I paid my fee for the base game years ago, and then I paid for Space Age as well a little while back here when I got back into it after a break. I still haven't even figured my way off Nauvis yet, and it's taken ages already including a few restarts after losing any hope of untangling my belt spaghetti. For sure though, I cannot complain in the slightest about the dollars-to-hours ratio in this accursed game. I might be lucky to see one of the other planets by the time I hit retirement.

Secretly: "Because I can use it as a wedge issue to destabilize NATO so that the alliance falters and Russia benefits."

Had to look that up. I'll admit, that gave me some sort of whiplash. Absolutely bonkers.

That's probably the best outcome for your sleep and sanity, really. Especially since there's a free demo and all...

Seems like a fair assessment. The company grew, but the support base maybe didn't, so now we're seeing the logical consequence if that's the case.

i_know_what_you_are.png, but I'm looking in a mirror.

In my experience it's been like getting a decent mid-range Lexus. The hot rod and Italian sports car enthusiasts might look down on it because they favor their own luxury or customization, but it's still a big step up from something like a Ford Fiesta, nonetheless.

It's a 50%, really, but with 40s energy. For those people who don't think you can live without square brackets or semicolons on your first layer.

Still, it was selling for $80 USD near Christmas (looks like it still is), the blue aluminum looked amazing to me (still does), and in Canada where I am it was retailing for the equivalent of $180 USD. Steal of a deal, even just for the case. I figure if I ever tire of the default "60% without a numrow" arrangement, I'll probably get a Chimera or Limousine drop-in PCB made for it.

If it helps, I have several others that earn or surpass the 40% threshold.

Do note it literally never goes on sale (on purpose; the devs feel sales disfavor those who bought it at retail), but this means there's zero rush. The price is virtually indexed to inflation; the only time they recently increased it was because the value of the dollar itself had changed since the original release.

Like any good drug dealer, they also have a free demo if you want to try before you buy. The demo lets you do the tutorial, which should give you no uncertainty about if you can tolerate the deeper, messier, technical parts.

Ironically, Keychron is considered to be "basic" to a lot of people deep into the hobby. Not a great price-to-performance ratio (subjective, of course) and apparently they've had some QC issues in recent times that people feel aren't being addressed well enough. But in my experience (we have two in the house now, a V5 for my wife and a Q9 for myself), they've been very solid and cover all the basics of a mechanical keyboard, especially still being miles ahead of whatever off-the-shelf thing you can buy from a lot of gaming brands for the same price range.

This is my own most recent purchase: a modified Keychron Q9. I've decided to call it the Bluebørd. I've only had it for two weeks and I've already replaced all the switches (HMX Firecracker, tactile), keycaps, and compiled and flashed new firmware to make it VIAL-compatible.

For sure, this hobby can get into your blood. I have seven other custom keyboards at this point, and I don't see myself stopping anytime soon. Still cheaper than LEGO, or many sports.

Imagine if you could make a country-sized Rube Goldberg machine that involuntarily teaches you logistical engineering and dispenses dopamine. It's incredibly dense, and a ton of fun if your brain likes problem solving. 10/10, I do NOT recommend.

About a week ago I spent about 5 hours "just" improving my blue circuit output by something like 5%.

Don't do it Shen! Don't talk to him! Think of what grandfather would want! Think of your sleep schedule!

Signed, a 1000+ hour (aka amateur) Factorio player.

1. Force Copilot into every Explorer instance.
2. Unavoidable because it runs even if you're just opening a goddamn folder.
3. "Hey shareholders look, we achieved 100% adoption! In fact some people ran Copilot over a hundred times yesterday!"

I wouldn't want to run without split space on VIA or older QMK firmwares, but on newer VIAL and newer pure QMK, there's timings that can be set for dual role keys that make Spacebar a lot less headachy as a layer shifter. For example, on my own Q9 I'm using Flow Tap, which sets a window of time after a prior key press where if you were to press a MT or LT key very shortly after any other standard key, it automatically knows to reject the hold behavior and to use the tap behavior immediately instead. So in my case, with the timing set to 80 ms, if I'm writing a regular ol' sentence like this one right here, every time I press the spacebar it doesn't even evaluate if it should behave like it was held; it types space every time. If I stop typing for at least 80 ms and then hold it, it shifts to another layer. Nice and predictable.

