Someone needs to leak Coyote vs. Acme already. If it’s been written off, what’s the harm?

This is tragic. I can’t think of how many computers I built using incomparable Anandtech articles. The depth of the testing, and careful, scientific planning really has no match in tech journalism.

The high water mark just lowered.

It’s called Unreal PT. The last version I believe is 1.0.7, and it’s still hosted on the Internet Archive.

Oh, it’s by Agg23 - they also released a bunch of Analogue Pocket emulators, great developer.

My good faith response to your good faith question: because having a DRM-free copy on your own server or hard drive is the only way to be sure you will be able to play it tomorrow.

Streaming services are a complex collection of licensing deals that are by design temporary. You may not hear beforehand when your favorite artist’s label’s parent company’s conglomerate’s CEO decides to pull their content because they’re going to start their own streaming service, or another service gave them a lucrative exclusive deal.

And while you’re never going to have a hard time finding Taylor Swift, that one 70s esoteric album may become instantly impossible to find once it drops off a streamer.

In the end there are no promises with a streaming service. On the other hand, you put in a small amount of work to grab MP3s or FLACs, set up your own Plex server (or Emby, etc), and you’re good for pretty much forever.

Similarly, support artists by buying their direct merch, going to shows, and so on, but they are barely seeing any Spotify money. Between Spotify and the labels, they are cleaning the plate and artists are getting whatever crumbs fall off the table (unless you’re Taylor Swift or another global artist).

I understood the mildly infuriating aspect to be how airlines find a way to extract value from you at every step of your trip.

Just to be clear - there is no nearest-alternative site, is there? Honestly the only other site I’ve seen release things is gbatemp, and a forum format scales very poorly for releasing and finding romhacks.

I’ve had decent luck with US magazines here: https://www.retromags.com/

Yeah, I had the same reaction - The puzzles were definitely “learn how to think a new way,” my favorite kind. I ended my play on one perspective-shifting pattern puzzle that I was so close to beating, so I kept pushing myself through the motion sickness, and just ended up disabled on the bed feeling ill and unable to move for two hours (without completing the puzzle).

I tried a bunch of things - permanent reticle in center of screen, disabling walk shake, etc. I still play high-motion FPS shooters with no issue. It’s just some games (The Forest was another). I am guessing it’s a middleware-introduced visual filter that adds 15-25ms delay to screen latency, just enough to mess with inner ear visual/motion sync in sensitive people.

I appreciate letting me know about the anti-vaxxer conspiracy stuff. Makes me feel better about never finishing The Witness (not because I didn’t enjoy it, but because whatever filters were on there, it made me cripplingly motion sick for hours every time I played it).

Honestly? Just use YouTube and ublock. There’s pretty much always a better karaoke selection.

Oh, ok - my mistake then. I have tried both on two cars and thought that was normal.

Even Google Maps work better on iOS!!

Really? I find that Android Google Maps is far better, at least through Android Auto. Showing current speed + speed limit icons while driving is a big one. Android Auto allows pinch zooming while Apple CarPlay Google Maps has 2000-era “zoom in and out buttons” only. I believe Android also shows tolls for alternate routes as well.

I wish I knew as well. I’ve been using Chromecast Audio myself, which works with PlexAmp self-hosting my music.

The problem is Chromecast Audio has been discontinued for years of course - Google did their Google thing, and unfortunately I never found anything else like it on the market. But you can connect those devices to any speakers and sync multi-room high quality audio very easily. I managed to pick up 4 of them when they did their fire sale, and I think you can find them on eBay for now still.

Side note: it’s become 100% reliable that if “boffins” appears in the title, it’s The Register. Damn, they love that word.

“Retro” is so big of a category now. But Final Fantasy IX was my least favorite. I have a feeling I’ll get some hate for this but:

On PlayStation, the loading times were like 15-30 seconds before AND after each battle, the high random encounter frequency meant you would battle sometimes after every few steps, and monster variation was very low. And running never seemed to work.

So literally 10 seconds of movement, 25 seconds load into battle, battle one of the same 3-4 enemy groups in that area, 25 seconds load out of battle, and repeat.

The story was also very generic. Everyone seemed to love it, but it felt like they played every decision safe to create a nostalgia-friendly experience.

I played it so much but was always frustrated with it. Every time I see someone reminiscing about how great it is, I am just wondering what game they were playing.

I hear you, but I loved Typing of the Dead so much. It’s definitely b-movie MST3K-level intentional “badness.”

Huh… That’s really not nice.

Maybe the command line version is consistent, but day to day I prefer not to do command line. I’ve tried like 5 different GUIs and they all have failed downloads, incorrect formats, and other issues just doing test downloads. I don’t know why, but it’s been a problem every time for me.

You should listen to all the yt-dlp comments, but I’ve always had trouble getting all the yt-dl variants to just download the best version and subtitles consistently.

I use 4K Video Downloader, and it’s easier to use. It has a 30 video per day limit is all, which is more than I need.