I have an old PC that I put Linux Mint on around Windows 10 end of life. It's been pretty decent except I noticed at some point videos started stuttering a lot. The stutter would happen every 10 to 30 seconds on every video. Didn't matter if it was Firefox or Celluloid (the mpv wrapper that comes with Linux Mint), didn't matter which streaming site I tried, or what codec was used on a local file.

I tried everything: different kernels, different GPU drivers, bunch of Firefox about:config media settings, Celluloid/mpv buffer sizes and video acceleration configurations. Even messed with pipewire (audio) config to see if its priority was too high.

This is apparently a really common problem if you search for "linux mint video stutter". All sorts of different varied solutions out there that work for some users and not others.

One thread suggested removing Cinnamon applets. I don't have any custom applets on that PC, and was afraid to disable any built-in ones. So I went one step further and replaced Cinnamon with Xfce using:

sudo apt install mint-meta-xfce

Which is Mint's meta-package for Xfce desktop environment and other stuff that works well with it.

It worked right away with no further configuration! Xfce to the rescue! (Sure, maybe uglier and fewer options for display scaling, but I'd rather have basic things like videos working smoothly.)

Long time ago Xfce was the right choice for an even more ancient PC back in the day. Funny how it circles back to being the solution again.

So if I ever want to move any older PCs to Linux, I think I'll be skipping Cinnamon and reaching for other lighter desktop environments instead.

I would like to learn more about environmental technology to protect Earth. Right now I am using Google Search, which is mostly bad results and not very educational, or nature documentaries, or too complicated for me. Can you please provide me with list of good YouTube channels to watch videos and websites to read about?

I am interested in greenhouse gas emission, electric car, solar panel and battery. I like animal but I do not want to read about their habitat. To learn about animal, I will watch documentary.

I've been rocking a Sony Xperia 1 IV for the last 3.5 years or so and, save for some persistent and irritating Bluetooth issues (audio quality drops for no reason) I've really enjoyed it.

However, as of a month or so ago, the Bluetooth issues have graduated to "untenable" level, and considering its age, it's time for a new phone.

I almost entirely use my smartphone for watching YouTube, listening to music, watching videos, and reading books. I don't use it to play games or surf social media at all. Occasionally I'll take photos, but I don't need anything better than "takes decent photos"

My hard requirements:
Not an Apple
MicroSD card

My strong wants:
No back glass
Durable
Headphone jack
Decent audio quality

Does anyone have any recommendations?

One thing that drivers me crazy is how cluttered my social feeds are these days due to all the photos and videos and link previews. It just takes up so much screen space these days.

Is there anyway to turn the photos/videos/previews into normal links like old school twitter? Maybe a chrome extension?

Background:

While playing games for the Backlog Burner, I was surprised to learn that the Humble App (which is a "free" perk of having a Humble Choice subscription) has a few games that are actually exclusive to it.

Part of the reason I chose to play games from the Humble App is that I don't expect it'll be around much longer. It isn't getting updates or new games added to it. Also, Humble Games, the publishing arm of Humble which released many of the games available through the app, was abruptly dissolved in 2024.

With this in mind, I went through the entire current library for the Humble App and tried to identify games that I could not find available for purchase/download elsewhere.

Below is a list of games that I consider to be "endangered" because they might become unplayable/lost media if (i.e. when) the Humble App does shut down or stop working.

If you've got the Humble App, it might be worth playing some of these sooner rather than later.

If you've got game preservation sensibilities, it might make sense to download and archive these for posterity.

Game List:

Here are the games that are, as best as I can tell, Humble App exclusives and in danger of being lost permanently.

For each title below, I tried to find a decent link that gave information about the game. Many of these simply don't have a lot of online presence.

Some of them have Steam pages linked, but in those cases, they're just placeholders and you cannot actually buy the game.

