Domi

I finally moved my mail server from Hetzner to my homelab.

Pretty smooth sailing so far. For now I’m using Scaleway for outgoing mails since I can’t set a PTR record here but I might just try sending a few without PTR to see how other providers react.

Now I need to give One Cut of the Dead another go.

I also stopped 20 minutes in. Twice.

There is no bigger disappointment than wanting to play some VR and your controller is dead and you have to charge it. Can’t really charge them while playing like on normal controllers either.

So I’m quite happy that they went with AAs this time around. Although I need to pick up some rechargeable AA batteries when the Frame comes out.

How do they know who abuses their refund policy?

They can’t track play time on downloaded titles at all.

I played the native Linux version of Alyx on my Valve Index last week, worked fine.

I was worried when they didn’t show off Alyx on the Frame and only streamed it. Getting Alyx to work natively on the Frame would be fantastic to show off VR on the go.

There is zero market for an underpowered “PC” console with less VRAM than literally every other current console including switch 2

The Switch 2 only has 12 GB of LPDDR5X shared memory between CPU/GPU. 3 GB are reserved for the system, that leaves you with about 9 GB shared between CPU and GPU.

The Steam Machine uses GDDR6 and has 8 GB of dedicated VRAM.

amdgpu (the Linux driver) does not support HDMI 2.1 because the HDMI Forum does not allow them to open source their implementation.

Valve would have to provide their own solution and I assume they have not been able to deal with the crooks at the HDMI Forum yet either.

Self-hosting is trivial and everyone can do it.

Exposing services to the internet is not.

Just like everyone doing open heart surgery on dummies is fine, everyone self-hosting in their own network is fine. You can buy hardware right now that connects to power and wifi and you are self-hosting.

Visual Language Models, like LLMs but they read images and text.

The new VLMs are much better at solving captchas than I am. Especially the older ones with the squiggly text, no way I’m doing those first try.

If you play it on PC (and have a proper HDR monitor/TV), check out RenoDX’s HDR mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/clairobscurexpedition33/mods/6

Absolutely gorgeous.

They have a simple .sh script you can run. Works fine on native Steam, couldn’t get it to run with Flatpak Steam.

Now I’m wondering, which non-From Soulslikes did you enjoy?

Same. The game is fantastic but the RNG is only cool on paper and falls apart just a few hours into the game. The methods they give you to influence your luck are just not enough to do much at all.

It’s really frustrating when you are trying to do something but you constantly have to do something else because that’s what the game is giving you.

I cheated at the end and gave me infinite rerolls for rooms so I could create the layout I needed in that moment. Much better that way.

Not sure if it counts as “budget friendly” but the best and cheapest method right now to run decently sized models is a Strix Halo machine like the Bosgame M5 or the Framework Desktop.

Not only does it have 128GB of VRAM/RAM, it sips power at 10W idle and 120W full load.

It can run models like gpt-oss-120b or glm-4.5-air (Q4/Q6) at full context length and even larger models like glm-4.6, qwen3-235b, or minimax-m2 at Q3 quantization.

Running these models is otherwise not currently possible without putting 128GB of RAM in a server mainboard or paying the Nvidia tax to get a RTX 6000 Pro.

They could also finally allow you to start games without updating.

requiring a conviction as a monopolist as the only acceptable form of evidence of monopolization?

Legally speaking, yes.

Ethically speaking, I have not seen sufficient evidence to call Valve a monopoly yet. Obviously everyone can call Valve a monopoly, or not, I don’t really care either way. Actual evidence would have to come in the form of documents proofing Valve manipulates prices, hinders competition or anything similar.

Unfortunately most documents in the Wolfire vs Valve case are not publicly available. The point Wolfire makes in their statement about not being able to sell their keys cheaper than on Steam, has some merit but I will leave it to the judge to decide on that one. It’s not enough for me personally to call that anti-competitive.

If someone said the same thing about Google when Epic sued them in 2020, would you have waited the 3 years it took to get a trial verdict before making up your mind?

I did make up my mind, but there was no evidence until the ruling.

Also, many arbitration settlements include NDAs as a condition of getting a payout, so it’s disingenuous to say they could provide evidence that might require their clients to forfeit their settlements or risk them getting disbarred.

Fair point, many do. They could mention it though.

but why are you insisting on giving the giant for-profit corporation the benefit of the doubt rather than the consumers who are trying to hold them accountable?

Because I am the consumer in this case and I don’t see any wrongdoing by Valve in this case. There are other store fronts on PC, Valve doesn’t force any prices, they don’t force exclusivity, they don’t buy competition up and they don’t prevent the competing stores from functioning in any way.

People simply flock to Steam because it’s the best service and until Valve engages in (proven) anti-competitive behaviour, there is no reason to change anything about that.

Is the 30% cut they demand too much? Yes. Are they engaging in unethical gambling? Yes. Are they a monopoly? Not in my opinion.

I only worked with what you provided, alleged evidence of Valve being a monopoly. The US legal system being… questionable has nothing to do with it.

Bucher Law could provide proof of their arbitation successes on their own at any time at least but they didn’t even do that. And even if, that does not proof that Valve is a monopoly because there is no judge and no ruling.

Until the Wolfire case (that is an actual case) gets a verdict by an actual judge, these are just a few law firms trying to make a quick buck.

Where is that evidence? (That is not a podcast with one of the involved parties in it)

I quickly looked into it and there is zero public indication that Bucher Law PLLC ever won a single lawsuit against Valve. One lawsuit of Valve against Bucher Law PLLC (in response to their arbitrations) was dismissed.

https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10620119/valve-corporation-v-bucher-law-pllc-et-ano/

The only thing they do is file arbitrations, which they are apparently “winning” but they did not provide any further proof of that.

All the “grand victories” are celebrated exclusively on their own website. Mostly you find people on Reddit claiming that they are a scam and a really weird Youtube commercial.

They also claim multiple times that Federal Judge John C. Coughenour ruled that Valve is an “illegal monopoloy”. Which I cannot find any records for. Unrelated to Bucher Law, Coughenour was the judge in Wolfire vs Valve and he threw Wolfire’s case against Valve out in 2021 but allowed them to proceed in 2022. Coughenour then resigned from the case.

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/59859024/wolfire-games-llc-v-valve-corporation/

The case is now a class action lawsuit against Valve and still ongoing.