Curiously, I’ve had a pair of cheap earbuds that I typically used one at a time, putting it in the case when the battery expired and switching to the other. Pretty sure neither the earbuds nor my aging phone support BLE. However, there might’ve been some shenanigans with the case being a Bluetooth device of its own, presumably relaying to the buds.

Supposedly Bluetooth Low Energy specifically uses less energy than classic Bluetooth. Both because of the radio and protocol differences, and because of more efficient codecs.

Fun fact: in his first performance in New York in 1978 at some kinda punky new-wave vaudeville, Nomi slowly walked out in his alien garb and straight up sang the ‘Mon cœur s’ouvre à ta voix’ aria from ‘Samson and Delila’.

Reading Vladimir Sorokin’s ‘Blue Lard’ felt like discovering Literature 2. It’s not particularly experimental in regard to the structure, being a straightforward read starting with the beginning and ending with the end — although there are a couple different time periods included. However, throughout the novel my persistent thought was “what the fuck is going on”, while I was unable to put the book down.

Sorokin is basically Russian Joyce, doing what he wants with the language. Both ‘Blue Lard’ and some other ones of his novels include emulation of styles of classic Russian writers like Tolstoy and Nabokov, along with more general stuff like folklore and speech of stereotypical rural “simple folk” and prose evoking the traditional manner of life. He mixes it with his own brand of sci-fi and a large helping of transgression, satirizes contemporary governmental attitudes and imagery, lampoons the worship of historical quasi-ideological myth, etc. He also has several stories that include nonsensical speech for some characters, while the overall happenings are clear as day to those who realize what they describe. This is true postmodernism, wherein if one has some knowledge of the culture, the threads to pull jump out from the page.

A bunch of Sorokin’s novels and stories, including ‘Blue Lard’, were translated to English mainly by Max Lawton in an oddly short span of time. However, I’m not sure how any of it really translates, considering it requires some cultural context. I’d recommend starting with ‘Marina’s 30th Love’ (presumably not published yet), ‘The Sugar Kremlin’, maybe ‘The Blizzard’ or ‘Day of the Oprichnik’. Or, for aficionados of transgressive literature, ‘Their Four Hearts’.

Tingle is so cool that he went out of his way to replace a stock image of a skeleton on the cover of one book because said image might have been AI-generated.

I mean, if you’re turned on by the imagery of hooking up with your own flying butt, then maybe. Iirc the butt is a top, btw.

That may be true, except I’m not talking about Firaxis’ reboot.

‘Xenonauts’ is probably your best bet, since it’s said to be faithful to the original games and received very good reviews.

Original devs like Julian Gollop, who made his own spiritual successor ‘Phoenix Point’ in 2019? Which unfortunately turned out to be so-so.

Or you could look at third-party developers instead, since ‘Xenonauts’ was received much better.

Yeah, I’m sure he’ll be sued for a quadrillion bazillion dollars for publishing an alpha version of a canceled expansion for a 2005 game, the engine of which is already open-sourced.

“Women ask crazy questions”

‘You Are On The Fastest Available Route’

Idk why you’re downvoted, reportedly ‘Young Sheldon’ is way better. Partly because it was made without live audience.

Yeah, you are definitely not mentally ill or anything. Please continue just as you are.

Oh sure, years of being constantly on Reddit and part-time on Lemmy totally hasn’t brought up any ongoing trends. And ‘another commenter’ is definitely not yourself.

Sure, apropos of nothing but four years of USians removed across social media on how Russians are all subhuman scum that all deserve to burn right where they are. Then when the US has their own mentally ill pedofascist conman as the president for the second time, it’s suddenly “oh well, what can you do”.

Oh yeah, anyone who’s pointing out USian hypocrisy is a tankie.

Yeah, the statement is all kinds of confusing, but the math translation is surprisingly accurate despite being more dense — which is kind of the joke. It’s quite impressive.

Oh wow! The exact same sentiment that USians were repeating time and again for the past four years about Russians, is verboten when it comes to USians themselves. What a surprise!

Since your playlist is kinda vague, I’ll throw in a few tunes that sound apocalyptic rather than being explicitly about it. Perhaps you’ll like them regardless of the content.

• Cyclotimia’s ‘Same Place’ and maybe ‘Leviathan’

• cEvin Key: ‘Beauty Is the Enemy’ (kinda NSFL video, although it’s evidently faked)

• maybe Laibach’s ‘Als Geist’

• Miranda Sex Garden: ‘Iris’, ‘Fly’, ‘Transit’

• György Ligeti: ‘Lux Aeterna’ and other compositions

• Dead Can Dance: ‘The Host of Seraphim’

• Philip Glass: ‘Pruit Igoe’

• Julee Cruise: e.g. ‘Into the Night’

• Mazzy Star: ‘Mary Of Silence’