Farted around with it in a VM last night.

- centered taskbar is fine and it's a single toggle to disable. Always auto hide for me regardless.

- if you hover over the maximize button on a window, you get a lot of alignment options which is nice

- Control panel to Settings is mostly transitioned over. I don't mind but they need to multiple Settings Windows opened at once. I use a powerscript for a lot of that stuff but they should do that.

- They did something with the renderer, right click on taskbar stuff is like lightning now

- Start menu is vastly improved by the clean up and aesthetic changes

Just my first impressions of the UI stuff, haven't played around much so far. This obviously is not feature complete and a lot more will change.

Re: Linux, we've done that debate to death and there aren't many tangible advantages for Windows users to switch. Windows security is mostly good enough from the end users perspective these days and few people are truly paying for Windows anymore outside of OEM licensing. At best you get a similar experience, often with reduced compatibility, especially in gaming. I feel like that's the reason Linux marketshare has barely moved for 20 years. Combine that with many people being well served by their phones and tablets. I've run *nix operating systems all of my life for work and enjoy using them in that context but at home for gaming I stick with Windows.

This comment was edited on Jun 20, 2021, 13:37.

LOL, don't you get it? It's just even easier and more cost effective for ISPs to push shittier, but much more profitable wireless unto you.

US's infrastructure is rated C MINUS. And some other countries aren't any better to be honest, including here in Canada. Don't you think it's time to do something about it?

You don't seem to grasp that people cannot snap their fingers and have fiber overnight. No one dislikes faster internet (save Comcast) and no one is saying that as a technical concept that it's impossible. It requires significant investment and is simply not feasible without subsidies for many communities. Lecturing everyone about the state of US broadband does no people any good in the here and now where they want better internet, that is a concept that changes over time with subsidies and legislation. It's an ignorant and unhelpful attitude to pretend that every community can simply increase their budget beyond constraints or have the local utility company to do it. In fact many communities have tried and been denied due to legal disputes from competitors. Municipal broadband is a crap shoot in many areas for those and other reasons. There's a huge difference between a city of 40,000 people like Cedar Falls and a mining town of 1500 people, surrounded by reservations, attempting to implement broadband. Or a cottage community of 50 houses on a lake who just want affordable internet while they vacation.

For the person who doesn't want to wait years to simply have access to fiber internet, Starlink is there right now. You would have them suffer in the meantime instead, it's a bad argument and you clearly did not even understand what Starlink was when you first posted. That's what I was correcting. Now you're attempting to move the goalposts, acting like the rest of us just don't want fiber or simply aren't trying hard enough. Again a dumb argument, everyone wants it but not everyone can have it right now. You sound like some far right wonk, going on about everyone just bootstrapping themselves into community fiber.

Starlink is a product for people without access to traditional broadband. It is a good option to have. This is not difficult to understand, though you seem determined to try. No one is trying to take your fiber away or convince you to switch, it's not for you.

This comment was edited on Jun 20, 2021, 10:40.

The nonsense anecdotes attempting to save face are transparent. If it was so easy and cost effective, people would do it because no one wants shitty internet. Telling a town that is several hours from a major population center, that has a budget that can barely afford more than a few paved roads to stop with their "bullshit excuses" and just roll out fiber simply reveals the breadth of your ignorance. That's the whole premise of Biden's proposed broadband subsidies. But fine, it's one thing to be ignorant on a subject but to be rude and aggressive in addition is why you got set straight here. No point in getting upset with me about it, you did that to yourself.

Starlink is a product is for communities that are not served by traditional broadband and/or can't afford it. This is not a difficult concept to grasp. Yes it would be wonderful if the whole world had fiber but it doesn't and won't any time soon.

This comment was edited on Jun 20, 2021, 09:47.

Burrito of Peace wrote on Jun 19, 2021, 21:38:

Verno wrote on Jun 19, 2021, 21:23:
The rest of us deal with the reality that many people in rural areas lack proper broadband access, that's the target market for products like Starlink.

Some years back, I was one of those people. The absolute best I could get was CenturyLink at a whopping 3Mbps. I would get that 3Mbps on alternate Tuesdays at 1:17AM for three minutes. Then my actual throughput was less than half that.

