The Communication Cube


I'd be interested in Portal 3 VR
I think most people would run into motion sickness flying around like you did in Portal 1. Releasing all existing Valve games to support VR would be nice. There are unofficial VR mods for Half-Life 1 and 2 already, so people have the option to play it like that. I probably feel sick when playing like that, but still good to have.
 
I'd be interested in Portal 3 VR not that I'd play it... I've never played anything VR or "virtuality" as it was once called. I'm wondering if headset gaming is the future though. Incidentally I'm playing HL2:E1 right now and not really digging the destroyed eastern europe vibe.
 
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Check out https://www.retro-exo.com/ for ready-to-play retro game collections like eXoDOS, eXoWin3x, eXoWin9x, eXoIF, eXoScummVM and more.

e.g. eXoDOS:
The Full Version comes with everything. The Lite version downloads games and their manuals etc. as you request them.
And there's a media pack add-on for "Magazines, Books, Catalogs, Soundtracks, and TV Shows\Documenatries"
The project uses LaunchBox, DOSBox and is available for Windows and Linux (with a patch).
Check this out before you buy on GOG ;-)

LGR on ExoWin9x:
Code:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FazeobVWdmM
 
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Rumors in tech news: Apple is looking into moving parts of their production to Intel (US) for their M-series chips. Currently these are made by TSMC in Taiwan.

While Apple appears to be able to switch hardware platforms, like going from PowerPC to Intels X86, and later to ARM. They now appear to actively move more production back to the US. So, in the future iPhones and iPads might really be made in the US. That will take more effort thought as other parts and their assembly also still happen abroad.

ED might have been a pioneer in trying to do these things in Europe with the Open-Pandora and Pyra. And I guess that will keep being a challenge as I don't get these strong signals from European companies yet.

With the US being more protective and appears to value group cohesion less, do you think it's a good development? Should the EU do the same and support the US iniatives second compared to EU ones?
Or should we focus on getting the US big first compared to, for example, relying on China for our production.
 
Rumors in tech news: Apple is looking into moving parts of their production to Intel (US) for their M-series chips. Currently these are made by TSMC in Taiwan.

While Apple appears to be able to switch hardware platforms, like going from PowerPC to Intels X86, and later to ARM. They now appear to actively move more production back to the US. So, in the future iPhones and iPads might really be made in the US. That will take more effort thought as other parts and their assembly also still happen abroad.

ED might have been a pioneer in trying to do these things in Europe with the Open-Pandora and Pyra. And I guess that will keep being a challenge as I don't get these strong signals from European companies yet.

With the US being more protective and appears to value group cohesion less, do you think it's a good development? Should the EU do the same and support the US iniatives second compared to EU ones?
Or should we focus on getting the US big first compared to, for example, relying on China for our production.
I'm wondering anyways, why we in Europe don't have something like TSMC. Isn't their tooling made in the Netherlands by what was started a daughter company by Philips? And isn't that the only one of its kind? Maybe I'm confusing things.
 
Making chips is very difficult. Only 3 companies are top tier: TSMC, Samsung and Intel. Only they can get 3nm and manufacture for other brands. Everything else is uncompetitive. Especially state controlled chip companies suck, eg Russia's notoriously well funded yet shitty Angstrem-T couldn't even scratch 65nm. A competitive commercial landscape where good companies get more funding and bad companies go broke quickly seems the best way. Europe has crippling capital problems. I think the EU should simultaneously de-regulate and be more protective of the local ecosystem (in the right way). But it doesn't help that Europeans want to use Google and have iPhones.

There is hope: https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/...-delays-full-implementation-of-ai-act-to-2027

And: https://www.eu-inc.org/

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I'm wondering anyways, why we in Europe don't have something like TSMC. Isn't their tooling made in the Netherlands by what was started a daughter company by Philips? And isn't that the only one of its kind? Maybe I'm confusing things.
Yes, and the root of the production process is developed in Belgium at Imec. Ireland has an Intel high-end fab. Global Foundries is still in Germany.

The problem with Intel is that they weren't a foundry, so they only made Intel products. While TSMC only made products for others so they only had a focus on having the best process. Now Intel has to play catch-up.
Samsung is somewhere in-between.
High-end fabs are very costly and having the machines to make chips is half of the story. You need a mature stable production process on top of those tools. And to top it off you need to make chips. Which sounds obvious but Intel hardly made chips for others when becoming a foundry, losing them money.
Europe needs to get everything in place to make it work. The full supply line needs to be in the EU including the production of the end product. A Pyra is expensive because it's low volume but also because making it in the EU is more expensive. So EU products need to be competitively priced.
 
I get that that would be a heavy undertaking, but I don't see how several nation states couldn't bring into existence a EU-funded - but not EU-controlled - Foundry with multiple fabs across Europe, that have static bounds and goal definitions. They'd get to work with universities and other research organisations. They'd produce for European companies at a controlled markup and for others at market regulated markup, but get throughput-capped for foreign orders - though not to the point of senseless idle times.

A competitive commercial landscape where good companies get more funding and bad companies go broke quickly seems the best way.
Fair. But are "good" and "bad" defined well? And the patent system is fundamentally flawed, too. It protects the inventor, who may have invested a lot into development, from others taking advantage of their efforts. But the inventor isn't necessarily the best at applying its invention or the best market actor in its field.
Do you think the current stock market value of NVidia is equivalent to how good the company is? This is a game with stifling rules and they came out on top. They're far from useless, but this is way out of proportions.
 
But are "good" and "bad" defined well?
Yes - the chips that sell the most, because they offer good performance / price ratio. The market decides, and I mean the chip market not the stock market.

NVidia has such high valuation because investors (primarily pension funds & asset managers - not wolf of wall street types) think it's a good option. IIUC NVidia chips are the best for AI and they keep beating sales expectations. Good for them. I even like Jensen Huang compared to other tech bros. He's a gamer.

The thing that worries me is the amount of money the companies are investing in AI is so massive it will be very hard to recoup the investment. They keep announcing $100 billion investments (so the stock shoots up) but they will need to make that money back or there will be a crash. It's estimated that something like £500 per person will have to be spent on AI for the investments in datacenters to pay off. That doesn't factor in rising energy costs. They will find ways to make our lives very difficult unless we subscribe to their AI.

Oh - another thing I'm worried about recently. AI companies outbid us for electricity and shoot the cost through the roof. All of a sudden we can't afford to game anymore.
 
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