I used to think this… but it’s just not true.

Device software updates only make your device worse now.

If it ABSOLUTELY MUST get online, you DO need to let it update for security purposes, but in most cases now when you buy it from the store, it’s got everything that needs and you just need to block it from getting online all-together.

My LG CX from 2021 has not been online even once since I bought it.

I don’t know if people realize how amazing this is.

People who make games work so goddamn hard and are treated like trash… usually thrown out right after working hundreds of hours in unpaid overtime because they’re so passionate about making something they love…

…And for a studio as major and long-standing as id Software AND it being physically located within the heart of TEXAS is also big.

The techno-artisan work of game development might finally become a field worth getting back into and actually sticking with - instead of how it has been now since the mid-2000s - where people burn out and leave the industry all-together… meaning we have almost zero long-term master game makers except for a handful of people who are at the very tip top.

I personally left games after the studio I worked at for 2 years (making them literal millions per day in revenue at one point) closed down only about a year after our hit game was released.

My heart goes out to the guys at id. They are some of the GOATs and this is something they’ve long-since earned.

Couldn’t have said it better myself. Thanks!

On the Deck / Big Picture - it’s under the Controller settings on Steam as seen here :

Our brains process simple symbols objectively faster than words - it’s why when you see a stop sign they all are 🛑s.

Your 🧠 maps the shape 🛑 more rapidly than the word “STOP” which is made up of several letters that you have to first understand, combine, and then remap in your mind internally.

If they made some stop signs purple triangles, there would be more accidents and traffic violations in relation to stop signs. “STOP” is secondary and takes relatively more time to process than “🛑.”

Symbols that represent objects or entire words are a more direct mapping than words composed of multiple letters.

If you’ll permit me to dust off my old game design hat… similar to the principle as to why it was easier to move Mario in any of his 3D games than it was to move your character in the original PS1 versions of Resident Evil…

…Less layers of “mapping.”

In Super Mario 64, you just angle the stick relative to YOUR view to make Mario go “that” way.

Meanwhile in the original Resident Evil games (and other earlier “3D” perspective games pre-Super Mario 64), tilting “up” on the Dual-Shock L-stick made your character go “forward” from THEIR perspective, not yours.

Part of the challenge was being able to quickly “translate” that layer of mapping in your mind.

TL;DR - 🛑 > ”STOP”

This is yet another one of the many reasons Steam is amazing. Not only do they have an abstracted layer that allows devs to insert control mappings that adapt to show your controller preference… but even BETTER, they have an option for “Universal” controller button iconography where they just show the relative position of the face buttons in a diamond layout ❖ where the button indicated is a filled circle ● and the others are outlined ○ - rather than letters like ABXY.

So like this :

…instead of “× or A or B” from PlayStation, Xbox, or Nintendo (respectively).

Thermian. One of the all-time greatest gags we lose in the streaming era.

It’s pretty great. Basically feels like Vampire Survivors 64.

deleted by creator

When a company is using AI in place of a person, it’s not a sign of that they are “futuristic” or “forward-thinking…” It’s a sign they are cheap, chase fads, and make short-sighted decisions that are not designed to improve their relationship with their customer.

Anyone using some headless white-label monthly subscription version of ChatGPT in an attempt to save a nickel on their bottom line - even if it means making everything worse for the company, product, employees, and customers in every way possible - is probably someone you don’t want to do ANY kind of business with - whether you’re a contractor, customer, or client.

The democratization of technology is a double-edged sword.

For every improvement in UX and lowering of a once impassible barrier of entry, we seem to inevitably gain a massive number of “eXpErTs” who can suddenly stand upon the now much lower skill floor.

Shortly thereafter seems to be a destruction of the general reliability of whatever field these “eXpErTs” flood - usually a field which used to be inherently cryptic and had complex prerequisites just to begin operation within, let alone master.

Like… it makes me almost miss when “using a computer” meant you had to understand how to browse a directory in DOS…

Because at least then you literally couldn’t begin to operate in the field unless you could wrap your head around understanding the basics of syntax.

Now you can just have an entire legion of dullards misspell or misspeak 30% of a malformed question to some random free LLM that still has trouble telling you “how many Rs are in the word strawberry,” and have it confidently fart back out a wrong answer that they will then copy-paste into a paper or article which will then be added to the pile of growing misinformation currently stuffing a frighteningly expanding part of our collective knowledge base.

I don’t care what format someone uses as long as software I use supports it. I’d rather save as much bandwidth and support as many features as possible. Animated GIFs and JPEGs are literally ancient formats from the 90s at this point that are terribly optimized and so limited in their feature support. I want 120fps HDR animated images that can be bigger than 640x480 without playback being choppy and the file size being over 200MB.

Maybe I should start like a service where we get someone like a dedicated “agent” who has their assets hidden to buy tickets for you for a small fee… and then transfer them… like an agency… for travel…

WAIT a second 😱!

Reminds me of an item in Elden Ring…

1. Cook at home and eat healthy
2. Sleep enough hours every night
3. Cultivate and maintain healthy non-familial relationships
4. spend meaningful amounts of quality time with family
5. Work at a full-time job 40+ hrs a week
6. Play video games or engage in other hobbies

Choose 3

You cannot effectively do the rest.

I do 4, 5, & 6.

I slept 3 hours last night and have an embarrassing number of Uber Eats deliveries each month… but on the bright side I count the video game time sometimes as “cultivating healthy relationships” when I can get ahold of my fellow gaming dads who don’t go to bed until after 1am… 🫩🥱

It’s an expensive carbon spewing parrot.

For your web browser, don’t use Chrome. Use Firefox with uBlock, NoScript, Sponsorblock, and a VPN like Mullvad.

For Smart TV usage, block your TV’s built in “smart functionality” and its access to the internet via MAC address blacklist on your router. Also use SmartTubeNext on a Shield Pro with FLauncher instead of Google’s.

For mobile, use 3rd party YouTube clients on your device like Vanced on Android, and Unwatched on iOS.

Can you Shift and/or Ctrl click to select more than one layer yet?

Favorite is not the right word.

I think there are different Ghibli movies for different questions.

Which is the most rewatched in my home? Probably Porco Rosso since it’s light-hearted and easy to consume. Miyazaki’s Magnum Opus? Mononoke or Nausicaa. Best to watch with your kids? Totoro, Kiki, and Ponyo. Most emotionally impactful? Grave of the Fireflies.

“Favorite” though? No idea. Depends on how I’m feeling.