kfwyre's recent activity
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Comment on CGA-2026-01 š¹ļøāµš”ļø REMOVE CARTRIDGE āļø The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker in ~games
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Comment on CGA-2026-02 š¹ļøš INSERT CARTRIDGE š¢ Racing Lagoon in ~games
kfwyre (edited )Link ParentIf you're emulating: use save states! I do think you're supposed to lose the first race for plot reasons, but once I got into the game proper I had no shame about restarting races if I needed to,...If you're emulating: use save states! I do think you're supposed to lose the first race for plot reasons, but once I got into the game proper I had no shame about restarting races if I needed to, especially because the handling is a bit iffy (I'm hoping that improves as I level up my car parts).
Also 90s video game anatomy needs to be studied. There's something both endearing and hilarious about the humanoid approximations of people that we got back then. In this game, it felt like the designers went "make the characters like Lara Croft, but in the shoulders instead." They are comically broad.
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Comment on CGA-2026-02 š¹ļøš INSERT CARTRIDGE š¢ Racing Lagoon in ~games
kfwyre Link ParentNo worries, Kawa. If you want one fewer thing on your plate for your busy month, I don't mind taking the Remove Cartridge thread for you.No worries, Kawa. If you want one fewer thing on your plate for your busy month, I don't mind taking the Remove Cartridge thread for you.
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Comment on A brief history of men's underwear in ~life.style
kfwyre (edited )Link ParentItās possible to get briefs that feel great, arenāt restrictive, and look good (though admittedly these donāt seem to be standard). I used to prefer boxer briefs, but I started getting some tinea...Itās possible to get briefs that feel great, arenāt restrictive, and look good (though admittedly these donāt seem to be standard).
I used to prefer boxer briefs, but I started getting some tinea flare-ups on my thighs, and switching to briefs helped immensely.
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What healthy habit has made a difference for you?
Any habit, related to any area of health. What is the habit? How has it helped you? How easy/difficult has it been to keep up?
33 votes -
Comment on Tildes Book Club - January 2026 - Fire on the Mountain by Terry Bisson in ~books
kfwyre Link ParentI realized I had one more thought that I forgot to include, and I didn't want to bury it in an edit. This book fits in nearly perfectly with the stories in A People's Future of the United States....I realized I had one more thought that I forgot to include, and I didn't want to bury it in an edit.
This book fits in nearly perfectly with the stories in A People's Future of the United States.
It was, of course, considerably longer given that it's a full novel rather than a short story, but in terms of concept and delivery, it's an almost perfect companion to that collection.
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Comment on Tildes Book Club - January 2026 - Fire on the Mountain by Terry Bisson in ~books
kfwyre (edited )LinkIt feels bad (almost shameful) to admit this, but this book slid almost completely off my brain. I read it. The whole thing. But I donāt feel like I ever fully grasped it. It was more like sand...It feels bad (almost shameful) to admit this, but this book slid almost completely off my brain.
I read it. The whole thing. But I donāt feel like I ever fully grasped it. It was more like sand spilling through my fingers than something I could hold on to.
I think itās equal parts where my brain is at right now (you know, because of ::waves arms at a nondescript everything::) and also how the book was written.
This is NOT a criticism of the writing. In fact, one of the things that impressed me was that the book felt very authentic (admittedly less so in the āpresentā but very much so in the historical parts). Additionally, I think itās a book that carries most of its weight not in its words but in their implications. Some books tell; some books show; and some books give you details and expect you to put together the pieces to find the bigger meaning. This is one of the latter ones. I donāt think I spent enough time earnestly considering it or mulling it over. Instead, I let its words pass over me and donāt have much to show for that.
One thing I kept forgetting was that the (great) great grandfather was writing about when he was twelve years old. I think I repeatedly forgot this because he didnāt sound like a twelve-year-old (because heās writing as an older man) and because so many of the things he did felt more grown up than twelve. It also wasnāt entirely clear how much time had or hadnāt passed between sections, so sometimes I ended up thinking he was older than he was until I was reminded again of his age.
This hit me really hard in the scene where they hang Cricket. I thought he was older by then, and that made sense to me because he had joined the resistance.
But then there was this sentence:
I slipped forward through the crowd, making myself small, as kids can still do at twelve, until I was at the front, by the scaffold.