• A2Be - A Science Fiction Narrative - Steam page

• after HOURS - info link

• Crescent Bay - info link

• Divinoids - Steam page

• Elephant in the Room - trailer

• fistful of nothing - homepage

• Heeey! Park-Boy - Steam page

• Jawns - playable on the web but no download available

• Keyboard Sports - Steam page (note: I found an itch.io page with it available for download, but it is clearly unofficial)

• Lyric Sonata - gameplay video

• Operator - trailer

• Quiet City - trailer

• Rogue Mansion - Steam page

• Roman Sands - gameplay video

• Space Routine - Steam page

• Spoolside - trailer

• The Groundz - gameplay video

• THOR.N - gameplay video

• Woten - Steam page

• Yojimbrawl - gameplay video

• Zodiac XX - trailer

Feel free to check my work and let me know if I missed any, or if some of these games are actually officially obtainable outside Humble and I didn't find them.

Also let me know if I whiffed any of the links or if you find better ones for any of the games.

I think this might be a hot take, but as the cliché goes, please hear me out.

First of all, what I define by “new and radical” is something that is not only significantly different from what we had before, but it must also fulfill another criteria: it must become ubiquitous.

So, for gaming input devices, I would say that what Nintendo tried to do with the Wii didn’t stick. The technology wasn’t new, but its implementation was new and radical. It was a gamble, for sure. I loved it for what it could do (and, honestly, I miss it), but it’s been almost exactly 20 years now, and the Switch 2 has the double joystick, d-pad, ABXY, quadruple shoulder button combo that all other controllers have. That basic form factor is what became ubiquitous. Motion controls didn’t go extinct, but apart from aiming via gyroscopes, they’re not that common. Classic controllers though, they’re here to stay. In fact, in these last years, I’ve seen the market for controllers explode. It’s wild.

What Nintendo did with touch screens on the NDS/3DS did become ubiquitous though (even if they kind of pulled out of it): That input method is what mobile games rely on. Its home hardware are mostly smartphones. What was new and radical about it (and something that Steve Jobs explained well when he introduced the iPhone) is the idea of having one stylus/finger tip as the tool for for the input, and then designing the input methods (swipe, tap, hold, etc.) around it. Again, the technology wasn’t new, but its implementation was a radical departure from conventions at the time, and again, it became ubiquitous. I don’t see smartphones ever going away (or rather, slabs of glass that we swipe, tap, and hold our fingers on).

I think that there was a hot minute there where we all thought that VR was going to become the next big thing. The input for that doesn’t use technology or methods that are radically different from controllers (they are still just buttons, gyroscopes, and accelerometers, as far as I can tell), but combined with the (supposedly) immersive VR experience, they could have made up for a package that feels new and radical, except that... it became a niche, and I don’t see that ever changing. Baring a leap in technology that allows us to instantly plug into The Matrix, without any complicated setup, I don’t see VR becoming important in gaming, even if it becomes significantly cheaper. It’s just not convenient enough, and in the end, I think that convenience is king, and controllers/touch screens are the ultimate convenience.

You may be thinking about what Valve is doing with touch pads, on both the Deck and their new controllers, but I don’t see it catching on (not to mention that it doesn’t really feel all that radical to me). I’d love to be proven wrong (and I know that those touch pads can do way more than just replace a mouse, since they also have “zones” that can be mapped to, etc.), but in the end, I don’t see it replacing the third pillar of gaming input devices: keyboard and mouse. For PC games, especially certain genres, nothing will ever beat the convenience of that combo.

So, for gaming inputs, I think that we have reached the end of the line. If before the end of my time on this earth, something new and radical comes along that becomes ubiquitous, then feel free to come back here and rub it in my face. I’m willing to bet a lot of money that it won’t happen.

Now, let’s have a talk about form factors, or rather, the hardware.

I think that the Switch 1 and the Steam Deck really kicked off a golden age of handhelds. Indeed, it feels to me as if some new handheld device releases every week. It’s absolutely wild. I don’t know what changed since the launch of those two consoles. We’ve had handhelds since... what? The Game & Watch? Maybe earlier? I don’t know, but it’s been decades. Yet only now has the market for them finally grown big, maybe too big.

