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Cake day: June 20th, 2023

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  • I love retro gaming on real hardware, but the prices for turn-of-the-millenium software are outrageous. whatever was popular 20 years ago tends to suddenly become very expensive, but after a certain point the price does go down again. I used to collect NES games, when they got too expensive I moved to big box pc games, and now I’m building a Wii and Atari 2600 collection. The 2600 is so old that most of the people who are nostalgic for it aren’t actively collecting it. meanwhile, the Wii is still comparatively new (though that will likely change in a few years).

    so, I guess my advice is: buy whatever’s cheap. I had never played the 2600 before but I ended up developing a genuine appreciation for the console. similarly, I’m picking up Wii games because I love the Wii and I want to make sure I have all the essentials before they get really expensive.

    Another alternative is to just buy a console and then use a flashcart/softmod. or use an FPGA system, which will get you a native-like experience.

    it sucks that a thing I like so much has become a festival of unrestricted capitalism, but I think it’s still possible to carve out a niche and enjoy yourself.












  • the biggest causes of bsods and other crashes on windows up to xp were drivers. after xp, Microsoft required drivers for windows to go through their signing and verification program, which was controversial but it did solve the problem

    modern windows rarely crashes outright but in my experience it does break in small ways over time, without the user doing anything

    in terms of disabling windows components, it’s true that this can break your system, but I would argue this is still Microsoft’s problem. there are many windows competents that are deeply coupled together when they have no reason to be


  • Hopefully I’m not too late to say this: I would strongly caution against buying a Fairphone. My mum got a new Fairphone 3 in early 2021. Earlier this year, just after the phone went out of warranty, the USB-C port stopped working. The replacement bottom module was out of stock, it’s been out of stock for months, and the forums are full of people complaining that it’s been mostly out of stock since 2021. Fairphone claimed that they would have stock back by the end of August, and as of today, that is not true. This phone was supposed to have spare parts available through to 2025.