Yeah definitely lol. I got very lucky, my near-launch day switch joycon sets I got only has one left joycon that started drifting last year. I have no idea how they lasted that long cause I used all my controllers pretty heavily.

Now they sit on the charging dock next to the switch, next to the Steam Deck that actually gets used… Lol

That’s simply not true, there are ways to drastically reduce energy usage while increasing efficiency by offloading the work. A company Mythic AI has worked on an analog processor which sifts through the model. On GPU’s this is the power hungry process, for example a PC with the NVIDIA 3080 will typically run at about 350w under load.

Their claim now that these analog chips use 1/100th of the energy needed for GPU’s. There’s a video from Veritasium that goes over the details. It’s genuinely effective, and that was a few years ago now before whatever potential growth they’ve made with their recent funding. It looks like they actually have products available for inquiry now too.

Doesn’t seem to be at the consumer level yet unless you want to use servers for AI vs. your home computer, but it’s progress. Here’s the thing, I’m not particularly for our current implementation of AI but I don’t think we should be entirely against all of it either. There are clearly plenty of benefits that people see from them, so giving any option possible for companies like Google to severely draw back their energy consumption seems like the reasonable path forward.

The independent drawbacks to LLMs and generative AI don’t mean the technology will stop getting used. It isn’t going anywhere (as in, people will use it) so making it more efficient is the obvious solution to mitigating more waste. Advocate for the prohibition of AI, but it’s honestly more reckless than advocating for making the business’ usage of AI reach a specific energy goal. Forcing these companies to retrofit their servers to run at something ridiculous like 30w per rack is beneficial for them and for us, as they won’t pay as much for energy and we all will have less of it wasted.

Wishful thinking of course, but my point is that energy efficient AI, fortunately or unfortunately, exists and it will continue to. Like we can run “AI” on a raspberry pi 4 which takes what, 9 watts? This technology will get more developed every year, and while I’d be extremely surprised to see a Pi4 on its own running a subjectively useful LLM, I can imagine a setup that uses a Pi and some offloading tech to achieve reasonable results.

I’m personally pretty fine with regular people with computers wanting to use AI in whatever way suits them, as long as they aren’t trying to sell the results. While the energy consumption isn’t ideal, it’s a droplet to the servers these companies take. We should definitely make every effort possible towards increasing the efficiency of this tech, if only because it seems insane to me to pretend like AI will just disappear, or let this huge energy suck exist as we hope it begins to fade.

Tl;Dr offload GPU resources to analog chips, force companies to be more efficient simply because hoping AI is going to disappear is reckless.

They’re socks that are typically given in psychiatric ward in a hospital

So this is something that mostly is for enterprise, not consumers?

Oh I definitely will figured the Bluetooth would connect still, so pro controllers are fine. I was more thinking of the physical connection aspect since playing in bed is a little awkward with the removed Joycons and the kickstand set. Still nice though, especially if you have one of those mounted tablet stands.

I’m just thinking of all the LoZ and Animal Crossing Joycons that will now be relegated to the sheathe holder and a docking charger (or one of the fancy ones with USB to charge)

Idk, random sticky substance is kinda selling rn

It would be too bad to lose the backwards compatibility for all those special edition Joycons. Not that I expect them to, though it would be within Nintendo’s track record.

I feel like it’s the perspective that matters? Yes, we go through life seeing “higher resolution” in real life, but recreating this through pixels on a screen is a different medium. Going even further, if we take the next step and look at VR, suddenly we have real life competing with something that was previously unable to be experienced (more than once, at least.). Like, you can get a lightweight experience of what it’s like to fall off of a tall building. We can do it in real life. We can do it in a 2D/3D game. And we can do it in VR. The “real” feelings we get of this happening in reality aren’t quite the same as they are in VR, although it comes close, and likewise aren’t the same in monitor gaming, but again can come close. Our brains are interesting that way. My stomach is able to drop when falling from tall heights in games, despite in real life not actually being falling, or even moving in the slightest.

So I think it comes down to it being the medium and what it’s presented with.

Oh definitely, of all people I think I understand why Biden does it the most. I think you’re pretty spot on, with Biden if not saying this outright himself has definitely alluded to it in some of his comments.

Even if I don’t agree with it, I can understand it. I just sort of wish he wasn’t being so stubborn about it.

To another end, I feel like Biden is of the era where he is used to the incumbent President running again. That’s just what we do. Obama did it. Bush Did it. Clinton did it. Reagan did it. Nixon did it. Johnson did it. Eisenhower did it. Truman did it. Roosevelt did it. That is almost every single President from Biden’s lifetime. If I’m not mistaken, there would be 4 Presidents who did not go for/win their second term from 1941 through 2017? Kennedy, Ford, Carter, and H.W. Bush. Kennedy almost certainly would have, unless some of his shenanigans were to come out (seems doubtful).

