I’m currently getting into the Treks. Over the last year, I’ve slowly watched TOS twice, the animated series, and the first 6 movies. TNG was real hard to get into at first. I was coming off Undiscovered Country and had high hopes for TNG, but those first two seasons were a slog, especially in comparison to TOS which I loved immediately despite its age.
Third season is where it started to really find its voice. I’m up to the 5th season and I’m enjoying it. I think the biggest hiccups with the first couple seasons are the attempts to tie back to TOS and then Wesley. Once they reduced Wesley, stopped trying to force relationships within the ensemble, and stopped trying to be more of TOS but actually different from TOS, it really started to shine.
I recommend pushing through it. It’s the same advice given for TV shows like The Office and Parks & Rec. Those first couple seasons are harder to watch, but you are well-rewarded if you hang on for a bit longer.
In many US states have what’s referred to as “at-will” employment. When you accept the terms of your employment, there’s a small disclaimer that states that you can be fired for anything at anytime for any reason and without notice.
This is also why we have so many lawsuits here.
So, while there’s no full protection, there are laws available that say you can’t be fired for certain things, and if you can prove that you were fired due to simply being of a “protected class” or in retaliation for reporting a workplace violation, you can sue and can likely win through settlement or decision.
The thing is, few employers will maintain records that indicate that they fired Anita because she was black or Howard because he was gay. It’s usually “Anita had 4 errors in the last year” if pressed for detail. That’s why if you feel any sense of discrimination or other unfairness on the job here, it’s a good idea to keep records of the incidents and dates in a CYA file (Cover Your Ass), just in case.
I nearly drowned when I was 8 years old.
I was at camp and didn’t quite know how to tread water. There was a large pond that they let us play in during our free time and I went under the water for a bit, but when I came up for air, the water was too deep and I couldn’t stand up over the water.
I immediately panicked and just kept jumping to try and stay above the water. It was burning my eyes and right into my lungs. Every time I jumped up over the water, I couldn’t get enough breath to focus and I went back down with more water than air.
I have some very clear memories of those moments. I was very close to the dock and I could see the older lifeguards kind of playing around on the dock as it was getting harder and harder to jump. The clearest memory of all was me literally thinking “Oh my God. I’m 8 years old and I’m going to die.”
I started to get tired and I remember this tall blonde girl reaching out to me and saying “Are you okay?” and just pulling me to the shore.
From that point, things got a little fuzzy. I remember a lot of people standing around me and I remember vomiting up pond water. My mother, after finding out what happened, threatened to sue the camp, and I couldn’t hardly look at the water without three of counselors around me after that.
I think about that moment before the girl saved me a lot. That “Oh my God. I’m going to die” moment. It’s very sobering, and even though it’s been more than 30 years, it’s still been difficult to shake off.
As someone who uses both, I’m always fascinated by the things that Android “takes” from Apple. It’s usually the worst of iOS and then made even more unbearable.
Like apps just minimizing. Yeah, that’s fine for iOS where the apps themselves aren’t technically running while they’re not in focus. You can have 2 iOS apps open or 60 and you still have the same effect on battery life. There’s no need for this on Android.
The nags for updates are one of the things I hate most about iOS. I get why it’s done; increased version adoption and greater cohesion across the larger scale of the OS. It’s still nonsense, though.
Since major projects like Firefox keep getting mentioned, I’ll throw a shout out to Ant Renamer.
It’s simple, it’s FOSS, and it just works. I often - ahem - acquire a number of files from various sources that are labeled like “Mission.Impossible.7.Complete.zHD.2022.xReloadedx”, and an application like Ant Renamer can batch rename files into whatever you need.
For example, if I need to backup or copy a set of game saves in a folder that all need to have the same prefix like N007 from N002, I would have to manually change 10K files from one prefix to the other. Ant Renamer can do everything in a batch that runs quicker than the blink of an eye.
So, Ant Renamer for the win!
The Sims 2. I’ve played a fair amount of all four Sims games including their mobile editions, and Sims 2 remains my favorite after a near (yeeesh) 20 years.
The modding community is still relatively robust, especially for a game that’s so old and out of the four, I feel like I can enjoy even the basic gameplay as a storyteller in Sims 2 more than in 3 or 4. In Sims 3, the focus was less on playing multiple families, so it had to be modded right out of the gate to get back to its foundation and I never liked the way the sims looked. Sims 4 “feels” a lot more like Sims 2, which a lot of people hated, but its expansion and content packs are a complete joke. It costs like $2K to have everything, and they’re still releasing packs. I know it’s just the state of gaming these days, but it just sucks the fun out of a lot of the game.
