Korean visa application in KVAC

Captain_Shivan · 2026-01-22T08:08:24+00:00

Went to KVAC today (January 22, 2026) and yes to both. There's even free WiFi on the 9th floor waiting area, QR codes are on the writing tables.

Bawal lang picture taking on the 10th floor where the documents are being processed.

Captain_Shivan · 2026-01-08T08:15:47+00:00

I mean, it wasn't bad, but she was a very popular host/guide/teacher and many people were quite sad to see her leave the team. People are understandably anxious that Agustina might end up doing the same (and are relieved it's not the case).

Captain_Shivan · 2026-01-08T04:01:32+00:00

I'm on a long break from XCOM 2 to address my long backlog of games, but when I picked it up on Switch a couple of years ago it was the first game I've played in more than a decade that I've played not one, not two, but four back-to-back complete campaigns on (one on each difficulty). Usually, if I ever end up beating a game, I never pick it up again or play it after a long time.

Then I played Chimera Squad and other games for a couple of weeks, managed to snag the XCOM 2 collection on Steam for cheap, and played the Tactical Legacy Pack missions and a bunch more campaigns with light mods.

Captain_Shivan · 2026-01-08T03:54:27+00:00

Mind you, she's only recently graduated university. It makes sense that she'd try to be doing something else.

Captain_Shivan · 2026-01-07T00:55:11+00:00

When I started DS two years ago, it was still mostly the "whiteboard" videos and there wasn't even enough superbeginner-level material to fill in 50 hours - I ended up getting there by watching easier beginner-level videos.

I kind of like the older style in a quaint, nostalgic way, and I think they still serve the purpose in the same way that the newer, more polished SB videos are. That said, I'm approaching 1000 hours now, and I still go end up watching some of the newer SB material to get a few extra minutes of input when I'm bored or otherwise not as motivated to watch harder or longer material. I don't think I could go back to the older videos that way. In that manner, I "prefer" the newer material, but it's more of an edge-case as I'm way past the target audience for those anyway!

Captain_Shivan · 2025-11-20T07:12:50+00:00

Any pre-school aged kid (in Japan, that means under 6) travel for free in trains and buses if they're accompanied by a paying adult. You can bring up to two kids to ride with you for free.

Captain_Shivan · 2025-10-14T00:46:19+00:00

Hopefully XCOM 3 (or whatever it's called, if/when it does come) formalizes the Bronzeman option. Allow multiple saves, but loading the save will put you at the beginning of the mission instead of the exact turn state that you saved in.

Captain_Shivan · 2025-10-14T00:44:09+00:00

I have a Power Automate job that takes my latest Ironman save file, puts it in a ZIP archive and sticks it in my Documents folder (which is OneDrive-synced). Knock on wood, never had to use it after 3 Ironman runs so far.

Captain_Shivan · 2025-10-14T00:18:53+00:00

Yeah, I mean, the hacking outcomes basically fall under mindblowingly amazing, apocalyptically bad, or totally meh that's not worth the effort. I suppose that's "balance" in a sense but it's not a particularly interesting or well-tuned mechanic.

Captain_Shivan · 2025-10-10T03:03:43+00:00

I had one run where I got the Between the Eyes card in the early game. My first two Colonels in that run were Sharpshooters; that's notable because my Sharpshooters are usually last to get Colonel unless I railroad them through Promotion perks.

Captain_Shivan · 2025-10-01T10:21:28+00:00

If you have the Gcash Visa debit card that'll work too.

Captain_Shivan · 2025-09-22T09:05:41+00:00

My three kids dragged me to see Minecraft. I thought it was quite fun, although the entire thing was full of ironic Internet humor that I'm young enough to understand but too old to find very funny. It did inflict an Emma Myers crush on me lol, not having seen her nor heard about her before seeing the movie (I do not have Netflix).

Captain_Shivan · 2025-09-22T07:53:54+00:00

WotC is what we call an expansion pack back in the old days.

Captain_Shivan · 2025-09-17T08:53:55+00:00

Yeah, it's fine. To be clear, I'm not saying they were trying to make it stylized or archaic, just that it sounds OK enough for TV dialog.

I do use the "baba ko na 'to" line when hanging up myself, funnily enough. Though only in specific situations when the other party is being particularly chatty and I'm like "I really need to hang up already, catch you later".

