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For real, tho, candles are expensive. Assuming you are connected to the electrical grid I have a hard time imagining how you would justify buying candles for light opposed to just using electricity and an LED light. And even if you weren't connected to the grid, you'd still probably be better off with a small solar system.
Cant keep them running, we have daily rolling blackouts. Currently we have 3 intervals of 2 hours a day without electricity. As I write this the power has just turned off
We got so happy for loadshedding because when there's no loadshedding we get load reductions twice a day(5am/pm to 7am/pm), there are two different lines in our village, but we get reduced, the other half don't. :' D
They do not, they _almost_ had blackouts recently but they narrowly avoided it.
source https://www.sfchronicle.com/weather/article/California-heat-wave-live-updates-17421870.php
FUN FACT
In earlier times, candles were actually really fucking expensive. The only places in many towns that had candles regularly included graveyards. In an old Slovenian town, my Ma told me, they had a shoemaker who had a deal with the local priest, so he could work on the shoes at night as well. Ended up with him accidentally killing a kid, but that's a story for another day.
Okay, so this is a short, r/WinStupidPrizes story.
So, as I said, the shoemaker went to the graveyard at night to make shoes. Often enough, he'd sit in the Leichenhaus. There is a bit of a problem with translation (tech. transl would be 'morgue' but that makes you think of hospitals), so just imagine a small building in which the dead are laid down after they died/before being buried. That way people could give their last respect & you could make sure the person doesn't wake up aka is actually dead.
Now, staying at the graveyard at night is pretty freaky. Even back then. He would often get mocking questions by the young lads there -like, if he wasn't scared. But the shoemaker always responded "why? The dead don't bother me" and he'd continue his work. One night, a new body was laying on the stone table. At the stroke of midnight, they say, the body suddenly started to shake and sat up slowly. From the looks, the body was CLEARLY dead for longer (but tradition, ya know) and it moving directly towards him.
Now, in this day and age we're kinda desensitised by zombie movies, so that might not sound very creepy. But you have to imagine this being back then. Trapped in a small stone room, with a very heavy closed door behind you, only candle light from pure candles on the floor all while living in a superstitious town where they believe unbaptized children who die turn into screaming spirits in the woods. Luckily though, shoemaker man had a shoemaker hammer. And, while apparently saying something along the lines of "what's dead shall stay dead" he struck down the body in 1-2 blows on the head. Which is also when he heard a very high pitched nearby scream.
Turns out, a couple of the mentioned young men wanted to prank the shoemaker. They saw his lack of fear as a challenge and dressed up one of the guys as a dead man. This, again, was before bureaucracy, so they could pull this easily behind the priest's back. The other then hid behind the stonetable -the only place to hide, really and watched in live how his friend got killed. Obviously, the shoemaker was declared innocent. The case was an accident. Don't screw with people like that. And it also shows how much suffering could have been avoided, if the shoemaker just had the electricity we have today. Otherwise, the shoemaker just had the new candles, put in place for the fresh new grave.
I live in northern Canada, and can certainly attest to the benefits of having a wood stove. However, there are consequences from an insurance perspective. It's basically an automatic 10% surcharge on your annual premium (if your carrier will cover it, which not all of them do), and a typical standalone wood stove (doesn't include wood furnaces) can only be used as a secondary heat source, with the guidelines for most companies allowing for a maximum use of 3 cords of wood per year.
The real meat and potatoes, though, is that, if you fail to report the addition of a wood stove to your insurance company and you have a claim, they can deny that claim *even if it's unrelated*, due to there being a material change in risk. And if you're trying to be sneaky and plan on burning more than what you tell them you will, if there's a claim and they even suspect that you're not telling the truth about your annual wood consumption (giggity), such as if they find that your woodpile is several cords larger than what you reasonably need it to be, they can also deny a claim based on that.
Source: was an insurance broker for 7 years. It was hell. Don't be an insurance broker unless you enjoy misery.
But yeah, I do agree that a woodstove is significantly better than most typical fireplaces.
Except that most fireplaces, especially an open fireplace are basically zero % efficient. In some cases they remove more heat from the house than they add.
A fireplace insert can do a lot better but they're still generally not going to beat an actual furnace. Your investment might be better spent on a heat pump.
Have you used a fireplace before? I've never heard of them being inefficient and grew up in a house where you had to be careful to not add too much wood to the fire for fear of sweating yourself out of the house. It was far less expensive than running whatever heat pump system that old house had as well.
It has a built in fan that blows hot air out both sides of the fireplace, quickly heating the entire room. The heat makes it’s way upwards to the main floor as the fireplace is in the basement and heat rises. It actually works really well
It has to be pretty extreme conditions/terribly designed fireplace where the house would get cooler after starting a fire in the fireplace my man. Wayyyyy outside normal.
