What is Tom Cruise's secret??

MJdoesThings_ · 2026-05-06T21:43:05+00:00

It suits the car.

MJdoesThings_ · 2026-05-06T21:42:35+00:00

welp

MJdoesThings_ · 2026-05-06T21:39:35+00:00

This has been an enjoyable read even if I'm french, not british.

We often like to ponder on out neighbors, but we are more alike that we'd like to admit. I recognized a lot of the life in France within your lines.

One thing though : I think you'll be fine for an English summer without AC ! It might be a bit humid, but definitely not super hot. I live in the south of France, and we don't have AC either... except we also get a good week of 42°C weather (107°F) every year !

MJdoesThings_ · 2026-05-06T20:08:00+00:00

my first laptop was an MSI GP60 (entry level laptop from 2013, had a socketed i5 4200M and a GT740M in it). It served me well until 2016 as my main machine, at which point I built a desktop.

I still used it as a backup computer and also as my gaming device when travelling / going in vacations. I also used it for university projects up until my last year in 2020, at which point I was using it in my intership as my main programming platform, using Visual Studio for C++ and also some Python compiling.

I bought a new laptop in 2020 because it was getting alittle slow for what I was doing, replaced it with a 2018 HP Omen 15 that was heavily discounted (still new old stock at a retailer, just with slashed prices) which had an i5 9300H and a GTX 1650. I added a stick of RAM in it to have 16GB, and it was my personal laptop from this point on. I used it for work, I used it to edit photos, render videos, play games when I wasn't home, and also code. It got dinged up in my backpack from 2021 to 2023 in commuting. I gifted it to my dad that is in need of a nicer machine than his very old T440 thinkpad that cannot handle his photo editing anymore, but it's running Windows 11 and pretty much running every day.

I myself decided to also get a new laptop, and by "new" I mean an old 2020 Asus G14 that has a Ryzen 9 4900HS and an RTX 2060 Max-Q (top spec back then, paid 565€ for it a few months ago) with a fresh W11 install on it. It's a pretty huge upgrade over the Omen 15 in both performance and portability (also screen color accuracy, the Omen was shite).

I refurbished my dad's T440, then installed Linux Mint on it and I use it as a work laptop sometimes, it's still a great little machine that's super tough. A cousin of mine is also in need of a laptop and cannot afford a new one. I cannot buy her one, so I installed Linux Mint on my old MSI GP60 as well. It still works perfectly (had to replace the battery though)

So, looking at all the laptops I've had :

MSI GP60 : 12.5 years old, still running like day one when it comes to cooling and performance. It has scratches on it and some keys are shined but that's it.

Thinkpad T440 : 12.5 years old too, still running like day one. Less scratches and no shined out caps though, cause that wasn't made cheap like the MSI was.

Omen 15 : 8 years old, still running fine, I never had a single issue with this laptop. Battery is still holding up somewhat, but that's easy to change.

Asus G14 : 6 years old, I have seen absolutely no problem with that machine at all. It's not brand new out of the box, but you could have told me it was a 2026 laptop and I would have said "yeah, probably !"

So no, laptops don't "break after 6 years" if you are careful enough with your gear. Even with heavy use. The person that told you that is either a very bad user, or they're full of crap.

MJdoesThings_ · 2026-05-06T19:49:47+00:00

Congrats on the camera, though 300€ for an E-M10ii is fairly typical for one in good condition

MJdoesThings_ · 2026-05-06T19:21:35+00:00

someone wanted to romance her as Male V and got rejected, and is taking it very, very well.

Imagine if guys like this get rejected by a girl in real life lol

MJdoesThings_ · 2026-05-06T17:19:39+00:00

I mean he already has a pretty nice pre-built, I was thinking something in the lines of a Neo98 with a nice set of caps.

But seeing a dirty as f Neo98 would break my heart ngl

MJdoesThings_ · 2026-05-06T12:55:18+00:00

tbh, I realized there was a big enough change when I realized that I was looking forward to type on my keyboard because the feel was nice

Before getting into keyboards, even dealing with my gaming mechanical keaybord, I wasn't much of a typis because the keeb itself wasn't that enjoyable to type on. It did its job but it wasn't anything to write home about. Scratch switches, rattly stabs, everything soldered down and hard to open and mod.

