This Steam Deck mount looks silly, but greatly reduces the risk of dropping Valve's handheld on your face while gaming in bed - Related to what, while, alchemy, hours,, 2's

After 75 hours, I finally cracked what I was doing wrong in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's terribly explained alchemy system

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is rife with sim-y, medieval stuff. You can whet your blades, forge horseshoes, throw some dice, do your laundry, wash yourself in every trough in Czechia, and, of course, do alchemy.

If you're anything like me, that last one is a problem. In my 75 hours in KCD2, I never once managed to produce anything other than a 'weak' potion from my time at the alchemy bench. Even when I felt like I was following recipes to the letter and the nanosecond, Henry would grumble about screwing it all up when I finished. Even the perks which explicitly expressed they'd make the alchemy process more tolerant of errors didn't help. It got to the point that I thought that was the joke—alchemy isn't real, so of course it never works.

But no, I'm just dumb. Or, actually, the game is just really bad at explaining how alchemy works. I've now cracked how alchemy actually works. I'm even getting Strong Saviour Schnapps out of dried ingredients. It's all to do with the game's bellows.

Basically, never use the bellows unless you are strictly instructed to. Despite the alchemy tutorial presenting the bellows as, in essence, a faster way to get something boiling, they're actually used to generate a different kind of boiling entirely: vigorous boiling.

Like me, I bet a lot of you have been chucking your ingredients in the pot and then bellowing the hell out of them to get them boiling faster regardless of whether the recipe calls for vigorous boiling or not, only turning your hourglass over once it was good and bubbly. What you should be doing, it turns out, is lowering the pot over the fire and then simply waiting for vapour to appear. Once it does (you don't have to wait for the bubbles) turn your hourglass over. Once it's empty, that's one turn. Keep the boiling going for as many turns as the recipe requires, and you're golden.

Or, you know, to reduce these several paragraphs to one easy-to-digest sentence: don't use the bellows unless the recipe calls for vigorous boiling, and turn the hourglass once you see vapour.

And that, honestly, is all there is to it. After 75 hours of churning out terrible Saviour Schnapps, I just made four strong ones with dried nettle and belladonna. The problem is the game never really explains that the bellows are their own thing. So long as you don't use them when they aren't necessary, it all gets way easier.

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NASA is hosting the first Twitch stream from space and I'm already picturing the chat with equal parts fear and excitement

It's 2025 and somehow we've still yet to see a Twitch stream happening from space—until next week, that is. NASA has introduced it'll be doing a livestream a whole 250 miles from Earth aboard the International Space Station, on Wednesday 12 February.

The stream will be happening on the official NASA Twitch and is set to feature astronauts like Don Pettit and Matt Dominick—my astronaut knowledge is appalling but they both have Wikipedia entries so I can only assume they're essential based off that metric alone—with Twitch chat having the opportunity to ask all sorts of questions about what it's actually like being up in space.

Now the cynical part of me can't help but automatically go to the absolute worst-case scenario on how that Twitch chat is actually going to look. I can only assume it's going to go somewhat feral, and I do wonder if seasoned astronauts are ready to deal with an undiluted internet chatroom happening in real-time. I'm sure they'll have plenty to talk about regardless though, with NASA promising all sorts of insight into day-to-day life aboard the space station while spending a hefty amount of time plugging their various programmes and research.

NASA communications director Brittany Brown called it "the first of many" Twitch streams the government agency intends to do from the cosmos and you know what? Hell yeah. I'm all for cool stuff like this happening on social and streaming platforms, and I'm sure NASA has already calculated the positive exposure it'll have on their end.

It does perhaps spell bad news for the notorious streamer IShowSpeed, who just a couple of months ago had showcased his grand ambitions to go live from space. "I want to stream in space one day," he told Forbes in December last year. "Once I talk to Elon Musk, it's happening."

I mean, I guess that's still a possibility, but I can't help but wonder if he'll be a bit miffed that he's not the first one to do it. I'd like to proclaim from my high horse that I wouldn't be, but I probably would. Especially if I'd just so happened to very lately proclaim my desires to stream from space, only to have Big Space itself do it first.

Regardless, it's an exciting concept. It might be far more boring in practice than I'm building it up in my head to be. But hey, it's a first, and that's pretty neat. The event is set to kick off at 8:45am PT / 11:45am ET / 4:45pm GMT on February 12.

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This Steam Deck mount looks silly, but greatly reduces the risk of dropping Valve's handheld on your face while gaming in bed

Let me set the scene for you: there I am, lounging around while playing the office Steam Deck when suddenly it happens. Maybe my replay of 1000xResist has shocked me anew, or maybe there's just something in my eye, but my grip on Valve's handheld loosens for just a moment and before I know it—WHAM! My face has been clobbered by the co-conspirators of the Steam Deck's heft and gravity.

Alas, my face and eyeglasses could've been saved had I simply used the GoPro Mount (via SteamDeckHQ). The mount allows you to attach the funky chunky handheld to an array of compatible GoPro accessories; in addition to strapping into a GoPro harness for comfortable bedtime gaming, you can also attach your Steam Deck to a traditional tripod or even a compatible wristband and pretend you're about to place a trap card face down.

That's not just me poking fun—the team behind the mount clearly had a lot of fun crafting some truly ridiculous looking product photos. There's one proposed use case I simply won't stand—or sit—for though. Gaming on the toilet? Not on your life, mate.

The GoPro Mount is made by Mechanism, creators of Deckmate and its associated ecosystem. That means that you'll need the sold separately Deckmate grip before you can even attempt to strap your Steam Deck onto your GoPro harness.

Furthermore, just because you can attach a GoPro accessory to your Steam Deck doesn't mean it will be able to support the weight. Still, Valve themselves used a whole lotta Deckmates to build their orb celebrating the launch of the Steam Deck OLED, so that at least indicates a level of sturdiness that is unlikely to result in face-clobbering.

The Deckmate grip will set you back $19/£16, and then the GoPro Mount costs another $9/£8 on top. Before you gather up all of your GoPro accessories and go full tech warrior though, the store page does hasten to add the GoPro Mount is "Designed for static loads only (don't go skydiving with your console please)." Sensible advice…or an experiential feature worth pitching to my editor? Much to consider.

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