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604 results for “bigshot”
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#🎥
#TheAtlantic— For a #lavish and #expensive #epic about #1920s #Hollywood, Damien #Chazelle’s new #film, #Babylon, introduces itself about as #scatologically as possible. In its first sequence, a harried gofer named Manny Torres (played by Diego #Calva) tries to transport an elephant into the #Hollywood Hills for a big-shot #producer’s party, a #farcical #task that ends with the #elephant #pooping on the camera #lens—in a way, on the #viewers #themselves.
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RE: https://hachyderm.io/@AndrewRadev/115877926517966567
Now that Microsoft is moving to token-based billing, some price increase estimations are out: https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/05/18/github-copilot-ai-token-charges-to-go-up-10x-100x/
> From $48 to $932! $39 to $1,238! $39 to $1,789! $39 to $4,790! The highest I found was $39 to $5,852! Per month! 150× the price!
Maybe these specific 20x-150x examples are outliers, but I doubt the average will be less than 20-30x. And I strongly believe that this token-based pricing is still massively subsidized and this isn't even close to the true cost the companies need to charge to approach any form of profitability.
Congratulations to all software companies that have paid stupid amounts of money to shove bugs and security issues into their software, to lose their experienced developers, and to deskill their junior ones. I'm not seeing the value proposition, myself, but I guess that's why I'm not a big-shot tech CTO.
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Conversely I think that Anil Dash ought to be ashamed of turning his own name into a brand, which he did by the cutesy #tech culture trick of purchasing a vanity domain name. He's Anil-Dash-Dot-Com, like Real James Woods. Dash has used the apparatus of corporate technology to buy himself a badge of superiority. "I'm a Real Person™! See, I paid for the blue check and everything."
This is a very old trick, one that existed long before the personal computer and the #Internet made it so much easier. The chief virtue of the Internet, so far, has been that it's been possible to amplify old scams a millionfold without half-trying. You can buy all sorts of things with your name on them now from some website or another, but well do I remember from my childhood in the 1970s and 1980s how you could find some fly-by-night company through a magazine advertisement who would sell you pencils and pens and stationery all with your name on it. (Think Grimes from the infamous "Homer's Enemy" episode of The Simpsons.) I think also of that moment in Jules Dassin's Night and the City in which the sweaty spiv played by Richard Widmark, temporarily feeling like a big shot, gets himself an office with his name inscribed on the glass. Harry Fabian has MADE it! (He's on the run from the entire London underworld within a couple days.)
It's a load-bearing racket in #capitalism: the more money you're willing to pay, the easier it is to be recognized as a "real person", a person of substance, someone who can't simply be brushed aside or kicked into the gutter. There's not a single honorific of importance in Western society that hasn't been bought in some way, which isn't obtainable through intrigue and bribery. They let Elon Musk into the Royal Society, and faked up a "FIFA Peace Prize" for Donald Trump: one can purchase just about ANY badge of status.
#branding #marketing #corporate-technology #social-status #tech #Internet #capitalism -
Conversely I think that Anil Dash ought to be ashamed of turning his own name into a brand, which he did by the cutesy #tech culture trick of purchasing a vanity domain name. He's Anil-Dash-Dot-Com, like Real James Woods. Dash has used the apparatus of corporate technology to buy himself a badge of superiority. "I'm a Real Person™! See, I paid for the blue check and everything."
This is a very old trick, one that existed long before the personal computer and the #Internet made it so much easier. The chief virtue of the Internet, so far, has been that it's been possible to amplify old scams a millionfold without half-trying. You can buy all sorts of things with your name on them now from some website or another, but well do I remember from my childhood in the 1970s and 1980s how you could find some fly-by-night company through a magazine advertisement who would sell you pencils and pens and stationery all with your name on it. (Think Grimes from the infamous "Homer's Enemy" episode of The Simpsons.) I think also of that moment in Jules Dassin's Night and the City in which the sweaty spiv played by Richard Widmark, temporarily feeling like a big shot, gets himself an office with his name inscribed on the glass. Harry Fabian has MADE it! (He's on the run from the entire London underworld within a couple days.)
It's a load-bearing racket in #capitalism: the more money you're willing to pay, the easier it is to be recognized as a "real person", a person of substance, someone who can't simply be brushed aside or kicked into the gutter. There's not a single honorific of importance in Western society that hasn't been bought in some way, which isn't obtainable through intrigue and bribery. They let Elon Musk into the Royal Society, and faked up a "FIFA Peace Prize" for Donald Trump: one can purchase just about ANY badge of status.
#branding #marketing #corporate-technology #social-status #tech #Internet #capitalism -
Judge Dee’s Mystery
Judge Dee’s Mystery is inspired by the character Di Renjie (Judge Dee), based on a real-life, celebrated judge during the Tang Dynasty.
The character first appeared in the anonymously authored 18th-century Chinese novel, Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee (狄公案; Dí Gōng Àn).
Around the 1940s, Dutch diplomat Robert Van Gulik came across the book in a second-hand bookstore in Tokyo and translated it into English. He later wrote his own Di Renjie stories.
The character became even more renowned after filmmaker Tsui Hark’s made the acclaimed Detective Dee films.
This drama starts at the very beginning before Di Renjie becomes that renowned detective. We see how he develops into the official revered for his detective skills.
In this adaptation, he is a man haunted by a tragic past. After being implicated for a crime, he volunteers to solve it. Thus, begins his career as a famous detective.
What I liked
- Zhang Yi We’s charismatic presence as Di Renjie. I can’t tear my eyes away from him. He may not play a “traditional” version of Di Ren Jie, but I sure love his wuxia, broody version. One of the pet peeves I have is seeing reviews that state that they avoided the drama because “the male lead wasn’t attractive”. To me, he’s a real man with imperfections. He looked like a man who had seen and been through things. He may not be idol-pretty, but he is real-world manly.
- Unlike many people, I didn’t mind that the writers messed with the traditional depiction of Di Renjie in film. (Most adaptations depict him as sly, witty and sometimes even a bit of a bumbling (pretend) idiot.) I liked that they explored his origin story here. It is tragic, sad and filled with mystery.
- Bonus mention: The actress who played Empress Wu Zetian is appropriately intimidating and regal.
- The romance between Di Ren Jie and Cao An is endearing. Di Ren Jie is so lousy when it comes to romance that it is cute to see his comrades stepping in to intervene for him. If Hong Liang (his mentor and old manservant) hadn’t stepped in at one point of the story, it may very well be that they would never be together.
- The Zhang Ruoyun arc! I must say he really added “life” to the drama. (In case you’re wondering, Zhang Rouyun is the lead actor of the critically-acclaimed Joy of Life, which propelled him to fame.) Rouyun’s character, so mysterious, shady and ultimately, shocking, gave the drama a big shot of electricity that it needed.
- The cinematography, the acting—chef’s kiss.
What I didn’t like
- The female sidekick is very annoying and often causes more trouble for the team than help them.
- The mysteries are rather … unmemorable and bland.
- Despite loving the production quality, acting, the cases … somehow the drama lacked the emotional “oomph” that makes a drama addictive. I’m not exactly sure why this is. My theory is that while the production and acting is technically good, many of the characters felt bland and colourless, even Di Renjie. The writing does not move us to really connect with the characters.
- Certain elements were revealed far to late in the story. This lessened the impact of pivotal arcs, especially the second last arc.
- They never revealed why Di Ren Jie’s father did what he did in episode one. Hopefully they’d give more clues in Part 2 besides Di’s sad memories of the event.
This was supposed to be Youku’s Big Drama of the Year, but for some reason it fell flat. I’m not entirely show why as it’s a well-made drama.
However, if you loved Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty, you will enjoy this. It wasn’t the big blockbuster hit that I’d hoped but it is definitely better than the average fare that came out in January and February this year.
Final rating: 3 out of 5
#3Stars #CDrama #China #ChineseDrama #CostumedDrama #DetectiveDee #DiRenjie #TV
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Judge Dee’s Mystery
Judge Dee’s Mystery is inspired by the character Di Renjie (Judge Dee), based on a real-life, celebrated judge during the Tang Dynasty.
The character first appeared in the anonymously authored 18th-century Chinese novel, Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee (狄公案; Dí Gōng Àn).
Around the 1940s, Dutch diplomat Robert Van Gulik came across the book in a second-hand bookstore in Tokyo and translated it into English. He later wrote his own Di Renjie stories.
The character became even more renowned after filmmaker Tsui Hark’s made the acclaimed Detective Dee films.
This drama starts at the very beginning before Di Renjie becomes that renowned detective. We see how he develops into the official revered for his detective skills.
In this adaptation, he is a man haunted by a tragic past. After being implicated for a crime, he volunteers to solve it. Thus, begins his career as a famous detective.
What I liked
- Zhang Yi We’s charismatic presence as Di Renjie. I can’t tear my eyes away from him. He may not play a “traditional” version of Di Ren Jie, but I sure love his wuxia, broody version. One of the pet peeves I have is seeing reviews that state that they avoided the drama because “the male lead wasn’t attractive”. To me, he’s a real man with imperfections. He looked like a man who had seen and been through things. He may not be idol-pretty, but he is real-world manly.
- Unlike many people, I didn’t mind that the writers messed with the traditional depiction of Di Renjie in film. (Most adaptations depict him as sly, witty and sometimes even a bit of a bumbling (pretend) idiot.) I liked that they explored his origin story here. It is tragic, sad and filled with mystery.
- Bonus mention: The actress who played Empress Wu Zetian is appropriately intimidating and regal.
- The romance between Di Ren Jie and Cao An is endearing. Di Ren Jie is so lousy when it comes to romance that it is cute to see his comrades stepping in to intervene for him. If Hong Liang (his mentor and old manservant) hadn’t stepped in at one point of the story, it may very well be that they would never be together.
- The Zhang Ruoyun arc! I must say he really added “life” to the drama. (In case you’re wondering, Zhang Rouyun is the lead actor of the critically-acclaimed Joy of Life, which propelled him to fame.) Rouyun’s character, so mysterious, shady and ultimately, shocking, gave the drama a big shot of electricity that it needed.
- The cinematography, the acting—chef’s kiss.
What I didn’t like
- The female sidekick is very annoying and often causes more trouble for the team than help them.
- The mysteries are rather … unmemorable and bland.
- Despite loving the production quality, acting, the cases … somehow the drama lacked the emotional “oomph” that makes a drama addictive. I’m not exactly sure why this is. My theory is that while the production and acting is technically good, many of the characters felt bland and colourless, even Di Renjie. The writing does not move us to really connect with the characters.
- Certain elements were revealed far to late in the story. This lessened the impact of pivotal arcs, especially the second last arc.
- They never revealed why Di Ren Jie’s father did what he did in episode one. Hopefully they’d give more clues in Part 2 besides Di’s sad memories of the event.
