Major Bummer Alert: Every social media feed I’ve looked at in the past month has either been partially or fully overwhelmed by AI-generated content.

It’s a shame, and just another step on the long road towards enshitification for these social media giants. For a moment, let’s try to remember using peak Reddit or peak Facebook; these used to be good platforms! They were promising, exciting, lively places where perspectives and opinions were posted freely and openly! Good content, as far as the eye could see! What happened?

I’m going to keep this brief because my last post was way too long.

I just finished listening to the MGS3 episode of the Furidashi Podcast, and overall, I think they got it right. Their takes were pretty good, in particular the points on FPV in cutscenes, EVA and the Boss as characters, and the centrality of lore to this entry. I basically agreed with all of those points.

Where I’ve Been #

It has been almost a full year since my last update, and this project has almost entirely stalled-out. Sometimes I wonder why I am still trying to make this Studio Mystery thing work. I can’t work on it consistently, I’m not building a real audience or industry connections, and as my wife likes to remind me, the name and branding are terrible.

You’re Wrong about Metal Gear Solid 2 #

Dear Nicolas:

I’m a Furidashi listener and in general, I think you and Lauren make excellent video game critiques and commentary. I’ve really enjoyed everything I’ve heard so far and look forward to more of your content.

My wife told me to write this exact blog post over a year ago, and here we are, approaching Valentines once again. So, if you’re looking for something fun to do with your special someone on V-Day, check out one of these options. And hey, they can’t be any worse than watching the movie Holmes and Watson.

Once upon a time at work, I was tasked with writing automated tests for a web application built on top of Salesforce. The devs used a special plugin to implement a custom UI, but the underlying UI and Backend were still Salesforce. Now, I know what you’re thinking. You shouldn’t be testing Salesforce. That’s Salesforce (the company)’s job. And you’d be right, but it’s not just SF, it’s our team’s implementation of hundreds of little customizeable widgets, features, formulas, plugins and extras that all work in part to create a CMS.

Late in 2024, I downloaded an RSS feed reader and began using it as my primary scrolling news feed. What a difference that has made in my personal relationship with the internet! It’s like using a GOOD version of Reddit with zero ads and only interesting content I subscribed to!

A while back, I wrote up a post about doom-scrolling and phone addiction. Since then, my habits have changed and I wanted to make an update because I’ve made even more progress.

If you haven’t read the old post, check it out. Or just read the following summary to see what I had tried earlier:

Where I’ve Been #

First off, let me update you on my current projects:

My scifi mech novel, SoftWar - Predator, Prey is my current focus. I’ve completely finished the first 13 chapter draft, but my wife has given me some incredibly valueable feedback (aka the main character sucks) and she’s 100% right. So I’m four chapters into the rewrite and it’s getting better. I’m excited to see this new version of Yuri survive Rocco-II and fight off the Zard hacker.

No sooner had the chamber pressurized than the door to the port cracked open, just slightly enough to allow the hiss of rushing air to echo through the space. Yuri glanced at the door and watched as it opened slowly. He felt a gentle pull as the low pressure tunnel equalized with the inside of the port.