Spectrum (Then TimeWarner) had zero plans to invest in the area even though we were less than half a mile from their existing service area. The copper phone lines were so old that AT&T could not run DSL due to "attenuation problems" (their words).

I would have given my left nut for Starlink back then.

You also have the recent efforts to make municipal broadband straightup illegal to protect cable monopolies. So you can't magically bootstrap your way up to a modern broadband connection.

Indeed, I lived in an old mining town several years ago and you had no reasonable broadband options. The ground was too hard and cold to trench fiber at an affordable cost to the municipality and aerials were likewise difficult due to the weather. Starlink didn't exist back then but it would've been perfect. There are millions of people in the US without access to broadband and you can't magically just snap your fingers and have fiber, its a massive investment and takes a long time to roll out on the kind of basis we're talking about here.

Simon Says wrote on Jun 19, 2021, 18:49:
What's with this widespread nonsense rural argument everyone's yapping about?

I live in as rural an area as you can get, I could send you pics and coordinates to check on google maps ( but not street since the google car never came close ).

If there's a telephone pole, there's ZERO reason not to pass fiber, even the upfront cost argument is bullshit because the investment of passing fiber will be amortized over 100+ years, you'll make money, guaranteed. It's just another wire, like electricity and phone.

The rural argument is the dumbest elitist bullshit nonsense I have ever heard.

I don't make rural broadband policy and the world doesn't revolve around you. Go lecture the government about it. The rest of us deal with the reality that many people in rural areas lack proper broadband access, that's the target market for products like Starlink. Remote areas, rural areas, places where no company has invested in infrastructure for various reasons that frankly aren't important - people are forced to live with it and change takes time.

No one is holding a gun to your head telling you to give up fiber and get Starlink, it's a product for people without access to alternatives.

They don't oversell and it's inherently spectrum limited. They've been very strict with allocation. It's not intended to get you off fiber. It's a rural internet access option when others don't exist or are overpriced trash. They've been pretty clear and up front about that from the beginning.

Tipsy McStagger wrote on Jun 18, 2021, 14:23:
That daredevil had two young kids.. man why would you put yourself in that situation when you have two kids needing you. I get it was basically your career before but man.. your life changes when you have little ones looking up to you. My life changed when I had kids.. lots of things that used to be "worth it" aren't worth the consequences anymore.. Such as say a bar fight.

Yeah some people feel the need to justify their selfishness with the whole "doing what you love" bit. If you have a family, you have a responsibility to at least try to be there. There are a lot of things I would love to do in life but I need to be there for mine so I'm not taking absurd risks for the fleeting adrenaline rush. I gave up on some of my riskier hobbies like climbing for that reason. And like you said it's the same reason I don't get involved in road rage incidents, fist fights and other associated nonsense where you could be easily injured or killed for the sake of pride.

theglaze wrote on Jun 18, 2021, 10:52:
I don't think the gaming community is one that should voice an opinion about frivolously wasting energy on selfish endeavors. Just like crypto, the loot I'm accumulating during gaming can't be used to buy coffee down the street either!

Entertainment value is incalculable to society, gaming is fine.

Crypto is just an environmentally abusive way of gambling. We have many methods of gambling already. Maybe at some point in the future we will see a sensible implementation that actually offers benefits over fiat currency without the downsides but popular cryptocurrency implementations right now are awful.

eRe4s3r wrote on Jun 18, 2021, 14:06:
Exactly, as someone who modded D:OS 2 I wish we could have done even 5% of what BG3 is doing... and for a super alpha version of BG3 what they have in EA is flat out mind blowing. If we would get something akin to the NWN editor then BG3 would also literally NEVER die since we could implement all the hundreds of modules.....

I played BG3 EA once to completion (including seeing the ending video) and thought it was a great experience. I will play it again when it's done, whatever long that is.

I respect your opinion so I'll give it another shot, my first exposure was literally 20 days after they allowed it so I'm sure its come a long way.

