Crowdsourcing Time
2024-05-11T02:44:36Z via Dianara To: Public CC: Followers
When at a public event, I never have to look at my own time-keeping device! Someone will eventually show me the time by turning on the screen of their time-keeping device in front of me! How convenient!
Downgraded to Regular PinePhone
2024-05-08T23:55:56Z via Dianara To: Public CC: Followers
https://identi.ca/d6chung/note/6JqxhFU_T6OH2DO2A_-nrw
It turns out I have a cell phone protection benefit that covers that repair. I was able to bring in the replacement screen to a repair shop and have someone else deal with the tiny screws for free!
I'm now back on the regular PinePhone but I will keep the PinePhone Pro as a backup.
While the PinePhone Pro runs faster, it runs hot! Now that I'm back on the regular PinePhone, I had forgotten how much cooler it runs even when plugged in!
HSO: LOST in Concert
2024-04-28T08:35:41Z via Dianara To: Public CC: Followers
https://www.myhso.org/concerts/2024-lost-in-concert
Today is the day I learned that HSO's concertmaster plays the ukulele!
I also sat next to a film crew so I wonder what that's for.
Inner RPG
2024-04-25T19:51:35Z via Identi.ca Web To: Public CC: Followers
So I haven't made progress in Infinite Wealth since I've been working on the its inner RPG: Sujimon League, which is weird because I'm not into RPGs in general.
However, once I figured out the gacha pulls, strengthening, and awakening mechanics, the rest was a breeze for me. I never had to grind and defeated the bosses while at lower levels! If only if the main game was like this...
My party formation is as follows:
- Bear guy and blindfold guy are my tanks and warriors. They have high health and attack so I place them in front.
- Pineapple guy is just there for his speed. I find it amusing that I never use him and he's simply there to literally dance in front of my opponent.
- Biker guy is my backup warrior. He also has high attack but I keep him in the back in case my frontline goes down. In the rare case that happens, the fight is nearly done anyway and this backup finishes off my opponent so I allow my bear and blindfold guys to go down.
- The chicken and doll guys are my healers. They stay in the back and I tag them in as needed. However, my warriors typically wipe out my opponents in 2-3 moves!
The main game encounter at the end of the league was what truly threw me off! My main game character was way under-leveled and unlike GOW, in Infinite Wealth, you *are* taking a hit so I had to load up my inventory on food and just take the shots while munching on bentos and fruit salads.
I guess I should progress the main game now. I have yet to unlock the job system...Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus and Hans Zimmer's Lion King
2024-04-16T01:08:02Z via Dianara To: Public CC: Followers
I was listening to some choral music and upon hearing Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus, I thought to myself, "Hans Zimmer must've quoted this in his Lion King (1994) score!"
Sure enough, someone actually posted a video on it: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=PfAwqJjpxhY
Also, 1994 is 30 years ago!
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GNOME 46 Unmasked
2024-03-27T02:48:33Z via Dianara To: Public CC: Followers
For the past two months, I held back GNOME 46 packages since I was experiencing login hangs -- I've been meaning to look into it but got lazy about it.
However, seeing libgdm-46 in my latest batch of updates gave me hope: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=2159642#p2159642
And yay! I'm able to login with GNOME 46 now! So my IgnorePkg list is now empty once again!
Upgraded to PinePhonePro
2024-03-26T03:17:23Z via Dianara To: Public CC: Followers
It finally happened.
I dropped my PinePhone and the corner glass shattered.
So not wanting to risk cutting myself, I switched over to my PinePhonePro, which was standing by already as a backup and the performance difference is night-and-day! Wow!
I plan on trying to replace the PinePhone screen myself. Let's see how that goes... I foresee many grumblings in the future with tiny screws bouncing around me.
@d6chung@identi.ca good luck mate.Aurite!
2024-03-22T17:44:16Z via Dianara To: Public CC: Followers
Okay, this won me over: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=vYRo8wI2Q18
I was playing this with Japanese audio but when I saw "aurite" in the text, I just had to switch the audio and replay that sequence to hear it proper.
I'm glad someone recorded and posted it!
Doing my part and sharing the dialogue with the voices isolated: https://peervideo.club/w/bac8iLjm2HXjGvt5Ng7Gj2
pmOS Testing
2024-03-20T01:28:59Z via Dianara To: Public CC: Followers
I normally wait for a device to be promoted from testing but I just want to start tinkering with the PineTab2 now that the WiFi driver is available.
pmOS is my OS of choice because of pmbootstrap.
