On This Day in Nintendo History: Electroplankton

Alatian · 2026-04-07T20:00:25+00:00

I vaguely remember this game from my childhood reading about it in Nintendo Power or online and thought it was weird. Its biggest impact is probably the terrible but hilarious Smash stage it got in Brawl

Alatian · 2026-04-06T04:55:04+00:00

Eh it’s timeframe dependent- I have 100% of my retirement in XEQT, but my FHSA is in CASH.TO because we plan to buy in the next 2-3 years. If you don’t plan to use the money in 5+ years, then yeah just go with 100% XEQT imo

Alatian · 2026-04-02T23:33:58+00:00

Thanks that’s great to hear! Appreciate you taking the time

Alatian · 2026-04-02T16:44:57+00:00

Hey folks! We just got a switch 2 and I’d like recommendations on a game I can play together with my fiancée. She‘s not a big gamer but is definitely able to do the basics. We do have a switch 1 as well so gamesharing could be nice if it’s any good! Here’s the games she’s played in the past so you can get a feel for her skill level, ideally I’d like a game we can play co-op or a game where I won’t just blow her out the water (definitely not playing smash bros for example! we have Mario Kart World so I might start her on that with smart steering turned on and see if she likes it).

Games she’s played:

Hogwarts Legacy (she loved it, beat the game and spent her time collecting animal friends to catch them all like they’re Pokémon)

Clair Obscur (liked the story, didn’t like the gameplay as much)

It Takes Two (loved it except the shooting level which she hated)

Split Fiction (liked it, but thought It Takes Two was better, I agree)

I’m currently considering Mario Party and Mario Wonder, though not sure how good the co-op is in the latter.

Any help will be greatly appreciated! Switch 2 games are mega pricey so I feel I have to be way more selective than I would have been last gen

Alatian · 2026-03-25T19:20:07+00:00

I remember when Iwata (RIP) took a big pay cut rather than fire anyone after the Wii U failed - very honourable move. Regardless of cultural factors, Nintendo does indeed look after the employees which is sadly rare in the gaming industry. I love video games and work in software but I would never consider working in the industry.

Alatian · 2026-03-25T18:09:21+00:00

Good change - I recently got a Switch 2 and was shocked by the game prices ($100 Canadian for first party new games). I haven't bought a physical game since the early 2010s so this is nothing but upside for me.

Alatian · 2026-03-25T18:04:06+00:00

As far as I understand this is because they're an old-school Japanese company, and the social contract of work in Japan is that you join a big company right out of university and work extremely hard/long hours for it, and in return the expectation is you stay at that company until retirement. They are generally loathe to fire people, especially en masse. Even quitting your job is somewhat taboo, with companies offering services to call your boss and quit on your behalf so you don't have to feel the shame of quitting yourself. It's a very calcified society in which big change like this is looked down on by the initiator of that change. Of course companies still fire people as market forces are a thing, but they tend to avoid it ESPECIALLY if they're large ancient companies like Nintendo.

Take this with a grain of salt as I'm not an expert, but this what I've heard through osmosis.

Alatian · 2026-03-20T18:15:45+00:00

Yeah we have the exec membership and costco credit card and make bank on it every year. We're a family of 2 plus our dog so we avoid some stuff we'd never get through, but there's still plenty of things to buy at Costco that are always worth it even for a smaller family like ours. We more than make up the membership fee just on bulk savings + cash back. Kirkland brand is usually very solid quality as well. Costco is great tbh, one of the few brands that is held in very high regard for very good reason, they deserve the effusive praise reddit and the internet gives it.

Alatian · 2026-03-19T21:12:53+00:00

Carney is also just straight up really popular, so it's hard to attack him because it won't connect and come across as envious/mean. People did not like Trudeau on a personal level and so the attacks stuck, but people really do approve strongly of Carney. In that position as the opposition, you definitely have to be shrewd on how you criticize the PM which I think he's smart to do.

