#32 watts

[txttletale]

Saw a tweet that said something around:

"cannot emphasize enough how horrid chatgpt is, y'all. it's depleting our global power & water supply, stopping us from thinking or writing critically, plagiarizing human artists. today's students are worried they won't have jobs because of AI tools. this isn't a world we deserve"

I've seen some of your AI posts and they seem nuanced, but how would you respond do this? Cause it seems fairly-on point and like the crux of most worries. Sorry if this is a troublesome ask, just trying to learn so any input would be appreciated.

i would simply respond that almost none of that is true.

'depleting the global power and water supply'

something i've seen making the roudns on tumblr is that chatgpt queries use 3 watt-hours per query. wow, that sounds like a lot, especially with all the articles emphasizing that this is ten times as much as google search. let's check some other very common power uses:

running a microwave for ten minutes is 133 watt-hours

gaming on your ps5 for an hour is 200 watt-hours

watching an hour of netflix is 800 watt-hours

and those are just domestic consumer electricty uses!

a single streetlight's typical operation 1.2 kilowatt-hours a day (or 1200 watt-hours)

a digital billboard being on for an hour is 4.7 kilowatt-hours (or 4700 watt-hours)

i think i've proved my point, so let's move on to the bigger picture: there are estimates that AI is going to cause datacenters to double or even triple in power consumption in the next year or two! damn that sounds scary. hey, how significant as a percentage of global power consumption are datecenters?

1-1.5%.

ah. well. nevertheless!

what about that water? yeah, datacenters use a lot of water for cooling. 1.7 billion gallons (microsoft's usage figure for 2021) is a lot of water! of course, when you look at those huge and scary numbers, there's some important context missing. it's not like that water is shipped to venus: some of it is evaporated and the rest is generally recycled in cooling towers. also, not all of the water used is potable--some datacenters cool themselves with filtered wastewater.

most importantly, this number is for all data centers. there's no good way to separate the 'AI' out for that, except to make educated guesses based on power consumption and percentage changes. that water figure isn't all attributable to AI, plenty of it is necessary to simply run regular web servers.

but sure, just taking that number in isolation, i think we can all broadly agree that it's bad that, for example, people are being asked to reduce their household water usage while google waltzes in and takes billions of gallons from those same public reservoirs.

but again, let's put this in perspective: in 2017, coca cola used 289 billion liters of water--that's 7 billion gallons! bayer (formerly monsanto) in 2018 used 124 million cubic meters--that's 32 billion gallons!

so, like. yeah, AI uses electricity, and water, to do a bunch of stuff that is basically silly and frivolous, and that is broadly speaking, as someone who likes living on a planet that is less than 30% on fire, bad. but if you look at the overall numbers involved it is a miniscule drop in the ocean! it is a functional irrelevance! it is not in any way 'depleting' anything!

'stopping us from thinking or writing critically'

this is the same old reactionary canard we hear over and over again in different forms. when was this mythic golden age when everyone was thinking and writing critically? surely we have all heard these same complaints about tiktok, about phones, about the internet itself? if we had been around a few hundred years earlier, we could have heard that "The free access which many young people have to romances, novels, and plays has poisoned the mind and corrupted the morals of many a promising youth."

it is a reactionary narrative of societal degeneration with no basis in anything. yes, it is very funny that laywers have lost the bar for trusting chatgpt to cite cases for them. but if you think that chatgpt somehow prevented them from thinking critically about its output, you're accusing the tail of wagging the dog.

nobody who says shit like "oh wow chatgpt can write every novel and movie now. yiou can just ask chatgpt to give you opinions and ideas and then use them its so great" was, like, sitting in the symposium debating the nature of the sublime before chatgpt released. there is no 'decay', there is no 'decline'. you should be suspicious of those narratives wherever you see them, especially if you are inclined to agree!

plagiarizing human artists

nah. i've been over this ad infinitum--nothing 'AI art' does could be considered plagiarism without a definition so preposterously expansive that it would curtail huge swathes of human creative expression.

