> Robux - has very, very different exchange rates, depending on whether you want to buy Robux from the company, or you want to get a payout and convert your Robux to real money.
The best you could hope for is regulation of the delta or maybe enforcement of markets. The problem is really that such abuse is a kind of debt bondage, you have no other choices but essentially the Roblox company store.
It’s a newish form of the same abuse due to the nature of tech, game addiction, and the decay of culture and society; but it’s also why society has not developed a response against that particular practice any more than the corrosive and addicting nature of “games” that are essentially not much different than gambling, only more legal and across a wider user base.
I have a theory that much of the gambling industry in the USA has atrophied because the “investors”, aka, the corrupts and rotten people of the gambling industry that are/came from organized crime, have moved into “gaming”. I have specific reason to believe that was a general trend beyond specific cases. For example, people who’s job was to develop extremely addicting slot machine “games” both visually and in their manipulation of addiction patterns, i.e., how to push and milk someone to the limit before they can be pulled back into the gamblers fallacy.
But now I’ve gotten way off topic…but not really. It’s all dark, evil patterns; using game addiction to exploit the capture through debt bondage.
You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me, 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
It would be legal to never pay it out in real money at all, if other marketplaces are any indication. Like “store credit” or gift cards. You can’t get it out of the walled garden and the walled garden unilaterally controls the value.
The point of the discrepancy between purchasing Robux and converting to fiat is to allow Roblox themselves to be able to pay for the infrastructure and support they provide to developers. If the rates were equal, there would be an effectively equal amount of money going into the platform as going out of it, which wouldn't leave enough to pay for their expenses.
This system is known as the Developer Exchange programme <https://en.help.roblox.com/hc/articles/203314100>. The differing exchange rates are a necessary part of how the platform works and should 100% be legal. Analogues to "company scrip" or the like commonly used to unjustify the system are propagated by people that don't have a coherent enough grasp on the platform's economic system.
There's no German manufacturer among the top 10 in offshore wind. Siemens business had started in Denmark (and was #2 there) and after merger with Gamesa is now headquartered in Spain, with a lot of technical facilities still in Denmark.
Almost all Poles are very surprised about the second country on that graph.
Edit: well, after some thinking and remembering all the banners for laser cutting and cnc machining in nearby areas (touristic region at that), there might be some truth to it.
The Polish manufacturing miracle is really well known among people who study economics so it's funny that natural Polish people wouldn't be aware of it.
I explain this with our national pessimism and constant complaints about everything. We also compare ourselves to rest of Europe, where wages are still better and many things are cheaper.
Agreed. Actually - maybe no? Maybe the hourly wage is the problem. It's been too low for too long so there was no pressure to innovate. Denmark and Switzerland are big manufacturers with high wages that are continuously innovating. Maybe the Euro was a curse for Germany afteral? Without it their wages would have been higher.
Artificially increasing wages to get a better product is like Cargo Culting. Some people see successful companies paying their employees a ton, then assume that's what created the successful company when it's so obviously the other way around. But the politicians/union heads benefit from selling it the other way. This conversation just always gets derailed by pointing out how paying substantially below market is also bad, as if it were a counterpoint.
That's my point in France also: industries complain about the cost of workforce, therefore they've moved everything offshore for the last two decades and they are lobbying heavily for lowering the wages and taxes in order to "invest".
But there is nothing to invest into anymore, France's industry is dead (partly because of Germany with the Hartz agreement btw, lowering demand for italian or french goods which were already less competitive than german ones on export and domestic market because of the euro) and if they didn't care to put capital on automation when wages were high, why would they do it when work becomes cheap?
>That's my point in France also: industries complain about the cost of workforce, therefore they've moved everything offshore for the last two decades and they are lobbying heavily for lowering the wages and taxes in order to "invest".
100% exactly the same in Austria and I can speculate Italy as well.
Interestingly there was a public discussion in Denmark around 2016, about how the Danish labor market and industry should not end up approaching 'German conditions', even though the Hartz reforms were envied by some economically liberal Danish politicians.
I'd really like to know which products that manufacturing in Denmark produces. Ozempic is a massive financial success, so maybe that is a large part of it?
The lesson from Ozempic would be "Just have a huge hit come out of your R&D department", I guess...
You're confusing "freedom and speech" and democracy. They're not the same. You cannot even give someone the middle finger in Germany.
> showing the middle finger (Stinkefinger) is illegal in Germany and considered a criminal offense under Section 185 of the Criminal Code (StGB). Known as an insult (Beleidigung), this gesture can lead to fines, or in severe cases, up to a year in prison.
When I report to the police UFO landed in my backyard and I feel my life is threatened, the police are obliged to probe into it. Not that anything may come out of it.
Freedom of speech does not automatically allow insults. Now whether "Lick balls" towards a state leader is an insult or is allowed criticism is probably debatable, but this is what courts are for.
American freedom of speech unconditionally allows insults. In Germany they have freedom of opinion - you can think, but you can't say. How generous of them to not make thoughtcrimes.
