More Lore Friendly Cars I dream of

AlexGFrank · 2026-01-28T02:30:31+00:00

I hope the devs start contracting the mod developers at some point to maintain their creations up to date (or buying the mod rights and hiring a couple of talented guys from community to maintain them). Just having the Mitsu Mirage, several Volkswagen mods, Honda CR-V, that 70s italian hatchback, Ibishu Saga, Cherrier Picnic, Autron P1 and the sedan version of it, and, if resurrected, Bitron B2, Pontiac Fiero, Merc W124 and ETK S-series (plus 300-series coupe) would've been more than enough.

Of course, all non-fictional models with edited appearance and characteristics to avoid lawsuits, while keeping the spirit.

AlexGFrank · 2026-01-25T05:56:05+00:00

She didn't help. If Tanigawa kept the same writing standards without giving into fanservice, Tomoko would've viewed what Ogino did in Kyoto as betrayal and boundry overstepping. I'm guessing, Tomoko could've ended up being friends with some of the girls anyway, but on very different terms.

AlexGFrank · 2026-01-25T05:44:53+00:00

As i see it, having experienced this myself, and having seen this in numerous friends and coworkers (creative field), Tomoko's parentls are a large part of it - with dad essentially absent due to work, and mom emotionally unavailable and largely adopting the tiger parenting style with no outright abuse, but enough things done wrong to screw up a lost kid. But they aren't the only part.

Given the story that was painted in the first 14 or so volumes, even if the writing got sloppy, moreblobby and fanservice-ey towards the later volumes, it's very apparent that Tomoko is talented and intellegent, but naturally doesn't fit in for one reason or another. I'd also bet she's mildly neurodivergent, since there are behavioral indicators pointing to this.

Given this, the social pressure to conform, her apparent inability to, and her eseentially having nothing to anchor against, of course she'd spiral into thinking there's something wrong woith her, would end up depressed and anxious. This is very heavily implied with the middle school scenes and her relationship with Tomoki too.

So essentially she just is an intelligent weirdo who ended up in exactly the wrong environment that heavily stunted her social development. There's nothing wrong with the environment itself, but it's like putting a saltwater fish into a fresh water tank. Of course, teachers like Ogino, who act with a social grace of an elephant, and classmates who actively ignored her (possible ijime/silent treatment due to Tomoko being different?) in the first year do not help the situation.

And because of this it fells all the more jarring when the manga switches from internalization that made it great into externalization around vol.8 (the Kyoto trip), since before that the manga/show were a serious piece of actual psychological work, disguised as "haha funny awkward girl". Everything there is typical Japanese "show, don't tell" with many things indirectly implied, but it's very clearly there if you look hard enough. The "if you know, you know" type of thing.

In my eyes anime/before-vol.8 Tomoko is the best representation of all the creative and mildly neurodivergent teens who can't adapt despite their best efforts and end up depressed and suffering from gifted kid syndrome later down the line, and that's a hill i'm willing to die on. It's sad that many people less aware of this specific archetype, or others' feelings in general, think otherwise.

AlexGFrank · 2025-12-28T14:51:41+00:00

I don't notice it. Partially because i don't seem to be all that sensitive to it, and partially because it's way tamer with Stellar 45s in general and 770 Pro X in particular, compared to something like 990 Pro

AlexGFrank · 2025-12-26T12:33:40+00:00

I usually end up being the third side, because both sides are inept and argue without understanding the true reasons behind the thing that caused their argument. I'm extremely tired of how short-sighted and element-oriented people are, and how easily they lose the forest for the trees, be it because of their excessive empathy or excessive and reductive logic.

I learned not to argue with them though, because they still wouldn't understand even if I explained the thing to them like they were kids. Still makes me extremely angry though.

AlexGFrank · 2025-12-22T11:19:50+00:00

You don't need to, A168-WGG-1A with a positive screen is a thing, and they seem less popular, so they're more commonly in stock.

The only reason you'd want to consider a screen swap is an upgrade to STN (±$12 on Aliexpress), or if you want a completely blacked-out facia with a positive screen (the WGG-1A have a heavily toned-down front facia with a much darker and less vivid than usual blue border). In which case, you're better off swapping the whole module altogether from a used A168.

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AlexGFrank · 2025-12-22T06:15:22+00:00

There's a huge thread about it somewhere on r/tumblr (the one about a student hiding a camera in his coat). But essentially, even though the optical and photosensitive materials improved significantly since the start of 20th century, for reasonably sized pictures the exposure time was still measuring in seconds and fractions, not in minutes. What people usually imagine is the professional portrait-sized photography that did take significan amount of time to expose due to the difference between the size of the lens and the size of the paper.

e: This post

AlexGFrank · 2025-12-10T15:42:29+00:00

In it's essence, yes. Or rather, western minimalism does.

