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I've had the Switch 2 now since the 10th. Didn't open it for a week, lol. Finally booted up Mario Kart last weekend and it was fun. It's Mario Kart, so not much new other than prettier tracks and being able to drive around the world. That part is actually really cool.

The HDR is as convoluted as a bunch of people have said. To get good, accurate HDR you need a TV that can do HGIG Dynamic Tone Mapping. Which not many LCD TVs do. It's mainly an OLED feature from what I've seen. I would've thought that a company like Nintendo would've actually gone and done this the right way but seems like they just slapped it on to have a bullet point on the box. (This only affects docked mode on a TV.)

Overall though I do like the feel of the console itself. It feels good in the hand in terms of texture and the size of the screen is nice for someone with not so great eyes like myself.

I'm personally stoked for this movie. I've been coming around to it. It's not because it's a huge cast and they got the Russo Bros. back, but because this will be a reset for the MCU that is badly needed.

Even if the movie turns out meh, the movies that come after can have a cleaner slate and not have the phase 4 slop dragging them down. Can't wait.

My wife managed to snag a Mario Kart bundle from Target. What a pain the butt that whole experience was.

I will say that it looks like Nintendo is starting to jump on the performance train a little bit. And of course, now that that has happened, prices have jumped.

At this point, it's clear that they want you to go fully digital now. "Physical" carts are mostly just now keys to play the digital version. Reports from Japan are saying nearly all of the 3rd party games are key cards. Not sure how I feel about that. It's great from a reselling stand-point, but it's only temporary. Eventually servers will get shut down.

And then there's tariffs on top of all of this. Going to see how things play out before I start building a library. This might just be a way to play Nintendo games for me and nothing more.

I vote for an undated Master Topic!

Recently finished all of the original Netflix Daredevil show in preparation for Born Again. Season 3 is a solid season and I'm glad I went back to it.

@BLUEVOODU Seems the same. Unless I have manually followed a topic/board or I'm tagged, I don't get alerts.

@CreepinDeth chromebooks updates are based on the year that the laptop was released. Meaning that if it sat on the store shelf for a year before you purchased it, you have lost one year of service. The one that I am using will receive its last update June 2031. They can extend it. I have an old Lenovo, my first chromebook, that was extended until June of this year. It was the laptop in which I learned all about chromebooks. I am not sure about ChromeOS Flex. I am sure it would be totally different than the chromebooks. Just remember the ChromeOS is accessed by your gmail password. Or at least the chromebooks are.

It's interesting that they have the end of date right down to the month. For most software, normally it's just until a certain release version, but the fact that it's June 2031 is very specific (even if it can't be extended.) That's still a good amount of time at least.

@CreepinDeth @BLUEVOODU i am presently using my Macbook Pro mid 2012 to type this. It is running MX Linux based on DEBIAN. I use it daily. I also use my chromebook daily. I have a Mac Mini late 2012 running Sanoma 14.7.4 using Opencore-Patcher on an SSD with 16 gig ram. That is my desktop. I am seriously thinking about switching it over to Linux when the updates run its course on Sanoma. But that is still undecided.

I updated my late 2013 Macbook Pro with Open-core Patcher to 15.4 Sequoia. It's such a nice machine that it seemed wasteful to not update it to something more modern and secure. The M series Macs these days are sooooo nice though. I'm glad I have both.

so... still thinking of Linux as your daily driver like @CreepinDeth ?

Linux has been my daily driver for a few years already. I do have a few Windows machines (my gaming PC and a couple of laptops) due to work but I haven't really needed to make those machines my daily driver. There is the odd thing here and there. For example, just today I had to format a USB stick to NTFS because I wanted to transfer some Xbox screenshots. It's nuts that Microsoft requires NTFS just to move some files around but it's required for the console to see it.

I have been using a MacBook lately as a daily driver.  I should make a topic on this.  TLDR, some life events happened recently... so I'm working with this right now.  I can say, I am able to use Linux, Windows OR MacOS for my daily driver LOL.  Still not 100% on the iPad... if it had visual studio code capabilities (without haven't to do it remotely...), I think the iPad would have a potential to take over some tasks.  I was using the iPad integrated with AWS Cloud9... but they have since decided to kill the service.  I still have access, but it will eventually go away. Therefore, I'm looking for something else.

