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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 13th, 2023

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  • I’m wondering if it was always this stupid and we just kind of assume otherwise when we look back because we focus on the big serious things that happened.

    And because it’s actually more comforting to imagine Hitler as a political mastermind, rather than accept that a fucking idiot could rise to power and bumble us into world war and genocide.




  • People don’t walk around telling each other they use an “ASUS ROG Strix OLED XG27ACDNG” either. They’ll say they have a “27 inch OLED”, or possibly a “27 inch 1440p OLED from Asus”.

    You could use the sub-brand and say you had an “Asus ROG Strix” if you wanted, but all that might tell someone is that it’s from Asus’ midrange gaming segment.

    The unique id is simply handy to keep the many models apart. Asus has 217 displays listed on their (US) store. They have 14 different 27" 1440p displays under the ROG Strix brand alone, three of which are OLEDs and you better not get them confused because they use different OLED technology.

    Would it be better if they had more diverse product names instead? I’m not so sure. With so many models you’d probably end up with something like the “ASUS ROG Strix Centurion Speed² Ultra+ Black”, and I don’t think that’s any easier than “XG27ACDNG”, which at least is short.


  • And of course it’s updated with new versions a few times every year or so. So the Deathstalker Pro from the end of 2024 is actually better in many respects than the Deathstalker Ultra from 2022, but you’ll have to check the fine print on the box to make sure you’re getting the updated QD-OLED version, and not the older AMOLED version. If it has 220 Hz rather than 240 Hz it should be the newer model. Unless you live in South America, in which case they all use WOLED displays, though the specifications are the same so you have no way of knowing without opening it.


  • This is exactly what the companies try to do. For example ASUS has (in order of increasing fancyness) TUF, ROG Strix and ROG Swift. While MSI has G, MAG, MPG and MEG.

    For each step up you can assume that it will be more cutting edge, have more extras and a higher price. But why would you care? You want to know if the image is good, if it has the features you want and what it costs. You likely don’t care what price segment it was originally intended for.

    As time goes by, what was once expensive premium features become mainstay. So an older top-of-the-line display might be similar in price and performance to a new budget display. Which is better? Well you’ll have to read some reviews and ideally look at it to figure that out. And then you need to know the exact model number of the ones you are comparing. Good thing theres a compact alphanumeric string that uniquely identifies each model ;)


  • You actually gave a good example for why these brand names are useless.

    How many doors does a Honda Accord have? What type of engine does it have?

    It’s impossible to answer even these very basic questions, because there are so many different Honda Accords that the name could refer to almost anything. It could be a station wagon with a diesel engine, a four-door hybrid sedan, a hatchback, a SUV etc.

    In fact monitors do usually have fancy brand names like Predator, ROG Swift or UltraGear that function exactly like the Accord name, giving you some hint as to where the manufacturer think it belongs in their product stack. They just aren’t useful for identifying a specific model, and since there are so many different models, you need the alphabet soup to make sure we are talking about the same thing.








  • I dream that the reason AMD delayed their launch and are being so cryptic, is because they saw how underwhelming the 5080 was and decided to make a card (perhaps a 9070 XT) that matches its performance at the price of a 5070 or something.

    Now I don’t think that will happen. Their previous market strategies have been very uninspired. But there’s certainly an opening here to make a play for market share and make Nvidia look like greedy fools.





  • My experience organizing non-profit events have shown that most people actually have no problem doing dirty jobs for no material compensation. If the following things are true:

    1. They understand why the job is important
    2. They feel responsible for the job (usually comes from being given autonomy and trust)
    3. They get recognition for doing it (social rewards are actually very powerful)
    4. No one else is getting compensated either.

    I understand that this seems foreign to a lot of people, because this is not how work is generally motivated in capitalist society. You are used to your job being rather unimportant, with little autonomy, little trust, not much recognition from society and some people definitely profiting more than others. Your primary motivator is the threat of violence (via homelessness, starvation etc.), so it’s hard to imagine what would happen if that was removed.

    That to me is the core idea of Anarchism, to base your organization on volontary cooperation rather than coercion.

    An interesting side-note is that the people who do the dirty jobs in these circumstances often take great pride in it, forming an identify around doing what others are not willing to and calling attention to it as a way to get more recognition.


  • Why are there so many emigrants from Islamic countries? Most of them are even Muslims, but still they can’t live safely in their home country?

    If you genuinely don’t know, you should abstain from having opinions until you gain a basic understanding of what is going on in the world.

    The world is experiencing an unfathomable and worsening refugee crisis with 122 million people currently forced to flee their homes [1]. This is mostly due to overlapping long brutal wars. Refugees seeking shelter in the EU are mostly fleeing from Syria, Ukraine, Afganistan or Iraq. Most of these countries are majority muslim so that’s what most refugees will be.

    As for why they can’t live safely in their home country, it’s because it’s a war zone, and has been for many years.

    The rioters in Sweden were not “extreme muslims”. They were not particularly devout, but simply angry young men riled up by what they perceived as a racist state-sanctioned attack on their culture and heritage.

    Many parties worked to escalate this issue, from far-right assholes looking to sow hate between religious groups, state actors trying to weaken Sweden internally and diplomatically, islamic countries trying to unify their people with a common enemy, as well as religious extremists seeking more influence. That’s why it gained so much attention, and generated so much outrage and violence.

    1. https://www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics