Here's something I've noticed. Whenever someone describes a group, individual, activity, or anything else with more than 2 negative adjectives in a row, they're probably saying something deeply unstable. This is one of those times.
I take offense to this generalization. When I call someone an honorless gormless bitch ass motherfucker I'm relieving stress so when fists start flying I ain't blinded by my own anger, my instability is only mildly correlated to my verbosity.
Let me sit you down when I say this... but if you're getting into fights even after relieving stress... it either doesn't work, or you're behaving in an unstable manner.
Oh no fights are fun. Tis the curse of my kin, seriously damned near every man on the German side of my family treats fights like a fun time waster. Not saying it's not instability just that my verbosity is perpetual regardless of my mood or actions, well unless I am physically exhausted then I communicate with a handful of words like a caveman.
Also just cause I'm somewhat calm going into a fight doesn't mean that the person I hurled insults at is.
Sure, but since orgaanised religions can't help to force others to live by their standards, they need to get out of the way. I'm fine with people needing a comfort measure, even if its in the form of an invisibile friend. Whatever helps people sleep at night. However, when they try to force their ideals down everybody elses throat thats a big no.
So, since they can't 'live and let live' they need to go the way of the dodo, fuck off, and leave the rest of society alone.
But what undeniable good thing comes from religion? It's not just that they have the potential for destruction and hate, it's that those are the only possible outcomes
We could get unions, consumer protections, housing and food and other necessities guaranteed. We don't, but we could. Politics is just trying to solidify how things are run. Obviously easily can be used for abuse, but can be used for good. Religion from the first step is to tell you how bad of a person you are and how to resolve it: join a cult, deny personal responsibility for anything and put that on whatever deity or subject for hate at the time, all your answers should be sought through your religion and not outside sources
You're making a lot of value judgements without a whole lot of evidence to back them up. My point is perfect atheist: religious movements are a type of politics with certain aims (not exactly unions, but incidentally communion, charity, etc). It is you who are saying that religion is somehow a special phenomenon who puts them above other ways to organize society...for the worse. Maybe you think that it is because it is irrational and metaphysical. There is plenty of metaphysics in the form of utopias (heaven) in politics, saints/prophets (cult of personality). You just say that bad comes out of religion, but not out of politics...yeah...ok.
Not denying bad comes from politics, especially in regards to the US, clearly we are seeing a lot of awful things that can come from politics, and religion likes to play politics as well. I am and will continue to refuse that religion is capable of producing good will, change for the better, or anything outside of bringing forth hate and destruction
Depends on who the leaders are. ~~Some~~ Many weaponize religion for their own aims and their ends justify the means. Some are peaceful, tolerant and constructive, all based off the very same texts.
A tolerant society can not tolerate intolerance. One side will attempt to "just live", but the intolerant side is incapable of "letting live", and they will not stop until they replace tolerance with their system of hate.
The majority of the secular world are atheists. Don't pretend like it is some small subsection just because you live in a bubble of whatever religion you were born into.
Agnostic sounds like a sub-category of atheism like it is with different beliefs under theism. Ie. It's Theism vs Atheism, and then everything below the two. If you don't believe or don't know if you should believe, then you're not really a theist, making it atheist.
i was wondering the same thing oh my god. ik you can be any religion or anything but the main problem i have with atheism is they make fun of religion. like atleast be respectful if your gonna be atheist not have a superiority complex. edit: maybe i used superiority complex here loselessly
Atheism has never been used as the justification for a genocide - can any major religion claim the same? It's obviously an extreme example, but at the same time it's not entirely unreasonable to feel superior when comparisons like that are so easy to make.
wdym "Religion causes Genocide" do you mean Zionism,because i never heard of A religion that has been used as justification for genocide (except for Zionism,Including atheism)
In the 90s, in my country, a single person made a webpage stating that Microsoft minesweeper promotes war and violence, so since windows 95 if the Windows locale is set to my language, minesweeper becomes "flower field" and you have to find flowers instead of mines
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
It was due to the actual active minefields in certain region of the EU. But i was always so confused by that name. 'Prato fiorito' does it mean that if I step on the flowers i explode? This is what i thought back than.
I truly don't understand how Visa/MasterCard/etc can be pressured. They are basically infrastructure.
What's someone going to do, stop using credit cards if they don't stop a store that person doesn't even patronize from selling morally hazardous goods?
I don't get how these campaigns are even effective.
The thing is they are American corporations who care to much about their public image. I would be highly suprised if they national payment platforms would also accept this. (ideal/bankcontant/wero/etc)
That's because 90% of cryptocurrency marketing consists of "THINK OF THE GAAAAAAINS YOU CAN MAKE!" instead of "You can use this to buy things without government censorship".
The entire crypto industry has based itself around being a speculative asset, not a currency.
Which is really unfortunate. If you avoid the most popular coins (Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc), you avoid most of the scams and speculation and end up with a decent currency that respects your privacy and has low fees.
not profitable to mine, so most miners are enthusiasts who want the coin to succeed
privacy-focused - basically creates a ton of fake transactions to mislead snoopers
relatively popular - seems to be the most popular coin recommended by privacy enthusiasts (e.g. Mental Outlaw, he even gives a discount on his store for Monero)
not popular among speculators - they mostly stick to the big ones (BTC and ETH), as well as new startup coins
low cost transactions, fairly short transaction window
It's far from ubiquitous, but it's popular enough that if a place accepts any crypto, there's a good chance they accept Monero as well.
Some do, which is a lot more than GNU Taler. I don't know of another digital payment system that has more usage that isn't dominated by a handful of companies.
Here are some examples of things you can buy today w/ Monero:
It's far from ubiquitous, but it is being accepted today. If any of those places interest you, I recommend putting a small amount of money into Monero and trying it out.
Monero is a cryptocurrency that provides one of the most important cryptocurrency benefits: secure and confidential transactions. Find out where to pay in Monero in the article!
One benefit to payment processing for crypto is that there's little in the way of material limitations on processing payments. The blockchain for a given coin already exists, your job as a processor is primarily to convert those on-chain transactions into and out of other currencies. Only requiring intervention at the point of entering or exiting dollars to and from the system changes a lot of the dynamics.
It's pretty easy to switch between cryptocurrencies, so they can surely find an exchange that is friendly to their business. That's way better than the credit card situation where there are only four major processors--Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and American Express--and only two of those actually matter.
Payment processors like Visa and Mastercard control a huge chunk of the market, which gives them a lot of say in what transactions are allowed. Even if you avoid credit, most debit cards go through those two companies, so they can restrict what transactions you can make.
With cryptocurrencies, there's no restriction at the point of sale. Your problem seems to be that converting crypto to fiat could be problematic, and they'd potentially be stuck with "useless" currency. My point is that's a much easier problem to solve:
if their exchange stops converting a given currency, they can convert to one they do accept
if their exchange bans their account (e.g. due to the nature of their business), they can switch exchanges
there are ATMs that dispense cash for crypto
if no exchange will work with them, they can make direct exchanges with regular people (i.e. "launder" the money)
they can also spend the currency directly
There are a ton of options to convert crypto to fiat, there are far fewer to select a different fiat payment processor.
It's got a kid robot in it that's abused. Not sexually afaik. But it's definitely not pornographic, it's literally the driving force of one of the plotlines and causes an android to rebel and kill it's owner - the abuser.
Let me repeat: the game is literally so anti-child-abuse - it makes the plot happen.
This whole thing is so stupid. You give these types of people an inch they take a mile.
I really hate this logic people have nowadays "We can't show an evil character doing evil things, because that's obviously meant to be in support of the evil things. No I don't know what an antagonist is, I don't understand story structure!"
OK now I am not one to lob accusations without evidence, but for any of you kind government agents or AIs reading this, let’s say from anywhere within the Five Eyes since we’re talking about Australia:
We have another fanatical religious conservative organization here that is publicly labeling opposition groups pedos. You know how this has trended in the past. Keep an eye on these people.
No, no, they don't ignore them. They train with them so that chat gpt is fully capable of acting like it doesn't want AI models to train on its output, if you ask it to.
This comment and many like it are a product of only reading the headline. Also shame on the authors for the ragebait headline.
The tweet the quote comes further classifies that they're talking about games that include rape, incest, and/or child sex abuse. I'm not sure if people are just knee-jerk reacting to headlines without understanding what's actually happening, or if they are legitimately upset that rape fantasy games are being removed. In both cases, you're stating that you are vocally in support of rape media, which is not OK.
Sure, that's the plausible deniability reasoning. But the end result, whether you agree with the on the surface reasoning or not, is the removal of all adult media whether or not it is offending. This coupled with the lumping in of LGBT issues with Adult media (and often lumping in with egregious media like rape and abuse fantasy) means that the end result is removal of adult games AND games which feature LGBT characters and storylines.
and uh, if you actually did read my comment, I did say consenting. me saying I enjoy content where clear adults are consentually enjoying sex is not endorsing rape fantasy games, and is a bit of a Twitter ass conclusion to come to.
and uh, if you actually did read my comment, I did say consenting. me saying I enjoy content where clear adults are consentually enjoying sex is not endorsing rape fantasy games, and is a bit of a Twitter ass conclusion to come to.
The article you commented on is explicitly referencing media where consent cannot be given. So, I'm not sure why you commented about consenting adults in the first place, because that had nothing to do with the topic.
Collective Shout claim it’s about harm reduction, but then push an agenda that functionally amounts to moral panic.
Their approach is identical in logic to the “GTA causes school shootings” hysteria: loud, pearl-clutching, and utterly unmoored from data.
If Collective Shout want to argue these games cause harm, then show us the harm. Not correlation. Not outrage. Not hypothetical downstream consequences. Show causation. Peer-reviewed. Reproducible.
Otherwise, they’re just moralizing bullies using the banking system as a cudgel.
On top of this, they might actually be harming their own cause. The catharsis hypothesis poses that sexual fantasy enactment might reduce risk of real world harm.
The logic is simple: suppressing a compulsion doesn't eliminate it. It just bottles up until it explodes. Redirect it into a safe outlet, and it becomes manageable.
The only reason this research isn't cited more often is because it's politically radioactive. Nobody wants to admit that it's better to let a gooners jerk off, than to escalate under repression.
The burden of proof SHOULD be on Collective Shout to provide a reasonable argument which supports their claim that censorship will reduce real world harm.
Current working theory in psychology: it doesn't. Emerging theory suggests: they're shooting themselves (and potential rape victims) in the foot.
The real solution to real-world harm involves empathy, autonomy and education.
Sadly from my experiences with feminist groups, TERFs have historically been the norm not the exception.
You should really look into what the Daughters of Bilitis were up to, and books like the The Transsexual Empire. A book I cannot say the full name of for it contains a slur.
Historically feminist groups have attacked transgender women and gay men for "Infringing upon what it means to be a woman."
Its more perverted to want to control what other people are jacking to than it is to jack it to porn games. Keep your perversions to yourselves weirdos.
Honestly, my steam algorithm started showing me alot of that garbage out of nowhere about a year ago and I had to keep telling it to stop. Like to each their own but some of that shit was pretty gross. I'm not complaining it's gone.
There's a toggle for the store that hides porn games. They're not visible unless you yourself actively click on it saying you want to see them. The default is to keep them hidden. The feed also adapts to what you click on. If you see garbage it's on you.
That second part is kinda annoying though. It doesn't know the difference between a view because of curiosity and one because of actual interest.
It's what ruined the YouTube suggestions for me. I liked being able to do completely unrelated and random dives. Now it's just a collection of videos related to previous ones I've watched, even when I'm not logged in and have viewing history turned off. If I want to watch another chess video, I know how to use the search function. That's how I found them the first time.
Though steam does also have a "stop showing me games like this" where it gives options about what you mean by "this".
I would say they aren't as bad as alcohol and gambling, which are pervasive...some of them are just...art...some aren't 😁 I could ask you the same about lots of other things, from music to literature. I just don't like book burning. If someone put their effort into creating something that they thought was worth creating, why is it up to anyone to ban it for any adult that wants to see it?
It's not about porn games. It's about allowing third-party private interests to engage in censorship.
If Valve were to ban porn games from being sold on Steam because they find them distasteful, I wouldn't have a problem with this. But it wasn't Valve's decision. It was the payment processors who did it on behalf of interests that are apparently allowed to determine what is permissible on other people's platforms.
Sure. But they are pretty much the only options in a lot of places. Yes they are shitty companies, but I personally can't think of a good way to get away from them.
Local/national banks with their bankcards and payment platforms? Buying steam gift cards using cash or by pinning? Even if your bank cards are halfway towards visa or mastercard using it through another party is still better.
In Italy we have PagoBancomat, but that's a debit card, not a credit card.
If you buy online, you can also use PayPal connected directly to a bank account, no credit card necessary (PayPal is also a shitty company, but sometimes there's no alternative...)
You can pay using SEPA bank transfer or direct debits or some other options.
That the bank is using VISA/MasterCard etc for their cards is still a better option than using them directly because they barely do anything. Heck European debit cards don't even work like they do in the US. You HAVE to 2FA them.
Most of the time in Europe our transactions go through things like iDeal, Bancontant, Wero etc
Not only that, but even if you manage to find a platform that isn't directly owned by them, they are payment service networks. They are there along the way to facilitate transactions and manage relationships with merchant services. There is no escaping them.
There are some surviving national circuits like PagoBancomat (as the sibling comment from Scrollone) and Dankort (Denmark) and girocard (Germany). My personal impression is that they are slowly going out of fashion in favor of visa/mastercard only (probably because they can't offer better prices than them).
I don't see a solution to the duopoly, apart from lobbying politicians to support this national payment infrastructure. Especially in recent times I can also see how some governments might not want to rely entirely on two US companies for running their entire economy, so something might move on that side, so there's hope on that side.
The EU has already been moving on this front in the last years by forcing the banks to provide programming interfaces to initiate bank payments, and that's why you can now see more and more options to "pay by bank" online in EU. These online payments generally skip card circuits and run over normal SEPA bank transfers.
anti-censorship international credit union owned by members that can conduct transactions internally without having to ask for visa or mastercard's FUCKING permission when?????
I'm saying we should build Dual Power and go around them.
Clearly I think it would be preferable if they didn't do business with Russia, israel, or any other states actively engaging in the invasion of other people's sovereignty, but that doesn't have to be the only disqualifying factor. There are plenty of nations in the world that are toxic by other criteria. I highly doubt countries that murder civilians for wearing the "wrong" clothes or espousing the "wrong" opinions, for instance, would be conducive with the operation of such a credit union. Also, countries where if they find out you're gay they execute you. That's not very anti-censorship and tacit complicity with that fuckery would not further the mission.
So it would definitively not be bothering with the laws of countries it will never interact with.
