Ubuntu. There are mixes of it but out of the box Ubuntu is about as straightforward a dist to install as possible and it is well supported.

That said “new laptop” and Linux are not always a match made in heaven. You might try it from a boot stick and confirm that things like the GPU, touch screen, touchpad, fingerprint reader, USB C / Lightning all work properly.

A game that was released last year has absolutely zero knowledge of this 8k PS5 so it’s not going to magically render at 8k or 40% improvement. Some might get a framerate bump if frame sync can be turned off - the game might have been GPU bound and therefore with a better GPU it yields a better framerate. Sometimes. And AI upscaling might give a pseudo > 4k effect but it’s not really true 8k.

A handful of games might get patched to avail of the improved rendering capabilities when they detect PS5 Pro. Minimal stuff really. Maybe the config file will improve draw distance or turn on certain effects like raytraced shadows / reflections when it knows the console can handle it.

Hardly seems worth the vast additional expense especially if somebody already owns a PS5 though. Moreso because Sony are trying to stiff people into buying the cheaper “digital” version which basically means any physical collection won’t work with it.

Spotify and other such services almost certainly sound worse because they are compressed. But it’s not really a like for like comparison with vinyl. Spotify is streaming audio for people who want to play music casually in cars, earbuds etc. It offers convenience, not perfect sound fidelity. FLAC / CD on the other hand could be compared to vinyl and would win hands down for better frequency and range. The only reason they wouldn’t is if the CD master sucked and the vinyl master didn’t.

And vinyl is very lossy in its own way. The (digital) master of each side undergoes dynamic range & frequency compression to fit the limitations of the format (e.g. to reduce sibilance, track width). Then the master is cut into a lacquer disc from which a “father” is made, from which “mothers” are made, from which stampers are made and from which the vinyl record is made. So the vinyl in someone’s hand is a copy, of a copy, of a copy, of an altered digital master. The stamper too wears out so if someone is unlucky they get a pressing right the end of its life. And playing the disk can cause wow, flutter, distortion and general wear & tear can cause hiss, pop, dullness and scratches.

So vinyl will never sound better unless it received a better master than other formats.

In the 70s and 80s there were kids toys which played injection moulded plastic discs with a stylus that tracked the groove. I think you might be able to achieve something similar out of a printed record if it was spun fast enough but it wouldn’t sound great.

I had the misfortune to have some PLA snap just before and after the direct drive in my Bambu P1S and it took ages to get it out. I think age and moisture can affect filament, especially it blended with wood dust, sparkles or something which undermines it even further. I’ve resorted to packing my AMS with silica beads to hopefully mitigate for the issue and I threw out the filament that caused the issue. Ironically this is one of the few places a bowden extruder is any benefit - if the filament snaps just push it from behind through a heated nozzle until the blockage clears.

The EFF has some info about the practice - https://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-display-tracking-dots.

I imagine there are ways and means of obfuscating / anonymizing the dots such as blocking the printer from emitting them (e.g. an empty yellow cartridge that the printer perceives as full), modifying the firmware, using a burner printer, or using a mono laser jet.

As a side issue, most modern bank notes have a bunch of yellow circles integrated into the design on each side. They look random but they’re in a recognisable pattern called a constellation that enables devices like copiers / scanners to recognize when people are trying to copy money or other financial instruments like checks.

It would be better to “git clone” a repo under threat of removal than fork it in Github. That way an entire copy of its history is preserved. It’s possible the forks still exist for now, even if Yuzu removes their official repo, but if Nintendo serves Github the legal paperwork then the forks will get blasted.

That said if someone clones the repo, they probably ought to think twice before putting it back in the cloud without sanitizing / reconstructing the branches & history absent of the bits that got Yuzu into trouble in the first place.

Yuzu gave them the opening to sue though. If they had been more circumspect - “Oh this is to develop homebrew / indie games nudge nudge” then maybe Nintendo wouldn’t have unleashed the lawyers or done so ineffectively. After all it wouldn’t be Yuzu’s fault if some wicked website corrupted their pure intentions by releasing device keys or patches that allowed their emulator run commercial games. But they were more blatant than that.

Also from an empathic perspective, of course Nintendo were going to sue. Yuzu should have known they would since that’s what console platforms do when something interferes with their profits. Yuzu is doubly bad since it interferes with hardware sales and game sales unlike custom firmware / cartridges which only affect game sales.

