Spyke

Posts

Budget gaming: steam deck or build a cheap gaming PC?

Hey all, sorry in advance if this kind of post isn't welcome in this community. I wasn't really sure where to post this question and I didn't see anything in the rules against text posts or questions. If there's a more appropriate place to post I'll take this down and repost somewhere else.

With the recent price hikes of game pass, Microsoft's general inability to publish good games, and a deep loathing for AAA studios obsession with milking me for every dollar I have while delivering uninspired, broken slop, I've cancelled my game pass subscription and started considering PC gaming. I'm still on the Xbox one and haven't bothered to get the one X due to these issues. I'm due for am upgrade and don't feel particularly thrilled at the idea of spending that much money on a console that has little to offer.

I don't have a lot of money, but I do have enough to afford a modest build (600-700 USD.). But with all the praise and broad support that the steam deck has been getting, I'm wondering if my money may not be better spent on getting one and using the extra for a dock, some peripherals, and a start to building my library. The steam deck would be living most of its life docked and plugged into a monitor. The fact that it's a capable portable gaming machine is, for the most part, a bonus to me.

I'm curious to hear everyone's thoughts on this. Is a steam deck a viable alternative to a budget gaming PC?

View original on lemm.ee

What am I supposed to do?

All year I've been making various attempts to found an organization. All of the books and zines tell me to get myself and some friends together and do an abarchy. I have 3 friends and they're all some flavor of liberal. Our politics are incompatible and they have no interest in anything left of Bernie Sanders. Perhaps my rhetoric isn't the best.

I've tried to get my coworkers interested in a union. Despite having terrible working conditions and recognizing the need for a collective voice, nobody wants to take the plunge with me. Nobody wants to make plans. Nobody cares enough to put the work in. I did the "educate, agitate, organize", I printed the pamphlets, I talked the talk, I set dates. Nobody showed up.

I table by myself at a local arts market on Saturdays. I hand out cold water and zines, I have great conversations with people from all walks of life. I haven't met a single anarchist and I haven't had anybody show up to the reading group I've been trying to start.

All year I've been trying to join an organization. There's a food not bombs run by social democrats in my city. They only want donations. There's a community garden that isn't looking for volunteers. There's a DSA chapter that only does campaign events. That's it. Those are the only secular, public organizations in my city that aren't corporate nonprofits that I've been able to find after months of searching. Barring a Marxist vanguard group that dissolved earlier this year, and a women's health ride share that fell apart two weeks into starting.

What am I supposed to do? I want to put the work in, I want to help build a better world. My state, my county, my city, and my neighbors seem determined to walk blindly into this catastrophe and it boggles my mind. Is there anybody out there who's been in my situation and managed to make something of it?

View original on lemm.ee

What's your "elevator pitch" for anarchism?

I was handing out zines and water at my city's pride parade today. I had a lot of fun and had some good conversations but I was struggling to describe anarchism in a way that invited further conversation. I've never done tabling before and I also have terrible social anxiety so my mind wasn't on its best behavior. Most of the conversations I had died off pretty quickly as a result.

I figured having a "script" of sorts might help me get through the start of these conversations more easily. The description I was going with alternated between "order without authority" and "opposition to domination and hierarchy". I'm sure there's a better way to put it so that people are more curious or at least walk away with a better understanding, if appreciate getting some help to find the words haha

View original on lemm.ee
anarchism·Anarchism and Social EcologybyBarrelAgedBoredom

Zines/pamphlets/essays

Hey all, my city is doing a pride parade soon and I'm planning on handing out some material in the hope of starting a reading group. I'm looking for any recommendations y'all might have. I want to cover as much of the spectrum as I can with ~5-6 different pieces. I'm thinking one or two for a general "what is anarchism?", something on queer theory, black anarchism, ableism, and a 5th thing that I haven't determined yet. Any and all recommendations are welcome, whether or not they fit within the categories I outlined. Thanks!

Some of the pieces I'm considering at the moment:

Queer Social Anarchism - Elisha Moon Williams

Queers With Guns - Elisha Moon Williams

What is Black Anarchism - Andrewism

Life Without Law - Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness

View original on lemm.ee
nostupidquestions·No Stupid QuestionsbyBarrelAgedBoredom

Is my punctuation correct?