This was supposed to be Youku’s Big Drama of the Year, but for some reason it fell flat. I’m not entirely show why as it’s a well-made drama.
However, if you loved Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty, you will enjoy this. It wasn’t the big blockbuster hit that I’d hoped but it is definitely better than the average fare that came out in January and February this year.
Final rating: 3 out of 5
#3Stars #CDrama #China #ChineseDrama #CostumedDrama #DetectiveDee #DiRenjie #TV
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Judge Dee’s Mystery
Judge Dee’s Mystery is inspired by the character Di Renjie (Judge Dee), based on a real-life, celebrated judge during the Tang Dynasty.
The character first appeared in the anonymously authored 18th-century Chinese novel, Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee (狄公案; Dí Gōng Àn).
Around the 1940s, Dutch diplomat Robert Van Gulik came across the book in a second-hand bookstore in Tokyo and translated it into English. He later wrote his own Di Renjie stories.
The character became even more renowned after filmmaker Tsui Hark’s made the acclaimed Detective Dee films.
This drama starts at the very beginning before Di Renjie becomes that renowned detective. We see how he develops into the official revered for his detective skills.
In this adaptation, he is a man haunted by a tragic past. After being implicated for a crime, he volunteers to solve it. Thus, begins his career as a famous detective.
What I liked
- Zhang Yi We’s charismatic presence as Di Renjie. I can’t tear my eyes away from him. He may not play a “traditional” version of Di Ren Jie, but I sure love his wuxia, broody version. One of the pet peeves I have is seeing reviews that state that they avoided the drama because “the male lead wasn’t attractive”. To me, he’s a real man with imperfections. He looked like a man who had seen and been through things. He may not be idol-pretty, but he is real-world manly.
- Unlike many people, I didn’t mind that the writers messed with the traditional depiction of Di Renjie in film. (Most adaptations depict him as sly, witty and sometimes even a bit of a bumbling (pretend) idiot.) I liked that they explored his origin story here. It is tragic, sad and filled with mystery.
- Bonus mention: The actress who played Empress Wu Zetian is appropriately intimidating and regal.
- The romance between Di Ren Jie and Cao An is endearing. Di Ren Jie is so lousy when it comes to romance that it is cute to see his comrades stepping in to intervene for him. If Hong Liang (his mentor and old manservant) hadn’t stepped in at one point of the story, it may very well be that they would never be together.
- The Zhang Ruoyun arc! I must say he really added “life” to the drama. (In case you’re wondering, Zhang Rouyun is the lead actor of the critically-acclaimed Joy of Life, which propelled him to fame.) Rouyun’s character, so mysterious, shady and ultimately, shocking, gave the drama a big shot of electricity that it needed.
- The cinematography, the acting—chef’s kiss.
What I didn’t like
- The female sidekick is very annoying and often causes more trouble for the team than help them.
- The mysteries are rather … unmemorable and bland.
- Despite loving the production quality, acting, the cases … somehow the drama lacked the emotional “oomph” that makes a drama addictive. I’m not exactly sure why this is. My theory is that while the production and acting is technically good, many of the characters felt bland and colourless, even Di Renjie. The writing does not move us to really connect with the characters.
- Certain elements were revealed far to late in the story. This lessened the impact of pivotal arcs, especially the second last arc.
- They never revealed why Di Ren Jie’s father did what he did in episode one. Hopefully they’d give more clues in Part 2 besides Di’s sad memories of the event.
This was supposed to be Youku’s Big Drama of the Year, but for some reason it fell flat. I’m not entirely show why as it’s a well-made drama.
However, if you loved Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty, you will enjoy this. It wasn’t the big blockbuster hit that I’d hoped but it is definitely better than the average fare that came out in January and February this year.
Final rating: 3 out of 5
#3Stars #CDrama #China #ChineseDrama #CostumedDrama #DetectiveDee #DiRenjie #TV
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Judge Dee’s Mystery
Judge Dee’s Mystery is inspired by the character Di Renjie (Judge Dee), based on a real-life, celebrated judge during the Tang Dynasty.
The character first appeared in the anonymously authored 18th-century Chinese novel, Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee (狄公案; Dí Gōng Àn).
Around the 1940s, Dutch diplomat Robert Van Gulik came across the book in a second-hand bookstore in Tokyo and translated it into English. He later wrote his own Di Renjie stories.
The character became even more renowned after filmmaker Tsui Hark’s made the acclaimed Detective Dee films.
This drama starts at the very beginning before Di Renjie becomes that renowned detective. We see how he develops into the official revered for his detective skills.
In this adaptation, he is a man haunted by a tragic past. After being implicated for a crime, he volunteers to solve it. Thus, begins his career as a famous detective.
What I liked
- Zhang Yi We’s charismatic presence as Di Renjie. I can’t tear my eyes away from him. He may not play a “traditional” version of Di Ren Jie, but I sure love his wuxia, broody version. One of the pet peeves I have is seeing reviews that state that they avoided the drama because “the male lead wasn’t attractive”. To me, he’s a real man with imperfections. He looked like a man who had seen and been through things. He may not be idol-pretty, but he is real-world manly.
- Unlike many people, I didn’t mind that the writers messed with the traditional depiction of Di Renjie in film. (Most adaptations depict him as sly, witty and sometimes even a bit of a bumbling (pretend) idiot.) I liked that they explored his origin story here. It is tragic, sad and filled with mystery.
- Bonus mention: The actress who played Empress Wu Zetian is appropriately intimidating and regal.
- The romance between Di Ren Jie and Cao An is endearing. Di Ren Jie is so lousy when it comes to romance that it is cute to see his comrades stepping in to intervene for him. If Hong Liang (his mentor and old manservant) hadn’t stepped in at one point of the story, it may very well be that they would never be together.
- The Zhang Ruoyun arc! I must say he really added “life” to the drama. (In case you’re wondering, Zhang Rouyun is the lead actor of the critically-acclaimed Joy of Life, which propelled him to fame.) Rouyun’s character, so mysterious, shady and ultimately, shocking, gave the drama a big shot of electricity that it needed.
- The cinematography, the acting—chef’s kiss.
What I didn’t like
- The female sidekick is very annoying and often causes more trouble for the team than help them.
- The mysteries are rather … unmemorable and bland.
- Despite loving the production quality, acting, the cases … somehow the drama lacked the emotional “oomph” that makes a drama addictive. I’m not exactly sure why this is. My theory is that while the production and acting is technically good, many of the characters felt bland and colourless, even Di Renjie. The writing does not move us to really connect with the characters.
- Certain elements were revealed far to late in the story. This lessened the impact of pivotal arcs, especially the second last arc.
- They never revealed why Di Ren Jie’s father did what he did in episode one. Hopefully they’d give more clues in Part 2 besides Di’s sad memories of the event.
This was supposed to be Youku’s Big Drama of the Year, but for some reason it fell flat. I’m not entirely show why as it’s a well-made drama.
However, if you loved Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty, you will enjoy this. It wasn’t the big blockbuster hit that I’d hoped but it is definitely better than the average fare that came out in January and February this year.
Final rating: 3 out of 5
#3Stars #CDrama #China #ChineseDrama #CostumedDrama #DetectiveDee #DiRenjie #TV
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Judge Dee’s Mystery
Judge Dee’s Mystery is inspired by the character Di Renjie (Judge Dee), based on a real-life, celebrated judge during the Tang Dynasty.
The character first appeared in the anonymously authored 18th-century Chinese novel, Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee (狄公案; Dí Gōng Àn).
Around the 1940s, Dutch diplomat Robert Van Gulik came across the book in a second-hand bookstore in Tokyo and translated it into English. He later wrote his own Di Renjie stories.
The character became even more renowned after filmmaker Tsui Hark’s made the acclaimed Detective Dee films.
This drama starts at the very beginning before Di Renjie becomes that renowned detective. We see how he develops into the official revered for his detective skills.
In this adaptation, he is a man haunted by a tragic past. After being implicated for a crime, he volunteers to solve it. Thus, begins his career as a famous detective.
What I liked
- Zhang Yi We’s charismatic presence as Di Renjie. I can’t tear my eyes away from him. He may not play a “traditional” version of Di Ren Jie, but I sure love his wuxia, broody version. One of the pet peeves I have is seeing reviews that state that they avoided the drama because “the male lead wasn’t attractive”. To me, he’s a real man with imperfections. He looked like a man who had seen and been through things. He may not be idol-pretty, but he is real-world manly.
- Unlike many people, I didn’t mind that the writers messed with the traditional depiction of Di Renjie in film. (Most adaptations depict him as sly, witty and sometimes even a bit of a bumbling (pretend) idiot.) I liked that they explored his origin story here. It is tragic, sad and filled with mystery.
- Bonus mention: The actress who played Empress Wu Zetian is appropriately intimidating and regal.
- The romance between Di Ren Jie and Cao An is endearing. Di Ren Jie is so lousy when it comes to romance that it is cute to see his comrades stepping in to intervene for him. If Hong Liang (his mentor and old manservant) hadn’t stepped in at one point of the story, it may very well be that they would never be together.
- The Zhang Ruoyun arc! I must say he really added “life” to the drama. (In case you’re wondering, Zhang Rouyun is the lead actor of the critically-acclaimed Joy of Life, which propelled him to fame.) Rouyun’s character, so mysterious, shady and ultimately, shocking, gave the drama a big shot of electricity that it needed.
- The cinematography, the acting—chef’s kiss.
What I didn’t like
- The female sidekick is very annoying and often causes more trouble for the team than help them.
- The mysteries are rather … unmemorable and bland.
- Despite loving the production quality, acting, the cases … somehow the drama lacked the emotional “oomph” that makes a drama addictive. I’m not exactly sure why this is. My theory is that while the production and acting is technically good, many of the characters felt bland and colourless, even Di Renjie. The writing does not move us to really connect with the characters.
- Certain elements were revealed far to late in the story. This lessened the impact of pivotal arcs, especially the second last arc.
- They never revealed why Di Ren Jie’s father did what he did in episode one. Hopefully they’d give more clues in Part 2 besides Di’s sad memories of the event.
This was supposed to be Youku’s Big Drama of the Year, but for some reason it fell flat. I’m not entirely show why as it’s a well-made drama.
However, if you loved Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty, you will enjoy this. It wasn’t the big blockbuster hit that I’d hoped but it is definitely better than the average fare that came out in January and February this year.
Final rating: 3 out of 5
#3Stars #CDrama #China #ChineseDrama #CostumedDrama #DetectiveDee #DiRenjie #TV
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I may be disappointed with a lot of my goals in 2024, but I am proud to say that my gardening skills have gotten to the point where I regularly harvest vegetables from my tiny balcony garden. This vege is “kangkung” or water spinach.Apologies for the late newsletter. I’ve just survived a tough quarter at work. By “tough” I mean, “Hey, OMG here are 100 tickets and can you get it done by today” kind of tough.
