Instigate

That’s a fair call. I just think all reasonable measures should be taken to limit the attractiveness of vapes to children, and that’s just one piece of the puzzle. It’s not a necessary piece, but I think it would have helped as part of a suite of measures to regulation. I think you’re right in that online glorification definitely had a role to play here as well.

If the government, 5-10 years ago when it would have been apropos to do so, looked into vaping and drew up specific regulations to have legal vaping, we wouldn’t have the issue we have today. Instead, because of almost a decade of inaction, we now have a new generation of nicotine addicts that they’re hurriedly trying to stop.

We needed regulated, plain-packaged and limited-flavour vapes available to legally buy at a reasonable price to quash out both smoking and prevent kids from getting addicted, but that horse has already bolted.

The cynic in me says they intentionally didn’t regulate vapes because the science wasn’t ready yet, and they didn’t want to accept any blame for legalising something that could end up to be pretty harmful in the long term. So, because they didn’t want to accept that risk then we now have a whole generation of vapers whose health issues we’ll be dealing with for 80+ years to come.

Spoken as an ex-smoker, current vaper as a smoking cessation method.

From the article:

Her ex-husband – and Tyler’s father – Jayson Boebert was famously arrested in 2004 for exposing his genitals in a bowling alley where minors were present. Rep. Boebert, who was 17 and not married to him at the time, was one of the witnesses in that case. He got four days in jail and two years probation for lewd exposure and public indecency.

I never understood why Americans call a ‘#’ a ‘pound sign’ but then if you put words in front of it, it suddenly becomes a ‘hashtag’. Shouldn’t it be a ‘poundtag’? I mean the rest of the Anglosphere refers to a ‘#’ as a ‘hash’ so it makes sense to us, but why do Americans call it a hashtag? Seems weird to me.

This is absolutely what a ‘Smurf’ account is - someone who is very experienced or has a significant backing behind them accrued from other account(s) creating a newer account to pose as an inexperienced player in order to be matched with them. In World of Warcraft, a ‘Smurf’ is a character that you intentionally don’t let past a certain level and throw a tonne of gold and gear at so that when they come up against regular players that level they have an insane advantage.

Well, yes and no. Paying that fine once would just be a cost of doing business, but now that the precedent has been set if they continue to do it they’ll continue to get fined in that order. Those fines won’t need court cases, so they’ll need to be paid quickly and in full. Sure, the fine they received didn’t really hurt them but it will change their behaviour. It will also prevent others from engaging in the same behaviour.

I don’t think the EU wants to bankrupt companies like Apple - it’s not in the collective best interest. They need to guide behaviour by setting up punishments that are deterring but not destructive. I think €500m fits that pretty well - it’s akin to giving a child a timeout while their friends play or a smack on the back of the hand. It’s doing what it’s intended to do.

Then put the games onto high-storage solid-state cartridges like Nintendo does. There’s no reason to be limited by existing technology like Blu-Ray except for laziness. Hell, they could even just put an SD card reader in as the physical game tray and put games onto SD cards if they’re that lazy and don’t want to spend on R&D.

Removing the capacity to have physical copies of games at all is always a bad move that is disingenuously masked with a “but the world is going all digital!” all the while knowing that this gives them greater control over things we’re supposed to own.

High-heeled shoes were invented in Persia for cavalrymen and later used by sharpshooters. Men wear flowing cloth garments like skirts/dresses in many extant cultures. Men used to play all of the female roles in Western plays, in full clothing and makeup. Men have been removing and shaping body hair since the ancient Egyptians, Romans and Greeks. Even as recently as the 1970s men would wear cropped tops and short-shorts.

There are so many examples to deconstruct things that we view as feminine or masculine as being entirely arbitrary, culturally-locked and era specific. It’s all socially constructed, and therefore can be deconstructed - but only if you’re willing or able to engage in reflection.

Wait, do you go to the dentist literally just to get them to clean your teeth? As in they’re not checking for cavities or issues, they just brush and floss you and you’re on your way? That’s super weird.

I only go once a year for a checkup - they give me a clean as well, but that’s not the purpose of the visit. I’ve never met anyone who goes to the dentist just for a clean.

I tend towards indie games generally, particularly single-dev games like Stardew Valley or a slew of incrementals out there, and I think by definition these issues don’t exist in those spheres. Beyond that I’m a big Nintendo fanboy and from what I’m given to understand Nintendo doesn’t churn and burn their employees as much, however they do work them to the absolute bone and demand nothing short of perfection which is its own kind of hostile workplace.

It’s just a well-known trope of Lemmy nowadays that whenever any issue with any OS is reported, rather than providing advice for the situation the default response is often “FUCK [OS], USE LINUX”. It’s become so common that it’s essentially now viewed by non-Linux users as Linux users just engaging in a circlejerk of their favourite OS. I know that circlejerks usually require more than one person but the Lemmy hivemind tends to respond this way, so a single comment (that is usually highly upvoted) is viewed as a circlejerk.

If it’s public domain, then by definition anyone can upload it, for any purpose, and monetise it however they see fit. YouTube could ban anyone else from uploading Steamboat Willie and only have their own version to watch, or they could let literally millions of people upload versions. They can basically do whatever they want with it now.