Why do I say too big? I would like to know why these companies keep developing new models. Are they really selling that many units and making that much profit? If they are, then wow. Good on them. I’m skeptical though. I hope it doesn’t lead to some market crash. I should add that, as someone who feels lukewarm about handheld gaming at best, I don’t understand why they sell so well (again, if they do). Yes, every time I see a new handheld, I want to buy one, just out of FOMO, but look: I have a Switch 2 and I always play it docked.

I had a GBC/GBA/NDS growing... for the sole purpose of playing Pokémon... always at home. With a couple exceptions on the NDS, I never cared for much else outside of that. It may be that I was conditioned to feel this way about handhelds, since my first console was a Nintendo 64. My preferred way to play games, is to comfortably recline on a chair, turn on a TV (the bigger, the better), grab the controller, and play in the comfort of my home.

I cannot relate to people who have the courage to take their $200, $300, $400, $500 (or more expensive) handhelds out into the wild, where they could drop from their hands (I’m very clumsy), get stolen, or worse, only to play on a tiny screen while sitting very uncomfortably. If you do this, please explain to me why you enjoy it. I genuinely don’t understand. I’m scared spitless just from yanking out the Joy-Cons from my Switch 2, let alone unplug it from the dock. I also don’t care much for mobile games for similar reasons: screen too small, games not that interesting for me.

Alas, I have to admit that handhelds have become ubiquitous. I’m not 100% sure, but I think that, as a form factor, they might stay around forever. I don’t think that smartphones, the other form factor that is ubiquitous, are going to completely replace them. Handhelds have the added convenience of analog sticks, buttons, and being gaming-first devices. Smartphones don’t have that.

The third and last ubiquitous form factor would be consoles and PCs. I group them together because I have a feeling that sooner or later consoles are just going to morph into PCs. I don’t know what Nintendo will do though. They seem determined to have complete control over their ecosystem, but that will require them to keep releasing new consoles with walled gardens. Can they become the Apple of gaming? Can they make this business model sustainable in the long term? I’m not 100% sure. Either way, “big, stationary gaming machines” as the third category, are here to stay.

VR could be a new and radical form factor, but for the reasons that I mentioned before, I think it will forever remain a niche. Other than that, I can’t imagine what else we could come up with.

Do you agree? Do you disagree? Do you have a different take? Do you maybe have an idea of what could become ubiquitous in the future? Is there an input device or form factor you’d like to be more commonplace (like Mii with the Wii) or be invented (if it hasn’t been yet)?

Maybe I should reserve this for a different topic later, but I also don’t see video games themselves coming up with any new and radical gameplay mechanics anymore. I think we already have all the genres that we could possible come up with, and everything that feels new is really just a mashup of something that came before, arranged in a way that hadn’t been thought of yet... kinda like music.

Inspired by a youtube video thumbnail I saw saying "Which Link would function the best in society?" I didn't watch the video, but that did get me thinking to how weird player characters can behave. You know, with all the walking into strangers' houses, constantly crouching and jumping while moving, breaking any containers we see in hopes of loot, using special powers for silly things... Destroying stuff just for the heck of it...

So! Here's my extended question: how long would a society comprised mainly of video game protagonists last? And I mean protagonists who behave the way players make them behave, not just how they're written by the story. And that includes still having all potential powers.

Can be based on specific past playthroughs, could just be generalizations of how they're typically played. How many protagonist characters could actually hold down proper jobs without getting fired? Who would be able to avoid causing heavy destruction in daily life? Or get arrested fastest?

How long would they be able to put up with other protagonists' weirdness before snapping and starting a city-wide battle?

In the past couple of weeks I've recently watched some console retrospective videos while doing some chores (Liam Triforce's videos on the PS2 and Dreamcast).

It got me curious if anyone would be interested in discussion/retrospective threads on the different console generations/consoles?

