I think the laptop is too thin for an ethernet port but not an expert. I'd like a "Framework Pro" that thickens the laptop in exchange for providing workstation class performance and access to 6+ ports & builtin ethernet...
My favorite old Mac has to be the iMac G3. IMO it was the first truly user friendly computer, requiring almost no setup or technical knowhow. I know people who are hard core Mac/Apple users for life because the G3 was the first computer that ever clicked with them.
Tangentially related to the topic but I find American cultural attitudes towards sex very bizarre from the outside looking in. The view America projects of itself to the world through media is that it's the land of "Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll" and Americans love having fun, but internally America feels culturally like a deeply prudish country, much more than in Europe and Asia.
For many americans, its hard to get actually drunk at the bar without having to drive home after. You might live well outside of walking distance and there might be really poor coverage of taxi or rideshare services. You might have to have someone be the designated driver. For some reason the standard price of a pint of beer that isn't bud light has creeped up to at least $10 practically everywhere, in the 'cheap' midwest too. It adds a ton of friction to these cultural things that are much more commonplace elsewhere that have a lot lower friction to engage with them.
For example, in southern europe, its pretty common to see people openly drinking on the streets and no one bats an eye, either beers or straight up taking pulls from vodka bottles as casually as if its a water bottle. A lot more people live walking distance to a bar or someplace that serves alcohol. The smallest village will have a bar before it has a pharmacy or any other services. I've even found it to be cheaper to order light beer than to order water in restaurants in certain countries (they don't give you water for free like in the U.S.). Getting drunk is a lot more convenient and cheaper in europe than it is in America, unless you live in a college town that has dirt cheap well drink deals or something like that, and those towns feel pretty european to me with their drinking culture as a result.
> they don't give you water for free like in the U.S.
Well, to be fair, what you typically get in Europe is a nice bottle of mineral water, while in the US they just give you tap water (which would be considered faux pas in Europe).
I mean I wouldn't say that's the image they project. their tv shows and films are shockingly prudish. push any violence you like, but heaven forbid you show a tit
they also have this thing where everything has to have a moral. even things that are seemingly immoral - it's always sunny, south park, etc - do in fact have a moral message. the message being "if you're doing the things our characters are doing, you're immoral"
Using sociopathic/immoral characters in situations where they should reflect, but dont (or take the "wrong" stance) is a trope that goes back to Seinfeld. They are not deliberately/exclusively trying to make a value judgement. Usually it's social/political commentary specifically designed to shed light on how awful Americans can be to each other. It's (subjectively) funny because we have encountered milder forms of such people in real life, perhaps.
I agree that we are prude as a culture, just dont see how this is evidenced by the average sitcom. South Park in particular is a very strange example of a "prude" show.
It's the underlying prudishness at various layers (some of it is only historical, some of it lives in the present to varying degrees in various sub-populations) which makes the rebellious "Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll" thing a thing at all. If there was no prudishness in the first place, there would be no space for it to be popular to revolt against it.
It's because American media exports are mostly produced by a small group of people in California, one of the more socially progressive parts of the country.
A significant portion of the country's 330 million people are indeed prudes.
There’s more nuance to it than that, however: consider how the standards of film ratings diverge from the people making films. “This film is not rated” dug into that at some length, and I think it’s worth considering how much that has skewed the entire public discourse. We’re missing out on a lot of great movies because everyone knows that you can get approval for violence much easier than a healthy relationship.
I’d also note the difference between the public moral image projected and what they practice in private. We have far more hypocrites than prudes.
That's definitely the stereotype and I wouldn't say it's wrong. There's both a puritanical streak and an out-of-controlness in US culture. Also, Americans are less comfortable with their bodies, sex or no: public nudity, greasy hair, uncorrected teeth, body odor are things American's find disturbing in Europe and perhaps other cultures.
That's because America is not uniform or homogenous. I live in the one state in the country where prostitution is legal, and one of the few where gambling (outside of tribal land) is legal - and yet, the state immediately to the east is the Mormon capital of the world.
In my experience Asia (I lived in Korea, so my experience is primarily indexed against that) is far more prudish than America when it comes to sex.
My question, is how did Europe develop its seeming openness to sex and nudity? 1950s and earlier Europe looked a lot like America, maybe in that time America even seemed more open with sex. Europe produced Victorian prudishness, it used to be the norm for women to cover their hair, etc. It's not like Europe was always seen as a place that has been really open with sexuality.
I'm a little bit of an enthusiast (tried all of the major platforms). I have shitty rural internet, Stadia is (was) by far the best of the bunch by far, especially with the controller. Near-native for latency and crystal clear image. 40ms ping to Google.
Currently I use xcloud, its "acceptable" with certain games that don't require low latencies but its picture quality in particular is ass in comparison to Stadia. RIP.
> I was immediately roasted by a flock of obvious astroturfers
I was a true believer in Stadia for years and still am when it comes to cloud gaming. I was never paid a cent by Google to my knowledge (although they are refunding my purchases so I appreciate that).
