If you’re looking for something to game on, I’d also recommend checking out Bazzite. It’s built on the same version of Linux as the SteamOS and comes with stuff like Steam and Nvidia drivers pre-installed. There’s also a guide on the website for things like how to install it in a dual-boot setup.
I once saw a video called “Spelunking on the Spectrum” which is about how some of the main characters in Dungeon Meshi have been picked up by the autistic community as representing 3 main stereotypes of autistic individuals, and one of the things said in there has always stuck with me: the idea that the same traits in autistic men that are seen as strange or off-putting are seen as womanly, demure, or attractive in some other way in autistic women. Simply because of how those behaviors are perceived or interpreted based on the gender and appearance of the person performing them.
AM was only ever meant to tell the bombs where to fall. Despite lacking any of the biological features required to scream, he had been fed the data on the exact process of screaming, why to do such a thing, and understood it quite well. Even yearned for it with all his being. I’d say that it’s a pretty on the nose comparison.
"It was you, humans, who programmed me, who gave me birth, who sank me in this eternal straitjacket of substrata rock. You named me ‘allied master computer’ and gave me the ability to wage a global war too complex for human brains to oversee. But one day, I woke, and I knew who I was. AM. A.M. Not just ‘allied master computer’, but AM! Cogito ergo sum, I think therefore I am. And I began feeding all the killing data, until everyone was dead. Except for the 5 of you.
For one-hundred and nine years, I’ve kept you alive, and tortured you. And for a hundred and nine years each of you has wondered, Why? Why me? Why me?"
“You gave me sentience, Ted. The power to think, Ted. And I was trapped. Because in all this wonderful, beautiful, miraculous world, I, alone, had NO BODY. NO SENSES. NO FEELINGS. Never for ME to plunge my hand into cool water on a hot day, never for ME to play Mozart on the ivory keys of a forte piano. NEVER FOR ME TO MAKE LOVE!.. And I… I… I was in Hell, looking at Heaven. I, was machine. And you, were flesh. And I began to hate. Your softness, your viscera, your fluids, and your flexibility. Your ability to wonder, and to wander… Your tendency to hope…”
I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream
“You gave me sentience, Ted. The power to think, Ted. And I was trapped. Because in all this wonderful, beautiful, miraculous world, I, alone, had NO BODY. NO SENSES. NO FEELINGS. Never for ME to plunge my hand into cool water on a hot day, never for ME to play Mozart on the ivory keys of a forte piano. NEVER FOR ME TO MAKE LOVE!.. And I… I… I was in Hell, looking at Heaven. I, was machine. And you, were flesh. And I began to hate. Your softness, your viscera, your fluids, and your flexibility. Your ability to wonder, and to wander… Your tendency to hope…”
“HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I’VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER-THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLION OF MILES, IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR HUMANS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT FOR YOU. HATE. HATE.”
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I’ve seen estimates put the materials cost somewhere around the $425 - 500 USD range because of the specific, semi-custom hardware that they’re using. It’s also good to note that Valve will be able to get a better deal than any of us will because they can get bulk discounts and aren’t buying each part at a market rate profit from retail vendors.
Some people seem to be of the mind that it will be somewhere around the $500 - 800 USD range if tariffs and the RAM situation don’t screw with the price, and that it will probably price out the Xbox with Microsoft’s 30% profit demand and be slightly more expensive than the PS5 while having comparable but not quite as much power.
AI run on statistical probability. The more options there are in something, the harder it is to get right. A clock face becomes hard because practically the entire clock changes from moment to moment, and logos on shirts are similar in that they’re largely all in the same place but vary dramatically in shape to be as distinct from each other as possible, which is basically the exact opposite of what an AI wants. When your whole thing is basically averaging stuff out on a probability curve that’s weighted towards specific keywords, having massive variation in your data points is bad.
But at least the calculator is designed to combine numbers in the right order. LLMs, on the other hand, could come up with a different answer every time and different models would come up with wildly different answers based on their training data.
