Quoting: ExplosiveDiarrheaThank God US laws don't apply to the rest of the world... yet!

The US disagrees - just look at the Julian Assange and the Kim Dotcom sagas... Many of their alleged activities either didn't breach local legislation or sat in a so-called "grey area"; yet the "World Police" (aka American law enforcement) insisted that US laws were broken and that these individuals should be held to account.

I'm sure I and others could come up with loads of alternative examples, too.

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Quoting: Liam DaweNo, Canonical are not currently proposing that. They haven't made any decision, their statement is in the other article.

Yeah, you posted that right around the same time I made my comment.

I actually have the source article open in a tab to have a read personally on the weekend (it's pretty lengthy)... I skimmed it for now and it looks like some of their developers are proposing this level of integration; though as you rightly point out, it's not in an Official (Canonical-approved) capacity - for now.

Anyway, I'm open to Canonical implementing age gate stuff if they feel that it's legally required; but only because I can understand the potential consequences if they do not implement this. However, this shouldn't be mandatory for users where this legislation (law) has no bearing (i.e. so most users) and because of the "open" nature of Linux, it should be implemented in a way which users can completely disable or remove.

If Canonical - or any other Linux distro for that matter - can tick those boxes, I have no problem with them implementing these measures... If not, well I won't have very nice things to say about them.

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Apparently Canonical is proposing changes that would force ALL Linux users to verify their age during setup, too... I did post a link to a video discussing this last night; but it needed to be approved by Liam and from what I can see, it doesn't look like he's approved it.

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Quoting: JarmerI really had a great time in Horizon Zero Dawn (not so much forbidden west) and spent the crazy high premium costs to buy those games.

I hope you bought the DRM-free version from GOG.com? You never know if Sony will remove the games from your Steam catalog.

Quoting: elmapulbut sony is stupid, all they need to do is their own version of an steam machine, and a good client for pc, instead they chose to make less money.

It'd never happen, but they could always just come out and do their own SteamOS device... That'd be sick.

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Quoting: Mountain ManTo be fair, we're still far behind Europe where you can and will be arrested for posting "offensive" messages on social media.

And my home, Australia, is doing everything it possibly can to try and mimic Europe... 🤔

Quoting: loggeI am sorry to inform you that the term "protect the children" is actually used everywhere where a law would otherwise be hard to enact. All these laws popping up everywhere recently are not about children, never were and nowhere will be.

The famous selling point for every piece of legislation - "If you actually care about the safety / well being / etc of the children, you'd support this!"

Give me a break.

Quoting: Caldathras

Quoting: Purple Library Guynone of the politicians care if it works or ever will work.

Absolutely. Politicians only care that they appear to be doing something about a perceived problem. All that matters is that they stay in office and continue to collect from the gravy train.

This describes 99.9% of politicians globally... And yes, that even includes the politicians I support or mostly support.

The days of "What can I do for My People?" are long gone; now it's only "What can I do for myself?"

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy...none of the politicians care if it works or ever will work. They just care that nobody can claim they voted against protecting children; whether the measure would actually do that, or have any effect whatsoever, is irrelevant--the only thing that matters is how their political opponents could frame it.

It's funny that you say this, because I watched a thing a couple of weeks ago comparing politicians and businessmen... Then general gist was that most politicians ask "What needs to be done", followed-up by "And how will this affect me in the polls". Businessmen on the other hand, usually ask "What needs to be done", followed-up by a command to "Get it done" (regardless of how it makes them look). The argument was that Trump falls into the latter camp, which I think is pretty accurate when you consider how he approaches some of America's problems.

Quoting: eddie-fossSorry for that but for me it seems that US is turning itself a kind of rich new North Korea, government surveillance, no freedom, imposed religion, beliefs and who is against will have their heads chopped off, very dystopian...
I hope you guys get back your power and put off the f..ing lobbyists out of government they're cancer to your country.
😤

Nah, America has been like this for a long time... I grew up obsessed with all things America; but now that I'm in my 40s, I realize that behind all the glitz and glamour, America is actually one of the most horrible countries out there when it comes to a number of "key" areas.

As an adult, it's also become apparent just how little "freedom" Americans actually have, and how hypocritical America is when it comes to basically everything.

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So technically anything with an operating system - your console, smartwatch, television and even fridge or modem / router for example - needs you to verify your age? What a silly concept!

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Quoting: syylk

Quoting: Cyba.CowboyWhat we need is a solution to the component shortages and the most obvious solution is a new player.

I'm pretty positive that if it was that easy, it would've already been done - long ago.

I suspect kicking off a new fab (lithographic printers, clean rooms, heck PEOPLE barely knowing what they're doing...) even for relatively stupid components, like RAM, would have costs well beyond your or my wildest imagination.

And at that point, the only way to recover them is to sell the products to genAI d/c...

Oh, I'm well aware of the costs involved... Well, at least I have a pretty good idea as much as you or I would, anyway. And yes, it's a big outlay.

But there's still entire segments of the market that has nobody manufacturing components en mass for consumers... The consumer market might only make up for a small portion of the overall tech market, but that's still several hundred billion dollars each year to be made by one or more companies willing to outlay the initial setup costs.

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Quoting: buonoValve need to start manufacturing their own ram, ssd and cpus 🤔

That would be ideal and in the long-term, would save them money... But the initial costs upfront would be enormous (which is exactly why even the likes of Apple doesn't do this)!

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We don't need "the AI bubble to burst", because like it or not, AI has its advantages... Some of those advantages advantages are nefarious, some genuinely useful to productivity and / or society.

What we need is a solution to the component shortages and the most obvious solution is a new player. If all the manufacturers are turning away from the consumer market, that leaves the market open for one or more new players to enter the market and scoop up all that money.

Heck, I'd do it myself if I had the capital and the connections to make this happen!

On a separate note, I'm going to be very, VERY surprised if the Steam Machine / Steam Frame (stupid name!) / Steam Controller (2026 version) and upcoming Tenth Generation consoles from Sony and Microsoft aren't affected by this... At this stage, I fully expect them to be significantly delayed or suspended until further notice.

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