cutmetal's recent activity
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Comment on Question about sharing a photo on Tildes in ~tildes
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Comment on Where are the small phones? in ~tech
cutmetal Link ParentOh that's great news! Thanks for the info 😊Oh that's great news! Thanks for the info 😊
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Comment on Where are the small phones? in ~tech
cutmetal LinkPeople often fail to mention the Sony Xperia phones when talking about the small models. I really like my 5 iv, which replaced a 1 ii (their model naming is dumb). Not only is it small, but it has...People often fail to mention the Sony Xperia phones when talking about the small models. I really like my 5 iv, which replaced a 1 ii (their model naming is dumb). Not only is it small, but it has a decent camera, decent display, headphone jack, MicroSD, and (the holy grail) a notification LED! It's not cheap though, and it could be smaller. Sadly I think Sony may gave killed their Xperia line though - historically they would have announced a successor by now. Also, the more recent models don't have updated Wikipedia pages, which I'd imagine is due to them slashing their marketing ahead of killing the line. If this phone dies I'll probably go Unihertz.
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Comment on The short-circuiting of the American mind in ~society
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Comment on What's your quirk? in ~talk
cutmetal LinkSince this has become a sleep quirks thread I'll throw my hat in the ring. Occasionally when falling asleep I experience something akin to Alice in Wonderland syndrome. It's like I become...Since this has become a sleep quirks thread I'll throw my hat in the ring. Occasionally when falling asleep I experience something akin to Alice in Wonderland syndrome. It's like I become hyper-aware of the empty space in the room around me, and it's simultaneously vast and miniscule, and I am simultaneously vast and miniscule. It's slightly anxiety-inducing but not terrible. None of the associations mentioned in the wiki article apply to me, except I did get some migraines before puberty. Guess it's just some weird misfire of my size-perception brain circuits. Don't think I've ever tried to explain this to anyone before.
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Comment on What's your quirk? in ~talk
cutmetal Link ParentOur Twilight settings are very close! https://i.postimg.cc/13s6JPjv/Screenshot-20250426-134848.png Idk how people can look at a normal phone display in bed and then just set it down and go to sleep.Our Twilight settings are very close!
https://i.postimg.cc/13s6JPjv/Screenshot-20250426-134848.png
Idk how people can look at a normal phone display in bed and then just set it down and go to sleep.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
cutmetal Link ParentI've been a programmer for a long time, and obsessed with video game hardware for even longer. Steady on with the "keep buying, never sell" approach and you too can have a video game collection...I've been a programmer for a long time, and obsessed with video game hardware for even longer. Steady on with the "keep buying, never sell" approach and you too can have a video game collection worth more than your car 🙃 Though a lot of that has to do with pricecharting, prices have gone up a LOT in the last 10 years - retro gaming used to be a relatively cheap hobby.
Thanks, I'll put Fusion and Zero at the top of the list!
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
cutmetal Link Parent😂😂😂 I love your enthusiasm! Not really! You desolder the tabs holding the old battery to the circuit board and solder in the new holder in its place. My soldering skills are low but I've done it a...😂😂😂 I love your enthusiasm!
Was the battery swap difficult?
Not really! You desolder the tabs holding the old battery to the circuit board and solder in the new holder in its place. My soldering skills are low but I've done it a decent amount over the years. The trickiest part was getting the new holder totally flush with the board, there's just enough room inside the GB case to fit.
How was the experience playing it on the big TV? Does it have any enhancements to make it look better on a large, modern display?
Some DMG games have "Super Game Boy" features that make them look a little nicer on a color display, but Land 3 doesn't. The main advantage for me of a setup like this is less eye and hand strain, which is getting to be a real problem for handhelds with less than perfect ergonomics.
docked Analogue Pocket
Analogue sells (sold?) a dock that breaks out the USB C to HDMI and USB A. Like all of their products it's overpriced and doesn't look or feel nearly as good in person as the renders would lead you to believe, but it gets the job done. Inside the dock is a male USB C connector that inserts into the female connector on the Pocket, so it doesn't feel nice like it would if it used a custom spring pin style connector setup.
