For me:

• OpenSUSE Tumbleweed PC
• Synology NAS
• Steam Deck
• Plex shared with the family
• Cancelled Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime.
• Got a VPN docker container on the NAS with qBt

Feelsgoodman.jpg

The fact that they do shitty things like this will male me ignore their games or wait for a crack. I ignore most EA games as well or anything that has another launcher/account forced on you.

Ultimately my main issue isnt that the company is doing shit things. The issue is that they don't have to care because people will keep paying them money regardless and our opinions/objections mostly go unnoticed and inconsequential. Although public backlash did help the Helldivers 2 situation.

To be fair the game is almost 14 years old. Even with modern games no one seems to design games for touchscreens since no one is really playing PC games that way.

Undeniable evidence of superiority right here.

I was born an "old man" really feel like I'm finally growing into my true phase of life. So not really any grumpier I would say.

I've developed a real interest in reading about cognitive science and psychology, and I really feel like that's made me more relaxed in accepting how different peoples' ideas, opinions and lived experience is; and it has really made me get over judging people for thinking the "wrong" thing.

Sounds like you're handling a difficult time pretty well. Good stuff.

For financial planning I found it much easier to change my current account to a bank that automatically categorises and displays spending data really well in their app. Budgeting is easier when you have tools to make it easier.

A lovely story. Ive had a brilliant experience myself with my 4 year old neurodiverse son who took great comfort in playing Ori and the Blind Forest, and finished the game himself and found all the secret areas I couldn't.

Then at 5, he watched me play Super Hexagon and wanted to play that. He's gotten to the hardest level and asks for my help, but he's beyond my skill level.

As far as the argument against the issue you mentionrd, the logical argument was complete in the first paragraph:

the academic community has failed to produce any negative relationship between video games and real life.

It's an amazing console, but the shortcomings you've mentioned are legit. When I got my Switch, I immediately ordered the Hori Split Pad. Then I threw the Joycons in a drawer and never looked at them again. A large capacity SD card is mandatory and is so cheap, I don't consider that a big deal.

Online subscription shit is just console bullshit that I won't pay on principle.

All the reasons you've mentioned have been sorted with a Steam Deck, and I haven't ever picked up my Switch from the day my Deck arrived.

I picked up Star Wars Rogue Squadron and it has been great fun and very nostalgic to play on the Steam Deck. I was looking for a modern alternative and picked up Everspace, which I like, but am finding it incredibly difficult to get good at so far.

Hollow Knight is the greatest game of all time for me. I replayed it recently and it was such a different experience for me to move through confidently and quickly when I had a grasp of combat from the beginning. It took me months to finish it the first time because of getting lost and not knowing where to go next.

Some generic (no spoiler) tips:

• go in another direction and come back to the boss later if that's possible. If a boss is way too difficult then there may be an upgrade you haven't gotten yet.
• take your time. It is more important to save your health rather than rushing to get a hit in. Sometimes it's worth going to a boss and not hitting him at all and just focus on learning movement, patterns and figuring out where the openings are.
• play around with your charms and get the best setup you need to help with the boss fight.
• try to avoid attacks by running into the gap in projectiles rather than relying on dashes all the time.
• if you're coming to thinking of quitting the game based on difficulty, then there's no shame in watching a boss guide video on YouTube. Or space it out with a secondary game so you can play something else and come back later.

What OP says is not a hot take at all. In reality this is the default way the brain works and is biologically ingrained. I'm interested in cognitive science and do read and listen to podcasts about how we think. Here's a good podcast episode exploring this idea:

You Are Not So Smart: 231 - On Being Certain - Robert Burton

In this episode, we sit down with neurologist Robert Burton, author of On Being Certain, a book that fundamentally changed the way I think about what a belief actually is. That’s because the book posits that conclusions are not conscious choices and certainty is not even a thought process. Certainty and similar states of “knowing,” as he puts it, are “sensations that feel like thoughts, but arise out of involuntary brain mechanisms that function independently of reason.”