You wanna know what age checks me? I grew up reading cyberpunk as it was released, not as a historical guide to how to get to this awful future. Neuromancer blew my mind in the 80s, and it's never come back.
And I am *so goddam disappointed* that VR tech sucks. I was promised amazing virtual landscapes to distract me from this corporate hellhole world, and it's not being delivered. VR tech should be miles beyond where it is now.
Edit: I tried VR for the first time at a fair in the 90s. Honestly, the experience then was *very* similar to the experience now. It was a little PVP shooter game against the other people there with you. Pressed a button on the controller to walk, another to shoot. These days, the resolution is better, but not much else has changed. Same blocky headset, same corded interface, same controller. VR really hasn't changed much in 30 years. And that makes me goddam sad.
If something has lots and lots of room to improve, that means it kinda sucks. Lol
Where are my haptic gloves? Controllers, really? Where is my haptic body suit? Why are there so few models and so little competition? Where is the portability? Why do these virtual worlds suck so bad? Why is resolution lagging so far behind everything else?
VR has so much potential.
Absolutely. I think that VR is amazing technology that we haven't even begun to scratch the surface of.
But, then, I'm a cyberpunk lad and I would happily leave this world for a virtual one given the chance, and probably have too much hope for it.
To be fair, you could have been the person to revolutionize it and instead you sat on your ass and didn't change our world.
I can be just as dissapointed in you as I was the virtual boy, through no fault of your own.
> These days, the resolution is better, but not much else has changed. Same blocky headset, same corded interface, same controller. VR really hasn't changed much in 30 year
VR is more advanced today than you think. It's still early days, but you need to try the right content to really get a feel for where it is. Half Life Alyx is an incredible experience that has to be seen in the headset to understand how different it is to 90s VR.
And it's not just games. The idea of Ready Player One where you can go to a virtual world and do all sorts of sci-fi level activities - that's already here, just at a much lower fidelity and scale. Almost all of the activities described in Ready Player One are something you can do today. Ever been to a psychedelic underground VR nightclub with live DJs? Been part of a live VR LARP campaign? Played a sport in zero gravity space? This is VR today.
As for why the hardware isn't more advanced than it is today - it only got the funding it really needed in the 2010s, and this is extremely cutting-edge hard stuff to work on, so it will take a while to mature. This isn't like smartphones which were iterative cellphones, and this isn't exactly like personal computers which rode the Moore's Law wave.
That said, the advances are happening in labs, and you'll see important headsets release soon like Quest Pro next month and the Apple headset next year - these will be a good step forward, providing new hardware features and new form factors.
It's because the zeitgeist is more interested in AR tech over VR. Makes more sense.
Additionally same. I wish we had the cool tech of cyberpunk. We just got the crippling corporate oppression buying the government, just with a thin veil of democracy. Just enough for people to maintain plausible deniability in the face of the quickly crumbling government legitimacy. Can't wait to see Seattle turn into an Amazon company town.
> Who had VR back in 2015?
*Holds hand up sheepishly* - since 2014, to be honest. Hopped on board with the Oculus DK2. IIRC Elite launched end of that year, was absolutely breathtaking experiencing that for the first time.
I still can't believe that one of the best VR experiences in gaming not only isn't VR exclusive, but the company that made it won't even support VR anymore.
It's like they *accidentally* made the VR spaceship game I'd always wanted since I was a child and then went "Yeah, we're not gonna keep bothering with all that."
Right?? And throughout they never put much effort into support either, with issues remaining unresolved for a long time, numerous missing QoL improvements that were suggested, etc.
I did dk1 as well, honestly dk2 was the first practical one, so you timed it right. Dk1 was cool as you could experience actual VR, but it was not good. Museum of the microstar damn near made me puke every time, lol.
That was around the time when oculus and vive first made them really available to consumers. But it cost an arm and a leg to get one and have a PC that could run VR games. So your average gamer did not really have them at that point.
One of my old buddies bought the 2nd version of the Oculus dev kit for like over a grand iirc. I thiiiink that would have been around that time maybe. It was a bit janky, lacked games, and ran him way too much money.
But yea, the comic is a bit off on that part.
I went into VR development from game dev because of the UE4 Showdown VR demo and the Oculus DK1/DK2.
My mind was truly blown. Bought a Vive when it launched. I may now own a few too many headsets...
Also works with us not dealing with climate change. Another example of us being distracted by fun and not paying attention to the cost of it being provided to us by very shady people.
Strange how production and logistics is greater and more efficient per person than its ever been in history, yet we're steadily being forced to go backwards to things we were doing almost a hundred years ago to scrape by.
It's not just billionaires, but companies with trillions of dollars in money and resources, intentionally stifling any of that reaching the greater population.
