pekt's recent activity
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
pekt Link ParentI chatted about this game with my manager after it came out since we both stumbled upon it during the Steam Next Fest. It is very high up on my wishlist, and hopefully I have some extra money...I chatted about this game with my manager after it came out since we both stumbled upon it during the Steam Next Fest. It is very high up on my wishlist, and hopefully I have some extra money during Christmas to pick it up. It looks right up my alley. I'm glad you're having fun with it!
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
pekt LinkSome decent reading, but I think my "finished" section won't have as many books added in the previous months for awhile as I read some bigger books, but we'll see how that pans out. Finished: The...Some decent reading, but I think my "finished" section won't have as many books added in the previous months for awhile as I read some bigger books, but we'll see how that pans out.
Finished:
The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison is the first book in publication order of the Stainless Steel Rat series. These are some older pulpy scifi books and this was a quick and fun read. This was published in 1961 and it really does show. Computers work by entering in information and them taking awhile to provide you feedback, but at the same time there are fully functioning autonomous robots. There is also the hallmark of older fiction, people smoking copious amounts of cigarettes and cigars.
I'd recommend it for a fun look in to how the past viewed what the future could look like.Progress made
The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine by A.W. Tozer I've almost finished this book. It has been a great read and hope to find a little time to cap this off
Return of the Crimson Guard by Ian C. Esslemont is another Novel of the Malazan Empire. I'm very much enjoying this when I have time to read it. It has been cool seeing characters that were only mentioned in previous books and explore more of the actual Malazan side of things and not just their armies in distance
Warlock of the Magus World by Wen Chao Gong this is a Chinese web novel in the Xianxia genre. I enjoy reading it, but every time I start reading more than a ~5-10 chapters I wonder how my friend binges through these things.
Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation by Peter Marshall as the title suggests this is a book covering the history of the Christian reformation in England. I'm still enjoying slowly making progress through this work. It is interesting to learn about, but my progress has definitely slowed down as I'm reading other paper books.
AI Engineering: Building Applications with Foundation Models by Chip Huyen is a book covering building applications on top of AI models, and also explains how models are created. When I'm working on professional development I tend to prefer physical books as there are less distractions for me and I can sit down and focus with them. While AI can be contentious, I feel like in some way/shape/form it will be sticking around and I'd like to know how it works.
I chatted with one of my coworkers/friends about my lack of drive to develop professionally, but knowing that I should so I can make sure I'm up-skilling and providing for my family and he challenged me to give it ~20-30 minutes a day to get back into the groove of it, so I picked this book back up after having read ~1/5 of it earlier in the year. I do tend to find myself at the end of each year when working at a company with an IT education budget needing to spend the money and purchasing some books with whatever remainder I have. I was thinking if I should buy more books this year but I know my wife will mention that I haven't read the books I purchased at the end of this last year so I want to make a change and get those read.
Introducing Python: Modern Computing in Simple Packages by Bill Lubanovic this book is part of why I prefer buying physical books. I had years ago purchased some humble bundles and found myself never really locking down to use them since there with other things I could do while at my computer/ereader/phone.
I don't do programming in my work, besides some light scripting, but I also know that programming can be handy and is somewhat creative. I've thought about doing the r/roguelikedev Python tutorial for awhile and figured this would be a great reference to remind myself of some concepts and dust off that skill before trying to do something fun as a personal project. I'm going decently fast as I'm not doing a bunch of the example work in the opening chapters as I've done similar exercises before and reading about it is enough to job the memory.
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Comment on What lesser-known sci-fi reads do you recommend? in ~books
pekt Link ParentBoth of those series have been on my list, but thank you for adding in your recommendations! There are way too many good books out there to read which is a good problem to have in my opinion. I...Both of those series have been on my list, but thank you for adding in your recommendations! There are way too many good books out there to read which is a good problem to have in my opinion. I was chatting with a friend yesterday who also loves reading and we both agreed that our dream retirement includes a mountain of books and the time to just sit down and read our way through them.
