• 2 Posts
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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • As others have said, I guarantee there are movements and organzing happening in your area.

    Don’t be the person shouting that others aren’t doing enough when you aren’t doing more than complain online.

    Use this energy. It’s kind of hilarious that you’re complaining about how people are fighting amongst themselves while you’re doing it too.

    Some people have to focus on survival, and don’t have the energy to do more. That’s by design. Intentional design by those in power. So if you have that energy, go do for them. Work with unions and local lawmakers to improve conditions for the people living paycheck to paycheck instead of trying to shame them into just magically having more energy after ensuring they’ll be able to eat and have a place to stay.


  • Oh man, my original Game Boy Color was “Atomic Purple”, the clear purple shell. Somewhere over the years I lost or sold it. I got another GBC later just plain yellow.

    Last weekend I reshelled it in a third party atomic purple shell. My nostalgia is happy :) I see it and go “that’s my gameboy!”

    Now to save up for an Everdrive and toss my old games on it. Eventually I want to do the works, LCD screen with frame blending and “pixel grid” so it looks legit (or maybe just a front or backlight on the OG screen, as the screen’s look is a big part of the nostalgia for me), improved sound out, and usb-c charging. But for now, a basic shell swap is good enough for me.

    I’ve also got clear blue shells for my joycons when I replace the joysticks with hall effect ones. Have all the parts, just need to find the time. Joycon work looks like a pain in the ass from the guides and videos I’ve checked.





  • While making this easier to access isn’t a positive, there are a ton of ways that this can, and already is, being done at companies that actually care about this shit.

    Yeah you’re totally in the office, but your laptop just magically has an IP from the subnet for devices connected over VPN 🙄

    Once again I must insist that people need to stop expecting any privacy on work devices. It is possible to find out anything on them, including location, it’s just a matter of how much effort your workplace is willing to expend on looking.

    Edit: While I appreciate the article being short and to the point, a link to any documentation on this would have been nice. The claim is that it will display the SSID of the Wi-Fi AP you’re connected to. While being able to get that from your phone is a new bit of reach, it’s possible to gather that from work devices easily.





  • reworded to actual reasons. sound good for an interview.

    Potato potato, but if someone is already having trouble playing the interview game, I think that last sentence could come across wrong.

    Like you said, you take your actual reasons: I have bills to pay, you’re a reasonable distance away, you’re hiring. And you find the truthful but carefully worded way to make it sound acceptable. I’ve always considered this interview question more of a test of communication skills than culty company loyalty test.

    Like, if something’s wrong because your co-worker fucked it up are you just going to vomit that point blank at a customer, or do you have the ability to word it better?



  • Yeah, there’s something about the physicality of a record player and records that changes the experience. At least for me it encourages more focus on the listening. Even if you just put something on while you do something else, you’re going to be interacting with again before super long.

    The record, the part you interact with, has size and weight. It’s definitively a “thing”. And choosing a record is a choice. You can’t just press some buttons on a remote and change to whatever else (unless it’s a full music system setup).

    Plus the beautiful art on the sleeves, and the time it takes to get the record out forces you to spend at least a little time with that art.

    With a CRT TV, you’re using a remote and there’s a lot more abstraction and layers between the physical object holding the content and your actual consumption of it.

    VHS tapes are physical, but the moving parts that make it all work are hidden away in the VCR and the magnetic tape isn’t really touchable. Playing one on most TVs required another device plugged into the TV and pressing some buttons on one or two remotes that could just as easily bring you other content without ever leaving your seat.

    There is art on the VHS case, but it’s not like it takes time to get the tape in and out, so you’re not as likely to look at it for long.


    Most importantly, people are still making new record players and records. There was a long while where it was a very niche thing, and there weren’t a lot of new records coming out, but there were still new players coming out. And the technology is simple enough that the average person could at least keep a player in working order or fix the most common issues themselves. Enthusiasts could even “fix” an old machine with modern parts that are readily available, as long as they function the same. It’s not like people are going to stop making electric motors anytime in the next century.

    CRTs simply aren’t manufactured anymore. Depending on the issue they aren’t end user servicable for the average person, or even most enthusiasts. Maintenance is potentially dangerous to the person doing the work. The parts have limited lifespans with no replacements available for the main bits. If the electron guns start to go, you can potentially rejuvanate them with special equipment, or you can end up breaking a damaged one entirely (see 10:32 of this video about restoring an old arcade cabinet).

    It’s the same (sans danger to the person doing the repair) for VCRs. No new stock, specialized parts that can’t be swapped for more readily availble modern components, you get the picture.

    And that’s also not considering the fucking weight of a good size CRT compared to a record player.


    Don’t get me wrong. I love CRTs. Pretty sure I still have my childhood one in my basement, complete with some discoloration from when my 8 year old self had some fun with magnets.

    I was legitimately distraught when my wife talked me into only keeping one of the three CRT TVs we had gathering dust, and I think I still have one or two CRT monitors stashed away somewhere.

    I spent multiple weekends years ago looking up and configuring the best CRT shader for emulators so it looked like an idealized version of that childhood TV.

    But I entirely get why records and record players are such strong and well thought of “nostalgia bait” and CRTs and VHS tapes are not.






  • What are you talking about? It wasn’t mandatory for any console. They packaged it in with some, so you’d get it in the same box, but you never had to plug it in.

    And all the voice functionality worked with headsets as well. Definitely watched old roommates do Skyrim shouts that way for around 10 minutes until the novelty wore off.