I mostly like Valve, and agree that going too far with Stan-ing over a company is dumb. However I think the majority of people that tend to greatly support Valve comes down to both pushing tech and games forward into better consumer directions, and that they are currently not joining in on the mass enshittification as other companies (but of course all big companies can and will do some level of that given enough time).

With regards to pushing tech, they have done more (in at least the last 10 years) to force Linux to be seen as worth supporting. Their efforts to actually add to projects that were already around has been game changing. And that they kept actually putting time, money, and resources into it even after their initial efforts with Steam Machines and the original SteamOS didn’t gain traction on a mainstream level. The Steam Deck keeps outshining the other options even while being technically less powerful specs and they are putting work in to make sure things like drivers are released to help people that choose to install Windows.

But all the positive stuff will only keep happening so long as people don’t start feeling locked out or cheated. I forget a lot of the time how bad many users hated them back when the original versions of Steam were released. Many of the issues people had and were concerned about were valid and could have tanked Valve if they didn’t do everything they could to address them. If they start pulling shit like EA or really any of the console companies have done. Then it will be their time to see massive losses and get all the hate that is deserved.

I was seeing that brought up in many of the other comments, and I had apparently installed it at some point. So I have finally signed into it and even added some info one some road types around me! Even if I don’t find a replacement for the community reporting of cops and hazards like Waze. I am jazzed to be helping OSM get just a bit closer to being a great option to recommend to friends and normies! Lots of them will only try other options as long as it is close enough to what they already use.

Just installed and signed into my OSM account! Been meaning to update more of my area.

I am looking to try moving away from Waze too. Are there any good open projects that have support for reporting cops and the other stuff like Waze? When I was looking last year, I came across Navmii since it does have some level of reporting stuff. However the app itself is very glitchy and I don’t think it is really actively being worked on. Or is popular enough to even know if literally anyone around me is reporting things. When I have tried to report a cop being parked waiting for speeders, it doesn’t show anything even on my map.

They use OSM data which I think is also not being actively scraped, as I personally added my entire street’s addresses and doesn’t show on Navmii (but does show up on the main OSM site and on Organic Maps).

I also went completely to FF on my phone the moment it had uBlock Origin and some other extensions. Now that I learned how to force other ones, it has been game over for other browsers aside from just seeing how they are every now and then (I work with general public and need to be aware of how they work). The only thing I would really really advise in addition to FF on a non-rooted device is setting the Mullvad ad-blocking/tracking blocking DNS for the device.

It helps even if I need to use a different browser (not as good as also having uBO), and has really good chances of blocking ads in many apps. For example, I kind of treat the Microsoft Solitaire app since it keeps games and stats from my PC. However they have lots of video ads that play after a couple of games. With the DNS it just kind of glitches when an ad should run and just goes on to the next round instead. The only odd thing I see with other apps is that it can cause my bank app to take a little longer to load when signing in (I am guessing due to tracking it is trying to do). But after like ten seconds it goes through like normal.

This is the DNS address to add if you want:

https://base.dns.mullvad.net/dns-query

And here is the main site for all their options and tester to make sure whichever one you pick is working:

https://mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls

For sure. It might be that my city has a regional hospital in addition to being pretty close to a much larger city with multiple hospitals. Also likely helps that the larger city nearby has an airport which UPS and Fedex (might also have others) hubs in it. Along with those shipping companies having big ground sorting/shipping facilities in the same city.

I can currently roll with the prices as long as I can still get my meds. Just hoping that the generic versions are able to catch up next year.

That would be great. My insurance was already not covering Vyvanse super well, but I at least had the extra coupon thing from Vyvanse that was getting it under $80 per month. But the start of this year Vyvanse stopped the coupon since there was a generic and my insurance was also pushing that. Which I didn’t realize was a thing until I was about a week and a half past my refill and just kept getting auto calls from Walgreens that it was delayed.

