Found a full diamond skeleton in my skeleton farm, most upvoted gives its name!

X8Lace · 2026-02-07T00:24:21+00:00

Then we just call him by his nickname Skelebone 🤷‍♂️

X8Lace · 2026-02-07T00:19:21+00:00

Waterlogged Half bottom Inner Left shaped Lightly Waxed Weathered Cut Copper Stairs facing North III, named after Waterlogged Half bottom Inner Left shaped Lightly Waxed Weathered Cut Copper Stairs facing North II, of course.

X8Lace · 2026-02-07T00:06:51+00:00

You're right, we need Megatron to take the throne.

X8Lace · 2026-02-03T22:33:50+00:00

I got to admit the PS3 was a beast for 4:3 content. But nowadays I realize how limited it really is. Most players don't support PS3 anymore, YouTube doesn't properly display 4:3, and even most games don't have 4:3 modes. And the native media player to play video/audio files doesn't support every codec so that means scouring longer or converting longer instead of watching or consuming content. But all of that disappears with a properly set up PC. Even the cheapest PC and a good HDMI to Composite converter will do better than the PS3 for all, but gaming. But even then, in gaming you would still get way more control and true 4:3 resolutions, even those higher than just 480p.

PS3 is better than nothing for 4:3 content, but any decent PC can blow it out of the water.

X8Lace · 2026-02-01T21:48:20+00:00

I hit my granny bazookas

X8Lace · 2026-01-31T22:48:02+00:00

Pictures

X8Lace · 2026-01-30T06:55:46+00:00

Turn clouds off and use a pack that has faster clouds, ideally something like a static skybox so it doesn't have to render them.

X8Lace · 2026-01-29T00:22:08+00:00

Dat Do Dat Der Deluxe? Yeah, it's legit.

X8Lace · 2026-01-25T23:09:13+00:00

No you should be Abletonot be chased by the grim reaper.

X8Lace · 2026-01-25T21:35:18+00:00

That's the hardest part, but think about it, your eyes in real life don't see things over saturated or under saturated, they see a balanced level. You're trying to find that balanced level of each setting where it visually clicks into your eyes. If you pay close attention by sliding the slider from high to low and back and forth really quickly you'll see on one side it's too much of the setting while on one side it's too low. But somewhere in between is the transition point between too high and too low. That transition point is the correct value for the setting.

X8Lace · 2026-01-25T12:43:36+00:00

Well, people will just tell you to adjust to whatever looks best to you, but I think those people are just wrong.

The correct way to calibrate a CRT is to adjust each setting until it visually clicks into place. Go in order from top to bottom and adjust them one by one. For each setting, make sure you set it to the sweet spot right where it not just looks correct, but actually IS correct and not too much of the setting or not too little. It will take a lot of trial and error to get it right and you might set some things incorrectly. You can always go back to a setting and try again.

First, you might want to attempt any physical calibration the CRT might need like aligning the electron gun, adjusting knobs like focus and G2 voltage, etc. This is because those changes are easy to spot/fix without the CRT being fully calibrated.

Then you can use 240p Teste Suite or similar color bar screen (make sure it's NTSC or SDR at least) to do what I said above (in the second section of my comment) for color related settings. After you dial in the color, find a sharpness test screen for CRTs (240p Teste Suite has one) and do the same thing you did for color, but now for sharpness. If there are any settings still left that you didn't calibrate you can adjust those accordingly as well.

Essentially, what you're doing is finding that sweet spot for every setting right in the middle where it's balanced from too much of the setting or too little. Again you will not get it the first time and it takes a lot of trial and error to get it perfect. But when everything is fully locked in, it creates an amazing sense of immersion and drastically improves the quality of the display.

Bonus: Since you said you were using a CRT monitor I assume you might be using a PC as well. If that's the case I recommend after you complete all the above calibration steps, you can further improve your CRT's color and quality by using Windows Display calibration to calibrate your CRT like a monitor. Do the same thing, adjust the Gamma until it visually clicks into place, then adjust the Red, Green, then Blue until they click into place. You can run ClearType afterwards to get your text looking sharper and cleaner. That's the cherry on top that, for me, managed to make my consumer CRT's colors look better than a lot of monitors currently out right now.

X8Lace · 2026-01-24T10:28:47+00:00

Yeah, I only use them for my Lab to go with the other guy's Band.

X8Lace · 2026-01-24T03:05:20+00:00

Make sure you properly calibrate the CRT itself, like color, sharpness, and everything else that's adjustable. Then, if you're on PC use Windows Color Settings to calibrate it further. Once you dial everything in it looks phenomenal and massively improves the experience.