Something like that will kinda work, but using it will flag your transactions if you use it as a business. That's the issue with a lot of these things is that we need to have some kind of balance between privacy and authorities being able to do anything against terrorism etc. And yes you can find terrorists based on transactions.
No I have seen real world examples of criminals being prosecuted because of what people on my field (accountancy) found during our work. That shits there for a reason.
This was company data though, which should be semi transparent anyway
I never said that it can't be effective, I just don't believe we should all suffer a massive erosion in our privacy for it. There are other ways to deal with crime.
Welllllllll, Taler is actually exactly the wrong suggestion for this usecase, because Taler requires all spends to be redeemed from Vendor to Issuer non-anonymously, which gives the Issuer 100% control and say which vendors are allowed, which is exactly the thing Visa and Mastercard are using to exert control.
If there were competing Taler networks and Steam supported all of them, that might be okay because one of them might happen to not be dicks, but if there's just one or two then Taler is designed from the ground-up specifically to enable this bad outcome. It's actually one of their features!
What country are you in? None of those options exist in Canada so I think you're going to need to reframe your point.
Also I can state that giftcards do not exist where I live as I just went though 4 kids birthdays and check 20 different stores and winded up having to give up on Steam cards and buy prepaid Visas.
EDIT: To clarify, two years ago the cards existed. Last year they were scarce, and in 2025 they are no where to be found.
What are those other options you have anyway? I've never seen or heard of any of them.
Well I am in The Netherlands and the top one (iDeal) is a Dutch exclusive, I can understand that you don't have those in Canada, but there should be other options right? Maybe contact support?
Otherwise, order gift cards online from somewhere or does that also go through Visa/Mastercard? Even then indirectly doing it is still better especially if you support a local business doing it with gift cards.
I can understand that you don't have those in Canada, but there should be other options right? Maybe contact support?
I think you’re on the verge of understanding the problem. You’re so close. Just trust that the guy you’re replying to isn’t an idiot and you’ll finally understand.
Sure in the Netherlands you have options. But other places aren’t the Netherlands. Different countries have different options, but Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal work pretty much everywhere.
Edit: Completely unrelated, I’m munching on some licorice Mentos I found in the Dutch section of my local grocery store here in West Michigan, and I just want to thank the entire population of the Netherlands for the wonderful things y’all have done with licorice. No one likes it here, so no one bothered. But the variety your country comes up with for this stuff, it’s fantastic.
I can talk about the Netherlands, or Belgium or the vast majority of the other first world countries with different options to pay online. Even in North American you still have gift cards.
You can also contact support and ask them for different payment options, they aren't going to accept bank transfers, but they will probably allow you to pay with JCB or some others that aren;t native to the Netherlands. (Heck, JCB is apparently something made for the Japanse market so idk why I can pay with it).
Heck, you can get your payment country changed, and then you can pay with different options. Yes, America (and Canada) have a lack of options for payment providers apparently and also for physical stores, but there is a chance that there are more options, like buying gift cards online even from different countries.
Wero will also be something everybody can use, but it's like the next thing, we (as in Europeans) have had so many payment providers over the years it isn;t even funny.
Getting money to organizations outside Canada and the US, once you remove credit cards and paypal, is exclusive to wire transfer from within Canada. If i want to get my money to any entity outside of Canada those are my options. None of these alt payment providers exist in Canada, and we are barred from buying crypto from our accounts.
~~JCB seems like the Interac system here in Canada, which I doubt Steam would take payment from. Its essentially a bank transfer~~. Nope, apparently JCB is a Credit Card company like Visa et al.
And wiretransfer is expensive af to and from the sepa banking system so you can barely pass it through Europe.
JCB is Japanese so idk why we get it here in NL. It’s also not a credit card company they just issue them
I have seen like 40-50 different payment platforms over the years and different methods of paying which all don’t require a creditcard (I haven’t had one for years due to having one causing issues with getting mortgages here in the Benelux) So I would assume that countries like Canada and the US would have more options as well in the end they are rich and developped nations.
Unfortunately rich and developed countries with an iron grip on the markets by a few billionaires that control them you see. They ensure our options are limited.
Canadians have very limited choices in terms of services. Even our grocery store shelves are bought out by major corps and local options struggle to get their products on the shelves.
As another example, our banks have no interpayment systems outside the interac system, and they have no standard apis for payment services. So things like apps for managing budgets involve downloading a csv after our billing date passes and a lot of manual work. Most banks offer their own budget apps and they only work with their services.
We have effectively have 3 phone and internet providers.. or little guys that resell access to the big 3.
Hmm, in the US, people have at least Simplefin to connect their banks to Actual Budget f.e.
Man it sucks to live in Canada as well it seems, probably the best thing you can do is buy local as much as possibile and if they still accept cash use that.
That is how I do it yes. As much as feasibly possible. I do really miss the local PC shops and electronics stores.. sadly my options for that stuff now are Staples, Best Buy and Amazon...
And use what instead? Swollen off PayPal is pretty easy because frankly it's an awful service and businesses are better off not using it anyway so they tend to offer other options.
But MasterCard and visa are the only payment options. Everything requires MasterCard or Visa
Businesses are better of not using Paypal or Creditcards, both of the are a hassle and cost more time to process than a digital pin transaction or an old school bank transfer.
You have to use what is available in your country, a lot of countries have their own payment platform and they are being consolidated into one Wero.
As long as people keep using Mastercard or Visa they will have this power.
Is there any good reason why shops/Vendors dont really offer any kind of Crypto? Like I genuinely dont get it aren't you paying way more for using Visa/Mastercard etc. as a shop?
Because crypto isn't really a currency as much as it is a volatile asset. Businesses require stability to run coherently, and utilizing something like crypto currency which could massively increase or decrease in value following a breaking news report isn't something that large organizations can really tolerate.
I WAS going to follow-up my "it's always sunny in philadelphia" quote but I got completely distracted by TWENTY-EIGHT CENT EGGS. I can literally buy eggs from the source (there's a farm nearby that "donates" a portion of their income directly to the chickens and puts it into quality of life upgrades for them) and it still costs me $4.50-5.00 a dozen depending on weight.
Well, banks here in NL have been using VISA and Mastercard cards, but that is more so people can use them in America/Canada and some other countries which are still behind on chipped cards.
But over the years I have seen 40-50 different payment platforms and most of them do not use Visa or Mastercard.
I have been exploring ways to pay for things anonymously... in Canada and the US they do have prepaid credit cards (rhat are sadly visa or Mastercard based) that can be paid for in cash and activated without the need for a name or anything. Meaning unless you activated it on your phone or clearnet without a VPN it will be difficult to link it to you directly. Doubly so if you wait long enough for the store's surveillance footage to be cycled through (few places keep security camera footage in perpetuity, many delete stuff from a few months back or a year or so back unless something suspicious happened, meaning the footage of you buying the thing will be gone.)
So that's one trick to be able to pay for something with a credit card without it being immediately obvious who you are. Much like paying in cash, another thing i am getting back into.
Hmm yeah, personally I don't mind them having access to my transactions or doing things anonymously. Using your bankcard with chip to pay is already obfuscated in most situations on the receiving end since a lot of cash registers will group the transactions together and way out once.
Even platforms like Mollie sometimes obfuscate transactions, which annoys me, considering I have worked as a bookkeeper and now an accountant.
Because of my job, I don't want people to get the feeling I do shit wrong (illegal or otherwise) since that can cause me to lose my licence. So I want to be transparent for that and for my own administration.
At the same time cash is disappearing here in NL and in some countries cash transactions above 3k are already banned (BE f.e.). I also buy a fair amount by buying gift cards, and I order online a lot.
Ow and btw Mullvad can be both by sending them an envelope with cash
Ow and btw Mullvad can be both by sending them an envelope with cash
I am afraid I don't understand. You can buy credit cards by mailing cash to Mullvad?
Using your bankcard with chip to pay is already obfuscated in most situations on the receiving end since a lot of cash registers will group the transactions together and way out once.
I actually rarely pay for things with my bank card. I usually buy with credit card and that will always leave a trace. But it is good to know that.
The whole no cash purchase over 3K or 10K is honestly crap. They did that in Quebec last year and are going to do that throughout Canada. I never paid for anything with that much cash, but I still find it shit.
Sorry Mullvad is a VPN company, just in case you need that.
I always buy things with a normal bank card, why would I use a credit card on a daily basis? You will have less grip on your finances, they aren't accepted everywhere, cost more than a bank account which you still need anyway, they are at a greater risk of getting abused and in most countries using them can only ruin your credit score.
The whole no cash purchase over 3K or 10K is honestly crap. They did that in Quebec last year and are going to do that throughout Canada. I never paid for anything with that much cash, but I still find it shit.
That's the thing, any normal working human being will basically never come in a situation where this happens, and if they do, it is generally a simple explanation.
I understand privacy minded people don't really like this, but it does help find criminals. That's also a bit of an issue since high levels of privacy also mean that criminals basically have fair game since catching them will be harder.
Large cash payments may be needed in places and during times where non-cash are difficult or impossible. I have family who live in countries where having bank transfers would be cumbersome and are riddled with corruption, so I bring them cash. I once did get 9,500$ in cash (below the 10K limit) and they were paying for repairs for their home and the workers could only accept cash. Having a digital platform would have made all this impossible.
Well that is generally not an issue it is more the receiving end they check. If you take it from your bank there is a non issue besides maybe at a border.
And most completely corrupt countries don’t care either way
After reading the article on gamerant.com, the many comments on here and looking at the petition, I really wonder if actually so many people are delusional and/or are just missing the core point here?! (Or it is just a small crowd with much noise?) IMHO, there are better places in the world to engage and petition for. (Local communities and regional politics, for example.) But if banning that little "funny" child incest game on Steam puts you up the tree, well, ...
Are you really that offended? And why, on point? How in the world can you defend publishing (and selling) games - mostly targeted at young folks - which are quite disturbing, derangend and morally wrong in the name of "freedom" or "independence"? And call that blatantly censorship, when there are instead public guidelines by Steam and their partners? Don´t you wish for (young) people to develop good values instead of becoming delusional with child pornography, incest, violence, gore and such? What are your values here?
What does my account origin has to do with that? Please explain. No, I don't want to live in an authoritarian world. But I appreciate businesses following certain moral standards, like banning child porn in every aspect.
Why not enforce these standards through legislation, then? Doesn't the world's payment processor, a political body you can't appeal to when it fucks up, seem a bit heavy-handed?
You've got some good points here! These standards are usually enforced by law, just Valve/Steam is extremly liberal on his marketplace. But I fully agree, then the other bodies do not need to interfere, especially when they are so hard to be checked.
Edit: Still, in some way, I wish that companies throughout every service chain would implement and follow these moral standards and laws. And follow though, if they find negligence by other parties. (Kind of a "check and balance" thing.)
It isn't about the actual games being targeted. It's everything about the implications of having a private company dictate what legal content I can buy with my own money. If they cave to lobby groups once, they will do it again. Next time it might be something you care about instead.
Also games made for adults are targeted at adults, not "young people". You can't even really see these games on steam unless you are an adult and explicitly turn on visibility of porn games. The average gamer is well up in their thirties at this point as well.
Alright, I understand your point. But I only partially agree with it. Hear me out: You want a free marketplace to buy whatever you wish, without any dictations? - But any market or shops you can think of has some regulations and dependencies, right? The one who offers the platform dictates what and how it is traded, as far as it has been. And even more if banks or transaction processors are involved, who also have a say. Not ideal, I agree, but the norm. How do you want to technically solve this? By their own transaction service, like some suggest here? Not sure if that helps, because you might create a new monopoly.
And at the same time, we discuss this here, people demand transparency and environmently responsability for all the delivery chains. Like for clothing or food. - Is that not what happens here? The banks as part of the service chain are pushing Valve to implement stricter rulings about critical content. For me, that looks like what people would ask for. Correct me, if I am wrong.
It's dictated by the law in my country. It's either legal or it isn't. The laws are decided through democracy and debated before implementation or changes. VISA doesn't need to meddle. I have to follow the law, and so do they. We don't need arbitrary whims on top of that.
Your last paragraph is a false comparison. There's nothing transparent about what content is currently on the card companies hatelist and what they deem ok. Several LGBTQ related games got hit as well. The transparency in regards to food and clothing is about letting me take informed choices about the products I buy. Cards companies are still letting me buy clothes made by factory slaves and sold via Temu. They don't care. I have to take that moral standpoint to buy more ethical clothing if I find that the morally correct thing to do. If I want cheap clothing made by slaves I can, with the blessing of my Mastercard. It's certainly legal.
I'd probably rather buy a porn game made by someone who cared enough about it to make it as a passion project, than a AAA title made with the blood and tears of exploited, underpaid developers to fill the pouches of some overpaid ceo. If ethics is something to value, at least.
@cosmo@lemmy.world, you have solid good points here! - Yes, the laws are democratically set and don't need extra intereference by VISA, Mastercard or else. It is just my opinion that Valve has been very liberal on his marketplace and not removing critical content themselves. I think, that is what led to the interference in addtion to lobbyist behind the payment processors.
Yeah, my comparison was flawed. But I got the idea across. Right, the transaction process is not transparent, especially not without publishing the "hatelist". - Especially good point here with the ethical aspect! There seems to be some double standard by VISA etc. about what is acceptable and what is not. I disagree with that, of course, as I still believe in ethical values also when consuming games. 😉 So enjoy you porn game, als long as it has legal themes.
Actually, I am convinced. The article was bad and confused my inital kowledge about the issue. But thank you all for the (mostly) civil discussion. The petition unfortunately is outside my jurisdiction, so I can not sign. But I will keep an eye on the topic.
No worries! The article lacked a lot of important information, absolutely. What worries me a lot is that this activist group also isn't friendly towards LGBTQ groups and has been trying to get games like GTA banned, as well as Detroit: Become Human, to give a few examples. I find it worrying when these kinds of activist groups gets a fot inside the door, because they sure won't stop at banning incest games (whether it's porn or a serious attempt to create a meaningful story about abusive relationships). No one really cares about the porn games that much, I think, but I don't want potentially good games gone as collateral damage, because some games are trash.
Fully agree, that is worrying and they should not get a foot inside. Better if we would find some safe algorithm or independent moderation to filter the content according to law and ethics. And some independent payment service might also be helpfull, but no blockchain type, please. After all these years, I still don't understand the hate against LGB... groups. But it surely looks like the hunting the witches, Roma or Jews in the past. The are a distinctive minority and thus a good target, unfortunately.
It's about the danger posed by a monolithic government or corporation deciding what things get to be traded and sold. Like a fucked up capitalist version of that poem "First They Came".
