#and it takes up gen no space

[icyfox17]

@jiksvokrat

I'm normal I'm normal I'm normal I'm normal I'm norm--

[jinxedshapeshifter]

sir why are you like this

[nebula-drcams]

might not really do anything today bc im still really upset abt the anon flood i got earlier today bc i know full well how vile people can be if they go around spreading lies like that

[dapg-otmebytheballs]

coming back the next day to my blog terrified of reactions and yea I worry this will get swept under the rug and be made into a non issue

[aurorangen]

Sometimes they finish early being marine biologists, so Bryce and Tane help out other fields in beach conservation, like cleaning up the volcano eruption from last time 🌋

[gracetheacefromouterspace]

As someone who is pro artist and believes in a significantly more regulated tech industry in general, I do find it funny when people are like GenAi is not actually intelligent!!! It’s just a bunch of statistics!!! It just copies the training data!!! They’re lying that it’s actually AI!!!! My homies in Christ, that’s what all AI is like from the most basic classifier to neural nets, trained statistics machines to make decisions. That’s,,, literally our current definition of AI

[bibleofficial]

obsessed w gen alpha

[woahlesbians]

cds are so cool. dvds are so cool. they have information in it and you can play it over and over and over again in a device. but nothing else! you get this piece of media and none more. if you want more you need to get ANOTHER disc with that info. good luck!

[thevalleyoftriumph]

the 22 gb of space left on my laptop begging me to clear my filez az i download yet another video game

[fightaers]

biography added: sai from the naruto franchise. mainly naruto - naruto shippuden based. the biography includes my own interpretation of his background which may include a lot of triggers including but not limited to child soldiers, canon-typical violence etc. you have been warned.

[makaipunk]

fan art i drew of emperor tachyon dying in a glue trap

[askshivanulegacy]

Sorry but if you think a LAPTOP and REAL PROGRAMS are more uncomfortable and clunky to use than a crippled handheld screen which can't handle anything better than every single function piecemealed into a million ad-powered apps, then you need HELP.

Also, parents? Genuinely WTF? YOU did this to your kids. YOU have computer skills. Why are you devolving??

this can't be true can it

[mitzirockerextendeduniverse]

[Game 2 on my massive JRPG Spreadsheet! Previous entries - well, the previous entry - can be found in my #tales from the retro jrpg Spreadsheet tag.]

What it is: Bokosuka Wars (ボコスカウォーズ) for Famicom, released on the 14th of December, 1985, developed and published by ASCII. Based on the home computer game of the same name from March 1984, also published by ASCII and developed by one Kōji Sumī, currently an avant-garde artiste working under the name Rasho but then a lucky bedroom coder who happened to win a programming contest. Got a sequel/reimagining thirty-five years after the fact, making this technically the first in a series of unique vaguely board-game-y strategy games about the heroic kingdom of Suren's fight against the tyrannical Basam Empire's oppression.

What's it about: Pretty much what I just said, yeah! Even by the standards of early 80s quasi-RPGs, Bokosuka Wars' plot is thin. The Famicom version adds a few extra details to account for some gameplay changes - Ogereth, Emperor of the Basam Empire, has turned the Suren Kingdom's soldiers into rocks and trees, but King Suren (or possibly just the King of Suren, the Japanese is a little unclear) has learned how to undo that spell and rebuild his army - but the various home computer versions keep it short and sweet. You don't have the manpower to fight off the invading army the traditional way, so you're spearheading a lightning-quick assault on Basam Castle to take out Ogreth, and that's all the setup you need.

How it plays: Bokosuka Wars' box calls it 'a very different type of RPG!' but by modern standards it's more of an abstract chess-ish strategy game. King Suren starts at the right side of the map, 600 metres/tiles away from Ogreth. To win the game, all you have to do is get from there to him and defeat him in single combat. Of course, it's not as simple as it sounds; the forces surrounding Basam Castle outnumber your largest possible force four to one, and there's no way the King can fight his way through them on his own, and if he dies, you lose the game.

Fortunately, he doesn't have to do it alone. While in the home computer versions the King starts with a small force of his own, due to hardware limitations on Famicom he must free his troops by pushing against trees and rocks and other obstacles to turn them into soldiers. There are two types: pawns, who are fairly weak but fairly numerous, and knights, who are relatively strong but relatively rare. The player can move either the army as a whole, just the king, just the knights, or just the pawns, making manoeuvring around scenery and enemies alike trickier than in most strategy games.

Manoeuvring is an important part of Bokosuka Wars for another reason. Moving one of your units onto a spot occupied by an enemy will start a battle, and though units do have an attack stat that can be increased in almost every battle there's a decent chance the weaker combatant will win and the stronger destroyed. This applies equally to a freshly-recruited pawn and a fully-powered-up knight and the King, so winning the Bokosuka Wars is as much about avoiding battles as it is about winning them, carefully positioning your soldiers to keep enemies away from the King and only risking a fight when you have no other options. Even so, sometimes you just have to barrel your army forward into the enemy and pray to the random number gods your King makes it through.

