MudMan

joined 2 years ago
[–] MudMan@fedia.io 1 points 4 weeks ago

I can't.

But I can call it out before it evolves for being used incorrectly in a confusing manner. Particularly when used in a conversation regarding technical guidelines for age certification, or when calling for outright banning specific creative products out of concern for their impact on children, both of which seem to be very serious things that at the very least benefit from some precision about what exactly we're talking about.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

No it hasn't. Some site not knowing their dark patterns from their anti-features (or deliberately mushing them both together for marketing purposes) doesn't mean it's not a misnomer.

I mean, I'm open to it becoming the new standard at some point. There is no coming back from the incorrect meaning of "metagame", or at least of "meta", so it's no longer a misnomer.

But this? Nah, it's gonna take a minute, if it ever happens. "Anti-feature" has become a buzzword in midcore techie spaces itself, so I don't know that extending "dark pattern" to (incorrectly) include every undesirable feature will ever take. Plus, what would you call actual dark patterns at that point?

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 2 points 1 month ago

Yeah, that number went up pretty fast during the 2010s and 20s. Honestly, I think at this point it's a cost/manufacturing reliability thing. There aren't that many panel manufacturers, and these days a 65 inch OLED can be found for like a grand and a LED one for half of that. That's sort of been "what a TV costs" for most of this century, so cheaper panels at scale in that price range probably means people go for the bigger one they can get in that price range unless they have some hard space limitations.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 2 points 1 month ago

Myeh. I think they mostly do fine, but they're certainly not perfect. These are reasonable, but some of the stuff they're saying about it is factually incorrect, too (like I said, there ARE age-based commerce lockouts in games already despite their statements).

All they need to do to be functional is have a modicum of consistency and at least be reactive to feedback. The Balatro thing sucked, but they did correct it. Some of these changes seem to be specifically a reaction to the Balatro thing, in fact.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 1 points 1 month ago (7 children)

See, I have a real issue with the "12 year olds (or anyone, really)" bit there in juxtaposition to all the pushback on OS age verification.

The gaming community has spent the past decade and change doing the exact same moral panic routine that anti-game violence crusaders did in the 90s and are in the process of finding out why it's a bad idea.

Age ratings and content warnings? Awesome. Gating content and design concepts on moral grounds? Not that.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 3 points 1 month ago (3 children)

It doesn't need to be too specific, in that PEGI actually reviews the products it rates. You get to send them a preview and then talk to them about the rating.

I also think some of the stuff Eurogamer is reporting is weird, or maybe PEGI is just not aware of some tools? For instance,

A game will be able to reduce this PEGI rating to 7 if it contains in-game controls that allow you to turn spending off by default. As Bosmans noted, these systems don't really exist yet, but the hope is this change will incentivise them to be developed.

Is not actually true. Many games do include turning spending off based on the user's reported age or whether they're on a child account (Nintendo and Sony both support this as a feature, I believe).

So there is some confusing stuff going on here, but it all seems mostly reasonable to me.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 2 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Well, cool, then. It's a genuine struggle to find a 32 inch TV of any decent quality these days.

But by far the most popular TV size today is 65 inch, which as far as I know isn't available as a PC monitor at all, and even 32/40 inch PC monitors with a similar feature set can be as expensive or significantly more expensive than an equivalent-sized TV. That's probably partially due to the focus on speed and responsiveness and partially due to the whole... you know, monetizing your data and selling ads thing.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 3 points 1 month ago

The difference is the LG TV has a computer already in it. Otherwise the panels are pretty similar.

But some types (and especially sizes) of panels are hard to find in "dumb" PC monitors and vice versa. You can (maybe) find a 42 inch TV, but I'm not aware of a 65 inch display without TV features, let alone any larger sizes.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 2 points 1 month ago

This is not it. Not only is there a microinverter and a breaker there to address that issue, but my understanding as a layman is the load in the circuit is down to how much you're drawing (i.e. if you're generating 1200 behind the microinverter and pulling 1500 you're pulling 1500 through the circuit, not 2700).

The bigger fire hazard here is the battery many of these come with for storage, honestly.

That's not to say there isn't a bit of a risk. You need to be careful if you need to do something in the installation that you disable both the grid breaker and the microinverter. Otherwise it's entirely possible for the grid safety to blow and the inverter to keep pumping power into your house. But as the previous poster says, there's a reason these are legal to install in apartments all over Europe, and it's not just European grids being set for higher amps. FWIW, most of these kits come with 800W max out. My understanding is they're perfectly fine to use as a cost mitigation and they'll keep your fridge going in a blackout but no, they won't be constantly tripping your fuse.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 10 points 1 month ago (7 children)

I mean... good luck finding a 65 inch PC monitor.

That does seem like a bit of a downside.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 1 points 2 months ago

I can't believe I walked into this comment one hour after it was made in a 9 month old zombie thread. I haven't even opened this app in days.

Anyway, I do think it's funny that you said Morrowind when I was comparing it to Oblivion, because it just goes to make my point: this is about age and where specifically you set the focus of your nostalgia goggles.

You give the jank and smaller scope and jank of Morrowind a pass because it's weird and was advanced at the time, but probably think Oblivion traded visuals for a more boring setting and truncated world, which was the criticism at the time. I think Daggerfall was doing some crazy sci-fi stuff in 1996 and just making a console RPG was a step back for Morrowind, which was the criticism at the time, and I bet plenty of people are more than happy to be nostalgic about Oblivion. People tend to think stuff holds up depending on how into it they were when it came out.

view more: next ›