My Favorite Things w24

Published: 2024-02-25

edits:

2024-02-27: added Coffee and Code

They’re on tour but are only doing west coast shows in NA… don’t hmu.

My Favorite things from the last 3 months

Cool things I played or saw or used or checked out,

Any medium, any experience.

And these are NOT in any sorted order.

Brampton Coffee n Code

Coffee n code is a recurring event at the brampton library where programmers can sit around and… talk to each other.

It’s a nice way to spend every other saturday morning, I’ve been trying to get out the house more often, and doing what I would’ve done in the house somewhere else is a pretty frictionless way to do that.

Emacs Org mode/Orgzly

“A GNU Emacs major mode for keeping notes, authoring documents, computational notebooks, literate programming, maintaining to-do lists, planning projects, and more — in a fast and effective plain text system.”

It’s a file format and emacs plugin that combines the functionality of Google calendar, Notion, Obsidian, todoist, and much more. I’ve only gotten familiar with the basics but it’s replaced all the previously mentioned applications and has been exactly what I’ve been looking for for a while.

Orgzly lets you view and sync org files to your (android) phone!

Regolith WM (also Doom Emacs)

Regolith is i3 running in gnome-session. If that means anything to you then you’d probably go “oh cool” or scoff “You still need gnome-session? Talk about bloat“.

If that previous sentence was un-parsable that is to be expected. Regolith is a linux window manager. A Window manager is what you use to manage how applications are sorted and displayed on your monitor(s). Regolith is built on i3 (or sway), which is a tiling window manager. This means windows tile to take up the maximum amount of space on your screen. i3 is also workspace based. Pressing Mod (the windows key) + a number on your keyboard will switch to another virtual monitor.

It’s nice once you get used to it.

I used to use i3 but my biggest issue was the overlap and conflicts between it and the existing gnome tools on my machine. i3 feels like it’s meant for people not using binary based distributions of linux, and pick every piece of the setup themselves. Regolith solves most of those issues with i3, which is cool.

Also Emacs is cool but I already wrote about that so Just check that out.

ULTRAKILL: VIOLENT NIGHT update

I say this every time new Ultrakill levels come out but it’s always weird to play an Ultrakill levels who’s layouts and placements of enemies I haven’t memorized.

I must admit that P-2 and all of these Levels continue to be P-rank-less. I’ve been taking it easy on my ultrakilling recently. Although I did learn the maurice insta-kill and they did add the ability to map separate feedbacker and knuckleblaster buttons which is a great change.

The levels themselves are really good. They’re different, and focus a bit more on environmental storytelling, vibes, and setting a tone. It feels like there is a cohesive story across the 4 levels, and plays with the idea of what a “Violence” layer in a game already called ULTRAKILL would be like.

Go play Ultrakill.

R4: Ridge Racer Type 4

Ridge Racer 4 (henceforth referred to as R4) is vibes. The quality of the experience hinges on it’s vibes. The Insert Credit podcast recently asked the question “Does good gameplay need to be the foundational principe of a good video game?“. And I think R4 is an example of how an okay driving game can be elevated to really great driving game not by making the driving really good, but by having the entire experience around the driving be sick as heck

My head-canon theory is that Namco’s sound team really wanted to release a Liquid Intelligent Drum ‘n Bass album, but Namco was a video game company. So they simply decided to make the album about ridge racer, and release it as the sound-track to the game.

R4 is an album that comes with a driving game to play while you listen. You can simply pick a track to listen to at the start of every race. The music is phenomenal.

Outside of the music, the menus and ui (when you’re not actually driving lol) also contribute to a very intentional, well-designed, artful experience. The vibes are seeping out this game at an uncontrollable rate.

Get the game and race around listening to some chilled out DnB grooves. Listen to the whole album. Then play something else I guess.

Bidet

The only thing I asked for explicitly for christmas was a bidet.

I received the bidet.

I am clean.

