arch_mage's recent activity

  1. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    arch_mage
    Link Parent
    Same, here! I can't put it down. It's all I have been doing recently besides going to work.

    Same, here! I can't put it down.
    It's all I have been doing recently besides going to work.

    1 vote

  2. Comment on Satire publication The Onion buys Alex Jones' Infowars at auction with help from Sandy Hook families in ~society

    arch_mage
    Link Parent
    Update from the Global Tetrahedron CEO Sounds like they still have plans to acquire InfoWars but its in legal limbo for now

    Update from the Onion Global Tetrahedron CEO

    Sounds like they still have plans to acquire InfoWars but its in legal limbo for now

    1 vote

  3. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    arch_mage
    Link Parent
    Here's some of the biggest things they did to help with accessibility, which I think really go a long way: Added quick tutorials in the first area to show the basics. Added WASD and controller...

    Here's some of the biggest things they did to help with accessibility, which I think really go a long way:

    • Added quick tutorials in the first area to show the basics.
    • Added WASD and controller movement (Click to Move is no longer the only option)
    • Each character has a town portal skill, portal scrolls are no more.
    • Part way through the first act you get an NPC that can identify the whole inventory. Wisdom Scrolls still exist, but they are no longer a huge bottleneck for new players.
    • Significantly better currency drops, and dramatically reduced "trash" loot.

    Those plus the other mechanic changes they did gives the game amazing bones. Granted, given that it is still early access their is still a lot of polish work that needs to happen. There are many bugs that need fixing and balance changes needed.

    Yes the skill tree is huge, but once the shock wears off the first time, I think its not hard to wrap your head around. Each character has a different starting place, so each character is really only working with about 20%-40% of the tree. There also isn't really "wrong" choices for the first 10-15 levels.

    If you're on the fence, wait before jumping in so they have time to iron out the kinks. The game will be Free to Play once its out of Early Access, so you might want to wait until then. That way if it isn't your thing, then you aren't out any money. But if you're ok with some things not working and some bugs and crashes, they feel free to dollars on it.

    1 vote

  4. Comment on Satire publication The Onion buys Alex Jones' Infowars at auction with help from Sandy Hook families in ~society

    arch_mage
    Link Parent
    Yea its definitely a strange one. I am not sure how its going to ultimately play out.

    Yea its definitely a strange one. I am not sure how its going to ultimately play out.

    3 votes

  5. Comment on Satire publication The Onion buys Alex Jones' Infowars at auction with help from Sandy Hook families in ~society

    arch_mage
    Link Parent
    This morning, a Texas Judge overturned the sale because of this Source

    This morning, a Texas Judge overturned the sale because of this
    Source

    7 votes

  6. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    arch_mage
    Link
    Started Path of Exile 2 early access this weekend. Started Saturday because I didn't bother trying to get in Friday on release because I predicted that there would be server issues. (there was) I...

    Started Path of Exile 2 early access this weekend. Started Saturday because I didn't bother trying to get in Friday on release because I predicted that there would be server issues. (there was)

    I only put 10 hours in so far and really enjoying it so far. They changed the biggest friction points about POE1 that caused me to bounce off. The biggest changes to me were:

    • The new skill/support gem system. Sockets are now colorless, but each gem requires 5 points of its colors (Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity). All Sockets in a gem are now all linked (Thank goodness). No more spamming currency items messing with sockets, socket colors, and links on gear anymore.
    • Respec passive skill tree with gold is so nice because you only got a fixed number of Orbs of Regret as quest rewards before reaching maps. If you tried to buy them on the market they were expensive too.

    Ultimately in POE1 I felt that the game was actively discouraging me from experimenting with different skills, passives, etc. With the changes in POE2 I now feel that the game in now actively encouraging experimentation instead. This difference means that I no longer feel pigeon-holed into following a build guide that someone else made and that I can try new things on my own terms. In POE2 I am not afraid to experiment with my build because if something doesn't work I can easily try something else or revert.

    Smaller improvements that make the game feel so better:

    • Graphics are really good. I was so blown away that I spend a couple in minutes walking around the first area taking in the sights before killing any monsters.
    • Short demo video of the skills before you make the skill gem
    • Clicking on keywords give you a definition/description. (No more tabbing out to the wiki!)
    • Charms are a big improvement to flask piano. I like having only 1 health and 1 mana flask. as its less things I need to track during combat.
    9 votes

  7. Comment on What happened to passenger hovercraft? in ~transport

    arch_mage
    Link
    Tom Scott video from 9 years ago about this Aside: seeing that this video was posted 9 years ago made me feel old

    Tom Scott video from 9 years ago about this

    Aside: seeing that this video was posted 9 years ago made me feel old

    4 votes

  8. Comment on United States Department of Justice will push Google to sell Chrome to break search monopoly in ~tech

    arch_mage
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I want FireFox to work just as much as any other de-Googler but I recently switched to Vivaldi due to random issues. Just a few issues I've experienced recently over past 2 months: I was unable to...

    I want FireFox to work just as much as any other de-Googler but I recently switched to Vivaldi due to random issues.

    Just a few issues I've experienced recently over past 2 months:

    • I was unable to login to Unraid's website entirely to update my CC information. The website was also extremely buggy to the point of non-functionality on FireFox.
    • My sister was unable to make a hair appointment with JCPenny using FireFox. The site just becomes unresponsive and crashes.
    • My mother's training videos for her medical license have a bunch of proprietary DRM bundled into them which cannot be played in any browser except Chrome. (not even Chromium)
    • I helped a cousin setup VIA for a new Keychron keyboard that they got for their birthday. VIA only works in chrome because it uses Chrome's USB Debugging Mode.

    before y'all pester me yes, I do change the user agent in FireFox to report as Chrome which fixes most issues, but that is not a silver bullet.

    Side Note:
    YouTube has never been an issue for me on FireFox (even with uBlock Origin installed) but I pay for premium so that might have something to do with it

    Edit:
    Confused VIAL and VIA. Made correction.

    8 votes

  9. Comment on Where does your username come from? (Following up on last year's thread) in ~tildes

    arch_mage
    Link
    I previously went by the username badcombos because very early on I enjoyed playing fighting games but I wasn't very good at them. Eventually I lost interest in fighting games and moved on to...

    I previously went by the username badcombos because very early on I enjoyed playing fighting games but I wasn't very good at them. Eventually I lost interest in fighting games and moved on to other game genres but the name stuck around. A few years ago I decided to change it as apart of a bigger personal initiative to change my outlook to be more positive. Being known as the guy who was bad at something wasn't the perception I wanted to bring and carry around anymore.

    My current username is fairly generic and not very inspired, but it was somewhat inline with my goal of occasionally giving sage advice.

    3 votes

  10. Comment on Daily driving linux (Fedora KDE) - My experiences after a week in ~tech

    arch_mage
    Link Parent
    I honestly just turn the PC off when I am done for the night. My browser of choice, Vivaldi, doesn't lose my tabs on shut down which was really my only concern. Any distro I tried boots up in...

    I honestly just turn the PC off when I am done for the night. My browser of choice, Vivaldi, doesn't lose my tabs on shut down which was really my only concern. Any distro I tried boots up in about 30 seconds (usually less) so it's not a big deal. One thing that took a while to get used to, coming from windows was the boot time consistency. Linux doesn't forcefully update itself at shutdown so I am no longer worried about Windows Updates randomly eating away at half of my morning because it decided that me having the latest version was more important than my time.

    6 votes

  11. Comment on Daily driving linux (Fedora KDE) - My experiences after a week in ~tech

    arch_mage
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    The thumb side button on your Logitech MX Master 3 can be programmed through Solaar, but its annoying as the UI isn't very intuitive (in my opinion). I used the config file to send up workspace...

    The thumb side button on your Logitech MX Master 3 can be programmed through Solaar, but its annoying as the UI isn't very intuitive (in my opinion). I used the config file to send up workspace switching with the thumb button at work. I'll post it tomorrow since its I don't have it at home. Some of the more complex features like dynamically changing the buttons based on what app you're focused in will not work though.

    Another thing you could do is save your config to the mouse onboard profile. It will then work across any computer without Logitech software (or Solaar) installed. The caveat is what you can configure is significantly more limited but if don't need any fancy then I would suggest trying it. I did this for my G502 LS at home.

