From Op-ed

Data Center, NIMBY, and Due Diligence

There was a letter addressed to the resident of my family condo unit, asking if we would be willing to hear them out. There is a plan drawn, and possibly already under way, to build a data center near my family home. The condo is in a small village with measly 40k population, —that’s considered…

CE Ultrawide, Aspect Ratios and Photography

What is the aspect ratio of your display? Was it ever the core concern behind a purchasing decision? I am aware of this rave behind the ultrawide displays, canonically “21:9”, but mathematically “64:27”, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. It only became a concern not because I was in the shop for new…

Apple Intelligence, PCC, and M4 Macs

Apple Intelligence is in beta still. Some articles I’ve read unfortunately did not understand Apple Intelligence is to be deployed gradually, and while I would argue Apple’s ‘sell now, build later’ tactic to be disingenuous, I would simply disagree current Apple Intelligence is what will be for the remainder of fiscal year. But let us…

Microsoft Office, Windows, and Subscriptions

Subscription is the new bane of the internet. It’s been the bane of the modern technology as many users would wail. We are living in a world where some products and services are inherently subscription-based, where it is simply not possible to acquire the said products or services without subscription, say Netflix. But this isn’t…

Windows 10, Subscription, and Security Update

Microsoft announced that the company will provide a subscription-based security updates, $30/year for “legacy” PCs. It is truly a diabolical plan considering Windows 11 has the infamous TPM requirements, thereby the older PCs simply became obsolete. On Bootcamp side of the business, we are yet to hear from neither of the companies on whether or…

Silent Hill 2, Innocence, and Fog World

This post contains a major spoiler of Silent Hill 2, albeit it is about 20 years late and all the other installments do share the same principle behind the world of Silent Hill or Silent Hill phenomenon in The Short Message. If you are unfamiliar with the world of Silent Hill, I will try my…

Raspberry Pi, VLAN, and Docker

A bit of rant while exploring different routes to host multiple OpenVPN clients on a single Raspberry Pi device. If you are a subscriber to paid VPN services, you would immediately know most services offer multiple server destinations. And you would also know, by following the previous post, that the said how-to only allows one…

Surviving the Abyss, Early Access, and Abandonware

There are several games on my radar I am eagerly waiting to see the final copy of. Since Steam has started Early Access (i.e. preorder now and start playing beta, or pre-beta version), many developers have built their new business models around the idea that there is another source of revenue until the actual release…

PS5 Pro, 4K TV, and HDR

The new PS5 Pro is released at $699.99, and I’m here to ask a question: Is a gamer not entitled to sweat of —I meant— pixels of his consoles? Enough Andrew Ryan quotes, but it is a serious question nonetheless. At $700, PS5 Pro has a tough battle ahead of it to win the spotlight…

Diablo IV, Console Support, and DualSense

Part 2 on the most recent title from Diablo franchise, and frankly found more often on the indie games, the dubious controller support and lack of documentations thereof. As strange as it sounds, there are aspects of a video game where a spec is necessary. Not just “minimum requirements” and “recommended” specs of your hardwares,…

Diablo, Controller Support, and Lock-on

With Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred just released, —and yes, “emergency maintenance” requires me to publish this story before I could give my fair share to the game— I though to ask where do games stand on supporting controllers. Or, more specifically, supporting features that are not bound by keyboard and mouse. Before we dive…

Mis-Recipes, Dis-Recipes, and AI Recipes

When ChatGPT-craze was still booming, there was a YouTuber who put the AI recipes to the test. It doesn’t take professional baker to immediately catch what is off with the recipe GPT-3 has written for her. Her video mostly focuses on the experimentation and information on where AI technology stands on food. Recipes on the…

Native Support, Bootcamp, and GPTK

As much as I appreciate native Mac supports in PC gaming, there is something to be said about the overall quality of the support. Some games are simply not optimized. Its performance is either subpar or some advanced settings are simply unavailable for native versions. Some games run into glitches that are unique only to…

Intel Mac, DirectX 12, and GPTK

Apple Silicon is more than a mere brand name for Apple branded chips. It’s now a platform that is synonymous with every tools that come with it. This, in turns, has a side effect of “killing off” Windows compatibility softwares, for the lack of more broader term, on Intel Macs. Not that it doesn’t have…

iPad, Apple Silicon, and MacBook Air

I’ve had few iPads of my own. I’d like to believe each was better than the last. Front facing camera and mic helped for video chats. Touch ID and Face ID were nice additions, when Macs didn’t offer biometrics. Retina display also landed on iPad lines first, and iOS apps were first to adapt them…