Coconut Monkey Cornerclub

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There's definitely a particular mood you need to be in for them. GB games are hitting right for me now because I just want something pretty simple and it helps that I can play a Gameboy with one hand.

Plus you might be surprised at the sheer variety of them. DS is pretty great, as it had a lot of very weird, very experimental games on it and weirdly, many PC ports. Anno 1701 is on DS and it plays exactly like the PC original.
Are there any DS games you would recommend?

Im not sure I would be able to play a PC game on an emulated DS, that sounds like it would get annoying very fast.

Ads are such a killer and often forget just how bad they are on my phone until I leave my house. I have a PiHole on my network, so I end up using an app outside my house, only to discover it's riddled with ads I don't normally see.

Only decent games I've found on my phone that are buy to play are Hoplite and Meteorfall. They're decent in a pinch, but again, I carry around handhelds anyway, just in case I find myself in such a situation.

There's a couple more decent games I've found, but I can only play the same game for so long before I get bored of it.
 
Are there any DS games you would recommend?

Im not sure I would be able to play a PC game on an emulated DS, that sounds like it would get annoying very fast.



There's a couple more decent games I've found, but I can only play the same game for so long before I get bored of it.

Hoplite is honestly worth a check. I do get bored rapidly of stuff on my phone, but I do believe that that is not the fault of Hoplite in this case.

DS Recommendations:

Air Traffic Chaos - This is a plate spinning game, essentially. If you've played "Air Traffic Control" style games on your phone in the past, dump the concept from your brain because this is completely different. I'll try to give a quick breakdown: You have planes coming in and taking off from your airport, you need to manage them so they don't crash into each other, but you can only communicate with one plane at a time on any given particular channel (Approach, Departure, Ground) and the pilots have to relay lots of information to you, so it generally takes 10-15 seconds to talk to them each time you do. It basically means you need to be thinking ahead about who's landing or taking off, on what runway and where. Pilots will also get stressed out if you don't give them orders or they have to wait too long before they're allowed to do what they need to do. I found this game so addicting when I first played it, though I do largely think the 3DS games are better, specifically: I am an Air Traffic Controller: Airport Hero Hawaii, yes that is the actual name. There is nothing else like this series and I completely love it. There is a PC version of this game that is newer and I know has lots of mods, but I haven't been able to get into it in the same way I got into the DS and 3DS versions.

Orcs & Elves: Programmed by none other than the John Carmack, this is a first person dungeon crawler. The story isn't complex or interesting, but combat is fun enough and it's really cool to explore the dungeons, feeling very reminiscent of classic PC dungeon crawlers like Wizardry or Might & Magic, except you're the only party member.

Warlock of Firetop Mountain: I've spent about 10-12 hours with this one and I need to spend more. It's a bit janky, but another first person dungeon crawler, but this time not tile based. It's very expansive for a DS game and extremely challenging as well.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars: I'm sure you've heard of this one, as it's widely available these days, but there's not a ton to say. If you like GTA and in particular Classic GTA, as done by DMA design, this is what you want. A very expansive world, decent story, fun gameplay and the drug minigame is great fun; it's impressive they managed to fit all this onto a DS cart.

Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer: Not too much to say about this one, but it's a classic Roguelike. Explore a "dungeon" (forest in this case), pick up strange items that might be helpful or might curse you, you never know until you try them out. Die, rinse, repeat. There are plenty of other Shiren games, but I feel like this one strikes the best balance of the ones I've played in terms of being relatively simple and straightforward, versus adding a whole ton of extra mechanics to get your brain around.

Dragon Quest 4/5/6/9: Not sure if you're a Dragon Quest fan, I am. Not a rabid manic, but where I strongly dislike JRPGs that are very self serious, Dragon Quest very much isn't that and you have some of the best of the series in 4/5 (haven't played 5) on the system. 9 is currently on my roster to finish after I'm done playing 3 on my Gameboy Color.

Etrian Odyssey 3: Admittedly, I haven't played this one yet, but I put heaps of time into 4 on my 3DS and it's a great series. Make a party, draw the map to a dungeon, recreate your party as new classes, but with bonuses depending on how far you leveled them prior. Admittedly, I think this is the kind of series you play one of and then don't bother with the others; you're not here for a story, this is pretty much pure gameplay and they generally don't differ too much from one another, though at some point I want to try Nexus on my 3DS.

