Any Software that I previously used that switched to a subscription model has been replaced by FOSS on my end, even if it’s not fully up to par yet I am usually much happier with the alternatives.

Plex > Jellyfin

Office > Libreoffice / Collabra

Photoshop > Gimp

…

In anicent China, the writer and statesman Su Xun (蘇洵，苏洵) wrote a article named “On the Six Fallen States” (六國論, 六国论) about why the six states (韓、趙、魏、楚、燕、齊) were conquered by Qin (秦) during the Warring States period (戰國時代，战国时期)? The following is an excerpt from the relevant paragraph.

今日割五城，明日割十城，然后得一夕安寝。
One day five cities could be ceded, and on the next day, another ten cities could be surrendered just so that a certain person would have a single night of good sleep.
起视四境，而秦兵又至矣。
But in waking up and looking around, Qin troops again were approaching.
然则诸侯之地有限，暴秦之欲无厌，奉之弥繁，侵之愈急。
However, there was a limit to the available land of the lords and callous Qin’s avarice could never be satiated. The more there were giveaways, the more earnest Qin’s aggression would become.
故不战而强弱胜负已判矣。
So, even before going into battle, the odds-on-favorite and the most likely victor had already been decided.
至于颠覆，理固宜然。
As to the ultimate toppling, that was a forgone conclusion.
古人云：“以地事秦，犹抱薪救火，薪不尽，火不灭。”
Ancient people said: “Using land to serve Qin State would be like carrying firewood to put out fire. As long as there’s firewood left, the fire would not be extinguished.”

In ancient, the six states use land to serve Qin state; in modern, the people use money to serve the companies provide subscription. The more people who pay for a subscription, the more power they have over price increases and control over your data.

Same company acquired two very similar apps.

One required a $14/year subscription, the other $90/year

So, why are you using a subscription at all, and not a free and open source app?

You know what Blender is? It's the industry standard. Why is it the industry standard? Because it's free, open-source GPL, it can never be taken away from you, it can never be "acquired", everybody's using it, and everybody is contributing towards improving it. Nobody is bitching about how Blender is extracting millions of dollars from its users and reducing its feature set at the same time. (*cough cough* Photoshop *cough*)

Free and open source software. Every. Single. Fucking. Time. Fuck subscriptions.

Pirate zbrush and try Nomad. I don't have a tablet so I never gave it a go.

As for Zbrush, Maxon has done absolutely nothing of value to it since its acquisition. I purchased the perpetual license when it was still Pixologic and that's what I keep using. I hear from industry professionals that I don't miss out on absolutely anything new at all.

God i hate subscriptions. All it does is encourage them to charge more and do less.

Nomad is a one time price like procreate and is very good. Blender for everything else.

You could try installing and running the offline installer for DirectX.

But I recommend trying to run the game without installing these runtimes first. You likely have them installed already. If the game doesn't run then use the offline installer.

Disable downloading DirectX and any other redisfributable

You are on Win11, you already have them

Genuine question.

Why anyone even bothers with repacks?

Just to save few gigabytes when downloading, only then to waste a lot of time messing with it or just installing as it takes forever

“With all due respect, throwing around the term genocide in relation to Gaza is deeply offensive to many Jewish people who have suffered actual genocides.

Yes, solid reasoning. New genocides can't exist because there were old ones

Pretty sure there have been many genocides since WW2

Genocide is not exclusive to Jewish victims. It is not anti-Semitic to say that.

Genocide can be committed by anyone. It is not anti-Semitic to say that.

Genocide is being committed by Israel's military against the people in Gaza. It is not anti-Semitic to say that... but it is sad.

It is even sadder that my government, instead of stopping them, continues to help Israel commit genocide.

I thought this tool was retired. But no,

In December 2023, he came out of retirement to lead Alphabet Inc. into the new era of Artificial General Intelligence, after the launch of ChatGPT. (wiki)

At least it seems they are on course to make their AI competitive with Grok.

'Round Them Up': Grok Praises Hitler as Elon Musk's AI Tool Goes Full Nazi

Grok even endorsed another Holocaust against the Jews.

^{Matt Novak (Gizmodo)}

Dear Sergey,

if you object to the specific word "genocide", then perhaps we should start calling it the "mass murder and starvation that has killed 5-10% of all Palestinian civilians". That doesn't sound much better, though, does it?

One of the key things that some in the "UN is anti-semitic" camp likes to claim is that the UNHRC has many nations that are non-democratic and have known human rights abuses.

But that's somewhat cherrypicked. Yes, the nations proposing measures against Isreal do seem like a biased set. But most of the Western democracies ultimately vote for those measure, with only the US rejecting it.

The United Nations — From Ally to Antisemitic Platform

Many are surprised to learn that the institutions at the forefront of international law once served as allies of the Jewish people.

^Newsweek