AI art models do not contain or reproduce any images. the result of them being trained on images is a very very complex statistical model that contains a lot of large-scale statistical data about all those images put together (and no data about any of those individual images).

to draw a very tortured comparison, imagine you had a great idea for how to make the next Great American Painting. you loaded up a big file of every norman rockwell painting, and you made a gigantic excel spreadsheet. in this spreadsheet you noticed how regularly elements recurred: in each cell you would have something like "naturalistic lighting" or "sexually unawakened farmers" and the % of times it appears in his paintings. from this, you then drew links between these cells--what % of paintings containing sexually unawakened farmers also contained naturalistic lighting? what % also contained a white guy?

then, if you told someone else with moderately competent skill at painting to use your excel spreadsheet to generate a Great American Painting, you would likely end up with something that is recognizably similar to a Norman Rockwell painting: but any charge of 'plagiarism' would be absolutely fucking absurd!

this is a gross oversimplification, of course, but it is much closer to how AI art works than the 'collage machine' description most people who are all het up about plagiarism talk about--and if it were a collage machine, it would still not be plagiarising because collages aren't plagiarism.

(for a better and smarter explanation of the process from soneone who actually understands it check out this great twitter thread by @reachartwork)

today's students are worried they won't have jobs because of AI tools

i mean, this is true! AI tools are definitely going to destroy livelihoods. they will increase productivty for skilled writers and artists who learn to use them, which will immiserate those jobs--they will outright replace a lot of artists and writers for whom quality is not actually important to the work they do (this has already essentially happened to the SEO slop website industry and is in the process of happening to stock images).

jobs in, for example, product support are being cut for chatgpt. and that sucks for everyone involved. but this isn't some unique evil of chatgpt or machine learning, this is just the effect that technological innovation has on industries under capitalism!

there are plenty of innovations that wiped out other job sectors overnight. the camera was disastrous for portrait artists. the spinning jenny was famously disastrous for the hand-textile workers from which the luddites drew their ranks. retail work was hit hard by self-checkout machines. this is the shape of every single innovation that can increase productivity, as marx explains in wage labour and capital:

“The greater division of labour enables one labourer to accomplish the work of five, 10, or 20 labourers; it therefore increases competition among the labourers fivefold, tenfold, or twentyfold. The labourers compete not only by selling themselves one cheaper than the other, but also by one doing the work of five, 10, or 20; and they are forced to compete in this manner by the division of labour, which is introduced and steadily improved by capital. Furthermore, to the same degree in which the division of labour increases, is the labour simplified. The special skill of the labourer becomes worthless. He becomes transformed into a simple monotonous force of production, with neither physical nor mental elasticity. His work becomes accessible to all; therefore competitors press upon him from all sides. Moreover, it must be remembered that the more simple, the more easily learned the work is, so much the less is its cost to production, the expense of its acquisition, and so much the lower must the wages sink – for, like the price of any other commodity, they are determined by the cost of production. Therefore, in the same manner in which labour becomes more unsatisfactory, more repulsive, do competition increase and wages decrease”

this is the process by which every technological advancement is used to increase the domination of the owning class over the working class. not due to some inherent flaw or malice of the technology itself, but due to the material realtions of production.

so again the overarching point is that none of this is uniquely symptomatic of AI art or whatever ever most recent technological innovation. it is symptomatic of capitalism. we remember the luddites primarily for failing and not accomplishing anything of meaning.

if you think it's bad that this new technology is being used with no consideration for the planet, for social good, for the flourishing of human beings, then i agree with you! but then your problem shouldn't be with the technology--it should be with the economic system under which its use is controlled and dictated by the bourgeoisie.

[aaravr902]

Mixer Grinder

A mixer grinder is a versatile kitchen appliance used for blending, grinding, and mixing ingredients. It is a popular appliance in households and commercial kitchens. One of the popular brands that offer mixer grinders is LYF. LYF mixer grinders are known for their durability, efficiency, and multiple features that make cooking easier and faster. They come with various jars and blades that cater to different cooking needs. LYF mixer grinders are a reliable addition to any kitchen, making cooking effortless and enjoyable.

