Recent Posts

61

The Superdeep Borehole / Re: The Japan Thread

« Last post by Polident Hive on March 28, 2025, 08:53:47 AM »

Never personally experienced it but there are a number of places that are quite small and run by one or two people. I think they might just find it troublesome.

I’m not a big guy but my back and shoulders are relatively broad and… there’s an old corny gym joke about having to walk through doors sideways after back day. There are times I actually had to do that and it’s a little embarrassing. For bigger fellas, a scene from In Bruges comes to mind.

There’s also the issue of very poor accessibility for the differently abled. Plenty of places I’ve been are stairs only. And quite often train stations make the elevator a hassle to get to. Walk an extra two blocks to the station exit with an elevator. At least twice a week I find myself helping some lady with her luggage going up or down stairs so they don’t hurt themselves.

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The Superdeep Borehole / Re: The Japan Thread

« Last post by Coax on March 28, 2025, 07:43:32 AM »

I heard on a travel podcast that if a restaurant doesn't want a foreigner they'll use a 'X' hands gesture (while politely smiling). This person is quite girthy and said this occurred multiple times when going around with his equally fat friends, but when going with his attractive wife he said they'd go out of their way to make space available.

Reading about this 'X' gesture it seems it can also signify they're full/booked but some say it's also just if they can't be bothered with you. Stories from this thread do make it sound like some places have had enough with tourists.

63

The Superdeep Borehole / Re: USA Politics Thread

« Last post by Occam on March 27, 2025, 12:44:01 AM »

Here we go:

US House Speaker Johnson Says Congress Can 'Eliminate' District Courts
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2025-03-25/us-house-speaker-johnson-says-congress-can-eliminate-district-courts

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday warned that Congress' authority over the federal judiciary includes the power to eliminate entire district courts, as the White House rails against "activist" judges blocking Republican President Donald Trump's agenda.

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The Superdeep Borehole / Re: The Japan Thread

« Last post by Polident Hive on March 26, 2025, 03:51:39 AM »

Back to whining about weather. It’s not even April and days have been mid 20s. The jar of coconut oil in my kitchen is melting. Feel like I just stored my lighter shirts.

65

Video Game Bored / Re: Random Gaming Talk Thread

« Last post by bork on March 24, 2025, 08:41:38 AM »

Updates:

Retroid Pocket 5

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

GKD Pixel 2

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

And yes, the Z13 2025

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

WHA HAPPEN:

With the retro handhelds, nothing was wrong.  Retroid announced two new handhelds, the Flip 2 (same as the Pocket 5, but clamshell and looks to have better ergos) and the Classic (Gameboy style).  Initially I wasn't interested, but the Classic has a version with six face buttons, so that was a lock.  I looked on eBay and people are selling the RP5 and the GKD Pixel 2 for more than they cost new, so this was an easy decision.  I sold the RP5 for $30 more than I paid for it and the Pixel 2 for $40 more, then pre-ordered both Retroid systems.  Don't need so many of these handhelds.  Also put my older RP3+ Metal Edition up for sale.

With the Z13, the software problems just started getting worse.  I'm still sure this will all be fixed soon, but after the shit I went through with the 2023 Z13 two years ago and concerns over longevity of the device (you can't open it up for cleaning/maintenance), I just decided to send it back. Wasn't a hard decision since again I still have my Razer Blade 14 and the performance is virtually the same anyway.  Actually perhaps still better because I did get some better framerates on some more games I tested in comparison to the Z13.  Still very big on that 395 chip and will see what other companies do with it.

I'm going to try one more device- the OneXPlayer X1 Pro.  It's an 11" Windows tablet that comes with a keyboard cover, controllers to attach to the sides, 2TB of storage, and 32GB of ram.  It's using the Ryzen AI 9 HX370 and while it won't come anywhere near as close as the Z13's 395 for performance, it's still going to be an improvement over the Z1 Extreme found in the Ally, Ally X, and Legion Go.  Should be about 20-25% better from my understanding, plus going from 16GB of ram on the Legion Go to 32B on this thing should help too.    It's also significantly cheaper than the Z13- like $1200 less which means I don't need to sell off my Blade 14 to help pay for it.  If this doesn't work out, I'll just wait for the Legion Go 2 later this year, which I likely am still going to get regardless if I keep the X1 Pro.