That said, unfortunately you are correct that Google is a bloated rotting mess. The worst part is that Stadia was a legit good product.
I think the technical limitations of the Nintendo Switch makes for more interesting games in general. Most of the games on my Xbox and PC tend to be FPS/Action games with very boring, brown and green "realistic" environments whereas games on my Switch tend to be bright and colorful with lots of 2D and pixel graphics and games in the vein of simulators, adventures, roguelikes etc.
Tangent: It's amazing that the popularity of XP to "level up" and HP to bring to zero has become. This was a new concept to me way back when Final Fantasy 3 (3 in the US, I think 6 in Japan) came out. It felt very niche and reserved for a specific type of game. Now those ideas are everywhere.
What's a common new game trend since then? I can think of these: randomized microtransaction packs, online multiplayer PvP and co-op.
Are there any established trends that I'm missing out on, or new concepts emerging that old gamers may not have come across?
The Battle Royale genre (Fortnite, PUBG, ect.) is the biggest new genre I can think of. The 100 player last-man-standing game mode probably wouldn't have been possible without the advancements in networking speed and infrastructure in the last 15ish years.
I was just wondering today why the BR format has taken over in recent years and I can't really come up with a technical reason for it. Red orchestra had 64 player pvp matches back in 2006 and I think Arma had similar sized game modes in that era too. I could see a BR mod for either of those, but it didn't happen (or at least take off). Maybe there's something I'm missing, but it seems feasible.
I think the gaming world just really latches onto tends. A few years it was survival/crafting games, before that RPG's. Good luck figuring out what's next!
From personal observation and experience, I believe the BR game mode got some traction after the first Hunger Games movie released. After that movie released, I remember all sorts of "Hunger Games" Minecraft maps appearing online. I downloaded, played and hosted a handful of these Hunger Games "last man standing" maps for family and friends to play.
After a few weeks of that, the game format grew stale, and I stopped playing HG maps. Then a few years later a whole bunch of BR games hit the scene and all I could think of was how similar they were to the Hunger Games Minecraft maps.
Interesting! I remember playing DotA as a custom map on Warcraft 3, then being amazed to see the League of Legends and DotA2 communities grow so large. I had no idea that the battle royal games started in Minecraft. That's fun to know.
The modern Battle Royale mode evolved from multiplayer mods for Minecraft and then ARMA made shortly after the 2012 movie Hunger Games which provided the essential ideas all together (elimination, lots of players, must explore a huge map for items).
I think Minecraft can't be overrated as a vehicle for experimentation in multiplayer modes. Not only did the game have a huge modding and multiplayer community and have support for large player counts and maps, but it's unusually easy to create for and the game itself has no built-in structured competitive multiplayer gametypes, which means there's tons of demand for people to make gametypes from scratch and there's no built-in code for how matches work that needs to be worked around for new ideas to be attempted. Many other online games have specific ideas of how matches work built-in that reduce the demand for brand new gametypes and could make implementing a gametype where matches work differently daunting.
- Early access. Back in the day the dev would pay you with a free copy of the game for helping with the beta. Now you pay the dev for the privilege of helping with the beta.
- Cosmetics. Tons of games have stuff you can buy (equipment, skins, etc.) to make your character look cool. Extra stuff that can be developed easily by an artist, doesn't affect game balance, and sometimes even costs real money.
- Battle pass. I've never bought one but I think you get stuff on two tracks for progression, a free track and a paid track. Progression resets and there are new tracks like 4 times a year or something. Makes people want to open their wallets for the paid track due to FOMO and "...but I already earned it!"
I think if you switch from free to paid you immediately get all the stuff on the paid track you've already progressed past. Also I think they want to charge you $10 four times a year, every time the new tracks come out.
- itch.io -- Sort of like Steam / Epic / GOG for indie developers too small to be on those sites yet.
Oh yeah, and terrain deformation! Cool concepts. I'm not sure which ones do it well. The Diablo series seemed cool, but now it just kinda seems like "yeah, it's more and more and more of the same", even though some of it is procedurally generated.
I like the Switch, but it definitely chugs, and I suspect had we not had the supply chain meltdown over the pandemic we would‘ve gotten a more significant hardware refresh.
As far as simulators go, I‘m playing Two Point Campus, and it definitely chugs and crashes occasionally.
A lot of the best 3rd party switch games are ports from PC games or games available on other consoles: spelunky, shovel knight, cup head.
I think the technical imitations can definitely hamstring their games, even the first party ones. breath of the wild comes to mind, and frequently dips into sub 30 fps which breaks the immersion factor.
But that's your choice. Almost all of my PC games are 4X and turn based RPGs. All of them make heavy use of a mouse and keyboard. And in addition, you don't need stupid 4 slot cards to play them.
It would be true if Nintendo still had support of a beast like Rare. Alas, there are very few if any companies that are willing to work with these limitations and create games specifically for Switch.
And the main reason the games are colorful on Switch is that Nintendo still, to this day, has a reputation of kids-only console. And Switch also pushed it towards "casual one-off gaming" which invites bright colors (think Candy Crush).
