Mar 21 2024

NONA REEVES and Why I Hate Region Locking

Since the magical year of 2020, I have been listening to the J-Pop band NONA REEVES. While their music might seem generic to some, I still really enjoy it, and it’s a welcome and catchy break from the other types of music I listen to. However, this post won’t be about NONA REEVES themselves, as much as it will be about cases of availability similar to the music of NONA REEVES.

You see, the band doesn’t seem to be particularly popular outside of Japan. Beyond that one Parappa anime remix of one of their songs, their catalog seems to be really obscure and hard to find in the west, especially their post-2001 output. I recently found out that all of their newer music IS in fact available on services like Spotify and YouTube Music, but it is nearly impossible to listen to if you’re not in Japan. As someone who extensively uses Spotify and YouTube for music on the go, this was really disappointing and frustrating to me, to the point where I uploaded some of their albums to the wider YouTube sphere, for my own convenience and for other people to find and listen to.

It isn’t just NONA REEVES however that suffers from being unavailable beyond it’s origin country. Games and some of the more obscure media of the movie and music variety have been somewhat difficult to access for decades before the Internet age, and even a period during said age. And I always hated this practice.

Games were more understandable back when analog TVs were the norm and varying frequencies of equipment would result in an unviewable image. However, this practice continued well into the 7th generation of gaming, when digital TVs that could handle both 50/60hz becoming more widely available, with the Xbox 360 and Wii being the prime examples of this. Hell, the main motivator for the development of the Xbox 360 emulator Xenia was the creator not being able to play imported titles on his consoles. The PS3 was region free in the same generation, so there really was no genuine reason to region lock consoles anymore, other than having total control, which corporations would seemingly never give up a sliver of when it comes to their consoles.

Movies and music however? Less excusable, technologically speaking. Culturally, some culture-specific media would be difficult for other audiences to engage with back in the day, but they didn’t even give those audiences the option to engage with it. Whether that’s out of ignorance, greed, lack of budget, or biases, the initial reason varies, but the end result is the same. Less media for the people. And it sucks.

Thankfully, region locking isn’t nearly as prevalent of an issue as it used to be. The internet has allowed greater access to content from other regions, and companies have done much better jobs with allowing others to engage with media that didn’t release in their region for one reason or another. And that only makes it sting more, when some labels or companies still have their head up their ass in the name of “tradition” and STILL do this kind of bullshit.

One particular country that still seems to be fond of region locking is Japan. I already named the NONA REEVES example, but one other example I’m thinking of at the moment is the internet radio service Radiko, which is flat-out unavailable outside of Japan, unless you use a VPN or a browser extension to bypass the draconian restrictions. Normally some obscure service being unavailable wouldn’t be that bothersome, but Radiko, if I remember correctly, is the main service of Japanese internet radios, with only a small handful of globally available stations. So if you grew a liking to, or are interested in, Japanese internet radio, then you’re basically screwed and can’t access the vast majority of that space, because some asshole thought it would be brilliant if people were shown the door for not being in the correct country. (Not even really that effective when you can bypass it with a FUCKING BROWSER EXTENSION.)

Thinking about region locking has given me another brilliant example of Gaben’s “Piracy is a service problem” quote being eternally correct. If the consumer is given no choice in accessing the media they’re interested in, why should people shed a tear for your product or service being inevitably pirated? If you genuinely care, put in the effort to make your stuff available, and I’ll pay up. Games and movies have both made strides in being more accessible, either with availability or streaming, and therefore, for the time being, reducing the amount of piracy done on them. Of course, pirates will always exist, whether that’s due to lack of money or some other form of inaccessibility, but that’s a more complex topic than corporations would like you to believe. However, I don’t remember the last time I pirated a game unless I had a good reason to. I’m more compelled to give money where it’s due because of how easy it is to access what I want. And the more noticeable lack of region locking in the present has also done it’s part in this downtrend.

However, with streaming services being more compelled to become the internet version of cable TV, and older games being more and more unavailable as time goes on, one has to wonder if this downtrend will go back up in due time. And while region locking isn’t really comparable, it is funny and scary at the same time to wonder if it’s going to go through a similar fracture process. Probably not, but you never know. For now, I’m just happy that I can access more stuff legally whenever I want. NONA REEVES’ music notwithstanding.