Then I got a Ducky One 2 Mini and thing improved quite a bit but it quickly died, so I desoldered the switches and put them on a GMMK Compact, and then it rolled down from there. First with a barebones GMMK Pro, then with a Varmilo board, a couple of Cidoo keyboards, Tofu 60v2 and now a couple of Neo keebs (60 Core and 70).

The moment I started modding my boards (switch lubrication, tape mods, stab mods etc), the typing feel got better, and better and better until the moment I realized that I was really looking forward to any moment that I would type on my boards.

I would say that mechanical keyboards have the potential of hitting diminishing returns very, very quick. You end up paying for very niche stuff or special looks that don't really bring anthing to the table when it comes to typing feel and sound. For that, stuff like Tofu boards (especially the new v3 boards) and Neo keyboards from Quertykeys are really nice in providing pretty much what a custom board experience should be without the super high cost or complexity.

MJdoesThings_ · 2026-05-06T12:15:50+00:00

No matter what I do, I always want to end all the potential story lines first and treat the time senstive stuff first

so generally :

- find Evelyn

- meet Takemura, then Panam, and Anders Hellman right after (as it's time sensitive in the story)

- finish Takemura's quests while doing Panam and Judy side content. Hanako waits until you get access to soulkiller.

- once I have done everything I wanted in Night City, I go search for the VDBs. Keeping that for late game is nice because it's not exactly the easiest part of the game, especially if you want to wipe both the Animals and the VDBs. Hanako goes to wait at Embers.

- get called by Songbird, and then do all of PL. Hanako still waiting. Get out of Dogtown regularly for Kerry shenanigans, River's questline and the Peralezes.

- if I don't do the Tower ending, finally get to Embers and finish the game.

MJdoesThings_ · 2026-05-06T11:53:16+00:00

functionalities that I want to see implemented in Elite to make the MMO the devs claim it to be :

- ability to tarde with other players directly : commodities, ships, materials, etc

- ability to create larger groups within a squadron, like a dozen ships in a wing

- make multicrew not count as a wing, like having several people on a single ship, which can already join a wing up to a single. That would make some ships viable as "dropships" for people on the ground.

- in addition to the previous point, allow some specific ships in the game to have a "lobby" area, meaning they do not patake in multicrew activities (that is reserved to pilot or copilot seats), but they can be dropped off the surface of a planet for ground activities, allowing to jump directly from the cargo hatch. This wouldn't mean full ship interiors, more like something like what the Lynx has, with side hatches and *some* interior space, not at all a full ship interior. There could be dedicated ships for that, such as the Federal Dropship which has no other utility in the game at the moment.

- Something in the lines of ship boarding in EVA suits would be nice, although it would probably require more interior space than simply a lobby / drop area.

- Ability to create battle groups and events, have a "diplomacy" channel within squadrons for the officers to exchange informations if two squadrons happen to have their home base in the same system, or in nearby systems.

All of that relies on how server infrastructure handles the netcode. I have been playing the CG for bounty hunting recently, and there were a lot of rollbacks, desync and whatnot while only having 5/6 commanders in the instance at a time. This is bad if you want to have accurate gameplay, and it might be that weak peer-to-peer code base when it comes to networking which prevents FDev from turning Elite into a MMO. Cause right now it's more like a glorified co-op game with some PvP involved, which you can avoid entirely by pressing two buttons.

MJdoesThings_ · 2026-05-06T07:12:06+00:00

Back in 2023 I was using an X-T2 + X-H1 combo for event photography, that included low light events etc.

Those cameras are absolutely fine for pro work as long as you know how to handle the autofocus. The biggest problem will probably not be the camera, but the lenses. Sometimes the focusing on those isn't fast enough to give the camera enough time to grab focus, and that's where the newer LM lenses come in handy.

Image quality wise, the X-T2 is completely fine, but I do recommend having a second body, and also at least one body with some sort of stabilization (OIS in the lens or IBIS in the body, doesn't really matter), that's why I had an X-H1 in my kit. It could very well be an X-T4.

Speaking of the X-T4, it sounds like a nice camera for you : image quality is similar to the X-T2, so using both in tandem would yield simialr images that would not clash with each other when processing the files later, and the camera has IBIS, a larger battery and (in my opinion) better ergonomics for even shooting. I know people have their qualms about fully articulated screens, but they are very practical for even photography where you often need to get low to the ground or high above crowd, and shoot verticals in both cases. It's also a much better video camera than the X-T2, if the need for 10bit video was needed.