I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if part of his whole reasoning was in part also due to it just being what you do as a President. You run again, it’s just what you do?

There are other people I would prefer to see as the first woman President, given her history of not being the greatest towards her constituents wishes (I grew up close to Oakland). That said, I’ve been fully expecting her to be, partly because I wasn’t 100% certain Biden would make it, although Mrs. Feinsteinn had recently passed so I was a bit more upset about the age of our politicians at the time.

In addition to all that, she is a far better alternative than our two current options, if only due to the fact that she may be able to increase voter turnout, even if it’s despite her not-so-great history for policy. I was even hoping that Biden would step down for 2nd term and have her run in his place… You know, to avoid exactly what is happening right now. Like hell, Biden is only 9 years younger than Feinsteinn. Doesn’t he want to actually have some time in retirement, unlike her? Does he just want to die in politics?

Actually, that probably explains a lot. Do all these politicians just want to die at work? Mitch McConnell is freaking 82.

Don’t these people have hobbies? Grandchildr- ah who am I kidding, they don’t do their jobs unless it’s to prevent something good from happening. And I bet Mitch McConnel hates his grandchildren. I just have a feeling about it, don’t ask me why.

by Betsy DeVos.

If there’s one person I loathe more than anyone in the world, it might be her. Even she was given that position, though, so there’s still many more people to loathe. Her actions against education and the betterment of this country are abhorrent, but she was only following through with what other people in her party wanted.

I’m not an angry or bitter person, quite the opposite, but when I think about the events of 2016 I feel so much contempt against these people. She and they single-handedly destroyed our education system and put it on the path for states to abuse and neglect their duties to get our citizens educated. (Per state education departments can do what they want, so California ignored much of the policy. Other states like Idaho, Ohio, Texas, Florida, Alabama, Arizona, etc are now doing the same, except instead of trying to bolster their education systems like California tried to (tried…), they are actively impeding on the betterment of it.

We would not be in this situation today had we not gotten the results of 2016. We truly lost so many good things because of that election, for the first time we were actually making progress as a country after 16 godsforsaken years, just for them to send us back over 60 years. The EPA. Corporate Tax. Racial tensions. Gender and sexuality acceptance. Education. The complete collapse of our government by having so many terrible, terribly unqualified people into positions of power they shouldn’t hold.

Please don’t let history repeat itself.

It was criticized when and after it came out, so it isn’t something that’s come up recently. But as you mentioned, there were some praises as well, as NPC escort missions were a bane in gaming at the time and this game did get praise for Elizabeth for that.

However, much like the comment “the medium is the message”, I think also Bioshock was a series that was very close to people’s hearts and they had a specific idea about what exactly made it feel like that atmosphere. My stance has always been, Bioshock Infinite is a phenomenal game that isn’t quite Bioshock, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s like… It’s like the entirety of the series Metroid, and then Other M. Had Other M been literally any other name and character, it would have been a perfectly fine game.

But since it, and Bioshock Infinite, are tied to their namesakes, staying in line with that atmosphere that they create is imperative for a fanbase. For all of the faults that Bioshock 2 had, they still nailed the thematic portion of the world that appealed to so many people in Bioshock 1. They’re dark, gritty, a musk of musty air fills the entirety of the game and characterization. They’re also quite creepy, with that setting on top of the insanity and tight enclosed spaces under the oppression of the ocean.

Bioshock Infinite seems to abandon that thematic element almost entirely. And mind you, they did the bright and airy world very well, I can only imagine what it would have been like if they had been able to complete the entirety of their vision! I suspect something like Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom size was always the goal, given all the details shared about what they had to cut out.

That tonal shift I am almost certain is a majority of the cause for the issues with Bioshock Infinite - as this was the sentiment I gathered upon release and the coming years. It was two-fold though too, because by changing the nature of the tonality of the game, the gameplay itself seemed to be “brightened”, maybe in an attempt to make it more accessible, maybe to make it more engaging, but it seems pretty commonly agreed that Bioshock Infinite is just easier. The puzzles seemed toned down (IMO almost more of a point a -> point b puzzle), and while yeah the ending was a very well done version of this, I think many also felt like it somewhat removed the agency the players were struggling with, just to toss in a “you have and always will be” multiversal moment.

