LIFESTYLE Newsletter Vol. 5 No. 8
Nick’s LIFESTYLE Newsletter Vol. 5 No. 8
I was made into a Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game character. Zach captured my key attributes and skills accurately.
THIS IS AN INTRODUCTION
Hello again everyone. It's been a few weeks. Weeks where I had to be a weirdo driving to the gas station in my WIND POWERED ROCKET CAR to purchase fuel for my snowthrower. Literally the only gas powered thing I own (but I do have a 50% stake in Melonie's dino juice Prius C). Weeks of knowing the democrats will fuck everything up and being proven partially wrong.
- BIG TIME NEWS. Perhaps most other readers of the LIFESTYLE knew this lifehack, but my mind was BLOWN OPEN a few weeks ago when I was out celebrating my favorite holiday, Colonial Day (a Battlestar Galactica reference--not celebrating oppression, genocide and exploitation), with some FRIENDS OF THE LIFESTYLE and one of them asked for a SAMPLE. The waitress was completely unfazed by this request and showed up with a small glass. WHAT?!?!?! You can just go into a bar and ask for a sample? Next time I need some tequila to marinade chicken, I'm just driving up to Eagan Public Arms and asking for a sample. Why buy a whole bottle?
- In part 27 of our on going series on AI art, FRIEND OF THE LIFESTYLE Seppy has recently been posting some amazing articles on the use of AI art in the gaming hobby. This article in particular: AI Art for Games - You should be using AI art NOW! really ties together the feelings of wonderment I have for AI art with the early internet days. It showed me something I could feel, but not see. Check it out and read all the other articles too!
- In follow-up to last issue: Japanese people cannot read cursive either. BECAUSE IT IS DUMB.
video, click to watch
- The DEBUT of a new section: MANDATORY FUN BUCKS MANDATORY UPDATE in this issue!
- You have reached the end of my bullets this time. It's my day off and I want to go finish Deathloop. You're welcome.
THIS IS THE END OF THE INTRODUCTION.
3 THINGS THIS WEEK.
ITEM THE FIRST:
SHOCKING ADVENTURES IN VR:
I continue to explore the joy of VR (when done right) and I've found an unintentional error I made during setup has had MAJOR RAMIFICATIONS.
During the initial setup using stupid Windows Mixed Reality, it glosses over the fact you need to calibrate your height. I never did that. I was watching a video about SUPERHOT VR that showed the person playing picking something up off the ground. I couldn't do that! Down the internet rabbit hole I find the thing I need to do to calibrate the height and BOOM, I'm picking plates up off the floor.
HOWEVER...now in every game I am constantly reminded how short I am. Playing Half-Life 2 in VR, the desks are waist high, door knobs are chest height and everything is off. It is obvious they calibrated these experiences for someone of average height. Do I live this TALL PERSON LIE so I'm not dwarfed by office furniture or do I live my authentic self and just realize my ironic limitation of being closer to the floor ensures I cannot actually touch it (virtually)? ANY OPINIONS?
Now to the shocking and not related part...
You may or may not know, the main reason I have short hair and don't wear synthetic fibers is due to how often I get shocked especially in the winter (also living my best BIBLICAL LIFE--Leviticus 19:19, bitches).
I have a sit/stand desk with a nice memory controller. I was at work on my standing mat, wearing my very fashionable Crocs and hit the button to lower my desk and ZAAAAAPPPP. I heard a pop, felt my brain get tingly and saw the display was out on the controller. I did this same thing to our treadmill years ago. FUCK. Thankfully I only killed the controller, not the motors and since Melonie has the exact same model, I was able to plug hers in to control the desk. I contacted fully and unfortunately, the desk is 8 years old and they don't have the memory controllers any more, so I couldn't get an exact replacement. I now have a TOUCHING PROTOCOL for interacting with the desk that involves using a plastic pen to touch the button instead of my finger.
Also, if you were curious about why Melonie is the best:
ITEM THE SECOND:
NO, THESE ARE NOT SWEATPANTS, THEY ARE BANANA REPUBLIC AUTHENTIC SUPIMA® LOUNGE PANTS:
I've crossed the rubicon. Based on the summer of loving life and living my best LINEN LIFESTYLE wearing linen pants at work everyday, I decided I wanted that level of comfort in my winter season too. However, linen is good, but not great in winter so I was on the search for leisure wear that allowed me to maintain the veneer of self-respect. Thankfully, Banana Republic came to the rescue with a 100% cotton option that even uses fancy SUPIMA® cotton, so they can charge your more and you don't feel like a slub who hates their job and wears sweatpants to their conference calls. Thank you GAP marketing department.