Before you start wondering what I mean by “tough”, I want to quickly say that I really love my job, and I’m not just saying this in case my boss has subscribed to this newsletter (er, hi boss if you are?). But my current role in tech has been the most rewarding role I’ve had. It’s one of the rare jobs that seem perfectly syncronised with my personality and how I’d like to work, down to project management systems.
I had a very tough pivot from journalism. After leaving journalism, I didn’t think I’d find a career as satisfying, but technical writing has proven to my happy place, even better, dare I say, than journalism.
Journalism was glamorous though. I cannot deny that it was insanely wonderful to travel all over the world in the first 10 years of my career.
Of all the careers I’ve had (and I’ve had a crazy number of pivots), it probably satisfies my massive thirst for new experiences the most. However, it can be a demoralising profession, especially towards the end when the industry was falling apart.
Maybe, one day I’ll tell you about this.
So, big apologies. My brain is a little overwhelmed of late I have fallen so behind in commenting on people’s newsletters and I feel guilty. I do read them though, please be assured you are read!
Also, I want to share my gratitude to the people who have deigned to be paid subscribers. I don’t really talk about paid subscriptions etc, because I know it’s a lot of pressure, but I appreciate all of you, paid and unpaid, for believing that my writing is worth your time.
Anyway, I’m glad to have closed the quarter satisfactorily, and it’s now time to begin a new one. However, this quarter I’m doing something a little different. Instead of in December, I’m currently doing my personal year-end evaluation three months early.
So, here I am in a Hilton suite writing this issue while watching the Korean Drama Brain Works and Chinese drama, Love in the Desert.
This was suggested to me by someone on the Internet and I thought it was a good idea to evaluate your strategy and restrategise so that you can meet your goals. It is sort of a “last chance to meet your goals” sprint, so to speak. Instead of ending the year with disappointment that you’ve fallen short of your goals, you can at least end it knowing that you’ve tried best because you tried another tactic to achieve them in the last quarter.
Personally, I’m not very pleased with myself this year, though I have to say that I achieved a lot of my work and writing goals, I have sorely underachieved in the health and social category.
I really, really need to improve my health! I’m of that age where it really matters.
But, anyway, before I bore you, I just want to quickly say that in the next few weeks I’m taking a break, but not from sending you Substack issues. I have a wealth of writing that I’ve published in the past that I’d love to share instead. And I hope you will enjoy them too.
Before I go, here are some things that could pique your interest:
What I wrote
I didn’t write much beyond Tai Tales, but if you feel like it you can read my Chinese drama reviews here:
An amnesiac woman tries to be a dutiful wife. But in truth, she’s being used as bait by her husband to lure a nefarious bandit. A rare, beautiful gem of a drama that will make you smile and sigh.
A big-shot banker is demoted to a tiny branch of his bank when he refuses to participate in his superiors’ corrupt dealings. He refuses to lie low and causes ripples in his new place of work.
Okay, nerdier stuff I wrote:
The circle of competence and our information diet
When it comes to information consumption, am I focusing on a subject that will help me improve my life or make it worse?
Auditing my social media use and information consumption
When you get such extreme mental fatigue from social media and you just want to check out and sleep all day – you know you’ve got a problem.
Okay, maybe I wrote a lot LOL.
Great reads
Some interesting articles I read recently:
Has China’s younger generation really chosen to ‘lie flat’?
Even in Malaysia, Chinese youths face great pressure to excel. I remember watching a Youtube video of an naturalised American who visited China recently. There, he asked some Chinese teenagers about their plans, and they were already planning for their careers. He was so amazed by that.
I remember thinking, wait, Americans don’t do that at 16?? When I was 16 I was already drawing flowcharts for my path towards a medical career and working for the United Nations. (Which, er, as you can see, took a sharp detour to journalism in my 20s.)
I’m not sure if Chinese youths in Malaysia or youths in China have the greater pressure, but it is a pressure all Chinese people understand well. The belief that the Great Exam will change your life is a pervasive one in China, and among the diaspora in Malaysia.
This newsletter from the fabulous Baiguan offers three stories around this lie flat phenomenon in China.
The long strange trip of Julian Assange
With Julian Assange giving his first speech since he was released from prison, I wanted to get up to speed about him. This is a good primer.
Can China’s Long-Suffering Idol Fans Catch a Break?
Since I moderate a Reddit sub (a “responsibility” that I question each day) that often discusses this topic, I try to read up about it. Honestly, I’m still flummoxed by how insane fandom can get and don’t know what to think of it. Frankly, I think they’re (the stars, the industry) are milking profits off these young, para-socialised minds and the symbiotic yet toxic relationship disturbs me.
What I watched
Happily devouring a trashy drama that can be best described as “bandits and royalty in the desert”. Basically about a princess who ends up entangled with a bandit, a prince and a king. It’s not exactly “intellectual” TV, but it is about as much drama as I can handle right now LOL.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s6d_zyUqhI
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https://elizabethtai.com/2024/10/05/4825/
#BeingAWriter #blogging #books #China #life #Malaysia #newsletter #writing
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I may be disappointed with a lot of my goals in 2024, but I am proud to say that my gardening skills have gotten to the point where I regularly harvest vegetables from my tiny balcony garden. This vege is “kangkung” or water spinach.Apologies for the late newsletter. I’ve just survived a tough quarter at work. By “tough” I mean, “Hey, OMG here are 100 tickets and can you get it done by today” kind of tough.
Before you start wondering what I mean by “tough”, I want to quickly say that I really love my job, and I’m not just saying this in case my boss has subscribed to this newsletter (er, hi boss if you are?). But my current role in tech has been the most rewarding role I’ve had. It’s one of the rare jobs that seem perfectly syncronised with my personality and how I’d like to work, down to project management systems.
I had a very tough pivot from journalism. After leaving journalism, I didn’t think I’d find a career as satisfying, but technical writing has proven to my happy place, even better, dare I say, than journalism.
Journalism was glamorous though. I cannot deny that it was insanely wonderful to travel all over the world in the first 10 years of my career.
Of all the careers I’ve had (and I’ve had a crazy number of pivots), it probably satisfies my massive thirst for new experiences the most. However, it can be a demoralising profession, especially towards the end when the industry was falling apart.
Maybe, one day I’ll tell you about this.
So, big apologies. My brain is a little overwhelmed of late I have fallen so behind in commenting on people’s newsletters and I feel guilty. I do read them though, please be assured you are read!
Also, I want to share my gratitude to the people who have deigned to be paid subscribers. I don’t really talk about paid subscriptions etc, because I know it’s a lot of pressure, but I appreciate all of you, paid and unpaid, for believing that my writing is worth your time.
Anyway, I’m glad to have closed the quarter satisfactorily, and it’s now time to begin a new one. However, this quarter I’m doing something a little different. Instead of in December, I’m currently doing my personal year-end evaluation three months early.
So, here I am in a Hilton suite writing this issue while watching the Korean Drama Brain Works and Chinese drama, Love in the Desert.
This was suggested to me by someone on the Internet and I thought it was a good idea to evaluate your strategy and restrategise so that you can meet your goals. It is sort of a “last chance to meet your goals” sprint, so to speak. Instead of ending the year with disappointment that you’ve fallen short of your goals, you can at least end it knowing that you’ve tried best because you tried another tactic to achieve them in the last quarter.
Personally, I’m not very pleased with myself this year, though I have to say that I achieved a lot of my work and writing goals, I have sorely underachieved in the health and social category.
I really, really need to improve my health! I’m of that age where it really matters.
But, anyway, before I bore you, I just want to quickly say that in the next few weeks I’m taking a break, but not from sending you Substack issues. I have a wealth of writing that I’ve published in the past that I’d love to share instead. And I hope you will enjoy them too.
Before I go, here are some things that could pique your interest:
What I wrote
I didn’t write much beyond Tai Tales, but if you feel like it you can read my Chinese drama reviews here:
An amnesiac woman tries to be a dutiful wife. But in truth, she’s being used as bait by her husband to lure a nefarious bandit. A rare, beautiful gem of a drama that will make you smile and sigh.
A big-shot banker is demoted to a tiny branch of his bank when he refuses to participate in his superiors’ corrupt dealings. He refuses to lie low and causes ripples in his new place of work.
Okay, nerdier stuff I wrote:
The circle of competence and our information diet
When it comes to information consumption, am I focusing on a subject that will help me improve my life or make it worse?
Auditing my social media use and information consumption
When you get such extreme mental fatigue from social media and you just want to check out and sleep all day – you know you’ve got a problem.
Okay, maybe I wrote a lot LOL.
Great reads
Some interesting articles I read recently:
Has China’s younger generation really chosen to ‘lie flat’?
Even in Malaysia, Chinese youths face great pressure to excel. I remember watching a Youtube video of an naturalised American who visited China recently. There, he asked some Chinese teenagers about their plans, and they were already planning for their careers. He was so amazed by that.
I remember thinking, wait, Americans don’t do that at 16?? When I was 16 I was already drawing flowcharts for my path towards a medical career and working for the United Nations. (Which, er, as you can see, took a sharp detour to journalism in my 20s.)
I’m not sure if Chinese youths in Malaysia or youths in China have the greater pressure, but it is a pressure all Chinese people understand well. The belief that the Great Exam will change your life is a pervasive one in China, and among the diaspora in Malaysia.
This newsletter from the fabulous Baiguan offers three stories around this lie flat phenomenon in China.
The long strange trip of Julian Assange
With Julian Assange giving his first speech since he was released from prison, I wanted to get up to speed about him. This is a good primer.
Can China’s Long-Suffering Idol Fans Catch a Break?
Since I moderate a Reddit sub (a “responsibility” that I question each day) that often discusses this topic, I try to read up about it. Honestly, I’m still flummoxed by how insane fandom can get and don’t know what to think of it. Frankly, I think they’re (the stars, the industry) are milking profits off these young, para-socialised minds and the symbiotic yet toxic relationship disturbs me.
What I watched
Happily devouring a trashy drama that can be best described as “bandits and royalty in the desert”. Basically about a princess who ends up entangled with a bandit, a prince and a king. It’s not exactly “intellectual” TV, but it is about as much drama as I can handle right now LOL.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s6d_zyUqhI
Thank you for reading Tai Tales! To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free subscriber.
Type your email…
Subscribe
As I know subscribing to a newsletter can be quite a commitment, you can also give me a tip:
Tip meIf you liked this issue, it would be great if you could share it with your network. 🙂
https://elizabethtai.com/2024/10/05/4825/
#BeingAWriter #blogging #books #China #life #Malaysia #newsletter #writing
-
I may be disappointed with a lot of my goals in 2024, but I am proud to say that my gardening skills have gotten to the point where I regularly harvest vegetables from my tiny balcony garden. This vege is “kangkung” or water spinach.Apologies for the late newsletter. I’ve just survived a tough quarter at work. By “tough” I mean, “Hey, OMG here are 100 tickets and can you get it done by today” kind of tough.
