When I was maybe 5 or 6 my mom had hung a couple of “Cydney” clown prints in frames on the wall in my room. Feel free to look them up online for a whimsical taste of 60s-era coulrophobia fuel 😬.

Every time we went out of town to visit relatives the glass on one of them would be fogged over when we came back. It was creepy as shit and I would refuse to step foot into my room until my dad wiped the fog off the glass.

Check out Autochrome images, some very intriguing early color photography using that process.

I’d love to see Darkwatch get ported to PC and remastered. Loved it on ps2 and have it working at a somewhat cranked up resolution on emulator, but a legit updated PC port would be awesome.

Same - just canceled New York Times because I got sick of all the sanewashing. I’m a new Boston Globe subscriber now!

I love the shit out of mine. Got the VrCover face pieces which keep sweat from being a problem. I mainly play heavily modded Skyrim VR and a few different exercise games. My son plays a ton of different games with his friends. I don’t think they are for everyone, but not a gimmick IMO.

I have a shield connected to a projector through an av receiver. I love the setup for its audio visual fidelity, but I love the simplicity of operation almost as much. The shield remote turns everything on and off and handles all my streaming services + steam link flawlessly. Wonderful user experience.

Definitely agree on the used idea. Ebay is full of used previous gen parts at great prices (stick with sellers with a deep history of 99% and higher feedback, avoid those with accounts less than a year old and/or single digit feedback. Avoid single digit sellers with suspiciously cheap prices for recent hardware like the plague - these are likely scammers.)

Personally, I’d avoid laptops if gaming is your primary interest. Performance does lag behind similar spec desktops, but more importantly, if something that isn’t ram or a storage drive breaks on a laptop, the whole machine is probably done. Not necessarily because the whole machine is unusable, but many if not most repair parts are model specific and can cost more than the laptop did.

Desktops can be repaired and upgraded per assembly, which makes them pretty kind to your wallet if gaming on a budget. I just scored an excellent condition 1080ti for around $150, and I know with absolute certainty that very robust off lease workstations from a few generations back can be had for $200-ish or less if you know what you’re looking for. Pair them with that 1080ti and you’ve got some decently capable hardware to play with!

I’ve got several gaming machines that I use to run everything from old stuff to heavily modded Skyrim VR and many new titles, and I pretty much only buy storage amd cables new. Everything else is purchased used on Ebay.

Not unless he died in a sea battle in that thing.

Yup, if you use mods, it’s a good idea to set the game to update on launch through the game’s properties menu in its steam library listing.

Since a F4SE nodded game is going to launch through the script extender’s launcher, that keeps the game from updating automatically when starting a play session.

I also like to make a copy of my game folder and save it off in another drive so I have a backup.

Yeah, you don’t want to know more 😐.

Sounds like a solid plan! Note that you can also get BlueIris apps on Android and ios for a fairly low cost - still need the server + BlueIris server software, but being able to roll over in bed and check the cams in the middle of the night on your phone or tablet is indispensably convenient.

Been using Reolink IP cameras ever since I was robbed at gunpoint on my front porch in 2015. No complaints, though I wouldn’t use one of their NVRs or give them my info and sign into an app of theirs

I find used servers are cheap, more maintainable, and more configurable than proprietary hardware like an NVR.

A POE switch and BlueIris will run Reolink cams using the generic ONVIF protocol with no need to give Reolink personal data they don’t need.

I would avoid their zoom cameras - I bought a couple thinking they’d be a good supplement to the 6 standard 1440p Reolink cams I also have and tbh I really hate the zoom cameras. They go out of focus or zoom weird and it’s a bit of a PIA to get them dialed back in. Good luck!

What an incredible image! Love it!

Thanks! I love them too!

There are a handful of gardening sites that sell the egg cases, called ooths. I got mine from Hirt’s Gardens - needed to get a native mantis type so as not to introduce a non-native species to my area.

Got them specifically for natural pest control. Hopefully they come back next year like the sunflowers did - guess we’ll see!

I’m super impressed with the dev’s progress too, but I had to uninstall when I saw that Voyager was dropping a line item into my chrome browsing history with every post I tapped on.

Nothing sinister about my activity, but it seems like a bit of a privacy faux pas for me, so I uninstalled and moved to Connect instead. Might be back if the history thing goes away, as it’s an excellent app otherwise.

One of my favorites too!

That is actually a Sunflower! My wife has been planting them over the last 3 years or so and this year they’re upwards of 15 feet tall.

All of the neighborhood small animals are converging to eat the flowers, and the dogs are eating whatever the squirrels happen to drop.

Thanks so much!

Me too please! Would love the highest res image you’re willing to part with. This is amazing!