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October 2, 2020
10/2 – The Ballad of the Comeback KidsbulbThis is a little more like it! With the weather cooling down (not here though, still 60s and 70s galore, guh), the Somnolians have been feeling vital again. borb and Caby are over their Art Fight fatigue, I’m back to writing after building that absurdly big Quake level (promise you’ll get to play it this year) and feeling damn good about it, and–what do you know? More Pennyverse! Much better recap than last month–let’s get into it. September 24, 2020
Ranking Spotify’s Top 50 Songs Named “Undone”mariteauxSong titles are funny. They’re usually hardly unique, and tons of bands from all across the music spectrum have songs with the exact same title. Spotify’s search is an absolutely useless landfill for this stuff; the song you want will invariably be so unpopular that 200 other identically-titled songs (and in some cases, artists and albums) will come before the one you want. Lovely. The inspiration for this one came about when I realized I actually know three different songs with the title “Undone”: the Failure song, the Weezer song, and the Josh Joplin song. When I checked through Spotify search, it turned out to be a very popular song name indeed. So in short, I got curious enough to add the 50 most popular ones to a playlist, listen through, and rank them. I originally wanted to do every single song on the platform named “Undone”, but that’s just not feasible. Even the top 50 was a solid three hours worth of music, and has been hell to put together. Alas, the Joplin track didn’t make the top 50; if it did, it would’ve probably ranked at #2. Nonetheless, we’ve got a lovely mix of yeehaw music, white girl piano pop, boppy electronica, acoustic torment, Backstreet Boys, and even a few artists who might not even exist. We’re starting at the bottom here, so apologies for the rampant negativity at first. It does get better. Here we go… Tags: music,
September 6, 2020
The Raven LTE flies againdotcomboomA couple of years ago, I used an Alcatel Raven LTE as my main phone. It was a very cheap phone ($30 new, albeit locked to my carrier TracFone), ran Android 7 Nougat, and had an impressive 16 gigabytes of storage and 2 gigabytes of RAM; it was no slouch for the price. One day, the hard classroom floor almost got the best of it. Even after the screen got cracked, it still worked, even touch; the trouble only came from what in the world to do with a cracked $30 Android phone. It was way too cheap for a trade-in, and I don’t think many charities or repair shops would bother with it either. And so, it sat on my shelf for several months gathering dust, because I didn’t know what to do with it. Surely, it wasn’t destined for a landfill? Tags: technology,
August 31, 2020
8/31 – Sleeping Through the Dog DaysbulbWell, admittedly, it’s been a slower month than expected here at Somnolescent. Turns out, after a month-long sprint (two, in my case…), mostly, you wanna relax. Relax we did, and so, by the time we got back in the productive spirit, it was the last week or two of the month. As such, the pickings are a little paltry this time (and admittedly no Pennyverse Month–we’re aiming for September). Still, can’t finish the month without a recap, so here we go… August 17, 2020
Vaders and Venetian Blinds: A Review of “Racing the Beam”mariteaux I’ve said before that I don’t read a whole lot of books. Not to say I don’t have a few on my radar, it just takes me a while. Same goes for video games; I have plenty to play, but I’m usually too busy off in my own world to try them out. Given that it looks like the US will open back up some time after the heat death of the universe (read: plenty of time to myself), I’ve been trying to rectify that. Today’s topic is one that combines both these worlds in a really curious way: meet Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost’s Racing the Beam. Tags: 70s, technology,
August 8, 2020
More old Macs!monOld Macs. Also known as Old Macintoshes, Vintage Macintosh Computers, et cetera. Machines of which were made in simpler times, when Apple wasn’t as much of a shitshow of a company as they are today. Compact, distinctive from PCs of the time, maybe a tad yellowed – but that’s fine. Sometimes that’s what makes them beautiful. Alright, here I am, at it again. I didn’t think I’d be able to make another one until after summer was over, but in surprising turn of events I got three new (old) machines up-and-running! Tags:
July 29, 2020
7/29 – Giving Up the GunbulbLast month’s recap was a bit of a laugh and an admission that we just didn’t have too much desire to interact with the outside world. The world of MSN Messenger and IRC and chunky CRTs and old websites was more appealing to us, and I was on a self-imposed tech timeout after spending much of May fighting with Linux. (It still fucking sucks as a desktop OS and you know it.) Not that we weren’t active, of course; things were drawn, sites were built, I write once more–all the good stuff you expect from us. I’ll try not to ramble, there’s much to get through. July 9, 2020
On ConfidencemariteauxLast summer, I wrote an essay on creating characters with purpose and how adoptable culture seems to miss the point of having lads in the first place. At the time, I remember wanting to do an entire series on these kinds of creative pitfalls, and recently, I’ve been reminded of another stumbling block–this one affecting me probably more than anyone else, amazingly enough. Let’s talk confidence. Tags: writing,
July 8, 2020
The Somnolescent Retablening is Complete!mariteaux The era of Firefox 2.0 on somnolescent.net begins again. June 27, 2020
6/27 – The Recap About Nothingbulb[10:57 PM] Cammy: halfway through a season of somnolescent but the phone rang and i had to answer it Tags:
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