Monkey Dust

Game publishers, I suspect more so than the dev studios, just can't stop shooting themselves in the foot, can they?

30 minutes ago, BrandonLatzig said:

They just released Starfield less than a year ago, and it was still rather buggy. Do you want them to RUSH?

They could have more than one team. They're not a small indie.

They are not expensive, if you have a use case for one, I see no reason not to get one.

Doesn't matter which one you pick, it isn't going to damage either your PC or the disc if it fails. But personally, I'd still stick with a brand I'd heard of.

Wow, I'd forgotten FO Shelter existed. It seems a bit odd that they don't have a vaguely new game to sell off the back of the TV show. Unless the plan is to release Fallout 5 just as the eighth season airs?

Then again, they're not in a hurry to release a new Elder Scrolls game either. Maybe Bethesda just hate money?

On 4/15/2024 at 4:44 PM, zombiepunk10 said:

WTF did this turn into...

A lesson intro why, despite the gaming industry's size and impact on culture, it can still be embarrassing to admit that you are a gamer?

I think the personal & office PC angle is already getting covered (our gaming PCs aside). The processing power most people need has increased far more slowly than power available. Most people for personal use would be fine with a tablet.

Servers, with the rise of AI, are another matter. Probably the best solution available now is to use the waste heat for something useful. District heating, or heating for industrial greenhouses, for example.  

3 hours ago, dogwitch said:

to much make up is a thing now on woman.

where i can tell they wear a lot form a distance away.

These things go in phases. Look at TV shows & movies from the 80's, for example.

The worst thing about it, is at the office Christmas party. You have a woman talking to you who clearly knows who you are, but you're struggling to figure out who she is, despite having seen her 100s of times before. This problem is, admittedly, more severe the greater your acquaintance with Mr Daniels that evening.

2 hours ago, Senzelian said:

We just slow down. Is slowing down in the US illegal? 

Yes. It's considered a form of communism. A true patriot will just rear end the car in front at 120 freedoms per hour.

I'm on the fence about this. Software that can make itself the default, is a security risk. But I feel MS reasons are not pure.

Given that it's only the more tech-savvy users installing 3rd party browsers, I don't think it's much of an issue.

3 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Honestly though, in a lot of accidents your door is part of the crumple zone so it makes the handle pretty pointless [as even at low speeds, like sub 40 km/h is enough to make the passenger doors really difficult to open due to the warpedness].  Honestly, the only situation at the moment that I can think of is really when it's a lower speed accident and your car catches fire.

 

As for the emergency override, it's something that drivers should be responsible and know before driving...just like checking your mirrors, rear-view mirrors before driving, when you buy a new car figure out the safety features...and buy one of the window smashers, seat belt cutters, as if you fall into water that can be pretty vital.

Yes, knowing where the emergency release of your own car is not unreasonable... But, passengers may not, passers-by assisting after an accident may not, the emergency services may not. And even if you look it up when you buy the car, if you find yourself a couple of years later, car wedged in the scenery, in that high stress situation, will you remember? Not everyone will. They create a problem that has no good reason to exist IMO.   

On 4/4/2024 at 1:09 PM, Stahlmann said:

Not to mention, some parts of Germany can get very cold during the winter. It's great to stand in front of your car without any way to get in because the handles are frozen over.

 

If people are trapped inside a crashed vehicle, most of the time the doors are automatically locked, unless there is a feature that automatically opens the doors upon impact. So firefighters typically need to break off the doors or smash the windows to get people out quickly.

If a vehicle has automatic locking, it should auto unlock in the event of an accident. The big issue is when the handles aren't connected to the locking mechanism by mechanical means. If the power fails as a result of the accident, the regular door handle won't work, and the emergency override ones are frequently too well hidden.

8 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Fun fact, side mirrors can increase EV range 2 - 9% in some cases.  [Some people estimate for Tesla vehicles it's around 6%]

 

EV's and their range are greatly dependent on aerodynamics.

Making it somewhat infuriating that so many new EVs are SUVs.

45 minutes ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

My rain-sensing wipers only work in bright sunny conditions. 

