The Spam Thread!

[huckleberrypie]

I could give the Retron5 a go again, but I just hope the input lag in the SNES portion still isn't there. If not, any of the current HD-upscaling retro consoles would do well.

If I had easy access to a 20'' CRT set, I would use that in a heartbeat, but they weigh so much and in my town, they are hard to come by. I'd have to wait until Spring or Summer to see if any turn up at a yard sale or auction should I decide to get a CRT.

I'd say go for the HDMI-ready repros then. Though the console ASICs used might be spotty when it comes to sound for one.

[cpd2009]

About a week ago, Avira showed a popup for the Opera browser enhanced with Avira security tools including adblocker and password manager. I decided to try it out.

It does work much faster than Edge at the moment. Chromium-based browsers usually do.

[huckleberrypie]

About a week ago, Avira showed a popup for the Opera browser enhanced with Avira security tools including adblocker and password manager. I decided to try it out.

It does work much faster than Edge at the moment. Chromium-based browsers usually do.

Makes me wonder if the Chromium-powered Edge would be just as fast or at least somewhat competitive.

"Why is everything... ...chrome?"

"Everything's chrome in the future!"

[cpd2009]

CenturyLink DSL is fine for streaming 1080p video... but it royally sucks for uploading anything. I'm currently uploading some new sets of commercials to my YouTube channel and it's going to take several hours for a 1.2GB 720p file to upload. And CenturyLink is the only internet option in my apartment.

I get Midco cable TV, but because the wiring in my building is so old, they can't provide cable internet. I also can't get Vast Cable either... unless I move into the connected building next door which has both Midco and Vast plus cable internet from each provider.

I guess I could lower the bitrate for my videos, but I don't want the videos to become a blocky mess. Thus, I'm stuck with slow upload speeds.

[cpd2009]

Ahh, the early 90s, when it appeared that people thought the microwave would replace the oven. This train of thought of course lead to gadgets like this, which seems to be the same technology behind those cardboard crisping sleeves you find with Hot Pockets. According to good ol' Cathy Mitchell here, you can use this magic paper to cook any food in the microwave with the results of using an oven. This product was so revolutionary, it's not even in stores anymore!

Microwaves can cook, but not as well as an oven. Some foods shouldn't even be cooked in a microwave to start with since it may not get hot enough to kill off any illness causing bacteria. Or if it does cook through, the food comes out mushy and rubbery.

I always cook frozen meals in the oven when possible. Some of them, like Lean Cuisine meals are only usable in the microwave, and those do come out more or less okay.

[huckleberrypie]

Whenever I think of microwaves, weirdly enough I occasionally think of converting them into a time machine or something.

On a serious note though, they're either commonly used to heat up leftovers and pizza, or that restaurants use professional-grade ones to heat up orders to be served.

[cpd2009]

I'm getting closer to finishing Yoshi's Island DS, and people weren't kidding when they say how difficult this game is. So far, most of the game has put up a modest challenge when you try to get 100% on everything. World 5, the final world? Good luck staying alive while avoiding obstacles and enemies as you try to hurl an egg at the lone flying Shyguy holding that precious red coin.... as the level auto-scrolls.

Now this is what a Yoshi video game should be. It really makes all the recent Yoshi games look poor in comparison. They are still well designed games mind you, but they lowered the difficulty considerably and made the franchise TasteLikeDiabetes to some. I am planning on getting Yoshi's Crafted World after it is released, but I won't have high expectations for it.

[huckleberrypie]

A textbook example of NintendoHard much?

Anyway, I am mulling about buying a Mini 4WD race track so I could test out my Tamiya cars in order to pass the time and give myself a break from the PC. Not that I don't want to mess around with hacks and video game mods and all, but I'd like to have a screen break every now and then and I wanted to do my eyes a favour. There's a basic two-lane track that goes for around $40-50; any longer or more complex and that would set you back a fortune. To think that collecting American Girl dolls is nuts on a financial standpoint. :/

[cpd2009]

A few days ago, I decided to give the NES classic Contra a play through on my bootleg CoolBaby knockoff console. The game plays just as how I remember it... except that the entire ending sequence was taken out. :/ Once you defeat the final boss, you just get dumped back to the title screen. There's also an odd bug with the two base stages where you defeat enemies and move forward. Until you destroy certain targets on the wall, an energy barrier prevents you from going forward and disappears once targets are gone. On the CoolBaby, the barrier remains on screen, even though it still "disappears" and you can pass through it once the targets are destroyed.

Now I'm curious about other games on here. I must note that some of these games have some copyright text replaced with a random www(dot)touchgameplayer(dot)com address, while others appear to have all copyright stuff removed, or they decided to use unmodified ROMs complete with copyrights intact.

[huckleberrypie]

Well that's kinda' bizarre. Reminds me of those bootleg conversions of SNES and Genesis games from the likes of Super Game where the developer logo simply appears regardless of whether you beat the game or ended with a game over.

In other news, I've just received an email from Nabi stating that they'd be pulling the plug on their online services starting this March 2019, effectively killing off the children's tablet line for good. It seemed as though Mattel's acquisition of the company in 2016 only served as life support for what is basically a dead company walking. Which is quite a bummer as far as preservation goes, as a number of apps were released exclusively for the device or at the very least, didn't see a Google Play release. And knowing Mattel's dubious track record when it comes to electronics, this doesn't come as a surprise as neither the Intellivision nor the Hyperscan bode well with their target market. And I better download the kernel source tarballs as well.