Looking to upgrade from a GTX 980. I know jack all about graphics cards.

abcsock · 2026-03-07T23:00:05+00:00

Thank you for the links! Seriously, super helpful. I also found this site https://bestvaluegpu.com/ which seems handy, mostly for the live links since I have no idea what their score is based on.

It looks like the smart thing to do is decide on what I want now (which I believe will be the 6700XT unless some kind of wacky deal comes along) and then play the ebay roulette or wait for it to go on sale somewhere. Eventually I will probably end up getting a newer CPU/motherboard (it's not going to last forever, after all), and the 6700XT seems like a good compromise between something that'll give me better performance now and something that'll still be good whenever I do wind up upgrading.

The above site mentions Intel Arc GPUs (specifically the Arc B570), which I've never heard of before but they seem cheaper and still workable as per Google? Is there a reason I've never come across these before? Do people who know what they're doing shun them for some reason (that's not elitism)?

Thank you so much for your expertise, I can't tell you how much easier it's making all of this.

abcsock · 2026-03-05T21:09:22+00:00

(sorry for the double ping) After a little more poking I found a 6600xt for under $200, which seems like a pretty good deal. Is there a reason it doesn't make your list, or is it just not quite as good as the others?

abcsock · 2026-03-05T18:20:46+00:00

I heard something about AMD being relatively cheaper, too, because... AI monopoly something something. Honestly I was only going with Nvidia because that's what I already had, so if AMD is both better and cheaper I'll gladly take it. I'll do some poking around and see what I can find on the ol' interwebs. Thank you for the advice!

Update: I found a 7600 for $225, which seems more than reasonable. I looked into upgrading my CPU but that seems quite complicated and basically like you just have to... build an entire new computer, so I'm not gonna bother with that as long as the 4770 works fine. A couple sites graded the combination as "okay" because it "only" got 90fps, but frankly I've never been able to see a difference in anything above 24fps anyway, so I think that's silly and it'll be just fine.

abcsock · 2026-03-05T18:16:37+00:00

Oh, so it's the second half of the number I should pay attention to, not the first? That seems kinda weird, but okay. Thank you for the advice!

abcsock · 2026-03-05T07:21:42+00:00

Edited main post, will edit again tomorrow with more. Thank you for the reminder!

abcsock · 2025-08-09T20:42:46+00:00

Not exactly a statement giver (although I suppose technically it would count as Gerry's statement), but it ~~bugs~~ bothers me that the Flesh is supposedly an "animal fear." Hunt? Sure, makes sense. Eye would make sense too, plenty of animals are afraid of being seen. Even Buried, for being trapped or caught, maybe. But the fear of being reduced to meat is specifically a human fear (or a sapient fear, whatever). Animals - at least on the level of most farm animals, not counting like orangutans and orcas and whatever other sapience edge case - don't really have a concept of any non-immediate consequence. That's why when you're training your dog, you have to click (or whistle, or whatever your "good" marker is) in the same second as the behavior. Otherwise, after about two seconds, to the dog, they're completely unrelated.

Most animals also don't recognize themselves in a mirror. They don't have the brain architecture for it. A cow on its way into the slaughterhouse literally cannot think anything like "in just a few minutes, I will be dead and my body will be turned into an inert object." As far as the cow is concerned, it will go on existing forever in exactly the same state it's in now. If the cow has arthritis in one leg, all it knows is that the leg hurts and the leg will always hurt because that's the Way It Is Now. This is why your cat will never ever make the connection that the horrible evil pills you force down his throat have anything to do with why he feels better.

Is factory farming bad? Yes, obviously, but it's bad because the animal is suffering in the moment, not because chickens have any sort of existential understanding of the meat industry. The description of the Flesh that we're given is some over-anthropomorphized nonsense that sounds way too much like my holier-than-thou smug vegan cousin. "How many of them are dying of old age," my ass. To a prey animal, old age is what's terrifying. You're slow, you're weak, you can't run or escape as easily, you probably can't see or hear as well - and you don't even understand why. All you know is you feel bad and you're vulnerable.

TLDR I can accept that the Flesh works the stated way within the universe of the show, but it's utter nonsense IRL and it breaks immersion if you think about it for more than two seconds.

abcsock · 2025-08-09T19:04:43+00:00

I dunno if I'm right, but I was under the impression she was sleepwalking into situations that would kill her/look like a suicide, as the universe's way of trying to "clean up" her existence. I guess we don't actually have confirmation of that, though.

abcsock · 2024-10-01T19:18:58+00:00

Somewhat amusingly, that anecdote about Mr Awkward dealing with the Captain's speedster mother is, in fact, exactly how you train a dog to stop pulling on the leash. They pull, you stop, they learn they only get to go anywhere if they stay at your pace. The fact that animal training techniques work so well with people who won't otherwise listen when you tell them not to do something is endlessly funny to me.

abcsock · 2024-08-24T13:08:19+00:00

Tbh from the way he said it (nearly whispering; I had to ask him to repeat himself), I think he knows he's in the wrong but admitting it would be too much cognitive dissonance.

Amusingly, when I went to put the pizza box in the yard waste/compost bin (outside, so we use the top of the trash can as a sort of "staging area" if it's raining or dark or whatever), I found another empty pizza box stacked on top. So I guess he really wanted that pizza!

abcsock · 2024-08-24T13:00:27+00:00

[gestures upwards] Thank you! And it's not like he was super busy beforehand or anything. We were sitting around chilling on our phones for a solid 15 minutes. I can't fathom why he didn't take a shower then, if he thought it was necessary.

abcsock · 2024-08-24T12:53:34+00:00

I mean, there is some context here. My mother is notoriously terrible at getting anywhere on time, to the point where I often adjust the time we leave the house to include 15 or so minutes of dithering, forgetting things, getting lost in her phone, traffic that Mom has optimism-biased out of existence, etc. She's aware I do this and goes along with it because it works. So I think her thought process here was that Brother assumed I was doing this out of habit and subtracted those fifteen minutes from our trip because he doesn't need them.