Found out it was because the generic was on back order and they literally didn’t know when they (or any location in my county or the next one over) would even get it. So I had to demand that they just fill the name brand since I can’t function at work. The pharmacist was like “It will be over $200, are you sure you don’t want to wait?”. And all I could say was “Not like I really have a choice atm if I want to have my meds.” Which while the price was (and still is) fucked. I am glad I didn’t just keep waiting. I just said to put it on my file that I request the name brand if the generic isn’t available.

It does seem that the insurance has also seen this happening to a fuck ton of people as they are back to at least covering what they were before. Which is still costing me around $125 or so a month since Vyvanse didn’t re-instate their coupon. I had thought about going back to Adderall, but it doesn’t last as long and I have heard there have been shortages for both name brand and generic before Vyvanse and its generic.

Or keep the guillotine.

Sounds like he should get domed along with everyone like him (and everyone that supports/bootlicks him).

Since it is FOSS, couldn’t they just take the source code and just re-compile it with different naming? Like how Debian did with Iceweasel naming and branding, though I know in their case it wasn’t due to not liking the Firefox name/branding.

I like how they mention that there aren’t any dosage advice on most of the products and “not our problem if you die” portrayal. But the whole reason most products like Kratom don’t give usage advise is because doing so tends to then come with regulations that tend to be bad-faith. Yet the largely more damaging products that are openly sold in “supplement” stores are able to grift all day. Stuff like Kratom actually does shit and therefore gets sniped by pharma and other deep pockets.

They went nuts over how many people tried or actively used shit like K2/Spice. But the only reason basically everyone used it was all down to weed being illegal. If weed were legal, then there wouldn’t have been a massive demand for K2 or any of the variants. At least with shit like Kratom, the chances of bad shit happening are super fucking low compared to the shit that pharma somehow convinced the gov and regulators wasn’t addictive.

Would imagine that their main goal is to make it easier for the average current meat eater consumer to actually try non-meat options. And is their version of heme the same level of problem as actual meat based heme?

Ah, good to know. Though wouldn’t it still at least make it easier for people to install overall? The last time I messed with Nvidia on Linux gave me issues even with using a named supported distro on their site. Would error out about “missing headers” or something like that. Given this was many years ago and before distros would offer an Nvidia specific iso. Mostly just curious in the event that I needed to help someone that is all-in on having one of their cards.

I am all AMD both PC (currently Windows but have used Linux on systems with AMD and Nvidia over the years) and Steam Deck (of course). AMD is overall easier. That being said, Nvidia is supposedly in process of making opensource drivers. I believe they are going to be focusing on their newer cards. So it might be worth researching into any recent news on their progress. Always good to have options if you get a better deal on one vs another.

Probably a good move for them to make tbh. I like how CrowdStrike’s name already sounds like it should be the name of a big malware/virus/zeroday. So we should have seen it coming.

Like others here, I tend to only download when I find (or remember) something I like. Most of the stuff I have was either downloaded to watch or listen to right away. Others are things I watched at some point, or that I just finished and really liked. Especially anything exclusive from the current services since they don’t bother to release physical copies (or even legal digital purchases for that matter). When they do release a disc they fuck up getting any money from me by virtue of a HD/4k being only released on DVD.

After seeing the more and more open statements and updated TOS’s about losing things if they just decide to ditch an outlet. I finally got around to getting a BDXL drive for my PC and flashed the unlock firmware. So I plan to rip my discs to have all the access I can give myself. Sadly I really really need to commit to getting some actual capacity drives, and move my server to a dedicated PC and not just keep running off my daily PC (though it can handle double duty pretty easy after a couple of years of big upgrades).

Weirdly enough my legal digital libraries tend to have more of an issue with “hoarding” if there are like “Steam sales” on whatever service. Also tend to get things that are part of Movies Anywhere since it is basically the closest thing to having a bit of protection of not losing stuff if any one service closes. Helpful for my current lacking of proper drive space. And I plan to rip those streams once the other PC gets built (or until I build a new main PC and setup the current as dedicated).