By • Writings • 0

Mar 5 2024

The Top 5 Favorite Albums and Songs as of this date (the date on the blog post)

I usually don’t rank things I enjoy in any list whatsoever. The main reason is that I’m a terrible critic, and my ratings aren’t exactly reliable. I usually give games 4 stars even if they might be worse than one another. I’m a soak that either enjoys or hates media, without much care about precise ratings or preferring one to the other. Picking out specific favorites is even harder, as I have to consider a lot of variables, such as how it affected me and how much I enjoy and go back to it. Plus, I switch favorites all the time, so whatever list I might make some time will probably be outdated anyway the moment I find a new artist or game that genuinely left a huge impact on me.

That being said, I decided to make such a list anyway, as there are some picks that I actually believe are going to be pretty concrete and set in stone. If that ever changes so drastically that 85% of the post is outdated, I’ll make a new one, but for now, here’s my Top 5 Favorite Albums and Songs.

Some basic guidelines and notes first: I will only include one album/song per artist, otherwise both lists will be nothing but Steven Wilson and Porcupine Tree. The album/song counts as my favorite, if I replayed it to the point of memorization and I always fully enjoy it. Anything below #1 on both lists has completely interchangeable positions, and I don’t prefer one over the other. And finally, I keep each entry description to one or two sentences, as I’m not a very good music critic at all.

Albums

#5: The Campfire Headphase by Boards of Canada

Boards of Canada goodness with more guitar intertwined. Makes me wish for more of this sort of thing.

#4: MM..FOOD by MF DOOM

Very witty lyrics about food and genuinely great and unique beats.

#3: In Rainbows by Radiohead

Lots of catchy back-to-back bangers making for an album that flows wonderfully.

#2: Metropolis, Pt. 2: Scenes From a Memory by Dream Theater

An incredible progressive metal concept album about a man rediscovering his past life.

#1: Hand. Cannot. Erase. by Steven Wilson

If there’s a single album that I’ll use as the definitive proof that music is art, it’s this.

Songs

#5: Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd

Probably my favorite Pink Floyd track. Really enjoyable listen.

#4: Drive Home by Steven Wilson

The guitar solo at the end alone makes this a certified SW classic. Has a great music video to go along with it as well.

#3: With You Friends (Long Drive) by Skrillex

Oddly emotionally powerful for a Skrillex track, made me tear up a couple of times.

#2: Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence by Dream Theater

42 minute masterpiece about various mental illnesses. The best Dream Theater track ever made.

#1: Trains by Porcupine Tree

Beautiful song from what is arguably Porcupine Tree’s best album. My favorite track from their discography, and my favorite track of all time.

And so that was the list of albums and songs. I couldn’t really fit in a Porcupine Tree album in the album list, because there are so many classics to choose from that I genuinely couldn’t pick one. Also keep in mind, I don’t always listen to these specific albums and songs 24/7. I rotate a lot between certain albums whenever I feel like it. If you want a more comprehensive and larger list of albums I like, feel free to check out the music page on the main site.

By • Nonsense • 0

Feb 26 2024

The Other Yoshibox, also known as “Tarquin’s Seaweed Farm”

Since about 2018, I had a separate computer with old parts running Windows XP. However, due to the inconvenience of having to swap cables around every time I wanted to use it, it didn’t see a lot of runtime, especially with me playing games from the XP era on my modern computer (now named “yoshibox”, hence the post title) after fixing incompatibilities and other bugs. It was the same issue when I brought it out of the basement 4 years after I put it there. I really needed a separate setup for just that computer to really enjoy using it…

…and I eventually did assemble it! After finding a spare keyboard, mouse, mousepad and TV in a room in the basement, I got the urge to set up the XP computer there. So after finding all the appropriate cables and plugging it all in, I was able to enjoy all my childhood classics on my childhood OS in a neat little setup. In fact, it has seen a lot of usage since I assembled that setup, more than even my modern PC has recently. The convenience of being able to just instantly turn it on whenever I wanted really helped with increasing my desire to use it.

Now that the backstory is over and done with, I would like to describe the computer itself a little more.

Funnily enough, most of the parts in the computer are the exact same as my first ever PC from 2010. The CPU, motherboard and RAM are the exact parts that were in that first PC, and the graphics card was identical to the one I had in the first PC before it broke and was replaced. The PSU is not from the first PC, if I recall correctly, and the hard drive was also a separate acquisition. The hard drive from the first PC went on to be heavily used for about 11 years without a single issue, before I got my current PC and put the previous one in storage.