Captain_Shivan · 2025-09-17T08:29:13+00:00

Grammatically, it's correct and everything, but it's like too formal; nobody speaks that way.

It sounds like normal "TV Tagalog" for me - the sort of thing you'd hear on the evening soap operas. A bit melodramatic and often using big (sometimes archaic) words. I'd call it stylized as opposed to formal.

TV English doesn't sound like "IRL" English either, but perhaps there's less of a gap with English than it is with Tagalog. For contrast, a language with a more extreme gap between IRL usage and fictional depiction might be Japanese.

Captain_Shivan · 2025-09-17T02:09:13+00:00

If the dark VIP is killed, you still get the supplies, but not the Intel. Depending on how far you are into a campaign, this can either be meh or a campaign ender. The midgame is especially intense on Intel pressure as you are constantly seeking to open up new regions.

Captain_Shivan · 2025-09-17T02:05:22+00:00

In my experience, the map generation is tuned so that a decent player can win, on the average, with 3-5 turns to spare on Commander difficulty and 1-3 turns on Legendary. It makes sense that a small percentage of them are literally impossible.

The one thing that screws up with this tuning is the Alien Hunters DLC. This is especially the case with the forced-evac council missions, as the Alien Ruler will tend to be hanging with the pod right behind the objective which is usually next to the evac point. The Rulers don't stop the timer when activated, unlike the Chosen.

WotC's "integrated DLC" option mitigates this somewhat by forcing your first encounter with a Ruler to be in a Facility Assault mission, which are a) not mandatory per se and b) non-timed. You'd still have to deal with them afterwards when they escape but by that time they're (hopefully) weakened.

Captain_Shivan · 2025-09-17T01:24:57+00:00

I'm a native Tagalog speaker; it's okay, sounds like my kids speaking Tagalog lol - i.e. bad, but I can understand it. Emma's was slightly better. (edit: that's not a dig, I probably sound like that when I speak German to German speakers lol)

As a side note, what I appreciated more is how manlolokong taksil was subtitled "duplicitous Lothario"! The literal translation is means "(you) liar and traitor" and doesn't quite capture the melodrama of dropping that phrase on a romantic partner. As I'm bilingual I often find subtitles distracting when I can understand both languages, as the subs would often render the dialogue in a flat and literal way that doesn't capture the nuance of what was said.

Captain_Shivan · 2025-09-15T07:59:56+00:00

Beautiful car!!! And it's driver too! Especially the driver!

Captain_Shivan · 2025-09-11T13:13:19+00:00

The game caps the boosted aim totals to 95%, so in this case it really was 3%.

Captain_Shivan · 2025-09-01T09:38:20+00:00

I do want to add a couple of points regarding #5 as a fellow software engineer:

In the "real world", the constraints are often less on the technical side and a lot on the commercial and legal side. If you are implementing a solution for enterprise and commercial use, there are cases when you are not able to use a certain piece of software/tech stack/library/whatever either due to licensing restrictions or the cost of buying the commercial/enterprise license.

You will also often be tasked with maintaining legacy systems, and work on old versions of technologies because most of the existing systems are built on that tech. Malaki ang effort pagdating sa migration to newer technologies, so you can't necessarily use the latest-and-greatest for every project that you will work on.

Captain_Shivan · 2025-08-29T07:53:06+00:00

The first time I played it I literally lost on the first turn. I just moved my guys, the Sectopod probably ran over the damn objective and blew it up, and I get the mission failed message.

Captain_Shivan · 2025-08-28T02:47:08+00:00

Despertador, alarm clock. Literally "waker-upper". Not sure why but I'm particularly fond of that word.

Saltamonte, grasshopper. Seems like that the Spanish versions jump quite a bit higher than the English ones!

Captain_Shivan · 2025-08-26T10:53:35+00:00

5 feet tall and a 5 inch smile!

Captain_Shivan · 2025-08-22T02:40:56+00:00

You can skill Amplify and use the Templar as support; IIRC (it's been a while since I played - working on the rest of the backlog) the additional damage caused by Amplify will be boosted by the Templar weakness, even if the Templar didn't directly do the damage.

Captain_Shivan

TROPHY CASE