Noit

If you’re a gamer then I’d strongly recommend you get a playlist of bangers from your favourite games. They tend to be high energy, low on distracting lyrics, and if you’ve played the game any amount then they’ve might have gotten associated with a “locked in” brain state so you feel like whatever task you’re achieving is analogous to gaming.

My playlist has tracks from Streets of Rage 2, Golden Sun, Pokémon, Smash Bros and Super Hexagon amongst others.

I’d heard lava tubes pitched as one of the more straightforward ways of building a moon base, fascinating to learn that this would actually be a return to form for human dwellings.

Humans: we just like living in lava tubes.

You can’t afford it now. This tech is going to be something people can do in their sheds within a decade.

This is insane. Right now I’m reading The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman (formerly of DeepMind) and I’d been a bit concerned that he was all hype, but giving humanity a 45-fold increase in materials we know about? That’s enormous. The future is going to be a crazy place.

Hoplite maybe? It’s on mobile but is a lot of fun.

I’ve not finished it yet due to limited gaming time but it’s clearly not that long. It feels like it should have some replayability but I don’t think it’s very unreasonably priced. Probably not ideal if you’re looking to squeeze every hour of entertainment out of your dollar though.

Terra Nil is mentioned in the article but I must give it a recommendation, it’s very chill and restoring a wasteland or ruined city to a thriving ecosystem is a great counterpoint to building a bustling city.

Right, so I didn’t actually mind the original ENT theme at all during my rewatch earlier this year. Far worse was the outro credits which were deeply jarring every single time.

The revamped theme is appalling though, it’s doubling down on everything that put people off about the original and it’s far, far worse.

I love how Viking-rune-looking it is. Everything old is new again.

Was this game named by a Bojack Horseman character?

Embrace mobile gaming. Especially the classic Nintendo handhelds. I can rock my baby to sleep and play Pokémon Ruby on my GBA at the same time. Embrace RPGs and other games where reaction times don’t matter. If I’m sat in a chair with a sleeping child I can even play a game where reaction speed matters, like Tetris.

Get a flash cart so you don’t have to switch games or carry a library of carts with you. Keep it in your car for play if you’re out a lot. Oh, and get a decent modern screen mod so you can see the screen outside.

YouTube Music. Apple Music and Spotify are both technically better products, but YouTube Music is free with YouTube Premium and so I can save on a music subscription.

Before I made that call I had picked Spotify as it gave me access to a web player, and just worked better on my Google Home speakers.

I think most companies are actively against public suggestions. If they do something like what you suggest, they may be liable for paying you for that idea. But if they’re already working on something like your suggestion, and then you suggest it, then they either have to pay you for an idea they already had, or risk you taking them to court and having to spend time and lawyer money on proving they owe you nothing.

Hi! I’m in the same boat at the moment. Public (NHS) and private are the two streams available.

For the NHS, you need a GP to refer you for an adult screening. It has to be a GP, and make sure they don’t fob you off on the wrong service, I got sent down a few rabbit holes before getting referred to the ADHD screening service. Then, you have to wait. I’ve been told that my screening should take 5-6 months to get booked in, and that’s where I’m stalled at the moment. At/after your screening they will decide whether or not to book you on for a full diagnostic. The wait list for these is ~3 years. Yeah, very oversubscribed, super cool.

Given that I am looking to go private, which means that I need to start identifying private providers and what their charges are for screening, diagnosis and ongoing treatment. I’ve heard that these cost around £1000 for the diagnosis and then around £100 per month for any medication, but I haven’t added these up myself yet.

I’ve heard that there is a route where you can ask your GP to refer you to a private practitioner they have an agreement with, which basically means they will accept a private diagnosis so you can get your meds (if required) on the NHS, where mostly the NHS is unlikely to let you get a subscription for meds without an NHS diagnosis. I’ve personally ruled this out because my local NHS have been no fun and I don’t want them to piss me about for another month.

If anyone else knows of any options then I’m all ears, because right now it’s either “don’t get diagnosed for four years” or ££££ every year.

The only justification I’ve ever been able to think of is Pokémon. The idea is supposed to be that every Pokémon is unique but there’s actually only a limited set of variables to define each individual ‘mon. I can trade you a Zubat I just caught and it can be identical to one that I first caught in Fire Red twenty years ago and have traded through every game since.

If each Pokémon was truly unique and on the blockchain, it could be meaningful in ways they currently aren’t. There could be only one Coalossal that Wolfe Glick won the Player’s Cup with. He could trade it away for charity and someone would pay for it. I could trade Pokémon away and track them as they’re traded around the world.

It’d be cool. But it would not meaningfully make the game more fun. And it’s Nintendo so they’re never going to do blockchain. And that is the best pitch I can give you.

Whenever the RedLetterMedia guys talk Trek it’s a good time. It’s not their bread and butter though.

Portal and Portal 2 must be on this list. If you’ve never played then, you must. It is that simple.