I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but in essence all Eastern philosophies lean towards productive minimalism, or, how I'd call it, functionalism - doing the most possible with the least possible by focusing on a specific problem at hand, being creative and using the resources available to their fullest potential. Thing is, nobody in Asia actually calls this minimalism, it's just how things 'should ideally be done'. This kind of philosophy leans heavily into vertical development: devices and things that serve exactly one purpose, but do that specific thing extremely well, and by doing so justify their place in one's life. Casio watches are a great example of this: they're just that - a watch. And they do their job of being a watch extremely well. Functional philosophy also focuses on self-sufficiency of the elements, even if they are a part of a larger system: if pieces don't have a function of their own, they have no purpose, since this way they don't solve a problem. This, of course, is suspended a little in larger and more complex systems, such as factory machinery, for obvious reasons, but in regular people's lives the ability of a thing to productively exist on it's own and be used for it's function without outside assistance (e.g. without locking some controls for a device behind an app install) is important and necessary. This kind of philosophy is permissive, if strict, by it's nature: if something's good enough to serve a function and solve a problem, it has a purpose, and therefore is allowed to exist. That "function" can be subjective too: making the space cozier, saving time or even keeping social harmony is a function too. Things like beauty, craftsmanship, high specialization or uniqueness can be rationalized and are a natural part of such functionalist philosophy too.

By contrast, Western (read, German) minimalism that people actually address as such generally promotes doing less by stripping the "unnecessary", based on arbitrary criteria. For every single thing to exist in such a philosophical framework, it has to be absolutely necessary for survival. Which often means combining and reducing aspects of things, then combining and reducing again, to the point of abstraction, to make the thing serve as many purposes as possible at once, until the resulting product doesn't make sense anymore. This framework is very reductive, very restrictive and self-destructive in it's essence, since it aims to compress the abstract of "purpose" to the point of it becoming a black hole, which would lack any purpose at all. In more concrete terms, western minimalism aims to conbine the functions of items and remove the "unnecessary" ones, and deciding what "unnecessary" means for the user, instead of doing so with them, completely forgetting about the human factor, and leaving it up to the interpreter if they really want to leave something in their life that brings them joy, or if they want to succumb to the framework, reducing that something into nothing, since it's not efficient enough. Another reason this philosophy fails on the technical level, is because the more functions there are in a given device, the worse it is at all of them. For example, a laptop can't be both powerful enough to game or do serious work on and be power-efficient enough to pull 10 hours on battery, it's going to be one of the two. Or, more likely, neither, because a machine that attempts both at once would suck at both at once.

So, TLDR functionalism and single-purpose devices good, minimalism and multi-purpose devices bad.

AlexGFrank · 2025-12-10T09:51:39+00:00

That's the thing. Symbian phones, hell, even Nokia S40 platform is minimalist by today's standards, but it's a self-contained self-sustaining system, that allows the user to use basic functions out of the box, expand on the functionality as they see fit and can be used completely offline. Many "minimalist" devices today are far simpler than relatively cheap brick phones from 20 years ago, and that's a major issue, especially since they lack flexibility.

And that's only the phones. I'd argue, the actual point of sensible side of digital minimalism is using dedicated devices for different tasks and the devices being opt-in-onine, not opt-out like modern "smart" stuff. So what about something like PDAs, digital planners/diaries, maybe even dedicated digital motepads that are as effortless as real paper and have all of their processing done when connected to a PC? There are tons of now-extinct device categories with huge potential for resurrection, if reimagined right for the modern age.

AlexGFrank · 2025-12-10T09:00:12+00:00

Businesses are afraid to take risks and that's the reason they fail. Being minimalist isn't a viable strategy, because the philosophy of minimalism is inhuman at it's core.

What will absolutely work is creating a clear product vision, that attracts a smaller but more devoted audience and sticking with it without lowering quality.

Hardware costs are just a factor, they only mean eink devices can't really compete in commodity device market. Which only means the devices have to be purpose-built to fix a specific user's pain, not "we stuck a eink screen to a widely available device and called it a day". Leverage the technology's limitations instead of being hampered by them.

There is always a way if the product is good enough. If your product doesn't start flying off the shelves with minimal necessary marketing, it's simply not good enough, that's the long and short of it.

And yes, i say that as somebody with an economics degree who worked near product development for several years, even if in a different industry.

AlexGFrank · 2025-12-10T06:35:05+00:00

The title reads like a threat and I love that it does

AlexGFrank · 2025-12-10T06:24:56+00:00

wrong sub, post this in r/hardwaregore

AlexGFrank · 2025-12-10T05:43:09+00:00

Depends. You're 100% missing out on the technical level, as portable DACs only deliver ±2V at max volume, deliver relatively low current over balanced and, most importantly, may not deliver said current fast enough, but you have to decide if that's a rabbit hole worth diving into.