What I thought: I... wanted to like Bokosuka Wars. I really did! It's got this experimental DIY bedroom-coder charm that really appeals to me (I think because I spent my childhood playing Flash games.) Its gameplay is unlike anything else I've ever seen, and I mean that in a good way - the fact that enemies can't attack you, but can block your way, puts a unique twist on the tactics you need to make your way through, and the game is very good at using that concept to challenge the player, from enemies that swarm the King unless you can block their path, to tight corridors you have to carefully move your army through while baiting enemies into dead ends. Sumī even wrote some lyrics to the background music and put them in the manual! How can you not love that?

But, as they say, the devil's in the details. A full playthrough of Bokosuka Wars can take easily over an hour, and since we're still before the standardisation of - even password saves, you're going to have to pull that off in one sitting. That wouldn't necessarily be the worst thing in the world, but coupled with how easily and suddenly a run can end it makes every attempt to reach Ogreth a long, grinding slog that's only ever one bad decision - or one bad dice roll! - away from a WOW, YOU LOSE! This time around I could at least break up the sessions with save states, but the first time I played this, on original hardware, I was sitting in front of my little CRT, mechanically going through the same steps of my ideal strategy, again and again, for days on end. And this is one of those games that restarts with a higher difficulty when you beat it! I can't even imagine having the patience.

I think a lot of the blame for this falls on the Famicom port. I've heard it said that the problem is it breaking up the army so you're collecting it as you go rather than starting with most of it already, but I don't think it's that much of a downgrade - it can even give you a chance to rebuild your forces after barely surviving a tough battle. No, what's really wrong with this port is its speed. I've only messed around with the computer versions of Bokosuka Wars, but in those everything is so much faster than on Famicom. Units zip across the map, battles take a fraction of the time to resolve, and everything's just a lot more responsive than on Famicom, where sometimes it feels like your soldiers will only move in the direction you're pressing half the time. The almost-random outcomes of battles could even work in this version - sudden, unpredictable death would be a much easier pill to swallow if getting back to where you were was a relatively quick dash rather than an endless death march. I can imagine a version of this game that's legitimately fun, but unfortunately, it's not the one I played.

[harbingerofwhump]

What are you supposed to do with a cat if you can't keep them and don't have anyone specific who can take them?

[actual-corpse]

Jesus fucking Christ I HATE slang!

[ms-demeanor]

So You Need To Buy A Computer But You Don't Know What Specs Are Good These Days

Hi.

This is literally my job.

Lots of people are buying computers for school right now or are replacing computers as their five-year-old college laptop craps out so here's the standard specs you should be looking for in a (windows) computer purchase in August 2023.

PROCESSOR

Intel i5 (no older than 10th Gen)

Ryzen 7

You can get away with a Ryzen 5 but an intel i3 should be an absolute last resort. You want at least an intel i5 or a Ryzen 7 processor. The current generation of intel processors is 13, but anything 10 or newer is perfectly fine. DO NOT get a higher performance line with an older generation; a 13th gen i5 is better than an 8th gen i7. (Unfortunately I don't know enough about ryzens to tell you which generation is the earliest you should get, but staying within 3 generations is a good rule of thumb)

RAM

8GB absolute minimum

If you don't have at least 8GB RAM on a modern computer it's going to be very, very slow. Ideally you want a computer with at least 16GB, and it's a good idea to get a computer that will let you add or swap RAM down the line (nearly all desktops will let you do this, for laptops you need to check the specs for Memory and see how many slots there are and how many slots are available; laptops with soldered RAM cannot have the memory upgraded - this is common in very slim laptops)

STORAGE

256GB SSD

Computers mostly come with SSDs these days; SSDs are faster than HDDs but typically have lower storage for the same price. That being said: SSDs are coming down in price and if you're installing your own drive you can easily upgrade the size for a low cost. Unfortunately that doesn't do anything for you for the initial purchase.

A lot of cheaper laptops will have a 128GB SSD and, because a lot of stuff is stored in the cloud these days, that can be functional. I still recommend getting a bit more storage than that because it's nice if you can store your music and documents and photos on your device instead of on the cloud. You want to be able to access your files even if you don't have internet access.

But don't get a computer with a big HDD instead of getting a computer with a small SSD. The difference in speed is noticeable.

SCREEN (laptop specific)

Personally I find that touchscreens have a negative impact on battery life and are easier to fuck up than standard screens. They are also harder to replace if they get broken. I do not recommend getting a touch screen unless you absolutely have to.

A lot of college students especially tend to look for the biggest laptop screen possible; don't do that. It's a pain in the ass to carry a 17" laptop around campus and with the way that everything is so thin these days it's easier to damage a 17" screen than a 14" screen.

On the other end of that: laptops with 13" screens tend to be very slim devices that are glued shut and impossible to work on or upgrade.

Your best bet (for both functionality and price) is either a 14" or a 15.6" screen. If you absolutely positively need to have a 10-key keyboard on your laptop, get the 15.6". If you need something portable more than you need 10-key, get a 14"

FORM FACTOR (desktop specific)

If you purchase an all-in-one desktop computer I will begin manifesting in your house physically. All-in-ones take away every advantage desktops have in terms of upgradeability and maintenance; they are expensive and difficult to repair and usually not worth the cost of disassembling to upgrade.

