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Cake day: July 26th, 2023

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  • Genshin Impact’s first anniversary was the most horrendous one I’ve seen.

    They couldn’t even bother to send out an in-game message to congratulate the players.

    What they did instead is paying thousands of dollars for Twitter emojis and dishing out a few give-away events where you had to practically advertise for the game to enter. Were you guaranteed to get any reward? No.

    Essentially, instead of even acknowledging the anniversary, they made players advertise their game.

    They were also supposed to introduce a paid bundle with some cosmetic items alongside a free concert stream (the concert was pretty good). But that was after the anniversary. Keep the bundle in mind, however.

    What did it lead to?

    • Thousands of outraged players flooded social media.
    • Their discord was spammed with “qiqi fallen” emote (one of the characters laying on her back with a blank stare).
    • Review bombing got to the point where even Google Classrooms became one of the casualties

    I’m probably missing some other details, but this lasted for weeks.

    After a long while of non-communication, the devs gave in and finally decided to give players something. This “something” turned out to be the bundle that was supposed to be paid content alongside some (read “very little”) in-game resources. There was also another another giveaway event with, this time, guaranteed rewards. The rewards were, practically, you either get a scooter or one cent. Needless to say, it left a sour taste afterward.

    Honestly, it felt like a slap in the face, but it was enough for the things to start calming down.

    So far, even though they’re still very stingy with any sort of rewards, they at least make sure to congratulate the players somehow and give something.




  • In Soviet Union, the rock genre was for a very long time existing underground due to the inability of artists to be properly published.

    Only starting with the 1980s could the artists finally publish their songs officially. And even then Soviet government put a lot of measures to prohibit rock music in the country.

    This resulted in the appearance of many beloved bands and artists, like

    • Kino (tl. Cinema),
    • DDT,
    • Aria,
    • Chaif,
    • Grazhdanskaya Oborona (tl. Civil Defense),
    • Mashina Vremeni (tl. Time machine),
    • Sektor Gaza (tl. Gas Sector)
    • Korol i Shut (tl. King and Jester)
    • And many others

    The history of Russian rock is actually quite fascinating. It was inspired by bard songs and often touched darker subjects as well as being satirical and judgmental of Soviet government.

    Due to that, some artists, like Yegor Letov from Grazhdanskaya Oborona and Yuri Shevchuk from DDT, had troubles with KGB (Soviet FBI).

    Nowadays, rock artists are still being persecuted for their views. For example, DDT is de facto prohibited from performing in Russia.




  • I was interested in VR for a very long time. Recently, I got to actually try it out.

    I primarily view Apple Vision Pro as a proof of concept type of device. Sales being limited both in quantity and territorially indicate that. It has brought 3 major improvements to the table, compared to other headsets:

    1. Quality of passthrough
    2. User interface
    3. Display quality

    When you think about it, however, it’s not that much to make it an obvious choice over other devices.

    Passthough is needed for navigating through space. It does not help with productivity as your vision would be focused on the interface and not the environment. Remember warping on Quest 3? Much less noticeable than on videos for the exact same reason.

    There is no buts with the user interface and display. They are simply great, best that there is.

    Now, for the part that makes Vision Pro from a great productivity device on paper into a “dev kit available to masses” (I like that description, it does feel that way a lot, ty Ghostalmedia)

    Eye strain is a major issue. It is very difficult to use the device for more than a couple of hours without getting tired. This goes for all of the VR headsets out there. I guess you can get used to it over time, though.

    Limited usability. Quest 2/3, Pico 4, Valve Index, they all do things you wish Vision Pro could. Primarily usage of physical controllers. Imagine sculpturing without controllers because I can’t. Hand tracking is just not up to par.

    Battery solution is another issue. Not being able to swap what is otherwise a Power Bank without disabling the device and being unable to use any other battery than Apple’s own is at the very least annoying. Not exactly an issue if you’re too tired by the time it runs out.

    Finally, the VR space itself is unfortunately not mature enough. There’s a lot of work still to be done. Even when talking games, despite some amazing titles like Half-life Alyx, the vast majority where controls wouldn’t make you dizzy are all pretty much like arcade mini-games, where you either teleport from point to point or not move at all. Developers simply have yet to figure out an organic way of user navigating through virtual space. (Doesn’t mean they aren’t fun, though)

    Overall, I believe Vision Pro isn’t really a mass consumer product, but it did do a lot by bringing more attention to VR as a whole, as well as pointing out additional user-cases for the technology. Because of Vision Pro, Meta started paying more attention to details, which ultimately will benefit the consumer (in fact, it already has yeilded results).


  • CPU 3600, Mobo b450m, GPU 6700(xt), RAM 16Gb 3200mhz

    Something like this: https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/WC2VTY

    Comes out at 637€. A little over budget, but that’s also all new parts. It’s definitely enough for 1080p, often 1440p even.

    To get the most out of the budget, I’d definitely be looking at the used market.

    Definitely used 3600 for CPU. They go for very little and will pair nicely even with 3070 class cards.

    Used 6700 or 6700xt for GPU, but since they aren’t as robust as CPUs, do pay closer attention to damages, dust, performance compared to benchmark, and etc.

    Used case, because they don’t matter unless for looks. Just make sure it allows for air to pass through.

    Heatsink can sometimes come together with CPU. I’d be spending no more than 20$ to cool this one. (However, PA120 is kinda too good to pass on, despite being overkill for the CPU).

    RAM may as well be new, they aren’t very expensive. SP Xpower Turbine, Ripjaws, or Kingston Fury 2x8Gb 3200 or 3600 are all good options.

