LadyCrimson

Death Stranding looks so good on an OLED screen. Also checked out the one new change to Borderlands 3 that is rather nice - a new Mayhem mode that is M10 difficulty but zero of the weird modifiers applied. You just lose some of the higher drop rate/xp increase percentage that normal M10 would have. Very nice not to have to deal with death spheres, ground turning to lava, lowered crits, and rerolling modifiers forever. I wish you could apply that to all the M-modes. Just not into that weird stuff, give me straight ARPG sponge increasing.

Let me be more specific: I'm lazy and especially regarding needing/using 3rd party tools that would likely have me fiddling even more. You'd have to see my type of pickiness to understand. Hubby often says he can't even tell the differences while I'm complaining about skin tones and tonal shifts from one show to another. Might work for general desktop or certain work usage but I'm dubious re: television watching and/or console behavior and HDR and company software "features" ... This reddit thread has ppl using lg's oled tv's, and overall having a lot of gripes. https://www.reddit.com/r/OLED/comments/jt0img/ive_spent_more_time_calibrating_my_lg_c9_than/ Edit: from that thread: "You can just buy a like $100 Spyder calibration unit, I've used one to calibrate my monitors for years. Only works for the CX as a computer screen though, not as a TV" I've also discovered the LG "auto dimming" feature, which you aren't allowed to turn off without buying a service remote and using it voids warranty? So on desktop use, if I leave a browser (or anything) open untouched for 60 seconds, the screen dims drastically (eg, static image protection) then rebrightens when you click again. Kind of annoying on the eyes with constant changing. It happens even if you turn off the logo dim feature.

"Out of stock" is going to be the thing forever now I bet. Or at least until covid concerns are "gone," perhaps. If you call Best Buy here right now, voice message immediately tells you that they will have no more PS5's in-store (ever?), go online/order. I'm picky, but I'm also lazy. Eventually I get the TV profiles as close as I can get it then force myself to stop thinking about it and ... Speaking of it, should I worry about light spots if they only show up with a medium-grey background? eg, they're not dead pixels, they weirdly don't show up/can't see them with a black background... just medium to light grey. It's odd. Haven't noticed if they ever move or not yet.

It's not eggplant/squash or spaghetti.

The QLED does look better than the cheapie LED 4k TV I was using, especially re: small text. Better contrast a bit but... Strangely LG's OLED, on the one hand it's the closest to my memory of old crts, or the plasma re: contrast. Fantastic for most scenes. Yet it still misses the mark a bit where some scenes can be too dark yet with eye-blasting brightness (dim room/dark faces with a bright window in background, say). And it's overall too bright if you turn things up to see in those dark bits (at least in a dark room). On the plasma things look dark but faces don't lose detail/shadowed so much and bright spots aren't like looking into the sun. It's still difficult to feel like one profile setting works overall and some shows/films you might use this altered profile, another one that profile. So annoying switching profiles all the time. It's about 88% there (vs. LCD/LED/QLED being 50% there). Then, I'm also picky... I don't want to get used to it. One problem is its speed of movement. I turned it to Low and it's still so fast I miss the mark with it most of the time. They should have an option to disable it completely. Anyway all I use tv remote for is on/off and switching color profiles.

The LG CX is a very nice TV indeed, once you have all the settings whatever way you prefer. The 90T QLED hubby is using pales in comparison (tho it is still pretty nice, and much better for his work needs, don't get me wrong). Hopefully with precautions I can keep image persistence to a minimum over 6-8+ years etc. That said, the remote control that comes with it sucks monkey spit. It has this large "pointer" arrow that moves based on remote motion, which is the most aggravating thing ever. If you press the arrow buttons it'll go away so you don't have to use it on menus, but the arrow is default and always shows up first - and can show up just picking the remote up, not just button pressing. Luckily I rarely need to use it. But if it bothers you, better find another option that would work w/the TV. I do not connect "smart" TV's to internet cables, so I cannot speak about any possible downloaded software or apps. Sony (ps4) already spies on my gaming/streaming activity, no need for LG to, also. eg, you can use/set up the TV without a net cable. It did insist on a zipcode being entered for "service" purpose, I couldn't hit "enter" without it. I put in one from a couple county's over, because I'm ornery like that. Edit: oh, the stand it comes with is completely flush with the bottom of the TV, meaning you can't pull even a wire under it. So if you want to be able to do that for some reason, you'll need to buy a different stand.

Yeah, another pic of my desk ... I guess the new 55" oled is all right. I'm convinced - hubby's qled looks good, but oled is definitely a lot better. ...I put windows taskbar to be "invisible" until you hover over it and a solid black wallpaper image. We'll see how how frequent/strong image persistence seems (meaning burn-in danger over time), if at all. ...totally in my face but looks so good it doesn't bother me at all (slightly under 3 feet from screen to eyeball). Strange but true. My 27" IPS monitor now kind of looks like ****, contrast/color wise, sitting right next to it.

How did I miss this? Golden, thanks for posting. I love sarcastic, angry Brent. Especially a singing one.

Been re-watching some ST:TNG episodes. While there are many episodes (especially years later) that don't hold up very well imo, some of them are still so classic. That said - man they sure did explain-talk a lot.