[actressplaygroundxxx]

Naomi Watts (32) in Mulholland Drive (2001)

[goodstuffhappenedtoday]

Millions of U.S. apples were almost left to rot. Now, they'll go to hungry families

NOVEMBER 27, 2023 By Alan Jinich

It's getting late in the harvest season in Berkeley County, West Virginia and Carla Kitchen's team is in the process of hand-picking nearly half a million pounds of apples. In a normal year, Kitchen would sell to processors like Andros that make applesauce, concentrate, and other products. But this year they turned her away. ... Across the country, growers were left without a market. Due to an oversupply carried over from last year's harvest, growers were faced with a game-time economic decision: Should they pay the labor to harvest, crossing their fingers for a buyer to come along, or simply leave the apples to rot?

Bumper crops, export declines and the weather have contributed to the apple crisis

... While many growers in neighboring states like Maryland and Virginia left their apples to drop. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia was able to convince the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to pay for the apples produced by growers in his state, which only makes up 1% of the national market.

A relief program in West Virginia donated its surplus apples to hunger-fighting charities

This apple relief program, covered under Section 32 of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1935, purchased $10 million worth of apples from a dozen West Virginia growers. Those apples were then donated to hunger-fighting charities across the country from South Carolina and Michigan all the way out to The Navajo Nation.

Mike Meyer, head of advocacy at The Farmlink Project, says it's the largest food rescue they've ever done and they hope it can serve as a model for their future missions. "There's over 100 billion pounds of produce waste in this country every year; we only need seven billion to drive food insecurity to zero," Meyer says. "We're very happy to have this opportunity. We get to support farmers, we get to fight hunger with an apple. It's one of the most nutritional items we can get into the hands of the food insecure."

At Timber Ridge Fruit Farm in Virginia, owners Cordell and Kim Watt watch a truck from The Farmlink Project load up on their apples before driving out to a food pantry in Bethesda, Md. Despite being headquartered in Virginia, Timber Ridge was able to participate in the apple rescue since they own orchards in West Virginia as well. Cordell is a third-generation grower here and he says they've never had to deal with a surplus this large.

At the So What Else food pantry in Bethesda, Md., apple pallets from Timber Ridge fill the warehouse up to the ceiling. Emanuel Ibanez and other volunteers are picking through the crates, bagging fresh apples into family-sized loads. "I'm just bewildered," Ibanez says. "We have a warehouse full of apples and I can barely walk through it." "People in need got nutritious food out of this program. And that's the most important thing" Executive director Megan Joe says this is the largest shipment of produce they've ever distributed – 10 truckloads over the span of three weeks. The food pantry typically serves 6,000 families, but this shipment has reached a much wider circle. "My coworkers are like, 'Megan, do we really need this many?' And I'm like, yes!" Joe says. "The growing prices in the grocery stores are really tough for a lot of families. And it's honestly gotten worse since COVID."

"It's the first time we've done this type of program, but we believe it can set the stage for the region," Kent Leonhardt, West Virginia's commissioner of agriculture says. "People in need got nutritious food out of this program. And that's the most important thing." Following West Virginia's rescue program, the USDA announced an additional $100 million purchase to relieve the apple surplus in other states around the country. This is the largest government buy of apples and apple products to date. But with the harvest window coming to an end, many growers have already left their apples to drop and rot.

[readyforevolution]

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Song by Gil Scott-Heron

You will not be able to stay home, brother

You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out

You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and

Skip out for beer during commercials

Because the revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox

In four parts without commercial interruptions

The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon

Blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John Mitchell

General Abrams and Spiro Agnew

To eat hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary

The revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be brought to you by the

Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star

Natalie Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia

The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal

The revolution will not get rid of the nubs

The revolution will not make you look five pounds thinner

Because the revolution will not be televised, brother

There will be no pictures of you and Willie May

Pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run

Or trying to slide that color TV into a stolen ambulance

NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32

Or report from 29 districts

The revolution will not be televised

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down

Brothers on the instant replay

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down

Brothers on the instant replay

There will be no pictures of Whitney Young

Being run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process

There will be no slow motion or still lifes of Roy Wilkens

Strolling through Watts in a red, black and green

Liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving

For just the proper occasion

Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville Junction

Will no longer be so damned relevant

And women will not care if Dick finally got down with Jane

On "Search for Tomorrow" because black people

Will be in the street looking for a brighter day

The revolution will not be televised

There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock news

And no pictures of hairy armed women liberationists

And Jackie Onassis blowing her nose

The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb

Or Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell

Tom Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink or the Rare Earth

The revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be right back

After a message about a white tornado, white lightning or white people

You will not have to worry about a dove in your bedroom

The tiger in your tank or the giant in your toilet bowl

The revolution will not go better with Coke

The revolution will not fight germs that may cause bad breath

The revolution will put you in the driver's seat

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised

Will not be televised, will not be televised

The revolution will be no re-run, brothers

The revolution will be live

[bookshopsbizarreblog]

