Durinthal's recent activity

  1. Comment on Do you have an "anime of the season"? | Summer 2026 (June - Sept) in ~anime

    Durinthal
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    I really wanted to like that one more than I did, but Sasaki's a bit too slow and bumbling to this point for my taste. Still enjoyed it quite a bit for what it was doing, just not a favorite.

    I really wanted to like that one more than I did, but Sasaki's a bit too slow and bumbling to this point for my taste. Still enjoyed it quite a bit for what it was doing, just not a favorite.

    1 vote

  2. Comment on Do you have an "anime of the season"? | Summer 2026 (June - Sept) in ~anime

    Durinthal
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    Ratings on everything from this season here, I can't definitively say anything yet since I need to watch most of Jaadugar and finish several other shows. Out of new series, I have a soft spot for...

    Ratings on everything from this season here, I can't definitively say anything yet since I need to watch most of Jaadugar and finish several other shows.

    Out of new series, I have a soft spot for Sayonara Lara as an original anime even if it was a bit uneven and messy, and Though I Am an Inept Villainess which was a nice new angle for an imperial court drama and I'm looking forward to the next season. But one more niche than those that I enjoyed even more is Hanaori-san Still Wants to Fight in the Next Life, a goofy comedy that hits a sweet spot for me with a bunch of characters I liked. It also has fun with a bunch of the typical tropes in a fantasy kitchen sink manner, as it's a reverse isekai with characters from a fantasy world reincarnated on Earth but also has local witches and then magical girls from a different Earth showing up and more along those lines.

    Overall though my favorite of the season is probably going to be the second season of You and I Are Polar Opposites given that I really loved the first season and the second is largely more of the same.

    2 votes

  3. Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime

    Durinthal
    Link Parent
    I thought that one had a solid romantic relationship between adults (a rarity in anime) in a story that's not particularly interesting otherwise. As you mentioned I did enjoy that he wasn't all...

    I thought that one had a solid romantic relationship between adults (a rarity in anime) in a story that's not particularly interesting otherwise. As you mentioned I did enjoy that he wasn't all that strong himself, but still had an important role in the party.

    1 vote

  4. Comment on What is your dream game? in ~games

    Durinthal
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    After watching the anime Spice and Wolf I've really wanted a game along those lines. The premise: you're a traveling merchant trying to make enough money to settle down and open up your own shop...

    After watching the anime Spice and Wolf I've really wanted a game along those lines. The premise: you're a traveling merchant trying to make enough money to settle down and open up your own shop with a medieval economy sim deep enough to allow for the kind of shenanigans that they get up to in the anime including things like currency manipulation and market crashes due to unexpected large-scale events. Or more broadly a "small fish in a big pond" kind of strategy game that doesn't scale up to have you the player directly running an entire guild or the like, but needing to do it through connections with NPCs that have their own ambitions and might refuse some requests or change their mind as the circumstances do.

    Games like Mount and Blade, Freelancer, and Sid Meier's Pirates! have some kind of trading aspect to them but that's not the primary game mechanic and usually pretty simple. Even a more recent indie game that I've tried, Merchant of the Skies, is closer in scope for being entirely focused on trading but still fairly shallow in execution with "buy low, sell high" being most of it without much getting in your way. Maybe I need to dive into the trading and economy tags on Steam and see if there's anything else that draws my eye.

    All that said I don't know if it would even make for a game that's fun to play, but it's something I've wanted to give a shot for more than a decade... and after getting back into a MUD and enjoying playing a trader leading caravans between towns, I think that desire's subconsciously been around for closer to 30 years.

    4 votes

  5. Comment on What's the oldest piece of clothing you own and still wear? in ~life.style

    Durinthal
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    While I probably have a few assorted things that are a bit older but don't wear very often, the one that comes to mind is an OverClocked ReMix hoodie that's over 20 years old now.

    While I probably have a few assorted things that are a bit older but don't wear very often, the one that comes to mind is an OverClocked ReMix hoodie that's over 20 years old now.

