LIFESTYLE Newsletter Vol. 8 No. 7
Nick’s LIFESTYLE Newsletter Vol. 8 No. 7
THIS IS AN INTRODUCTION
Hello again everyone. It's been a few weeks. Settling into a roughly six week cadence for our time together. Weeks of seeing my favorite Beatles cover band yet again. Weeks of biking 100k. Weeks of not being successful at counting. Weeks of celebrating book launches and the amazing creative people in my life. Weeks of seeing the amazing things tax dollars can do in beautiful liberal states, when they are not being defrauded. Weeks of having some real fucking feelings about good buds trotting on to another country.
Fuck yeah sharks! Scientists catch a shark threesome on camera
You know sometimes when you read a book and you just feel seen? I had that experience with autism and Camp Damascus by one of the authors in the top picture. I also felt seen reading this passage from the other author in the top picture, AND I QUOTE: “Really long-winded posts. He starts using all caps on random words—God, I hate that.” I AM SEEN.
Absolutely fascinating and compelling article about euthanasia in GLORIOUS CANADA with a gift link (because I figured that out!): Canada is Killing Itself. It is an argument that would get so insane in the states.
I was listening to an episode of the great podcast by parasocial friend Alex, Hyperfixed. Episode name: Third Eye Blind. They were discussing aphantasia (being unable to visualize things, see Vol. 7 No. 6. I learned two interesting things: 1) People with aphantasia have less empathy because they cannot visualize things but also 2) As a result, they rarely have PTSD since they cannot visualize the trauma repeatedly. You win some, you lose some.
We finished Nathan Fielder’s epic The Rehearsal Season 2 and wow. That last episode is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen in my life. I WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT, BUT SPOILERS. Yes, it is such an absurd and ridiculous show at times, but the lengths he went through and his absolutely valid concerns about pilots, communication and mental health make this a perfect blend of entertainment and education.
Two weeks ago at parkrun, I had my absolute best run ever. I crushed it. It was a beautiful morning, I had a strong start and I was just enjoying the shit out of the NPR meets video gaming podcast that I listen to every Saturday, Post Games. It was not until after I had crossed the finish line, was laying on the grass and recovering that I looked up and realized I was first! Which means something is wrong, because I’m more like 14-20th. I was so into my podcast and feeling so good about my pace, that after the 2nd lap I just went into the finish chute instead of going another lap, like a dumdum. Apparently counting to three was too much that Saturday.
If you were thinking what would make train video games even cooler, obviously mashing it up with Tony Hawk Pro Skater moves. Ever seen a train kick flip? Denshattack!
This is my perfect intersection of weird, niche things done on an absurd scale + CATS!
ITEM THE FIRST:
I SEE THE VANTAGE OF MYST: The new board game, Vantage, is something I have been following for YEARS. The premise is that you have crash landed on a planet and everything else is up to you. Want to find aliens and attack them? Want to try to learn their language? Want to find your ship and see if you can put it back together to escape? Whatever you want, do it (mostly).
The designer said he was heavily inspired by BEST GAME EVER, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and the game features like 800 locations which you can literally map out into a sphere to create a complete world with hundreds of interactions and mysteries. The audacity of design is off the charts. It is not competitive. It is co-operative only in the sense that you can talk with your other team members, but you will likely never run into them on the planet. There is an objective of sorts for every game, but you can find side quests and side games. If you complete the objective, great. If you don’t, great. There is no real win or loss.
It is revolutionary and the boldest thing I’ve seen coming out of board gaming in at least five years. I’m very curious to see in another five years what derivatives people create based on it.
The box for it includes over 1500 cards, several books (but you can use a website/app instead of the books). I think you could legitimately play this for 100 hours and still be discovering new things and unlocking the mystery. Even if you are not a board gamer, but enjoy open world video games, this might be your jam. Pick it up at BEST GAME STORE, Tower Games.
All of that being said, we ended up selling our copy after about 15 hours of play. All of the above is true, but I found it to be less Breath of the Wild and more Myst. I played Myst when it came out in 1993. I was lucky to have a CD-ROM drive years before they were mainstream. It was fine. Myst, for those who have avoided it, was treated as the pinnacle of technology/gaming for a while. It was compelling for the time and the technology, but essentially was a very interactive slide show. Want to go left? Click left, new screen loads. Want to go forward? Click up, new screen loads. There was no free navigation. That is the sense I got in Vantage and what drove me a bit crazy.