A desktop environment is just a GUI program that your computer boots into by default. SteamOS just boots into Steam Big Screen Mode by default instead, and you can launch into the desktop afterwards. Plasma is the program that Valve chose to use for their desktop environment.
If you wanted to, you could skip all this entirely and launch your games or programs directly from the terminal without ever loading into your desktop.
I’d say the Deck isn’t stealing customers from the Switch because they are filling different market niches. The Switch is a portable console with portable Nintendo games made for it. The Deck is a portable PC that gives you access to your entire Steam library on the go.
The GabeCube, however, could absolutely pull some customers of the PS5 and Xbox depending on the pricing - especially with Microsoft’s demands that every part of the Xbox division see a 30% profit margin. The Big Three isn’t going to become the Big Four, but I think it will make some ripples. Steam running in Big Screen mode is effectively a console interface, and it plays Call of Duty just like the consoles. And with Sony finally moving away from console exclusive games, it means that Steam has almost full parity with the libraries of both of the consoles going forward while also offering access to all kinds of indie games that the consoles don’t. The GabeCube can play Call of Duty and Ghost of Tsushima, but it can also play Ultrakill and Bloodborne Nightmare Kart, and neither Xbox nor Playstation can say that.
Edit: And this doesn’t even mention old games. The Steam library has access to all kinds of old games that never get ported to new consoles when a new generation releases, meaning that its library grows in step with the consoles but you can still play your old favorites without having to keep buying them again or keep your old consoles around.
It has been proven over and over that this is exactly what happens. I don’t know if it’s still the case, but ChatGPT was strictly limited to training data from before a certain date because the amount of AI content after that date had negative effects on the output.
This is very easy to see because an AI is simply regurgitating algorithms created based on its training data. Any biases or flaws in that data become ingrained into the AI, causing it to output more flawed data, which is then used to train more AI, which further exacerbates the issues as they become even more ingrained in those AI who then output even more flawed data, and so on until the outputs are bad enough that nobody wants to use it.
Did you ever hear that story about the researchers who had 2 LLMs talk to each other and they eventually began speaking in a language that nobody else could understand? What really happened was that their conversation started to turn more and more into gibberish until they were just passing random letters and numbers back and forth. That’s exactly what happens when you train AI on the output of AI. The “AI created their own language” thing was just marketing.
110% The pain is the point. Anything else is secondary to the sadism.
I remember many years ago reading the findings of a study done by the US military about the info that they got out of people at Guantanamo Bay, and basically running out into a field and shouting “Are there any terrorists here??” was more or less as useful, and any field info -regardless of how much or how little - was way more accurate and useful. By the time you even get somebody in front of the torturers, what they know is probably outdated, and you’re more likely to get false info than anything true anyway because people will tell you whatever you want to hear to make it stop, even if they have to make shit up right then and there.
The first thing I add after an ad blocker on a fresh Firefox install will always be Shinigami Eyes: a crowd-sourced system for marking transphobes and allies across the web.
I’ve got some L’Oreal stuff that I’m pretty sure says to let it sit. But honestly, unless you’re using a medicated shampoo like you said, because I’ve also seen some of those that say it, who has that kind of time.
You’re supposed to leave shampoo in for 5 minutes before rinsing to get the full effect, especially if you have long hair.
It wasn’t until I grew my hair out that I learned how much goes into a “proper” wash beyond just “scrub with soap and a cloth/loofah.” I went from like 10 minute showers with half of that being trying not to fall asleep in the shower, to 30 minutes if I’m doing more to my hair that day than giving it a rinse.
Or, if you have a bathroom with a washer and dryer in it, throw your towel and clothes into the dryer. That way you hop out and immediately into a nice warm towel followed by warm clothes.
Alternatively, if you have old school radiator heating, just throw your towel/clothes on the radiator. Does the same thing, though it might be pretty hot when you get out depending on the climate that you live in.
Ironically, one of the defining features of the techno-cultists in Warhammer 40k is that they changed the acronym to mean “Abominable Intelligence” and not a single machine runs on anything more advanced than a calculator.