    2 votes

  6. Comment on LG smart TVs caught logging audio with screen off and snooping on local devices in ~tech

    Durinthal
    Link Parent
    My Nvidia Shield TV (Android TV) has lasted for nearly a decade now with few complaints, only recently got around to running the Projectivy Launcher for a cleaner home screen. I've been...

    My Nvidia Shield TV (Android TV) has lasted for nearly a decade now with few complaints, only recently got around to running the Projectivy Launcher for a cleaner home screen.

    I've been considering switching to Apple TV whenever the new one comes out since I'm firmly in that ecosystem, looks like that might finally be announced tomorrow. I've also wondered how viable using a docked Steam Deck is since I already have that available but haven't looked into that yet to see if there's any good HTPC-style setup I could easily use.

    3 votes

  7. Comment on LG smart TVs caught logging audio with screen off and snooping on local devices in ~tech

    Durinthal
    Link Parent
    That was just a cursory scan so good point about captive portals, been a while since I've used any of those and I haven't touched Comcast's myself so wasn't sure how locked down it was. Given the...

    That was just a cursory scan so good point about captive portals, been a while since I've used any of those and I haven't touched Comcast's myself so wasn't sure how locked down it was. Given the initial topic I wouldn't be surprised if LG was considering a deal with Comcast just for that kind of thing at this point.

    After searching a bit I think the other one is some other kind of device going by name, maybe I could control someone else's air conditioner if I connected to it.

    3 votes

  8. Comment on LG smart TVs caught logging audio with screen off and snooping on local devices in ~tech

    Durinthal
    Link Parent
    I just opened up the network list on my laptop and saw two pop up, living in a fairly dense urban area (more than 20 total in range). One is "xfinitywifi" so the public hotspot, the other looked...

    I just opened up the network list on my laptop and saw two pop up, living in a fairly dense urban area (more than 20 total in range). One is "xfinitywifi" so the public hotspot, the other looked like maybe a default name for a router at a glance.

    8 votes

  9. Comment on How do you find new anime to watch? in ~anime

    Durinthal
    Link Parent
    I don't really check out Geoff's videos these days but I do enjoy his podcast Quest for the Best with Tristan (Glass Reflection that others have mentioned) and Miles (former Crunchyroll staff and...

    I don't really check out Geoff's videos these days but I do enjoy his podcast Quest for the Best with Tristan (Glass Reflection that others have mentioned) and Miles (former Crunchyroll staff and now marketing/analytics consulting in the industry). Aside from regularly talking about what they're enjoying from airing shows, I like the discussions they have about the state of the industry and specific anime even if my own preferences relative to the three of them are something like this meme, and I do occasionally pick out new things to watch from what they talk about.

  10. Comment on How do you find new anime to watch? in ~anime

    Durinthal
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I have lists upon lists, the tags column on MAL is useful for me in that regard. The board idea is just something I've seen other people do for a while, basically another way of making a shortlist...

    I have lists upon lists, the tags column on MAL is useful for me in that regard. The board idea is just something I've seen other people do for a while, basically another way of making a shortlist for a year; my friends aren't that obsessive.

    Though that also just reminded me of several other ways of getting into new anime for me that I haven't done much of in recent years: community events.

    One is joining a swap/secret Santa event where you get to anonymously recommend anime to someone and another person gets to do the same for you. I've had mixed results there but it's a good way to make me watch something I wouldn't necessarily get to soon on my own.

    Similarly I used to regularly do contracts which is more of a direct swap with one other person, usually because I want to shill one specific series to other people and get something of equal length in return from anyone willing to take me up on it.

    And the third is group discussions of non-airing series along the lines of an episodic book club (called rewatches on /r/anime), which I've used to see dozens of series over the years. That includes long ones for bigger franchises with hundreds of episodes that I wouldn't normally bother with like Gundam and Naruto, which ended up being a great bonding experience spanning a year or more for the smaller number of people that stuck through the whole thing.

    1 vote

  11. Comment on How do you find new anime to watch? in ~anime

    Durinthal
    (edited )
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    When I got back into watching, I just hung around /r/anime and whenever someone mentioned a title I hadn't heard of before I looked it up and added it to my backlog if it looked interesting. After...