Oh, interesting! I know the poem. But I find it a harsh comparison to the situation about Valve's new regulation. And I did not see it as such a highly-charged political topic. But apparently it is. To me it does not look like "a monolitic corporation", as you can still buy games elsewhere. But I surely see the influence that the big banks/transactors have on Valve here. - But how would you limit this? Any technical solutions? On the other hand, if Valve would have implemented stricter rules for critical games themselves earlier, we would not have that problem/discussion now. (Please also see my other answer below.) Edit: Typo
To be clear, I'm talking primarily about Visa and Mastercard, the payment processors, not Valve. Those two companies have a pretty big stranglehold on the payment processing industry outside of possibly east Asia? I heard japan has their own payment processor, I assume it isn't limited to just Japan.
Ok, yes. They are quite "heavy-wheight". And I might agree with their action now, but maybe another time it might be problematic for me. Also, that's how Capitalism works: The one with the money decide. But then, we should put pressure on them and not Valve! And the question remains: How would you solve that technically? (This is what the community is about. And I am looking for solutions, not problems here.)
Maybe I'm wrong, but nothing about your side of this conversation seems like good faith in any way.
Just going to put that out there. Your comments reek of someone with zero intentions of challenging their pre-held belief, while pretending that's not true.
No matter what evidence people bring up to you, you either ignore it or move the goalposts. Almost like there's an agenda...
hmmm, an agenda? I am not aware I have any. Only here to discuss the topic and get other opinions to understand better. Just being here and chatting with all the folks, even the aggresive ones, already prooves (to me) that I am challenging my point of view.
Sorry, if I gave such bad imression on here. But may I ask some questions, as I find your critique a bit vague? - What do you think is my pre-held belive here? What angenda are you impying? And where am I ignoring evidence or moving the goalposts specifically?
I wish it was feasible to hve a large scale boycott of visa and mastercard. american express is already useless so it wouldn't help much to include it...
Or a decentralized alternative that isn't just used to scam people, that doesn't eat up insane amounts of electricity to process, and is as convenient as regular money.
In reality, private corporations should not have control over money at all. Money is printed by the local government and should be controlled by the local government. Governments generally have better free speech protections than private corporations, which have none. Obviously, free speech protections are not universal, but countries can already ban content in other ways.
Money is not printed by the local government at all. Money is created by private banks through extending credit. And it shouldn't be controlled by the government either, that's a terrible idea.
Did some quick search and it turns out: There was controversy about revisionism and right-wing talking by the original lemmy.ml admins (and founders). Hence, everyone coming from there with fresh accounts immediately get's the "idiot label", is insulted and downvoted. Not a very welcoming gesture in such a supposed open, liberal and new community of geeks. - It seems, we can either change instaces, delete our accounts or ignore it.
Tbh, I never cared about it much, mine isn't exactly a new account and I haven't experienced what you describe very often. I mostly use lemmy via the voyager app and here I can't even see what instance someone is on, unless I search for them specifically (or I'm too much of a noob and don't know how). So if some people want to base their judgment on that, whatever.
Yeah because in your case they didn't have your money. They're only real pain about trying to get money back, they always support businesses never customers.
So if I pay for a product and never receive it PayPal always takes the business's side.
So if I pay for a product and never receive it PayPal always takes the business’s side.
waves widely to above said post
That’s what I said happened to me. It was a scam. They still just ate the cost and paid me the money I lost.
Now I don’t know if maybe it was the amount, I don’t keep money on pp or I just did something different than anyone else did; I keep every piece of paper, email, name all contact information and detail(it’s kinda in line with my job)it was pretty undeniable I got scammed. Even showed I contacted a consumer bureau over it.
But either way I said I’d be open to a different way.
Petitions like this are meaningless unless they come with a viable solution to the duopoly in payment processing that is Visa and Mastercard.
It doesn't matter what Valve agrees with, if they want to survive as a business they have to ultimately do what the only 2 companies that handle the payment processing tells them to do.
Yes but the payment processors didn't say "you're not allowed to sell this game with our service" they said "you're not allowed to sell this game period or we walk".
You're missing the point. This is not aimed at Valve, but at Visa and MasterCard. They are businesses. They primarily care about profit, not censorship. Especially when that pisses people off. They made the mistake of listening to the vocal minority of Collective Shout, so we have to let them know that. This isn't the 80's anymore, gaming is mainstream and there are far, far more gamers than puritanical Quakers that get the vapors at the sight of anything mature or complicated. And worst-case scenario, they are not the only payment processors, just the most convenient ones for customers and businesses. For now...
Quakers were some anti authority religious minority (Christian) in Scotland/England. They were notorious for their lack of respect. E.g. used "thy" instead of the formal you. (English changed since then and the informal thy fell out of use)
A "slur"? No. But I was referring to the overly strict, hair-splitting kind of religious extremism that adheres to the letter of the law, not the spirit/intent.
I completely understand wanting to fight Visa and MasterCards position in the market. That's fine.
But for the love of God. Do not involve Steam and various porn games into it. That is not going to help your case.
I get the whole. "Just because I'm killing someone in a game, doesn't mean I'll kill someone in real life".
But that's not going to hold up as an argument here. Depictions of CP, even if it's a drawing with crayons, is still highly illegal in so many places. Same logic can be applied regarding other depictions of illegal behavior in the same category (pornogrophy). Such as incest. I'm not saying that depictions of incest is illegal in many places. Because I honestly don't know. But there would be a precedence for it.
Personally, I find it utterly disgusting that Steam even allowed such titles to begin with. I welcome their removal of them. But I wish it was because of other reasons than payment processors having an issue with it.
Could you elaborate on what "respectability politics" is? I've never heard that before.
Point is. Making a movement and using the removal of games that fetishize incest as the drop that made the cup overflow. Is simply not going to go the way you think it is. Unless you think it's going to crash and burn. Then it'll go exactly how you think it'll go.
You can make at least 101 far better arguments against Visa and MasterCard using their monopolized position to morally dictate what people can and can not buy, than having to involve incest porn. Or porn at all for that matter.
Porn is art, there's no compromising on that without throwing someone under the bus. Respectability politics == throwing people under the bus for not being "respectable" enough. It's been a huge issue in LGBTQ advocacy for a really long time.
You're obviously just trying to twist my words. Porn has to be consensual, otherwise it's just abuse material. Hence the term CSAM being advocated rather than CP these days.
Why would you be advocating for a different term other than CP? It doesn't matter how you depict it. Consensual or not. Abuse or not. CP is CP, and that is bad enough. Anyway. That's not the topic. I was just floored by that statement.
Point is. It seems like you DO compromise. Everyone does. Somewhere you've drawn a line. This is acceptable. This is not acceptable. And regardless of what you think of incest. I'm sure you can agree, that the vast majority of people would frown upon it. And if you say "Visa and MasterCard are bad because they stopped authorizing payments to incest games". Well... You're just not going to get a lot of people to sign up. They're gonna say. "Good."
So, trying to build momentum in a movement, and then using or citing incest porn games on steam as the catalyst, is just not a particularly good strategy in my opinion.
You generalised to all porn games. Now you're moving the goalposts again. This move by Visa/Mastercard has been affecting all NSFW games. Just like I don't think it's objectionable to have sex depicted in a movie, I don't think it's objectionable to have sex in a game. Adults can choose what content they consume. Payment processors should be forced to be common carriers.
I'm not moving anything. We have the same basic opinion. "Visa and MasterCard should not be allowed to leverage their monopolized position into a morality police of what we are allowed to buy or not"
I'm not here to debate you on what is you think is objectionable or not. I simply stated that I wish for people to not make this about porn. Because I don't think that's going to be helpful. You're just giving ammunition for the opposition to use against you. It will take them 5 seconds to use it against you and reach an audience of 100 million. You will have to spend 50 minutes trying to counter, and it will only reach the 10 million that actually bothered to look into it.
How many times do we have to go down this road before anyone learn from it?
So what is the solution? Don't give them that ammunition to begin with. Use other arguments. Arguments that can not be turned against you.
You don't have to agree with that advice. That's fine.
IANAL - Can credit card companies coordinate like this? This seems like price fixing but the other way around. Like one company wouldn't do this alone cause it would drive customers away so they agree to do it together. Does that coordinated monopolistic behavior have president?
Need to petition Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, and American Express. I don't think trying to get Valve to reverse these recent changes will necessarily be effective, since they are being pressured by the payment processors and they definitely aren't going to risk not being able to effectively do business at all.
Collective Shout is sustained by a small number of Australian partners. These are not big groups, and would quickly pull funding under any sort of pressure.
Collective Shout has a deep history with Christofascism and TERFs, so highlighting those angles is the way to go to get them pariahed. Once CS is out of the picture, we can work on undoing the damage they did.
Except they're not fighting the fire here, they're taking away the arsonist's flamethrowser so he can't continue making the fire. Without that flamethrower, the arsonist can't do shit.
Fighting the fire would be petitioning Steam, but the target is the payment processors that pressured Steam on request of Collective Shout.
Under what arguments would we be able to push back on something like this? Most people would agree that these games where distasteful so arguing for them to be put back to not start a slippery slope isn't that easy it seems.
Most people would agree that these games where distasteful
Regardless, tasteless people have the right to pay for them and play, so... no? This is about payment processors censoring shit just 'cos they can. They stick to handling money instead of dictating how that money is used.
Mainly that the companies controlling nearly all digital financial transactions across the entire globe should not be the arbiters of what is morally acceptable. If they must exist at all, they should just be handling the transfer of funds regardless of what is being bought and sold*.
*illegal shit would not be protected.
They are parasitic middle men that don't need to exist in the first place, though.
I would go further and say they shouldn't have the ability to block any transaction consumers are making, regardless of legality.
I basically want them classified like utilities (or the Internet), and the money they're processing should operate like digital networked cash. If I hand you a dollar bill, it doesn't arbitrarily decide to stop being money if it thinks the transaction might possibly be even tangentially related to crime. That's how you end up with these corporations becoming so invasive in the first place, with their overbroad policies blocking entire groups/categories from being in the economy.
Don't think that I'm pro-crime -- but only actual crime is crime. A transfer of funds itself is only sometimes a crime. You don't see the federal reserve trying to foil small-time drug deals in cash, and for good reason -- legitimate crimes should be investigated by law enforcement, not "prevented" at the whims of overeager corpos. It's not the payment processor's right or responsibility to prevent or they to predict crime, especially once they've built such a system as to become indispensable for most of us. If they are allowed to do that they will always do it the easy way -- blanket bans with massive collateral damage to non-criminals.
These companies should be disbanded and their systems should be handed over to the public. Hot take, I know, but I'm of the mind that transaction processing (much like air and water) should not be privatized. You may think at this point that I'm a crypto-head, but not really. It seemed promising at one point and may be still, but now it's perhaps permanently associated with unsavory types. I'll use it if it fits the purpose, but expecting the general public to use it as money is insanity. Crypto brought us part of the way there, but such a system can't really flourish in furtherance of the public good in the current environment -- even disregarding the bad PR.
Honestly, I am kinda expecting that with the way that America is becoming, something like Monero could become legitimized. There wasn't much reason for crypto to be a currency, so long as the world order remained orderly and useful to the everyday person.
Should the American Dollar collapse, there would be a howling void that must be filled - it could be Euros, the Yen, Monero, or something else entirely, but the opportunity would be there for currencies to change.
I understand the principle but why do gamers always choose the worst examples of something to rally behind. The stop killing games petition rallying around The Crew, which lasted 10 years and was a very average game, and now this with getting behind porn games to protest censorship.
The goal is to stop them building up any momentum. If the credit companies get used to flexing their power like this, and steam gets used to folding to it, then things will escalate.
Right now it's porn games. Who the hell would defend them. But it won't end there. You honestly don't think they would go after games that mock religion, or are trans positive?
Under the guidelines imposed by payment processors which were recently clarified by itch.io, Baldur's Gate 3 would be banned, as it contains moments of non-consensual sex and bestiality.
would you rather them do nothing? realistically for the vast majority of people they don't care enough to do more than this, and it's atleast SOMETHING to get the ball rolling
"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."
-Martin Niemöller, 1952
Obviously banning porn games isn't comparable to the holocaust, but the principle of defiance is the same. If we don't want credit card companies to ban stuff we like, then we should also oppose them when they ban stuff we don't care about.
I know it's downvote central, but I've been on the "No Porn on Steam" train forever. Ever since the introduction to the service it has inundated so much of the "Top Selling" "New & Trending" etc. Steam is for games, porn is for porn. Super annoying to sift through it when I'm looking for a new game, and I have my age settings so I can see adult games like GTA/Dishonored, not "Super Hentai Bejeweled 3000".
Do I want games that are specifically pornography on steam. No.
Well, some people do want that.
So, in compromise, Steam gives you the option of not seeing pornography. It even sets that option by default.
The only way you're ever going to see pornography is if you specifically check the 'Show Adult Only Sexual Content' in the Mature Content Filtering of Store Preferences in your Account Settings.
There should be a separate platform for that, similar to how you wouldn’t go on YouTube expecting to see videos from PornHub.
Why should there be a separate platform? If Steam wants to sell porn games then why should payment processors have any say at all? Amazon sells porn and sex toys, should they be required to split off that part of their business because 50 puritanical christians in Australia can spend all day spam calling Visa and Mastercard? It's nonsense, these people won't stop here. Visa and Mastercard should have ignored these people
In any case, that's just dodging the issue.
These games ARE available on other platforms, the Collective Voice group is targeting those platforms too.
Before you just shrug and say that it won't affect you because you don't play porn games. Collective Voice's idea of obscene games that shouldn't be for sale don't stop at porn. They have also pressured the major retailers in Australia to not carry GTA5. They'd see Steam shutdown entirely if they had their way.
If they don't want to see porn then Steam already takes care of that, no account has Adult Content enabled by default. Steam has parental controls ( help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/… ) so parents can prevent their children from seeing any content that they don't like. These people are not upset because they're seeing porn, they're upset because other people choose to see porn and they want to stop them.
That's not how we do things in a free society. You can make choices for yourself, you can't force your choices to apply other people.
As much as Steam is free to host what it likes, Visa and the others are free not to work with Steam. You could argue the options available to Steam would be significantly limited by that, but the same argument is being used against Steam now in the Wolfire lawsuit. The argument is that Steam violates antitrust law via illegal tying and other means, making it hard for a user who doesn't agree with their content policies to switch to a different platform, like Epic, which has always prohibited porn games.
I don't think a single person here is disputing the fact that they can legally do this. There's a lot of things that are legal which are immoral.
It isn't the payment processor's place, ESPECIALLY one that we have allowed to have a de facto monopoly on credit card processing, to use that position in order to dictate morality.
From a pragmatic perspective, they're playing with fire by giving in to small but vocal extremist groups. Public outcry on issues can result in laws and regulations which would limit how payment processors can operate. We could pass laws which make it illegal for a payment processor to refuse to process payments for otherwise legal transactions.