Anyway, all this to say, these aren’t explicitly my opinions on Bioshock, I’m just an analyst. I enjoyed most of Bioshock Infinite, but it is clear to see that there is a difference in the show-don’t-tell of Bioshock and the tell-show-tell of Bioshock Infinite. I actually am able to replay Infinite, where I have a hard time replaying 1 and especially 2, just because they’re so goddamn scary for me, lol. Much of the gameplay of Infinite is also just slightly more modern, with 1 and 2 just being slightly slower and clunkier without the movement option of the grappling hook.

I think another way of putting this is to look at an entirely different game, We Happy Few. It seems to me that We Happy Few wanted to make the atmosphere of Bioshock 1 but with the brighter narrative style of Bioshock Infinite, which inevitably resulted in the clashing of those two themes. In the case of Bioshock Infinite, it is that very same clashing of themes which I think heavily affected the players perception of the game. Again, had it been named, like, “Sky Cultist: Enigma” or something like that, it would have been perfectly well received and would have maybe even gone down in gaming history positively. Instead, it was tied to Bioshock and is kinda seen as “it’s good but meh” as a byproduct of such a drastic shift. I also think the desire to go from sea to sky is just a little cheesy, and while it was done well enough I’m also sort of hmmmeehh on that whole side of it. Fun areas to play in, but… not very Bioshocky, even with the steam punk elements.

Which is too bad. It had many technically good qualities about it, from the story arcs, from memory I feel like the pacing was pretty good, I remember the gameplay early and mid-way being fun although I do feel like I remember just a little bit of bullet spongeyness and resource/ammo collection mid-late sections of the game. Obviously the ending was quite good, and I really enjoyed the cult story. However, the bright sky world is very contrasting to the murderdeath cult and gore of it all, and I personally wasn’t as big of a fan of the thematic shift, both in the overworld but also in the march towards the Industrial Revolution. It just felt so out of place to me (specifically the Patriots, or maybe I just hated fighting so many of them) considering we had this entire underwater industrial complex in Rapture. However this is alleviated somewhat by the ending of Infinite, since these are all infinite possibilities oooooohhhh the name makes sense nowwwww!

So yeah, all in all I think it turned a bit underwater espionage revealing the secret project to the world to floating cult investigation revealing the… secret project to the world.

Lotr: elevende one

I wouldn’t normally recommend Ikea, but the “REGNSKUR” Ceiling lamp is what we replaced our ceiling fan with in our bedroom. It’s low profile, has 3 bulbs and the fabric is easily removable for washing. In lieu of a dimmer, I use voice controlled color changing lights, and the fabric really blends the light together well.

The whole unit is ~3 parts - a frame you install into the ceiling that has 3 magnetic “arms”, the frame that attaches to the frame magnetically that the fabric rests on, and the fabric itself. The hardest part was honestly getting the fabric on the frame lol.

Anyway, I only recommend it because it’s super low profile, pretty inexpensive, looks nice and is bright (or rather, can be bright bulb depending.) If I had to say one drawback aside from the fabric being unwieldy is that there is a circular hole at the bottom, which if you are directly underneath you can somewhat see the base of the frame, and some of the edges of the bulbs house. Honestly, not that big of an issue (and light does not really get me in the eyes from this spot). We’ve had it for nearly two years now and have taken it on and off for washing maintenance maybe 5 or 6 times in that time, it’s holding up great. I don’t really see it going anywhere.

Don’t feel bad about your physique, children that play and stay active are freaking shredded!

All that heat reflecting from the ground isn’t getting you when it’s shaded!

It seems to me that Valve despite all the criticism it receives for the high fee on the sales of copies is doing a terrific job on resolving that problem.

The only issue I have with this is that Valve seems to be the only company that gets this critique, yet they seem to provide way more services for said 30% fee.

Apple started charging 30% on everything over two decades ago with iTunes, which continued into their app store in 2008. They only recently started a “small business program” that is application based, reportedly unresponsive to the users, and by default still charges 30% to app developers making under $1m in revenue. So, instead of making it based on how much you earn, they force you to apply and ignore you, effectively still making it a 30% base rate. IMO, sort of predatory since they don’t really advertise the program. I feel like if it mattered to them, they would automatically apply the rate to >$1m revenue, instead of making it per-app (or dev account) application based and letting users sit in limbo wondering if they were accepted or not.

Google takes 30% as well, also having introduced a 15% on the first million of revenue for subscription based payments, so if I understand correctly, it’s not even individual sales getting that lowered rate. Oh, but don’t worry, in case you were worried music streaming services can go as low as 10% rates, so if you have a datacenter that you can stream licensed music to app users over well hey, you’re in luck little guy!

