Chebucto Regional Softball Club

I could probably build a gaming PC that matches the Series S for $500 with an AMD APU, some Ryzen thing with integrated graphics, no discrete GPU. The Steam Deck makes it work in a handheld format, I can do it in a PC case. Or, go buy used. There's gonna be a lot of perfectly game capable machines being sold off because they won't run Win 11. Slap Linux + Steam on there and you're gaming.

If I understand the situation, they're rebranding an Asus ROG handheld, which I imagine isn't going to outsell the Steam Deck or whatever the thing Lenovo is shipping with both Windows or SteamOS on, because they're late to the game and they'll fuck it up somehow, and I give 50/50 odds that there will be an announcement that they're cancelling the next home console launch.

You know, I must have a skeleton of above average quality. I type on a normal keyboard with some bad habits and have done so since I was a teenager. You'd think I'd have carpal tunnel syndrome from wrist to ankle by now but no I'm in good shape.

I hear about these cases of inflation, like the fact a pack of gum cost 15 trillion Zimbabwe dollars, or immediately after WWII the German...reichmarke or whatever they called it, was so worthless it took a wheelbarrow full to buy a loaf of bread. Where do I get a wheelbarrow full of uselessly inflated USD? *It's not actually inflation, is it?*

Inflation, yeah. The thing that has absolutely never been applied to wages?

Games are getting more expensive. Console prices are going nuts; the Playstation 2 launched at $299 USD. Wages have been stagnant longer than I've been alive. More and more people are struggling to make ends meet let alone buy luxuries like video games, particularly the young because of our kleptogeriocracy. Younger folks often use video games as a hangout spot, because young folks hanging out together in public is a felony now. So they play the same few games for tens of thousands of hours. Minecraft, Roblox, Fortnite, I think the crowd that spend their adolescences in Garrysmod are in the attrition phase. You've already got a copy of these games, why buy another? A lot of studios are being closed because business major's gonna business. Fuck brand recognition or loyalty, fuck development talent, fuck community building, fuck long-term strategy, we can realize a gain right now by sowing half the planet with salt, so that's what we're going to do. So what is there for people to buy? That noise you heard last week was Xbox's death rattle. One out of the three mainstream home console platforms is an outright stupid idea to buy now.

The last EA game I bought was a SNES game. I can't boycott them any harder.

I propose we call Microsoft's portable Xbox a "Xune."

Increasingly, the software published on disc or cartridge is incomplete or unfinished, because there is pressure from management to ship retail products on time, but game development is hard, so the dev team will use the time during manufacturing and distribution of discs or cartridges to write patches, which will be automatically downloaded when the game runs. And it's getting to the point that the cartridge or disc just functions as a license key. Maybe some of the game's assets will be stored there but not the complete game, as they'll still require large downloads to function. I've been a Nintendo + PC gamer my entire life; basically anything I've ever wanted to play was available with that combo...and I'm ditching Nintendo.

Well, I'm kinda curious how much longer home consoles are going to hang on. Nintendo is releasing their second generation handheld. The Steam Deck is quite popular, and the rest of the PC gaming industry has been scrabbling to match it. Meanwhile, the PS5...exists and what's an Xbox even for anymore? People like to say consoles will continue to exist because they're so much simpler than PCs to "just play" on, but that's not really true anymore. My parents' Switch has a multi-page settings menu, an online account and subscription, even games that come on cartridge often require downloads and updates before you start playing. We're in a different world than when I was a kid, when I could really get a game, plug it in the SNES, flip the switch and it runs. I could see Microsoft and Sony having an Atari or Sega moment. Exiting the hardware market, shutting down their platform, becoming a relatively minor game studio occasionally remembering to make a game in a property they haven't published in awhile, like Atari putting out an Alone In The Dark game every 1.5 decades or so.

A gas chainsaw has a centrifugal clutch, so if it was "stuck engaged" the chain would move with the starter cord. You'd know it before you gave it a real yank. If you're starting with the choke engaged, it's possible the engine will idle at a speed high enough to engage the clutch and move the chain. 2-stroke engines aren't real anyway, they're bullshit wrapped in metal that works because the fossil fuel industry demands them to, so their behavior is entirely unpredictable and contrary to the operator's needs.