Oof. I’m in DHS. I’m assuming that in the event of any shenanigans, that’d be a “safer” place to be (though some components like FEMA and TSA maybe less so). But HUD? Definitely top of their list.

Here’s hoping for the best. Because that’s all we can do right now.

I started a job with the federal government two months ago. I’d been applying for like 18yrs; finally got one! Now a part of me wonders if I’ll even have a job next year. Potential for Schedule F designation, layoffs of the federal bureaucracy, whatever other shit a hostile administration throws at us.

Over on another reddit/beehaw-like site, there’s a “Backlog Burner” event. Basically playing games in one’s games backlog during the month on November. And boy do I have a backlog.

I started with This War of Mine. I didn’t play very long, nearly 1.5hrs. It wasn’t bad. I think I just got bored. I might go back to it at some point? We’ll see. It’s just slow to start and not a lot of direction. I’m kinda the type that at least in the beginning of a game, I’m gonna need a little direction and a push.

For the second game I’ve played so far, I tried Signalis. Now THAT is an awesome game. So far anyway; only about 3hrs in. I will say, I don’t normally like playing horror/suspense games like this. I’m too much of a wuss. But Signalis has kept me hooked. I’ll only play for like 20-30min at a time, before my nerves start getting to me (lol), but I do keep going back.

Otherwise, just playing FFXIV as usual. And also finishing up Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice. Finally on the last case, “Turnabout Time Traveler.”

90s. Late 90s, as I was in middle school.

Some folks from my last job were in town on Wednesday, so they invited me out to dinner. I say “last job,” but I’m now a contractor/consultant for them; no longer a FTE. So I guess they’re still my coworkers. It was nice to see them in person. My boss was there, so of course he asked how my new job was going. From my previous post, I’m not sure I’m enjoying it. But I couldn’t tell him that.

But I started with, “It’s interesting…” And his eyes widened and he got a gleam in his eyes, lol. He thinks that anyone who leaves the company is crazy. And there’s some truth to that as I’ve worked for the company twice. The first time I left…I don’t want to say it was a mistake, but it wasn’t everything I hoped for. I eventually came back a year and half later. Which he loves rubbing in my face and anyone who contemplates leaving. So I fudged it a bit. And he deflated, lol.

Either way, I’m glad I got to see them, and just spend a fun evening catching up over drinks and dinner. Gordon Ramsey’s Hell’s Kitchen is excellent.

This weekend, just watching F1 and League of Legends Worlds. Let’s go Red Bull and T1!

Mitigations

Just use another torrent client. Deluge and Transmission etc do not have this vulnerability.

Was wondering what the takeaway is here. I updated to 5.0.1. Does that fix all these? If not, guess I’ll try a different torrent client.

My work is now tracking mouse and keyboard inputs for productivity.

Oof, wtf? I love when these managers turn to IT to “solve” productivity “issues.” As if mouse/keyboard tracking can’t be faked/fudged. Like does mouse/keyboard movement really prove productivity? I can sit on Tildes or reddit all day and that would see my keyboard/mouse look busy.

Or even if someone is working in like Excel or Word, doesn’t mean the work is productive, if it’s not being done well or right at all. But again, it’d “look” productive via tracking.

Technology does not fix management issues.

Appreciate the kind words. Here’s hoping!

Jfc. Can’t, or rather won’t, refurbish? That’s beyond stupid.

Yeah that’d be cool if the opened it up and recreate it as a platform for people to mess around with it. Like a rPi or Arduino or something. Because in it’s current form…pretty much useless. But you’re right; they’d have to drop that price point significantly and incentivize people even if it were open.

Trying to finish up Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirt of Justice. I think I’m on the last case, so I can move on to the Ace Attorney: Investigations spin-offs after this. I’ve played all of these in the past on DS/3DS (except AA:I2), but that was years ago so some of these I don’t remember the cases and stories. Either way, I’m enjoying it. I don’t particularly love Visual Novels, but these kinds I do like.

