Thank you for clarifying and I don’t disagree at all with the points you raise. Unfortunately in application, the higher ideals seem to be lost on these red-hat troglodytes who are in the majority in my local area. I used to believe similarly that minds could be changed with rational and candid discussion, but my own experience has been that MAGA types just double down when presented with anything that doesn’t align with what they have come to believe; until they are negatively affected by one of the horrible things they support of course.

I haven’t given up entirely but active avoidance appears to be the simplest near-term solution. The problem is the currently dominant political party has done a very effective job of demonizing anything and anyone with an opposing viewpoint to their proponents. That alone makes open discourse almost impossible.

I can certainly appreciate the sentiment behind this comment but I would have to challenge its applicability in a deep red part of the US. The danger here is expressing incompatible beliefs to people who vocally and energetically talk about rounding up and “shooting all of the democrats” they can find. As much as I would like to accept the fact that they have the right to this opinion, I am also self-aware enough that I chose to keep my own politics (independent but left-leaning) to myself.

Would they really kill me? Probably not. Would I be immediately treated with hostility? Almost certainly.

I think there is a stark difference between “different” and “opposing” viewpoints and I imagine it would be nice living in a place where being open-minded was a common virtue. Unfortunately for me that isn’t really viable at the moment.

dotard /dō′tərd/ noun

• One whose mind is impaired by age; one in second childhood.
• An old person with impaired intellect; one in his or her dotage.
• An oldster in his dotage; someone whose age has impaired his intellect.

Looks like a toddler who is actively shitting his diaper (probably is). Best part is he was recently talking a bunch of shit about Spain and now they won “his” world cup.

I really appreciate this explanation and have been striving to do the same with my child. I was raised in a fairly standard religious (protestant) household and actually had a period when I really bought into all of it. But when I reached my teenage years and the things I was reading and being told started to make me ask questions, that the people who seemed to have all of the answers would essentially clam up or double down on the dogma they were throwing out.

Being an atheist in America is a bit of a challenge as an adult, but I have learned to navigate the social situations that would potentially “out-me” to folks who are religious. As a result, I have had many conversations with my kid to prepare them for these kinds of conversations since being an atheist is apparently almost as bad as being a democrat (and a socialist!) in the part of the US I live in. I would like to think that my child will steer clear of religion at this point and that he will remain a free-thinker but I suppose only time will tell.

The loss of belief for me started with a loss of faith in the people I was always taught to trust. I never want my child to ever look at me that way when they realize everything they were led to believe is made up.

You beat me to it. I loved my Dreamcast. It had so many great innovations like the VMUs, those chonky controllers, high density discs, and some really excellent games. If you picked up a VGA box it could also display on a PC monitor and you got super crisp video output…I played a ton of Phantasy Star Online and this was the ideal setup. Sadly, Sega screwed up their timing on the release since the PS2 was around the same time, if I recall correctly, and I think that is what ended their contention as a serious console maker since I am sure they lost bucket-loads of money.

I finally unloaded my DC about 6 years ago during a yard sale to a console collector…ahh well, good times.

Yeah I am hoping the Dev improves the controller support since I noticed the same thing; I believe that is on the to-do list before 1.0 release. I switched to mouse and keyboard controls and have been playing for over 40 hours with a ton more to do in the game.

Another one to consider if you prefer less intense (i.e. frustrating) combat is Swords N Magic and Stuff. It’s on Steam in early access and is a steal for about $25. It offers the large open world and tons of exploration along with a variety of play-style options, crafting, and farming. The only thing it doesn’t really seem to offer is the over-arching narrative but there is definitely lore to discover along the way.

If you combine that rule with the ability to endlessly stack Draw 2 or Draw 4 cards, you have what I think may be the most evil version of Uno that can be played. We called it Thermo-Nuclear Uno (i.e. Mutually Assured Destruction) since you knew that dropping a Draw 4 would almost certainly lead to someone being buried in cards and it might even be you. Even if you manage to dodge the stack, payback is coming and you won’t get lucky every time. I can remember games that we would finally just quit after an hour since no one would ever be able lay down their last card. Merging two decks can make this even more brutal and cuts down on interplay shuffles too.

This is the exact same reason I ultimately gave up on Linux Mint and switched to Fedora. I could not get rid of tearing and I fragged X11 (and made my OS un-bootable) on multiple occasions trying to fix it using recommended tweaks to config files. It was looking like a Wayland based solution was what I needed so I chose to move on.

GNOME haters can just put away their knives since I am no fan boy; I just wanted to completely escape anything resembling a MicroSlop experience and Workstation gave me a clean DE, more current package releases, HDR, Variable refresh rate , and solid gaming performance with a minimal amount of fuss. CachyOS was next on my list if Fedora didn’t work and I am still considering trying it out someday. That said, there is no question that making the switch to Linux as a new user can be daunting and I would still suggest Mint for older hardware with less of a gaming focus.

