Finally picked up the Cyberpunk DLC. Got Pacific Drive as well.
Still deciding on:
Dead Cells - I found two roguelites I actually like this year (Dome Keeper and Hades) and want to see if I can go three for three.
Dragons Dogma and Stalker - Games with recent sequels I've never touched. For $5/piece I'm tempted to give both a try.
Dying Light 2 - Been in the mood for some dumb open world fun recently, and I refuse to buy anything from Ubisoft to fill that void. This seems decent and I liked the first one.
One of the last good public multiplayer experiences I had was DiRT 3. Simple lobbies, small player count, people randomly joining and leaving and everyone was chill. You'd occasionally get that guy who was stupidly good, perfect lines through every corner, and the entire lobby would try so hard to keep up. Loved it.
One time I stumbled into a lobby where the host was "hacking" but instead of cheating for an advantage, he was selecting weird car class and track combinations for the entire lobby. Stuff that the game wouldn't normally allow. Shit like trailblazer cars on rallycross circuits. So much fucking fun, one of my favorite memories from that game.
That must've been what, 4, 5 years ago? DiRT 3 released in 2011, so...oh my god DiRT 3 came out 13 years ago...
Same here. I really enjoy Nonagon Infinity but haven't been able to get into any other album of theirs.
Madeon - Good Faith
I adore Madeon's first album, Adventure. I knew Good Faith would be different and I was really looking forward to it anyway, and it when it finally came out, it just never clicked with me. It's an album I come back to probably once per year to try it again, but I just don't vibe with it. It's an album I respect a lot, but I just don't like it.
Justice - Hyperdrama
Still a pretty new release admittedly. That opening track is one of Justice's best ever songs, but the rest of the album just isn't grabbing me. I'm hoping it'll grow on me over time.
To twist your question a bit: The Glitch Mob - Ctrl Alt Reality
Another case of an artist moving in a totally different direction, and when I first listened to it, I didn't like it. Similar feelings to Good Faith. But then I listened to it again. Then again. Then again. There wasn't a sudden moment where it clicked, it just got better with every listen. It's probably my second favorite album of theirs now.
And to twist your question even more. I thought I would dislike: Muse - Will of the People
I've been in the camp of "modern Muse isn't that bad" for a while, but there's clearly been a downward trend. Even I cannot defend Simulation Theory. I expected WOTP to be more of the same, and somehow I ended up loving it. It is maximum Muse cheesiness, in the best way possible.
I finally went through my box of cables and Goodwill'd or threw away stuff that I'm absolutely never going to use. Gotta say, the feeling of going to The Box™ and not having to dig through a million cables to find what you need is pretty nice.
The hardest thing to throw away was the mystery power cables/bricks. Even though everything I own has its power cable with it and labeled with no exceptions, and even though I haven't touched the mystery power cable for 10 years, I still felt like I'd discover its purpose the moment I got rid of it. Hasn't happened yet, but I'm still anxious.
I've been itching to upgrade to AM5, this might finally be the CPU to finally make it worth it. Hopefully power draw and thermals are good, I'd like to do an ITX build if possible.
Still J.C. Staff. Hopefully the production schedule doesn't melt this time around.
I occasionally think back to Rocket League, which I loved in its earlier days. I put close to 100 hours into it, which is a lot for one game for me. Then they added lootboxes, leaned harder into the competitive space, and just completely sucked the soul out of it. And yet it's still hugely popular.
I just don't get it.
I'm so torn about stories like this and GTA online. Because on one hand, people play these games, and people won't switch to Linux if they can't play them.
But on the other hand, I just cannot give a single fuck about live service trash like this. I struggle to understand how people play games products like these, and I absolutely don't understand why anyone would waste their time cheating in them. And yet they're absurdly popular.
Despite gaming being such a big hobby for me, I feel so disconnected from what the average gamer values.
Early release is a nice surprise, especially after F40 (or was it 39?) got delayed so many times. Upgrade went smooth for me, upstream accent colors are nice to finally have. Kind of a bummer it doesn't apply to Nautilus icons though.
it'll usually be the artist's name. Like if you search for "Taylor Swift", you'll get exactly zero results because that phrase is blacklisted due to a complaint from the label. If you instead search for a specific song, you will see results, and can work backwards from there to find the album you're looking for.
The last time I had trouble finding something on Soulseek, it was an album that had released a month or two ago, so it might've still been too new.
Yeah, I've had to use that blacklist workaround on many occasions, lol
Self-hosted music streaming (and me giving up on it)
This post is mostly just me bitching about the music industry but also genuine interest in what other people in this community do when it comes to music streaming. Apologies if this is an incomprehensible wall of text.
