I think Sonic Adventure can be a frustrating game. I confess it has some issues that I have learned to work around. But I still can’t see it as anything less than a great game that gets way more hate than it deserves.

The first Sims was in fake 3D, the 2nd one was already full 3D. The fourth one is known for being a huge downgrade when compared to 3 and even 2. I haven’t played 4 a lot but people really hate it, a lot of the community stayed on 3. It doesn’t help that EA is EA, and while the whole series has always had expansion packs and extra purchaseable content, with 3 already being a bit unreasonable, The Sims 4 took it to unimaginable heights. I think buying everything will set you back like 1500 USD or more, and it was super criticized for slicing up content into multiple packs. They even have DLC for DLC, with a content pack only having content for another pack…

It’s a mess hahaha

I’ve been working on some personal and work things and there are a few moments with more free time (and anxiety) than I’m used to. So, I’m juggling 3 games right now:

• Yo-Kai Watch 2: Psychic Specters for the 3DS. I played the first one and really liked it, but when I went through the sequel I had a lot going on and really rushed through it. I ended up not liking it very much and not even doing the post game stuff, which is weird because everybody praised the post game online. Now I’m going through it with a bit more time and I’m enjoying it much more, it surpasses the first one for sure.
• Sonic Adventure 2 on Steam: I felt like revisiting this one due to all the focus on Shadow Generations now. I’m going for a 100% completion for the first time since I was a kid. I must have sucked back then, because I’m finding that getting A ranks is much easier than I remembered (and much more fun). The chao are cute but I wish I could have a “Skip” button for them to grow up, eat and sleep. I have already resorted to leaving the game on while I showered and it still wasn’t enough.
• Minecraft with the Cobblemon mod, essentially Pokémon in Minecraft: I tried Pixelmon too, and to be honest I didn’t mind the art style clash, but one of the mods I added to Cobblemon was a trainer/gym leader system, with included level caps, so there’s a sense of progression. But the enemy gyms are tough so I’m only on Misty so far and I’m seeing that my team needs a lot of work, even though I’m already at the level cap!

I also started The Sims 1, got to the top of my career and got married, was planning on continuing with the content from the expansions but haven’t picked it up in weeks. I guess I’ll go back some day, or maybe not.

ChatGPT can be super useful, but I’m kind of worried about people learning to use it exclusively.

I tried helping a PhD student assemble a set up for measuring transistors. He used ChatGPT to do all the code for the software control (python), which is fine, even if he relied on it to fix every single part of his code when a quick trip to the reference manuals of the equipments would solve the problem instantly.

At a certain point I realized I maybe had misunderstood his set up design and asked him “wait, which device do you want to connect to your gate? Which terminal even is the gate?”

And I kid you not, the dude asked ChatGPT which terminal in his device was the gate

(he also reeked of weed so there’s that)

That’s amazing!

Now give me a tip to prevent myself from opening the same app immediately after hahaha

AI will start hiding penises in its output, everybody loves it, you ushered in a new era of peace and prosperity worldwide, all peoples united by their love for hidden AI genitalia. Well done!

Play again?

I would campaign for fifteen dollars to be written as 15$. The other way around makes no sense. Dollars is the unit, and you say “fifteen dollars” and not “dollars fifteen”. That we landed on the backwards convention is a travesty.

Sure, 15$ wouldn’t get me far, but it’s a start!

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Good to officially know the Switch will have a sucessor, by Nintendo’s silence I would not have been surprised if the Switch remained Nintendo’s main console until after the heat death of the universe!

Wait, Reddit is pro-Israel now? I haven’t been there in a while (to be honest, since before this topic escalated) but that surprises me

Beep boop. I’m writing this comment because you asked to be updated on my date.

She canceled it :(. She was only here for a few days and ended up not being available to meet with me. It’s ok, I think I read more into it than I should have!