Rain sensing wiper are a weird one. I thought they should be getting better, but still, the best rain sensing wipers I've ever used was on a 2001 Alfa 147. And as much as I loved that car, its electronics weren't something I normally praised...

Good luck to whoever has to tell the finance teams they can no longer use Excel. LibreOffice's Calc is OK, much better than the abomination that Apple ship with Macs, but it is still a long way behind Excel.

A lot of stuff people use in office environments is web based, or can be web based, making it OS-agnostic. IMO ditching MS Office (or 365 as they now call it for some inexplicable reason) would be the much bigger deal for end users.

Still, more large organizations using OSS will help push things forward.

56 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

It's not going to be worth a lot but I guess it's still worth something instead of nothing.

It will be full of those AI voiced ads for scammy looking, drop-shipped gadgets, that plague YouTube.

You've paused the content because you need to direct your concentration elsewhere. How much are these pause ads going to be worth? Ad revenue has already dropped across pretty much all platforms. Platforms where there is high probability that these ads aren't playing to an empty room.

5 hours ago, Poinkachu said:

Should just use braille font or the likes.

I think it's time to release the forum as a podcast.

On 3/29/2024 at 5:13 AM, Kisai said:

If only it was possible to take stock away from "large investors" who have no interest in making good products, and just wanting to maximize value before the company sinks.

 

A "buyback" only makes these shareholders larger unless they're able to buy that stock away from said vultures. Because they're the ones that tell the company to take on debt and then strip the companies assets to pay for it.

 

Like realistically.  Only retail investors should be able to buy stock, because large investors typically engage in high speed trade to rob retail investors of any small gains the company has. If a large chunk of retail investors want to forum a union to decide how to vote, that's a different case. But what happens is votes often go completely unopposed to the company's plans.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-28/apple-shareholders-vote-down-request-for-ai-transparency-report

 

A lot of the large investors are pension funds, so most retail investors are themselves invested through large investors. Also, there are nowhere near enough retail investors to support markets either.

The big problem isn't the investors, IMO, especially when large numbers of them choose not to vote. What drives the short-termism is the short-termism of board compensation. Long term planing is not rewarded, short term spikes in stock price is.

9 hours ago, Caroline said:

I love the part where a private company operating a private ship demolishes a bridge but taxpayers have to pay to rebuild it.

Yes, insurance should have picked up the tab for rebuilding the bridge. I guess if the government is going to generously volunteer taxpayer cash, the insurance companies won't complain.

Anyone else find how empty the engine bay of that truck was, hilarious?

I guess maybe they don't have any optimism about selling a new phone to iPhone X, and earlier, users.

I have an 11, and honestly a 15 still feels like a meh upgrade considering the cost. The biggest deal feels like USB-C charging, and being able to get rid of my lighting cables. I'll probably stick with the 11 until it stops receiving security updates.   

Another vote for Keychron for ISO boards. Shipping from China to the UK took 6 weeks for me, and was really expensive, to Germany could be similar. But if you don't want one of the fancy Q-series boards, you can get the K and K Pro series boards on Amazon much faster. Just make sure you get a hot-swap board, not all K boards are hot-swap.   

To be fair, the Indian government would have a lot of data to check.

Makes a mockery of the argument that the Chinese government is harvesting data on westerners via TikTok, and that ByteDance should sell it. If the Chinese really want our viewing habits, they could just buy it off a data broker.

Go Norfolk! Not something I thought I'd ever say.

Is this chip for gaming? Or district heating?

All cases in ye olden days had sharp edges & no cable management features.

The hardest semi-recently was a Silverstone SG10. It was a compact mATX case, very clever design, well-made and the best dust filters I've ever used. But like all super compact PC cases, it was a challenging build. Unfortunately, the PC I built in it was a temperamental PITA and the case made it difficult and time-consuming every time I had to open it up. I now have a normal-sized case, it's easier, but feels like such a waste of space.

To be fair, one of the reasons you recommend iPhone to ageing relatives is that it's quite hard to screw up. If they could start downloading apps from links in malicious messages & emails, it would undermine iPhone as the 'safe' option. 

Yes, Apple are restricting it for revenue reasons, not customer friendly ones. But all big companies, and most small ones, put profit ahead of customers interests. That's capitalism.