I feel as though I have lost touch with the idea of the OS as software.

I’ve spent a lot of time looking for that all in one solution. Notes, reminders, calendar, etc. in one convenient app. Notion first, then AI came and fucked it all up. Obsidian was cool, super customisable, but I found that I don’t really need what it offers, stuff like linking and graph view aren’t that useful to me. The idea of a ‘second brain’ has always been interesting to me, but I could never find anything that made sense.

Recently, the thought hit me… “isn’t an OS just an super all-in-one app?”. This sounds stupid, but I haven’t actually considered the power of—in my case—macOS itself. I’ve just been using it as a portal for all these other bits of complex software, when surely it’s all built in?

Obviously finder would be the core of the system, but does anyone have experience with just… using the desktop metaphor as intended? Folders with files in them, that get opened in a program, and when you’re done, get saved back into the folder. Put things you use regularly on the desktop (or shortcuts to them, to maintain organisation) and delete them from the desktop when you don’t need them anymore. Again, it sounds stupid typing it out, surely the answer is “yeah dummy, that’s how you use a computer!!!!!” but… why do I have obsidian, and the photos app, and all this extra junk?

Going back to obsidian, for example. Surely, textedit (which has relatively simple rich-text editing, as well as plaintext) and some well thought out folders can get me where I need to go. It’s also widely compatible, since I can just… copy a file, should I choose to switch to Linux completely at some point.

I suspect this disconnect is a result of the iphoneification of personal computers, there’s a lot of layers between you and the file when you’re on a mobile device.

So, am I just talking nonsense? Or is it time, after these years of searching, for me to finally start using the computer as a computer again?

Hey everyone,

I’m looking to add some freedom to my mobile device setup and could use some advice from anyone who might be familiar with what I am trying to do.

I am currently using an iPhone, but I generally prefer using android devices. In the past I have regularly switched back and forth between the platforms but it’s a pain to do and (being based in the U.S.) the turning on and off of iMessage tends to confuse the people I communicate with (and confuse their phones on occasion when it fails to acknowledge my number is no longer registered with iMessage). I also just got a Pebble Time 2 and want to use it with android to get the full experience.

Normally I would just make the switch, but I’m hoping I can decouple my setup a bit and get the “best of both worlds.” Due to a recent BOGO deal at T-Mobile, I have an unused line in my family plan that is free. What I would like to do is keep my main phone number tied to the iPhone I have but have it act as a relay for iMessages, calls, and RCS/SMS/MMS messages to my android device that I would carry with me.

Not only would this make switching devices easier in the future, it would allow me to seamlessly go back and forth between iOS and android with almost no disruption whenever I want to.

Here is a simplified list of requirements/questions I need to solve for this setup:

1. How to make and receive calls from my primary phone number on the secondary line (I assume I can setup some kind of call forwarding but that would only cover the receiving of calls)

2. How to send and receive iMessages from my primary phone number on the secondary line

3. How to send and receive RCS/SMS/MMS messages from my primary phone number on the secondary line

Would love to hear this community’s thoughts and advice!

Anime piracy titan AnimeKai has reportedly been taken down a few days ago because their server caught on fire and burnt.

This could be related to the Almere data centre fire in the Netherlands last week.

Anime pirates can't catch a break these days.

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.

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

I had this idea that is mostly a pun. I want to train a Love Language Model (LLM) on a large corpus of love letters and/or poems. Tricky bit is to find a large collection that is available. Any advice on sources of transcribed love letters?

Edit: so far I've scraped a few website and downloaded a dataset from kaggle. I think it's enough for a just for fun project :)

I'm not some big psychonaut or anything. I haven't even had a proper trip outside of smoking some laced weed a decade or so ago. I microdosed shrooms (golden teacher) for a few years, but I topped out at 100mg twice a week. I've done about 2g of shrooms (different varieties), but at that level its more like a really great buzz off of alcohol with a little euphoria on top. Nothing crazy.

Anyway, I have a cartridge of NN DMT. I'm going to start light with only one hit, which should last only five minutes or so. I have a connect for ayahuasca, but it all seems to intense and drawn out and... just more than I want to do for a first go. I also don't really want to be that deep into something around a bunch of randos who also coughed up a couple hundred bucks to trip in some lady's living room.

I've been reading up on it for a while and have absolutely no anxiety about it. Even though its light, I'm still going to have a friend sit for me just to play it safe.

Ultimately, I don't have any grand expectations or anything. What I get out of it, positive or negative, will be good. I've read about higher doses actually improving the task-switching in the brain, which would be nice for my ADHD. I don't take any drugs for ADHD, depression, or anything, so I'm in a great spot on that front too.

Tell me your experiences (good or bad!)

I have always know there are satellites going around the earth, but more often that not now when I casually inspect the night sky I see at least one moving satellite. It’s obvious and no need for any telescope. It feels so different than when I was younger: instead of a sense of wonder at the scale of the universe and nature, it’s a constant reminder of the pervasiveness of humanity’s technology and scope for surveillance.

I don’t really have a specific point from this post other than to express a sorrow for the loss of a night sky from my youth.

The survey has been closed and the results are in!

Thank you to all the 148 people that responded! Check out the dashboard for the results! Here's a few quick stats:

• 50 total distinct languages were submitted!
  • 30 of which people responded speaking fluently
  • 40 of which people responded they are familiar with
• The top 5 languages (combining fluent and familiar):
  • English with 146 responses (not a surprise :P)
  • French with 54 responses
  • Spanish with 50 responses
  • German with 39 responses
  • Japanese with 25 responses
• And people responded with this many languages (combining fluent and familiar):
  • 1 language at 9.5%
  • 2 languages at 39.9%
  • 3 languages at 22.3%
  • 4 languages at 14.9%
  • More numbers on the dashboard!