Before you start wondering what I mean by “tough”, I want to quickly say that I really love my job, and I’m not just saying this in case my boss has subscribed to this newsletter (er, hi boss if you are?). But my current role in tech has been the most rewarding role I’ve had. It’s one of the rare jobs that seem perfectly syncronised with my personality and how I’d like to work, down to project management systems.
I had a very tough pivot from journalism. After leaving journalism, I didn’t think I’d find a career as satisfying, but technical writing has proven to my happy place, even better, dare I say, than journalism.
Journalism was glamorous though. I cannot deny that it was insanely wonderful to travel all over the world in the first 10 years of my career.
Of all the careers I’ve had (and I’ve had a crazy number of pivots), it probably satisfies my massive thirst for new experiences the most. However, it can be a demoralising profession, especially towards the end when the industry was falling apart.
Maybe, one day I’ll tell you about this.
So, big apologies. My brain is a little overwhelmed of late I have fallen so behind in commenting on people’s newsletters and I feel guilty. I do read them though, please be assured you are read!
Also, I want to share my gratitude to the people who have deigned to be paid subscribers. I don’t really talk about paid subscriptions etc, because I know it’s a lot of pressure, but I appreciate all of you, paid and unpaid, for believing that my writing is worth your time.
Anyway, I’m glad to have closed the quarter satisfactorily, and it’s now time to begin a new one. However, this quarter I’m doing something a little different. Instead of in December, I’m currently doing my personal year-end evaluation three months early.
So, here I am in a Hilton suite writing this issue while watching the Korean Drama Brain Works and Chinese drama, Love in the Desert.
This was suggested to me by someone on the Internet and I thought it was a good idea to evaluate your strategy and restrategise so that you can meet your goals. It is sort of a “last chance to meet your goals” sprint, so to speak. Instead of ending the year with disappointment that you’ve fallen short of your goals, you can at least end it knowing that you’ve tried best because you tried another tactic to achieve them in the last quarter.
Personally, I’m not very pleased with myself this year, though I have to say that I achieved a lot of my work and writing goals, I have sorely underachieved in the health and social category.
I really, really need to improve my health! I’m of that age where it really matters.
But, anyway, before I bore you, I just want to quickly say that in the next few weeks I’m taking a break, but not from sending you Substack issues. I have a wealth of writing that I’ve published in the past that I’d love to share instead. And I hope you will enjoy them too.
Before I go, here are some things that could pique your interest:
What I wrote
I didn’t write much beyond Tai Tales, but if you feel like it you can read my Chinese drama reviews here:
An amnesiac woman tries to be a dutiful wife. But in truth, she’s being used as bait by her husband to lure a nefarious bandit. A rare, beautiful gem of a drama that will make you smile and sigh.
A big-shot banker is demoted to a tiny branch of his bank when he refuses to participate in his superiors’ corrupt dealings. He refuses to lie low and causes ripples in his new place of work.
Okay, nerdier stuff I wrote:
The circle of competence and our information diet
When it comes to information consumption, am I focusing on a subject that will help me improve my life or make it worse?
Auditing my social media use and information consumption
When you get such extreme mental fatigue from social media and you just want to check out and sleep all day – you know you’ve got a problem.
Okay, maybe I wrote a lot LOL.
Great reads
Some interesting articles I read recently:
Has China’s younger generation really chosen to ‘lie flat’?
Even in Malaysia, Chinese youths face great pressure to excel. I remember watching a Youtube video of an naturalised American who visited China recently. There, he asked some Chinese teenagers about their plans, and they were already planning for their careers. He was so amazed by that.
I remember thinking, wait, Americans don’t do that at 16?? When I was 16 I was already drawing flowcharts for my path towards a medical career and working for the United Nations. (Which, er, as you can see, took a sharp detour to journalism in my 20s.)
I’m not sure if Chinese youths in Malaysia or youths in China have the greater pressure, but it is a pressure all Chinese people understand well. The belief that the Great Exam will change your life is a pervasive one in China, and among the diaspora in Malaysia.
This newsletter from the fabulous Baiguan offers three stories around this lie flat phenomenon in China.
The long strange trip of Julian Assange
With Julian Assange giving his first speech since he was released from prison, I wanted to get up to speed about him. This is a good primer.
Can China’s Long-Suffering Idol Fans Catch a Break?
Since I moderate a Reddit sub (a “responsibility” that I question each day) that often discusses this topic, I try to read up about it. Honestly, I’m still flummoxed by how insane fandom can get and don’t know what to think of it. Frankly, I think they’re (the stars, the industry) are milking profits off these young, para-socialised minds and the symbiotic yet toxic relationship disturbs me.
What I watched
Happily devouring a trashy drama that can be best described as “bandits and royalty in the desert”. Basically about a princess who ends up entangled with a bandit, a prince and a king. It’s not exactly “intellectual” TV, but it is about as much drama as I can handle right now LOL.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s6d_zyUqhI
Thank you for reading Tai Tales! To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free subscriber.
Type your email…
Subscribe
As I know subscribing to a newsletter can be quite a commitment, you can also give me a tip:
Tip meIf you liked this issue, it would be great if you could share it with your network. 🙂
https://elizabethtai.com/2024/10/05/4825/
#BeingAWriter #blogging #books #China #life #Malaysia #newsletter #writing
-
I may be disappointed with a lot of my goals in 2024, but I am proud to say that my gardening skills have gotten to the point where I regularly harvest vegetables from my tiny balcony garden. This vege is “kangkung” or water spinach.Apologies for the late newsletter. I’ve just survived a tough quarter at work. By “tough” I mean, “Hey, OMG here are 100 tickets and can you get it done by today” kind of tough.
Before you start wondering what I mean by “tough”, I want to quickly say that I really love my job, and I’m not just saying this in case my boss has subscribed to this newsletter (er, hi boss if you are?). But my current role in tech has been the most rewarding role I’ve had. It’s one of the rare jobs that seem perfectly syncronised with my personality and how I’d like to work, down to project management systems.
I had a very tough pivot from journalism. After leaving journalism, I didn’t think I’d find a career as satisfying, but technical writing has proven to my happy place, even better, dare I say, than journalism.
Journalism was glamorous though. I cannot deny that it was insanely wonderful to travel all over the world in the first 10 years of my career.
Of all the careers I’ve had (and I’ve had a crazy number of pivots), it probably satisfies my massive thirst for new experiences the most. However, it can be a demoralising profession, especially towards the end when the industry was falling apart.
Maybe, one day I’ll tell you about this.
So, big apologies. My brain is a little overwhelmed of late I have fallen so behind in commenting on people’s newsletters and I feel guilty. I do read them though, please be assured you are read!
Also, I want to share my gratitude to the people who have deigned to be paid subscribers. I don’t really talk about paid subscriptions etc, because I know it’s a lot of pressure, but I appreciate all of you, paid and unpaid, for believing that my writing is worth your time.
Anyway, I’m glad to have closed the quarter satisfactorily, and it’s now time to begin a new one. However, this quarter I’m doing something a little different. Instead of in December, I’m currently doing my personal year-end evaluation three months early.
So, here I am in a Hilton suite writing this issue while watching the Korean Drama Brain Works and Chinese drama, Love in the Desert.
This was suggested to me by someone on the Internet and I thought it was a good idea to evaluate your strategy and restrategise so that you can meet your goals. It is sort of a “last chance to meet your goals” sprint, so to speak. Instead of ending the year with disappointment that you’ve fallen short of your goals, you can at least end it knowing that you’ve tried best because you tried another tactic to achieve them in the last quarter.
Personally, I’m not very pleased with myself this year, though I have to say that I achieved a lot of my work and writing goals, I have sorely underachieved in the health and social category.
I really, really need to improve my health! I’m of that age where it really matters.
But, anyway, before I bore you, I just want to quickly say that in the next few weeks I’m taking a break, but not from sending you Substack issues. I have a wealth of writing that I’ve published in the past that I’d love to share instead. And I hope you will enjoy them too.
Before I go, here are some things that could pique your interest:
What I wrote
I didn’t write much beyond Tai Tales, but if you feel like it you can read my Chinese drama reviews here:
An amnesiac woman tries to be a dutiful wife. But in truth, she’s being used as bait by her husband to lure a nefarious bandit. A rare, beautiful gem of a drama that will make you smile and sigh.
A big-shot banker is demoted to a tiny branch of his bank when he refuses to participate in his superiors’ corrupt dealings. He refuses to lie low and causes ripples in his new place of work.
Okay, nerdier stuff I wrote:
The circle of competence and our information diet
When it comes to information consumption, am I focusing on a subject that will help me improve my life or make it worse?
Auditing my social media use and information consumption
When you get such extreme mental fatigue from social media and you just want to check out and sleep all day – you know you’ve got a problem.
Okay, maybe I wrote a lot LOL.
Great reads
Some interesting articles I read recently:
Has China’s younger generation really chosen to ‘lie flat’?
Even in Malaysia, Chinese youths face great pressure to excel. I remember watching a Youtube video of an naturalised American who visited China recently. There, he asked some Chinese teenagers about their plans, and they were already planning for their careers. He was so amazed by that.
I remember thinking, wait, Americans don’t do that at 16?? When I was 16 I was already drawing flowcharts for my path towards a medical career and working for the United Nations. (Which, er, as you can see, took a sharp detour to journalism in my 20s.)
I’m not sure if Chinese youths in Malaysia or youths in China have the greater pressure, but it is a pressure all Chinese people understand well. The belief that the Great Exam will change your life is a pervasive one in China, and among the diaspora in Malaysia.
This newsletter from the fabulous Baiguan offers three stories around this lie flat phenomenon in China.
The long strange trip of Julian Assange
With Julian Assange giving his first speech since he was released from prison, I wanted to get up to speed about him. This is a good primer.
Can China’s Long-Suffering Idol Fans Catch a Break?
Since I moderate a Reddit sub (a “responsibility” that I question each day) that often discusses this topic, I try to read up about it. Honestly, I’m still flummoxed by how insane fandom can get and don’t know what to think of it. Frankly, I think they’re (the stars, the industry) are milking profits off these young, para-socialised minds and the symbiotic yet toxic relationship disturbs me.
What I watched
Happily devouring a trashy drama that can be best described as “bandits and royalty in the desert”. Basically about a princess who ends up entangled with a bandit, a prince and a king. It’s not exactly “intellectual” TV, but it is about as much drama as I can handle right now LOL.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s6d_zyUqhI
Thank you for reading Tai Tales! To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free subscriber.