As you probably deduced with your master investigative skills, the operating system on the computer is none other than Windows XP. Specifically, it’s running Service Pack 3 with all of the post-SP3 updates and hotfixes obtained through the great Legacy Update. It also has a pretty sweet custom theme called Watercolor Emico (the light black variant, I believe?), which had to be patched in with a theme patcher.

The software on the computer is mostly old versions of modern software that I actually use on my current PC. A lot of them cut off XP support a while ago, so they’re pretty outdated versions, but I was pleasantly surprised to see VLC and WizTree in particular still support XP on their latest versions. They were probably the last programs I expected to still support XP after all this time. If you’d like to see some of the other software used, I have a list of most of them on my XP repository page.

The PC was obviously built to play games, so it is no surprise that most of the installed programs are games. I have installed some real classics like The Sims 2 and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, but also some obscure no-name platformers from my childhood like Dracula Twins and The Three Musketeers. No idea why or how I stumbled upon them back then, but I enjoyed them a lot as a kid, and even tho they’re pretty mediocre, the fond memories still makes me enjoy playing them today.

(The “actual” PC name is COWLOVER, but I consider the OEM PC name to be the canonical one. It’s a reference to a Porcupine Tree demo cassette.)

So that’s my XP PC. It’s a pretty convenient box and place to conserve some childhood memories, with a little twist and additions from present me. You might think of this post as pretty dry and boring, but I honestly don’t care, I just find it fun to describe things like this, so that’s what I will continue to do for as long as I and this blog are alive.

Oh, and the computer also has the best bootscreen on Earth.

By • Nonsense • 2

Jan 11 2024

Why do people like GTA Definitive Edition now?

The title of this post is a question I’ve been having recently. In case you’re unaware, Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – Definitive Edition is a garbage, poorly-made “remaster” of the so-called 3D trilogy of Grand Theft Auto. It was based on the horrendously made mobile port codebase, and featured poorer graphics, terrible model “overhauls”, hilariously shoddy AI generated upscales, performance problems and glitches. Basically, it had the entire smorgasbord of awful game design and then some.

(Notice Ryder’s noodle arms. Thanks, Grove Street Games.)

On release, this piss poor attempt at re-selling 20-year old games with the same old engine under the hood but with a new renderer was rightfully called out for what it is. Many people were able to easily point out all of it’s constant glitches and faults, both technically and aesthetically, and was the subject of a lot of mockery, critique and memes for it’s entire lifetime. Almost.

Recently, with the new GTA VI trailer announcement, and even a new version on Mobile that re-introduced “Classic Lighting”, the general consensus of players seems to have shifted to a more positive one. For instance, the San Andreas DE Steam rating is now “Mostly Positive”, and many of the latest reviews are gloating about either how “good it is” or how “it’s actually not that bad”. And I simply find it baffling.

As someone who has spent tens, if not hundreds of hours playing these games, both before and after Definitive Edition’s release, I could instantly tell it was a sham and an inferior version of the games that I personally love to death. I even knew this was going to turn out poorly, after I found out who exactly made this version.

(For more detailed context, check out these videos from Vadim M. The TL;DR is that Grove Street Games, formerly known as War Drum Studios, was behind the terrible San Andreas mobile port, on which the Definitive Edition is based off of.)

And sure enough, my expectations were met, as the terrible ports were released in a terrible state and received terrible scores. To the surprise of, I guess the Rockstar faithful, but not to anyone who actually paid attention to the pre-release material. But now, almost everyone seems to, for some reason, love and defend this port, to the point where a GTA content creator I like to watch was called a “skinhead” for daring to criticize it. I wish I made that up.

So why doesn’t it deserve the newly-obtained admiration? Well, firstly, I completely dislike the idea of the “sell now, fix later” model that almost every AAA release seems to be doing now. People buy into hype, the game comes out as shit, people get angry, and then immediately forget everything that happened because “it’s good now”. They get so happy over it, that they defend the game to the bitter end and attack anyone who dares to point out the past wrongdoings of a soulless corporation that doesn’t see them as anything but walking dollars.

But, okay. Let’s say that they tried their best to fix it, 2 whole years after it originally came out and only on mobile for some reason. It still isn’t enough. It will never be enough. And that is because the problems of this version go all the way down to its fundamentals. Like I mentioned previously, the Definitive Edition is based off of the mobile version codebase, which was made by the same company, and is a terrible port with so many bugs and visual issues that even 1 and a half hour of video isn’t enough to show all of the faults of its Xbox 360 and PS3 versions, which are basically the same versions but with some extra bugs on top.

