zlatiah

Rhythm games, both in general and in terms of my main game. Don't think I can recommend it to most people though

Got into it... partly because osu was popular when I grew up, partly because I listened to a lot of "rhythm game music" growing up. This video game genre also always resonated with me quite well, I love extremely challenging video games so there's that

Reason I couldn't recommend it... First of all it is not an easy hobby to get into outside of Asia, and because of this finding a community (even for really popular games like maimai/CHUNITHM) will be tough. Secondly because of the first reason, getting into rhythm games outside of Asia can get expensive, between arcade visits and homecabs and all. It's also somewhat of an extremely all-encompassing hobby that leaves little room for one to do anything else. Finally there's a pretty significant risk of injury especially at higher levels, I've had a bone fracture before and several ppl I know have had serious injuries, despite the fact that there's little to no "payoff" (such as for-profit tournaments) like most sports

On the plus side, stomping it out on DDR/ITG (the latter much more accessible) is a really fun way to do cardio!

zlatiah @lemmy.world 1mo ago

Just VLC. I don't stream music and most of the stuff I listen to have no lyrics so it works fine as-is

zlatiah @lemmy.world 1mo ago

I wonder if this has something to do with "whom you primarily identify with"? Seems to me that the primary identity comes first in naming systems

Because there's some interesting parallels. Even though the order is reversed, in CJ cultures (don't know about K, presume similar) people overwhelmingly refer to each other via family names (which comes first) instead of given names. Where I grew up in China people almost never refer to your given name; most people refer to others with some honorifics + family name (brother Li, lil' Liu, teacher Zhang, etc). In Japanese culture referring to each other via given names is reserved to close friends only. Also in these cultures the given names have a lot more diversity than in Western culture

zlatiah @lemmy.world 2mo ago

Based on my records, probably averaging 40-50% on needs. Exactly 30.7% on housing, somewhere >10% on basic needs food, and maybe just a bit more for emergency. The numbers for food is a bit fuzzy since I don't specifically separate out, say, a 6-pack beer or a really nice chocolate bar from other groceries

For context though, I make above average salary for my area, am relatively young & healthy (so almost no healthcare needs), and didn't mind living a bit frugal...

zlatiah @lemmy.world 2mo ago

Everything I post about that is video game-related. I do post sometimes but I don't think I really did it for validation (not that many people look at it anyways)

zlatiah @lemmy.world 2mo ago

Split between either housing or bureaucracy

Housing is... not actually about affordability, but rather the plain difficulty of even getting a rental. I'm living in supposedly a part of Europe with a good housing market, but even here every decent rental on the market would instantaneously get 20+ applicants, so it's quite competitive... not as bad as NL, but still pretty rough

Bureaucracy because of expat/immigrant/etc shenanigans

zlatiah @lemmy.world 2mo ago

I don't know if this is spooky, fucked up, or just really funny (in my twisted sense of humor)

In college. I was a workaholic and didn't sleep a lot, and I lived in a student dorm (layout was like a hotel, each student had their individual room) that was fairly well-liked by upperclassmen. Anyways there's a random girl I know outside of class with a friend group. Generally a bright and upbeat person, quite well put-together, also an international student, etc...

There was one night when I was just passed out on my dorm bed. And at 3am in the morning, I saw that particular girl standing in front of my dorm room with the door open. Crying, being really sad and all... Later was escorted away by the RA.

What I still couldn't comprehend is... First of all, why the heck was my door unlocked. Second of all, why was this random person standing in front of my door. Did she want anything from me. Also later I never heard from that girl again, what happened to her

zlatiah @lemmy.world 2mo ago

Getting a good night's sleep
Getting a nap in, for those who can fall asleep quickly
Drinking a nice cup of hot/warm tea or water. Seriously it works surprisingly well for relieving stress

zlatiah @lemmy.world 3mo ago

I'm using mailbox.org with a custom domain. German company, all of their email services seem pretty industry standard, so the biggest advantage for me is that it works quite well with 3rd party mail & calendar clients. Forgot when I switched but so far I have no complaints

zlatiah @lemmy.world 3mo ago

Now that I'm thinking about it, I mainly have a gripe with people getting addicted to gambling. Can be in many different forms IMO; can be spending too much money at the Blackjack table (which is somewhat skill-dependent), whaling on lootboxes/gachas (where you'd literally never "win" money back), or even day trading (which is technically positive-sum)