Episode webpage: https://youarenotsosmart.com/2022/05/01/yanss-231-why-we-often-cant-choose-what-we-believe-thanks-to-the-fact-that-certainty-is-a-feeling-and-not-a-conclusion/

Media file: https://stitcher.simplecastaudio.com/aa9f2648-25e9-472a-af42-4e5017da38cf/episodes/2ebb0ed1-f0ae-4f89-a478-8d6ccac52bbd/audio/128/default.mp3?aid=rss_feed&awCollectionId=aa9f2648-25e9-472a-af42-4e5017da38cf&awEpisodeId=2ebb0ed1-f0ae-4f89-a478-8d6ccac52bbd&feed=N5eKDxJI

I ordered the Deck when pre-bookings first opened and got one of the first few deliveries. Been using it daily since then. Made a gaming PC 4 months ago and only use that for Street fighter 6 and Spider-Man remastered. The Deck is used for everything else. My Daily games at the moment are Brotato, Everybody's Golf 6 (emulated), Rock band unplugged (emulated), Everspace. Got Hades 2 lined up next. If a game isn't good on the Deck then it'll likely get neglected. That's why I don't play FTL as much as I'd like.

Also the shittier hardware for more money, terrible ergonomics, and noise/heat of a laptop. I tried using a high end laptop for a couple of years. Now I'm much happier after selling it and replacing it with a PC. 8th gen Intel laptops are dirt cheap and very capable for most tasks (as a secondary device) for when the portability is absolutely required.

The first step is normalising the idea of privacy so people can even see the point of paying for something they can easily get for free.

The next step would be to make products people can easily use without being tech savvy. A synology NAS has been great for me and I praise the setup to anyone who will listen, but even with something like Synology people will need some basic knowledge.

Pear launcher has worked great for me. I'm actively trying not to use Google services and Google news is useless to me. I use an RSS reader instead. Pear launcher seems to have no trackers and allows making tabs in the apps screen the way I want. There's not a huge deal more I need from my launcher.

I also use KISS launcher as a google search replacement. If I tap home button on the home screen then it calls KISS launcher search to find results on my phone (or send to the internet search shortcuts I have set).

I've really liked Everybody's golf so far. I used to play it on the PSP, but then thought I might as well get the most up to date version possible. This 6th version had plenty of recommendations online as one of the best. It has got just enough real golf (compensation for wind, ground type, ground slant, height, etc) and arcade elements (hitting curve balls or super spin, a variety of clubs and balls types to pick for added stats, etc). I'd recommend trying it out. You'll know after the first few rounds whether you're going to like it or not.

I've also really liked stick man golf on the phone. PGA golf gets plenty of recommendations online too, but I didn't want anything that was too realistic.

That's exactly what I did at the start of this year. I made it a point to get an AMD graphics card. Glad I've never had to deal with Nvidia issues.

There's the distro chooser website, but that might be a bit basic for the amount of experience you have: https://distrochooser.de/

I jumped to Linux as a tech savy, Linux beginner and went through a bunch of distros before settling on Opensuse Tumbleweed, and it has been great. Fedora gets mentioned a lot as well but I never got round to trying that. If I were to choose today with a bit more Linux experience, I might choose Endeavour OS.

My understanding is that as far as gaming goes, some distros have some pre-intsalled conveniences, but you could game on any Linux flavour. If it's just going to be Steam games, then Steam handles Proton and game compatibility itself. It might be worth looking up things like GPU and peripherals compatibility.

A big channel like LTT talking about de-googling is fantastic. When I de-googled a couple of years ago, even my tech savvy brothers thought I was odd. Good to see this is becoming a bit more mainstream everyday.

My main concern was it doesn't provide enough sun cover. I wanted more. I had her buy me this instead: https://cdn.ezcosplay.com/media/catalog/product/p/o/power_rangers_white_ninjetti_ranger_cosplay_costume_1_2.jpg