I couldn't find a "grammar help" community so I thought this might be a good place to pose this question. Sorry for asking something that boils down to "please help me with my homework" but I'm at a loss. I'm supposed to be using MLA format.

Here's the text I'm quoting:

"While recognizing the critical potential of the dystopic imagination, this volume examines it as a form of urban representation; the modern city, after all, appears to be an instantiation of a dystopic form of society."

Here's my sentence:

Prakash notes the utility of dystopian media, stating "this volume examines it as a form of urban representation; the modern city, after all, appears to be an instantiation of a dystopic form of society." (3)

Is this right? Should I have the period at the end of the parentheses? I tried looking through my textbook and a few online articles but I couldn't find an example with a parenthetical citation and a quote that includes a period. Thanks for the help!

View original on lemm.ee
nostupidquestions·No Stupid QuestionsbyBarrelAgedBoredom

I struggle with depression and alexithymia. How do I write with emotion?

I have to write a paper about a place/time that I have an emotional attachment to or a place that has shaped my sense of self. I haven't really felt much of an attachment to anything for most of my life. Even if I did, I wouldn't even know how to begin describing the nature or cause of that attachment. I chose to write about the woods by my childhood home because I spent a lot of time there as a kid but I couldn't tell you how I felt about it in the moment or even how I feel about it now. I literally don't have the words

View original on lemm.ee
linux4noobs·Linux 101 stuff. Questions are encouraged, noobs are welcome!byBarrelAgedBoredom

Am I overthinking? Mint Cinnamon/Edge/MATE/xfce/ for a T480?

The propaganda worked. I bought a Thinkpad, the thigh highs are on the way, penguin stickers are already here. Now it's time to actually put Linux on my machine.

I'm a bit lost on which version of mint to put on the T480. It's an i7 8650u, 16gb RAM, 256gb SSD (will eventually be upgrading the RAM, SSD, and display). My question is, is the t480 "old" by Linux standards? From what I've gathered cinnamon is the standard version. Edge is for new (?) hardware that may not be fully compatible with cinnamon. MATE is for old/lower power hardware that can't handle the demand of cinnamon and xfce is for even older/slower hardware.

I've been running in circles all morning trying to find experiences of people with a T480 who are running mint and which version they're using. Old is apparently 3+ years according to various articles trying to convince me to upgrade and I haven't found much on what is considered old hardware for Linux. As someone who hasn't bought a computer in nearly a decade, a quad core processor with 16 gigs of ram is ridiculously powerful. My last computer was a $90 shitbox that I got on clearance from Walmart in 2016 to do online lessons in EMT school. So my perspective/experience is utterly useless.

Can a T480 run Mint Cinnamon 21.3, or am I better off using MATE/xfce? It's going to live a pretty easy life. I'll mostly be using it to browse, stream music, do (online) homework, write papers, and put books on my e-reader.

View original on lemm.ee

Fiction!

I've finally fallen in love with reading again over the last year. Problem is I've only been reading non-fiction. it makes my brain hurt. I'd like to have some stuff I can turn to when attempting to read gender trouble gives me another headache. I don't have any particular preference for genre. I used to read fantasy, historical fiction, dystopian stuff but I'm more than happy to explore other genres as well!

A short list of things I've read for reference:

  • The saxon stories, Bernard Cornwell
  • LOTR, the hobbit
  • 1984
  • The road, Cormac McCarthy
  • The plague dogs, Richard Adams
View original on lemm.ee

Reading suggestions for deeper theory and praxis

Hey all, I started my dive into anarchism a little over a year ago and I've read a lot of the anarchy/socialism 101 type books but I'm starting to find a lot of it repetitive. I'm looking for suggestions to deepen my understanding of anarchism and libertarian socialism. Especially praxis and tactics, a lot of theory that I've come across doesn't really get into the weeds about applying it, and as someone in an area with no leftist orgs to speak of (outside of a small DSA chapter), I don't have anyone local to go to in order to learn from.

I want to start putting all of this knowledge to use in my area but I'm not 100% sure where to start or how to avoid some of the pitfalls of organizing. Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

View original on lemm.ee

You reached the end