Did you know that you'd need to eat ~260,000 human teeth every second to fuel the Flux Capacitor?

Okay, so, the sources behind this beautiful statistic

As is stated a number of times by Doc Brown, the Flux Capacitor requires 1.21 gigawatts of power

According to a 2017 article by Science.org, eating all of someone's teeth would give an average of 36 calories [1]

The typical adult human will have 32 teeth, including their wisdom teeth. I don't know whether the 36 calorie statistic was taken with or without wisdom teeth, so I'm going to assume that it's with them. That way, we get a bigger number of teeth!

And the math!

Gigawatts are a bit frustrating to work with, because we can't just get a specific amount of teeth we'd need to eat to power it. Much like a 100 watt light bulb, that number is about how much energy it consumes every second of its operation, rather than a set quantity we need. And since it is stated that the time travel happens instantaneously (and looking at the frame-by-frame of the stop watches demonstrating the time travel shows that they are still synced, further showing this) [2], there is no time for the energy consumption to happen within. So whatever number of teeth it would take to fuel the Flux Capacitor via metabolic processes (assuming all of the calories a human would gain from digesting teeth are perfectly transferred into electrical energy and ignoring the energy cost associated with digesting the teeth in the first place) needs to be some rate of teeth / time.

So let's break it down unit conversion style

To turn that formula into plain English, we start by finding the energy each individual tooth has. If a set of them has 36 calories, and there are 32 in a set, then each tooth is 1.125 (36/32 -> 9/8) calories. By flipping that number, we are expressing that, for every calorie we wind up needing to run the flux capacitor, we will need 8/9ths of a tooth.

Next, we can convert the (food) calories into joules. They both measure the same thing--energy--and they're just different units for it. Similar to how feet and meters work. Joules are more useful for this formula, since joules and watts are easier to convert between, and the flux capacitor's energy requirements are measured in watts. Each calorie is 4184 joules, so we just convert between them.

Then we can covert the joules directly into watts! A joule is a watt second, meaning that something that consumes one watt of power for one second will have used a joule of energy. To use the example of the 100 watt lightbulb, if it was running for 1 second, it would use 100 joules. If it was running for 2 seconds, it would have used 200 joules. And so on.

(a watts * b seconds = a * b watt seconds = a * b joules)

Now that we've converted from calories to joules, and joules to watt seconds, we have:

The section on the right is splitting out the different aspects to make it slightly easier to understand. Essentially, this formula is saying that for every 4,707 watts of power we need, we must consume one tooth per second. That isn't a lot of teeth,,, yet. Unfortunately, 1.21 giga-watts is a lot of watts. 1.21 * 10^9 of them, to be precise. And after running that number through the calculator, we get a grand total of 257,064 teeth per second. But as we don't know the exact number of calories per teeth, it's safer to round up to ~260,000 teeth per second.

So, if Doc Brown built his DeLorean with the capacity to metabolize teeth at 100% efficiency, he would need to feed it around 260,000 of those enamelous little morsels every second to travel through time.

[1]

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV6wO_UVfWo

[scp-niche-blorbo-beatdown]

Do you think maybe there could be a list of every character submitted so far? Just to know who's gonna be in it and so people can be sure their submissions actually got received n such

Sure! The current list so far is

1. Phillip Deering

2. Chaz Ambrose

3. Wren Masterson/steakshift

4. Dr. Kathrine Anne Scranton/Scalpel

5. Ryoto Hishakaku

6. Placeholder McDoctorate

7. Jessie Tamlin

8. Karcist Varis / SCP-2075

9. Joyce Michales

10. Agent Tangerine

11. Marquise Melun

12. Skitter Marshall

13. Daniil Sokolsky

14. Dr. Abbett

15. Hammie / SCP-8005

16. Queen Mab

17. Jakub “Chmiel” Chmieliński

18. Agent Ira Watts

19. Vampire Boat

20. Director Allan James McInnis

21. Agent Calendar

22. Dr. Barnabas P. Lockwood (SCP-4563)

23. SCP-6693 / Demon McDemonface

24. D-11424 / Tony Marquez

25. Researcher Rowan Raster

26. Dr. Riven Mercer

27. Dr. Mark Kiryu

28. SCP-5595 / Geoffrey Quincy Harrison the Third

29. Rita summers

30. Marya

31. Ilse Reynders

32. Armand / Harmpit

I’m still taking submissions, mostly because I want to learn more blorbos, and just in case some submissions do not have enough character information

[hadesisqueer]

Okay, since I am extremely bored, I am doing the second edition of the RWBY Hottest Character Poll. A few characters are different from the first one; for example, Oobleck isn't on this one, and I don't think Jinn was in the first one but she's in the second one.

Anyway.

List of Characters:

1) Blake Belladonna

2) Yang Xiao Long

3) Weiss Schnee

4) Jaune Arc

5) Nora Valkyrie

6) Lie Ren

7) Ambrosius

8) Qrow Branwen

9) Raven Branwen

10) Young María Calavera

11) Coco Adel

12) Velvet Scarlatina

13) Yatsuhashi Daichi

14) Fox Alistair

15) Neopolitan

16) Roman Torchwick

17) Cinder Fall

18) Emerald Sustrai

19) Mercury Black

20) Salem

21) Ozpin

22) OG Ozma

23) James Ironwood

24) Winter Schnee

25) Pyrrha Nikos

26) Kali Belladonna

27) Ghira Belladonna

28) Sun Wukong

29) Neptune Vasilias

30) Marrow Amin

31) Taiyang Xiao Long

32) Harriet Bree

33) Sienna Khan

34) Clover Ebi

35) Scarlet David

36) Nolan Porfirio

37) Amber

38) Vine Zeki

39) Elm Ederne

40) Jacques Schnee

41) Adam Taurus

42) Ilia Amitola

43) Saphron Cotta-Arc

44) Terra Cotta-Arc

45) Jinn

46) Summer Rose

47) Caroline Cordovin

48) Sage Ayana

49) Tyrian Callows

50) Arthur Watts

51) Robyn Hill

52) May Marigold

53) Fionna Thyme

54) Joanna Greenleaf

55) Hazel Rainart

56) Klein Sieben

57) Willow Schnee

58) Neon Katt

59) Vernal

60) Flynt Coal

61) Glynda Goodwitch

62) Leonardo Lionheart

63) Rhodes

64) Blacksmith Lady

Obviously, just like in the first one, I didn't add underage characters such as Ruby, Oscar or Whitley. Pyrrha is there because since her confirmed birthday was on April and the Vytal Festival took place in the Fall, then she had most likely turned 18 by volume 3.

I randomized all the pairs, but still I made sure most guys were with other guys because considering how gay this fandom is, all the guys would be out of the poll in the first round if they were against women.

[solarpunkbusiness]

The GoSun company is preparing for release a portable charger called the Solar EV Charger, based on solar panels and intended for charging electric vehicles. The device is a compact portable structure that can be installed on the roof of a car. The novelty weighs about 32 kg.

When the car stops, the panels unfold, creating a cover to absorb solar energy and convert it into electricity. This process only takes a minute. The device can be used at home, at work or in remote locations such as campsites.

The Solar EV Charger provides up to 1,200 watts of power, allowing for an electric vehicle range of up to 30 miles (about 50 km) per day of charging, although the average is 10-20 miles (16-32 km) depending on conditions. The device is suitable for vans, work trucks and campers, ensuring independence from the grid. After use, the panels fold into a secure car case with a lock to prevent theft.

[siryouarebeingmocked]

Teen shoots, kills masked men breaking into TX home: sheriff | Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Shannon Watts: I bet this is the NRA’s fault.

I think her definition of “arm” is rather different from mine. Or the one found in any dictionary.