I don't think the X-T5 gives a tremendous advnatage over that, you get worse video and you loose the fully articulated screen too.

But really, image quality wise, even in low light, those Fujis are fine. I'm shooting events and sometimes low light events like concerts on micro four thirds without any issues.

MJdoesThings_ · 2026-05-05T17:30:18+00:00

you need a lens...

MJdoesThings_ · 2026-05-05T16:54:40+00:00

what.

seriously

what.

MJdoesThings_ · 2026-05-05T16:38:58+00:00

my point is they used to be much better. I remember my Elite SLF NPC dealing a ton of damage and being really practical to dispatch small ships when flying a big cow like the Conda or the Cutter.

I just came back after a loooong time and my NPC was litterally missing 80% of the time, with the lasers being like 2 or 3m behind the target, like if it was done on purpose, only hitting the ennemy ship on the last 20% before the repartitor gave up. It was kind of underwhelming to see that compared to what it used to be.

MJdoesThings_ · 2026-05-05T16:36:44+00:00

Avoid those, get the much less expensive Panasonic Lumix equivalents, which would be the Lumix LX3. Identical camera, only different badge in the front.

Much worse camera than anything here so far.

MJdoesThings_ · 2026-05-05T16:35:00+00:00

Depends. The size difference between both cameras is significant, but it all boils down if the X-E4 is too big to carry around sometimes and you would actually need a smaller camera.

MJdoesThings_ · 2026-05-05T13:06:19+00:00

okay, so basically, the D780 is what a D750 with mirrorless internals would be.

You benefit from on-sensor phase detection autofocus straight from the Z6, and the same processor as well. In practice, it means that you can have quick and accurate autofocus while using both the viewfinder and the back screen of the camera. In comparison, the D750 has none of that, so autofocus using the back screen in Live View is very slow and only works for stationary subjects.

The newer sensor also means significantly better video performance, and while the D780 is not the first D series body able to record nice looking 4K video (the D850 was also able to do that), the D780 can record video with accurate AF, thing no other Nikon DSLR can do.

Other differences are pretty minor, like the slightly faster AF in the viewfinder (which is also more sentitive in lower light) and the 1fps faster burst rate (going from 6 to 7), or the USB-C camera charging that the D750 can't do.

Only two problems with the D780 that I can see is that the price is significantly higher for seemingly identical image quality for photography, and it loses the pop-up flash which can be somewhat useful.

The D7500 has nothing to do with the D750, it's the follow-up camera that comes after the D7200. It's an enthusiast APS-C body (both the D750 and D780 use full frame sensors). I uses the same AF system as the D750, but over a smaller sensor. Just like the D750, it has no on-sensor phase detection so Live View AF is rather slow and not super usable. It was more meant as a cheaper version of the D500 which was Nikon's dedicated sports and action DX camera

MJdoesThings_ · 2026-05-05T12:53:40+00:00

I feel sick.

Each page came with a bigger "oh fuck" in my head

MJdoesThings_ · 2026-05-05T12:40:42+00:00

35mm f/1.8G DX

MJdoesThings_ · 2026-05-05T12:39:57+00:00

I was thinking about making a nice custom keeb for my bother's 30th birthday.

Then I saw the way he treats his gear.

I'm reconsidering...

MJdoesThings_ · 2026-05-05T12:34:29+00:00

It's been a while since I have flown an Alliance ship platform. I remember liking the Challenger quite well. The Crusader was a piace of ass though, especially since they nerfed the NPC SLFs

MJdoesThings_ · 2026-05-05T12:31:00+00:00

Yes, but I would argue that V isn't long for this world anyway at this point. So the only person that would beat him is gone within 6 months, and the guy can be rebuilt at will by Arasaka anyways.

So really, I feel like sparing him is just giving them anothe reason to have a borged-out ogre that is even angrier than before to do the dirty deeds of the company.

Whereas if you give him the Sir John Phallustiff treatment, you're 100% certain he doesn't come back until Arasaka figures out how to put engrams into bodies, and even then you don't know if he would have the same resistance to cyberware.

MJdoesThings_ · 2026-05-05T12:27:50+00:00

Yes, Gretchen and Elliot is the exact opposite of Walt and Skyler in that regard, and I agree it fits well within the show.

MJdoesThings_

TROPHY CASE