You should make one. I bought my first Mac in 25 years a couple of weeks ago. Best Buy was clearing out the M2 Macbook Air and I jumped on one. I've started getting into refurbishing laptops and PCs. Would be a cool topic to have.


@retro junkie How long do you have until you no longer get critical updates to ChromeOS? I'm thinking of turning an old, under-powered office PC into a chromebox with ChromeOS Flex.

There are still quite a few people who feel the need to actually touch and see the product they want to buy. The closest Best Buy to me has a good amount of people in it whenever I go to pick something up. People really like to see the TVs first hand as well as appliances. It's just not the place for media much anymore unless it's games. The fact that Best Buy hasn't gone under yet shows that it has enough diversity of gadgets to withstand Amazon. The stores will probably get smaller though as they cut staff but they'll probably use the leftover space for more online order inventory.

As for music, I still try to buy CDs when I can. I have an old computer specifically for ripping and playing back music. I connected a Digital Audio Convertor and headphone amp to it. I put on my fancy headphones and I'm in bliss. 

In the car, I just stream to my dash through bluetooth. My car is old and so is the sound system so no need to have the best audio there.

Happy New Year!

Finally - What are your gaming resolutions for 2025?

Mine's simple, just play more games!

I also want to clear out some of my backlog. I'm starting with trying to finish at least 5 games.

Merry Christmas!!

They only gaming thing I got was the new Indiana Jones game. I'll play it once I finish The Last of Us II.

I hope you have a wonderful vacation time!

Thanks, you too!

So it sounds like you're going to have a lot of fun!    What's in the agenda and what are you starting with 1st?

First on the list is to install Fedora and then give it a proper test drive to see if I like it. If I do, I'll dive in fully and start using that machine to code a little bit. If I don't, then might try another Ubuntu distro for it. I've read that Ubuntu is actually the distro that is used by the Android Open Source Project so might even just use that.

After Christmas I'll be updating some of my laptops and might install Elementary OS on one of them or if I really like Fedora, install that on it as well.

I'm also thinking of trying an Arch distro but not sure yet. I think I'll keep it simple for now.

I was hoping to turn one of these old machines as a file server but Christmas has my wallet tapped at the moment. Will be buying some hard drives later and then installing a Linux server or TrueNAS. I picked up a COMPTIA Networking book for cheap and plan on teaching myself some of that as well. I was I had a whole month off, lol. 

Tomorrow is my last work day of the year. I'll have two weeks off and will be using this time to try out Fedora Workstation and probably one other distro. I have two old Dell XPS machines that can not be upgraded to Windows 11.

I'm going to see if I like them as well as try to do some very basic development. I've been wanting to teach myself to code again and I think this will be a good time and I hear good things about Linux being developer friendly.

I'm also going to bust out my Raspberry Pi that my wife got for me a few years ago and tinker with it.

 

What happened to first-party and console exclusive games?

They don't make enough money anymore.

EDIT: To elaborate more, it's basically what I said in my original reply. Games are so expensive to make these days that locking them down to a single console is actually a money losing proposition.

Just look at all of the publishers/developers who have gone back to Steam despite the fact that Epic provides a better cut of the money. You have to reach as many customers as possible to make your money back and net a profit.

The only 1st party that actually bet on the right horse was Nintendo. They stopped chasing the fidelity train. Sony and Microsoft are stuck with having to produce even more powerful hardware to entice customers to keep coming back. Gamers want the "best" graphics so that's who they have to cater to. And when you're chasing graphics, your budget skyrockets.

Has anyone else watched this yet? I have to say, this is the best TV series based on a comic book since Daredevil Season 1. It's soooo good. I'm not a colin Farell fan but he's nailing it.

I'm selfishly hoping that Matt Reeve's The Batman becomes canon in James Gunn's DCU.

Ohhhh, I see what you mean now. The Zelda one seems cool.

I'm looking into something like this case:  https://amzn.to/4gztaB

Doesn't look like your link works, so can't see which one you chose.

I honestly haven't seen a case that holds a high amount of carts. The one I have holds 8 total.

This one looks like it can hold 20 carts. It's only $17 before tax.

https://a.co/d/2DisDBL

Watched them both and it's a good show already right off the bat. The cast is great so far. I like the theme they got going with old TV show tropes.

