Author: TheAleosha

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*.AVI

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

I’m simply amazed how much meaningful content they managed to squeeze into two hours of screen time. Time to wonder why Star Wars are not able to do the same. But we all know the answer, don’t we?
There is clear motivation for every character, there are brief but accurate explanations of the world setting, and each episode has it’s own well defined mood. Just the episode where heroes had to speak with dead barbarians could redeem another movie in my eyes.

 

 

Underdark action scenes are mind-blowing.

 

Standoff between two wizards is even better.

 

 

And there is a lot of respect to the source material, tons of references, instead of just making stuff up.

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*.BAK

Samsonite Ecodiver Travel S backpack

 

I’ve been using North Face backpacks for many years now. And grew slightly disillusioned by them with time. So after trying out a couple of Samsonite backpacks at the airport, I decided to give them a chance.
Ecodiver line is the water resisting one. That’s easy. Considering the fact that my North Face Surge got soaked quite a few times, I view it as a considerable benefit. The more complicated part is that inside the lineup, there’s Travel Backpack and Laptop Backpack. And smallest Travel Backpack (38L) is larger than the largest Laptop Backpack (26L). Since my surge is 32L and I don’t consider it to be too large for my needs, I went with Travel S model.
Things I like:

  • Two pairs of compression straps, top and bottom
  • Vertical organizers in the large compartment. This is useful for storing a water bottle, for example.
  • The external side compartment also has a zip pocket. On Surge, those were open, and stuff would fall out of it unless you secure them

Things I’m neutral about:

  • The glasses compartment is a mesh inside the large compartment. Don’t see why, could be made a small compartment accessible from the outside and still be waterproof

Things I don’t like that much:

  • Hip belt can be tucked away, but you can’t remove it. I never used hip belt, and don’t expect to, so I’d prefer it to be removable
  • I’d prefer two side pockets instead of one.
Categories
*.BAK

St.Bernardus Christmas Ale

I was looking forward to try this beer, but it turned out into a slight disappointment. It’s not particularly bad, and didn’t leave me with a headache or anything like that, but it just didn’t taste anything special. Not too sweet, not too spicy. Just… alright, I guess.

 

https://triplebrewonline.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/370.jpg

Categories
*.BAK

MtG memories

When I was a kid, our local game store had a poster of Magic the Gathering on its door. I’m not even sure if it sold any, or it was just there. But for some reason, two cards in particular scared me for some reason. Just found them:

Both from the Arabian Nights expansion.

Categories
PC Gaming

Graven

The game made me rage-quit a couple of times. But that is something you should never do. When you quit, enemies respawn. And your valuable ammo does not.
The fight with the Archivist boss instead of being fun felt mostly annoying. The boss can pass through walls, has a ranged attack that kills you in two hits. And another attack which slowly drains your health, apparently? I couldn’t figure out how it works, and the game doesn’t explain it properly. And it can kill you as soon as you respawn. Sounds like fun?
Not as “fun” as backtracking without a map and with tons of respawned enemies. Funny enough, judging by the few game guides, there was a map at some point, until it was removed.
Inadvertently I finished the first episode. I expected that I’d be able to finish some quests, as meaningless as they are, but I was thrown right into the second one.
I rarely drop games, but I think for Graven, I’ll make an exception. Which is a shame, I did enjoy the art style. But the lack of saves, a map, and a combination of too many enemies and not enough ammo, coupled with some bugs ruined it for me.

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*.BAK

Eureka Mignon Libra coffee grinder

I wanted a grind-by-weight coffee grinder since I bought my first coffee grinder, Compak K3 some 7 years ago. At the time, there was only Baratza Sette 270Wi. Strangely, seven years later, there aren’t many choices either: either same 270Wi or Eureka Mignon Libra. There are mixed opinions regarding Baratza’s connical burrs design and it’s ability to grind for espresso. So, I decided to give Eureka a chance.
First few impressions:
Tiny. With the hopper, it is as tall as K3 without one, and much shorter. The feel if very compact.
Sharp edges. Compak is all round. The machine is round cone, the hopper is a round “hat”. Eureka is all angles, so sharp I almost cut myself getting it out of the box.
Smooth and clean. Eureka is known for making very quiet coffee grinders. While not very important for me, it is noticeably quieter. What was far more important for me, and one of the reasons I finally decided to get a new grinder, is the clumps and distribution. In the meantime, the coffee is clumpless, and comes out as in the videos, in an even stream. That also means that despite me not getting my funnel yet, it doesn’t leave as much mess as Compak does.
Now, I still haven’t dialed the grind, simply because I didn’t want to waste coffee. So maybe it will get clumps once I grind finer. We’ll see soon enough.

