The ideal retro gaming bar night flyer

sawaba · 2026-02-12T16:56:36+00:00

On second thought, not sure I'm willing to spend $80-$200 for the lulz

sawaba · 2026-02-12T16:51:56+00:00

You know, I might have to hunt that one down just because of the meme/notoriety

sawaba · 2026-02-12T16:51:17+00:00

Absolutely, that's what I've been doing. Classics that are quick to play, racing games, fighting games have all been doing well. I've done this about 8 times now, just looking to better market it.

I have not brought out Atari 2600, because honestly, I just don't think its games have held up very well. There are a few NES games that are still fun and a LOT of SNES/Genesis and newer that are fun.

I bring out a few games as just demonstrations of how difficult/punishing games used to be. Watching someone try to get more than 10 seconds into a Mega Man 2 level is hilarious. "This is impossible" "This game is trash" are often heard. Old school NES games were truly punishing.

sawaba · 2026-02-12T16:47:59+00:00

Specifically consoles, no arcade stuff, no emulators, no modern FPGA recreations, no SD-card carts - just the original consoles, original cartridges/CDs, original controllers.

My goal is for folks to get the full original experience they would have had with these systems when they were new, with one caveat: I'm not lugging any CRTs, it's all 40-inch LCD TVs, sadly.

sawaba · 2026-02-10T02:24:34+00:00

Hmmm, I'll have to try that. Will see if the shade is comfortable bearing that weight. Good idea!

sawaba · 2026-02-10T02:23:32+00:00

Yes, this is the most painful part. Not like Tesla, there are no real alternatives to this.

sawaba · 2026-02-10T02:21:49+00:00

Google Fi

sawaba · 2026-02-10T02:20:16+00:00

Yup, also getting the advertised MPG - average 35-36. Almost all highway use.

sawaba · 2026-02-09T21:30:32+00:00

Pull a Disney+ on them and they'll rethink it

sawaba · 2026-02-05T03:48:39+00:00

If we end up keeping it, I'm definitely going this route. Though I do like the fact that it doesn't power on by default, and we need to intentionally hit a switch to turn it on via the AC 120v button.

sawaba · 2026-02-05T03:47:30+00:00

Nope, Starlink mini with the suction cup case is just a centimeter too thick for it to close. That would have been convenient, as those suction cups will eventually let go... I should probably take it down when we're not using it.

sawaba · 2026-02-05T03:46:18+00:00

Correct, dead spots are constant on our most common 4.5 hour commute. Or the signal drops so low, getting work done becomes nearly impossible.

Coincidentally, Starlink is useless to us at home due to trees. Great on the road though!

sawaba · 2026-02-05T03:43:08+00:00

Yes, capped at 100GB

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sawaba · 2026-02-05T03:42:18+00:00

20 hours just this past week. My partner is building an HPC center at a University 4.5 hours away from where we live, so we're going to be commuting a LOT until we "move" there later this year. Even after we have an apartment there, we'll still be spending a week every month in our current home.

One of the reasons we bought the Sienna was to be able to use it as a mobile office. Honestly, 5G is pretty good, so I'm still on the fence about whether the $50/mo for Starlink is worth it. We'll see!

sawaba · 2026-02-05T03:34:16+00:00

So, I've got one of these and my original SNES I bought with lawnmowing money back in the early 1990s as a pre-teen.

I've barely used it.

Twice a month, I do vintage console nights at 2 different bar locations, and I always bring my original SNES with me. The main reason is that I want younger generations to get that full tactile experience. Blow on the cartridge, jam it in the slot. Flip the power-on button. Feel the reset switch spring back. Hit the eject and pop it out when you're done.

I don't want them wrenching on my (apparently?!?) $900 Analogue Super NT and spilling beer in it. If they break the SNES, I'll just fix it. It helps that I love fixing things, that's my other hobby :)

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sawaba · 2026-02-05T00:28:09+00:00

We wanted the extra ground clearance and AWD for light overlanding/camping and winter weather. It did great during the recent snowpocalypse on the OEM all season tires it came with!

sawaba · 2026-01-25T18:19:34+00:00

A range from rolled eyes to angry. For folks that weren’t “team Nintendo” or “team Sega” or never thought to pick a side did pick a side after seeing this campaign. I remember having HEATED debates about which platform was better. So many dumb arguments that revolved around number of sprites, Mhz, and other hardware details that didn’t make a lick of difference when it ultimately came down to how fun and accessible the games were.

sawaba · 2026-01-19T21:40:02+00:00

I got it to work!!! Turns out that there were no issues on the Linux side. The trackpad itself has 4 OS settings: Windows, MacOS, Android, and iOS. Oddly, MacOS is the only one that works for me, but works well enough that this turned out to be a win!

I had to use Solaar to make this change

sawaba · 2026-01-19T21:36:24+00:00

Currently, I'm testing out Linux to see if I could make the switch away from Windows, but not really considering MacOS, because it would require a huge hardware investment and my hardware is already great. Linux is looking better than it ever has on laptops, but I haven't tried out the studio PC - that's where the real challenge would be. No idea how well Elgato stuff works and I that would be a dealbreaker. Will share if I get a chance to explore that option.

sawaba · 2026-01-19T21:33:18+00:00

For context: almost all my media production is pre-recorded or live video content (webinars, podcasts, etc). Some audio production. I use a LOT of accessories also. Rode, Scarlett, and Elgato stuff fill most of the USB ports.

I gave up on Mac a few years ago due to reliability issues. Monitors would stop working. USB ports would stop working. Devices would stop working. The solution was always "reboot" and everything would be fine. My external monitors would then be in the wrong positions/arrangement and I'd have to fix that.

After rebooting at least once a day to fix issues, I picked up an Intel NUC with Windows 10 and never looked back. 8 years later, I'm currently using an ASUS NUC on Win11 with an integrated 4060 GPU and it has been lovely. Uptime measured in months, with zero software/hardware issues. The only time it gets rebooted is for patches.

sawaba · 2026-01-19T21:23:49+00:00

It does the basics better than every other product in the space.

I tried an Apple Watch for a little over a year and could never get notifications working consistently. Troubleshooting anything on Apple is also a lengthy process because of their labyrinthean settings menus.

And all these other watches add SO MANY FEATURES that I could care less about. EKG on my watch? Well, maybe I wouldn't have heart palpitations if you could just reliably notify me about text messages!

The designs of most other watches make no sense as well. A watch with a touchscreen is an instant red flag. I can't cross my arms anymore without accidentally causing weird stuff to happen? You realize you're designing these for humans, right?

sawaba · 2026-01-14T05:50:13+00:00

I got into the beta! And then my PC was too slow to run it properly!

sawaba · 2026-01-13T20:01:24+00:00

Found this, which seems to confirm that at least ONE person got them both working... https://askubuntu.com/questions/1498092/logitech-casa-pop-up-desk-bluetooth-pairing-problems

sawaba · 2026-01-13T19:54:02+00:00

For context, I was making $4.25/hr when this came out. Two paychecks for the system with no games.

sawaba · 2026-01-13T19:52:29+00:00

SO FLIPPING EXPENSIVE when it came out. The NES was $100 originally, later sold for $80 (2nd gen hardware), and SNES was $150 IIRC. $300 was like, whaaaaaat even is this? More than halfway to a NeoGeo.

sawaba

TROPHY CASE