Sleeping is Hard

Posted on June 12, 2018 by Ian
A dimly lit bedroom. In the top of the frame, light filters though the blinds. It illuminates a bed, covered in rumpled white sheets and a couple pillows.

Bedroom Linen Cover Bed Sheets Pillows

I’m pretty sure I’ve already posted about this, but sleeping is hard. Continue reading →

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Holding Out for Inbox Zero

Posted on June 11, 2018 by Ian

I’m not at inbox zero, but I’ve been trying to cut down on the absurd number of unimportant e-mails I get per day. Especially now that I’m trying to buy less, a lot of these e-mails are downright useless. Or they’re sent so often (hi nonprofit e-mail lists), that the static completely drowns out any signal they might be sending.

It’s a kind of decluttering, I think. And I’ve been trying to do more of that lately. It still might be a form of procrastination, but I’m hoping it’ll help me get my head right so I can do more in the future.

Things that have been slain today:

  • Google+ notification e-mails that I rarely clicked through on
  • Removing myself from a few nonprofit e-mail lists
  • Reached inbox zero on the “Social” tab of my main e-mail address
  • Deleted big batches of out-of-date e-mails from Bookbub, Steam wishlist discount alerts, etc
  • Finally deleted a weekly recurring calendar event that hasn’t been accurate for YEARS but sent notifications and e-mails all the same, also deleted on calendar reminder e-mails
  • Archived all the Daily Science Fiction e-mails I haven’t read yet
  • Unsubscribed from Board Game Geek e-mails
  • Unsubscribed from the marketing list of my hosting provider
  • Archived a bunch of receipts and similar e-mails

I now have 21 messages sitting in my main inbox and 52 hanging out in the Promotions tab. So getting closer! Maybe someday all the e-mails in my inbox will actually be nominally important.

No harm in dreaming, right?

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What I Want To Be When I Grow Up

Posted on June 6, 2018 by Ian
An image of Phryne Fisher, the rich dilettante flapper protagonist of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, laying on a bed, holding up a gold snub-nosed revolver, and looking coquettishly at the camera.

I mean, don’t you?

A semi-serious list. Because it’s never too late to change careers, right? And I’ll be able to do 30 or whatever at once? In no particular order, we have:

  • Full-time science fiction and fantasy writer
  • Tabletop RPG writer
  • Tabletop RPG designer
  • Video game programmer
  • Video game designer
  • Video game writer
  • Video game journalist
  • Wild animal rehabilitator
  • Park ranger
  • Vetrinarian Continue reading →
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Help Me Find an Android Game!

Posted on June 5, 2018 by Ian

I’ve ended up with a weird struggle on my hands. I’ve gotten to the point where I keep having small amounts of time I want to fill with a game. The trick is that I’m not at my computer (my main gaming platform), and I usually don’t have my 3DS with me. This leaves cell phone gaming, something I’ve never been great at knowing jack and/or shit about.

No problem, I thought. I turned to Google Play. I figured I could look for a game that was new, but had an interesting concept. Maybe support an indie dev in the process.

Y’all, I was wrong. Google Play’s discoverability, at least on the mobile version, blows. Combined with the mobile game marketplace currently being a flood of weird clones of other mobile games I’ve never heard of, licensed junkware, and the like, I ended up coming up with nothing. Except that realMyst is available, which is awesome, but I don’t think it’s what I’m looking for right now.

A screenshot of the game page for "Virtual Wild Horse Family Sim: Animal Horse Games" in the Google Play app store. The main image features a pair of horses apparently stomping on a white tiger in the middle of an American Midwest landscape.

I mean, I did find a “horse family” game where you stomp tigers to death. (What the HELL.)

So I turn to you, fine friends. What games do you recommend for Android? I’ve already played Monument Valley, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, Star Realms, and PubG Mobile. This ideally would be a game that can be played with one hand, doesn’t require a ton of dexterity (I’m bad at touch screen joysticks), and won’t murder my battery in two minutes flat. Special note about card game recommendations: I’m open to card games, but I’d like to pre-veto Hearthstone and Magic. I also really dislike idle timer games.

With all that in mind, any thoughts? Thanks in advance!

Posted in Video Games | 1 Comment

Gameboy Camera Zooming and Peripheral Bit Rot

Posted on June 4, 2018 by Ian

In very cool, very retro news, a photographer named Bastiaan Ekeler made a zoom lens for his Gameboy Camera. It’s a very impressive modification, letting him take full-frame shots of objects as far away as the Moon. There’s something incredibly charming about seeing such a well-done and modern modification for such an old device, especially for the results of a low-resolution four-shade black-and-white image. It’s a great fusion of the old and the new, and I’d like to think it breathed new life into the camera for him.

It also has me thinking about the peripherals of older game systems. Our emulators are getting better and better. It’s easy now to play games from the Atari era up through the Playstation 2. And that’s great! But there’s a whole class of games that are being left out. Those that depend on hardware peripherals designed for the original system.

I want to think about this more, do some research, and write it into its own post. But how do we really play Track & Field for the Nintendo Entertainment System without a Power Pad? How do we play Duck Hunt or Time Crisis without functioning light guns? Will Sega Bass Fishing really be fun without the rod/reel controller? Can you imagine Dance Dance Revolution without the dance pad?