Hotel Dusk: Room 215 (And it's sequel, Last Window): My favorite ******* thing ever on DS and possibly one of my favorite games in general. It's basically an adventure game where you're limited to one particular building (A Hotel), where you talk to all the residents, solve puzzles and figure out the mystery behind the place you're in and the people in it. Novel for the fact that you hold the DS sideways like a book. Absolutely adore this series and it's sucks that it's confined to the DS. Not sure how emulation would work for it, but I assume something like Drastic has the ability to turn the screens sideways. That said, I wouldn't want to play this on a PC, because to me it's a game I laid in bed and played through.

Retro Game Challenge (2 also has an English translation patch): This one is just great. Essentially, the developers created a bunch of games based on old NES games, like Ninja Gaiden, Dragon Quest and the like, in which you complete little mini challenges in them, like Get to the 5th Level and so on. But what's neat is that they've created this entire world around it, so you can go read magazines that come in every so often and the magazines have hints, tips and cheats, so say you are doing that challenge to get to level 5, you can maybe find a cheat in a magazine to put you on level 4 so that you can can complete it much faster. The second game has even more variety and includes games that ape stuff from the SNES, Gameboy, Famicom Disk System, etc and the game genres in that one are a little more varied, which isn't to say you shouldn't bother with the first, because it's still probably the better one.

There's tons of other weird **** on the DS, stuff like Panzer General and even other Slitherine WW2 games, visual novels, detective stories, weird RPGs. Lots of tradional style games on there as well, if you're looking for something like that. Aliens: Infestation is neat, though didn't hold my attention super long, The Dark Spire, more dungeon crawling, Advance Wars is always nice (much prefer it over Fire Emblem by the same company), just absolutely tons of strange things that are absolutely worth playing and that haven't appeared on any other system.

I know you're probably going to prefer emulation here, but I might recommend picking up a DSi on eBay. The regular sized DSi's sell for about $50 and the XL's for $100 and they're extremely easy to hack. Throw a 16gb SD card in there and you could have the entire library of DS games on there. But, I'm a sucker for handhelds, so maybe that's just me. I have em coming out of my ears I own so many of the things.
 
3D Printing

Zed mentioned it earlier today, any of you guys into it?

When I first heard of it, I thought it was the start of the next big revolution—same as I felt when I first encountered personal computers in late 70s. A bit of research cured me of that illusion tho.

I imagine it's much more advanced today tho, I've seen/read about industrial scale eg where they make custom buildings. What's it like at a hobby level, what's the range of usable raw materials like?
 
3D Printing

Zed mentioned it earlier today, any of you guys into it?

When I first heard of it, I thought it was the start of the next big revolution—same as I felt when I first encountered personal computers in late 70s. A bit of research cured me of that illusion tho.

I imagine it's much more advanced today tho, I've seen/read about industrial scale eg where they make custom buildings. What's it like at a hobby level, what's the range of usable raw materials like?

It's pretty cool, especially as a tabletop wargamer.

I have a resin printer, so that's my only experience with it currently, but there is FDM, which is a little different, less caustic, less resolution (though it can still be damn impressive) and is very good for printing stuff like buildings/terrain. This is probably what you think of when you think 3d printing, which is the nozzle/head that goes around in a pattern and extrudes a material in layers. As I understand it, it tends to take a bit more tinkering than Resin 3D printing; I'll be getting one of them pretty soon.

Resin is pretty cool, finer detail, can't print large items as easily/well and it has higher requirements as far as space and handling go. Resin can be dangerous to inhale, as well as handle, giving some people chemical burns, so you need a well ventilated room. When I am doing it, I wear disposable gloves to keep it off my skin, though I've had it on me on a few occasions without issue, but it varies by person. It is best for printing miniatures for tabletop, which I've done extensively at this point. Resin also needs to be cleaned and cured before you can handle it and depending on what kind you use (I've been using cheap stuff, but I think I'll upgrade when I next need resin).

All of this was 3d printed (with the exception of the orange guy, but pieces of him were)


My brother in law also has one, but he uses his to make cases and things for Arduino machines he builds, as well as designs and prints parts to fix broken plastic pieces on things or other random things. He just recently installed a new backup camera monitor in my MILs RV and printed a surround to go around it and hold it in place in the dash.

What to you mean by useable raw materials?
 
What you can feed into it—resin, plastic pellets, wet cement, solder etc etc.

Do you create your own blueprints to feed the software, or modify templates?

Ah ok.

