• 10 Posts
  • 1.47K Comments
Joined 11 months ago
cake
Cake day: October 20th, 2023

help-circle



  • I would actually very much argue that the N64 is when they “stopped trying” as it were.

    Sony (which is a can of worms on its own), Sega, and even frigging Atari realized that CD-ROM was “the future”. Nintendo… let’s skip the Sony aspect and just say they chose not to.

    The end result is that everyone else had 700 MB-ish to use for resources and were working on finding ways to hide the load times (RIP Shang Tsung). Nintendo continued to use a cartridge that could hold 4-12 and later 32 and 64 MB. This meant dialogue and cutscenes remained almost non-existent and texture work was similarly VERY limited in favor of solid colors.

    Its Nintendo and most of The Internet are still the kids on the playground looking to beat up the Sega kids so we mostly talk about the good parts of those consoles going forward. But it is always fun to watch one of the Influencers have that “So… outside of like four games the N64 REALLY sucked, huh? BUT THOSE FOUR GAMES ARE THE GREATEST GAMES TO EVER EXIST AND I STILL LOVE YOU MIYAMOTO SAN!!!”. Whereas we all almost universally agree “The Playstation had an amazing library… and most of them look like someone sharted on the screen” because… 700 MB is still not a lot for texture and audio work. And “Oh yeah. The Sega Saturn existed… That was the tower of power, right?”

    And from then on? It was gimmick city. The Gamecube was “portable” because of the handle. Wii is obvious. Wii U was marketed atrociously but actually was way ahead of its time in terms of second screen (… I actually loved my Wii U) but was marketed like another condom for a wii mote. And the Switch is obviously the gameboy/console hybrid.


  • Different people like different games.

    But SoD is very much built around that sandbox style gameplay. Your guide is how you connect the evidence of whatever crime you are investigating.

    That said: I think the tutorial is “a lot” but it is well worth doing at least a good chunk of it. They do a great job of teaching you the basic steps for how to investigate a murder and what to do next.


  • … mostly the other way around?

    Theoretically it is possible that a compromised machine could compromise a USB stick. If you are at the point where you are having to worry about government or corporate entities setting traps at the local library? You… kind of already lost.

    Which is the thing to understand. Most of what you see on the internet is, to borrow from a phrase, Privacy Theatre. It is so that people can larp and pretend they are Steve Rogers fighting a global conspiracy while necking with a hot co-worker at an Apple store. The reality is that if you are actually in a position where this level of privacy and security matters then you need to actually change your behaviors. Which often involves keeping VERY strong disconnects between any “personal” device and any “private” device.

    There have been a lot of terrible (but wonderfully written) articles about journalists needing to do this because a government or megacorporation was after them. Stuff like having a secret laptop that they never even take out of a farraday cage unless they are closer than not to an hour away from wherever they are staying that night.



  • I think any “privacy oriented OS” is inherently a questionable (kneejerk: Stupid and reeks of stale honey) strategy in the first place.

    A very good friend of mine is a journalist. The kind of journalist where… she actually deals with the shit the average person online larps and then some. And what I and her colleagues have suggested is the following:

    Two flash drives

    • One that is a livecd for basically any linux distro. If you are able to reboot the machine you are using and boot to this, do it. That helps with software keyloggers but obviously not hardware
    • One that is just a folder full of portable installs of the common “privacy oriented” software (like the tor browser) supporting a few different OS types.

    Given the option? Boot the public computer to the live image. Regardless, use the latter to access whatever chat or email accounts (that NEVER are logged into on any machine you “own” or near your home) you need.



  • Depending on what that couch has been through, it might be about marking/refreshing territory.

    But also understand that there are different kinds of scratching materials and structure. My cat only likes the cardboard kind in a small A3-ish box and that is more because she likes to move it around. For actual scratching she very much prefers the ropier material in something sturdy at a 90 or 45 degree angle that she can really push against without it moving.

    And I’ve NEVER seen a cat actually like one of those free standing scratching posts after the first time they push it over during a more energetic session.







  • Keyboard wise? At this point, prices have dropped enough that there is no real reason to go to one of the major manufacturers for anything that isn’t disposable. And basically “all” of the smaller batch mechanical keyboards are dependent on QMK or VIA to some degree which means you can customize them on any machine that can run chrome.

    For the logitech price point/build quality? Unless you know why you don’t want one, you can’t go wrong with a Keychron (https://www.keychron.com/). The price and build quality isn’t “the best” but it is very much on par with the logitechs and razers of the world and they are perfect for someone who just wants “a keyboard that works” or someone who wants to learn what they ACTUALLY want out of a keyboard.

    Mouse wise? There are an increasing number of “third parties” but… they basically all suck unless you are going to go crazy and mod them. And while I think the firmware matters less in these cases, there are an increasing number of qmk/via mice but… they mostly feel “cheap” or like they are just proving the viability. I have a friend with a ploopy but even he doesn’t really recommend it. So… you are still more or less suck with logitech and razer and the like for that. But hopefully as those companies lock their hardware down more it will lead to something in between “here is a cheap no name ergonomic mouse” and “here is a five hundred dollar mouse”.





  • I’ve been rewatching Veep in honor of Kamala and only having moderate anxiety going into November and… this is the kind of shit even Selina wouldn’t have screwed up on. Part of that is very much that Selina might be a horrible person but she is a fundamentally good leader who cares about The American People.

    But it is also just that this level of unforced error from candidates with entire political parties behind them should be unfathomable. Even Veep usually had to make convoluted situations for why Selina would always be blindsided by something The Main Party did or what horrible tragedy she was accidentally mocking that week.

    And yet… that is the GOP.