Yeah, the preamble bit is funny, but I felt it was needed because I have… issues that make me insecure about being misunderstood. I tend to over-explain things so I wanted to make sure people knew where I was coming from. I agree that it can be a fun place, and it is especially nice for those with limited means to connect with people. It’s not like I’m arguing for the end of all social media platforms, but more that some people need to have limits. When you spend enough time disconnected form people and the reality of living people become an their username and not the person they were. I truly believe social media does more good than bad, but because of the human condition the negative will always outweigh the positive. As my final though, I just believe that there is a difference between making connections, personal or otherwise, and sharing too much of yourself. This may be personal, but I don’t even share EVERYTHING with my parents or close friends.

It could be that people backing off social media is why it seems to have gotten worse on some platforms. If all the dissenting voices leave it is easier to believe you are correct. I have also stopped using social media as much since Reddit went to shit. That kind of opened my eyes to how volatile typical social media is. I pretty much only look at social media to see if someone I watch is live, but mostly I’m on Twitch and YouTube just to watch videos. Every time I look at the comments I regret it.

I generally live by the adage that everyone makes their own personal choices for their own reasons so I try not to make fun of people for their choices, or in a few cases genetics. I especially try to avoid making fun of people for something they actually have no choice in such as genetics. I’m a bald man, but when I was a kid I used to make fun of my dad for being bald until he sat me down and explained to me how horrible it was to make fun of a person’s genetic situation. In general the rule I try to keep myself to is that I won’t joke about it unless the person in question would joke about it as well.

I mean, I agree that the form factor isn’t what matters, that’s not what I was saying. When you boot the Steam Deck it actively hides that it is a computer. Let’s be real here, all consoles are basically just dumbed down PC’s at this point. They have slightly modified AMD chips with AMD GPUs. The only difference is that you can’t access the file system. You can on the Steam Deck if you want to, but Valve tries to simplify the experience by presenting it as a console. My argument has nothing to do with the form factor and everything to do with the default presentation.

I just want to say I’m right there with you, and I was trying to make that clear while still explaining my thoughts on why the Steam Deck isn’t really a “gaming PC”. It could just be the old man in me, but the Deck PRESENTS itself as a console on startup, and to do anything beyond that you have to restart the device. For the general public restarting the device is a huge barrier. Again though, I’m happy the Steam Deck exists and hope that game companies in general will get their head out of their ass and start making more games run natively on Linux. Even with devices that have better performance and look like an upgrade I immediately discount them as an option the moment I see they are running Windows.

My post was not meant to take away your points, and honestly I tend to forget about the Steam workshop because, as you said, I and many other general PC gamers don’t mod games that much. I’m not trying to be negative about the Deck, just realistic. Unfortunately for me, my general lack of optimism can be seen as inherently negative. The Steam Deck has already succeeded in its goal as evidenced by the, inferior in my opinion, knockoffs from Asus and Lenovo. The main point I was trying to make is the very fact that if or when people try to install a mod they immediately run into the barrier of having to reboot the device. This isn’t a bad thing, but it does tell many people this is not the main way to use the device. Remember that for the general public defaults are the most powerful thing on their device.

For transparency, I have a gaming PC. I have a Steam Deck. I love the Steam Deck to death and would never give it up. For many people, it is the closest thing they will see to PC gaming. I can say without a doubt that the Steam Deck is a PC in the same way a chicken is a wild bird. Can you do 90% of PC related tasks with the Steam Deck? Yes, but with a lot more work, and much more required knowledge. It’s not even because of the OS, which is great because it’s just Linux based. It’s because the Steam Deck does not put necessary parts that average PC users need as forward facing concepts.

The Steam Deck is a console first, and a PC in a pinch and I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s the reason I love the device, but also use it less. A good example is modding Elden Ring for Seamless Co-op. You can do it, and it’s not HARD per se, but you may have to find files in the OS to make sure Steam knows to open them, and because of how the file tree works in Linux vs Windows it isn’t really a simple case of “type the file name in search”.

Breaking news, people on the Internet have no concept of nuance.

At this point Everything Search is goated.

As former Navy, a Navy shower is all you actually need. Unless I am having a stressful day or week I take a Navy shower. If it a stressful day or week I turn the temperature up as much as I can stand and let it relax me. A sauna would probably work better, but I don’t have that option.

I feel like you are taking this way more personally than it’s intended. Most companies write stuff like this so the government can’t sue them. Basically, Microsoft is just covering their own ass.

It was so bad Nilay Patel had to apologize (semi-seriously) about causing a news cycle about a mouse.

The new CEO had the beginning of an idea in an interview. The interviewer tried to push back while still keeping the interview going, but it became messy real quick.

The worst part is that almost everyone was telling the DNC it was the wrong call, and they ignored people out of fear that they would lose. I fucking hate the DNC, but I hate the RNC more.

It is more possible than a bullet wound. I’m hearing it was teleprompter glass, which makes sense.

Which i would have an easier time believing than a bullet. If he got a small cut on his ear it would bleed that much, but that is in no way a bullet wound. It doesn’t really matter at the end of the day though because facts don’t matter to fascist MAGA idiots. If it doesn’t back up what they already believe it’s fake news.

I would agree with you if it wasn’t for the fact that his ear looks completely intact. Bloody, yes, but no chunk missing. If it was an actual bullet moving at subsonic speed even a graze would leave more than a little blood. Another thing to consider is that there would be WAY more blood than what was shown. Your extremities bleed more than any other part of your body because that’s where all of the blood vessels gather. I know this from the personal experience of splitting my head open on a metal pipe. It took no time for blood to cover one half of my face. If he was actually shot in the ear blood would be gushing. As it stands it looks like someone smeared lipstick on his ear.

I wouldn’t quite go so far as to say it’s gone “mainstream” since you still have to be moderately nerdy to know about it. I get your point though. This is one of the reasons I am so happy the Steam Deck exists. Before Valve released the Steam Deck nobody wanted to make games for Linux, so Valve said “fuck it, we’ll do it ourselves” and proved it was not only possible, but a better experience overall. While not all games work, having 78-80% of your game library work on Linux, with no Windows OS performance tax, is a great experience. Even with the Proton compatibility layer games generally run faster than on Windows.

People are still calling it a Pokemon clone even though only like 10% of the gameplay involves catching Pals. It’s closer to being a survival game with a dash of “Pokemon at home” than anything else.

To add to what you are saying, I wish they would make that message clearer. The first time I saw it, I thought they were still going to charge me for the extra copy and just not give it to me. Still not 100% sure about it.