For the average PC user, the (modern) Steam Machine is a mediocre 3rd-party prebuilt system with the interesting quirk of being Linux native with no Microsoft licensing.

For the average gamer, the Steam Machine is a console-like experience to a game library stretching back to nearly the dawn of gaming with little worry that the next release will have you purchasing your favorite titles again.

For the average game developer, the new lineup is excellent reference hardware. Having something real to target helps combat scope creep, whereby a game has fancy features that look nice until you realize the game only runs properly on a $15K machine for example.

For Valve, they are in a life or death battle to sever their dependency on Microsoft. Their hardware is mostly an excuse to build out their platform capabilities

• The 2013 Steam Machine coincided with releasing a Linux native version of their client.
• The OG Steam controller encourages devs to implement their Steam Input virtual control package.
• The Steam Link upgraded their remote play capabilities.
• The Steam Deck coincided with the deployment of Proton, so they can make their back-catalog run outside windows on any x86_64 machine. It also served as a testbed for improving their power efficiency and standby mode operations.
• With the Steam Frame, they’re implementing both FEX and Lepton:
  • FEX runs x86_64 games on ARM devices (meaning that it can run any windows game on any average smartphone/tablet/etc if it’s powerful enough)
  • Lepton is based on Waydroid to run Android apps on Linux, allowing game developers for Android and the Quest to easily import their titles into the Steam platform
• The Box is an important accessory to the Frame, as the headset is going to be lightweight system comparatively.

Lost Room was right in sci-fi’s mini-series phase, which I thought was a great format. Basically 6 hours to tell the story, in 3 2-hour chunks. A made-for-TV movie trilogy ☺️

Writers strike decimated the show for sure. The scab writers wrecked the whole arc. 😅

Oh well. At least we got Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog from the strike.

Heroes (Season 1)

Ya beat me to it. 😝 Take my upvote and shove it in your piehole

I, too, am old enough to remember Cuneiform Diagrams (CDs)

Face crushing is so much work - just have the robots do it

• some billionaire

Literally bought a new phone just so I could have a work phone with standard Android and my phone, with Google ripped out at the root level. (Also ripped out the dedicated ai button software)

Yes. As someone who uses both, this is a M$ problem.