Slight correction may be in order here…the target of your ire should probably be the conservative fundamentalists (aka Y’all-Qaeda) in the US; the Satanic Temple folks are generally atheists and seem pretty chill to an outsider like me.

NieR: Automata. This game was definitely not something that I would normally pick up but it kept showing up on “must-play” lists so I figured I would give it a shot when it was marked down like 70%. The initial impression from the intro/tutorial was pretty underwhelming due in large part to the confusing change in gameplay from top down shooter to side-view to normal 3rd person but once I got through that I found the setting and presentation of the game really compelling. I was even reading about the lead developer and searching for other projects to potentially pick up once I finished this one. That lasted for about 10 hours or so…spoiler ahead but I figured out how to hide the text if you haven’t played this and are considering it.

Obviously this is a bit of an unpopular opinion based on the super high scores it gets and others stuck it out for multiple replays to see the “good” endings but I just couldn’t convince myself to even finish it the first time. YMMV.

I eat a lot of blueberries and purchase them year round and I definitely have experienced exactly what you are referring to with BBs from Peru. They tend to be larger and look good in the package but have almost zero taste and the texture tends to be soft. The ones from Chile aren’t much better so I suppose the logistics in getting them all the way to grocery stores in the US means they get picked early and have a fair bit of time in transit to dry out and soften up. I am always really happy to see containers that indicate the blueberries are picked in Canada or Michigan since those seem to have the best taste and texture. Unfortunately it will be a little while before that harvest is ready and if you ever have a chance, definitely try and locate an orchard in your area and pick them yourself; if you like blueberries even a little bit, that experience is worth the drive.

I was thinking the same thing about Fedora since I have installed it on two purpose built gaming PCs using new or last gen hardware and a very old Dell Inspiron laptop and the experience has been very good outside of a couple minor issues like installing the WiFi driver on the Dell.

One of the best things I have found with Linux is the live-disk distro testing option since you can test how much you like the interface and execution of each OS+DE and how well they behave with your hardware situation without having to reformat anything first. Personally, since my goal was to move as far from the windows experience as possible, I opted for Fedora Workstation since I also tested the KDE version and I just didn’t like it at all. GNOME seems to have its detractors (and for valid reasons) but after using Apple computers and Ubuntu a long time ago, I just preferred the intuitive layout and clean desktop experience. Using Windows11 at work is horrendous and I look forward to being back on my own machine every evening.

Another thing to consider is X11 vs Wayland since that ended up being what made me give up on Mint when my new hardware refused to run without persistent and horrendous screen tearing in 3D games. X11 just didn’t work for me and everything I tried to tweak was either not helpful or would leave me in an un-bootable condition that required recovery via rollbacks or terminal commands using the live-USB.

Did I mention that I also got my kid on the Linux train? He is using Fedora Workstation and loves it compared to his old Win10 laptop and the POS Chromebook the school district gave him. In any case, as a Microsoft refugee I think Linux is a wonderful and viable alternative and while there may be some bumps along the way, the community is very helpful and you can often find solutions or you can just ask.

Good call. I think this post has definitely been worth the effort since you guys are giving me some ideas I wouldn’t have thought of otherwise. Thank you!

That is really interesting and I wouldn’t have considered doing that since I already replaced both of them with a fresh set. I guess only concern with the long term benefit of going down to a single stick would be giving up 16GB of RAM (since this is a 32 GB kit) and then I might get higher speed but I would also get lower bandwidth overall since I lose the dual channel benefit. Weighing that option vs running the dual mode with 32GB at a slightly lower speed makes for an interesting conundrum. I will test this option if I can’t get stable and error free performance from adjusting the SOC setting down. Thank you again.

Thanks for the feedback. I haven’t tried pulling one stick but I did replace them both so I figured that eliminated them from suspicion. I also tried manually adjusting all of the primary timings and the speed to see if the XMP defaults were just being applied wrong. I think the voltage settings are my most likely culprit in this case so at least I have another thing I can try which doesn’t involve a complete tear down and waiting another week for yet another part to get to me.

Thanks Shadow. I had never considered something like this and all of the other suggested fixes I found via forum posts pointed to the physical hardware being the most likely causes. I will try and manually set the SOC voltage tonight to a fixed value (since I am 100% it is set to Auto) and do some more testing.

Just out of curiosity, what voltage ended up working for your setup? From what I am reading in the linked post and a post which is linked within it, I could go lower (0.9200-0.9600; leaning towards 0.925 VDC) or higher to something like 1.1VDC, but one comment mentioned higher voltage can actually increase instability…ugh. Anyways, thank you for the reply and suggestion!