blindsight

joined 2 years ago
[–] blindsight 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Yeah, I agree. I'm not at all interested in what score they gave the game; I'm more interested in what they liked/didn't like and, more importantly, why they felt that way. Then I can get a sense if the game will match my tastes/interests.

[–] blindsight 3 points 1 week ago

Longest I've been out of Canada is a week.

[–] blindsight 7 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Proroguing Parliament for 2½ months to pick a new leader isn't a good look for the Liberals on this one, but I can see why they went for it. That's a lot of news cycles for things to cool off before a likely election.

I doubt it will be enough to keep the anti-trans bigot party from winning a majority government, sadly.

[–] blindsight 1 points 2 weeks ago

Weird to hear that. My only issue so far has been how hard it is to get movement speed on boots. Granted, I'm only just about to start Cruel, so my playtime is low compared to many, but I'm absolutely loving all the boss encounters, particularly with the dodge mechanics. And not needing to worry about socket numbers, colours, and links on gear.

Maybe I should read what others are saying, but I have nothing significant to complain about so far, aside from move speed being a bit too slow.

[–] blindsight 6 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

I think about the 5 games for $5 bundles with amazing indie games whenever this comes up.

You can still get deals like that from Humble, Fanatical, and a few others, but nothing like that on Steam anymore. I don't really understand why people buy so many games on Steam, tbh. 90% of my game purchases are bundles.

Then again, I'm a very patient gamer who prefers short and targeted indie games to AAA games, so that's probably most of the answer. I'm cool waiting 5 years for a game to be cheap. I have literally thousands of games I would be interested in playing sometime, so it's only the very rare game that I'll buy the year it's released.

[–] blindsight 1 points 4 weeks ago

Same experience for me on the other side of the country in small-town BC. I had a minor non-urgent issue that needed imaging. I just walked in and got it done immediately after my doctor appointment. It took me as long for me to change into the hospital flasher "clothing" as I spent in the waiting room.

[–] blindsight 2 points 4 weeks ago

That sounds really cool. Thanks for sharing; I hadn't heard about this one previously.

[–] blindsight 3 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (2 children)

I was gaming exclusively on the Deck from January to the start of December...

...But Path of Exile 2 I'm streaming from my desktop to get acceptably clear visuals and smooth framerates. I'm back heating my house with my desktop.

[–] blindsight 2 points 4 weeks ago

I was wondering, lol. My numbers are very inflated, too.

What's funny about mine is that almost all of my "Windows" playtime is actually from streaming to my Deck, too.

[–] blindsight 1 points 4 weeks ago

Bankruptcy seems like a stretch, indeed. But those assets are largely not income generating, aside from donations and tourism. With those on the decline, their value situation is worsening.

Hopefully, they'll be forced to sell their "priceless" artifacts until there's nothing left.

[–] blindsight 29 points 4 weeks ago (13 children)

Holy shit, that's huge. I was trying to wrap my head around those numbers.

Russia is about 3½ times Canada's population, so 30K deaths is, per capita, equivalent to about 8.5K deaths in Canada. That's higher than all-cause mortality in Canada from ages 1-35. Just from HIV.

Whoa. That's not good.

Or, another perspective:
More than 1% of Russians are infected with HIV. (Estimated 1.5mm out of ~140mm.)

[–] blindsight 2 points 1 month ago

Regardless, they need to have it in their terms of service that they can host the file, encrypted or otherwise, on their servers and reserve the right to serve the files to other users.

But yes, that's true that they can't necessarily access the files they're hosting/serving.

 

Fanatical is running a Steam Deck games bundle right now. Are any of these games worth the time?

I feel like I've heard good things about Arise, but I'm out of the loop. I don't recognize many of the others by name.

Prices are reasonable, so it's less a question about if it's worth the money, more if its worth the time. (3 for CA$6.79, 5 for CA$9.59, or 8 for CA$13.69)

Terror of Hemasaurus
Jack Move
Garden Story
Castle on the Coast
The Tarnishing of Juxtia
Arise: A Simple Story
Zombie Army Trilogy
Beyond the Long Night
ATONE: Heart of the Elder Tree
The Smurfs - Mission Vileaf
Röki
Home Sweet Home EP2
Hero's Hour
Moonlighter
Pathologic 2

 

I'm just curious if anyone else tried to get one of the Limited Edition Steam Decks before they sold out. I tried for it (on 3 devices) but kept getting error messages until it sold out. I just ordered the 1 TB edition instead.

This will be my first portable gaming device since the DSi, so I'm really excited for it. Getting the clear LE one would have been cool, but I'm probably better off not spending the extra $40 CAD, lol.

So, what's your Steam Deck situation? Did you try for/get the LE? Do you already have one? Getting one? Don't want one?

 

All over Twitch, about half the streamers I usually watch playing turn-based strategy games are all suddenly playing the same new game. I watched a few streams, and it looked interesting. Normally, I never buy games when they just come out because I have such a backlog and can wait for a sale, but I figured if everyone (figuratively) is playing it, it must be amazing.

Turns out, they're giving the full game away for free during their "early access" phase as a "demo". But it's the full game, just with only 2 class choices.

I had a blast! And now I'm probably going to buy it on release.

