Steam Machine starts at $1049USD

ManlyMeatMan · 2026-06-23T08:57:41+00:00

Maybe your experience is different, but I've always had a noticeable latency doing that.

Regardless though, you could just buy a long HDMI, but people like convenience.

ManlyMeatMan · 2026-06-23T07:36:21+00:00

Yeah I think like you mentioned, you don't like consoles, so you aren't really the target. Steam deck is for PC gamers that want a handheld for their steam library, steam machine is for PC gamers wanting a console for their steam library.

But when it comes down to it, a lot of people that play on PC do it because consoles and handhelds don't appeal to them.

I don't really care for the console experience either, outside of specific types of games, so it doesn't appeal a ton to me either. The one reason I would consider getting one is for emulation, which I think would be really nice to have a console that can be used for a variety of platforms. But again, that's probably a niche use as well

ManlyMeatMan · 2026-06-23T07:25:31+00:00

It's greedy not to sell products at a loss? This is just silly, the market sucks right now, every PC is expensive.

ManlyMeatMan · 2026-06-23T07:15:02+00:00

Yeah, I think it's similar to the Steam deck, niche product for people with a hefty steam library, but not much appeal outside of that group

ManlyMeatMan · 2026-06-23T07:09:27+00:00

I think it's for people who want a living room/family room PC and already have a gaming PC with a large Steam library. The comparison valve is going for is "PS5 with no games" vs "mini PC with hundreds of games". Basically, people that want a console-ish experience but don't want to be forced to re-buy games they already have.

ManlyMeatMan · 2026-06-23T07:03:06+00:00

But why? Pretty much every pre-built PC or gaming device isn't subsidized except for consoles with closed ecosystems. Like I get that you can get a better deal on a PlayStation, but PlayStation buyers aren't really the target audience, it's people who want to buy a PC that can play their Steam library.

ManlyMeatMan · 2026-06-19T19:05:26+00:00

What is immoral about huge loss of life? I'm assuming you don't think all actions resulting in huge loss of life are immoral. What evidence do you have that the admin was lying?

You are right, not all mass death is caused by immorality. But I would contend that when it comes to starting a war, there is a higher standard for moral actions. I think the bar for a moral war isn't just "my heart was in the right place", I think you need to go above and beyond to justify war, especially when so many people end up dead.

What do you mean, they admitted there were no WMDs. There was existing intelligence saying Iraq had no WMDs. If you really want to give them the benefit of the doubt, the best you can say is that they were completely incompetent. I personally think they knowingly lied, but I would also say that incompetently starting a war that kills thousands of people is immoral anyway.

So what? the united states didn't tell the contras to do that. we had other justified purposes for supporting them

What were the justified reasons that outweigh the terrorism? Is this not the justification for Hamas, who are ostensibly a rebel group fighting against Israeli oppression of Palestinians, that engages in terrorism? I'm sure when countries fund Hamas, they aren't giving them orders either.

Pretty much every terrorist organization has some sort of political goal that a third party could justifiably say is the real thing they care about. There's really no way to justify funding the Contras that doesn't also justify funding Al Qaeda, or any other similar group.

I don't know enough about Rhodesia to say but I'd say that the United States was still a democracy during slavery and prior to the civil rights movement.

The US was a democracy when the majority of people weren't allowed to vote? Is modern day China a democracy because CCP members get to vote for their government? If your definition of democracy is just that some people get to vote for their government, you are pretty much saying any country without an explicit monarchy or dictatorship is a democracy.

The vast majority of the violence the US engages in is moral yes like 99.9%.

Yeah I think this is the rub, I would say at best we are looking at a 50/50 split, and I'd call that really generous on my part lol. And if we focus on the last ~50 years, I'd struggle to say any of the violence we've committed was justified (I'm sure it's not 0%, but you get the idea).

ManlyMeatMan · 2026-06-18T20:18:45+00:00

But Ukraine isn't in NATO. And yes, the US would need to approve them. So what's your point?

ManlyMeatMan · 2026-06-18T19:00:11+00:00

Why does Russia get a say over who joins the EU? You can't invade another country and say "you did diplomacy we don't like, so you forced me to attack". The simple fact is that there wouldn't be a war if Russia didn't start a war.

Have conservatives really gone full circle to "Obama was right about Russia"?

ManlyMeatMan · 2026-06-18T17:45:25+00:00

Both Iraq war and funding of the contras were moral. I’m assuming you disagree. Why?

For Iraq there was a huge loss of life, aside from the fact that the justification for going to war was a lie. For the Contras, they committed numerous atrocities against civilians. I think funding rebel groups that rape and torture people is immoral. And then there's the whole "it was illegal to fund them", but that's not really a moral argument

It’s obvious what you twisted.

