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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: January 16th, 2024

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  • I think before we discuss this we we should get our definitions clear? Someone workings as freelance logo designer is different from someone working as an employed illustrator, is different from a “free” artist painting in their atelier etc. A website or UX/UI is different from a picture you hang on your wall; a movie poster might be somewhere in between and is still pop culture unless it’s idk some indie movie?

    Sometimes “art” or broadly being-creative becomes a commodity which can be sold, too (my wording here is not exact but you get my point). Art courses, cross-stitching, sewing, like, hobby stuff. Modding games can be seen as a new kind of prosumer culture indutry, externalizing costs while reaping the benefits of a more valuable product, indirectly by creating a fanbase/ecosystem or directly by claiming rights on UGC. It’s also used to find new talent.

    “Art” is just an umbrella term for different kinds of work, and different kinds of products. There’s different distribution channels, different degrees of independence and a range of ways on how it interacts with the market.

    Metaphysical nonsense.

    There’s a certain spark in human craft I won’t deny, but I agree that a Marxist, or generally a more “cold”, view on “art” is usually the way to go. Ultimately humans instruct their LLMs and Diffusion models to create slop, and they will do it and have always done it without them.

    Art≠Art






  • Calyx is not as degoogled as it claims to be (at least it wasn’t 2 years ago, see below). I know this is a bold claim, but the only ROM comparable with Graphene was DivestOS, which was a one human project and was dicontinued last year. And even Divest had the problem where updates were delayed by a few days or weeks.

    Obligatory eylenburg link, and there’s this blogpost I like to link to. It’s written in German, but I’m sure it’s a good read if you put it through a translator.

    The conclusion of the CalyxOS analysis in English:

    “CalyxOS has reconfigured Android to avoid Google’s spyware and tracking.” However, I only see this to a limited extent. To be truly privacy-friendly, the project would need to modify more parameters/source code of the AOSP standard and provide users with more options/freedom (Captive Portal Check, Key Provisioning Server, SUPL Server) for customization. The mere omission of Google Play Services is not enough to consider a device “de-Googled”. There is still room for improvement.

    Overall, CalyxOS is certainly not a bad custom ROM, but rather offers a coherent overall package that users who want to significantly reduce their dependence on Google should have a good starting point. However, one should also consider the drawbacks: the delayed provision of (security) updates and an external presentation that does not quite match the results of this analysis.

    Take this with a grain of salt since it’s been two years since this blogpost was published.

    Here I deleted a whole paragraph in which I sounded like a Graphene elitist haha. I would say using CalyxOS is a lot better than stock Android or Lineage. Please don’t choose your OS based on vibes. If you need any of the features Graphene offers that others don’t, please use it (edit: like the protester mentioned in the article). If you don’t, don’t.








  • SteamOS will most likely be deployed on other handheld PCs, not desktop PCs. The handheld PCs that came out in response to the deck’s release (or before) usually run Windows.

    Android is not bad because Android itself is bad (well… it kinda is but let’s just assume it isn’t), but because the phone manufacturers lock down their phones’ hardware. They do this to force you into their ecosystem. With SteamOS, you already have an ecosystem, which is Steam. There is (at least for now) a clear distinction between Hardware manufacturer and software provider.

    For now at least Androidization is nothing you should worry about. Maybe in 10, 20 years. edit: and even then it’s never going to be as bad as with the smartphones


  • This may be feasible for WQHD, but upscaling from 960x540 > 1920x1080 doesn’t really sound like an upgrade from WXGA anymore.

    Another problem is that while there are some 3D games that support internal upscaling (FSR etc), not every game has the option to scale the UI indepently so things look extremely small at higher resolutions. The games that support both should be an exception and look better on a higher DPI screen.

    I do believe that you could either slightly increase the resolution and screensize to 1600x1000 or 1600x900, or just use a WQHD-screen so you can get clean 2x upscaling from 720p.



  • I own a Steam Deck too and I can’t see a Full HD display being necessary at this form factor/display size. 1280x800 is a bit small, yes, but I really want someone to try 1600x1000 which I theoretically consider the sweet spot if you have slightly beefier graphics to support it. Also FreeSync or something similar would be cool imo.

    16GB is just enough. According to a guy who modded his Deck to have 32GB RAM it only reduced stutters in AAA games, but at least 24 GB would be a nice have to be future proof. Keep in mind that the 16GB also hold video memory and games are getting hungrier for VRAM.

    RGB lights anywhere are just an unnecessary gimmick. This is but a personal opinion and comes down to preference and taste.