Of course the genie is already out of the bottle. Yuzu’s source code and binaries were on github for anyone to clone / fork. All the games are out in the wild. The piracy will carry on. I think it’s fair to say the NSP is effectively dead as a platform at this point. If a NSP2 turns up this year, as rumored, then I expect it will have revised anti-piracy measures and potentially a heavy online service aspect to go with it - it’s far easier to detect pirates and wield the banhammer when a device is online.

I think the issue here is people knew Diablo 4 was filled with monetization, season passes, cosmetic items etc and they bought it anyway and are complaining about it after the fact. The correct way to respond to sleazy companies is to take your business somewhere else. Reward games for being good, not for being cash grabs.

Yes. Some game “reviews” were such absurd, performative straw man attacks at JK Rowling that they bordered on parody. I’m thinking of the Wired one in particular but others were equally bad. The irony is these diatribes clearly helped the game, or rather, this really good game sold well in spite of that crap. Ultimately these websites just undermined their own reputations.

I thought it was a great game that captured the spirit of the books & movies so well. Thankfully all the mock outrage and virtue signaling didn’t affect its sales and probably boosted them.

Epic should count their blessings considering what the game started as and the billions they raked in during the meantime. I bet their active player count is well down from its peak though. Probably the kids grew up and/or got fed up of all the monetisation.

As for Disney they’ve tried many times to get into gaming and failed. I wonder if their corporate culture which is a subtle blend of naked greed, political correctness, risk aversion and schizophrenia over licensing IP just scuppers them every time. I’ve played a couple of decent games but most of their content is either shovelware or naked cash grabs. Even when they make a critically acclaimed or successful games, there is a sense that if they don’t get ALL THE MONEY, then they’ll shitcan it right then and there. Look at Disney Infinity or Club Penguin as examples of games that were killed for very unclear reasons.

Forgiving is the word for this - being able to undo mistakes and recover. I reckon FreeCAD would massively benefit from doing a complete feature freeze and focusing on usability for a couple of releases.

Every single Uncharted was groundbreaking for its time. Not just the narrative, but the gameplay and the technology itself. They delivered again for The Last of Us and sequel. So two A-grade franchises under their belt.

Doesn’t mean they’ll have another hit but it stands to reason they’re not sat on their asses doing nothing right now. They’re either working on a TLOU spinoff or a new franchise or both. Now I’m not privy to what they’re up to but I’m sure if you google “Naughty Dog rumors” you might pick up some hints. e.g. one rumour suggests a game codenamed Paradox whose description sounds oddly close to what the Fallen London (Sunless Sea / Sunless Skies) franchise is although I doubt it would be the same, mores a pity. Fallen London is such a mad premise it shocks me it hasn’t gotten it’s own TV series.

I think FreeCAD would win a lot more converts if it focused on usability. Fusion360 and Onshape are parametric modelers just like FreeCAD yet they’re way simpler, taskcentric and more forgiving tools to use.

Did you turn layer ironing / smoothing on for the last layer not all top layers? Aside from smoothing modern slicers can also use more attractive patterns for top layers than zig zag such as hilbert.

It also looks like you might have underflow issues so maybe check your e-step setting on your printer to ensure you’re extruding proper amount of filament. There are articles that explain the process but you basically mark a reference point on the filament, e.g. 10cm away from where it enters the extruder, tell the printer to extrude 10cm, mark and measure how far away the mark is from where it’s meant to be. So if the filament moves 7cm when it should have 10cm then your e-steps need to be multiplied by 10/7.

Wouldn’t the problem be that you’d still have to remove the print, wash it, empty the vat, clean the vat & build plate and only then could you put the print back in and then fire up the UV. Meanwhile you won’t be using the printer for anything else. Maybe it’s easier to just buy something that can wash & cure separate to the printer or leave the print out in the sun to cure.

Plastic cutlery is disappearing in most countries - it’s all wood or cardboard now. I suppose someone could make a business of collecting used cutlery where it’s still in use and recycle it (not necessarily into filament), but I wonder if it would be economically viable.

They must be up to something. They have the pedigree to deliver a new IP franchise and for all anyone knows that is what they’re doing.

BL touch works great but you need to get the Z offset. Then you can just G29 before the print or whenever and it works great. I hate manual levelling and these days there isn’t much reason for it. I’ve just upgraded to a Bambu P1S and levelling is even more straightforward since there is no Z-offset since it uses the hotend itself to probe.