Good Morning Friends! I always feel bad when I have to miss a day of my normal posting schedule like I did last Friday, but it was needed. I hinted a bit about this on my Gamepad.club account but essentially we had a routinely scheduled downtime go south on Thursday night, which led to some corruption and caused us to have to restore the machine from backup. This meant I was on a call until after 1 am and then up again at 6 am on another call… leaving me completely dead to the world and largely monosyllabic all day long. I am so not used to late nights like that and generally speaking I am heading to bed around 9:30 pm during weeknights and while I occasionally fuck around on my phone until midnight… there is a significant difference between that and being “on a call”.
Apparently, it was an international “set up your backyard” weekend because I saw several folks talking about working on theirs in my social feed. We drug out our patio furniture and set everything up this weekend. We even had lunch out on the patio just off our bedroom on Saturday and it was delightful. For whatever reason… last year we never really spent any time in the backyard. I think in part it was due to us getting a late start in setting things up and also the heat starting super early. We’ve had the two resin rockers for a half dozen years, but they are still extremely comfortable to sit out there and chill in. My wife spent a decent amount of time out reading, but I of course spent most of my free time over the weekend playing Path of Exile, but in theory, I could probably set that up on the Steam Deck and do that from the back patio as well.
As far as progress goes in Path of Exile, I have now completed all of the normal maps and am missing eight unique maps. I am going to try and get these through Kirac missions if I can, but eventually, I will get tired of waiting and just buy them from the market. I have to say this season was my absolute smoothest path through T16 maps. I think in total I took 3 deaths in ALL of my mapping… which is damned impressive given how in previous seasons I have barely limped across this line. I feel like I am finally getting a grasp on how exactly to make a build feel the way that I want it to feel, and I was shocked at how quickly I assembled a workable Righteous Fire build this time. Granted most of that knowledge does not directly translate to any other build, but it is nice to feel like I can solve my own problems finally. In theory, I also feel like I could probably build RF Juggernaut without following a guide at some point in the future given how far I have veered off the template at this point.
This is what I look like currently with my defensive layers in place… namely my armor flask and molten shell active. I finally have all of my flasks configured to use automatically when full, and with me regenerating 3 charges each time I get hit, they are rolling the majority of the time. The thing that I really want to work on is getting my life regeneration higher, so as I now start swapping out some of my gear for better options I am going to prioritize getting that a bit higher. Being wildly over-capped on resistances is in part due to the fact that I am running Purity of Elements. I am continuing to do this only because I have not wanted to solve getting immune to all of the elemental afflictions on their own. That is probably a calculation I will eventually work towards so I can run auras that increase my damage rather than quite as many defensive layers. I am running Defiance Banner right now only because I had the reservation space and my Stone Golem got to the point where it could no longer stay alive for more than a few minutes at a time.
I am about to make some shifts in my gearing that are going to add some significant benefits, like being at 90% physical reduction without buffs active. The Brass Dome has been nonsensically priced in this league given the popularity of RF and other tanky builds. I picked up this 4% max resistance version for 1 Divine and then spent about 150 Chaos Orbs in Jewelers, Chromatic, and Binding Orbs to get it to six links and the right colors. Still, this is a massive bargain as compared to the 10.5 Divine Orbs that an equivalent six-link in the right colors is going for right now. Essentially I am waiting to swap until I have finished level 95 and have another talent point to allocate. Right now if I made the swap I would lose more life regeneration than I am comfortable with until I can afford to allocate the “+15% life if no modifiers on chest” which should give me around 750 more life, and with that make up the difference in regen. At that point, I will swap over to a level 21/20% Righteous Fire instead of the Vaal Righteous Fire that I have been using.
I think once I am rocking my Brass Dome, the next major swap I am going to do is start shopping for a pseudo-six-link helm for Fire Trap. At the moment I am running a helm with “Socketed Gems Deal 30% more Burning Damage” and a shitload of armor. This is fine but I have one banked that I am working on getting chromed to the right colors that have level 20 Burning Damage and level 20 Less Duration, which should be a massive boost to my fire trap damage. The problem is I will need to replace my 30% reservation efficiency with Purity of Elements enchant from Eternal Labyrinth… and we all know how much I hate running that place. So essentially this is going to be one of my pet projects, but in truth, I would take Vitality or Determination reservation enchants as well. Those would probably be the better option given that at some point I hope to stop running Purity of Elements. Regardless it means I am going to have to start getting over my aversion to running the Labyrinth.
