I found an article about it: https://www.macsmotorcitygarage.com/a-cool-idea-at-the-time-the-hurst-lightning-rods-shifter

Hurst Lightning Rods, an aftermarket performance shifter marketed in the 1980s

The Lightning Rods system was set up to work like any ordinary automatic gear selector, more or less, with a conventional PRND shift pattern (as shown in the top photo). The difference was in the two additional levers: the far right lever and release button performed the 1-2 upshift, while the middle lever and button performed the 2-3 upshift. Or the driver could simply leave the lever in D for Drive or OD for Overdrive and drive normally. In that regard, the Lightning Rods setup was not unlike the Hurst Dual Gate aka “His ‘n Her” shifters of previous years.

I have to say that I’m having issues understanding what this means in practice. :D

I’m using Windows as my daily driver due to prioritising gaming over everything else. But I also have a 8-year old laptop which is stuck with Win 7, and I’ve been wondering if I should just install Linux on it to try things out. In the past, I’ve only ever tried Linux for short times, never used Linux as my main OS or longer than a week.

With this context, I’ve had the “which distro should I choose?” on my mind a few times. There’s some obvious and some non-obvious issues with this questionnaire. I’ll just go over my thoughts step by step:

• “I want anonymous web browsing” and “distro which is supported by game publishers” can’t be selected at the same time. Is this really true? I’m doubting my understanding of what “anonymous web browsing” actually means.

• “I often need help from others” and “I have already used Linux for some purposes” can’t both be selected. Why? The logic behind this is “You have used Linux at some point, so you can clearly solve some problems without asking anyone”. Makes no sense, and/or the questionnaire’s creator thinks that Linux is impossible for newcomers. I have used Linux in the past and I’m generally good in troubleshooting, but anyway.

• “I want to use the default preset values in the installation assistant” is impossible to answer if I don’t know which values are given as the default. My general answer would be “give me a default value for everything, but also let me change the things which I have an opinion about”. An answer equal to this doesn’t exist.

• Pre-installed programs: this does feel like it lacks the answer of “let me choose what to install during installation of OS”, but I guess I can just skip this question without answering since I don’t care.

• “There are many way to administrate a linux distribution” -> “I want to avoid systemd”. I’ve never heard about systemd, and the explanation give on the page doesn’t really help. For what reasons would I want to avoid it? My actual answer for this is “I really don’t care”, so I just skipped it.

About the result of the questionnaire: I did answer that “I’m fine with paying something”, but it’s not really something I aim for. The suggestions seem to tag “There is a non-free version available” as a plus for the distros, which really isn’t what I answered - there’s a difference between “I’m fine with something” and “I want something”.

I also marked “supported by game publishers” with a star, because gaming is what I’m aiming to do on it. I have no idea if this even matters in practice, but it made sense as an answer when asked about. The smoothness of gaming experience will always be the primary reason for any choice of OS I’ll make.

The first EIGHT answers on the list have either “Programs versions may not be up-to-date enough for gaming” or “May require additional configuration for gaming” as a downside/warning. The game publisher question is the only answer which I marked as important.

The first distro from the suggestions that included “supported by game publishers” is Linux Mint - which does match what I already had in mind, but I really feel like the ordering of the suggested distros feel off.

Short “review” about this: it really didn’t help much. The list of suggestions is practically full of equally good distros, and I’m still stuck with the question “which one of these should I choose?”. I only learned about more distros that I had never heard about before.

As for actually choosing the distro at some point later: I think that I’ll just find out the top 5 most popular distros, and select from those. My reasoning for this is that it’s much easier to find answers if/when I run into issues. Using a niche distro wouldn’t really work for me - Linux isn’t my hobby, I think OS is just a tool to run whatever programs/games I want to.

But this questionnaire doesn’t have any data about popularity, so for my usecase, it lacks some information. I feel like it could use an additional question about “Are you fine with using a niche distro, or do you want to use a popular one?” - this question does have the issue of not being objective though, as there’s no clear answer of what can be counted as “popular”.

TL;DR good idea, but execution could be better.

Game of life?

Vast majority of it is active playing - I’ve thought about this earlier too, and I really rarely just afk or stand around while in game. Even if I’m just waiting for eg. raid to start, I usually just go do some gathering, pet battles, dailies, something.

Yup, that’s what I used to get the number - along with an addon that saves all the data from different characters and sums up the played time of all of them. Last time I checked it showed over 1200 days (=28 800 hours) for me - but it’s been a while since I checked the total, and it doesn’t include characters in Classic (or deleted characters). So I just rounded it to 30k hours, close enough.

My most played character is my shaman, with 450 days (~11k hours) played - it was my main character from TBC to WoD (from 2007 to early 2015). Current main is Druid with 240 days (~6k hours). So these two characters alone are more than half of my total played time. :D

Roughly 30 000 hours in WoW. I’ve been playing it since 2005 - mostly active, only a couple of 1-6 month breaks.

Quick approximation - let’s just ignore the exact dates:

• 18 years * 365 = 6570 days
• 30000 hours / 6570 days = ~4.57 hours/day

During the last 18 years, I’ve played an average of 4h 34min of WoW every day.