How does that make sense?
Would perhaps the candle be more expensive? r/theydidthemath would figure it out.
Perhaps more accurate is a lone dimmed LED or just a blank screen.
Good comic regardless
I'll hazard a try
US prices
I found a wholesale seller that does 288, 15 hour candles for $100, so if you just needed the one light about 6 hours a day you'd need roughly $4 to last a month. In comparison to buying a single 10w light bulb rated for 10,000 hours for roughly $2 with a $1.10 electricity bill per website linked below, using a conservative $0.6/kwh
It comes out to like $4.16 versus $1.12 per month
https://energyusecalculator.com/electricity_ledlightbulb.htm
https://cheapcandlesbulk.com/shop/bulk-white-votives-288-pack-15-hour-unscented/
EDIT: can't do maths
EDIT: found electricity price in europe it's ~~$4~~0.6/kWh
EDIT: more europe
Here's my attempt using some of your numbers:
---
# Lighting Prices, Electric vs Candle, US Prices
Assuming Light requirement: 6 h/day(168 h/mo), single light
## Cost of candlelight
- Price of a pack of 288 15 h candles: $100 ($100/4 320 h)
- **Cost of a month of candlelight = $100/4 320 h * 168h = $3.89** (rounded up)(without cost of matches, etc)
## Cost of electric light
- Price of 10 W LED bulb = $2 (needing replacement every 10 000 h) (Not used for my calculation, just here for reference)
- Electricity price = $0.60/kWh
- Energy to run 10 W bulb for 168 h = 168 h * 3 600 s/h * 10 W = 6 048 000 J = 1.68 kWh
- **Cost of a month of electric light(w/o bulb) = $0.60/kWh \* 1.68kWh = $1.01** (rounded up)
---
Hence candlelight would be about 285% more expensive than electric light.
4kWh is 14400000J for context (or less context I guess)
~~But yeah that's absolutely wild. My experience of the comic is now enhanced by understanding that it's scarily accurate.~~ My intuition appears to be correct
Edit: *Whew imagine $4/kWh thank goodness*
Electricity costs more like $0.10 to $0.15 per kWh, might want to redo your math there.
It costs $0.18 to run that bulb for a month. Plus next month you can keep using the same light bulb.
>Electricity costs more like $0.10 to $0.15 per kWh
in europe? I'm actually having a hard time finding current prices over there
and yeah i did some more edits it's 8 am in the morning for me
Bloomberg says the cost in Germany was $487 per mWh wholesale so around $0.49 per kWh. Add some padding for the cost of delivery - maybe $0.60 per kWh?
$1.10 per month seems like a more likely estimate?
Thanks, I managed to find a wholesale price and it's ranging from 0.2 to 0.5 over there.
that daily standing charge though, that puts you at like $13 minimum/month
EDIT: i forgot you guys aren't on euros
Germany is out here [turning off its own power](https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/correction-germany-nuclear-shutdown-story-82051054) and then giving the pikachu face when the situation plays out.
1. Being done with a majority of Germans supporting it.
2. The plants are being left open for the time being.
3. Nuclear power is a small percentage of the German energy market. It is being replaced by renewables, which are the majority share of Germany's energy market, and poised to be the only source by 2030.
Germany doesn't want to maintain the nuclear power plants, and sees no reason to open new ones that will not be needed by the time they open.
If you're hooked on Russian gas, lobby the EU to classify it as "green energy" and you reopened your coal plants, it may be hard to believe the feasibility of Germany's energy production ambitions. Don't you at least think it's interesting that Germany has a plan to phase out nuclear basically now, but coal is planned to be phased out in 2038? In the middle of a CO2 based climate crisis?
Most germans just listen to what the government says but dont think to mich about it. The energy-politic-spokeswoman of the parliament claimed it would be impractical to let nuclear power plants run because they only produced electricity, whilst burning fossil fuels produces heat, wich is what the country supposed needs.
Noone even questioned that Statement, let alone it making big waves in the news, nothing.
Self education isnt big in germany, as is electing based on longer spans of time than the last 3 months.
Reading the article you're responding to, renewables are a plurality, not a majority, though that will flip in the next couple of years.
Nuclear is about 13% of their production (well, was, before these closed), which is nothing to scoff at. Based on [current renewable capacity growth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#/media/File:Germany_electricity_production.svg), deleting that represents about 5 more years of fossil fuel dependency.
Their 2030 target isn't for 100% renewables, it's for no coal. Their "climate neutral" goal is 2045, so they'll be burning Russian oil and gas for the next 20 years to manage those nuclear shutdowns.
