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Casual
→ Monday October 28, 2024📓 Came across a post in my LinkedIn feed advertising a role which requires “12+ years of experience”. Fair enough, but such a specific number. What happens in these magical 2 years after 10? Eh, maybe it’s an Illuminati thing.
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Gaming
→ Tuesday October 22, 2024🎮 The Lake House expansion grabbed me back immediately. I think I had left the difficulty on hard during my unfinished New Game+. I’m getting pummeled and I love it, so I didn’t bother checking. Unlike the main character I’d like to spend as much time as possible in this FBC facility.
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Casual
→ Monday October 14, 2024📓 I don’t think about the Roman Empire often. But what I’ve realized crosses my mind almost daily is that we’ve destroyed old forests and the quality of hardwood is not what it used to be a couple of centuries ago. 🤷🏻♂️
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Casual
→ Sunday October 13, 2024📓 Just finished the 3 Body Problem season on Netflix 📺 I want to like it a lot more than I do. I have unusually many “why don’t they do this” kind of questions. Not sure if the novels are more thorough and set better limits to what is possible and why (or why not).
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Casual
→ Tuesday October 8, 2024📓 It’s OK to take your time with hobbies. Sure, some concrete goals could be helpful guides. But it’s a journey and it’s OK to go down the occasional rabbit hole. Get completely off track, stop and smell the flowers. Hobbies give us this rare luxury if we only allow ourselves to grab it.
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Casual
→ Monday September 23, 2024📓For about 2 years I’ve managed to keep brief journals almost daily, with a weekly review. It’s been paramount to keep it simple. No overthinking, a short stream-of-thought account is infinitely better than nothing. Now, I’m ready to deepen my practice with more structured and deliberate sessions.
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Casual
→ Monday September 9, 2024📓 PSA. If you are enjoying a webcomic for free - give back. Buy the artist’s book, support them on Patreon, etc. Today I was reminded how much I like Adam Ellis’s work and ordered Bad Dreams in the Night.
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Technology
→ Tuesday September 3, 2024💾 Year 2024: Outlook Calendar still doesn’t support “Cancel future occurrences”. The workaround is to update the invitation with an end date and confuse everyone. One should not change history. Old man yells at cloud.
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Casual
→ Sunday September 1, 2024📓 Cleaning before the party, cleaning after the party, but it was worth it. Sending off our summer vacation in style and with a bang.
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Gaming
→ Thursday August 8, 2024🎮 The latest DF Direct Weekly #174 is fire 🔥 Especially enjoyed the discussion about bespoke console tech and its intersection with PC. Spoiler - they haven’t fully converged. TIL current gen consoles have a dedicated hardware decompression unit.
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Casual
→ Monday July 29, 2024📓 Long time no Pien bar 🍺
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Gaming
→ Tuesday July 16, 2024🎮 I got a Rog Ally (Z1E) a couple of months ago. And I’m loving it. Between a house move and cottage trips, it’s seen a surprising amount of use. You need to know what you are getting into, though. UX, battery, performance have drawbacks - it’s not a PC Switch. Right expectations = great experience!
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Casual
→ Monday July 8, 2024📓 Summer’s had a slow start for me. By now I’m afraid it willl accelerate exponentially and poof it’s gone. Trying to be mindful about this but can’t just force myself into a leisurely mood. Today is a lovely day though 🌞
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Casual
→ Friday July 5, 2024📓 As is tradition - my second Micro.blog cake day post 🎂 Just a random photo from Monday when we moved to a new home. Bernie’s “TV” was upgraded significantly.
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Management
→ Wednesday July 3, 2024💻 I work for a big company, but today I heard a person “laugh in corporate” and this caught me off guard. Laughed in nerd on the inside and moved on. 🤓
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Technology
→ Thursday June 13, 2024💾 Many exciting and deeply technical news from WWDC… But you know what simple usability improvement I’m excited about - native window tiling in Sequoia, with keyboard shortcuts. We’ve suffered for so long. Rectangle did wonders but it had its hiccups.
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Casual
→ Monday June 10, 2024📓 Helsinki has nature even close to the heart of the city. As I’m enjoying one such oasis, what is not seen in a photo is noise pollution. You can always hear the monotonous grind of the roads. I wonder if we’ll ever solve this problem in the future.
