bl00dmeat

Now I'm REALLY glad I didn't buy Vans smart shoes

I haven't. I've only really used Citra for Pokemon 3DS games. When it didn't run well on my phone I just resolved to play on PC.

I'll have to check that out. Happy with what I've been using but always glad to support open source!

I've used the paid versions of My OldBoy!, My Boy!, and Drastic for years for GBC/GBA/DS emulation and been very happy with them. Citra for 3DS struggles on my Pixel 6 but is great on my PC

It's unfortunately a valid "defeatist" point that I hate finding myself falling back into over and over on so many issues. It shouldn't be so hard to say 'yo can you stop taking advantage of me for personal financial gain in every possible scenario'?

I mean yeah, that's my point. We're squirrels. Why the fuck would any intelligent species with the technology to reach us bother making contact with us? You tried to talk to squirrels? Spoiler alert. They're kind of dumb compared to us. As are we compared to "them". If that were to happen, which is statistically insanely unlikely, we're lucky if they just give us a fly-by laugh.

"Look at these idiots stuck on their planet, barely able to send duct tape projects to their one moon."

You ever sprayed an ant hill in your yard? I fully expect any species with the kind of tech to reach us sees us the same way we see ants. And to your point, we would probably treat them the same way were we to be the instigators. But we're nowhere near that today.

I got mine for just under $1800 US early this year, with just online deals available at the time, no waiting for better pricing (honestly PSU prices were INSANE at the time and that made a difference). I wouldn't change a single part today. It does everything I need (including video editing/rendering)

Short answer: good plan. Check PCPartPicker. Your build is definitely overkill for most people, and you can easily get away with consistent 4k gaming for much cheaper.

Going back through your specs...bro a 4090 costs basically the same as my whole PC that's running games at 120 FPS+ on a 4k monitor with no issues.

Check out combo deals on Newegg for Mobo+RAM+CPU, or Microcenter if you have one nearby (I don't). Your biggest factor for gaming will be the GPU. You can run 60+ FPS on a 1080P monitor on 5 year old midrange GPUs. If you need 4k res, ask on PCPartPicker forums.

What I usually tell people is "set a budget". You can always fall in to the trap of $20 more here, $40 more there...etc and explode your budget.

If you can keep moving the needle, you can keep dumping more into better components in different areas.

Use PCPartPicker to make sure everything is compatible, check the price history to see if there's a similar component available for cheaper or if you're getting a good value, and make decisions on what is necessary. Also, pick a date. You can hang around for MONTHS waiting on a certain part to hit a price drop.

I second John Dies At The End. You may find it under the pen name "David Wong". Amazing book and a really great movie adaptation, IMO as someone who watched the movie first.

Oh yes, all the intelligent sentient life forms that exist an incomprehensible number of light years away from us with the knowledge and technology to manage and survive that journey both TOTALLY care about us as a species enough to try meaningful contact, but are TERRIFIED of our...satellites and exploratory rovers that haven't left our Solar System.

I don't doubt that we'd be ridiculously hostile to an extraterrestrial emissary if that were a thing, but like.
..bro they would have to be so much more technologically advanced than us to even make that happen in the first place that we're basically little greedy squirrels in comparison.