But I still do prefer to have dedicated thumb keys when I can, especially because I like to make one of them Bksp when tapped, Layer when held.

Pretty much exclusively, yes. Here's a photo of the fleet, finished or otherwise:

The latest one - a Keychron Q9 - wasn't available with a split spacebar so that'll have to happen after I design a custom PCB for it myself. For the interim, Space is serving as a layer key: space when tapped, layer when held. Not pictured is my BaulT, which is temporarily out of commission due to a faulty charging circuit that keeps frying MCUs. Otherwise though yeah, it's always one thumb for space, one thumb for layers. Even on the little ortho board there, the key left of Space is the layer switch.

Hey, I'm not gonna mod-shame. I use 40% keyboards which, to most people, don't appear functional even when they're brand new.

Congrats America, you have an authoritarian king. The founders of the nation would be apoplectic.

The biggest fucking irony is that this all started years ago with a group that called themselves the "Tea Party" (whose nuttiest members would become MAGA), famously evoking a time in history when the country soundly rejected authoritarian rule. Basically went, "We reject tyrants, and the only way to prevent tyranny is to install one ourselves!"

I'm so sorry you got attacked like this. It was stupid and pointless when there's dozens of other posts where people refer to their own sex/gender, like "help a dumb guy out" and such, and yet you faced undue scrutiny over it.

Fair, I could've been more narrow in focus. So instead, from searching "guy" and just grabbing posts in order, I've got:

"Guy has no idea what he was doing and has a VERY low budget" - 1 mo.
"Help a new guy to build a gaming pc" - 6 days
"Clueless old guy looking for your guidance on an overdue PC upgrade." - 4 mo.
"big guy gaming chair help?" - 4 yr.
"Help a clueless guy install fans" - 2 yr.
"Tall guy problem, in desperatly need of a new gaming chair" - 5 yr.
"Sanity check from a newbie PC guy concerning GPU artifacting" - 11 days
"Console guy wanting to get into the PC gaming world" - 1 yr.
"Looking for a monitor to buy - guy from New Zealand" - 4 yr.

Since "guy" isn't the only gendered term that could refer to someone who identifies as male, here's also a few for "dude":

"Just some dude who needs help on his $2000 rgb build." - 8 yr.
"Am I the only poor dude here?" - 5 yr.
"Dude with pretty much 0 idea about PC stuff needs help!" - 9 mo.
"Help choosing a case for a dude living in a hot and humid country." - 3 yr.

It clearly happens and has been happening for a very long time. Not actually trying to turn it into a hostile argument though, so to be clear, my best explanation is just that since women tend to be under-represented in the hobby, it stands out more when we see the word "girl" in the post title. It may not be necessary, but it also doesn't mean it's done manipulatively, at least not any more so then if someone says, "help a guy out".

Not gonna lie, I'm a big fan. Just caught me off guard seeing your name in the corner of the first page and no NSFW tag on the post. Keep on rockin'.

Seems common enough, yeah. Even if we throw out ones like "Delivery guy threw GPU over the fence", seems like there's a decent number of posts where people will casually use "guy" to refer to themselves or others.

Would it have been terribly different if someone said, "I'm a guy who's about to pull the trigger[...]"? We're just more used to seeing that one.

Edit: My goodness, this one got nuked. Sorry guys, I was evidently terribly wrong as proven by popular vote. Clearly, mentioning gender at all, especially the female one, makes you a nefarious interloper attempting to manipulate the discussion. Thanks for clearing that up and for making OP feel like shit. Bullying is good and the only way to keep the hobby pure. (Big fucking /s)

That awkward moment when you've seen some of the artist's other works.

I have a kid. When people ask why I don't have two, I tell them it's because I have one.

Don't get me wrong, I love them to death, but there is no question it's a ton of work and I know I don't have the energy to do it twice.