    When I got back into watching, I just hung around /r/anime and whenever someone mentioned a title I hadn't heard of before I looked it up and added it to my backlog if it looked interesting. After doing that for a decade it's rare to see someone else mention an anime that's new to me outside of airing/upcoming releases, though even if I was just relying on that I'd have plenty to watch even now given just how big my backlog was. Still, at some point I became a database gremlin and began regularly combing through MyAnimeList, Anilist, and aniDB for things that no one talked about and started watching some of those. Usually they're forgotten over time for good reason, but there are some things here and there that I truly enjoy. I also watch anime films and OVAs with a friend on a regular basis and we often go for some of the most obscure (usually old) things we can find that have an interesting description. They also watch airing shows so we sometimes recommend each other new things that we didn't pick up on our own.

    As for specifically what to watch next, picking up nearly every new romance anime that comes out plus a few others that look interesting each season gives me more than enough since that's currently more than a dozen new series every three months, but even beyond that I've taken to making bingo boards at the start of the year for 2025 (romance anime that aired in 1995, 2005, and 2015) and now 2026 (romance anime that I previously started and dropped for whatever reason). Previously I had more general themes and picked something that generally fit them as I went through the year without having a predefined target list, like a film a week on average or anime from 2000 or earlier.

    Is that a healthy way to go about picking new anime? Absolutely not. Am I having fun with it anyway? Most of the time, yes.

    5 votes

  12. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    Durinthal
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    I'm currently getting up to speed on modern web security from the server side and all the proper headers to set as it's been a while since I've had to explicitly think about such things. If anyone...

    I'm currently getting up to speed on modern web security from the server side and all the proper headers to set as it's been a while since I've had to explicitly think about such things. If anyone has a convenient overview or other resources for what current best practices are I'd welcome it, sometimes it's hard to tell when something's outdated.

  13. Comment on CGA-2026-08 🗡️🛡️❤️🔺 REMOVE CARTRIDGE ⏏️ The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past in ~games

    Durinthal
    (edited )
    Link
    A Link to the Past has been a regular part of my life for more than 30 years so it's impossible for me to be impartial about it, any flaws or janky aspects are just part of the fabric of reality....

    A Link to the Past has been a regular part of my life for more than 30 years so it's impossible for me to be impartial about it, any flaws or janky aspects are just part of the fabric of reality. That said, to this day the combat's rather awkward with the sword. I've gotten used to it, but I still regularly run into situations where I'm a couple pixels off from getting a hit and instead the enemy runs into me and I die.

    There are so many random nooks and crannies in the game that I loved exploring as a kid, including many that are ignored even in a standard randomizer. The hut at the bottom left corner of Kakariko can be opened with a bomb and it has bombs and arrows under the pots inside that I regularly used to restock.

    How do you like this style vs. the newer franchise entries?

    It's hard to compare 2D vs. 3D entries and I haven't actually finished a number of the other 2D ones, but those that came on later systems (e.g. Phantom Hourglass/Spirit Tracks and A Link Between Worlds) are just different to me not being limited by the SNES hardware.

    Did you 100% it and find every last heart piece for a full health bar?

    On my regular vanilla replays that's what I do. I have a distinct memory of trying to (casually) speedrun it while waiting for A Link Between Worlds on the day of its release in 2013, don't remember if I managed to beat the delivery.

    Any particularly tough puzzles or fights that stood out to you?

    I like the changing water levels in Swamp Palace, a precursor to the infamous Water Temple in Ocarina of Time. Ice Palace is rather devious the intended way, needing to go up and down floors to get to the block to cover the last door switch. Misery Mire I still don't have fully mapped out in my head, unlike pretty much every other dungeon at this point.

