@davidrevoy I feel like an extra panel for this would be her asking if she can just get an AI for cheaper and just take one of its gems, and the shop keep being like “sorry, we grind those gems different for Avian Intelligence, they’re useless for wands.”

@davidrevoy Nice way to call out the Hardware situation. Great comic as usual.

@davidrevoy it's my genuine belief that what's going on with the computing industry amounts to fraud

@davidrevoy “All of them are already sold. Plus, all of the future stones scheduled for the next years are currently sold out, too.”

@davidrevoy @bit What a coincidence. Around 2 months ago I stumbled upon a RAM error that randomly crashed my Firefox tabs and videogames.

I had to do a lot of research to find out how I could mask away that defective RAM.

@iagondiscord @davidrevoy

How is buying up an entire supply, not triggering an anti-compete...?

@davidrevoy Me: finally, a new comic NOT about AI!

Two panels later: Dammit!

It's fine, tho, keep up the good work!

@nini @rgbunny @davidrevoy exactly. RAM, GPUs, SSDs, HDDs, they’re all available, they just jacked up the prices in anticipation of a shortage that may never eventuate. That means fewer people are buying them, so they’ll end up with a glut of hardware once the bubble bursts, and a market that’s used to holding onto their old hardware or finding a second hand deal instead of buying new.

@davidrevoy I love this so much thank you!

@davidrevoy Well, if a magic stone used to be worth 40! gold coins, at 600 gold coins they are now much cheaper…

(Sorry! I’ll see myself out. )

@davidrevoy Heh, this was chat today talking about hard drives. What do you mean Western Digital has sold all their SSDs for 2026? How is that a sentence?

@bearmine True.

− "...and how much for a AI Parrot?"
− "Oh, take it, and take these 100 gold coins too. That's the AI industry paying you to inflate their total number of users. They desperately need a growth curve to keep investors on board."

@dgouttegattat

@ooignignoktoo @mangeurdenuage Et oui, tout est misé sur le "Too big to fail" et sous-tirer de l'argent publique pour perfuser cette industrie qui ferait trop mal si elle s'écroulerait...

@drgroftehauge @davidrevoy I... thought it only hit the RAM... WHAT!?

Not sure if I'll include this new Krita brush I created specifically for this episode in my upcoming brush pack, but it's fun to play with ️🦜🦜🦜

While I'm here, check out the timelapse: https://www.peppercarrot.com/0_sources/miniFantasyTheater/making-of/040.mp4 This time, I took a more traditional approach: sketch, inking, painting the background, and then characters. Along the way, I think I found a good preset for inking.

@davidrevoy hahaha so good

@doraii @davidrevoy Nah, SSDs are about twice as expensive as they were 3 months ago.
GPUs... well.

@davidrevoy
Probably shouldn't include it; that brush is strictly for the birds.

s;ns

@drgroftehauge @davidrevoy Just checked my nigh 5 years old budget laptop (i3, 8GB DDR4, 256GB SSD, 720p screen) and HOLY SHIT, it's $330 to buy a used one!