Here’s a gaming laptop for $700 that I think is similarly powered, except it also has a screen, keyboard, a trackpad and a Windows 11 license that probably represent like $200 of that. I’ll probably pick up a SM if it’s around $500 for the base model, but otherwise, I’ll probably build something instead.
Agreed, but if it’s like $500, then it’ll make a nice addition to the living room for couch co-op games with the kids and possibly serve as a decent HTPC. 4K technically isn’t false advertising, but let’s be real, this is made for 1080p to be upscaled to 4K where most people won’t notice from the couch. Anyone who wants 4K on a monitor up close with 60 fps on ultra is not the target market and is instead looking for a PC where the GPU alone costs double what a Steam Machine costs.
I have no problem with people who contribute a lot of value to society being proportionally rewarded. However, having a net worth in the billions is just plain ludicrous, especially since the billionaires aren’t the ones creating all the value, they’re just controlling it. For example, did Gabe invent everything that makes Valve as successful as it is, or was most of it designed and developed by engineers who are paid a fraction of what he is paid? Even if most of Valve’s IP started with Gabe and other engineers were doing the grunt work to “make it so”, that still shouldn’t mean that society allows this one man to control billions worth of our societal resources.
I believe the cost of Meta devices is also subsidized by surveillance capitalism, so if this costs more, doesn’t spy on you, and lets you do whatever you want with your own hardware, then it’s worth voting with your wallet. If Valve somehow is able to price this similarly to a Quest 3 while having better specs and without exploiting their customers like Meta does, then all hail the great and mighty Gabe.
I’ve been contemplating Steam Game Mode in Bazzite on a HTPC as a potential replacement for Android TV, and this might fit the bill nicely, in addition to supporting living room gaming of course. I bet this would run Jellyfin and VacuumTube quite nicely with a USB remote control. A Nvidia Shield from 2019 is still $200, so if Valve prices this similarly to a PS5, it’d certainly be a compelling option.
I can at least confirm Jellyfin on a tablet works well for toddlers when they have their own Jellyfin account that is locked down without a password while other accounts have a password.
I’ve been in tech a long time and don’t allow WAN ingress into my network at all because I don’t have time to properly harden my self-hosted services. For absolute beginners, I wouldn’t recommend making anything public until they’re more experienced. Just running Jellyfin for you and your family on an old laptop is a perfect starter project.
Endianness matters quite a lot in this situation
There’s still a lot that only really works on Windows, and also a lot of people who don’t care enough to install a different OS than the one that came with the machine. I think the future holds more of the same, including continued enshittification. One day, Windows will be irrelevant, but I doubt it’ll be anytime soon.
A great example of this is paid Blender add-ons. I love the concept that I can pay for software and not only have a perpetual license and free updates forever (usually), but also get the source code. I often call add-on operators from my own Python pipeline code for further automation, so being able to look at the source helps.
It’s definitely worth paying and supporting the devs as opposed to finding a copy online where someone has “exercised their GPL right to distribute”, because it’s usually an older version and you can’t ask the dev for help. A lot of add-ons also have assets that are copyrighted and can’t be distributed freely. Outside of Blender, most graphics software is closed-source and subscription-only. Those greedy bastards can all fuck off, and I’ll give my money to decent human beings instead.
Sometimes, I find it interesting to watch short clips of professional athletes doing exceptional things that most humans can’t do, but I don’t have the patience to sit on my ass for hours watching a ball go back and forth.
I used to religiously pre-order Zelda games, but I have yet to even bother with ToTK. I couldn’t finish BoTW either. On the other hand, this year, I’ve played through KCD2 twice, so guess my tastes have changed.
Probably won’t get a Switch 2 and will wait for a decent emulator. Nintendo’s litigiousness puts me off and I don’t really want to give them any more money.
Oh, and here I was thinking we had 3 more years:
https://massgrave.dev/#how-to-activate-windows--office--extended-updates-esu
Software subscriptions. I’ll buy a perpetual license if there’s no decent open source alternative as long as it will run offline. For example, $300 for Marvelous Designer back in the day was reasonable, but they can fuck right off with the subscription-only model.
Gwynne Shotwell mentions in this video that she saw a mechanical engineer’s talk when she was young and loved her suit. She said she’s hesitant to tell that story, but considers it an important topic because it is ultimately what inspired her to go into STEM.
I think her hesitance is due to the fact that men don’t understand and might ridicule her. For a young lady, seeing a successful woman in STEM bucking the stereotypes, just being herself, and not conforming to male standards changes their perception of the field. Maybe a lot of men shrug when they see Rita’s sparkly dress, but it’s inspirational to many girls with aspirations in STEM.
What would the legal consequences be if YouTube did not comply with the sanctions and refused to delete the videos / accounts? Are they caving because they don’t give a damn, or because they have no choice?
I found this mini PC for $360 with a 780M, so 12 RDNA 3 CUs compared to Steam Machine’s 28. If Steam Machine is priced proportionally, it would be in the $800s. A 780M is about twice as powerful as the Steam Deck’s GPU. If I knew for sure the Steam Machine weren’t going to have 2-3x the power for only $200ish more, I’d buy something like this right now, because I’m mainly looking for a HTPC that can play couch-friendly games on a TV better than the Deck, which this type of machine accomplishes.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CB32HKC5/?psc=1
Edit:
As an aside, I recently experimented with Pegasus Frontend launching VacuumTube and the Jellyfin desktop client, and while the UX is not quite as refined as Android TV, I think I’m happy enough with it to switch to Linux on a mini PC while I wait for Plasma Bigscreen.