First of all - most people also in the US obviously don't know that there are exceptions from the First Amendment, excluding certain categories of speech from protection. Second, the First Amendment at the time it was created had a much more limiting interpretation of this freedom - e.g. insults were actually punishable.
Additionally - freedom of speech has never been absolute - it was limited in Ancient Greece, where it originated, it was limited as it was declared in the French Revolution (which was used as the template for the First Amendment), and in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights - which provides the internationally valid definition of freedom of speech, its scope is also limited.
As opposed to the US, in Germany, the legal system is built consistently from the most generally valid principles to the most specific ones. The most universally valid principle is the one of the human dignity - this is why it's prominently placed in the first sentence of the German Basic/Fundamental Law. Everything else is more or less directly derived from the First Law, making them subordinate to it - thus if freedom of speech violates someone's dignity, the dignity is more important and has to take precedence, limiting the freedom of speech.
And this is consistent and concordant with the international definition.
I do believe people do all of that with the light on. And then there are also people who tamper with the device to deactivate the light. You can find guides for that online.
The funny thing about the light is that it doesn't even matter when surreptitious recording devices are trivial to make these days. You can never know when you're being recorded, even when no one is wearing glasses.
my understanding is that the light is resistant to simply taping over it, and recording can't happen in this case. you have to intentionally modify the glasses to be able to surreptitiously record.
> my understanding is that the light is resistant to simply taping over it, and recording can't happen in this case.
I remember when the glasses came out and this was tested: if you tape it over before starting the recording it refuses, but if you tape it after starting it will happily continue to record. I don't know if they changed it, but that is how it use to be.
The glasses have in the same hole a led light and a small light sensor (similar to the ones used in monitors to set up auto-brightness).
On start recording the glasses check if the light sensor is above a certain threshold, if it is then it starts recording and turns on the led light.
So, if you start recording and then cover the hole, it keeps recording because the check only happens on start. Even if they wanted to fix this by making the light sensor do a constant check it wouldn't work as the privacy led light indicator is triggering the same sensor, which is a terrible design choice.
And to disable the light is as easy as using a small drill bit and breaking either the light sensor module or the led light. They can detect if it's been tampered with and they put a giant notice saying the privacy light is not working but they still let you record anyways lol.
> Even if they wanted to fix this by making the light sensor do a constant check it wouldn't work as the privacy led light indicator is triggering the same sensor,
The privacy led light could just turn off for a couple of milliseconds (or less) while the light sensor performs its check.
> The privacy led light could just turn off for a couple of milliseconds (or less) while the light sensor performs its check.
True but then that would mean a blinking led light instead of a constant turned on led light, which is a different product requirement from what it currently does.
I don't think the cheap light sensor would have a fast enough polling rate for that. And if you increase the polling rate I will just put a phosphorescent sticker that absorbs and reflects the light coming out of the led with a good enough afterglow that the photoresistor will still pick up as some value and still allow for recording.
Also what is the implication here? If you cover the hole accidentally for one microsecond do you invalidate the whole recording? Does it need to be covered for more than one second, two seconds, ten?
All of that for what? So that in 2 years we can have chinese off-brand clones for 50 dollars that offer no security mechanisms anyways?
We all need to understand this is the new normal, being able to be recorded anywhere anytime. Just like you can get punched in the street anywhere anytime. We only act on things that can be proven to have caused you prejudice in court.
We successfully shamed people out of wearing Google glasses. We also mostly have social norms about when recording with your smart phone is ok. We don't need to accept defeat about these glasses just yet
I feel like it was pretty common to have the red light blinking on and off every second when recording. In that time where it is off during that cycle it would make sense to preform the sensor checks.
Sounds like it would be pretty easy to fake out with a custom circuit too, for those that are willing to go beyond ‘whoops how did that happen’ levels.
Taping can not be done? But if there are guides on the www for this, is this a true statement? To me it is a difficult statement because ... taping can be done in many ways. I don't see how light can magically pass through it?
Speaking only for areas near where I live, it was in response to a persistent uptick in home invasions. Police can't be everywhere at once, and LPR cameras flag stolen cars and mismatched plates that thieves like to use.
Some are installed by private entities. Home Depot installs Flock cameras in their parking lots.
I assume their primary use case is combating organized retail theft rings, as companies like Target spend a great deal on this problem (to include famously having their own accredited crime lab).
looking at deflock.org, in our town there are a few in Home Depot and Lowe's parking lots; I guess it's reasonable for a business to have a camera in their parking lot to prevent theft, that's not particularly new; the problem is that Flock has been selling that data for other purposes (ICE).
Cameras on the street is another matter altogether. Should not be allowed unless the citizens of the town vote to allow it.
Harvest data and let the techno fascist state that is slowly emerging figure out a use case later. For potential scenarios: if you like sci fi you can watch minority report, if you like history you can look at central Europe around 1930
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