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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • If you want a preview of an uncaring and anti-consumer Valve, look no further than the company’s efforts on Mac.

    Valve never updated any of its earlier games to run in 64-bit mode… Apple dropped support for 32-bit applications in 2019

    Funny enough, the only platform with a 64-bit Steam client is Mac.

    I don’t disagree with concerns about monopoly, but the author’s key example is Macs. And from the example, it sounds to me like Apple disregards backwards compatibility (dropping 32-bit support, moving to ARM chips) and Valve isn’t investing to keep up. Meanwhile, Windows has a heavy backwards-compatibility focus, and Linux isn’t too bad either, so no wonder they still get Valve’s attention. So who is being “anti-consumer” in this example, Valve or Apple?




  • From a quick search, a MATLAB student license is $50 (USD, probably), which is less than most textbooks but still not nothing. Whether piracy is justified or not, I just want to point out that this is how they get you. Microsoft gives cheap Office licenses to schools and Adobe turns a blind eye to amateur piracy of Photoshop because they know that getting you comfortable with their software early means you’re more likely to pay to keep using it professionally later. I don’t know if MathWorks had a hand in the MATLAB requirement (I would bet it was just a prof who wants to stick with what they know), but good on you for trying to push for alternatives and testing against Octave.