Ehat you said reminded me of Fate Stay Night, never played it, but the story was so good they made anime and manga for it, without the sex scenes of course.
One of the biggest problems is "what is porn?". Time and again a clear definition eludes us and it comes down to personal perception. What one group of people think is porn is not to a different group. Also something to think and reflect about, why are you okay with a store selling intense and graphic violence, but not sex?
Then we get to the fact that it isn't Steam calling the shots on this, not really. It is payment processors. The real outrage here is that Steam is not getting to decide what they do and don't sell, and it isn't a legal problem either. It is an arbitrary choice by the middle man monopoly. And there is nothing stopping their rules removing your ability to buy GTA or Dishonored next.
I think the backlash would be a lot less if this was truly a Steam decision. There would be people upset still, but I don't think to the same degree. The massive outrage is that stores all over, including as big as Steam, are being blackmailed into making these changes.
... and I have my age settings so I can see adult games like GTA/Dishonored, not “Super Hentai Bejeweled 3000”.
The former belong to the M rated category while the hypothetical latter would belong to the Adults Only category. As others have pointed out, you can hide adult games and still see other games with violence and mature themes. Steam classifies M-rated games and AO-rated games differently.
The article is saying the petition is targeting steam, but the actual linked petition is addressing credit card companies. The text of the petition doesn't mention steam or valve. I don't know what the author of the article thinks is happening here, and they've explained it very badly.
As of July 16, Steam's new guidelines state that game publishers should avoid releasing titles that may violate the terms and conditions of its payment processors. In other words, the storefront is asking creators to not only follow the platform's rules but also submit to potential oversight from companies like MasterCard, Visa, and PayPal.
and from the petition
MasterCard and Visa have increasingly used their financial control to pressure platforms into censoring legal fictional content
What you shouldn’t publish on Steam: ... 15. Content that may violate the rules and standards set forth by Steam’s payment processors and related card networks and banks, or internet network providers. In particular, certain kinds of adult only content.
Point number 15 was not there in a Snapshot from February on the wayback machine. If anything, the solution should just be to remove the payment method for those games (which would still hurt the creators substantially).
There is a line that is confusing:
In response to this censorship, some fans have launched a petition on Change.org urging Valve to revert its policies
There may be petitions about reverting Valve's policy, but it's not the main petition against Visa and MasterCard (which is the one they linked).
Replying my same comment from elsewhere to you as well:
Yes but the payment processors didn't say "you're not allowed to sell this game with our service" they said "you're not allowed to sell this game period or we walk".
I sort of think that the only way to make visa/mastercard reverse course is to boycott the fuck out of them. Go back to using cash to make EVERY purchase. Purchase physical copies of games every time with cash. (I've been able to link games to my steam account purchased this way.) No longer buy skins and loot crates, and battle passes. Same goes with media. Go back to hard CDs for music/movies. Starve them of income any place you can, which would fuck with the business models of so many other companies that want your debit and cc on file for streaming services and subscriptions.
Molte app come "Dov'è?" ci permettono di seguire i nostri cari in ogni momento. Ma solo perché possiamo, significa che dovremmo?
La possibilità di condividere la propria posizione sul cellulare è diventata un modo comune per tenere d'occhio amici, familiari e partner. Per alcuni, è diventato il simbolo di una relazione seria: l'anno scorso, il New York Times ha definito la condivisione della posizione "l'ultima frontiera delle espressioni digitali della coppia" e l'ha paragonata al "lancio ufficiale" di Instagram (l'annuncio ufficiale di una relazione tramite la pubblicazione di una foto del partner per la prima volta). Altri condividono la posizione per impulso e si ritrovano in grado di rintracciare la posizione di persone che non vedono di persona da anni.
Ma sebbene possa essere diventata la norma in certi ambienti, molti rimangono restii a quella che può sembrare un'ulteriore sorveglianza digitale. Solo perché abbiamo la possibilità di sapere dove si trovano i nostri cari in ogni momento, significa che dovremmo saperlo?
Vero, ma potrebbe essere utile, per esempio, in viaggio turistico, se ci si vuole dividere per vedere cose diverse, e poi ritrovarsi facilmente risparmiando telefonate o banda dati, soprattutto all'estero che costa! @membrointerno
That's what I was thinking, but I wasn't sure. I figured I'd ask op, since the post seems to be theirs.
As I'm writing this, I'm thinking maybe it's because Server is generally cli-first, and this post is geared towards a more noob audience, so they're going gui-first? If so, I appreciate the forethought.
Then do something like Fedora Server, which gives you a web GUI after a guided graphical setup. More user-friendly than ssh and managing everything through the terminal (though you can certainly still do that)
Unless you wanna run headless and do everything via SSH then desktop is better, its essentially identical to server, but with a GUI and some apps bundled by default - both of which new users and infrequent server admins generally need.
Thanks for pointing that out, I'll update it. I was looking for blog post material and posted a guide I previously wrote it for someone. I don't remember why exactly I wrote that at the time. To be honest I wasn't even sure if anyone would read it haha.
Don't sell yourself short. This guide has the very real potential to be invaluable to someone just starting out! It's a great guide! Just needs a little more of the "why" factor, is all : ) keep it up!
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Insurance company Allianz Life has confirmed that the personal information for the "majority" of its 1.4 million customers was exposed in a data breach that occurred earlier this month.
The man, anonymised in the ruling as HWMW, told Asio interviewers he did not view Israel as a foreign government and that he would share classified information with the IDF if asked
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
In our latest roundup of travel news: a new unwelcome American visa fee, how airlines fight the “scourge” of excess baggage, plus a guide to packing everything you need in a backpack.
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
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The investigation follows two January complaints that alleged the X algorithm had been used for foreign interference in French politics. The social media company last week denied the allegations, calling them 'politically motivated.'
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The Pacific island nation of Tuvalu could be submerged in 25 years due to rising sea levels, so a plan is being implemented to relocate its population to Australia.
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A wildfire has burned through a northern suburb of Athens, Greece, prompting evacuations. On Saturday, residents of Kryoneri received three SMS messages to evacuate to safe areas.
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Dutch security agency accuses Israel of attempting to influence politics, public opinion through disinformation, raising concerns of pressure on international justice institutions
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Dutch security agency accuses Israel of attempting to influence politics, public opinion through disinformation, raising concerns of pressure on international justice institutions - Anadolu Ajansı
These responses closely mirrored examples of the false claim from pro-China sources, which alleged that Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was suppressing opposition voters by deliberately withholding voter notifications.
There's two things at play here. First, all models being released these days have safety built into the training. In the West, we might focus on preventing people from harming others or hacking, and in China, they're preventing people from getting politically supportive of China. But in a way, we are all "exporting" our propaganda.
Second, as called out in the article, these responses are clearly based on the training data. That is where the misinformation starts, and you can't "fix" the problem without first fixing that data.
(...) The report details how the European Union (EU) uses the Digital Services Act (DSA) as a censorship tool that requires the world's largest social media platforms to engage in censorship of core political discourse in Europe, the United States, and around the world. The Committee obtained under subpoena nonpublic documents, including email communications between Commission staff and tech companies regarding "voluntary" codes of conduct and internal documents showing a recent May 2025 DSA Workshop that the Commission hosted with platforms behind closed doors.
The DSA incentivizes social media companies to comply with the EU's censorship demands because the penalties for failing to do so are massive, including fines up to six percent of their global revenue. If "extraordinary circumstances lead to a serious threat to public security or public health in the Union," regulators are even empowered to temporarily shut down platforms within the EU. The EU has explicitly stated that the DSA penalties are intended to be dissuasive to companies that would otherwise permit free speech and open political debate on their platforms.
The DSA is forcing companies to change their global content moderation policies. Nonpublic materials obtained by the Committee from the May 2025 workshop make clear that Commission regulators expect platforms to change their worldwide terms and conditions to comply with DSA obligations;
The DSA is being used to censor political speech, including humor and satire. Documents produced to the Committee under subpoena show that European censors target core political speech that is neither harmful nor illegal, attempting to stifle debate on topics such as immigration and the environment;
Exercises from the Commission's May 2025 workshop show the true definitions of key terms in the DSA and Commission regulators' censorship expectations of social media platforms. For example, the Commission's workshop labeled a hypothetical social media post stating "we need to take back our country"—a common, anodyne political statement—as "illegal hate speech" that platforms are required to censor under the DSA;
The censorship is largely one-sided, almost uniformly targeting political conservatives.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, House Judiciary Committee Republicans released an interim staff report titled, "The Foreign Censorship Threat: How the European Union’s Digital Services Act Compels Global Cen
Amazon removed its entire Google Shopping advertising presence across multiple global markets between July 21 and July 23, 2025, according to industry analysts tracking the unprecedented move. The e-commerce giant's median Shopping ad impression share crashed to zero percent across major territories: from approximately 60% to 0% in the United States, 55% to 0% in the United Kingdom, and 38% to 0% in Germany.
The DSA is forcing companies to change their global content moderation policies. Nonpublic materials obtained by the Committee from the May 2025 workshop make clear that Commission regulators expect platforms to change their worldwide terms and conditions to comply with DSA obligations;
The DSA is being used to censor political speech, including humor and satire. Documents produced to the Committee under subpoena show that European censors target core political speech that is neither harmful nor illegal, attempting to stifle debate on topics such as immigration and the environment;
Exercises from the Commission's May 2025 workshop show the true definitions of key terms in the DSA and Commission regulators' censorship expectations of social media platforms. For example, the Commission's workshop labeled a hypothetical social media post stating "we need to take back our country"—a common, anodyne political statement—as "illegal hate speech" that platforms are required to censor under the DSA;
The censorship is largely one-sided, almost uniformly targeting political conservatives.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, House Judiciary Committee Republicans released an interim staff report titled, "The Foreign Censorship Threat: How the European Union’s Digital Services Act Compels Global Cen
The European Commission presented guidelines on the protection of minors from the risks of addiction, abuse and exposure to harmful content. Vice-President Virkkunen: "Platforms have no more excuses"
From July 21, video platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram must implement robust age checks across the EU or face fines up to €20 million or 10% of global revenue.
I said it the other day when the UK mandate just went into force and Reddit started having people in the UK required to take pictures of their IDs to get access to NSFW subreddits: if you get people used to having websites demand photos of identity documents, I strongly suspect you are gonna have some serious fraud --- and privacy --- issues down the line when less-than-salubrious websites start getting people to take and hand over identity document photos.
On Friday, Tea said that hackers had breached a data storage system, exposing about 72,000 images, including selfies and photo identifications of its users.
Data from the hack, including photos of women and of identification cards containing personal details, appeared to circulate online on Friday.
That was yesterday. I seriously doubt that this is going to be the last time something like this happens.
This is different. It's a EU gov app that gives your website a zero-knowledge proof of age. Basically the only info they get is a "yes" or maybe the age itself. This is much better than what you describe, but I'm not familiar with the way the UK system works today.
Io sono arrivato da poco su Lemmy da reddit(reddit.com/u/CleoCommunist/s/O…). Ho trovato questa comunità, e mi sembrava il luogo perfetto per capire un po' come funziona Lemmy e conoscere nuova gente. 😀
A PowerPoint presentation made public by the Post claims that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) used the AI tool to make “decisions on 1,083 regulatory sections”, while the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau used it to write “100% of deregulations”.
The Post spoke to three HUD employees who told the newspaper AI had been “recently used to review hundreds, if not more than 1,000, lines of regulations”.
Oh, good. Everything was feeling a little too calm, so of course they're doing this right fucking now.
If it makes you feel any better, I'm pretty sure the God Father of the new right, who created the Heritage Foundation and is responsible for the existence of the project 2025 obsession with deregulation and dismantling of the current federal government, was inspired by your gang and kinda fell for believing he was actually saving them from communism and converting them into a nation of free market Christian capitalists. (Except as you probably know, his idea of a free market just meant freely controlled by those in power while removing any public regulations or protections)
Anyone who says "regulation is bad" is attacking the problem with too blunt an instrument. It depends which regulation, who it serves, and how well it has worked and can be expected to go on working. The urge to get rid of regulations is either driven by corrupt profiteering or by an ideology that's too crude for the real world.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau used it to write “100% of deregulations”.
Doesn't sound like very good protection. It should be illegal to use "AI" like this, making critical decisions with a technology well known for making massive errors is so fucking stupid I can't even.
That would require the people trying to pass laws to deregulate AI to stop trying to pass laws to deregulate AI. But no, that's not what we want. We want more money going to the top while paying fewer people along the way.
With the way Xitter "reprogrammed" new results from Gr0ck, I wouldn't be surprised if they're just copying and pasting from project 2025 and telling whichever LLM to reword everything into legalese so that they can claim ignorance on how their laws are killing their voters.
Plenty of people know what's up. The ones not learning the lessons are sociopaths who serve only themselves (and they know too but they don't care), society's most ignorant and gullible, and people so consumed with resentment that they've lost all purpose but to hurt.
I mean, what do they have to lose? Just a little wasted time subpoenaing some CEOs and acting flabbergasted while they blatantly lie about not knowing what was going on.
And then politicians using the insane logic of, "if you didn't know this would fuck everyone, then why'd you let us buy it to fuck people???"
No, they did not use an algorithm to make the decisions. They are making the choices, but, being the feckless cowards they are, they're actually trying to set it up so they can hide behind a fucking computer program.
In a change from the book and film, the television series had the city secretly run by a cabal of older citizens who promised Francis a life beyond the age of 30 as a city elder if he can capture the fugitives.
It is the second thing. They could just delete the regulations they don't like outright, inserting AI into the process is just to pretend it was some logical process.
The Times has identified more than 70 people within the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, a group formed by Elon Musk that in a short few weeks has radically upended federal agencies.
Imagine a junior dev called "Big Balls" starting up Claude Code and telling it "Hey I need you to make this app great, remove all unnecessary code" and then just accepting whatever it proposes. This is an app with no unit tests, no dev environment, running in production, and if it crashes people die in concentration camps.
These companies will use the lowest possible bitrate with the newest possible codecs to balance quality and bandwidth. They will also default to a medium quality when it comes to picking audio quality.
I’d say they are doing their best already just to save bandwidth costs.
Just look at YouTube and how they set the video quality (resolution) as low as they can get away with.
European average carbon footprint for video streaming as producing 55g of CO₂e per hour. This CO₂e or carbon dioxide equivalent is a comparable measure of the potential effect of different greenhouse gases on the climate: 55g of CO₂e is 50 times more than audio streaming and the equivalent of microwaving four bags of popcorn
What the fuck is this article? This is not helpful in any way. Yeah du-doy the thing that uses electricity "creates" carbon. How bout we remove fossil fuels from the grid then?