    Edit: here is my config for thumb buttons. This lives in the ~/.config/solaar directory

    rules.yaml 
    %YAML 1.3
---
- MouseGesture: Mouse Left
- KeyPress:
  - [Super_L, Page_Up]
  - click
...
---
- MouseGesture: Mouse Right
- KeyPress:
  - [Super_L, Page_Down]
  - click
...
---
- MouseGesture: []
- KeyPress:
  - Super_L
  - click
...
    1 vote

  12. Comment on Daily driving linux (Fedora KDE) - My experiences after a week in ~tech

    arch_mage
    Link
    As a desktop Linux user going on for just short of a decade, I can say that wake from sleep has always been an issue and will likely still be an issue for many more years to come. It's a lot...

    As a desktop Linux user going on for just short of a decade, I can say that wake from sleep has always been an issue and will likely still be an issue for many more years to come. It's a lot better than it was but it still has problems (as you have detailed). Even Microsoft and all their trillions of dollars hasn't gotten it right (see windows laptop battery drain issue)

    I am currently using KDE on Tumbleweed but I have that exact visual glitches/artifacts issue that you are experiencing on wake from sleep.

    16 votes

  13. Comment on How do I know if a USB-C PCIe card supports 4k video output? in ~tech

    arch_mage
    Link
    A ThunderBolt Addin card would work your use as case. Just be aware that the ThunderBolt spec is slightly different than DP-ALT mode. This in theory this shouldn't matter unless your device...

    A ThunderBolt Addin card would work your use as case. Just be aware that the ThunderBolt spec is slightly different than DP-ALT mode. This in theory this shouldn't matter unless your device specifically only works with DP-ALT mode. This brochure from Dell has good visuals of difference without getting too technical.

    About a year ago, I did something similar where I put my PC in a different room and with a single thunderbolt cable ran a 4K monitor (120Hz) with high speed USB through a ThunderBolt Dock.

    Something to note about ThunderBolt: motherboard vendors make their own cards and they usually aren't cross vendor compatible*.
    Here are links to ThunderBolt cards on their vendors website.

    *The Gigabyte Titan Ridge 2.0 has seen success working on different vendor motherboards, see this reddit thread for more details

    Some notes from my experience:

    • You need to enable a setting in the Bios which is under a different name for each motherboard vendor
    • Finding the thunderbolt drivers for windows is a nightmare. Linux has them baked into the kernel in recent versions
    • On windows you need to download this unsearchable app from the windows store to enable ThunderBolt.
    • Give up putting your computer to sleep. Wake from sleep is flakey at best. (I've heard that they improved this with ThunderBolt 5 but I haven't tried)
    • ThunderBolt stuff in general is poorly documented.

  14. Comment on At least 158 people die in devastating flash floods in eastern Spain in ~enviro

  15. Comment on Canada expels top India diplomats, links them to murder of Sikh leader in ~society

    arch_mage
    Link
    Previous discussions regarding the Sikh separatist assassinated in Canada: https://tild.es/1aj6 https://tild.es/1ark

    Previous discussions regarding the Sikh separatist assassinated in Canada:

    https://tild.es/1aj6
    https://tild.es/1ark

    11 votes

  17. Comment on Android launchers in ~tech

    arch_mage
    Link Parent
    +1 for Niagara It also comes with its own icon themes which look great.

    +1 for Niagara

    It also comes with its own icon themes which look great.

    1 vote

  18. Comment on Space data centres: ‘A figment of the imagination’ but one that could make Europe a space leader in ~space

    arch_mage
    Link Parent
    Don't forget about cosmic rays causing bit flips in memory! It's a huge issue! Most computers in space are actually 2, 3 or 4 identical computers preforming the same calculation and comparing...

    Don't forget about cosmic rays causing bit flips in memory! It's a huge issue!

    Most computers in space are actually 2, 3 or 4 identical computers preforming the same calculation and comparing results. In addition to all the issues you brought up, a data center in space would be at least 1/3 as performant with the same hardware to unsure accuracy.

    13 votes

  19. Comment on A variety of beginner home server questions in ~comp

    arch_mage
    Link Parent
    +1 for Truenas SCALE. Makes it very easy to convert an old pc into a NAS. Everything is available through the web interface so there is pretty much never a need to open a terminal.

    +1 for Truenas SCALE.
    Makes it very easy to convert an old pc into a NAS. Everything is available through the web interface so there is pretty much never a need to open a terminal.

    2 votes

  20. Comment on Boeing whistleblower: production line has “enormous volume of defects” bolts on MAX 9 weren’t installed in ~transport