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Comment on Invite request spam problem - vet through other social media? in ~tildes
pekt Link ParentIf you need some extra invites, I'd be willing to give up most of mine. Holding out hope that a couple of people I know would be interested in joining eventually, but besides that I don't have...If you need some extra invites, I'd be willing to give up most of mine. Holding out hope that a couple of people I know would be interested in joining eventually, but besides that I don't have anyone else I think would be a good fit or may be interested in joining.
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Comment on What lesser-known sci-fi reads do you recommend? in ~books
pekt Link ParentThanks for the recommendation! After reading your description I figured I would go and add that to my To Read list and realized it was already on there. So I'll be bumping it up in my mind for...Thanks for the recommendation! After reading your description I figured I would go and add that to my To Read list and realized it was already on there. So I'll be bumping it up in my mind for when I'm looking for another series to start.
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Comment on What game are you terrible at? in ~games
pekt LinkPlatforming games, especially 2D platformers. I'll look at them and think "man that looks fun" and then I'm missing jumps and doing terrible. I remember getting Spelunky 2 after watching...Platforming games, especially 2D platformers. I'll look at them and think "man that looks fun" and then I'm missing jumps and doing terrible. I remember getting Spelunky 2 after watching LethalFrag play it for a bit, and I was absolutely terrible. I'll try playing a game in the genre occasionally to see if I've somehow become better at them, but with how limited my gaming time is now, I've just come to accept that I probably won't play any platformers in my limited personal gaming time. I might play some with my kids, as I recently showed them Spyro and there are other kid friendly platforming games.
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Comment on What lesser-known sci-fi reads do you recommend? in ~books
pekt LinkA Heritage of Stars by Clifford D. Simak published in 1977 follows a group as they attempt to find a legendary starport after humanity destroyed most of their technology. I'll be honest in that I...A Heritage of Stars by Clifford D. Simak published in 1977 follows a group as they attempt to find a legendary starport after humanity destroyed most of their technology.
I'll be honest in that I don't remember the plot that clearly, but this book was stuck in the back of my head as a "tip of my tongue" book for ~15 years. I read this when I was ~12 as my dad had a copy laying around, and I had finished my other books, and we weren't going to the library again until the weekend. I read through the book in an afternoon/early evening and remembered enjoying it. After I finished it I set it down and I couldn't find where I left it. It turned up when I was at my parents house, but it looks like I didn't bring it over to Malaysia with me so I'll have to bring it over when I'm there next, or have my parents include it in a box of books they're planning on sending me at some point.
I'd recommend the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper Series by Nathan Lowell. They are very much cozy scifi with the author deciding to write a book to then present as a podcast to learn how to make podcasts for his job, and he asked himself the question "what if there was a space opera that wasn't focused on war and politics". I find them great palette cleansers, book 2 was personally my least favorite, but thankfully the series recovered, and I've been enjoying reading them slowly but surely over the last couple of years.
The Coldfire Trilogy by C.S. Friedman was a great series that is one of those that seems fantasy, but is actually scifi in origins.
The Safehold series by David Weber started out with a scifi premise and works as a sort of technological uplift/English reformation bundled together. I've only read the first 4 books and while I found them enjoyable, the pacing makes me wonder if they're ever going to deal with the alien threat, and how long that is going to take. Considering they are 10 published books and from my brief looking there are plans for more. I listened to them as audiobooks which were enjoyable, but I've not picked the series up in a few years.
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
pekt Link ParentThank you for the kind offer! I've made a note so I can come back and ask you for some of those. I was actually chatting with a good coworker friend of mine and my wife, and I'm planning to cut...Thank you for the kind offer! I've made a note so I can come back and ask you for some of those.
I was actually chatting with a good coworker friend of mine and my wife, and I'm planning to cut down a bit on leisure time and work more on my professional development. Switching more of my reading time to the small pile of professional development books I purchased with my company's education budget that have been sitting there for most of the years, and doing some training/other course work. I don't want to make a complete switch and go "grind only" but more of adjusting things to where a balance where I'm making sure I keep my skills up and can provide for my family.
