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Cake day: July 26th, 2023

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  • Genshin Impact’s first anniversary was the most horrendous one I’ve seen.

    They couldn’t even bother to send out an in-game message to congratulate the players.

    What they did instead is paying thousands of dollars for Twitter emojis and dishing out a few give-away events where you had to practically advertise for the game to enter. Were you guaranteed to get any reward? No.

    Essentially, instead of even acknowledging the anniversary, they made players advertise their game.

    They were also supposed to introduce a paid bundle with some cosmetic items alongside a free concert stream (the concert was pretty good). But that was after the anniversary. Keep the bundle in mind, however.

    What did it lead to?

    • Thousands of outraged players flooded social media.
    • Their discord was spammed with “qiqi fallen” emote (one of the characters laying on her back with a blank stare).
    • Review bombing got to the point where even Google Classrooms became one of the casualties

    I’m probably missing some other details, but this lasted for weeks.

    After a long while of non-communication, the devs gave in and finally decided to give players something. This “something” turned out to be the bundle that was supposed to be paid content alongside some (read “very little”) in-game resources. There was also another another giveaway event with, this time, guaranteed rewards. The rewards were, practically, you either get a scooter or one cent. Needless to say, it left a sour taste afterward.

    Honestly, it felt like a slap in the face, but it was enough for the things to start calming down.

    So far, even though they’re still very stingy with any sort of rewards, they at least make sure to congratulate the players somehow and give something.


  • Disregarding people who use Nazi as just a slur for people they don’t like, Nazi are people who support Nazism, also known as National Socialism (it has nothing to do with Socialism, BTW), which is deeply associated with Adolf Hitler. It’s a form of fascism with a sprinkle of anti-democracy and pro-dictatorship on top. Think antisemitism + racism + white supremacy + anti-communism + social Darwinism. It’s attributed to far-right, but using a more modern political compass far-up would be more appropriate since it’s more about control than economics.

    For full background on why it’s so universally hated (if the aforementioned wasn’t enough), Hitler was a dictator who ruled over Nazi Germany back in the first middle of 20th century. Under his rule, millions were inhumanely slaughtered for not fitting Nazi’s standard of a human being. Then, under Hitler, they went on to create a war that involved nearly all of the continents (from the top of my head, at least Europe, Asia, North America, and Africa), hence the name World War 2 (the first one was in 1914-1918, this one went on from 1939 to 1945). They killed combatants, they killed civilians, they killed children, they worked people to their deaths, they humiliated them, and they tortured them.

    All in all, the Second World War took away around 80 million people. The vast majority were people from the Soviet Union (~23-24%) and China (~19-20%). The third place took Germany with less than 8%. About 62% of all deaths were civilians.

    That’s what they did. They practically wiped out one huge country because they didn’t see them as humans.

    Every 5th-6th person was dead in Poland. Every 7th-8th in Soviet Union, every 9th in Germany.

    That’s why they’re not just hated, but despised with burning passion.

    On a side-note, what’s insane to me is how little attention is given to the atrocities Japan caused in China. Soviet Union is at least getting talked about, but Japanese people have no idea their ancestors did this. As a Russian, I knew that China had it rough, to say the least. But I didn’t know it was to that extent! And 80% of those were civilians.

    Edit: Re-reading the question, I may have taken it too literally, thinking “what’s a Nazi?” instead of “what exactly do they mean by “Nazi”?”. Whoops, but I guess it doesn’t hurt anyway.




  • I was interested in VR for a very long time. Recently, I got to actually try it out.

    I primarily view Apple Vision Pro as a proof of concept type of device. Sales being limited both in quantity and territorially indicate that. It has brought 3 major improvements to the table, compared to other headsets:

    1. Quality of passthrough
    2. User interface
    3. Display quality

    When you think about it, however, it’s not that much to make it an obvious choice over other devices.

    Passthough is needed for navigating through space. It does not help with productivity as your vision would be focused on the interface and not the environment. Remember warping on Quest 3? Much less noticeable than on videos for the exact same reason.

    There is no buts with the user interface and display. They are simply great, best that there is.

    Now, for the part that makes Vision Pro from a great productivity device on paper into a “dev kit available to masses” (I like that description, it does feel that way a lot, ty Ghostalmedia)

    Eye strain is a major issue. It is very difficult to use the device for more than a couple of hours without getting tired. This goes for all of the VR headsets out there. I guess you can get used to it over time, though.

    Limited usability. Quest 2/3, Pico 4, Valve Index, they all do things you wish Vision Pro could. Primarily usage of physical controllers. Imagine sculpturing without controllers because I can’t. Hand tracking is just not up to par.

    Battery solution is another issue. Not being able to swap what is otherwise a Power Bank without disabling the device and being unable to use any other battery than Apple’s own is at the very least annoying. Not exactly an issue if you’re too tired by the time it runs out.

    Finally, the VR space itself is unfortunately not mature enough. There’s a lot of work still to be done. Even when talking games, despite some amazing titles like Half-life Alyx, the vast majority where controls wouldn’t make you dizzy are all pretty much like arcade mini-games, where you either teleport from point to point or not move at all. Developers simply have yet to figure out an organic way of user navigating through virtual space. (Doesn’t mean they aren’t fun, though)

    Overall, I believe Vision Pro isn’t really a mass consumer product, but it did do a lot by bringing more attention to VR as a whole, as well as pointing out additional user-cases for the technology. Because of Vision Pro, Meta started paying more attention to details, which ultimately will benefit the consumer (in fact, it already has yeilded results).