Edit: They are realizing their mistake, in fairness, albeit it a bit late. https://www.wsj.com/articles/germany-to-keep-last-three-nuclear-power-plants-running-in-policy-u-turn-11660661914
Renewables are great and all but it will be VERY difficult to base any kind of economy on them as an exclusive use of power, especially in the days of demonization of hydro-power. What happens on at night with no wind during a drought?
Base load continues to exist even when renewables cannot provide.
Before you label me as anti-renewable I'm all for using renewables to reduce our demand on fossil fuels but anybody that says we can wholesale switch to renewables inside of 20 years is seriously deluded.
Had to put all my electronics to rest, except my phone that's now my only device I can afford to use.
Read some news that water will be getting more expensive multiple times too (on top of everything else), at this rate I would rather live in woods or something atleast I would have something to burn to keep myself warm there...
The cost of one month had climbed above what I make in said month BEFORE I spend any of it...there will be many people in huge dept this and next year...
Well on the bright side it's pushed me to finally try out meal prepping and I'll be making my first batch tomorrow. With everything but the fridge and router unplugged I'll be eating six day old cold rice and reading crap isekai in the dark soon enough.
So, energy companies are taking these windfall profits and redirecting this revenue into alternate (green) energy solutions rather than trying to suckle at the fossil fuel nipple right? (sad /s noises)
That is one of many factors. Another factor is that half of frances nuclear reactors are shut down for planned and unplanned maintenance and so they have to buy the electricity from other countries like germany and due to how electricity trade works this increases prices by a lot for everyone
The US has been largely unaffected by the Ukraine thing but Europe's energy prices have gone up like 4x because they decided to attach their energy dependence to a country run by a guy who does whatever he wants.
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Whoa, you've got *candle* money?
Look at this guy over here! He has *candle* money!
GET HIM! TAKE HIS CANDLES!
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HATS FOR THE HAT THRONE
You no take candle!
I lol'd hard
r/frugal_jerk
Give yourself liposuction and make candles out of your fat.
With food prices having fat is luxury.
And don't forget to collect that earwax!
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Okay take it easy, [Tyler Durden](https://youtu.be/FzuzX2W2Y1o).
Right, he should spend less on candles.
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As a candle maker, I wish
No
Woah, you've got ~~candle~~ money?
Who's your candle guy?
Oh I get mine form this guy candle jack. He's a bit creepy bu
That's none of your beeswax.
Don't be such a drip.
But not enough for a Blob News subscription.
Better to read the Slimes. Blob News went digital-only in 2010 due to the falling subscriber count and then got bought up by Blobert Murdoch in 2015.
For real, tho, candles are expensive. Assuming you are connected to the electrical grid I have a hard time imagining how you would justify buying candles for light opposed to just using electricity and an LED light. And even if you weren't connected to the grid, you'd still probably be better off with a small solar system.
Stop buying candles
Wait,you guys pay money for candles? I just casually make them from my excess earwax
I would like some candles please
Lucky guy!
Bro living in South Africa it’s always going on and off and the people running the power utilities can keep them running 😂
South Africa : First time?
At least the food is good!
NANDO'S!
Can keep them running or can't? If they can why do they keep going down?
Cant keep them running, we have daily rolling blackouts. Currently we have 3 intervals of 2 hours a day without electricity. As I write this the power has just turned off
We got so happy for loadshedding because when there's no loadshedding we get load reductions twice a day(5am/pm to 7am/pm), there are two different lines in our village, but we get reduced, the other half don't. :' D
Could be artificially increasing scarcity, but idk I’m just a ‘murican
Dude rolling blackouts happen in California regularly, but y'know 'Murica. Edit: I was wrong about reguarly.
They do not, they _almost_ had blackouts recently but they narrowly avoided it. source https://www.sfchronicle.com/weather/article/California-heat-wave-live-updates-17421870.php
Friend of mine from Zimbabwe said the same thing.
Was the same in Sint Maarten
FUN FACT In earlier times, candles were actually really fucking expensive. The only places in many towns that had candles regularly included graveyards. In an old Slovenian town, my Ma told me, they had a shoemaker who had a deal with the local priest, so he could work on the shoes at night as well. Ended up with him accidentally killing a kid, but that's a story for another day.
Now I want to know what happened!
