I just got the newer version of Firefox (v157.0) and I'm amazed at how snappy it is. It feels like Firefox does when you have 0 extensions, except that I have uBO and a few others.

It used to feel so sluggish, pages took 500ms or even 1 second to display anything after typing the address, but no more; they render almost instantly.

A very nice surprise indeed!

If you left Firefox because it was too slow, now's the time to ditch Chrom{e,ium} and reign Google's chokehold on standards and utter contempt for privacy in!

Ran some benchmarks on an X230 (i5 3rd gen):
FF 156
speedometer: 3.27
jetstream 3: 65.3
motionmark: 456.52 60fps +-7.50%

FF 157
speedometer: 7.16
jetstream 3: 68.49
motionmark 593.57 60fps +- 8.93%

The speedup is quite noticeable

I promised in another thread that I would share more about my first impressions about the Steam Frame soon, so here I am.

There's still not much I can say because, in my case, using glasses inside isn't an option. But whatever questions you have and couldn't find answers anywhere else, let me know and I can check for you (be it settings, small things no one thinks about, etc)

I'll be recycling a bit what I already said in the other comment (with a few corrections), but here goes my first impressions and some thoughts:

• I said in the other comment that the spacer for the glasses was disappointing, but that's actually not true. To be fair, they do their job. The glasses should be as close as possible to your face anyway, and you can't have too much space between your face and the lenses in the VR, so the spacer does give you a bit more space that should be enough for most/all people. I was able to confirm that both my new glasses and my old ones do not touch the lenses. That said, I still wouldn't play a VR game that needs me to move a lot, the risk of them coming loose and scratching the lenses isn't null.

• My problem with the glasses is different. My new glasses are too wide. They barely fit inside and put a lot of pressure on my face, I think it's the sides of the VR that push the glasses against my face.

• So yeah, if you use glasses, I highly recommend getting prescription lenses (this also applies to any VR headset, but still).

• I was able to run on the Frame: Ace Combat 7, Hades 2, Dragon Commander and Dispatch. All of them were playable (Ace Combat 7 was a pleasant surprise!). Dragon Commander technically ran well, but it didn't recognize the controllers.

• There's a tab for Steam Frame verified games, but you can download anything from your library. Cyberpunk 2077? Knock yourself out. Will it run well? Nope, but it does run.

• • Sidenote: the new proton for ARM processors make me hopeful that laptops with ARM processors could become a viable alternative to traditional ones (I mean besides macbooks)

• Speaking of controllers, they're MUCH better than Meta Quest 3's. The layout of a conventional controller means that they can be used as such. Furthermore, at any moment you can activate the "pointer", which turns the respective controller into a mouse (while the other remains a controller). Meaning if you have a game where sometimes you need a mouse, Steam Frame has you covered.

• I got the ergonomic kit because of the controller straps, but as for the headset itself, I'll be the contrarian against the rest of the internet and say that those extra pieces actually aren't necessary. Or at least, not as ABSOLUTELY necessary as people make it look like. The space between the headset and my nose is not sealed, true, but unless I get conscious about that "hole", I won't notice it. I also felt that the top strap isn't necessary, the headset feels firmly held against my head.

• • That said, let me admit a few things: I didn't play a VR game yet, so maybe "firmly held" could be a different story in that scenario. And for a 1k euro device, there's an argument to be made that these ergonomic accessories should've been included by default, which I wholeheartedly agree. The nose thing, might have to do with my head shape, might not, I don't know; I just felt that whenever I was looking at the "screen" inside, I didn't notice the "hole" down below.

• The battery is... Underwhelming. Be prepared to get a good powerbank if you plan to have mid-long sessions.

• I tried using the wireless adapter on my gaming desktop (running Fedora 44), and it looks like it worked! Pleasant surprise, as I was under the impression it didn't work on Linux yet.

• Streamed Red Dead Redemption 2 for a bit. Rockstar launcher popped up so I could validate my account.... Except this window didn't appear on the SF, only on my PC's monitor. On the SF, I wasn't able to change windows, I only got a black screen. Once I entered the game, I could hear the sounds of the intro playing but the screen was still black. After fiddling a bit inside the VR, I managed to make it show the game itself, then I was able to play it normally.

• • This is to say, "window management" inside a game is finicky. So games with their own launchers? Expect them be as annoying here as they are in general...
• • • Caveat: only tried one game in this condition (opening launchers/windows alongside the game), so it's possible it was just bad luck and not representative.

• (copy pasted from the other comment) the update process (that you're forced to do) was really slow - the download would top at 10mb/s, but on average it was on the kb/s.