The Pocket itself is pretty good - I've got custom OpenFPGA firmware on mine, so I can run hardware emulated ROMs for everything up through the N64. And it's nice to be able to play NES games or whatever on the go - I played through most of Little Samson on a transatlantic flight last year. But for me a bit part of retro gaming is the hardware - if I haven't inserted a cartridge or disc then playing the game loses a lot of its magic. This is an expensive way to feel, lol. Getting lag-free and good-looking output on a modern TV is also a complicated and expensive problem which gets a lot easier with FPGA consoles. So that's why I have the Pocket, and an AVS NES, and a Mister Pi that I don't use much. Year after next I should be moving, and when I do I have big plans to RGB mod a bunch of 80s/90s consoles and get a quality upscaler.
3DS Metroid
Yup it's a remake, and it's better in every possible way. I think the only people who would enjoy the DMG version are people who loved it as a kid.
NES and Game Boy entries
Maybe 15 years ago I went through and beat NES Metroid using a guide - I had it as a kid but never beat it. It's a little easier to play today than Metroid 2, but still the GBA remake is high on my list and is probably the definitive way to play that game too. The NES game has things that haven't aged well, like to progress you have to bomb one spot a random wall, and there's no way to know which one.
It would be so cool if there were more great, pixelated Metroid games out there to play.
Never say never! Sometimes Nintendo et al reach deep into the back catalogue. Like, I would have NEVER expected to see Ice Climbers in Smash Bros, or a Survival Kids game as a Switch 2 launch title, but here we are!
Did you gave a favorite 2D Metroid? I had been thinking I'd play Zero Mission next but I'm open to suggestions.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
cutmetal LinkLast night I completed Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land for the original Game Boy, played on my Analogue Pocket, mostly via the dock on my TV using an 8bitdo wireless controller. The cart had a dead...Last night I completed Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land for the original Game Boy, played on my Analogue Pocket, mostly via the dock on my TV using an 8bitdo wireless controller. The cart had a dead battery, so a few nights back I finally got around to opening it up and soldering in a 1616 battery holder, so in 30 more years I'll be able to pop in a new battery when this one dies and play through it again! The game was fun, pretty easy and short, though a lot of the boss battles were pretty confusing. Can't remember if I ever beat it as a kid or not.
A few weeks ago I bounced off Metroid II: Return of Samus for original Game Boy - it was pretty great, except for the fact that a Metroidvania without a map is nigh unplayable in 2025. I ordered a 3ds and the remake, Metroid: Samus Returns, and will be playing that next.
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Comment on Bethesda’s Oblivion Unreal Engine 5 remake could be releasing sooner than you think in ~games
cutmetal Link ParentI agree about the unfunness of the oblivion gates, in all my time spent with this game I've never actually completed the main quest because those gates are brutal and same-y. Lockpicking can be...I agree about the unfunness of the oblivion gates, in all my time spent with this game I've never actually completed the main quest because those gates are brutal and same-y. Lockpicking can be annoying at first, but once you level it up enough you just keep hundreds of lockpicks on you at all times and auto-pick everything. Or go do the quest that gives the unbreakable lockpick. And all three voice actors did an excellent job, thank you very much 😂
As to the rest, I can see how you might feel that way when starting from Skyrim and moving backwards. I'd probably feel much the same way if I went back and tried to play Morrowind. It can go both ways though - unpopular opinion, but I really disliked Skyrim's skill progression system, controller-centric controls, mining system I always got bogged down in, and dragon fights.
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Comment on Bethesda’s Oblivion Unreal Engine 5 remake could be releasing sooner than you think in ~games
cutmetal Link ParentI'm with you - I put ~100 hours into a fresh, vanilla Oblivion run this past winter, and the only real annoyance was inventory management. Doing alchemy you'll have a stockpile with thousands of...I'm with you - I put ~100 hours into a fresh, vanilla Oblivion run this past winter, and the only real annoyance was inventory management. Doing alchemy you'll have a stockpile with thousands of ingredients, and the game doesn't give you controls to properly manage this. To me, complaining about graphics, combat, HUD etc would be like making those same complaints about NES Super Mario Brothers - it's just a different aesthetic and feel, not worse.
That said I'm excited to see what a new take on Oblivion looks like! My hope is that this fresh take for less-gray gamers is interesting in its own right.
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Comment on Bethesda’s Oblivion Unreal Engine 5 remake could be releasing sooner than you think in ~games
cutmetal Link ParentThey really buried the lede on this one (emphasis mine): 🤯 Seriously considering buying a PS5 for this, even though I've put thousands of hours in Oblivion over the years. I'm unreasonably excited lolThey really buried the lede on this one (emphasis mine):
Eurogamer understands Bethesda's current plan is to shadow drop the game next week on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, including via Xbox Game Pass.