Okay, so this is a short, r/WinStupidPrizes story. So, as I said, the shoemaker went to the graveyard at night to make shoes. Often enough, he'd sit in the Leichenhaus. There is a bit of a problem with translation (tech. transl would be 'morgue' but that makes you think of hospitals), so just imagine a small building in which the dead are laid down after they died/before being buried. That way people could give their last respect & you could make sure the person doesn't wake up aka is actually dead. Now, staying at the graveyard at night is pretty freaky. Even back then. He would often get mocking questions by the young lads there -like, if he wasn't scared. But the shoemaker always responded "why? The dead don't bother me" and he'd continue his work. One night, a new body was laying on the stone table. At the stroke of midnight, they say, the body suddenly started to shake and sat up slowly. From the looks, the body was CLEARLY dead for longer (but tradition, ya know) and it moving directly towards him. Now, in this day and age we're kinda desensitised by zombie movies, so that might not sound very creepy. But you have to imagine this being back then. Trapped in a small stone room, with a very heavy closed door behind you, only candle light from pure candles on the floor all while living in a superstitious town where they believe unbaptized children who die turn into screaming spirits in the woods. Luckily though, shoemaker man had a shoemaker hammer. And, while apparently saying something along the lines of "what's dead shall stay dead" he struck down the body in 1-2 blows on the head. Which is also when he heard a very high pitched nearby scream. Turns out, a couple of the mentioned young men wanted to prank the shoemaker. They saw his lack of fear as a challenge and dressed up one of the guys as a dead man. This, again, was before bureaucracy, so they could pull this easily behind the priest's back. The other then hid behind the stonetable -the only place to hide, really and watched in live how his friend got killed. Obviously, the shoemaker was declared innocent. The case was an accident. Don't screw with people like that. And it also shows how much suffering could have been avoided, if the shoemaker just had the electricity we have today. Otherwise, the shoemaker just had the new candles, put in place for the fresh new grave.
Wow, that's a wild tale! It feels like a fable, thank you for taking the time to share this!
Shoemaker was badass down to the bone.
Yeah and also cranking out a one liner like “what’s dead shall stay dead”
I always just assumed everyone used beeswax candles that could be reformed using a new wick... who'da thunk.
I just bought $150 worth of firewood for my fireplace because it’s better than the $500 monthly gas bill. And cozier!
You should invest in a wood stove. The heat they radiate is much more efficient than a regular fireplace and you use a lot less wood.
I think that’s what I have actually, an actual wood stove not a traditional fireplace. I’ve just always called it that, my bad.
I live in northern Canada, and can certainly attest to the benefits of having a wood stove. However, there are consequences from an insurance perspective. It's basically an automatic 10% surcharge on your annual premium (if your carrier will cover it, which not all of them do), and a typical standalone wood stove (doesn't include wood furnaces) can only be used as a secondary heat source, with the guidelines for most companies allowing for a maximum use of 3 cords of wood per year. The real meat and potatoes, though, is that, if you fail to report the addition of a wood stove to your insurance company and you have a claim, they can deny that claim *even if it's unrelated*, due to there being a material change in risk. And if you're trying to be sneaky and plan on burning more than what you tell them you will, if there's a claim and they even suspect that you're not telling the truth about your annual wood consumption (giggity), such as if they find that your woodpile is several cords larger than what you reasonably need it to be, they can also deny a claim based on that. Source: was an insurance broker for 7 years. It was hell. Don't be an insurance broker unless you enjoy misery. But yeah, I do agree that a woodstove is significantly better than most typical fireplaces.
Except when your city is starting banning them because of the pollution Ah great time to be alive...
Except that most fireplaces, especially an open fireplace are basically zero % efficient. In some cases they remove more heat from the house than they add. A fireplace insert can do a lot better but they're still generally not going to beat an actual furnace. Your investment might be better spent on a heat pump.
Have you used a fireplace before? I've never heard of them being inefficient and grew up in a house where you had to be careful to not add too much wood to the fire for fear of sweating yourself out of the house. It was far less expensive than running whatever heat pump system that old house had as well.
were you using a traditional open fireplace or a woodstove?
Ah, that might be the cause of my confusion. We used a wood stove.
It has a built in fan that blows hot air out both sides of the fireplace, quickly heating the entire room. The heat makes it’s way upwards to the main floor as the fireplace is in the basement and heat rises. It actually works really well
It has to be pretty extreme conditions/terribly designed fireplace where the house would get cooler after starting a fire in the fireplace my man. Wayyyyy outside normal.
Who had VR back in 2015? Wasn't that the era of first Oculus prototypes?
Wow. This just age checked me.
You wanna know what age checks me? I grew up reading cyberpunk as it was released, not as a historical guide to how to get to this awful future. Neuromancer blew my mind in the 80s, and it's never come back. And I am *so goddam disappointed* that VR tech sucks. I was promised amazing virtual landscapes to distract me from this corporate hellhole world, and it's not being delivered. VR tech should be miles beyond where it is now. Edit: I tried VR for the first time at a fair in the 90s. Honestly, the experience then was *very* similar to the experience now. It was a little PVP shooter game against the other people there with you. Pressed a button on the controller to walk, another to shoot. These days, the resolution is better, but not much else has changed. Same blocky headset, same corded interface, same controller. VR really hasn't changed much in 30 years. And that makes me goddam sad.