Type your email…
Subscribe
As I know subscribing to a newsletter can be quite a commitment, you can also give me a tip:
Tip meIf you liked this issue, it would be great if you could share it with your network. 🙂
https://elizabethtai.com/2024/10/05/4825/
#BeingAWriter #blogging #books #China #life #Malaysia #newsletter #writing
-
Hey all, been a bit huh. Had some things happen irl, got some plants potted and growing in my lil greenhouse, some tomatoes, potatoes and peppers. Anyways im back for another round of Midnight Gaming and we'll talk about a couple of rpgs here.
Now to clarify, these are games that were on xbox game pass and since the BDS boycott highlighted Microsoft to be included due to their funding towards genocide, I would like to clarify that for the sake of this review I have not given any money to microsoft at all. My brother-in-law has an xbox game pass subscription on his account and that was where I played these games.
Now without further ado. from the 5th of May to the 11th, I played the Oblivion Remaster and Avowed so lets talk about those 2 and some news.
![media-1]I loved the hell out of Oblivion when it first came out, this was one of my first elder scrolls games I played. Cyrodiil was such a wonderful place to explore with the forests and open coasts, to the dank dungeons and ruins to explore. The various quests were memorable with examples like clearing out a ship of ghosts, entering a painting world, collecting ayelid relics for a rich elf and hell that whole deal with the paranoid elf over in skingrad. Theres the factions with their own storylines and characters, theres the main quest which i… never actually completed past kvatch. Theres the knights of the nine and the shivering isles expansions which I never owned as a kid unfortunately.
But the game was truly great, so surely with the release of a remaster recently, I should be happy and love it right? Its a game from my childhood now with better graphics and fixed leveling. Isnt that great?
Ehhhhh…. its… fine.. i guess.
Listen, I dont think theres anything inherently wrong with the remaster, its fundamentally the same game as it was in 2006 with a few fixes and better graphics. Its just that I personally dont think this is the most definitive way to play Oblivion, on PC atleast.
Does the original game not play nice on modern pcs nowadays? Theres guides you can look up to make it run better on modern hardware. Are the graphics looking a bit too dated? Theres graphic overhauls available on sites to make the game look incredible. The level scaling was fucked? Yeah folks have created fixes for that over nearly two decades since it released. Theres a bunch of mods for og Oblivion that revamps a lot the games mechanics, pretties up the graphics and adds in new quests, items, dungeons etc. If your just on console then on xbox atleast, you could still play og Oblivion on game pass, then again the remaster is also on game pass so its kind of moot point in that regard.
To be honest, it feels like any changes that the remaster makes to improve the game already have equivalents available for free on sites like nexusmods. Outside of consoles, I dont see much of a reason to pick the remaster over the og since you can still get the original Oblivion with all its dlc at a fraction of the remasters price, follow a guide on how to patch it to run well on current hardware, download Wabbajack or Vortex and download a collection of mods to start your Oblivion playthrough with all the improvements, fixes and overhauls you could want.
Or just wait for Skyblivion. The fan-made project to remake Oblivion for Skyrim? Yeah thats coming out this year too. And Bethesda seems to know this too since they gave that team copies of the remaster and talked positive about the fan project on social media. But to be honest, I cant help but feel like this generating of goodwill and positive pr is solely to cushion the blow when they update skyrim and break the modding right as Skyblivion is set to release. Because they did that with fallout 4 when the fanmod Fallout London was about to release, a project that has you in apocalyptic england with all the style and charm that the fallout series has. Now the only way you can play that mod is to downgrade your copy of fallout 4 to an older version. They did it once and they'll no doubt do it again. Mark my words. [Future ej here, skyblivion is still yet to come out and the dev team that did the obilvion remaster fired a bunch of their staff and is doing ai :/]
Getting a bit sidetracked here, so to refocus onto the remaster, yeah its Oblivion and Oblivion is good and the remaster does have some notable improvements. A lot of the enviroments look great and the new character models have a lot of detail packed into them. They revamped some skills to have new perks such as acrobatics now introducing a dodge move you can do. Those are atleast the good parts i've noticied in the remaster, but I have noticied a few things that are a bit…. strange.
For one they added new npc voices into the game which is fine in concept. I mean Oblivion is kinda noted as having so few voice actors that you often hear 2 npcs talking to each with the same voice. Thing is if you played Oblivion before then you're probably already pretty familiar with the voicecast. Its just something you accept and dont think too much on, some guys gonna have the nord voice, this guy will have the imperial voice and this one will have the khajiit voice and on and on with a few notable exceptions such as the emperor and LaChance. So when your playing the remaster and you come across an npc with one of the new voices, it might catch you a bit offguard like it did me. Not to say the voices are bad, its just that I instantly know that its new and it takes me out of the experience a lil bit. But thats fine if its just some guards and a few of the new generic npcs added to towns. Except, some of the old npcs had their voices replaced so it kinda creates a bit of conflict between my memories of the game versus the remaster. I did the quest with the bloated float and dealt with the first threat before rescuing the orc bouncer and I get hit with a bit of whiplash upon hearing him in a different voice. Its a bit jarring but i'll admit, this nothing more than a nitpick.
But then we come to the graphics which as I've said look nice and well detailed but I cant help but notice it looks like it lost some color. It feels like a filter is applied to make everything look a little bit duller, maybe because it looks more realistic I guess? Honestly I chalk it up to Unreal Engine 5 which is the engine that this remaster is running on with all the og files, kind of like how Daggerfall Unity and Open Morrowind work. But then there are some hiccups with the engine that i've noticed. For one when loading into an area, npcs tend to fade in rather then just appear which is a bit odd and then theres the water where if you have a weapon unholstered and look at it, the reflections for some reason think the weapon is the same size as the buildings. But again, these are just some nitpicks, not much if major criticism is it? Well….
One big thing that this remaster touts as a selling point was how the levelling and level scaling in this remaster were "fixed". The original had it so that there was a chance you could screw yourself if you level up too much. Either because you didnt level up enough of your skills to qualify for the +5 attribute bonuses those skills relate to or because you level up too many times and now the enemies are too spongey and hit you hard on your ass. So howd the remaster fixed it? Well they changed the levelling so now you have 12 points and can choose 3 attributes to increase. Definatly a good change, gives you some autonomy on how to improve. So why'd they decide to make it so that both major AND minor skills contribute to leveling progress?? Used to be that leveling major skills would cause you to level up but now minor skills too? You end up levelling faster than before and can encounter higher level enemies much earlier. Why did they change it like that?? If you regularly sleep to cash in those levels, you run the risk of the enemies outpacing your equipment leaving you a bit underprepared. But you know, its not the end. You can still manage just fine….. on adept difficulty atmost. If you play on expert or master then congrats, the damage you deal is reduced heavily meaning enemies will now feel spongy while…. hitting you… hard. Wait wasnt that the same problem that og Oblivion had? Did we end up going full circle? Thats honestly weird the way they did this, but its not the worse thing that irks me about this.
One of the best reasons I think for a remaster of oblivion as well as morrowind, fallout 3 and new vegas is if they include the modding tools that fallout 4 and skyrim had on consoles. They might not be incredible compared to pc and the whole creations thing of paid mods does create some controversies, but you cant argue that allowing mods on consoles is a bad thing. So why didnt the oblivion remaster have that? Is it ever gonna have anything like that on consoles? Just seems like a missed opportunity to allow people on consoles to inject some mods into oblivion and yet, nothing of the sort exists here.
To be honest, Im not feeling this remaster. I love oblivion and all the good times I had exploring Cyrodiil will stay with me till the end of days but this remaster was not to my opinion the best way to revisit those memories. It looks less like Elder Scrolls Oblivion and more like one those "This is what "x" will look like if made today" videos. This is Oblivion if Todd Howard decided to hire that man. I don't recommend this and I think most people being excited about this might reconsider once the nostalgia honeymoon wears off. But that is solely my opinion. I think that if you wanted to play Elder Scrolls Oblivion, there were better options available to you atleast on the PC. On console theres definatly an arguement to be made and at the end of the day, its oblivion. Cheese and all.
So next we have Obsidians Avowed, an rpg where you get to play as a clicker from The Last of Us and you get to have Garrus Vakarian from Mass Effect as a blue fishman.
![media-2]So Avowed takes place within the same universe as obsidians crpg series called Pillars of Eternity and has you playing as a godlike, essentially a messianic figure working as the envoy for an emperor of the Aedyr empire and being sent to a locale known as the living lands to investigate a sort of magical plague known as the dreamscourge.
So what got me interested enough to play Avowed for this Midnight Gaming? Was it because its an obsidian game, a developer that carried a lot of notoriety for games such as new vegas? Was it because I played the pillars of eternity games and wanted to visit the world in an open rpg? Was it because it was on game pass and I figured Oblivion and it were similar so I lunked them into the same post?
No, never played POE and no. It was because after trying to search on Youtube to see if the game was fun and instead being met with a wave of political tangents that I found on social media a video of someone playing Avowed where they casted a spell with a grimoire on one hand and shot a flintlock pistol with their right hand. And that got me very interested to play it because…. gun wizard…… GUN WIZARD!!
How many fantasy rpgs have guns and magic in them and how many let you wield them both? Like thats an easy sell for me, let me play a wizard with a glock. So yeah starting off Avowed you get shipwrecked on the way to the living lands, you go through the tutorial and end up at the first major area before picking up your fishman and start exploring/doing quests in the first area. So initial thoughts? Lotta mushrooms about.
Given i've never played Pillars of Eternity, a lot of the established worldbuilding is gonna be completely over my head so its all down to this game to explain to me what the hell is up in this world and what a godlike actually is. So apparently a godlike is someone who was "touched by a god while still in the mothers womb and is bestowed with that gods essence" and these godlike tend to be in commune with the god who chose them. Except you, you never knew which god chose you so you ended up being on your own until the emperor saw use in you. Its not until you get onto the living lands that you start to hear godly voices reaching out to you, implying that your god is on the living lands and is trapped there. So that, along with investigating and stopping the arcane version of covid is pretty much the hook for this games story. Me though, I just wanna see how many people and creatures I can freeze with an ice spell, stick my gun onto their forehead and ask them "do you believe in god" before shattering them with a point blank gunshot.
Feels like a good time as any to talk about the combat huh? Yeah honestly, combat feels good in this game. You have your melee options with swords, hammers and axes as well as spears with all of them having 1 handed and 2 handed flavours. You got bows, pistols, wands and rifles for ranged options and you have grimoires which you can cast spells from when you equip them on your hand. You also have a dedicated throwables key with different elemental explosives you can find or craft in the world, you can pause the action to access an action wheel much like mass effect where you can use abilties, tell your companions to use their abilities and use any items or equip any throwables you have on you. Blocking and dodging are your means of defense and theres a lil bit of sekiro here where enemies have a yellow bar under their health representing stun which rises when they take damage, with some different weapons and abilities raising the bar quickly, and once full they become stunned and you can do a sort of cinematic attack for big damage. Since i'm regulary using a pistol I get a scene where I aim down the sights of my gun, aimed squarely at the stunned target and fire a big shot which, i mean, thats just cool as hell.