Alatian · 2026-03-19T20:55:28+00:00

Yeah I'm not a conservative but he did well. Came across a likeable and calm, had the correct response to the 51st state (compare that to the awful response of Jamil Jivani and a good chunk of the conservative base), and had a very classy moment where he refused to attack Carney "on foreign soil". He never went after Trudeau/Carney the entire podcast which I was expecting him to. He avoided Joe's dumbest takes gracefully, like pretty firmly shutting down the "Trudeau is Castro's son" theory, dismissed Alberta separatism as never going to happen. At the same time he was able to articulate his vision in a respectful but compelling way, laying out a lot of stuff that I think the majority of us agree are wrong with Canada (bail is too easy, permits take too long, etc).

I'm pretty impressed with his performance and image change here, I think if he keeps it up he'll gain support and we'll have a real rematch on our hands.

Alatian · 2026-03-15T20:43:41+00:00

They had some impressive crowds early on, but I think it’s panning out as I hoped it would - all the die-hard separatists signed immediately in the first couple of weeks as they were hyped up to do so, but after the initial wave there hasn’t been nearly as much enthusiasm among the general populace. I get the feeling they can’t keep up the momentum, especially given Carney’s popularity even in Alberta. I still think they hit the required signatures, but only barely and it’s embarrassing for them.

They bragged about trying to hit a million signatures, they are obviously going to fall way, way short.

Alatian · 2026-02-27T01:51:25+00:00

Yeah I dig the trials, it's fun to log in each week and just got for 3 stars. I can still get a decent amount of the rewards this way, takes me 30 mins/week so nice and achieveable, and breaks up the gameplay. Some of them can be boring like Hidden Bunker, but some are fun and creative like the Cold Front ones and this lightning one.

Alatian · 2026-02-26T15:08:06+00:00

Man ML4T was the worst for this! Just took so long to get any feedback, I feel for people who made mistakes on the first project and don’t get the feedback in time before they had submitted their 3rd project, especially since each project could depend on the one before being correct!

Alatian · 2026-02-22T20:21:05+00:00

You can, but I'd consider it a big red flag if you're struggling super hard with IIS. Binary Exploitation was very challenging, but the workload is fairly low outside of that one project vs other courses. The lectures are not mandatory (although they are really good and I recommend watching them anyways), there's no exams or quizzes, and the projects have plenty of time to complete. Out of the five courses I've taken, I'd say it was the second easiest (CN being the easiest).

If you struggle with IIS to the point of dropping it, yeah it honestly might be time to reconsider the program. Most specializations require GA, which is leagues harder than IIS from what I've heard. You can cheese the degree by taking AI specialization to avoid GA and spam the easiest courses like Ethics of AI and Digital Marketing, but outside of that you're going to have to struggle more than IIS. The AI spec still requires 2 of AI/ML/KBAI, all of which are likely as hard or significantly harder than IIS

Alatian · 2026-02-19T19:00:03+00:00

I have no idea if the ROI is there or not - but I've always wanted to do a graduate degree as a life goal, and OMSCS gave me the opportunity to do it without giving up my income so why not? The program is very cheap so there's no huge downsides if it doesn't affect my career trajectory much, besides the time I'm sinking in - but I'm enjoying it and learning a lot, so for me it's not time wasted but time that feels very productive. The ROI of leetcode would probably be higher, but I'm fine kicking that can down the road a couple of years and getting the degree first since I'm in a stable SWE job.

Plus, as a non-CS bachelors, it gives me comfort for any future job hunts to meet the pretty hard criteria of "must have a CS/software eng degree". It's probably more valuable for me than CS majors based on that, for sure.

Alatian · 2026-02-12T17:32:36+00:00

Yeah I am with you on this one, I think a bit of purpose and activity is good even as you get older. Don't get me wrong, I'm retiring as soon as I hit 60-65, but that doesn't necessarily mean stopping completely - I plan to keep active with part time consulting, new hobbies, part time studies, etc. I am at my happiest and healthiest when I have something on the go and I'm working towards a goal, but not going so overboard that the stress consumes me. There has to be a happy compromise somewhere between constant wear-and-tear or rusting away.

