Episode 101 - Dingle Dangle My Dongle
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Halloween is over. But the frights aren’t. It’s November 1st 2019, the deadliest day in America. Millions flock to stores, shoving and trampling one another for the chance to get the ultimate prize: discount candy. In light of the carnage, a new law is passed. From 7 AM to Midnight of November 1st, citizens of the United States are allowed to gather and horde as much discount Halloween candy as they please, and are able to defend it at any cost. That five pound bag of Swedish Fish is *mine* and I will gut anyone that tries to take it. This Fall, get ready for The Purge: Sweet Tooth. Starring:
* Controllers
* Discord
* No Dark Mode
* Dongles
The home gaming system. Small, light, easy to use. Plug it in and get playing. The 80’s set the standard for games to come. Then the 90’s roll around. Still increasingly popular, but games become more complex, so they add more buttons. In some cases even those were not enough. In Batman Forever for SNES, the much needed grappling hook is placed on the SELECT button. Then we enter the 3D era, cameras become an integral part of games. We try a stick and four buttons, then two sticks. Success! Except… games become more and more complex. More than we ever thought possible. Yet, fundamentally the PS4’s controller is the same as back in 1997. 20 years of stagnancy, while games become more and more involved. We’re holding triggers and using radial menus. We’re using the d-pad to do eight different things between holds and taps. But there’s one kind of gamer that’s been comfortable all these years. The keyboard warrior. Ultimate customization, more buttons than ARMA can throw a stick at.
Discord, oh Discord. When I first booted you up, it was a godsend. Steam Groups were terrible. No logs, constant disconnections that they wouldn’t notify you of, general jankness everywhere. Your cute loading screen phrases were L33T $P3/\K, but ignorable. You were Slack for gaming buddies. You upgraded servers, introduced more options, things were great. Then, you realized you couldn’t grow and stay free. So you introduced a subscription service with extras. No one cared. Yet, still you grew. You had to do something. And you chose the one thing no one wanted. No one wants ANOTHER platform for their games. You had it, man. You had made IRC obsolete, you forced Steam to upgrade their chat system. YOU FORCED STEAM TO DO SOMETHING. Almost unheard of. You could have made the best communication app there was, but you got greedy. And now you’re going down the drain.
As I sit here and type these write ups every week, my life is slowly wasting away. I mean, everyone’s is, but what is a life without eyesight? Why is my eyesight dwindling? The lack of Dark Modes. I spend a lot of time writing in Evernote. It’s free and syncs across all my devices. You think, since it’s been around for years, they’d get around to implementing a dark mode, but nope. It’s been the most requested feature since 2012, but screw your users, right? Even worse, the widget for it on my phone? 2 separate dark modes to choose from, just on the widget though. The desktop app? It’s main menu is in dark mode, but none of the rest of it is. I use F.lux’s dark room mode once the migraine starts to hit. I use a dark mode extension on chrome for websites. I’ve learned to look at color-inverted photos and imagine what they actually look like. It’s almost a fun game, but I’m doing it not to be literally stabbing my eyes out.
Dongle. It’s a funny word for sure. Say it in any way other than frustration at work, and you’ve got a sexual harassment lawsuit on your hands. The masses want sleek and sexy. Thinner and thinner devices! Until it gets in their way. Our USB ports are smaller and thinner, our power adapter ports are circles no more! An SD card reader is too thick. LET ME REPEAT THAT. AN SD CARD IS NOW TOO THICK FOR MODERN LAPTOPS. All this means dongles. Dongles everywhere. More dongles than an Instagram thot’s DMs. Eventually we’re going to have to carry around a giant key ring like a school janitor, but with dongles instead. Because ports aren’t sexy enough.
And more on this week’s episode of the podcast! Including: your voicemails, your late voicemails, and a rundown of December’s Battle Royale Movie Voting. As always thanks for those that support us on PATREON and chat with us in DISCORD, and if that’s not you, consider joining us!