Reading that was like a smack in the face. Twelve and heās at a hanging (of his brother nonetheless).
His youth gets further reinforced in the scene by what comes after it, which is utterly horrific. Some adults gleefully pick him up and push him closer to Cricket, forcing them to look at one another. That part of the book was genuinely heart-wrenching. It hit the teacher part of my soul pretty hard ā the part that cares deeply for kids and wants no harm to come to them. Iām tearing up right now as I write this, because just thinking about the cruelty and the suffering of that moment hurts.
Speaking of hard-hitting, the book would occasionally have these āwhallopā sentences. A lot of the book was told in a very dry or even-handed way, but occasionally a sentence would just jump right out of the page. I wish I had highlighted them so I could give better examples, but I can only remember one (emphasis mine):
āThe Mericans wipe out the buffalo, string the country together with railroads and barbwire; annihilate, not just defeat, the Sioux, the Crow, the Cheyenne, the Apache, one after the other. Genocide is celebrated by adding stars to the flag.
Not all of them were as punchy as this. Sometimes they were little details with huge implications, or just thoughtful little additions that had significant depth if you stopped to think about them.
I also really liked every time they discussed John Brownās Body, which was the in-universe alternate history that is our actual IRL history. It was interesting to frame our own timeline as a āwhat if?ā and I really liked how the author pulled apart some of the story (i.e. our own society) via charactersā comments on it:
For a white supremacist fantasy the book has a certain grim honesty. It ends in this hideous...ā
āPlease,ā Yasmin said. āI think Iāll pass. John Brown the traitor, huh?ā
āWorse; a madman. A murderous fanatic. Lincoln, on the other hand, is a hero. The great emancipator.ā
āWho does he emancipate?ā
āMe,ā Grissom laughed. āHe emancipates the whites from having to give up any of the land they stole. From having to join the human race.ā
I thought the sci-fi aspect of the book was pretty thin and unsatisfying, but I think the juxtaposition was made to emphasize the potential for progress in a short period of time. The book basically chronicles a century gap between dystopic inhuman slavery and utopian (fully automated luxury?) space communism. These drastically different settings are experienced within three generations of the same family.
As such, for as dark as the book is, it also has an indelible hope to it. In fact, tonally, itās hard to pin down. It dares to dream of a different, better path than the one we went down, but in doing so it casts are current situation as a continuation of a dystopia. Is it optimistic for imagining a bright path? Or is it pessimistic for noting that weāre on a dark one? Iām not sure. Maybe itās both.
I mentioned above that the book had a very authentic feel to it with regards to the historical parts, so it was a bit of a plot twist to me when I looked up the author after finishing and found out that heās white. The whole book I thought I was reading a work from a black author, and itās a testament to Bisson that he was able to write a book that very directly communicates the lived experiences of racism and slavery in a way that felt so perceptive and insightful.
Of course, take this with a grain of salt because, as a white guy Iām not the most qualified person to make this judgment in the first place. Speaking only from my own perspective: I think Bisson did a remarkable job of telling a story of black liberation in an earnest and skillful way.
As much as I liked a lot of the different pieces of the book, I do wish I liked the whole of it more. I will admit that I found it a chore to read in places. Some of its āauthenticityā makes for turgid prose, and Bisson seems to REALLY love looooooong paragraphs that I found it all too easy to get lost in (not in the good way).
I donāt think itās a bad book by any means. In fact, I think this book would be great for a literature class, because it almost demands a slower, more reflective reading where you can dive in deep, pull it apart, and find the meaning buried in its soil. Thereās a richness and depth under the surface of the novel that I didnāt get to fully appreciate because I just skimmed along the top, reading the book to finish it and unable to really commit my full brain to it, probably because of the aforementioned everything.
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Comment on Waterparks - ICE (2026) in ~music
kfwyre Link ParentPrinciple of charity, friend. I think youāre reading a lot into @Bullmaestroās comment that isnāt there. To me he simply seems concerned for the band.Principle of charity, friend. I think youāre reading a lot into @Bullmaestroās comment that isnāt there. To me he simply seems concerned for the band.
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Comment on āICE Outā strike and protests: what to know about demonstrations across the US in ~society
kfwyre LinkA strike and hundreds of protests are set to take place across the country on 30 and 31 January, as grassroots organizers take action against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity in their communities.