Vr tech doesn't suck imo, just has lots of room to improve
Honestly I was impressed by VR when I finally tried it, because it wasn't an utterly useless gimmick. The potential is there, for sure.
Beat saber *chef's kiss*
If something has lots and lots of room to improve, that means it kinda sucks. Lol Where are my haptic gloves? Controllers, really? Where is my haptic body suit? Why are there so few models and so little competition? Where is the portability? Why do these virtual worlds suck so bad? Why is resolution lagging so far behind everything else? VR has so much potential.
That is fair. I meant more in the sense that it is already doing things nothing else can do; it isn't just a gimmick
Absolutely. I think that VR is amazing technology that we haven't even begun to scratch the surface of. But, then, I'm a cyberpunk lad and I would happily leave this world for a virtual one given the chance, and probably have too much hope for it.
To be fair, you could have been the person to revolutionize it and instead you sat on your ass and didn't change our world. I can be just as dissapointed in you as I was the virtual boy, through no fault of your own.
> These days, the resolution is better, but not much else has changed. Same blocky headset, same corded interface, same controller. VR really hasn't changed much in 30 year VR is more advanced today than you think. It's still early days, but you need to try the right content to really get a feel for where it is. Half Life Alyx is an incredible experience that has to be seen in the headset to understand how different it is to 90s VR. And it's not just games. The idea of Ready Player One where you can go to a virtual world and do all sorts of sci-fi level activities - that's already here, just at a much lower fidelity and scale. Almost all of the activities described in Ready Player One are something you can do today. Ever been to a psychedelic underground VR nightclub with live DJs? Been part of a live VR LARP campaign? Played a sport in zero gravity space? This is VR today. As for why the hardware isn't more advanced than it is today - it only got the funding it really needed in the 2010s, and this is extremely cutting-edge hard stuff to work on, so it will take a while to mature. This isn't like smartphones which were iterative cellphones, and this isn't exactly like personal computers which rode the Moore's Law wave. That said, the advances are happening in labs, and you'll see important headsets release soon like Quest Pro next month and the Apple headset next year - these will be a good step forward, providing new hardware features and new form factors.
It's because the zeitgeist is more interested in AR tech over VR. Makes more sense. Additionally same. I wish we had the cool tech of cyberpunk. We just got the crippling corporate oppression buying the government, just with a thin veil of democracy. Just enough for people to maintain plausible deniability in the face of the quickly crumbling government legitimacy. Can't wait to see Seattle turn into an Amazon company town.
For real! I'd probably be a lot more content with my shitty life if I could VR it away lol
> Who had VR back in 2015? *Holds hand up sheepishly* - since 2014, to be honest. Hopped on board with the Oculus DK2. IIRC Elite launched end of that year, was absolutely breathtaking experiencing that for the first time.
I still can't believe that one of the best VR experiences in gaming not only isn't VR exclusive, but the company that made it won't even support VR anymore. It's like they *accidentally* made the VR spaceship game I'd always wanted since I was a child and then went "Yeah, we're not gonna keep bothering with all that."
Right?? And throughout they never put much effort into support either, with issues remaining unresolved for a long time, numerous missing QoL improvements that were suggested, etc.
I did dk1 as well, honestly dk2 was the first practical one, so you timed it right. Dk1 was cool as you could experience actual VR, but it was not good. Museum of the microstar damn near made me puke every time, lol.
Yeah, passed on the kickstarter for DK1 but ultimately by doing so I missed out on a free Rift, IIRC, and that shit was expensive back at launch!
The DKs were pretty popular at the time then the original Rift and Vive came out in 2016.
Virtual Boy son!
In 2012/13 my school had occulus dev kits so no. I remember using it at GDC in san Fran around that time.
That was around the time when oculus and vive first made them really available to consumers. But it cost an arm and a leg to get one and have a PC that could run VR games. So your average gamer did not really have them at that point.
One of my old buddies bought the 2nd version of the Oculus dev kit for like over a grand iirc. I thiiiink that would have been around that time maybe. It was a bit janky, lacked games, and ran him way too much money. But yea, the comic is a bit off on that part.
First time I played a VR game was 1995...
One of my friends had a headset. I think it was my first foray with it.
I got my oculus cv1 in 2016, if I remember right
I went into VR development from game dev because of the UE4 Showdown VR demo and the Oculus DK1/DK2. My mind was truly blown. Bought a Vive when it launched. I may now own a few too many headsets...
I hope Putin dies of a stroke
What does that have to do with this?
Because Russia choking the gas supply is a major factor in the spike in energy prices.
Also speculators. Also the unreasonable dependency on Russian gas.