Microsoft actually moved down from 30% entirely to 12%, it looks like. They don’t really offer much, so good on them for that. Know your worth, am I right? But it’s only for PC sales, which seems kind of odd considering the hassle it can be to apply and develop for the Xbox. So, not as good, but still alright. Meanwhile, Sony and Nintendo… (30%). Hm, odd that it never seems to be raised as an issue for the consoles, oh well.

All of these were pushed by Epic who was mad they couldn’t make more money off their mobile game, except Microsoft which I think just followed suit. But from the backend when you look at what each of these services offer for their costs… It’s a bit laughable that Valve is the one getting critiqued for this point when they offer at least double the amount of services to the publisher/developer. In short, these fees cover the cost of a bunch of background junk as well as to generate some revenue for the store selling it, but don’t offer much else in terms of support for the users or the developers. Meanwhile the Steam Overlay can completely change your controller scheme, use community templates, access to per-game notes, all of which can be transparently overlaid on your game if you want, and the Steam Workshop for internal modding/community content, in addition to whatever other peripheral things like cloud saving, in-home/remote streaming and remote play together, the recently added recording feature, and generating as many Steam keys as the dev wants for certain purposes.

I just do a double take everytime I see it not being directed at the companies that actually do seem to be abusing their fees and don’t offer nearly as much feature presence. Like Valve seems to be attempting to innovate, even if they are just taking ideas from things like Moonlight, and Parsec. They didn’t lock it down either, you can jank it up by playing Non-Steam games or emulated games via Remote Play Together with your friends. Ever wanted to relive the days of DoubleDash? Did Slippi not exist in this timeline and you wanted to play Smash Melee with a friend?

Like, there’s things to complain about for Valve. But is the 30% for what they offer really unreasonable, especially when compared to current competitors? I personally don’t think so. If Epic wants to start making their launcher as fully fledged as Steam is then we can talk. Until then, when I see this argument presented I have a hard time reading it as anything but “big Valve bad” with the subtle implication that Epic is the saving grace of the gaming industry. Otherwise, Epic is able to offer 12% because they don’t host nearly as much for the user, and have had to actively rely on Valve for things like community support, VR support, and don’t have basic things like repair game installations, or re-installing a game in its folder (you know, to prevent having to redownload 90+gb every time their launcher breaks the game). It’s also hard to see them as a good guy when they also have had shady practices, such as not paying out devs per claim during the “Free Claim” giveaways, but rather only upon when the user actually downloads the game. In addition to that, they just throw tons of money at you to make it exclusive, then they ghost you and good luck getting any actual support from them if you need something.

Tl;Dr hypocrisy of picking what 30% fees are okay and which are screwing over game developers, I look at it from the perspective of received services for said fee.

P.S. to OP of comment, I am merely responding to you, I know your comment isn’t saying that Valve or any of these companies are at fault for it. Franky, I don’t think 30% is an issue if the fee that’s taken has fair returns for it, and I think this whole fandango is only an “issue” at all because of mad old Tim Sweeny.

Thank you! I’ll check this out, I did “come across” it but I couldn’t tell if it was just for Linux DJs or if it was like the fully fledged software to use regardless of gear.

I’ll see if it works with Hercules Starlight! Thank you for the suggestion!

We get it, you’re a Trump supporter. I’m glad you felt safe during his presidency, unfortunately an easy 45% of the American population (queer and minority groups) did not feel this way and were vilified by Trump and his supporters during his presidency, so that “assassination” attempt that definitely wasn’t staged somehow changes your mind against all the violence that his party has promoted? All the hatred and vitriol he created just poof wiped away because supposedly a leftist “shot a pellet” at him, which is an assassination attempt?

Come off it. By supporting Trump you know what you stand for and what you’re promoting, and you should know all the awful things he’s said about veterans too, but that doesn’t seem to matter since you’ve only expressed contempt for Biden doing it. And the VA under Trump? As if, absolutely laughable. Yeah the VA under Trump did a great job for my grandpa struggling with lung cancer. They did a great job for my grandma after his passing. The VA is and has been junk, Trump did nothing for it.

Don’t act like being against Genocide Joe is some true path to Democracy. Trump will kill more Palestinian’s in a year through his rhetoric to his supporters alone all while helping Isreal even more. Sanctions wouldn’t even be a discussion, like they have been under Biden. I honestly am appalled that anyone could see the events of 2016-2020 and think that Trump would make these peoples lives safer (U.S. Palestinians). We even have a prime example of him floundering aid to Ukraine, and it’s definitely not like Trump would have had any impeding motives help Ukraine against Russia.

If you think Trump will help make your life better when he’s president, he won’t, so you can stop defending him and giving him the benefit of the doubt.

What a crazy defect with such a high prevalence. That’s really pretty crazy