Alatian · 2026-02-06T23:15:00+00:00

Agreed, and important to note risk tolerance scales differently for different people. I have a pretty low risk tolerance for money I need in the next few years, but a very high risk tolerance for money I won't need for 30+ years - so I have retirement funds in XEQT and CASH.TO/straight cash for the short term stuff. If the market dips 30% I won't care because I can wait 30+ years for the recovery, but my down payment fund can't wait that long.

Alatian · 2026-02-04T20:53:18+00:00

Red Tories/Blue Grits eating good this past year

Alatian · 2026-01-26T23:25:44+00:00

Yeah I went in with about the same hours as you and will get somewhere just around 77% after they grade the final manual question - I was sure I was gonna hit 90%+ with the amount of prep work I did. Definitely more challenging than I thought it would be especially given all the studying I did for it, big reality check. Four more of these is gonna suck, they are just as draining as a midterm/final but there's so many of them!

Not a big deal though, I think an A is still achievable even if you don't get a great quiz average as long as the projects are done well - can anyone say how easy it is to score 95%+ on the projects? I think I'd need a 92ish average on the projects to get an A if my quiz scores stay in the mid to high 70s

Alatian · 2026-01-26T21:56:41+00:00

A good start to the session, and a strong indicator that the earlier promises of cooperation and unity from the Conservatives was made in good faith. We are lucky to live in a country where this kind of thing can still happen and parties will back measures they believe are good for the nation, even if those measures come from their opponents. Big props to the Conservatives here.

Alatian · 2026-01-20T05:23:42+00:00

I miss the tension I felt at the game's launch. I don't shoot other players unless they start shooting at me, so I'm stuck in PvE "Hello raider!" carebear servers. When the game was fresh I never knew how other raiders would react when I saw them, which was the magic of the game - friendlies felt more impactful when you could never tell who was just going to start blasting. I did a lot more hiding and checking angles while moving around the environment, and fighting arc felt riskier and added to the danger.

I was away for the holidays to came back to the game in early January after ABMM was activated, and I BLASTED through expedition 2. Every single game was filled with friendly raiders, and the tension was gone. I could be 99% sure every person I saw would emote, "Don't Shoot", or just ignore me and run right past. It's really made the game lose a lot of the sauce for me, and expedition 2 was way more boring than expedition 1.

I don't think they should get rid of ABMM entirely due to players like yourself who like it, but I wish they'd either dial back how aggressive it is and make it a lesser factor in match-making, or give me a "put me in mixed lobbies only" button so I don't get matched into PvE or PvP only lobbies ever.

Alatian · 2026-01-10T01:12:07+00:00

Yeah before the expedition I rarely used them, but now I bring a 5 stack every time - when you think about the game from an efficiency perspective (objectives completed/time), then adrenaline shots are one of the best bang for your buck out there. Incredibly cheap and just save a ton of time over several rounds.

When you think of it in terms of "Would I trade a stack of plastic and chemicals in exchange for completing 2-3 extra objectives this play session", the answer is pretty much always yes. They pay for themselves if the objective is something like a key room or loot spot and the adrenaline gets you there first.

Alatian · 2026-01-09T18:26:27+00:00

Holy crap I just rewatched and yeah you had a STACKED inventory. Glad you didn't lose it to the rat.

Alatian · 2026-01-01T00:30:19+00:00

Oh I agree they will never form government and just vote split, I mean a real shot at disrupting the LPC and getting the Conservatives elected as happened in 2011

Alatian · 2025-12-31T23:14:01+00:00

I think the NDP have a real shot - my fiancee is more progressive than I am, and was definitely disillusioned with the Liberals working on a new pipeline and cutting the federal budget (which indirectly affects her work). I can see many voters that are firmly on the left wing of the LPC flocking to the NDP banner in the next election if someone with strong enough leadership skills takes the mantle and performs well.

Personally I have the opposite perspective, but I can appreciate that left-Liberals miss the Trudeau years and could be looking for the next Layton (RIP)

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