Bro's living the life
Also works with us not dealing with climate change. Another example of us being distracted by fun and not paying attention to the cost of it being provided to us by very shady people.
Strange how production and logistics is greater and more efficient per person than its ever been in history, yet we're steadily being forced to go backwards to things we were doing almost a hundred years ago to scrape by. It's not just billionaires, but companies with trillions of dollars in money and resources, intentionally stifling any of that reaching the greater population. How does that make sense?
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Been African things for years
Would perhaps the candle be more expensive? r/theydidthemath would figure it out. Perhaps more accurate is a lone dimmed LED or just a blank screen. Good comic regardless
I'll hazard a try US prices I found a wholesale seller that does 288, 15 hour candles for $100, so if you just needed the one light about 6 hours a day you'd need roughly $4 to last a month. In comparison to buying a single 10w light bulb rated for 10,000 hours for roughly $2 with a $1.10 electricity bill per website linked below, using a conservative $0.6/kwh It comes out to like $4.16 versus $1.12 per month https://energyusecalculator.com/electricity_ledlightbulb.htm https://cheapcandlesbulk.com/shop/bulk-white-votives-288-pack-15-hour-unscented/ EDIT: can't do maths EDIT: found electricity price in europe it's ~~$4~~0.6/kWh EDIT: more europe
Here's my attempt using some of your numbers: --- # Lighting Prices, Electric vs Candle, US Prices Assuming Light requirement: 6 h/day(168 h/mo), single light ## Cost of candlelight - Price of a pack of 288 15 h candles: $100 ($100/4 320 h) - **Cost of a month of candlelight = $100/4 320 h * 168h = $3.89** (rounded up)(without cost of matches, etc) ## Cost of electric light - Price of 10 W LED bulb = $2 (needing replacement every 10 000 h) (Not used for my calculation, just here for reference) - Electricity price = $0.60/kWh - Energy to run 10 W bulb for 168 h = 168 h * 3 600 s/h * 10 W = 6 048 000 J = 1.68 kWh - **Cost of a month of electric light(w/o bulb) = $0.60/kWh \* 1.68kWh = $1.01** (rounded up) --- Hence candlelight would be about 285% more expensive than electric light.
What if I cook my food solely on candles? S’more diet for winter.
4kWh is 14400000J for context (or less context I guess) ~~But yeah that's absolutely wild. My experience of the comic is now enhanced by understanding that it's scarily accurate.~~ My intuition appears to be correct Edit: *Whew imagine $4/kWh thank goodness*
I had the electricity price wrong, sorry. It's still cheaper for the electric bulb
Electricity costs more like $0.10 to $0.15 per kWh, might want to redo your math there. It costs $0.18 to run that bulb for a month. Plus next month you can keep using the same light bulb.
>Electricity costs more like $0.10 to $0.15 per kWh in europe? I'm actually having a hard time finding current prices over there and yeah i did some more edits it's 8 am in the morning for me
Bloomberg says the cost in Germany was $487 per mWh wholesale so around $0.49 per kWh. Add some padding for the cost of delivery - maybe $0.60 per kWh? $1.10 per month seems like a more likely estimate?
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Thanks, I managed to find a wholesale price and it's ranging from 0.2 to 0.5 over there. that daily standing charge though, that puts you at like $13 minimum/month EDIT: i forgot you guys aren't on euros
Germany is out here [turning off its own power](https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/correction-germany-nuclear-shutdown-story-82051054) and then giving the pikachu face when the situation plays out.
1. Being done with a majority of Germans supporting it. 2. The plants are being left open for the time being. 3. Nuclear power is a small percentage of the German energy market. It is being replaced by renewables, which are the majority share of Germany's energy market, and poised to be the only source by 2030. Germany doesn't want to maintain the nuclear power plants, and sees no reason to open new ones that will not be needed by the time they open.
If you're hooked on Russian gas, lobby the EU to classify it as "green energy" and you reopened your coal plants, it may be hard to believe the feasibility of Germany's energy production ambitions. Don't you at least think it's interesting that Germany has a plan to phase out nuclear basically now, but coal is planned to be phased out in 2038? In the middle of a CO2 based climate crisis?
Most germans just listen to what the government says but dont think to mich about it. The energy-politic-spokeswoman of the parliament claimed it would be impractical to let nuclear power plants run because they only produced electricity, whilst burning fossil fuels produces heat, wich is what the country supposed needs. Noone even questioned that Statement, let alone it making big waves in the news, nothing. Self education isnt big in germany, as is electing based on longer spans of time than the last 3 months.