1.1g per hour is ridiculously efficient. An average meal in the Western world is ~3Kg.
To minimise the environmental footprint of your own music streaming, use Wi-Fi rather than 4G or 5G. If you listen to a song repeatedly, purchase a download to play. Use localised storage rather than cloud-based systems for all of your music and video files. Reduce auto-play, aimless background streaming or using streaming as a sleep aid by changing the default settings on your device including reducing streaming resolution. And turn your camera off for video calls, as carbon emissions are 25 times more than for audio only.
Lol no I won't.
What a stupid, bizarre and illogical article. It clearly shows that the key is in moving to renewables yet it still argues for the users also doing this sort of tiny useless gestures. I suspect it's AI-written at least in part.
You do realize that it's harder to move to renewables if the energy required keeps increasing? Higher bandwidth usage requires expansion of internet infrastructure to account for peak usage which increases the amount of energy used, not only for the manufactured hardware (which will likely turn to e-waste at some point) but also to keep the infrastructure running. I highly recommend reading research about the sustainability of the internet.
No, since the article doesn't mention anything of that sort. I really, really doubt that in the world of crypto mining and AI training the average people streaming some music and music videos will make a substantial difference. Your degrowth-oriented approach sounds like it would just solidify the already highly monopolised market, as any new players or innovation can be met with the "wastes too much bandwidth" hammer, as is this new service by Spotify right here.
I highly recommend reading research about the sustainability of the internet.
Decarbonising electricity would substantially mitigate the climate impacts linked to Internet consumption, while the use of mineral and metal resources would remain of concern. A synergistic combination of rapid decarbonisation and additional measures aimed at reducing the use of fresh raw materials in electronic devices (e.g., lifetime extension) is paramount to prevent the growing Internet demand from exacerbating the pressure on the finite Earth’s carrying capacity.
Sounds good to me! With no mention of having to limit our internet usage.
And if reducing bandwidth waste really were that important, it would have go both ways anyway, with the providers optimising their content (probably forced to do so by regulations in some way).
Sounds good to me! With no mention of having to limit our internet usage.
You don't have the power to decarbonize all electricity or to create and enforce laws to reduce the rate of e-waste. Until this changes, you have the power to limit your bandwidth usage, which is something that would result in less e-waste and less energy usage (and inherently less carbon emissions since all electricity isn't decarbonized). You're essentially saying "the paper says you can fix the problem in the future so I don't give a fuck about the problem now", which is not very bright.
And if reducing bandwidth waste really were that important, it would have go both ways anyway, with the providers optimising their content (probably forced to do so by regulations in some way).
My god. This might be the most naive thing I've ever read. This would be like saying "if carbon emissions were really that bad, oil and coal would be illegal". Guess what? The climate will be (and has already been) irreversibly damaged if we don't drastically reduce the amount of carbon fuel being used and no regulations have successfully come close to getting the necessary drastic reduction. Turns out everything that's bad doesn't magically get solved by regulations, especially when rich companies which rely on e.g. carbon fuel and bandwidth have major influence over politics due to their massive amount of resources.
You don’t have the power to decarbonize all electricity
From the article:
Location also affects how carbon emissions are managed. Germany has the largest carbon footprint for video streaming at 76g CO₂e per hour of streaming, reflecting its continued reliance on coal and fossil fuels. In the UK, this figure is 48g CO₂e per hour, because its energy mix includes renewables and natural gas, increasingly with nuclear as central to the UK’s low-carbon future. France, with a reliance on nuclear is the lowest, at 10g CO₂e per hour.
This is a massive difference, and clearly doable, nothing that would be limited to the distant future.
So I get this right? I'm naive for expecting govt regulations to put companies' behaviour under control, whereas you're realistic by expecting hundreds of millions of people deciding to systematically minimise their Youtube/Tiktok/Spotify/Netflix/Zoom usage? Hmm, alright.
And yet in an another comment you also expect that Spotify shouldn't introduce video streaming, without any external regulation but out of pure goodness of their hearts?
Fernando Maia estas la nova prezidanto de UEA. La komitato de la asocio dum sia unua kunsido en Brno elektis novan estraron. La komitato sekvis la rekomendon de la elekta komisiono, krom ke anstataŭ Istvan Szabolcs post du voĉdonadoj estis elektita François Lo Jacomo. Amri Wandel ne ricevis sufiĉe da voĉoj por denove eniri la estraron.
Hi, I'm building a homelab watercooled unix server. I don't want to buy expensive overpriced pre-mixes from ekwb or aquatuning. What cooling solution do datacenters use for water cooling?
is liquid ~~cooking~~ cooling really necessary? critical data centers I have worked in use swamp coolers. cheaper, more efficient, more reliable, uses same water as your house...
Are you sure they use swamp coolers? Also known as evaporative coolers, they add moisture into dry air, making the air they are cooling very humid and only slightly cooler.
Practically all even semi-modern DCs are built for servers themselves to be air cooled. The air itself is cooled via a heat exchanger with a separate and isolated chiller and cooling tower. The isolated chiller is essentially the swamp cooler, but it's isolated from the servers.
There are cases where servers are directly liquid cooled, but it's mostly just the recent Nvidia GPUs and niche things like high-frequency-trading and crypto ASICs.
All this said... For the longest time I water cooled my home lab's compute server because I thought it was necessary to reduce noise. But, with proper airflow and a good tower cooler, you can get basically just as quiet. All without the maintenance and risk of water, pumps, tubing, etc.
Industrial cooling towers are usually evaporative in my experience, smaller ones are large fans moving air over a stack of slats that the return water is sprayed or piped over and the collects in well for recirculation, larger ones afaik (like what you'd see at power plants) operate the same idea. Top ups and water chemistry is all automated.
Those systems have operation wide cooling loops that individual pieces of equipment tap into, some stuff uses it directly (see that with things like industrial furnaces) but smaller stuff or stuff that's sensitive you'll see heat exchangers and even then the server & PLC rooms were all air cooled, the air cons for them were all tied into the cooling water loops though.
From a maintenance POV though, way easier to air cool, totally seen motor drive racks with failed cooling fans that have had really powerful external blowers rigged up to keep them going to the next maintenance window. Yeah, industrial POV but similar idea.
If you are willing to deal with potential galvanic corrosion, condensation, leaks, replacing fluid every now and then and so on I suppose you could use red or yellow radiator coolant from your local car service shop. It has all the properties you'll want from a coolant liquid, but as others have already mentioned, it's not really worth the hassle. Atleast if you're not running something really power hungry, like GPU farm. And even with liquid you have the very same problems than air, you need the heat to go somewhere. So either have very long pipes (and pumps to match them) so you can have the radiator on a different room/outside or big fans to move the hot air away from radiator.
I hate that tech YouTubers have made people think they need liquid cooling and RGB to do anything PC related. You don't need to liquid cool your homelab. Period.
You don't, but it's considerably quieter to use a liquid cooler on current high-end CPUs because of the amount of heat they dissipate. My current CPU has a considerably higher TDP than my last desktop's. I finally broke down and put an AIO cooler on the new one, and all the fans on the radiator can run at a much lower speed than my last CPU because the radiator is a lot larger than one hanging directly off the CPU, can dump heat to the air a lot more readily.
The GPU on that system, which doesn't use liquid cooling, has to have multiple slots and a supporting rail to support the weight because it has a huge heatsink hanging on a PCI slot that was never intended to support that kind of load, and the fans are far more spun up when it heats up.
The amount of power involved these days is getting pretty high. My early PCs could manage with entirely passive cooling, just a heatsink. Today, the above CPU dumps 250W and the above GPU 400W. I have a small space heater in the same room that, on low, runs at 400W.
Frankly, if I had a convenient mounting point in the case for the radiator, with the benefit of hindsight, I'd seriously have considered sticking an AIO liquid-cooled GPU in there --- there are a few manufacturers that do those. The GPU is a lot louder than the CPU when both are spun up.
I will kind of agree on the RGB LEDs, though. It's getting obnoxiously difficult to find desktop hardware that doesn't have those. My last build, I was having difficulty finding DIMMs that didn't have RGB LEDs; not normally a component that I think of anyone wanting to make visible.
I'm kind of wondering whether we'll get to the point where one just has a standard attachment point for liquid and just hooks the hardware's attachment into a larger system that circulates fluid. Datacenters would become quiet places.
What cooling solution do datacenters use for water cooling?
They typically don't. The servers are air cooled and the room is conditioned with a Liebert or similar HVAC system. Liquid cooling servers is not practical or warranted for most situations.
Expanding on that, direct water cooling becomes more common the higher power density the racks are.
So as you get into 35kW+ racks it becomes the only way to get that much heat out, lots of GPU compute racks are water cooled by default now, the El Capitan super computer is entirely cooled through direct liquid interfaces, for example.
In ours, the coolant is referred to as "PG25" (distilled water with 25% propylene glycol, plus corrosion inhibitors and other additives). It's widely available, and pre-mixed so it just gets poured straight in.
Your problem is going to be quantity. it might be cheaper per unit, but buying less than a 200 litre drum (if not a 1000 litre IBC) will prove to be a challenge.
Microsoft says it will no longer use China-based engineers to support the Pentagon. But ProPublica found that the tech giant has relied on its global workforce for years to support other federal clients, including the Justice Department.
That is why after the vision of this meme appeared in my head I was forced to banish it from my imagination by making it real in as halfassed fashion as possible.
Grembo materno dell’hip hop che ha dato i natali a suo padre, New York è oggi nonna saggia e affaticata di una delle voci più promettenti del neo soul: Yaya Bey.
Grembo materno dell’hip hop che ha dato i natali a suo padre, New York è oggi nonna saggia e affaticata di una delle voci più promettenti del neo soul: Yaya Bey.
I have quite an old LCD monitor and wanted to buy a new one for quite some time. But I was planning to travel and wouldn't be able to bring the monitor with me. Then a friend of mine shared an article with an intriguing title: I ditched my laptop for a pocketable mini PC and a pair of AR glasses.
I had never heard of AR glasses before. Turns out they're basically a "dumb" monitor with a USB‑C connection, but the image is projected into your eyes, so it looks like it's floating. No additional software is required, and I can take it anywhere with me. So I decided to order one. The same friend later asked me for a review, but I decided to post it here and just share the link - maybe someone else will also find it useful.
Impressions
I went for the Xreal One. They are quite pricy, but I wanted to try something cutting-edge. There's also a Pro version, but according to this review on Reddit and review on YouTube, it has several drawbacks - mainly reduced sharpness, which is important for coding.
The glasses aren't as comfortable as regular sunglasses — they're a little bit heavier, but I got used to them. They also generate quite a bit of heat on the top part of the frame. It can cause slight discomfort when it touches face, but I've gotten used to wearing them properly to avoid that.
They have three levels of electrochromatic dimming (the lenses physically get darker). On the lowest setting (disabled), it's not fully transparent — more like a sunglasses with a slight dimming. At the maximum level, it's extremely dark; even in a well‑lit room I can't see what's on the edges. With dimming disabled, it looks the coolest — like an actual floating screen with a bit of transparency. But the darkening is useful for a more immersive experience since it removes that transparency. They also have "Auto transparency" option that automatically disables dimming when you turn your head away from the screen. Also, the brighter the room is, the more noticeable the reflection on the bottom of the glasses due to the lens's prism design. It's not an issue with the Pro version, but I didn't find it distracting at all, even in a well-lit room.
The screen is great. From video reviews, I was a bit worried that the colors would look like from a projector, but it's just impossible to capture this properly on camera. In reality, the colors are nice. They also allow you to configure the color temperature, and I found the coldest setting the most comfortable. The picture isn't very sharp — there's a bit of motion blur when I move my head around, and thin red or pink text on a black background looks slightly off. I think it's a limitation of the technology, plus the screen is only 1080p. But it's not as bad as it sounds — I can still use it comfortably for coding.
By default, the screen is 16:9 with 120Hz, but you can switch to 32:9 or 21:9 with 60Hz. I use 16:9 for gaming and 32:9 for productivity — 32:9 is so large, it's like two monitors glued together. I usually keep my browser on one side and something else on the other. I also love playing retro games, and I can say that 4:3 content looks great. Since the screen is OLED, the black pixels don't emit any light, so the letterboxes fully transparent.
However, it's not the same as having an actual ultra‑wide monitor. The screen doesn't fill the entire surface of the glasses — that's what the FOV is about. On my model, it's 50 degrees, which is quite large. But in ultra‑wide mode, I still have to rotate my head to see the other half of the screen. So there's no peripheral vision like there would be on an actual ultra‑wide monitor. Also, other people can't see what you're seeing, even if they're close — which can be both a good and a bad thing.
You can also configure how far the screen appears — anywhere from 1m to 10m — and its size in inches. There are five size levels, and the values depend on the selected distance and whether ultra‑wide mode is enabled. I usually use 1m for productivity and 4m for gaming and multimedia. My preferred size is the "middle" (third) level, which is designed to fit the entire screen without me needing to rotate my head (except when ultra‑wide mode is enabled). For 1m these sizes are 35″ for 16:9 and 64″ for 32:9; at 4m they're 140″ and 255″ respectively. The large screen feels very immersive — it's like being in a cinema.
The glasses also have three view modes: - Anchor. I can rotate my head freely and The screen stays fixed in space. However, if I walk around, the screen moves with me (which is what 3 DoF means). This is the mode I use most of the time. - Follow. The screen rotates along with your head. I don't use this mode much. - Side view. Similar to Follow, but the screen is positioned in the corner. I use it when I'm doing chores and want to watch something. They also have a stabilizer enabled by default, which smooths the screen movement when you move your head.
To use the glasses, you need a USB‑C video output. My motherboard supports it, but to enable it I had to connect my video card to the motherboard via DisplayPort. I never heard about a connection like this before, but it's from my motherboard manual. It does make sense, though — the GPU provides the video output, and the motherboard wouldn't know about it otherwise. Software‑wise, it works out of the box with my KDE Plasma setup on Arch Linux. The only issue I'm noticing is some small visual glitches for the first few seconds after connecting. On PC I use it together with my regular monitor. The mentioned "Auto transparency" pairs nicely with it. However, it's not perfect, since I'm still looking at the second screen through what's basically a pair of light sunglasses. So I usually don't put anything important on it.
As for phones, neither mine nor my wife's supports video output. But from reviews, I think it wouldn't be very convenient to use with a phone anyway. First, the phone's screen has to stay on, otherwise the glasses won't display anything. Second, you can't interact with the phone through the glasses, so you have to look at the phone itself.
