iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Nothing like being forced into a pci audit despite holding zero cardholder data while X is over there just telling people to post a photo of their CC in the chat

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

A bearded and weary man mutters incantations at a book-sized object wrapped in skin, as a stream of chaotic energy streams forth. Long familiar with this ritual, he watches until it stops. "Rubbish!" he exclaims, frustrated with the result. "You're absolutely right!" Modern coding is weird.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

It occurs to me that "where should I store my grappling hooks" is probably not a question that normal people need to ask when they are organizing their spaces.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Korg Phase8: I need to accept that I now have a midi controlled xylophone with sustain that requires more care than an actual xylophone. Neat, but deffo more fiddly than any other instrument I have, acoustic or electric. Oh, you want to play in a different key? May god have mercy on your soul.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

And i guess any work that brings out feelings like mine, even if they are rather negative, can be considered effective art. That’s the charitable take, and i find it very unlikely that this was the intent. But it’s the only framework that makes my experience make sense.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

There’s part of me that genuinely wonders as to if the point of the game is that people often do stupid things, our attempts to fix things can make things much worse, and desolation shouldn’t be fun - and feeling empty and frustrated is intentional. If that’s indeed the case- this is truly art.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

Not everyone will feel as I do, and I am sure there are many who love Prime 4. All I can do is examine where things started to go bad for me… and i keep coming back to solitary isolation vs Adam and Space Marines, discovery vs. exposition. Agency vs. duty.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

All of this ultimately culminates in an ending that is guaranteed to make pretty much nobody happy, leaving the player unsatisfied. The funny thing is that if you go back and explore once you have reached endgame, there’s a lot of satisfying gameplay there that has been locked off until then.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

I normally am not one to be bothered by a sequel, or go on frustrated rants about games, so why is this one getting to me? I think its because it lies to the player about what it could be, with the lush, beautiful, and small area of Fury Green, and just treats the player with contempt.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

The padding in 4 is already fairly obvious (green crystals have been talked about enough) - but even the little things add up. Damage sponges and extremely complicated doors are everywhere… But even scanning something takes significantly longer in 4! There are SO many micro-delays.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

Just a couple of hours into replaying 1, I can see where several boss battles were lifted almost directly, except made less interesting. The large armored beetle, the fire drone, the war wasps - they all are directly lifted into a battle in 4 that is less engaging, yet drags on much longer.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

Went back to play Metroid Prime 1. It is an objectively better game than 4, even the aspects that haven’t aged well. The environments in 1 encourage exploration, and are more intricate, more full. Outside of fury green, 4 is empty desert, a single snowy path, and tons of facilities/tunnels.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

Every power is a rebadged power from an earlier game, outside of maybe two, which mostly act themselves as keys. The empty open world itself mocking the concept, immediately lying to you that you can go wherever you want as soon as you get to it, despite there being a strict path.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

I’ve started to think of it as a spiritual successor to MGS2 in terms of being a fundamentally dadaist game, and oh my god does it make a lot of sense in that context. It deconstructs the series into hunting of keys that themself require keys, with locks literally saying “spin to open”.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

I can't decide if Metroid Prime 4 is a parody of FPS games and late 80s/early 90s action movie tropes or not, but the further I get into it - my god, this HAS to be intentional, there is absolutely no way it could be this dense with this much of the most mocked aspects of both by accident... right?

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

Me in my teens: How can I learn technology most effectively? Me in my 20s: How can I work with technology most effectively? Me in my 30s: How can I make technology work for me most effectively? Me in my 40s: How can I work against technology most effectively?

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

I think my purpose in life may be to convince businesses/organizations that having free-form text input fields with no character limit is a bad idea. I broke another one yesterday - not due to any sort of exploit, just with the power of raw, unfiltered anxiety.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 28/06/2025

It’s 1995, and l’m walking down the street while a block party blasts Bell Biv Devoe. Jerry Bruckheimer and Brad Pitt are the present buzz in the movie industry. It’s 2025, and I’m walking down the street while a block party blasts Bell Biv Devoe.…

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

If anything ever happens to me, please do what you can to ensure a fitting tribute, like perhaps the belle of louisville performing a calliope dirge, backed by an ice cream truck chorus.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

If you take anything away from all of this rambling, I hope that it’s a curiosity and openness to exploring some of these things if you have been on that mild to moderate threshold of “able to get by.” It’s been very beneficial to me so far, and I’m curious where this journey leads from here.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

I think it would be very easy to fall in to a gear acquisition trap with all of the hearing aid options that are out there, both OTC and prescription, especially if you are a music hardware guy. I suspect that path is a most disappointing one - and expensive. Be aware of real limitations.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