What did everyone think of

Spoiler: ShowHide

Wolverine's mask?

I thought it was just okay but people seem to be split. They either hated it or they loved it.

@BLUEVOODU Haven't jumped on the Fedora train yet. I did not pick up a 7600. I'm now contemplating if I should hold out for the new GPUs that are supposed to be coming out later this year/early next year.

I'm still undecided on which flavor of Fedora I'm going to install. A part of me is interested in the Atomic versions, so I'm thinking Fedora Silverblue. I just upgraded my wife's PC so I have an old Intel machine now that I might just use for testing each distro out.

I'll look into Rocky Linux. Seems promising. I might just have Rocky on one PC and then Fedora on another.

I'm pretty excited about it. I think I'm going to purchase a Radeon RX 7600 for this rig so that I have all AMD hardware for Linux.

There are a couple I want to try... but time has been soaked up by work and life... life stages are interesting for sure.  However, I also want to dive into Kali and some of its uses for testing.  I've wanted to do this over the last 5 years, but work and studying has taken most of time there.  I'm just going to pull the trigger at some point.   Of course, I'm looking at a potential masters next year... tldr, just trying to prep for the next 15-25 years.

Wow, good luck on getting your masters. That sounds awesome!

I'm so happy this is real now. I like the way they setup the DS screens across a 16:9 monitor. That was one of the things that kept me from emulating these on PC. I've never really played any of these since they became expensive in the second hand market.

I'm hoping Symphony of the Night is next.

Thread resurrection time!

I've been using Zorin 16 for the past couple of years now. It's been a pleasurable experience and have not felt any need to jump back to a Windows machine for daily general use.

However, I'm planning on jumping over to Fedora. I don't need to be bleeding edge but I do occasionally update hardware whenever there is a good sale so I would like to have a distro that eventually gets support for it within a few months and not years. There's also some gaming software that I would like to use (eg. MangoHUD) that doesn't seem to play well with Ubuntu based distros.

@BLUEVOODU Are you still using Fedora at all? Any tips or things to think about before I make the plunge?

Wow... this was one of the better movies I've seen in a long time! @CreepinDeth

Awesome!!

What was your favorite part?

Mine was...

Spoiler: ShowHide

Definitely Gambit. I loved that they didn't make it a serious character and played with the accent. It was also awesome to see Gambit in action. I wish X-Men was already in the MCU.

Did you see the video I posted?  Everyone went crazy on the doomsday announcement!

I did and just posted my reaction. 

I ended up going to the first showing on Sunday (10:30AM.) Not many people in there and it was a 3D showing as well which I didn't realize at first. I highly recommend that time frame if you can.

Although I'm excited for this movie, I'm still not sure what to make of this move. I want to be excited but it all depends on how they utilize him. I've been waiting for a proper Victor Von Doom for a long time now. It seems like I might have to wait a little more still.

Will watch it and see how this turns out. I'm hoping the FF4 movie explains it more.

Just came back from watching this movie and it is top 5 movie for me instantly. Even though they crammed a lot of stuff in this movie, none of it felt rushed. It was so much fun and I can't wait for it to come out on Blu-ray because I need to own it.

Looking forward to Avengers: Doomsday now. 

Happy Birthday!!

Finished Fallout. It was a solid show, so I'm glad there will be a season 2. I definitely recommend it even if you don't like the games.

Started on the final season of Cobra Kai only  to learn that this is only the first 3rd of the final season. How do you split up a season into 3 parts? Not a fan of that.

Finally watched this.

The singing planet section was okay. It didn't get to the point of annoyance for me. Seems they knew when to stop it. I feel like this movie was aimed for general audiences and that's why this was in it. My other theory is that because of Kamala, they tried to squeeze in an homage to Bollywood.

Overall, it's a movie with a few good moments but held back by a bad script. There are three main characters here and it definitely needed a longer runtime because of that. As others have mentioned, feels a bit rushed. The movie didn't get to breathe.

I give it a 6/10. Not horrible and I'd rather watch this than Thor: The Dark World but could've been better if it was treated with more respect.

In regards to the end credits scene:

Spoiler: ShowHide

Looks like Monica ended up in the Fox version of X-Men (ew, poor Monica). I got a feeling this scene and Deadpool 3 will tie in together somehow. I think we'll see Hugh Jackman one more time as Wolverine besides D3.