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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)C
Posts
255
Comments
366
Joined
1 yr. ago

  • I was pretty impressed with the graphics. It's a lot more charming and pleasing to me than Tales of Arise or FFVII Rebirth. It'll certainly age really well and have great long term sales

  • You may just want to head to YouTube and look for a really dry video instructions. When I first got started on Linux like 15 years ago, videos were a lot less intimidating to me

    I'd YouTube installing Ubuntu and use the YouTube filter option set to like 1 month. There's constantly new videos for intro to Linux YouTube. I say Ubuntu because it's a part of the most common family of popular Linux distributions

  • It's why I favored Unity over Gnome back in the day. The titlebar/basic menu items and close/minimize/expand buttons integrated into the top bar was better. Ya it was probably a copy of MacOS/OSX. Damn good to me in my opinion though. Overall I like Gnome but I'm not sold on it long term. Someday I may try going full time on KDE again. Very likely popos 26.04 with Cosmic I'll try that out on my primary computer when it releases

  • I think it has the bands needed for AT&T but for T-Mobile it doesn't have band 71, just the rest of the ones t-mobile uses

  • It goes on sale for the US this week. Not buying it but sales start on there website tomorrow for the people that paid $1 earlier for $30 off. Wednesday open for everyone. Usually shows up on Amazon eventually. I just like seeing people run emulators on them

  • on a deck for me a microsd is for old emulated games. Everything else I'm fine deleting and restoring over the local network from my desktop or from a NAS especially when I plug the thing straight into the router

  • Good stuff. The Frame is going to be pretty major in another tangential way. Right now the best mobile SoC to emulate PC games on Android is the 8 Gen 3. Comparing what ragtag teams in the open source world do with Proton/Fex/box64 in the Android world compared to Valve with the same tech but with full time employees in the primary linux world will be a great comparison for what can conceivably be done with our mobile phones

  • I've only purchased like 3 apps in like 15 years. Every now and then I donate to an open source project. I used to pay for Office, Adobe Cloud, Sony Vegas way back in the day. What happened was the free and open source became far beyond capable than my technical ability and if I needed pay software, it was for work at a company that purchased licenses themselves. It was fast forward in mobile apps. There was already 20 years of open source desktop software being adapted to mobile even if less limited it covered what I and many people would want to do with a mobile device was quickly covered.

    Now it's a matter of getting people to stumble on your software first and get them to pay before they learn of any of the truly free stuff. Cloud services where storage/processing is fully off your device and way better in ways are what can't be fully replicated as a free service for people. A NAS can work out to be cheaper for storage but way less functional and more hassle for most people

  • I've regretted my Pixel 7 over an S22 for a couple years now. I bought into the Pixel hype and not needing a good SoC. Overheats worse than any phone I've ever had. Eventually Switch and PC gaming emulation took off which 8 Gen 2 phones can enjoy way better than a Tensor G2. Battery life is mediocre. I still had hope for the Pixel 10 with the TSMC fabbed chip. That was a bust too. Whenever I buy a phone, it's not a Tensor phone. Snapdragon at the top of the list. Then Dimensity unless the next 2nm Samsung fabbed Exynos chips are good too. The AMD GPU is supposed to have pretty solid drivers

    It may be that my standards for cameras on a phone keeps recalling back to like 2015 so cameras on any smartphone like $300+ is pretty good to me

  • More subscription service pushing. Windows isn't a source of revenue growth for MS, it's a cheerleader. Lost subscription revenue for Windows on servers to Linux. MS SQL couldn't stop MySQL, MariaDB, PostreSQL, etc. Games for Window Live and paid online gaming failed on PC. Windows Store has been a decade and a half dud. Gamepass looks stagnant and Xbox hardware in decline. Windows Phone failed - big reason Windows Store failed and no presence as a TV OS anymore besides the declining Xbox

    MS wants products where users are continuously monetized. The software storefronts haven't worked out like they wanted so focus on subscriptions and advertising. Azure, OneDrive, O365, Copilot, Gamepass less focused on Xbox hardware, ... whatever else they can come up with. Windows will advertise them sacrificing user satisfaction for Windows