• (copy pasted from the other comment) The environment is really polished - more than the Steam Deck it looks like. I like how from inside Steam "app" itself, I can open the desktop mode as if it was an application. I don't have bluetooth keyboards but I think it should be possible to use this as a normal PC, which is really cool.

• (copy pasted from the other comment) Just like the Steam Deck, you have control over almost everything. Hardware usage, screen framerates, etc.

Some basic comparisons against the Meta Quest 3:

• Unlike MQ 3, the SF works just fine in any kind of environment, even if it's pitch black. Side note: it's a bit mesmerizing checking out the LIDAR's and Face ID's lights from my iphone. This thing is unironically a really good device to spot hidden cameras.

• YMMV, but for me the lack of colors in the passthrough isn't a big deal. I spend most of the time "inside" the virtual world and barely used it on MQ3, only for when someone was calling for me - or my cats. But even then, 95% of the time I would just take the headset off if whatever was demanding my attention wasn't quick. Talking to people with it on your head is weird af (especially for the other person). What I'm trying to say is that there were never situations where I needed to see the world around me and it needed to be in colours; I would just take the headset off in those cases.

• • Caveat: 1k euros device, I get it. It's dumb that you still need to fork over another 100 euros just to get colours. And I guess it's not a good thing for AR games.

• The SF is a bit smaller, lighter, and it's more comfortable imo. The idea to move the battery to the back of the head was smart, I think long sessions with SF should be more comfortable.

• MQ 3 has hand gesture recognition while SF doesn't. But personally, I don't really care. On MQ 3 this feature is finicky, frustrating to use, it's annoying when I'm watching movies/videos, and more importantly, it makes me want to throw the headset against the wall (exaggeration for comedic effect). So for me it's not a huge loss.

• If you feel that after these impressions I'm biased against the MQ3, well.... You're not wrong, but I just realized that it feels like I'm defending SF too much and criticizing MQ3 too easily while writing this. I'm biased against it mainly for privacy reasons, but on a hardware level, MQ3 is a great headset in its own right. It's equivalent to SF and costs a lot less. If you don't care about privacy, you probably should go for it instead of the SF.

Feel free to ask me anything about the Steam Frame and if I can check it out for you, I will.

Let me know mods if I’m posting too much, if so I’m sorry!

Damn good read, devoured it over the course of two days in Quebec City last week and I’m just digesting it now.

Holy crow what a disambiguation of the word “mutiny” (apologies if I wrote that wrong).

I think David Grann manages to display the humanity in the central figures with clarity. Perhaps it’s due to some inference or poetic license in order to move the story along, but he make a good book and that cpt cheap was a dandy.

Japan is understandably a hot travel destination in general, but I've seen it come up here on Tildes several times, with many people sharing their stories. This is and isn't that.

I traveled to Japan (and Korea) over a year ago, and I've been rotating this post in my head nearly the whole time. If you want to skip my word vomit: tl:dr it was kind of mid, there are parts I would return for, but many that are very off-putting (especially as of this moment with Japan's politics).

I'm a millennial, and by most accounts, a weeb. I was first was exposed to anime/manga via Slayers, Sailor Moon, Tenchi Muyo and other early Anime that played occasionally on network television, around the late 1990s, which evolved as it did for most of us with Toonami, Adult Swim, and renting movies like Akira and Ghost in the Shell at Blockbuster. I've been regularly consuming Otaku culture essentially my entire life, and my wife was exactly the same as me, we both read Manga and watch Anime as a regular pass time. I was also completely aware that Otaku culture is generally looked down upon by genpop, probably moreso a decade or more ago till now, but I wasn't under the impression that Manga/Anime was how Japan actually was.This isn't to say we had some idealized view of Japan or Tokyo (where we spent our vacation), we've done a lot of domestic and international travel up to that point, so I believe we had realistic expectations going in of how our vacation would go. To be clear, it's not that those expectations weren't necessarily met, but there's some things that I started to realize I may have overlooked, tidbits of Japanese culture that you will get glimpses of in their media, and specifically, the types of media I related to, the series I found most interesting to me with characters that aligned with my own values, or something like that.

You will hear many testimonials of how great visiting Tokyo can be, and I want to caveat with the single complication that made things unreasonably difficult and why I would exercise caution if you are in the same position, but being perfectly frank, it was only one component: We traveled with myself, my wife, and our 2 year old daughter. To clarify, I do not have a difficult child, in fact by almost all metrics she's extremely well behaved and easy to travel with, if she wasn't I would never have considered a 14+hr flight, so take everything I say that I have a near saint of a toddler, she wasn't the problem at all.