🤯
Seriously considering buying a PS5 for this, even though I've put thousands of hours in Oblivion over the years. I'm unreasonably excited lol
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Comment on If it's crypto it's not money laundering in ~finance
cutmetal Link Parent100%, dropping the penny is the right thing to do, but the executive isn't supposed to control the pursestrings.100%, dropping the penny is the right thing to do, but the executive isn't supposed to control the pursestrings.
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Comment on If it's crypto it's not money laundering in ~finance
cutmetal Link ParentIn the same vein, getting rid of the penny would also be a small win. A broken clock is right twice a day.In the same vein, getting rid of the penny would also be a small win. A broken clock is right twice a day.
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Comment on Which challenging book was worth the effort for you? in ~books
cutmetal Link ParentYou're exactly right, when reading a lot of dense fiction you sort of have to put mental placeholders when you hit things you don't understand, and as you go the gaps will start to fill in. My gf...You're exactly right, when reading a lot of dense fiction you sort of have to put mental placeholders when you hit things you don't understand, and as you go the gaps will start to fill in. My gf couldn't get through Dune because she isn't good at that, and it starts off throwing around all these terms that it doesn't explain.
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Comment on What's your favorite music album to get high to? in ~music
cutmetal LinkLoving you guys' taste! I'll second a bunch of stuff seen elsewhere in this thread: Floyd, Zeppelin, Gorillaz, Massive Attack, Sleep, Kyuss, Dylan, Beck, The Mars Volta, Radiohead, Boards of...Loving you guys' taste! I'll second a bunch of stuff seen elsewhere in this thread: Floyd, Zeppelin, Gorillaz, Massive Attack, Sleep, Kyuss, Dylan, Beck, The Mars Volta, Radiohead, Boards of Canada, Sabbath, King Crimson, Thievery Corp.
I can't get high anymore but my girlfriend is an every day smoker, asked her and she came up with some great ones:
- Buckethead - Colma
- Sublime - 40 Oz to Freedom
- Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium - It could be that this one is personal for me and her - it came out in summer 2006 and was the soundtrack for one of the best summers of our lives 😎
I'll add also that there was a span of several months in 2005-06 when Portishead - Dummy didn't leave my car's CD player, it was the soundtrack to every blunt ride.
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Comment on Which challenging book was worth the effort for you? in ~books
cutmetal Link ParentSeconding House of Leaves. When I read it, I kept scrap paper and a pen handy so everytime there was a branch point in the footnotes I could mark it. Then when the current narrative through-line...Seconding House of Leaves. When I read it, I kept scrap paper and a pen handy so everytime there was a branch point in the footnotes I could mark it. Then when the current narrative through-line ran out I'd go back up the stack and down from the alternate branch point.
This is also how I read Choose Your Own Adventure books in elementary school - I've always been thorough 😅
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Comment on Which challenging book was worth the effort for you? in ~books
cutmetal Link ParentThis is exactly how I felt about House of Leaves - the maze of footnotes you have to navigate will give you the same feeling of being lost that the characters feel as they get lost inside the...The form completely matches the content.
This is exactly how I felt about House of Leaves - the maze of footnotes you have to navigate will give you the same feeling of being lost that the characters feel as they get lost inside the house. It doesn't seem all that profound now, but 20 years ago when I read the book (in my late teens) this realization hit me like a freight train. I need to give it another read.
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Comment on AI 2027 in ~tech
cutmetal Link ParentThe game faintly rings a bell, but I was talking about the idea that inspired that game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_convergence#Paperclip_maximizerThe game faintly rings a bell, but I was talking about the idea that inspired that game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_convergence#Paperclip_maximizer
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Comment on AI 2027 in ~tech
cutmetal LinkI just got done reading the whole damn piece, lol. Thanks for the share skybrian, absolutely fascinating. Here's hoping the folks at OpenAI and elsewhere read it too, and think about it when they...I just got done reading the whole damn piece, lol. Thanks for the share skybrian, absolutely fascinating. Here's hoping the folks at OpenAI and elsewhere read it too, and think about it when they think about the alignment problem.
Seems like the standard these days for these sorts of shares is https://postimg.cc, if you just want to upload an image, no account, and share anonymously.