    Quick thoughts/random trivia on bosses:

    • Armos Knights: easy, trains you to use dungeon weapon for best effect; you did use the bow on them, right? Also can be damaged by the boomerang and I think the only boss that can be, weirdly enough.
    • Lanmolas: time to dodge projectiles and not just the body of the boss, also get better at timing/aiming.
    • Moldorm: or Trolldorm as it's often called. Keeping your sword charged up helps by pushing you back instead of letting the boss hit you and you can stay on the platform more easily.
    • Agahnim: did you know you can use the bug-catching net instead of your sword to deflect the balls back at him?
    • Helmasaur King: as the dungeon item the hammer works on the mask, but you can also use bombs and I regularly did that as a kid.
    • Arrghus: hookshot's fun, also gives you invincibility while using it.
    • Mothula: pure evil, but it's the spikes and moving floor more than the boss itself. While knocking other enemies into spike damages them, spike damage on the moth is 0 (gold sword slashes/spins do the same damage as a spike so it's actually immune to that too). Boss randomizers make it trivial if it's in a different dungeon.
    • Blind: the first time you fight him the boss can be "scripted" with the same movement patterns if you hit the boss on the first possible frame each time. All swords do the same amount of damage so it's really not that bad of a fight with the randomizer.
    • Kholdstare: Bombos works to melt the ice block at the start if you picked it up earlier but isn't required to beat the game. Fire rod is also effective on the eyeballs, unsurprisingly, if you can keep them grouped up it's not hard but they can kill you quickly if given free run of the room.
    • Vitreus: wild card that can be very easy or very difficult in a randomizer depending on what you have for weapons. Dashing through or spin attacking the group of smaller eyeballs at the top with the tempered/gold sword is one of the fastest ways to kill them; advanced players can do that while taking damage but I prefer the safer approach with invincibility items (Cane of Byrna/Magic Cape).
    • Trinexx: the only thing in the game requiring the Ice Rod which can be anywhere else in the game not blocked by beating that boss specifically in randomizers, they often turn into an Ice Rod hunt.
    • Agahnim 2: hey, there's three of them! It's fun to reflect multiple balls at him in one round.
    • Ganon: the big pig, do not hug. Strictly speaking you don't need silver arrows to kill him, as in the final phase there's a two-frame window just before he teleports where he can be hit by a sword (24 charged sword spins with the Master Sword, fewer for tempered/gold) that damages him rather than making him freeze.

    If you did a randomizer, what was the craziest thing you encountered?

    One I did a while ago had the Moon Pearl in the checkerboard cave, requiring walking through the mire as a bunny to get to it (flute + mitts + mirror).

    Who was your favorite NPC?

    I like the person in Kakariko Village that runs away from you when you get close.

    Thanks for hosting this one and providing a fun randomizer seed, and thanks to the other folks that joined in the Archipelago run too.

    Edit for bonus trivia I forgot to include earlier: the GBA port of the game (with the first Four Swords) made a few changes including a new flute spot on top of Turtle Rock and having the lamp do damage to enemies. The latter made for my first swordless (as much as possible) run as a kid, since it made the early game a lot easier before getting the hammer which is powerful enough for the rest of the game.

    5 votes

  14. Comment on Sleep struggles: how do I get better sleep quality? in ~life

    Durinthal
    Link Parent
    I put on Panga's Mario Maker videos during lunch breaks, so I can see them being useful for falling asleep to as well. Generally pretty chill, have a rhythm to them with the different kinds of...

    I put on Panga's Mario Maker videos during lunch breaks, so I can see them being useful for falling asleep to as well. Generally pretty chill, have a rhythm to them with the different kinds of levels that are novel enough if I want to pay attention but not demanding of me, and I can follow along or not as I feel like without missing too much.

    1 vote

  15. Comment on CGA-2026-08 🗡️🛡️❤️🔺 INSERT CARTRIDGE 🟢 The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past in ~games

    Durinthal
    Link Parent
    I'm glad you ran through it too! I didn't expect anyone to do so, I just wanted to share in case others were curious and you can take a look at the spoiler log for locations without downloading...

    I'm glad you ran through it too! I didn't expect anyone to do so, I just wanted to share in case others were curious and you can take a look at the spoiler log for locations without downloading anything.

    One of the interesting aspects to randomizers for me is how little of a safety net you might end up with by the end if you only find the required items and keep heading for only what's necessary, so it can up the challenge in execution as well.

