“Sorry, mate. Work policy. We deal with confidential patient information, so IT wipes everything on a schedule and we do everything on the cloud. There’s never anything on the device.”

Thanks for the reminder. So bad at taking my meds on weekends…

It’s really helpful for quadratic factoring, too, since knowing at a glance that –56 is ±7 × ±8 keeps your working memory free to actually focus on the mathematical skills/concepts/problem.

It’s basically “common core” math (in the US), or just “updated curriculum” everywhere else in the world. Turns out that building fluency with math through play and number decomposition is incredibly powerful for long-term learning.

I see FFT, I upvote. I love that game so much. I should play it again… It would be perfect for the Deck, too.

Please follow the instance rules if you’re posting here. Reported for breaking the only rule: Bee Kind.

Another consideration is whether you’re a “patient gamer”. If you want to play the latest and greatest, then I have no idea. But, if you’re like me, then there are literally thousands of slightly older games you’d be happy to play.

If that’s you, then you can’t beat the Steam Deck for value. With game bundles, I often get 8 games for $10 or less. Even if I only play one, that’s incredible value compared with $80 new titles.

With a tiny bit of work, you can get Epic and GOG working on the Deck, too. If you’re a Prime subscriber, you’ll get 1-4 GOG/Epic games/week for free in addition to Epic’s weekly giveaways and GOG’s occasional giveaways. Some of those are AA/AAA games from a few years ago, too.

If you’re tired of AAA games entirely (like me), then the Deck is also likely the best since there are so many incredible indie games. I’d much rather play 20 unique 1-10 hour games than a single 100-hour AAA repetitive slog. And most can be had for $10 or less if you wait for a sale or bundle.

It’s also a great emulation machine for everything Nintendo that came before the Switch and everything else up to the PS2 generation, I guess? (Switch emulation is a bit of a pain to get working well, and for anything 360/PS3 or newer, they mostly have PC versions anyway, I think? I’ve never had a reason to emulate any of 'em so idk.)

The OLED has a great screen and great battery life, so I have barely touched my smaller emulation devices since getting it. Why use a tiny device with cramped, limited controls when I can play on a great screen with Steam Input (so I can easily write my own game macros, or use the back buttons on twin stick games instead of the face buttons so I never need to take my thumbs off the joysticks, etc.)

I guess if you actually want a device on the go, then something smaller might be better, but for longer trips the Deck works great in my laptop bag, and for short, mobile gaming breaks, I’ll just play Minion Masters or Space Cadet Pinball on my phone.

A similar strategy works great for me, but I frame it slightly differently based on my personal anxieties:

• I’m procrastinating this important task because it’s overwhelming
• But I can’t think about anything else because I’m worried I’m going to forget to do part of the task/some important detail
• To be able to relax about this, I’ll just write down a list of things I need to get done/don’t want to forget

Then, often, I’ll realize there’s a small part of the project that I am motivated to get done now so it’s not looming over my head anymore. Or, if not, I’ve given myself a Hemingway Bridge to starting the task whenever I do have motivation.

It works in Canada without a SIM. I know because my son did it on his “wifi-only” tablet.

Do you need a phone plan at all for emergency calling? It’s required for all carriers to take 911 calls in Canada.

I’m Canadian, but I was diagnosed with a 15 minute phone call with my GP. Granted, I have professional training in this area, and had examples prepared to match DSM criteria, but adult diagnosis can be very straightforward.

I mean using the Track Pads, often for things like radial menus. A lot of PC games need more inputs than exist on a controller.

Hall effect joysticks would be great. The rest I don’t really count; obviously, better performance/bigger screen would be an incremental improvement, but I don’t need it. The OLED screen is plenty big enough.

I (personally) would never use detachable controllers and wouldn’t want more moving parts that could break. Haptics and adaptive triggers I don’t care about improving. For sound, I prefer headphones for when I want “good” sound, too, so that wouldn’t make a difference for me.

Even hall effect joysticks are only going to matter to me if my current joysticks break or develop play.

I really do think the current OLED is amazing.

This one I’m excited for. A Steam Machine would be great, and my biggest gripe with controller play on my desktop is the missing trackpads mean Steam Input didn’t work. There are games that I choose to stream to/play on my Deck over using my 1440p 32" screen on my gaming rig because I don’t have Steam Input on my desktop.

I’m not really sure what’s not perfect with the OLED already, lol. Maybe a second USB-C port would be nice, so we could charge it while using a non-hub device, or use a cheap hub to add even more controllers? That’s a minor, incremental improvement, though.

It could always be smaller/thinner/quieter, I guess, but I can’t think of anything I’d really want to change with my Deck. I have lots of minor pain points with other tech, but I literally can’t think of anything with the Deck, so I’m curious if you have any specifics, or if you’re just trusting that Valve has put some real thought and research into this and will surprise us with design changes for the better that aren’t obvious.

My (major Canadian) Bank app (TD) has always just worked, no matter the state of my bootloader or root, and I’ve never bothered with Magisk Hide or anything like that to try to dodge root checks.

Sure, fair enough. But the OLED Steam Deck will also still be a great system in 10 years, especially for anyone who has a gaming desktop. With local game streaming, even with aging hardware the Deck will still be able to play the latest AAA games, and it will still be able to play hundreds of thousands of older games natively.

As a patient gamer, it’s a no brainer.

Which ones? It’s pretty easy to pass Strong Integrity.

With a web browser and user agent spoofing, that’s basically how it works. I don’t want any Facebook/Meta apps on my phone, so I use a desktop Google Chrome rule for all Meta URLs in my browser and user the web versions. Mobile is slowly taking over, but most things have a web version.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t work for everything. The Quest 3 requires an Android or iOS device to set up. At least an old cell phone on a throwaway Google account works for most of these, since they don’t need to be used often.

With Star Wars, they didn’t even do the main film franchise well. Episode 7 was okay, but 8 was such hot garbage I read up on why and found out there was no overarching plan for the trilogy, and different directors for each. No wonder they pulled a J.K. Rowling to completely change the rules of their own systems to meet the needs of the (bad) plot, and shit all over their own franchise. Skywalker might as well have been given a Super Time Turner to save the day in 8.

Disney Star Wars films are bad fan fiction, not canon.