Now is this a good game? Well from what i've played in the 1st region surrounding the city of paradis, its alright but its also not incredible. Its mostly just, ehh, how do i explain it, the combat loop and general exploration of the enviroment is great but outside of that, in the downtime its just…. fine. Conversations with npcs is the traditional affair of picking a response and hearing dialogue which is mostly serviceable with some good bits here and there but thats it really. Out of all the quests in the 1st region, i think the only two that really stood out was the one where you search for an expedition team and come across another godlike and the other involving the mermaids den. Again its just the 1st region but then it occurred to me what the issue im feeling is.
You remember The Outer Worlds? I did a midnight gaming post on that game and my thoughts on it were it was fine enough but was mostly a game that walked, a nice enough walk where people were expecting it to run. And thats mostly down to the games marketing outright saying that the game was by the creators of new vegas. Avowed hasnt tried to invoke anything like that but that hasnt stopped people from comparing this game to the elder scrolls even though its not the elder scrolls, having none of the similarities of that series other than being fantasy rpgs with a first person view. Atleast if you played the pillars of eternity games you might feel justified in feeling disappointed with Avowed given how you're going from a crpg where you have multiple ways in building your characters, different ways to approach quests and several novels worth of text to this. I remember a segment in a magazine talking about the deadfire expansion for pillars 2 and showcasing a pirate stronghold and all the multiple ways you can influence the enviroment there to accomplish your goals. Avowed doesnt quite have that flexibility in its quests and world but to be fair, when isolated from pillars and the elder scrolls, on its own Avowed feels on par with Outer Worlds in being a fine enough walk of game atleast from the 1st region alone and when I play this game more after this review, i'll see if it maintains that pace or if it manages to improve to a powerwalk or even a jog.
So I think its fine, not great just fine, so what about other folk, hows the general consensus on this game? Well I checked up on the steam reviews and the metacritic user scores and I can report that at the time of writing this, Avowed on Xbox has a 6.9 (nice) user score of 643 reviews, 59% being positive. On pc the user score is 5.6 with 364 reviews and 42% being positive. On steam it has a mostly positive rating with an all time score of 77% and 9,024 reviews. Not too bad scores, seems above average with a lot of the positive reviews reflecting on the games combat and exploration carrying the game were things like the story and dialogue fall. A 7/10 game overall, which is fine but not deserving of the full asking price. A game you'd want to wait for a sale before picking up. Also dont buy the deluxe upgrade, its overpriced garbage and the fact that they sold the ability to play the game a few days early is genuinly awful, even if its mostly Microsofts doing.
But then thats one part of the story aint it? If you have searched Avowed online, you got exposed to some real shit. And I suppose I cant talk about this without mentioning the elephant in the room….. BUT FIRST!!!
NEWS ROUNDUP!!!!
First up on the roundup some news on emulation and lost media with the original version of star fox adventures getting some recompilation on the way. So on the nintendo 64, the dev team known as Rare has made some incredible games on that system with banjo kazooie, conker and perfect dark to name a few of the games they made during one of their more prolific periods in the history of their company. One of the games that didnt quite make it was a game called Dinosaur Planet which eventually became the Star Fox game that introduced Krystal, the blue fox of every furries dreams, best known for her cameo on Half-Life 2. Well the original version of Dino planet has a fanproject ongoing to try and recompile the early beta version for folks to experience. Your article is right over here
(https://www.timeextension.com/news/2025/05/rares-cancelled-n64-title-dinosaur-planet-is-getting-the-recompilation-treatment)So a post came up from Chris Bores generally known as the Irate Gamer, one of the many, many, many AVGN-Clones that have popped up back around the early 10's, and in that post hes announced officially that he'll be retiring, with one big project coming up as a send off.
Over on Eurogamer, an article mentions that Hideki Kamiya, known for Bayonetta and a very straightforward block policy, has answered on his show on youtube that he'd love to do the remake for Devil May Cry 1 which was pretty much the genesis of a spectacle fighter game, a sort of hack and slash game where you do stylish combos on various enemies. Im sure some folks would like to see a remake of DMC with kamiya leading it but for me, what interests me is what was also mentioned in that video according to the article. "Kamiya said, "With today's technology and game design approach… I'd want to remake it from the ground up. If that ever happens… well, I don't think seriously unless it's really happening, so right now, I don't have anything in mind. But if the time comes, I'll come up with something. That's what I do! So Capcom, leave it to me! Also, let me handle Viewtiful Joe too!"". Yes Capcom, let kamiya do Viewtiful joe, let him, please, capcom Please, Please PLEASE LET ME SEE MY VIEWTIFUL BOY!!!
(https://www.eurogamer.net/devil-may-cry-creator-hideki-kamiya-would-love-to-remake-the-series-first-game)Finally over on rockpapershotgun, we see an article dicussing Mobius Digital of the outer wilds fame, not to be confused with the outer worlds, announcing that they have started work on a new title in an update page for the outer wilds, where they also mention that no more updates is coming to the game. Thats it really, maybe its a sequel, maybe its a different space game, maybe its got nothing to do with space. Who knows, all thats known is that they are working on a new game and thats that. Yep.
(https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/the-outer-wilds-developers-are-making-a-new-game)NEWS ROUNDUP OVER!!!!
Ok, I didnt want to talk about this. I wanted to keep politics out of this series but eventually I will be forced to discuss it so here we go.
For as mocked, as lampooned, as memed upon as it was. As much of a bad take as it was. In all fairness, as much as it pains to admit.
The IGN review for Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire saying that there was "too much water" was, technically speaking, a more valid criticism than it was to say Starfield was bad because it had pronouns.
Oh god I felt sick writing that. That felt really bad, I can almost feel the death threats and pitchforks a coming. Oh lordy this is gonna bite me in the ass. The only thing I can do now is try to provide clarification and hope they go easy on me.
So, am I saying it was a good take? NO! ABSOLUTLY NOT! It was a laughably bad take, it was weird to mention it and given the review was a 7.8, it raises a lot of questions as to whether it was just a joke or if the reviewer was being serious. That to them there was too much water on this game and that it was enough of a drawback to dock points off the score for it. And did the editor read the review and agreed with it or did they assume it was a joke or did they just not care and greenlit it anyways.
It was a bad take, and people reacted to it as you'd expect. So why would I say that there was perhaps some validity to this take? Well, how much water do you think there is in Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire?
Well i'm gonna refer to information from the site Bulbapedia so lets try and get a rough idea on that. First off, Hoenn is based on the island Kyushu which according to wikipedia "Kyūshū is the third-largest island of Japan's four main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands" so ok, theres definatly some water there. Now within Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire theres various towns, routes and areas in the Hoenn region and going by what I can gleam from bulbapedia and some ingame maps.
![media-3]
To my understanding,
11 out of 16 settlements have water in them.
10 out of 20 landmarks have water within in them.
29 routes within OR/AS have water within them and all 5 of the OR/AS exclusive areas have water in them.
Now, Pokemon tend to grouped into one or two different types, each having a resistance and weakness to another type and out of the 211 that can be caught within this game, 46 have water as a type either as solely water or a mix of water and another type.
There are quite a few moves that are a water type move such as bubble beam or hydro cannon, but theres also the move known as Surf which lets you travel across water and not only that but in some areas that have deep water, you can use the move Dive to go underwater and explore the ocean floor.
Out of the gym leaders you need to battle to obtain a badge from, Wallace is the water type gym leader who awards you the rain badge.
And one last point to make, the games storyline involves the gangs Team Magma and Team Aqua with their conflict being a disagreement over whether there is too much water or too little water with Omega Ruby having Aqua as the antagionists and Alpha Sapphire having them as protagionists.
Yeah, its fair to say that water does have a pretty hefty presence within this game, enough that you could technically say, from a purely subjective point of view I like to clarify, that there may infact be too much of it. Not that it would be a good point mind you, at best its just a nitpick but the game has enough water within its enviroment and its mechanics, to have a significant enough presence to allow that nitpick.
Same cant be said for a certain criticism that was levied at Starfield.
So when Starfield launched, a big stink was made over the fact that the game had pronouns. Ok, and? It came free with your english language. No thats not it, its because you can select your perferred pronouns and instead of having male and female genders, you have body type 1 and 2, even though it was litterly just male and female just renamed different. In starfield when you create your character, selected your background and traits, once you hit finish you will be prompted to name your character and on that screen there is a button on the bottom of the popup window for "pronoun" which lets you change your pronouns from the default ones based on which of the 2 body types you picked, 1 for male or 2 for female. You could just ignore that button, name your character and move on. The game does not force you to pick a pronoun, you have to voluntarily choose to press the button and bring the selection up, otherwise it'll use the defaults.
Now, what effect does any of this have on the game. Well, if you walk past or directly talk to an npc, they may just refer to you with the pronoun you choose…..maybe. To be perfectly honest I dont remember much about Starfield because it is such an unremarkable game. I remember seeing it be revealed and thought to myself "No Mans Skyrim" and it wasnt until I saw there was an m1911 handgun you can get ingame that I decided to try the game out on game pass. I shot some enemies with a futuristic p90 and noted how it took nearly 2 magazines to do half of their health, and then got the m1911 from my video game parents and noticed it took 3 shots to outright kill an enemy. I then pondered why folks in the future even bothered switching from regular bullets unless Nerf somehow owned a monoply on arms manufacturing.
The last thing I did was shop around on a planet for a spaceship part to hide a piece of contraband I wanted to sell before I decided to play something else and never bothered to return, eventually forgetting about it.
Now I did start up a new Starfield save to get to character creation and to verify the pronoun thing and sure enough, completly and utterly ignorable. I checked online to see if anyone has noticied any other effects the pronouns have, nada, zilch. Outside of maybe some npc dialogue, theres nothing else that your choice of pronouns will effect during a playthrough of Starfield. Now during that initial playthrough I went with they/them to see if anyone would refer to me as such, in hindsight this was pointless since I wouldnt be able to tell if an npc uses the gender neutral term because I choose it or because it was simpler and less expensive than re-recording for each pronoun.
To be honest, Starfield was a generally plain as hell sci-fi, mostly because they dont have any cool alien races you could converse with (and romance). You pilot a ship, explore planets, maybe research tech and perhaps build an outpost. There was maybe a new game+ system in there that was….unique. I dunno. The only thing I believe choosing pronouns actually did for that game was made it so that the game stayed relevant for maybe another day before eventually being forgotten. The controversy over that was honestly not worth the spit and hot air.