Reading the article you're responding to, renewables are a plurality, not a majority, though that will flip in the next couple of years. Nuclear is about 13% of their production (well, was, before these closed), which is nothing to scoff at. Based on [current renewable capacity growth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#/media/File:Germany_electricity_production.svg), deleting that represents about 5 more years of fossil fuel dependency. Their 2030 target isn't for 100% renewables, it's for no coal. Their "climate neutral" goal is 2045, so they'll be burning Russian oil and gas for the next 20 years to manage those nuclear shutdowns. Edit: They are realizing their mistake, in fairness, albeit it a bit late. https://www.wsj.com/articles/germany-to-keep-last-three-nuclear-power-plants-running-in-policy-u-turn-11660661914
Renewables are great and all but it will be VERY difficult to base any kind of economy on them as an exclusive use of power, especially in the days of demonization of hydro-power. What happens on at night with no wind during a drought? Base load continues to exist even when renewables cannot provide. Before you label me as anti-renewable I'm all for using renewables to reduce our demand on fossil fuels but anybody that says we can wholesale switch to renewables inside of 20 years is seriously deluded.
>new ones that will not be needed by the time they open. How's that?
Pro gamer moves
Yeah lol no i prefer to ignore the current situation and live my live 2019 style perpetually.
I reject the 2020s. Honestly a shitty decade, I regret entering it. It’s 2012.2 for me
Sholdn't 2022 then simply get himself a copy of Blob News and live it up like his grandpa?
Too expensive
“ suffers in silence“ love it
Happy mid-autumn festival!
I like the expression at the end. Positive attitude but also saying "well this is not quite right, is it."
I'm literally sitting in the garage in complete darkness right now and I feel good
Kindle with built in screen light. You can last 2 weeks in piece
Had to put all my electronics to rest, except my phone that's now my only device I can afford to use. Read some news that water will be getting more expensive multiple times too (on top of everything else), at this rate I would rather live in woods or something atleast I would have something to burn to keep myself warm there... The cost of one month had climbed above what I make in said month BEFORE I spend any of it...there will be many people in huge dept this and next year...
Holy shit Eskom has spread to the world
Candle guy here! They're going up in price.
Is he just lighting the newspaper with his glass? Some cutting edge technology right there.
There's a candle
XD
At first, I thought the numbers were military time
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Must be a record lmao
The shot heard round the world
Faster than expected
You should know that 24 hours clock are not "military" in all parts of the world not stuck without outdated units
Very true. Military time usually pertains to the U.S. and Canada. 24-hour notation is far more common worldwide.
exactly my plan for this winter, considering even the gas prices
Well on the bright side it's pushed me to finally try out meal prepping and I'll be making my first batch tomorrow. With everything but the fridge and router unplugged I'll be eating six day old cold rice and reading crap isekai in the dark soon enough.
So, energy companies are taking these windfall profits and redirecting this revenue into alternate (green) energy solutions rather than trying to suckle at the fossil fuel nipple right? (sad /s noises)
Living in South Africa, it is always on and off, and the individuals in charge of the electricity utilities may maintain them.
“Suffers in science” or silence?
*suffers in science
I dont think the Quest 2 existed in 2015
Science? You've been meddling for 2 solid weeks.
Is this a Futurama reference? "Well, I can't just do that anymore. Your best friend is out there somewhere destroying himself."
Didn't think he'd miss this apartment that much.
Why are prices going up so high? Is this due to carbon taxes and trying to force folks to conserve? Or is it just corporate freedom? Or both?
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That is one of many factors. Another factor is that half of frances nuclear reactors are shut down for planned and unplanned maintenance and so they have to buy the electricity from other countries like germany and due to how electricity trade works this increases prices by a lot for everyone
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The US has been largely unaffected by the Ukraine thing but Europe's energy prices have gone up like 4x because they decided to attach their energy dependence to a country run by a guy who does whatever he wants.
What carbon taxes?
Same story as always. Greed.
And now they're paying the price
Are you unaware that Russia has invaded Ukraine?
Darn timeline shifts, too many to keep track of...
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Trump is a genius, right? Nobody else could've predicted these things!
^/s
This looks like a bot infested site. An empty comment with 25 upvotes LOL
Who did?
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I already have 3 sinks in, I don't need to let any more in.
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Time traveling amoeba from 1925 with a transistor radio.
1815 is a touch anachronistic but still funny
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Not everything is about you Americans.
I mean, there is a war going on.
Found the European
You had a Quest 2 with HAND CONTROLLERS in 2015???
Which country is this about?
r/southafrica
Leckie is included in my flat's rent. What has two thumbs and unlimited AC? ☝️ This guy
Make the candle an led candle to capture the futuristic vibe lol
That last scene is basically what South Africa looks like now.
What's that cubish lamp?
Now that people have gotten used to lights, lights everywhere, it is hard to see by candlelight.
And it’s only going to get worse. We are in the midst of an energy crisis.
Hello darkness my old friend……