After the deaths of at least eight people in connection to ICE since the start of the year ā including the high-profile killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis ā activists are demanding the permanent removal of ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) from towns and cities across the US.
For the first action on Friday, organizers, led by several student groups at the University of Minnesota, are calling for a ānational shutdownā, which means: āNo work. No school. No shopping. Stop funding ICE.ā The āblackoutā day, which many online are referring to as a āgeneral strikeā, is an effort to āshut down the economyā, organizers say.
On Saturday, organizers, led by the national grassroots organization 50501, will stage an āICE Out of Everywhere National Day of Actionā, which will include a variety of protests, demonstrations, and vigils, in all 50 states and Washington DC.
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āICE Outā strike and protests: what to know about demonstrations across the US
38 votes -
Comment on Save Point: A game deal roundup for the week of January 25 in ~games
kfwyre LinkGOG is having its New Year Sale in which it added four Final Fantasy titles to its catalog and sparked a minor controversy over AI art on its banner.GOG is having its New Year Sale in which it added four Final Fantasy titles to its catalog and sparked a minor controversy over AI art on its banner.
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Comment on Steam Deck hits 25,000 games Valve have rated Playable or Verified in ~games
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Steam Deck hits 25,000 games Valve have rated Playable or Verified
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Comment on Listing for GOG Galaxy developer cites Linux as ānext major frontierā in ~games
kfwyre LinkLike others here, I was all in on GOG for a bit. Loved their DRM-free stance; loved that they supported older titles and got them running on modern hardware. There was a good year or two where...Like others here, I was all in on GOG for a bit. Loved their DRM-free stance; loved that they supported older titles and got them running on modern hardware. There was a good year or two where they became my almost exclusive gaming platform, and I even re-bought a lot of games I already had on Steam from them.
But then Steam came out with Proton and I switched to Linux, and Steam won me back because it made gaming on Linux so frictionless. The Steam Deck further locked me in, and I ended up doing the reverse of what I did before: re-buying games on Steam that I already owned on GOG.
I still have a soft spot for GOG, and the issue of running things on Linux/Steam Deck is a lot better these days thanks to Heroic, but it would be great if GOG could finally tie its DRM-free core value to an official Linux-based implementation.
If they end up doing that and doing it well, I could see myself switching back to them.
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Comment on Super Monkey Ball web game in ~games
kfwyre LinkThis is awesome! It runs swimmingly on mobile for me (iPhone 15 Pro Max). A few minor graphical glitches but nothing game-breaking. My only problem with Super Ball is that Iāve watched so many...This is awesome!
It runs swimmingly on mobile for me (iPhone 15 Pro Max). A few minor graphical glitches but nothing game-breaking.
My only problem with Super
MonkeyBall is that Iāve watched so many speedruns of it with people playing optimally that Iām completely unable to slow myself down to play it ācorrectlyā and just want to go fast the whole time (which rarely works because I havenāt put hundreds of hours into grinding the levels like they have).Itās admittedly doable in some levels, especially early on, but by the later ones the game is much more about patience and delicate inputs than barreling along at full speed.
Anyway, itās super impressive that this is running in a browser. Iām of the day where web games had to load Flash or Shockwave or Java and were limited to pretty rudimentary, mostly 2D graphics. To see something like this run seamlessly, without external plugins, on my PHONE, definitely makes me feel like Iām living in the future.
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Comment on Alternative to Spotify? in ~music
kfwyre Link ParentI use Marvis Pro when listening to singles/playlists, and Albums when listening to albums. I love both of them, and I like that I can trade off between them without one affecting the other (i.e....I use Marvis Pro when listening to singles/playlists, and Albums when listening to albums. I love both of them, and I like that I can trade off between them without one affecting the other (i.e. listening to something on Marvis doesnāt lose my place on the album I was listening to in Albums).
Another underrated feature of Apple Music is that you can upload your own files to your cloud library (like Google Play Musicās āmusic lockerā feature back in the day). Its implementation is unfortunately limited: uploading only works on Apple Music desktop, so you canāt do it from your phone, and if you run Linux instead of Windows or macOS, youāre out of luck.
Nevertheless, if you fall under those parameters, it does work, and you can upload your own files that get seamlessly integrated alongside the streaming stuff in your library. Even though you canāt upload from your phone, you can listen to whatever youāve uploaded from mobile just fine.