Rustlings

Rust is cool. It’s the power of a low-level language with the ergonomics of a high level language. If you’ve heard anything about Rust it’s that it’s “safe”. That means you don’t (directly) manage memory, Rust’s compiler forces you to write your code in a way that ensures no memory mis-management occurs. You’re coding with guard-rails on essentially, and it comes with a steep learning curve because of that.

Rustlings is a Rust tutorial that teaches you through Rust snippets that you write and/or fix. The live tool then automatically tests it against test cases. I found it to be a great way to learn while doing, as someone who really dislikes tutorials these days.

Haven’t written that much Rust, mostly because I haven’t really come up with anything good to do in it yet. Bevy is a thing that I’ll probably check out, and Emulation is still something I’d like to try my hand at, but if you too are interested in checking out Rust, use the Rust book (and rustlings)!!

Shin Godzilla

Hideaki Anno (the Evangelion guy) made a Godzilla movie about people talking in rooms (while Evangelion music plays).

And Trains!

This is my first Godzilla movie, and it was really good. It’s also odd, not only compared to other Godzilla movies (as I’ve been told) but also to movies in general. There is no introduction period in the beginning, Godzilla just shows up immediately. There isn’t really a main character, the entire japanese government is the protagonist? There’s a lot of news-feeds and phone camera footage from people? It’s weird, it’s interesting, and I found it to be pretty cool.

I only went “dude this is peak” after learning of the Fukishima Nuclear Accident that occurred in 2011, and this movie being a criticism/reflection of how the japanese government handled that crisis, with a Godzilla disaster subbing in for the real life disaster. Godzilla too was caused by nuclear energy, and the unique framing of the movie turned out to be based in re-creations of real footage and events from the Fukishima Disaster.

I was smoking on that Anno’s pack fr. I’ll watch the rest of those rebuild movies soon.

Speaking of artist who’s pack I am definitely (metaphorically, don’t smoke kids.) high on:

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

It’s interesting how much Kojima wants to make movies considering his video games do extremely weird video game stuff.

I knew Death Stranding predicted the Pandemic, but MGS2 before it predicted… a lot.

Like how the digital age will cause changes to media and how it will effect us.

Changes and effects that we have been seriously feeling the last couple of years.

Kojima talks about that in this game.

in 2001.

No spoilers 😳

Void Stranger

This game is not just a Sokoban puzzle game with Gameboy graphics.

It’s more then it seems.

Again, no spoilers 😳

(Also buy it on itch.io, it’s DRM free and comes with a steam key too.)

Wanikani

I’ve been learning Japanese!!

Learning the Kanji and vocabulary that uses them is a daunting endeavour. The Kanji for “Life”（生）has 20 different readings depending on the word it’s used in.

Wanikani makes it simple.

Not EASY, but simple.

I show up 3 times a day, and spend 60 minutes total reviewing flashcards through a spaced repetiton system.

It’s completely managed for you, which considering there’s a lot of other things I need to do (GRAMMAR), being able to have Wanikani manage itself is very nice. It also has a great API with lots of user made plugins to enhance the experience, along with a community of other Japanese language learners.

It is a subscription product, and using Anki + Remembering the Kanji would probably suffice as well, but Wanikani is great if you can afford it.

Earthbound Hobonichi Journal

Expensive japanese journal with PAPER SOLD SEPERATLEY that I’ve always really wanted and found one at not a horribly expensive price. Although I struggle to find things to write in it? All my journaling and todo-list-ing is done in org mode, so I usually just make a todolist in the hobonichi on weekends.

It’s so pretty though. I feel like one of those idyllic bullet journal “study with me” girls dispite how hard my goblin aura prevents me from feeling so.

Appletoast Shirt

Cool shirt!!! Appletoast makes sick art (check out my github pfp)!!! Guitars look cool!!! This shirt is cool!!!

I’ve worn it THREE TIMES and nobody has complemented it, you’re all fake.

What an eclectic collection of nouns

So were these recommendations?

Not sure.

Cya next time.