Picked up Metaphor: ReFantazio over the weekend. Only a few hours in, but it’s definitely got my attention. Cool to play a brand new JRPG IP. Definitely looking forward to getting deeper into it. I like that it uses the traditional JRPG turn-based battle system. I don’t mind active battle systems (a la FFXV and FFXVI), but I’m definitely a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to JRPGs. Plus I’m often just bad at active battle, ha.

Friends also goaded me into getting the new Factorio: Space Age DLC. Even though I’ve had the base game for years, I don’t really play Factorio, preferring Satisfactory instead when I want to play Factory Sims, but I wanted to play with friends. Plus it’s a good chance for me to finally learn how to play this game and play efficiently.

I’m into week 7 of this new job. It’s moving by really quick, which is a plus. But I’m having doubts.

It’s way more chaotic and unstructured than I expected it to be. Which is weird because, aside from a quick 3mo stint at one place, the rest of my ~19yr professional career has been in small businesses that were often chaotic and unstructured! At my last job, where I did a total of ~17yrs over two separate stints, I was the only IT guy; I was constantly winging it and figuring things out. I practically had no training, supervision, nor oversight when it came to making things work.

I guess I expected that, since this new job is an enterprise-level place, the technical environment I’d be in would be enterprise-level. But it’s not. It feels like a small business again. But somehow worse. Just today I was in my first meeting with the supposed networking group, and one guy was going through the laundry list of issues. One being that there are numerous people outside of this team who have the same powers and permissions as this team! And this issue, among others, seems to exist in multiple related areas, including those that I’m supposed to be managing. And there’s no one to say “Stop that!”

Plus, I was hoping I’d be able to get trained in some of this. There’s a lot of stuff here that I’ve never touched before. Unfortunately, my role is essentially brand new and the group I’m supposed to be working with and sorta helping to lead was literally created two weeks ago. Along with my practically my own job! No joke, I nor my employers knew what exactly my job was until two weeks ago. Plus, I didn’t even think I would be leading in any fashion. I feel like I’m just getting tossed in and being told to figure it out, which is not at all what I expected or wanted.

On the other hand, I wonder if what I’m feeling is just because I’m new. I’ve only been new to a job three times over the 19yrs. So I’m not used to not knowing about things and not being the “expert.” Which is uncomfortable. And when I feel uncomfortable, my default action is to run away.

I don’t hate this job. And nearly everyone I’ve worked with or interacted with so far has been friendly and helpful. When I have questions, they answer to the best of their ability. So it’s not like I’m truly in a sink or swim position. Plus, given how things are run here, I don’t think there’s strong pressure from above to quickly take action to clean things up. Those above also recognize that this whole division or whatever we are is a WIP. Supposedly, my whole team doesn’t even officially exist, lol.

Obviously time will tell, and of course, I don’t have to stay here forever. But I’ve definitely been on the lookout. I know these days it’s normal to always be looking for the next opportunity. I also can’t quit without having something else lined up either, as I just moved across the country, spent a shitload of money to do that, and still have a year on my lease. So quitting without a new job would be very, very, very bad.

I think I just have to take it day by day, week by week, month by month. My goal is to get to 1yr.

Ah well. Tomorrow is another day. And by Friday, it’ll be 8 weeks. Only 10 months to go.

6ys is definitely a long time for a phone. Personally, I’m trying for 5yrs on my 13 Pro. It’ll be 3yrs in February.

For each iPhone I’ve had, I’ve extended the time between upgrades by a year. 4S to 6+ was about 2yrs. Then to the X was 3yrs. And then 4yrs til my 13 Pro. The cost is one of bigger reasons driving me to do this, but I take the opposite opinion: the advances model to model aren’t that major to me. I don’t need a more powerful/capable camera or a screen with a deeper black or whatever. Aside from calls, messaging, emails, and reading news, and the occasional photo/video – usually of nothing of great importance – nothing I do really pushes my phone to its limits.

That said, I’m somewhat considering doing an earlier upgrade because of that satellite connectivity feature. Not that I go off-grid or anywhere with poor reception with any regularity, but I feel like that’s a nice safety feature in case of an emergency.