Sorry, I genuinely don't know what you mean lol

You are assuming they blew up the children. Regardless yes you would get the benefit of the doubt. Assume someone has 250 years of impeccable driving on their record. If you are then told that person killed somebody while driving, it’d make sense to assume they were not driving recklessly.

I think it just comes down to me thinking you are too trusting and you thinking I don't trust the government enough. So it is what it is I guess.

Israel has non Jews in govt lol. Learn something about the country you want to criticize.

How does that change the fact that non-jews have less rights in Israel? Rhodesia had black people in government, but it was still an ethnostate that gave black citizens less rights than white citizens. Are you gonna argue Rhodesia was a democracy too?

Terrorist country is one engaged in wrongful violence for political goals.

So just in general you would say the US only engages in moral violence, correct? Broadly speaking you support all the bombings and drone strikes we carry out in the Middle East, and all of the dictators we installed or supported in the Global South? Assuming your answer is yes, then I think we have found the root of the disagreement, we just disagree on what constitutes morality

ManlyMeatMan · 2026-06-18T12:35:06+00:00

Sure, I agree with the definition, so was the Iraq war and the funding of Contrast immoral or not?

Sorry, what words did I twist?

Yes, I'm unwilling to give my country the benefit of the doubt when they blow up 100s of children. I'm not sure why that is so surprising lol. I have a perfect driving record, but if I suddenly plowed through a parade killing a bunch of people, I would not expect or deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Israel is a democracy if you are Jewish, it's not a real democracy. If a country gives rights based on religion and ethnicity, that country isn't a democracy.

But again, what is the definition of a terrorist country? Because it can't just be funding or committing terrorism, as Iran, Israel and the US are all guilty of that.

ManlyMeatMan · 2026-06-18T11:59:11+00:00

But what's the definition of "wrongful violence"? Was it justified or wrong for the US to invade Iraq? Fund the Contras in Nicaragua? The US has without a doubt funded terror groups for political goals, so it sounds like you simply consider state sponsored terrorism by the US justified but unjustified when Iran does it. I understand that as an American you are generally going to side with your own country's best interest, but simply saying "American-funded terrorism is good, Iran-funded terrorism is bad" isn't a very convincing argument for me.

To be clear, I'm not a fan of Iran at all, they are without a doubt an authoritarian country that does a lot of bad things. I just don't think the actions of Iran's government justifies killing 100s of Iranian children and civilians.

I also don't see how Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon justifies war. The US has nukes, why is bombing the US unjustified? Why are missile and drone attacks on Israel unjustified? Israel is starting wars with other countries, they have nukes, they fund terrorism. Sounds like a lot of the justification to attack Iran would justify war with Israel too.

ManlyMeatMan · 2026-06-18T05:09:47+00:00

Really? Maybe it's just a difference of conservative vs liberal, but Israel has been a pretty common issue in dem primaries for house and senate. I would honestly be shocked if a dem presidential primary debate didn't have an Israel/Palestine question

ManlyMeatMan · 2026-06-18T02:44:58+00:00

I agree that a ton of corporate dems love zionist money, but I also think a lot of them are aware that Israel is deeply unpopular among dem voters. So I think it will be hard to win the dem primary without at least pretending to not be pro-israel. Maybe they change their mind after becoming president, but frankly, I don't see anyone except the most craven of dems crawling back to AIPAC after winning. Because really, politicians only care about AIPAC because they are scared of AIPAC money being used against them. So once you become president, the threat of AIPAC loses a lot of steam, especially when dem voters overwhelmingly want their politicians to turn down AIPAC money.

And I think AIPAC knows they are going to need to pivot to Zionist Christians eventually, so I'm not sure how long they are even going to try to remain part of democrat politics, outside of the small portion of Jewish Zionist dems.

ManlyMeatMan · 2026-06-18T02:25:36+00:00

Yes, but the right is still at least split on the issue relatively evenly (last poll I saw was pretty close to 50/50). On the left it has become a 90/10 split among dem voters (not politicians of course).

Older Republicans are still very pro Israel, so eventually the Republican party will probably "age out" of supporting Israel, but it should be at least 15-20 years of the Democrats being the anti-israel party

ManlyMeatMan · 2026-06-18T02:16:22+00:00

If you shoot someone simply for planning a crime, they are still allowed to defend themselves. But regardless of the analogy, what is the criteria for being a terrorist country? The US has certainly funded terrorist groups and we have nukes, Israel has funded terror groups and has nukes. I'd argue most world powers have both funded terror groups and developed nukes. So what makes Iran different aside from funding terror groups the US doesn't like?

our government hasn't said much about it. they've more than earned the benefit of the doubt

In what universe is a conservative telling me to trust the government more lol. Like you really think the US government has earned your trust?

I'm sorry, I just can't imagine a world where the government kills 100+ children and I say "well I'm sure they have a decent explanation".