Tokyo is not toddler friendly, Tokyo is toddler hostile, weird things you would overlook or not even think about as adult travelers will consistently cause problems. Tokyo is great for walkability if you are able bodied, it is a far cry from being ADA compliant as we're used to stateside, expect to carry a stroller as I did up stairs many, many times. Over our trip there, you notice things: not a single native Japanese takes a toddler outside, like at all, let's ignore birth rates for a moment, because kids were present, but not a single kid under 3 was anywhere to be seen. Not in restaurants, not at parks, not in malls. The possible sole exception is Odaiba, which is designed to be a family friendly area. This begins to cause friction almost everywhere else though. Kids menus are few and far between, rarely will you find high chairs, and frustratingly: many restaurants will not give you a to go box, that's just not a thing there, so expect to simply waste food or money if you order a main for a toddler (because there is no kids meal) etc. There is also nearly nothing catered to toddlers....basically anywhere, again this is pretty in line with our expectations, but when we went out of our way to find solutions, and they still didn't seem possible (or were inexplicably closed....they will actually CLOSE parks if there is a light drizzle) it begins to wear on you. Similarly shopping! One of the biggest draws of being in Tokyo, will be rather limited, both in things that would fit a 1-4yo and in physical dimensions of stores, which may or may not accommodate you pushing a stroller. The busy tourist areas are also quite challenging to navigate, and especially in places like Shibuya, a lot of the joint restaurant areas will have exceptionally small tables or standing room only, as will most Ramen or Tempura restaurants. "Family restaurant" is a category in Japan because taking a family elsewhere is difficult.

I can handle almost all of this, but it's coupled with, and again, I am a parent, I understand that children can be taxing, but there's a low level of animosity ever present almost anywhere you go, of course there's background radiation of, you're a tourist and not a local, but couple that with now you're being a difficult tourist, and you can start to tell people do not want you there. This isn't to say we didn't have good experiences, many native Japanese were very accommodating to us, helped us out, were happy to see a cute kid etc. I don't want to paint it as the experience was entirely negative, it wasn't, but it was SO MUCH WORSE than literally anywhere else I have traveled re: having a toddler or child with you, and it's not really conveyed because well, most people traveling to Tokyo do not have kids in tow (and I have heard that for example Osaka and other cities are better about this, so I don't want to paint a broad brush.) There were also plenty of tourists traveling with kids, and even when we didn't share a language, we exchanged knowing glances of how tired of the whole situation we were.

Also the food is seriously overrated, give me hate if you want, but the US has better food, especially LA/NYC. You can get better sushi, cheaper, in LA than Tokyo. It's the truth. The hamburg steak at Tsubame Kitchen in Shinogawa was an exception, that was delicious.

There's a manga I love: Moyashimon, it's about a college student who can see microbes (including the eponymous Yeast), that's entirely unimportant to what I want to talk about. The characters are extremely relatable, I believe I was also in university when I first read it, and many parts resonated with me, and I found the morals of the characters fairly normal. Almost all of these characters are outcasts or pariahs by Japanese standards. Conformity is still very much the norm in Japan, and especially the majority of Tokyo outside the kind of touristy (or counterculture) areas like Shibuya, Akihabara, Kabukicho etc. As we were heavily jetlagged, the majority of our days would start around 5am, the sea of salarymen is absolutely nuts. Thousands of workers in suits, every day, bright and early, and returning at rush hour. Moyashimon deals a lot with the difficulties the characters will face when they leave college and are forced to conform, they will have to be clean shaven, they must stop dying their hair, they must conform to the gender presentation they were assigned at birth. The story, and many other media in the same vein from similar authors, is critical of the culture of conformity. The current Japan, in current year, is still xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic. In relating to these media, whether it's moyashimon, or the works of Nagata Kabi, or even something like HoriMiya (which tragically kills almost all the social commentary of the original work in both the redraw manga as well as the anime), I was relating to being critical of Japan's culture, of being critical of those things.

I don't really know where else to go with this, sorry for the word vomit. I had thought that I knew what to expect when traveling to Japan, I did my research, I knew how to not be rude, not to be intrusive, how to generally be my version of a "good tourist", and it wasn't that my expectations were wrong, I simply found out I liked Tokyo less than I thought I would.

Some serious positives though: meeting my friends who live in Tokyo was great, and we absolutely had a blast, I'd have not had half as much fun if I didn't have people who lived there that knew the places to go and what to see. The climbing gyms and bouldering scene is WORLD CLASS. B pump Ogikubo is famous for a reason, and the national training center in Odaiba was also a highlight.

Maybe this will give some added balance, I'm not sure. This is just the experience I had, there were highlights and lowlights, but overall, I just did not jive with Tokyo in particular, and I would like other people to at least consider that they might not, too.