In other words: if I sleep 8 hours a day, during the last 18 years, I’ve spent about 28% of my waking hours playing WoW.

While I’m at it: I’m 34 years old. I have spent roughly 10% of my life playing WoW.

jfc lmao

Other MMOs: Guild Wars 1 & 2, FFXIV, are all between 1000-1500 hours each.

Outside of MMOs, the #1 is probably Trackmania (2020) at ~600 hours.

…what

…I guess it was indeed a disaster because I can’t remember even hearing that name before.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bebo

originally operated from 2005 until its bankruptcy in 2013

It was announced in January 2021 that it would be returning as a new social media site the month after. By May 2022, it had once again been shut down, without having ever left beta testing.

What are you talking about? I used it like 2 days ago last time, no plugins. Not sure if there’s a hotkey for reopening a closed window (ctrl shift T?), but you can find it from the menu in upper right corner of the browser.

The song is also 23 years old at this point. :D

I’m specifically talking about the experience of installing and playing games, not installing the OS. I haven’t had any issues with installing Windows either, but apparently we have a different experience with that part - but even then, installation/configuration of OS happens like once per 5 years so I don’t really care if it takes 15 or 90 minutes. I do agree that Linux is quite easy to set up too, no issues there either.

I have no idea what you’re talking about when you say “constantly having to un-fuck Windows”. I just open my PC and open whatever program/game that I was planning to?

But: if installing a new game requires more than pressing install from the service I bought it from due to the choice of my OS, that is the issue that I’m trying to minimize. If one OS is more likely to give me a smoother purchase-to-gameplay experience, I’ll prefer that one.

Basically if 90% of games work equally well on both platforms but 10% require extra tweaking (or literally don’t work) on Linux, I’ll just stick to Windows. Proton is great, but not a perfect answer for everything - but I’m not sure what you mean by “easier than Windows” since I don’t know what could be easier than pressing install.

I guess I’ve just been lucky with my experience overall.

I obviously do use the PC for other stuff too (video editing, browser, music, the usual), but those would work equally fine on Linux - it’s just the gaming part that’s keeping me on Windows, and it’s also the main thing I do on a daily basis.

I guess I pay for the convenience that I get when I buy a new game, simply press Install and start playing. I spend most of my free time playing games on PC, I have no other reasons to stick to Windows. I’ll happily switch to Linux on the day when every new release works with no extra problems, tinkering, waiting or searching caused by my choice of OS.

This is going to sound selfish, but I don’t have the “energy” of fighting against whatever the current meta is - I just have to appreciate the more invested people that drive Linux forward. I’ll just follow and use the OS where I get the smoothest overall experience for gaming (including thing like mouse/kb driver support). Windows is the current answer for this, one day it’ll be something else - hopefully Linux.

Shit’s been progressing really fast recently - I guess Steam Deck is doing some heavy lifting when it comes to motivating developers to keep Linux in mind. Direct support will always give the best results for everyone.

I do like Nioh, it’s always on my list of suggestions for people interested in that type of games. But I feel like it’s also quite a different game from Dark Souls - there’s room for both in the market, and I enjoy both for different reasons. While similar, Nioh’s combat feels more like a fast-paced arcade-y brawler, while DS feels slower and more methodical. Personally I can’t really say one is better than the other, since I just enjoy both of them - but they’re different enough that it’s clear that some players will prefer one over the other.

Outside of combat, I again feel like DS is a bit “slower”, I spend more time just exploring and wondering where to go next, etc. Nioh areas and levels are (usually) a bit more straightforward and faster to progress due to its mission structure. Storytelling format is also really different. But again, I just enjoy both of them for different reasons.

Especially during New Game+ rounds 2 to 5, Nioh also gets much deeper in the gear minmaxing department compared to DS - I’ve 100%d all DLCs in both Niohs. The gearing system in Nioh is also made in such a way that sometimes it’s useful to just go farm the same bosses over and over - this is something that doesn’t really exist in DS. Then there’s even the infinite boss arena mode. I personally often think about Nioh as “a game with DS-style combat design, Diablo-style progression”. I love the end result.

As far as I know, they’re planning to do similar DLC content in Wo Long too (new round of NG+ per DLC), and I’m waiting until they release all DLCs so I can go complete those too.

Blade of Darkness has been on my to-do list for quite a long time now, I really should get into it some day. :D

I was originally about to mention Fromsoft also creating Sekiro and Bloodborne in between Dark Souls sequels, but I guess it can be argued they’re all just the same with different skin. AC is at least completely different. Personally I have no issues with game devs finding what they do best and just keep doing it with only minor improvements - as a player, I can just choose to play games from different devs anyway.

I often describe Elden Ring with the following sentence: “If you gave me this game with no title and told me it’s Dark Souls 4, I would have no reason to doubt you”.

It’s great for everyone that wanted more Dark Souls, and ER is arguably a good starting point for anyone that hasn’t played any of the Dark Souls, but it’s still Dark Souls. If someone had tried Dark Souls in the past and realized that they don’t like the game, I really wouldn’t expect Elden Ring changing that.