• View the full results dashboard here
  • If you have any ideas for visualizations or stats I can add I'd love to hear them!
• ZIP download of the data

Thank you all again for participating!

Also I'm making a change to the schedule! The survey for the coming week will be a simple one: "Pineapple on pizza? Yes or no". I have an idea I'd like to work out to make the surveys more customizable and easier to set up but that will take some time, that's why I'm deciding to have a fun in-between survey and next week we'll have the vote on the next surveys coming up. :)

I somehow have money I need to spend, more than I ever had, and where else to put them than where I spend most of my awake time. So for the first time ever I've decided to splurge on a PC that isn't a low to medium budget one. For reference, I'm currently on a 10 year old 1070 GPU with a 1080p screen and the rest of my PC is either also 10 years old or at least 5 years old so it truly is time to upgrade.

It looks like it's 10-15% more expensive to self-build nowadays so what I'm about to pull the trigger on is a package/prebuilt deal. But I can still pick and choose (some) parts from this store. Here's the specs at the moment:

• GPU: ASUS Radeon RX 9070 XT Prime OC - 16GB GDDR6 RAM

This seems to be the most reasonable buy. The price is about 70% of Nvidia's equivalent in performance while the next stepup, a 5080, is more like 240% as expensive. I however got recommendations to get at least 5080 for good framerates in 4k gaming on high settings. I am currently on 144hz and have gotten used to about 100fps in most games, so ending up with like 50fps would suck.

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

Something I play a lot is WoW, and that is apparently a very CPU heavy game, so this one seems the best choice in terms of performance in that particular game even though I'm reading it's somewhat overkill for most other stuff.

• RAM: Corsair Vengeance DDR5-6000 - 32GB

I practically never multitask so getting only 16GB would have been fine I believe, and opened some room in my budget, however this is a limitation of the package deal and I cannot go lower than 32GB. Besides, this should be futureproof.

• Motherboard: ASUS TUF GAMING B650

• Storage: Kingston NV3 SSD - 1TB

• Case: DUTZO C740 Airflow Wood

• PSU: Corsair RMe Series RM850e (2025) - 850 Watt

Here's a link to the full specs and options to configure.

So.. is 4k a bad idea with this setup? Because I really want to.

I would probably settle for 1440p (widescreen even?) but I'm sure 4k would feel like such a much more massive upgrade. So if this build is not capable of 4k for newer modern highly demanding games, would downscaling in them look disappointing? If anyone has experience with that?

If I end up on 1440p, if anyone has experience with this part, what do movies and such look like? Would a 1080p download look strange and blurry being upscaled? And would a 2160p download look weird being downscaled?

I have also seen some posts about 4k being not worth it on account of just how tightly packed the pixels are - that unless it's a more than 30" screen, it's not even worth it? Any truth to that in you guys' experiences?

Sorry for the long post, but thanks for reading!

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

All previous Save Point topics

If you don’t want to see threads in this series, add save point to your personal tag filters.

I need to overhaul my home network.

I have a house on a lot that is ~60 meters by ~15 meters. my house is on one side and my garage is on the other, I have a little "studio" building in the middle.

I had relayed the signal around with 4 google/nest wifi mesh things for a decade or so. but I always felt locked out without even a web interface, just the home app. and then two of them died at the same time last month.

I ran some cable last weekend. Now I have 3 roughly equidistant wired switches wired together :House-Studio-Garage.
My current plan is just 3 wireless APs at each. I have a wired only brume 2 that i can use as the router.

I want to be able to have one SSID and roam between them. how well can that work without a mesh type network? just 3 good APs? My phone would stick to one before the mesh network. but that was a long time ago. Im hoping modern protocols might be better?

We have teenage kids, lots of phones and laptops plus wireless home automation devices, shelly switches, wyze cams, smart bulbs, etc.

I'm looking for something open source and as configurable as possible. I'm going in a linuxy direction lately and looking to have more direct access and control of my hardware. That's why I thought to ask here.

Claude and co have recommended:

Zyxel NWA50AXPRO
Cudy AP3000
Omada EAP670

After I pick an AP I also need to pick a switch. I used the old 3 switches I already had on hand: TRENDnet TEG-S82g, Netgear GS105, Netgear FS108. All 3 are unmanaged and one is 10/100. so I want to replace at least the slow one. I'm thinking of getting a managed switch with POE for the switch that connects to the router. I want to try running POE cameras at some point. I want to be able to make a plex server, NAS, etc. Again, I want something flexible and I don't mind fiddling with it or paying a little more for decent hardware. I'm considering the Zyxel GS1900-8HP.

Both the Zyxels apear to be openWRT compatable. which is something I may want to try.

I generally don't keep up with this stuff. I've never went very deep into networking before. I wanted to check with some real people. Has anyone used any of these, or any other good wireless APs? Is there another strategy that would work better for my setup?

Thanks for reading!

The last couple of weeks I've been fooling around with different ideas for how to build a chess bot that's fun for beginners to play against. I don't have much real experience with chess, so I've mostly just been testing it against myself.

After looking into the different techniques that are used to force engines to play at a certain level, I put together my own (somewhat silly) approach and have had some fun playing against it. The problem is, as I don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to the actual game, I can't be a particularly good judge of how others will feel playing with it.

Regardless of your own skill level, I'd be super appreciative if anyone would give it a try and let me know what they think.

I'm working on a full write up of how it works, but here's the short version: