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Friday Fun Thread for December 30, 2022

Welcome to the final regular thread of 2022!

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I used to be into gadgets and cool tech stuff growing up. I collected ipods and mp3 players and game systems and stuff like that but I kinda fell off around the time that the PSP came out. Now I have the budget to invest in cool stuff but all I have is a macbook pro and an iphone so I feel pretty boring. What are you guys into these days? I haven't been impressed or wowed by anything new in a long time. It just seems like electronics companies are putting out slight improvements to existing products and there's nothing cool coming out anymore. Are any of you into electronics? What have you seen lately that you're into or looking forward to coming out soon? Are there any good blogs or news sites to follow interesting tech? (especially stuff like indie development, I own Apple products but they're really rather boring and I see them more as nicely functional things than anything that excites me and mainstream Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo gaming has been pretty disappointing all around post-PS2 era imo)

Just want the excitement I used to feel when I would look at a new mp3 player back in 2003 again, haha.

VR is one obvious "cool" thing to get into, if your eyesight is compatible.

How would it not be? My wife's Quest 2 fits over my glasses with room to spare. I think she might have gotten an aftermarket face pad for more comfort, though; maybe that also gave me more clearance?

I'm not sure what's worth playing on it, though. There are a few great exercise games, and a handful of great 360 videos, but the good VR game games seem to be on PC and the process of linking Steam VR to a Quest 2 is a PITA; when I only find 20 or 30 minutes to play at a stretch, I don't want to spend 5 of those minutes getting everything set up.

Really? The Quest 2 can stream from a PC over wifi, which ought to be quite painless.

I use mine fully tethered, but i can't imagine it's much of an ask.

It works great over Wifi6 once linked, but the startup for SteamVR and the Oculus program and the Quest2 itself is a pain. Every time I take the Quest2 off (which is frequent since the order of startup seems to matter for some reason so I end up having to see my laptop screen again unexpectedly...) it gets confused and wants to redraw a boundary when put back on ... which is especially weird since it seems to remember boundaries for days when I only use its internal apps.

Oh, and no Linux support, so before I even start setting up I have to make sure everything on my laptop is saved and then reboot.

Using the internal apps isnt always painless either. Some apps make some upgrades mandatory before they'll start again, like I'm going to use a 0-day to hack my exercise high score otherwise or something, and it sucks when I have 15 minutes to play but an update takes 8 of them. But delays there are the exception, not the rule.