gross
What's the catch?
If you're looking for a great open source note taking app with a good free plan, and well priced paid plans, I strongly suggest Notesnook. I've been using it for months exclusively, it's fantastic.
Well shit, I was kind of counting on this country. If my country went far right, I was thinking of maybe fleeing there. But I guess it's gonna get a lot less trans friendly very soon.
Judging by the directions things are going and the rate at which it's all happening, I fear that soon there will be nowhere left to run...
I'm still shocked by the fact that people actually like or even trust Nothing when, personally, the company gives me nothing but bad vibes since the very beginning. This tech-bro-crypto-bullshit / Elon Musk-esque / Cybertruck-esque marketing and attitude is a massive red flag to me. Can't say I'm surprised about this.
Yup. I moved to Mastodon because of it, I don't trust BlueSky.
I don't trust a platform that is funded by the guy who gladly sold the previous one to the moron who's now in charge. And I don't trust their claims because as of now decentralized it isn't. It's just not. And there is no real reason for them to do so. So eventually they may just walk back their claims and 99% of the user base won't care about this.
Plus, this website is going to need to make money eventually. But as of yet, they have no concrete monetization plan, which is basically the norm in nowadays with these kinds of projects. We grow fast, we make money later. How is that going to happen? Is it going to be filled with ads? Is it going to basically make the same mistakes as before? We don't know.
Plus again, this is originally made and funded by the guy who made Twitter. And let's not pretend that Twitter wasn't already a dumpster fire before the Muskrat came in. It was. Twitter sucked way before this and, personally, I left it waaaay before this guy came in.
I'm done, personally. I'm done with all of this. If a company is public, I don't even care about their product anymore. Investors are going to ruin it. Doesn't apply here, good. If a social media platform is not decentralized, not open source, I don't want to have anything to do with it anymore. So, no Bluesky I'm done with all of that.
I am on Mastodon and I'm happy with my choice. And that's it for me. I'm not trying anything else. I'm happy on there. It's not filled with ads. I don't have to worry about investors fucking ruining it eventually. And I don't have to worry about it becoming a shithole filled algorithmically boosted Neo-Nazis because anger drives engagement and engagement makes money.
A while back, I was still hesitant. Then I read this article which basically sold me on it.
And you wanna know why? :)
If you haven't played Miles, then skip the original on the Steam Deck and go straight for that one. It's shorter and denser, but also, I think it improves on everything the first game did.
Blue bubbles? I'm sorry, I don't speak American.
Are we really worst off without Pop-White-Feminism from a website that made articles about the virtue of beating their boyfriends? Eeerh... I don't known, I'm not convinced.
And I know it's the example everyone jumps to, but there's a good reason why. This is still up. It was never taken down. Which means that it was okay to post and okay to keep up for them. No one thought there was something wrong with it.
REGARDLESS OF ALL THAT, THOUGH.
Let us not lose the sight of the fact that this is yet another fucking series of layoffs in this space. We are talking about people who just lost their whole fucking career, some of them worked there for years and now it's gone.
These are people whose life has been turned upside down because of poor management and greed from the parent company. And this is nor funny, nor worth celebrating, nor anything good at all. It's just depressing. It's just something that keeps on fucking happening again and again.
I wish them luck. Maybe they can get together and form something independent and worker owned. Like a bunch of gaming journalists recently did. Because we are in a world where anything even remotely creative or artistic is bound to be fucked over cynical monetary reasons...
Some tips.
• Always do your research about a game, always check what people are saying on the website ProtonDB before you buy it. Do not trust the rating system. We've had too many cases of game being labeled as verified that couldn't even reach 30 FPS.
• Do not install Windows on it. Just don't. You got a Steam Deck. Not a Ayaneo, not a ROG ALLY. You got a Steam Deck. The strength of this machine is entirely in its software. It's why in my opinion there has never been any real competition to the Steam Deck as most of these rely on Windows which is awful and not made for this purpose at all.
• If you ever get a dock and plug it in your TV, do not change the resolution of the game. Let it run at 720p. The upscaler will do its job. Just turn on FSR in the Steam Deck setting for the game with the free dots button (or Xbox + B, if you are using an Xbox Controller). In my experience, you tend to get quite good results, and I'm doing it on a 4K TV.
• The case that the Deck that comes with is amazing, but it's a bit fat. It may be an issue if you plan on taking it with you on trips or whatever. So here's a good alternative made by the company TomToc. I have one, and I love it. It's thinner and will fit into more backpacks while taking less space. However, know that if you're using a case around your Steam Deck, like let's say you got a Killswitch from Dbrand, it won't fit. Also, if you pick this up, don't throw the original carrying case away. Keep it, you never know.
• I never really cared for emulation in the past. However, EmuDeck is the shit. It is so good, so stupidly easy to set up. You can't pass on it. It's a must have. If you grew up on consoles, it's a great way to revisit the past and also a great way to play older games which got stuck on their consoles generation, forever lost to time and eBay scalpers.
Some games.
As for good games to get you started on the Steam Deck, first:
• Aperture Desk Job is an absoute must. I am pretty sure it should be included with the Steam Deck, but I don't remember if it was, but it's a free, short, and unique game made by Valve specifically for this machine. It will show you everything this machine can do and familiarize yourself with every aspect of controls from the small trackpads to the gyro controls.