Have also thought about getting a 16" 4080 laptop, but since my 4070 Blade 14 is still working great, I don't really see any reason to trade up yet.  The Z13 was an exception because of its form factor.  Can certainly wait another year if not longer.  Another option to ditch portables completely on this front and get one of the small Mac Mini-sized PCs coming out that will have 395 chipsets.  Using one of those with a portable monitor is certainly viable for me.  I have a fantastic 16" 1600P 144hz portable monitor that would work great for this.

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Video Game Bored / Re: Random Gaming Talk Thread

« Last post by bork on March 21, 2025, 07:46:04 AM »

The 4070 in my laptop is plenty powerful for anything I’ve tried on it, with overhead that I often cap the frame rate to 90 or 120 to keep fan noise down. Maybe a testament to the stagnation of PC hardware and gaming. But I originally planned on building a new desktop here, and I’ve yet to feel the need to.

It’s pretty amazing if it’s the case on a 13” tablet.

It's that AI Max+ 395! Has got to be the most impressive tech this year.  There's a couple of Mac Mini sized desktop PCs with it coming soon and I believe HP is releasing a laptop with it as well. Some people are saying that it either is on par with Apple's M4 or beats it.

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Video Game Bored / Re: Random Gaming Talk Thread

« Last post by Polident Hive on March 21, 2025, 03:42:13 AM »

The 4070 in my laptop is plenty powerful for anything I’ve tried on it, with overhead that I often cap the frame rate to 90 or 120 to keep fan noise down. Maybe a testament to the stagnation of PC hardware and gaming. But I originally planned on building a new desktop here, and I’ve yet to feel the need to.

It’s pretty amazing if it’s the case on a 13” tablet.

68

Video Game Bored / Re: Random Gaming Talk Thread

« Last post by bork on March 20, 2025, 11:42:57 PM »

Had an issue pop up- when the Z13 is on battery, horizontal multi-color and black lines started popping up all over the screen.  Thought it was a hardware problem, but it happened after a BIOS update and a number of people have reported the same thing on Reddit.  I tried a number of things to see if I could fix it and talked to ASUS support (Went nowhere as expected; was told to RMA it and LOL'd), but no dice.  Did a factory reset and this seems to have made the issue not quite as bad at least.  I use this thing plugged in like 99% of the time so it's not a big deal to me, but at the same time I don't want something messed up.  If it's not fixed before the return window is up, I might return it.  But I'm sure this will be fixed soon enough.

Not even sure if I would have noticed this issue if not for the fact that I wanted to drain the battery to around 50% then charge it up for some battery care/maintenance per ASUS' recommendation.  Took longer than I expected to get it down that low from the 80% charge limit it's set to.  Not used to gaming devices actually having good battery life.

(Image removed from quote.)

Not a handheld, but I got the new Asus Z13 (32 GB) Windows tablet yesterday.

Like with the handheld Windows PCs, you can also allocate how much VRAM you want to use.  I can't say that I saw a difference (if any) with 16GB ram/16gb vram versus 24gb ram/8gb vram with the games I tested, but it's good to have the option for games that benefit from more vram like Indiana Jones.

Huh, I guess it can do that due to it sharing the same memory between CPU/GPU. Neat feature I wasn't aware was common.

I don't know if there's any other devices out there like this with this much ram/vram available- well, not the version I got, but there's also 64 GB and 128 GB versions too.  The former is exclusive to Best Buy and isn't out.  The latter is pretty much impossible to get right now.  Sells out in seconds when Asus gets more stock.  If the 64 GB version pops up in the next couple of weeks before the return window on the one I got is up, I might get that instead.

69

Video Game Bored / Re: Random Gaming Talk Thread

« Last post by Coax on March 19, 2025, 09:14:11 AM »

(Image removed from quote.)

Not a handheld, but I got the new Asus Z13 (32 GB) Windows tablet yesterday.

Like with the handheld Windows PCs, you can also allocate how much VRAM you want to use.  I can't say that I saw a difference (if any) with 16GB ram/16gb vram versus 24gb ram/8gb vram with the games I tested, but it's good to have the option for games that benefit from more vram like Indiana Jones.

Huh, I guess it can do that due to it sharing the same memory between CPU/GPU. Neat feature I wasn't aware was common.

70

The Superdeep Borehole / Re: The Japan Thread

« Last post by chronovore on March 19, 2025, 03:45:35 AM »

Tourists doing chin-ups on the crosspieces of torii at temples, jumping out of line to splash feet-first in the fountain at Kiyomizu-dera in Kyoto, have been on the news. More commonely, gathering in groups to block entire platform or sidewalk as they disembark from train or bus,  shouting at each other across stores, the list goes on.