I also like how the idiot Ducks had to use a story from 2016 to “prove” Good Guys With Guns don’t exist, because, uh, one guy mistook his kid for a burglar and shot him. And because Ducks is projecting their own NPCness onto everyone else.

“Armed home invaders don’t exist in any other developed country but America.” - an idiot

>Hurley, 32, and Haynes, 31, are in jail and face a long list of charges, including breaking and entering, robbery and assault, following their capture overnight on Wednesday. They were apprehended separately, without incident, according to police, and are due back in court in late September.

>Police say they forced their way into a Beaumont Street home occupied by a man and a woman in their 30s on Monday evening. The male homeowner was stabbed and seriously injured, and the attackers stole the homeowners' Honda Civic.

Oh, look at that. Armed home invaders in Canada who used deadly force.

For pete’s sake, I’ve been in a home invasion where the bad guys could’ve killed someone, and I live in the UK. 

And here’s burglars who murdered a guy with a kitchen knife and a screwdriver.

Watts replies are full of people circlejerking about how teens “shouldn’t have to” defend themselves, as if gun control magically will take all the guns away from the criminals, and then no one will have a reason to shoot anyone, ever.

These people don’t know anything about crime and self-defense.

Heck, I’m pretty sure three men could overpower most 17 year olds whether or not those men are armed.

[nikkeisimmer]

Oh My God...inZOI...

"Recommended System Requirements for inZOI (Life simulator from Krafton Games, South Korea)

For those wanting to experience inZOI in all its glory with high frame rates and the most detailed visuals, aim for the following recommended specifications:

CPU: A more powerful processor like the AMD Ryzen 5 3600X or the Intel Core i5-10600K will deliver a smoother performance even in the most demanding scenarios.

RAM: Doubling the minimum requirement, 32 GB of RAM will ensure that your game runs seamlessly and enables extensive multitasking.

Video Card: Upgrading to an AMD Radeon RX 6800 or NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 video card will allow you to enjoy inZOI at higher resolutions and with better graphical fidelity.

Dedicated Video RAM: A hefty 10240 MB will give you the bandwidth needed for ultra-quality textures and prevent any graphical stuttering.

Pixel Shader and Vertex Shader: Remaining at version 5.0, but coupled with more robust hardware, you’ll be able to maximize the game’s visual settings.

OS: Windows 10/11 with the latest updates is again recommended for the best compatibility.

Free Disk Space: A consistent 50 GB of free space is recommended for game files, mods, and updates.

-quoted from https://inzoiresource.com/blogs/22/Minimum-and-Recommended-System-Requirements-for-inZOI

Yeah...that's my wallet finding out I'm going to have to spend at least $4,000.00 to run inZOI decently on my computer. The thing is that you can no longer play these newest games on "integrated graphics chips". You have to get a dedicated card. My wife wants to play Dragon Age 4 (The Veilguard) which is coming out on October 31, 2024. And those games are just as intense on hardware as it is with inZOI.

Minimum and RECOMMENDED requirements for Dragon Age 4 "The Veilguard"

Me, personally... I want to play Cities Skylines 2 and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 Recommended requirements for those two games. Cities Skylines 2

As for MSFS 2024 (due to come out in 2024?)

It's over and above what is pictured in MSFS2020. Chillblast said that the "recommended specs" for FS2024 is the following:

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 PC Recommended Requirements

OS: Windows 10

Processor: Intel i5-8400 | AMD Ryzen 5 1500X

Memory: 16 GB RAM

Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 970 | AMD Radeon RX 590

Storage: 150 GB available space

I'm calling HORSESHIT on that right now. I'm saying it's more in the realm of what inZOI and Dragon Age the Veilguard is putting out. You don't get that kind of gaming experience with the specs Chillblast espouses. Especially on the processor and graphics end of things. After all, on the FS forum board, the recommended specs being tossed about just for FS2020 is the following:

Intel i7-12700K CPU

Z690 motherboard

32GB DDR4 3600mhz RAM (upgrades for this on the site are very cheap, but like you said I’ve seen a couple instances where this RAM outperforms most others)

1TB SSD

Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti

Liquid cooled, nice case, 850 watt power supply, etc

Frankly as far as I'm concerned, I'm tempted to go all out and perhaps go so far as investing in:

i9-13900K CPU

64GB RAM DDR4

4TB SSD

NVidia RTX 4090

Z790 GAMING X AX

at least a 1000watt power supply so that I can run peripherals like scanners and other photographic requirements...on top of just my gaming shit.