In theory everything is fine in moderation, but then most gambling systems reward people to whale whether they intend it or not, so...

zlatiah @lemmy.world 3mo ago

I don't play that many but I generally 100% games I play. So... a bit embarrassing, but Dicey Dungeons. The later chapters are genuinely difficult & are more puzzles than roguelikes... so I just gave up at one point

If specific endgame challenges count, I've never beaten Dead Cells BC4 boss rush, or the fabled Noita 34 orbs run (was very close though). Oh and every other rhythm game if you count skill analyzers/Dan courses, but most players don't clear those

zlatiah @lemmy.world 3mo ago

I just had my quarter-life crisis and was starting to have a very FOSS period of my life. Forgot from where, but I heard someone mentioning Mastodon so I joined; this was months before the Reddit API fiasco

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zlatiah @lemmy.world 3mo ago

Oooh nice!

Something I am very curious: how do the guitar controllers compare against each other? I'm saying this as someone who has been buying and reading up on quite a few rhythm game controllers (DDR/ITG, Taiko, more esoteric things) and knew of the whole slew of comparisons/tierlists between controllers... I knew close to nothing about Clone Hero controllers for high-level gameplay so

zlatiah @lemmy.world 3mo ago

So far, my phone, a Google Pixel 6a bought and promptly Graphenified 4.5 years ago that is still going strong. Not perfect but it does it job

Steam Deck is a close second, it has rotated between being my primary/secondary gaming device and even my primary desktop for varying amounts of time, and it served every single role well. All while being dirt-cheap for the specs it have

zlatiah @lemmy.world 3mo ago

As someone who had a poorly-paid yet high-stress job for 6 years straight (thanks grad school!) and still recovering, I have a lot to say on this!

I honestly don't know if what I did could even count as cooking, especially since cooking standards where I grew up is quite high... I just go to the store and buy a bunch of meat + random assorted vegetables and throw them in a pot. Meat is almost always chicken since it's cheaper, and the local supermarket used to sell massive packs of chicken legs for just $5. Veggies... used to be just some type of cabbage or cauliflower. Recently I've been switching things up a bit, but it's mostly still just these. Usually somewhere between 30-60 minutes is the sweet spot where things don't cause food poisoning, so within 60-90 minutes of very easy prep, I can get food that would be good for a long time, depending on how big the pot is. Back when I lived in an apartment with a big fridge I sometimes store up to 3-4 weeks of food... Current accommodation only has a mini-fridge, so 4-7 meals max. I cook whenever I run out of food. This is usually the "meal prep" part, which I can then store in the fridge/freezer.

For eating. I'd just make some type of carbs, reheat the mix a bit, and just place them together and eat. Throw in some spices and olive oil (or one of those funny Asian spices if you are into it!) and almost everything would taste just fine. The entire prep almost never exceeds 10 minutes, half of which can be spent showering which cuts down on the morning routine. Probably even faster (1 min?) if one pre-cooks rice, but unfortunately I really don't like badly cooked rice so it is mainly spaghetti for me...

Recently I did start to cut down on the total number of meals that are prepped though. Recently for breakfast I've started to make fried eggs + bread + mayo (which is also 3-5 min cap, although a bit less hands-off), and have been going to the workplace canteen for lunch. But yeah, still pretty much depression meal so to say

zlatiah @lemmy.world 3mo ago

I do it sometimes, but mainly for music I really enjoy or have a keen interest in. Technically I also did it for a music competition a few months ago but that probably doesn't count...

There is research on this btw! I had to dig a bit, but this is a 2011 research article (might be paywalled, I can try & help if anyone is really interested in) on why people (psych undergrads, but still) listen to music. They identified 6 mostly independent factors, one of which ("personal identity") may be more linked to ppl listening just for enjoyment; one of their experiments showed that 75.66% of participants listen to music as "background noise". So music as primary activity is probably relatively uncommon (but not non-existent). Funnily enough I rarely use music as background distraction these days