    Motherboard, wouldn’t buy used. And I wouldn’t be buying the lowest chipset either. b550m DS3H would be reasonable here or b450m (“m” means mATX, which are smaller than non-m, and usually cheaper), depending on if you need the extra features of b550 chipset.

    Power Supply should never be bought used, look up tier lists, and go with middle range one for reliability. 550W and over should be enough for the build. Try not to cheap out on these.

    Storage, also never to be bought used. Look for M.2 NVMes. SN770 is best bang for the buck imo, but even Kingston NV2 will do fine. 256Gb is enough for OS and some additional software. Imo, that’s too little. Get at least 500Gb. Ideally, 1Tb. Mind you, you could always add more later.



  • They may not matter in a sense that you can’t elect anybody but Putin.

    But they do matter in a sense of showing the incumbent they aren’t stable.

    After successful re-election of incumbent, they fall into a sense of euphoria. This leads to creation of some absolutely horrific and unjust laws.

    However, when the re-election is deemed unsuccessful (say 55% voted for “the right candidate”, but the second place got scary high 30-35%), they become timid.

    That’s how informational autocracies work. And that’s why elections there absolutely do matter, as they directly affect quality of life. It’s the safest and loudest way of showing the government your middle finger.


  • They guy did his research, and he did it right. Even mentioning the “social contract”, that’s not something you hear from an average youtuber.

    There’s only a few things I’ve noted

    Although the monthly rate can be calculated as yearly÷12 and is acceptable, it is inaccurate. Doesn’t change much, but still. ( (1+monthly rate)^12 = 1+yearly rate <= this is the accurate conversion)

    Next is “failed pension reform.” It’s failed in political sense. The intent of it was to temporarily lessen the depletion of pension fund, which it technically did do. But, yeah, it was absolutely not popular. Not to mention that it didn’t solve the root of the problem, which was obvious from the start. Back during his first or second presidency period, he promised not to raise the age for retirement, yet in 2018, he did exactly that. Needless to say that his ratings have been falling ever since then and up till February of 2022.

    The one thing I would’ve liked him to also mention is “quality of foreign exchange earnings,” which is a relatively new term. Essentially, companies now need to pay attention to wether or not they can exchange earned currency for something that they can trade with other countries or within Russia. Previously, they traded in dollars, so it was never an issue.


  • An economics student from Russia here, here’s my perspective.

    First, is that a country’s economy is a lot less volatile than we expected. There is also another factor that played into it. During covid, Russian companies amassed a sizable amount of inventory that was already inflated compared to European companies due to how volatile our economy is. This has given them enough time to reroute supply chains once sanctions hit.

    Basically, the so-called “grey import” plays a major role in assuring the stability of our economy. Companies either route their import/export through neighboring countries or through affiliated companies.

    Second is the competency of our central bank. After most of the major banks were cut off from SWIFT (used for international transactions), they raised the key rate, limited the amount of money you can cash out at one time, and did some other stuff. Higher key rate = higher deposit interest rate, but at the same time, credit became more expensive. All of this was needed for preventing banks from defaulting. Once panic died down, the changes were reverted. Now, they’re dealing with inflation.

    Lastly, the majority of our budget comes from oil and gas. Since Europe didn’t want to buy it, Russia started selling it to Asia at discounted prices. Quantity of oil/gas sold drastically increased, which mitigated reduced prices and led to a surplus budget. Not to mention that they started pushing on large companies to reduce the amount of dividends and instead re-invest the money.

    I wouldn’t call it “thriving,” however. All of this has definitely led to a slowdown in growth, which, as time goes by, will only get worse. But for now it’s fine.



  • Some windows-specific professional software that cannot run on Linux.

    Also, work-related stuff. I may be able to make a custom setup of Linux if I try hard enough, but when it comes to dealing with servers and VPNs it’s a bit beyond me. Not to mention the time it takes to figure it out and set up.

    Although, the more I hear about subscriptions from Microsoft the more I want to switch.


  • “fact-checking” was a bit of a crude way of putting it on my part. I’m not native, so there could’ve misused it.

    (Went a bit overboard with a wall of text again, but of well)

    Although it wasn’t without the fact-checking in it’s normal sense. Take “English as a foreign language”, for example. One teacher will say the word is pronounced one way, the other will say its different. Who’s right? Let’s check Cambridge dictionary. Although it isn’t always teacher’s fault as a professional. Sometimes you just forget things no matter how well you know them.

    The other part that I may have failed to convey is looking information up, be it a math formulae, a word, some sort of rule, name or a date.

    It’s way quicker than going through your books and is actually not a bad way to remember something. You either have a tab left off or you’re seeing it when using the search, which makes you remember that you did look that up a while back. It’s very minor, but because you’re still being reminded about it from time to time, the information sticks. Essentially you’re doing unintentional passive memorisation.

    That’s why I think that maybe not in primary, but definetly in secondary and high school banning technology is not the way to go about it. If the student uses it for entertainment during class, they won’t suddenly start studying if you prohibit them from usining it. You’re essentially solving a non-issue, because the majority of students aren’t even using phones during classes (Well, maybe to cheat on tests, but that’s hurting the quality of assessment and not education itself).

    Banning phones is easy, but it’s also the least impactful thing you could to to “improve” educational system. It would be of more sognificance you were to reduce classes to 8 pupils, lessen teacher’s paperwork, introduce new active teaching practices, reward students for persuing their endevours and so on. But that’s difficult, banning phones is easy and brings you more polical approval.