Categories
PC Gaming

Graven

I expected Hexen 2 or maybe Heretic 2, but it feels more like Strife, with a proper town to explore, or even Arx Fatalis, as you expected to throw boxes around and burn wooden planks with fire spells.
It only takes a few hits for you to fall. Unreal was also quite unforgiving, but at least there was a save/load option. Here, I died a couple of times because I didn’t understand that there’s a lot of stuff that can blow up. Not just red barrels, but also red crates (no, they don’t contain ammo) and what I considered some altars, and turned out to be piles of tar. When you die, you lose some money.
Flying enemies are a bane in most FPS games. But here, they are tiny, hard to hit, almost black, and have an AoE attack that kills you in a couple of hits.

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*.AVI

Succession S01

Completed first season of Succession.
It became my “flight series”, as I could watch it during takeoff and landing from my phone, as there isn’t much in terms of visuals.
Interesting how a story can be hyper-realistic and absurd at the same time. Kind of like Breaking Bad, I guess. But not as bad.
There are not a single character with redeeming qualities in those series. And no clear morals.
Does it make sense to continue buying cable stations, or should the company pivot? Is it immoral to sell family business, if the business is run by a demented tyrant, Logan? Would his weak son, Kendal, be a better alternative? Maybe by the end of the series there will be some conclusive answers. But that’s not a course in company management, after all.

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*.AVI

Big Short

I didn’t expect to enjoy it so much. Christian Bale and the guy from Blade Runner are great, but there is also the guy from Midnight Mass, and hilariously Kendal from Succession . And the evil guy from Umbrella Academy. Damn, I forgot the Umbrella Academy.
Breaking the 4th wall, led by Ryan Gosling, is something that movie does hilariously well.
The general tone reminded me of Dopesick, though. Everyone was “just doing their job”, “playing a system just a little”, and it all ended up in a huge disaster. But nobody paid the price for it. Except us, of course.

Categories
PC Gaming

Unto The End

Completed Unto The End.
I think that there’s a fine line between being vague and obscure. At some points you’re asked to make an offering or a trade, and it’s not clear what exactly is expected. I guess I guessed luckily and assembled a Wanderer’s Totem, that let me past the “Ancient One”. But I have no idea what would have happened otherwise.

One annoying bit is that the game has frequent checkpoints, but it doesn’t allow you to revert to the last one. The only option is to start the game from the very beginning. And sometimes you do get in an unfavorable situation, like not being able to see your enemies behind obstacles or losing your last torch, stumbling in darkness, unable to progress or die.

Some fights felt like too much guesswork for me too. In those case, you’d be lucky to have a spare spear. And I just ran past some of the enemies. Often they’ll leave you alone if you do.
Only on the last boss I discovered that there’s a setting to slow down fights. To my defence, I didn’t know it’s the last boss either. It’s not graceful, as it slows everything, including character movement. Luckily, the boss is quite fair and takes only a few hits to go down.

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PC Gaming

Unto the End

This is an interesting mix. Minimalistic interface, slow moving character and traps resemble a limboid. But there are fighting mechanics, with telegraphing enemies, resembling soulslike.

Desktop-Screenshot-2024-01-25-21-42-17-53

But then there’s no visible stamina, and no penalty for death, no bloodstains. There are campfires, though. There’s also roll vs block mechanic, but here the game adds something I haven’t seen in this genre, although it appears in fightings: high and low blocks. Every enemy telegraphs a chain of high and low attacks, and if you block all of them, you can riposte.

Desktop-Screenshot-2024-01-25-22-33-47-96
One nice detail is that you can upgrade your armor by collecting different junk, and it changes your appearance slightly.

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*.BAK

Loch Lomond Spearhead Whiskey,

2nd taster from the Advent Calendar.

https://www.masterofmalt.com/whiskies/spearhead/spearhead-whisky/

I guessed right that it’s 30GBP whiskey. It doesn’t smell of anything but alcohol to me, and doesn’t taste like much. If I was told it’s an Irish whiskey, I would probably believe it.

Categories
PC Gaming

Chorus

Completed Chorus.
It’s quite a spectacular game, in the most direct sense. You’d rarely see more magnificent space battles as the backdrop of your exploits.
The final battle with “the Dragon” can get overwhelming a bit: swarms of nanomachines, space rays, and meteorites (what?) flying at you from all directions, while you need to chase the ever-rotating serpent. But thanks to checkpoints, it never gets to the point of being truly annoying.

Chorus-2024-01-22-22-08-18-02-mp4-000534-449
The story is exactly what you’d expect: a Mass Effect, gather everyone together the beat the Cosmic Evil kind of story. But it’s well executed, in a classic sense.
Funny that although at the beginning, the game tried to force you to switch between weapons, by the end you can do fine with just the minigun.
And the final episode where you just spear through frigates is again, just spectacular.

