I actually bought one for my collection. Takes a lot of tweaking, which I think is what detracts a lot of people, but it’s not bad hardware at all.

If you don’t have an Epic Games account, you should make one to take advantage of their weekly free games. Thoughts about the company aside, you occasionally get access to some great games like Borderlands 3 and Prey.

I recommend Daniel Mullins games if you like games that challenge the forth wall. Pony Island and Inscryption were fun. I’ve bought The Hex but haven’t sat down and committed the time to it yet, but it was very highly recommended to me.

If you like games like Undertale, it’s sequel Deltarune is free on Windows. Two chapters out so far.

If you happen to be a Pokémon fan, it’s not really AAA stuff that needs a gaming machine, but I recommend Pokémon Reborn. It’s a fully complete fan game that I’ve been following for years during development. It’s also free to download and supports online PvP and wonder trade.

Congratulations on your gaming pc!

How is your experience with the framework? I’ve been eyeing it as my next upgrade but it is a bit pricy so I’m saving up for it at the moment.

Looking at the pricing for the Framework 16 (prebuilt with Windows, to benchmark), it’s just under x2 the price of the Acer Nitro 5 my partner bought last year with a 3050. Not the worst proposition assuming most of the laptop’s components make it 10 years and the only upgrades/replacements are to CPU, GPU and battery.

The main concern is longevity since it’s a relatively new company. It needs early adopters to commit that initial investment and pay the extra now for the company to survive and scale, and it needs staying power and time in the market in order to attract more confidence and convert sales.

I would like to see it succeed since my personal goal is to just reduce the e-waste I contribute as a heavy tech user. Laptops are just e-waste walking at the moment so I think any reduction to throwing out the whole thing every time it starts to fall behind current developments is good.

Awareness is growing and there is a demand. We just have to see if the demand is great enough to push user repairability in tech.

I have been following the developments for Framework, and really hope the modular design for laptops will go the way of the usb in adoption throughout the industry. We could benefit from less becoming e-waste.

Based on the coverage I’ve seen and what I understand, likely there would be a new motherboard and larger base to house bigger parts and the screen would be maintained.

I do believe they’ll be able to achieve the goal of making laptop lifespans last beyond 10 years, which is why we’d like ways to upgrade. I’m cautiously optimistic about developments here.

I learned to crack open my laptop shell and replace the battery, which saved me 30 bucks when capacity was dead and I was getting a spicy pillow in the works.

My model had an easily searchable servicing guide, and I’d followed it to replace the thermal paste as well. That being said, I am looking for a future replacement as it no longer runs some indie games I have and there’s no way to upgrade its internals to newer standards. My dear laptop is future e-waste, as it pains me to say.

This industry needs to go back to focus on repairability. It would push for more sustainable part and product designs, which has become a big factor in purchase consideration lately.

Yes. I’m looking forward to better search functionality on instances though. It’s kind of hard to search if something’s been asked or posted already on mobile (using Liftoff, but I’ve also tried Jerboa and Connect)

The madlads! (I’m sorry I had to)

No, but I understand that. I’ve been on bad terms with my own mother following an incident last October where I swore at her when she refused to hear me out when I tried to explain myself. The full thing is obviously a bit more complex.

Our only interactions since have been arguments where she’s said very verbally abusive things and it’s hard. She’s done better than her own mom, who’s just generally verbally abusive by only doing so while mad, but there’s some things you can’t say without having to make amends later, and she’s run up a list.

Difficult families are difficult. I hope things improve for you as well.

As an 8 year old without much of a guide at all, I was a very proud Magician on MapleStory… one who dealt violence with her trusty magic wands and staves… physically.

I didn’t understand what skills and hotkeys were until several years down the line when reading comprehension and life experience improved.

It’s sunk cost fallacy, skinner box loops and more. It starts out fun, somewhat enjoyable. Then eventually it turns into a slog, and grind and you lose sight of why you even find it fun to begin with.

By then you’d be hundreds or thousands of hours in, and you end up commenting about your crappy experience here, I guess.

Pokémon Reborn has been one of the best Pokémon fangames I’ve enjoyed. Never thought I’d see the day it was completed, but it was last year. It supports wondertrade, online battles, trading and more, and has custom terrain effects.

True, I think in Japan kids weren’t considered human until they survived to a certain age due to how child mortality just worked in the past (the exact number slips my mind atm).

Based on Linfamy’s video here, sometimes parents would even “return” children shortly after birth, just because childbirth was safer than abortion measures of the time.

Good point. I do agree it’s more of a modern idea.

Though in a way, you do have to care for your retirement account. You have to make deposits regularly and ensure investments are done responsibly to ensure the best possible outcome.

If you don’t take care of them, then you’ll only get a poor outcome, like not receiving the best possible care but just the bare minimum necessary or even nothing at all, if things are bad enough.

After all, the bible also says “Love they neighbour as thyself”. When your children grow up and become your neighbour, the way you’ve treated them has a possibility of coming home to roost, especially now.

Inkbound is… disappointing.

I played the demo and it was pretty solid. It’s an isometric, turn based strategy roguelike, with multiplayer support and some competitive features. I was initially planning to buy it on release.

But the price at launch was a bit higher than it would be for a no-brainer purchase, and playing requires constant online connectivity, despite supporting singleplayer play, AND came with a cosmetic battlepass out the gate.

I found it ridiculous that the game couldn’t even support offline play before pushing a battlepass. Cosmetic only or no, this game is missing important functions and ultimately put me off getting a paid PC game that hasn’t even gotten it’s shit together before shilling their microtransactions. Smh.

I quite enjoyed the Horizon series! I found the world building and enemy design really kept my interest, even if the game follows the Ubisoft formula (though I admittedly do not play that many open world games, and thus lack that jadedness).

Now I’m partway into Forbidden West after a half year break post Zero Dawn, and my partner’s just finished ZD. I can’t state how much I enjoy shooting components off enemies without getting trampled into the ground, like shooting apples off a tree.

How prevalent alcohol culture is in the West. I’m Southeast Asian and it’s more common for us to drink sugary drinks and have food at the local corner restaurant at night instead of having alcohol when we spend time with friends.

When I studied in the West, it really struck me how the only place you really could hang out at night was the bar, and alcohol was often the preferred drink. And they normally closed at 12am, so you can’t even stay out that late.

Personally I’m not very fond of inebriation just due to the issues it creates (not that my friends were alcoholics and got blackout drunk every time we hung out), so I found it kind of bad that it’s so socially accepted to see a need to get drunk in order to tolerate socialising with friends.