ITEM THE THIRD:
NEWS BITES:
Just a few things I've read lately that I wanted to share:
- Have you heard about the Minnesota Reformer? It is an independent news source that is almost like a co-op with Reformers in a bunch of other states. They definitely skew left, but they cover a lot of stories at a community level and have had some good investigative pieces. Give it a look and sign up for their daily newsletter, I'm enjoying it more than MPR's lately. Then if you like it, donate to support actually local non-corporate news.
- I would like to call out this commentary as well: On reading about the Rwandan genocide 28 years later. I studied this genocide for 16 weeks exclusively as part of my undergrad degree and the author is right on with some of the parallels and the reminder that we aren't so far away from it here.
- The Age of Social Media Is Ending. I really enjoyed this Atlantic article and this paragraph in particular really put into words something I have long thought about and drove me off Facebook years ago:
Something may yet survive the fire that would burn it down: social networks, the services’ overlooked, molten core. It was never a terrible idea, at least, to use computers to connect to one another on occasion, for justified reasons, and in moderation (although the risk of instrumentalizing one another was present from the outset). The problem came from doing so all the time, as a lifestyle, an aspiration, an obsession. The offer was always too good to be true, but it’s taken us two decades to realize the Faustian nature of the bargain. Someday, eventually, perhaps its web will unwind. But not soon, and not easily.
- I find this fascinating to no end: Toledo City Council passes medical debt relief ordinance. So, Toledo, Ohio is partnering with RIP Medical Debt to buy a bunch of citizens medical debt for pennies on the dollar. On one hand, that is great and an amazing use of funds to help reduce the burden. On the other hand, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING? Brilliant idea from me...SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. No more worries about medical debt. As someone who had multiple encounters with the health care system this year and owed between $1,000-$23,000 depending on the day, who billed, who submitted and who asked, WHAT A SHIT SHOW.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (please mark "ok to print"):
None. I miss your correspondence.
MANDATORY FUN BUCKS MANDATORY UPDATE:
In October, I spent my LAVELY MANDATORY FUN BUCKS on:
- Full-sized candy bars for all 30 trick-or-treaters that came to our door. I've ALWAYS wanted to be that person, guess it just took giving my self permission to spend $23 on that dream.
- Expedited shipping for an Amazon.jp order. I shaved 5 days off my wait for fancy Japanese pitchers. THEY ARE AMAZING.
- Tony Hawk DVDs. To celebrate my purchase of THPS 1+2 Remastered, I bought all 3 seasons of Tony Hawk's Gigantic Skatepark Tour on DVD. I used to own these and lost them when my server died years ago. Peak 2001-2003 skateboarding action.
- 2 books. To support the author of a website, I purchased ePubs of these: Wii U Architecture and Xbox 360 Architecture. These are technical deep-dives on system architecture and I've enjoyed his writing for years. I'll probably buy the whole series at some point since they are cheap and I can fill gaps in my spending with them. Also, SUPPORT THINGS YOU LOVE.
- Another Doomtree Hoodie. I was very conflicted about this one since Doomtree is pretty dormant now and I literally owned this exact same hoodie, but I had to get rid of it since it was falling apart. At the end of it, I just really support the sentiment of No Kings and the iconic Cecil Otter logo.
FAVORITE THING TO GO IN MY EARHOLES THIS WEEK:
I have two this week.
Planet Money (one of my favorite podcasts) did a 2 (currently) part series on starting a record label using a track by Sugar Daddy and the Gumbo Roux called "Inflation." It was written and recorded during the 70's when inflation was peaking by a bunch of studio musicians. Most of them went on to great success, including Randy Jackson (yes, Melonie, THAT Randy Jackson), but the lead singer did not. They document the quest to form a record label and get the music on streaming services so the lead singer, Earnest Jackson, could make some money from it. The podcast series is fascinating (part 1 here).
The song is a legit banger tho. Sugar Daddy and the Gumbo Roux - Inflation. Give it a stream so Earnest can get that $0.0001 from you.
The second was something I discovered while I was trying to find a live performance of the best Smashing Pumpkins song, Soma. Here is a video of Billy Corgan playing Soma on a piano in his cafe/record/curiosity store in Illinois:
video, click to watch
THIS IS THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER
I REMEMBER THE DAYS OF BLAZERS AND FRENCH CUFFS AND I MISS THEM.
I REMEMBER THE DAYS OF SLACKS AND DRY CLEANING AND I MISS THEM.
I NO LONGER GO INTO THE OFFICE. I DON'T MISS THAT.
THAT IS ALL.