There are about four standard sizes of desktop PC: All-in-One (the size of a monitor with no other footprint), Tower (Big! probably at least two feet long in two directions), Small Form Factor Tower (Very moderate - about the size of a large shoebox), and Mini/Micro/Tiny (Small! about the size of a small hardcover book).

If you are concerned about space you are much better off getting a MicroPC and a bracket to put it on your monitor than you are getting an all-in-one. This will be about a million percent easier to work on than an all-in-one and this way if your monitor dies your computer is still functional.

Small form factor towers and towers are the easiest to work on and upgrade; if you need a burly graphics card you need to get a full size tower, but for everything else a small form factor tower will be fine. Most of our business sales are SFF towers and MicroPCs, the only time we get something larger is if we have to put a $700 graphics card in it. SFF towers will accept small graphics cards and can handle upgrades to the power supply; MicroPCs can only have the RAM and SSD upgraded and don't have room for any other components or their own internal power supply.

WARRANTY

Most desktops come with either a 1 or 3 year warranty; either of these is fine and if you want to upgrade a 1 year to a 3 year that is also fine. I've generally found that if something is going to do a warranty failure on desktop it's going to do it the first year, so you don't get a hell of a lot of added mileage out of an extended warranty but it doesn't hurt and sometimes pays off to do a 3-year.

Laptops are a different story. Laptops mostly come with a 1-year warranty and what I recommend everyone does for every laptop that will allow it is to upgrade that to the longest warranty you can get with added drop/damage protection. The most common question our customers have about laptops is if we can replace a screen and the answer is usually "yes, but it's going to be expensive." If you're purchasing a low-end laptop, the parts and labor for replacing a screen can easily cost more than half the price of a new laptop. HOWEVER, the way that most screens get broken is by getting dropped. So if you have a warranty with drop protection, you just send that sucker back to the factory and they fix it for you.

So, if it is at all possible, check if the manufacturer of a laptop you're looking at has a warranty option with drop protection. Then, within 30 days (though ideally on the first day you get it) of owning your laptop, go to the manufacturer site, register your serial number, and upgrade the warranty. If you can't afford a 3-year upgrade at once set a reminder for yourself to annually renew. But get that drop protection, especially if you are a college student or if you've got kids.

And never, ever put pens or pencils on your laptop keyboard. I've seen people ruin thousand dollar, brand-new laptops that they can't afford to fix because they closed the screen on a ten cent pencil. Keep liquids away from them too.

LIFESPAN

There's a reasonable chance that any computer you buy today will still be able to turn on and run a program or two in ten years. That does not mean that it is "functional."

At my office we estimate that the functional lifespan of desktops is 5-7 years and the functional lifespan of laptops is 3-5 years. Laptops get more wear and tear than desktops and desktops are easier to upgrade to keep them running. At 5 years for desktops and 3 years for laptops you should look at upgrading the RAM in the device and possibly consider replacing the SSD with a new (possibly larger) model, because SSDs and HDDs don't last forever.

COST

This means that you should think of your computers as an annual investment rather than as a one-time purchase. It is more worthwhile to pay $700 for a laptop that will work well for five years than it is to pay $300 for a laptop that will be outdated and slow in one year (which is what will happen if you get an 8th gen i3 with 8GB RAM). If you are going to get a $300 laptop try to get specs as close as possible to the minimums I've laid out here.

If you have to compromise on these specs, the one that is least fixable is the processor. If you get a laptop with an i3 processor you aren't going to be able to upgrade it even if you can add more RAM or a bigger SSD. If you have to get lower specs in order to afford the device put your money into the processor and make sure that the computer has available slots for upgrade and that neither the RAM nor the SSD is soldered to the motherboard. (one easy way to check this is to search "[computer model] RAM upgrade" on youtube and see if anyone has made a video showing what the inside of the laptop looks like and how much effort it takes to replace parts)

Computers are expensive right now. This is frustrating, because historically consumer computer prices have been on a downward trend but since 2020 that trend has been all over the place. Desktop computers are quite expensive at the moment (August 2023) and decent laptops are extremely variably priced.

If you are looking for a decent, upgradeable laptop that will last you a few years, here are a couple of options that you can purchase in August 2023 that have good prices for their specs:

14" Lenovo - $670 - 11th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, and 512GB SSD

15.6" HP - $540 - 11th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, and 256GB SSD

14" Dell - $710 - 12th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, and 256GB SSD

If you are looking for a decent, affordable desktop that will last you a few years, here are a couple of options that you can purchase in August 2023 that have good prices for their specs:

SFF HP - $620 - 10th-gen i5, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD

SFF Lenovo - $560 - Ryzen 7 5000 series, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD

Dell Tower - $800 - 10th-gen i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD

If I were going to buy any of these I'd probably get the HP laptop or the Dell Tower. The HP Laptop is actually a really good price for what it is.

Anyway happy computering.