enriched himself from the general public (the list goes on). You would think that those who are not die-hard fascists, of which there are probably many, would take this as an opportunity to see through his lies about a better life for the little people. But unfortunately that didn’t happen, I can’t for the life of me understand why not. I mean if you understand stupidity as the inability to learn from mistakes, it seems extremely stupid to me to vote for Trump even a second time.

I think one factor is that Democrats and Republicans actually hardly differ in many fundamental positions. I think the fact that an unscrupulous business man like Trump, who was once a member of the Democratic Party, can switch party affiliation just like that illustrates what I mean: there are no real alternatives, which is why election campaigns in the US need to be emotional rather than rational. That favors baseless fear mongering and empty finger-pointing that misses the real problems. I supect that many US citizens have become so accustomed to these empty election campaigns that they lost the ability to identify the lesser evil in this charade of mutual accusations far away from rational discourse. So in short I think Trump was just the better demagogue which is pretty much all that matters when reason or actual arguments are not part of the “election show”.

I’m sorry if you took my comment that way. I’m really the very last person who wants to lump an entire country together. My point was simply that this election has once again shown that there are significant problems in the US (education, racism, corruption, inequality, etc.) that have allowed Trump to deceive the population yet again. To relativize now by pointing out that things are just as bad or even worse elsewhere in the world only distracts from the real issue in my opinion. Nevertheless, I wish you all the best and very much hope that you can somehow put a stop to Trump’s greed and his terrible ideology.