I was thinking about using the Wikipedia page for the history of video game consoles to guide this, and potentially adding in some threads for different stages of PC gaming (i.e. decade or 5 year periods).

If there is interest I was thinking of having this be a weekly post. I'd love feedback on which consoles to cover/how granular this would be.
I.e. would it be better to discuss all of a generation's consoles in one thread or separate threads.

Some sample questions I thought of for different consoles:

• What was your favorite memory of this console?
• Favorite/least favorite game on the console?
• "Hidden" games you've played that you think could use more attention?
• Have you gone back to play games on this console or do you still play this games on this console regularly?
• Do you have the console physically or do you emulate the console?
• Are there any region specific games that you wished had been brought to your region, and if there are have any of them been fan translated?
• Are there any interesting tidbits you'd like to share about the console? This could be from promotional campaigns, development stories, fun facts.

I don't play as many new games as I used to, but I've also realized there are tons of games on the consoles I did play that I have never heard of or got the experience to play and would love to go back and try them. I've also seen some channels where people try to play every game on a console which sounds like an interesting experience, especially the guy who is trying to play all 4,000+ PS2 games that were released!

I've been getting more suggested game trailers on youtube and have been surprised by the number of "knock off" games. I've seen three different versions of Dregde (a game I absolutely adore) and a number that seem to be mimicking Hollow Knight. I don't even mean just like fishing or rogue like games, I mean like full on knock-offs.

I get the niche they fill, but I'm kind of curious about the ethics of it. Like, I would love to play more dredge but it doesn't appear more is on the way. But I also don't really want to support a company that is just completely ripping off everything from mechanics to art. Like this game seemingly took the actual artwork from Dredge. As a developer I think I'd be pretty pissed.

Is this really common and I'm just learning about it now? Is it the video game equivalent of Atlantic Rim? Where do people stand on playing these kind of knock off games?

Was listening to the new album by Young the Giant, and there is a sampled quote that I recognize that I cannot place. The song is: This Too Shall Pass (YouTube link to song), and they use it right in the opening.

The sample in it's entirety is:

"There's a new and strange environment at first

Just suddenly finding yourself in orbit"

According to this article, it is from a NASA video archive of the moon landing. So my question is, is there an easy way to search the use of this specific sample, to figure out who else used it to help me figure out why I recognize it? If you recognize the quote, feel free to comment where you recognize the sample from, and maybe it is the same place I recognize it from

There are plenty of video reviews of this car out there from people who do it for a living, but I'm not a car influencer or anything like that, I'm just an enthusiast who bought this car with my own money and wanted to give some real impressions for other enthusiasts out there.

Long ago Subaru made a Forester XT that was more or less a de-tuned STI engine in a compact SUV and it was AWESOME. I had an 04 XT that was turbo-swapped, with race exhaust, it was a very quick car and other than getting terrible gas mileage, burning oil, and eventually imploding the transfer shaft in the transmission, it was pretty great. In the ensuing years Subaru pulled out of WRC, killed the STI, and stopped putting turbos on everything (shame). While the hot hatch market has kept up to an extent, the crossover/smaller SUV performance market more or less died entirely.

Fast forward to 2023, I purchase a new Ioniq 5 to replace our BMW 3 series before our kiddo is born, since it's easier to get the car seat in and out etc with a higher vehicle(if it'd have even fit in the 3 series at all). And it's.....great, they are awesome cars, and changing to an EV was not a big deal at all, we mostly charge at home, but the overall build quality of the Ioniq 5 is really quite good, and it's a well put together car, there's a reason it's won many awards since release, outside of the ICCU roulette(which nobody seems to know whether you will or won't be affected, we haven't, knock on wood).

As things go, at some point I start wanting another enthusiast vehicle, my friends and family have stayed car people the whole time, and there's only so much envy you can have when you see Corvettes, 911s, etc, fast is fun. Well Hyundai releases the Ioniq 5N, the legally distinct M5 Estate, the Great Value Urus. And I happen to find one for a good price, and with another kid on the way, I really still can't have a 2 door sports car, it needs to fit a car seat(or two) and well, if having one of a car is good, having two of a car must be....gooder?