All of this… fiddling with numbers and stats and gear… is I think why I enjoy Path of Exile so much. I always loved gearing in MMORPGs and one of my favorite things to do back in the day was create a “hit list” of things that I wanted to farm up for my characters. Path of Exile absolutely scratches that itch for me and as I am getting items… I am often finding things that make me want to roll new characters to take advantage of that good luck. Now that I have a build that I thoroughly love in the Righteous Fire Juggernaut, I have this feeling that I am going to be starting with that for as long as it is not nerfed into the ground. Then from there, I will branch out into other builds like the Toxic Rain Pathfinder I am working on. I figured I would close out the post with this truly nonsense unique map drop from the other day. I specced my Atlas Tree into the node that duplicates map drops… and as a result, I have filled the guild bank up with unique maps to help anyone coming along behind me.
I hope you all have an excellent week, and I am sure I will be bringing even more Path of Exile nonsense.
The post Bargain Brass Dome appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Good Morning Friends! This post will go in some directions… so fair warning it might be a weird ride. The abandoning of Twitter and adopting Mastodon/Fediverse as my primal social network has triggered many changes in how I look at the services I use. Essentially I’ve come to realize that I had become solely dependent upon the corporatized internet for my day-to-day functions. This was a weird realization given that I come from the very early days of the web, an era when I very clearly had to host anything that I wanted to use and pretty regularly became that guy that hosted a forum or a website for every friend that needed one. For years I had an entire infrastructure running out of my house that I maintained. However, the migration to Cable for internet access brought with it a loss of the ability to actually use any standard ports for anything… so I started leaning more and more heavily on hosted or corporate services.
Essentially I’ve been on this journey of evaluating the things that I use on a day-to-day basis. Some of these things are attached to my workplace, and I have no direct control over them. Other things however I use on a personal level… and I could migrate to something that I had more direct control over. I’ve started making subtle shifts, most recently I stopped using Google as a search engine entirely and made the move so many have over to the less invasive DuckDuckGo. A few years ago I made a similar migration away from Chrome as my primary browser (though I still have to use it for work purposes) and moved everything over to Firefox on both desktop and mobile. When I needed to rebuild the second machine that I use for various sundry purposes, I did so as a Linux Desktop instead of building yet another Windows machine. I am still uncertain if I can really move my primary machine away from Windows, but so far the Linux Desktop experience has been pretty freaking solid.
One of the services that I have targeted recently is the music streaming service that I use. Honestly, I migrated to Tidal out of spite a couple of years ago when Spotify doubled down on supporting Joe Rogan. I loved using Spotify… it was a universally enjoyable experience. Tidal… while technically higher quality just sucks as a user experience and the discovery engine is tuned for someone who is very much “not me”. So after leaving Spotify… it became very easy for me to consider moving away from Tidal because my buy-in was not nearly as solid. Essentially I am looking to move away from corporate streaming audio entirely. For years I maintained my own library of music, and then with the release of Google Music I just sort of decided it was not worth the hassle. I got lazy and it became too easy to pay a single fee and get access to whatever I wanted. Google killed its music offering by turning to YouTube Music… which led me to migrate to Amazon for a while, before finally landing on Spotify. Each step… I felt like I actually listened to music less often… that is until I started my Mixtape Mondays nonsense a few years back.
We are going to jump around a bit and talk about Plex. Effectively Plex is a self-hosted home media streaming solution, and I’ve been using this for well over a decade now as a way of watching any sort of movie or television series. Before the existence of Plex, I used Windows Media Center to fill the same role on my network and used an Xbox 360 as a streaming client. Essentially I hate the tedium of dealing with physical media. Growing up I loved the Nintendo Entertainment System kiosk that allowed you to play one of many different games with the push of a button, and that led me mentally down the path of wanting to jukebox-ize all of my media. It was because of this that I became an early adopter of digital distribution first with Direct2Drive and later Steam… and of course, I used to rip every single CD and DVD that I got access to. For MP3s I had one of those early Creative Nomad players as my primary consumption means, and for Video, I eventually landed on Plex and what is now 12 TB of shared storage that has upgraded like a hermit crab over the years as I have needed more space.