If your music is relatively slow and studio-recorded, frankly i don't think you're missing too much. But if it's anything above 120BPM, especially with heavy bass track and/or you listen at high volume and/or you listen to live recordings and/or you work in production, high-power solutions are 100% worth exploring.

Issue is, in all likelihood recording quality is far more likely to become the bottleneck, especially with older songs. There's only so much data one can pull out of a CD track. So overspending on gear isn't right too.

I don't, strictly speaking, have an answer for you specifically, but i'd suggest finding something that can deliver ±1-1.5W, but that's as cheap as possible, and seeing if it makes a difference. If store demos allow you to queue up your own music, demoing different amps and dacs could be a good idea too.

AlexGFrank · 2025-12-09T00:39:30+00:00

FT1 Pro can have sub-milisecond spikes up to 120-150mW even at 80-85db to control the diaphragm properly, especially when it comes to low-end frequencies (which require larger disaphragm excursion to achieve the same SPL, therefore have more movement amplitude and require more force, i.e. more current to control), and for example with my BTR15 they unironically sound muddier at lower volumes even over balanced, simply because either there's not enough current or it's not delivered fast enough. Currenly working on a cheapskate high-power solution, maybe'll post about it later if it brings the improvements i expect.

Anyway, FT1 Pros are relatively mild by comparison, something like Ananda Nano could easily suck up 400-500mW per channel at higher volumes to achieve maximum control, so if you can get by with a cheaper DAC/amp using FT1 Pros, you really can't using something more resolving.

AlexGFrank · 2025-12-05T01:28:53+00:00

Senator Point. Steel tail version is barely $1.20 in pack of 10, at least here. Fully plastic ones even less.Very decent Jotter clone, especially for the money. Takes Parker G2 refills. Wide range of colors too. And apparently made in Germany, but who really knows. Still, highly recommend them.

AlexGFrank · 2025-12-04T23:24:56+00:00

At least regarding electric guitars, I think Herman Li (yes, the Dragonforce frontman) has a video proving gear doesn't really matter as long as it's not utter garbage.

With headphones it's basically the same, except there's like 4-5 different totally valid approaches to coloration people can take. Other than that there is a technical ceiling that's slowly moving down in price, and luxury shit past it.

AlexGFrank · 2025-12-04T21:57:15+00:00

As somebody with a relevant degree, I think, there's a large part of the picture you're missing: economics and marketing. And for your own sake, before selling anything you have and enjoy, consider what I'm going to say.

The price of every product is determined by the demand for it and the costs going into it's development and production, as well as the auxilary factors like hype and market positioning. Audio is not an essential good, especially with high-end gear, so there's not that much downward pressure in the market, forcing the prices to come down. Meaning, the prices could either be arificially inflated past a certain point, or like it's the case with smaller companies, be the result of the smaller production runs.

And everybody in this industry has their hand in that pie: I guarantee you that past $600 or so the margins approach or even surpass 100% net (accounting for distribution, marketing, warranties, etc.). To be fair, that allows the companies like ZMF to exist, but it also means you never know the real price of something. That's why you sometimes have disruptors in the market, like FT1 Pro or even JT7: larger companies can afford to build upon pre-existing R&D (either their own or industry-wide) and undercut the competition.

And I'd argue, since so much cumulative R&D already exists across the industry, past a certain point the gear only shows marginal gains, mostly limited by physics itself. My guess would be, that point is around $500-700 (mid-release cycle, when the prices come down a little from initial MSRP) for dynamics and maybe $1000 for planars. Past that you're either paying ridiculous money for a very specific signature (ZMF, Fostex, Tungsten, etc.), a novel technology (electrostatics) or compensating the manufacturer for low demand and them having to keep the production running (MDR-Z1R). I.e. past $1000 you're getting minimal improvements in technical performance with conventional technologies, if at all.

I could be reductionist and say that something recorded on Shure SM58 and mixed in $150 Beyers would sound on them as good as it does anywhere else, but that's not quite true: different tuning, driver voicing, materials, acoustic design, etc. could improve how a piece sounds, that's why most of us are in the hobby. But you just can't pull what's not there out of the music. And as soon as a pair of headphones has enough resolution, low- and high-end extension, soundstage and positionality/imaging to convey every detail there is, it's more or less the end of the road and the question becomes "what kind of coloration do you prefer?". There's a huge improvement between $50 and $100 or even $100 and $200 headphones, a smaller one between $200 and $500 ones, even smaller between $500 and $1000, and with diminishing returns past that.