Resin is usually a bottled liquid, which is poured into a vat. There are many different kinds, different colors (which doesn't seem to matter, as you want to paint it so it doesn't over cure if exposed to the sun, but will have different printing times, due to needing more or less UV exposure), etc. It's about the consistency of heavy whipping cream.

FDM uses a spool of plastic which is loaded onto a reel and then fed into the nozzle, which melts it a bit and extrudes it into a build plate.

You can design your own 3d model, which my brother in law does. I have not yet experimented with this, I usually search things out, tending to look good specific things: Wargames3d has lots of historical, Cults3d has a lot of everything, but there are numerous sites and creators you can find to get files from. Generally you pay the artist for their work, but lots of people make their stuff available for free.

Once I have the file, then I do need to modify it somewhat and add supports. Bigger things like that tank and the big blue troll, I will hollow out and add support inside, just so I use less resin, as well as makes them a bit lighter, so less prone to breaking/shattering should they fall.

Supports, are there to connect parts of the model that will have little island that won't be connected initially when it prints, but then will connect to each other as more layers are added. Honestly, I don't quite fully understand supports, at least why they're always necessary, but I do generally understand how I need to structure them on a print to get it to come out correct.

This video may answer questions better than I am, It's what I watched several times when I first began.
 
Last night I found out what those yellow USB ports on my mobo IO were for. It’s USB DAC-UP 2, providing low-noise power for cleaner audio. I kept switching my headset from normal USB 2 to the DAC USB, and maaaaybe could hear a slight crisper difference, but also maybe I’m trying too hard to hear anything different between the two. I decided I may as well use them. Nothing has been plugged into them probably ever in the 5-6 years I’ve had this mobo. I mistakenly thought it was “low-power” for USB accessories that don’t need full power or something like that, nah it’s low-noise for crisper audio. It may work better if I had a dedicated DAC to plug my headphones into, but it won’t hurt any. One thing I did notice is that the max volume seem a bit quieter but not too quiet, so that’s good for not blowing my eardrums out on accident. Funny thing, you learn new stuff about your computer every day.
 
that’s good for not blowing my eardrums out on accident

My headset is a cheap on-ear one, which I always slip forward a bit before launching a new audio medium—as learned from [y]ears of experience :)

ETA:

you learn new stuff … every day.

Ain't that the truth—just found out letter y in round brackets is shortcut for thumbs up (y) :D
 
That's it, I am heading into the wilderness!
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29ECwExc-_M
This makes me want to play Generation Zero so I can simulate the inevitable robot world domination.
My headset is a cheap on-ear one, which I always slip forward a bit before launching a new audio medium—as learned from [y]ears of experience :)
For a while I would keep Windows volume at 100% and the headset volume dial below 50%. It only took one time for me to accidentally have the dial at 100% and open a game to make me reverse it lol. Windows volume usually doesn’t go above 50% ever now.
 
I am heading into the wilderness!

Looks up known habitats of Flappy Ears… Hey, no need, you've been there all along!

I can simulate the inevitable robot world domination

Get a Social Media job weeding out AI posts, that should get you 95% of the necessary experience.
Neo to AI Assistant: Is that message from an AI?
AI Ass: Wut?
Neo: Is that—
AI Ass: I spam, therefore I am
Neo: Oh God, it's finally happened
AI: How do you know my name?

Windows volume usually doesn’t go above 50% ever now

I have media keys on my KB to assist my don't-make-me-deafer quest, it's quick access to mute and +/- when needed, so yeah, I'm usually same as you.
 
Today is the day! Leaving for London this evening and hopefully be able to sleep on the flight, though I'm a terrible sleeper, especially when "stuff" is happening around me, so we'll see.

I am absolutely riddled with anxiety; about getting to the airport, about the flight, about being perceived as American (which, of course I am and there's nothing to be done about that. Less about the "American" thing and more about being the "Other" in a new place) and about driving. Thankfully, I won't be driving in London really, but picking up a car at the airport on Tuesday or Wednesday and driving to Wool.

It'll be a 3-hour drive, so we'll see about driving on the opposite side of the car, the road and using a manual transmission with the opposite arm. I did actually play a bit of Euro Truck Simulator to do a modicum of practice and reacquaint myself with the concept. I drove a little bit in New Zealand many years ago and it wasn't terrible, but after looking at the rules for a roundabout, I must say, I'm nervous.