I don't need to tell you about all the weird quirks etc about the 5N, every single youtube video goes over this, it's pointless to rehash. What you need to know: holy fuck this car is fast, if you have been in fast cars, or hot hatches, or supercharged trucks, or tuned builds, I assure you it is likely faster. Over 600hp with minimal losses and a single gear transmission, AWD, and large summer tires will do that. The only car faster I've regularly driven is a 992.1 Turbo S, which is a stupid fast car that it's wild they sell to the general public, but those cost $250k, this costs $68k (or the aforementioned ICCU issues, there is quite a few lemons for far less, and those have pushed the clean titled, low mileage used down as well) so you can very easily pick up a 600hp, practical hatchback, for around 50k or less if you want a buyback. That is an absolutely, tremendously insane value. And yes, we all know EVs are fast, but the suspension setup, the grippy tires, and the additional chassis work they did makes it suspiciously capable to cornering, it corners better than many sports cars stock, which should not happen in a 4800lb SUV, wtf.

So then: is the 5N worth it over the normal 5? If you do not want an enthusiast vehicle, no it's not. Especially in the US market, the 5N loses amenities that it gets in other markets, or that are on the Limited trim of the base version: no HUD (Boo), no heated rear seats or sunshades (Boo) and no sunroof option(idc). The Limited trim seats are also much more comfortable for long drives, and you have the relax/recline function for charging stations. The 5N bucket seats are perfectly comfortable, they are actually great for the car, but I had to drive the car back 250miles and it was fine, but it would have been better in the default seats. Other downsides: the range is TRASH, expect 200miles at full charge max, 10% of battery buys you 20miles, the car is on fatter, larger wheels, with lots of additional cooling for performance, and you WILL want to drive it like a lunatic because the car BEGS you to. I wouldn't recommend this car as a first performance vehicle for someone, it's just too fast. Nobody should go from a normal car to a car that runs an 11.1 quarter mile bone stock.

On all the N options: I basically never use the e-shift, I don't care, I like not having gears, it's what you'd want in any car if you could get away with it. Shifting is vestigial, and while I can understand coming from manuals, people like the sensation, it's kind of fun, but I like going fast, and I want the cars full power as much as possible, but it's there if you want it. I really like the N-Pedal, I absolutely adore one pedal driving, and while I usually use the max default regen, the N-Pedal cranks that even more, and a quirk is that, because it's intended for track use, N-Pedal won't bring you to a complete stop the way that max regen in default will, I wish they'd change that honestly. Dynamics wise, this car has a rear power bias, and if you make a turn and punch the gas you WILL kick the ass out, especially in N mode(which is basically how I have the car every time I drive it, with everything in Sport+ except ESC in sport not off, and suspension in normal (sport+ suspension is harsh)) so it is far livelier than any other EV with big HP and accel numbers out there. And while again, it is not light at 4800lbs, considering the new M5 weighs nearly 6000, there's no shortage of large and heavy performance vehicles these days.

So yeah, I've had the car for several months now, and really enjoy it, and wanted to share my own opinions with you all, for the price to performance ratio of this car is truly, truly stupid, and you're not sacrificing practicality for it. One of the first things I did was throw a car seat in the back, and it's got enough boot space to put my kid's huge wagon+anything else. You really can't buy anything at all comparable for less than double or triple the price. Downside is that there simply isn't that many 5Ns that were allocated to dealers, and at the beginning they were charging over MSRP for them because they could. AND there's no telling that the ICCU may or may not fail, and it'll brick your car if it's not fixed, so that's a downside, that said, going back to the title of this whole post, my Suburu XT also exploded it's transmission and couldn't drive anywhere afterwards either, at least the ICCU is under warranty for a while, and I went through I think 3-4 high pressure fuel pumps on my first gen 335i, too.

We don't have a ~cars area, so hopefully hobbies is the right place, cheers.