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Casual
→ Saturday June 8, 2024📓Had to make several difficult decisions during the past week. Needed to lean more on my analitical self than my heart. I just have to trust that the time for pursuing one of my dreams had simply not come. It felt very close. Playing the long game.
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Technology
→ Monday May 27, 2024💾 There is more to artificial general intelligence, and my own human intelligence, than putting the most likely word in front of the other. Yes, it’s a reductive comment.
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Technology
💾 Reminder to self: don't buy cheapo SD cards
→ Sunday May 26, 2024We needed an SD card urgently and just bought a cheap one from a basic department store. I should know better, as I’ve worked professionally with SD card benchmarking and filesystems… but still thought “We just need a few photos, how bad can it be?”. Turns out - really bad.
The card got corrupted after first use, refused reformatting and repartitioning (only 2/32GB were useable). I managed to salvage the photos from this first photo session - total luck. Btw, not all repair tools are made equal. The macOS built-in
fsckdidn’t do the job, but the one fromdosfstoolsdid the trick.Anyway - don’t buy the cheapest card you find from your department store, if you care about what you keep on it that is.
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Casual
→ Sunday May 19, 2024📓 Didn’t drink coffee ☕️ during the past week… until today 😵💫
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Management
,Gaming
🎮 💻 On Xbox closing down several studios
→ Friday May 10, 2024This week’s decision by Xbox to close entire studios stunned me. The nightmare of widespread layoffs in the industry doesn’t seem to seize. I’m disappointed of this particular piece of news for several reasons.
I genuinely root for Xbox’s vision of play anywhere. Game Pass and demolishing platform exclusives are pro-gamer pillars in their strategy. That said, Game Pass is not all good news for game developers. It can give critical exposure, especially to smaller titles, but in other cases it can also erode sales and thus commercial success. In my region Game Pass for PC goes for 10 euros/month. Considering the library and how often it’s updated it’s an extremely good value - but does it work?
Closing entire studios wipes out whole work cultures. This is substantially different to e.g. canceling a project, partially reducing workforce or pivoting to a new direction. In these examples, the intangibles of what makes a great team can be largely retained. Closing an entire studio extinguishes something invisible in addition to the business itself.
A sound business decision for Xbox is beyond the scope of a single studio. This is not a rant against capitalism, it’s not the point. I am disappointed because the studio closures show the worst of having a multi-studio corporate owner, VC or the like. Xbox itself is not Microsoft - citing Microsoft’s overall profit is almost irrelevant. Xbox may derive more value by closing a studio than selling it, e.g because of IP ownership and competition considerations. What hurts is that had the studios been viewed in isolation and with a more fully vested owner they might have been considered viable.
Ultimately, I believe Xbox made the decisions that support its long-term goals best. Their operating profit based on FTC leaks from last year is in the 10% ballpark. Revenue for Xbox grew only by virtue of the Activition Blizzard acquisition. The gaming industry hasn’t meaningfully grown in the past year and feels very saturated. Clearly, both Arkane Austin, following the Redfall flop, and Tango Gameworks, following Shinji Mikami’s departure, would have a challenging road ahead. I don’t believe the studios were judged only on the basis of their most recent performance. It’s about future outlook and profit appetite.
Taking all into account, I’m still left wondering if the corporations consolidating the gaming industry at the moment are truly building the world game developers and gamers want to see. This is why I’m having such a hard time reconciling this particular blow from Xbox.
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Casual
→ Friday April 26, 2024📓 Gotta love this era of quality TV based on video games. Fallout is just great. 👍 Had my doubts after the first episode but as I finish the season, I look forward to another one.
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Technology
→ Sunday April 7, 2024💾 Readwise Reader has a new feature of note. I’ve been looking forward to it so much, that I’m almost a bit anxious to check it out. Posting this and heading over to the web app.
📁 RSS Folders on Web – You can now organize your RSS feeds into folders and pin individual feeds to the left sidebar resulting in a more traditional feed reading experience.
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Casual
→ Wednesday April 3, 2024📓 Woo, excited for the new comics book from War and Peas creators: Once Upon a Workday! Eagerly waiting for my copy as of today.