Half the fun these days, though, is just getting the game up and running on modern PCs. I installed a new hard drive a few months ago and it took the better part of a weekend to get the game fully installed and running. I do have Ultimate Collection, but the less time I have to spend in that stupid EA app, the better.
Here’s an “episode” I loaded earlier this year. It’s still a little rough in parts, so it’s not really a public link and I was just sending to a couple friends to get some thoughts. This is generally what I’m going for when it comes to making it into a Mass Effect “show”: https://youtu.be/TndVqwA4NBI
When I’ve finally got it polished, the plan is to put all the episodes on YouTube, but hopefully this will give you some inspiration for your own project. Cheers!
For Mass Effect, I’ve played the game enough times that I have my “ideal” story in mind each time I play. I’ve had to re-record playthroughs multiple times so that I can maximize the dialogue options and include everything that I’d like. For example, when it comes to the ME1 Virmire survivor, I decided that I liked a mix of the Paragon and Renegade responses when choosing to leave them, so I recorded with the Paragon response and then replayed that mission so I could do the Renegade response. Then, I edited the two so that it looks like a single cohesive scene.
When it comes to the combat, I’ve had to re-re-re-record some missions to ensure that I 1) didn’t die and 2) didn’t seem to be getting my butt kicked too much that it became distracting. For example, in ME2, I’ve had to record Jack’s mission a nauseating six times because I either got killed or there were just too many instances where I nearly died, even on Casual. I’ve also had to re-record missions because my first attempt had the “camera work” a little too janky and too hard to follow when just watching. I’ve since learned to play with a cinematic eye so that the combat is a lot smoother.
In the combat, I’ve also tried to minimize the “game” aspects wherever possible which meant editing around bringing up the different menus like changing weapons or directing powers/attacks. I’ve also spent a lot of time adding in some crossfades to speed up movement where applicable. For example, in ME1, running across the Citadel once can give a nice view for the first time, but there’s no reason to just watch my Shepard running back and forth across missions, so I’ll fade leaving Chora’s Den and running back to C-Sec or other places.
Overall, it’s been a pretty fun project. I’ve had to teach myself how to play with an eye for cinematography and how I’ll eventually edit things. It’s also been interesting to notice super niche things about how the games are put together because I’m observing scenes down to single frames when I’m editing.
I’ve been doing my recording off the original Mass Effect games since I’ll likely play Legendary Edition far more often than I’ll revisit the originals, so I’ll have my “show” for some added nostalgia as well. Right now, I’m in the middle of editing a full “re-record” of ME2’s combat to reduce some of the jankiness while also going through a first run of ME3. I’ll need multiple runs off what I loaded from ME2 to get all the right armor and weapons and play/record with reduced pop-ups for leveling up, etc.
If I can make a recommendation, I’d definitely recommend doing everything on PC if possible. I’ve done mine off Xbox which kept the files limited to 1 hour at a time, which has helped keep things easier to find, but it’s been heart breaking to get through a mission and then realize the recording stopped 10 minutes before I’d finished.
I’m unsure if this counts as a “hobby”, but I absolutely love the Mass Effect series so much that I enjoy just watching it as much as replaying. I love it so much that I’ve been recording my gameplay and editing it into a sort of Mass Effect “show”.
I could just watch the handful of streamers out there who play it, but few people play as FemShep and I’ve never seen anyone play a Shepard looking anything like mine let alone take the “right” choices and actions, so this Mass Effect “show” gives me a way to watch my Shepard’s story as often as I’d like.
The whole project has evolved into learning how to polish things in Premiere Pro and Photoshop, so I’m self-teaching as I go.
Accepting the “missing out” part is the hardest battle to overcome, but I like to think of it in terms of active versus passive.
There are only so many minutes during a day and every minute spent doing one thing means that is a minute not doing something else. If I have to choose how to spend one minute or sixty, I choose between active and passive activities. It’s perfectly fine to do a passive activity, but every minute spent in something passive - that is, something that does not require you to entirely engage - is a minute away from something active - that is, something that does require your full engagement.
Obviously, you can’t spend a full day on “active” activities or you would readily burn out, but life is generally more pleasurable when we engage in something active versus passive. It’s more “doing versus seeing. So, take an hour and watch something on YouTube, but make it a relaxation from a number of active activities rather than endlessly watching without getting anything else out of it.
We’re only nerds if we come out of the Silicon Valley region of California. Otherwise, we are just sparkling geeks.