Unfortunately, the documentation is not at all clear on how one installs the OS on testing devices: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/PINE64_PineTab_2_(pine64-pinetab2)
I tried tinkering with pmbootstrap trying to figure out how to write the deviceinfo and APKBUILD files and failing miserably as the pmbootstrap build command kept failing.
But silly me, at the bottom of this Wiki page is a link to an MR: https://gitlab.com/postmarketOS/pmaports/-/merge_requests/4208
All the work is done for me! So just for future reference, the steps are as follows:
- Change current directory into the pmaports git directory (cd ~/.local/var/pmbootstrap/cache_git/pmaports)
- Add the contributor's repo as a remote (git remote add Danct12 https://gitlab.com/Danct12/pmaports.git)
- Checkout the contributor's relevant branch (git checkout Danct12/pintab2)
- Proceed with the pmbootstrap init as usual and now the desired device appears in the possible selection since all the relevant configuration files are now present: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Pmbootstrap#Initialization
- Finally, proceed with any nuanced installation details: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/PINE64_PineTab_2_(pine64-pinetab2)#Installation
- pmbootstrap status will not like that you're not on an official branch so I assume that's expected for testing devices (it didn't like it when the git directory was unclean during my tinkering failures)
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Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth Started
2024-03-18T01:45:47Z via Dianara To: Public CC: Followers
https://ryu-ga-gotoku.com/eight/
I started this and of course I immediately blast through until I get to the Honolulu portion.
I am disappointed that my building was not modelled. They modelled the surrounding landscape but left out iconic residential buildings! The game is literally unplayable now! The player picks up a (non-rideshare) cab at the departure-level of the airport! Game ruined!
I suppose it's for the best. I'm a little weirded-out seeing my bedroom window in visitor photos as they post their reviews of their hotel stay...
Now that I have a manual save where I can free-roam Waikiki, I suppose I should play the game proper now from the start. To me, it is the mini-games where the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series shine. I never liked the combat systems (both old and new) -- it always felt clunky/unpolished to me.
Problem-solving Guidelines
2024-03-12T22:01:32Z via Dianara To: Public CC: Followers
Okay, this one got me:
https://lemmy.world/post/13032046Rift Apart Fully Complete
2024-02-29T23:24:28Z via Identi.ca Web To: Public CC: Followers
I revisited this since in my first playthrough, I skipped the mini-game because I hated it -- it felt like playing a more disorienting version of classic Doom.Anyway, my NG+ playthrough allowed me to enable cheats so I just plowed my way through to acquire this single trophy I missed out nearly a year later!GOW: Ragnarok Fully Complete
2024-02-26T01:32:52Z via Identi.ca Web To: Public CC: Followers
It is done!
Congrats!
GOW: Ragnarok Complete
2024-02-17T07:47:43Z via Dianara To: Public CC: Followers
After nearly a year, I finally finished the main campaign of God of War: Ragnarok! I spent a lot of time doing the side quests because I love the gameplay and really wanted to avoid the story. In fact, I really don't know what happened in the main story as I normally just watch something else as an unskippable cinematic plays out. I only completed the main game because I exhausted all the side quests and more is unlocked after the game is completed.
Now I'm happily working on those!
The final bosses were really easy! I think the optional bosses honed my skills. The optional battle arena was really fun and I look forward to the optional boss that's now unlocked there!
As I mentioned before, even on the hardest difficulty, player deaths never felt unfair. All my deaths are due to my mistakes.
The only time I was annoyed was when the game glitched out when I thought I finished an encounter -- I was either soft or hard locked! There was one mini-boss that always hard-locked for me so I worked around it by leaving the battlefield and killing the boss from outside, which worked! Soft locks for me occurred when all enemies were defeated but the game was still in battle mode and refused to progress further -- couldn't figure out how to workaround that and had to redo the encounter and pray. Other soft locks occur when a mini-boss doesn't spawn and the game can't progress further -- boss music is playing but nothing is happening! Ahh, this game is glitchy...
Despite all that, the gameplay is where this game really shines and I highly recommend it for that reason. Not to mention all the additional content and gameplay are provided as FREE DLC! I truly believe this is the best game of the current generation!
Now onward to complete all the side quests!
HSO: Music of Studio Ghibli
2024-01-16T18:59:38Z via Dianara To: Public CC: Followers
Following up from: https://identi.ca/d6chung/note/Zm0UHqKiRj-TyKLvD0CNsw
They just had their concert over the weekend and I enjoyed it overall.