Gasp, that would never happen! =D

I didn’t say it since I didn’t want to bring US shithousery politics into the thread.

Philippines has gotta stop with these actors and celebrities entering politics. And also the dynasties (sometimes composed of entertainers). How does being on a variety show or a soap opera qualify someone for high office?

So I’ve played a fair amount of the Settler games, as well as the more recent Anno entries: 2070, 2205, and 1800. I find those games super micromanage-y, especially the Anno games. But not stressful. Like in Anno, you can just kinda keep things on autopilot, not doing very much, and things will be OK (though the AIs might start getting stronger).

Anyway, that’s a good take that Frostpunk is more of a puzzle game. I hadn’t considered that. If that’s the case, that might explain some of my, aversion. Because that parallels somewhat an experience I had with another game: Wargroove. I was looking at Wargroove as a TRPG/SRPG (akin to Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics), where I have wide latitude to execute my own strategies. So in Wargroove, I kept trying to do my own thing, but kept losing the level. It took me awhile to realize the game wanted me to complete the level its way, not my way. And that’s when I realized it was more of a puzzle game and less a strategy game. Which is weird, because I played Advance Wars as a kid. Though maybe it’s because I was a kid I didn’t realize it was a puzzle game at the time.

It might be with Frostpunk that I’m doing something similar. Expecting a colony manager, a la Banished, but not seeing the puzzle game aspect. I’m making those narrative decisions based on nothing logical. Rather emotional: “Oh these kids are gonna starve! I better do this instead of helping the workers!”

Thanks for this; this was helpful, for real!

I’m about halfway through FP1 (I have the DLC). I want to go back and finish it, but like you said, it just kicks the shit out of you. It’s legitimately stressful for me to play it, so I’ve kinda been like “Ehhh…do I really wanna play right now?”

But I am hoping to eventually complete it. Because FP2 does look interesting.

Late to the party, but I finally picked up Helldivers 2. My friends have had it since it came out, but I was being the “hipster gamer” and didn’t get the popular game. Plus, our group has a tendency to do “flavor of the week”/FOMO gaming, where 1 or 2 people buy a new game, convince/guilt trip others into buying the game, we all spend $30-50 on it, play it for like 2 days, then never touch it again. So I was hesitant to get it, lest I get burned again (a la Starfield). Lastly, I’m also not a huge shooter player.

But I wanted to played with the boys, and they were playing it again recently, so I picked it up. And I’m glad I did. Because it’s fun. Stupid fun even. Which is right up our alley. Already put 20hrs in over the last week.

The mechanics are simple. The missions are straightforward. And I like that it’s a pickup/putdown game. Play a 20-40min round, then come back later or tomorrow. It’s not like we’re playing hours on end, which is great. We’ll play a match or two, then maybe do another before we start signing-off for the night.

I had a Sega GameGear as a kid. Yeah it was a Sega system, which Sega was major back then, but the GameGear was nothing compared to the Gameboy. Very cool system, in that it had a full color screen and was backlit.

Now that was at the expense of being heavy as all hell and a monster eater of AA batteries. 6 of them at at time!

I think that was basically the only non-major system I had.

My first DS was the DS Lite. I bought it when the game “Contact” came out. Played various JRPGs on it, as I’m wont to do with handhelds. IIRC, the DS Lite was backwards compatible with GBA carts, which was great. I loved the look, feel, and size of it. Honestly, DS Lite is probably my favorite Nintendo handheld, with the Switch a close second.

After that, I think the next DS that I had was the 3DS. Which I still have; I even booted it up earlier this year to try to play “Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice.” I didn’t end up playing it on the 3DS, since I have that anthology on Steam, but I wanted to see where I was.

Games or series that I played a lot on the DS line were practically all of the mainline Ace Attorney games, and even some of the spin offs like the Professor Layton crossover and AA:Investigations. Fire Emblem was another. I think I played Awakening, Fates, and Echoes. I played at least one Pokemon game, too.