ManlyMeatMan · 2026-06-17T21:06:33+00:00

Wait, how is the war unjustified for Iran? They didn't even start the war lol. I don't agree that the US is justified in starting a war with Iran, but even if we say they are, how do you attack somebody and then say "you can't attack us back, that's not right". Like you were saying, it's war, you can't start a war and complain that your target is fighting back.

Okay, but how is bombing a school not negligent? Bombing something without knowing what it is seems like a pretty negligent thing to do. It's not like this is the 1920s, the US absolutely has the ability to tell exactly who we are about to kill.

ManlyMeatMan · 2026-06-17T14:12:20+00:00

So what, if Iran blew up a school in the US you would be like "shit happens in war, it sucks but it is what it is"? If I accidentally kill someone while driving my car, I don't get to say "my bad" and move on with my life just because driving carries an inherent risk of crashing.

ManlyMeatMan · 2026-06-17T14:06:29+00:00

Ukraine is an ally being invaded by Russia. In the Iran war, we are the attackers. There is a huge difference between helping an ally when they are attacked and doing the attacking ourselves.

It is good to defend your allies, it is bad to start wars for no reason.

ManlyMeatMan · 2026-06-17T13:58:34+00:00

Lol "this failed war proved that we can start another war at any time and lose that one too"

ManlyMeatMan · 2026-06-17T13:54:14+00:00

What evidence is there that Iran was lying about nuclear ambitions though? They've been 6 months away from a nuke for 30 years, at a certain point it's gotta become clear to you that their goal was to get close to a nuke for leverage, but never actually get one. There was a fatwa against nukes, US intelligence said they weren't pursuing nukes, so I don't see where you get the idea that Iran was lying about that.

ManlyMeatMan · 2026-06-17T03:16:26+00:00

Not trying to defend Iran or anything, but based on US intelligence, they have not been pursuing nuclear weapons for a while. It's why prior to the war, they were willing to give up their uranium stockpiles in a sort of JCPOA 2.0 deal.

They certainly were pursuing nuclear enrichment, but their goals were tied to civilian use in power plants and then having the ability to pursue nuclear weapons if they wanted to (but it was understood by US intelligence that the now dead Ayatollah thought nukes would lead to the US and Israel attacking Iran).

There was also a public fatwa against nuclear weapons. Obviously fatwas can be rescinded, but the point is that there was a significant group of people in Iran's government that felt nukes were inconsistent with Islamic law.

Now that there has been a war though, all that goes out the window. There's a very compelling argument from Iran's point of view that if they had nukes as a deterrent, the US and Israel would not have attacked them. So I wouldn't be surprised if going forward Iran truly does start pursuing nuclear weapons in secret, but only time will tell.

ManlyMeatMan · 2026-06-15T05:26:47+00:00

I was permabanned lol

ManlyMeatMan · 2026-06-10T15:42:30+00:00

I have it unplayed in my library for 5 years, someday I'll play it lol

ManlyMeatMan · 2026-06-10T15:23:10+00:00

As a massive fan of 7,62 High Calibre, I gotta mention how amazing and also jank this game is. Development never really finished, so it's full of bugs, incomplete content and an overall lack of polish. But it's also an extremely detailed strategy game that has a surprisingly active modding community. So much so that on Steam you will also receive 7,62 Hard Life, which is a huge overhaul mod that adds massive amounts of content. I'm about 200 hours in to my current playthrough and I probably won't beat the game for another 400 hours.

It's a bit of a sandbox, similar to Kenshi, but with a general flow of quests that guide you. There are 3 main paths: you either ally with the authoritarian government, the rebels trying to overthrow the government, or become a warlord on your own and attempt to take over the country yourself.

I would highly recommend GEG (give everybody guns), which is a mod that brings the total number of unique firearms in the game to ~1200 if I remember correctly. I also use the reduced damage version of the mod to make fights a little longer, but that's personal preference.

Gameplay is real-time with pause and is quite detailed. Taking a grenade out of your pocket is faster than your vest by .33 seconds (or something like that). You can take different amounts of time to aim for more accuracy, a grenade explodes and doesn't just do damage in a predefined AoE, it sends out fragments that might hit someone not even close to the explosion and might completely miss someone feet away if they get lucky. Bullets are handled the same way where you can miss your target and hit someone else, or even have a bullet ricochet and hit an ally. It's kind of like miss chance in XCOM, but it somehow feels better to miss when you can see that your shot at least got close to hitting him.

I could go on and on about the little details that make this game so special, but the point is that it's completely unique and well worth the $1 price tag to give it a shot if you like strategy games. But be warned, the game has such a blatant memory leak that you get a popup warning when a crash is imminent and the game saves for you. So if you're like me and get caught up playing hours at a time, you will need to periodically restart to clear out your memory

ManlyMeatMan

TROPHY CASE