    2 votes

  16. Comment on CGA-2026-08 🗡️🛡️❤️🔺 INSERT CARTRIDGE 🟢 The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past in ~games

    Durinthal
    Link Parent
    Randomizer Round 4! If you're experienced with the game but want to go another step up from moving items around, try Entrance Shuffle like this. A house that normally has nothing of interest might...

    Randomizer Round 4! If you're experienced with the game but want to go another step up from moving items around, try Entrance Shuffle like this. A house that normally has nothing of interest might now contain the final dungeon! I had to take notes beyond item tracking this time to keep straight where certain places were located.

    My run of that randomizer seed, item/entrance location spoilers

    I started in Link's house, which was... unchanged? I'm not sure if that's normal or a very unusual coincidence. Sanctuary was in Kakariko so easy access to the rest of those, and it was a few doors over from Ganon's Tower. I eventually realized all the early checks the overworld was giving me were pointing me back toward GT, as I got to the point where I could complete the entire basement and not much else: fire rod, hammer, Cane of Somaria, hookshot, bow with silver arrows. Turns out the gloves were in the tile room and boots were down there as well, glad I didn't delay on that much further though I was running out of other options anyway. I nearly started climbing up after clearing the basement except I didn't have a sword or net yet to beat Agahnim,.

    While I ended up not needing to beat Thieves Town, it was very fun finding it: Mire shed (entrance to the left of Misery Mire) was the entrance of Desert Palace. Taking the west exit of that dungeon lead to the dark world ledge where the bumper cave exits (normally containing a heart piece on the ledge); then I needed to mirror there because the overworld equivalent cave there is where you return from Death Mountain and has no other way of getting to it, that's where Thieves Town was.

    The lamp was one of the last items I found, but I ended up doing a lot of dark rooms before then. Making my way through the back of Palace of Darkness and beating the turtles in the rooms before the boss without being able to see anything but my sword sparks and hammer was the most tense moment I've had playing the game in decades.

    3 deaths, 189/216 collection, 4:17:09 time.

    Flavor of that seed

    A challenging blend of smoke that took a while to sort out, resulting in sweeter aspects popping up in unexpected places.

    There's one more mode that takes it a step further and challenges how well you know the layout of the dungeons and how they're put together in the game's code: door randomizer. I don't know if I'll get to trying it, but it's intrigued me and was a mode I thought about trying to make myself before other people added it.

    1 vote

  17. Comment on Any significant changes to Tildes are extremely unlikely in ~tildes.official

    Durinthal
    Link Parent
    I've been thinking about making my own niche site like that for a while and have been collecting ideas and opinions on what it could look like. Could make for a fun discussion topic as its own...

    I've been thinking about making my own niche site like that for a while and have been collecting ideas and opinions on what it could look like. Could make for a fun discussion topic as its own post, seeing what people value or take issue with for that kind of platform.

  18. Comment on CGA-2026-08 🗡️🛡️❤️🔺 INSERT CARTRIDGE 🟢 The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past in ~games

    Durinthal
    Link Parent
    Also done, had a fun time. 5:30:22, looks like just one heart piece shy of 100% (and 243/249 collecting).

    Also done, had a fun time. 5:30:22, looks like just one heart piece shy of 100% (and 243/249 collecting).

    1 vote

  19. Comment on CGA-2026-08 🗡️🛡️❤️🔺 INSERT CARTRIDGE 🟢 The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past in ~games

    Durinthal
    Link Parent
    Go time! Yeah that's everything for me, sent silvers to you and @MimicSquid and clearing the rest of my dungeons now.
    Go time!

    Yeah that's everything for me, sent silvers to you and @MimicSquid and clearing the rest of my dungeons now.

    2 votes

  20. Comment on CGA-2026-08 🗡️🛡️❤️🔺 INSERT CARTRIDGE 🟢 The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past in ~games

    Durinthal
    Link Parent
    About that spot... I forgot that pot wasn't guaranteed to be a key with these rules, normally leave that until I go to the back of Skull Woods. Turned out to just be the compass anyway so wasn't...
    About that spot...

    I forgot that pot wasn't guaranteed to be a key with these rules, normally leave that until I go to the back of Skull Woods. Turned out to just be the compass anyway so wasn't accidentally holding anyone up there.

    1 vote