There's a youtube channel out there that used to be a sort of nature channel, but seems to have devolved into 'Get stung/bit by painful animal X'. I haven't watched their stuff in ages, but I'm very aware that the original channel host isn't the one getting stung anymore. I have to wonder what it was like from their perspective, watching the view counts go up and up with each successive "Hurt yourself on camera" video, and wondering what to do next.
>There's a youtube channel out there that used to be a sort of nature channel, but seems to have devolved into 'Get stung/bit by painful animal X'. I haven't watched their stuff in ages, but I'm very aware that the original channel host isn't the one getting stung anymore.
I've wondered whether it would be possible to design a motorcycle with a surface that's non-reflective to radar because of it's shape or texture, like how stealth planes work.
EDIT: I realized the super black paint is probably the worst thing you could do for your own safety on a motorcycle, but that's besides the point...
I've been riding motorcycles for about 30 years now, I started back when Neal Stephenson's Zodiac was still new, and this part was still ringing in my head:
“I had to ride slow because I was taking my guerrilla route, the one I follow when I assume that everyone in a car is out to get me. My nighttime attitude is, anyone can run you down and get away with it. Why give some drunk the chance to plaster me against a car? That's why I don't even own a bike light, or one of those godawful reflective suits. Because if you've put yourself in a position where someone has to see you in order for you to be safe--to see you, and to give a fuck--you've already blown it... We had a nice ride through the darkness. On those bikes we were weak and vulnerable, but invisible, elusive, aware of everything within a two-block radius.”
― Neal Stephenson, Zodiac
I didn't compare with the other paints (I only found that video after ordering the paint...) or with the difficulty of painting (I got the intern to do it!) but in terms of the final result, that's exactly the same result I got.
I also have some of their glow pigment and it's a lot more impressive. This particular color doesn't glow very brightly or for terribly long, but the hue... glow pigment isn't supposed to be this color!
>> I think I might like an upright ergonomic mouse that's shaped to my hand
I use a Logitech MX Vertical mouse for work, and actually love it for pretty much all non-gaming/pixel-perfect tasks. It feels like it naturally fits my hand in terms of shape and size, which adds up over 40h weeks.
I've tried them, but something about the button placement feels off for the shape of my hand. I recommend them to people quite often, and they're usually well received.
Don't rent a GPU for gaming, unless you're doing something like a full-on game streaming service. +10ms isn't much for some games, but would be noticeable on plenty.
IMO you want those frames getting rendered as close to the monitor as possible, and you'd probably have a better time with lower fidelity graphics rendered locally. You'd also get to keep gaming during a network outage.
I don't even think network latency is the real problem, it's all the buffering needed to encode a game's output to a video stream and keep it v-synced with a network-attached display.
I've tried game streaming under the best possible conditions (<1ms network latency) and it still feels a little off. Especially shooters and 2D platformers.
Yeah - there's no way to play something like Overwatch/Fornite on a streaming service and have a good time. The only things that seems to be ok is turned based or platformers.
Peaked in Silver in Valorant, lemme tell you, the hardware isn't much of a gamechanger after a certain price/quality point. I'm just a very tactile guy, and like diving down rabbit holes for stuff that suits me. My input devices are how I interact with the world, so, why not take some care to find one that sparks joy?
Kids these days who are 'graduating' from default laptop keyboard, $40 wireless keyboard/mouse combo, etc to "Hardware I picked out for myself" have plenty of good options, considering how hardware has gotten SO much nicer over the few decades I've been using it.
The 1mm actuation thing is probably for advertising how 'good/sensitive/capable' their switches are. I would personally never use something like that, what with my heavy hands. Little Timmy, on the other hand, is wading through a bunch of actually-decent mass-market options, and may see 1mm actuation as "WOW, NOTHING HAS EVER BEEN THIS GOOD!"
"Endgamed" keyboard nerd here, and I was able to find different boards that were better for certain roles, until I got to WFH full time. These newfangled magnets aren't convincing enough for me to ditch my workhorses.
I had an HHKB-looking mechanical 60%, and just remapped a few things to be nicer for programming. Function key instead of caps lock, and suddenly so much was at my fingertips. Something like Fn-IJKL for arrows, and pageup/dn, home/end, located somewhere reasonable relative to the arrows. And, a bright red anodized aluminum case, which had a built-in angle, making it very nice to use. More pinky movements than usual, but I made sure to have Fn keys on both sides, to be able to give one or the other a break.
The Preonic '50%' is also pretty neat, and I was pretty productive with the default layout. Hand size was a bit of an issue, but once again, everything I could need was under my fingers with a layer change or two, or some 2-key-combo layer.
Gaming was a nonstarter on either of those boards. I need to at least have a TKL or 65+%, and have it be a sturdy tank. I love my NK87, and use it with Kailh Crystal Box Pink switches. Used to use Box Jades, but these Pinks are crispy.
If someone wanted to get crazy about their mech board and individual key strength, properties, etc, there's a dead simple option of "Buy the stiffer/softer switch as well, install in desired position". Hot-swap sockets are on plenty of keyboards these days, and I've totally heard of people using stiffer switches on the spacebar.
The difference between the two is that a government-mandated registration scheme that mandates up-to-date status can clear a lot of legal bars that a private list compiled from random sources does not. Just because someone filled a warranty card for a gun 10 years ago doesn't mean that they still own that - or, indeed, any - gun today, and courts would generally balk at making such an inference for the purposes of, say, signing a warrant for a search.