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
pekt Link ParentI listened to a free lecture series from them that I definitely enjoyed, thanks for the recommendation I'd love to explore more of them and will check to see if they have other free offerings....I listened to a free lecture series from them that I definitely enjoyed, thanks for the recommendation I'd love to explore more of them and will check to see if they have other free offerings. With their price in USD the lectures would be a bit outside my leisure spending budget.
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
pekt LinkAnother good couple of weeks of reading on my end. Finished: The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien - This was a great read, and it really does hold up, I'm glad that I was able to read this an...Another good couple of weeks of reading on my end.
Finished:
The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien - This was a great read, and it really does hold up, I'm glad that I was able to read this an adult as I definitely appreciated it much more compared to when I was younger reading it. I'm looking forward to more diving in to Tolkien's legendarium in the future.
DECEMBER BATTLES by Mark Loren and Boyd Craven Jr. is the third book in the October Fall series. This book continued in the readable pulpy way that the previous books in the series laid out. Unfortunately, the ending did not stick for me as I found the main characters grief filled decisions to be incredibly dumb and face palm worthy. I understand grief can make people do things out of character, but no other character taking a moment to say "hey this is a terrible idea, let's not do that" and everyone went on with it made no sense.
There is supposed to be a 4th book in this main sequence, but I don't think I'll touch it any time soon. I may come back and read a different series in this expanded world when I get the itch to read this type of story again. I wouldn't say finishing this third book left a bad taste in my mouth, but more that it annoyed me how everyone treated the main character's actions as necessary and heroic instead of short sited and harmful to their post apocalyptic community.
Progress made
The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine by A.W. Tozer I've made some progress here and there. I feel like reading this as a paper book would help me to sit down and read through this short book without distractions.
Return of the Crimson Guard by Ian C. Esslemont is another Novel of the Malazan Empire. I've had slow going with this as I find myself wanting to read it a lot slower and also look characters to remember who is who. It again is showing me why reading this series in publication order would help fill in some of the gaps raised in later books. It is solid so far, and I think it is a bit of a step up from the previous book in the series as I know Esslemont was still getting his feet under him as an author while publishing this.
Warlock of the Magus World by Wen Chao Gong this is a Chinese web novel in the Xianxia genre. This genre is one that helped influence the progression fantasy/lit RPG genres in the west. I have a friend who loves web novels, and spent ~4-5 years devouring tons of them. He recommends me different ones and so far I've read one other one besides this. I tend to take them very slow and will read in short bursts when I get in the mood.
I picked this series back up and finally crossed the halfway point (600 chapters). I wanted something that was easy to read when I have little moments in my day as reading Malazan doesn't work as well for me in those moments. After getting through a mini arc I didn't enjoy the story is back to seeing the main character be a self-interested sociopath and power scaling himself.
Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation by Peter Marshall as the title suggests this is a book covering the history of the Christian reformation in England. I picked this up at a used book store a couple of years ago and have been slowly reading through it. After finishing the Silmarillion I decided to finally get this book finished. I enjoy reading history and plan to read more of it as there are so many fascinating rabbit holes I'd love to dive deep in to or learn more about.
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Comment on What are your memorable airport stories? in ~transport
pekt LinkI have two stories that spring to mind: During the mid 2010's I was flying to a conference and had a layover somewhere or other. I plugged my phone into one of those centralized wall sockets and...I have two stories that spring to mind:
During the mid 2010's I was flying to a conference and had a layover somewhere or other. I plugged my phone into one of those centralized wall sockets and then pulled out a book to read while I waited. I had an older gentleman come up to me and strike up a conversation with me as he felt like he almost never sees people reading physical books these days. While we were chatting he mentioned he worked at Thomas Bros Maps the company that makes Thomas Guides which are physical maps used by emergency responders in certain cities in the US in case something were to happen to their electrical systems/the power grid.