---
My favorite self-hosted project is Navidrome. I've been running it for years and it's been absolutely perfect the entire time. Related clients like Supersonic and Tempo have been fantastic as well. More than half of my donations to open source software have been to music related projects like these, I use them for multiple hours every day.
I'm giving up on using them though, because actually obtaining the music to stream has become harder and more expensive every year. Unlike self-hosted movie/tv streaming, the primary reason I self-host music is to support the artists. I feel better paying $10 for an album I enjoy compared to the artist getting pennies from me streaming it. I'm sure as hell not doing this to save money, I spend around $30/month on average on new music.
My only criteria for buying music is that it's at least CD-quality. Going back a few years, my options (ordered by preference at the time) were Bandcamp, Qobuz, 7Digital, the artist's own website, physical CDs that I'd rip myself, then finally giving up and using Soulseek. Bandcamp and Qobuz would typically cover 95% of what I was looking for, I'd rarely need to use Soulseek.
But over the course of those past few years...
Bandcamp was bought by Epic, then sold to Songtradr, half of its staff were laid off, and it's been a shell of its former self ever since. It seems like Bandcamp is now mostly ignored by artists, with albums rarely releasing or releasing far later than other platforms. It's genuinely a surprise when I find the artist or album I'm looking for on Bandcamp at this point.
Qobuz has been experiencing rapid enshittification as they try to get people to subscribe to their streaming service. Dark patterns added throughout the purchase and download process, albums being pulled from my account, and albums becoming more expensive (I'm seeing a whole lot more $15-$20 albums than $10 albums now).
7Digital is dead.
Artist websites rarely offer lossless downloads anymore. Last time I bought an album directly from an artist was Madeon in 2019, and that's now an archived page you have to go out of your way to find.
CDs are somehow still a reliable option, but I just cannot justify this anymore. At some point having a collection of 250 plastic discs that I rip precisely once and then store forever just doesn't make sense. I'm tired of buying physical clutter to get digital files. I sold a sizable chunk of my collection a few months ago.
Soulseek, the "fuck it I'm pirating it" option whenever I can't buy an album through any available means. Surprisingly even Soulseek seems to be suffering, I used to be able to find anything, but now even a slightly obscure release can be hard to find.
So now, my preferred options are Bandcamp, Qobuz if the album is less than $15, then Soulseek. I'm using Soulseek a hell of a lot more now, which defeats the point of why I do this in the first place. So fuck it, I subscribed to Tidal.
But like, what the fuck? Why is it so hard to give artists more money?
---
So, for others who self-host their music collection, or even still rock an iPod or something, what do you do? Do you buy lossy releases? Do you pirate everything? Is there a magical website that has every album for sale that I just don't know about? CDs? I can't be the only one with this problem, but I haven't seen anyone else talk about it.
I also just noticed I got the percentage in the meme wrong. Oops.
Linux is now at 4.55% desktop marketshare (up from <1% in early 2018).
Linux's desktop marketshare has risen by ~350-400%, not 3.5-4%.
EDIT: reuploaded with corrected value
Context:
Back in 2018, Philip Robohle (doitsujin) developed DXVK because he wanted to play Nier Automata on Linux.
Valve hired him to work on it full time, then they released Proton (Wine + DXVK) a few months later. Proton likely would never have existed if it weren't for DXVK, and by extension the Steam Deck either wouldn't exist or would use Windows instead, and all the other cool Linux-related stuff Valve have worked on since probably wouldn't have happened.
Desktop Linux's marketshare rising is obviously not exclusively because of the gaming improvements, but it's for sure a huge boon. Good enough for a dumb meme like this, lol
Every time it goes on sale, I think about picking it up, but then I remember...
It takes me long enough to finish 10-hour games I already own...
That's only on the newest V4 stations, which are being rolled out incredibly slowly. All of the charges near me are V3 stations.
The Overanimation of Zenless Zone Zero
This entire channel is great if you're interested in video game animation in general.
Still one of my favorite moments from the entire series (Ed Gamble yelling at David Baddiel during the drawing task).
I'm trying to use Youtube's clip feature for this. If it goes to the full video, skip to 1:30.
Update on 'Best "convertible" or 2-in-1 device to run Linux on?' (Minisforum V3 first impressions)
So about 2 months ago I made this post about looking for an iPad replacement that runs Linux. I said I wasn't in a rush, but after thinking about it ever since and seeing the Minisforum V3 go on sale for just $1000, I pulled the trigger.