• If you want good examples of good optimization, I strongly recommend you get the Spider-Man game by Insomniac. I will also strongly recommend you to buy its "sequel" (it's more of an expansion standalone game), Miles Morales, which to me, while shorter, improves on basically every aspect of the base game.
• The Steam Deck is also perfect for playing older games which you may have never got around the playing. I played BioShock on it for the first time this year entirely on the Steam Deck from beginning to end. It can feel a bit dated here and there, but I can also tell you that its reputation is well earned.
• Speaking of all the games you'd never played before, I doubt you haven't played them. For some reason I feel like you probably did, but if you haven't, I strongly recommend you to play the entirety of the Half-Life 2 Trilogy on this thing. It's been optimized for it with new menus and everything.
• A Short Hike is as short as it sounds like, but it is a really memorable title. It's relaxing, it's hilarious and it's simply adorable. It's a gem.
• Terraria may not look like it at first, but it is surprisingly well optimized for the Steam Deck. It's amazing, and if you haven't played it, you will probably figure out eventually why this game has such a cult following. There are really good reasons as to why this is one of the highest-rated games on Steam.
• Vampire Survivor. Because of course. I feel like at this point, it's practically illegal to own a Steam Deck and not have this game on it.
• Reventure is a fun and creative title. I honestly don't have much to say about it. It's really fun, really creative, really cheap. Quite funny. I loved it, and I can only recommend it. Don't try and look up guides for this game. That would be ruining the fun.
• I haven't finished it. But Spiritfarer It is a beautiful game, not only visually, but in its theme too. It's a game about death and moving on from past traumas. It's emotional, it's funny, it's creative, it's just full of heart. I can promise that you will get attached to every character, but I can guarantee you that you will get attached to some, and that you will promise yourself that you won't cry, but you fucking will! And you will love it.
• There is nothing quite like The Long Dark. You may believe you played survival games before, but this one is entirely different. I cannot recommend this enough. You really have to play it to get it. In a sea of bad and generic survival games, this one stands out as being serene to the point of being therapeutic while also being able to be ruthless and terrifying. This game isn't particularly hard to run, but however, it doesn't seem to like the Steam Deck very much? The frame rate is oddly unstable so I would recommend you to lock it at 30, then it won't move at all it will be perfectly locked. It's an issue that needs fixing.
I will conclude with this, the Steam Deck is not your PC with a 4090 in it. This is a low powered handheld machine. If I were you, I wouldn't expect it to be reliable when it comes to newer AAA games. And that's not only due to the power these game demands, but also to the absolutely dog shit optimization we seem to get with them nowadays.
I found that the Steam Deck is a perfect machine for me to expand my horizons. So my final recommendation would be for you to look towards indie games in general. These will be the best for the Steam Deck, but you may also find that these will be the best in general.
Have fun! :3
"But... is it woke?"
OH MY GOD. All of these people's brain are rotten by culture war crap!
What's not easy about Signal, though? :c
So, if WhatsApp eventually fails, can we accept for at least just this once, to move on to something that is not proprietary and owned by a large company, please? Please, for the love of everything can we please for once move on to something that is open source and for just this once not repeat the same fucking mistake over and over again?
I am not interested in the slightest into this game. If you're waiting for a proper GTA game, you probably won't be getting it. This is GTA Online 2.0 and nothing else. Don't be fooled. This is the only thing that Take-Two cares about now and this is what it will be.
You will get your single player because of course but I wouldn't be expecting much from it. I'm expecting something that probably won't hit as hard as previous entries did. GTA V was already large step down from GTA IV. I'm expecting a very basic single player game with very basic lukewarm social satire.
This game will be primarily focused on GTA Online, and I know you're going to tell me that GTA 5 was like that, but I don't think they expected to make as much money as they did from it. This one though, they know they will and therefore they will have focused everything on it to make it an even larger money maker.
If you don't believe me, I invite you to take a look at Red Dead Redemption 2, which was an amazing game with an amazing single player, but they tried to make money from the online component and didn't manage to do so, and therefore look at what happened to that game. The online component and therefore its community has been completely abandoned, and that game is now buried in the older generations of console, forever stuck at 30 FPS with medium to lox textures.
We will never get a next-gen update of RDR2 and we will never get another game like GTA 4. GTA 6 will be the absolute final boss of live service games. And even with a stick, I'm not touching that one.
So, I haven't watched this yet but I just wanted to say this. I opened this video in an isolated, private tab. I'm not logged in, this is the algorithm in it's default state. And litteraly the first video YouTube recommends me on the right of this one is a one hour and twenty-one minutes video called "Spider-Man 2 is Disgusting, Woke Propaganda". YouTube's default recommandation are still horrendously fucked and immediatly sends you to far right content....
If this ever comes out and you actually put your money in it, you deserve whatever fuckery happens to it. I'm sorry, but I'm completely out of empathy for Musk's fans.
Intel is evidently not paying attention.
People getting scamed is awful and all but... I'm sorry, this is really creeping towards the edge of my empathy here. At some point, it's kind of like natural selection.
Rebranding Twitter, one of the most recognizable brand on earth, to "X" is not just shooting yourself in the foot, it's taking a shotgun, aiming at your feet and pulling the trigger.
Am I a complete moron or am I limited by English not being my primary language?