Saving this to watch later; I love that game!

Wait, just so I’m understanding, the dock works with the LG TV if you connect your laptop or Surface Pro, but not your Steam Deck? If so, it sounds like there’s either a setting on your Steam Deck that needs to be changed or the Deck itself is faulty.

Does the Deck work with other HDMI monitors?

That’s insane! I pay a flat US$0.11/kWh, and if I wanted to go peak/off-peak it would be $0.15/0.06!

It’s really worth playing and often available for a very reasonable price. I don’t think it’s a genre that ever seemed like something that would appeal to me but I’ve found it very enjoyable.

$0.51/kWh?! Where on earth is that?!

Why is digital Billie Eilish the picture?

How did you end up working for him a second time?

Does PeerTube offer RSS feeds?

I think your last point also applies to Valve. Limiting the number of models simplifies things for Valve; effectively they only have two models to support right now between the LCD and OLED models. From a software perspective I assume they’re extremely similar except at a very low level, mainly with the display panel difference. From a hardware perspective that’s only 2 main SKU families (looks like maybe 6 total with 3 of each?) and still probably a lot of parts overlap except with the panel and I’d assume two variants of the mainboard to accommodate different connections for each panel. Even making the OLED variants complicated things I’m sure, but it should be manageable.

We learned within the past year that Valve is still an astonishingly small company compared to how much revenue it has; I think they were only around 450 employees. That’s pretty doable with software, but dealing with hardware starts to force that level up and would start cutting into the incredible profitability per employee that they’re accustomed to.

Of course they’ve made plays in the hardware space before, but I don’t think anything’s been near the volume the Steam Deck has. Even assuming that they’re outsourcing the manufacturing, and maybe fulfillment, and maybe even warranty repairs, that still means they need employees to manage and support those programs. They need employees trained to support those products. They need to store spare parts and plan to have enough to legal requirements beyond the final sale date. They need to test software updates against every hardware variant prior to release for as long as the product is supported. Keeping the number of SKUs small makes the rest of that manageable and hopefully keeps profitability high and quality of service good. If they start adding too many SKUs then they need more employees, giving lower profitability and they start cutting quality and service until we end up with the bad products and support we see from so many big PC companies.

It seems like they’re working towards opening Steam OS up where other companies can make their own devices. Let other companies handle the incremental updates and making the software work with their hardware. Let Valve keep focusing on just making a few things but making them really good.

I’d like to get a Steam Deck but was wondering if it’s getting close to a newer, better version coming soon. This makes me feel more comfortable, not that I have the budget for one right now anyway.

GOG is pretty good because of this. I check in there if I’m considering buying something on Steam. There might still be compelling reasons to buy on Steam, like I bought Parkitect on Steam because a review on GOG specifically called out how the mods really only work well on Steam, but I’m at least checking first and maybe Wishlisting the game on GOG. I have fairly reasonable trust in Valve while Gabe is running it, but I feel like I can have longer trust in keeping copies of installers myself.

I like the sound of this for a device, but couldn’t it be more for these new ARM laptops?

Wait, you just created a new lockable quick connector that can be 3D printed with no other parts required? This seems bigger than Steam Deck!

Question I’ve been meaning to ask: if I start with cloud can I move to self-hosted later? I’ve seen this before and it feels like a product I could make good use of, especially for getting tabs closed.

Offhand I can only think of one movie (and sequels) where “didn’t read the book” made the movie significantly better: The Bourne Identity. Those books really were awful!

More broadly about companies not producing things but extracting “rent” from others by controlling a marketplace all others have to go through. The former economist in residence is promoting a new book he wrote, which I suppose I would have to read to fully understand his argument. The little bit I read in the article has not exactly convinced me, but more from the part that other companies he mentions like Apple and Amazon also produce products.

I haven’t done any programming in over 20 years, but I think I can make a contribution to projects by trying to improve documentation, once I start using some projects

I’ve seen multiple markdown standards; which one did you implement?

If it’s just a silkscreen issue hopefully they can just remove the ink somehow (laser?) and print a new label.

I have bought it twice, possibly on sale both times but still. I’d never heard of it, and I’d never played any style of game like that, but Nintendo advertised it to me when it launched on the Switch and I eventually bought it. Later my family started taking the Switch more and I eventually bought it again in Steam. No regrets! Happy to support good games from small developers that don’t break the bank!