Aside from the anxiety, I am absolutely excited to go to Wool, both to see a bit of the English countryside, as well as visit The Tank Museum, which is easily my most anticipated thing. London is cool, I'm sure, but tanks! The trip is only about 6-days, but I haven't done much international travel before (aside from New Zealand) and I've always had a bit of a fascination with the UK as a place in general, so I'm excited to spend time there.
 
3D Printing

Zed mentioned it earlier today, any of you guys into it?

When I first heard of it, I thought it was the start of the next big revolution—same as I felt when I first encountered personal computers in late 70s. A bit of research cured me of that illusion tho.

I imagine it's much more advanced today tho, I've seen/read about industrial scale eg where they make custom buildings. What's it like at a hobby level, what's the range of usable raw materials like?

Bought a small beginner one during black friday, i have yet to pull it out and try it lol
 
Today is the day! Leaving for London this evening and hopefully be able to sleep on the flight, though I'm a terrible sleeper, especially when "stuff" is happening around me, so we'll see.

I am absolutely riddled with anxiety; about getting to the airport, about the flight, about being perceived as American (which, of course I am and there's nothing to be done about that. Less about the "American" thing and more about being the "Other" in a new place) and about driving. Thankfully, I won't be driving in London really, but picking up a car at the airport on Tuesday or Wednesday and driving to Wool.

It'll be a 3-hour drive, so we'll see about driving on the opposite side of the car, the road and using a manual transmission with the opposite arm. I did actually play a bit of Euro Truck Simulator to do a modicum of practice and reacquaint myself with the concept. I drove a little bit in New Zealand many years ago and it wasn't terrible, but after looking at the rules for a roundabout, I must say, I'm nervous.

Aside from the anxiety, I am absolutely excited to go to Wool, both to see a bit of the English countryside, as well as visit The Tank Museum, which is easily my most anticipated thing. London is cool, I'm sure, but tanks! The trip is only about 6-days, but I haven't done much international travel before (aside from New Zealand) and I've always had a bit of a fascination with the UK as a place in general, so I'm excited to spend time there.
I go between UK and Europe a few times a year usually. The driving switch is pretty easy for me, the only time I have panicked slightly is when theres a roundabout and there no one on the road. If its busy its easy to see which way everyone is going.
 
My parents in law have left a couple of days ago and it's been good sleeping in an actual bed again. Both my wife and I did get a pretty nasty cold though, so we haven't done much cleaning of any sort since they left. I haven't played any video games since before my parents in law arrived either and it'll probably be a while still before I have time to play anything, unless I ignore all of the stuff that needs doing.
 
Don't want to see any YouTube Shorts icon showing while browsing YouTube? Get uBlock Origin (it could be that other adblocks work also, but this one worked for me) and copy the top part of this code - https://christitus.com/remove-youtube-shorts/ until you see the title: !!!Mobile!!! (I don't browse on the phone so have not tried the bottom part of the code) Then apply the code in Ublock, toggle: "enable my custom filters", apply changes, and restart the browser. I tried it myself right now and I have no YouTube Shorts icon showing on YouTube, it is gone.

So what is the point? Even if you can avoid clicking on the shorts, now you don't need to see anything related to it, which is how the old YouTube worked. It would not surprise me if YouTube even runs faster now.

Here is a picture of the code I pasted and where on Ublock you paste it.
yDTsQcQ.png


This is where I found this info:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfr0uIU2lDI
 
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Here is another tip that you can use with Ublock Origin on YouTube: Whenever you have opened your subscribed channel on YouTube, you'll also have a sidebar to the right that shows random recommended videos similar to what you are watching. To remove this completely: Click on the Ublock Origin extension in your browser and then click on the icon I have circled (What an incredible circle:grimacing:) around and then mark the whole annoying sidebar and click ok. Now you'll see no more recommended videos.
pKA0akT.png
 
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Zloth

Community Contributor
Windows 11 is wearing thin. I've got it on my work PC now, and I still haven't found anything to really like about it. Meanwhile, I can't have my folders of shortcuts on my task bar to make it easy to open various programs/network paths. I have to remember to hold shift down when right clicking on File Explorer stuff or I get the shortened context menu and have to do an extra click to get the real context menu.

At least I figured out how to make the top bar thing for window placement go away.
 
make it easy to open various programs/network paths

I use the expensive Directory Opus file manager which handles all that stuff very well, incl auto-login to remote locations and displaying the contents of desired folder there.

If I didn't have that, I'd try Fences' folder view function, which provides direct view of selected folders on your desktop.

Or another file manager, I imagine some of them have functionality for that sort of thing.
 
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