I’m not exactly an expert either, but as far as I know there’s nothing stopping you from modifying your own kernel on Linux if you’re a hardcore enough Linux dork who knows how to. This is part of the reason anti-cheat developers love Windows and hate Linux, the Windows kernel is practically considered a black box that no normal user is ever supposed to touch, and Microsoft tries reasonably hard to make sure it isn’t (I had to disable Secure Boot and virtualization in my bios, and add a sketchy looking second boot option to the Windows Boot Manager, back when I paid for cheats in games). This doesn’t really work (as evidenced by the existence of kernel level cheats), but that’s the philosophy.

On Linux, there are no “normal users”. Some people run Arch for fun. Some people run Gentoo for fun. It’s the Wild God Damn West. Ergo, you can say “well the kernel will have this functionality built in”, and that’s all fine well and good – but there is nothing stopping someone else from coming along, yanking it out (or better still, modifying it to always pass “yep no cheats here” to any anti-cheat, even when there are), and recompiling their own kernel; because the design philosophy in Linux (for the most part) seems to be that the meatbag sitting at the keyboard is God, not some corporation. Which, considering how Microsoft is enfuckening Windows, I consider a good thing.

Kernel anti-cheat is a bodge, a stopgap, a last-ditch effort to save money instead of hiring staff that actually give a shit about supporting a game for people who’ve already parted with their money and moderating it properly. You know the only games I was never able to cheat in/didn’t see many cheaters in/didn’t ever really want to cheat in, for that matter? The games where the developers actually gave a shit, made a good game that didn’t exploit the player, and paid moderators to do a good job keeping it free of other shitheads. Kernel anticheat wasn’t even a speedbump, not then and I doubt it would be now. It’s a shortcut taken by lazy and/or greedy companies who would rather compromise user security and eke out a few more percentage points of net profit up-front instead of investing in the long-term health of their community.

disclaimer: I am not a hardcore linux dork. I like Linux Mint nowadays and have for the past couple years because it just works and doesn’t give me shit. I could be wrong, but that’s the gist of it as it is understood by me.

ah, so now instead of China spying on TikTok users, it will be Russia spying on TikTok users.

a paywall I am sure will be exactly as effective as google’s attempts at ad-blocking on YouTube, for exactly the same reason: a dedicated group of pissed off nerds who spend their time getting around it as a service to everyone. Bypass Paywalls Clean is already a thing.

I’ve always liked guns (some of the mechanics at play in some are fascinating, the wackier ones are like a rube goldberg machine inside), never wanted one in the house because of depression. now, it’s looking like eating a 12 gauge sandwich is, in fact, probably going to be the better way out, eventually. I’m trying to put it off as long as possible until my choices are “get a gun now or you won’t be able to later, at all”.

yeah I’m gay and am on the autism spectrum, between that and being a leftist “parasite” (food stamp recipient), I’ve largely resigned myself to my fate as well. But I’m not going to fucking El Salvador or any other memory hole he shoves people into. I’d rather die on my front lawn.

I guarantee you that would not work, because I went through cyber schooling as a kid long before covid was a thing and they tried the same with me when I procrastinated and played games instead of doing my work. They locked it down progressively more and I kept breaking out until finally, they gave me a computer so locked down you couldn’t open task manager, command prompt, safe mode had a password…

I was back to full access in <3 days. At the age of like 12. And apparently, the school’s IT department basically said “we can’t lock it down any more or else he wouldn’t be able to do work on it, either”. And then they gave up.

In short, that will not stop a crafty enough, stubborn enough kid. Guaranteed.

I swear, the best way to experience Helldivers 2’s community is to just be decent in games with randoms, maybe watch CommissarKai’s videos (do not go into the comments section) for tips on teamplay, and absolutely positively do not venture into the steam forums, the discord, or any other big discussion forum centered around the game because it w i l l be a cesspit, unfortunately. The Steam forums have the usual toxic trolls, but the Discord (and other hubs) is usually having furious arguments over buffs, nerfs, what is meta, what isn’t, what should be done what shouldn’t be and so on. For a silly little PvE co-op power fantasy game.

I’m not sure if Deep Rock Galactic has this problem, I’ve played it and it all seemed pretty positive but I never got into the game as much as I did HD2.

WE’RE RICH

In-game everyone is usually wonderful.

The official discord server, on the other hand… no. Just no.