    For MS it may be the right move. Don't think there's political willpower for trying again to compete with Android and iOS for mobile. Don't think they'd even manage TV against Roku let alone Android TV or big TV makers like Samsung with Tizen. Apple would have to screw up hard with MacOS for those users to switch to Windows rather than sticking Mac or go to iPad's. Android has a desktop cooking with an eventually graphics accelerated Debian VM. Linux in general still on the multi-decade nibbling towards the mainstream along with software like Blender, Krita, LibreOffice

    OS reccuring fees is a server and enterprise workstation support contract thing. Trying to do that to consumer desktop would kill it pretty quick. Windows is in a hard place of being a mature big money maker that doesn't look possible for growth but still too big to cast aside. It'll straddle the line of advertising where MS tries to not kill its market share but nag users to buy MS subscription services. More telemetry for advertising

  • https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/vietnam-defense-and-security-sector

    Data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) shows that from 1995 to 2022, Vietnam’s arms imports totaled USD9.162 billion, in which Russia accounted for USD7.471 billion (81.5%).

    https://news.tuoitre.vn/video/chinese-soldiers-sing-tribute-song-to-late-vietnamese-leader-ho-chi-minh-during-hanoi-parade-rehearsal-3308.htm

    https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/chinese-troops-to-join-vietnam-s-80th-national-day-parade-4930586.html

    https://vietnamnews.vn/politics-laws/1722397/viet-nam-china-conclude-first-joint-military-training-exercise.html

    https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/econographics/sinographs/china-and-the-us-both-want-to-friendshore-in-vietnam/

    https://www.diplomacy.edu/blog/the-art-of-bending-without-breaking-vietnams-quiet-power-play/

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/23/us-lifts-decades-long-embargo-on-arms-sales-to-vietnam

    https://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/04/world/opening-vietnam-clinton-drops-19-year-ban-us-trade-with-vietnam-cites-hanoi-s.html

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_strategic_partnerships_of_Vietnam

    https://www.reuters.com/world/chinas-xi-visits-vietnam-after-biden-seeks-boost-ties-2023-12-12/

    https://vietnamnews.vn/economy/1728310/viet-nam-china-trade-poised-for-new-record-in-2025.html

    https://en.nhandan.vn/viet-nam-china-strengthen-bilateral-trade-cooperation-post154650.html

    https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/vietnam-continues-four-nos-defense-policy-4637076.html

    I will not answer what country I'm from. Same way I don't expect most Americans to understand their country's foreign policy, I don't expect that of pretty much any country's people. This person has given me no reason to believe they have much knowledge of Vietnamese politics let alone historical if they think friendly relations between Vietnam and Russia and Russian arm sales to Vietnam is going to cause some social unrest in Vietnam.

    I don't rely on my friends in France to tell me the foreign policy leanings of France. Not Germany, not Spain, not Australia. People generally don't follow politics beyond their bubble of information. It's not their job. The guys whole arguments are just he travels to a country and get's the feels from his friends.

    If I based my whole understanding of nations on the people I'm friends with, every country in the world would be composed of leftist and filled with scientist and filmmakers. National Rally wouldn't be rising in France. AFD wouldn't be rising in Germany. The UK wouldn't have anti-immigration rallies attended by over 100k people. Turkey and India wouldn't have purchased S400 systems. Egypt wouldn't have HQ-9B. Decades of diplomacy and outside of India and Pakistan people keep being surprised by the warmer relations that the US has with Pakistan over India. Friends are an ignorant way to determine the operations of a country. My friends are a bubble

    China sells military jets to Bangladesh, Myanmar, Indonesia. They've sold naval vessels to Thailand. China's navy appears to have a significant presence in Cambodia with frequent extended dockings. It's a rapidly changing region of the world for foreign policy currently.

    I didn't push on what the cultural differences between Vietnam and China are that make relations difficult anymore than like the Phillipines which is what I would guess is the person being from stemming from their interest in the disputed South China Sea. Tensions in the South China Sea exist but from my view, that takes a backseat to economic oppurtunity. It'll take a backseat to global warming and issues with their coastlines and weather patterns. Money and industrial capabilities is going to be incredibly important to deal with global warming in that region and that will factor into what Vietnam or the Phillipines can afford to do in the future for the disputed islands. I'll even avoid the linguistic approach as I know depending on the political leaning of a Viet person you are talking to, it can be a touchy subject in regards to nationalism and pedagogical policy.