I don't personally believe that the data would be good quality by modern standards. Also, with rising levels of minor paranoia among some groups, I'd wager $1 that people these days are less likely to fill out forms like the ones shown in the article.
However, if we presume that the data were of good enough quality and available to government, I believe that at least California would try to do something with it.
To be fair, it’s just warranty data. It’s always existed. All you have to do is buy something to know it comes with a warranty card. So they could’ve figured it out it was there.
However the fact that they can now get it without having to sue for warranty information is certainly a new twist.
Of course they’d have to get it from a lobbying group, which wouldn’t exactly go over terribly well either.
It's also a matter of table courtesy. When I play Commander format, sometimes one person dying is enough for the table to recognize who has the 'best numbers on board'. Instead of grinding things out, it's sometimes more fun overall to call the game and start a new one.
Also, see what can happen with long-running combos, and it'll make a lot more sense: https://youtu.be/EXRnOhUfKwo
People can only spend so much time on a Live Service style game. They aim to be "The game you log into daily", but usually only kids have the kind of free time to grind these out week after week, let alone keep up with multiple.
Then, each have their own $10ish Battlepass, and you need to grind to get to the end of it. Aside from a new map or character, these are the bulk of 'new stuff' that gets added.
Gaming as a Service doesn't scale well on most people who can afford to whale out, once they've already found their slot machine.
Sure but the comparable idea with Netflix is like one show. You watch that show and then it's done. It took you maybe 8 hours. This kind of game expects a player to log in week after week, dedicating hundreds and hundreds of hours over the course of years.
But players who want to do that are already invested in other games. They're not going to split out time to play this new one unless it's amazing. This thing was $40 and not well regarded. No one is really surprised at this result.
Yes, it really comes down to motivating users to play your game, either through network effect or by just being that good.
I was just pointing that the amount of time isn't the real issue, it's the competition for that time. Of course, the tighter that time is the tougher the competition will be, and the better a singular live service game needs to be.
Yep. I love gaming, and game nights with a squad, but I can't ass myself to follow every single option.
Also, back when I played Valorant, a regular match could be anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes long. Add up queue times, waiting for people to group up (because there's usually one more person who's almost online, etc), and waiting for the potato-pc users to load in, it could easily turn into 3 hours for 2 to 3 matches.
These days, I'd rather watch a movie, and be in a different chair than the one I'd spent my working day in.
You can't play competetive matchmaking with small kids around though. I had to drop Dota since too many games got ruined by the kids needing care and I was about to get dropped into the punnishment games bracket.
Yup, I pretty much stopped online gaming altogether once my son was born for this exact reason. And there's plenty of high-quality offline games out there if you're inclined to spend time playing and trying games. Game companies are in for a rough decade if they continue this $100million+ dollar outlay before game launch. MVP is a sound model.
Most games require a dedicated hardware device or beefier PC hardware. It is also easier to veg out on the alternatives than games which require more active engagement on the part of the player.
All can greatly filter your audience vs doom scrolling.
To expand on that: there's also the issue that these games have to be (somewhat) competitive multiplayer games: multiplayer because otherwise there's no way to create enough content, and competitive since otherwise there's less of a reason to play the game for long periods of time.
If you've ever played a dead/dying competitive game as a newcomer you will know the problem this creates: since the people that stay around are either new or very dedicated players, the skill gap becomes gigantic, which turns of most new players.
if your game wins the Life-Service race, you draw other players in. If your game dies the very same structure that keep players around will prevent new players from joining.
Yeah but is that the only game you play? If so this is a typical amount of time to dedicate to a hobby or whatever, but an atypical time use pattern for gaming.
If it's only one of many games you play idk. Depends on how your wife and kids feel about it I guess, none of my business.
Yeah I remember doing nothing but playing video games, especially these shooter games, as a kid, but now I only play games rarely and they tend to be of the “avant garde” variety—meaning, they’re often free or very low priced indie games from small developers (think of LISA, Undertale, Nikke Yumi, that sort of thing).
I bought a steam deck, I play old sega racers (Daytona, sega rally, outrun 2, scud race) mostly due to only having a few mins of free time a day. Also dedicating large amounts time to games feels really wasteful given how little time I have. (I'm in my forties with two kids)
I have a little nerve damage, so it's hard for me to even play these kinds of games anymore. Combined with the fact that I like these kinds of games as it's usually been reasonable to drop in, play for a while, have fun and not dedicate a portion of my life to leveling up or mastery.
For me, the peak in terms of time investment are around Q3A and Unreal Tournament. So it's been a long while since I played regularly. What's funny is I want to play, it just gets frustrating when your hands/fingers just don't respond right.
Absolutely... I also played the original Team Fortress mod for Quake as well. Just a fun time to play in general. I think it was around Doom 3 that it was less fun to me. I mean, the more realistic looking environments (for the time) were really nice. And not to call out D3 in particular, just seemed that by then a lot of the fun in FPS games had waned a lot imo.
It will be cool if GPUs can maybe double/triple current performance on the high end and that reaches mid-tier. The opportunity for really immersive environments. That said, we need more compelling gameplay and too many studios seem trapped in the exercise of trying to extract maximum value over a compelling story. I think some of the politics in games holds them back as well. Of course, I'm no longer the audience for reasons in my prior post.
If I'm gonna grind some multiplayer thing, I just prefer for it to be MtG these days. I can spend my week casually thinking of a decklist, and see how it performs with live players on the weekend. Still leaves decent time for Elden Ring or something.
I've dropped maybe $500 on Valorant, but it takes too much mental energy for me to enjoy casually playing it anymore. I also don't want to rely on getting a full squad in order to have a good time.
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