Unfortunately, they played only a single cue from Kiki! That was quite the disappointment.
At least it was my favourite cue from the soundtrack: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=pR4iCWB-VVQ
However, I prefer either the original movie version or the one just linked (2023 Symphonic Celebration arrangement) where the melody jumps around the orchestra. The one I heard live had the melody mainly with the piano and strings -- it is such a tame version of that cue!
I was pleased to hear the catbus cue (with original instrumentation!) from Totoro live so that was the highlight for me!
Peter and the Wolf in Hollywood
2024-01-12T20:50:15Z via Dianara To: Public CC: Followers
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=stN_XmMIPZA
I was just introduced to this on the classical station. I thought it was neat and it got a laugh from me with what they substituted the hunters with.
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Evernote
2024-01-11T19:34:00Z via Dianara To: Public CC: Followers
I've been using Evernote forever since it had BlackBerry support!
Now they updated their pricing model that place limits on the actual number of notes (!) and I'm essentially locked out the service.
So I guess it's time to export my data and say goodbye.
Overflow Concert
2024-01-10T19:30:57Z via Dianara To: Public CC: Followers
So they scheduled https://www.myhso.org/concerts/ghibli-march-16 since https://www.myhso.org/concerts/2024-music-of-studio-ghibli-jan-13 is sold out.
However, the conductor for the overflow concert is marked TBA.
I wonder if they're trying to get Hisaishi himself to conduct! I wouldn't mind going to a duplicate concert if so!
Final 2023 Ranking
2024-01-09T21:51:38Z via Dianara To: Public CC: Followers
With the holidays and a bunch of flights for me now past us, it's time to publish my final movie rankings for 2023. So here is a quick run-down of the many I saw on planes...
Fast X: As expected, you'll have to turn your brain off for this one. 4 Mai Tais.
The Adults: A very slow build. You'll probably need to sip on 1 Mai Tai as the characters become more established toward the final act.
The Equalizer 3: I thought this was well-paced enough to require 0 Mai Tais!
A Haunting in Venice: Pretty engaging! It's mostly dialogue so you'll need to keep a sharp mind on this and partake 0 Mai Tais.
Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story: This felt very shallow -- it's hard to describe but it feels nothing really happens in it. 2 Mai Tais.
Barbie: Surprisingly well-done! The overall cinematography elevates this and knowing that the a lot of the effects are practical set designs makes me appreciate this all the more! So this is technically the best movie I've seen in 2023! 0 Mai Tais! However, screenplay-wise, I prefer Oppenheimer and it used IMAX film so for those reasons, it slightly nudges up ahead to take the top ranking.
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One: Mostly engaging but I feel myself muddling this with Indiana Jones -- maybe they have very similar scenes? 0 Mai Tais.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: I get this muddled with Mission Impossible. Perhaps it was not a memorable movie for me? Maybe it's the train scenes, which reminded me of Uncharted2 and I think Mission Impossible did it better complete with escaping from falling cars! Wait, weren't we talking about Indiana Jones? Nah, just take 2 Mai Tais.
Final 2023 ranking:
Oppenheimer: 0 Mai Tais
Barbie: 0 Mai Tais
BlackBerry: 0 Mai Tais
A Haunting in Venice: 0 Mai Tais
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One: 0 Mai Tais
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret: 0 Mai Tais
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: 0 Mai Tais
The Equalizer 3: 0 Mai Tais
The Blackening: 1 Mai Tai
Cocaine Bear: 1 Mai Tai
The Adults: 1 Mai Tai
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: 2 Mai Tais
Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story: 2 Mai Tais
Fast X: 4 Mai Tais
Happy New Year!
2024-01-01T14:35:05Z via Dianara To: Public CC: Followers
A follow-up of my post regarding winning the New Years concert lottery!
The Vienna Philharmonic was really tight and I haven't personally experienced an organisation that can top them. So the New Years concert was truly a treat!
I didn't realise that there are many cameras installed in the concert venue. During the performance of the Blue Danube, the cameras smoothly coming in and out of their hiding spots reminded me of 2001. I shall try to watch the TV broadcast to see if I'm included in the editing.
As for Vienna itself, my key takeaway from it is that North American culture can learn from Vienna (and possibly other similar European cities) on how to run things more efficiently. I really wish American drivers are as competent, that transit fare is managed as efficiently, that plastic bottles are also non-existent, and that service avoids small-talk.