The first comment on the issue is hilarious…

Although image generation like we have nowadays with the abundance of AI tools was maybe only thought of in the late 80s, it suffers from the same thing. A generated image can look technically perfect (no misaligned hands, strange architecture or broken texts), but you still can sense it is a generated image - even though the generation tool makes a different image every time. The same way an early replicator may have left some unnaturalness despite it producing a perfectly fine chocolate sundae.

They need to train the upscaler on the remastered TNG. But I get it’s a rather niche use case.

They are forgotten by the writers as quickly as they were invented…

Without knowing where you live the Gigaset GS6 comes to mind.

I was referring to the original Star Trek, but you’re right my phrasing was wrong.

I am sorry but I have trouble understanding what you were trying to say.

In the early nineties a single transformation shot of Odo cost at least 10.000$ depending on the complexity maybe even more. But even more it took weeks to complete. Even then it was just not possible to do this for every episode. In the 60s such an effect would have been nearly impossible to create because technology wasn’t ready yet.

There were of course other effects and maybe the use of puppets would have been possible (think of Yoda in Star Wars or some decades later ALF on TV), but it would have limited the sets or required specialized construction. The living room set for ALF was raised up so the puppeteer playing ALF could go under the floor and play the puppet for closeups when the use of a costume was not possible.

Special effects like the ones you are thinking of were expensive - the absence or novelty of computer generated imagery made these time consuming and incredibly complicated.

The in-universe reason is explained in TNG’s The Chase.

The reason from a production point of view is obviously money. It is easier and cheaper to have humans with some hair and makeup instead of a totally alien creature. Today the price tag is manageable, but in the 60s and even in the 80s it was not a thing you would do for a regular cast member.

Smashing pottery items against each other is something you shouldn’t show your children anyway…if you like your kitchenware…

My daughter has it on her phone and I always get it wrong, because I don’t have it on my phone. But I also hate the need to double swipe down to open the full quick settings. I think it’s just something to get used to.

One of the reasons EGS fails is Fortnite in my opinion. In Fortnite they have done all these things: they created a platform with social abilities and all that. Fortnite still brings them lots and lots of money, but this shouldn’t be in Fortnite it should be in their launcher. It could be even more integrated than Steam does. Why not let games grant you skins you can use in other games as a character model (given the game supports it)?

Not making the mistakes Nintendo Wii made means selling a subscription based service? I might be wrong but I suspect we will not see a Nex Playground in every living room in the future. I will even go further and say we will not see even 1 percent of the over 100 million units Nintendo sold.

It would be fun if it was a C64 type Joystick… 🕹️

I don’t say I want to encourage that. All I want to say is that this might be a similar situation to the “satanic panic” in the 80s and 90s which in hindsight feels stupid and a thing of the past.

I understand that. But to be honest the value of these cards is in most cases much lower than the purchase price - so the real value is not what these cards are worth but the fun you have / had collecting them and playing with them. And I am willing to believe that the same fun can come from digital assets in a game. You’re right that the company in charge can end this any time they want but usually this happens when nobody is playing it anymore. I don’t like this development either but I nevertheless can imagine that a Fortnite gift card can bring the same joy as a booster pack of MtG.

While I agree that this is not a good thing, I have to say it is not much different to for example Pokemon cards. Sure you could sell physical cards - if you’re lucky maybe even without loss - but I don’t think it is so much different.

I would love to have an overview before I install an app what it might cost. Play store lists at least minimum and maximum in-app-purchases, but the information is not very visible and I cannot filter my results based on it. And if need to pay for a subscription on the app website it will not be reflected at all.

Developers should be forced to provide an outline what you get for free (if they decide to advertise/sell their app as free) and what the different payment/subscription tiers include.

Of all places Microsoft Windows Store does it quite well for some apps (like MS Office), but also does not enforce it for all apps.

Yet it should be noted that while 90% of games could run on Linux sadly only about 3% actually are running on Linux…

Isn’t that just for the latest feature where the last active app can draw on the always on display?

I don’t even know how to use a headphone jack to connect my Bluetooth headphones…