And also add to that that this is more like escaping from a cult than it is merely admitting you were silly and wrong.
... They're like the opposite of doing nothing.
MSFT in particular has been essentially utterly out manuevered by Valve and their developements.
Its... its actually rumored (by Moore's Law Is Dead) that the specific weird custom chip the Steam Machine is using...
... was originally going to be used in something like like a planned Surface Super Duper Pro tablet.
But MSFT cancelled it.
After AMD had already made a bunch of the chips.
... And... then Valve comes along, figures out how to build a PC/Console out of MSFT's abandoned scraps, which also functionally hammers the final nail into the coffin of Xbox as an actual hardware device.
Valve beat MSFT at large segments of literally their own game.
Proton and Vulkan, both largely funded by Valve, flipped the fucking game table into another dimension, but MSFT did not notice untill it was beyond too late.
... Thinking with portals, you might say.
Yeah, Walken can tell you about how to smuggle a watch, though.
... Just get a legally licensed pinata?
And then learn how to have a pinata party that is fully invite only, and leaves no mess behind, then goes home and back to their business?
The uh, recent bad pinata party that's been in the news?
Dude got away.
The FBI has literally nothing on this person, aside of some basically useless, shitty footage, of a POI, not even a suspect.
This person is ... pinata party capable, and just... at large.
They have no idea who he is, where he is.
... Their... monopolized... operating system?
Which is completely open source, and thus free to everyone... and also forkable, modifiable?
... Genuienly, what are you talking about?
(Arguably)UnethicalLifeProTips
Entirely seriously, learn how to make a game in Godot.
Its literally completely free, only costs you time, and assumes you have at least some kind of existing computer, doesn't need to be a monster rig.
Alternatively: Find a video game you like.
Make mods for it.
Here's another one that's basically free:
Becoming/Staying fit, gaining strength and agility.
Make 'weights' out of milk jugs with water in them.
Maybe get a resistance band or two, they're not that pricey.
You can absolutely do a ton of stretches, calisthenics, and light to modetate muscle group workouts with basically just random shit lying around a typical home or apartment.
You can find basic guides for these excercises often just freely available from reputable medical organizations.
You can literally just go on a 20 minute walk, 3 times a week, and be in better physical shape than something like half of the US adult population.
Back to computer shit:
Blender is free.
Learn 3D modelling, rigging, UV wrapping, how texturing works, how to make animations, etc.
Same with Krita.
Become artist. Draw stuff good.
You can find probably literally millions of free tutorials for how to do basic and intermediate level concepts.
Whsitling/Singing/Voice Acting.
These are developable skills much more so than they are just... things you either can or cannot do, for some reason.
You can teach yourself how to do these, again to a basic or intermediate level, for pretty much free.
Same thing with at least some kinds of dancing.
If you're feeling more EXTREME: Parkour and/or Urbex.
Lockpicking.
Go find the Lockpicking Lawyer on youtube.
Pretty sure he can recommend you a not too pricey basic starter kit for learning the basics.
... I could go on, but my hands are tired from what I'm going to call 'autism posting', one of my totally free, personal hobbies that I often indulge in.
... so long as it does not materially impact your ability to provide basic necessities for your own wellbeing, food, water, shelter, some level of climate control, etc.
... and you are not directly, indirectly, or functionally spending other people's money on your hobbies.
Swap sexes/genders.
Exact same thing plays out, with slightly different wording in panel 3.
Probably the woman accuses the man of being gay, broke, and/or busted, and/or 'probably having a small dick anyway', possibly also remarking on their asserted status as a virgin/incel/creep.
The woman is ... roughly as likely to post a tiktok of this encounter, aimed at socially destroying the refusing man's reputation, as the man in the original situation is to respond to being refused with additional, actual physical violence.
Both cishet sexes and genders objectify the refuser's sex/gender in a mocking/insulting way, in their indignant retort.
That.
That's about what I expect.
That immature and insecure people are unnecessarily cruel when their egos are damaged, and are roughly equally likely to escalate their indignant response to something more serious and damaging, its just that the manner in which they would perform that escalation differs.
Uh... pinatabroker?
Failing that, your city or town probably has a pawn shop.
They probably feature pinatas for sale, from time to time.
As of 2024, 806 people in the US control as much wealth as the bottom 50% of the population.
If every one of those billionaires has 10 billion dollars, thats equivalent to about 165 million people who each have ~49,000.
Those 806 ten billionaires then have ~204,082x as much wealth as any of those 165 million people.
However, I believe I can solve this problem for a fairly low cost.
Assuming each ten billionaire has approximately 10 close friends/relatives...and we want to just be super duper sure the problem is solved, so we'll buy 100 of those uh, investment options, per social contagion vector...
That works out to a total cost of around ~$310,000.
Split between those 165 million people, that's one fifth of a cent, per person.
Does anyone want to guess what my special purpose investment vehicle to achieve said disruption of the malignent social contagaion market is?
... Do DND rules allow for an otherwise inanimate object to... itself, cast fireball?