I would get a tip or something to head towards a cave in the northeast. Move North, Move North, Move North, Move East? It is almost impossible to navigate to a specific place in a quick fashion, especially if you are not taking detailed notes (WHICH I WAS, graph paper and all).
In Breath of the Wild or Horizon: Zero Dawn, you have towers, hills or mountains you can climb to get a vantage. You have them here too. I climbed a tower and got to look at a vantage of the section I was in. What is different in the video games is generally you can pin a location visually at best or at worst, you have a sense of scale/movement (i.e. that looks like it is about 500 ft from me). With the slideshow, you don’t get that. Is that first North move going 50 ft, then the next 50 ft or 150 ft? It’s not absolute. Video games also use lighting or other techniques to draw attention or to waypoint. On a tallneck in Horizon or Sheikah tower in Zelda, you can generally see indicators of civilization or people and judge where they are relative to you. I never knew how much I relied on that until playing Vantage.
Also, you are limited to one action per location (plus moving). Meaning if you have a goal to locate something, but the location you are on, you choose an action like “Learn” and maybe the action “Talk” would have given you the needed information, you are locked out for that session. I understand why they did this, otherwise people would just sit at a location and try all six actions on every location, but it has some side effects.
Ultimately it became frustrating because I’ve done this in a more fluid and dynamic way, by playing Zelda. The last game Melonie and I played, ended up being a six hour game split across multiple nights because we were just fully stated up, past starting stats for hours but running in circles trying to find things. It was like being on God mode, but at a slideshow.
I write none of this to discourage you from trying Vantage, it is truly an artistic standout in board gaming, worth every bit of praise it gets. I’ve just found over the years playing board games, there are somethings that are better as videos games and some things that are better as board games.
ITEM THE SECOND:
SPACE PIRATES? SURE BUDDY: A little brain cleanse after the above, but I played EVERY SINGLE 2D Metroid game in August, except for GOTY 2021, Metroid Dread.
Overall, it was a good time. Even better because a lot of the early ones have been remade. Unpopular opinion, but old games kinda suck. I rented Metroid from Mr. Movies for my NES in 1987. I’ve done my time. Would I rather play a remake with much better control, a map system, a save system and rooms to refill health and weapons instead of grinding for 30 mins. YES PLEASE.
Overall, Metroid Dread is still my favorite, but Metroid: Zero Mission (a remake of the original Metroid) and Metroid: Samus Returns (a remake of Metroid 2) were the best. Metroid: Fusion was close behind. Play those three plus Metroid Dread and call it a day. YOU CAN SKIP SUPER METROID, that is my hot take. Enjoying reading the discussion section after that fire.
ITEM THE THIRD:
SLOP AND BRAINROT: As someone literally forced to use Microsoft Copilot every business day, I’ve grown even more disillusioned about AI. Having it ingest documents and asking it questions about them yields the right answer sometimes. Sometimes. Having it write an email removes all traces of personality. Asking it to plan something yields some good ideas, but nothing cohesive.
Seeing others reply back with the same kinda right, kinda wrong, no personality emails is killing the company I work for. I spend just as much time verifying what someone says is correct because they assumed it was right because the AI wrote it. Not excited to look at my 401k when this bubble pops.
I highly recommend this article, The defense against slop and brainrot, and found this quote especially applicable in today’s world:
The resistance training nobody talks about isn't happening in gyms—it's happening in the space between stimulus and response, in the choice between easy and excellent, in the daily decision to build strength instead of just borrowing it.
Related to that was a great issue of the twice weekly newsletter, Tedium - Snip Snip. Ernie talks about how having the search engine provide AI summaries for everything is killing curiosity (emphasis mine):
…You could have landed on this profile of Morrissey’s Viva Hate that ran in Billboard a few years back, perhaps this Rolling Stone listicle that mentions some of Morrissey’s best moments. And maybe you might have had a laugh at this Variety piece that discusses how mad Morrissey is at Johnny Marr for torpedoing a Smiths reunion.
But no. You stopped as soon as you hit Google, and saw that “Suedehead” is on Bona Drag and Viva Hate. Google satiated your knowledge—but it killed your curiosity.
(Quick plug for Kagi, an amazing search engine without the AI bullshit and with cool features and privacy! I have gift codes if you want to try it.)
I think that is one of the things that is unsettling to me in a way I just wasn’t able to put into words. Perhaps it is my librarian nature, but this curiosity is what makes you grow and push beyond your perceived limits. Being able to discern the quality of information is perhaps the most important skill to have right now and to outsource that thinking to an AI is a terrible idea.
