Probably the impetus for the mass exodus at my old job was the “We’ll Miss You” Zoom call we had for a beloved senior developer. The company had recently added a new manager role that hadnt existed before and things were fine. The new guy started micromanaging like crazy. The SD who was leaving basically went off during the call about how the company didn’t need NG’s role and how it was burning people out.

I stuck around for another year-ish, and NG managed to make a group of about 20 developers dwindle to 5-ish. Saw the writing on the wall after getting shafted, changed jobs and am now making double that salary along with far less stress.

More of a gift I got for Christmas than something I bought, but a rechargeable wand vacuum. Thought it was really stupid, but the dang thing is useful. I've used it for anything ranging from sucking up hair in the bathroom to getting the baseboards around the house so I don't have to get a duster to do it that way. Have even taken it out to the car to remove a lot of the dirt and debris that gets into the driver-side footwell.

Was so versatile, I persuaded my folks to get one as well. They now love it too.

Get a laser printer.

In the US it is technically illegal to volunteer for a for-profit private company under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Relevant part about it right from the Department of Labor: https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/whd/flsa/docs/volunteers.asp

Left or have made things difficult for the admins.

Got the "You must reopen within 3 days" crap from the admins. Opened it, but they got the monkey paw as well. Set it such that every comment/post has to have an insanely long line of gibberish in order to get past AutoModerator. No one can comment, post or even edit now. Once the admins go away, I'll re-privatize it.

I think if he was still around, he’d be all for ActivityPub and stuff like Lemmy/Kbin.

If you’re good about treating it like cash, credit cards aren’t a bad thing. The cashback/rewards are nice as they are not taxable. (At least in the US)

That said, for some the temptation of credit is too much.

I believe it is sarcasm, but with the death of E3 anything is possible.

That said, I’d say it is more likely to see Nintendo announce it at the Tokyo Game Show instead. (This would put it at late September, which is right around when the Switch was revealed back in 2016.)

Sadly it can’t work that way. From a programming perspective alone they are very different engines.

Unity uses C# while Unreal is C++.

Not that Mozilla has been 100% great either. Remember the Mr. Robot debacle?

If not: https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/16/16784628/mozilla-mr-robot-arg-plugin-firefox-looking-glass

The game is entirely free too.

Relevant Links:

• Itch.io - Current main page
• Steam Page - Releases on Steam (for free) on August 18th. (The day after this update.)

Personally have avoided the hololive/vtuber rabbit hole, but heard good things about this game and figured I'd post about the update.

Here’s a good article about it from The Verge: https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/19/23800309/reddit-r-place-2023-protest

Newer article about how the crap has very much hit the fan with r/place: https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/20/23801716/reddits-r-place-protest-art

Heck, a few weeks ago people thought Lemmy as a whole wouldn’t take off due to tankies. Seems like everyone has defederated that bunch and has grown a lot.

Changing jobs in 2021. Managed to almost double my salary overnight with less stress.

While it has an upfront cost, I’d say the best way to play old consoles is by using flashcarts/ODEs/softmods and a proper scaler like the Retrotink 5x Pro or the Open Source Scan Converter. Those scalers take a multitude of inputs, scale and digitize them for output over HDMI. The RT5X can even do crazy stuff with filters to emulate CRTs and other effects.

That said, doing all of that comes at a cost. SCART cables for each console are about $40 each and the scalers run ~$325 for the RT5x or $120 for the OSSC. Then if you want to get a way to switch inputs, thats another $50-200 there too. Worth it if you like your old consoles, but to just revisit that’d be an expensive proposition. Is a great way to futureproof them, even moreso with the upcoming Retrotink 4k but that thing won’t be cheap. (Estimated price is ~$1000)

If you want to do it on the “cheap” but get as close to the originals, I’d highly suggest getting /making a MiSTer setup. This uses a FPGA to do emulation via hardware, which is about as close as you can to the originals providing the code is up to par. That’ll run about $300 all said and done, but gets you a crapton of systems all outputting over HDMI.

If you like music, there are a bunch of good free rhythm games:

• Osu
• Stepmania/DDR - Main modern versions are Project Outfox and ITGmania
• IIDX/BMS - Beatoraja, heres a good English guide to it
  • Neat thing about BMS is that all of the music is made or licensed/allowed for it. The community is strictly against charting copyrighted songs, partially due to them requiring keysounding.
• Sound Voltex - Untitled SDVX Clone
• Guitar Hero - Clone Hero

Note that some of these require or are improved by an additional controller, so they’re not entirely free but once you have what you need you’re set.

I’d say to jump right into the 124v124. At that level, one player is not going to change the tide too much. (Its more akin to the battles in Planetside 2 than your standard Battlefield due to the sheer scope.)

Pretty much anything but competitive multiplayer stuff and the majority of rogue-esque titles. Just don’t have the time to dedicate to learning the ins and outs of one specific title.

