frost

Shel Silverstein wrote a number of acclaimed children's books and poems, but he also had a music career, in which he penned "A Boy Named Sue," made famous by Johnny Cash.

To my perfectly logical child brain, regular milk came from white cows with black spots, and chocolate milk came from white cows with brown spots!

Nick Drake - Pink Moon

Almost entirely ignored during his brief career and then promptly forgotten following his untimely death, Nick Drake's three full-length albums have only since gained wide recognition and praise in more recent decades. The final of these three albums, Pink Moon, is by far the finest of the trio.

Released in 1972, Pink Moon is more stripped back compared to Five Leaves Left and Bryter Layter, which feature full, lush arrangements of horns, strings, pianos, often with a jazzy twist. Meanwhile, Pink Moon is the result of two nights worth of recording featuring only Nick's voice and his expertly played acoustic guitar (plus a single overdubbing of a piano on the title tack). Nick's guitar playing is captivating, playing amongst incredibly bizarre tunings and alternating between complicated, classical finger picking, and slightly more reserved strumming and chords. Nick shows himself to be an incredibly talented player, owing to his classical training, and this style would go on to inspire other artists much further down the line, such as Sam Beam of Iron & Wine, or Robert Smith of The Cure, the band's name drawn from a line from one of Nick's songs.

Nick's singing is hushed and reserved, nearly breathless during some sections, as he weaves his way through the scant 28 minutes of the album's run time. This ethereal, almost ghost-like singing prevents him from overshadowing his guitar, while at the same time perfectly delivering his poetic writing. The lyricism is sublime and suits the more reserved arrangements of the songs, but is also incredibly personal and introspective, reflecting Nick's ongoing struggles during his life.

Struggling with depression and anxiety, Nick retreated into privacy following the album's release and meger sales, never doing a live show in support of it. He would die from an overdose of medication in 1976, aged 26. On his grave in Tanworth-in-Arden, his tombstone is inscribed with a line from the final song off of the album, From the Morning:

"And now we rise, and we are everywhere."

halome.nu

It's an incredibly simple premise - the main menus for all of the Halo games, preserved in their high quality, original forms. I love putting it up in the background when I need some background noise, but every so often I'll get lost in my nostalgia with it.

Destiny!

HROT is a great, stylized boomer shooter if you've got a kick for eastern Europe/Soviet-era architecture.

343 did a bang-up job at murdering their golden goose in the pursuit of a mythical "broader audience" that they've referred to many times. In Halo 4, they doubled-down on the loadout systems, added in COD-style perks and ordinance drops, and drastically changed the art direction and tone of the game (and don't even get me started on the story). Halo 5 was much of the same, this time opting to chase the advanced movement trend that was all the rage in the mid-2010s, crazy MTX lootboxes, and a somehow even worse artstyle/story.

Even though the raw gameplay as Infinite was mostly a return to form, 343 again scuttled their own ship with their abysmally pathetic imitation of a Fortnite-styled live service/F2P game. 6-9 month seasons. No rank/career progression. Exorbitant shops prices and locked-down customization. Drip-fed additions of content. Staples of the franchise that are STILL not in the game after 18 months.

It's funny that you mention MCC as 343's best game, though, since I'd argue that was their worst by far. Sure, MCC is pretty good now, but the game was literally unplayable for YEARS for many people - not "oh I'm lagging a bit" sort of unplayable, I mean game-crashing, no multiplayer loading, unable to log-in type issues that only were resolved beginning in 2019 when they brought the game to PC (and even that had a massive slew of issues).

Anyways, I'm rambling at this point. I enjoy playing Infinite quite a bit and think it's 343's most faithful effort, but it's still plauged with issues. 343's endless pursuit over the past decade to attain a broader audience for Halo has effectively killed the franchise in popular opinion - and the ironic thing is that 343 never realized that Halo fans already were the broader audience to begin with.

Thanks for the post and for kickstarting all of this!

Love how it looks! I never played Skylines 1 after I got a bit of wary advice from friends on the jankiness/need for QOL mods, but I think I'm going to take a shot with 2!

I really like what I'm seeing, ranging from the depth of things to do, to how granular the systems are, to how much I love the art direction Bethesda has taken. That said, it still won't be a day-1 buy for me when it launches, I simply don't trust big AAA releases anymore and will wait at least a little while to see if it's simply unpolished, or flat-out broken.

I'm not in tech, but work in the public service sector with offices and all that, and we've been under a similar in-office twice a week mandate for a few months now, after 2.5 years of working from home due to COVID. I do see some value of being in the office occasionally - it's nice to be able to talk to your co-workers face to face, and at least in my line of work, meeting with clients/partners face-to-face is incredibly important.

It's not all sunshine and rainbows, though. The office complex I'm in has been woefully outdated for over a decade and they're only getting around to renovations now, which has led to everyone having to cram on far too few floors during workdays (though it's better than having to work in the old sections filled with asbestos, bed bugs, and bats in the ceiling). Commuting still sucks and will always suck (and costs too much money + pollution!). At times, it feels like coming into the office is just a formality and it's a crappy feeling being at a desk all day when I know for a fact I could be doing all my work from home just fine.

The largest issue I feel I have with it, though, is the fact that it causes centralization in our specific city, and prevents people who don't live within driving distance of the core to reasonably be able to work. During COVID, my department was able to hire a slew of employees from across the country for 100% remote work - people who would have never gotten the chance to have such a job simply because they don't live in one specific city timezones away. Now that we're not only back in the office, but that upper management places such an importance on being in the office for the sake of being in the office instead of using the office space in meaningful ways, I feel like it's a step backwards from being able to expand the talent pool, improve people's work-life balances, cut back on our physical and carbon footprint, and reduce our cost of living.

It doubly makes me roll my eyes due to the fact that a large reason why we're even back in the office now was because the local government feeling that it was the duty of us office workers to support downtown restaurants/businesses. I kid you not, the higher-ups behind this decision were making public statements about how important it is for us to go and spend our money through lunches and other things to stimulate the local economy - but guess what! No pay raises and we haven't had any in 3 years despite record inflation and the rising cost of living! No - instead of these businesses having to adapt and shift their approach to the new post-COVID reality, we all have to lug our sorry asses in to spend money instead.

Exactly this. spez isn't fit to be a CEO and clearly needs to go, but even if they canned him, I'm out. The only thing reddit has going for it now is its popularity which means it gets lots of traffic. The bots are out of control, the spam is out of control, and the general atmosphere is awful and nothing like it once was. Lemmy/Beehaw/which ever instance you use is a little slow, sure, but to me that's the perfect excuse to break off from my addiction to reddit and have a site I check only a couple times a day.