Tl;dr: I asked a girl out :)

I met a girl in a flight and thought we got along well, but she was only in a layover flight while I was in the last flight of my trip. Still, we kept in touch, and she’s apparently coming to my city for a few days in two weeks.

So I did something I had never done before (even though I’ve been in a few relationships before) and asked her out! She said “maybe” (her trip was already planned and she is busy and staying with some friends, she seemed genuinely sorry) so in two weeks I may have a date :)

To be honest I naively assumed Nintendo not to be the type of company (… Or even competent enough) to implement the type of data mining that would impact performance lol

Sure, this makes sense for Minecraft, and the video itself only compared Minecraft (for fear of being struck by the Nintendo Ninjas, which is an interesting fear considering everything else in the video). I’d love to see if other games, like BoTW or Pokémon S/V, have similar performance enhancements.

Ah, yes, this makes a lot of sense and is something I had not considered. Great point.

That’s so weird. This isn’t about Nintendo hardware sucking: it’s running on an actual Nintendo Switch, except instead of it using the Switch’s OS and it running the game, it goes Linux -> Emulator (yuzu) -> game (running from an actual cart through a dumper) and somehow that’s faster.

It’s a software issue.

Is it the Nintendo Switch OS which is needlessly bloated? It does nothing, how can it be heavier than an actual Linux Distribution?

I’m not familiar with how the Switch works, but the dumper has a FPGA for decoding the cartridge. Is this something that the Switch has to do in real time in software, and maybe that’s where the performance loss comes from? It seems unlikely but I know nothing of the Switch’s internals or software. In fact let’s just say I know nothing at all, I’m just an idiot.

PS: Everyone who buys used Switch games should see this until the end. The dumper allows you to extract a certificate file from a cartridge. Basically, someone malicious could buy a new game, dump it including the certificate file, clone it, and resell the game. Then they would be able to play online with it. If you buy the original copy afterwards and play online, you are likely going to be the one whose certificate is flagged as fake, leading to you being banned.

Also, they could just sell multiple copies of cloned games and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference… Except for the certificate, which would be the same and would signal Nintendo that you (and like 10 other people) are playing a fake game, unbeknownst to you.

OK, so you have the opinion of people with flagship or even midrange phones, now here I come with my budget phone, a Redmi Note 8.

I’ve used budget phones all my life since, well, they’re cheaper. The truth is that yes, you do notice some animation stuttering and some delayed responses, especially as the years go by and you have more apps installed (probably doing stuff in the background) and the apps you do have keep updating to be more bloated.

This phone in particular makes it very hard to multi-task, as it’s very liberal with killing apps in the background to save RAM. This is annoying. But I’m using MI UI instead of stock android, and I’m sure I could change this.

Honestly, I do feel like I’m being left behind and that I’m going to have to switch phones more often than if I had a more expensive model. But so far I haven’t encountered any apps I could not run (or even that I could run but only with too much stutter, making for a terrible user experience). So I’ll keep using it until I truly feel left behind, which can take a surprisingly long time. My usage time tends to rival that of people with flagship android phones and iPhones (maybe I even come out ahead)

But you specifically asked about animation stutter. It does happen but it simply doesn’t bother me at all. It’s not constant, only happening when the phone is doing something else at the same time, and even when it does I can wait a few seconds and it’ll be fine. You also mentioned lag when opening an app, so much that you thought it didn’t register your input. It doesn’t happen to me since, while the app itself can take some time to open, the icon has feedback so I know I pressed it.

Overall, I don’t think any of these issues are enough to bother me significantly for a good few years.

Does this mean that Facebook will also be in the fediverse?

Is THIS the true Metaverse?

Amazing how you can work 8 hours without it ever stopping being 1 am. Human beings really are amazing when they are motivated

I want to see your multitude of tab add-ons. I’m always looking for ways to improve my experience but I never even considered messing with tabs and now I wonder what I’m missing out on!

class Goose extends Silly