Once it was time for my flight he handed me his business card and said to connect with him on LinkedIn and he would see if he could find an internship for me in his company that following summer as he had a great time chatting and they were often bringing on interns with my major. Sadly I lost his business card. I'm not sure how it fell it out but after the conference I wanted to connect with him and couldn't find it after I thought I put it in my bag.To preface this second airport story: when we moved to Malaysia my wife was pregnant at the time and was also still nursing my oldest son. My sister-in-law had come over to the US to help us with the move back which ended up being a huge help. We also flew with my dog in cabin as we had registered her as an emotional support animal, which I do admit was a bit of a sham, but the cost of registering her was ~500-600 USD compared to the cheapest reliable pet transmit company charging ~4-5k USD and we didn't have that much money to spare to bring her with us. We also ran in to an issue with getting her approval paperwork from the vet which was a whole other story.
After a long ~16 hour flight to Singapore, we needed to transit in Changi Airport which is absolutely huge. My wife had been motion sick during the flight and hadn't been able to keep anything down and was feeling very weak, so my sister in law was helping her through the airport while I had our son in a baby chest carrier and carried 4 bags and pulled 2 suitcases while walking a medium sized muzzled dog with a bright pink diaper through the airport. Which was quite a site and I saw several people talking photos or recording me.
After we finally got to our gate the crew had no idea what to do with our dog as they had never seen someone try to fly with a dog in cabin before. They eventually let us on the plane, which led to some very angry confrontations with some of the Malay Muslims as dogs are viewed as a haram to many of the Muslims in the country, and they were incensed that a dog was allowed in the cabin. The cabin crew after ~10 minutes asked if we could put our dog in her crate, but I told them our crate was oversized luggage and since that is loaded first they'd need to unload almost all the luggage, put her in and then reload everything. They eventually switched all the Malays sitting near us with non Muslims and let us know that once we go to our destination we would need to wait in the plane until everyone else departed, and they brought our dog's crate to the plane so she could be placed in there as the country requires dogs entering to be in their crate. You would have thought they would have checked that before letting me on the plane. All of this ended up delaying the flight by almost 30 minutes which we felt bad about as this was a commuter airline that is known for its regular on time flights, but it was outside our control.Thankfully after ~24 hours of travel we all arrived safely, and my wife was able to find some soothing food to settler her stomach. I am also fairly sure that was the first and last time my dog will fly, since we don't plan to move out of the country any time soon and after that headache I wouldn't want to bring her on another flight.
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Comment on Hi, how are you? Mental health support and discussion thread (August 2026) in ~health.mental
pekt LinkI've got a bit of a vent, as I've chatted about this with some friends but want to get it all out in one spot and figured maybe someone one here may have dealt with similar people before. Edit:...I've got a bit of a vent, as I've chatted about this with some friends but want to get it all out in one spot and figured maybe someone one here may have dealt with similar people before.
Edit: TLDR: dealt with some crappy tenants over the weekend who we found out trashed our house when we wouldn't agree to give them their security deposit back.
My wife and I decided to rent out our house as we needed to move states for her new job, and due to capital gains laws here if we sold our house we would be hit with some massive penalties. My wife did some advertising and found a family from Canada who had been living in SE Asia and were considering Malaysia as a potential long term residence location. They originally wanted a 6-month lease, but we explained to them that they weren't comfortable with that short of a lease, and so we all agreed on a 1-year lease with standard (for this country) terms. We did our best to be accommodating landlords and addressing anything that they encountered while getting settled in.
A few weeks ago they mentioned that they had their visa applications denied (not uncommon here, it can take a few appeals and the country isn't actually that strict on tourism visas as I know a few people who lived here on a tourism visa for years whenever they were in between work sponsorships or working for foreign companies), and they had something come up that would cause them to return to Canada so they would need to break their lease. They asked us if we would be willing to give them any of their security deposit back. After discussing it, my wife and I agreed that we would like to help them out as we would want our landlord to be understanding as well if something like this happened to us, but we'd have to see what we could do and let them know as much.
