KrokanteBamischijf

Even at 25% off, a $70 game is still a ripoff.

Which is why you only buy games at 90+% off or through game bundles. Unless the developer proves the game is worth the money through all the positive things the community has to say about it.

Chances are good that your backlog is large enough that you can just wait for newer games to be priced reasonably, even if you're buying games at sensible discounts.

Especially for single player games there is no real reason to play a game on release, other than the hype cycle. You might even be better served waiting a while and not be punished by issues that are patched after release.

Transcoder here, if you're looking to leverage quality/file size benefits of your codec, you don't encode with hardware.

As a rule of fist hardware encoding is better served for streaming purposes where you need to crush a raw 1080p or 1440p stream into something that's actually a sensible bandwith as fast as possible, especially if you're streaming 60fps because your algorithm has a time limit of 16ms per frame.

If file size with preservation of quality is something you care about, you encode as slowly and thouroughly as you can, which is why x264 on your CPU will outperform encoders like NVENC any time.

When it comes to HEVC, software encoding is only really worth it if you have the time to spare, because x265 takes between 3x and 5x as long as encoding the same footage through x264, with a 15-20% smaller file size at best. It is also more intensive to decode, which is why you still see many files with a H.264 codec.

Excellent analysis. Especially this part:

It will be much more productive to try to solve this with the handful of Browser vendors than trying to regulate each and every consent banner.

Early cookie banners were a bad experience but they were manageable. But now thing have transitioned into content-blocking modals, dark patterns, forced individual consent/rejection for each and every one of the 943 partners they're selling your data to, sites that refuse to serve content if you reject tracking and other ways to frustrate the end user.

I'm done with every piece of shit predatory actor inventing their own way of malicious compliance with the GDPR. You either implement the user-friendly consent API or you get no more tracking at all. Paywall your shit for all I care, at least then you'll have a sustainable business model.

Definitely 100% done with the resistance era, and any canon material that comes after it.

Kinda done with the clone wars era stuff, but at least there are still some niche avenues left unexplored.

Also definitely done with anything rule of two. The idea of it has ruined any chances of writing actually interesting dark side characters, because you'll always see the same cycle of student-master power struggle.

It's about time sith ideology was portrayed for what it is actually supposed to be, and not just "bad guys with red lightsabers". Curious what this show will bring, but not quite convinced yet. Only thing that will definitely get that right is a truthful, both-sides, Old Republic era show covering all different factions of interest without presenting any one as morally superior.

Slugs to be you then, I guess. :P

In all seriousness, the graph shows different species as fraction of total uses recorded. Since the paper is mostly about mice, and behavioural differences under different circumstances, it being unfair to the slugs is probably not such a big deal here.

Blender can help with lots of aspects in the game development workflow.

From simple low-poly modeling and texturing, to 3D sculpting highly detailed models, to procedurally generating geometry for massive worlds, animating game characters, baking different texture maps and much more.

If you can handle some python you can even automate pretty much anything the software can do, and build your own plugins.

There are tons of tutorials on youtube on how to make game assets and I would recommend Grant Abitt's stuff when it comes to game development workflows.

Definitely try Blender, you'll find it is probably all you will ever need to make assets for your game.

Nice job! Lighting looks really good!

Some friendly advice for improving the render quality even further: Be mindful of your UV's and seams. Especially wood grain is particularly tricky to do well. This particular render works well when glancing at a distance, but it starts to fall apart when you zoom in on the details.

You did a really good job of faking the wool like material for the seat. I know from experience rendering fuzzy cloth materials that there isn't an easy way to make them from scratch. Especially felt and wool are a bitch to make realistic shaders for. If you want realism for those, you have to simulate the actual material to some degree, which means diving into the rabbit hole that is geometry nodes.

For the floor and the wall materials: Imperfections are your best friend when aiming for realism. Mixing in different texture maps to add subtle stains, dust, rust, scratches and other kinds of damage can really help sell the illusion of real concrete or plaster. And while not really relevant when mimicking a near-perfect photo, adding subtle fingerprints, specks of dust/lint or stains to a reflective surface sometimes makes for a better render.

But most important of all: Remember that rendering things is always more art than science. There are multiple ways to achieve different effects and learning all the tricks by experimenting is going to really up your game. Keep going!

If someone has you wondering if they're compensating for something, it's probably true.

You're absolutely right, it's seats, not percentage of votes.

Still a big increase from the current 23.5% of votes mandate netting them 37 seats.

I work in IT, and different definitions of what SaaS means are starting to wreak real havoc on the architecture as a whole.

We are better served just quitting the acronyms and taking the time to talk about a more detailed description of what the service actually adds in terms of value.

Amazon Prime is a subscription for shipping, video streaming, gaming benefits and more. Since software is not the primary goal, but a means of delivery for these other services, I will not consider Amazon Prime SaaS.

So you're saying we should just turn the children of all conservatives queer? Alright, bring in the cat girls, 196 memes and let's pounce!

Joking aside, there's two archetypes of conservative:

• The Xenofobe, who is afraid of a changing world and that fear is strengthened by anything they experience as threatening to their image of how the world works. These people are more likely to warm to LGBTQIA+ people if they learn they're not so different, and everyone is just trying to exist, be themselves and love who they love. There is no agenda for taking over the world.
• The Cultist. These people are beyond saving and generally consist of the hardcore christofascist bible belt inbred morons that are generally dumb as fuck, but loud as hell. They are indoctrinated by their own bubble of conspiracy theorists to the point where they are firmly dug into their own story and nothing will change their views.

It is not worth fighting either group with animosity, condemnation or attacks, as they are more than capable of spinning the story their side and reinforcing their ideas that queers are somehow threatening.

But at least we should be capable of showing the xenofobes that there is no monster in that closet (pun intended), or under their beds.

As for Rowling, she is likely part of the cultist group, which means we're going to have issues. Her status as a celebrity and her wealth further isolates her from the rest of society, which is a real problem because that makes you able to opt out of confrontation with reality. She can just stategically isolate herself from ever coming into contact and having a real human interaction with the people she's having all these misguided ideas about.

I think everyone should be made more aware of the damage that social bubbles cause to society. Whether it's conservative communities, religious indoctrination, closed internet discussion groups or just the wealthy and famous distancing themselves from society (which is usually not by choice but because we treat them to a permanent dose of spotlights).

Considering most of the Netherlands is practically one large metropolitan area (15-30 minute train commute between different cities for example), this is probably reasonable.

Though some population estimates have Amsterdam at above 1m since 1999 (definitely not accurate), the real numbers are published by the CBS (central bureau for statistics). And Amsterdam was at 918 117 in 2023 at the time this statistic was published.

So, close enough?