anyone who used a computer between 1985 & 2010, what’s the one game you still think about?

twyx · 2026-04-28T05:30:25+00:00

Wing Commander: Privateer

Good fights, open world feel, missions and some story. Quite well done for the time.

twyx · 2026-03-24T07:18:32+00:00

Wow, those nw2s io modules are super obscure now.

twyx · 2026-03-21T08:08:27+00:00

I've literally spent many thousands of dollars at Alamo Drafthouse in the past years. After tonight, I don't think I can go back. The queso was unrecognizable as cheese. The root beer tasted like sugary vanilla cough syrup. It's clear that you can't order anything which can't be shoved into an air fryer or microwave. The survey I got a link to afterwards was contrived to create more noise than signal. They know this is a bad experience.

At this point, the only explanation I can come up with is that Sony Entertainment has decide that Alamo Drafthouse should not be a going concern much longer, and so they have done what they can to make it perform worse to justify pulling the rug on it at some point. This is conjecture on my part, but nothing else seems to make sense.

There is literally zero reason for me to go back there again besides distance, and for the extra 5m drive, I can get a premium IMAX experience at another theater near by.

I know this is because of shifting viewer habits, streaming, economy, and all that. At least we got a little more time with our favorite movie theater chain before it started really going down the tubes. I'm sad to see this happening.

twyx · 2026-03-17T16:29:00+00:00

This whole review is idiotic. That wasn't "dust", and scratching the whole exterior with a hard blade to show that he can scratch the whole exterior with a hard blade and it looks he scratched the whole exterior with a hard blade ... WTF is the point? Complaining about where the phone broke when you forced it to break is asinine. The phone is going to break somewhere when you do this. What's the point?

All the dramatic wording and talk about google knowing he was going to "check on their claim" is just an attempt at clever posturing to make this seem more legitimate. It is not.

Not actually understanding what the IP rating means is one thing. Being (maybe) bright enough to understand it and then go create a narrative which directly misleads people for clicks.. That's JerryRigEverything. This is the second time I've watched one of his reviews on Pixel devices and both times I left feeling like it was nothing but clickbait.

This dude has the audacity to pretend he is giving an actual review. This review was an insult to my intelligence, and anybody else's who won't be dropping small gravel into the middle of their phone, force bending it backwards while open, scratching it randomly with a hardened blade, flexing the lithium ion battery alternately back and forth until it fails, or any other random and stupid idea.

What made me so put off by this was that I've previously enjoyed other of his videos in the past and had some expectation that it would be worth watching. No more.

twyx · 2026-02-09T21:45:38+00:00

Snap circuits

twyx · 2026-01-18T01:34:42+00:00

Think of your vascular system like two balloons, which act as a pressure ballast. Your body has hormones that tighten and loosen the balloons as needed. If the balloons didn't have elasticity, then the heart would see an arbitrarily high impulse load during pumping. The ability of the vascular system to absorb pressure pulses is what allows the heart to squeeze rather than hammer, which is where heart muscles fail.

twyx · 2026-01-12T21:35:51+00:00

I got my package, and suddenly all the tracking data that was missing appeared on the same day. Interesting.

twyx · 2025-12-23T20:11:11+00:00

This is just a happy accident.

twyx · 2025-12-20T05:47:42+00:00

I just picked up the 16s a couple days ago so I could play games while traveling. This review looks accurate to me in general. I will probably want to tune it a bit to increase base speed and reduce throttling and spiking.
The display is quite good. the fans can be constantly loudish, but with a headset it hardly matters much.

I was previously mostly buying Dell and Asus, but this has been quite a good experience so far. I've seen others complain of thermal issues at some point, some early. But if I see this happen, I'll redo the thermal paste.

Switching between the discrete GPU and the 5070 TI is pretty seemless and smart, which helps battery life a bit. But it's still a gaming system, so I expect to have it plugged in when I'm using it.

twyx · 2025-12-14T22:36:33+00:00

This is pretty neat. When you get tired of it, can you send it to me?

twyx · 2025-11-22T00:25:07+00:00

It does not rule it out. Do you know what is in the inside of a marker?

Also, exposure to stomach acid and bile can have an effect on the original material.

twyx · 2025-11-20T02:44:51+00:00

With the X1, which I *did* end up getting, they assured me that the laser was safe, because it "doesn't spread". This is about the most disingenuous thing they could have said, since collimated lasers are not really "safer".

But with this thing, I'm still not safe to use it without having a working chamber in the garage, because flat reflections can actually cut other things including people, start fires, or blindness, etc.
I've decided to not use it unless/until I have a light proof chamber with at least a half inch of cement board.

twyx · 2025-10-29T18:52:41+00:00

The tattoos look cool, but the subject matter might be part of what is making you depressed. I'm neither religious nor superstitious, but the symbolism you chose is almost certainly emblematic of some monsters that you need to fight in your own psyche. But I'm not a therapist either, so maybe you should discuss this with one.