I have no clue WHY it took me this long… but I had this mental separation between video solutions and audio solutions… when in truth Plex is not just a great video streaming option. Earlier this year I started a project that I have dubbed “Fauxtify” where I am collecting all of my audio in one coherent library and trying to wean myself off of streaming audio as I acquire things I was missing from my collection. This has honestly been really fun as I have started scouring the local thrift stores looking for bits of music that I remember fondly over the years and then ripping it to my local server when I get home. I still hate the storage of physical media, and eventually, I will have to come up with a better solution to that than just cramming it in the closet in my office.
I think what I love so much about Plex as a solution is that with a premium account, I have access to all of my media through their mobile and web apps regardless of where I am currently. The server sitting on my network effectively brokers a secure connection between the mobile device and my server without directly opening up a port on my firewall. Which has led me down a path of pining for more solutions that worked like this. What I really need now is Office 365/Google Apps… but in the Plex model where I can host a local instance of it but access it remotely through apps that broker a connection back home.
All web searches seem to point me toward NextCloud… but it seems to be more of a true self-hosted system where you need to run it over standard ports and expose them through traditional means to the internet. That is not exactly what I want, but I have contemplated setting this up and running it internally just for document storage purposes. This is where I open up a request to my readers. I know many of you also have a penchant for doing dumb things with technology. Is there a solution I am overlooking? What I really want is something that works somewhat like Plex, but for “office” functionality. I could in theory just put NextCloud on the web host that I keep the rest of my public-facing infrastructure on and that may be the road I go down next. At least there I would still have control over it, but I would rather honestly have something on my local network that gets accessed brokered to it from a more hybrid cloud model.
I guess the takeaway is… Mastodon changed how I view my complacency with using the corporatized internet. Another takeaway is “Fauxtify” is working beautifully, and once I flex out my library a bit more I will likely be killing access to Tidal entirely. Now to chip away at my reliance on Google apps.
The post Fauxtify appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
It seems like each weekend we have attempted to tackle one big thing. While the options are limited due to the fact that we are still very much sheltered in place, we have done a fairly decent job of finding something meaningful to do. Before the wider lock down happen we made a trip out to Garden Ridge, or whatever that store is currently called and found new outdoor rugs and throw pillows that have been sitting in the garage waiting on us to open the back yard officially. We’ve had a very cold and wet year thusfar and as a result we pushed this back further than either of us would have liked. However our little backyard oasis is officially open for business… or at least open to the two of us.
In theory we should be opening the pool within the next week, which will be nice because I think given the amount of time we are at home I might actually start using it every day. We need to figure out some sort of clothes line or something for swim suits and towels. The last step will be getting flowers, and from what I can tell our favorite greenhouse is open for business. We are trying to avoid leaving the house when possible, but I think at some point we will risk a trip out to get flowers. The flowers and the ritual of watering and care will start making things seem more normal, even though we are largely stuck in stasis.
As far as Friday’s post goes, I want to thank everyone for their comments. It seems like every so often I need to get one of those sort of posts out of my system and once I have I can move on with life. It is like I am putting all of those thoughts onto the written page and sending them out into the world where they develop a life of their own. However the process of exorcising them from the recesses of my mind helps me to get on with life and stop dwelling on them. I could just as easily write them on a piece of paper and then wad the paper up and toss it into the trash can, but at least on some level I think it is helpful to let those around you who are also struggling know that they are not necessarily alone.
On the gaming front, I managed to hit 120 on the Dino Druid. I actually dinged a few minutes into the podcast on Sunday evening and have since gotten his gear up to around 380 in a few days of World Quests. What I need desperately is a weapon upgrade, and I might actually target some of the LFR options that I have open to me trying to get a polearm or something similar. I’ve been spending some time working on factions on the Alliance Paladin, and managed to unlock Dark Iron over the weekend. The next target is Kul Tirans, which requires me to keep doing daily quests… and there are probably a few zone quests that I could also do to help speed that process up.
That is me and leveling four 120s in very rapid succession. Rather than start with another lowbie and run it all of the way up, I feel like I should probably finish off my Warlock as it is sitting at 113. I could in theory finish it off in a few days and would at least make me feel like less of a slacker for leaving it sitting in BFA level ranges for so long. All of this is oddly soothing because it gives me micro objectives to play towards without really having to think much about it. I know that is not exactly everyone’s idea of fun, but for me it is helping me bring order to chaos. Special thanks to my wife for providing a picture of the bedroom patio, since I failed to take one over the weekend. I hope you all have an excellent week and that you find peace in the midst of the nonsense times we are living.