I've farted around with the pre-release stuff a bit and to be honest this feels way too much like a Baldur's Gate mod for D:OSII. I don't mind the change of pace but it has a lot of Larian jank to it and not in a good way. I don't know, I really wanted to love it but was pretty lukewarm overall, it just feels off. I will give the final game a chance when it's on sale.

After the latest patches the FF7R is a fantastic little game, frankly I think it's much better than the intro segment of the original.

Alan Wake hasn't aged well unfortunately, it needs a lot of work. Amusing story and characters but the gameplay sucks by modern standards.

You can sideload to your hearts content by signing up for a free Apple developers account, I have 2 apps installed that way. If users really care about these things, there are ways. The truth is that most users simply do not care.

Glad to hear everyone is ok, let us know if you need anything Blue. I've only been in one car accident in my whole life but it was certainly a scary experience. Best of luck with recovery.

Slick wrote on Jun 9, 2021, 23:04:
BF4 still feels better than BFV for me. I like the pacific ww2 maps, but the combat is not as satisfying.

BF V was a fucking train wreck, damn right BF4 is better. BF V featured some of the worst maps in the entire franchise, a mindboggling obsession with game modes and Dice couldn't make its mind up over how the gunplay model was supposed to be handled. I still don't know how they managed to make a boring WWII game but god damn, they did. I am a huge franchise fan but BF V was a travesty, I fought and got a refund for it on Origin. It's fucking bad.

I was hoping for more futuristic stuff but I'll give it a chance. Definitely waiting for reviews though, BF V was a harsh burn.

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Jun 4, 2021, 12:26:
Given that on eBay I'm seeing them for $3,260 USD / $3,940 CAD, that's not actually ridiculous. I considered reselling my card and making do with my old 1080 Ti, as I'm not a heavy gamer these days, but it could be years for the market to settle down and I wasn't prepared to wait that long. Even now I could get twice what I paid for the card, which is ridiculous.

That's what I did. I had an MSI 1080ti sitting around unsold and realized most of my gaming is at 1440p anyway and that card still easily hits ~60fps with the detail toggles I care about. I sold my 3090 for nearly twice what I paid for it and have been happily using the 1080ti for the past few months. I have an eVGA 3080 just shipped after a long queue wait, paid for by the profit from the 3090 and then I'll sell the 1080ti for a nice profit on eBay. It all worked out nicely, I certainly didn't plan it but I'm not going to argue with lady luck.

The 1080ti is a workhorse though and has treated me well, the irony is that it was an old miners card that I bought for $300. Fan bearing went and beyond that that simple replacement, it just keeps rockin. Truly an amazing card, what great value for the money.

eRe4s3r wrote on Jun 3, 2021, 19:48:

Verno wrote on Jun 3, 2021, 18:51:
Fuck yeah, Beastmen need some love. The shittiest legendary lords, worst campaign and a roster riddled with problems.

The patch that goes with it will be far more important for the faction than the DLC... and it's the last DLC for WH2 too .. oh well

Yeah I'm referring to the patch in my excitement. I play almost exclusively MP now and Beastmen need a lot of love. It'll be fun to do a few fresh campaigns with them too sometime.

Fuck yeah, Beastmen need some love. The shittiest legendary lords, worst campaign and a roster riddled with problems.

The best chance a regular consumer has is just watching for a drop and precarting the SKU they want on BB. Or rent a bot.

Frankly I just recommend sitting the whole mess out until the supply situation is sorted. What I think the manufacturers need to do is keep inventory on hand until they can do a large drop. You drop 5000 3090s and no scalping network is going to have that kind of liquidity or will want to take the associated risk. The best way to insure people get cards is large drops, whether its online or at retail. Keep the channel dry for a few months if you really have to.

Jim wrote on Jun 2, 2021, 15:32:
crypto currency needs to burn in hell. To think that a large percentage of the total worlds energy production is being wasted doing nothing but searching for random numbers along with the side effects of making all associated hardware impossible to get.

Blockchain synergy is driving innovation in the financial sector and will assertively cloudify visionary leadership. Crypto is the way of the future. Courtesy of an oldie but goodie

Surely it's worth burning the world for a pseudo-currency that you can do absolutely nothing meaningful with.