...at minimum.

I'm sure there will be detractors going, "You don't need that kind of hardware to play Sims 3...or the current games"...well, the main thing in building a system is that you have to shell out for future proofing (as much as technology development allows at any given time) so that you don't have to spend as much money upgrading your computer system on an yearly basis as opposed to once every three to five years and that Sims 3 is not the only game that I play. And the new releases coming out are that graphics-intensive...

I play SWTOR currently and I'm finding that the game stutters especially when there is a lot of people on a server. I want to minimize that so I'm thinking the more RAM I have and the better the video card, I'll get a little less lag out of it and that will help when I'm taking on Imp or Pub forces whichever side I'm playing against at the time. That and maybe improved graphics to the point where it looks semi-realistic. I'm also planning to get Dragon Age 1-3 and then Dragon Age 4 as well. Plus there are a few other graphics intensive games such as Digital Combat Simulator World (DCS: World) as well that are attracting my attention. I may even get into Call of Duty (depending on the feasibility of the user controls.

Mass Effect drives me absolutely friggin' nuts when it comes to controlling my character Shepard - she's a "femShep". I have to key-bind my movement keys to keys that I'm familiar with in order to keep from going bug-frickin' mental. That also messes with the shoot key too. I'll get there someday. In the words of the ever-immortal Maverick Mitchell:

So in a nutshell, these latest games if not forcing people to upgrade to a better class of gaming PC, will find that a lot of people with restrictive budgets may just drop out of the PC market and try to find it on console (if they play console games) no matter how restrictive the console games are in comparison to the PC versions as opposed to spending $4000 on a new gaming system. A standard PS5 is $499.95 CDN as opposed to spending 10X that much trying to set up a PC to be able to play these newer games. Add a couple hundred dollars buying a hard-drive for these consoles will maybe bring that amount to around $600.00 still much cheaper than buying a whole new PC. Dragon Age the Veilguard will only be released for PS5 and PC - No plans in the works for XBOX Series X as far as I know. And for now, inZOI is PC release only (with an intent to release to console later on down the road - though who knows when that will be) Why though am I looking at a new PC on a restrictive budget? Well, it's because I want to play the games in their full graphics and be unrestricted and potentially moddable states. Does it mean I'm going to have to save a lot of money while waiting on a new PC? Yes. Do I have the patience to wait? Yes...I'm in my fifties, I've waited this long...might as well.

🤣

[howlingday]

RWBY Pokémon AU

Teams

#1 Ruby Rose and Crescent Rose

#2 Weiss Schnee and Myrtenaster

#3 Blake Belladonna and Gambol's Shroud

#4 Yang Xiao Long and Ember & Celica

#5 Jaune Arc and Crocea Mors

#6 Nora Valkyrie and Magnhild

#7 Pyrrha Nikos and Miló & Akóuo

#8 Lie Ren and Storm Flower

#9 Coco Adel and Gianduja

#10 Fox Alistair and Retribution

#11 Velvet Scarlatina and Anesidora

#12 Yatsuhashi Daichi and Fulcrum

#13 Ozpin and The Longest Memory

#14 Glynda Goodwitch and Disciplinarian

#15 Bartholomew Oobleck and Antiquity's Roast

#16 Peter Port and Blowhard

#17 Arthur Watts and Rotom

#18 Hazel Rainart and Bobo

#19 Cinder Fall and Midnight

#20 Tyrian Callows and Queen's Servants

#21 Cardin Winchester and The Executioner

#22 Russel Thrush and Shortwings

#23 Dove Bronzewing and Hallshott

#24 Sky Lark and Feather's Edge

#25 Roman Torchwick and Melodic Cudgel

#26 Neopolitan and Hush

#27 Emerald Sustrai and Thief's Respite

#28 Mercury Black and Talaria

#29 Adam Taurus and Wilt & Blush

#30 Sienna Khan and Cerberus' Whip

#31 Ilia Amitola and Lightning Lash

#32 Banesaw and Chainsaw

#33 James Ironwood and Due Process

#34 Winter Schnee and Glaceon

#35 Clover Ebi and Kingfisher

#36 Penny Poledina and Data Array

[wiltking]

attempting to rank all my 2023 reads, because i dont really give ratings anymore, but still want to try to make sense of everything i read this year. there were a lot of great books, and this was really hard! this order doesn't speak to the objective quality of the books, but rather my personal enjoyment of them.