Iāve got a good amount of uploads that I added to my Apple Music account to fill in some of the gaps from streaming (I cannot live without the Jet Set Radio and Katamari Damacy soundtracks, for example).
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Comment on Tech Oversight Report: Unsealed court documents show teen addiction was Meta, Google, Snap, and TikTok's top priority in ~tech
kfwyre LinkToday, The Tech Oversight Project published a new report spotlighting newly unsealed documents in the 2026 social media addiction trials. The documents provide smoking-gun evidence that Meta, Google, Snap, and TikTok all purposefully designed their social media products to addict children and teens with no regard for known harms to their wellbeing, and how that mass youth addiction was core to the companiesā business models. The documents contain internal discussions among company employees, presentations from internal meetings, expert testimony, and evidence of Big Tech coordination with tech-funded groups, including the National Parent Teachers Association (PTA) and Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI), in attempts to control the narrative in response to concerned parents.
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Tech Oversight Report: Unsealed court documents show teen addiction was Meta, Google, Snap, and TikTok's top priority
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What's something you've moved on from?
What's something you grew out of/moved on from/phased out? How do you feel about it now? Fondness? Embarassment? A nostalgic ache? Why did you end up moving on from it? Was it a conscious...
What's something you grew out of/moved on from/phased out?
How do you feel about it now? Fondness? Embarassment? A nostalgic ache?
Why did you end up moving on from it?
Was it a conscious decision, or was it something that happened over time?
43 votes -
Comment on Banjo: Recompiled | Release trailer in ~games
kfwyre LinkI ended up double posting this, sorry for anyone who caught the second one! Iām very excited for this. Iāve really been enjoying the QoL mods I installed for Wind Waker which modernize the game...I ended up double posting this, sorry for anyone who caught the second one!
Iām very excited for this. Iāve really been enjoying the QoL mods I installed for Wind Waker which modernize the game quite well. This doing the same thing for Banjo is great, especially given the native gameās frame rate and camera issues.
Iām thinking this might be a good candidate for a future CGA?
Hi y'all,
Multi-time Zelda game attempter, first-time Zelda game finisher here!
Prior to this, over the course of my life, I have played the opening hours of the following:
I ended up bouncing off of all of them for various reasons. I think the same thing would have happened for me with my second attempt at The Wind Waker had I not installed the QoL mod (faster sailing + not having to deal with the wind is SUCH a nice improvement) and had CGA not been the positive pressure I needed to see it through.
Is there a word for something that you would be nostalgic for now if you had first experienced it as a kid? Because, this game definitely fits that. If I'd had a Gamecube and this game back in the day, I would have been deep into it. It would have been one of those games where I would scour it and do literally everything you could do, only to then delete my save and do it all over again (you know, because we had a lot fewer games back then, so you had to make the most of what was available).
Playing it as an adult, with more time constraints and less patience for the slow-paced scattershot collecting and exploration the game requires, it didn't hit as hard as it would have were I younger, but I still thoroughly enjoyed it.
The game's vast open world admittedly feels more limited by modern standards, but the game's from back in a day where having even open levels was novel (much less a WHOLE world!). Itās also from a day where simply navigating a broad 3D space was cool and interesting on its own because it was so novel.
I was a little disappointed that the world was so regular (one main feature per grid square) and that many of the islands were so small, but I also think I'm asking for too much from a game that very skillfully hides the limitations of its hardware. I'm pretty sure the grid system was a way of hiding loading from the player (which I like a lot better than that more modern trend of "have a character slowly navigate a narrow space"). Also the "small" islands often hide larger areas behind explicit transitions once youāre there, so many of them end up being far larger than they appear from the sea.
Other people have praised the art style, and I'm here to do the same. The game looks gorgeous. With the HD pack installed, it looks downright fresh. I never understood the controversy over the art style, probably because Iām a Jet Set Radio forever fan. I think cel-shading is striking.
My completely uninformed guess as to why they went this direction is that they needed a way to make water look good, found out it worked well with a flat, monochromatic color accented by bold white lines, and then designed the rest of the visuals to fit in with that. If you look at water from any other game in this time period, it never actually looks good, whereas in this game, the sea is a beautiful example of artistic minimalism.