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Categories
*.DOC

Looking Glass War, John le Carre

This is almost a satire. Instead of the almost omnipotent Circus from the previous books, the story focuses on another bureau, which is a complete opposite. Where agents carry their real documents with them on a mission, tell state secrets to their families, forget important backstory facts and mostly worry if they’ll be reimbursed for the taxi they took to the office.
Also, this may be a critique to British methods do act as if it’s still WWII, including using outdated and complicated WWII communication devices, because “people are used to them”.
As usual with Le Carre, the preparation to the operation is eighty percent of the book, while the operation itself, if it can be called it, is maybe ten percent.
The book is even more vague what is fact and what is fiction than some other novels, which is interesting. It is never clearly explained who killed Taylor, was the film real or just a setup. And probably that was never the point. As there are also no significant outcomes either, despite the obvious setup by the Circus to the Department, the later seem to continue functioning.

Categories
Hardware

HiFiMan Sundara

The irony of life. I wanted open-backed headphones for years now, since I tried Shure 1840 on. But I wasn’t buying them, because my PC was in the main room. But for the last 2 years, it’s in my bedroom. But I still didn’t buy them. Until now.
Basically everyone recommends Sundara. So I finally got them.
The pack is not just minimalistic, it’s dingy. Brown cardboard with some tape, just the headphones and cable inside.
Sennheiser is known to have proprietary double-side connections. HiFiMan just uses double 3.5mm jacks.
My Shure 1540 aren’t low-end by any means. But there’s just some benefits for open-backed headphones, I guess. Water in the background of “Bad Liar” is like someone actually left a tap in the kitchen open.

Categories
PC Gaming

Chorus

The soundtrack of this game is just amazing.

As you get more skills, the game becomes more fluent and less annoying. The enemies that have impenetrable shields and set dozens of mines around them fall prey to the Jedi-lightning.
Despite the game having only three types of weapons, they still managed to have some variety with them. Miniguns can be replaces with slug throwers, which are slower, but pack more punch. And there’s an entire quest line dedicated to getting the Werewolf missile launcher and its upgrades, which, unlike other missile launchers, allows to ready a salvo of hard-hitting missiles.
There are a few annoying episodes. First is when you need to fight Faceless Swarms in a tight cave. You are expect to do so by spearing through them, but doing so in a cave is not the best of ideas.
Then when you replay Rasar’s memory, but without Rites. Dogfights without Jedi tricks in this game can be though.

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PC Gaming

Diablo 4

Just as I complained that I’m not getting any orange drops, I got my first proper orange drop. And a bow at that.
I feel that there’s a lot of backtracking for a modern game in Diablo 4. Maybe that’s intentional, or maybe I’m missing something, but I often couldn’t jump to the dungeon entrance, like with the “cerberus” dungeon, or back to the quest-giver, like with the “druid on a tree”. Sometimes you have to mow through the same mobs again. Sometimes you’re just walking the empty halls. Both doesn’t add anything to the game experience.

Diablo-IV-20240110212016
Around level 30, end of Act 2, the game becomes a slump. The monsters are getting more and more meaty, but your gear doesn’t scale with them. And that “orange” bow you picked a few levels ago is now doing same DPS as the “blue” drops.
Also, because it’s an open-world game, and the monsters simply level up with you, there’s this discrepancy that you just defeated The Guardian of Cathedral of Hatred, but then you fell victim to a porcupine.

Diablo-IV-20240112203554-mp4-001342-627
Ironic that the one of the best written quests is also annoying to complete. The sad story about the Goose Sign, I mean.

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Categories
Hardware

Samsung QN94A

Something I started noticing while playing Diablo 4 on my QN94A TV is that the colours are messed up when I enter a new location, but then they slowly fix themselves.
At first I thought it’s the dynamic contrast feature. But after some experimentation, it turned out to be the Local Dimming.
Luckily, the TV stores separate configurations for different inputs, so I just turned Local Dimming off for PS4.

Categories
*.BAK Hardware

Headphone drivers economics

I didn’t expect it, but the dive into the economics behind picking the right headphone driver was fascinating.

The smaller companies don’t produce planar drivers because they’re hip. They produce them because those are cheaper to prototype, and cheaper to produce in small quantities.
The larger companies don’t produce dynamic drivers because History. They produce them because it’s cheaper at scale.

Categories
PC Gaming

Diablo 3 a Cautionary Tale 12 Years of Development Hell, Indigo Gaming

I wasn’t much interested in Diablo 3 when it was announced, as I didn’t even play the Lord of Destruction at the time. So to me all the promises and changes are fascinating, especially as I know the final product well enough.
Even more interesting that some things that they promised in Diablo 3 were actually later implemented in Diablo 4.