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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • I don’t really see the point in comparing them. They’re different devices for different markets.

    The Switch is for people who want to play first party Nintendo titles. That’s really the only reason for its existence. Without Nintendo’s first party lineup, the Switch would be just another Arm based handheld, and a fairly unremarkable one at that.

    The Switch is all about exclusivity, the Steam Deck is the exact opposite. Not only is the Steam client, and the massive library of games that it gives gamers access to, available on scores of x86 devices and hardware configurations, the Steam Deck operating system will soon be available pre-installed on multiple, third party devices, and it will be available for anymore to download and install on any device they want.

    They’re not just different devices, they’re vastly different company philosophies.


  • Their sustainability solution states that we don’t see any evidence of ETIs because rapid growth is not a sustainable development pattern. From this perspective, the Kardashev Scale is rendered futile. No civilization will ever use all available energy from its planet, star, or galaxy, because the growth required to reach that level of mastery is unsustainable.

    I think that makes so much sense. I don’t think it makes sense to define “advanced” as a civilization that grows at a rapid and exponential rate, like a plague of locusts, depleting nonrenewable resources and causing irreparable damage to the only human habitable planet known to exist in the entire universe. Even if it can be considered advanced, it should also be considered extremely unwise.



  • Google’s temporary retreat on RISC-V is a good example of the kind of basic stumbling block that a new architecture faces on the road towards mainstream - the lack of a mature and unified ecosystem.

    I think RISC-V is positioned well to be the preferred architecture for an open ecosystem. But that’s not necessarily going to help it compete. If RISC-V is ever able to compete with Arm it will be because some company developed a chip based on a proprietary implementation of RISC-V, that is able to outperform Arm based offerings in some key way. Proprietary is just more profitable than open, so that’s where the money is going to go, and you need money to compete.

    That being said, I’m glad an open standard ISA like RISC-V exists.