And it isn’t just functionally where their reliance on this bad codebase is permanently crippling DE. Aesthetically, it gutted a lot of the original systems of San Andreas, such as multiple weather presets for each area. Originally, the game had 16 weather presets, and they were all completely different. Now, there are only 4 presets, and even worse, they look the exact same. Even with Classic Lighting, they essentially only match the weather presets of Los Santos, and simply apply those presets to the other areas as well. So now we have green deserts at night.

For context, this is what it’s supposed to look like.

It’s the same deal in Las Venturas.

So they didn’t actually fix shit in the aesthetic department. Whether it was out of laziness, technical inability due to the shit codebase, or the expectation that no one would play or travel outside of LS is anyone’s guess. But hopefully it becomes crystal clear that there was nothing actually improved, and anyone that still wants to claim otherwise is either blind or a moron who doesn’t respect artistic integrity.

(If you wish to get more details about this particular issue, I recommend TJGM’s video on the topic.)

And lastly, I want to address that any actual bug fixes from the new mobile version that someone might point out were NEVER issues in the original game to begin with. They’re purely from this shit version and are essentially just patching what they fucked up. To give you an example: animated props, such as the Burger Shot in Verona Beach and the oil rigs in Las Venturas worked perfectly in the original, but were broken in the demaster and fixed later on mobile. People are essentially praising fixes for issues that were never a part of the actually good versions, which I simply find funny and depressing to think about.

So, I’m still left wondering: “Why do people like GTA Definitive Edition now?” None of the issues they fixed were part of the originals, and there are still massive downgrades present that will either never get fixed, or simply can’t be fixed. Polishing a turd will not make it anything other than a turd, and yet the fanboys still defend the turd as if it was anything more than a turd. They happily lick it up, and don’t question it. My hope is that you see the turd for what it is and simply walk around it, like any other person would.

By • Writings • 1

Oct 5 2023

Terminal 1

Here’s one of those posts that aims to accumulate smaller things I’ve done, as… promised? I suppose that is the word I’m looking for, even though I technically don’t owe anyone anything. This place is just my own pad to write out my thoughts as I feel like it. It could be about eating socks for all I care. Makes me wonder if there’s a forum for that, actually. Anyway, enough of the pre-ramble. I’m going to tackle each topic individually.

When The Case Is Silver

Last month, I’ve completed all of The Silver Case and enjoyed it a lot. To those not in the know, it’s a visual novel/adventure game released in 1999 for the PS1 in Japan, later translated and remade for modern platforms in 2016. It was Suda51’s first game under his company, Grasshopper Manufacture, as well as the first game set in the so-called “Kill the Past” universe. I can’t really explain said universe well myself, but I do recommend you check out its associated games when you have the time.

As said before, I enjoyed the game a lot. I found its story very engaging, the characters well written, and the environment incredibly fascinating. The social commentary in particular stood out to me, tackling things like corporate greed, urbanization and police. Though I find its commentary on the internet the most incredible, keeping in mind that the game was written in the late 90’s, and yet it shows a good understanding for its culture that early on. It discusses things like how a lot of the people there make their own spaces and language for others to discover and understand, which is something that I feel is still very relevant to this day. (Yes, even to this blog!!)

Beyond that, the music is also very awesome. It fits all of the game’s environments beautifully. My personal favorite theme has to be the HCU theme that plays when you’re in the building, not just because it’s awesome, but also because it really fits the investigation theme of the game. One other thing I also like is the uniqueness of each chapter. They all have their own art style in both the UI and the art itself, making for a very visually interesting game to play through.

I do have some minor qualms however. The Placebo scenario was sometimes incredibly boring in the first chapters, to the point of putting me off playing them any further. However, I do think they and the story in general really pick up in the later chapters, so it’s not a big deal to me. One other thing I’m not personally a fan of is the controls. They are very unorthodox, which even the tutorial admits to, but it doesn’t really make them any more pleasing to use. While you can get used to them somewhat quickly (and I have in fact done so), there were still times where I had to consider what to press for a moment.

All in all, a great game that I recommend anyone plays through. Even if visual novels or adventure games aren’t exactly your thing, it’s definitely worth a try for the story alone. As for me, I’ll continue the adventures in this universe when I get around to playing more of Flower, Sun and Rain.

Be Thankful Towards The Scientist

While not exactly a Soulseek find, I did mention one time that I wanted to share any cool music I found, so here’s my opportunity to do so.