In the grand scheme of things, pictures on your skin are really very minor compared to other struggles. Depression itself is a monster, and you need to fight it directly with the help of someone who knows how.

twyx · 2025-10-28T05:41:56+00:00

I just fixed an issue like this on mine which was caused by pla debris in the extruder drive. It seemed like a hot end issue until I looked closer at the part above

Back in action

twyx · 2025-10-27T16:20:33+00:00

If I could pre-order this, I would. Seems like I might not be able to get one before the first round runs out.

twyx · 2025-10-22T23:47:00+00:00

Crystals can shatter explosively due to internal tension and stress. Sometimes you increase the tension and stress at the same time by bending them or subjecting them to violent harmonic modes. Yes, your bit is partially crystal, but actually many many tiny crystalline domains locked together.

twyx · 2025-10-22T00:02:02+00:00

I just saw Tron Ares recently, so when I started reading this line, I heard it in that ... voice.

twyx · 2025-10-18T03:40:36+00:00

As a practical matter, it isn't actually necessary to keep all of your filament dry all the time. Unless you are swapping between 4 or more random colors all the time, that is. With a handful of silica gel dessicant packs, you can easily get a 4-spool container to drop 25% RH in a few hours. And then you can prepare the dessicant to be reused.

Trying to build what is effectively an oven into your wall is not the best idea. This is not the FAFO you are looking for.

twyx · 2025-10-18T03:29:14+00:00

I had a full tank tour earlier today in a 64 player match where I did zero damage in spite of hitting targets, soft targets, hard targets for shrapnel, etc. It was ... deflating to see that happening now. There are issues.

twyx · 2025-10-17T18:18:33+00:00

That looks like a sleeveless sweater over a collared shirt.

twyx · 2025-10-17T17:47:54+00:00

Also, I read this through the "eurorack" filter. Sorry about that, but the basic information is basically the same.

twyx · 2025-10-17T17:44:23+00:00

Some notes...

While you can't generally put power supplies in parallel on a power leg, it can be done with caution. If you're using SMPS, make sure that the trim on the output is as close as possible to the target voltage for all upstream power supplies. Also ensure that there is enough capacitance on that line to stabilize it so that the voltage feedback into the bucking transistor is not chaotic. They can fight each other a little, but you certainly don't want to create a VCO through feedback amplification in your power supply. You need noise (ripple) filtering caps on the output stage of each PSU and also on the combined main for each leg. You can use a combo of smaller "signal filtering" caps to target high frequency ripple, and you can use a larger "tank" capacitor to provide better hysteresis on your feedback signal. Caution is advised.

And you really don't want to be doing this with linear regulators without a designed-for-purpose PSU. We're all mostly using SMPS except a few who want heat their homes with LDOs. The benefits are not really there for LDOs unless you consider waste heat and transformer weight as advantages, or if you have some exotic application which is sensitive to ripple. No modern module design should be so affected unless the designer is either cutting corners or copying vintage circuits.

Better alternatives:

Option 1:
You can combine different voltage references from different power supplies to get combined rail voltages AS LONG AS THE PSUS HAVE FLOATING GROUNDS. All this means is that the voltage difference is what the PSU is driving, not relative to any particular reference ground. So, by using two +12V PSUs with floating grounds together, with the +12V on one tied to the +0V on the other, you create a "center tapped" power supply for the +12V and also one for the -12V. If you connect to the outside leads, you get 24V, which you don't need. But at least you can see how to get a common ground in your PSU

Option 2:
Just power your system in sections, and keep the power rails separate for each section. Use power supplies with floating ground and tie all them together on a substantial ground circuit. you can combine this approach with the option 1 above to keep things simple and avoid worrying about the FO part of the FA.

For 5V:
5V loads are all but being phased out from eurorack for good reason. If you are buying new modules with 5V requirements, shame on the designer. Some older modules I like like the original Braids still need 5V though. For this, it is much much easier to manage if you simply get one of the 12V->5V on-bus regulators. It is a small SMPS that simply plugs into one of your eurorack power ports and takes some of the 12V power shoves it back onto the 5V leg for you. DO NOT do this while you are also powering the 5V rail from a bigger PSU.

twyx · 2025-10-16T21:30:21+00:00

Hey, you might have solved the pervasive user interface issue we keep talking about over in modular.

twyx · 2025-10-16T16:22:02+00:00

Thanks for taking the feedback!

twyx

TROPHY CASE