But I found a great option to use the glasses with. I have a Retroid Pocket Flip 2 — a pocketable retro console that runs Android and supports video output. Unlike a regular phone, it automatically turns off its built‑in display when a second screen is connected. It also has physical controls, so I don't need to use a touchscreen. The Android UI isn't perfect for a gamepad, but it works. Streaming to it also works great because, even though the screen is disabled, the touch input still works — so it basically becomes a touchpad. Since the device is a clamshell, I sometimes use an 8BitDo Micro as an input device to avoid opening it, which is especially convenient for quickly pausing videos. This gamepad can also act as a keyboard via a special switch on it, so it works nicely when I stream from my PC too.
I also have a Steam Deck, but there's not much to add — it just works without any issue.
The glasses also have built-in speakers. I like their design: you don't put anything inside your ears — the speakers are integrated into the frame near where your ears are, so they kind of "whisper" to you. Others can hear them only at high volume. This affects the sound quality, so music doesn't sound as good as on quality headphones, but I think it's a worthy compromise. And it's still possible to wear regular headphones with the glasses.
They also have a shortcut button on the frame. I assigned screen off on regular press and ultra-wide mode on hold.
The firmware is proprietary, but it doesn't use the internet. And what I liked is that updates are installed through a web browser. However, it has to be a Chromium‑based browser on Windows or Mac. Luckily, I have a dual‑boot, so I rebooted to update the firmware. The update added support for 16:9, so it looks like it's not just for bug fixes.
The glasses can be equipped with prescription lenses, but I wear contact lenses and those work as well.
They also have a camera add‑on called Xreal Eye. It's a small camera that unlocks 6 DoF tracking and can also take photos and record videos. The media is stored directly on the glasses, which have 2GB of space, and can later be transferred to a phone or PC over a cable. I haven't bought it yet, but I'm considering it since I'm interested in having 6 DoF.
Conclusion
I love these glasses, it's easily my favorite portable option. It's a huge screen I can take anywhere with me. I don't mind that it's only 1080p, none of my portable devices can fully handle 4k anyway.
Since they are better then my current monitor, I use them with my PC too. But I don't think it's a proper replacement. If you don't need portability, regular screen will be better and cheaper.
I have quite an old LCD monitor and wanted to buy a new one for quite some time. But I was planning to travel and wouldn't be able to bring the monitor with me. Then a friend of mine shared an article with an intriguing title: I ditched my laptop for a pocketable mini PC and a pair of AR glasses.
I had never heard of AR glasses before. Turns out they're basically a "dumb" monitor with a USB‑C connection, but the image is projected into your eyes, so it looks like it's floating. No additional software is required, and I can take it anywhere with me. So I decided to order one. The same friend later asked me for a review, but I decided to post it here and just share the link - maybe someone else will also find it useful.
Impressions
I went for the Xreal One. They are quite pricy, but I wanted to try something cutting-edge. There's also a Pro version, but according to this review on Reddit and review on YouTube, it has several drawbacks - mainly reduced sharpness, which is important for coding.
The glasses aren't as comfortable as regular sunglasses — they're a little bit heavier, but I got used to them. They also generate quite a bit of heat on the top part of the frame. It can cause slight discomfort when it touches face, but I've gotten used to wearing them properly to avoid that. I can wear them for quite a long time, but I wouldn't use them for 100% of my screen time.
They have three levels of electrochromatic dimming (the lenses physically get darker). On the lowest setting (disabled), it's not fully transparent — more like a sunglasses with a slight dimming. At the maximum level, it's extremely dark; even in a well‑lit room I can't see what's on the edges. With dimming disabled, it looks the coolest — like an actual floating screen with a bit of transparency. But the darkening is useful for a more immersive experience since it removes that transparency. They also have "Auto transparency" option that automatically disables dimming when you turn your head away from the screen. Also, the brighter the room is, the more noticeable the reflection on the bottom of the glasses due to the lens's prism design. It's not an issue with the Pro version, but I didn't find it distracting at all, even in a well-lit room.
The screen is great. From video reviews, I was a bit worried that the colors would look like from a projector, but it's just impossible to capture this properly on camera. In reality, the colors are nice. They also allow you to configure the color temperature, and I found the coldest setting the most comfortable. The picture isn't very sharp — there's a bit of motion blur when I move my head around, and thin red or pink text on a black background looks slightly off. I think it's a limitation of the technology, plus the screen is only 1080p. But it's not as bad as it sounds — I can still use it comfortably for coding.
By default, the screen is 16:9 with 120Hz, but you can switch to 32:9 or 21:9 with 60Hz. I use 16:9 for gaming and 32:9 for productivity — 32:9 is so large, it's like two monitors glued together. I usually keep my browser on one side and something else on the other. I also love playing retro games, and I can say that 4:3 content looks great. Since the screen is OLED, the black pixels don't emit any light, so the letterboxes fully transparent.
However, it's not the same as having an actual ultra‑wide monitor. The screen doesn't fill the entire surface of the glasses — that's what the FOV is about. On my model, it's 50 degrees, which is quite large. But in ultra‑wide mode, I still have to rotate my head to see the other half of the screen. So there's no peripheral vision like there would be on an actual ultra‑wide monitor. Also, other people can't see what you're seeing, even if they're close — which can be both a good and a bad thing.
You can also configure how far the screen appears — anywhere from 1m to 10m — and its size in inches. There are five size levels, and the values depend on the selected distance and whether ultra‑wide mode is enabled. I usually use 1m for productivity and 4m for gaming and multimedia. My preferred size is the "middle" (third) level, which is designed to fit the entire screen without me needing to rotate my head (except when ultra‑wide mode is enabled). For 1m these sizes are 35″ for 16:9 and 64″ for 32:9; at 4m they're 140″ and 255″ respectively. The large screen feels very immersive — it's like being in a cinema.
The glasses also have three view modes: - Anchor. I can rotate my head freely and The screen stays fixed in space. However, if I walk around, the screen moves with me (which is what 3 DoF means). This is the mode I use most of the time. - Follow. The screen rotates along with your head. I don't use this mode much. - Side view. Similar to Follow, but the screen is positioned in the corner. I use it when I'm doing chores and want to watch something. They also have a stabilizer enabled by default, which smooths the screen movement when you move your head.
To use the glasses, you need a USB‑C video output. My motherboard supports it, but to enable it I had to connect my video card to the motherboard via DisplayPort. I never heard about a connection like this before, but it's from my motherboard manual. It does make sense, though — the GPU provides the video output, and the motherboard wouldn't know about it otherwise. Software‑wise, it works out of the box with my KDE Plasma setup on Arch Linux. The only issue I'm noticing is some small visual glitches for the first few seconds after connecting. On PC I use it together with my regular monitor. The mentioned "Auto transparency" pairs nicely with it. However, it's not perfect, since I'm still looking at the second screen through what's basically a pair of light sunglasses. So I usually don't put anything important on it.
As for phones, neither mine nor my wife's supports video output. But from reviews, I think it wouldn't be very convenient to use with a phone anyway. First, the phone's screen has to stay on, otherwise the glasses won't display anything. Second, you can't interact with the phone through the glasses, so you have to look at the phone itself.
But I found a great option to use the glasses with. I have a Retroid Pocket Flip 2 — a pocketable retro console that runs Android and supports video output. Unlike a regular phone, it automatically turns off its built‑in display when a second screen is connected. It also has physical controls, so I don't need to use a touchscreen. The Android UI isn't perfect for a gamepad, but it works. Streaming to it also works great because, even though the screen is disabled, the touch input still works — so it basically becomes a touchpad. Since the device is a clamshell, I sometimes use an 8BitDo Micro as an input device to avoid opening it, which is especially convenient for quickly pausing videos. This gamepad can also act as a keyboard via a special switch on it, so it works nicely when I stream from my PC too.
I also have a Steam Deck, but there's not much to add — it just works without any issue.
The glasses also have built-in speakers. I like their design: you don't put anything inside your ears — the speakers are integrated into the frame near where your ears are, so they kind of "whisper" to you. Others can hear them only at high volume. This affects the sound quality, so music doesn't sound as good as on quality headphones, but I think it's a worthy compromise. And it's still possible to wear regular headphones with the glasses.
They also have a shortcut button on the frame. I assigned screen off on regular press and ultra-wide mode on hold.
The firmware is proprietary, but it doesn't use the internet. And what I liked is that updates are installed through a web browser. However, it has to be a Chromium‑based browser on Windows or Mac. Luckily, I have a dual‑boot, so I rebooted to update the firmware. The update added support for 16:9, so it looks like it's not just for bug fixes.
The glasses can be equipped with prescription lenses, but I wear contact lenses and those work as well.
They also have a camera add‑on called Xreal Eye. It's a small camera that unlocks 6 DoF tracking and can also take photos and record videos. The media is stored directly on the glasses, which have 2GB of space, and can later be transferred to a phone or PC over a cable. I haven't bought it yet, but I'm considering it since I'm interested in having 6 DoF.
Conclusion
I love these glasses, it's easily my favorite portable option. It's a huge screen I can take anywhere with me and put where I want. I don't mind that it's only 1080p, none of my portable devices can fully handle 4k anyway.
Since they are better then my current monitor, I use them with my PC too. But I don't think it's a proper replacement. If you don't need portability, regular screen will be better and cheaper.
I have quite an old LCD monitor and wanted to buy a new one for quite some time. But I was planning to travel and wouldn't be able to bring the monitor with me. Then a friend of mine shared an article with an intriguing title: I ditched my laptop for a pocketable mini PC and a pair of AR glasses.
I had never heard of AR glasses before. Turns out they're basically a "dumb" monitor with a USB‑C connection, but the image is projected into your eyes, so it looks like it's floating. No additional software is required, and I can take it anywhere with me. So I decided to order one. The same friend later asked me for a review, but I decided to post it here and just share the link - maybe someone else will also find it useful.
Impressions
I went for the Xreal One. They are quite pricy, but I wanted to try something cutting-edge. There's also a Pro version, but according to this review on Reddit and review on YouTube, it has several drawbacks - mainly reduced sharpness, which is important for coding.
The glasses aren't as comfortable as regular sunglasses — they're a little bit heavier, but I got used to them. They also generate quite a bit of heat on the top part of the frame. It can cause slight discomfort when it touches face, but I've gotten used to wearing them properly to avoid that.
They have three levels of electrochromatic dimming (the lenses physically get darker). On the lowest setting (disabled), it's not fully transparent — more like a sunglasses with a slight dimming. At the maximum level, it's extremely dark; even in a well‑lit room I can't see what's on the edges. With dimming disabled, it looks the coolest — like an actual floating screen with a bit of transparency. But the darkening is useful for a more immersive experience since it removes that transparency. They also have "Auto transparency" option that automatically disables dimming when you turn your head away from the screen. Also, the brighter the room is, the more noticeable the reflection on the bottom of the glasses due to the lens's prism design. It's not an issue with the Pro version, but I didn't find it distracting at all, even in a well-lit room.
The screen is great. From video reviews, I was a bit worried that the colors would look like from a projector, but it's just impossible to capture this properly on camera. In reality, the colors are nice. They also allow you to configure the color temperature, and I found the coldest setting the most comfortable. The picture isn't very sharp — there's a bit of motion blur when I move my head around, and thin red or pink text on a black background looks slightly off. I think it's a limitation of the technology, plus the screen is only 1080p. But it's not as bad as it sounds — I can still use it comfortably for coding.
By default, the screen is 16:9 with 120Hz, but you can switch to 32:9 or 21:9 with 60Hz. I use 16:9 for gaming and 32:9 for productivity — 32:9 is so large, it's like two monitors glued together. I usually keep my browser on one side and something else on the other. I also love playing retro games, and I can say that 4:3 content looks great. Since the screen is OLED, the black pixels don't emit any light, so the letterboxes fully transparent.
However, it's not the same as having an actual ultra‑wide monitor. The screen doesn't fill the entire surface of the glasses — that's what the FOV is about. On my model, it's 50 degrees, which is quite large. But in ultra‑wide mode, I still have to rotate my head to see the other half of the screen. So there's no peripheral vision like there would be on an actual ultra‑wide monitor. Also, other people can't see what you're seeing, even if they're close — which can be both a good and a bad thing.
You can also configure how far the screen appears — anywhere from 1m to 10m — and its size in inches. There are five size levels, and the values depend on the selected distance and whether ultra‑wide mode is enabled. I usually use 1m for productivity and 4m for gaming and multimedia. My preferred size is the "middle" (third) level, which is designed to fit the entire screen without me needing to rotate my head (except when ultra‑wide mode is enabled). For 1m these sizes are 35″ for 16:9 and 64″ for 32:9; at 4m they're 140″ and 255″ respectively. The large screen feels very immersive — it's like being in a cinema.
The glasses also have three view modes: - Anchor. I can rotate my head freely and The screen stays fixed in space. However, if I walk around, the screen moves with me (which is what 3 DoF means). This is the mode I use most of the time. - Follow. The screen rotates along with your head. I don't use this mode much. - Side view. Similar to Follow, but the screen is positioned in the corner. I use it when I'm doing chores and want to watch something. They also have a stabilizer enabled by default, which smooths the screen movement when you move your head.
To use the glasses, you need a USB‑C video output. My motherboard supports it, but to enable it I had to connect my video card to the motherboard via DisplayPort. I never heard about a connection like this before, but it's from my motherboard manual. It does make sense, though — the GPU provides the video output, and the motherboard wouldn't know about it otherwise. Software‑wise, it works out of the box with my KDE Plasma setup on Arch Linux. The only issue I'm noticing is some small visual glitches for the first few seconds after connecting. On PC I use it together with my regular monitor. The mentioned "Auto transparency" pairs nicely with it. However, it's not perfect, since I'm still looking at the second screen through what's basically a pair of light sunglasses. So I usually don't put anything important on it.
As for phones, neither mine nor my wife's supports video output. But from reviews, I think it wouldn't be very convenient to use with a phone anyway. First, the phone's screen has to stay on, otherwise the glasses won't display anything. Second, you can't interact with the phone through the glasses, so you have to look at the phone itself.
But I found a great option to use the glasses with. I have a Retroid Pocket Flip 2 — a pocketable retro console that runs Android and supports video output. Unlike a regular phone, it automatically turns off its built‑in display when a second screen is connected. It also has physical controls, so I don't need to use a touchscreen. The Android UI isn't perfect for a gamepad, but it works. Streaming to it also works great because, even though the screen is disabled, the touch input still works — so it basically becomes a touchpad. Since the device is a clamshell, I sometimes use an 8BitDo Micro as an input device to avoid opening it, which is especially convenient for quickly pausing videos. This gamepad can also act as a keyboard via a special switch on it, so it works nicely when I stream from my PC too.
I also have a Steam Deck, but there's not much to add — it just works without any issue.
The glasses also have built-in speakers. I like their design: you don't put anything inside your ears — the speakers are integrated into the frame near where your ears are, so they kind of "whisper" to you. Others can hear them only at high volume. This affects the sound quality, so music doesn't sound as good as on quality headphones, but I think it's a worthy compromise. And it's still possible to wear regular headphones with the glasses.