While I was watching English Ben’s stream, I noticed a certain song playing that I enjoyed more than any of the other usual songs he plays (which I do enjoy as well). It had a blend of jazz fusion and progressive metal, two things that I really enjoy. Reading through the title on his overlay, I could see it was a song titled Chromology by Thank You Scientist. I commented on the song in his chat, and he responded by recommending me any of the albums to listen to. So that’s what I did. Sort of. While I initially just listened to that aforementioned song on repeat, I decided to eventually listen to the whole album the song came from. And man, was it a list of pure bangers. I couldn’t get enough of it, and soon enough I was putting it on repeat like 80 times by now. The sheer uniqueness of the sound and it’s amazing performance makes me come back to it, and I even gave one of their earlier albums a shot, and also enjoyed it. I’ll probably go through some more of their stuff soon.

If you like both jazz fusion and progressive metal, you’ll definitely love Thank You Scientist. Give them a shot sometime.

Some Other Odds And Ends

And now some smaller things that didn’t really justify an entire section. First, I’ll be going to a concert on the 12th, which I’m very excited for. It’s for a trip-hop band called Archive which I’ve enjoyed for a number of years at this point. This will be technically my third concert ever, the first being for Dream Theater and my second being for Porcupine Tree. (Which is my all-time favorite band!!! You’d know if you read my music page on the main site.) I’m definitely looking forward to seeing them play.

Second, I’ve considered reading Homestuck again. Yes, how preposterous of me, having a Homestuck-themed website and URL despite not having read all of it. The reason I put off on doing so (for reference, I was 1/3rd of the way through) was because I felt it progressed at a snail’s pace during Act 5 Act 1 and 2 and lost my interest. I was being very harsh on it and felt that maybe it just wasn’t my thing, but to be honest, I’ve reconsidered that and I’m not so sure anymore. I don’t know when I’ll start again, but I’m assuming sometime later this month or so. I’m willing to be slightly more patient this time, but I’ll probably fully check out if I still just can’t handle it.

So yeah, this is what I’ve been up to. I enjoy rambling about stuff like this in this format, rather than having to make an entire lengthy post about one thing to justify it being a separate post. I’ll most likely do it again soon. No ETA this time. I don’t like forcing myself to write something on a regularly scheduled basis.

By • Ramblethon • 0

Oct 4 2023

She Dash on my Geometry till i World

This blog has a pretty slow update pace, all things considered. I find it funny that immediately after I said I wanted to make the music library posts weekly, I drop off for a month. Truth be told though, my music library updates have minimized a lot, and I typically don’t have that much to talk about for entire new posts. Perhaps I should consider making general life updates and accumulate the smaller things that I do into one post. Maybe I will. For now, here’s a post about a game I’ve spent a bunch of time on recently: Geometry Dash!

Yes, I’m playing a mobile game way past it’s prime. Shut up. To be more serious though, I used to play this a bunch in 2014 as a kid, back when it was considerably more popular in the general flow of the internet. And I predictably sucked. I could barely even finish the first level in normal mode, which I completed on my second try as an adult now. I suppose my video game skills aren’t entirely hopeless after all.

However, also predictably, the later main levels on Insane difficulty kicked my ass pretty good. I eventually beat them, but they were still very challenging to me, either because my brain does a fart and I fuck up a jump too early or too late, or because I genuinely don’t know the click pattern, and need a bit of practice or readjusting before passing that point. I do find beating the main levels very fun and rewarding though. You have infinite tries and a practice mode, so you’re not stressed by a limited amount of lives, and you can always replay any particular section you struggle with. And you tend to get pretty cool rewards in the form of an icon or vehicle, an achievement, and a sense of pride and progression (reward not applicable for all customers).

While I haven’t dabbled a lot into user-created stuff, I did get through a small handful of map packs and a few levels I found on my own. I do intend to dive more into this world when I beat all the main levels, but for now, the main levels keep me plenty occupied. The later and harder ones especially get a lot more engaging, as they’re way more visually interesting than the beginner levels, and have the challenge to make you want to sit down, practice the patterns, and eventually beat them. So far, the latest (and hardest) level I’ve beaten is Theory of Everything. I enjoy it’s visuals and music a lot, and I can see myself replaying it a bunch, either to collect the secret coins, or just for the hell of it.

So yeah, this has been my latest gaming venture. I do have one more for you though.