My favorite genres include:

• JRPGs
• Rhythm Games
• Racing
• Platformers
• Metroidvanias
• Visual novels
• Action Adventure

That is where you just use Cheat Engine to hack in gold for yourself. Why go through the treadmill to unlock items from the well when you can just give it to yourself?

320kbps is basically indistinguishable from lossless, even with insanely good headphones/amplifier/DAC/speakers.

Probably less copyright and more-so that it is not feasible to continue to manufacture all video games forever.

My view on games and the “preservation” thereof is that I buy new when and as I can. That said, once the system is dead and gone from retailers, I treat it as fair game for flashcarts, mods and so on. Figure at that point it is like going to a library for a copy of an out of print book instead of paying top dollar to a collector for their copy.

The only reason I go back to reddit is to copy/paste a modmail I wrote to those asking to get in. I end it with listing asking them to think about some Reddit alternatives and link the sites too. (I list: Lemmy.world, kbin.social, tildes.net and squabbles.io in that order)

After their absolutely terrible “parody” reveal for the GEM coupled with the DRM crap there, I’ve lost all respect for PixelFX.

I’ll buy the Retrotink 4k instead, even if it costs more.

There are two 4k capable scalers announced for retro games:

• Retrotink 4k
  • Made by the same guy who made the Retrotink 5x Pro among other scaling devices such as the Retrotink 2x, RGB2COMP and COMP2RGB devices. The 5x is a scaler that works better than the OSSC and can go to higher resolutions along with more effects to help emulate the CRT look and feel.
• Morph 4k by PixelFx
  • Made by the same team behind the DCDigital (aka. DCHDMI), PS1Digital and now the Retro G.E.M. which is the recently announced console agnostic HDMI modification.

There is also the OSSC Pro, but the details are sparse and we haven't had too many updates about it.

PixelFX has lost any and all respect that I had for them and almost made me want to sell my PS1Digital modded system just to be rid of owning anything they've touched. Their announcement video for the Retro GEM took the piss on Digital Foundry by doing a cringe-inducing "parody" called "Digital Infidelity" and was wildly inappropriate. Couple that with the news that the GEM would have DRM on the extra features for an additional $80 once you bought the device and it left a very sour taste in my mouth.

Prior to their terrible announcement, I was determined on buying what ended up being GEM as I could get HDMI out right from a PS2 I bought specifically for that mod and now I won't bother.

If you’re going to be doing any amount of soldering, I’d highly suggest the Hakko FX888D. You want to use a good iron, otherwise you’ll get poor results and/or be more likely to hurt yourself. (Hitting one’s thumb with a hot soldering iron is not fun.)

Considering they’re basically doing that with their Chromebox line, it is not that big of a surprise.

I still keep up with my old FC/Guild from Final Fantasy XIV via Discord even though I haven’t played the game in ages.

Any type of automatic moderation. It is a godsend for managing a community as you don't have to worry about content with or breaking those roles as the bot(s) check it for you.

Listing != Actual.

We’ve seen fakes before in the database. That said, I hope it is true as I’ve heard a lot of good things about it.

Was thinking about this earlier today, but lately I've gotten burnt out on Final Fantasy XVI whether that be due to the tone, design or combat I am not too sure. Had a slow weekend for once and decided to pop in Atelier Ryza 2 as I recently picked up Ryza 3 due to it having a small print run. Spent most of the day playing it off and on, but the brighter and more positive tone was a boon compared to the drudgery of FFXVI.

Atelier isn't always my comfort food, but that was a nice change. That distinction would have to either go to rhythm games or to stuff like Trackmania or Minecraft where you can "shut off your brain" and just play. TM has a certain "flow" to the tracks that isn't like anything else out there and Minecraft just throws you into the world and lets you go. (Albeit on Peaceful.)

Hopefully they’d just make their own instance to which everyone else could defederate from.

If you have fiber, 99% of the time your speeds are symmetric.

In fact, since I posted that comment another 4k scaler has entered the ring, this time by the creators of HDMI mods such as the PS1Digital, DCDigital and such. Called the Morph 4k, will have an HDMI-only one for $400 and one with an analog connectors for $500: https://www.pixelfx.co/morph4k

What about pre-ordering for pickup? That way you have a guaranteed copy, but don't have to put anything down.

Currently trying to get through FFXVI, but there are times it feels like a slog. Am in the midst of one if these low points right now.

As for what I’ll be playing, my StepmaniaX compact machine shows up tomorrow, so I’ll have that to assemble and play.

Now you can go into pretty much any thrift store and get a whole box of them for like $5-10.

Have you looked into trying Mabinogi? This is another MMORPG that is published by Nexon but it is still heavily rooted in the design of when it launched back in 2003, before WoW. The game is heavy on the social elements too.

You might be wondering why suggest such an old game? Well, a few weeks ago they announced that they’re working on porting the game to Unreal Engine such that they can future proof it and continue development all of these years later. Not sure if there is a Fediverse board/magazine/community for the game yet but there is an official Discord as well.

I can’t wait for the Early Access release to come out.

There are also used units like the Pioneer XDP-100 which is still good, but the Android bit is slow.

Hacked passwords?