They also have a shortcut button on the frame. I assigned screen off on regular press and ultra-wide mode on hold.
The firmware is proprietary, but it doesn't use the internet. And what I liked is that updates are installed through a web browser. However, it has to be a Chromium‑based browser on Windows or Mac. Luckily, I have a dual‑boot, so I rebooted to update the firmware. The update added support for 16:9, so it looks like it's not just for bug fixes.
The glasses can be equipped with prescription lenses, but I wear contact lenses and those work as well.
They also have a camera add‑on called Xreal Eye. It's a small camera that unlocks 6 DoF tracking and can also take photos and record videos. The media is stored directly on the glasses, which have 2GB of space, and can later be transferred to a phone or PC over a cable. I haven't bought it yet, but I'm considering it since I'm interested in having 6 DoF.
Conclusion
I love these glasses, it's easily my favorite portable option. It's a huge screen I can take anywhere with me. I don't mind that it's only 1080p, none of my portable devices can fully handle 4k anyway.
Since they are better then my current monitor, I use them with my PC too. But I don't think it's a proper replacement. If you don't need portability, regular screen will be better and cheaper.
I have quite an old LCD monitor and wanted to buy a new one for quite some time. But I was planning to travel and wouldn't be able to bring the monitor with me. Then a friend of mine shared an article with an intriguing title: I ditched my laptop for a pocketable mini PC and a pair of AR glasses.
I had never heard of AR glasses before. Turns out they're basically a "dumb" monitor with a USB‑C connection, but the image is projected into your eyes, so it looks like it's floating. No additional software is required, and I can take it anywhere with me. So I decided to order one. The same friend later asked me for a review, but I decided to post it here and just share the link - maybe someone else will also find it useful.
Impressions
I went for the Xreal One. They are quite pricy, but I wanted to try something cutting-edge. There's also a Pro version, but according to this review on Reddit and review on YouTube, it has several drawbacks - mainly reduced sharpness, which is important for coding.
The glasses aren't as comfortable as regular sunglasses — they're a little bit heavier, but I got used to them. They also generate quite a bit of heat on the top part of the frame. It can cause slight discomfort when it touches face, but I've gotten used to wearing them properly to avoid that. I can wear them for quite a long time, but I wouldn't use them for 100% of my screen time.
They have three levels of electrochromatic dimming (the lenses physically get darker). On the lowest setting (disabled), it's not fully transparent — more like a sunglasses with a slight dimming. At the maximum level, it's extremely dark; even in a well‑lit room I can't see what's on the edges. With dimming disabled, it looks the coolest — like an actual floating screen with a bit of transparency. But the darkening is useful for a more immersive experience since it removes that transparency. They also have "Auto transparency" option that automatically disables dimming when you turn your head away from the screen. Also, the brighter the room is, the more noticeable the reflection on the bottom of the glasses due to the lens's prism design. It's not an issue with the Pro version, but I didn't find it distracting at all, even in a well-lit room.
The screen is great. From video reviews, I was a bit worried that the colors would look like from a projector, but it's just impossible to capture this properly on camera. In reality, the colors are nice. They also allow you to configure the color temperature, and I found the coldest setting the most comfortable. The picture isn't very sharp — there's a bit of motion blur when I move my head around, and thin red or pink text on a black background looks slightly off. I think it's a limitation of the technology, plus the screen is only 1080p. But it's not as bad as it sounds — I can still use it comfortably for coding.
By default, the screen is 16:9 with 120Hz, but you can switch to 32:9 or 21:9 with 60Hz. I use 16:9 for gaming and 32:9 for productivity — 32:9 is so large, it's like two monitors glued together. I usually keep my browser on one side and something else on the other. I also love playing retro games, and I can say that 4:3 content looks great. Since the screen is OLED, the black pixels don't emit any light, so the letterboxes fully transparent.
However, it's not the same as having an actual ultra‑wide monitor. The screen doesn't fill the entire surface of the glasses — that's what the FOV is about. On my model, it's 50 degrees, which is quite large. But in ultra‑wide mode, I still have to rotate my head to see the other half of the screen. So there's no peripheral vision like there would be on an actual ultra‑wide monitor. Also, other people can't see what you're seeing, even if they're close — which can be both a good and a bad thing.
You can also configure how far the screen appears — anywhere from 1m to 10m — and its size in inches. There are five size levels, and the values depend on the selected distance and whether ultra‑wide mode is enabled. I usually use 1m for productivity and 4m for gaming and multimedia. My preferred size is the "middle" (third) level, which is designed to fit the entire screen without me needing to rotate my head (except when ultra‑wide mode is enabled). For 1m these sizes are 35″ for 16:9 and 64″ for 32:9; at 4m they're 140″ and 255″ respectively. The large screen feels very immersive — it's like being in a cinema.
The glasses also have three view modes: - Anchor. I can rotate my head freely and The screen stays fixed in space. However, if I walk around, the screen moves with me (which is what 3 DoF means). This is the mode I use most of the time. - Follow. The screen rotates along with your head. I don't use this mode much. - Side view. Similar to Follow, but the screen is positioned in the corner. I use it when I'm doing chores and want to watch something. They also have a stabilizer enabled by default, which smooths the screen movement when you move your head.
To use the glasses, you need a USB‑C video output. My motherboard supports it, but to enable it I had to connect my video card to the motherboard via DisplayPort. I never heard about a connection like this before, but it's from my motherboard manual. It does make sense, though — the GPU provides the video output, and the motherboard wouldn't know about it otherwise. Software‑wise, it works out of the box with my KDE Plasma setup on Arch Linux. The only issue I'm noticing is some small visual glitches for the first few seconds after connecting. On PC I use it together with my regular monitor. The mentioned "Auto transparency" pairs nicely with it. However, it's not perfect, since I'm still looking at the second screen through what's basically a pair of light sunglasses. So I usually don't put anything important on it.
As for phones, neither mine nor my wife's supports video output. But from reviews, I think it wouldn't be very convenient to use with a phone anyway. First, the phone's screen has to stay on, otherwise the glasses won't display anything. Second, you can't interact with the phone through the glasses, so you have to look at the phone itself.
But I found a great option to use the glasses with. I have a Retroid Pocket Flip 2 — a pocketable retro console that runs Android and supports video output. Unlike a regular phone, it automatically turns off its built‑in display when a second screen is connected. It also has physical controls, so I don't need to use a touchscreen. The Android UI isn't perfect for a gamepad, but it works. Streaming to it also works great because, even though the screen is disabled, the touch input still works — so it basically becomes a touchpad. Since the device is a clamshell, I sometimes use an 8BitDo Micro as an input device to avoid opening it, which is especially convenient for quickly pausing videos. This gamepad can also act as a keyboard via a special switch on it, so it works nicely when I stream from my PC too.
I also have a Steam Deck, but there's not much to add — it just works without any issue.
The glasses also have built-in speakers. I like their design: you don't put anything inside your ears — the speakers are integrated into the frame near where your ears are, so they kind of "whisper" to you. Others can hear them only at high volume. This affects the sound quality, so music doesn't sound as good as on quality headphones, but I think it's a worthy compromise. And it's still possible to wear regular headphones with the glasses.
They also have a shortcut button on the frame. I assigned screen off on regular press and ultra-wide mode on hold.
The firmware is proprietary, but it doesn't use the internet. And what I liked is that updates are installed through a web browser. However, it has to be a Chromium‑based browser on Windows or Mac. Luckily, I have a dual‑boot, so I rebooted to update the firmware. The update added support for 16:9, so it looks like it's not just for bug fixes.
The glasses can be equipped with prescription lenses, but I wear contact lenses and those work as well.
They also have a camera add‑on called Xreal Eye. It's a small camera that unlocks 6 DoF tracking and can also take photos and record videos. The media is stored directly on the glasses, which have 2GB of space, and can later be transferred to a phone or PC over a cable. I haven't bought it yet, but I'm considering it since I'm interested in having 6 DoF.
Conclusion
I love these glasses, it's easily my favorite portable option. It's a huge screen I can take anywhere with me and put where I want. I don't mind that it's only 1080p, none of my portable devices can fully handle 4k anyway.
Since they are better then my current monitor, I use them with my PC too. But I don't think it's a proper replacement. If you don't need portability, regular screen will be better and cheaper.
I have quite an old LCD monitor and wanted to buy a new one for quite some time. But I was planning to travel and wouldn't be able to bring the monitor with me. Then a friend of mine shared an article with an intriguing title: I ditched my laptop for a pocketable mini PC and a pair of AR glasses.
I had never heard of AR glasses before. Turns out they're basically a "dumb" monitor with a USB‑C connection, but the image is projected into your eyes, so it looks like it's floating. No additional software is required, and I can take it anywhere with me. So I decided to order one. The same friend later asked me for a review, but I decided to post it here and just share the link - maybe someone else will also find it useful.
Impressions
I went for the Xreal One. They are quite pricy, but I wanted to try something cutting-edge. There's also a Pro version, but according to this review on Reddit and review on YouTube, it has several drawbacks - mainly reduced sharpness, which is important for coding.
The glasses aren't as comfortable as regular sunglasses — they're a little bit heavier, but I got used to them. They also generate quite a bit of heat on the top part of the frame. It can cause slight discomfort when it touches face, but I've gotten used to wearing them properly to avoid that. I can wear them for quite a long time, but I wouldn't use them for 100% of my screen time.
They have three levels of electrochromatic dimming (the lenses physically get darker). On the lowest setting (disabled), it's not fully transparent — more like a sunglasses with a slight dimming. At the maximum level, it's extremely dark; even in a well‑lit room I can't see what's on the edges. With dimming disabled, it looks the coolest — like an actual floating screen with a bit of transparency. But the darkening is useful for a more immersive experience since it removes that transparency. They also have "Auto transparency" option that automatically disables dimming when you turn your head away from the screen. Also, the brighter the room is, the more noticeable the reflection on the bottom of the glasses due to the lens's prism design. It's not an issue with the Pro version, but I didn't find it distracting at all, even in a well-lit room.
The screen is great. From video reviews, I was a bit worried that the colors would look like from a projector, but it's just impossible to capture this properly on camera. In reality, the colors are nice. They also allow you to configure the color temperature, and I found the coldest setting the most comfortable. The picture isn't very sharp — there's a bit of motion blur when I move my head around, and thin red or pink text on a black background looks slightly off. I think it's a limitation of the technology, plus the screen is only 1080p. But it's not as bad as it sounds — I can still use it comfortably for coding.
By default, the screen is 16:9 with 120Hz, but you can switch to 32:9 or 21:9 with 60Hz. I use 16:9 for gaming and 32:9 for productivity — 32:9 is so large, it's like two monitors glued together. I usually keep my browser on one side and something else on the other. I also love playing retro games, and I can say that 4:3 content looks great. Since the screen is OLED, the black pixels don't emit any light, so the letterboxes fully transparent.
However, it's not the same as having an actual ultra‑wide monitor. The screen doesn't fill the entire surface of the glasses — that's what the FOV is about. On my model, it's 50 degrees, which is quite large. But in ultra‑wide mode, I still have to rotate my head to see the other half of the screen. So there's no peripheral vision like there would be on an actual ultra‑wide monitor. Also, other people can't see what you're seeing, even if they're close — which can be both a good and a bad thing.
You can also configure how far the screen appears — anywhere from 1m to 10m — and its size in inches. There are five size levels, and the values depend on the selected distance and whether ultra‑wide mode is enabled. I usually use 1m for productivity and 4m for gaming and multimedia. My preferred size is the "middle" (third) level, which is designed to fit the entire screen without me needing to rotate my head (except when ultra‑wide mode is enabled). For 1m these sizes are 35″ for 16:9 and 64″ for 32:9; at 4m they're 140″ and 255″ respectively. The large screen feels very immersive — it's like being in a cinema.
The glasses also have three view modes: - Anchor. I can rotate my head freely and The screen stays fixed in space. However, if I walk around, the screen moves with me (which is what 3 DoF means). This is the mode I use most of the time. - Follow. The screen rotates along with your head. I don't use this mode much. - Side view. Similar to Follow, but the screen is positioned in the corner. I use it when I'm doing chores and want to watch something. They also have a stabilizer enabled by default, which smooths the screen movement when you move your head.
To use the glasses, you need a USB‑C video output. My motherboard supports it, but to enable it I had to connect my video card to the motherboard via DisplayPort. I never heard about a connection like this before, but it's from my motherboard manual. It does make sense, though — the GPU provides the video output, and the motherboard wouldn't know about it otherwise. Software‑wise, it works out of the box with my KDE Plasma setup on Arch Linux. The only issue I'm noticing is some small visual glitches for the first few seconds after connecting. On PC I use it together with my regular monitor. The mentioned "Auto transparency" pairs nicely with it. However, it's not perfect, since I'm still looking at the second screen through what's basically a pair of light sunglasses. So I usually don't put anything important on it.
As for phones, neither mine nor my wife's supports video output. But from reviews, I think it wouldn't be very convenient to use with a phone anyway. First, the phone's screen has to stay on, otherwise the glasses won't display anything. Second, you can't interact with the phone through the glasses, so you have to look at the phone itself.
But I found a great option to use the glasses with. I have a Retroid Pocket Flip 2 — a pocketable retro console that runs Android and supports video output. Unlike a regular phone, it automatically turns off its built‑in display when a second screen is connected. It also has physical controls, so I don't need to use a touchscreen. The Android UI isn't perfect for a gamepad, but it works. Streaming to it also works great because, even though the screen is disabled, the touch input still works — so it basically becomes a touchpad. Since the device is a clamshell, I sometimes use an 8BitDo Micro as an input device to avoid opening it, which is especially convenient for quickly pausing videos. This gamepad can also act as a keyboard via a special switch on it, so it works nicely when I stream from my PC too.
I also have a Steam Deck, but there's not much to add — it just works without any issue.
The glasses also have built-in speakers. I like their design: you don't put anything inside your ears — the speakers are integrated into the frame near where your ears are, so they kind of "whisper" to you. Others can hear them only at high volume. This affects the sound quality, so music doesn't sound as good as on quality headphones, but I think it's a worthy compromise. And it's still possible to wear regular headphones with the glasses.
They also have a shortcut button on the frame. I assigned screen off on regular press and ultra-wide mode on hold.
The firmware is proprietary, but it doesn't use the internet. And what I liked is that updates are installed through a web browser. However, it has to be a Chromium‑based browser on Windows or Mac. Luckily, I have a dual‑boot, so I rebooted to update the firmware. The update added support for 16:9, so it looks like it's not just for bug fixes.
The glasses can be equipped with prescription lenses, but I wear contact lenses and those work as well.