I’ve recently decided to completely call it quits with Counter-Strike. I played it a bit with friends since about a month or two ago and it was seriously an incredibly miserable experience. If you’re not going with a full stack, you need the patience of a saint to tolerate the toxic and terrible teammates. Even with that, it still causes tension between friends because of a fail on someone’s end. Overall, it’s just not a fun experience, and instead of dragging it out further like I have been, I’ve completely quit. I sold off any and all skins I had and uninstalled it. I don’t ever plan to come back to it at any point, and I hope I won’t have to.

By • Nonsense • 0

Sep 6 2023

Cosmic Light Shows Under The Imploding Sun [MP3] 320 kbps Download Free now

I’ve started to think that I should do these weekly, so here’s your weekly music library post, I suppose. I really oughta make some other posts to vary it a bit more, but that’s a problem for later.

As of today, my music collection officially (as opposed to unofficially) reached 136 GB!

You might be wondering: “Wait, your collection quadrupled, but the size only grew by about half???” Yes, and that was on purpose. Very quickly I decided to give up on this whole hi-res thing, since, again, I can’t tell the difference between 96kHz and CD quality. Therefore, while I’m still getting FLACs when possible, they’re all CD quality (44.1kHz, 16-bit), which is perfectly adequate for me, not to mention that they’re easier to find. Plus, since they’re lossless, I can easily transcode them down the line to something else without having to worry about transcoding from lossy to lossy and making the quality suffer a bit.

As for my music player: I gave up on WACUP literally the day after my last post, which is pretty funny in retrospect. But to be honest, the limitations of WACUP were starting to annoy me. For one thing, it does not support disc numbers, so any multi-disc albums aren’t properly sorted, which is very annoying. And there are some very minor nitpicks, like the little spectrum analyzer on the player not working that well with higher sample rate stuff. Still, they and the more major issues got to me, so I switched to a very suitable alternative, and that is foobar2000!

I really like this music player a lot. The interface is very pleasing to me (and to be honest, I functionally prefer it for browsing a music library), the spectrum analyzer works brilliantly with anything I throw at it, and I can even minimize it to a tray icon! In general, it’s worked brilliantly for my needs the past week and I don’t really see myself using anything else in the future. I do plan to try other alternatives as a fun side hustle, but foobar already does everything I want it to do, so it’s unlikely I’ll switch, but who really knows.

I still use Spotify for my phone, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon, but I am still buying albums from Bandcamp and downloading them. I personally have more attachment to music if it’s something I legally bought. While Soulseek still works great for the music I want, there’s something about music I bought for my own money that gives me more sentiment for it.

(I literally bought Super Ghostbusters the moment I found out that it existed on Bandcamp.)

So yeah, that’s been the progress so far. I’m slowly running out of albums that I’ve heard of before to download on Soulseek (in fact I probably already did, minus any Bandcamp releases I wish to buy for myself, of course), so at this point it’s mostly getting stuff from artists or bands that up to this point I only listened to one album from. Really, the music discovery is kinda what enticed me to use Soulseek and to start my library in the first place, so if I find anything cool I end up liking, I’ll make sure to share it here!

By • Music Library • 0

Aug 28 2023

Down Low Downing Loading Load Down Drown Lowe Brown Bow.mp3 (320 Kbps Free Download)

I was supposed to make this post exactly a week after the original post but I’m too impatient, so I’m doing it RIGHT NOW. Because it’s my fucking blog.

As of literally today (current date) (yes I’m doing this bit again) my music library has reached a whopping 87 GB!

I know you’re going to ask “how the fuck”, and I will answer. Basically, from the very beginning, I was always going for downloading FLAC files for the highest quality, since I figured, if I’m going to download music, I might as well go all the way. Yes, that includes hi-res FLACs with 96kHz and all that jazz. Plus, I do listen to a variety of music and artists so I tend to switch often, hence the amount of albums and songs.

Some of you will rightfully point out that it can be difficult to tell the difference between lossy and lossless, and it’s true. I can barely tell between FLACs and MP3s or even streaming via Spotify. Ultimately, it boils down to me being more happy if the files are lossless and in higher quality, hence my insistence on downloading all of the music in this format. Yes, this does mean it takes up a hellaloalaolot of space compared to an MP3 library, but I don’t really mind personally.

(My epic music setup. I think it fits the various metal albums that are on there.)