    The history of China and Vietnam is very long. There's a famous historical Chinese general thousands of years ago that also happens to be a famous northern Vietnamese general. It's a very long history. Many wars. About a millennium in total of the northern part of Vietnam being a part of China though not continuous. Many successful independence wars. Historic vietnam and historic china relations stretches back to the neolithic age. There's syncretism that stretches back thousands of years before even getting to modern governmental structure, holidays, traditions, religions, music/instruments, film, clothing, cuisine, ... etc. It's not so simple as "Vietnamese people hate Chinese people." A lot more nuanced than that and a lot of migration over the millenniums though even limited to the last century that make the claims I hear of that a bit ridiculous. For the handful that actually have strong broad opinions on Chinese people from Vietnamese people, there's a solid chance they may have a differing opinion on Chinese from the north vs the south of the country. Same with the simple takes I hear in regards to China, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan relations and what they will all certainly do to each other in the future

    Non-alignment is difficult to comprehend when living in countries fully embracing of the diplomatic polar world but for Vietnam there's a famous song from the unification war era. This is the rendition I'm familiar with. All that matters is independence. Vietnam is not only an ally of any or combination of the US, China, or Russia.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0h2YgM9KRk

    Vietnam's non-alignment is possibly more impressive than Pakistans since Vietnams economy has come out as a lot more robust while playing every major side. While it's in a period of industrialization making parts of the country having poor air quality to support manufacturing for export to countries like the US, the cities are very clean as compared to like Bengaluru, city in another non-aligned country, India.


    On the point of US-China-Taiwan and RAND Corp

    https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA4107-1.html

    It's a very interesting progression of RAND Corp's suggestions compared to their history of opinions. If you're unaware of RAND Corp

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAND_Corporation

    One interesting field to study is trying to understand the whys for the difference between Vietnam's international relations compared to Japan, Taiwan, and Korean peninsula. They all share so much cultural traditions. China has more history of control over Vietnam than Taiwan so why far far more tension there than Vietnam. Far more history with Vietnam in general. A much longer history with Vietnam than with Japan but internationally people don't think of relations of Vietnam with China like they think of Japan and China. And even that Japan/China relation is a lot more nuanced than most of my friends anywhere in the world would believe. Even the Taiwan/China discussion is a lot more nuanced in Taiwan than outside. It should be. In the event of war, they're the ones that would suffer the most casualties and loss of infrastructure and potentially water import issues

  • You've been attacking me. I'm not saying there's not tensions. I'm saying the tensions are cooling. Probably heat up again in the future but it's not 2015. A lot has changed just this year in terms of governmental agreements between the two countries

  • Congrats you're a tourist to Vietnam. The US wasn't elevated to a similar diplomatic level as China until 2023. 2 years of solid diplomatic relations compared to at least 15 years with China. 2 years until the Trump tariffs. The war with the US may have ended in the 70s but the bulk of sanctions didn't end until towards the end of the 90s and US arms sales being made available the last decade have not even been close enough of high volume to displace Russian equipment in the Vietnamese military.

    Factions within the party that either favor the US, Russia, China or neutrality. According to your article they just purchased Russian fighter jets. They've been buying Russian military equipment damn near every year for a long time. Vietnam and China have been signing new trade deals just this year. They held their first joint army drills together just this year.

    Geographic neighbors are your worst risk for war but the ones that also end up your primary trade partner and the power imbalance so very much favors China that being a China hawk in Vietnam may as well be suicide. Right now Vietnam is progressing towards a Mexico relationship with China but a lot more prosperous and safe than Mexico

    The tension in the South China Sea is far more tense with the Philippines. If any war is happening in the next 20 years it's with them and I doubt that happening too. Past 20 years and at that point any 4th gen fighter is even more outdated than today.

    The US didn't even attend the most recent independence parade in Vietnam, China did with their military in the parade for the first time this year. Vietnam participated in victory day parades this year in China and Russia. Those were likely planned before Trump 48% tariff threat.

