Steam Deck
I got a steam deck. It arrived as a happy accident and wasn't something I would have purchased for myself but I was surprised at how much I like it.
The steam deck is a handheld gaming device like the gameboy or nintendo switch but it's connected to steam and provides access to your online steam library. The device runs on an x86 AMD processor with a beefy video card capable of playing modern PC games smoothly. It runs arch linux and is completely unlocked and open. By default it runs the steam games portal in full screen mode but gives you a button to drop into the KDE desktop and use it like a standard linux OS.
Having a open handheld gaming platform is unheard of. Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony are particularly protective of their IP and spend lots of effort making sure people don't use their devices for anything other than playing their licensed games. Valve takes a kickback for most games sold on their store but decided to adopt the open source ethos for their hardware. You don't know how long I've been waiting for someone to do something like this. I know a lot of people bought the device just because they could use it as a portable linux desktop and now they're finding they're playing a lot more games.
Valve have been putting in a lot of work the past few years fixing windows emulation, taking a linux project called wine and extending it with graphics fixes and other changes targeted at gaming but also pushed upstream as good open source advocates. I'm not super happy with these efforts because it encourages developers to avoid writing games for linux but it's definitely worked. Valve is one of those rare companies that no one hates. Considering the post-capitalist hellscape we're all trapped in, this is unheard of.
One effect of having a fully open hand held device running linux is you can run emulation software. Everyone who tries says the same - it's perfect for playing all your favorite xbox, nintendo, playstation games and they're wondering how valve hasn't been sued into oblivion.
I have a 'large' steam library of ~700 games. Most were acquired in charity bundles and over 70% are unplayed. Some I've avoided because they're genuinely bad, but often I haven't played them because they're not something I want to explore while sitting at my desk. Platformers, shoot em ups, and hard twitch games are not as fun with a keyboard. I recently finished hyper light drifter on my deck. It's a hard game with an abstract interface that requires the player to get used to dying over and over again until they figure out enemy attack patterns. I have absolutely no patience to play something like this on my desktop pc but on the deck it becomes doable. I bought Hades in the steam sale because it knew it would be the same.
I still have to explore my old ROMs, GOG games, and itch.io. There are portal apps for linux that will run in desktop mode and give me access to those libraries but I just haven't had the time to set them up. Just the idea that all of my games (thousands in total) are just a few clicks away on a portable handheld is crazy.
The hardware is great, though the battery life ~4 hours could be better, but the thing that has been revelatory is the hibernate button. Even my top of the line linux laptop doesn't get hibernation right. In fact, before the steam deck I didn't think it was possible for an x86 to hibernate this well.
On the steam deck, at any time, you can press the power button and the device will go to sleep (usually in under a second). Press it again and it will wake up in a few seconds bringing you back to exactly where you left off. It works for any game, you don't even have to pause. You'll see this mentioned in reviews but I think this is the steam deck's killer feature.
With a fast hibernate button you can put it down and pick up again in a moment. There's no friction. Got a minute or two? Pick up the deck and play a while. The device draws so little power in hibernation mode there's no reason to turn it off so it's always available. It means you can just keep the game running. On a PC there's the tendency to shut down games between sessions because the music will continue to run in the background or they take up too much RAM. Waiting for shutdown and boot up is painful. I haven't played as much as I'd like RDR2 because it takes ~2min? to boot into the game each time I want to play. Being able to put down the game at any moment and pick it up again in a few seconds is crazy.
Though valve hasn't commented on it, it's believed they've sold over a millions units and that's before they started shipping to Asia. They seem to be pleased with how it's developed and I agree. If you have a large steam collection get a steam deck, you won't be disappointed.
Do not make eye contact with the dog
We were out on a bike ride around santa cruz and saw this missing dog poster. Apparently it's the doggie equivalent of hannibal lector.
cryptic pregnancy
Hey, I found another fetish! It's pretty rare for me to see a new one.
The term is normally used to describe people that don't know they're pregnant for a long time. It has nothing to do with what is described here. These people believe they have a 'slow growing' fetus that takes years to mature.
They like to get ultrasounds and then imagine they can see the fetus. This is very evangelical based.
The graveyard rats
We were watching the second episode of Guillerimo del Toros cabinet of curiosities when I realized I was familiar with the story it was based on. The Graveyard Rats is a short story by Henry Kuttner but I was pretty sure I hadn't read the original story. I suspected it was a comic book adaptation and that evening I managed to track it down.
The story (included below) was drawn by Jack Cole an artist with a promising career who committed suicide for mysterious reasons. Neither adaptation follows the short story which you can read in it's entirety here.
Twitter meltdown
I wish corporate malfeasance was discussed more often. Twitter gave us a brief window into this and it makes me sad it doesn't happen more often. I saw a good description of our billionaire problem.
He’s not stupid, he just isn’t as smart as he and all his sycophants think, and certainly not smart enough to overcome his myriad of personality and mental health disorders. Unfortunately for us, after ruining a perfectly fine company and damaging the lives of thousands of employees, he’ll loudly retreat to his lair to sit on his remaining mountain of gold, recharge his narcissistic tank, and then emerge to set something else ablaze. After all, this is what dragons do. And that’s how all of us should think of his ilk, as dragons. They don’t care a lick about who or what or they ruin in pursuit of an ever larger pile of gold.
Cleaning the house with a leaf blower
I live in a small apartment with no HVAC, wood floors, my partner, and a cat. I'm allergic to the cat and the dust that collects in the corners and seeps into the furniture. We live next to a highway which probably causes a continuous rain of carcinogenic micro particles over everything. After years of allergies I bought one of these:
It's great. Apart from seeing the amount of cat hair, dust, and filth it collects, my allergies have gotten much better. I make it a point to turn it on before sweeping and on cold winter days when the sun is low on the horizon and the sunbeams reach far into my living room it's gratifying to see the motes of dust marching towards the filter.
A year ago I noticed you could buy a corded electric leaf blower on amazon for $30. Setting aside the problem of shopping at amazon (which I do very reluctantly), I didn't need another device taking room in my limited space. I didn't buy it but it remained in my list and the next time I checked amazon I was notified that the price had gone up so I forgot about it. Then, more recently I had to make another amazon purchase and I saw the price had come down again. Reader, I bought it.
It was larger than I expected, noisier, it blows too hard to point at my books or counters, and it didn't come with a cord but it is satisfying. Pointed at the floor or the couch it raises the dust like a cloud of smoke in the winter sun. When I open the window and direct it outside it's like an explosion billowing out over my deck and into the trees beyond.
For all the dust is pushes outside, it redistributes the rest onto every other surface but I still think it's worth it. There is nothing more gratifying than seeing the dust billowing out the door. I don't even care what the neighbors think.
The infrequently updated blog.