My impressions are still very new (I have used it for a total of 2 hours at this point), but I'm super happy so far. Installed Fedora 40 and almost everything works out of the box (including a Wacom MPP stylus). As mudkip mentioned in this blog, the volume buttons don't work when the keyboard is detached and auto-rotation doesn't work. The former isn't a big deal and the latter doesn't affect me in the slightest, but I can confirm those issues are still present on a stock Fedora install.
Anyway, there's not a lot of information about this tablet running Linux out there, is there anything anyone wants me to test or any questions I can answer?
Best "convertible" or 2-in-1 device to run Linux on?
The last device I own that doesn't run an open source operating system is an iPad. I basically use it as a laptop most of the time with a keyboard case, but I do like being able to take just the screen to use as a drawing/note-taking tablet. I treat it more like a "convertible" device rather than a tablet alone.
I'm not in a rush to replace it, iPadOS is, eh, usable, but there are things that get on my nerves often. I definitely wouldn't be upgrading to another iPad model if this one died. I'm curious on what kind of hardware is available out there with good Linux support that I can keep in mind for the future. My only requirements would be that it runs normal Linux distros (ideally Fedora) and has a pen/display that supports pressure sensitivity.
The Minisforum V3 looks pretty damn cool. There's also the Microsoft Surface devices that ironically seem popular with Linux users. Anyone have any experience with these kinds of devices? What do you think? What's your favorite device in this class?
Bad Omens x Health x Swarm - The Drain
I cannot get enough of Health, everything they've worked on since Death Magic has been so damn good.
A couple extra Humble Bundle keys (WRC9 + 10, MudRunner, Inertial Drift)
Hey, here are a couple Steam keys leftover from the latest Humble Bundle. I'm not sure if bot scraping is a problem here like it was on Reddit, so they're base64 encoded.
WRC 9: MzBOQk0tUEZDMkotRVpaQ1I=
MudRunner: QUJOVDgtRllaNzMtVDVKMFk=
Inertial Drift: M1EwVDQtNjJUSVgtVkZMVDc=
WRC 10: NDJHQUgtM0U0TU0tUEVaOEc=
Switching back to Android (GrapheneOS), anything cool I've been missing out on?
Long story short: I don’t like iOS but have been using an iPhone for a couple years due to lack of personally viable hardware options on the Android side of things. I’ve gotten tired of waiting and found a good deal on an open box Pixel 8 Pro which arrives in a few days, I’ll be installing GrapheneOS on it.
I’ve used GrapheneOS before on a Pixel 3a. I’m familiar with some must-haves like F-Droid+Aurora Store and AntennaPod, but are there any other apps I should check out once the phone gets here that I’ve been missing out on during my time on iOS? Or just any recommendations at all for cool/useful apps that most people wouldn’t think to search for?
Bonus question for *sonic/Navidrome users, what’s your favorite Android client? I used Substacks last time I daily drove GrapheneOS, but it looks like it might not be actively maintained anymore.
every time i can't remember how to use a command
this image comes to mind every time i use man pages
What games did you complete this year?
Back on the other website, there used to be a sub called r/12in12 where people would try to beat 12, 24, 36+ games per year. I never really set myself any specific target like that, but the end of year reviews were always fun to read/write. Considering that I don't think a single game I beat came out this year, I think this is the right community to ask this.
What games did you beat this year? What did you think of them?
For me:
January:
Nothing!
February:
Spider-Man: Miles Morales 7/10
When I first played Spider-Man on a PS4, I didn't like it. The 30fps cap made the swinging feel clunky and nothing about the rest of the game made up for it. The PC release finally comes around and at last I get the hype, the web swinging is so good. The combat is very Arkham and it's fine, the story is fine, but the web swinging is just so good. Spider-Man Miles Morales is just more of that.
The Zachtronics Solitaire Collection ?/10
This game is responsible for Steam thinking that Solitaire is one of my favorite genres of games. There are multiple versions of the game here, most of them are fine but Fortune's Foundation is probably my new favorite version of Solitaire. I don't know what I'd rate this out of 10, but I got 90 hours of entertainment for my $10.
March:
Split / Second 8/10
The PC port sucks, you have to use a fan patch to remove the 30fps cap, the controller support is terrible, but there's nothing else like it. It's a fantastic arcade racer with a super unique premise. The rest of the industry seeing this and Blur bombing financially is probably why racing games are so goddamn anemic now which is such a shame.
