• 7 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: March 22nd, 2024

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  • Do folks enjoy Starfield these days?

    Or 76?

    I’ve been playing BGS since Oblivion, and my experience was:

    • 76 was boring, even with coop. That’s saying something. The world was interesting, but the main and side (fetch) quests were the dullest, buggiest things that kept trying to sell us some anti grind stuff; and this was well after launch.

    • Starfield was… well, even more boring. It felt like Fallout 3 with all the jank, 10X the production budget, 100X the graphics requirements (as smooth as a cactus on my 3090), yet somehow, none of the charm. I only played for a bit, but I don’t remember a single character name. Whereas I can still recall little side quests from Oblivion and FO3. Quirks persisted all the way from Oblivion, yet all the fun bugs were patched out. Basically, ME: Andromeda was better in every way.

    But, you know, whatever floats peoples boats. I’m curious if these games have grown a following over whatever I was missing.











  • 100%.

    I got the first Korean 1440p “overclock” monitor, and 60-> 110hz was like night and day many years ago. Sometimes it’d reset from a driver update (as the graphics driver had to be patched to work with overclocked DVI back then), and I’d immediately notice even poking around the web.

    Some with phones. I got a Razer phone 2, and 120hz was incredible. I went from that to an iPhone 16 plus (60hz), and it feels sluggish to me.


    Another caveat is that 120hz is more “convenient” and less stuttery for most video. 24fps does not evenly divide into 60, but it does for 96 or 120. An once you start seeing choppiness in video, your eyes can’t unsee it.


  • Yes. 74% is the “average” point of diminishing returns to preserve the battery, according to Accubattery’s data. It tracks charging cycles and battery wear across many thousands of smartphones.

    In fact, the reason many phones/gadgets don’t offer this feature (and that Apple sometimes charges to 100% in spite of the toggle) is likely planned obsolescence.


    …To add to this, the actual charging threshold of the battery is a bit arbitrary and set by the manufacturer, as a tradeoff of capacity vs life. Fast charging is the same; charging quickly is hard on the battery, and the limits at different charge levels are configured as a “balance” between convenience and life.

    …And sometimes they get those thresholds wrong.

    Like Samsung rather infamously did for the exploding Galaxy Notes. Google did for the Nexus 6P. They pushed the batteries too hard and borked the phones.







  • And this is well before Trump’s announcement of nuclear testing resumption.

    If he actually goes through with it, everyone will know because it shows up on seismographs, something he’s apparently ignorant of… And the comission will surely move it closer.


    I am extremely concerned. There’s never been somone so unscientifically minded, with no one knowledgable on nuclear warfare advising him directly, with their finger on the button like this.

    And what’s annoying is that my relatives do not care. Even the scientifically minded ones. There is absolutely nothing Trump can do wrong, at least nothing that can get through without being warped and dismissed as hysteria. That in itself is scary, as there’s now no “political fallout” check on Trump’s actions until 401Ks literally evaporate.



  • This is horrifying. Like, mind-bogglingly bad.

    It’s also a blatant lie. Other countries are not testing nuclear weapons, they’re running simulations. We didn’t do that in the 60s because it wasn’t possible, but the US (and presumably China/Russia) literally have giant supercomputers for this purpose now.

    …And we would know if they were doing real testing because it would show up on seismographs.


    But who cares about truth? Or sanity? No, all my relatives (even scientifically minded ones) won’t even bat an eye, lest some Democrat steal their retirement, ugh.