After a bit I checked in with them to see when they were leaving the country as we needed to coordinate going back to do a walk through. They said they wanted to know in writing how much we would give them back, so there wouldn't be any confusion. I explained to them that we couldn't give a number without seeing the property, and in the lease they signed it showed that they would forfeit their security deposit and pay a number of months of rent to allow us to find new tenants (leases here can be strict). We wouldn't try to pursue the remaining rent payments, and would be happy to work with them on giving some money back, but we couldn't commit to anything in advance.
We got a hand off date from them, and when we had to follow up about some specifics they mentioned they took a holiday to a popular destination in the country that is also incredibly expensive and would be back to do the walk through. On the day of we showed up at the agreed upon time and waited half an hour, and after texting them multiple times they let us know they'd actually had their visa expiring days before and left the country before their visa expired, and they didn't tell us this because we wouldn't "work out a deal to give them money back".
After getting our spare set of keys, we entered the property to find the place trashed, thankfully the actual property damage isn't major, but there was some absolute petty moves. To give you an idea of things that they did:
- the husband shaving and purposefully not washing his bed hairs down
- takeout food containers left on our counter tops with food rotting inside
- multiple toilets had dumps left in them
- lights left on in multiple rooms
- every trash/rubbish bin was full but had no bags placed in them (one of them was full of used diapers from their baby that were rotting)
- piles of dirty clothes
- things they stuck on the wall partially torn off (with damage to the paint and wall in some case) when the lease explicitly stated to not hang things off the walls
- the holes in the master bedroom wall from a mounted TV that was not patched up and was poorly done
- trash vaguely swept in to piles and then left in rooms
- trash left all over the outside of the property
I ended up spending ~6 hours with gloves and a mask on over the 2-day weekend waking up early before the family stuff we had planned since we were in town just picking up trash and sweeping stuff up. I filled ~25 bags of trash (10 large bags and ~15 smaller bags). We're having to get the house professionally deep cleaned and then having a contractor come to deal with all the areas that need addressed.
My wife and I are planning to put the house up for sale/rent again if we don't find a buyer at the price we want since it is a bit of a buyers market right now. We honestly want to be done with the house, it sucks as we had made renovations with the idea of it being a long term home. We had thought we may live in our current state for a year or two and then move back to that house to be near family, but it felt violating in a way to see our house in that state. Thankfully it was looking better with all the trash cleared out.To add the cherry on top, once we got back from a long drive with kids being a bit crazy we came home to find that our power had tripped, and our fridge had been off for ~2 days with a good chunk of our food having spoiled, including stuff we just bought that was on a good sale that is more expensive that we planned to use this week. My car door handle also broke for seemingly no reason this morning, and I've been slammed at work all day, so I took a break to type this out.
Thankfully, life is still good overall and sometimes things suck. Just been a crappy weekend and hopefully this next weekend we can have some family fun and move past this.
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Comment on Would you eat "Casu Marzu," Sardinia's famous maggot infested cheese? in ~food
pekt Link ParentCentury eggs are delicious, though I've found the taste can vary depending on the region they are produced in. The ones I had imported from China while living in the US were very strong while the...Century eggs are delicious, though I've found the taste can vary depending on the region they are produced in.
The ones I had imported from China while living in the US were very strong while the flavor of ones I've had produces locally in Malaysia have a less strong flavor.
Eating one by itself is a bit much, but eating them in a fried rice/porridge or in some vegetable dishes can work really well.
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Comment on Would you eat "Casu Marzu," Sardinia's famous maggot infested cheese? in ~food
pekt Link ParentI'd definitely try it, I'm open to try just about any food once.I'd definitely try it, I'm open to try just about any food once.
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Comment on ‘The Walking Dead’ renewed by Netflix in five-year, $500m co-exclusive deal with AMC Global in ~tv
pekt Link ParentThat honestly sounds fantastic. I love a good zombie story, and feel like this would be great. Reading your comment also made me realize that I don't think I've ever seen all of MASH beyond...That honestly sounds fantastic. I love a good zombie story, and feel like this would be great.