Tangentially related is social media. Listening to an episode of another great podcast, Search Engine, title of “A Dubai Chocolate theory of the internet” the guest, Ryan Broderick, was able to contextualize TikTok in a way that helped me finally understand it. Not like it, but understand it. I won’t spoil it, I’ll make you listen to the whole thing because it is so good.
Related, was this article from Wired (or 404 Media if you have a subscription): Chinese ‘Virtual Human’ Salespeople Are Outperforming Their Real Human Counterparts. Just wild seeing a live AI reacting in real-time to comments.
Also, I agree completely: Study: Social media probably can’t be fixed.
ITEM THE FOURTH:
ON TOP OF THE WORLD OF SHIT. For years and years I have had my eye on one community education program that Dakota County offers. I’ve tried to get time off or hope it would line up with my schedule and it never has until now. I was finally able to go on TOUR DE TRASH. TdT is an all-day excursion on a bus with other trash nerds and old people to several facilities in the area, all for $10!
We started at Republic Services (a trash hauler) that has a small sized recycling processing center. They do a lot of paper and some plastics. We got to see a nice PR presentation then watched the magic happen.
After that we went to The Mulch Store, which has a ton of composting going on in these 200 ft long rows, 10 ft wide that are like 140˚F. I have never seen so many seagulls and bald eagles in my life. The gulls were getting ready to migrate and the bald eagles were supervising. No rodent problems there AT ALL. We learned all about composting at the industrial scale and bathed in the air of decay.
Next stop was the Waste Management landfill in Burnsville. Holy shit. It is over 1000 ft high. We had to drive about 15 minutes to summit it. It was like going up a mountain on a narrow, rocky road winding around it. It is one of the most awe-inspiring things I have ever seen and that is not a compliment. Just incredible knowing you are on top of 143 Foshay Towers worth of garbage produced in the last 56 years. I haven’t felt such a sense of hopelessness since November 2024.
Last stop was my hang place, The Recycle Zone—The premier location to drop off hazardous waste in Dakota County. It was closed for the day, so we got a nice personal tour of it. Got to see how they organize everything and how/where they send things for further processing. Did you know it costs about $150 to recycle a can of bear spray? Happy to pay for that with my taxes over a missile, though.
Overall, it was worth the wait. I learned a lot! I highly recommend it. I’ve stuck $10 in peoples clothing and gotten a lot less out of it. Next tour is Spring!
A few takeways:
Reduce is by far the most important of the Three R’s
Lithuim batteries are the bane of everyone’s existence. People throw them out, or don’t even know they are in items. The batteries are extremely flammable when punctured. Every day a Li-ion battery catches fire in a facility. Even the smallest fires require thousands of gallons of water to extinguish.
We can’t recycle black plastic in Dakota County because the optical sorters cannot tell the difference between the plastic and the black conveyor belt. Changes are coming though!
It is very important to break down boxes and paper. The first sorting that happens is basically a 2D vs 3D sorting.
It is important to rinse your plastic. Don’t need it to be clean, but the first pass of rinsing helps the machines not break down.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (please mark "ok to print"):
None. I miss your correspondence.
FAVORITE THING TO GO IN MY HOLES THIS WEEK:
TWO THINGS!
Obviously the new novel, THE WHISPER PLACE, by FAMOUS AWARD WINNING AUTHOR Mindy Mejia has been wonderful and I FEEL SEEN for once in her books. I know ALL LIFESTYLE readers have read the previous books in the trilogy, so no need to sell you on those as well.
The other thing was this Tiny Desk Concert by PinkPantheress. She kills it without the auto-tune!
The last month has been an embarrassment of riches musically. I can’t wait to dig into the year end review BUT WE STILL HAVE 3 MONTHS! If you are like “music sucks now” you just are not trying. Stop getting fucked by an algorithm, do the resistance training and find some of the amazing new music out there! I can be your sherpa if you need one.
THIS IS THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER
The LIFESTYLE Newsletter, authored by Nick, is a personal newsletter that reflects his thoughts, experiences, and observations on various topics, often infused with humor and a conversational tone.
Nick's LIFESTYLE Newsletter serves as a platform for sharing his unique perspective on life, blending humor with personal storytelling. It resonates with readers who appreciate a casual yet thoughtful approach to everyday topics.
Oh, get fucked Copilot!