Did I say that? I just bought the LG CX, 55". It was on sale for $1400 (the 90T QLED I've been eyeballing is around $1500+ for same size). Fark it. Won't know re: burn-in risks unless I try one, and if I think it's too much burn-in risk for my PC usage, as hubby said, "we can just stick it in the living room for movies/TV" and I can go back to 90T hunting. Wasn't in store stock so I get to pick it up Monday. So then the question becomes...will 55" be too big even for me (probably not...)? Maybe I can lay down some plastic, get a wheeled mini-table to put the KB/mouse on and just postion-roll myself where-ever in the room like a crazy person? We shall see.

https://clips.twitch.tv/OpenBoringDunlinPastaThat

My thumb joints (other fingers too but thumbs worst) have decided to go kaput on me again, stiff and hard to bend without them wanting to pop/grind out of place - I've been waking up where they're almost stuck in place and flexing them in the morning so they'll half-work is a chore. Hasn't been like this in some years. Couldn't even break a small piece off a chocolate bar yesterday. I have those slip-on metal "splints" so I'm back to wearing those most of the time, including while sleeping - hopefully after a short while they'll heal up enough again. Bah. Unfortunately, finger splints do not prevent me from surfing through Amazon. My misery doesn't care about company, but apparently it does care about shopping. Maybe a pair of these might be nice right now - I could still use touchscreen with them: https://www.amazon.com/Electric-Rechargeable-Battery-Temperature-Touchscreen/dp/B07FX6HSJX/

I loved One Punch Man. Mostly I found it hilarious. If they ever make a full live-action version, these guys should be involved in it.

Not really gaming news, so I'll put it here? As I've said before, I don't yet care about ray tracing - hyper-real reflections aren't the graphic enhancements I want - but for this it makes for an interesting performance comparison. Especially the details re: console optimizations to achieve what they do. This largely applies to this game only, I think - other console games, especially if not heavy on RT, might be closer to a higher tier 20xx. Maybe. (edit: I watched this at YT's 2160 on 1440 monitor). Anyway, I take away a few things from this video: --it's too bad dev's don't allow for more of these "hidden" console optimization settings on PC as selectable options for people with lesser systems --for Watch Dogs, new xbox is maybe on par with 2060 or 2060/S, for "4k"/30fps-ish (forget 60fps). --for $500 or whatever, new consoles are (as expected/known) leaps and bound above previous and imo a worthy buy for anyone who doesn't want to to/spend PC. Just not quite as uber as some were maybe hoping for. Could improve even more with newer versions ofc. I may still buy a ps5 a year or two down the road

Still very impressed with this Grim Dawn Diablo2 mod. The combo of GD's graphics and gameplay etc with D2's questing/music/voices - I almost like it more than regular Grim Dawn itself. The unique special mobs are pretty tough too. I bet Andariel's going to be rough. I wonder what they did for Act 3 Fetish's.

Apparently Rick Astley is "back" - eg, he's posting stuff on YouTube. Always nice to see artists from my past still around doing things. He seems to have become a bit more of a baritone (?) in his age. His cover of this song isn't bad, not bad at all. The funny/adorable thing to me tho is that if you watch his dance arm movements, at times you can see a certain meme-dance wanting to come out...

I apologize in advance. (the video creator's channel is full of these...they're hilarious).

Happens a lot in movies/TV too. Family/child in peril or some kind of noble-idiocy are some of the most over-used shortcut devices to create conflict or relatable emotional sympathy/motivation. Not that they aren't ever effective. Just so common I'm personally left rather cold by them at this point. I can't think of specific game examples at the moment but something else that always annoys me is when there's some kind of misunderstanding that could be cleared up by a chr. saying a few sentences, but no chr. ever says them, despite them standing face to face 10 times repeating the same misunderstood accusations over and over. Plot requires them to be at odds, so ... they are.

If I can tell it's a device - as if there's a huge sign being held up saying "GET READY - HERE COMES A PLOT MOVER" - it's "stupid" - or at least, terribly over-used and/or not creatively re-worked to make it feel fresh or at least exciting/entertaining. Which at my age - and the amount of ent. media I've consumed - probably explains why I increasingly move away from story-driven games. Agreed. I also think many games often feel like you're just marching directly from one device to another, with not much in between to make you care why anything is happening. Which makes such stand out more and it's harder to ignore any sense of manipulation.

Time for a self-portrait?

Hehe I think he's using two sli 2080ti's on a 1440 screen. Dunno if he's all-Ultra but I'd say he probably is at least using ultra textures tho - getting 60-80fps average range maybe (he has a counter on the game). The textures and view distance is the main reason the game looks "nicer", mostly. Some particle/light effects. Not having blurry distant objects, everything looking in focus gives a sense of more/hyper-clarity. use of light/contrast seems pretty nice too. Otherwise color palette and environment it sorta reminds me of many other games. Gameplay looks a bit repetitive too, but if lots of combat is you're thing etc.

The long "Production Health and Safety" title disclaimers at the end of the video remind me of "no animals were harmed during the production of this..." Sign of the times. Ditto. Some of their products have been temping for various reasons/uses - just not enough to make up for that. Tech-wise they're often interesting.

That's the kind of cake that I'd want to lacquer and stick on a bookshelf vs. cut it up.

Cheater. ...and it's going to take a lot longer then manual. But it means a more compact mulch for the city compost bin so more fits in. Or he could just leave it in another pile for weather to wear down, like what's behind him.