(5 stars) 1. Ariah by B.R. Sanders 2. A Book of Tongues by Gemma Files (reread) 3. Leech by Hiron Ennes 4. Point of Dreams by Melissa Scott 5. Point of Hopes by Melissa Scott 6. Ocean's Blood by Thelma Mantey (~4 stars) 7. Point of Sighs by Melissa Scott 8. The Stone Prince by Fiona Patton 9. The First Stone by Mark Anthony 10. Kissing Carrion by Gemma Files 11. Point of Knives by Melissa Scott 12. Fair's Point by Melissa Scott 13. Silent Reading by Priest 14. The Door into Shadow by Diane Duane 15. Aleksey's Kingdom by John Wiltshire 16. Obsidian Island by Arden Powell 17. Bound in Flesh: An Anthology of Trans Body Horror edited by Lor Gislason 18. Spring in Siberia by Artem Mozgovoy (~3 stars) 19. The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts 20. Revenant Gun by Yoon Ha Lee 21. The Master of Samar by Melissa Scott 22. Master of One by Dani Bennett and Jaida Jones 23. The Painter Knight by Fiona Patton 24. Chasing Cold by Stephen Graham King 25. Resistance by B.R. Sanders (~2 stars) 26. A Million Quiet Revolutions by Robin Gow 27. The Trans Space Octopus Congregation by Bogi Takács 28. Luck in the Shadows by Lynn Flewelling 29. Dreamer by Steven Harper 30. The Stark Divide by J. Scott Coatsworth 31. Steal the Sky by Megan E. O'Keefe 32. Fiorenzo by Sebastian Nothwell

DNFs: Seven Blades in Black by Sam Sykes The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer

[ril-sillyart1st]

BATMM HC: age and lifespan

They're all listed highest to lowest. (Also the age hc is inspired by meliskindachildishlol)

★ Zeg: 3,517

★ Stripes: 28

★ Starla: 27

★ Watts: 26

★ Blaze: 25

★ Crusher: 23

★ Darington: 21

★ Pickle: 19

My Flarelyn fam AU (Crusher x Blaze AU)

★ Blaze: 32-35

★ Crusher: 29-33

🌊 vehicle lifespan:

In both my HC and AU, Vehicles tend to live longer than humans depending how they take good care of themselves. Ages of cars are mostly recorded about 100-300 years old but some can live very long and some don't.

Also it makes more sense for Zeg to be the oldest and biggest from the gang because he's a dinosaur duh! /lh

Little more info dump about the my age HC:

Pickle being the second oldest sibling in his family, Lilly is 21, Milly is 18, Frilly is 17, Tilly is 16 and Gherkin is honestly idk.

[rastronomicals]

6:32 AM EDT September 2, 2024:

Villagers - "The First Day" From the album Mojo: The Best Of 2021 (November 2021)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

Giveaway with the January 2022 issue of Mojo, you know, the one with the late-80's Stones on the cover, and Charlie Watts has that buzz cut

[sentence-structurer]

Noun Tournament, Round 1

This is how the tournament is gonna look, with 32 words, we'll have 5 rounds until we have a winner! :)

Here are the polls:

1. Destruction vs Leg

2. Keyboard vs Window

3. Bird vs Socks

4. Death vs Soul

5. Meter vs Sunset

6. Aesthetic vs Waffle

7. Identity theft vs Metaphor

8. People vs Lemur

9. Noun vs Number

10. Comma vs Ice cream

11. Watt vs Egg

12. Defenestration vs Arson

13. Sky vs Punch

14. Emotion vs If

15. Syzygy vs Pancake

16. Longevity vs Onomatopoeia