    It seems to me you're more outdated in your views. The current 4th gen fighters are not going to be useful in the South China Sea. Not this decade or the next. The military gap between Vietnam and China is growing rather than closing and it'll be a long time until that changes. So right now it makes sense that Vietnam continues to increase trade, tourism, military cooperation with China while balancing with Russia and the US. Vietnam isn't close to war with China. Vietnam is shaping up to be neutral between whatever conflicts China may be in the next couple decades

    Your a tourist to Vietnam. You probably want war between the two countries so whatever your country is has the opportunity to have better relations with Vietnam or for China to be preoccupied with them in war rather than your country. But for Vietnamese people in Vietnam, I highly doubt they're as jingoistic for war with China like people that don't live in Vietnam. They're the ones that would die. Vietnam balances relations with China, the US, and Russia and the US is late to the modern Vietnamese diplomatic party compared to China and especially compared to Russia. That's the prevailing foreign policy of Vietnam and this year has been a year of China and Russia gaining in Vietnam, not the US.

    Things change. Just this year. Like read the latest RAND Corp policy opinion report on China-Taiwan. Crazy shift in strategy opinion for a historically influential think thank in the US. Countries you see as potentially strong counterbalances to China aren't going to be so hawkish with China when the US and EU are getting skittish. The South China Sea conflict will continue but Vietnam won't have much ability there for decades and economic growth will prioritize over military so continued improving trade relations with China will be priority over very small islands in the South China Sea. A compromise that they'd rather be more in their favor but can't be for economic and military reasons

  • Respond to my points. Vietnam isn't close to war with China. Russia is their primary arms supplier and has been for decades. China arms exports to Vietnam are be becoming more frequent. Military drills and attendance of military parades are occuring now that did not happen just 10 years ago. China is Vietnams largest source for imports and growing for exports.

    Tell me why is war with China going to happen when China is focused on Taiwan and Vietnam is in the process of an economic boom where China is a major market with a trade route that can't be interrupted? They share a border

    France and the US literally killed millions of Vietnamese and then proceeded to sanction the crap out of them to sub-Saharan Africa levels of poverty. Vietnam had to build trade relations outside of the NATO world. The US literally threatened a 48% tariff on Vietnam half a year ago. Tariffed Vietnam back during Trump admin #1 as well

    Your posts makes it very clear you're new to international arms sales happenings. You just need to study arms sales history and equipment capabilities. Tell me why dozens of Rafale, F-16, Gripens, Eurofighters, or Sukhois would be a problem for China's surface to air defenses let alone hundreds of J-20 and J-35s before the 1000+ J-11, J-15, J-16 and J-10's. The cheapest is the best choice because the most expensive won't be any more useful. Are Vietnam buying AWACs and large radar systems too? If not, these 4th gen jet fighters are even more useless against China

  • They could as long as the US doesn't get into a very major war that requires a huge amount of logistics for overseas equipment and personnel. Can't do it for long because of how many military bases are overseas. Maybe you're seeing traffic related to Venezuela and the hurricane. Regardless it's just not enough people. The military doesn't staff as much as they used to, don't operate as much aircraft like they used too (though it's all much more expensive even inflation adjusted).

    I can see them shifting military ATC's to airports and having airports restrict flights down a lot to favor flights carrying commercial cargo. If you're flying somewhere and there's enough cargo space expected for FedEx, USPS, UPS to pay to jam some cargo in there, good. If not, shit out of luck. FedEx, UPS, USPS, DHL, etc - their planes probably get scheduled with priority

  • They likely don't mind. Historically Soviet Union and successor Russia for arms industry has been Vietnams primary arms supplier. It's not like France ever tried to make serious amends with any of their former colonies and the hundreds of thousands to millions killed in the process. It's just business with France as if nothing ever happened. Same with the US. The same thing is happening currently across Africa. Russia is a less opinionated arms supplier and don't have the baggage that France and the US have in the regions

    War with China is unlikely anytime soon. Vietnams focus is primarily on its economy and building it's own defense industry for both domestic and export. So all they need is modern enough with preference for cost. Russian fighter jets are cheap. Sure they'd be better off with a J-10c or J-35 but Sukhoi jets are diplomacy too and affordable and capable enough for peacetime. Turkey and India buy S400's and India buys Sukhoi. With historic weapons purchased from Russia, integration and local parts and mechanics are probably more abundant.