April:
Rakuen 7/10
I've never really gotten into any RPG Maker games like this, but it had great reviews and I needed something battery-friendly to play on my Steam Deck. Rakuen was pretty darn good, the characters are well written and the environments outside of the hospital are pretty. The story is a little predictable, but I think that's fine what it wanted to tell.
May:
Hotshot Racing 6/10
What's here is fun, but there's almost nothing here. I beat the entire campaign in about an hour. The AI rubber-banding was a bit annoying at times. Also re-reading the Steam page, apparently it has always-online DRM? The fuck?
June:
Universal Paperclips ?/10
I was in the mood for a clicker game. I tried Cookie Clicker first but the pacing is just so slow. Universal Paperclips is a clicker game that can be completed in a reasonable amount of time, and it scratched the itch I was looking for.
July:
Wilmot's Warehouse 8/10
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ai4NZnjOdUE/maxresdefault.jpg
Super Meat Boy 5/10
I've forced myself to start this game so many times over the years, I finally completed it and I just don't like it. Way too janky/buggy for a simple 2D platformer. I beat the final level 3 times and couldn't figure out what to do at the end, only for it to turn out that the final cutscene wasn't activating because my frame rate was too high. Ugh. It just made me want to play N++ again.
Ape Out 9/10
Ahhh it's so good. The soundtrack and sound effects and visuals, it's just perfect. A little on the short side (only took 1:40 to beat), but it's pretty replayable.
Neodash 7/10
It's basically Distance but worse. Distance is one of my favorite games of all time and is firmly a 10/10, so that's not necessarily a bad thing. Any levels that rely on the mid-air controls bring down the experience a bit, but luckily there aren't a ton of those.
August:
CrossCode 10/10
A top-down RPG with a ~50-hour story? I should hate this, but everything clicked into just the right place. The puzzles are fun (maybe a little too long), the combat is great, the characters are great, the story is great, I did not expect to love this game as much as I did.
Sayonara Wild Hearts 6/10
It's basically a 1-hour music video. It's very pretty and the songs are good, but the gameplay just kind of... exists.
Mad Max 6/10
It's a beautiful looking game and the vehicle combat is fun, but everything else is pure mid-2010s generic open world game, complete with Arkham combat.
Riptide GP2 6/10
It's fine, but there's absolutely no reason to play this over Riptide GP Renegade unless you're really board and looking for a grindy podcast game like I was. Renegade is just this but better in every way. It is a bummer that there are so few boat (or boat-adjacent) racing games coming out these days.
WRC Powerslide 4/10
It's insanely repetitive and the driving physics are really floaty. The power-ups are awful but luckily they can be turned off in settings. The damage model is actually really good though, which is bizarre for a top-down racer. This got delisted from Steam years ago, if I didn't already own it, I would not go out of my way to play it.
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter 7/10
It's a fun little walking simulator mystery game, I don't remember much of the actual story right now lol. I played the remastered version which was very pretty though.
Quantum Conundrum 7/10
It's a 6/10 puzzle game brought up by a full point because of John de Lancie's character.
September:
Hotline Miami 8/10
I know it's technically kind of a mess, but like everyone else I really loved it anyway. The soundtrack is excellent and clearing rooms is super satisfying. Raycevick's video really makes me want to play OXTO next.
PowerWash Simulator 8/10
The perfect podcast game.
October:
Cassette Beasts 8/10
The Pokemon games have always sounded interesting to me, but I've just never been able to get into any of them as an adult. Cassette Beasts finally scratched that itch for me, and this works way better as a concept than the Pokemon games do for me. As a bonus, the story is surprisingly good as well. Also it's made in Godot!
Sonic Generations 5/10
I don't like the Sonic games, but I've always heard this is one of the good ones so I decided to play it. A couple of the levels were fun, but most were just frustrating and/or buggy. For a character who's entire thing is going fast, the levels sure like constantly slowing you down with obstacles that cannot be seen coming.
The Witness 6/10
90% of the levels in this game are good and clever, where finding the solution is fun and satisfying. The remaining 10% includes puzzles where the entire screen is flashing to make it hard to look at, puzzles where the answer still makes no sense even after googling it, and puzzles that cannot be solved unless you solve a different puzzle first with no indication of where that's the case. The story is also nonsense but luckily it's easily ignored. This video was so cathartic after finishing the game.
Doom Eternal (& The Ancient Gods) 8/10
November:
Superliminal 8/10
My primary complaint is that it isn't longer. It took a little over an hour and a half to reach the end, but what's here is fantastic.
December:
Nothing again, lol