I daily drive a Light Phone III, haven't had a smartphone in years and would rather never use one again. Our local concert venue requires an app for tickets, so I have just given up on the idea of going to major concerts or seeing our local hockey team play.

I was looking at the light phone 2 a while ago but don’t remember why I decided not to. Maybe they were out of stock.

I’ll check it out again… I would love to divorce my smartphone and only use it at certain times.

I’ve been using the Brick and Screen Time more often now.

The Light III is a great improvement over the II. If you are trying to use your phone less the II will encourage that just because the epaper is pretty janky and annoying. I gave my Light II to my son, which I hope gives him a generally negative first impression of phones.

The first time I heard "whale" mentioned in the video game space was at a GDC panel around a game called Puzzle Pirates, where the dev noted that the bulk of their in-game purchases were made by a small group of "whale" players. In 2003 purchasable skins, pets, hats, etc were pretty new.

I remember that one and remember being super exasperated about not being able to do anything without paying upfront for it. Ended up switching to Club Penguin instead lol.

The argument has been made that punk finally broke in '91 with Nirvana and then Green Day and myriad other pop punk bands selling records. And there's also a case for the bands, especially of the '77 era New York scene breaking, but doing it by playing less textbook punk-sounding music (Blondie, Talking Heads, etc).

I do think The Ramones were robbed in way. If radio at the time wasn't ready for them, classic rock radio now should be. Most of them play The Clash already.If Blitzkrieg Bop is too weird or raw, "Rock 'n Roll Radio" is polished enough that it would fit right in.

Great band, cool shirts. Gotta say all the Flenser bands got the memo on strong merch.

My big learning from having a kid, was that there was more maturing and growing up for me to do (A ton to be honest). Once there was somebody else I had to keep alive and care for and think about I learned to better de-center myself in the universe. I am sure you can get to this perspective many other ways, but having children seems to be the easy mode for getting into the mindset of "it's not about me any more."

Didn't Jeff Minter do the Xbox visualizer?

My first ashcan was a mini-comic sized Atari Force promo that came, I believe, if you were part of the Atari fan club. Based on the size it could have come packed into the box of an Atari game, so I could have gotten it that way.

I wouldn't be surprised if this action was in advance of some kind of acquisition. GOG gets spun off as protection, so they can stick to their mission while somebody like Microsoft, Sony, Tencent or the Saudis add The Witcher and Cyberpunk to their portfolios.

My main advice would be to make NONE of this about you. Be genuinely curious about others. Really listen to them. Look in their eyes when they are talking to you and when you are talking to them. Completely put the notion of you needing or lacking friends in the backseat and put an interest and genuine caring about the lives of random people you meet in the front.

You can't go into this with the goal of gaining something. Go in with the goal of giving of yourself -- your time, attention and interest.

Do the reps on this and you will become a person people want to be around.

And you need to be genuine.

Find whatever works for you to be genuinely interested.

People know if you're faking attention, or if you're unnaturally giving.

It's a tricky balance.

We slowly learn by practicing...

I've learnt over time to be more generous (tried to stop keeping a mental record of debts, and try to avoid giving obligations to anyone), and to be less judgemental (acceptance is mostly good).

There was an Invader alien somewhere around ground zero prior to the attack. His website used to have a picture of it.