That specific monitor? No. But I often see things second-hand that are under $100 and could be considered “futuristic tech”.

If you know where to look and are patient there are good deals to be had.

I once found a curved 4k monitor at my local thrift shop for $70.

It is not wrong nor necessarily bad to constantly question things and to desire to look deeper into information presented to you

But continued denial of something that is extremely well understood, studied, tested, and researched isn’t healthy skepticism - it’s wilful ignorance for the sake of soothing one’s fears.

The human brain (the brains of most creatures, really) is now better understood than it ever has been and new technology is making studying it easier and faster than ever before. At no point, past or present, has there ever been even a tiny minuscule sliver of anything even remotely similar to a soul or afterlife being detected or observed. What we have observed, however, are the parts of a brain that are responsible for emotions, memory, personality, logic, reasoning, etc dying and ceasing to function.

The brain is an extremely awesome and complex thing but it is not powered by magic. I am trying my best to not mean any disrespect here - like I said I believed in an afterlife well into my 20’s - but the entire premise of an afterlife is basically magic. It’s fantasy. It makes the crushing pain of our own death easier to deal with.

I am pretty damn sure. Your brain, everything that makes you you, is a biological computer (for lack of a better word) of which we have an extremely comprehensive understanding of how it functions and the processes, both biological and psychological, that form a personality. There is no magic sauce or spirit that leaks out into the void when you die. It is your biological circuits ceasing to function and decaying.

I say this as someone who believed in an afterlife well into my late 20’s. It is a belief we tell ourselves to cope with the reality of our own mortality. We will die and there will be nothing, so we tell ourselves that maybe there will be something because it makes the pain easier to handle.

Some of my favourite monitors have been from LG but these days I get by just fine never buying any of their products and I will continue to do so. Eat shit, LG.

Hello! :D

If I am unable or unwilling to purchase a game (lack of funds, ethical concerns, etc) and I cannot pirate it or get it heavily discounted then I do something very simple and efficient.

I just don’t play it. There are heaps of great games out there, new and old, that I can put my time into instead.

Many of the games that pack Denuvo these days are AAA trash that I wouldn’t play anyway.

The scummyness of this company knows no bounds.

Their entire survival hinges on keeping investment money flowing, which means they essentially have to lie and over-promise.

A chronic issue plaguing the entire tech and media sector right now. Line must go up no matter the costs.

The primary reason I moved to iPhones was because I got absolutely sick and tired of my android phones being abandoned by the manufacturer after a year. I’m sure it is better these days, but those earlier days of extremely slow Carrier-based updates completely ruined my trust and I know I’m not the only one.

I kind of want a flip phone for the compact size when folded so it will fit more easily into my tiny pockets. But I don’t want a phone with a screen that likely need regular (and expensive) replacements if I want to keep using it long past the 2 year contract window like I do with most phones.

The price was definitely a primary factor, but it wasn’t the only one. The Vision Pro is a bulky thing with a dingleberry on a string and many reviewers noted the uncomfortable headband situation. It, like may headsets, is also a royal pain in the ass to deal with if you wear glasses and/or need really specialized lenses.

But a really big factor was that it’s an Apple product. Word travelled fast about how limited the software is and how you can’t really do much with it. Apple is going to have a hard time selling these things until they crawl out of their own ass and actually let people use their products how they wish to. One of the biggest appeals of AR computing is how it bridges together computing with your imagination, and that doesn’t really work when Apple says “no, you can’t do that because it doesn’t match our company vision”

I lived close enough to my school that I was able to walk every day. Every morning I had to deal with self-centered parents dropping their crotchspawn off at school. I nearly got run over numerous times while crossing the street- a few of which got close enough that their front bumpers touched the backs of my legs as I walked. One parent cut in front of me instead of behind me, and I was able to punch the back of their car as they sped off.

Keep in mind I was a child when this was happening. These were parents that were very nearly running over a child willingly.

I made a Fiverr account once for my art services. I deleted it within an hour of creation after reading how much money they would steal from my commissions.

I put some of the blame on retailers as well. Retail stores just don’t want to carry inventory anymore, especially tech-focused ones with many of those just turning into glorified showrooms. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard some version of: “Sorry, we don’t have that in stock but we can bring it in for you.”

We needed a short length of garden hose here for the house so I went to two hardware stores and one garden centre looking for one. Nothing. Not even in their dedicated gardening sections. I had to order it off Amazon. A goddamn garden hose.

Amazon has done a lot of damage for sure but retail is suffering from several self-inflicted wounds too. Home Depot, for example, is a multi-billion dollar corporation and even they have a weaker retail presence now. That’s not Amazon’s fault.

The hardware and bandwidth demands of the first game were why I stopped playing it. I had a machine that could run it (and an even better one now) and internet that could handle it, but it still just wasn’t a smooth experience. I don’t have a cap on my internet data but my speed isn’t particularly high, which meant the 80-150gb per week of data the game consumed was certainly felt.

Much to the chagrin of those of us who can see and are bothered by the colour flicker.

Google and Microsoft would be scrambling to pay off every single person associated with that before it ever hit the first courtroom floor.

Smartphones in general.

Yeah, this too. My dad’s last GPU was AMD and he had to flip flop between versions to fix crashes. I wasn’t as lucky as no driver version was able to calm the crashing.