I hate when I have to punch out for lunch (even if I am not eating) for more or less similar reasons. I try to bring a book to read literally any amount as I really need to read the books I have (getting to feel like my Steam library). But I find myself too engaged in my “fix things” (I work on peoples’ PCs) headspace/momentum. So I end up still just answering questions my co-workers that are customer facing are trying to deal with.

This is not something I expect from them or anyone under 96% of situations and try to not bother them when they are on lunch/break or on a day off. I even make sure that they know I give consent to hit me up and have even been able to help give the correct fix while drunk on vacation lol. I don’t think bad of them if they don’t do the same and even tell them to not be like me in that regard as I am just what I am. Only exception is if managers or higher try to bother me without some really really serious reasons (though they also tend to tell me to manually adjust my punches). I only donate my time/mind to people that are in the shit with me.

But I just feel more tense while on lunch and hate losing momentum or feeling “heavy” after eating. When I do eat it tends to be in small chunks over the course of the second half of my shift. So just spread out my paid 15min breaks. Just enough time to eat, but not enough time to lose whatever focus I have.

It really depends on the media and my level of interest in it. I was only bothering to try and get 1080p copies of stuff I liked due to only having a 1080p TV for so long. But I did make efforts to get 1080 where possible (and based on my drives at the time) even before I had a HD TV and the only thing I had to actually watch that resolution on was my laptop. And that was because I wanted to make sure I had (at the time) the best copies of torrented encodes of stuff I really loved and would want to look good later. But I got a 4K HDR TV a few months ago as my 13yo 1080p TV started just giving black screens on all inputs. And while a lot of things are fine, the limitations of the encodes are showing much more.

If I am just checking out something that I have heard about or was told to check out by a friend. I might just grab a 1080 or even 720 copy since they are often the top seeded results. Then go back and find 4k copies if I really get into it. Though my main issue today is similar to back when I was using my laptop. Storage space. I started ripping my Blu-rays and I am the worst about dealing with compression stuff. So I really really need to get on making that media server I have been “meaning to build” for years. Get some 18TB or 20TB drives and RAID the shit out of them for redundancy. lol.

I tend to notice the drop in quality in more slow scenes since there is more time to notice it. Though very action heavy scenes do suffer if the encode is bad. It would be really nice if we did see more shit in 60fps though. I understand what lots of “but 24fps is more ‘cinematic’” mean for some kinds of shots/movies. But after being so adjusted to 60fps and higher (even if shit is interpolated due to having had a “120Hrz” TV since like 09), shit is much much cleaner. The “soap opera effect” is a real thing, but it kind of just stops being an issue after you get used to it and see the benefits of clarity and smoothness. And it is much more like how seeing shit in real life.

I have been having a real hard time going back to watch movies and especially animated media. Like a panning shot in an anime just looks so damn jittery. It completely takes me out of the thing I am watching as it can make me feel a weird kind of nauseous. Lots of regular movies and shows also do this. Some of it might be due to some stuff that was shot in early digital making it worse. But it does happen with stuff shot on film too.

Just really sucks that the industries seem to go out of their way to make it hard for studios/film makers to try weird shit now that we have it. Like I would love to have the 44fps version of The Hobbit since I missed being able to see it in theatres. But the home releases are all set to traditional speeds. It isn’t a limitation of the Blu-rays themselves from what I understand. But the players tend to only allow 24/30fps for playback. Though I would love to be wrong about that. But still just artificial shit stopping potential advancements (or at least fun efforts to try shit). Those Spiderverse movies being done in layers of different fps rates is an example of trying some weird shit that was dope.

Unfortunately that kind of forgetting tends to be forgetting if I took my meds before work. Since I fall pray to always being late, and coffee in addition to the “fuck fuck fuck not again!!” rushing around makes it hard to know if my meds are kicking in or if the former making me feel awake.

Well it is good to have little reminders lik… wait a sec there