They also have a camera add‑on called Xreal Eye. It's a small camera that unlocks 6 DoF tracking and can also take photos and record videos. The media is stored directly on the glasses, which have 2GB of space, and can later be transferred to a phone or PC over a cable. I haven't bought it yet, but I'm considering it since I'm interested in having 6 DoF.
Conclusion
I love these glasses, it's easily my favorite portable option. It's a huge screen I can take anywhere with me and put where I want. I don't mind that it's only 1080p, none of my portable devices can fully handle 4k anyway.
Since they are better then my current monitor, I use them with my PC too. But I don't think it's a proper replacement. If you don't need portability, regular screen will be better and cheaper.
Nice review, thanks for posting. 1080p sounds low for something that close to your eyes. Between the weight, heat, and the forced attention ( when traveling especially, I like aimlessly looking up from screen to see what's around me, especially if working outside), I think I'd happily sacrifice the big screen for my little lightweight Lenovo nano. Would love to try these though.
how do you change its settings, like the aspect ratio, the dimming or the distance?
They have an OSD like in a regular monitor. You press the mode switch button twice to bring it and navigate using the +- brigness buttons. For dimming you hold the brightness rocker to start adjusting the dimming. For everything else there is an OSD menu like in a regular monitor. You bring it by double pressing the switch button and navigate with the brightness buttons.
how does it know where is forward in anchor mode? if you are sitting in a vehicle that is turning, can you keep it using as if nothing has happened?
It's only 3 DoF without the eye add-on, so when you move, the monitor moves with you.
how do you do chores with it? I mean, what do you connect it to, and where do you place it so that it’s not in the way?
I just connect it to my Retroid Pocket Flip and put it into my pocket. Then I just enable side mode in the glasses, so it displays the image in the corner. And use my 8BitDo to navigate in the device.
what do you do to not get tangled in the cable, and to not get stuck on something?
The default cable is just very short 😀 It's a distance from the glasses to my pocket with about extra 15-20 cm.
FerretyFever0
in reply to themachinestops • • •vaultdweller013
in reply to FerretyFever0 • • •FerretyFever0
in reply to vaultdweller013 • • •vaultdweller013
in reply to FerretyFever0 • • •Oh no fights are fun. Tis the curse of my kin, seriously damned near every man on the German side of my family treats fights like a fun time waster. Not saying it's not instability just that my verbosity is perpetual regardless of my mood or actions, well unless I am physically exhausted then I communicate with a handful of words like a caveman.
Also just cause I'm somewhat calm going into a fight doesn't mean that the person I hurled insults at is.
SoftestSapphic
in reply to themachinestops • • •I'm sick of religious sex freaks forcing others to adhere to their puritan fetishes
We need to ban organized religion
stepan
in reply to SoftestSapphic • • •MrNobody
in reply to stepan • • •Sure, but since orgaanised religions can't help to force others to live by their standards, they need to get out of the way. I'm fine with people needing a comfort measure, even if its in the form of an invisibile friend. Whatever helps people sleep at night. However, when they try to force their ideals down everybody elses throat thats a big no.
So, since they can't 'live and let live' they need to go the way of the dodo, fuck off, and leave the rest of society alone.
Gsus4
in reply to MrNobody • • •Meh, I consider religions as political movements. When they go crazy fundamentalist, try to take over and become destructive, sure, shut them down.
But not just based on their future potential to turn destructive, that can happen to any ideology if the conditions are right.
Barrymore
in reply to Gsus4 • • •Gsus4
in reply to Barrymore • • •Barrymore
in reply to Gsus4 • • •Gsus4
in reply to Barrymore • • •Barrymore
in reply to Gsus4 • • •Gsus4
in reply to Barrymore • • •LifeInMultipleChoice
in reply to stepan • • •Okay, your life shall now be that of the Amish. Please remove your phone/computers and never drive a car again.
Remember to live and let live
Honytawk
in reply to stepan • • •TheGrandNagus
in reply to stepan • • •freddydunningkruger
in reply to stepan • • •drunkpostdisaster
in reply to stepan • • •JigglySackles
in reply to stepan • • •Jarix
in reply to stepan • • •QueenHawlSera
in reply to SoftestSapphic • • •Warl0k3
in reply to QueenHawlSera • • •QueenHawlSera
in reply to Warl0k3 • • •Warl0k3
in reply to QueenHawlSera • • •Honytawk
in reply to QueenHawlSera • • •QueenHawlSera
in reply to Honytawk • • •Bro I don't believe in God either. To be honest sometimes I wish I did.
Regardles my problem isn't with atheism but with specifcally Reddit Atheism
stepan
in reply to Honytawk • • •REDACTED
in reply to stepan • • •QueenHawlSera
in reply to stepan • • •Mwa
in reply to QueenHawlSera • • •ik you can be any religion or anything but the main problem i have with atheism is they make fun of religion.
like atleast be respectful if your gonna be atheist not have a superiority complex.
edit: maybe i used superiority complex here loselessly
Warl0k3
in reply to Mwa • • •Mwa
in reply to Warl0k3 • • •Warl0k3
in reply to Mwa • • •B: So the crusades were what, then?
The Wandering M4dTsar
in reply to themachinestops • • •tacosanonymous
in reply to themachinestops • • •BackgrndNoize
in reply to tacosanonymous • • •HugeNerd
in reply to BackgrndNoize • • •Wispy2891
in reply to tacosanonymous • • •Soup
in reply to Wispy2891 • • •Katana314
in reply to Soup • • •- YouTube
www.youtube.comSonOfAntenora
in reply to Wispy2891 • • •Jarix
in reply to SonOfAntenora • • •SonOfAntenora
in reply to Jarix • • •deathbird
in reply to themachinestops • • •I truly don't understand how Visa/MasterCard/etc can be pressured. They are basically infrastructure.
What's someone going to do, stop using credit cards if they don't stop a store that person doesn't even patronize from selling morally hazardous goods?
I don't get how these campaigns are even effective.
Vinstaal0
in reply to deathbird • • •sugar_in_your_tea
in reply to deathbird • • •RedFrank24
in reply to sugar_in_your_tea • • •That's because 90% of cryptocurrency marketing consists of "THINK OF THE GAAAAAAINS YOU CAN MAKE!" instead of "You can use this to buy things without government censorship".
The entire crypto industry has based itself around being a speculative asset, not a currency.
sugar_in_your_tea
in reply to RedFrank24 • • •goodnighttothe_spoon
in reply to sugar_in_your_tea • • •sugar_in_your_tea
in reply to goodnighttothe_spoon • • •Monero is perhaps the best option imo. Here's the official page about it, but basically:
It's far from ubiquitous, but it's popular enough that if a place accepts any crypto, there's a good chance they accept Monero as well.
The Merits of Monero: Why Monero vs Bitcoin
www.monero.howHonytawk
in reply to sugar_in_your_tea • • •sugar_in_your_tea
in reply to Honytawk • • •Some do, which is a lot more than GNU Taler. I don't know of another digital payment system that has more usage that isn't dominated by a handful of companies.
Here are some examples of things you can buy today w/ Monero:
It's far from ubiquitous, but it is being accepted today. If any of those places interest you, I recommend putting a small amount of money into Monero and trying it out.
Who takes Monero as payment in 2024?
NOWPayments.io (NOWPayments)emmy67
in reply to sugar_in_your_tea • • •deathbird
in reply to emmy67 • • •sugar_in_your_tea
in reply to emmy67 • • •emmy67
in reply to sugar_in_your_tea • • •sugar_in_your_tea
in reply to emmy67 • • •Then I guess I don't understand your problem.
Payment processors like Visa and Mastercard control a huge chunk of the market, which gives them a lot of say in what transactions are allowed. Even if you avoid credit, most debit cards go through those two companies, so they can restrict what transactions you can make.
With cryptocurrencies, there's no restriction at the point of sale. Your problem seems to be that converting crypto to fiat could be problematic, and they'd potentially be stuck with "useless" currency. My point is that's a much easier problem to solve:
There are a ton of options to convert crypto to fiat, there are far fewer to select a different fiat payment processor.
swelter_spark
in reply to emmy67 • • •plyth
in reply to deathbird • • •deathbird
in reply to plyth • • •plyth
in reply to deathbird • • •Rooty
in reply to themachinestops • • •"Pro life feminist"
A christian conservative group in drag,nothing to see here.
buttnugget
in reply to Rooty • • •WorldsDumbestMan
in reply to themachinestops • • •captainlezbian
in reply to WorldsDumbestMan • • •Warl0k3
in reply to captainlezbian • • •WorldsDumbestMan
in reply to Warl0k3 • • •🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮
in reply to themachinestops • • •LainTrain
in reply to 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 • • •It's got a kid robot in it that's abused. Not sexually afaik. But it's definitely not pornographic, it's literally the driving force of one of the plotlines and causes an android to rebel and kill it's owner - the abuser.
Let me repeat: the game is literally so anti-child-abuse - it makes the plot happen.
This whole thing is so stupid. You give these types of people an inch they take a mile.
QueenHawlSera
in reply to LainTrain • • •LainTrain
in reply to QueenHawlSera • • •Zink
in reply to themachinestops • • •OK now I am not one to lob accusations without evidence, but for any of you kind government agents or AIs reading this, let’s say from anywhere within the Five Eyes since we’re talking about Australia:
We have another fanatical religious conservative organization here that is publicly labeling opposition groups pedos. You know how this has trended in the past. Keep an eye on these people.
pewgar_seemsimandroid
in reply to Zink • • •I Cast Fist
in reply to pewgar_seemsimandroid • • •Buddahriffic
in reply to I Cast Fist • • •omniman
in reply to themachinestops • • •Phoenixz
in reply to omniman • • •Because they want to apply their rules to everyone, it's the entire point for religious assholes
Fuck all religions
crusa187
in reply to Phoenixz • • •Petter1
in reply to Phoenixz • • •Fuck All Religions 😍
I’ll join that cult!
VoidJuiceConcentrate
in reply to themachinestops • • •me watching clearly adult humans doing consentual sex things
some religious zealot chud: this makes you a pedo somehow
joenforcer
in reply to VoidJuiceConcentrate • • •This comment and many like it are a product of only reading the headline. Also shame on the authors for the ragebait headline.
The tweet the quote comes further classifies that they're talking about games that include rape, incest, and/or child sex abuse. I'm not sure if people are just knee-jerk reacting to headlines without understanding what's actually happening, or if they are legitimately upset that rape fantasy games are being removed. In both cases, you're stating that you are vocally in support of rape media, which is not OK.
VoidJuiceConcentrate
in reply to joenforcer • • •Sure, that's the plausible deniability reasoning. But the end result, whether you agree with the on the surface reasoning or not, is the removal of all adult media whether or not it is offending. This coupled with the lumping in of LGBT issues with Adult media (and often lumping in with egregious media like rape and abuse fantasy) means that the end result is removal of adult games AND games which feature LGBT characters and storylines.
and uh, if you actually did read my comment, I did say consenting. me saying I enjoy content where clear adults are consentually enjoying sex is not endorsing rape fantasy games, and is a bit of a Twitter ass conclusion to come to.
joenforcer
in reply to VoidJuiceConcentrate • • •The article you commented on is explicitly referencing media where consent cannot be given. So, I'm not sure why you commented about consenting adults in the first place, because that had nothing to do with the topic.
VoidJuiceConcentrate
in reply to joenforcer • • •Zozano
in reply to themachinestops • • •Collective Shout claim it’s about harm reduction, but then push an agenda that functionally amounts to moral panic.
Their approach is identical in logic to the “GTA causes school shootings” hysteria: loud, pearl-clutching, and utterly unmoored from data.
If Collective Shout want to argue these games cause harm, then show us the harm. Not correlation. Not outrage. Not hypothetical downstream consequences. Show causation. Peer-reviewed. Reproducible.
Otherwise, they’re just moralizing bullies using the banking system as a cudgel.
On top of this, they might actually be harming their own cause. The catharsis hypothesis poses that sexual fantasy enactment might reduce risk of real world harm.
The logic is simple: suppressing a compulsion doesn't eliminate it. It just bottles up until it explodes. Redirect it into a safe outlet, and it becomes manageable.
The only reason this research isn't cited more often is because it's politically radioactive. Nobody wants to admit that it's better to let a gooners jerk off, than to escalate under repression.
The burden of proof SHOULD be on Collective Shout to provide a reasonable argument which supports their claim that censorship will reduce real world harm.
Current working theory in psychology: it doesn't. Emerging theory suggests: they're shooting themselves (and potential rape victims) in the foot.
The real solution to real-world harm involves empathy, autonomy and education.
MonkderVierte
in reply to Zozano • • •QueenHawlSera
in reply to MonkderVierte • • •blargle
in reply to QueenHawlSera • • •QueenHawlSera
in reply to blargle • • •Sadly from my experiences with feminist groups, TERFs have historically been the norm not the exception.
You should really look into what the Daughters of Bilitis were up to, and books like the The Transsexual Empire. A book I cannot say the full name of for it contains a slur.
Historically feminist groups have attacked transgender women and gay men for "Infringing upon what it means to be a woman."
lightnsfw
in reply to themachinestops • • •REDACTED
in reply to lightnsfw • • •CMonster
in reply to themachinestops • • •cosmo
in reply to CMonster • • •Buddahriffic
in reply to cosmo • • •That second part is kinda annoying though. It doesn't know the difference between a view because of curiosity and one because of actual interest.
It's what ruined the YouTube suggestions for me. I liked being able to do completely unrelated and random dives. Now it's just a collection of videos related to previous ones I've watched, even when I'm not logged in and have viewing history turned off. If I want to watch another chess video, I know how to use the search function. That's how I found them the first time.
Though steam does also have a "stop showing me games like this" where it gives options about what you mean by "this".
CMonster
in reply to cosmo • • •Rekorse
in reply to themachinestops • • •panda_abyss
in reply to Rekorse • • •No, but you might want to take a step back from that ledge advice a steep much huddy hill.
Frankly I think a lot of modern games are fucked up in their portrayal of the human body, and those relationship sim dress up games are kinda gross.
But I don't think this should be too to credit card companies to unilaterally decide.
Gsus4
in reply to Rekorse • • •Rekorse
in reply to Gsus4 • • •Gsus4
in reply to Rekorse • • •Rekorse
in reply to Gsus4 • • •Jhex
in reply to Rekorse • • •chiliedogg
in reply to Rekorse • • •It's not about porn games. It's about allowing third-party private interests to engage in censorship.
If Valve were to ban porn games from being sold on Steam because they find them distasteful, I wouldn't have a problem with this. But it wasn't Valve's decision. It was the payment processors who did it on behalf of interests that are apparently allowed to determine what is permissible on other people's platforms.
That's not okay.
Rekorse
in reply to chiliedogg • • •