    They're also fairly non-aligned so they import from Russia, China, and the US and in regards to the US, after the Vietnam war they were under sanctions for decades with US arms being made available I think in the last decade. Vietnam

    Vietnams primary trade partner is China and once you hit the 90s as Vietnam would be under major sanctions for much of that decade, China was Vietnams market to export to. And it took until the past decade for exports to the US to really pickup. Then Trump 2 happens and they were initially slapped with one of the highest tariff from the US in the world.

    Vietnam buying arms from Russia is reflected in historical relations that have been dependable and what has seemed to me rapid improvements in relations with China, the US and Europe themselves dropped the ball with Vietnam. First France and the US by not recognizing Vietnamese independence leading Ho Chi Minh to ally with the communist. Then the decades of sanctions. Then the tariffs

    So Vietnams relationship with China have improved a ton since Trump 1. Stuff that didn't happen before like Chinese military marching at independence parades in Vietnam with notable performance like learning the Vietnamese victory or maybe anthem (I don't know which) and singing it well. Increasingly war with China is becoming unlikely as Vietnam focuses on its economy and increases trade with China and military sales from China increases.

    Rafales are very expensive and US weapons imports come with very stringent rules for usage and limits on what a country can purchase. Turkey and India buy S400, no F-35. Maybe you get limited on ammunition too after sanctions from the US. Also US jets are expensive too along with lifetime upkeep costs.

    Plus the case of war with China, of China stopped building fighter jets for the next 10 years and France sent all the Rafales they could build in ten years to Vietnam, in war with China, those Rafales would be demolished. Same with F-16's, Eurofighters, Gripens, Su-35, probably Su-57, probably the future Su-75. Why spend so much money on aircraft in defense against China when China's surface to air missiles would demolish them before even needing to send out J-10c, J-16, J-20, J-35 fighters. F-16, Gripens, Rafale, Eurofighter - those are obsolete in a war with China especially when sharing a border. Really the jets are for posturing among other southeast asian countries

    Re-emphasize that France and the US have not been friendly with Vietnam for all that long and far from enough to be well built trusting relationships

    So ya, Russia are bastards for invading Ukraine. Doesn't make Su-35's a bad purchase for Vietnam. Russia has been delivering aircraft to Algeria and Iran and Vietnam is likely not under urgent need for fighters like Iran. Vietnam right now doesn't seem like war is anytime near. Better off with cheap Russian equipment and continue improving relations with China and someday maybe purchase J-35's. Maybe some frigates

  • Anyone that says fire striking ATC's like Reagan did in the 80s. The 90s was when cheap domestic and international flights really took off along with businesses going international going full bore. Compared to the 80s, the economy is far more dependent on air travel and that disruption to shipping activity is what would end the shutdown.

    A lot more ATCs are needed today compared to the 80s and the military shifted to less in volume but more expensive (supposedly higher quality that makes up the difference in quantity) military. Military ATCs don't have the numbers to replace regular ATCs

  • The US economy has grown by $20 trillion since 2000, to $29 trillion last year. About $7.7 trillion of that — or 36% of all the growth in GDP — is spending related to recovering from or preparing for disasters, according to research by Andrew John Stevenson, a senior analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.

    Across 20 years $7.7 trillion. I'm used to always thinking of it by wildfires which I regularly see year after year tens of billions in damages. That's just damages before increased prevention steps taken state by state. Then there's tropical storms to hurricanes, tornadoes, floodings, landslides, possibly included stuff like droughts or maybe there's been some things like the water is warmer than it used to be so now there's a lot of dangerous bacteria growth that wasn't there before

  • I wish more games adopted kotors combat. To me its the perfect casual streamlining of a turn based CRPG. It feels faster to me than traditional real time with pause games. Talk about kotor remakes and how the combat has to change.

    To me the only need in modernization of the combat is adding more cool animations to cycle through and more abilities that possibly chain together animations that react a bit with each other. That's the mainstream hook, cool animations you wouldn't get with real time combat. Uncharted 4 sold huge numbers and that's not very heavy on gameplay mechanics. It's a spectacle. Kotor style combat can be a spectacle without being a QTE and cutscene battles festival