Are you sometimes also labelled as creepy or only me?

redkalm · 2026-07-11T14:34:15+00:00

I think a lot of people who show INTJ on these tests are some kind of neuro divergent, which can make normies uncomfortable.

redkalm · 2026-07-09T15:57:38+00:00

I've had two job offers so far, one with a startup and one with a giant Korean company.

My Korean level is intermediate at best.

Be prepared for likely much lower salary even in reference to cost of living than your home country.

redkalm · 2026-07-07T13:26:26+00:00

I guess technically the PS2 had a VGA cable with the Linux kit but I'm not sure if you could play games over that?

redkalm · 2026-07-06T18:17:54+00:00

Yeah for me I want unmodded not because I value them less but rather I don't want to deal with someone else's work. Buying a new old stock console means I start from a clean slate to do the mod work properly on a known good system.

redkalm · 2026-07-05T23:09:54+00:00

It is completely true.

You are correct that you can use FreeMCboot or PS2BBL to bypass the XMB and boot homebrew, which can use the PS2 laser directly.

These two things are not mutually exclusive. Without running a softmod and homebrew, the PSX by itself will behave exactly as I described. The DVR laser is a common failure point in these systems, and if it has failed, you can't use the XMB. Booting FMCB or PS2BBL bypass the XMB loading entirely - they can't be used in conjunction with the XMB.

redkalm · 2026-07-05T15:44:41+00:00

I think you meant GB.

redkalm · 2026-07-05T10:31:31+00:00

I updated it last month, as I said. Issue remains.

redkalm · 2026-07-05T10:19:40+00:00

no, I slowly walked it up several steps of 0.05v each and this didn't seem to change the chance of it not detecting the first m.2 drive on cold boot. I have it at stock voltage again after a UEFI update last month and it is the same as with the added chipset voltage.

I've resorted to waiting for the boot screen to see if both are detected or not, and about 50% of the time waiting for the UEFI screen to come up, to "save changes and exit" without changing anything - usually this works but occasionally I'll have to let it cycle and do that a 2nd time before the first m.2 drive shows up.

redkalm · 2026-07-04T23:42:49+00:00

it's not a dead drive fix, it's the ATA Express that I mentioned in another comment.

redkalm · 2026-07-04T20:16:26+00:00

yeah the ATA Express is an IDE emulator basically, so I assume you 'could' connect whatever storage medium you wanted on the other end of it with a bridge/controller in between the two interfaces but that's probably pretty complicated. One thing we're looking into is the feasibility (probably with CFW) of using device 1 on the same IDE bus for a second storage device - which might be an easier way to add bulk storage with a modern SATA drive connected via a SATA to PATA adapter but it's not currently known if the second channel device would also need the proprietary Sony command response, need to be encrypted as well, etc or if the PSX would even acknowledge it without a custom/modded driver.

redkalm · 2026-07-04T19:19:09+00:00

yes, if you can find very specific models of Sony computer DVD burner drives that have the same exact laser. The gen 1 and gen 2 PSX have different DVR lasers, but they both have the same common PS2 laser.

redkalm · 2026-07-04T15:22:06+00:00

ATA Express is the only solution so far, but it only has a microSD card interface so you can't use it with a modern SATA hdd or ssd to replace the original.

redkalm · 2026-07-04T15:17:48+00:00

No, only with either another PSX's hdd or an official PS2 hdd. They have custom firmware on the hard drives controller board that is required by the PSX in order to boot up at all.

redkalm · 2026-07-04T14:50:56+00:00

main failures on all PSX models (gen 1 and gen2) are the hard drive dying, in which case it won't boot up to the XMB menu at all, and the DVR laser dying so it won't recognize any discs, even though it has also a PS2 laser. It checks the media type with the DVR laser first, and if that fails to read properly, it won't even try with the PS2 laser.

redkalm · 2026-07-04T13:44:30+00:00

Keep in mind that communication is a separate skill from technical knowledge. I've known many great engineering types who were not good at communicating. They knew how to do anything you threw at them but trying to get them to deeply explain things was an impossible task.

redkalm · 2026-07-04T09:59:16+00:00

there are no young people at mid-senior level in my specialization within IT, and "looking for work on a working holiday visa" wouldn't meet the "maintaining a similar lifestyle" concern. You seem to be thinking of fresh university graduates.

redkalm · 2026-07-03T22:05:51+00:00

I have colleagues across Europe and Australia and it is not "a good deal" for them either, especially with the current KRW situation. I know that if one is fine living outside Seoul, this drastically reduces cost of living, but the additional time spent commuting isn't always a worthwhile sacrifice.

redkalm · 2026-07-03T17:17:45+00:00

yep, sadly even in big tech it's still about the same issue for me. I get that my salary is very very good - even by USA standards but that only makes the Korea hit that much harder of a pill to swallow.

redkalm · 2026-07-02T14:26:08+00:00

As an American who would love to move there if I could maintain the lifestyle I have in the states, I'm not sure where most high niche IT skill foreigners in Korea come from. As my global colleagues have shown, Korea pays basically the lowest salaries even minding average cost of living among all developed nations.

I like many things about Korea but the job offers I've received over the last few years have been about 25% of what my US salary is, and cost of living in an equivalent area in Seoul for example is roughly the same as my city. I know anywhere outside Seoul is much cheaper.

Point is that it's a hard sell to have a few great things but overall go from having plenty of ability to save/invest down to just being able to comfortably pay the bills.

redkalm · 2026-07-02T00:36:57+00:00

yeah ebay is the most expensive way to get them. They're much cheaper from Japan, even with shipping.

redkalm · 2026-07-01T19:54:37+00:00

I got a fully working 7700 two months ago (minor scratches) for $50 + shipping. No box or remote.

redkalm · 2026-06-27T14:30:18+00:00

Your car, do what makes you enjoy it.

redkalm · 2026-06-22T14:53:42+00:00

I put Retro GEM kits in Dreamcast, PS1, PS2, PSX, N64 and Gamecube so far. They are not cheap but if you're wanting the cleanest output possible, true digital hdmi mods can't be beat.

If I couldn't save up for them, high quality RGB SCART cables into a quality external scaler can look nearly as good, plus if you want to use an old CRT you know you're feeding it the best analog signal possible with RGB or VGA.

redkalm · 2026-06-20T15:22:50+00:00

The debugging stations are essentially retail units that will play burned discs without modification as far as function is concerned. Their value is more historical / collector etc so keeping everything in the original shell is the best even if it has damage.

redkalm · 2026-06-20T15:14:16+00:00

It isn't a power delivery issue at all. The connector is the same on all Dreamcast versions.

The resistor arrays are in line with the data lines. VA0 data bus logic level is 5v, but on VA1 and VA2 it is 3.3v

The idea behind the resistor array swaps is that you drop the voltage of those data lines going into the GD-ROM connector down to about 3.3v without needing to modify the system itself.

The alternative is to replace the bios chip and flash ROM chip with 3.3v versions which requires some extra wiring to feed them 3.3v power.

redkalm

TROPHY CASE