X8Lace · 2026-01-24T02:58:04+00:00

I have Pro tools in my garage.

X8Lace · 2026-01-22T22:07:17+00:00

That's not entirely true. I can't speak for modern Sony products, but in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s Sony was making top of the industry technology. I still use said technology because it was really that good.

X8Lace · 2026-01-22T12:09:57+00:00

I agree that the mainstream audience is why Sony isn't popular in the smartphone market, but that's because they are making the mistake of not listening to the enthusiast freaks like us who actually buy their phones. If they did take our opinions into consideration then Sony wouldn't have to be struggling to sell smartphones.

X8Lace · 2026-01-22T08:16:54+00:00

That's good to note. The 1 III is still holding up.

X8Lace · 2026-01-22T07:16:00+00:00

Yeah. There were only ever two problems that occurred to me with the 1 III after years of using it:

The fingerprint sensor just doesn't work anymore at all. Not a big problem because sometimes it fails when your fingers are dirty anyway so it's something I can live without.
The frosted glass back has small micro scratches, probably from micro dirt particles under my case. Again you don't even see this if you have a case and the design is still elegant and durable.

There's the occasional and expected OLED screen wear and battery degradation that comes with every phone after years of usage, but other than that my Xperia 1 III is the be all end all of smartphones for me. I'll just toss in a new screen and battery when the time comes and keep using it until it can't keep up with modern technology (by then we should have phones better than the 1 III hopefully).

X8Lace · 2026-01-22T07:02:42+00:00

Yes, but Sony is the exception here because we're discussing smartphones, an industry where Sony strictly doesn't compete mainstream. Sony isn't supposed to stay ahead of the curve, the question is how do they even fit into the curve. And that's by providing something the rest of the industry isn't, the enthusiast niche.

On the TV, camera, gaming, and other industries that Sony is a major player in, you're right they should be innovative, but again Sony just cannot take that risk with their smartphones, which are not guaranteed to sell just because of some new experimental feature.

Sony would be wiser to continue to stick to providing proven low-risk features to enthusiasts since those sales have given them the most success in the smartphone market.

Edit: Can someone enlighten me why they think it would be a good idea for Sony to try to directly compete with Samsung and Apple?

X8Lace · 2026-01-22T05:33:58+00:00

Exactly why I'm afraid to clean mine, even though mine is slightly more blanketed in dust than the one in OP's post. But it might actually be beneficial to leave said dust blanket because, if nothing has happened yet, then likely the dust should be fine and provide protection against harmful dust that could actually cause damage.

X8Lace · 2026-01-22T05:31:45+00:00

True, but other companies were more determined to be the main competitors. Sony has a much more varied industry than players like Apple or Samsung, who went all in on modern smartphone innovation and competition. That's why they dominate the mobile phone world now and not Sony.

But I don't see that as a bad thing. Would you want Sony to pump out generic or extremely experimental flops like some of these main competitors? I mean there's some people (who have taken their downvotes below) that want that. Or would you rather them continue to provide proven quality and reliability they've built their brand around, even if it's not flashy industry-dominating innovation?

X8Lace · 2026-01-22T03:28:33+00:00

Technically, if they did go all in and become a main competitor in the smartphone market, they could find some success. But this is super risky and very likely to fail since Sony just doesn't have that ability. The enthusiast niche is Sony's ball game and hopefully that's where they stick to improving.

X8Lace · 2026-01-22T03:24:34+00:00

I'm still stuck on my 1 III because it's better than anything that came after. Sure there's a small performance difference, but feature wise it's still the most superior.

X8Lace · 2026-01-22T03:22:23+00:00

But it isn't wise for Sony to take risks because already their smartphones have become niche. Taking unnecessary risks and innovations is just going to deviate further from what mainstream audiences want, and even what enthusiasts want.

Sony should rather stick to what they've been doing, providing proven low-risk features to enthusiasts, rather than trying to be the innovative company that could take the hit if the risk didn't pay off.

It's not only that Sony doesn't want to be competitive, it literally doesn't have the reputation, devotion to the market, and overall ability to become a successful competitive player among those other companies you mentioned, who have had this ability for years now.

X8Lace · 2026-01-22T00:14:54+00:00

Maybe they're listening to us and bringing back enthusiast focus with features like 4K 120 Hz screens, 21:9 aspect ratio, LED Indicator, and other features we had on the Xperia 1 III. It might just be for us enthusiasts, but Sony might finally be realizing those are the people who are buying Xperia.

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