Cute Co-Conspirators
This is a post that almost wasn’t. This morning I had the strong desire just to say screw it and call this an unofficial vacation day. My morning routine in pandemia has been greatly modified from my normal one. Traditionally I get up, kick the children out of the bedroom, start the Keurig and then go hop in the shower. After the shower I make coffee for both my wife and me, give Kenzie her insulin shot and feed the cats. Then I go into the bedroom and try and roust my wife from the bed and get her into the shower. Over the last several this step has become more challenging and stalling the whole fixing our breakfast and heading up to my office. What used to be a few minutes has started turning into a fifteen minute stall fest. I get that she is exhausted because I too have an exhaustion that is eating away at my core. It sorta reminds me of what it is like when you go without sleep for too long. There is just a weariness that never seems to fully go away and I am guessing it is thanks to six full weeks now of isolation.
In these morning interactions I attempt to be the adult and get us up and moving… but this morning was an extreme struggle. I wanted nothing more than to give in and return to the warm embrace of our bed. Why the hell does the bed feel so good in the morning, but a complete shit show at night when you are struggling to get to sleep? The thing is… I feel horrible for feeling horrible. My life is a freaking charmed existence because while I am taking a 10% cut in pay, my wife and I both have jobs that we can do remotely and stay safe and sheltered within our home. I am risking nothing while there are folks who are struggling to feed themselves, while we have stockpiles of food that we are slowly working our way through. That said I am glad I checked the “best before” date on the pasta I almost stuck in the oven from the bottom of our freezer… because the date was some point in 2010.
Numbers for Oklahoma
I have to admit that I am scared on many levels right now. I am scared that our economy is crashing around us and I am scared about how long it is going to take for this to recover. On some level I am scared wondering if this is going to lead to societal collapse. Then on other levels I am scared even more that we are going to open up everything too soon and start the entire process all over again. I live in a state with a Governor that is hell bent on pushing folks out the door, but I am not interpreting the numbers in quite the same way he is. I see that we are still in full swing of infection and that while the numbers are not increasing, they are not really decreasing either. I am tired of being afraid and I think more than anything that might be the source of the weariness that I can’t quite shake.
Early in the process I made a decision to start tracking the numbers for myself. I felt like I kept seeing completely different numbers being reported by different sources, and the only real way to keep from getting “spun” is to look at the raw data. So each day at 11 am, the state health department releases new data and each day I copy this down into a google sheet, and now I have my own charts that I can reference. The problem with the data still is the fact that we are testing a woefully small number of individuals. However based on what I am seeing I am not seeing an infection in the decline, but one that is still more than happy to keep going like the energizer bunny. The shutting down of everything and the social distancing orders have kept things stable, but my fear is that once we stop these things in what is likely to be the coming weeks… we are going to see a significant spike.
Kenzie guarding her Hairband
I realize I just did a bait and switch with this post, given that I posted photos of my adorable co-workers but have really not talked about them at all. Right now they are likely the only part of my personal equation that is keeping me sane. Sure it is annoying as hell to have Kenzie screaming at me at the top of her lungs to toss a hairband while I am on a conference call… but it is also super sweet when she wants to crawl up into my arms and snuggle. Kenzie and Josie are very much a team, and here lately I have ended up with both snuggled on my legs together while I am hanging out on the sofa. I just wish Mollie could find a way to get along with the two of them, because we have this circle of abuse going on. Kenzie picks on Mollie and in turn Mollie picks on Josie. There are times I think Mollie just is trying to play with Josie… and then there are other times that she absolutely seems like she is terrorizing her.
I am sorry that this isn’t the most interesting post to be reading today. I am likely not going to syndicate it, because I generally don’t when it is something deeply personal and not at all game related. I figure posts like this are only for my most regular readers, the ones who are going to check in regardless if it sounds like I have something interesting to say. I still think in the grand scheme of things I am doing pretty good, but the edges are most definitely fraying. Week five is when things started to get real for me, and I am worried about my friends who are on week nine now. I partially heeded the warnings coming from my friends in the Seattle area, so at least we have toilet paper. Getting food and stuff has mostly been a number of no-contact pickups from Walmart Neighborhood Market. We are doing fine, but both suffer from an exhaustion that we probably will never shake until we are able to move around freely again.
I love you all, and I hope you are doing okay out there.
