frezik

@frezik@midwest.social

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Baldur's Gate 3 publishing director says "almost all games should cost more at a base level" because they cost so much to make⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The savings happened before 2005.

  Also, software is a volume business. They have far more customers now to cover those costs.

  Or, you, know, if the market doesn’t support high budget games, then don’t make high budget games.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Baldur's Gate 3 publishing director says "almost all games should cost more at a base level" because they cost so much to make⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  And there was a big decrease in per unit costs of production switching from cartridges to optical media. Not quite as much in the switch from optical media to downloading, but some.

  Did they pass those savings on to customers?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Baldur's Gate 3 publishing director says "almost all games should cost more at a base level" because they cost so much to make⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Note that he’s calling for the base price to increase, while also getting rid of predatory monetization tactics:

  “I don’t love the artificiality of pricing structures post retail,” Douse wrote. “Use the inflated base price to upsell a subscription, and use vague content promises to inflate ultimate editions to make the base price look better. It all seems a bit dangerous & disconnected from the community.”

  I’d be fine with this combination. The problem comes when publishers want to increase the base price while also keeping loot boxes and the rest.

  I’d also be fine with smaller games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Valve has little to worry about as new Steam Deck rival arrives⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I did it once. To install emulators. I think it’s easier now, but early on you had to do a bunch of command line shit. On screen keyboard is terrible at that, but plug a keyboard in and it’s fine.

  Never bothered since.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Zoom adds post-quantum end-to-end encryption to video meetings⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  We have a pretty good idea. Post-quantum crypto is a real thing. There are conferences in the field about it.

  Certain classes of problems are shown to be faster on quantum computers. One of them is factoring prime numbers, which is what our public key crypto is based on. Traditional block ciphers are also somewhat vulnerable, with their security is effectively cut in half. In other words, a 256 bit key is as secure as a 128 bit key. That solution is easy; we double the key size and call it a day. Public key crypto, however, is a bigger problem. Needed whole new algorithms.

  The big unknown is how powerful quantum computers will get. It’s going to take a lot of qubits to break public key crypto. It may be completely unfeasible to juggle that many qubits in superposition. It’s also possible it will only barely do it, in which case we can also increase the key size and call it a day. But post-quantum crypto is being worked on, just in case.

  Zoom is still bullshit. Their software has had all sorts of problems that don’t need QC to exploit.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Swiss hydrogen-powered train sets 1741-mile record for nonstop travel⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Most of the items you mention are being overtaken by better batteries. Long haul trucking batteries will likely be at cost parity with diesel trucks this year. Big cargo ships should probably go to SMRs. Airplanes no longer look as out of reach as they once appeared.

  Space flight is such a specialized use case. Of course hydrogen will be the predominant fuel there. More because there’s limited options than anything else.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Swiss hydrogen-powered train sets 1741-mile record for nonstop travel⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  We did pursue it. Batteries won for common use cases. There may yet be niches where it’s useful, but they’ll be the exception.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Swiss hydrogen-powered train sets 1741-mile record for nonstop travel⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Or an overhead wire and don’t worry about batteries.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘Dune: Part Two’ First Reactions: Rave Reviews Topped By Critic Who Claims, “It’s The Definitive Sci-Fi Epic Of A Generation”⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Not the first time that’s happened.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Air: Where did that bring you? Back to me.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  The fact remains that most cars today will go to the junkyard with perfectly good engine and transmissions. Those sensors tend to kill themselves before killing other parts of the car, and then you just replace them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Air: Where did that bring you? Back to me.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  The one where he complained about the cost of running a pump and tubing out to a fucking swimming pool?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Air: Where did that bring you? Back to me.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  When was the last time you had to replace a distributor cap on a modern car?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Air: Where did that bring you? Back to me.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Cars built today will outlast most of the old Beetles. There is a big survivorship bias at work. A percentage of them were built to slightly tighter tolerances and quality than all the others off the same line. A percentage of those will end up in the hands of owners that are meticulous about maintenance, never get in a major accident, and keep it going for decades. The handful you see left are the ones that went through several rounds of small percentage chances. There were a bajillion of those old Beetles made, so a few were bound to get through.

  What cars have problems with today are things that rarely have to do with making the wheels go. They get into accidents. Their auto-dimming back windows no longer work. The GPS doesn’t get updates and thinks you’re three counties away. The engine and transmission, however, will probably go to the junkyard in perfect working order, even with shitty maintenance on the part of the owner.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Air: Where did that bring you? Back to me.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Surface area of the fin stack matters. An air cooler will always be limited by the space available around the CPU. A water cooling radiator has more flexibility to be placed in around the case.

  That said, having less than a 360mm AIO is probably a waste. Also, higher end Intel chips these days are so power hungry that they can’t be physically cooled properly with the surface area available on the package.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Grand Theft Auto VI Trailer 1⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Best part of GTA V for me was the social satire and Trevor being a total sociopath. The story isn’t anything special, the final mission hits the wrong story beats (it should have ended with the big shootout of government bureaucracy pileup), and the gameplay has some design mistakes (like business income being completely useless, and money in general being a non-issue after the first big heist). It had bugs that prevented story progress without workarounds that were never fixed. It got a lot of praise at the time for having crazy draw distances in an open world game while working on an XBox 360. That’s no longer a big deal.

  I don’t think it deserved all the five-star reviews it got back then.

  Conversely, if the social satire is on point and the character building is solid, then I’ll be happy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fuck Disney tbh⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Just to correct a few details that don’t contradict your main point:

  Now its the lifetime of the original author + 80 years after IIRC

  Life of author + 70 years.

  Copyright has stalled so severely that the latest works to come into public domain are from the 19th century.

  Things from 1927 entered the public domain in 2023: americanwritersmuseum.org/new-works-to-enter-the-….

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Revolutionary free thinker Andrew Tate⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Wow, I had no idea I was in control so much. As opposed to being invited to meetings I don’t need to be on and have nothing useful to contribute to.