So yeah, on a technicality, "too much water" was, in my opinion, a more valid critique compared to pronouns because the formers point of criticism had a significant enough presence in its game whereas the latter was largly insignificant and completely forgettable, much like Starfield itself.
So you might be asking, EeJay… the hell does it have anything to do with Avowed?
Well… just that gaming discussion nowadays sucks shit I guess.
Any time a game comes out, theres a good chance the first few days is gonna be swamped with videos and comments spouted by some love child of Alex Jones and the Angry Video Game Nerd, often in their late 30s to 40s, spewing hot air and outrage over some conspiracy theory relating to video games. A crowd who demands that politics stay out of video games yet cannot seem to keep games out of politics. A crowd if they hear you speak favourably towards a game they decided to hate, will proceed to harass and accuse you of being bought out or having some sort of mental illness because why else would you possibly like this slop unless you have brain damage. A tar pit of cynicism that'll look down on a game for looking like a 10+ year old game yet will fawn over a game that is litterly 10+ years old but has bee sold again with a shinier coat of paint, talking about how it exposes the gaming industry and that its a new standard of how a game should be remastered, before changing their minds and calling it woke censored slop because they noticed it uses body type 1 & 2 in the character creation and that the female models breasts are 2% smaller than in the original.
What can I really say about it other than the fact that it takes no effort to get pissy about shit? Like I could do it, I can buy a microphone, puff up my chest and talk complete disgenious garbage for several hours. Talking about how the games industry sicks, games suck, the woke left sucks, concord sucks and how sweet baby sucks. I could do that with several videos all having titles like "X is SEETHING" or "WOKE Y TOLD ME TO GO FUCK MYSELF (gone sexual?)". I could probably build a following that way, I could maybe make enough ad revenue to afford…. I dunno a large meal at wendys? I could do all that, it wouldnt take any effort to follow that path, to sell my soul that way…. but is that really a way to live? Is that really how I want to be remembered? As just another loud voice amongst the outrage choir. To wear such a bitter, angry persona solely so I could make ends meet? To create something to be consumed by algorithm in return for pennies and clout? Wheres the fun in that? Or is having fun suddenly woke?
Video games are fun. They ought to be. As a form of entertainment they ought to be entertaing or at the very least, not boring. Having the best graphics, stories, music and so on doesnt really mean much in the end if the game just isnt fun to play. If its frustrating or boring to play throughout the whole experience. And theres a saying by former president of Nintendo of america that has stuck with me to this day:
"The game is fun. The game is a battle. If its not fun, why bother? If its not a battle, wheres the fun? Its a test that you pass or quest that you fail. A race against time. Fun and battle, always locked together, but the game is also something else. Its a journey. A passport to new worlds. Maybe even, an odyssey. A look, a feel, an exploration. Close your focus and open your mind. Yes the journey requires the right ticket, but in the end its not just where you can take your game. Its where your game can take you." - Reggie Fil-amie
For as long as I can remember, I have a fascination, a passion and a love for video games. I love the genres, I love the adventures and I love how people from all walks of life can have a different experiences with each game. You will never find something that can grab my attention better than anything related to video games. I know that nowadays it feels easy to just be cold and cynical about the games industry and everything in life as a whole, but at the same time, I feel that it is also quite redundant since theres no shortage of misery in this world.
Outside of a significant event happening like with Crime Boss Rockay City or Deathspank, this is more or less the only time I'm gonna talk politics on this series. I know that for most people they already get enough world weariness from social media alone so I wont bother mentioning it here If I can help it. My only aspiration to how I want to be percieved in this sort of read-only online gaming discussion is something akin to homer simpson when he first became a food critic, loving every bit of food he reviewed and recommending them all to the point a lot of folks in springfield end up gaining weight.
![media-4]So to summarise:
Oblivion is a fantastic game thats wonderful to explore, with quests and adventures that tantalise the spirit. Its good enough to become game of the year…. and it did… when the golden joystick awards awarded it back in 06. The remaster has some nice graphics but it also makes a few misteps, some kept from the og and some that are new to the remaster, and at the price they're asking, you could find a better Oblivion experience elsewhere and for cheaper atleast on PC.
But I mean. Its still Oblivion at the end of the day. And if you're deadset on the remaster, by all means go for it. Im just a guy on the internet, im not your dad. Do whatever sounds fun to you.
Avowed is fine enough so long as you dont have a tar pit yelling in your ear. Theres enough to enjoy here if you just want an acceptable yet unremarkable fantasy rpg to occupy your time though i'd recommend waiting for a sale to pick it up rather than pay the full price. Despite some flaws, its still a single player offline game that isnt a games-as-a-service product so it stands head over heels over half of last years games.
So thats that for this edition of midnight gaming. Feel free to leave feedback and game suggestions and just remember.
If nothing else, have some fun when you can because if you cant have that in this life.
Then why bother?
GLHF
#midnightgaming #gaming #video-games #the-elder-scrolls #oblivion #avowed #obsidian-entertainment -
Découvertes beauté de l’été 2025
L’été est déjà bien avancé avec le mois d’août qui s’installe. Il fait chaud ces temps-ci! Je ne fais pas grand chose à part en profiter pleinement! Chaque journée apporte de nouvelles activités, que ce soit du vélo, de la marche, des sorties culturelles, des repas en plein air, voir la famille et les amis, de la lecture, des commissions 🙂 , sans oublier la «farniente»!
Voici quelques suggestions et petits trucs beauté pour se faire la vie douce et facile!
KARINE JONCAS – MUSE KJ SUBLIME Eau de parfum
Tous les jours je me parfumerai. C’est mon 11e commandement!
Un parfum léger et délicat est essentiel pour l’été. J’ai eu le bonheur de recevoir la nouvelle fragrance Karine Joncas MUSE KJ SUBLIME. C’est une eau de parfum parfaite en cette saison car c’est un parfum floral et légèrement fruité. L’eau de parfum SUBLIME est agréable et discrète.
Photo source karinejoncas.caL’eau de parfum MUSE KJ SUBLIME est ce qu’on appelle un Floral Gourmand. Les notes qu’on y trouve sont les suivantes:
- Notes de tête: Cassis, Agrumes Mandarine
- Notes de cœur: Magnolia, Rose, Lys, Violette, Cyclamen
- Notes de fond: Vanille, Bois de santal. Musc
Les eaux de parfum MUSE KJ se conjuguent en 5 fragrances légère. PASSION, GLAMOUR, CHIC, DIVINE et SUBLIME. Elles sont toutes disponibles en deux formats pratiques soit 50 ml et 10 ml. Il est possible de les superposer pour obtenir sa propre signature olfactive! J’avoue que je n’ai pas osé le faire, mais, ayant essayé toutes ces essences délicates, je serais embêtée de dire laquelle je préfère. Mais SUBLIME est définitivement celle que j’adopte cet
été!WATIER – Perfection Sérum teinté révélateur d’éclat
Le fond de teint idéal est, pour ma part, léger et pas trop couvrant. Je vous ai déjà parlé de l’Eau de teint Les Beiges de CHANEL qui est, selon moi, le summum du fond de teint! Mais comme je le ménage (il m’en reste un tout petit peu…snif snif) je voulais un fond de teint semblable, pour tous les jours.
À l’aide de la conseillère beauté, j’ai découvert un fond de teint qui se rapproche étrangement à l’Eau de teint de CHANEL. Il s’agit de Perfection Sérum teinté révélateur d’éclat de Lise Watier. Je l’adore! Tout comme l’Eau de teint, il s’agit de petites sphères de couleur dans un sérum lumineux.
Photo source watier.comLa texture est légère comme une plume et confortable. Ce fond de teint est longue tenue et le teint devient hydraté, lumineux et éclatant. On dirait presque qu’on a rien sur la peau! J’ai choisi la teinte Beige Nu Rosé 240C, une teinte qui va bien avec l’été et le soleil! On applique en mouvements circulaires à l’aide d’un pinceau ou des doigts. Jai tu dis que je l’adore???
Comme je suis fan de mixtures étranges, je mélange parfois un peu de fond de teint à un illuminateur pour un effet radieux et naturel. Ces temps-ci, j’utilise True Match Lumi Glotion de L’Oréal (couleur 902 Light Glow). Combiné au Sérum teinté révélateur d’éclat de Lise Watier ça donne un bel éclat à la peau sans en faire trop et un effet naturel.
Photo source lorealparis.caAnnabelle – BIGSHOW – Crayon ombre à paupières multi-usage
L’été, on n’a pas de temps à perdre! Pour se maquiller en un instant on m’a fait découvrir les Crayons ombre à paupières multi-usage BIGSHOW de Annabelle. Ils sont tout simplement géniaux!
Photo source annabelle.comEn un rien de temps, ces nuances faciles à porter nous font un look soigné. C’est super facile à appliquer. La texture ultracrémeuse glisse en douceur sur les paupières, déposant une couleur avec un fini nacré qui tient toute la journée. On peut se servir du crayon comme traceur et la couleur est vraiment facile à estomper. La formule hydratante est longue tenue et hydrofuge. Ce qui assure une tenue confortable pendant 24 heures—sans plis, sans bavures et sans bouger, même à 35o 😉
Pour l’utiliser comme fard à paupières, on applique directement sur la paupière et estompe avec un pinceau plat. Pour utiliser comme traceur, on peut aiguiser la pointe du crayon avant de tracer le long de la ligne des cils. Petite suggestion pour Annabelle, il pourrait y avoir un aiguisoir intégré hihi!
On ajoute une touche de mascara et un peu de gloss et le tour est joué! J’aime beaucoup le mascara Skinny et le brillant à lèvres BIGSHOW de Annabelle. Du maquillage beau, bon, pas cher à mettre sur notre liste de commission! On ne se trompe pas!
Le bon côté de ces petits produits là c’est qu’ils sont facile à appliquer, pas trop chers et tous disponibles dans la plupart des pharmacies!
#ANNABELLE #EauDeParfum #fardsàPaupières #fondDeTeint #KarineJoncasCoffretDécouverte #LiseWatier #maquillage #MUSEKJ #MuseKJSublime #parfum #vieillirEnBeauté
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Just one thing…
How to survive in research…
Over on Blue sky I found a link to this piece by Daniel Nettle – a reflection on life as a researcher, the race for the glittering prizes of high profile publications and how to “succeed” in academia, where succeed has the simple metric of ‘in ten years.. to have remained alive, and ideally continued doing some research.’