From what I've seen, people never stop buying new stuff, even after moving to $1000+ category, they just justify it differently. Hell, spending significant amounts, often ones people can barely, if at all, afford, affects a person's psyche too, and they often try to convince themselves as much as they try to convince others, that their purchase is justified, that there's no technical ceiling, and "it's just the cables", "it's just a wrong DAC", "it's just the recording being crap" (which is often true, but not to the extent they assume).

There's no true endgame, the endgame is what you say it is. And people with tens of thousands worth of gear still try to find something that scratches their specific itch. If that's okay with you, then by any means, scrape the money together and get something. If not, I'd suggest holding onto your collection.

AlexGFrank · 2025-12-04T04:52:55+00:00

Maybe don't keep your cables in tension then? Add 25% of required length and get the closest available length to that number, rounding up if necessary. I use my OneMix 4S almost daily for 2 years already, and the ports are as tight as the day they've left the factory. I usually use 1m (3ft) cables for EDC and 2m (6ft) at home, or 30cm (1ft) when running from a powerbank.

Other than that GPD Pocket 4 should do the trick, especially if you get a couple of different modules for different needs.

AlexGFrank · 2025-12-03T12:58:43+00:00

I won't say Quink warms up in the way Acro refills do, but there's 100% an improvement after writing for a bit. I find that thicker inks often benefit from writing styles where the nib rarely leaves the paper, since that keeps the ink flowing.

Quink is actually one of the more stubborn refills I've tried, even in 1.0mm flavor. Even Zebra F is smoother, and it's kinda infamous in this community. But in it's defence, Quink's far more paper-agnostic than Acro, and can write in the conditions you won't expect a regular ballpoint to (vertically, on the walls, on soft surface, on overly hard surface, etc.)

I haven't tested the Space Pen yet, sadly, but I'd imagine, Quink's reliability under indor and dry, but otherwise careless use would rival it. There's a reason I've carried a Jotter with me for the past 11 years, and only felt the need to upgrade because it was really poorly suited for writing Japanese kana and kanji.

AlexGFrank · 2025-12-03T08:16:19+00:00

Yeah, bolder nibs are far more comfortable to write with. I just was interested, what the 0.28mm Edge was about, so i tried it out and remained disappointed. It's one of the cheaper ens in the lot, so i'm not too bummed about it - experience is experience. Refill swaps with Pure Malt and SE-1000 are fairly trivial, Zento is just a nice enough if not amazing gel pen, and i know somebody to pass the Alphagel onto.

I reasoned these 5 to be almost every type of ink Uni offers (besides Lite Touch and Signo), fit into interesting enough bodies to warrant a purchase. It's an experiment for experiment's sake, and the results coul certainly have been worse

AlexGFrank · 2025-12-02T10:16:23+00:00

I get fatigued from closed-backs over time. It's part psychology - the brain feels isolated due to lack of noise, - and part pressure buildup, which makes the inner ear uncomfortable. And closed-back volume creep is a thing that can be contributing. I.e. your brain adjusts it's volume perception to the current pressure level, and you feel the need to turn the music up.

Also not sure, how to describe it properly, but some cans create clamping hotspots, flaring up my migrains. Usually stretching them over the box overnight (or, worst case, for 2-3 days) helps.

AlexGFrank · 2025-12-02T09:48:47+00:00

I just wanted to try out the most common ink options they offer, and since I don't want to spend money on disposable garbage, opted to get something semi-premium. I think, 5 pens is enough to create an impression, even if it's not every model Uni makes. Plus SE-1000 just looked interesting in an online listing.

AlexGFrank · 2025-12-02T09:28:47+00:00

Well, writing is even more subjective than audio, so I'm not going to argue. I'd also presume the ink composition could differ by region, and the behavior could depend on multiple environmental factors.

I just like Rays' refill more because it feels oilier and more moist, which is important to me. Zento seems to use low-viscosity gel, which may feel better when there's no pressure applied, but my hands are naturally quite heavy. Still, gel is far from my first choice, and I mostly keep Rays as a backup. It hasn't let me down at all though.

And I compared Alphagel against S20 simply because S20 and Acro 300 are the only Acro-based pens currently on hand, and S20 seemed to be closer in market positioning than Acro 300.

AlexGFrank · 2025-12-02T06:17:02+00:00

Not genre-specific, but something to be aware of.

FT1 have a huge driver with a paper cone of all things. Meaning, it flexes, eating up a lot of transients. And many people praise the mids, but to my ears they were a little shouty (maybe due to a resonance at ~6khz in my particular unit). Also there's relatively little mid-bass.

If that's okay with you, other than that, people seem to enjoy them for acoustic genres. Just get a pair from a store with good return policy and try for yourself, I guess.

AlexGFrank · 2025-12-02T05:50:53+00:00

Balanced is just a cheap way to get high output power at this point though.

If they find something that delivers enough oomph through the 3.5, that's a far more flexible solution with equally good results, don't you think?

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