  • CPU 3600, Mobo b450m, GPU 6700(xt), RAM 16Gb 3200mhz

    Something like this: https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/WC2VTY

    Comes out at 637€. A little over budget, but that’s also all new parts. It’s definitely enough for 1080p, often 1440p even.

    To get the most out of the budget, I’d definitely be looking at the used market.

    Definitely used 3600 for CPU. They go for very little and will pair nicely even with 3070 class cards.

    Used 6700 or 6700xt for GPU, but since they aren’t as robust as CPUs, do pay closer attention to damages, dust, performance compared to benchmark, and etc.

    Used case, because they don’t matter unless for looks. Just make sure it allows for air to pass through.

    Heatsink can sometimes come together with CPU. I’d be spending no more than 20$ to cool this one. (However, PA120 is kinda too good to pass on, despite being overkill for the CPU).

    RAM may as well be new, they aren’t very expensive. SP Xpower Turbine, Ripjaws, or Kingston Fury 2x8Gb 3200 or 3600 are all good options.

    Motherboard, wouldn’t buy used. And I wouldn’t be buying the lowest chipset either. b550m DS3H would be reasonable here or b450m (“m” means mATX, which are smaller than non-m, and usually cheaper), depending on if you need the extra features of b550 chipset.

    Power Supply should never be bought used, look up tier lists, and go with middle range one for reliability. 550W and over should be enough for the build. Try not to cheap out on these.

    Storage, also never to be bought used. Look for M.2 NVMes. SN770 is best bang for the buck imo, but even Kingston NV2 will do fine. 256Gb is enough for OS and some additional software. Imo, that’s too little. Get at least 500Gb. Ideally, 1Tb. Mind you, you could always add more later.




  • In my experience, the longer you type, the faster you get at typing.

    That’s like getting into the rhythm. If you do it a little and then stop, then you never become proficient as you never got into that flow.

    Try learning a guitar by pulling a few strings a day. Try learning to read in a different language by reading a few letters each time. Try running by taking a few steps.

    Doesn’t it sound ridiculous?

    Have you ever tried learning a different language? You don’t become proficient by reading one sentence, then stopping and then another one. You do it by struggling through many, and the more you do it, the faster you learn.

    Note, I’m not writing this because “boohoo, bad parenting.” It’s the first essay, who cares. (although her being 13 does make me raise a brow. I’d expect it with a 7 y.o., but 13? w/e, you do you). I just think you have a misunderstanding in how learning core-level skills work. Continuous repetition is the key.

    Another glaring example is how toddlers learn languages. In a span of a couple of years, they are capable of learning a language to native level with absolutely no prior knowledge, just by listening and trying to repeat the sounds day in and day out. Just think about it.


  • They guy did his research, and he did it right. Even mentioning the “social contract”, that’s not something you hear from an average youtuber.

    There’s only a few things I’ve noted

    Although the monthly rate can be calculated as yearly÷12 and is acceptable, it is inaccurate. Doesn’t change much, but still. ( (1+monthly rate)^12 = 1+yearly rate <= this is the accurate conversion)

    Next is “failed pension reform.” It’s failed in political sense. The intent of it was to temporarily lessen the depletion of pension fund, which it technically did do. But, yeah, it was absolutely not popular. Not to mention that it didn’t solve the root of the problem, which was obvious from the start. Back during his first or second presidency period, he promised not to raise the age for retirement, yet in 2018, he did exactly that. Needless to say that his ratings have been falling ever since then and up till February of 2022.

    The one thing I would’ve liked him to also mention is “quality of foreign exchange earnings,” which is a relatively new term. Essentially, companies now need to pay attention to wether or not they can exchange earned currency for something that they can trade with other countries or within Russia. Previously, they traded in dollars, so it was never an issue.


  • An economics student from Russia here, here’s my perspective.

    First, is that a country’s economy is a lot less volatile than we expected. There is also another factor that played into it. During covid, Russian companies amassed a sizable amount of inventory that was already inflated compared to European companies due to how volatile our economy is. This has given them enough time to reroute supply chains once sanctions hit.

    Basically, the so-called “grey import” plays a major role in assuring the stability of our economy. Companies either route their import/export through neighboring countries or through affiliated companies.

    Second is the competency of our central bank. After most of the major banks were cut off from SWIFT (used for international transactions), they raised the key rate, limited the amount of money you can cash out at one time, and did some other stuff. Higher key rate = higher deposit interest rate, but at the same time, credit became more expensive. All of this was needed for preventing banks from defaulting. Once panic died down, the changes were reverted. Now, they’re dealing with inflation.

    Lastly, the majority of our budget comes from oil and gas. Since Europe didn’t want to buy it, Russia started selling it to Asia at discounted prices. Quantity of oil/gas sold drastically increased, which mitigated reduced prices and led to a surplus budget. Not to mention that they started pushing on large companies to reduce the amount of dividends and instead re-invest the money.

    I wouldn’t call it “thriving,” however. All of this has definitely led to a slowdown in growth, which, as time goes by, will only get worse. But for now it’s fine.



  • Mistic@lemmy.worldtoGames@lemmy.worldFamily Group Games
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    6 months ago

    Maybe it’s just me, but I’d play the hell out of BG3 when I was 12.

    The amount of time I spent on TES 4 and 5 back then, and BG3 hits just the right spot with the variety of ways it allows you to play it.

    Minecraft is also in my top favorites.

    What I’m saying is, don’t count BG3 out completely. Not to mention that it’s very saturated, so a shorter attention span shouldn’t really be a problem, but you never know.

    As for suggestions. Definitely Terraria, as others mentioned. There was also Lego Fortnite, which looks like it would fit the tastes. Maybe also party games?