As for Spotify? …I still use it. Yes, I know, I LIED like the evil gremlin I am, but to be honest it’s very difficult to manage such a library elsewhere, and I’ll explain why. Essentially, my main ways of acquiring music go between Bandcamp and Soulseek (really fucking good app, btw), and while I can download stuff from Bandcamp just fine, synchronizing the whole library on my phone is basically impossible, unless I redownload or transcode EVERYTHING into MP3, since most of my music is in FLAC and comes from Soulseek or even torrents. And since a lot of stuff I listen to is on Spotify already, since it’s mostly from labels, I still use it for when I’m out and about. Sometimes there are exceptions, but I typically either download them on my phone anyway, or more likely, I use YouTube and move on.

Of course, me using Soulseek doesn’t mean I completetly gave up on Bandcamp. I still buy and plan to buy more albums from there when my monetary status allows me to, but for now, the vast majority of music I obtain is from Soulseek, due to the confusing amount of music download websites and the very high prices they charge for the hi-res versions of albums on them. Plus, some of the stuff isn’t even on those websites.

(Did I mention I like Soulseek? My username is “Karkat”; feel free to browse and check out what I have so far.)

So, that is the status of my music library as of today. While I still use Spotify for portable devices, I’m a lot less reliant on it than I used to be, which I think is a net positive. The library will definitely continue to grow as I discover new music and replay some old favorites.

By • Music Library • 0

Aug 24 2023

The MiSTery Machine

Since almost exactly 2 weeks ago, I’ve built and enjoyed a functional MiSTer setup. It was quite pricey, as to be expected, but I view it as an investment, and much like a satisfied stockbroker, I would even call it a great investment. Enjoying near hardware-perfect retro gaming has been a treat, and more importantly for me, a great opportunity to dive into the weird and obscure corners of it. While I still have yet to properly do so (mostly played arcade games and the popular consoles for now), the fact that I have a painless way already set up is fantastic, and I will eventually get around to doing it. Maybe I’ll even write a post or two about my experiences. We’ll see.

(My setup as of today. Sorry to the 2 people in the audience who give a shit about it not being a direct screenshot. I tried.)

For now, I’ll talk about what I’ve already accomplished.

Setting it up was a lot easier than expected (for many, at least). While I had some slight trouble with building the setup itself due to the lack of a standoff screwdriver in the house, a wrench ended up working well with unscrewing the standoffs included with the DE10-Nano (the main brains in the operation of this thingamajig). Installing a heatsink, USB hub and SDRAM module was no problem after that, and I got it to power up and function.

Flashing the SD card with the OS was a minor hurdle, however. Due to me being an idiot and not knowing how to actually use dd, and not being able to get Etcher to work, I wasn’t able to get it properly flashed on my Linux laptop. I had to resort to the only functional Windows laptop in the house with an SD card slot to flash it with Etcher, but after that, it was all smooth sailing! Eventually the setup of Mr. Fusion finished, and it booted right up into the menu!

After that, it was trivial automated setup, courtesy of the great update_all script. This was definitely the most frustrating step however. Not because of the script or the setup being broken in one way or another. The main cause of frustration was the agonizingly slow Wi-Fi dongle I had installed.

See, some months ago, I’ve been using one of my spare PCs as a Windows XP box for retro gaming and whatnot. Since I had no way to connect it to the internet outside of wireless, I had to rely on my phone with a hotspot and USB tethering to get online, which was… less than ideal. So, I quickly scrambled and ordered the cheapest dongle I could find that worked with XP. I saw mentions of it having terrible range, but I thought “surely, it can’t be THAT bad!” Well, needless to say, it WAS that bad.

(Seriously, this thing is fucking unusable. 150 Mbps my ass.)

Even on the XP machine it was originally for, I got very slow speeds due to the modem being on the opposite end of the house, and since this thing has less functional range than my own fucking arms, it was slower than molasses. However, I had no choice but to use it on the MiSTer setup, which means the update_all setup took… 4 AND A HALF HOURS. I wish I was exaggerating. The setup does take at least an hour usually, but not quadruple that, and I instantly figured it was the shit range of this dongle. Still, it worked, and I got arcade games working out of the box, which I enjoyed a bunch! (Fun fact: the first game I tried on it was Robotron 2084.)