What are we going to do to preserve the full gameplay of those games? Is there a way to make DIY equivalents of those accessories (relatively) easily available? I don’t know yet, but it’s got me thinking.

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The Possibilities of Low-Tech Internet

Posted on June 3, 2018 by Ian

A "Phelps Electromotor Printing Telegraph" from about 1880.

I’ve been thinking about this article on building a low-tech internet a lot lately. It outlines the possibilities of using cheaper technologies, including basic Wi-Fi, to share network connections over long distances.

My primary interest in this is providing alternatives to the large ISPs in Seattle and other places. With net neutrality continually on unstable footing, a small ISP run as a cooperative, non-profit, or something similar could provide an excellent alternate option for people who decide that maybe they don’t want Comcast to decide what they can look at efficiently. Continue reading →

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Home Improvement

Posted on May 30, 2018 by Ian

I have built a swing for my enormous plush dinosaur, and this pleases me immensely. (It also gives me somewhere to put him that is out of the way but still very accessible/cute.)

A three foot tall plush dinosaur sits in a handmade wood-and-rope swing, suspended from a bedroom ceiling, with its back to the wall and its face facing the camera. It has a happy, wide-open mouth.

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GDPR Compliance?

Posted on May 25, 2018 by Ian

Hi all!

So, I don’t think I had anything running that wouldn’t comply with GDPR. Still, Matthew Lovelace’s GDPR post made me go “oh, I should actually check that!” Continue reading →

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Neat Gaming News!

Posted on May 21, 2018 by Ian

Xbox adaptive controller base surrounded by several possible add-on components.

A round-up of some of the gaming news I’ve seen recently that is very, very cool. To me, the coolest kid. >_>;;

Xbox Adaptive Controller from Microsoft

A controller that’s made from the ground-up to be customized by people with disabilities to fit their unique individual needs. This is a very cool project, and I’m really surprised (and delighted) to see Microsoft leading the charge. It really doesn’t seem like their usual M.O., but I’m happy to give credit where it’s due. This seems like a very well-designed piece of technology, and is way more affordable than the custom rigs that people have needed to make before (which can run into the thousands of dollars). And it works with Windows 10, not just Xbox One! 😀

Polygon has good coverage of the adaptive controller, if you want to know more.

PUBG Mobile…on PC

I enjoy PlayerUnknown’s Battleground’s mobile experience, but I personally prefer the pc version. Fumbling with a touchscreen and repeatedly shooting off stray rounds when I was just trying to adjust my view can get really frustrating. But a lot of my friends don’t have computers that can run the full PC game. What am I to do?

Turns out Tencent Gaming has my back! They’ve released an official emulator to play PubG Mobile’s android version on PC, with a mouse and keyboard. And it’s free. The only downside is it only pairs you with other PC players, so your mouse and keyboard controls don’t give you an unfair advantage, which means I still can’t play with a friend who’s on, say, an iPad. But hopefully this is lighter on the system than the full version, and I’ll get lucky and be able multiplayer with my friends on a PC after all. ^^

Open Source Neatness!

There’s a cool looking open-source game engine called Godot. I don’t know a ton about it yet, but it looks cool and shiny and I wanted to share. I’m going to be poking at it soon to see if I think I can handle some basic game development on it. I keep wanting to make a computer RPG… Plus I’d be able to develop under Linux, which is a platform that is damn hard to find game development tools on.

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Week Wrap-up 14 May 2018 – 20 May 2018

Posted on May 20, 2018 by Ian
Photo of a monitor displaying a green-on-black website with monospaced font. The headline reads "Welcome to Testing123."

Web dev is hard.

Hoooof. Most of this week was taken up by me still recovering from that cold I mentioned last week. Thank you, lingering cough! If this cough could fuck off right now I’d be really grateful.

But besides that…

  • I misremembered the date of my next interview, so I have an extra six days to study! Yesssss.
  • I finished Spring semester of school this week with flying colors and only moderately high stress. I’m taking the summer off, and I’m going to try and wait on signing up for Fall until I have gainful employment lined up again, since the registration period is so long.
  • I’ve been reading through How Linux Works (2nd edition) by Brian Ward. So far my reaction is “THIS is the manual that Linux should come with.” So, you know, it’s been good. I’m only 10% in but it’s explaining everything from a very base level in a very approachable way. Like usual, good work No Starch Press.
  • I just finished reading Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin. It only took me forever and a day. I very much liked it, and it’s interesting to see the Gethenians’ approach to gender, and how the narrator very slowly Gets It more over the course of the book. Though the narrator definitely has some Toxic Masculinity going on, but I think that Le Guin knows and acknowledges that as a flaw, at least implicitly. Also kemmer seems really convenient (in a good way)? Like “oh cool I’ll only be distracted by horniness a few days a month, but those few days will be RAD and then I can get back to things.” The descriptions of crossing the ice are a thing of beauty, too. I should probably let any thoughts on the book bake more before I talk about it, but those are some initial impressions. Continue reading →
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