But i also think it’s important to temper your expectations, and be realistic about what hearing aids can and cannot do, and the fact that hearing loss - in most cases - cannot be restored to perfection. Be realistic about where you are and what can be done, and what you can and cannot live with.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

I am very new to this. I’m sure that a lot of what I’m saying seems ridiculous to anyone dealing with much worse. But for you all dealing with being in that mild to moderate threshold, i encourage you to explore options, add most importantly, stick with it. We have more options now than ever.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

The sonys also saved my ass when i had a sudden loss in both ears that was way asymmetrical that left me unable to normally understand anyone - not their use case, but after going through setup again, it compensated for the asymmetry and was enough help that i could get by with some effort.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

At first, i did not like them, but sticking with them has paid off. They aren’t great for music, and you wont stream to them via bluetooth or anything like that - they are strictly for being out in the world, and they are outstanding for that… like, seriously a tangible difference.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

Otherwise, for interacting with the world around me, i’ve settled on the Sony CRE-C20s for now. I’ve been advised that for my particular hearing loss, along with the added variability in it, these are a great starting point. They are tiny things that disappear in my ear and run all day.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

For mixing and mastering, it sends best to stream through the AirPods and their “media” hearing correction and live with the delay - i can hear every audiophile screaming at the idea of this right now, but it’s the compromise that works for me - at least at the non professional level i work at.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

Live electronic is a different story, with so many moving parts. For that, a separate eq for monitoring that’s the inversion of an audiogram seems like a reasonable idea, and is what I’m trying - things get muddy and weird through the aids I’ve tried, so i just do it without.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

I’m still trying to figure out what i should compensate for here, and experimenting. For live music, i don’t know what options there really are- and honestly, how much it matters if you aren’t the sound guy. Just playing one instrument, it may not be a big deal - that’s all very individual.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

Dynamic range and EQ are the things you’d expect to change, but theres a bit of a comb filter and a bit crusher on everything as well- and things can end up just sounding strange. Some of this you can adapt to, but for mild to moderate, you may actually be better off just not using a hearing aid.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

Again, to be clear - I’m talking about this from the mild to moderate hearing loss perspective. For severe to profound, I know much of what i am talking about is a luxury. For mild to moderate, we are in a position where hearing aids help us in some ways, but radically alter playing/making music.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

So I “did my own research” as people love to say these days, and looked at other options. One thing that quickly becomes clear when you look at hearing aids is that they are optimized for speech and interacting with the world around you - as they should be. Music - well, thats different.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

So while the airpods are kind of incredible in terms of lowering the barriers for me getting over my own ego to try this, they had a few shortcomings - battery life seems suddenly short when you want to wear them all day, live music sounded odd, and you look like you are tuning the world out.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

I used to talk really loud. I don’t think i realized this before. But that was a small thing… the big thing was the cognitive load that had been freed up. I used to end every day exhausted, and i think now that this was just the effort of trying to understand people all day. I feel less so now.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

Immediately after importing the audiogram, the hearing aid functionality kicked in. And at first, I just thought it sounded weird - like i was just hooked up to a comb filter. But i stuck with it, and it only took a few days for me to realize how much easier conversing was.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

That got my attention - and i remembered that the airpod pro 2s that i already had could act as an otc hearing aid. I never was able to get the on-phone hearing test to work, but reading more, i learned i could import an audiogram - one i conveniently had right in front of me - it was dead simple.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

Talking to my dr after my last hearing test, they were really recommending hearing aids - that was nothing new. What was new to me was the discussions of how even mild hearing loss can increase anxiety and depression, and feelings of isolation - and lead to further neurological issues.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

This thread is really for those of you who are “able to get by” - you’ve had tests, you know there’s some mild to moderate loss, but you are fine, right? Certainly that’s what I told myself, and i figured if i gad a critical enough ear for music, i was doing OK. Except - not so much.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

So finally trying to accept and deal with moderate hearing loss as a musician is a journey - there are some things that are very much at odds with each other. I acknowledge that there are people much worse off who do not have the luxuries and options I do. I hope that one day they can.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

One thing that bothers me about genAI- so many are trying to “trick” us into using it. Apple via constantly re-enabling it, MS by sneaking it in with other tech, others with non-stop pop-ups. Opting out is like trying to cancel a magazine subscription back in the 90s, it just keep showing back up.

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Reposted by Namethief

Noise Engineering @noiseeng.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

existential dread and the crushing weight of reality got you down? try making blippy bloopy noises with your synthesizer instead 👍

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

I have dealt with five different "virtual assistants" in the past three days. None have been able to help me, all have wasted my time and frustrated me by not understanding simple queries. I genuinely appreciate talking to people, virtual assistants are a barrier... but maybe that's the point.

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Namethief @namethief.bsky.social · 27/06/2023

This popped in my head and refused to leave while I was finishing up the last few shrines in TotK

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