Random Thoughts Thread

[marurun]

Apple’s music store was indeed the beginning of the decline of music piracy, but streaming services did the most damage. Radio you can influence, even control to a degree. But also legal services like Freegal that libraries provide. And while CD sales are way down, digital sales and streaming royalties sales are actually making up the difference and more, at least in revenue (for the publishers, not as much the artists).

[RCBH928]

Game cracking is not significantly harder than it was 10-20 years ago, but that barrier has always been higher than exchanging money for the game and it just works. There's a tipping point where pricing is low enough that you "what the hell" it and purchase rather than deal with a crack.

Yea I didn't know that, I just imagined programming became so complex you have to jump through hoops to crack a modern game. I haven't used a pirated game in ions, if you don't consider ROMs, last pirated games I got were bootlegged xbox 360 copies probably the last of them was in 2011.

I am part of that group you described, I rather get a legal copy that is supported and guaranteed to work for $10-15 than waste time and energy to hunt the warez webz for some shady files. It helps that copies are digital, huge price reductions rather than $60, and I am personally a "patient"/retro gamer looking for the older stuff. No way I am paying $60 for a 10hr campaign. Unfortunately, this doesn't work on retro consoles, if you want a Wii game/Gamecube game you still have to pay the ebay price+shipping which will be around $25 per game if not more.

Yes game piracy is still as prevalent as it's always been. With high speed internet 20g is nothing and of course you read comments to see if the dam thing works. Of course your not playing online, no patches, no updates, no dlc. You're stuck on that version.

Yes I believe this is a major reason why piracy died, the online side of gaming. Where I live modding your Playstation and buying $3 bootlegs was the way of the average gamer. Once 360/PS3 was out and everyone wanted to download DLCs, latest updates, and compete online everyone went legit even people who were considered "poor" I guess people sometimes need to be forced to do the right thing.

[opa]

Why are so many mechanical keyboard backlit yet don't include a number pad? I'd rather be able to input numbers faster than watch a keyboard glow red.

[isiolia]

Why are so many mechanical keyboard backlit yet don't include a number pad? I'd rather be able to input numbers faster than watch a keyboard glow red.

It might depend on where you're looking.

Generally speaking, 87-key/tenkeyless has been a more popular form factor with mechanical keyboards, even before they were mainstream. Brands people were importing years back, like Filco, still split their lineup between 87 and 104 key models. ( https://mechanicalkeyboards.com/shop/in ... list&c=110 ) Plenty of people don't use the numpad (most laptops don't have one after all), and may prefer a more compact layout. "Coder" keyboards, when offered, tend to lean more heavily on fewer keys with more shortcuts, for instance.
Between the general cost, and potential for customization, I think there's general logic to dropping that block of keys if you don't really need it. Personally, I use it all the time, since the "full" keyboard layout for FFXI uses it for movement

Lighting is, at this point, cheap and almost ubiquitous for "gaming" peripherals. Can be kind of nice on a keyboard if you play in a dark room. That said, plenty of the really good brands either don't have lighting, or offer models without it.

Where I think it might feel hard to escape is if you're just searching "mechanical keyboard" on Amazon, because there's a seemingly endless parade of cheap Chinese keyboards targeting the gaming audience, and a disproportionate number of them are using the 87-key layout, likely because it's cheaper (or because they're cloning Filco or Ducky pcbs, idk).

[marurun]

I am of the opinion that light is just a bad idea on keyboards. If it's too dark to see the keys without lighting, it's probably too dark for most people to work without eye strain. Working in the dark just creates contrast issues. I know a lot of people prefer it, but it's physiologically harder on the eyes.

[isiolia]

I am of the opinion that light is just a bad idea on keyboards. If it's too dark to see the keys without lighting, it's probably too dark for most people to work without eye strain. Working in the dark just creates contrast issues. I know a lot of people prefer it, but it's physiologically harder on the eyes.

A lot of the RGB lighting stuff these days, to me, can cumulatively prevent that. Essentially because you aren't staring at a blindingly bright monitor in an otherwise dark room, but instead can have a lot of subtle lighting coming from your PC, accessories, LED rope light, etc that effectively serves as bias lighting. The keyboard itself isn't necessarily that bright (most offer multiple levels of brightness), and it does serve to make it easily readable in that low-light type situation. Figure, it's something more rooted in laptop keyboards or things like A/V gear than just flashy gaming stuff. It's just so cheap to do now that it's easy for manufacturers to include, and isn't really a tradeoff between that -or- a numpad.
The main complaints I'd have with most of it is really keycaps and (in some cases) additional software to run.

[Gunstar Green]

I am of the opinion that light is just a bad idea on keyboards. If it's too dark to see the keys without lighting, it's probably too dark for most people to work without eye strain. Working in the dark just creates contrast issues. I know a lot of people prefer it, but it's physiologically harder on the eyes.

I don't think most PC gamers need their keyboards to light up so they can see the keys.

The keyboard I'm using right now maybe has like two visible letters left that aren't worn off.

[opa]

Yeah I was just skimming amazon's offerings. I use the number pad a lot so I can't imagine not having one. I actually had a laptop with one (but that was a looong time ago). I doubt laptops have them today.

I could see using a compact keyboard if you had a small desk.

I don't think the glowing keys ever serve any practical purpose. If they did the light would be above the keys to help you see.

[RCBH928]

Yeah I was just skimming amazon's offerings. I use the number pad a lot so I can't imagine not having one. I actually had a laptop with one (but that was a looong time ago). I doubt laptops have them today.

They Do! May I ask if you use your number pad for anything other than punching in numbers say like on a spreadsheet?

On a side note, I am always mystified how people intuitively can use a number pad although its a flipped number placement compared to the commonly used phone keys, including myself!

[isiolia]

I don't think the glowing keys ever serve any practical purpose. If they did the light would be above the keys to help you see.

Eh, at this point, the typical thing is to have LEDs in each key switch. The cap itself is either clear and painted, or fused clear/opaque plastic, so the character glows. Glowing under/around the key is more a result of using a translucent switch and a backplate with the right surface. It -can- be a fairly subtle thing, but gaming peripherals these days are focusing on RGB'ing all the things... so most aren't advertised that way Same as you see the rainbow effect all over - the point (for actual RGB devices) is to indicate that it can do the full range of color, which is likely quite customizable.
More understated designs still may use lighting (IE https://codekeyboards.com/ ) as, like their site points out, you can just turn it off.


A good number of laptops today do have a numpad. It's partly a matter of form-factor - you're usually looking at 15" or larger laptops potentially having them. It'd also be a matter of vendor/series. Gaming or mobile workstation type laptops are more likely to have them, but since it usually means skewing the trackpad to one side, some still don't. My current laptop has one.