The last time I remember doing this was for Minecraft. I see lots of games doing free weekends on Steam, which is very similar; doesn't work well for me since I only have a few hours for gaming each week, but I imagine that must be successful for a lot of games, too.

What do you think of that business model? And/or, what do you think of Backpack Battles, if you've played it?

 

There's a big protest being organized across Canada to protest SOGI being taught in schools, and I'm fed up with it. There are so many vulnerable students who need to know that what they're experiencing is normal, and right-wing extremists are politicizing human rights and spreading manufactured controversy about children being shown pornography in schools.

The linked article is just one of many anti-SOGI protests happening across Canada on Wednesday.

Anyway, the reason I bring it up here is that some of these right-wing anti-SOGI [redacted; unkind] are parents of kids in our kids' classes, and a couple of them are close friends with my kids.

How do you handle that? Kids shouldn't be held accountable for their parents' beliefs. But what about playdates and birthday parties and such? Should we discuss the friendship? It feels wrong to ostracize the child. They deserve to feel safe and have friends.

Also, I'm thinking of taking time off work to counter protest, and making a sign like this one:

Not really related to parenting, but I think it's important kids feel supported and bigots are told their archaic world views are unwelcome. It'll be super awkward if a parent I know is standing on the other side of the protest.

 

Saskatchewan is fairly conservative leaning, from a Canadian perspective, so perhaps this isn't surprising, but it's a shame that drug use continues to be viewed through a criminal lens instead of a healthcare and mental health crisis.

My understanding is that even suicide is generally covered by life insurance policies after a two-year vetting period; I would have thought that drug overdoses would at least get the same treatment. It doesn't say in the article how long this policy existed, but the context implies it was longer than two years and I would have thought it would have been a relevant detail to include in the article if it was a newly opened policy, so the omission of that detail further supports it being an older policy.

I have great sympathy for his family, especially because of the long legal battle that I'm sure has retraumatized them over the intervening years.

 

My context / use case

I got Fire 7 tablets for my kiddos a few years ago and they're dreadfully slow and can't really run many apps at all. With my daughter needing some educational support at home, I was looking for a cheap replacement that actually had enough power to manage recent education apps, and hopefully be future proof for a while.

Alternatives

The cheapest tablet at Costco.ca, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite, is $500 CAD, has a weak processor, only 4GB RAM, and 64GB storage.

I'll never touch Apple products for a zillion reasons, but cost was completely prohibitive for a device my child could drop any day. Even used ones are insanely priced. And the app ecosystem for education on iOS is almost entirely paid apps, increasingly using a subscription model. (Or so it seems.)

Newer Amazon Fire "HD" tablets suck, too, but at least they're cheap. And they might be powerful enough to run some things? idk. I wasn't enthused.

Then, I thought to check AliExpress and found an 8GB tablet with 128GB storage, a processor better than the S6, and a 2K (1440p) display. After reading reviews to check if it's legit, I ordered one.

Informal Review

The great:

Price/value for the specs. I paid ~$240CAD for a bundle that includes a nice case, screen protector, charging block and cable, and a child-size Bluetooth keyboard. (It doesn't have a digitizer, so I skipped the stylus.)

The good:

The tablet is snappy. The battery lasts a long time. The screen has plenty enough resolution to render everything crisply on a 10.4" display.

It's a perfect tablet for my kids use as an educational tablet. It's great for PDF ebook reading (mostly picture books and early reader chapter books to date, lol!) and has handled all the education/edutainment apps without any slowdowns.

3.5mm jack. 18W fast charging. Build quality feels solid. Well positioned hardware buttons and 3.5mm jack make it easy to use in either orientation. The included case works as an angled stand. SD card slot for expansion. SIM compatible for phone/data.

The bad:

The viewing angle is pretty terrible. It's completely fine for solo use or for applications where colour accuracy isn't important, but it's very noticeable.

The speakers suck. I'm not a sound geek, so I don't know the correct terms, but the sound is muddy and distorted. They also have a fairly low maximum volume, and become increasingly distorted at higher volume. They work well enough, but it's not enjoyable for music. I would definitely use headphones for music/video/games.

I haven't tried the camera at all, but I've heard it's not great. Can't comment on that.

The purchase

The vendor I ordered from (ALLDOCUBE Direct Store) swapped the EU plug for a US plug at no extra cost. It arrived quickly (3 weeks?) from China.

The package arrived with the retail box crushed, so the included screen protector broke. After using it for a day, I decided to buy a second one for my other child, and asked them to include a replacement. Not only did they include a replacement, but they pre-installed the screen protector on tablet #2 so it couldn't break, without my asking them to.

I would recommend the seller, but ask them to pre-install the screen protector (if you plan to use one) so there's less risk of damage in transit.

Discussion

Anyway, not sure if this is the kind of content people want here, but I thought I'd do my part to add something!

Has anyone else experimented with cheap AliExpress/Chinese Android devices?

Based on my success with these, I'm considering getting a phone for my wife there. I'm a bit more worried about data vulnerabilities and software support longevity on a daily driver phone, but it's really hard to find a small quality phone for a reasonable price. Also, it needs to have a good camera or it's a nonstarter.

Do you have any experience or thoughts on this?

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