For me personally: Elden Ring is pretty much my favourite game of all time. I feel like it’s the “culmination of Dark Souls design”, and just happens to be exactly what I was personally looking for in DS games - but even with this in mind, I don’t feel the need of getting more of the same.

But hey, as for Fromsoft just doing the same thing over and over - Armored Core VI coming out next week, and that’s quite different. :D

Browsing Lemmy’s front page has replaced reddit’s r/all for me, usually checking top of 12 hours from all instances.

But I still use reddit for specific forums of certain things, because it’s just the biggest community for the particular subject. I usually try to check if I can find the particular subject from Lemmy and check that out first though.

I’m more of a commenter/lurker and I quite rarely make new posts, but when I do make one:

• If it’s a question about something I need help with, I’ll start with a Lemmy post and then possibly also make one on Reddit - more readers, more answers.
• If it’s just a shitpost/meme/“content”, I only post it on Lemmy.

Considering the amount of “yarrrr” in this thread I’ll probably get stabbed for this take, but: shows/movies take time and money to create, and running these services isn’t free either. Is $15 really impossible to pay when you want to watch a show?

Cable doesn’t answer the problem of “I want to see [insert show] from start to finish, starting right now”, so it’s worthless as a service for most(?) people. As such, I feel like cable should be forgotten as a point of comparison - it’s a different and much more limited type of service.

Let’s say I have no streaming subs running right now. I feel like I want to check out [insert show]. I find out which service has it, and buy a month of [service] for like $15.

I watch the whole show. Now I also have the rest of the library to check out for the rest of the month. Maybe I find a couple of other movies/shows from the service, maybe not. It still cost me a whopping $15 to watch a full show, and I also now have temporary access to a practically random selection of shows (“random” = depending on whatever service I ended up buying).

Sure if it’s a long show it can take multiple months to view it, but I still feel like the cost is minimal compared to what I get. Nobody is asking you to pay for all of the different streaming services every month.

I’m using a show as an example - but if we’re talking about buying a month ($15) just to watch a single movie, I do agree that it can feel a bit expensive. But in most cases you can find a few other movies that you can check out during the next month. If you’d want to buy a single movie digitally, they often cost like $10-15 per movie anyway - might as well buy a month of sub at that point.

Sure, I’ll also be happier if stuff stays cheap, but anyway. The usual works here: if you don’t feel like a service is worth its cost, don’t buy it.

It’s not like there’s lack of entertainment in today’s world - some free, some filled with ads, some cheap, some expensive. Pick your poison, I guess.

I have a bit conflicting thoughts about this. On one hand yes, the “let’s fuck” option comes a bit too easily: simply talk to them a few times, ask about their day, don’t be an ass and you’ll get laid on day 3.

But on the other hand, the game is also filled with situations where you make a single wrong comment and the conversation instantly turns to a fight, which ends up in a bloodbath.

I guess these balance each other out. The game is just generally fast with getting to a (quite extreme) conclusion in both ways, and I don’t really have a problem with it.

How do you save stuff without knowing where you’re saving it? Genuinely curious, as I really don’t understand what this meme is referring to. Windows search has also become better over the years, and recently it’s been good enough for my uses. “Everything” is still a handy tool though.

Almost all software that I use, ask about the target location and/or filename when you save it. There’s also some software with default saving location, but it’s usually quite easy to find out from i.e. settings or some other part of the interface.

Also - saving stuff to unknown folders is related to the software not being clear about the target folder, I don’t really know why people would blame Windows for the software being unclear. Unless we’re talking about something specific to Windows which I’m just not familiar with. :D

I do understand that growling is the part that often splits opinions and I won’t act otherwise, but there’s quite a lot of metal songs/bands with no growling.

I guess the conclusion that “metal is mostly just annoying noise and throaty growling” is related to what gets discussed online - in most cases the vocal part of metal fans are already in the deep end of the subgenres, so only the really heavy stuff gets mentioned. So I do understand where you’re coming from, no real criticism here. :D

I guess the “less heavy” stuff is less often discussed, or just forgotten about when people are talking about “metal” as a whole:

• As an example Nightwish is considered metal, and they have an opera singer: Nightwish - Ghost Love Score

• Another random example, Jonathan Young’s metal cover of Hellfire (from Disney’s Notre Dame). Almost completely clean vocals, but also a bit “angry” sounding here and there.

• Kardashev - Torchpassing is also one of my all-time favourites, and it’s mostly clean vocals. I guess the genre of this song is questionable anyway, due to being a bit more “chill” in many parts of the song - but the faster parts are quite clearly metal. Growling is used like an “extra effect” a couple of times.

It’s also perfectly fine to not enjoy any of these, just dropping them here as examples about metal songs which have a clear melody and clean vocals. :D

I do like my noise-filled growling too, though. This is one of the songs where I completely understand that vast majority of people would hate it, and anyone expecting otherwise would be delusional. I love it, but I also hate when some people act like everyone should enjoy stuff like this lmao.