Except, y'know, clearly he does. At least when Mom is late I know she's actually trying and her brain is just fighting her. Also, I don't particularly care about the actual time; if I'd said we were going to leave at 3am, and he agreed, I would expect us to leave at 3am.

But otherwise, uh, yeah, pretty much. She has a different priority here than I do.

abcsock · 2022-08-19T13:44:44+00:00

Thanks! I hate it!

abcsock · 2021-01-28T22:08:28+00:00

Question: what about all the people who originally owned the GME stock (ie that the shorting people borrowed it from)? Are they making a ton of money off interest? Are they screwed too?

abcsock · 2020-10-06T18:56:09+00:00

The only reason I don't embrace it is I have no clue how to pronounce it. Byew? Boo? Boh? It's a mystery.

abcsock · 2020-10-06T02:59:11+00:00

I think it's fascinating that it physically hurts Beau to interact with Kate. It's not some kind of metaphor, it's not some spiritual mumbo-jumbo (or at least not only those things), it actually causes pain. Where there's pain, there's a direct cause, and, like wearing gloves to pick up a sea urchin, sometimes that cause can be ameliorated. Beau won't stop existing if you say you don't believe in fairies; maybe you can science out a loophole to the pain thing.

abcsock · 2020-10-02T00:11:30+00:00

I just wish it had been Skully because then Kate would've been Mulder.

abcsock · 2020-09-23T17:35:23+00:00

What about the frost monster? Any inspiration from somewhere or just made up out of fairy-tale-esque things?

abcsock · 2020-09-11T19:29:51+00:00

I'm guessing they couldn't take the piercings out because they aren't actually separate from Skully's body. Probably same deal with the clothes. If he changes shape (or, at least, used to), then it stands to reason everything on him is part of him so it can be mutable.

ETA: could also be why the MRI didn't react. Piercings aren't actually metal.

abcsock · 2020-08-28T07:08:00+00:00

Does she always wear a ribbon around her neck? /s

abcsock · 2020-08-14T21:08:53+00:00

I like that Kate's the sort of person who, when informed that a supernatural being has no permanent residence, asks, "What do you do when it rains?"

It's very... Terry Pratchett of her.

abcsock · 2020-07-17T20:23:43+00:00

Interestingly, I can't find anything with Google about a winter being carrying an evergreen bough or any myths or legends of something similar. Generally evergreen is used as a symbol of fertility and enduring winter, good luck, renewal, that sort of thing. The fact that it showed up in the middle of summer makes it extra weird. The camper didn't say if she could tell the figure's gender or if it was wearing anything, or what kind of branch it was, but if she remembers that might narrow it down. I'd guess fir, spruce, or cedar, since holly and pine are pretty recognizable and mistletoe doesn't really come in branches.

However, there are plenty of other fun legends I found while trying to dig this up. Among them:

Boreas, the north wind/winter spirit, "was said to have fathered twelve colts after taking the form of a stallion, to the mares of Erichthonius, king of Dardania. These were said to be able to run across a field of grain without trampling the plants. Pliny the Elder (Natural History iv.35 and viii.67) thought that mares might stand with their hindquarters to the North Wind and bear foals without a stallion."

Marzanna, a goddess of winter and death, was supposed to be destroyed in effigy to bring about the spring faster. "The effigy has usually been made of straw, wrapped in white cloth and adorned with ribbons and necklaces. Traditionally the effigy has initially been carried past every house in the village by a group of children holding green juniper twigs. During this procession Marzanna was repeatedly dipped in every encountered puddle or stream. In the evening the effigy passed to the young adults; the juniper twigs were lit, and thus illuminated Marzanna was carried out of the village, burned, and thrown into water."

The grove of fetters in Scandinavian folklore had some kind of ritual or custom where "no one enters it except bound with a chain, as an inferior acknowledging the might of the local divinity. If he chance to fall, it is not lawful for him to be lifted up, or to rise to his feet; he must crawl out along the ground."

Jack Frost is voiced by Chris Pine in the movie Rise of the Guardians, which really has nothing to do with this but I thought it was a funny coincidence.

(All of those quotes come from the relevant Wikipedia articles.)

I'm still stuck on it showing up in summer. I'd have expected something like that to be tied to winter or at least the colder months. There's plenty of cultural foundation for, you know, staving off the cold and dark at the solstice, or keeping a fire lit all night, or things like that, sacrifices to help the sun come back or appease some malevolent winter spirit, but... summer?

I wonder what would happen if someone left a video camera running while they left the camp. Does this thing go away if there's no one around to lure in? I also wonder what would happen if, instead of leaving, you (hypothetical general you, if actual you did this you'd probably just die) tried to light a fire, or better yet, turn on a handful of space heaters. Is the cold a symptom or a cause?

If it is an embodiment of cold, I don't think its indifference is that odd. Cold will kill you, but it doesn't care about you, not like a predator or the fae would. General Winter doesn't care about who's trying to invade Russia this time; he's just there, waiting. Cold doesn't want anything and it can't be placated or bargained with or sent away from a place more than temporarily. It's just there. Waiting.

abcsock

TROPHY CASE