In terms of gameplay, I liked it but didn't love it. I liked the exploration and dungeons far more than I liked the combat. By the end of the game, I was sick of dealing with enemies who were there seemingly to just annoy me. It's cool that each one has their own little way of dealing with it, but I also got sick of equipment switching ALL THE TIME.
I asked some of my friends about this. They are longtime Zelda fans (enough that they played co-op OOT randomizer runs together) and they said that equipment switching is like, a standard part of Zelda games, but I never really got used to it even after dozens of hours. I didn't love how dipping out to the pause menu frequently would interrupt the game, and not having set buttons for each of the items made the game unintentionally comedic. I can't tell you how many times I'd be in a combat only to hit a button and have the camera dramatically zoom in on Link as he holds up a sail with a message that I can't use that right now (because I hadnāt swapped it out after sailing).
Z-targeting is nice when it works, but it failed to work enough that it annoyed me. I found it and the combat quite clumsy when there were multiple enemies, especially armored ones. Also, I fought my way down to the 50th floor of the Savage Labyrinth only to be rewarded with A QUARTER OF A HEART?! Come on, game.
While I'm on annoyances, I have to call this out:
THAT. DAMN. CREAKY. BOAT. NOISE.
The game feels so good when you get on the water! It looks beautiful, you're headed for a new destination, you can almost feel the wind in your hair, the inspiring music kicks in, and then, for SOME reason, when you even TOUCH the joystick to make the most minor of adjustments, there's this obnoxious creaking sound that pulls you completely out of the glory of the moment. I wouldn't mind it if it were intermittent, but it was nearly constant while I was navigating. It's especially prominent when the music isn't there, like when you're parking your boat. SUPER ANNOYING. It kills the vibe.
Now, these nitpicks are all the kind of ones that come from playing something so much that the flaws feel bigger than they actually are and overshadow all the good stuff that you're now taking for granted because you've been with it for dozens of hours.
The game does so much right. It's fun. It's charming. It's got a good sense of humor (I loved that I got the silver membership from the shop guy and my reward was... a compliment XD). There are lots of neat little touches. I love how expressive Link's eyes are whenever he's sidling. I like that the game gives you the Master Sword, which feels like this momentous thing, only to throw you into a big battle afterwards where you find out that it sucks. I was legitimately mad at that point and mentioned it to one of my Zelda-loving friends who was just like "no no, keep playing, there's a reason for that."
I like that thereās a teacher that has her own private island cabana (#goals).
I tried to play without a guide for the most part, but I ended up turning to one a few times (how exactly was I supposed to know that the aforementioned teacher would give me the deed to her aforementioned cabana in exchange for jewelry?).
By the end of the game I admit that I was ready for it to be over. If I were playing the game more leisurely, over the course of a couple of months, I think I would have vibed with its length, but trying to rush it in the span of a month made it feel a tad long in the tooth. Thatās not a criticism of the game though ā diminishing its scope would take away from its charming grandiosity.
I loved that the game kept throwing different ideas at you with smart little additions or tweaks to them. For example: I initially thought that being able to fly as a seagull was just a fun āsee the worldā feature, only to later learn that I could use it to activate switches, for example. Whenever I wasnāt sure what to do, Iād just start cycling through my various tools and invariably find the one that I needed (my husband got some good laughs at me doing things like, say, attempting to control the wind in the middle of a dungeon). Having Zelda shoot arrows off your shield during the final boss fight was another neat little twist. The game had so many little things like that, none of which were necessarily huge or game-changing individually, but altogether they show you how thoughtfully it was designed.
Overall, I think the game is splendid for what it is, and I enjoyed my playthrough of it. I canāt quite say that I love the game personally, but I also know that if Iād played it when I was younger, then it would have lodged itself into my heart and stayed there forever. Itās such a clever, compelling game, and Iād say it has aged better than most of its peers. With the QoL mod and the HD textures, it felt like I was playing a modern remaster rather than the original with minor tweaks and a fresh coat of paint.
Iām glad CGA gave me the excuse/reason/pressure to play this, because Iām 100% certain that, had I started this on my own like I did the last time I played it, I would have bounced off of it again just like before. It really is a slow burn of a game that doesnāt show you its best ideas until youāre well into it. Iām glad I stuck it through and ended up beating it. I can now say Iāve actually played through a Zelda game, which feels like some sort of essential gaming milestone.