Eventually I got FTP to also work, which meant I didn’t need to take out the microSD card to get my games on the device. This caused even more frustration, and it was so slow it could take a quarter of a day just to get a few smaller ROMsets to upload. I was quickly fed up with the agonizing upload times, and got myself a better Wi-Fi dongle. While the speed was only around 5-6 MiB/s with a single transfer going, again, due to the modem’s distance, it was MILES better than my old one and uploading all the ROMs was a breeze. (For reference, the best performance I could get out of the old one on a good day was around 500-600 KiB/s and that’s just with a single transfer going.) I uploaded the larger ROMsets I put off for later and I felt the difference. The AmigaVision/MegaAGS ROMset, which is around 10 GB, was fully uploaded in about half an hour. I don’t even want to IMAGINE how long it would take with the Snail Mail dongle.

Ranting about garbage cheap dongles aside, I’ve enjoyed myself with the arcade and console cores I picked. I played stuff like R-Type Leo, DoDonPachi, Robotron, NewZealand Story, NeoGeo, NES, SNES, and even a bit of PS1. While the latency on my end wasn’t as mindblowing as the MiSTer’s reputation would lead you to believe (completely my own fault, I’m using a wireless Xbox controller over Bluetooth), I could still feel enough of a difference to enjoy the games a lot more than usual. Once I get myself some SNAC adapters and the appropriate controllers (and an IO board and case, since I don’t have those yet), I’m sure the experience will be even better. For now, it will suffice.

And so that’s what I’ve been doing since 2 weeks ago when it comes to MiSTer. However, the future looks to be incredibly bright. Not only do I have a huge amount of cores I didn’t even try yet, but also the N64 core development is progressing at a rapid speed, to the point where I can confidently say that N64 games will be properly playable by the end of the year. Plus, The Simpsons Arcade core was recently finished and is currently in beta, which is incredibly exciting to me, as it’s one of my favorite arcade games of all time.

Some of you will be asking: “Why not use MAME and emulators?” Well, I HAVE been using emulators, and in fact, I still use them for games outside of MiSTer, but I’m too dumb to figure out how to set up MAME properly with the games I want to play, so having the arcade games MiSTer offers, and with basically no additional setup needed, is a treat.

Of course, I’m not going to be an elitist about it and shame others for playing on emulators. They’re still fantastic options. However, I chose to go with the MiSTer for the cores it provides, and I’m not disappointed at all. If you’re looking for very high accuracy and authenticity, and you have the dough to build one yourself, I highly recommend it.

By • Nonsense • 0

Aug 23 2023

Download Music on the Down Low (50 percent down)

Literally today (current date) I have decided to start downloading and/or purchasing music on Bandcamp to make myself less reliant on streaming services. As of today, I still heavily use Spotify for all my music needs, and have done so for slightly over 3 years now. Of course, none of the fees ever being paid by me, like the cheapskate freeloader I am. I’ve used it on and off before then of course, but mid-2020 was when I really got into it and used it practically every day of my life since then.

Why have I done so? Well, I was (and still am) of the opinion that in terms of music, whatever way you consume it doesn’t really matter. Whether you download it, stream it, or play it on physical media, music is just there for me. One might argue it’s more fun to collect physical media, and I do agree, but I am not made of money, so my everlasting dreams of owning a proper sized collection (not to mention the lack of space) are a bit dead in the water. Maybe next year when I get a job for once.

Anyway, like I said, I’ve never really cared for a while how my music gets delivered to me. I used to be big into CDs a while back and ripping them to my iPod, but nowadays, I’m perfectly comfortable with using Spotify all the time. Of course there is stuff that isn’t on Spotify, but even then, I just fire up YouTube and all is good. I’ve never really bothered with maintaining a digital library of sorts that is actually permanent to some degree and won’t be taken away suddenly by the big bad corpos.

That is, until today.

I still don’t really know what made me want to do it. Even tho it was literally today (current date), the thought and will to do so just popped into my head and stuck to the point where I bought a sizeable chunk of albums on Bandcamp for those sweet, sweet FLACs.

(Here’s my profile if you care to see what collections of noises and instruments I enjoy enough to purchase with my moners.)

However, I must ask myself: will this really last, or is this going to be a passing fad like the time I tried to start my own Blu-Ray collection? Well, considering I’m dealing with instant access digital files I can access on my phone and computer, and not physical discs that I need to wait for while they’re getting shipped, I’d say it’s much less likely that I’ll grow indifferent and bored of it. Plus, I listen to music practically every day, where as my movie watching habits are much more infrequent. No guarantees, of course, but I’d say I’m probably going to build up my library with Bandcamp and direct downloads enough to the point where I can easily cut myself off from Spotify and enjoy the tunes on my own terms (even offline without having to download it beforehand!).

By • Music Library • 0

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