Reading your comment also made me realize that I don't think I've ever seen all of MASH beyond watching episodes with my dad occasionally, so it might be time I start slowly watching through that.
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Comment on US schools are adding pepper-spraying drones to help combat active shooters in ~society
pekt Link ParentNot disagreeing at all, I thought about including a reference to a company like Palantir being one where you can point to it being an explicit Tolkien reference in my comment, but I was just...Not disagreeing at all, I thought about including a reference to a company like Palantir being one where you can point to it being an explicit Tolkien reference in my comment, but I was just focusing on "Mithril" which has gone on to be included in multiple different works inspired by Tolkien.
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Comment on US schools are adding pepper-spraying drones to help combat active shooters in ~society
pekt Link ParentI feel like at this point people could include "Mithril" in the name of something without knowing it comes from Tolkien since Mithril is used in many other fantasy settings that were influenced by...I feel like at this point people could include "Mithril" in the name of something without knowing it comes from Tolkien since Mithril is used in many other fantasy settings that were influenced by his works or influenced by works that themselves influenced by his works.
After typing my above message I did a quick Google search for "mithril in fantasy" and found a thread on r/lotr that proved this does happen for some people now: https://www.reddit.com/r/lotr/comments/z8yiu8/tolkien_invented_mythril/
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Comment on Mojang has updated the system requirements for Minecraft: Java Edition, raising recommended system memory from 4GB to 16GB in ~games
pekt LinkI've been playing some Minecraft (with that being short ~10-15 minutes sessions occasionally), and am glad I've only been itching to play old versions of the game (beta 1.7.3 for the most part)...I've been playing some Minecraft (with that being short ~10-15 minutes sessions occasionally), and am glad I've only been itching to play old versions of the game (beta 1.7.3 for the most part) which has minimal system requirements.
I always figured I'd be able to build some budget systems in the ~4-5 years and play Minecraft with my kids. It looks like they may also play older versions unless the price of computers drops by the time I go to build computers for them
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Comment on Survey: The temperature in my room now is _____ and it feels _____ in ~talk
pekt Link ParentIn the "winter" my area gets to a low of ~23 and highs of ~32+ There's not really much of a difference and I usually joke with me friends that I get the seasons of hot, hotter, and rainy (monsoon)...In the "winter" my area gets to a low of ~23 and highs of ~32+
There's not really much of a difference and I usually joke with me friends that I get the seasons of hot, hotter, and rainy (monsoon) hot.
I usually only have a bit of time to play games, and that has generally been taken up by Slay the Spire 2. I'm still working on getting to A10 with all characters and I play the occasional run with my friends.
I sometimes will pop a let's play in my other monitor and saw someone playing Probably Stolen - Cyberpunk Shopkeeper Sim, after the first bit this game seemed like it would be up my alley. There is a public playtest/demo, and I was able to get my work finished early so I installed it and gave it a go, and I am hooked. I've been thinking about playing it today during my work and hope I have some more time to. The dev is actively working on adding new things, and what is already there is a solid foundation.
I hope the dev manages to complete his vision and potentially add some of the ideas that people have floated in the Discord.
I keep my gaming budget to close to $0 these days since I have a bunch of games as it is and don't have much time to play the ones I do have. I usually end up buying myself 1 game for my birthday each year and maybe one for Christmas as well depending on how things are going. This game has gone to right near the top of my list of games I plan to buy based on the bit I played. It hits all of the right feels for me and I'm glad I was checking the time yesterday as I could have been late picking my kids up if I hadn't.
I've also played a bit of Pikmin 1 recently, my kids like to watch me play. I'm way worse than I remember being at it as a kid, but the gameplay is still tight and fun and I'm well ahead of schedule to get the 30 ship pieces. I don't remember if I beat Pikmin 2 as a kid, but I'll probably slowly make my way through that one as well.