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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 17th, 2023

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  • Yeah, that was my impression also. Couple that with the travesty that was 13th Gen overheating and their refusal to even acknowledge it for so long, and I would say AMD are the wiser investment.

    Ultimately there isn’t that much difference in them for most applications, though. Bigger gains can be had with GPU, SSD and even just moar RAM.









  • Any ROM works great without Google Play Services. If anything, having MicroG installed makes things work less - I have a banking app that works fine on my old phone, without Google, but won’t work on my new phone because of a CPS Profile mismatch.

    MicroG is a house of cards that is very difficult to get stacked correctly. Most apps work fine without it. For those that don’t, use something else, or just a web browser. Hell, you probably shouldn’t be using so many apps anyway, given that you really can’t be certain what they do when they’re closed source.






  • When accessed by BleepingComputer, however, the link returned a 404 (Not Found), and according to several others who tried to access the URL, no content ever existed at the location from the beginning.

    This really doesn’t mean anything, it’s not unheard of for malicious actors to not set up their C&C servers until later on. This has actually been exploited by law enforcement in other cases also, they simply registered the domain themselves and took control away ahead of the attacker.

    There’s a risk with setting up the C&C that it could be traced back to the attackers. By not setting it up until it’s needed you avoid that risk until it becomes necessary.


  • Obviously this depends on the exact details of the patents, which are all in Japanese, as well as the specifics of Japanese patent laws.

    However, patents only last for 20 years, and they are undermined by public disclosure before filing. The first Pokemon game came out more than 20 years ago. However^2 not all of the features in the patents were present in the original games. All 3 patents were first filed in 2021, well after many of these features were established.

    The first patent is about aiming something and entering into a fight mode. This wasn’t in the original game. Aiming at enemies and entering a fight mode almost certainly existed before Pokemon (Final Fantasy perhaps). Furthermore, Palworld doesn’t really have a fight mode - it isn’t a turn based game but real time. Throwing a sphere is just one way to start a “battle” but there is no mode change between “explore” and “battle” modes because they are functionally the same in Palworld. Pokemon Go and Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee, which were all around in 2018, would seem to amount to public disclosure that undermines this patent.

    The second patent has more detail about catching Pokemon outside of battles. This might have some elements of Palworld gameplay in it. However, again we have prior art that predates the patent.

    The third patent is about riding characters. This has certainly existed in other games before Pokemon and before this patent. Off the top of my head, World of Warcraft had you riding mounts, Final Fantasy had you riding Chocobos, and Mega Man let you ride Rush.

    However the big issue with all of these is that these challenges are always better off done before the patent is granted. With the patents established it is a massive uphill struggle trying to get them withdrawn. Given that each charge is only for $33,000, so about $100,000 total, I expect a settlement will be reached instead of going on this fight.



  • Yeah I read this article on another post, I’m not sure that’s the whole story.

    From what I remember, he was running a few “shops”. These don’t actually sell games, but they can be accessed by a piece of homebrew software on the switch, and then you connect to the “shop” to download games directly to the device - this was done instead of manually copying install files to the SD card, installing, and then deleting the original files to save space; or instead of installing over USB. The shops were much easier, not least because removing the SD card to copy games from a PC required a reboot, and rebooting an OG hacked Switch could be kind of a pain.

    I think the “sales” he did were actually just donations that got you early access to titles that weren’t widely available yet. However, it’s generally when you start taking money for these things that the shit hits the fan and the hammer comes down.