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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 4th, 2023

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  • Coincidentally, I just got a knock-off Soda Stream from Phillips. It’s over $150 cheaper and works 2x-3x times better. I wanted to build something similar for a homemade soda bar concept, and discovered how truly cheap it can be to make soda and carbonated water at home. I was shocked at what a simple concept it is, and how much of a profit these sodas water companies make. Phillips even charging $50 for their system is a total rip-off.

    Truthfully, I think the increase in quality in the Phillips machine is due to fewer parts is an “exception that proves the rule” as these in-bottle carbonators seem to work better with fewer parts. It’s just a pressure hose connected to a co2 tank. Literally, all of $6 if you were to build one yourself from parts on Amazon (or $3 if you got he Alibaba route)

    I truly believe that the fewer parts the better in any DIY or commercial product due to the less chance of a failure in a part if there are fewer parts. This works fantastically for the “lower quality” producing companies, like Phillips.

    My inventive and engineering entrepreneur friends and I call this “fewer parts the better” concept, a “Murphy’s law compensator” as the fewer parts there are, the fewer parts that can statistically “go wrong”



  • I’d rather remain comfortable not buying games from Ubisoft and EA.

    I refuse to waste a single dollar on every game from both companies, since we were all bent over and continue to get bent over because they just don’t care about anything but making more money.

    A good example from Ubisoft is the handling of the Driver series. They kept on releasing the games in the series in a near unplayable state before when most people had dial up.

    A good example with EA was the failed DRM with Spore. They only let you install the game 3 times, which glitched out to the point where people had to turn to piracy (warez and crackz) to play a game they paid for.

    We vote with every dollar spent, which gives me hope when people rally around good companies that do the right thing.



  • This is exactly why I look at companies and corporations with a side-eye of doubt when they claim to have some sort of “do not be evil” motto baked into thier company culture.

    It doesn’t matter if a gigantic company has a hundred philanthropy focused CEOs, all ot takes is one greedy or evil one to destroy a company’s dogma

    After the investors, managers, and profiteers taste easy money, they will continue to demand to be fed that blood flavored stew.

    Once that happens, they either need to be lobotomized or put down for the good of all lest those who are not in the know continue to put money into the frothing imitation it has become.



  • I’m using my steam deck right now as a gaming PC while moving across America.

    It works really well. I got a dock from Amazon that gives me the ports to plug in my gaming mouse and keyboard. I can do HDMI out to the hotel TV or, better yet, lead out one USB-c cord to a fantastic portable monitor.

    I only ran into two minor issues. The first is getting enough juice to the steam deck and heat. Both can be easily solved with a good fast charging station and better air flow (I use this tiny hyper fan and have had zero issues in 90 degree Florida winter weather).

    Of note, I dual boot with Windows 11. It’s a bloated mess of an operating system, but I want to use certain mods and programs that windows only. Plus, I’m not tied down to only steam games. The addition of being able to run nearly everything that’s Windows compatible takes the deck up a level, I feel.

    The best way to get the most out of the Windows environment is to run a debloater admin tool, which removes unnecessary programs on Windows 10+ systems. The difference between the performance is shocking, making it pretty much required for usage. It’s not too hard to use, too.

    The best part of it all is that you still have a stream deck at the end of the day. You don’t have to do any hardware mods. You can pick the deck up and walk out of the house and still have the gaming PC with you.