It’s hard to recommend a specific piece of media to commemorate this year’s Halloween season because there’s been so much great stuff. Dan’s Gaming’s Horror Month has essentially been perfected and is always wonderful to burn yourself out on. Even The Exploring Series has been doing nightly SCP readings. But I think what’s impacted me the most this year is last year’s Treehouse of Horror from the Simpsons.

I could probably write a whole post on my relationship with the Simpsons, but I can keep it brief by saying that I’ve always loved the Simpsons but for years I was a purist, never venturing past season 10, though 4 and 5 was the safety zone. A few years ago I started to catch up on my missed episodes. It was probably season 23 when I accepted the show as being properly “good” again. Now I’m just a year behind the latest release and took a slight pause so I could watch Treehouse of Horror XXXIII in its proper spooky season. There. Now I shouldn’t have to ever write that dedicated Simpsons post.

I caught the hype of the Deathnote tribute last year and don’t have anything to add to all that, but it was the West World tribute that really cemented the episode for me. A very on the nose way to say “yes, we know our fanbase”, but the breadth and depth of the references, and how fun the episode was, was proper convincing.

Not just Treehouse of Horror XXXIII but the next 2 episodes as well; From Beer to Paternity and Step Brother from the Same Planet. While no longer Halloween focused, these three episodes were a perfect little microcosm to embody the value of the latest generation of Simpsons story telling. Treehouse of Horror acknowledging the greatest moments of the series while transcending them. The paternity episode was on the nose with classic Simpsons sensitivity and character growth, and modern politics that weren’t heavy handed, and kept me giggling the whole way through. I guess the Step Brother episode was more of that, but it really made me nostalgic for Disney’s Goofy Movie in a way that I haven’t encountered from any media before, and that’s worth mentioning to me. When Nelson Met Lisa also really neatly fits in this batch of overall series tribute as a great “future Simpsons” episode, but Simpson stories of reoccurring broken romantic relationships always make me feel icky and I’m ready to stop gushing.

So my Halloween recommendation this year is for last year’s Simpsons.

With all the recent SOGI protests and counter protests, I’ve been doing recollecting of my own childhood sexual education. I’ve concluded that relying solely on family values while growing up left me feeling problematic and socially stunted, and broader sexual education at a younger age likely would have given me better personal awareness and growth. I don’t mind talking about the spicier aspects, but I probably shouldn’t in a public forum.

What I can say is that my earliest sexual experience (non explicit. Chill.) is being young enough to be seated in the top of a grocery cart, and not being able to keep my eyes off the beauty magazine covers around the grocery checkout. Then being mocked and feeling ashamed for it.

I don’t think there’s anything particularly negative about the way that single situation was addressed by my caretakers, (I want to point out this wasn’t my parents) it certainly wasn’t intentional to make me feel bad, but acknowledgement of my awareness of sex was few and far between; and always, at its most positive, awkward. I’ve never learned to control my internal desires, but I quickly learned to hide them.

I got thinking more about this due to the line in a Regrettes song: “I was kissing girls before I ever kissed a guy”, and I used to think “That seems pretty common for girls to find safety in same sex experiences before becoming interested in the opposite sex”. After more thought I’ve come to realize that I do in fact have the same experience.

Even before ever going to school I have had spicier same sex, same age, ignorant -but not non-consensual- sexual encounters. I’ve never really acknowledged it, even until recently, because all the sexual education I received was based around hetereo sex and complete abstinence. “Kissing is bad, mmkay, and don’t let anyone touch you in ways you don’t want to be touched”; completely made my brain skip the sexual experiences that didn’t involve kissing and were touches I liked. In my earliest memory it was definitely women in those magazines that grabbed my attention, but that’s what they all were selling.

I don’t know what kind of experiences I’d have if my introduction to sexual awareness wasn’t through misogynic capitalism, but I’m now of the firm belief that even if SOGI values existed when I was in school, while more beneficial they still wouldn’t have been progressive enough to meet my needs. If Anti-SOGI people really want to have a benefit on the sexual culture of our society then they should stop wasting effort on attacking our social band-aids and target our patriarchal commodification of women.

I got the Zendure SuperBase 500 off Kickstarter a couple years ago. I used it regularly with my 12v stereo and would recharge with the provider Solar panels. Within 6 months the Superbase had lost 40% capacity. It could power my stereo for a week or two per charge, so it was well below its promised 500 cycles.

FYI, I used a Jackery Explorer 160 before and after the Superbase for the same job, same panel recharges, and it’s still trekking with no problems.

