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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • AFAIK this is different from the original auction house mount. That one had a auctioneer and a vendor who could repair things. This one comes with an auctioneer and a “mailbox” NPC.

    For some people whose purpose in playing WoW is to make money trading, this makes it marginally easier. Instead of having to park your mount next to a mailbox, you can both post your auctions and collect your money on one mount. But, since most people doing auction stuff also need access to a bank, it doesn’t mean they can easily just abandon the city and live out in the country.

    Many of the people who might consider this mount are already playing for free because they make enough money in-game to buy a token every month.

    Also, it’s $132 if you’re Canadian, otherwise it’s 90 USD.




  • It’s not just one generation receiving an education vs. another one that didn’t. It’s that the platforms the generations used are fundamentally different.

    Gen X / Millennials grew up with Macs and PCs, computers that were fundamentally not locked down. You could install any software you wanted. You could modify the OS in many ways. DRM wasn’t really a thing in general, and there were almost always easy ways around it.

    Gen Z / Gen Alpha grew up mostly with cell phones. The phones they had are much more powerful than the PCs from 20-30 years ago, but they’re incredibly locked down. The only applications you’re allowed to use are the ones that Apple / Google allow on their app stores, unless you root your phone which is a major risk. It’s very hard to even load up your own audio files, movies or images let alone “dodgy” ones. DRM is everywhere, and the DMCA means you risk serious prison time if you bypass access controls.

    Gen X / Millennials grew up at a time when there were still more than 5 tech companies in the world, and the companies out there competed with each-other. There were plenty of real standards, and lots of other de-facto standards that allowed programs to interoperate. Now you’re lucky if you can even use an app via its website vs. using a required app.

    It’s not just a difference in education. It’s that companies have gained a lot more power, and the lack of antitrust enforcement has made for plenty of walled gardens and “look but don’t touch” experiences.


  • merc@sh.itjust.workstoMemes@lemmy.mlLost and found
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    26 days ago

    On one hand, sure, the British took a lot of things from other places when their empire spanned the globe. And, it sucks for places that had their stuff taken that it is no longer where it was.

    On the other hand the British Museum is probably one of the safest places in the world for these things. The museum cares about preservation, knows how to do it, and has the funds to do it. And, while there’s undoubtedly corruption in the UK, there’s a very low chance that any of these things is going to disappear out of the museum and into some powerful person’s private collection.

    Mohamed Salah is standing in front of a statue from Egypt, which was taken from Egypt to London. But, the British didn’t manage to take the Buddhas of Bamiyan from Afghanistan to London, and what happened? The Taliban blew them up. The British also didn’t fully loot Iraq when they controlled that territory, which meant that in the 2003 war the museum was looted but not by people who wanted treasures for a public museum. The poorer and less politically stable a country is, the greater the chances that their cultural treasures will be stolen or destroyed.

    Despite the repression and corruption, Egypt is now probably stable enough that if any of these items were returned to Egypt, they would probably be well treated and put on display for Egyptians to see. The power of the military in Egypt and the level of corruption probably means a few small items would disappear from the museum, but the most important items would make it. But, is Egypt stable enough that the museum would be safe for another 20, 40, 80 years? I have my doubts. I do think London is probably safe for that long.

    Maybe it’s just me, but I think the number one priority should be preserving these things for the future. Displaying them for the public should be a lower priority. If there are items like scrolls or clothing that are too delicate to even display behind a glass case, they should be stored away. I know that’s how they handle things at the Smithsonian, and I assume the British Museum is the same. Because of that, my bias is that the most important cultural items should be in the care of the richest museums in the world, even if it means that they’re not in the places they came from.



  • Should it also be illegal for a company to issue press releases when good things happen? Or, maybe, required that they issue press releases any time there’s bad news?

    I don’t see a problem with it as long as it’s clear that the group pushing the bad news is honest about their short position. Especially in a world where an advertising duopoly has appropriated nearly all the advertising money that used to support news, and as a result news organizations are crumbling, we need short sellers. Shorting a company is extremely risky, and generally an organization will only take a short position if they’re sure the stock is overvalued. That means they’re going to do deep research on the company – the kind of research that used to be done by financial reporters.

    Naturally, if they do take a short position they really need the stock to drop, so they’re going to frame everything they find in the most negative light possible. They’re also going to be extremely aggressive about getting the news out, because they need shareholders who don’t pay much attention to the news to hear about what’s happening and want to sell. While they might not be fully honest about the companies they’re shorting, the kinds of companies they’re shorting are also often not being at all honest about their performance.

    I’m sure that sometimes a company gets targeted by short sellers without doing anything wrong. But, I’m even more sure that there are companies out there lying to their investors to keep their stock price high.






  • The EULA isn’t null and void, but it’s pretty meaningless. Not because you can’t reasonably be expected to copy that link into a browser to read it, but because there’s no indication that you should or even must do that.

    The EULA contains no terms, it doesn’t contain any wording saying what you can or can’t do. It doesn’t say what your rights are. It just contains something that looks like a URL. So, you’re still bound by the terms of the EULA (as much as you’re bound by any EULA) but the EULA doesn’t permit or forbid anything. It’s effectively the same as if it were blank.