Ten years ago in Greenland, I did not imagine I’d still be doing this job-I found myself very much nodding along with the sentiments of the piece, the conceit that
“Our seduction was by the primary research process: the idea that you could find a question; hit on your own approach; perform and manufacture the work; and finally, see it there in print, with your name attached, a thread woven in to the tapestry of human knowledge. A thread of memory.”
that also motivates me and apparently others in the research world. I still think that idea of building something bigger, no matter how tiny the contribution, the sum total of knowledge is a motivating factor. As Daniel writes, it’s a seduction, but it is also one that resonates and lasts, even through those years when the grind gets you down…
This part also made me laugh in recognition about what makes people persevere in research:
“If she [a student interviewing professors about success in academia] knew how narrowly I have hung on, I thought, she might have chosen someone else for her assignment.”
It’s not always easy keeping going, much of our work requires intrinsic motivation and it too often dissolves into something self-destructive. Famously, science and research in general is prone to mental health problems and I rather liked the characterisation here:
“Periodic demoralization and depression are not rare amongst researchers. It’s not not caring any more, or not being able to be bothered, as depression is often and erroneously characterized. It is caring so much, being so bothered, that one cannot advance on any front. One drowns in one’s own disorganized and gradually souring passion. This feeling is probably near-ubiquitous too.”
But persevere we do and persevere we must and where I thought this piece gets really interesting is where he points to the techniques and lessons that lead us to surviving the academic environment. As the essay is rather long, and a pdf, I thought I would summarise his main lessons here. The first one is I think the most important and while he calls it every day has to count for something (where every day means every *working* day, time off is still essential). I prefer to summarise it as just one thing.
Lesson 1. Every day has to count for something
“I try to start each working day with a period of uninterrupted work. Work, for me, is: collecting data, analysing data, writing code, drafting a paper, writing ideas in a notebook, or just thinking. Things that do not qualify as work are: background reading, literature searches, answering correspondence, marking students’ assignments, peer-reviewing a paper, sorting out my website, correcting proofs, filling in forms, tidying datasheets, having meetings, and so on.”
This goes back to paying yourself first. I’m not always very good at doing it, but I also try to do something meaningful and deep work like each day. Part of the reason I have found the last few months quite hard at work is a surfeit of meetings, workshops and travels, which have been in general quite destructive and distracting from the main work of the day, which could probably be summed up as, learn how the icy bits of the world work. My #AcWriMo efforts as well as #30dayMapChallenge in November were in effect just the kick start I needed to get back into the real scientific work of research, because as Daniel Nettle so eloquently put it:
Not all black dogs are bad.Daily deep work keeps the black dog away, for there is nothing worse for mood than the sense that one is not progressing. And it can spiral in a bad way: the more you feel you are not progressing, the worse you feel; the worse you feel the more your hours become non-deep junk; and the more
exhausted you are by non-deep junk hours, the less you progress.Lesson 2. Cultivate modest expectations
This was a curiously freeing part to read and I absolutely agree with it. Too often what John Kennedy calls Natureorscience papers are seen as the gold standard. And yet as Daniel Nettle eloquently points out:
the glittering prizes we academics strive for are positional goods kept deliberately scarce by bureaucratic or commercial interests, and allocated in ways whose relationship to long-term value is probably quite weak. For example, Nature is a for-profit enterprise that rejects nearly everything in
order to defend its exclusive market position. If we all send everything there, the rejection rate goes up. If we all increase the quality of our science, it still nearly all gets rejected, by the very design of the institution. The idea that all good papers can be in Nature or Science is as ludicrous as the idea that all Olympic athletes can get gold medals, but without the strong link between actual ability and finishing position that obtains in the Olympics.It’s absolutely true that a natureorscience paper on the CV is seen as a big thing, the ultimate to strive far. And it is. Getting through the review process is in itself an achievement. But it’s also worth bearing in mind that many natureorscience landmark studies don’t stand the test of time. They rarely shift paradigms, though they can focus attention on new subjects, and sometimes that’s a new and important field. And sometimes it’s a distraction. I can think of several notable examples published since I started working in glaciology (but no, I’m not going to call them out here). The text in these journals is often far too compressed to get important details in, I recall an old mentor suggesting that the natureorscience paper is the advert, the starter that reels you in. The good stuff, the actual filler that makes you look at the world anew with its insights, new methodologies and the rest, is very often in a very different journal. So go for natureorscience if you get the opportunity, and if you have the results, but aiming for there from the start is not necessarily the right way to position your research career. Though as this post is now veering dangerously towards giving advice rather than simply expressing my usual slightly scrambled thoughts, take this one with a dollop of Atlantic brine..
For what it’s worth though, I do believe this:
Great art often begins on the fringe. Similarly, valuable future paradigms and innovative ideas start life in obscure places. Journal editors cannot yet see their potential, and the authors themselves are tentatively feeling their way into something new. So by focussing on capturing the established indicators of prestige, you distort the process away from answering the question that interests you in an authentic way, and into a kind of grubby strategizing.
Or so I tell myself, admittedly through clenched teeth at times.Lesson 3. Publish steadily
Is back to just one thing in a way.
the mistake a lot of people make is focussing too much on getting the big shot, the single career-establishing paper in a top journal, and therefore not quietly building up a solid, progressive portfolio of sound work.
Doing the work is the best advice I can give and the advice I would give myself back in the early days of what has become (almost by accident) a research career. Now, I would hesitate to say publish something every year. I know scientists who insist on one first author paper a year, and some who strive for 3. Both seem arbitrary and potentially dangerous in terms of motivation, particularly for a young ECR just making their first steps and unsure of how to do it. Nevertheless it’s certainly true that, regardless of publish or perish, just the feeling of making forward progress, however incremental, is so important. Keep the momentum going. It’s part of what makes the traditional british PhD ending with a big book so hard, there’s no feedback on the way. Just an hour a day (or even an hour a week in busy times) is enough to keep me moving forward, and it’s often enough to produce a decent paper, eventually. And don’t worry, science is highly collaborative, I wouldn’t be able to do it without all my colleagues to remind me on, nudge me to get on with something and keep the wheels turning. I love you all for it too…
So if you are worrying about staying the game, rather than planning your next Science publication, I would ask yourself where your 1-2 solid papers each year are going to come from. Just as you should not go a single day without proper work, you should not go a single year without publishing anything, as one year rapidly becomes three.
Lesson 4: Get your hands dirty
This is why I do field work. But it’s also why I’ve embraced the opportunity to learn more about deep learning and AI/ML methods. Learning new stuff is exciting, it keeps you fresh and helps make new connections. It’s when disciplines cross-connect that the exciting stuff happens and the sparks fly in the brain.
“Keeping your hands dirty also means learning how to do new things. And this is a good thing: the skills I picked up in graduate school could not possibly have sustained me this long. Learning new skills has always paid dividends of one kind or another; and stepping back from doing primary research myself has always been the point at which things have started to go less well.”
I have written one too many white paper style articles recently, it’s time to go back to the field, and back to the code to see if we can make things better by integrating the data and the models.
Learning to fly a drone and to process the data is something I’ve been working on the last few years. I have a really exciting dataset now but little time to work on it. Ifyou’re looking for an interesting MSC thesis project get in touch!A note of caution though, it’s always easier to start something new than finish an old project. The best colleagues will help you stay on track and make sure you finish what you started!
I’m going to add one more point, which isn’t expressly mentioned in the original piece that started this ramble:
Lesson 5: Cultivate outside interests.
Far too many of us put families, friends, sports, hobbies and anything else that doesn’t taste of work to one side, in pursuit of the all-consuming. It’s not only not healthy, it’s also limiting. The brain needs time off to churn away by itself. You can’t force that unconscious process. Better to take a long walk to admire the flowers than try to twist your brain in knots when you hit a wall. A good night’s sleep is an amazingly effective part of the research process too.
So there we have it, some thoughts on being a (mid-career) scientist and how I have managed to stay in the game. YMMV as the Americans say.
Finally, all that I have said relies on having a supportive employer and good colleagues. The sometimes horrifying stories (take for example this one) of people being pushed out by bullying colleagues, or structural discrimination is a whole other story. And not one I’m going to take on here, but I would point out that without organisation, labour inevitably gets crushed by capital, so organise, join a union, find out what your rights are and make sure that you have a supportive hinterland to help you get through the bad times.
And everyday, do just one thing to help you advance.
#30DayMapChallenge #AcWriMo #blogging #job #Jobs #People #Science
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McDonald Mfg. Company voted to ratify a collective bargaining agreement Thursday, ending a strike that began last week. A release from the company ...
Workers at A.Y. McDonald End Strike -
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New tool: upload a ZIP file, get a smaller ZIP file back. Primarily relies on better Deflate compression, but also has a few small tricks to save bytes. https://evanhahn.com/uploads/2026-05-16-zip-shrinker/
Read more here: https://evanhahn.com/make-zip-files-smaller-with-zip-shrinker/
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New tool: upload a ZIP file, get a smaller ZIP file back. Primarily relies on better Deflate compression, but also has a few small tricks to save bytes. https://evanhahn.com/uploads/2026-05-16-zip-shrinker/
Read more here: https://evanhahn.com/make-zip-files-smaller-with-zip-shrinker/
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New tool: upload a ZIP file, get a smaller ZIP file back. Primarily relies on better Deflate compression, but also has a few small tricks to save bytes. https://evanhahn.com/uploads/2026-05-16-zip-shrinker/
Read more here: https://evanhahn.com/make-zip-files-smaller-with-zip-shrinker/
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New tool: upload a ZIP file, get a smaller ZIP file back. Primarily relies on better Deflate compression, but also has a few small tricks to save bytes. https://evanhahn.com/uploads/2026-05-16-zip-shrinker/
Read more here: https://evanhahn.com/make-zip-files-smaller-with-zip-shrinker/
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New tool: upload a ZIP file, get a smaller ZIP file back. Primarily relies on better Deflate compression, but also has a few small tricks to save bytes. https://evanhahn.com/uploads/2026-05-16-zip-shrinker/
Read more here: https://evanhahn.com/make-zip-files-smaller-with-zip-shrinker/
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Just published a Firefox extension to add a little feature I wanted: "Open Link in Unloaded Tab". https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/open-link-in-unloaded-tab/
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GitHub’s downtime is bad, but uptime numbers can be misleading. It’s not as bad as it looks; more like a D than an F. https://evanhahn.com/in-defense-of-githubs-poor-uptime/
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Just published a short nonfiction story called "All tests pass". https://evanhahn.com/all-tests-pass-a-short-story/
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Just published a short nonfiction story called "All tests pass". https://evanhahn.com/all-tests-pass-a-short-story/
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Just published a short nonfiction story called "All tests pass". https://evanhahn.com/all-tests-pass-a-short-story/
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Just published a short nonfiction story called "All tests pass". https://evanhahn.com/all-tests-pass-a-short-story/
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Just published a short nonfiction story called "All tests pass". https://evanhahn.com/all-tests-pass-a-short-story/