A few months later the Superbase is unusable, barely even pulling 10%. The indicator would show recharge to 100%, but it would just shut off around 90% and I’d plug it into the charger and it would start recharging from 0%.

I contacted Zendure, but the official response was that the batteries were not reasonably recoverable. This response was expected, but the situation bugged me. I was getting slightly different behaviors depending if I charged from USB C, or USB A. I also noticed that in any case, when the Superbase charged to 100% and shut off I could replug it back into the charger and sometimes it would shut off right away, other times it would charge for a few minutes more.

No matter how many times I tried to top it off there wasn’t a noticeable difference in battery life, but I wasn’t satisfied yet…

TLDR / should of lead with the conclusion: I plugged the Superbase into one of those power timers that lets you turn off the power every 30 minutes. I left it plugged in for 2 weeks and I’ve regained at least 80% of its capacity. This has been consistent for a couple recharges now.

I’m sure it does better on a single charge now, but I haven’t addressed the original defect where it will quickly lose capacity with regular charging. So I leave it on the timed charger for as long as possible. I use the solar panels for my Jackery products.

If you have a faulty power product, maybe trickle charging could be your savior too!

I was waiting to become really good at using a one handed keyboard before making a video. Well, I haven’t worked on it in nearly a year so I figured now or never.

Portability was my main draw to the numpad keyboard, and the keyboard I have is already really portable, but there is still value in a one handed keyboard, and I hope the people who need it do find it.

Github Download

If you’re new to learning new keyboard layouts, prepare to work on something without really noticing improvements. Be casual; as in, don’t stress yourself out. Aim to use the new layout as your main layout, but if you have important work to do or are just plain frusterated don’t be scared to set it aside. Keep yourself in good spirits so you can pick it back up if you take a break.

I’d estimate spending a month with a visual reference open, month two will be filled with silly mistakes and rewriting bad habits you’ve developed. You’ll likely feel comfortable by three months, but also wondering “is this as good as it gets?” Give it a good 6 months to really peak, and by then it’ll be a muscle memory you can easily pick back up if you decide to stop.

I read an article somewhere about point-and-shoot digital cameras making a come back in popularity. I don’t know which article it was, but my take away was that having the whole device dedicated to a single function made “cheap” digital cameras almost always better than a smartphone camera. Despite having personally yeeted my own personal digital camera archive merely 3 or so years ago (now I’m sorely missing that pink Sony Cybershot with the skull emblem) the article’s assertment makes sense to me. With owning an aging smartphone, the prospect of a camera upgrade is always exciting. But all the newer digital cameras I see online seem to be a reasonable $200 for the budget versions. That’s how much my phone cost at this point. I don’t have to invest much more to get a better camera AND phone. So I went to the local thrift store to see if I could get lucky.

I feel very lucky. After some digging in a bin and detangling several piles of knotted cables, I found 3 old digital cameras. A very old Canon PowerShot at 3.2 MP, a Pentax Optio at 5 MP, and Samsung ES25 at a familiar 12.2 MP. I was not expecting the hit of nostalgia I would get from finding these cameras. The silver aluminium casing of the two oldest cameras rang deep, and all the single function buttons on the back was very exciting. It was a journey wondering if these would even power on when I bought them, being impressed that they all took AA batteries and excited when I finally found some with a high enough MaH to get the device to read its memory card, and the sense of victory when I used copper tape to fix the broken contacts of the ES25, and pushed passed the “memory error” message to find that I needed an old card that was under 4gb to get the Canon and Pentax to function.

As for the photos… yeah, no contest. My smartphone, an old LG G8X Thinq, is better. I tried to take some consistent shots with each device to find strengths and weaknesses beyond pixel resolution, but I have many cameras and little patience. Luckly it was irrelevant once I took a picture of the backyard and only my phone camera could detect the distant part of the sky that was blue and not cloudy. It’s a detail too big for my rose-colored glasses to gloss over. This was likely never the comparison the article wanted to make, but I had fun while my hopes were up. And it is interesting that, IMO, the oldest Canon was taking the best shots of the 3 cameras. Here’s a small gallery of comparisons.

I don’t think I’ll go the route of purchasing a proper dedicated camera. I’m not sure I’d recognize the advantages over new phone camera technologies as I haven’t had proper exposure to either. I like the idea of maybe downgrading back to my old pixel 2 for its size convenience and pulling out a dedicated camera for pictures, but I’m certain that if I were in that position I’d be excited by the idea of a device that somehow combined both my old phone and my new camera and any quality sacrifices would totally be worth it.